I pulled my coat tighter around me as I sipped my hot cocoa. I'd shown up a bit early to meet with Quillon, and things were bitterly cold that morning.
Definitely need to talk to the weather team about this; I don't think anypony wants Hearth's Warming celebrations subdued by it being too cold to go outside.
Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long; Quillon showed up just a few minutes after I'd sat down by the castle.
I guess she's as eager as I am to get this resolved. She's certainly diligent!
Quillon looked as cute as a button in her parka and beanie cap, and she pulled it tightly around her as she cleared her throat.
"Hey, Sunset. Are you ready to get started today?"
I nodded and finished off my hot cocoa with a gulp, hoping the warm liquid would help keep the frost at bay.
"I actually did some poking around town after you left yesterday. Seems like there's still a lot of tension between unicorns and earth ponies here in general; maybe we should start with looking into that? It could be what we're supposed to fix."
Quillon looked embarrassed by the reminder of yesterday's events, but shrugged.
"I guess that's as good a place to start as any. Where should we go first?"
"I figured we could go talk to Mayor Mare about it. She'd likely know something about what's going on, right?"
"Well, you'd think so. I mean, maybe. On the other hoof, the school of friendship has kinda become the center of the town; somepony over there might know more."
I nodded, surprised. "Right, Twilight told me about that whole project, and I've seen the school as I passed around town. I just never bothered to actually check in on it. Starlight runs it now, right?"
Quillon nodded, tapping her chin with her hoof. "The school should be pretty deserted over the break, so I think I can head over there without too many creatures freaking out."
I winced. "Right, you have history with that place. Well, I'll be there to back you up if anything goes wrong."
Quillon smiled, almost apologetically. "Thanks, Sunset."
I grinned as we started walking. "Oh, don't mention it. I know all about going back to a school that hates you, trust me. We'll get through this."
Quillon seemed deeply distracted for a second, like she was listening to somepony else, but then shook her head and kept walking.
I keep dropping these hints about my past, and she never asks after them. At first I thought she just wasn't interested in me, but now I think she just wants to take me as I am. It's kind of refreshing, actually.
We carried on to the school in companionable silence. Starlight looked surprised to see us, to say the least.
"Sunset! Er, Cozy! What brings you two here?"
Quillon twitched at the use of her old name, but covered it quickly with a friendly – and definitely strained – smile. I just nodded to Starlight, and walked up to her desk.
"The map sent us. Best we can tell, it seems like there's a lot of tension around town between earth ponies and unicorns these days?"
Starlight leaned back and sighed. "Yeah, the students have talked about it a bit. Nopony's been rude to me, but I've definitely heard unicorns who try to visit get the cold shoulder from locals. Some of the students and their parents have been affected. I'm not sure what's going on with that; I figured after the Battle of the Bell this would all be resolved, but I guess that was naive."
Quillon piped up, though she seemed almost scared to voice her thoughts. Not that I could blame her.
"When did this start, exactly? When did you start hearing about this?"
Starlight furrowed a brow in thought, leaning forward on her desk.
"Hmm... I guess I first heard about it almost a week ago?"
I blinked a few times and shook my head in surprise.
"Wait, the battle of the bell was almost a month ago, wasn't it? Why would they just be starting to squabble now?"
Starlight sighed. "I have no idea! Now that you mention it, it is really odd; you'd expect the tensions to be highest right after the battle and wear off over time, not get worse, but that's just what's happened. I got a single report almost a week ago, but just before the student break began I got six of them."
Quillon shuffled awkwardly and walked up to Starlight's desk. "Do you think somecreature like Chrysalis could be spreading strife again? It's what she did before..."
Starlight frowned. "I suppose it's possible, but Chrysalis is still encased in stone, so who could manage something like that? And... why?"
Quillon and I traded a glance. It was clear this was going to be a rough investigation.
Visiting Mayor Mare yielded much the same; things had been fine after the Battle of the Bell, but as Hearth's Warming approached things were just getting steadily worse. We'd spent some time questioning ponies around town, but there didn't seem to be any obvious connection between the incidents, nor any common actor between them. We ultimately went to the outdoor cafe in Ponyville where we'd met to regroup.
"I'm not sure where to look next, Quillon. It seems like a bunch of coincidental incidents, and I can't imagine anypony wanting to drive a rift between the tribes in modern Equestria anyway; what would the point be?"
Quillon, for her part, sipped her dark cocoa with an irritable expression that clearly wasn't directed at the drink. She eventually looked up at me, doing her best not to let her frustration be directed at me.
"There's got to be something, Sunset. Somepony who doesn't like things the way they are, or who was affected by the Battle for the Bell differently from everypony else, or maybe just really hates unicorns, or something. Maybe we just don't have the right piece of information for the whole... like..."
She made a gesture like she was trying to fit together some kind of jigsaw.
"Puzzle to come together. It's got to be something like that."
I leaned back and folded my front hooves – a human expression I just couldn't shake, even in my unicorn form.
"What makes you so sure it's somepony acting up, anyway? Maybe we should start there, and that will help us fix our perspective."
Quillon nodded, leaning across the table as much as her small frame would allow.
"Right, that's a good idea. So, what got me thinking that was the similarity to how Chrysalis manipulated things leading up to the Battle of the Bell, but that's not all. Monster attacks have been suuuper-frequent since the big battle. Everypony blamed it on the windigoes re-emerging and disrupting the monsters, but it turned out there was a pony agitating them."
My eyes lit up. "Oh? Which pony? Could they be behind this?"
Cozy shook her head. "Nah, it was Chancellor Neighsay, and he was under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet. It made him super powerful but it also made him kinda kooky."
She made a circling gesture at her head with her hoof to punctuate her point, and I giggled despite the gravity of the situation.
"Okay, fair enough, but what was he trying to accomplish?"
"Well, he still had a low-key grudge against Twilight for integrating Equestria with other creatures and teaching them friendship, and I guess the amulet dialed that up to wings-on-backwards crazy levels. He was causing all of the strife to undermine her leadership, and then tried to go after her directly. I ended up stomping all over him, though."
Wow. She had a real all-out battle with a villain like that?
I just nodded along and contemplated what she'd said.
"Well, undermining tribal relations would help disrupt the kingdom, and it sounds like he had issues with integration..."
"Yeah, but he's a unicorn. And he doesn't have problems with ponies, just other creatures. He was all, 'Equestria won't be safe if other creatures have the power of friendship.' He was dumb the same way I was, thinking of friendship as a weapon."
Quillon glanced away bitterly at that, but I quickly cut in to keep her mind off of it.
"It's an easy mistake to make, honestly. Looking from the outside in, that's kinda what it seems like. And anyway, you got over it, and you stopped him – that's really impressive! So, um, why was he wearing the amulet in the first place?"
Quillon shrugged. "I actually didn't stick around for the explanation, but according to Luna it was some kind of freak accident. He didn't even realize he'd put it on until he already had."
I frowned at that, suddenly sharing her suspicion of foul play. "That sounds like somepony might have slipped it on him. Somepony who knew about his grudge and how he'd react. Once that plot failed, they might have moved on to this."
Quillon chewed her lip, thinking it over.
"You're right. That's exactly the kind of thing I'd have done."
I nodded. "Same here. It makes sense. But it also narrows our suspect list a lot; we're looking for someone who could have gained access to the Canterlot Archives—"
Quillon cut me off with a wave of her hoof and a roll of her eyes. "Anypony could do that. I stole books from there to study magic when I was on the run; it's not even hard."
I actually laughed at that. "Okay! Fair enough, but they still had to know about Neighsay's motives and the Alicorn Amulet, and they must have a problem with the pony tribes getting along... probably a grudge against Twilight, too."
Quillon groaned, rubbing her head. "That makes me the prime suspect. I can't think of anypony else like that in Equestria."
I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Well, unless you have an evil split personality, I think we can rule that out."
Quillon didn't laugh. She froze and looked worried for a second, but then rolled her eyes. "Y-yeah, no, the timeline on that wouldn't work out, heh. I have an alibi with Luna. I think."
I quirked an eyebrow at that, but decided to play it off as a joke and chuckled. "So yeah, what you should do is ask yourself; who else fits that kind of criteria? If you're the prime suspect, then they must be somewhat similar to you, right?"
Quillon shook her head. "That's no good, then! I was just some random foal until I put my plans in motion; this could be anypony, somepony you'd never notice or suspect, if they're acting the way I did."
"Hm. The subtle approach, huh? I never went in for that, personally... but if you did, then you must be able to think of some way to get them to reveal themselves or catch them."
Quillon winced. "I don't really like digging into those memories, like, at all. I've been trying to suppress that side of myself as much as I can."
"Learning to use your capacity for wrongdoing to empathize with other ponies and protect them is an important step. It's painful, but... it helps. Trust me."
Quillon took a sharp breath and nodded. "I'll try."