//------------------------------//
// "Admiral" Valey 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

The Sosans' cart rattled around a bend, letting the gate come into full view. In the short time it had taken Shinespark to rally it forward, nothing had changed.

"No means no, kid!" Mudhoof stage-whispered, leaning as far over the rampart as he could. "Now seriously, get lost! All you're doing is hurting your own case, here!"

"Yeah!" Tarfeather added, still clutching his mangoes. "Maybe you could have passed by now if you weren't so dead-set on getting us in trouble! Now pipe down and wait for morning!"

Shrugging, Howe pulled out a megaphone... but before he could use it, Dorable's cart rolled to a stop, capturing the attention of all three ponies. Nimwick hopped off, scowling. "All right, what is this? A police state? Since when do we have blockades in the Earth District?"

"It's an anti-bandit checkpoint designed to keep the area civilized," Mudhoof droned, as if the words couldn't be more obvious.

"Oh. Right. Bandits." Nimwick violently rolled his eyes, then flipped his mane. "Because we look so much like bandits right now. Yes, I'm obviously here to pillage and plunder from civilized ponies because I have nothing better to do with my life. Do we look like bandits to you?"

Tarfeather shrugged. "Well, you're Sosans, aren't you?" he asked, pointing at the emblem on the trade cart. "All Sosans are bandits. Everyone knows that. Even more likely than what's-his-face here."

"All Sosans are...?" Nimwick stomped. "Aaaugh!"

Howe smirked, almost politely. "Me, a bandit? Your intuitions deceive you, almost comedically so! Care to put your money where your muzzle is and put that to..." He paused dramatically before striking a pose. "Debate!?"

"Kid..." Mudhoof sighed, then stared levelly at him. "If a normal bandit took a mirror, stood you next to it, and compared you with their reflection, they'd become so convinced they were a normal citizen that they'd sit down and do their taxes right there in the middle of the road. Have you looked at yourself recently?"

Howe's coat was a girlish shade of purple, periwinkle erring toward lavender under the light of the setting moon. His cutie mark was a megaphone, which he probably considered far more impressive than it really was. He also sported a pointy goatee and black pompadour, laced thickly with jagged bolts of red. Innocently, he stared back up at the wall. "What?"

"You've, uhh..." Mudhoof tapped his own, balding crown. "Got a little something, right there..."

"We don't have time for this," Shinespark announced. "Open the gate so we can pass, or I'll open it myself... and you alongside it." She hefted her spear dangerously, eyes glinting.

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down a minute!" Howe waved his forelegs, giving a small flap and grinning up at the cart. "Listen, guys. And gal. The Howenator may be fine weathering these kinds of abuses on his own person, but to stand by and let others suffer this foolery?" He cast a mock-disbelieving foreleg toward the guards on the gate. "Let me handle this."

As Shinespark and Nimwick watched him with impatience and Dorable looked on impassively, the pegasus turned back to the wall. "Let's settle this democratically," he began, pacing in a circle. "See, I happen to be in a line of work that involves meeting many flakes. I know a flake when I see one." He pointed up at Nimwick. "He's a flake, for example."

Nimwick snarled back, but Howe continued without missing a beat. "But the gal with her, with the pointy spear? Seems pretty straightforward. Same for the griffon dude. Those two in the back..." He squinted, walking closer to look at Starlight. "You know, it's hard to get a read when they're sleeping. But hey, that happens."

Marching piously back toward the wall, he continued, "And the big guy, I can't get a read on either. Now, as I can't really speak for myself without obvious bias, that just leaves you three..." He squinted, rubbing his chin. "And I've got a feeling you two are definitely loons. The sleeping one? Eh. I dunno, I've got a good feeling about her for some reason. Might as well give you the benefit of the doubt."

Shrugging, he finished, "So that means Team Me has at worst, more stand-up folks than you..." His grin turned smug. "Which means it should be us on that wall, guarding Ironridge from you! Hah! Take that, windbags!"

Nobody applauded. "That was a beautiful piece of logic," Mudhoof droned.

Tarfeather nodded sagely. "And we're still not letting you through."

Atop the cart, Shinespark stirred, looking as if she was finally ready to climb the wall and kick them off herself... but Nimwick beat her to action. "You are too letting us through!" he snarled, hopping down from the cart and striding towards the gate. "Now get out of our way, or I'll make you!"

Tarfeather shrugged to his companion. "Even the bad hair guy thought he was a bandit."

Mudhoof nodded sagely. "If he looks like a bandit and smells like a bandit, odds are he's a bandit."

"I do not smell like a bandit!" Nimwick hissed, lighting his horn with a crackle of energy.

Reaching down, Tarfeather hefted the melon and offered it to Mudhoof. "Melon?"

"Melon," Mudhoof agreed, taking and aiming it at Nimwick before firing with a mighty buck.

Smassshh!

The melon impacted Nimwick's charging horn, found it an easy fracture point, and shattered, peppering his face and body with shards of melony glop. Tarfeather snickered. Mudhoof's perpetual frown lifted slightly. Nimwick stood, blinking, silent... and yelled. "Raaaaaauugh!"

A short ways along the walltop, Valey's beret shifted slightly, snuffles and snorts ringing out from beneath... and then a black hoof reached up, reaching for eyes and finding only a hat. Its owner sat up groggily, blinking. "Whuzzat? Something going on? Who dares disturb... urgh."

Mudhoof and Tarfeather instantly stopped their laughing and stared, watching Valey awaken with the same kind of abject resignation that came with being reminded of the world's worst ear worm after somehow forgetting it. Tarfeather clutched his pile of mangoes like a foal's blanket.

Stumbling up next to Tarfeather, she extended a wing, reaching through the darkness, and liberated the remains of the mango stack from his suddenly slack grasp. Rearing back, she buried her face in them, ignorant of everything else, chewing with a series of wet squelches. "Mm! Mmm. There we go. Much better way to wake up. Mrph. What's goin' on?"

"My mangoes..." Mudhoof and Tarfeather whimpered in sync.

Ignoring them, she chucked the mango detritus over her shoulder and off the wall, eliciting gasps of dismay. Mudhoof and Tarfeather both rushed to the site where the fruit had been disposed, leaving Valey leaning casually on the railing, staring at the cart with forehooves folded, her unbrushed emerald mane dangling over her similarly-colored eyes... her slitted eyes. With a pointy wingtip, she brushed it away, straightened her beret, and grinned a fanged grin. "Wow. How'd those bozos manage to hold up so many ponies without getting the wall knocked down? I must be a heavier sleeper than I thought!"

As Nimwick was busy furiously rubbing his mane against a tree, trying to purify it of melon, Shinespark got in the first word. "Valey, on whose authority have you closed this road?"

Valey shrugged with malicious innocence. "Valey? No clue who that is. Titles, please?"

Shinespark gritted her teeth. "Admiral Valey."

"Hey, much better, Sparky! Good job!" Valey winked, voice slightly raspy. "And first off, I'm merely doing my job. If that's a problem, bring it up with Ambassador Herman." She shrugged apologetically.

"Pardon me," Gerardo interrupted, "but did you say admiral? You do know what an admiral is, correct? Because I have a hard time believing that a pony so truly important would be here..."

"Don't take the bait..." Shinespark groaned. But Valey was talking again, and it was too late.

"Well, technically..." Valey leaned back against a crenellation, tale flopping against the stone floor. "Something to do with boats, right? I dunno. I'm important enough I get to choose my own title, and admiral sounds cool and gets others asking silly questions like you. But really, you should see the other guy." She tilted her head back, looking at the cart out of the corner of her glow-in-the-dark eyes. "He's a commissar. It suits him, too!"

"Admiral Valey, we are on a schedule," Dorable broke in. "Please allow us to pass."

"Aww." Valey's face fell. "But yeah, that's the second thing. You're the ones sitting here and arguing with these melon heads. None of us are stopping you."

From over the wall, Tarfeather paused his mango digging to yell, "It's a trap! If you're not being paid to be here, spare yourselves and run while you can!"

Shinespark stared levelly at the gate blocking the tunnel through the stone wall. "The way is blocked. And it's about to not be, whether you cooperate or not."

"It is?" Valey leaned so far over the edge, she had to wrap her tail around the stone to keep from falling off, looking upside-down through the tunnel. "Huh. Well, what do you know?" Hauling herself upright, she smirked. "So that's what this is all about! Those two thought to close the gate!" She gave them a perfectly innocent grin. "And here I was thinking they made this holdup by being so crazy, everyone just had to stop and get a load of it for themselves!" Shrugging, she hopped down behind the wall, calling out across it. "I mean, that's why I put them here. That and they were bugging me. Here, lemme open this for you..."

There was an ancient creak, and the gate trembled open, aided by several shoves from Valey. When it was finished, she strolled through, smiling contentedly. "All right," she chirped, "I've had my fun. I mean, I kind of wish you'd woken me up for it, but that's for next time, you know?" Winking, she hopped out of the way. "Don't want to actually be impeding business. Now get on with your bad selves."

"Hey! Wait!" Howe protested, holding out a hoof as the Sosan cart rolled through the wall gate. "You can't just give up! I haven't even done anything yet!"

Valey turned to him, pursing her lips. "Well, I am kind of bored, if you want to argue with those mango munchers again for a bit..."

Howe's gaze flicked between her and the retreating Sosan cart. "You know what?" He regained his smirk. "No. I'm outta here... just as soon as I show you how wimpy these defenses of yours truly are. Take... this! Hiyaaa!"

Spreading his wings with a rush of air, he leapt, soared straight over the wall... and landed on the other side, preening smugly. "Yeah, take that," he gloated. "Mind-blowing security, that stuff."

Tarfeather and Mudhoof had returned to the walltop just in time to catch the display, and stared at each other, flabbergasted. "That seems like a major security oversight..."

Valey sprung atop the wall after him, not even bothering with flight in a pointless display of athleticism. "Hey, don't feel bad. You tried," she offered, patting the guards' backs as she passed. Eventually, she reached the edge, and looked down, grinning. "So, pegasus, on a scale of you to me, how clever do you think that was?"

"Uhhh..." Howe took a step back, suddenly confused. "Say what again?"

"First off," Valey began, "Sosans are unicorns. They don't have wings. Second, I'm not here to keep anyone in or out, I'm here to annoy pedestrians like you and these two. And third..." She climbed further onto the edge, until she was looming over Howe with precarious balance. "There's no defense better than me."

Howe didn't get a chance to respond, as Valey launched herself into a massive belly-flop off the wall, aimed squarely at his head. The pegasus tried his best to dodge... but Valey's aim was impeccable, and she cleanly squashed him into the ground. "Oww..." he groaned. "My hair..."

Rolling to her hooves, Valey blinked down at him. "Huh. You actually make a pretty good pegasus pancake, Pancake. Anyway, you may be crazy, but you're not a bandit... and if you are, you're a funny one. Go on! Shoo!"

Hefting his prone body, she reared back on two legs and threw him at the Sosan cart like a javelin. Without even checking to see how far he flew, she turned back to her guards and stifled a yawn. "Tarfeather! Earth District, stat. Go steal us some more fruit, I'll want breakfast. Nyup nyup..."





"Well," Gerardo sighed as Howe crashed to the ground behind them, "I, for one, have no idea what that was about, and dearly hope it will not be our continued experience with this city." He raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of that, wouldn't apprehending travelers on public byways be the definition of a bandit? She almost seemed more... bandity than our friends from earlier. How do you know her?"

"She works for the yak ambassador," Shinespark said dryly. "And she wasn't kidding when she said she was only doing her job: she really is paid to be a public nuisance. The less asked about her, the better, including why they would hire someone for that."

"I get the impression these yaks have very strange financial habits," Gerardo remarked.

"As I said, they're not a thing to be questioned when they benefit us," Shinespark answered. "The yaks do what the yaks do. Some of Sosa hates them, for sinking us years ago. Others love them, for keeping us afloat now. Anyone intelligent will take what they can get and hope things don't change."

Letting out a loud breath, Gerardo turned away, moving to check on Starlight and Maple in the back of the cart.





"Starlight? Maple? Are you awake?"

"Nngh..." Starlight blinked up at Gerardo's voice, curled warmly against Maple's slumbering form. "She isn't. They woke me up..."

"Yes, well, I hardly blame you," Gerardo chuckled, peering down from atop a crate as the cart shifted and swayed. "I wouldn't be surprised if we have at least another hour of travel to go, and it will hopefully be less eventful. Best to get as much shut-eye as possible, if you can. I'll leave you be."

His head disappeared, leaving Starlight blinking sleepily back down the way they had come. The gate was still visible in the distance, and she could see Mudhoof's form still moving around in the dim pre-dawn light. But Valey... She shivered. The batpony was standing in the middle of the road, emerald eyes clearly visible despite the distance. Unblinking, Valey watched... and Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that she was staring at her.