The kirin charged her way through the group. She looked like she was the strongest one there due to her increased muscular and physical definition compared to the rest of her kind. Wait a minute, was that?
“Autumn Blaze?” I asked while I put away the knife I was going to use to cut myself loose. “Where’s Rain Shine?”
“Oh...she’s no longer with us.” There was a pause that lingered in the air for a moment before she sporadically waved her hoof around, “Oh no, no, wait. She’s just retired and living in Silver Shoals. She’s not like, dead or anything, hehe.”
I gave a sigh of relief, but that didn’t exactly help me out of my situation. “Whew...alright. Anyway I can be brought down?”
“Oh, yeah--right! Sorry. We just like to have the security,” Autumn clarified as she used her magic to undo the confines of the net and set me free. “Never know who could be trying to crash our parties and such. I see you came with some friends, yeah?”
“Oof.” I hit the dirt, and picked myself up. I used my hat to dust myself off, and put it back on my head. “That’s right. This way, ladies.” I turned to the edge of the forest we came from and called out to them while I waved them over.
Both Guttersnipe and Cozy Glow appeared before the crowd. Or rather, Guttersnipe appeared while Cozy hid directly behind her.
The kirin surrounded her with awe as they gazed at her mechanical wings.
“Where did you get those?!”
“Those are so cool!”
“What happened to your original wings?”
Her answer was hesitant at first. “Um...I’d rather...ahem. We’re here on important business, guys. No time for horsing around.” This surprised me. Normally, she was more than happy to show off. Was there something that troubled her?
Cozy didn’t fare much better since she wanted to stay as quiet as possible until she was addressed.
I decided to break everything up myself. “Anyway. We’re here on business. I’m the leader of a group of ponies affiliated with investigations in and around Equestria. Pale Vestige is the name,” I said with a tip of my hat.
“Ooh!” Autumn’s eyes lit up, “What’s your team called?”
“We don’t particularly have a moniker,” I explained, “It helps prevent us from being tracked down by our enemies.”
She let out a shrill whistle as a sign of being impressed. “Well now. That’s a pretty smart idea,” she tapped a hoof against her left cheek, “I should probably think of something like that for our next play. We could even make use of it for our defensive tactics. Nameless Attacks. Yeah that has a nice ring to it, hehe!” she put her hoof down with a giggle. “Oh, sorry. Went off on a little tangent.
I almost wanted to point out the fact that naming something ‘Nameless’ is a bit of an oxymoron when one considered the fact that you still applied some sort of intangible label to the group or item in question. But that wasn’t important.
“So, since Shine has retired, you are the current leader?”
She nodded. “Have been for the last decade or so!”
Good. This could aid me in my pursuit. I looked over my shoulder, and shot Cozy a glance. I tilted my head towards the kirin leader; A silent way to tell her to follow me. She got the message and slowly flew around to my side.
Guttersnipe meanwhile, had kept the other kirins distracted with her flying augments. Even if she was reluctant to do so. I felt a bit bad for it, but we needed absolute attention from Autumn.
“In a nutshell, we’re here to find out information on a...certain kirin that has caused some trouble recently. Can you help us?”
“Oh, sure! One second,” she paused and looked at her fellow kirin. “Everypony, back it up! This is important business I’m dealing with, okay?”
They caught the hint from their leader. The kirins immediately went back to their usual tasks around the Grove and left us alone. Guttersnipe let out a sigh of relief since she didn’t have to speak about her wings anymore.
Autumn looked at Cozy for a half-second and focused back onto me. “Follow me. We should speak somewhere more...privately.”
We all followed the kirin mare through her village. It was a beautiful, luscious landscape with lots of green plants, fresh water, and their homes were made out of the trees and natural landscape. It was a rather refreshing experience to witness such...naturalistic styles compared to the overly manufactured setting of Manehattan.
Autumn led us to her home, and invited us inside. However, Guttersnipe was content with being a lookout.
“I’ll stay out here and keep watch. You guys go on ahead,” she said with a nod.
“Alright, if you’re sure. C’mon, kid.” I took Cozy inside with me. It was a nice, wooden abode with a log cabin sort of aesthetic. It felt rather, well, cozy. Soft wood floors to walk on, a fireplace, a nice view of the entire village through a window. “Wow…nice isn’t it, kid?”
Cozy nodded with a nervous smile on her face. “...you could say that, yeah.” She pointed a hoof to something above the fireplace, “Check those out.”
I squinted, and saw individual portraits of three kirins, then Rain Shine, then Autumn Blaze. “Oh. These must be the pictures of each leader. Curious. I’d like to know more about the ones that came before Shine.”
“Me too,” the pink pegasus replied.
“Uh, guys. I’m like, waaaaay over here.” Autumn called out to us from what sounded like our right. She was on some stairs that led up to the second floor of her home. “But thanks for admiring what I got. It’s nice knowing that non-kirins appreciate what we kirins do.” Her eyes sparkled, “Oh! You wanna stay by for a show later? We kirins love stand-up!”
I trotted over to the staircase. “...Maybe. But for now, we need to get talking.”
“Oh right, right. Pssh. Silly me. Come right up,” she beckoned us with a hoof.
After we took the steps up, we stopped at her office of sorts. Autumn took us inside and invited us to sit down. Instead of a desk, she had a set of files spread out over various, small tables in the room. Otherwise, it was rather empty, save for a few wooden chairs that she invited us to sit in.
“So, what did you both wanna talk to me about?”
I looked at Cozy, and nodded. I began my explanation. “It has to do with someone known as Freeze Flame. Do you know her?”
“Hm...do I…” Autumn looked up to the ceiling as she tapped one of her lower hooves on the floor. “Oh! Right! She was the kid of one of my friends. Winter Flame.” Her face dropped as she recounted the events that I had been described before. “We...lost her and her oldest daughter in the battle...but she did her best to keep everypony safe. Their sacrifice was not in vain, though. The rest of us have made a pact to live no matter what.”
Heavy topics, but I’m glad she was aware. That would make things go smoothly. “...Do you know of the fact that Freeze Flame had been working for a disgusting stallion and recently...died in her attempts to harm several ponies?”
A pause was held in the air for a moment. Autumn frowned, and got up from her seat. She used her magic to levitate a newspaper off of one of her tables, and brought it over to us. “Yeah...we read the paper. We cast her out a long time ago for being reckless and wanting to do terrible things to other ponies. But we never knew exactly where she went after that.” She unfurled it with her magic and started to read over it again, “Would you mind elaborating?”
“Not at all.” It was only just, after all. This was ultimately her business given that one of her subjects ended up dead at my hooves. So I told her every last detail.
“...so you had to kill her, huh?”
I hid my face beneath my hat. “I...I wish I didn’t have to, but she would have continued to be a danger to the lives of everypony there if I didn’t do something.”
All the sudden, her magic pushed my hat up which exposed my face. “Hey, hey. Chin up. It’s not your fault that she was a complete birch. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been somepony else. I’m just...ugh. Anyway, we need to stop the stallion who manipulated her and prevent him from doing the same to anypony else.”
“Well, yes. That’s a problem I am going to take care of. But what I mainly wanted to speak with you about was something else that Freeze mentioned.”
Autumn put the paper down and tilted her head at me. “Oh? What is it?”
“Something about...your population problems? Gender imbalance? I noticed a lot of female kirin, but not too many male ones…”
Autumn blinked, and looked outside of her window. I suppose she wanted to check for herself. And it was certain. “Huh...I never noticed. Now that you mention it, we do seem to have a bit of tipped scales among the kirin genders.”
“Doesn’t that concern you at all?” I asked with a raise of my eyebrow, “Without a proper balance, the population could dwindle and eventually, there would be no more kirins left. Especially if you all are monogamous.”
She tilted her head at the last word I said. “Mono…?”
“It means a couple that stays one couple. If the kirin stallions pair up with one kirin mare, then that’s a whole lot of kirin mares who will be rendered unable to have children. No children means no more kirins...you get what I mean, yeah?”
The gears spun in her head, and Autumn’s pupil’s shrank. In a panic, she grabbed ahold of me and started to violently shake me around. “WHAT?! Why didn’t anypony tell me about this?! We need to do something! Okay, stay calm...stay calm…” she started to hyperventilate. Her chest rose and fell in rapid succession. “I mean...I didn’t think that it was possible. I thought it was normal for there to be an abundance of mares in any tribe.”
“Ahem…” After being properly rattled around, I cleared my throat. I gently pushed the kirin leader off of me, and started to speak my piece. “That is the whole reason I’m here--with Cozy Glow.” I pointed at the pink pegasus beside me. “She’s here to explain an idea to help your race.”
In truth, I was afraid. I didn’t know if Autumn would recognize and cast her out for the turmoil she had caused for everypony in that battle. But curiously, she didn’t comment on it yet. Did she forget who Cozy was? Or did she play it tactical and stay quiet just to hear what she had to say?
“Well...the basic idea would be,” Cozy took out a clipboard, “Maybe familiarize the kirins with pony culture so that they can find more mates. Then your race won’t have any issues going forward.”
Autumn grit her teeth and one of her ears flicked. “Yyyyeah. That’s gonna be a small problem.”
“Why?” Cozy asked.
“The kirins as a whole don’t tend to associate with other ponies most of the time. Sure, we’re on good terms with then, but for the most part, we stay separated. And...well,” she rubbed the back of her head, “It’s...not going to be easy to convince them to try.”
“Don’t worry. I have some ideas,” Cozy said with a grin, “We can start by helping the kirin get to know the other ponies. You said you’re into stand-up, right?”
Autumn nodded. “Duh! We all are!”
“Well...how about if they attended the comedy club in Ponyville? It’s not usually very crowded, so it’d be a nice first step where they could meet other ponies without it being all...awkward. You know?”
“Hm...not a bad idea! What do you think, mister?” the kirin leader addressed me next.
It wasn’t the most callous of ideas, but I was hesitant. Mainly due to the fact that I was uncertain whether kirin humor and pony humor would resonate with the members of the opposite race. But there was a first time for everything, as they say. “Huh. I think that could work, Cozy. The exchange of cultural humor might work if done right.”
“Oh good!” she held up her clipboard which showed the schedule for the comedy club tomorrow night. “Because there’s a free slot open and it’s not too busy over there on Sunday’s. It’s perfect!”
Autumn took hold of the clipboard and read it over. She suddenly grinned from ear to ear. “Heehee! Oooh! That sounds great! We’ll be there!”
Good start for sure. The end goal was to help the kirins out in whatever way we could. Though Autumn was very keen on the idea, she didn’t allow me to fully explain the finer details regarding the rebellious kirin mare. However, it was just as plausible that she already very well knew of what transpired between Freeze Flame and the other kirin of this generation, and she simply refused to allow herself to be dragged down by the past. If that’s the case, I had nothing but respect for her.
I just hoped they didn’t turn into niriks upon hearing bad pony jokes.
“Boss! Boss!” Guttersnipe suddenly burst into the room. “We got trouble outside!”
The three of us looked out of the window and saw thick, dark clouds fill the sky.
Autumn tilted her head in confusion. “Well that’s weird. It’s not supposed to rain until tomorrow.”
I squinted my eyes and could just barely make out a sort of symbol within those clouds. “...!” I let out a silent gasp, and scrambled for the door, “Everyone. That’s no normal cloud. We need everypony to get inside of their homes. Now!”