//------------------------------//
// ch23 One long day 
// Story: Equestrian Landings 
// by qwefg 
//------------------------------//

Celestia



It was in the middle of the afternoon at Canterlot Castle, as Celestia was looking over the last part of her daily minutiae of paperwork in her private desk room making sure as usual that nothing went through her. After having spent the better part of the last few days establishing what exactly happened with New Terra’s diplomatic fiasco, and having to deal with the aftermath… it still all left a lingering bad taste in her mouth. But unfortunately… somepony had to take the fall for this cart wreck of a diplomatic mission, and as much as she was reluctant having to dismiss Regal Script from his duties, it had to be, which was quite a shame really. Despite the noble pony’s nearly spotless record up until then, his series of blunders in his dealings with the settlers of New Terra was in the end absolutely inexcusable, and he had to be made an example of for his gross incompetence on the matter.


She was aware that his family was already preparing to drop him off in some backwater settlement to be left forgotten as he squandered away the rest of his days in obscurity in an attempt to remove the black stain he had left on their family’s name.


Hopefully, she would one day spot his name in the papers and that he had found some settlement that could greatly benefit from his talents, enough so to get noticed again in the slim hopes that he would have some chance at redemption in the eyes of Canterlot’s nobility to make up for his mistakes, instead of letting this one blunder ruin everything he had worked for…


Celestia glanced at the map marking New Terra as she thought about the nation. In truth, she was hopeful that they would at least accept her official letter apology towards the ‘very’ unfortunate series of accidents and misunderstandings that had transpired during their official visit. Namely, the accidental death of the as of yet unidentified chimeric ‘bird’ creature that her envoy, Regal Script, had killed from the magical backlash of a spell scanning scroll, where at that point relations started to spiral out of control leading to the eventual expulsion of her little ponies.


It was her hope that this letter could go a long way to start mend Equestria’s relationship with them, before it started to break down into a deep sense of mistrust and paranoia like it did with the Yaks all those centuries ago...


Celestia shook her head to clear her thoughts, as she tried to avoid the trappings of the endless cycles of ‘what should have been done’ out of her head,  as that would lead to nowhere in the end, especially with what had happened with her recent private life. That instead she should try to forge on and not dwell in her past regrets… or to put it more bluntly... focus on the more pressing matters at the moment, like the upcoming Cultural Fair. 


The ever popular event, at least to the general public, was the event held once every five years. It was done to help bring all of the different nations together in the spirit of joy, sharing and understanding, in spreading harmony between cultures in all it’s vast myriads of forms. It was also a good chance for nations to show off its traditions, or the latest popular trends, as well as showcasing the latest magical discoveries or wondrous inventions.


But, If anypony looked past the colorful parades, open stands, and various races or cultures intermingling with one another… they would see the leaders or delegates of those nations gathering together behind closed doors and discuss about the various state of affairs or issues that concern all of them together…


Normally, it would always be the same song and dance, in which each nations would in turn just grumbling to her about their own internal problems, whether it be a trading tax was considered too high, or two nations butting heads over territories. Despite all the boasting, posturing and a lot of sharp quips, there was very little in the way of actual animosity between representatives. But for this year, it was going to be very different, because there were even more of the same concerning issues plaguing every nations this time around. Instead of just having to deal with the usual informal negotiation agreements, over meals and parties, it was now going to be mostly revolving around either monster or bandit attacks that were now in levels that haven’t been seen in decades. There would also be the raised questions about the numerous Adventures’ activities, and how most of these unusually increase of  natural or magical disasters, encroaching monsters, and skirmishes with bandits or otherwise that were cropping up everywhere, which eerily seemed to coincide with their sudden arrival.


Celestia bit her lip, as she had drawn the same unhealthy conclusion a long time ago… but claiming that the adventures themselves were behind it all would be (to her at least) just like blaming one of the other pony tribes for the freezing winter that the Windegoes had brought in ancient times. From her own personal experience, she knows better than to simply blaming any one group for all their woes and that it rarely, if ever, ended well. So, she would rather wait to gather all the facts before casting any decisions on the matter in question.


Still, their fears weren’t completely unjustified, but there was the more pressing concern about the ‘feral’ changelings infestation that the adventures had unwittingly discovered in their activities. The very existence of those same creatures used to be the stuff of fantasies and legends up until half a year ago, as she personally wished the feral bugs had stayed as myths, as they were a nightmare to deal with in reality.


If it wasn’t the fears or concerns dealing with the almost feral if not alien like minds of the twisted bugs, then it was dealing with their twisted queen. The horror stories alone produced around the tales of these monsters made it difficult for the supposedly ‘friendly’ changelings to be trusted by the common pony. Which was hard to differentiate the two, being that they both induce fear and mistrust with their natural abilities alone.


Of course, some of the other nations didn’t prefer or care to make the distinction between the two factions of changelings… and speaking of factions… Celestia grimaced as she found the latest reports of about the centaurs in the Netherlands preparing for their civil war, which was a complicated affair each time that it happened. She knew that they wouldn’t start until spring came, but personally she hoped that the faction calling themselves the Thunder Axes would come out on top…


And speaking of factions and confrontations, Celestia saw the list of growing worries or concerns about the troop movements in Iron Claw and how their warmongering king seemed to be preparing for a major offensive. She didn’t know what they were aiming at, but Troop movements of any kind with Iron Claw tended to be bad news for their neighbors.
Celestia lifted the documents up and placed them in their own separate pile, as she needed a quick break before delving into that can of worms, and she still had the other stacks of papers she needed to go over before finish any last minute preparations for the upcoming Cultural fair.


Celestia rubbed her aching head as she muttered to herself “Just look at the bright side Celestia. The first day of the event is a free day, meaning you won’t have to deal with any paperwork for that entire time.”


A soft smile formed on her lips, as she tried to focus on that mere thought. One entire day that she could allowed herself to have, just so that she could look around and explore the more public venues of the festival and enjoy herself. She could try and relax as she went to any of the events that interested her, or sample from any of the fine restaurants stance that would open up.


On the mere thought of those food had reminded her need to take a short break, as the gaze of the Solar Princess wandered to one of her desk’s drawers where her hidden stash of sweets were, not before she made sure that a certain unicorn mare wasn’t about to walk into the room to stop her.


Only through the use of very careful subterfuge honed from a lifetime of experience, Celestia had managed to smuggle so many wonderfully delicious treats right from underneath Inknote’s muzzle, thanks to the use of elaborate concealing spells, to avoid the detection of her nitpicky, but otherwise very helpful, secretary and her thoroughly unnecessary restrictive pastry diet that she imposed upon her some years back.


Okay ‘technically’, Celestia could always order the unicorn to stop her persnicketyness and be done with it once and for all, but she couldn’t bring herself to get angry with the mare for looking over her well being. That, and it was always so much fun for her to see how long she could get away with her little deception, and indulging in forbidden foods always tasted all the more sweeter for her.


Celestia’ mind started to drifted over the thought of all the various new kinds of pastries that have recently appeared, along with other delights that she had the chance to sample from the culinary talents of some of the ‘adventures’ that they had brought to Equestria. This of course lead her to also wonder about what other Adventurers inspired sweet treats would be served in the local pastry shops would create, along with all the other various nations new concessions stands that would attend to the event.


There would be so many different types of pastries, drinks, desserts, meals, candy, and of course cakes that would be available to her to sample (and gorge herself into) without Inkwell’s rebuking gaze to stop her. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be the only thing she could do, She might even try sneaking a peek at one of the plays, or visiting all of the museum’s special exhibits and just taking a look at all the various paintings, art, music or other various bits of culture on display.


Just thinking about it made her a little bit peckish, so she decided to give herself a small reward as she opened up the hidden secret compartment in her desk and grab… Celestia’s hoof felt the odd and almost unnatural emptiness inside the drawers.


There was almost a faint giggling sound as if fate was laughing that she could almost hear. Surely Inknote hadn’t discovered her hidden stash! She would have already given her an ear full by now. With a bright golden light from Celestia’s horn she searched the hidden compartment only to reveal that all of her snacks were currently missing!


“Is there something wrong?” a small high pitched mocking voice shouted out catching the princess’s attention  and away from the pastry theft that had struck her.


Above her, Celestia could see the tiny hoof size silhouette of what she recognized to be a Breezie, with their typically cute tiny body, large head, huge eyes, with antennas as well as their four spindly legs that was hovering over her with its large butterfly wings. 


To your average ponies, Breezies are generally considered as being cute and just adorable creatures to look at… While for other more cynical ponies, they are just seen as parasites that Equestria finding itself having to look after just because they looked ‘cute’, with no real redeemable skills of their own, and are incapable of looking after themselves, since they would be scattered off course at the tiniest of drafts.  But for Celestia, she knew better than that. In actuality, these creatures had their own skills and expertise that most ponies wouldn't even suspect.


But in this case, Celestia was able to recognize this particular little Breezie as it was her long time friend Cloud Puff. Sporting her usual light blue coat and puffy silvery mane, fluttering down in front of her stack of paperwork, with the most widest of mischievous grins on her face that the princess had an inkling suspicion of what her presence actually meant.


For a great many years that the two of them have known each other, they have been good friends and, most especially of all,  a great co-prank conspirator. Most ponies that Celestia had known didn’t appreciate a mild prank or joke, (especially at their expense), as they preferred just to stick with business or seem offended at the mere suggestion that one of their status would demean themselves in such lowly petty acts… But Cloud Puff was different, as she had proven that not only could she take a good prank, but that she could payback with pranks of her own; all in the spirit of fun and laughs of course. 


It wasn’t often that the solar princess was allowed to forgo politeness as well as formalities, and just talk to somepony, much less come up with crazy wild plans for some outrageous pranks. Of course, the two regularly played pranks against one another, as the tiny Breezie was quite devious and competitive, and didn’t let her small stature ever stop her from creating and executing the most wicked of plans, as she did her best to keep Celestia on her hooves and try not to become too dull and predictable.


In fact, there are still lingering rumors of the ‘spirit of mischief’ running around the castle, leftovers from their secret spree of prank they had done against each other a few years ago... So naturally, the sudden loss of her sweets and the sudden arrival of a giggling rival prankster made the solar princess a little bit suspicious about Cloud Puff’s sudden appearance. 


Celestia raised an eyebrow in doubt at the self-invited little pixie pony glanced at the empty hidden compartment, as she inquired in a gentle, if strained, tone “Why hello there Cloud Puff. Would you know by any chance know what happened to the items within this compartment?”


The breezie did her best to try and whistle innocently, before saying in a singsong voice “No…”


Doubting her answer, she was given Celestia slowly nodded her head and smiled serenely, if you discounted the slight twitches it had “You wouldn’t happen to know where they are wouldn’t you?”


Cloud Puff lifted her to her chin in mocking deep thought before finally suggesting “Oooooh, no I don’t sorry. Maybe Inknote found them?”


The solar princess furrowed her eyebrows at the obvious lie “Are you sure?” giving her one last chance to admit the truth.


“No” she chirped out, still keeping her air of sweet syrup innocence to her.


Celestia’s eyes narrowed into slits at the act and dispensing all pleasant pretences, said in a burgeoning imperious tone “You do realize that the treaty of Neighton could be applied to this situation, right? That the act of tampering with Equestrian royal property and pilfering the royal pastries meant for the sovereign,could in fact be considered an act of war against the nation of Equestria itself?” Celestia countered while straightening up her posture to tower over the tiny breezie as an all powerful imposing figure, completed with a stern face.


“Oh that could sure sound very scary” she said in derisive tone not intimidated in the least by her theatrics. Then pressing her hoof on her chin a mock deep thought “If I am not mistaken... wouldn’t you have to admit to Inkwell that you ‘had’ a hidden stash of sweets in the first place?  And last time I checked, she was still hard on your case on that matter.” she ended her words with a smug self satisfied smile.


‘Curses’, Celestia thought to herself her eyebrow twitching in frustration as the little minx’s saw straight through the  bluff, and she knew just as well as she did that it would bring Inkwell’s wrath down on her before ever hoping to bring to bear her threat. She bit her lip, trying to think as quickly as possible to at least manage a slight leg up on Cloud Puff, if she ever hoped to see her stash again.


Celestia just looked down at her desk as a wicked idea crossed her mind, giving her a slightly twisted smile as she surreptitiously said “Of course, there is also a ‘slight chance’ that there could be a crackdown on certain items like candy sticks from Inknote as she checks certain areas during her weekly searches.”


Now Cloud Puff stared at the princess with a hint of horror “You wouldn’t. I mean, such an idea would lead to…”


Celestia smirked while leaning toward her “I believe the term that you’re looking for is Mutually Assured Destruction.” daring the little pastry pilferer to see if she would actually act on her desperate ultimatum or not. 


The little breezie hung her head, as she conceded to her strong hoof negotiating skills “Truce?”


“Truce.” Celestia accepted with the same calm ease as before “Now where are they?”


In a zip, the small breezie flew up to the ceiling and tapped against one of the stones. In a blaze of golden light, the stone slide from it’s spot as she could now spot her missing stash as it was gently brought back to their hiding place, as a crepe was placed in front of her.


The breezie on the other hoof,  just waited there until a small paper wrapped tube containing sugar was floated down over to her, as she quickly hugged the peace offering with great joy while she tried to tear it open, and feast upon the sugary goodness that rested inside it’s humble cover.


Celestia couldn’t help but stare at Cloud Puff’s little scene, as she knew the tiny breezie could have easily just snuck in without anypony’s notice and get away with her pastry heist. But, she had decided to stick around and make it her duty to interfere in her endless drudgery of paperwork, and try to cheer up Celestia in her own unique mischievous way, which always brought a small smile to the solar princess for her effort.


With the previous standoff over and forgotten, the two of started to feast upon their small snacks until Celestia glanced over more of the documents that had yet to be finished. Her mind slowly started to focus back on the boring spreadsheets, as she saw more concerning reports starting to crop up.


All the drudgery of the facts and figures in front of her all seemed to meld together into one massive series of interwoven threads of tapestries where the slightest of tugs could affect the whole and unravel it entirely, at the slightest careless pull. Which she should deal with first, and in what order, or who to pass it though and with which funds to use it with?  ‘Do I have enough of Item A to solve Problem B or were the problems from Disaster C interfering with Solution B that was needed to fix Problem A, but only after solving Problem C, or was it using Disaster C as an excuse to also solve Problem B, along with strengthening relations Group D by making it a joint effort of Item A and E? Or maybe if I used the Factor K instead too... or maybe instead of that…’


“Are you okay Sunny?” Cloud Puff asked, with a hint of concern in her voice breaking Celestia from her mind going into another one of her extended bureaucratic tangents.


Celestia took a weary deep breath as she lied “I’m doing okay Cloud Puff, I am just a little tired at the moment.”


The breezie glanced at the large plate with the crêpes in skepticisms as she replied with an uncharacteristic concern in her tone “And yet you still  haven’t finished your little snack yet, and that isn’t normal for you Celestia. So what is it bothering you anyway?”


Celestia glanced at her mostly intact crêpes, and frowned as there were only a few bites into the top of the pastry. When did the paperwork become bad enough to prevent her from forgetting about her own meal?


In fact when was the last time she just enjoyed herself and live in the moment? Or, could she let her worries subsuming her life again... She could remember even finding time to rest when Canterlot was about to be under siege by a diamond dog army!


Celestia closed her eyes and took a couple more bites, letting the sweet sugary goodness wash over her body and push aside her recent tide worries and fears for the next few moments, as a tear of relief came to her eye. If there was one truth in this life she could follow than it was the importance of pastries… for without them a nation would surely be unable to take a step back and focus as they could see the good in the world instead of worrying about the next disaster that may unfold.


Cloud Puff fluttered over at Celestia’s side, and looked down at some of the various documents to skim over their contents, as she more or less dragged her sugary treat along, leaving a small trail of sugary powder in her wake. Her attention narrowed on a certain detail “Wait Griffinstone is being invited to the Cultural Festival? Aren’t they a bunch of greedy, selfish, birds unable to lead their way out of a paper bag?”


Celestia glanced at the document in question as she nodded her head “That was  true, at least until Archibald the White managed to make his claim to the throne, and unlike his would be predecessors, he is actually trying to share the wealth  of his nation with his subjects.”


The Breezie stared at the sheet in disbelief “You mean he isn’t greedy like those other birdbrains?”


“I wouldn’t go that far…” Celestia amended as she remembered her deal with the new griffin king, and her attempt to recover the missing Element of Harmony that was found in Griffin Stone. “But. he is at least trying to replace or fix most of the outdated infrastructure instead of lining his own pockets, while trying to improve the quality of lives of his citizens, instead of wasting the bits on building a new opulent palace for himself.”


If it wasn’t for the fact he held an Element of Harmony hostage in order to get the funds needed to ensure his rule, than Celestia wouldn’t have had any complaints about that crafty buzzard, which was a far cry from the previous old birds that barely managed to hold the throne before him.


Of course the real trick would be convincing the other nations about the change of leadership, while ensuring to give the new king enough support to keep their kingdom on the right track instead of letting one of the old vultures from ruining everything.


The Breezie glanced at the one of the other documents “Okay... and why are the Yaks being invited? Aren’t they more likely to tear apart the stands than to set one up?” she quirked an eyebrow in skepticism.


Celestia glanced tentatively at the sheet in question and then she sighed “That’s just a suggestion from one of my advisors Miss Cotton Hoof, as she seems to think that the Yaks might be freed fast enough to send a delegation to help and start mending their strained relationship with Equestria… Of course, it’s more likely in my opinion that they would just send an envoy just to hire more mercenaries to assist them.


The venue reserved for them was just a friendly courtesy offered, I wouldn’t expect them to have anything ready to show on such short notice.”


As a recently invaded nation, she didn’t expect the yaks to be able to recover so quickly from the Feral Changeling attacks, as they would probably use that time to reinforce their settlements, take care of the wounded, and try to find some means of paying the mercenaries they had hired. Trying to ensure the very survival of your own nation, stubbornly on their own, would seemed more important than what they would see as wasting time politicking in over elaborate meals with their neighbors in their eyes.


On a more personal note… Celestia highly doubted that the xenophobic, isolationist country full of thick headed paranoid brutes would ever want to try their hoof at dealing with trade negotiations, or politics with foreign nations.


Of course, that might have been just her own slight personal prejudices against them. To be fair, the only reason why the Yaks even went to Equestria in the first place was because they were losing the battle against the feral bugs, and that was only to hire ponies to fight for them instead of simply asking Celestia for her nation’s assistance.


She placed the documents away and switched to a more diplomatic pragmatism “But that’s highly unlikely, as the expedition force will have a lot of ground to cover in the restless cold weather up north, in their efforts to locate the feral changelings nests that are currently plaguing the yaks. There isn’t any real chance that the campaign will progress fast enough to allow the yaks to shift their attention from defending their citizens, fixing, and of course fortifying their settlements against future changeling attacks.”


The Breezie continued gazing down over the list of the various groups that were going that were likely to attend, and of course those that had the possibility to join the conference. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder what was with the sudden interest with her on the matter. But then again, the little Breezie’s interests tend to shift constantly from one topic to another for no apparently reasons other than her own.


“So, Why aren’t we on the list?” the breezie asked much to Celestia’s own unexpected surprise.


On those words, Celestia’s mind halted for a moment, as she certainly didn’t expect the look of annoyance from Cloud Puff’s face. Much less for having to dash her dream by simply stating… for a lack of a better term… her body was really, really, fragile.


Grinding the internal gears in her mind, the solar princess prepare a speech to not offend her friend’s feelings as she replied  “Well, the first reason is that most of you never asked on previous occasions.”


The Breezie nodded her head “Well, I am asking now.” She stomped her dainty hoof on the desk.


Celestia winced at her friend’s displeasure and she did felt a little bit cruel for having to say it … but there was no other way then explaining the obvious to her “The second reason… As you should know, most of you have enough trouble dealing safely moving about in Equestria even with our assistance in calming the winds, or creating flight paths that you can safely move through…”


The Breezie slowly nodded her head obviously unhappy at the reminder, but still seemed undeterred from her goal for some reason. Celestia on the other hoof, felt no enjoyment in giving a reason to exclude somepony for an event, even if it was for perfectly legitimate concerns.


Reluctantly, The Solar Princess continued on in a pained grimace “Maybe if I was giving enough time before hoof would have been able to find some means to help, but not on such short notice.”


Needless to say, it would be nearly impossible to implement half of those safeguards for the upcoming event much less in such short notice. Why simply ensuring the right weather or safe flight paths for the breezies to follow to avoid the gusts created by the other winged races would take more than a week of planning much more for an event of this size.


Just a simple careless beat of somepony’s wings and suddenly the breezies would be helpless, as they could crash into other buildings or fall to the ground and trying to avoid the countless unaware pedestrians massive hooves nearly stepping on them.


Celestia looked down at Cloud Puff thoughtfully, as she watched the down trodden breezie seem hurt at being excluded from the festivities. The solar princess couldn’t help but wonder why she seemed so interested now, since she didn’t seem to care about the previous Cultural Festivals  “So... what is it with your new sudden interest in this?”


At the reminder, Cloud Puff spirit lifted up again, and raced across the papers, leaving a small trail of sugar with each wing beat. She spoke with rapid interest “Because, this year is suppose to be interesting for once, with lots of fun and new exciting events that weren’t there before! Some of them I didn’t even know could exist!”


“Did you know they are trying to get a bouncy house set up?” Cloud Puff shouted in a mixture of cheer and surprise “A Bouncy house! There wasn’t a bouncy house last time or a UFO!”


Celestia quirked an eyebrow at her for a few seconds, as she didn’t know anything about a ‘bouncy house’, nor whatever a UFO stand for “Did you confirm that they were having this or were you just listening to rumors again?”


The Breezie huffed in mild annoyance at her incredulity as Celestia held up a hoof “Are you even sure that they will have any of these events being able to accommodate for your size?”


The Breezie paused for a second as that minor detail (notwithstanding how fragile they were) hadn’t cross her mind just yet. Still, she shook her head, apparently not letting a tiny detail like that stop here “Well, there will also be the a lot of other events like…”


Just then, there was a knock on the door causing Cloud Puff to zip back down to the stacks of papers in fright, either to prepare herself for the breeze created when the door opened… or that she had once again snuck out of her room without Inknote’s notice. Celestia’s aid had always insisted on the breezie on being bored, but safe in her room, instead of wondering about the castle and possibly injuring herself, not that the stubborn little sprite would ever listen her of course.


Cloud Puff looked up at Celestia in surprise. “Does somepony has an appointment with you?”


Celestia moved her plate back into the desk’s hidden compartment, in an attempt to hide the few remaining crumbs of her ‘break’, as she prepared herself for the possibility of Inknote’s untimely arrival… and thankful reprieve from Cloud Puff’s instant questions.


The Solar Princess pushed aside one of the stacks of papers, and glanced at her schedule only to smirk at the convenient timely interruption, and the reassurance of the belief that she knew who was at the door. As for Cloud Puff, she was doing her best to hide her sugary prize from Inknote’s possible arrival.


With a glow of her golden aura horn Celestia moved the remains of the pixie stick from her desk and into a safe hiding place to Cloud Puff’s relief as the solar Princess replied “Come in.”


Gently, the handle turned and the door opening up, caused the slightest of breezes that unfortunately was just strong enough to knock Cloud Puff off the stack of papers that she was standing on, and fall in between the dreaded piles of paperwork. Then, from the doorway, hesitantly poking in the study room, was the head of a familiar tan coated earth pony with a black chocolate brown mane that Celestia immediately recognized as Maxwell.


His amber eyes scanned the room looking like he wasn’t sure if he was even in the right room in the first place, until he had finally noticed the princess at the other end, and to his obvious surprise, seeing the tiny breezie trying to recover as she was left spiraling through the air like a large dust bunny.


Looking back at the breezie rendered useless by the door, Celestia tried not to laugh while the Breezie replied in a rather un-breezie like growl “Not. One. Word.”


Celestia nodded her head with a self satisfied smirk as she let the unexpected demonstration speak for itself. After all, if Cloud Puff found it difficult to deal with just this minor inconvenience, like a door suddenly, then it would nearly be impossible for her to go to the cultural fair without any safety guards.


The earth pony standing by the doorway just kept staring at the little floating puff ball in a mixture of awe and disbelief at what he was looking at, as Celestia broke him from his stupor gently  “ Pardon me Maxwell, but could you please close the door behind you?”


Maxwell stepped into the room as he casually closed the door, but once again the force of the breeze it created was a bit too much for the small breezie as she fought to stay steady against the ‘seemingly strong’ gale force winds as those same ‘wings’ were in fact largely unnoticed by her pony colleague.


Maxwell seemed a little bit nervous being in the room as he spoke awkwardly “If this is a bad time for you?”


The Breezie flew back down to the stack of papers, trying to take cover as Maxwell’s voice was a little slightly bit too loud for the Breezie, when compared to Celestia’s soft and more, importantly, cultivated tone. It took a bit of effort to ensure that other ponies wouldn’t have a problem hearing her, while ensuring that it wouldn’t send a breezie flying out the window due to the volume or the strength of their own voice.


“No, it’s okay. We were just finishing up a discussion.” Celestia replied with a smirk “So, how are you doing today Maxwell?”


“I’m doing fine ...huh Princess.” Maxwell replied awkwardly with a hint of confusion, as he looked as if he wasn’t sure if he should have been more formal or not with her. 


Celestia knew that he always had an awkward time talking to her at first, as he needed some a moment to stop being nervous around her, and start treating her as more like a normal pony or client. As much as she appreciated and respected the stallion, she did just sometimes wished he could speed up the process.


Cloud Puff, on the other hoof, just stared intensely at Celestia, as she seemed to be in deep thought about something in the back of her mind.


Seeing there wasn’t any interruptions, Maxwell cleared her throat, as he continued on “Uh… the letter that your highness had summoned me with…”  he revealed an opened letter with her waxed seal on it.


Celestia rolled her eyes at the unnecessary stiff formalities, as she calmly replied “Please, You do not need to be that formal with me Maxwell. You are a friend after all, and you are always welcomed with me.” She noticed the slight relief he showed as she continued “And yes, I was actually just asking about how you were as we both can talk casually to each other.”


Maxwell slowly nodded his head in understanding “Sorry prin...huh… I mean I just got a letter today that said that you wanted me to come as soon as possible, so I came here the first chance I got; is it something important that you can only talk about in private or…” he rambled on.


Celestia pressed a gilded hoof on her lips and made a slight ‘shush’ as she gestured towards the breezie could Puff next to her nearby “Maxwell, could you please try to speak a bit softer?”


The earth pony looking at the wincing breezie next to her hesitantly nodded, understanding the meaning of the Princess’s request, as he cautiously walked closer toward the desk, all the while being careful with the clopping of his hoof steps. 


She noticed how he still seemed nervous especially when he glanced at her. Was he trying to make sure he didn’t embarrassed himself before her, or was he trying to make sure he didn’t upset Cloud Puff? Come to think of it, she hadn’t really seen how he interacted with other clients or ponies. All the times she talked to him it was always one on one.


Cloud Puff on the other hoof seemed more interested in staring at Celestia with intent for some odd reason, causing Celestia to give a soft tap of her hoof against the desk letting the breezie know that this was to be a more private discussion.


Maxwell obviously wasn’t used to having the proper level of volume control, and she didn’t want Cloud Puff or Maxwell to feel uneasy with each other. The Breezie simply nodded her head as she flew off into the ceiling, and left through the same unseen means she had used to enter the room in the first place.


She glanced back at Maxwell who seemed to be fidgeting as he seemed unsure if he should be standing, or sitting. Celestia opened her mouth only for Maxwell to reply “Do you need any help with the Breezies taking part in the Cultural Fair?”


Celestia rose an eyebrow as she prepared to speak as it wasn’t the reason why she asked here, only for Maxwell to interrupt as he spoke with a nervous tone thoughtful  gaze “I mean, I might be able to assist, though it would be on short notice.”


“You can!” a rather loud and slightly obnoxious voice replied as it descended down from the ceiling again.


The solar princess looked at the small breezie in slight annoyance by the interruption, as neither the Breezie or the earth pony apparently notice it. Maxwell rubbed the back of his head nervously while Celestia could tell that he was unsure about what he was about to say “Well, I’m not sure if you’d be comfortable with the idea.”


Undeterred, The Breezie flew around in circles zipping from one corner to another of the room as she shouted in unbridled joy “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”


Maxwell seemingly stared at awe as he watched the fluttering acrobatic dance of Cloud Puff before shaking himself out of it, and explained with unease “Well… it’s sort of huh… it’s short notice… but we could put you in a specially custom made stage.”


Cloud Puff glanced back at at Celestia miffed “You have a specially made stage and you didn’t tell me?”


Maxwell, thankfully, coughed catching the breezie’s attention back at him, which only slightly knocked her off balance. Celestia on the other hoof was a little bit surprised at Maxwell’s seemingly simple solution, and annoyed at Cloud Puff’s interference at not taking the hint to leave. Sadly, it went completely unnoticed by the breezie, who was solely focused in on the nervous pony’s solution.


He glanced back at Celestia causing her to quickly switch back to her all knowing and caring composure, as she tried not to pressure Maxwell into making a hasty decision.


Maxwell, on the other hoof, just seemed to start sweating bullets under the close attention until he finally gave his reply “Because it would look like we put you into a glass butterfly cage.”


“A butterfly cage…” Cloud Puff repeated tilting her head in the process as she seemed unsure of what he meant by that.


Maxwell slowly nodded his head as he tried to carefully explain it “Well, it’s similar to it, as in we put them in glass jars to see them, in with wholes on the lid, as the holes are big enough for oxygen to flow through, so they won’t asphyxiate. The glass would prevent most of the noise or outside forces from bothering you and it would help protect you… we could also build a backdoor that you could use to enter or exit the stage. All though, I’m not sure where you’ll be resting or how to deal with transportation issues…”


Celestia continued to nod her head as Maxwell had finally stopped being so shy around her while he continued talking about his solution for the Breezies. A small part of her felt like chuckling as this was where he was at his best. He just tried to find what the problem was, figure out the easiest solution, and then try to double check or explain it so that his client would understand.


In fact, if he was a normal pony born in Equestria he would have probably been hired as one of her aids… yes, she could picture him wearing a finely tailored Canterlot suit that helped show off more of his flank than… no she had to focus on the speech. She couldn’t let herself be distracted by such frivolous thoughts. 


Cloud Puff zipped back to Celestia muzzle, and stared back at her scrunching her face at her “Why didn’t we try that before?” She squeaked out in wondrous joy. 


Celestia flinched at the munchkin’s rebuke as Maxwell chipped in “Huh, because… you might feel insulted as some might compare it be being trapped like zoo animals inside a glass cage.” he sheepishly added.


The Breezie looked intently back at Maxwell, then at Celestia, before back at Maxwell. While the solar princess had to admit that she hadn’t thought of Maxwell’s idea before… though she could see why he was hesitant in bring up that solution in the first place.


Maxwell rubbed the back of his head “I mean I have some ponies that can help build the stage for you, and help set it up… but this is kind of going to be a rushed job, and I’m also not sure where accommodations could be made for where you would eat or sleep, or even what you will be presenting to the cultural festival.”


Celestia glanced back at Cloud Buff as the princess chipped in “I’m sure you would also need to check if any of the other breezies would want to participate before signing them up for this. Otherwise, I believe that the rest could he dealt with easily enough once the essentials are done.” she interjected in with her typical conciliator tone, wanting to get this discussion to just be over with now.


The Breezie finally noticed the subtle glare Celestia was giving her, as it was the same expression she had used when the princess couldn’t find her missing snacks, letting the breezie know that it was time for her to leave.  “I’m sure they’d go along…” she sheepishly smiled backing up in the process “just as soon as I tell them about it. Of course, some of them might want to insist of the story with Erlking.” she chirped that last part with an air of mischievousness to it.


Before they knew it the breezie flew away as they waited a few moments to finally speak privately together. Just two fully grown ponies, alone, talking about whatever came to mind, instead of having a third wheel constantly interrupt them at every inopportune moments. She didn’t know why Cloud Puff couldn’t take a hint to leave, or why it had annoyed her more than it should have?


As she began to ponder about it’s meaning, Maxwell finally asked “Is that it?” he quirked an eyebrow tentatively, with maybe some unease in it.


Celestia shook her head break out of her musings “Actually, I had invited you here for an entirely different issue.”


She noticed Maxwell’s ears fold as Celestia felt a little bit guilty for her phrasing. Then again, she had felt a little bit uneasy about meeting him after their last encounter. Sure, nothing bad had happened and he had given her his full consent… but the spell that Celestia had casted back then could sometimes had… brought unintended results.


Not that there was anything wrong with Maxwell. He was a very healthy earth pony stallion with a good head on his shoulders and a very kind personality. Though she did find it a little bit odd at how he managed to be so skeptical and yet so utterly naïve about when it came to certain things… which was kind of cute in it’s own way. 


So maybe she might have enjoyed teasing him a little bit more than most ponies, but there wasn’t anything that special about it… right?


She looked back at Maxwell as she tried to hide the slight blush she was feeling, as the earth pony looked so adorably nervous… “There is a small social event being hosted by Miss Azura and I managed to help get you invited to it, as thanks for your great services with dealing with the yaks.”


Maxwell looked up at Celestia in stupefied surprise as he could only ask “Why?”


The Solar Princess smiled a demure smile as she felt a small hint of embarrassment as she tried to casually explained “You helped many other ponies find jobs while finding help for others in their hour of need and, I thought this could help you out.” she added coyly.


Maxwell sighed in relief, apparently happy that it was just an event were rich nobles gathering together, which would be for him the perfect place for him to get some networking done and hopefully have the chance to enjoy some fine food and wine while he’s at it. It would also give her a chance to see how effective he was at mingling with the nobility of Canterlot, and how they in turn reacted to Maxwell.


Celestia pulled out the letter of invitation to the event “Remember there is also a dress code, so you may want to pick out your best  suit for the evening.”


There was an audible gulp as Maxwell replied “Huh, what kind of suit?”


The solar princess smirked as she knew all too well about some of the odd cultural quirks the adventures had and how some of them would clash against Equestrians “Well, for one cutie marks are traditionally exposed…” She casually whispered in his ear, knowing full well that it would get a rise out of him as he always looked cute when she talked about it.


Upon hearing Maxwell’s face turned a slight shade of red from embarrassment, but quickly regained his composure. Smirking, Celestia had a good feeling that he currently lacked a suit that matched the dress code… though a part of her couldn’t help but wonder what he would pick out.


She tried not to smirk as the thought of flirting a little when he finally wore the suit to the party just to fluster him up… come to think of it she hadn’t really flirted with anypony in a long time.


Celestia took a quick glance around the room, making sure that there were no prying eyes or hidden guards, spells, or ponies as she prepared to ask the big question. She was fairly certain Maxwell hadn’t mentioned the spell she had used on him to check him out… but the odd(?) implications… surely he had to have asked somepony about it, given the significance of the spell.


“Maxwell…” Celestia slowly replied “I know that in some circles that spell can be seen as…” she just had to play it down a little.


Maxwell spoke in an almost booming voice “What was that breezie here for?”


Celestia looked back up at Maxwell as he hesitated for a moment “I mean if it’s not too much trouble.” she rose an eyebrow at that comment as he continued “I mean, I’m sorry if you were about to go back to work, but…”


She didn’t hear what he had said as she just realized that he hadn’t heard her question. In fact now that she realized she didn’t even notice that she was looking down at the table and speaking in such a low voice that the stallion in front of her hadn’t even heard what she was saying!


Okay, maybe she was a bit better at teasing him than speaking about something that was a little bit embarrassing, but surely he must have some questions about the spell she had cast a few nights ago on him!


“You don’t have any questions about the spell that I used to check your condition?” Celestia asked out loud in disbelief.


Maxwell stared at her in confusion “Uh… is there anything wrong? I mean I was a bit nervous, since I thought you might have found something wrong with my health, especially after not going into detail what the reason you wanted me to come to Canterlot Castle today… or is it because you find some way to deal with the curse…” he kept rambling on, working himself in a panic in the process.


Celestia placed a hoof to her forehead and tried not to sigh… He apparently was under the false impression that she had ‘discovered’ something wrong with his physical health… Of course, the real issue was that Maxwell didn’t understand the deeper implication of that particular scanning spell… as it was sometimes referred to as ‘soul gaze’ or ‘lover’s sight’ too some circles, as the spell could be used as…This spell could be used as a relationship compatibility test between two ponies, and she had gotten a slight inkling of what was the level of compatibility between the two of them… 


Of course, she didn’t pay too much attention to that part of the spell. It wasn’t like she was one of those ponies who believed that magic would find their one true love and such. She certainly wasn’t pretending to be somepony with a lovers matching cutie mark, simply deciding the fates of couples all on the scores of some random spell she cast on their without their consent or understanding.


Okay… ‘maybe’ she did try checking a little bit more into his background afterwards, and maybe there was a possibility that she…


Celestia quickly discarded these thoughts, as she focused back to Maxwell “No there’s nothing wrong, but the question you wanted to ask me about was for the Breezies?” 


Celestia was torn between the happy change of subject, or the slight annoyance that she had yet to inform him about the implications of the scanning spell.


Maxwell slowly nodded his head “Well I know that Equestria helps the Breezies, but I was kind of wondering what exactly they do…”


Besides playing pranks on each other, having a good laugh, or just being somepony to help remind her to take it easy when the level of paperwork and problems threatened to consume entire rooms of the castle…


“Oh, they usually help Equestria deal with anything that involves other dimensions. That would including summoning or closing dimensional portal, stopping dimensional bleeding, or tracing magical portals back to their origins.” Celestia replied with ease, as that was a far easier question to answer than the issue she was trying to ask Maxwell.


The earth pony of course was staring at her in disbelief “What?”


“Well, the Breezies were shortly discovered after Star Swirl the Bearded had tried casting away dangerous threats from Equestria into other realities.” She replied with a hint of regret “It sounded good at the time until what the Breezies refer to as ‘dimensional bleed’ started to take effect. It’s how the portal to the Breezie’s home dimension first appeared in Equestria.”


Maxwell’s eyes widen in disbelief “Wait… so the little fluttery pixie ponies…”


“They are Equestria’s top experts in portal and dimensional magic spells.” Celestia replied without skipping a beat.


She loved watching ponies wide eyed expressions when they realized just how important Breezies really were. Still, this was a race that stood with a magical portal that opened up to a different reality on a clockwork like schedule. Was it any surprise that they were able to know so much about it?


Maxwell coughed as he looked slightly embarrassed as he asked “Uh… do you think they could…”


Celestia nodded her head “Actually, Cloud Puff needs Star Swirl’s Planar Alignment Amulet in order to help send any of you back home. Or, wait until Spring for the portal to open back up for her colleagues to help her be able to find, open, and safely transport all of you back to your homes by the same method you had arrived in Equestria.”


He stared at her in disbelief “That’s it?”


Apparently he hadn’t expected that she had already found a possible solution to their displacement problem, and was still searching for other means as well. Of course, they were probably looking for something along a faster time schedule than what she currently had.


Still, she couldn’t help but smirk as she cheerfully replied “You didn’t think that I would just sit on my hooves when so many displaced ponies landed on my doorstep would you?”


He shook his head as he looked a little bit more embarrassed “So… why doesn’t Cloud Puff have the Amulet?”


Celestia felt that smirk die on her lips, as she remembered the main reason why she couldn’t just send them all home with just a wave of her horn. It also sadly made her look to not nearly be as all knowing, or as smart as she tried to project to her subjects, as even she could still make mistakes or be tricked by somepony else.


“Because…” Celestia saw the look of pleading hope in his eyes as she felt bad for dashing his hopes “It was in route to Canterlot, but was stolen during the attack on Timberton. Right now, the pony calling herself Brass Balls, or one of her allies are most likely in possession of the amulet.”


It was a safe bet that this was true. The members of the Royal Guard reported a similar description to the portal that matched Star Swirl’s amulet when used correctly, and the almost sudden, or instant escape from the jail did match with her theory… unless there’s just so happened to be another powerful magical artifact that just happened to coincidentally had the same abilities as Star Swirl’s amulet.


He just stared at her in disbelief with his mouth a gasp and she felt sorry for him and slightly ashamed at herself. He had just found out that there was a possible simple way to send him back home… and it was missing because the great and all powerful Princess Celestia ruler of the sun… was outwitted by a mere bandit, who had only stolen it to use as a ‘get out of jail’ free card whenever she was captured.


To make matters worse… even with the bounty, the backing of the royal guard, and some of Canterlot’s best minds… That simple highway bandit had not only managed to escape every attempt to capture her… but when they had finally caught her… she escaped and caused a major diplomatic incident between Equestria and New Terra.


Maxwell just stared off into the distance as he replied with a hint of disbelief “The one item that could fix it all… is in the hands of a thief?”


Celestia tried not to flinch as she felt the guilt grow. In retrospect she probably should have started the chase after Brass before she caused the Tartarus breakout. In fact, she could have probably solved a lot of problems by just using the amulet, and showing it to the public that she had a possible method for the wayward souls to get back home.


Sure, there might been some disbelief, since it was more of a one way trip, and even then it would still take some time to properly align the portal, along with the assistance of Cloud Puff and the other breezies to make sure they were all sent back to their proper homes…


But right now, the only chance they had to make that solution work without the amulet, they would need some of the best experts the Breezie’s had and that would have to at least wait until the spring. Beside that who knew how long it would take to properly create a magical spell or artifact that could be used to send everypony home?


She glanced at Maxwell with his drooping ears and sulking look as she could hear him muttering underneath his breath… most likely trying to figure out a way he could help or beating himself up for not realizing that a quick and simple way home had slipped out of all their hooves.


She knew how frustrating it could be to look at a problem in hindsight, even more so beating oneself up with what could have been, or what should have been done, and how trying to focus on solving a problem in that mindset tended to be counterproductive… or painful.


All she had to do was come up with something other to say… just the first thing that came to mind to switch the topic to something else like the original is… the second thing to come to mind quick!


“Have you ever heard of the history of Erlking?” Maxwell perked up at her as Celestia wished she had picked a different topic.


“Who?” Maxwell queried with a hint of curiosity.


“You asked about the Breezies…” Celestia slowly replied “And one of the stories they might pick is the story of Erlking.”


Maxwell nodded his head forcing the solar princess to continue with the story… and she’d need to be careful since part of the story involved Luna. Oh why did she bring it up?


Oh that’s right… stressed under pressure and a sufficient lack of sweets.


With a deep breath Celestia resigned herself to her fate as she said “Before the Breezie portal opened up in Equestria they were facing against an evil breezie overlord named Erlking who had tried to conquer Equestria.”


“That must have been an easy villain.” Maxwell snorted.


There was a small silence as Celestia could feel her cheeks starting to turn red. She started to notice the growing look of confusion on his face from her prolonged pause before continuing again“This was before the Elements of Harmony were found which really would have made our job easier back then.”


“He was bad enough to warrant the Elements of Harmony?” He spoke in disbelief and shock  “What did he do? Raise an army of zombies? Summon portals sending ponies into far off lands?”


Celestia flinched as she only wished he was that…well… competent? Dangerous? Deadly?… “He flew around and broke stuff… by bumping into them.” 


“How big was he?” Maxwell asked as he tried to picture of just how big this villain possibly was, probably coming up blank.


He was probably imagining something like a giant or possibly a breezie that was the same size as a pony… not a tiny puff ball that even Cloud Puff would refer to as small. Still, there was a good chance that Cloud Puff would pick this story just because of how embarrassing it was to Celestia, so it would be better if he heard it from her.


Swallowing her pride, she spoke trying not to let her embarrassment show through “He was actually even tinier than Cloud Puff… he would have come up to her neck to be precise.”


She could see the look in Maxwell’s eyes… the same questioning look that all of her subjects had when they tried to picture the tiny terror that would have been so much easier to have dealt with if she had the Elements of Harmony back then. Oh, she had no idea what they would do to the tiny evil... but it would have saved her a lot of time, effort, and embarrassment.


Celestia closed her eyes, as she tried to hide her embarrassment as she continued “At the time, we heard reports about a warlord trying to conquer the lands so we rushed out to stop him.”


Like a foal, he just nodded his head hanging on to every word as she continued on “When we had arrived he had a hundred breezies at his command. At first, we thought he wasn’t a threat, as we were willing to hear out his demands, as we thought back then that one of the town ponies had accidently chopped down a tree that they were living in.”


“What did he do?” Maxwell asked just like everypony did.


Celestia cleared her throat as she tried her best breezie voice “We be de evil army come to conquer ye lands! Bow down or face the might of Erlking ze Mighty an’ Furious!”


She shook her head suppressing a smile “We had a hard time not laughing. His accent was horrible, not to mention the fact that all of the previous threats facing Equestria didn’t have a high squeaky voice that sounded as if it belonged to a foal toy instead of an evil overlord. Of course, it didn’t help their image when… one of us flapped our wings during the laughter scattering their army formation, and even sending their ‘king’ falling into a ill placed mug.”


She smiled fondly as she remembered Luna back then. How the two of them had stared at the oddity in confusion, before her sister started ‘gushing’ about how cutie the tiny army of invaders were, and if they could place them in the royal gardens.


Celestia let herself enjoy the memory for a few moments before she continued “We prepared to offer them an alternative from trying to ‘conquer’ Equestria since we didn’t see them as a real threat, but then of course, that’s when they decided to attack.”


Maxwell stared at her in disbelief as Celestia felt her embarrassment grow. This was always part of the story that she hated having to say. Mostly because it showed how inexperienced she was back then… and how embarrassing it was to admit what happened after that.


She closed her eyes and muttered “They attacked us and won.”


“Uh…” Maxwell tried to figure out what to say. Celestia knew that look… that moment of confusion… how her various deeds, titles, and victories against countless foes that could have even threatened the world… could conceivably lose to a Breezie.


“We tried to take them out with non lethal force but…” Celestia swallowed the lump in her throat as she explained her… defeat “Breezies are tiny and while their weapons were closer to pin pricks… their tiny swarm didn’t fight fair, and by fair… I mean they swarmed us and started pulling hairs out of our manes and coats. They tried ramming our faces… it was like being attacked by a swarm of gnats except they were slightly bigger and could throw insults.”


Of course, that wasn’t the worst part of it all… the part she always hated “Then of course, Erlking tried to ram us… but it didn’t work, as he bounced off my body and managed to hit an old sign’s rusty hinge… causing the tavern sign to fall on my head knocking me out.”


“What about the other guards?” Maxwell asked in confusion.


Celestia bit her lip before she slowly replied “He had managed to somehow accidently break a lamp post, which fell on them rendering them unconscious. The townsponies of course surrendered because they saw them take us out, but the tiny warlord didn’t take much, mostly because he was too tiny to take anything of real value.”


Still, she could remember Luna ranting profusely about trying to track them down to get revenge. In fact, Celestia still felt the same mixture of embarrassment mixed with her own bruised ego from so long ago. How it felt when she woke up only to realize that the tiny breezies had knocked her out and forced the town to surrender just because they managed to defeat two alicorns.


Trying to show you were a competent leader, and that you could protect your own subjects, was kind of difficult if word got out you lost to a creature that struggled against a gentle breeze or a few rogue rain drops.


“For the next two months we tried to hunt them down…” Celestia replied as she tried not to remember the chain of humiliating defeats that in retrospect… probably had Discord’s claw in making them possible. Otherwise, she could not explain how the breezies somehow managed to knock her out in full plate armor, or those same breezie were able to steal the armor and leave her tied upside down to a tree.


Of course, Luna didn’t stop laughing at her until she ended up in a much more embarrassing defeat against the little pest, that somehow involved a couple of eggs, chicken feathers, and of course tree sap. It was something which Celestia would always bring up whenever Luna mocked her older sister, after her latest epic failure to capture the tiny demons.


Maxwell coughed “How bad was it?”


“We kept running into similar disasters just like when he had ‘defeated’ us the first time. He would fly about, while the breezies would try yanking out hairs, before he accidently cause a branch to break, or something heavy to fall on our heads, or hit our sides…” Celestia glanced at the papers in her desk “It was like one of those cartoon strips in the newspapers.”


Maxwell winced at the mental image as it probably involved a comically small breezie hitting Celestia in the face with a frying pan “So, What was the worst thing that he did?” 


His face looked simultaneously incredulous and wondered, which she thought he always looked cute when he did that. It may have in fact been the reason why she was still continuing to tell this cringe worthy story despite the rising desire to hide her face under a layer of pillows.  


Thankfully the one small saving grace of the story had finally arrived... well saving grace or disaster, depending on your point of view. After all, before that disaster, he was ranked somewhere in the ranks of highway bandit… before he actually became a threat to Equestria.


“He managed to steal Star Swirl’s Amulet and started randomly summoning wild creatures.”  Celestia slowly replied “Star Swirl’s Planar Alignment Amulet was used before to banish threats, but it was now being used to summon them.”


The look of horror on Maxwell’s face said it all. Fighting a tiny breezie that was lucky was one thing… fighting whatever monsters that came from beyond the veil, or dealing with random creatures suddenly torn away from their worlds was a disaster.


Celestia remembered how difficult it was tracking down the little tyrant, and stopping his trail of destruction “Near the end he tried to summon his ‘kingdom’ in an attempt to bring enough forces to ‘fully conquer’ the lands, and the amount of chaos he caused was only second to Discord himself.”


A small smile appeared on her face “Though without his iron hoof hovering over his subjects, they had decided to rebel against his tyranny back home, so when he finally managed to figure out how to open a portal back to his kingdom he was meet with a small army of his own breezes that attacked him. They helped us capture Erlking, and fix all the damage that he had caused, which eventually lead to the treaty of Neighton .”


Maxwell seemed to chuckle at that, seemingly forgotten his previous sorrows as she did have to admit it was rather humorous that his plan did work… only to lead for his own subjects to capture him and put him on trial, since he certainly didn’t endeared himself to them as a beloved ruler.


Maxwell smirked “So everything worked out in the end?”


Celestia continued on “The Breezies did try to help Equestria deal with the crisis left by their former king’s actions, and help seal any dimensional breaches, in certain areas as some parts of Equestria were being warped to fit or fall into line of the dimension they were being affected by.” Celestia shook her head “Of course the tiny tyrant’s actions had likely attracted Discord’s attention, as we then had to deal with him shortly afterwards.”


She glanced out the window towards the gardens “That’s why Erlking’s actions barely left an impact in Equestria’s history books. It’s harder to separate the disasters he caused with Star Swirl’s amulet from the chaos unleashed by Discord himself…”


Celestia thought back to their first fight against Discord. How they lost and then searched for a way to beat him… how they found the Elements of Harmony and started to secure their roles… and how the two sisters had started to drift apart in the aftermath.


“Were you thinking about your sister Luna?” Maxwell asked out of concern as Celestia froze and stared back at him “I’m sorry if I offended you…”


Celestia shook her head “No… it’s just…”


‘How do you know about her?’ she felt like asking out loud


Maxwell took a few steps back as Celestia finally realized the answer “Oh right… the Everfree forest.”


He stared at her in confusion as the solar princess remembered about all the items, documents, and pictures and banners of the two royal sisters inside the old castle. If there was anywhere in Equestria that would have information about her sister, then it would be there.


“I was just wondering how you knew about her.” Celestia finally replied “Still I do miss her from time to time…”


Maxwell nodded his head “I know what you mean.”

She noticed the look on his face as she remembered that he was separated from his own family. In some ways, Celestia was luckier because she had a chance to right the mistakes she had made all those years ago. Maxwell, on the other hoof, was just left on the vague hope that some unknown magical artifact that he couldn’t find would be able to help him out.


“What about your family?” Celestia asked in turn “I mean…”


She paused as she recognized the crestfallen look on his face as it was one she was rather familiar with. In fact she had seen in many times in these past few days on her own face when somepony talked about her sister. How her memories would bring back to mind all the good and bad times she had experienced with her sister… how she lost her… and how it would be a long time before she would even see her once again.


It took a little while, but Maxwell finally spoke with a hint of joy in his voice “Well my sister... she was kind of a little twerp…” 


He slowly began talking more and more as the floodgates finally opened up. Celestia watched him speak about his family, as a part of her was even surprised that she had asked him about them. Still, that look on his face made her happy, as she continued listening on to the stallion eagerly describing his family to her.



*****



Maxwell


I had talked with Princess Celestia for over an hour about my family, until I finally left her office feeling a little bit better. It felt nice talking about them with her, even if my memories of them were a little bit fuzzy on some of the details at times… It was still nice touching those old memories again. It was nice... talking about them with her.


I shook my head as I tried not to get too caught up in the past as I focused on the present. I was kind of excited that Celestia just wanted to invite me to a party… and a little bit confused about the gesture at the same time. I mean, I’m happy that I am being invited to a high class party full of important figures as it would be a decent place to mingle, maybe enjoy some good food, and of course try to get the tavern a couple more contracts for the future… But if I have to be honest... meandering in a crowded room for hours on end isn’t exactly a thing that I’m looking forward to and I really don’t know how ‘high class’ it will be.


I chuckled as I remembered that I had originally started this side business by just listening to other people’s problems and asking what they needed help with and just matching them up with adventurers trying to find work. What started off as a joke of simply nailing a request onto a board had actually become a viable job that… Before I knew it, everyone was coming for me for work, or giving me contracts to hand out, with a small finder’s fee of course.


Somehow, along they way, it started to expand to finding adventures including all of the needed supplies and material that were required as no one wanted to go through the hassle of going through each supplier themselves… nobody said it would be easy to run an adventurer’s guild and I really should hire some more help mostly with accounting and record keeping.


Especially when it comes to writing out the contracts. Some Equestrians don’t know how to negotiate with adventures or simply try paying as little as possible… and some adventures try to overcharge or don’t know or even try to haggle with prices.


I glanced at the doorway towards Celestia’s office, as a part of me still thinks that half of the reason why she invited me was because she just enjoyed teasing me. Still, with a gentle tap against my saddlebags, I felt the reassuring sound of a bag full of bits.


Yes, the job with the yaks was hectic… and the one with trying to explain or pick some of the art for the Cultural fair was kind of sudden… but that was mostly because the previous pony in charge kind of had a mental breakdown. In fact, come to think of it, more of my stressful or chaotic jobs also were linked to Celestia…


I’m probably over thinking it, as the last sudden work that fell on my lap I had from her was modifying a large diorama, so that a bunch of pixie ponies could use it for a show. Of course, she’ll probably use it to tease me about what suit I was going to wear to the party… I’m really going to need to get a new suit.


“Hey, you listen!” a small voice shouted, that I couldn’t see where around me it came from, until I looked above me.


When I looked up, and saw that it was the same tiny blue breezie from Celestia’s office as I felt tempted to making a Legend of Zelda joke, but held off on that, she probably wouldn’t get it anyway.


The Breezie floated down in front of my muzzle, as she had what some might call a devilish grin. Of course, on a breezie it looked ridiculous “Your job is helping ponies out right?”


I nodded my head not sure what that little talking mayfly would want “Uh, is there something else you want with the stage, maybe?” I asked


The Breezie flinched as I had apparently spoken too loud for her tiny ears again. Her head stiffen up and cleared her throat as if making a royal declaration; well as much as it can be from a pint sized fairy “The Great Klok Magiker Cloud Puff, Ambassador of the Great Caleidoscope Horde has a special job that she needs help with!”


I stared at her all cross eyed with her stomping, but I was kind of curious about what a Breezie could needed help with or how they could pay… wait Celestia said they could get us home with the missing Star Swirl amulet. I did my best to look presentable as it wouldn’t hurt to have them owe me a favor in the future.


“I’d be happy to help.” I softly replied.


The Breezie tried to straighten herself out before flying around me. I patiently waited as she seemed to be looking me over… or probably trying to get a peek at my cutie mark since cutie mark and job placement seemed to go hand and hand with ponies.


Eventually the small breezie stooped in front of my face as she replied in a hush tone “Well… my friend needs some help.”


“What does she need help with?” I asked preparing myself for a sudden pollen hunt, or maybe a request for tiny blankets or dolls…


“She’s a pony, not a breezie.” Cloud Puff replied as if reading my thoughts “She has also been helping us out a lot and it would be nice if she could enjoy the cultural festival.”

I couldn’t help but smile as this would be an easy job. I mean I’ve helped set up some of the events and helped give out a few job contracts, so it would be easy to show a pony around the event.


“So you just need someone to help escort her around?” I calmly asked making sure I knew all the details.


The tiny breezie landed on the end of my nose, as I tried not to shake her off or sneeze, as she wore the same devious smile as before “It would be great if you could show her around as she would probably normally just stick to the sweets shops.” she started walked across my nose trying to find a better spot to stand “And, she’s also kind of a bit overworked and she doesn’t get a lot of days off.”


I tried to keep my head still, as I felt her hooves dance across my nose. It was a very odd feeling… almost like having a butterfly in boots resting on top of your nose.


“Also, she’s kind of fragile… I mean she’s not a pushover, but without a schedule she doesn’t exactly know what to do with herself so you’d need a little bit of planning.” Cloud Puff added.


Fragile, schedule oriented, a bit nervous and shy… it almost sounds like she is describing Twilight Sparkle. “That won’t be too difficult. Any places in particular she would want to visit?”


“Museums, art shows, libraries…” Cloud Puff replied as she didn’t sound that interested “That sort of stuff.”


Now I was curious about what this mystery pony looked like. Maybe this was Twilight’s mother or somewhere along the Twilight family tree, or could this be a former human that took a Twilight build?


“Well she’s a bit nervous…” Cloud Puff said with a hint of embarrassment “Especially about her name and how some of the Adventures react around it. Something about her and the Brave and Beautiful NutMeg and looking for rainbows or something like that?”


My brain froze as that name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember a pony named Nutmeg in My Little Pony. Still, the line about rainbows sounded more like an advertisement than a…


“What does she look like?” I asked out loud.


I know some G1 jokes or references like Radiance, Gigor, or whoever else came from the first version of my little pony, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the old shows, much less had access to the internet. 


Cloud Puff of course seemed delighted as she replied “Oh she has a pink mane, white coat and a cutie mark of four hearts in a circle with four triangles in-between them.”


My brain slowly started putting the puzzle pieces together. Nutmeg, rainbows, pink mane…


“Uh…” It couldn’t be “Does she have a blue bow tied to her tail” The breezie nodded her head as I spoke in disbelief “Is she called Sundance by any chance?”


“You know her?” Cloud Puff shouted out in joy.


Oh this wasn’t good. I mean it was good, but it wasn’t good because it involved a G1 pony who didn’t get all the references, or jokes being thrown at her as she was probably getting tired of them. 


“I’ve heard of a similar pony from a bedtime story…” I meekly replied


That’d would be a good enough explanation for her. I mean even if this pony looked exactly like Sundance from Generation One she wouldn’t be the exact same pony. After all, Applejack G1 and G4 are different ponies.


“Anywho!” Cloud Puff replied apparently unphased by my answer “I need help finding somepony that can help. Somepony who knows how to deal with crowds, somepony smart who can help point things out, or help explain some of the fancy artsy stuff or cultural thingies.”


“You mean someone to help guide her around and know enough about the new art pieces that’s going to be exposed.” I stated, as I was drawing up a list of candidates in my mind.


“Yes, and he’ll have to have to be nice. Not nice as in he looks nice, or is a nice pony…” Cloud Puff added quickly “He’ll need to be able to talk with those fancy upper stiff ponies.”


“Someone who can deal with other ponies and knowledgeable enough to not cause a scene or embarrass her in front of nobles.” That would limit some of the options “Do they need to be upper class nobility or…”


“Oh just somepony who won’t look like a complete foal.” Cloud Puff countered “I mean there’s the whole Nutmeg gag and there’s the fact she’s really curious, but doesn’t want to offend anypony’s feelings.”


She just needed someone as a guide and wouldn’t offend anypony, but still be able to prevent any of the former humans from asking any G1 references or questions. Someone who would be able to deal with a pony similar to Moondancer instead of Twilight.


“Okay is there anything else?” I asked out loud.


“Oh and he’d have to be brave. I mean some ponies think Sunny is a strong pony, but she kind of caves under pressure.” Cloud Puff replied “I mean she’s good, but you get enough ponies to tell her to do something else and…”


“You want to make sure she isn’t pressured into do anything she isn’t comfortable with?” I summarized.


Cloud Puff nodded her head as she sat down on the end of my nose. I tried not to scratch the growing itch on my nose, and still leave a good impression on the tiny breezie, as I recited “So you’ll need someone to have the crowds back off…” 


She quickly nodded her head as that seemed to be a major requirement for this job.


“Someone to help show her around the Cultural Fair, who knows enough about all the details of all the different expositions to explain it to her, all the while pulling her away of anything that would constitute as work and make sure she is in fact be relaxing and having fun.” I finished stating.


“And she does help Celestia so having a pony who isn’t afraid of her status would be important.” Cloud Puff emphasized “After all that is kind of a big name drop that’s hard to go up against.”


Knowing most of the adventures who visited the Tavern, they probably wouldn’t notice, or would be excited for the chance to meet Celestia even if it was because they were in trouble.


“And of course someone stubborn enough to help her go through with her day off. I think I can manage finding someone for that.” I said with a smirk as I already had a few people in mind for the job.


Cloud Puff shouted in joy “You’ll do it! I’ll let Sunny know that you’re taking her through the fair!”


She did her best Rainbow Dash impression and flew away, before I realized what had just happened “Wait, I meant…”


I face hoofed, as the tiny Breezie was nowhere to be seen. Okay, deep breaths… deep breaths… I could just simply ask one of the guards where the Breezies were in the castle. Of course, they would probably want to know why, and they would probably send me back to Celestia, thinking it was related to the Cultural Festival with them or just berate me like they did last time I asked for directions.


I could just try asking or explaining my situation to Celestia and have her clear it up, but she would probably pay me for my service and I would rather have the Breezies owe me a favor…


Okay, first I need to find a suit for the party. Then I need to figure out what I was going to do now. I walked down one of the corridors, as a regular bat pony stood in front of me, smiling as she replied “I heard you were looking for ponies to hunt the creepy feral bugs?”


Scratch that. Next time I need to have Princess Celestia visit me. Every time I went to Canterlot Castle everything things seem to always become needlessly complicated for me.



******





Steel Halberd


Steel Halberd took a deep breath as he stood outside the reinforced entrance door. He felt somewhat nervous having Valkyrie talking him into this, but she had adamantly insisted that she wanted to make sure her ‘friend’ was okay. And if anything, he was as stallion of honor and would make sure he could protect her as best he could, despite his misgivings at the given situation.


The mad griffin prisoner that they had brought back from New Terra had been placed within one of the specially made high security medical wards building of Canterlot’s Hospital. This was something of a mix between a hospital and a jail, where either the ponies in charge were trying to ensure the safety of the doctors or medical staffs or for patients from themselves, while they dealt with all the recent dark magic maladies that have been affecting Equestria these days, the rare infectious disease or plague, or whatever else that could be studied carefully by the finest medical and magical experts of Canterlot in a safe (and confined) location.


Valkyrie herself had been admitted within this very building for her own treatment, during the final day when Celestia was getting ready to cast the spell that freed her from her petrification curse. So, Steel felt a little bit of unease walking down the hallway once again due to those bad memories associated with the place… and the sense of powerlessness he had felt then.


“Are you ready?” He asked with a hint of reluctance in his voice.


It wasn’t because he didn’t agree with her decision… after all he knew how putting emotionally difficult situations could eat away at a pony. When Valkyrie was a statue all he could think about back then was tracking down Brass and dragging her back to Canterlot kicking and screaming in order to in-petrify her. He couldn’t stand the idea her spending the rest of her life in stone, if there was still a way to free her from that fate.


She just wanted to make sure her friend from her homeland was okay… even if he might still be a mindless raging bloodthirsty berserker who could tear through armor like tin foil, and toss him around like a rag doll before ripping out his throat with his beak…


“Don’t think that. Steel.” he thought to himself “Just put on a strong face and be brave for her. She needs you to be strong right now! She is relying on you for this, you can’t let her down like this! Besides you beat him once, so surely you can beat him again if anything should happen in there!”


Nevermind that it was only due to Valkyrie’s assistance that he survived that one sided fight against that hulking monster of a griffin named Steel Tide. In fact, the victory was more hers, as he just did his best to distract him…


No the important thing was that he won and that he could do this… he could no he would do this for her. With a deep breath, he placed his hoof on the entrance door and made a soft knock against the ancient wooden frame.


The door swung wide open as a bespectacled red and blue unicorn with a medical jacket stared back at them. Steel quickly remembered the unicorns name as he replied “Doctor Patches?”


The medical unicorn glanced at them with a hint of disinterest as said “Hello Mr. Steel Halberd and Miss Valkyrie. Are you here for personal reasons or for official business?”


Valkyrie rubbed the back of her head “It’s mostly personal… but it could also be counted as business?”


The unicorn frowned “Explain.”


“Well I knew him before he went crazy and he’s a nice guy…” Doctor patch rose an eyebrow as he watched Valkyrie start to panic “I mean I know did something or probably did something bad and I want to know what happened. I mean he attacked me, and I’m trying to figure out why he was trying to go after me…”


“Miss Valkyrie wants to make sure that the griffin known as Steel Tide is doing okay.” Steel Halberd explained as he should have clarified before that this was a personal visit. Not an interrogation from the Royal Guard, as apparently the doctors didn’t get the full memo.


Doctor Patch nodded his head as he let them inside “He’s doing alright for now.”


Steel tried not to groan at how unhelpful that information was as Valkyrie didn’t look any better. If anything she seemed a little bit worse at the news as that could range anywhere to being cured of his madness, or that they had simply filled him with enough drugs to be a happy drooling mess that isn’t trying to murder anypony.


Valkyrie she fidgeted with her hooves as fear crept into her voice “You mean he’s doing alright as in he’s fine… or he’s restrained or asleep?”


Doctor Patch nodded his head with what looked like a somewhat grim smile as he lead them down the corridors  “He is doing fine... as in he is well and lucid, but he still needs time to recover. After the Everfree Forest incident, we had to check, look over, compare, and study the countless medical and magical symptoms of various ponies, Griffins and other various inmates that were involved in that event, to check to see if their actions were their own or under the influence of somepony or something else.”


The doctor sighed at the painful memory “The only ‘blessing’ brought about by that disaster is that we learned enough about various magical maladies to attempt a… treatment course to help your friend.”


Valkyrie looked a little bit uneasy as she heard the delay in his response. Steel felt a bit nervous as he heard treatment instead of cure, which could mean medication to keep the griffin’s insanity from or that they were starting to get an idea on how to cure him.


A part of Steel Halberd felt nervous, as he watched Doctor Patch motion them to enter the hallway as he felt scared. He was a little bit terrified to be standing face to face with the griffin who had tossed him aside so easily.


Sure he was frightened going up against Emberess… but he could taunt the old infernal tyrant, trick her into a trap. Yet, there was something about the mindless drive… the blood thirsty gaze… how he focused purely on Valkyrie ignoring everything else in his path. If the mad griffin broke out, then he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to slow the beast down before it went after her.


“Deep breaths.” He reminded himself “The cells are strong, the doctors are skilled, and a wing of Canterlot’s finest can be signaled at the ring of a bell. You can’t let a little thing like fear keep you from helping Valkyrie out. She’s had a lot of problems ever since she came to Equestria, and right now you're the only pony that can help fix one of them!”


.With that boost of self confidence, he followed the good doctor down the hallway as the unicorn spoke out loud “Physically… his body could use some work, and maybe a little bit of physical rehabilitation. Emotionally, he’s upset and possibly in a slight depression spiral. Though, mentally… he’s seems to have regained most of his mind.”


Valkyrie seemed to cheer up a little “You mean that he’s himself?”


Doctor Patch smiled “If you mean that he has regained his sanity... and is now feeling regret for his actions than yes.”


She smiled happy that her friend had regained his senses again, as Steel prepared himself to meet face to face with the monstrous griffin once again. He couldn’t let himself to hold any hatred or fear towards her griffin friend, as Steel Tide had been the victim of dark magic, and his actions weren’t of his own free will back then.


“Is there anything we should be worried about?” Steel replied as he wanted to be prepared for anything.


Sadly the doctor stopped, as he seemed to be a little bit uneasy. Valkyrie looked at him with a hint of concern, as Steel waited for the other horse shoe to drop, or in this case… come smashing through the window.


“Well you see our treatment was…” Doctor Patch took a deep breath as he glanced at Steel “It wasn’t tested before. The Griffin was the only patient that we had tested it on, mostly due to the large… discrepancy detected between the individual he should have been and the individual he currently was.”


“What do you mean?” Valkyrie spoke with a hint of fear.


Steel, on the other hoof, was more focused on if the mad griffin was still a threat, and if he should prepare for the worst…


The unicorn shrugged “He previously was a raging berserker screaming about how he wanted to face somepony named ‘Steel Wings’ who, according to our records, does not exist. Our attempt was to restore some semblance of his mind...”


There was a long pause as he took a deep breath. He watched them waiting for them to fill in the blank or because right now it seemed as if the canterlot unicorn was preparing to give them the bad news.


“We tested a spell on him mostly curing him of his affliction. Right now, he’s in a weakened state as his armor is being kept under lock and key.” He slowly replied.


Steel clenched his teeth “Why is it being kept under lock and key?”


The doctor hung his head in regret as he continued “ We… we somehow accidently created a dark magical artifact imbued with an unnatural hatred and a lust for combat. In the process of using the spell... we turned an affliction into a dark magical artifact. Naturally, we informed Celestia about it as we’ve locked away the cursed suit of armor.”


“But he’s okay… the Griffin is okay.” Valkyrie firmly replied as she didn’t care about some suit of armor, just as long as her friend was okay.


The unicorn sighed in relief apparently happy that the royal guard was more interested in the condition of the Griffin than in the accidental creation of a dark magical artifact, not that Steel Halberd could blame the pony. Besides, if they came out clean and reported their actions to Celestia than obviously she had taken care of the issue.


Doctor Patch opened up one of the doors in the hallway to reveal a Griffin lying down on a bed. Steel stared at the Griffin in confusion as this Griffin… didn’t look anything like the raging monster that had nearly killed him. The massive predatory giant that stalked them through the streets trying to kill them.


For one, this this Griffin was skinny… really skinny and no where near as big as the hulking giant that they had faced in New Terra! Steel rubbed his eyes as he couldn’t believe that this was the same griffin!


He took a look at the griffins feathers thinking that he had tried making himself look bigger… but the feathers were an almost sickly white and they seemed to be in the middle of molting. His chest and wings were more of a sandstone brown if a little bit lighter than normal…


Steel Halberd stopped staring at the Griffin as he finally notice the rest of the room or to be more precise... the crutches that were resting near the edge of the bed. This wasn’t a griffin that was going to tear through the walls. This was a individual that had enough trouble trying to walk, much less holding an axe.


“Is he okay?” Valkyrie asked as her eyes were on the crutches.


The doctor nodded his head “Like I had said before… there were a few side effects. When our spell managed to… well remove the madness or the ‘cursed’ aspect from him… his body took some damage or perhaps suffered some sort of withdrawal or rebound.”


The unicorn actually looked at the griffin in pity as he said “It’s hard to say, since we don’t have any idea what he looked like before he was cursed. Maybe he was naturally in such a weakened state, or this was a side effect of our methods to heal him.”


Steel felt a little bit guilty for feeling relieved at this moment. Oh sure, he was happy that the griffin and been cured of his madness… The pegasus just didn’t like how he was glad that the griffin couldn’t harm Valkyrie.


In fact the griffin would be hard pressed as stopping a foal much less a fresh recruit of the Royal Guard. Still Valkyrie didn’t seem that happy as she looked at the former berserker in pity.


The Griffin finally looked up at them as he stared at Valkyrie in confusion “Wait… is that you Steel?” Steel Halberd prepared himself for the worst. Just because the griffin couldn’t break out of his cell, it didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt Valkyrie emotionally.


The Griffin spotted him and chuckled “Who’s the stallion with you?”


Steel Halberd stared at the griffin in confusion as Valkyrie smirked “His name is Steel… Steel Halberd and yes that is his real name.”


The Griffin smirked with his large beak “With a name like that he would have fit just fine in our gaming group.”


There was something a little bit off with how the griffin said it that as Valkyrie seemed taken back a little. Still he didn’t seem hostile or that he was insulting Steel… which was good enough for him.


Doctor Patches, on the other hoof, stared at Valkyrie then back at the Griffin before saying “How were you able to figure out who she was so quickly when you said you didn’t know anyone?”


The Griffin rolled his eyes “No cutie mark.”


Steel face hoofed as that should have been obvious. Valkyrie didn’t have a cutie mark so naturally the Griffin who knew her would have realized who Valkyrie was.


She glanced back at the “So… how are you?”


The Griffin looked away as he meekly replied “I’m doing better… heh… so how’s it going?”


Valkyrie shrugged “You know… it’s Equestria…”


Both of them looked away from each other, as they didn’t seemed to know what to say. Steel Halberd glanced at the two, as he had been expecting arguing… or maybe both of them being happy. Instead, Valkyrie just scuffed her hoof across the ground as the griffin glanced at the walls.


Steel Halberd took a deep breath as they were acting a lot more… reserved than he would have expected. It was never good when friends tried to bottle up their fears or worries… which meant he need some way to break the ice between them.


“Uh… what is your name?” Steel Halberd asked out loud.


“Real smooth Steel.” he thought to himself in slight annoyance “Real smooth…”


The Griffin looked at Valkyrie for a moment before looking sheepish with embarrassment “Uh… I kind of lost my memory of what my name was… uh… do you remember it?” There was a pleading tone under it.


Valkyrie shook her head “No… we actually just referred to our character names.”


Doctor Patches looked at them both in confusion “How long have you two known each other?”


The Griffin shrugged “Two… maybe three years? I mean we spent more time referring to each other’s screen name or character name.”


“Gusty…” Valkyrie replied with a chuckle


The Griffin shrugged again but with a small smirk “Meh… it’s better than John Doe.”


“John Doe?” Doctor Patches asked out of curiosity.


Gusty shook his head “It’s a fancy term for unidentified male corpse… and it’s beats being called griffin all the time.”


The doctor seemed a little bit repulsed by the morbid subject as it felt… wrong to name oneself ‘dead’ or maybe it had to do with the fact that Boston had dead ponies and griffins that were never identified… just forgotten.


Steel shivered at the thought before glancing back at Valkyrie and the now apparently named griffin call Gusty. He knew there were some strange cultural norms in other nations… but talking to somepony for over a year and not knowing their name? Boston was a very strange place to live in.


He looked back at Valkyrie as she seemed a little bit nervous as she replied  “So… what happened to you? I mean when you first arrived.”


The Griffin frowned as he didn’t sound that happy “Well if I had to start from somewhere… it would be around when I landed or well fell to Equestria. Nobody knew what was going on and everything was chaotic. I had armor, bulk, and… well I guess you could say a voice that promised me power.”


Steel frowned “A voice?”


Gusty shook his head “Not exactly a voice… but more like a sound.”


Steel Halberd looked at the griffin oddly as he tried to figure out what the griffin had said, as none of it  made any sense to him. After a brief glance at Valkyrie, he could see her simply nodding her head as she either understood… or most likely pretending to understand so that the griffin could continue his tale. 


Gusty rubbed his forehead “I guess it’s harder to describe than I thought… anyway when I fell to Equestria I was a little bit more stronger than I was back home, but… not by much.”


He hung his head as sorrow entered his voice “I ran into a few fights and I lost. Then I just kept giving more and more of myself to the… well voice. Back home I was a nobody. I spent my weekends pretending to be someone else. Now that I’m off having an adventure, I realized that I wasn’t well… heroic.”


Valkyrie nodded her head as she apparently understand what he meant “You didn’t want to be you. You wanted to be Steel Tide?”


A sad smile appeared on his face as he spoke “It started off so simple. I just gave a part of myself up to it and then it helped remove my fears and make me brave. I held my own opinions back and followed others, but soon I became more outspoken…” He chuckled “It was like magic… or a blessing. I changed. I stopped being a coward, and I became better with each piece that I gave up in exchange for power.”


Gusty looked up at the ceiling as he spoke fondly of the memories “I took on bandits, wild beasts, or anything a client needed killed for the right amount of coin. I had people telling tales of my strength and jealous of my talents… so what if I lost a few memories or couldn’t remember why I was a coward in the past? All that matter was that I… that Steel Tide was strong, powerful… that he was much ‘better’ than the weakling I was in the past or that’s what I had thought.”


Steel frowned as he didn’t like the sound of this. A voice promising power as it prey on someone with self esteem issues, as it stole his memories in exchange for a bit of power? That practically screamed ‘do not trust’ to him.


Then he took a look at the nearly crippled griffin… how he was away from everypony he knew… being weak, alone, and afraid with no one else to turn to… Steel started to feel pity for the griffin.


Gusty hung his head low as his eyes started to water “I don't’ know when it happened, but eventually, I stopped caring about things… thinks like morals or lives didn’t matter, just as long as I was being paid… how my last client had even hired me to fight you.”


The griffin looked sickly as he continued “How Steel Tide… How he… He wasn’t trying to murder you because he hated or despised you. You were his rival and he wanted to beat you. He wanted to win.”


Gusty caught Steel Halberd’s shocked expression, as the griffin chuckled bitterly at the memory. The pegasus felt a weight drop into his gut, as he tried not to imagine how horrifying it would be to remember trying to killing a friend, with a smile of all things.


Gusty spoke in a soft tone, as the guilt flowed into his voice “Even here you end up being the one to save me.” Valkyrie shook her head but he continued in a frustrated tone “No listen to me. I couldn’t stand living as myself. You’re still you! You didn’t fall! I let myself be consumed by the promise of power and became a  mindless berserker in the process! You joined the Royal Guard as yourself, instead of pretending to be a character we made during our weekly gaming session!”


“So you made a bad mistake!” Valkyrie shouted “Now that you’re okay…”


Gusty held a hand over his mouth “I… I remember what he did. How he felt… and… Steel Tide wasn’t the brains of the group. He was the brawn who loved to brawl. That idiot didn’t even think twice about some of those jobs…”


Steel watched the griffin start to fall back into repeating his regrets. He saw the doctor prepare to intervene, as the unicorn wanted to prevent from going into a destructive spiral of self loathing from forming, or getting out of control.


Valkyrie simply walked up to the glass dividing them as she said “You did something that you regret?”


Gusty slowly nodded his head “I know it sounds silly… it was Steel Tide who did it, but… looking back I can’t believe how stupid I was for letting it grow this badly, and as punishment for it all… I can’t hear it anymore. I can’t see it…”


Valkyrie's eyes widened “You can’t see it?”


The doctor stopped, as he looked at Valkyrie trying to understand what he meant by that. Steel also was confused, as it seemed like eyesight would be an easy thing for the doctors to check up on… or was he referring to a dream or a memory the two of them shared?


Gusty looked up at her with haunted eyes, as he said “I’m stuck like this… just being able to remember fragments of my past in exchange for nightmares. I lost so much in exchange for that power I had… and now I don’t even have that anymore.”


Silence filled the room as Valkyrie looked at him in pity. The griffin seemed upset, but Steel Halberd couldn’t tell if it was about what he did as a mindless berserker… or if he was upset at losing his power. The Gusty wasn’t a fighter and if he came from the same place Valkyrie came from… than a griffin without a talent for fighting might not have counted as much.


Anything a member of the Royal Guard would say about him not needing to be strong or to fight in order to help… might sound a bit hollow to the griffin.


So Steel tried to change the subject as he said “I’m sorry to ask this but… what was the cursed trader doing in New Terra?”


The griffin looked up at Steel Halberd before shrugging “I… don’t know all the details, but he was experimenting. Avian was sent to watch him and well… capture a mare named Remedy Cross.”


“Avian?” Steel asked out loud.


The griffin shrugged “The sort of weird bird… she kind of liked an owl with a horse and made by a mad scientist…” He felt their stares continue begging for an answer “I never knew what is was called, and I wasn’t in a mindset to ask either alright?”


He cleared his throat, as he tried to figure out what the griffin did know “What was the cursed trader doing in New Terra?”


Gusty chuckled bitterly as he shook his head “I don’t know the full details, but he was talking about trying to reclaim what he had lost. Whatever it was, he wasn’t talking about memories… or pieces of himself.”


The griffin rubbed his forehead as he seemed to be struggling with his words “Each… experiment? Each ‘curse’ he had placed upon the inhabitants of New Terra was an attempt to reclaim or figure out if he was doing it right?” He shook his head “It’s hard to explain, but he was talking about recreating something… and the avian was keeping an eye on him… or she was trying to make sure he would turn her back to normal?”


He sighed “Steel Tide wasn’t paying much attention, as he was only focusing on playing guard duty and getting ready to fight Steel Wings.” He glanced at Steel Tide “I had already told everything I knew to Celestia just to be safe.”


Steel sighed, as asking anymore question would be pointless since Celestia already knew about it. Still Valkyrie seemed to have straightened herself up as she took a step forward. Steel took a few steps back, as he let her take the stage.


Valkyrie nodded her head in appreciation before she asked Gusty “So… what are with the crutches?”


Gusty glanced over at them as he rested a talon over them “Turns out that crazy black magic is just like drugs… so don’t do them no matter how fancy the advertising ad is. I mean, sure it sucks that my legs seem to be as fragile as cannery instead of a turkey, but at least the wings still work.”


The doctor sighed as he stepped in “You do realize that you need to stay off your wings for a while.”


Valkyrie glanced at him only for Gusty to sigh in annoyance “I know… landing and taking off puts stress on the legs. Too bad they don’t have any clouds to make for super soft landings.”


The unicorn spoke in a slightly more jolly tone “We need to make sure your magic is working in full order… and aren’t you from Boston where clouds are not suppose to hold up fully grown griffins.”


Gusty stuck his tongue out as he snarked back “I’m in a land full of magical unicorns with a big white pony who uses the sun as a yo-yo. Surely you can’t grab some pillow cases and stuff them full of clouds?”


“And you’d be stuck with mostly flat and moist pillows.” The unicorn countered “While clouds may be soft to griffins and unicorns, cotton still absorbs water and clouds are made out of water.”


“Bah… curse you and your perfectly good reasoning skills.” He mockingly cried “Now only if there was some sort of item that could contain water for the water to be held in!”


Valkyrie chuckled as Steel watched the unicorn continue their banter while the griffin tried to opt for feeling the ‘forbidden’ touch of the cloud , as the unicorn kept stating why each plan would fail. The scene was only made more ridiculous by the fact that he knew the griffin had never touched a cloud before arriving in Equestria, and how Valkyrie’s first reactions to her cloud training went.


Gusty spoke out loud like a bad opera actor “So there you have it my good friend. I am trapped by this fiendish fiend to be forced to rest upon silk and cotton, forever waiting upon hand and foot to see what shall fall before my fate.”


A small smile appeared on his face as he spoke in a softer tone “But… thanks… thanks for visiting me Valkyrie.”


She sighed in relief as she said “It’s good to see you're okay… but would you mind doing something for me?”


Gusty looked up at her with doubt… and a hint of hope in his eyes “Sure… what is it?”


Valkyrie pulled out a rulebook, a few sheets of paper, one of those fountain pens and a bag full of dice. The cover of the book was labeled ‘Super Foals’ as it had a rather cartoonish depiction of popular Equestrian superheroes… but as foals.


He started to chuckle as Valkyrie said “The quest it to take down Diaper Rasher who has concocted a fiendish scheme to take down Happytopia with his terrifying itching powder ray.”


“You can’t be serious!” The griffin spoke aloud as he tried not to burst out laughing.


Valkyrie smirked “We can either sit around letting our friends figure out what to say… or we can make fools out of ourselves and try to have a little bit of fun?”


Gusty rubbed his chin “Only if I get to be Captain Underpants.”


“Deal.” Valkyrie replied as the unicorn sent the items over to Gusty.


Steel shook his head as he said “I’m going to get us something to eat. Want anything?


“I’m good for anything.” Valkyrie half heartedly replied as she looked into her RPG book.


The doctor and Steel Halberd left the two as they both hoped for the best. While there were a few ups and down… mostly guilt being passed around between the two adventurers… what was important was that Valkyrie was able to get her answers, after Gusty was cured of his insanity. The griffin in turn was forgiven by a friend he had deeply hurt while he was under the effects of that twisted curse.


Steel took a deep breath, as there was one last thing he needed to take care of as he whispered “And where is the armor and the diamond dog?”


The doctor frowned as he glanced back at the griffin and pegasus “I’ll take you to it… do you think that he might want it back?”


Steel looked back at the crippled griffin… and shook his head “Does that look like somepony who wants to give up a friendship for a cursed suit of armor?”


The unicorn shook his head “I hope not.”



******



Valkyrie


Gusty looked at the childish RPG for a few moments before saying “So what did you really want to say to me Valkyrie?”


I bit my lip as I made sure we were alone “So… how did you really know it was me? I mean what if I had actually gained a cutie mark?”


Gusty shook his head as he mumbled “I remember going after you. That so called cursed trader… he told me you would be there. Steel Halberd just focused on dodging and you…” he rubbed his jaw “That wasn’t a normal pony punch.”


I couldn’t help but smirk as I countered “What if I was someone else?”


Gusty snorted at that comment “Then you wouldn’t have come here in the first place! I mean I wouldn’t want to come and meet me after what I did… besides I can’t think of anyone else who would come and visit me.”


He looked at me as he tried to smile “So how exactly did you join the Royal Guard? I heard you were involved fighting some monster before you even arrived in Canterlot.”


Oh yes… I used the menu to stop being frightened, after Lock and Stardust were stuck protecting me against the creepy monster made out of swarm of insects. Before, I used the menu I was hiding in a cloud unable to fight. After I used it I was calling down lightning bolts.


I looked down at my own hooves “At first, I was planning on pleading to Celestia to send us back… and when that didn’t work out I kind of needed a paycheck. As for the whole monster story… the Royal Guard were the ones who took care of it.”


Gusty didn’t seem to believe me as He continued “So why join the Royal Guard instead of taking off?”


I nodded my head, as the Royal Guard did seem like a joke in MLP. Maybe it was because everything was so peaceful, or maybe it was because most of the threats they faced were completely out of their league, in the same way Japan kept losing to Godzilla when he marched across tokyo?


“Because I barely knew how to use my own body, as Steel had to give me a crash course in being a pegasus, and Lock was kind of thrown in jail because of my plan…” I slowly replied as Gusty looked at me in disbelief “Long story short, I tried shortening a line to talk to Celestia through a crazy plan and Lock was thrown in jail because of it. It would have been a jerk move to just leave him.”
“Didn’t he become a prince or something?” Gusty spoke in disbelief.
I could feel a small hint of bile in the back of my throat, as I remembered how I acted back then. I didn’t know what was going on and after the disaster with Discord… I had let Lockheart take the fall, while I got free room and board in the meantime.


I mean sure Steel Halberd was looking after me, but that was more like getting free training lessons for selling someone out. I felt my ears droop as Gusty realized that had said something wrong.


I wonder how Lockheart is doing?


“How was your training? I mean it couldn’t have been that hard…” Gusty replied as he was referring to the gifts given to us by the menu


I couldn’t help but smirk “It was mostly mixed results. Sure I could fight, but Steel had to personally teach me how to make a raincloud drizzle… help assure me that it wouldn’t collapse underneath my own weight.” I groaned as I remembered how silly some of it was “Mostly little things that most pegasi in Equestria are naturally able to do.”


“So why did you stick around?” Gusty asked as he started writing up his character “After that incident in the Everfree, I’m sure you could have used that fame of yours to go off on countless other adventures.” Gusty replied as he tentatively watched me.


“I can see your point, but…” I took a deep breath as I tried to explain it to him “Despite any of the stories you may have heard, we didn’t go in guns blazing and smashing through an army of changelings. We knocked out a group of scouts… pretended that we were apart of their group and just walked straight through their front doors.”


Gusty looked at me in disbelief “You're kidding me.”


I shook my head “Getting in was rather easy… getting out was the hard part. My first battle…” I remembered feeling sick… the taste of the bile in the back of my throat, as I watched the horrors of that theater play out before me. I remembered using the menu to give me an edge in the fight “It didn’t go as well I would have liked.”


I bit my lip, as I remembered nearly being defeated by the pegasus with a fake australian accent “After we managed to free everyone we tried to make a break for it… only to get caught in a trap. Lock ended up distracting everyone by summoning up an illusion and pretending to be Discord. Most of them fled after seeing him.”


Gusty chuckled as he shook his head “He tried to impersonate Discord and it worked?”


I couldn’t help but chuckle along, remembering just how big of a gamble that stunt actually was “It worked long enough for Maxwell to free us, and I did try trading a few blows with the ‘huge flank’ adventurer changeling queen. I got my flank handed to me and we would have loss if Celestia hadn’t came in to save us at the last minute.”


I looked back up at him and sighed “So after nearly being beaten up and having to be rescued… I decided to stick with the Royal Guard instead of going off to be the next Mane Six or ‘savior’ of Equestria.”


Gusty rolled his eyes “On the first few weeks you stormed an evil villain’s lair, rescued the prisoners, and managed to repel most of the enemy’s forces before the Royal Guard could sweep in. How bad would it have been if the enemy hadn’t distracted, beaten up, or frightened off by you and your party?”


I rubbed my eyes as I didn’t see it like that. I had rushed out trying to play adventurer without waiting for everyone else as I took Lock with me because he was the only other human around… just to realize that I wasn’t the invincible maiden of justice I thought I was.


“Point is I need training. I mean I knew a few tricks and I knew how to make clouds shoot thunderbolts, but I didn’t know much of the basics of being a pegasus… and it was a lot easier learning from Steel Halberd than trying to cash in a few of my memories.” I openly admitted to myself as that was one of the reasons why I stayed within the royal guard.


That paycheck also helped me keep place to stay in Canterlot, and I got to help Lily recover from her nightmarish encounter with the Everfree disaster.


Gusty shrugged “Well what about when you were going about taking care of dark curses or disasters left behind by my former employer?”


I frowned “I was a part of the Royal Guard and I had them backing me up the entire time.”


Besides the one time when the chips were really down… I got beaten up and turned to stone by a highway bandit. Okay sure, Brass was a lot smarter than I was expecting, but she traded blow for blow before pulling out that damn bird and turning me into a lawn ornament.”


“When it really came down to it… Steel Halberd was the one to save the day. Again… if it wasn’t for everyone else I would have blew it.” I replied with growing regret.


Gusty now looked hurt “You can’t be serious! Look at yourself! Your a respected member of the Royal Guard. You didn’t lose yourself to the menu like I had! You even managed to defeat Steel Tide…”


“I didn’t defeat him!” I nearly shouted back “When he attacked… I froze up. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about using the menu when you knocked me out of the sky. I would have used the menu if I had recovered from the shock of you attacking me.”


I hung my head as I meekly replied “It was Steel Halberd who came up with the plan to distract you while I wrapped you up in that big cloud ball.”


It was Steel Halberd who had ultimately rescued my friend while once again… I was a hindrance to everyone else when the chips were down.


Now the griffin was no longer looking at me with respect. Honestly I was expecting to see annoyance, hatred, or the look of dashed dreams when you realize your hero wasn’t who you thought they were.


Instead, he looked at me in pity as he said “So… could you tell me about him?”


I looked back up at him “You mean Steel?”


Gusty nodded his head “I figure I might as well know who this adventurer you're talking about is.”


I shook my head “No he’s an equestrian.”


Now I heard him chuckle as he shook his head “Quit with the BS. I mean sure I lost my menu, but there’s no way…”


“He is an Equestrian…” I quickly replied “And he’s been hilariously outmatched every single time we faced a disaster.”


I held out one of my wings and held out a primary wing feather making it look like I had hands “For the Everfree forest… he took down an adventurer by knocking him out. Sure he had attacked during the confusion, but that was the only way he could safely take him down.”


I held out a second feather as I continued “For the freaking flaming ancient beasty that threatened to take revenge against Equestria, and worthy of a season finally… Steel came up with the plan to defeat her while he played bait.”


I chuckled as I realized just how absurd it was “He went out and played the role of bait… against a giant flaming ancient lizard all by himself. I would have had a hard time, and I have warrior princess super powers! He just had a tin foil suit tried leading her into some sort of a giant muddy pit trap.”


I shook my head, as I remembered his latest fight “Steel was the one who decided to wear my ‘iron coffin’ armor to distract a psycho griffin, who could cleave through armor, while I grabbed as many clouds as I could to restrain you.”


I placed a hoof against my forehead as I shouted “Do you have any idea how insane that was? He hard a hard enough time moving, much less dodging your attacks! No matter just how absurdly dangerous it is… how he should be the one standing back while I protect him…”


I took a deep breath and sighed “He’s one of the bravest people I know. He doesn’t have a master crafted suit of armor, a menu to instantly grant him a power boost, or a special cutie mark or magical artifact to take down titans.”


Gusty smiled “He’s just a pony doing his job.”


I nodded my head “Yah…”


Gusty smirked as he replied “Yet he couldn’t land a blow on me. He couldn’t stop an ancient evil by himself. He could barely stand his own against a single person…”


“Hey!” I snapped back.


Gusty held up a talon as he continued “So… why does he get a pass when you don’t? You could have easily hid in that crowd instead of standing up for those ponies trapped on that stage. You could have left those tunnels, but you decided to stay fighting as hard as you could, to buy the rest of your team to collapse the tunnels trapping an ancient evil. You fought your hardest not to fight or slay a mad griffin trying to kill you… but worked even harder to safely restrain him so that he could be treated by professionals.”


He smiled as I looked up at him “You may have beaten yourself up at what you haven’t done… but I’d said you did a good job for just one person. We are not heroes or an army of the chosen sent to stand against the darkness. We are just ordinary people sent to deal with an impossible situation… and I’d say you’ve done a pretty good job staying true to yourself.”


He held up his character sheet showing an earth pony wearing a comically oversized diaper that could double as body armor “So how about we take a break from this chat and just have some silly stupid fun?”


I sniffed as I rubbed my eyes as my fur felt matted for some reason “That sounds like a good idea.”


Maybe I’m not the hero that I thought I should be… but that doesn’t mean that I can’t change, or that I can’t get better. I caught a glance of the menu in the corner of my eye… how all the countless number of points taunted me… beckoned to me to help give myself a little boost.


I closed the menu and looked back at the pen and paper sheet and smirked. I just had to take a page from Steel Halberd and try to earn the respect Gusty had given me, but right now… I just needed to come up with a good character name.



******



Steel Halberd


Steel Halberd followed Doctor Patch towards the restricted section of the building, where some of the patients were kept away from the general public either due to the severity of their disease, symptoms… or in cases like Rover the splice dragon pup… Because they were flank holes.


Doctor Patches looked at the diamond dog as the nurse kept apologizing “I’m sorry for having to interrupt, but Rover was being a little bit rough today.”


“No temperature! No stick! No blood!” the screaming diamond dog shouted as he tried to bat away the thermometer from his mouth.


Doctor Patches sighed as he said “We still need to check on your condition… now we can either stick this in your mouth or…”


Rover growled “You wouldn’t.”


Patches nodded his head “I can restrain you while Nurse Good Cheer uses the thermometer.”


The diamond dog glared at Steel “Why is he here?”


Steel rolled his eyes, as doctor patch used his magic to gently place a table down into the cell, with lots of belt straps. Nurse Good Cheer was looking for which thermometer would work best for the odd diamond dog dragon with hybrid biology, and exactly how large of a needle should be used for the patient.


Normally, Steel might have called her out but the white unicorn mare was dripping wet as the smell from soup, and had a few bits of wood stuck in her mane… mostly broken pieces of feeding utensils and tongue depressors, as she apparently made the mistake of entering the room with the diamond dog instead of simply using her magic to treat/restrain him.


Once the diamond dog was trying to chew off the straps that had come to life and held the raging beast down, did Doctor Patches focus on Steel “Sorry about this. At first we thought he was under the influence of a curse, or possibly some sort of mind control.”


He sighed, as the diamond dog was trying to snap at the large needle that was floating into the room “But as it turns out, his only real regret was that he was caught, as he actively tried stopping us from trying to treat him, when he found out we were trying to turn him back into a diamond dog.” The doctor glowered at the rowdy patient. 

 
Steel rubbed his chin “Then what did he think your were trying to do?”


Doctor Patch shook his head as he muttered “Trying to turn him back into a dragon, or trying to figure out how to turn ponies into one of those flaming reptiles. It didn’t help that he had tried to develop a hoarding habit, in an attempt to turn back into a one, or grow big enough to break out of the room.”


The pegasus stared impassively at the diamond dog now howling, as the needle was plunged into his arm “What do you mean by ‘trying’ to develop a hoarding habit?”


The doctor glanced at the room full of food trays “He kept trying to convince himself that the food trays were gems, and that if he had enough of them, he could break out of the cell, and force all the little ponies to pay him massive gem tributes. We heard him mumble it a lot when he was sleeping.” The doctor casually added.


Steel sighed, as apparently this diamond dog probably didn’t realize the difficulties dragons had in growing sizes… or that even if he was big enough to break out of this hospital Celestia would beat him up long before he tried to conquer Canterlot.


“What have you found out about him?” Steel asked out loud.


Doctor Patch shrugged “ For what we could figure out, The magic used to ‘splice’ him was a few odd combinations. Some of it similar to a mimic spell where one could copy the traits of another race onto another… a bit of what looks like changeling magic… and something else. I’d say something more akin to the magic of the Everfree or chaos magic, but it’s a bit… too orderly.”


Steel rose an eyebrow at that “Could you explain that?”


The doctor nodded his head “Well normally different species have different forms of biology. A simple version would be difference between a cold blooded animal and a warm blooded animal. Sure dragons have been able to get around some aspect with the use of internal magic and their own method of temperature regulation in relation to their fire breathing capabilities…”


“Smaller words doctor.” Steel reiterated.


He nodded his head again “Well Rover’s biology is mostly a composition of dragon and diamond dog, but the ‘fixer’ magic is used to help even out the balance between the two by ensuing just the right amount interaction between the two biologic systems to stabilize his condition. I’d say that he was used as a science experiment to test the difference between the volatility of two vastly different species, in an attempt to bind them together.”


Steel frowned “He was a dragon when he attacked the mayor of New Terra.”


Doctor Patch bit his lip as he muttered “Most likely, it was a copy species spell slowly falling apart, as the ‘fixer magic’ slowly took notice of the changes, and tried keeping or retaining certain aspects of his draconic nature as he slowly reverted back into a diamond dog.”


The doctor pulled out a clip board “In fact, this seemed like the case with many of the other subjects that Miss Cross had dealt with. The only reason why she didn’t notice the additions to the magic, is because she hasn’t had the same extensive records as I do.”


Steel looked back at the diamond dog “You mean somepony else in Canterlot was trying to make dragon hybrids?”


Rover roared out loud as flames shoot from his mouth. The pegasus took a step back as he prepared for trouble… only to see the diamond dog howling as he smoke drifted out of his mouth.


The nurse groaned “I’ll get the bucket” as she levitated a bucket full of water, and dumped it over the diamond dog’s head.


The unicorn doctor groaned “We warned you Mr. Rover, that while yes you can breath fire, your mouth, or to be more precise your tongue lacks the full mucus coating a dragon has, so you will be more likely to burn your own tongue than burn through the restrains next to your flammable fur.” He chided the quarrelsome patient


Steel shook his head as he tried to get back on topic “About the dragon pony hybrids… “


Doctor Patches shook his head “Oh no… Some foolish noble unicorns gives birth to a pegasus or earth pony and then gets the ‘brilliant’ idea of trying to ‘fix’ the mistake. Some try change the foal into a unicorn, but fail to realize that temporary alteration quickly fade away once the natural magic of the foal rejects the foreign change… or they try making the next ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ to grace the land. Naturally their attempts fail and Celestia has a few choice words with the parents involved.”


Steel looked back at the doctor “So you mean this cursed trader…”


“Probably isn’t a griffin.” Doctor Patch replied “If anything, they are trying to work their new form of magical alteration and are testing it on random ponies or races, to see just how much of a deviation they can create before their bodies reject the unnatural changes.”


Steel smirked as he stared at the diamond dog “Meaning, he’ll never turn into a great big dragon and go on a rampage?”


The unicorn chuckled “No, more likely he’s gained a habit of munch on gems and going into hibernation. Not exactly the key traits he is looking for.”


Steel nodded his head as the diamond dog shouted in rage “I will burn this kingdom to a…” and suddenly fell asleep in mid sentence.


Steel looked at the doctor as the nurse replied “He’s also gained the unfortunate habit of falling asleep the moment he works himself too much, though I don’t know if that’s a curse or a blessing to the rest of the staff.”


Doctor Patch nodded his head “Do you think you’ll be alright Miss Good Cheer?”


The nurse nodded her head “I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes.”


Steel followed the doctor out of the room as he felt a little more uneasy about this cursed trader now. At first he thought it was another random cursed item causing havoc… but the fact this individual was experimenting on his own allies?


He shivered, as not even Brass was that low.


They walked deeper into the hallway as he looked at some of the various rooms. Most of the ponies were off doing their best to treat their patients, but some of them were muttering curses and praying to Celestia to just skip the healing process and find a nice cold jail cell for the offending convict.


It didn’t take them long until they reached one of the doorways, with hazard warnings of dark magic and a couple of locks. The unicorn slowly worked his magic to undo the locks and open up the door, while Steel began to question why there weren’t that many guards around until the doors swung open.


A blast of cold air hit him, as he felt an unnatural chill shiver him down to his bones. He stared into the seemingly empty room that seemed to gnaw at his soul. He felt like taking a few steps back and slamming the doors shut, as this was feeling like the first chapter of a horror novel where the monster was lurking just around the corner.


That was, of course, when he saw the monsters of this horror novel, as he looked upon the cursed armor and felt ill. The dark twisted metal that screamed evil artifact stood in the center of the room. The tips of the gauntlets seemed to be stained in dried blood while the empty eye holes were able to stare at him in a predatory leer.


This should have been what bothered him or rather terrified him of the object… but there was something in the wind that tickled in his ears. He could hear sounds… voices…tiny whispers that seemed to accompany the armor, as he drew closer. How each fragment seemed to whisper promises of power… or curses against his very being. There was an almost literal aura of violence surrounding the armor, as he thought he could see… words… a floating box full of countless words and numbers just right out of his eyesight, that would make itself known if he just went a little bit…


“Are you okay?” The unicorn asked beside him.


Steel Halberd stared at the metal blockade and the various warning labels written across it. He hadn’t even noticed that he had walked into the blockade. He glanced back at the armor as it continued staring at him… almost longing for a new owner… no… a new host to dig itself into like some malevolent parasite.


He may have had a hard time believing that Gusty was the griffin that tried to kill him… but there was no mistaking that this… object had tried to kill him. Hopefully Celestia was finding someplace safe to dispose of it, and hopefully it involved an active volcano.


After one last glance at the cursed item Steel tried to figure out just how it was made or if he even wanted to know how they did it?


“So where exactly did you get the idea for this… treatment?” Steel hesitantly asked out loud


Doctor Patch frowned as he lead him to another door “That would be from one of the victims of the Timberton case.”


The doctor paused “I wanted to get the opinion of the Royal Guard, before I submitted my proposal to Celestia about trying to recreate the spell again.”


Steel shivered as he spoke in a soft tone “You mean there is another berserker being kept locked up here?”


Doctor Patch shook his head “Not exactly… but Steel Tide or Gusty as he is now referred to as… he had a friend, a known associate, who knew who he was before the madness took hold of him.”


The unicorn opened up the door revealing an earth pony in one of the medical rooms, similar to Rover the hybrid and Gusty the griffin. The earth pony had a dark brown coat and soft tan mane as he walked from one side of the room to another. Steel Halberd couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease, as he watched the pony slowly walked around in his jail cell.


Noticing his flank, Steel squinted his eyes as there seemed to be something off about the cutie mark… at first he thought it was just the light, but the cutie mark the earth pony had actually looked as if it was smeared onto his flank. The guard pony tried to make out the cutie mark which he first mistook it as a  paint stain… until he could make out teeth.


Slowly but surely, like one of those odd ink blot tests he could now start to make out the shape of the smeared wolf as it seemed to be baring it’s fangs out at the world, instead of invoking something cheery or virtuous like most other cutie mark, which blatantly looked vicious and remorseless.


Doctor Patch cleared his throat “From what I’ve been able to gather, his name was Colton. He was an adventurer hired to help guard a caravan and he apparently enjoyed painting and wanted to see the world… right up until one of the caravans he was guarding was attacked by Sanguine Point.”


Steel looked at the earth pony’s strikingly focused blue eyes. In fact, despite the fact the floor was made out of stone, the pony was being very careful making sure his hooves didn’t make any sounds as he walked from one end of the room to the other.


Doctor Patch sighed as he hung his head “Of course, that was before he joined Sanguine Point’s gang. After his encounter with the crazed unicorn... Colton then started calling himself Throat Ripper as he helped lead the assaults on the other caravans.”


Steel Halberd shook his head “Did he have a cutie mark before he became violent?” after all, most adventures didn’t had one and getting one in those circumstances was worrying.


Doctor Patch shook his head as he bitterly muttered “Of course not… but I refuse to believe that his natural talent or ‘purpose’ is hurting other ponies. I’ve seen some of the extreme cases of the Everfree Incident. I’ve dealt with various medical ailments were sane ponies acted far radically differently than they would normally act, and this is like nothing that I have seen before.”


Steel wasn’t an expert on cutie marks as symbols could often have different meaning depending on each pony… but wolves tended to be a simple cutie mark and could often representing teamwork, or standing together… maybe look out for one another. He couldn’t picture a cutie mark being actually be the cause for violence in a pony, much less that the unicorn was even suggesting that it was the cutie mark’s fault!


Steel nodded his head but there was a clear difference here. The ponies from the Everfree incident were victims of mind control… lots of varieties of mind control, and possibly influenced by dark magical artifacts… but none of those were saying that cutie marks were the problem!


The Canterlot unicorn must have noticed something as looked at Steel and firmly stated “We both saw the vast difference between Steel Tide and Gusty, just a few moments ago. Whatever happened to him it’s twisted him to his very core, to the point that it turned him into... this.”


Steel glanced back at the earth pony in the cell “Is he stable?”


The unicorn hesitated for a second to answering him, before the earth pony spoke “Hello Doctor Patch, Did you bring somepony else with you doctor?” The words spoken were cordial, but was monotone devoid of any of the expected warmth.


The doctor sighed “It's nothing important Mr. Colton, Just somepony who was curious about your work… your art work to be precise.”


Steel felt a little bit off, as he didn’t know what the unicorn was talking about, but the earth pony just simply nodded in understanding as he took a few steps back, allowing him to get a better look at the room. Now that he had stopped focusing on the earth pony did he actually spot all the various canvases,  drawings and paintings strewn about all over the walls.


The royal guard wasn’t much of an artist, but he was surprised at the level of detail given to each painting as vast forests merged with open lakes, as the image of a bright and sunny sky rested on the ceiling above the earth pony. As detailed and beautiful the paintings seemed, there was an underlying feeling of sinisterness or macabre while the earth pony stood by them as various paints brushes and cans littering the floor around him as he looked at them with disinterest.


Doctor Patches cleared his throat “He just has a few questions for you Mr. Colton…”


The earth pony nodded going along with the doctor’s act, as Steel looked up at the ceiling “Uh…” all eyes were on him and he needed to say something “How did you paint the ceiling? I mean you don’t have any wings or a horn…”


Personally, the pegasus felt that was a legitimate question. After all, how could the earth pony manage to do that without at least a ladder?


The earth pony just shrugged “I had plenty time to work on it and I was bored. I had also used the bed sheets to help secure a harness to keep me safe.”


Steel glanced at the ceiling as the second question that came to mind was where did he manage to secure the bed sheets or better yet… how did he secure them? Was this one of those adventurer things that only raised more questions than answers?


The doctor gave a less than friendly jab with his elbow into the royal guard’s side as he said “And how do you feel today, Mr. Colton?”


The earth pony just shrugged once again “Bored.”


Steel kept staring at the level of detail in his work “You mean you're bored because you finished the paintings?”


The earth pony sighed “No I’m just… there’s no spark. No flare… I just don’t feel it anymore.”


Steel slowly nodded his head, as he pretended to understand “So why are you locked up?”


“Because I’m in fact a danger to society.” He replied in a board monotone voice “I mean… sure, I had a drive or talent for it before, until Sanguine taught me better. After he gave me my cutie mark.”


There was something about that statement that just didn’t… sound right to Steel. Oh he had heard of cutie mark stories were a pony learned their destiny with another pony’s help… but for some reason that didn’t seem to match the  earth pony’s remark.


The unicorn wasn’t much help, as he simply seemed to nodded his head in confirmation, which was ridiculous. You can’t just give out cutie marks as if they were postcards or fruit baskets to be given out on a whim!


The earth pony continued as a smile started to appear “I mean first it was the little stuff… the right punch on the body… the right kick to dislocate or break a bone…” The smile grew further as a hint of joy filled his voice “The little sounds they make when they're frightened. The look in their eyes when you twist the limb or cut into the flesh…”


His eyes had that same growing glee a pony would had when they talked about earning their cutie mark or how they talked about doing what they loved as he continued “Each new attack, but on new inspiration… ideas… right up until that jerk named Brass betrayed us all.”


Steel felt a hint of bile in his throat by the worrying implications as he said “Did you kill any ponies?”


The earth pony just casually rubbed his chin not bothered at all by the nature of the question “It’s odd, but I haven’t killed anyone...yet. I mean sure, I was a little squeamish at first, but Sanguine was always there for me and encouraging me every step of the way.”


The unicorn nodded his head “You mean he taught you your technique?”


The earth pony nodded as he talked fondly about the memory “Each trick I learned came from him. I mean the talent he had… just watching how he did it… you just had to see it to believe it and when you did… I just felt a driving urge to copy it… to hone that trick until I could do it with the same grace and skill that he had.”


He rubbed his chin “He had even talked about showing me something for the ages that he was going to pull off in Timberton… something he was sure that would have caught my inspiration, but as you know it didn’t work out. There was a sudden squadron of guards and we were told to regroup since we weren’t close enough to reinforce Sanguine’s position.”


Steel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He heard about it. He didn’t know what Sanguine had done there, but it was bad enough to actually enrage Celestia even after the battle was over. He could still remember over hearing some of the guards on how Celestia had treated the petrified statue in her wrath.


The earth pony sighed as he hung his head “Nobody even told me what happened to him…”


Steel shook his head “So why do you still paint?”


The earth pony glanced at the walls as he replied in boredom “Because I’m bored and gray walls are dull. Doctor Patch was nice enough to give me paint to pass the time a little. I mean with a little bit of red paint I might be able to draw something else, but the Doc is only keeping me supplies all the other sunny colors except red. I mean sure he did give me white paint for the clouds that I could have used for bone marrow, but if I just left them as that dull gray… “


He shuddered “Having to look up at that glaring gap each day would have driven me insane.”


Doctor Patches nodded his head “Thank you for your time and I’ll try and see if my supervisor will allow me to get a larger variety, but no promises…”


The earth pony nodded his head as he went back to walking around his cell as the two of them left the room. Steel waited until they were far out of earshot before he finally casually asked him about it “Aren’t you in charge of this wing?”


The doctor nodded his head “And he’s sticking with the ‘sunny’ colors for now. Still you’ve seen how he is… his talent for painting and you can’t tell me that there’s something wrong with him. In each case were he increased his threshold for violence this Sanguine character was there.” He spat out, as if he had taken a bit out of a really rotten prune “ Each drive towards more violences only heightened with each forced encounter with that rotten bonehead and somehow, in twisting Colton, a cutie mark appeared and developed a talent and taste at inflicting pain on to other ponies in the process.”


The pegasus rose an eyebrow “Just what did happen to Sanguine Point by the way?”


The unicorn rolled his eyes “Oh Stone Mortar was experimenting with some sticky substance that harden into rock and there was a minor ‘accident’ where the petrified bone head was dropped into a tub full of it.”


Steel Halberd flinched as it would be difficult enough curing a petrification case without the cockatrice… but only Celestia would know just how hard it would be to slowly chisel out a petrified body from inside a block of stone without damaging the body.


Doctor Patch glanced at Steel as he continued “But do you think you could suggest my proposal after seeing him. I mean after removing the taint that was afflicting Gusty I’m sure we could modify the spell for it to help treat…”


“Have you tried other spells before?” Steel interrupted “I mean there were victims from the Everfree Incident…”


“Yes we tried those.” The unicorn bitterly replied “Those were more easy to deal with, especially if they already had cutie marks. In fact those ponies had a faster time recovering from the mad changeling’s corruption than those who didn’t have cutie marks.”


He pointed a hoof at the door “We’ve tried a cure for cutie pox even, but that thing on his flank it’s real.. but… it’s… it’s incomplete. It’s like somepony made half a cutie mark. Part curse, part cutie pox, and part eldritch madness because none of it makes sense!”


Steel took a deep breath as he tried to calm the doctor down “Well what do you know about it?”


Doctor Patch glared at the floor as if it was the culprit behind it all “Nothing. I mean we have learned that ‘adventures’ are more susceptible to dark magic, mind control, or what would qualify as a ‘curse’ more than the average Equestrian…”


He rubbed his chin “Which probably helps explain their rapid or almost vicious paranoia towards anything close to those topics. In fact, some of us believe the Cursed Trader probably targeted New Terra for this very reason.”


The good doctor continued “Still, I’m sure with the proper modifications and safety procedures we could replicate the spell that we used on Gusty and use it to cure Colton…” 


Steel held up a hoof and took a deep breath “Doctor… why are you telling me all of this?”


He knew he was a member of the Royal Guard, and while he was here on official (but mostly unofficial) business some of it felt like something a pony higher up on the food chain would be informed about. Yes the armor was related to the mishap in New Terra and the treatment of Valkyrie’s friend… and information about the diamond dog’s condition could be related as important to him since he was trying to track down the cursed trader… but the earth pony wasn’t even related to anything he was working on.


The unicorn hesitated until they finally reached the door where Valkyrie and Gusty were residing in. They could hear the mare’s laughter mingled with the griffins as a sad look appeared on the unicorn’s face.


With a heavy sigh he gestured towards the door “You and that mare already went through this, seeing somegriffin who you knew was being afflicted by a curse and not recognizing him anymore. She worked hard trying to tell Celestia who Gusty was before that curse warped his mind, and it was thanks to her efforts in convincing Celestia did we try the spell.”


Steel bit the inside of his cheek as he didn’t really count himself as part of the effort to cure the griffin. If anything he was expecting to comfort Valkyrie if anything went wrong, even though he was terrified of the griffin before he was cured.


The doctor looked at the pegasus and griffin inside the room with sad eyes as he continued “You two probably have seen the worst that could happen and yet the ‘Valiant Valkyrie’ and her ‘Shining Knight’ always save the day.”


Steel blinked as that seemed to come out of nowhere… especially the shining knight part. Oh he could certainly see Valiant being added to Valkyrie’s name, but Steel Halberd couldn’t remember anything that would earn him the nickname Shining Knight!


Still, the unicorn continued in praises “Your friends with a changeling that you saved who had been forced to act like a puppet on a stage in the Everfree for the amusement of a mad queen. You worked to stop an ancient evil before she could threaten anypony… saved a friend who lost his mind.” He ended with silent acclaim.


Steel’s brain tried to comprehend the sudden list of accomplishments. He didn’t ‘save’ anypony. He was more or less dragged along by Valkyrie to stop two fillynappers. He didn’t know that there was a whole castle full of crazed adventures and one insane changeling queen. As for the ancient evil… that was with the backup of an entire Royal Guard regiment and they probably had help by finding and gathering any local pegasi for that pitfall trap!


He almost felt like laughing about having ‘saved’ Gusty. All he could remember was trying to dodge the killer griffin’s blows while he relied on Valkyrie to save the day!


There was a look of pleading hope in the unicorn’s eyes as he stared at Steel Halberd “If anything you are the only person who I could freely trust with this decision, after everything you’ve been through.”


There was a lump in Steel’s throat as he suddenly felt uneasy. Passing on a request was simple, as all he had to do was fill out a few papers and maybe it might reach Celestia’s desk, if he was lucky… and yet the unicorn seemed to stare at him as if Steel held the very judgement in his own hooves… that by some strange twist of logic if Doctor Patches could convince Steel Halberd of his case… then Princess Celestia would grant his request without a second thought!


“I’ll let Princess Celestia know about your request.” Steel slowly replied as he saw the pony’s eyes widened with hope “But I can’t promise anything as it will be the Princess’s decision.”


The pony quickly bowed in gratitude as he said “Thank you! That’s all I ask. Just a chance.”


Steel felt the twist in his stomach as he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want the unicorn’s praise or gratitude, because he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. In fact, he had no idea what Celestia’s reaction to the request might be, yet the unicorn seemed to be acting as if the request had already been approved and all that was left was the paperwork to be finalized.


With a deep breath he hoped that Valkyrie had a better time than he had.



******



Celestia



The sun slowly moved across the sky, as Celestia more or less crawled to her favorite chair as she tried to relax. This was her moment of respite after having finished the remaining paperwork and vanquish the vile demon called bureaucracy and it’s insidious minions until tomorrow.


Her gaze caught a hold of a book resting on an old chair as she felt a small tug on her heart as she lifted it up. The book itself wasn’t that special… but due to circumstances it was now one of the few remaining books from the Crystal Kingdom and another bitter reminder that she could still make mistakes.


She could still remember when she gave the book to Lockheart and how he was surprised at her gift to him. She remembered how for just one brief moment they had discarded all pretenses and just simply talked as one pony to another. The princess closed her eyes as she could recall the fear on his face… the fear that never truly went away as he eventually fled in fear of her.


With a deep breath she sighed as she couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing… and if he would ever come back. 


“It’s best not to dwell on the mistakes of the past Celestia.” she reminded herself.


Right now, she just needed to relax and maybe look and see how the rest of her little ponies were doing. That always had cheered her up as she prepared to gaze out the window… only to notice on the window sill what should have been a small journal, no bigger than a clipboard, was now for some odd reason was the size of a small journal book.


Celestia lifted up the book which was rather costly or inefficient to produce in large quantities due to the various magic, spells, materials and time needed to craft those, but it was something that helped her stay in contact with her ‘slightly’ extended family.


Sure, certain members of the Blueblood Family were similar to unwanted in-laws, but sometimes (once every few generation or so) one would manages to surprise her… or it was nice trying to catch up on the day to day activities like Bell’s gossips. The current heir Blueblood (formally named Glint) as he tried to ‘restore’ their family honor and secure his claim to the Blueblood name… And of course, Leo (the youngest son) was also trying to claim the Blueblood name before their father ‘retired’ in a quaint settlement far from Canterlot where his blunders would go unnoticed.


She rubbed her hoof over the book as a part of her thought about Lockheart… maybe she should have tried giving him one of these instead of letting their strained (almost non-existent) relationship fall apart. In fact, maybe she should try coming up with a way to keep in contact with some of her more favorite students. She could even test certain methods of communication like dragon fire or mirror script…


Celestia’s thoughts paused for a second, while she felt the weight of the book as her nephew seemed had written a lot more than she had expected in the past few days, making her feel a little bit guilty at not noticing it sooner. Still, it was probably about some minor issue.


Did she really want to open up the book and listen to more of Prince Leo’s constant whining(?)… but she was rather curious at how he had managed to write so much in order to fill up all of these pages within the book without her notice!


In the end, her curiosity won out as she decided to skip to the complaints and see what her nephew Prince Leo had written, as she read the first page “Dear Aunty. I am doing fine. Sure you may have a few misgivings in the regards of what the role an Equestrian Commissar, but I will prove to you that this position can still benefit Equestria.”


Celestia rolled her eyes at that statement as the position still sounded useless. Her nephew had found some unfinished notes left by Lockheart while rummaging through what was left behind from the (possible) alicorn’s escape. The job of a commissar sounded like a political officer which was kind of useless, since anypony who joined the royal guard knew what they were fighting for.


In fact it was the officers, generals, and the higher ranking ponies who were in charge of guiding the lower ranks or to help ensure that they didn’t cause a diplomatic incident.


At best, all she would expect from her nephew would accomplish would be creating some sort of gentlecolts club within the Royal guard (that he will of course indulge himself in) as they would most likely just end up  spending more time enjoying parties in Canterlot than being anywhere near the front line… or anything of importance.


Her nephew tried to make a case for his ‘exclusive’ club and how they would help Equestria (which he never explained) and Celestia decided to give him a chance…. by sending him along with the rest of the expedition sent to the north to deal with the feral changeling menace.


Of course, the plan was to have him stay in Frozen Hill to fill out reports and requisition forms which was just a small settlement near the edge of Equestria and see how ‘successful’ the job would be out near the frozen wastelands. At the very least he might be helpful in ferrying back reports to Canterlot on the success of the Yakyakestan mission and teach her nephew a small lesson in humility and toughening up him more while living in more spartan conditions at the same time.


She smirked as she thought it might be fun to see how her nephew was faring outside of Canterlot  as she continued reading  “There maybe be a few errors… well mistakes or would it count as a misunderstanding? Apparently, Commissar doesn’t translate well to the other rash adventurers types. Some were talking about not wanting to take orders from me, while some threatened me about what they would do if I pulled a ‘commissar’, since they weren’t in the Royal Guard. Still, the other commanders of the mission don’t have any problem with my presence… through I am a little bit upset that the griffin named Verrat laughed at my face when she heard the job of what an Equestrian Commissar is supposed to be.”


Celestia nodded her head as she flipped the page “Day four… Frozen hill is creepy, but it’s a ‘quaint’ town in the fact that it looks like it was built in the homage to a horror novel. The houses have a sinister post classical art style that look as if they could fall over at any moment and the local ponies don’t say anything as they just keep forlornly staring at us. I mean we’ve tried talking to some of them, but each time we do they just shut their doors in our faces. But most disturbing of all, is their Mayor who is a creepy pony calling himself Sunny Days. He’s a practically bleached white pony in a white suit with a purple bowl of punch for a cutie mark and he always has this creepy wide smile on his face. Do you know him? Do you know why the creepy happy pony is in charge of this town?


No aunty, I am not attempting to subvert his mayorship or have him thrown out of town just because I don’t like him. I just honestly find that pony creepy… Not creepy like the old groundskeeper at the castle ground garden, but creepy in the sense that he frightens me more than this whole town does in his own twisted way.


Still, the rest of the common ponies think I should ‘suck it up’ as they say and just stay here in the creepy town and help manage supply runs. It was there idea. Not mine. So, as my noble duties demand I shall do my best to help warm up the townsponies and help setup the outpost as we try to establish a secure supply line for the rest of the other ponies on the expedition.”


Celestia took a deep breath as she turned the next page, fully expecting a mindless rant about the inferior lodging given to him, and how he whines about wanting to go back to Canterlot or have stuff from Canterlot sent over to Frozen Hill.


To her surprise and horror the pages had green splashes over them. There were a few bits of red blood stained onto the pages along with water stains, possibly from somepony crying.


“Changelings! Demon bugs! Locust! This place is filled with the evil bugs!” Prince Leo had written in a panic as the words as Celestia tried to make sense of some of the more unstained legible words “Send help! Send Help! Send help!”


Celestia stared at the page in horror ready to call the royal guard to come sweeping into the settlement until she remembered that there were more pages… obviously this must be some sort of prank… or something bad had happened, but he made it out alright.


With those thoughts in mind she turned the page as the writing was less of frenzied than the last entry, to her momentary relief,  but it was nowhere near as neat as it should have been to be reassuring for her as she continued to read “Good news, found some ponies. Bad news the town is under attack by the monster bug ponies and their leader is the creepy cult pony of a mayor! He doesn’t use mind control… oh no he just grabs ponies and shove them into a steam room blasting his messages and speeches to them until they finally break and submit to his will!”


“He believes the vile bug ponies are the ‘chosen race of the planet’ because they feed on love instead of eating the plants or it’s creatures! Oh and that cutie mark? Turns out he was some sort of cultist before he came to Equestria. Not the normal trying to summon an eldritch being cultists… no apparently there is a league far more insane than trying to summon monsters from beyond the stars that doesn’t require the darkest tombs of black magic known to sentient life.


Oh and apparently the punch bowl is a reference too…


The page stopped there as Celestia quickly turned the page. A part of her was still hoping that this was a badly written prank from her nephew, but the sinking feeling in her gut said otherwise.


“Okay good news (indecipherable handwriting with various crossed out words) … evil cult pony is knocked out and tied up. Really wishing the Equestrian Commissar had the right to shoot ponies right now, as even unconscious he’s still really creepy.


The twisted mockeries of life in the shape of bugs has been PURGED with holy wonderful blessed  fire. I mean  a lot of fire, and a bit of explosives, with a dash of insecticide, but mostly fire and toxic death to Tartarus spawned monsters!


Oh, and I gained an aid. Her name is Emerald Shimmer. She is a helpful pony who had helped me take out the evil bugs while I was in need of a helping hoof in helping find a helpful amount of ways to remove the demon bugs.
Oh did I mention how helpful your advice was on the job of an Equestrian Commissar and how you were right along?


If she didn’t know any better there was something wrong about this emerald pony… and she didn’t like how much… emphasis he had used when writing or talking about the ‘holy purge’ of the feral changelings or the fact that these pages seemed to have been rewritten several times, mostly due to indecipherable hoofwriting or various words continuing to be crossed out throughout the passage.


Celestia looked over the pages, as she tried to make out some of the passages or get a clearer idea on what was going on, At least, until she head a knock on the window glass outside, causing her to jump out of her seat, and then spot a pegsus mailpony flying right outside her window.


Celestia opened the windows sashes up, feeling slightly embarrassed as the package pony cheerfully replied “Package delivery to Princess Celestia.”


A small box full of papers was placed onto her desk. Celestia looked at the seal recognizing it as reports from the team sent to deal with the yak problem… and noticed a request to move Prince Leo to the expedition force.


Celestia looked back at the papers and then at the notebook… obviously she had missed something in Prince Leo’s short hoof letters sent back to her… and that there were far too many letters for this to be some sort of elaborate prank being played on her for not immediately responding to her nephew’s letters.


Celestia skimmed over the first few after action reports. Most of it consisted of minor details like how many ponies were injured, saved, which thankfully none of them were killed or grievously wounded.


A few reports seemed out of place or built more on hearsay and rumor, but she managed to find one stack of papers with… a business portfolio?


Lifting the stack out of the box she glanced at the first document “Dear Princess Celestia. Due to the current actions that I have committed it was suggested that I give a stately report on how this situation had devolved into the untimely regret that has formed before you your grace.”


Celestia turned the page to see what looked like a cover letter to a job application. Normally she would have tossed it aside since it wasn’t related to the incident in Frozen Hill… but when she saw the pony’s name she hesitated.


Apparently the pony called Sunny Day had left his prior work experience… including being a former cult leader for Sunny Dale Camp, Sunny Harmony Group, Sanguine Point, Cult of Nulcotiska, Sect of Harmony, Anointed Blessing and a formal request to start or join the Cult of Dawn Breaker.


She bit her lip, as the ‘Anointed Blessing’ cult seemed to be the worship of Changelings, since they feed on love instead of eating plants or meat… and the Cult of Dawn Breaker was a formal request for him to start to worship her.


Celestia quickly set aside the document and began to wonder just how hot a fireplace must be to utterly reduce the ashes to a point they could no longer be recovered by any form of magic. Still this cultist in transition had left her a short hoof version of the events that had taken place in Frozen hill.


It was rather… unsettling. Almost like a short hoof version of one of those horror novels, except written from the perspective of the villain, in an almost delightful cheery tone, and one that made the solar princess start to worry for her nephew’s condition. She looked for another more detailed version of the events that had transpired.


In her search, she had managed to find an odd picture of an emerald unicorn mare with light blue mane. She was wearing a vest similar to the garb Prince Leo was wearing, with leather armor covering her body including her cutie mark.


Attached to the artist rendition of her, was the rather well written report that seemed to involve her nephew… as apparently this mare was his new aid along with another report… which sadly wasn’t that helpful as most of it seemed to be an attempt in heavily embellishing the events to make Prince Leo out to be some sort of heroic dashing white knight who saved the day.


She now had three rather troubling reports all detailing the same event, but none of them gave her a clear idea besides the fact that her nephew was attached by Duran’s forces and that he had managed to make it out alive.


Celestia forces her magic as she lifted all the papers out of the box and with her years of countless experience looking over paperwork, she glanced through them all trying to find the exact report she needed to fully explain what had happen.


Countless papers flashed by her face, revealing drawings of dead ferals, recused towns ponies, injured guards, and her nephew looking rather uncomfortable about the praising crowd surrounding him of the expedition force seemed to be giving him now, while his new aide always seemed to be hiding in the background.


It took her a little while until finally she found the report she was looking for. The hoof writing was decent, as she also recognized the seal on the report from her spy Right Hoof who was sent to give a detailed report of her nephew’s actions and how his ‘project’ was actually turning out.


The town of Frozen Hill was quiet. None of the ponies talked as we thought they were being paranoid or cold to outsiders. It turns out that they were actually ferals, having long replaced the town’s population.


Prince Leo wanted to rest in a building other than the rough barracks or resting areas set aside for the troops. So Prince Leo, Verrat, and I had went to the Mayor’s house to inform him of our presence, while Prince Leo was looking for alternative lodging.


Sunny Day didn’t set off any bells as he had claimed that the previous mayor was out gather supplies with a few of his ponies, but he had promised he would be able to have us meet with the mayor in the morning when he came back. After Prince Leo had asked about better accommodations, Sunny Day had offered for us to rest inside the manor so that we could be ready to meet with him as soon as possible.


Prince Leo seemed more eager to rest with the common soldiers than stay in the same building with Sunny Day… but to be fair the pony didn’t blink and there was something unsettling about him. Still, we were all invited to stay, and refusing would have been insulting the mayor and this Sunny Day.


At that point I wished I had chosen to stay with Razor Wing and slept with the troops. When we had retired to the room the three of us were left in the same hallway… but Verrat and Prince Leo had started coming to blows with each other. Prince Leo was upset with the lack of apparent respect she was giving him and she was rather angry at the fact that a political officer was being assigned to the group.


Apparently the term Commissar roughly translate to trouble as in the best case is someone who reports back to the Princess about the behavior and punishment for the army… and at worst executing on the spot those who defy their orders.


Looking back it may have been a blessing, as at that moment the feral locusts had decided to attack, breaking up the fight before it spiraled out of control. I wish to say that we didn’t panic but that would be lying. Verrat braced the door. Prince Leo used his magic to shoot any of the changelings that started clawing their way through the walls, and I had accidently tossed a lamp at one of them.


The fire quickly spread across the room forcing us to work together and try to find a way out. After a hasty plan Prince Leo agreed to try to teleport us all out onto the streets, while Verrat threw a stick of dynamite.


Apparently she was saving some of the explosives she had for when they found the nest. Needless to say, the resulting explosion and the awoken the rest of the expedition force before the ferals could finish their attack.


Celestia looked back at the other two letters, as apparently Prince Leo didn’t want to include blowing up a manor in his report, while Sunny Day and Emerald didn’t notice the explosion, but the ashes of the manor.


The Spell worked for the most part as we were able to escape the manor before it exploded. Unfortunately, it failed in killing all the feral changelings that soon set upon us. We fought our way to one of the buildings and tried hiding in one of the basements in the attempt to narrow the areas where the feral bugs could attack, only to discover the tunnels hidden underneath the house.


Celestia skimmed over some of the details as she was at least happy that Prince Leo had explained that what his idea was, also that he was trying to clarify that he was just a glorified cleric in charge of requisition, and trying to get the towns ponies to like them.


Apparently, they had gotten separated during one of the fights underground and captured by Sunny Day who apparently was preparing to re-educate them until Prince Leo showed up with Emerald Shimmer.


Prince Leo looked nervous, scared, and quite honestly confused, but not that I could blame him. The ferals moved into position to capture him as Sunny Day admitted his plan and that he was not brainwashed or a changeling. He then added that he had in fact used non-magical means to break the minds of the townsponies and twist them to his will.


Emerald Shimmer unleashed a blast of magic destroying one of the pipes to the steam room, blanketing the room in a burning mist. We managed to take them by surprise, and in a sudden bout of convenient luck for us Emerald Shimmer conveniently informed us where the important volatile supplies were being kept in the town and where the Locust hive was.


Celestia rubbed her chin as she looked at Emerald Shimmer’s report and Right Hoof’s report as she glanced at his summary of Emerald Shimmer. I do not know of why she decided to follow Prince Leo’s commands after the battle, but it seemed that she was operating under the assumption that he was in charge… and the prince didn’t exactly seem overly fond of the mare‘s seemingly more capableness then his or her groundless high reverence toward him. If anything, the prince seemed ready to admit to being a nobody if not a coward if that would remove her from his service.


Still, it was thank to her fortuitous assistance that we were able to find the much needed supplies¸and the easy access to heart location of the hive. While we were unable to make contact with the main forces, we had no other choice but to carry the impromptu requisitioned cart full of very volatile insecticide tanks down into the lightly defended tunnels to burn the hive and smoke the feral bugs out of their dens.


In the course of path to the center of the underground hive Prince Leo had actually proven himself to have a decent knack in hacking though the enemies with his sword, while Emerald Shimmer helped provide him assistance by blasting away any feral that got too close to him or managed to avoided one of his deadly strikes. Verrat had helped take care of most of them while we made it down to the source of the locusts.


We had found the rest of the missing villagers and worked fast to free the ponies to strong for Sunny Day’s harsh recruitment tactics and set the spawning tree on fire, along with the insecticide.


I have never seen Prince Leo laugh with such a gleeful expression at the sight of all those burning ferals around us Princess. Of course, this might have been due to the stress of the night’s events as he was probably starting to break down from the stress.


Still, the rest of the soldiers and mercenaries were able to finish off the remaining ferals driven out by the insecticide and helped place the town under equine control once again. Emerald Shimmer had made it her proud duty to help report Prince Leo’s actions to the commanders… albeit with some embellishments to them.


Verrat didn’t seem to stop her as apparently she had admitted that he had managed quite well considering the circumstances and seemed to have a much better opinion of the prince after fighting side by side with him. Apparently, the seemingly heroic achievements  were somewhat a bit too praiseworthy for the prince’s liking as it impressed commander Razor Wind enough to have Prince Leo continue along with them in the journey, reassigning him from Requisition duty behind army lines… to Requisition duty in the front line and to help assist the Equestrian and mercenary forces to work together.


Emerald quickly volunteered herself to be his aid and Prince Leo seemed as if he was about to cry in despair at that moment. Sadly, the rest of the army took the sight as tears of joy instead of tears of sorrow.


To finish up this report, Sunny Day has agreed to take punishment for his actions and accept any verdict the Equestrian courts will give him… though he has started talking about how he was wrong for refusing Day Breaker’s divinity.


On a side note, I have not seen him blink for three days straight, so I’m not even sure if he had even slept, or exactly what he means by the gaze of the sun goddess, but I believe that he may be working on his insanity plea.


Celestia took a deep breath as she rubbed her head and tried to think of a nice quite place she could send Sunny Day to, and if that place should be a jail cell or a mental ward? She also made a mental note to check the journal more often as apparently her nephew had gotten way over his head… which actually might be a good thing depending on how things work out.


Celestia levitated the box over her desk as she figured out the perfect solution for it… she removed her nephew’s journal and placed the rest of the box in our OUT PILE, or to be more specific… it was being sent to both divisions of the Royal Guard.


They were the ones helping deal with the Feral Changelings in Equestria, and they were the ones who could make sense of this mess, send the necessary ponies to help the town. And of course, try to get a much more clear and summarized version of the events that had transpired over at Frozen Hill.


Celestia sat back down in her chair ready to ship it off… only for the sound of a rather loud and almost comical sound erupted from her seat. Without even having to look she pulled out the deflated whoopee cushion that had been placed underneath her seat pillow.


She could also hear the faint giggling sound of one tiny breezie coming from inside her desk. A faint glow from her horn appeared as she used her magic to open up the hidden compartment of her desk and retrieved the breezie.


“This is for getting back at me from this morning isn’t it.” Celestia replied in a deadpan tone.


“Maybe… ” Cloud Puff replied with a guilty smirk “But I do have good news for you.”


Celestia nodded her head as she placed the breezie on her desk before wrapping up the box full of letters and reports from the newly dubbed ‘Frozen Hill’ Incident “What is it?”


Hopefully, it would be better than this unexpected mess that landed on her desk. She also made note to make sure to send a letter to the expedition force to make their reports a bit… more collected than the random collection of reports written by seemingly everypony that was a part of the group.


“Oh, I had been talking to that one pony who visited your office today.” She replied in a sing song voice


Celestia rose an eyebrow as she stared at the tiny breezie “Really?”


Cloud Puff nodded her head “I was curious about who he was.”


Celestia made a soft chuckle “He was just a pony who was helping me out with the Yaks. As for his job… he’s a sort of middle pony who helps ponies find jobs and other ponies that just so happen to need important jobs to be done.”


Cloud Puff smirked as she repeated “Oh I was just curious about who he was… after all it’s not anypony you tell the story of Erlking to.” She said surreptitiously


The solar princess now gave Cloud Puff her full attention as she firmly stated “He was just curious about the Breezies…” Cloud Puff nodded as her grin continued to grow “And it’s not like that Cloud Puff!”


The implied suggestion that there was something ‘between’ her and Maxwell was silly of course, as she doesn’t seem really see him in that light anyway. Oh sure, the spell had shown a positive reaction, especially in terms of compatibility between them, and he had been rather very helpful in dealing with some of her own quandaries, all the while being able to help act as a middle pony between many Equestrians and Adventures.


The tiny Breezie’s smirk continued to grow like one of the castle maids who just found a juicy bit of gossip, much to Celestia’ annoyance.


“It’s not like that.” Celestia denied in her firm voice “and you fully know as well I…”


“Oh, don’t start with another of your ‘I don’t have time’ speeches, or that it wouldn’t work out…” Cloud Puff replied in irritation as she tried to rest on Celestia’s right shoulder.


Celestia of course shrugged  the tiny breezie off her “That is usually the case. Running a kingdom is a tough job, and there isn’t a lot of time where I can just go and try going on a date or…”


There was an awkward silence as the breezie waited petulantly for Celestia to finish her usual rehearsed answers for not going on a date. In fact, it had become more of a routine to dismiss any notions of romance for herself, or that the princess didn’t care about dating anymore. In fact, she never thought much of it until…


Cloud Puff chuckled “When ponies started asking about if the newest alicorn, what’s his name…” as the breezie hadn’t really meet Lockheart “... was in the castle might be your foal? Is this about dating or not dating, because you haven’t went on a date since the paleoponies invented the wheeled cart?”


Celestia shook her head as she spoke with a hint of annoyance in her voice “Cloud Puff…”


The Breezie rolled her eyes “I mean, you won’t ask because having a stable tradition of your public image as the ever maternal ruler that you crafted around yourself. In fact you’ve been wearing that mask for so long that getting you outside of your usual comfort zone is difficult these days for you? Then of course, there is  the whole grandma effect where you known all the nobles sense they were  diapered foals kind of makes the  whole romantic entanglement difficult.”


The Solar Princess felt her face started to turn red, as she muttered “I have a lot of work and…”


“One day off during the Cultural Festival.” Cloud Puff cheerfully stressed.


Celestia looked down at the tiny breezie as she couldn’t tell where the little pony was going with that, but she had worked very hard  that she would get one day off where she wouldn’t have to deal with any work of her job.


The Tiny Breezie shook her head in exasperation as she flew back to the table “Oh, it’s just that Maxwell had agreed to help show a pony around the Cultural Fair…”


Celestia let a soft chuckle out of her mouth as she said “So Maxwell is finding a guide for somepony.”


“Actually, he is personally acting as the guide for this pony!” Cloud Puff add in a sing song voice much to Celestia’s annoyance. “You know… visiting places, eating in restaurants, exploring the sights…”


Celestia tried her best to ignore Cloud Puff as she knew her friend was trying to get a rise out of her. If anything this was just a harmless tour guide job where he was helping escort somepony or more likely helping somepony out with some various task during the Cultural Festival.


Cloud Puff hung over her shoulder as she continued “He seemed really interested in her too. It was kind of cute seeing how flustered he got when I was talking about her.”


Maxwell was probably trying to make sure he got everything right in order to help her out. After all this was a job being given to him by a breezie envoy. Most ponies would be nervous and would want to leave a good impression to somepony of Cloud Puff’s importance.


Cloud Puff floated right in between her eyes as she rested on Celestia’s noise  “He heard about how Sundancer was an overworked pony who was getting to have a day off. He seemed really interested when I explained that she wanted somepony to help her look around the fair, see the sights, and that she was a bit shy.” She grinned as if the implication was as clear as day


Celestia just gave a slight huff knocking the breezie off balance and hopefully teaching her a lesson about trying to stand on somepony’s nose. Besides trying to confirm or deny anything would just encourage the little pest.


“Oh there more to it than that.” the Breezie replied as she tried to regain her balance “She is used to having ponies pile problems on her, rushing or working on extra problems because she fell under the pressure of ponies around her, and to top it all off… Maxwell has heard wonderful stories about this sunny little pony!”


Celestia tried not to roll her eyes as it sounded more and more like Maxwell wasn’t able to get a date with the pony because work got in the way. It almost sounded as if Cloud Puff was playing matchmaker and was now either making sure Celestia was okay… or more likely rubbing it into her face. 


Cloud Puff held her hooves together and smiled “So what do you think?”


Celestia looked at the little breezie at the end of her nose “You are asking me what I think of Maxwell ‘escorting’ Sundancer around on the one day off I have during the Cultural fair?”


Cloud Puff nodded her head as she seemed to be slowly creeping forward.


The solar princess pretended to be deep in thought as she explained “He is going to be with a lovely young mare which he has shown a slight interest in, but otherwise has been unable to spend time with her in an informal setting…”


“Yep!” She added cheerfully “A very nice and friendly, cute mare who hasn’t been able to get a day off in a long time.”


“Well good for him.” Celestia replied as she was happy that he found some special pony… even though this was probably a lot less romantic than Cloud Puff was hinting at. “I hope everything turns out alright for them.”


There was a silence as the solar princess watched the Breezie’s smile nearly threatening to consume her tiny little face “Really? I mean really, really?”


“Really.” Celestia finished as she had her own plans to think about.


“So you're completely fine with it Sunny Jelly Belly?” The breezie replied


Celestia frowned as she certainly was not getting a ‘jelly belly’ as she was in good shape… until she noticed that Cloud Puff was still smiling and was trying her best not to burst out laughing. It was at that moment did it finally click together in her mind “There is no pony named Sundancer is there.”


The Breezie whistled nonchalantly as she whimsically replied “Not a real pony, but there’s enough of a description about her from the other adventures so none of them would raise an eyebrow… and Maxwell did agree to help her out.”


Now Celestia realized just who the tiny little trickster had been describing “I’m not overworked.”


Cloud Puff nodded her head “Oh, I’m sure it’s perfectly normal to have enough papers stand taller than a pony setting at her desk.”


Celestia looked at the pile of reports that she just dumped and frowned as she tried to deny it “There were two ponies taking care of the major work, and after Lock’s sudden departure it’s just taking a little while for me to sort the workload of some of the papers again.”


She pulled herself straight up as she wasn’t about to be put on a blind date “Besides I’m going to have to now explain to Maxwell…”


“That the Breezie delegate had lied to him?” Cloud Puff replied in fake shock “Oh, how he will not know that the completely normal pony, who works as one of Celestia’s aids was, in fact a vile prank pulled by an insidiously evil and twisted Breezie who thought nothing more than to have him help a pony, only to pull the rug right out from underneath his hooves!”


Celestia rolled her eyes as that was laying it on a bit thick as the Breezie continued “Why… Why I would have to find someway to redeem myself! I would have to confess to Inknote about my crimes. I would have to tell her about the secret underground sweet railroad in an attempt to redeem myself and restore the integrity and honor of the Breezie nation!”


Celestia froze at the sudden piece of blackmail tossed in with her theatrics. Surely Cloud Puff wouldn’t risk her own secret stash of sweets just to trick Celestia into a blind date with Maxwell…


The Breezie smirked as she replied “Mutually Assured Destruction.”


Celestia face hoofed “What does ‘Sundance’ look like?”


Cloud Puff squealed as she started describing how the fake pony looked as Celestia resigned herself to her fate. Still it wouldn’t be completely horrible as she would still get to have a day off for the most part. All that really changed was that ‘Sundance’ would have a pony guide her around for a day. All things considering this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.


Besides she would get to see which suit Maxwell was going to wear.