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// Category 3 - 111-129 mph 
// Story: The Witch of The Wind 
// by MagnetBolt 
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“It’s going to be the biggest party they’ve seen in decades,” I said. The others didn’t look really enthused about my plan.
“I think it’s a great idea!” Ruby said, clapping her hooves with excitement. Okay, she was enthusiastic, but Shahrazad and Gabby both looked skeptical, and Gilda was trying to act cool and disaffected.
“Beloved, normally I adore your wild ideas,” Shahrazad said. “But perhaps this is… unwise?”
“I don’t even know if most griffons have ever been to a real party,” Gabby said. “Grandpa Gruff would sort of do something special once in a while but…”
“That’s why we’re going to do it,” I said. “They haven’t had parties around here because everyone is just doing their best to survive day by day. Even in Equestria, a party is fun and special and exciting, and that’s in a place where they have one practically every day!”
“I mean, I’d love an Equestrian-style party!” Gabby said. “I just… don’t know why you want to throw one.”
“When I was talking to the griffons at the market, it seemed to me like the biggest problem for everyone in town is that they’re in debt,” I explained.
“And what, we’re going to sing happy pony songs together and forget our problems?” Gilda scoffed.
“Nope! We’re only going to let people in if they swear to forgive all debts owed to them,” I said.
Gilda’s eyes went wide. “That’s crazy! Do you know how long these birds hold a grudge?! Just yesterday Greta was annoying me about the time she shared half an apple with me when we were both chicks!”
I nodded. “Yeah, griffons seem to have really good memories…”
Gilda nodded firmly. “And it means we don’t forgive and forget easily.”
“That’s why you need an excuse to do it. I think a lot of griffons would be happy to let things go if they knew everyone else was doing it.”
“It would mean losing a lot of money for some griffons,” Gabby pointed out. “Especially the most generous ones.”
“How many of them are actually going to collect?” I asked.
“Probably none of them,” Gilda admitted.
“We can probably send a letter back to Equestria and have party supplies shipped in,” Ruby said.
“Might as well write to Ponyville and have those nerds send confetti and a cake,” Gilda said, snorting dismissively.
“No. The whole reason we’re doing this is so we can help get the griffons out of debt. If we can inject some bits into the local economy, that’s good for everyone. Besides, I want this to be a Griffonstone party, not a pony party.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve said so far,” Gilda snorted. “I’ve been to pony parties. They’re so bright and cheerful and… even when they’re for adults it feels like a chick’s fifth birthday party.”
“Great! I’m glad you agree!” I smiled and trotted over, patting her on the back and shoving a bag full of bits into her chest. She grabbed them instinctively, blinking in surprise.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“I need someone, or really somebird, to do the shopping for me. I bet you can get some good deals, and you know which birds have the best products. Besides, I don’t know what griffons like to eat!”
“I can’t… you shouldn’t trust me with all these bits!” Gilda snapped. She tried to give them back to me, and I just pushed it deeper into her grip.
“Gilda, I know you’re one of Rainbow Dash’s best friends. You might not know it, but she talked about you a lot. Mostly because she wanted us to know how cool she was for having a griffon friend, but also because she thought a lot about you.”
“I was one of her friends,” Gilda said, heaping some emphasis on the was. “We, uh… had kind of a falling-out.”
“She totally messed up and yelled at her friend’s friends,” Gabby whispered, leaning in like only I could hear her when she was barely below a normal speaking tone. “When she came back from Equestria she was really upset and she doesn’t like to talk about what happened.”
“Gabby!” Gilda snapped, her cheeks red.
“Whatever happened, I know I can trust you,” I said. That took the wind right out of Gilda’s sails, and she looked down at the bag of bits in her talons. “I know Dash pretty well too, and she’s got a nose for loyal and trustworthy friends. Sometimes friends might argue or fight, but there’s still something that drew them together in the first place. If you haven’t let go of that part of yourself, it means that you can still be friends someday.”
“Yeah, but…” Gilda hesitated. “Friends don’t always stay friends. Ponies change. So do griffons.”
“They do,” I agreed. “But I don’t think one of Dash’s friends would ever change so much that I couldn’t trust them.”
Gilda was silent for a moment.
“I’ll get all the stuff I can,” she said, when she’d collected herself enough to say something. “I’ll make sure to get enough for the whole town.”
“Let them know what it’s going to be for, too,” I said. “It’s not going to be a surprise party.”
“Everybird in town will know,” Gilda said, before taking off.
“Ah, beloved, look at that sight,” Shahrazad sighed. “All of your bits, flying away, never to be seen again!”
“She’ll come back,” I said.
“Last time she had anywhere near that many bits she went off to Equestria and said she’d never come back and that we were all losers and dweebs who deserved to sit in garbage with our garbage lives,” Gabby said.
I looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “I’m just quoting her!”
“Look, I know it’s a risk,” I said. “But you have to be willing to take a risk sometimes. I think Gilda is the type of griffon where she won’t let me down if we put our trust in her.”
“We did not do very much,” Shahrazad said. “You decided to trust her without even discussing it with us.”
“If I thought it was risky enough that we had to talk about it, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place,” I said.
Shahrazad sighed. “As long as you are insisting on this, help me decorate while we await for her to never return.”





“No, to the left a bit,” the Saddle Arabian princess said, tilting her head. “A little more… yes. Now straighten it.”
“It’s perfectly straight,” I said.
“It is crooked,” Shahrazad countered.
“I think it is crooked,” Ruby agreed. “You need to tilt it a little clockwise. No, the other clockwise. No, that’s too far, go the other other clockwise now.”
I rolled my eyes and fixed the banner to the wall. “Look, I’m not even happy with hanging these things in the first place. Why do you have giant banners with my cutie mark on them?”
I motioned to the massive maroon flag, easily two stories tall and with my cutie mark prominently emblazoned on them. There were six of them around the throne room, along with silk curtains and pillows that Shahrazad had produced from her luggage. I didn’t even want to know why she was carrying all of it around with her.
“Just putting them up like this makes me feel like some kind of conqueror,” I said.
“Oh, wonderful!” Shahrazed smiled, pleased. “That is exactly the feeling I wished to capture, beloved! After all, have you not conquered this castle? It was abandoned, and you have made it your own!”
“I didn’t come here to conquer anyone,” I said. “I’m worried it’s going to send the wrong message.”
“Come on, Miss Sunset,” Ruby Drop said. “Princess Celestia is always saying you’d be happier if you weren’t so mean to yourself all the time.”
“Princess Celestia says that?” I asked.
“Uh huh! She gives me lessons when you’re out doing missions. She’s really nice but she seems kinda sad sometimes too when she talks about you.”
“I… didn’t ever want to make her sad,” I said quietly.
“She’d probably be a lot less sad if she got to see you when you were happy,” Ruby said. “Maybe you should invite her to the party!”
“Next time,” I said. I wasn’t even lying. Maybe I did need to make more of an effort. Princess Celestia tried, but I always ended up feeling awkward and ruining it.
“There may not even be a first time,” Shahrazad sighed. “It has been several hours and I have not heard the beating of wings burdened with purpose and a delivery of party supplies.”
“That’s because I had to walk,” Gilda said, slamming the front door behind her. “This stuff is too heavy to carry in the air.” She dragged a big burlap sack in behind her. “It took a while because I had to get promises from everybird about prices before I started actually buying anything. If I flashed bits around, they’d have taken me for everything I was worth.”
“And they still honored the prices after they knew you had money?” I asked.
“Sure. They wouldn’t go back on it, or else nobird would deal with them next time. Besides, they got the prices they wanted! I didn’t cheat anybird.” Gilda opened the bag and started taking things out. “Acorn flower, berry juice, all the fresh fruit I could find, and a bunch more stuff.”
“We can definitely throw a great party with all this,” I said. “We just need someone to turn the ingredients into food that griffons might like.”
“Is that meat?” Ruby asked, pointing at something wrapped up in brown paper.
“Uh…” Gilda hesitated and looked at me.
“I’m going to guess it is,” I said. “It’s okay, Gilda. Griffons eat meat. If we didn’t have any, I bet they’d complain about it, and I already said I wanted to do this griffon-style.”
“It’s nothing that used to talk,” Gilda promised. “Griffons don’t do that kind of thing. It’s just from rock crawlers, mountain trout, and some crayfish.”
“I know how to cook those!” Gabby said, excited. “I can’t do much with the acorn flour, but I know you can bake, Gilda!”
I remembered what the scones had been like. “Uh…” I hesitated. “You know what? I’ve got some tips on baking, as long as you don’t mind me giving you some secret recipes from Pinkie Pie.”
“I, uh… I wouldn’t mind that,” Gilda said. “Oh, right. I got one other thing.”
She pulled a folded newspaper out of the bag. It looked like the Canterlot Times.
“Why’d you get that?” I asked.
“Take a look at the front page news,” Gilda said. I took it from her and opened it up. I felt my heart skip a beat.
“Oh no,” I groaned. The headline was there in stark black and white right in front of me.
Sunset Shimmer: Queen of Griffonstone?
“Half of the ponies in the paper seem to think you came here to conquer us,” Gilda said. She seemed halfway between angry and amused and very solidly annoyed. “The other half think you’re on some kind of secret mission like… what’s a Crystal Empire?”
“A place north of Equestria,” I sighed. “It reappeared after a thousand years. Cadance is sort of ruling it now.”
“They elected her?”
“Not… exactly,” I admitted. “But she has the symbol of the Empire as part of her cutie mark, and with King Sombra gone, they need somepony to lead them. It’s okay! He was evil, and when I took him down--”
“You took him down?” Gilda asked. “So a bunch of ponies walked into a kingdom, got rid of the old king, and then declared themselves in charge?”
“Uh…” I hesitated, then shrugged and nodded. “I guess it’s something like that.”
Gilda looked around the room, at all the banners with my cutie mark on them. “I can’t imagine why some reporters might get weird ideas,” she said.





“Good work, Ruby,” I said, unable to hold back a grin. “I didn’t know you were that good with illusion spells!”
“It’s nothing special,” Ruby said, scuffing her hoof on the ground and looking embarrassed at the praise. It was a lot more endearing than I’d been when somepony had praised me at her age, and she’d definitely earned it.
Ruby had taken it upon herself to provide music for the party, and in my opinion, she’d really outdone herself. She’d created several overlapping illusions playing phantom instruments on repeat, along with glowing, sketchy outlines of a griffon band. It was a little like the neon signs plastered all over Las Pegasus, but right next to the dance floor.
“I only know a couple songs, so it’s probably going to end up looping a few times,” she apologized. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, this is great! I hadn’t even thought about entertainment.” I gave her a pat on the back. “I’m really proud of you. I think you did a better job with it than I would have. I’ve never been any good with illusions. If we needed something set on fire, I could be all over it, but that’s not usually a great party trick.”
“Thank you,” Ruby mumbled.
“Let’s get something to drink,” I suggested. “The berry juice punch that Gabby put together looked pretty good.”
She nodded, and we made our way across the room. The griffons hadn’t relaxed into things enough to actually start dancing, but once enough of them had started to show up they opened up a bit and little knots of conversation had formed, mostly joking with each other about the state of the old castle.
I grabbed two cups of bright red punch and found Ruby staring at a tray of little crackers with a curl of something pink and a dollop of white on top.
“Is that the meat stuff?” Ruby whispered.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s crayfish and some kind of cheese.”
“Is it safe to try?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow at that, but shrugged. “Sure. It won’t hurt you or anything, but it’s an acquired taste.”
“I should at least try it, right?” Ruby said, clearly trying to justify it to me and herself. “It’d be rude if I didn’t eat the local food.”
That was logic I couldn’t argue against. I motioned to the platter, giving her the go-ahead, not that she really needed my permission. She picked one up gingerly and sniffed at it. I decided to show some solidarity with my student and took one too, tapping mine against hers and winking.
“Bottoms up,” I said, popping it in my mouth. For something basically thrown together with what was in the market that day, it was pretty impressive. It would have passed muster at a party in Canterlot, not that anypony in Canterlot would actually eat meat. Unless they saw Princess Celestia do it first, in which case it’d be the new fad and the nobility would start opening steakhouses.
“It tastes like…” Ruby looked a little grossed out, but she swallowed it without complaint. “Sort of like weird stringy mushrooms and mud. And cheese. The cheese is pretty good.”
“Try some punch,” I said, giving her a glass to wash the taste out of her mouth.
“There you are. I was expecting you at the door!”
I turned at the chipper, clipped voice with more than a touch of that upper-class Canterlot accent. I knew right away it was a pony, but I was less happy to find that they had a press badge.
“Graphite Paper, I’m with the Canterlot Herald,” she said. I nodded. I knew what the paper was basically like. In a world with papers that ranged from paranoid worrying about everything Princess Luna might do to reporting purely on the movement of stock prices, they’d carved out a niche for themselves as having near-religious devotion to the crown.
“I didn’t expect anyone from Equestria to show up,” I said. “This was sort of announced and put together quickly.”
“Yes,” she said, sniffing haughtily and looking around. She seemed to approve of the decor even more than Shahrazad did. “I was rather expecting you to be greeting guests at the door.”
“Like Celestia does at the Gala?” I asked. She nodded. I could see the notebook and pen hovering at her side and recording every word. I was going to have to be careful with what I told her if I didn’t want to end up causing some kind of international incident. Again. “I understand why you might expect that. It is the biggest night of the year in Canterlot, and this is similar in some ways. But the key difference is, ponies go to the Gala to meet the Princess and other ponies of note, and just getting to talk to her and shake her hoof is practically worth the price of the ticket.”
I didn’t mention that they could also try writing her a letter and seeing if she’d show up. Celestia enjoyed randomly appearing at foal’s birthday parties. Watching the parents scramble to accommodate her was half the fun.
“Speaking of that, I understand that to attend this party, all attendees are required to swear an oath to forgive all debts owed to them?” she asked. “Can you explain that?”
“Oh sure,” I said. “I’m going to guess that you and your readers don’t know much about the current state of Griffonstone -- and I’m not blaming you for that, I don’t think anypony knew outside of the local area. They’ve been dealing with an environmental crisis that has destroyed livelihoods and made life difficult for the last few decades, and because they’re a proud and resilient people, they’ve survived everything.”
“Yes, I did note the town was somewhat… lacking in amenities.”
“Right,” I agreed. “They’ve survived, but they haven’t been able to thrive. They’ve all been helping each other, because they know the greatest resource they have is the griffons around them.”
Graphite nodded and jotted down what I was saying.
“Over the years this has created a kind of massive web of debt. We can’t see it, but the griffons are acutely aware of how much they owe each other, and it ties them down. No one can get ahead because they’re all stuck in the past, in a way.”
“And you think making them forgive these debts are going to help them?”
“I sure hope so!” I said. “It’s the best idea I’ve had so far on how to help.”
“Ponies in Canterlot are very interested in what you might be doing here,” Graphite said. “So Princess Celestia sent you here to help Griffonstone?”
“Princess Celestia didn’t send me here,” I corrected. “I came here on my own. Actually I was just taking a vacation.”
“After all the excitement with the coronation of Princess Twilight Sparkle?”
I forced myself to keep smiling. “Something like that.”
Another pony forced herself past what I realized was a growing ring of griffons watching us. She held up a tape recorder, pointing the microphone towards me. “Late Edition, with the Pressgang Press! Is this related to the recent regime change in the Crystal Empire? Rumors say that you were present there and had a hoof in putting Princess Cadance into power!”
“It’s really not related to that at all,” I said. “That was an emergency situation. The ponies of the Crystal Empire were in immediate danger. There’s no such danger here. Griffonstone has been here for generations and it’s going to be here for generations more.”
“And will you be the new ruler?” Late Edition asked. “Your flag and cutie mark have been very prominently displayed around the castle! Can you really assure our viewers that this is not yet another territorial claim by Equestria like the Crystal Empire and Appleoosa?”
“I’m just visiting,” I tried to assure her. And all the griffons listening and pretending they weren't paying attention. “I don’t think the griffons need a pony to come in and save them. They can solve all their own problems. They’re also our friends and allies -- plenty of griffons visit, work and go to school in Equestria. If anything, we’ve been poor friends to them by not coming over to visit, and I’m trying to make up for that by throwing this party with their help! You should try some of the food -- it’s all local specialties and we don’t get to experience griffon food enough in Equestria.”
I really hoped nothing I said was going to be taken out of context later. I was using the kind of boilerplate and deflection that Celestia had always used with the press, but they were usually kind to her even when she misspoke.
I made a few more excuses and managed to get away from the press before I said anything too awful. I spotted Shahrazad and made my way over to her, knowing that if the reporters did follow, she was overqualified to twist them around her hoof.
“Ah, Sunset,” the princess said. “I was just speaking with these two fine griffons.” She motioned with her cup to the two griffons she’d been chatting with. “May I introduce Gravin and Grable?”
Gravin was tall and thin, reminding me of some kind of egret. Grable was owl-like and almost entirely grey with age, though he carried it better than Grandpa Gruff. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, shaking their talons.
“You know, when I heard about this party, it seemed like darned fool thing,” Grable said. “Do you know how many of these birds owe me their lives? I was telling my wife that half of the birds in town still owe me bits that their grandfathers borrowed from me!”
“It’s generous of you to come, considering,” I offered.
He made a sound at the back of his throat. “No, I was in the middle of telling her how much of a fool idea it was when I realized just why you were doing this. There really are birds here who’ve inherited debt from their grandfathers, like this youngling here.” He nudged Gravin. “It shouldn’t be their responsibility but that’s just how we thought of things. I loaned those bits to help other birds. It doesn’t help anybird if they’re in debt for a hundred years that they didn’t even take on themselves.”
“It was an easy decision for me,” Gravin joked. “I never had the bits to loan anyone!”
Grable laughed and patted him on the back. “And you still won’t after this, but at least you won’t be deep in the red from me!”
“I’m hoping other griffons understand things as well as you do,” I said.
“There are always going to be a few holdouts,” Grable said. “Bunch of grumpy old birds. They probably think they’re smart because they’ll be able to demand everybird pays them back since they don’t owe bits to anybird else. But what about after that? Who’s going to want to take a loan from them ever again knowing how greedy they are?”
“Maybe if this becomes a regular thing, they’ll have to come to the party just so other birds won’t shun them,” Gravin said.
“That can be a powerful motivation,” Shahrazad agreed.
“Making it a regular event is a pretty good idea,” I said. “The griffons who don’t come will be able to see that it made things better for the ones who did.” I gave them a smile. “And more importantly, it’s nice to just come together and have a celebration once in a while.”
Grable snorted. “Just don’t expect us to call it Sunset Shimmer Day!”
“Please don’t,” I begged jokingly. “Even something like ‘forgiveness day’ is better, and that’s a terrible name. I’m sure someone around here is better at naming things than I am.”
“Of course we are,” Grable agreed. “Pony names all sound the same. It’s either horse puns or rhyming words. Or both.”
“Sometimes there’s alliteration,” I said, pretending to be defensive. We all laughed. I was starting to think that everything had gone off without a hitch, which of course meant that everything was counting down to the next disaster.
I spotted Gilda carrying a tray out of the back, and made my escape to go and check up on her. I slowed as I approached and raised an eyebrow when I saw what she was wearing. I’d caught a glimpse of something and assumed it was an apron from baking in the kitchen, but there was significantly more lace than anything designed just to be practical.
I raised an eyebrow, opened my mouth to say something, and Gilda moved like a cobra, jamming something in there before any words could escape. I bit down on instinct and was pleasantly surprised with a delicate crunch and the flavor of roasted nuts and pepper.
“Mmm!” I nodded in approval.
“It’s my great-grandma’s pepper cookie recipe,” Gilda said. She hesitated. “Sort of. When I got the recipe, it didn’t have baking powder or anything, so they were a little different.”
“More like bite-sized peppery rocks?”
“Yeah,” Gilda admitted. “You know how it is. We didn’t have some of the stuff in the original recipe my great-grandma used, so we’d use a different flower, or half the sugar, or…” She gave me a shrug. “One thing changed at a time and eventually it was rocks.”
“These are a lot better,” I said. “It’s sort of like gingerbread.”
“Those tips you gave me helped out,” she admitted. “Maybe I’ll try some of it when I’m making scones. If they’re good enough, birds will actually buy them and not just complain at me.”
“You should thank Pinkie Pie. I didn’t know anything about baking until she pulled me aside and made me learn.” I smiled at the memory. “She said it was to help with a big order but I slowed her down way more than I actually helped. I’m pretty sure she really just had a ton of extra ingredients and got permission from the Cakes to teach me how to make something besides stew.”
“Stew’s good, though,” Gilda said.
“Sure. It’s hard to mess up even if you just throw all your odds and ends into a cauldron and boil them until they’re soft enough to eat.” I looked around and saw Gabby holding a tray and offering delicate glasses to guests. “Wait a minute, is that wine?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Gilda shrugged. “We have to preserve a lot of food for the bad months, so that’s a lot of pickles and a lot of wine. It doesn’t sound so bad until you’ve been stuck eating pickled wild onions and beets for a month and drinking watered-down berry wine.”
“That sounds…” I hesitated.
“It’s better than starving,” Gilda shrugged. “Sometimes there’s salt trout. You have to boil it, but I like to sneak a little bit raw.”
“It’s preserved by basically mummifying it with salt, right? Wouldn’t raw just be like… a fish-flavored salt lick?”
“Exactly,” Gilda agreed, licking the edge of her beak.
I shook my head and held back a laugh, but my amusement was cut very short because a second later, a harsh gust of wind hit the castle hard enough to rattle all of the recently-repaired windows, a draft finding its way inside and making the drapes and curtains ripple.
Every griffon quieted and looked up and around, holding their wings tight to their sides and seeming nervous. When the wind died back down to nothing, they started to relax, but there was a tense edge to the atmosphere.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” Gilda said. “It’s just getting close to the dry season. You don’t have anything to worry about, this castle is the toughest building in town. I bet every bird who had you fix up their place is feeling pretty smart right about now.”
“Is there anything we should do?” I asked.
Gilda shrugged. “Smile more. Ponies usually smile all the time.”





The party went on pretty far into the night, and it was technically morning when the last few griffons left. Gabby had wanted to stick around and clean, but I’d told her to get some rest. She’d worked harder than anyone else in making the party a success, and I was going to have to figure out how to repay her for that.
“It was an exceptional event, beloved,” Shahrazad said. She looked down at my lap and smiled. Ruby was snoring softly. Somehow she’d ended up with a glass of wine and that had sent her right into an early bedtime.
“It did go well,” I agreed. “I think most of Griffonstone showed up. If they stick to the promises they made, it might help things in the long run.”
“Yes,” Shahrazad agreed. “You may have saved something of worth here, merely by throwing a party.”
“It’s not just throwing a party, the party was an excuse.”
“An excuse they needed. Every culture’s ideas and values are different. In my nation, debt does not truly exist. Not as it does here, enumerated and counted. Things are given as gifts and repayment is expected but not demanded. Instead of trading bits, we trade favors and aid. Here, it seems they want repayment in kind.”
“Yeah. And unlike Equestria, debts never go bad. What that one griffon, Grable, said? About how there were griffons in his debt who’d inherited it from their ancestors? That kind of got to me. We’d never do things that way in Equestria. Children don’t inherit debts.”
“Indeed. It is cruel and archaic in the way rules are when they are made to protect the strong and not the weak,” Shahrazad agreed. “Ponies are prey animals by nature. Our societies formed because we needed each other for protection, and our laws and traditions come from a desire to protect the weak because we are so often weak.”
“Griffons aren’t prey,” I noted. “They’re predators.”
“Yes. But not apex predators. Their ancestors hid from manticores and dragons and other beasts. There are books here of ancient griffon history that your student has been repairing and they are fascinating to read. The first griffon tribes were something like cults of personality, growing around strong leaders who demanded tribute for protection. Their laws reflect that to this day.”
“I guess that’s one reason things fell apart so badly when the king left,” I suggested.
“And why they reacted so poorly to the loss of a symbol of power,” Shahrazad agreed. “The spirit of the griffons demands a strong and powerful leader that can protect them.”
“That might be what some of them want, but what they need is to stick together and help each other. They’ve mostly figured that out already by themselves.”
“Yet they needed an outsider to come in and tell them how to better themselves,” Shahrazad pointed out. “They needed an outsider strong enough to lift their spirits and make them listen, but with the wisdom to know that cooperation and community are the key to a stable life for all the griffons here.”
“Shahrazad--”
“They needed you, beloved. And do not pretend otherwise! You have been raised by a ruler, to rule. You have the power and the right to do so! The griffons would be happier for it, and you would have the respect you deserve!”
I rolled my eyes. “I am not conquering a nation for you, Shahrazad.”
“Beloved, in some ways you already have and I am just waiting for you to realize it.”





I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I sure remember waking up. I snapped from completely out of it right to emergency mode at the sound of shattering glass. I jumped to my hooves, shoving Ruby off my lap, and I was instantly scanning the room and ready to throw a fireball at the first thing that moved.
It took a few moments for raw alertness to be replaced with thought. The panic dropped away and I let the spell fade when I saw there were no intruders.
A gust of wind blew through the room and I followed it to a broken window, a long board stabbed through the frame. Another massive wash of air pushed through, strong enough that I almost felt like it was trying to knock me over. I shielded my face and pushed the debris away before casting a repair spell on the window, the glass shards re-fusing into solid panes.
“This is one heck of a storm,” I mumbled.
“Sunset?” Ruby groaned. “Is everything okay?”
“Go back to bed,” I told her. “It was just the window--”
Someone started pounding on the door, the pace frantic and panicked. I rushed over and pulled it open. When I saw the griffon outside, and the expression on their face, I knew there was trouble, bad trouble.
“Explain on the way,” I said, before they even started. I saw surprise in their eyes and they nodded, turning and running down the street. I chased after them through the dark, wind tearing at me from all angles. One moment, it would be pushing us to the left, and then a moment later we’d stumble as it veered right.
“One of the old houses collapsed!” the griffon shouted over the wind. “Greta and her father are trapped inside!”
“It’s not one of the ones I repaired, is it?” I asked, worried if I’d somehow messed it up.
“No, and that’s the problem! All the ones you fixed are fine, but this storm is early! We usually do some work to prep everything for the bad season, but nobird bothered yet!” They turned and skidded to a halt, shielding their eyes as a zephyr kicked up around them, throwing sand and rocks around in a tight spiral. I used a burst of force to rip the cyclone apart before it could reach me.
“Is that it over there?” I shouted, pointing to where griffons were trying to move a house-sized pile of debris.
They nodded, and I bolted over to see what I could do. I just needed to figure out who was in charge.
“There you are!” Grandpa Gruff yelled. “We need to get them out of there, but if we move anything, the rest might crush them! What do we do?”
Everyone was staring at me, and I realized with growing anxiety that in fact, I was the one in charge. Great. There wasn’t even time to stand around and dither and make someone else do all the thinking.
“Take a step back!” I called out, before letting out a pulse of magic, gently touching everything in the pile with telekinesis. I had to lift it all at once. Things were leaning on each other and tangled up, and I could feel where it was already starting to slip.
I could also feel something alive and moving down in there.
There really wasn’t time to second-guess myself. I just lifted up the whole house, letting the magic flow through me and just riding the torrent, focusing more on locking everything in place than being clever or conservative. The night burned with my magic, red and cyan washing over each other in waves.
“I’ve got it!” I yelled, hefting it above roof height. “Get them out of there!”
Grandpa Gruff and another griffon ran in, pulling the two injured birds out, letting them lean on their sides for support as they limped away.
“Is everyone out?” I called out. I had to hold it up and keep it still. There wasn’t anywhere to put it down unless I wanted to crush another house with what was left of this one.
“We’re good!” Gruff yelled back. “You can put it down!”
I eased the wreckage down to the ground, gently putting it back in the same hoofprint before letting go, a few loose pieces of debris crashing down when the magic faded away.
I wiped my brow. “Okay! Take them to the castle! There’s plenty of room there and it’s sturdy! Anyone else who needs shelter, send them too! I don’t want anybird getting killed in this storm!”
“Will do!” one of the griffons shouted, saluting. I rolled my eyes at that.
“Wait!” The younger of the two griffons they’d pulled from the wreckage ran over to me, favoring one of her legs. “It wasn’t the wind! There was something that tore the house down trying to get to us!”
“Something?” I asked. I’d hunted more than enough monsters that I wasn’t going to discount what she was saying as just the same panic a child might have of the darkness in their closet. “Did you get a look at it?”
“No, we were taking shelter, but…” She looked around nervously.
“Hey, pony!” Grandpa Griff shouted. He held up a board. There were huge claw marks across it, wider than his talons and scorched around the edges in a zig-zag pattern like a tree had been etched into the wood. “I think she’s right about the monster.”
I nodded, taking the board and giving it a closer look. All I could tell was that I didn’t want to have to hoof-wrestle whatever had done it.
“Get everyone inside,” I said. “If it was trying to get inside, it couldn’t get them while they were in there. We’re in more danger standing around out here and waiting for it to come at us. It’s probably just waiting for--”
Lightning crashed across the sky. There wasn’t even a trace of rain, and with the winds blowing like this, the clouds should have been torn to shreds.
“Go!” I shouted, not having time to tell them all the reasons they shouldn’t be in the middle of the street when a monster might be running around in the dark. I scanned the black sky, trying to spot anything out of place. I couldn’t imagine anything had come here on foot. It was hard enough getting here even if you knew exactly where Griffonstone was.
There was another flash of light, a bolt slamming down only a street away, hitting an old weathervane and blasting it apart. The sound was deafening, but in that strobe of bright light I’d seen it. A huge bird in the sky, like an eagle hovering overhead. The lightning had come from it, outlining its wings before lancing to the ground.
“It’s a thunderbird,” Grandpa Gruff said, looking up with me. “They’re one of the only things that can fly when the weather’s this bad. It’s when they come out to hunt!”
“You get inside too,” I told him.
“You ever fought a thunderbird?” he asked. “You know anything about them? I didn’t think so! I’ll have you know--”
Another bolt of lightning came down, this time right on top of us. It hit the wall of magic I threw in front of it, a wide spherical section that deflected most of it down into the ground and faded back into near-invisibility once the strike had faded.
“Everyone go!” I yelled, loud enough that I could be heard over the ringing in my ears. They didn’t need more prompting. Griffons ran for the nearest shelter, and I stayed at the rear, keeping an eye on where I thought the next attack might come from. I was pretty sure there was only one thunderbird up there, but the pre-dawn darkness blacker than midnight was making it impossible to tell.
Another forked bolt came down, and I threw a shield over the griffon it was aimed at, just barely making it in time, grounding the lightning just hoof-widths from them. The force of the thunderbolt knocked them back, and I caught them, getting them back on their feet and ushering them along. They were probably half-blind and deaf, but they kept moving on instinct, running for the castle.
“Okay you vulture, come on,” I growled. “You must be getting pretty annoyed that I’m not letting you fry any chicken! Come down here and fight me!”
I lit up my horn brightly, making myself the most obvious target in Griffonstone.
The wind started to pick up again, whipping past me. It felt like it had an evil purpose, like it was carrying malice along with dry leaves and straw ripped from thatched roofs. It would have been really dramatic looking if I’d grabbed one of my many black cloaks before stepping out, but I’d been in too much of a rush.
“Come on,” I whispered, looking around. “Where are you? I’m right here!”
I was listening for the beating of huge wings, but what I got was a scream. I spun around, and the thunderbird was on top of someone’s house, ripping through the thatched roof with a talon as big as I was. It pulled a griffon chick that couldn’t have been any older than Ruby out like it was picking a berry from a bush.
“Get away from her!” I didn’t have time to run, so I tore a hole in the universe and teleported on top of the roof, surprising the bird with a burst of bright light right in its face. I’d fought plenty of giant birds before, and this one wasn’t even made out of rocks or half-bear. It didn’t scare me just because it had a wingspan as wide as a city block and feathers crackling with lightning.
And from this angle, I could blast it without catching anyone or anything in the line of fire. Literal fire. I threw a burst of blue flames into its face, and it scrambled, spreading its wings for a quick take-off, still holding the griffon chick.
I jumped onto the talon, stomped on its knuckles, and it let go, still confused and reeling. The griffon screamed and fell. I jumped after her, catching her in midair and teleporting again, reappearing in a burst of magic next to the castle.
“Here,” I said, putting her in the hooves of a very surprised reporter who opened their mouth to ask a question. I was gone before they could start distracting me. I hadn’t hit the monster anywhere near hard enough to kill it, and I only caught a glimpse of it flying back up into the air before it vanished behind the haze the winds were carrying.
The thunderbird was probably more angry than afraid, and my experience in the Everfree told me when an apex predator like that got upset enough, it always reacted the same way. I was challenging it, and it had to establish dominance.
I stood out in the open, my horn glowing. It had always been an obvious challenge but now it would take me seriously.
Lightning struck from the side, crashing against my shield with enough force to make me take a step away. I threw a bolt of fire into the sky in that general direction and didn’t hit anything. A second later, another thunderbolt raked my shield from the other side, almost breaking through because of my distraction.
I swore under my breath and tossed a bigger fireball into the sky, a burst that was way off target but for an instant I caught a glimpse of the thunderbird circling me. With how dark it was, I couldn’t pinpoint it well enough to hit it with any spell worth using.
“You can’t hide from me that easily,” I said. Not that it could hear me even if it could understand me. Were thunderbirds smart enough to know when they were in trouble? I’d find out in a minute.
Light spells were one of the easiest things in the world to cast. Even a foal could light up a whole room. Celestia brought light to the entire world every morning, and she made it look easy. All I needed was something in-between the two extremes. I threw a light spell into the air, overcharged with as much magic as I could put into it, the spell eating most of its own energy just keeping itself together against the pressure of how much I was forcing it to output.
A red sun dawned over Griffonstone, and miles of mountains saw an early daybreak.
The thunderbird was clearly visible in the bright sky, slowing and looking around with obvious confusion.
“Got you now,” I said. I probably should have just scared it off. Predators like that wouldn’t come back around if they knew something bigger and badder had claimed it as territory. But… it had gone after a kid. That just rubbed me the wrong way.
It threw another bolt of lightning and I met it halfway with a thin lance of blue plasma. The electricity bent around my spell, the heat and pressure shoving the ionized air away and forcing it to ground far off target, shooting past me and cracking into a peak on another mountain.
My spell stayed right on course, hitting the thunderbird dead-center in the chest. It froze in motion. The black feathers faded to bone white, and its cry ended in an empty echoing screech as it totally calcified, my spell petrifying it.
In mid-air.
It had enough inertia to keep going on a long ballistic arc, smashing into a mountain peak and shattering, the pieces cascading down in a landslide.
“That’s what you get,” I said. Now I just needed to make sure no one else was in immediate trouble. I walked back up towards the castle, and even with the wind whipping around us there were still griffons and ponies standing outside, all of them staring at me in the red light.
“That was…” one of the griffons started, trailing off.
“Oh, right, sorry.” I looked up and dismissed the light spell, letting it fade away and bleed off. “I don’t think it crushed anything important? If it did, we’ll move the rubble in the morning, okay?”
He nodded, speechless. I really hoped there hadn’t been anything important over there like someone’s secret vegetable garden.
“Ah, Miss Sunset Shimmer?” I vaguely recognized the voice. I looked over at the knot of reporters that had arrived for the party.
“You’re Late Edition, right? With the Pressgang Press?” I asked. “There’s plenty of room in the castle for guests. Just don’t ask for a refund from whoever rented you a room before.” I gave her a smile. “Refunds aren’t really a part of the local culture.”
“We were camping, but-- it’s not about that.” She cleared her throat. “I was watching what happened. Well, all of us were watching.”
“Oh,” I said, getting a sinking feeling. This was probably about the way I’d handled the situation. Anypony else might have done a better job. If Twilight and her friends had been here they probably would have talked the thunderbird down with Fluttershy’s help, found out that it had some starving chicks somewhere, made a new friend, and everyone would be cheering.
“That was one of the most incredible magic displays I’ve ever seen!” Late Edition said, her eyes wide with… awe? “I know that in the past you’ve rarely spoken candidly with the press, but can you confirm the rumors that you’re Princess Celestia’s biological daughter, or a secret alicorn, or an ancient fire spirit--”
“Woah, woah!” I blinked in surprise. “I’m just a regular unicorn.”
“No regular unicorn can perform spellcraft like that!”
“Twilight could,” I shrugged.
“You’re referring to Princess Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn? Who wields an ancient artifact of incredible magic power and was tutored by Princess Celestia herself? Are you claiming that’s really your basis for an average unicorn’s ability?”
“Maybe not the best example,” I admitted, trying not to let anything slip. “It’s just not easy thinking of a pony you tutored like royalty, even somepony as obviously special as--”
“You also tutored Princess Sparkle?!” Late Edition asked.
“I mean… yeah,” I said, shrugging. Was this not common knowledge? I mean, we’d hid it at the time because I was literally a paranoid wreck hiding away from the world, but I’d assumed that after the Nightmare Moon thing it had eventually gotten to be public. “I met her when she was a filly and taught her a few tricks. Obviously she’s outgrown me, and I’m very proud of her and how far she’s come.”
And I meant that. I didn’t hate her. I wasn’t jealous. I was disappointed in myself for not having the same kind of talent.





I didn’t really sleep for the rest of that night, even after the winds started to die down around sunrise. I was just too wired with adrenaline and the worry that some other monster might be lurking out there in the dark. More than that, part of me felt like I had to keep watch over everyone in the castle. I owed it to them to give up a night of sleep to make sure all of them could rest safely.
Nobody else slept too well, but they at least slept safely, and when the sun peeked over the jagged horizon I got a look at what the storm had done to Griffonstone. I’d thought that the griffons had just been lazy or didn’t care about how broken and damaged their homes were, but the windstorm had undone almost all the work I’d done. If it was like that for months on end... 
“That wasn’t so bad,” Grandpa Gruff said, yawning and stepping up next to me. “Looks like nothing got blown clear off the mountain. That happens sometimes, especially with early storms when nobird’s expecting it. Just wake up one day and the house next to yours is gone like it never existed.”
Grandpa Gruff was not helping the mood, and I tried to give him a look that communicated the fact. He laughed and gave me a slap on the back hard enough to sting.
“You ponies are as soft as milk pudding,” he chuckled. Then his eyes strayed to the pile of rubble clearly visible on the mountainside. “Well, maybe not entirely soft.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
“You did enough,” Gruff said, patting me a little more gently. “The bad nights like that end with birds missing in the storm and all of us hoping it was quick. The only thing we lost was some stuff, and all our stuff was junk anyway. We can get more.”
“I was thinking about what you told us, how this place didn’t used to be so bad. Until that storm I thought you might have exaggerated things. That storm didn’t feel at all natural.”
“Natural, unnatural, nothing we can do about it! We don’t have a fancy pony weather team here to keep the skies clear, and the last time any of them showed up all they did was apologize and leave. You’ve already done more than any other pony ever has.”
He gave me one last slap on the back for good measure and started walking away. “I make a decent cup of tea. Ain’t like how you ponies do it, but you’re welcome to try it as long as you don’t complain. I won’t even charge you for the first sip!”
I smiled and shook my head. I hadn’t even noticed it until then, but Grandpa Gruff hadn’t even tried asking for bits the whole time we’d been talking. Maybe he thought he owed me for sheltering him, or maybe I’d really gotten on his good side.
“Thanks for the save last night,” Late Edition said. “To be honest, some of the rumors about you, even the ones we printed… some of them haven’t been kind, and you probably know that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care all that much, but I know Luna took it personally when you said the thestrals were cursed by Nightmare Moon.”
“We all owe you, and after the way you protected everyone here, we want to correct the record. As far as we’re concerned, you’re the savior of Griffonstone, a real hero, with no magic trinkets or prophecy to help you.”
“The griffons are the real heroes,” I said. “They’ve been hanging on for dear life with weather like last night’s going on for half the year. Equestria hasn’t been helping them because just like me, they’re too stubborn to ask for it when they really need it.”
“I’d hate to see a situation where you’re the one outmatched,” Late Edition said.
“Just about anything where diplomacy is involved,” I joked. “I’m guessing most of you are going to be heading back on the train?”
Late Edition nodded. “Hopefully. If nothing happened to the tracks.”
“If you get there and you need debris shifted, you know where to find me,” I said. “If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s heavy lifting.”
“Thank you again, Miss Sunset or… what is your official title?”
“I don’t even know at this point. Ponies keep trying to hang new ones on me, but I’ve been able to keep them from sticking.”
Late Edition gave me a small, tired smile and nodded before walking off, speaking softly into her tape recorder as she trotted away. I’d have to pass the tip along to Twilight. With her new title, she’d probably need to find a way to deal with the press, and if a monster attack got them on my good side, well, they were practically a weekly event down in Ponyville. Seeing her fight off a Hydra might make even the most hardened reporter decide not to run a hit story.
The rest of the griffons eventually got up, the noise and sunlight starting to make them stir and everyone snapping awake when a rooster’s call crossed with the croak of an eagle echoed through the hall. It was immediately met with yelling.
An hour later, when I’d broken up the fight, begged the biggest chicken in the world to sleep in the next day, and gotten the rest of the griffons moving on home, I was finally able to sit with a cup of coffee and let the warmth soothe me from inside-out.
“All the papers are going to be calling you a hero,” Shahrazad noted. “Not undeserved, either.”
“The griffons--”
“Please, beloved. Saying they are the real heroes is good press, but the simple truth is you defeated a terrible foe. Surviving is not heroic, it is what a victim does. The griffons are victims, and we should help them and pity them, but we should not want to be them.”
“You could be nicer to them,” I said.
“I find them admirable,” Shahrazad said. “They are independent and strong. They are much like you, beloved. You might not want to rule them, but they need a ruler more akin to your strengths than those of Princess Celestia.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for somebird who fits the bill,” I said, emphasizing the bird part of that word. “Actually, I should be asking around. Someone in town must know more about the Idol of Boreas. This place went to Tartarus when it was lost, and I want to know why.”
“I know someone who might help!” Ruby Drop called out. “But… I’m only gonna tell you if you let me have a cup of coffee!”
“There’s no way this stuff is good for foals,” I said.
“It’s basically roasted bean juice,” Ruby said. “Come on, please?”
“One cup,” I conceded. “But you’d better really have something.”
Ruby grinned and poured herself a cup from the tin percolator and put a big book on the table. She started sipping at the coffee before explaining herself. “This is the journal of King Guto, the last king of Griffonstone! I’ve been using the repair spells you taught me to fix it, and now it’s practically good as new. Well, you know. Not new new like a blank journal you’d get at the store. It’s new like all the pages are clean and the ink is un-smeared!”
The more coffee Ruby drank, the faster she spoke. It was almost up to Pinkie Pie speeds by the time she’d emptied her cup.
“It doesn’t just stop when he lost the idol,” she says. “It keeps going for a while after that. I didn’t read it in a lot of detail but I had to flip through the pages when I was repairing it to make sure I got it all right.”
“This could be a big help,” I agreed, picking up the book and opening it up.
King Guto’s writing at the start of the book was strong and terse, more like he was writing a book of advice for future descendants than just keeping a journal for himself. Since it had been stored in the castle library, or what passed for one, maybe that was exactly what he expected, to pass down what he learned as king from one generation to the next. It detailed advice on crop rotation, the markets, their allies… I was amused to find notes on Equestria and Princess Celestia.
“Sounds like he might have had a little crush,” I muttered, as I read his glowing praise and descriptions of her cutie mark and the surrounding areas.
“Does he say anything about the wind?” Shahrazad asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “Not until…” I trailed off as the style of writing changed.
The letters became lighter, scratchier, not painted onto the page but just scribbled in wavering lines, with some of it scratched out and more notes written in the margins.
“Here we go,” I said. I scanned the page, skimming what he’d written. “It looks like there really was a years-long storm after the Idol was lost. It says here he decided to offer a huge reward to any griffon who retrieved the Idol. A title, a fortune, land, anything they wanted.”
“And they did not get it, even when a reward was offered?” Shahrazad asked.
I turned the page. It was a short entry. “The three best fliers in Griffonstone braved the winds to go after it. Two of them died. One got back to the surface but his wings were so badly broken he never flew again. Then some griffons tried to force a child to go down with the idea that a smaller wingspan would make it easier for her to avoid the walls. He called a stop to it then.”
“Ah yes. Why not risk a child’s life to enrich the family?” Shahrazad scoffed.
“After that… it seems like he tried a lot of things,” I said. I flipped through the pages. There were long stretches where he just railed and despaired against the forces of nature and the typhoon around them. He detailed attempts to use ladders, complex arrangements of rope and pulleys, and even carving stones into the rock. None of it worked, and eventually, he blamed the griffons who had left for greener pastures and took so much with them.
“Did anything work?” Ruby asked. “Oh. I guess not, or he would have gotten it back…”
“The last thing he tried almost bankrupted Griffonstone and emptied the royal treasury,” I said. “He had the railroad extended up here into the mountains just so he could get something he called the Iron Egg delivered. It was something like a deep-sea diving bell, and he thought it would be heavy enough that the wind couldn’t do anything to it, and tough enough that it could survive a descent and being banged against the walls.”
“That nearly sounds like a good plan,” Shahrazad commended.
“He decided since good birds had died, he was going to be the only griffon inside,” I continued.
“Ah, and there is where the idea falls apart,” she said, nodding.
“Guto says he was sure there was a safe eye in the storm around where the Idol had fallen, and if he just got close enough, retrieving it would be easy. He has all these calculations about the wind with the speeds and direction, and he thought he found a pattern.”
“What happened?” Ruby asked.
“The journal goes right up to the day he had set for his mission,” I said, flipping to the last entry. “He mentions there’s no time left, and that he thinks the Idol is damaged from the fall. After that it just… ends. There’s no next day.”
“We can guess what happened,” Shahrazad said. “There are no tales of brave King Guto returning from the abyss, just the last king who lost the Idol, spent all of Griffonstone’s treasury trying to get it back, and vanished.”
“It’s not exactly a happy ending,” I agreed. I put the book down and rested my chin in my hoof, thinking.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Ruby Drop said. “This wasn’t that long ago, right? Grandpa Gruff is old but he’s not super-duper old like Princess Celestia, and he was around when they had the Idol. He said he even saw it himself!”
“Indeed,” Shahrazad said. “And King Guto extended the railroad as part of his scheme. As dilapidated as the station was, it was still modern.”
“I just don’t understand how all this could happen without anypony finding out,” Ruby Drop said. “Why is this a mystery?”
“Of all the virtues of Equestria, curiosity is the most rare,” Shahrazad said. “Most ponies rarely know anything that happens outside of their home town.”
“Princess Celestia has some bad habits too,” I admitted. “She’s immortal, and sometimes a few decades… slip. It’s like borrowing a book from the library, and you know you should return it the next time you go out, and you forget and it stays on your desk and then other books end up on top of it and by the time you find it again it’s because you’re throwing everything out of your room because you’re having a panic attack and you can’t stand being around anything that reminds you of the old you and you suddenly remember you were supposed to return it ten years ago!”
I panted, trying to catch my breath after that very normal explanation.
“That seems extremely specific and personal and you told me if you do something weird like that, I should remind you to talk about it with a therapist,” Ruby said.
“Thanks, Ruby,” I sighed.
“So what will you do?” Shahrazad asked. “All the griffons here are asking themselves that question. What answer will the great Sunset Shimmer give them?”
“I can’t just leave them like this, that’s for sure,” I sighed. “It’s selfish of me to think I can just walk in and solve a problem by myself that they couldn’t fix on their own, but I still want to try. I’d feel worse if I didn’t try.”
Shahrazad nodded and smiled with approval.
“Can you imagine how much of a jerk I’d be if I saw people getting hurt and just walked away?” I laughed.
“Of course,” Shahrazad agreed. “You would much prefer to risk your life in some incredibly dangerous, foolish way that would be certain death for any other pony. And when you survive whatever you’re planning, you will assure everyone around you that it really wasn’t that impressive.”
“That’s what I’d normally do,” I agreed. “But instead I’m going to do something I’ve never tried before. It’s going to be difficult, risky, and I wouldn’t even think of trying this if there was any other method.”
Shahrazad sighed. “Sunset, we can all tell when you’re being sarcastic.”
“I’m going to write a letter to Princess Celestia,” I admitted. “She probably knows something. Even if she doesn’t know it off the top of her head, she’s got the entire Canterlot Archives and as many grad students as she wants to do the research for her.”
“Truly a solution that any pony could use,” Shahrazad said. “Merely enlisting the aid of the immortal ruler of a nation, who would do almost anything to win your approval.”
“Huh?” I frowned, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, beloved.”
“I’ve got quills and ink here, Miss Sunset!” Ruby said. “What should we write?”
“It would probably be a good idea to explain everything that’s happened. Otherwise, she might get some weird ideas from what’s going to end up in the papers.” I thought about the best place to start. “Okay, let’s start with when we arrived…”





The reply came a few hours later, a swirling mote of flame and smoke dancing through the air and stopping right above me before flashing with light, a scroll dropping down and almost into my lunch before I caught it.
“That was fast,” I said. “She must have written this as soon as Day Court ended.”
I cracked the wax seal and unrolled the scroll. Ruby ran over and reared up to peer over my shoulder.



	My Most Ambitious Sunset,

I was pleased to receive your letter, and it sounds as though I’ve kept Griffonstone at hoof-length for too long. I was aware of King Guto’s death, and left the griffons there alone to find their own path. I regret it now that I know how they’ve suffered, and I am sorry you have to clean up a mistake that should have been within my power to resolve.
The Idol of Boreas is, or was, a powerful artifact, but beyond the simple fact of its power, I do not know much. I know it had some control over the winds, and it far exceeded what pegasus magic would allow. It was enough that the Kings of Griffonstone were a force on par with Luna or me, and more than once it was instrumental in fending off attacks from marauding dragons.
I don’t know the origin of the Idol. I do know the first King, King Grover, used it to unite the griffons under his rule. Having met him personally, I don’t think he truly needed the Idol for that. He was a powerful, influential griffon and whatever trials he went through to get the Idol forged him just as much as it did the Idol itself.
I will investigate more to see if there is more information on anything similar in the Archives. Please don’t hesitate to write again. I would love to receive updates from you and not filtered through the somewhat biased lens of the press.

Always,
Celestia



“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said. “But a promise to search the greatest library in the world is about the best we could hope for, and now she won’t be worried about us doing anything crazy. I was half-convinced that if we didn’t tell her something, she’d fly down here just as a ‘surprise visit’.”
“And now she won’t?” Ruby asked. “Having her around wouldn’t be that bad.”
I smirked. “What, you don’t think I can take care of things?”
“I think having two really super smart ponies working on a problem is better than one,” Ruby said, showing a remarkable talent for recovering smoothly from even the most awkward situation.
“I happen to have a possible solution already in mind,” I said. “Gabby picked up these boxes for me this morning,” I said, moving my lunch to the side. It was just leftovers from the party, sort of a sandwich stuffed with horderves.
“And these wooden boxes are going to save Griffonstone?” Ruby asked, poking one of the simple oak caskets.
“You got it,” I said. “So when I went to the Empire to help out Cadance, they actually had sort of a similar problem. The weather there is awful. The Empire is sort of like an oasis in the middle of the tundra, and they use magic to hold back blizzards and the cold. They had an artifact for it, but it took a while to find it and get it working again, so Shining Armor and Cadance were casting some spells to do it themselves.”
“Like the big bubble that was around Canterlot for that wedding where you blasted a big ugly bug?” Ruby asked.
“Exactly!” I nodded. “Shining Armor gave me a few tips on large-scale shields as sort of a favor. These four boxes are going to be the cornerstones of a big ritual shield spell that should keep the winds out. It’s a combination of zebra hoodoo, traditional runic magic, and just a touch of Cloudsdale weather factory company secrets.”
“Can I help you set it up?”
“Absolutely. Grab a shovel and let’s get started.”