Speaks with Talons and I were in one of the highest rooms of the castle area where I was allowed. It was just high enough to allow for a telescope to be set up and pointed at the entrance of the Everfree Forrest and Fluttershy's cottage.
I could see a dozen troops entering the forest from the direction of the road the cottage was on. The majority were armed to the teeth with gear that would allow for easy maneuvering and combat in the forest.
"They tell me that about half of the forces assigned to the task are pegasi, as they are able to fly above the forest for easy movement in emergencies. Now that some level of defense is established in Far Everfree, the troops are steadily being ordered to report to the ground entrance near Zecora's hut to be trained on how to recognize the signals sent through the web by the Fey village. When that is complete, the Fey will be able to coordinate the lent Equestrian forces more efficiently. Soon the Speaker will be able to relinquish the finer details of training to the servants of the Animus Mundi and take over my role as ambassador."
Turning the telescope towards Fluttershy's cottage, I saw her looking through her own telescope back to me. When I saw this, I waved at her as best I could while staying inside the window. Seeing her wave back while looking at the telescope made me smile.
Another pony walk up to her from the village. When this happened, I saw Fluttershy give one last wave to me, greet the new mare with a hug and walk her to the forest with a happy smile on her face. Whoever this was, it was someone close to her.
"Who's that with Fluttershy?" I asked Speaks with Talons as I relinquished the telescope for him to look.
With a quick peak, he brought his head back up and gave a hearty smile. "That is one of Equestria's few citizens that is also a proper servant of the Animus Mundi. Tree Hugger, they call her. She is not nearly as attuned as Zecora, nor even myself, but she does have a connection to our master that the Fey will recognize and allow into their village directly without complaint. Her presence should ease the load on Zecora's duties in the forest considerably."
The griffin quietly laughed to himself for a moment. "Where it not for her duties tied to this nation's royalty, Fluttershy would have probably been trained as a servant as soon as Zecora had come to be accepted by the ponies. Fluttershy has the knack for it. But alas, her calling is elsewhere."
We turned towards the stairs with Sharp Sentry in tow and Archimedes flying slightly ahead.
"I am told you were invited to the princess's party," the griffin stated, seeing if I wanted to talk about it.
I nodded as we walked. "I'm still a prisoner, and I'm not the best at social events. They say Fluttershy will be there to help and that I can come as either her or Starlight's plus one, but I'm not sure if I want to go."
As soon as those words were said, I knew it was a mistake. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew.
Maybe a second after I realized this, I felt the stairs beneath me shift into a flat slope. Me and the others slid down the rest of the stair case, passing our intended floor and landing in a lower room of the castle.
Speaks with Talons jumped over me as we landed on the floor and hovered in the air while Sharp Sentry did the same only landing in front of me with his short sword at the ready for whatever had happened.
"Weeeell-" I heard a familiar voice call out, "-If you aren't sure then I have another option for you!"
Discord popped into existence in front of Sharp Sentry and snapped his claws. Sharp Sentry's sword went limp like rubber and the staircase went back to being normal stairs.
I stood up and started rubbing my sore back.
"Always one for theatrics I see," I called to him while trying to sound neither impressed or annoyed so as to not feed the ego I'd learned he had. "Now that you have my attention, I may as well hear you out. It's not like you'll let me do anything else until I do."
Discord smiled a sinister smile for just a brief moment then snapped his claws.
A table appeared in the air in the middle of the storage room we were in, narrowly missing Sharp Sentry as it clattered to the floor.
Discord popped himself on top of it, laying on his belly, and spoke with a glee. "It turns out that I'm attending a guys night at the exact same time as the party with Big Mac and Spike and I was wondering if you would like to join us?"
He snapped his claws yet again and several large bits of cardboard like cut outs started animating on the table.
"We're starting a new game of Ogres & Oubliettes and we thought you might like to get out and have some fun with us."
He magically donned an outfit with a striking resemblance to Robbin Hood then rolled several dice out of his paw and onto the table. With some weird ability of his, he locked eyes with me and kept me from turning away. With particular emphasis on key words, he said, "We really, really like to get into our characters. I'm sure you'll have a blast."
As I felt myself regaining my ability to look away, I still stared at him in cold, heart pounding, thriller, fear.
A sinister and knowing grin spread across his face. "So shall I help you build you character sheet now, or later this afternoon?"
I stepped back several paces, tripped a little over the small crate behind me, then turned back towards the stairs. "Nevermind! I've suddenly decided I want to go to the party! Like, right now!"
Sharp Sentry quickly followed. "But the party hasn't even started yet. The staff are still just starting to set it up."
I turned to him with a panicked look in my eyes. "Then I'll go help set up!"
As the final touches of the party were being put in place, Fluttershy and the other ponies I had come to recognize as her friends came in along with Princess Twilight. Starlight and Moon Beam were setting up a special stage to have a singing contest on and Tempest was somehow managing to get Scraps to behave himself on the floor next to the bar.
Scraps was sleeping with only his head sticking outside of the bag of holding he had managed to keep after the issues in the forest. Thinking about what he could do with a new baubles bag that was way bigger on the inside than his old one kinda scared me, but Fluttershy and Tempest insisted it was alright.
The party started with lots of casual chatter, which I didn't really have much to contribute to, but it was kinda nice to just be left to my own devices in a crowd and not be the center of attention, for once. Friends hugged, recent stories were exchanged and I came to find out that somehow the barrels of cider that had been brought in was strangely both non alcoholic and alcoholic varieties.
As I was about done sipping on my second mug of the non alcoholic variety when a pink pony got up on the stage and declared a roast contest.
"That's right! Now everypony..." She looked straight at me. "I mean, everycreature write your name on a piece of paper and get it in the hat."
At this point I noticed the hat on a stool next to her. Everypony put their names in and Starlight wrote down a second one for me, since I didn't really know the language.
The pink pony pulled out Moon Beam's name then her own name. With how the rules followed, the one that gets roasted was to roast the next pony that got their name pulled from the hat.
I learned many things that night, though I think I had to take them with a grain of salt in some cases, as I didn't have any of the full stories.
The pink pony seemed to be oblivious to people's feelings at times. Starlight was blushing from me finding out she was a former criminal herself in some way. The princess was a bit of a high strung perfectionist. Rainbow Dash was a total macho tomboy that was denying ever being seen in the spa that I worked at briefly. Rarity interrupted Rainbow Dash about something, saying "It was an accident!" with a face that was red from anger before I could catch what the accident was. Rarity seemed to not get the concept of making sure her audience had context because I was not the only one lost when she described the orange pony's fashion sense. Fluttershy blushed immensely when the orange pony described how she could even get a manticore to purr but had trouble speaking in public.
Apparently that last bit was true in some way, because when Fluttershy went up and drew my name, she froze up for several seconds, unsure of what to say. When she looked down at me, I summoned Archimedes to my shoulder and pretended to scold him. When he followed my orders to look scared, Fluttershy lightened up and managed to roast me on some of my difficulties with not liking certain ponies. At first it seemed innocent enough but then when she mentioned my anger with Zecora over her keeping me safe, I had to pause at her wording.
I was actually angry at Zecora for lying to me in a way that seemed needless at the time, not the safety part. Thinking back I had to really pause and wonder.
I couldn't think of it for too long, however, as I was nudged and told to take the stage.
Tempest stopped me at the edge of the stage. "I can do the math. The only name left in that hat is mine."
I looked at her unsure of what she was getting at.
She rolled her eyes and looked square into mine. "Everypony here has been pulling their punches. Going easy on a warrior is one of the biggest insults you can give them. So when you go up there, roast me right or so help me Celestia you will be sorry."
As could be expected, the one name left in the hat was Tempest's, though I had to have the pink pony read it for me to make sure. All I could do was stand there with shaky knees and press on my amulet.
"You all have me at a bit of a disadvantage. I don't really know Tempest all that well, and what I do know about her seems to indicate that no matter what I say she's going to get angry with me and want to beat me to a living pulp after."
The entire audience laughed and Tempest actually smiled. They must have thought I had started already.
"Go on..." She stated flatly.
I rubbed the back of my neck. "No, really that's all I got. I mean she's a bit broody and I don't know-"
A door slammed open and a white pony that was even taller than Tempest came in. "Good evening everypony. Sorry about missing the early parts of your birthday party, Twilight. The meeting ran a bit late. Am I too late for the karaoke?"
"Princess Celestia!" Princess Twilight practically launched out of her seat and ran up to greet the pony with a hug.
From my point on the stage, I saw the crown on the larger pony, accompanied by a horn and a set of wings.
"So that's princess Celestia? Princess Luna's sister?" I looked down at Fluttershy, who nodded in response.
"No, you're not late at all, Princess Celestia! It's good to have you. We were about to start after we got done with Moss's turn."
"The Moss is here!?" Princess Celestia looked up at me on the stage. She shrugged off her guards concerns as she approached. "I am sorry for interrupting your turn with my entrance, but it is lovely to meet you. My schedule has been terrible and while I've always been curious about you, I've barely had the time for anything of my own desires since the war began. We owe so much to you and your familiar, though I am sorry that you were brought here against your will."
When she addressed me, it felt like I was being introduced to a queen. The sincerity of her voice. The way she moved with effortless grace. The way she spoke to me with the respect of an equal despite being clearly the highest class pony I had ever met. It all positively radiated the skills of an experienced, nay ageless, matriarch.
And then it all snapped as she giggled, jumped and glided back to a vacant seat in the audience with a liveliness of a pony that was still young at heart.
"Please, don't let me interrupt any further."
An awkward silence filled the room for a few seconds before I recovered and just said, "Actually I was pretty much done already. I don't know enough about Tempest to say anything else."
Tempest seemed to be a bit disappointed with my excuse and Princess Twilight was suddenly a bit more nervous than before the other princess got there when she said, "Well, that settled, let's get to the karaoke, shall wee? We just need get all the names back into the hat and decide who goes-"
"I think Moss should go first." Princess Celestia called out, "He's already on stage and didn't get to take a proper turn last time."
Moon Beam was on the stage, collecting names back into the hat when it had pretty much been settled just by the ruler saying it should be that way. So she scooted off the stage and said "We'll just do the name drawing after Moss takes his turn then." She seemed a little off center but enthusiastic otherwise.
I went back to the center of the stage, wondering if this was a good thing or a bad thing. "Well, I don't know any of your country's songs and I doubt your machine carries any of the songs I know from my homeworld."
"Do your best without it then!" Tempest called out, clearly still irritated and wanting to see me squirm, "Just sing a song that doesn't have to have music backing it up! Its Karaoke. It's not meant to be good."
I gave them a signal to give me a minute to think up a song. It needed to be one I knew well, but could be sang on its own. I went through a few in my head and wound up with two that I could do. Brother My Brother seemed easy, but when I looked out at the audience, I saw leaders and ponies that could sway the war effort in ways that could be a disaster. I couldn't let my first song I sing do that to them.
So I closed my eyes, pressed my amulet and went with my other choice.
"Well my daddy left home when I was three..."
* * *
"I still hate that name!" I finished off with a loud rant in the rhythm.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw the audience in shock. Not the good kind of shock. Most of them had a look showing that they meant well but hated my singing. Celestia was smiling but clearly was crying tears of pain and Moon Beam had a look of utter confusion on her face.
The pegasus called Rainbow Dash came up to the stage after the orange one finally let her go.
"Dude. I had no idea you were that bad. Just don't ever sing again, OK? You really stink."
"Rainbow Dash!" half the room called out to her.
I gave her a solemn look and walked off the stage. "It's alright. I wasn't that good back home either. I think I need some air. Just carry on without me."
As I left with Sharp Sentry in tow, the orange pony took the stage, making noises with operating the karaoke machine.
Out in the hallways, I walked for several minutes before I asked a question to my guard.
"Hey, Sharp Sentry. Just how bad did I stink at singing, really?"
He was silent for a few moments before I got him to stop and look at me.
He sighed and gave me a frustrated face. "To be honest, sir, when you try to speak our language directly, it is barely recognizable, like a pony with a speech impediment. The amulet makes it far more clear, but your voice still sounds crude to us. Your actions give signs to your true intelligence level, but even with your amulet, the words you speak in our language do not. We've grown accustomed to filtering that shortcoming of the amulet out for normal speech, but singing is a very different beast for us."
A sinister voice came from behind me. "It's because the way you speak your language is a bit simpler than we speak ours when it comes to the intangibles. There are nuances that translate fine for you once simplified a bit, but the amulet can't fill in gaps for intangibles that you just don't find a way to pronounce."
I gave a shiver as Discord placed his mismatched paw and talon on my shoulders.
"So you're done with the birthday party, are you? We're actually still early in our campaign and can still squeeze you in as a little swamp creature that just appeared in our story. I have the character sheet for him right here!"
A piece of paper formed near me right as I bolted with a firm march. "Nope! Just getting some air! Going back to the birthday party now!"
As I approached the ballroom where the party was happening again, I heard the stomping of a hoof on what must have been the stage.
Coming closer, I heard the words "Standing by your side!" made with great gusto.
I saw Moon Beam taking her turn on the stage as I tried to rejoin the others. She walked up and down, occasionally making a heavier than needed stomp to make an acoustic effect. What was the most interesting was that the karaoke machine was turned off. She was winging it.
"-Just as you are there for me!" She turned her tear filled eyes to Princess Celestia and nopony else. "Nothing feels as good as a sister's loyalty!"
My eyes went wide. A part of my mind wanted to not believe it. There was no way anypony of this world would know this song. Nopony but one, that is. My fears were confirmed when she kept going after a few seconds, "I'm talking about family! If my sister's in trouble I will-"
Her song was cut short from my sudden knocking over one of the pieces of furniture.
Her eyes went just as wide when she looked up and saw me struggling to get out from under the table I fell over and knocked down. I knew she could see my mind putting the pieces together, making me terrified. I ran out again, this time straight to my cell. My safe haven in the castle.
* * *
Later on, in my cell, I get a knock.
"Will you please let me in?" I heard a familiar voice call.
"Just order him to open the door. It's not like I can deny any of you."
"I know I can, but I'm here to help you, not force you. I won't enter if you don't let me. I just want to talk."
I heard a set of light thumps on the door and I turned to see that familiar thestral face, leaning up against the door and staring at me through the bars.
"Please, I just want to explain."
I quickly turned my face away from the object of my fear, my heart rate rising. "Maybe when I'm ready to come out again. Right now I just want to hide and process! If you really want to respect my choice then please just go away!"
"I didn't mean to..."
I shoved my pillow as hard as I could into my ears to block out her voice and to try to find a center.
"I said go away, Princess Luna!"