//------------------------------// // Entitled // Story: Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl // by Estee //------------------------------// The pegasus has several reasons for going into the lower levels of the palace. One of them is rather basic: she lives there. She’s been residing in the barracks for some time now, and has been trying to figure out a new approach in what’s officially become an ongoing argument with her roommate. Desperately searching for the words which will make the centaur stay. …the centaur is sick. Cerea will get better. The doctors are taking care of her. They’ll work something out. They have to… …there are multiple reasons available for the pegasus to descend. Residency. Patrol routes. And if she encounters anypony else in this rather specific area, she can just say something about checking on the prisoner, because that’s only partially a lie. She wants to see the pony who came to her apartment. Who set the fire. Who ran, and managed to keep running for far too long. She wants to… …no. The pegasus has recognized the need to set certain boundaries, and they start with the cell door. She will not, cannot go inside unless the prisoner is in distress and needs real assistance. Words can cross the little barred window. (It’s set at the proper height to watch a pony within, and there’s a minor enchantment which detects any restraint approaching the gaps so it can shove back.) She’s free to speak with the prisoner. The victim of a crime has the right to confront the one who committed it and as long as she’s very careful about her actions, such meetings don’t need to be confined to a courtroom. The pegasus has been wondering about the trial. The prisoner hasn’t asked for an attorney. Perhaps she’s planning to represent herself. After all, she does believe she’s innocent… …there are two ponies patrolling this area. Both of them know the pegasus, understand completely, and that comprehension still doesn’t make either of them particularly happy about this. It takes a few minutes before they agree to allow her through, and there are certain conditions attached to that permission. They are going to remain in the rough area, with ears rotated forward. And in the event that they hear anything which hints at matters having gone to the physical, they are going to close in. The Lunar pair trusts the pegasus. Implicitly. But they wouldn’t be Guards if they hadn’t offered a reminder. Because Guards protect their Princess. And in order to make sure that most vital duty continues to cross the centuries, they watch out for each other. The pegasus, verified, tracked, and keeping tight rein over herself, moves towards the cells. She isn’t sure whether most of those who work in the palace are aware of the cells beneath. They’re hardly ever used, at least for the intended purpose. The majority of staff members who learn about them tend to treat the area as a place where anypony who’s too tired to get home can just sleep for a few hours. Additionally, a few dating couples have interpreted the entire section as a Designed Tryst Zone, because there are beds and it can take a few trips before anypony realizes that the doors only lock from the outside. (The pegasus has been waiting for the restored barracks to experience that kind of invasion, and suspects the only thing which has kept her roommate from trotting in on an amateur-hosted class in pony sexuality is — the existence of her roommate. Hormone floods can wash away sufficient reason for putting a couple into a cell bed, but chancing a centaur witness might require more of a tsunami. There’s a very real risk in having Cerea see any of it, and the central one is that any blush that hot might actually set the centaur on fire.) But the cells do see some use. Recently, there had been a young pegasus mare who had contracted a unique condition, and she had to be isolated. Ultimately, it was nothing contagious, and a cure was found — but while the effects had persisted, the true danger had been from having her in public. (Nearly all of that risk would have been to the mare.) And then Cerea had appeared… …there’s a rather odd sound coming from up ahead, something which the pegasus needs a moment to identify as she closes in. It’s metal scratching against wood. Over and over. And it isn’t coming from the door, because that approach would be repelled. The reasonable guess is that the unicorn is having a go at the furnishings and, judging by the audio track, appears to be making some headway. Given the most likely source and location of the metal, this is presumed to be literal. The pegasus crosses the last few body lengths. There are no real attempts being made to move silently. She’s in armor. Even if she could fly (and the doctors told her to wait a few more days before the first attempt, the pegasus can see how much Cerea blames herself and can’t make the centaur stop), there would still be some sound produced by metal shifting on her body, not to mention the flight itself. Also, there’s usually very little point in sneaking up on a cell. Moving underground, towards the one who tried to create some level of torment. (The foal’s treatment is taking longer than expected. Nopony knows when the hospital release might come. Some are starting to wonder whether it can happen at all.) It’s nothing compared to what Cerea went through. The pegasus keeps telling herself that. Nothing at all… …she’s in front of the cell. Facing the little barred window. She looks inside. It’s the first time she’s seen the unicorn. Of course, the same can’t be said going the other way. The unicorn saw the pegasus in a newspaper photo. Picking out a target — — the restrained horn, coated in metal which displays carefully-chosen embedded jewels, is currently incapable of projecting a corona. The restraint can’t be removed by any force which hooves might bring to bear, and mere impact against anything in the cell won’t take it off. To that rather limited extent, the prisoner is helpless. (You don’t get to be a Guard unless you recognize just where all of those limits run out.) But the covered protrusion is still a horn, and the metal is dense. So the prisoner is having a go at the cell’s lone shelving unit. There’s no charge involved: no attempt to add a limited amount of mass and speed into the equation. Instead, the unicorn has her head down, and she’s just — scrapping the restraint’s tip against the wood. Over and over, working the gouges deeper into a trail of splayed splinters. And when the pegasus is this close…. …there’s a little bit of hum, here and there. Moments of singsong, where the pegasus can’t make out the words. And the motions repeat. Over and over. There’s a definite pattern. The pegasus, who’s watched her roommate sketch and can’t quite see the part of the shelving which is being progressively damaged, almost feels as if the prisoner is trying to draw something — — the unicorn looks up from her work. Glances towards the cell door, and sees the pegasus on the other side. They’re looking at each other. Silent. Motionless. Connected by a mutual gaze and a pair of decisions. The other mare’s eyes are — odd. It’s as if they possess just a little too much pupil. Something which could almost be pulling in every last lumen. Consuming — — the pegasus is a Guard. She’s seen worse things than those eyes. She tells herself that for a second time. A third — “— I’m sorry.” There’s something thin about the unicorn’s high-pitched voice. A stretched-out coating trying to hide a deep pit. The uppermost layer of quicksand has just offered an apology, and the pegasus isn’t ready to believe it. “Sorry,” she repeats. It’s something to say. The unicorn nods. “I’m so sorry you set your own apartment on fire.” The pegasus, who went through the entirety of Wordia Spinner’s so-called article with only a few breaks for nausea, says nothing. Nausea. Cerea is sick… The unicorn waits for a response with open puzzlement. Not getting one triggers a little head tilt to the right, one where the weight of the restraint might be sending the movement slightly astray. The prisoner’s next words are almost calm. They also have a certain rhythm. “I think about what it must be like, to lose yourself to that degree. To the point where you can’t think about anything properly any more. Where you don’t care. Not about what’s important. And you hurt yourself, you hurt everyone around you, you hurt a foal —“ “— that was you,” the pegasus softly states. Some things need to be on the record. “I’m innocent.” The words somehow manage to come across as sincere. “There’s a warrant on the way,” the pegasus tells her. “We’ll have your field signature soon. And there’s already an occlugraph. All we need to do is compare the results.” The unicorn almost smiles. “I have Rhynorn’s,” the prisoner claims. “You can’t make me cast when I’m sick.” “Then we’ll do a blood test to prove it.” “You mean the palace doctors will do it,” the unicorn calmly replies. “Conflict of interest.” The pupils seem to be getting larger. “I don’t think you understand how medical oaths work.” The pegasus forces the words to remain steady. “I don’t think you understand a lot of things —“ “— all my signature might prove,” the unicorn half-sings, “is that I lifted something. Assuming that anypony trusts a palace-corrupted test. One where somepony will have to take the restraint off. And the test won’t say anything about whether I set a fire. Especially since that was you —“ The pegasus is trying to keep herself under control. Most of that attempt is currently focused on her magic, because she’s not going into that cell and she can’t send wind in her stead. She can control her magic, she has to — but it still leaves her with a moment when she’s not fully paying attention to her body. Black wings flare out into the challenge position. She’s not sure the unicorn knows what the shift means. She is fully aware of just how much the movement hurt, and only manages to keep the pain away from her features while the joints refold. The unicorn did notice the initial surge of pain. “You’re not well,” the prisoner notes. “Is it because the centaur has been draining your magic? What little you have? Imagine being its victim, over and over, and still not understanding —“ The pegasus smiles. Moves her wings again, just a little. The tips of the flight feathers almost seem to curl in and out. Her tail sways. “— you have a funny way of flirting.” The unicorn freezes. Pupils contract. “…what?” emerges as a word straining to reach the level of a whisper. The pegasus continues to strike her pose. “I mean, you did come to my apartment,” she lightly beams. “Most ponies would be questioning the motivation. But you dropped by twice. That makes it a little more obvious. First there was the love note —“ “— I didn’t,” the unicorn hisses. “I didn’t, you’re the sick one, sick just for thinking about it, sick —“ “— and personally?” She makes the smile a little wider. “You may be in denial, but I know a feather-duster when I see one.” The unicorn’s recoil is a full-body event: something which starts at the enraged eyes, flows through the body and sends the desperate overpressure of rage into the hooves. The resulting push sends the entire body backwards, and the prisoner stumbles upon landing. “Don’t call me —” The pegasus casually presses on. “But you were making certain assumptions,” she smiles. “What if I wasn’t a bone-poker?” “— I’M NOT A PERVERT!”” The pegasus waits for the scream’s echoes to die away. It’s not the sort of vocalization which is going to bring in another Guard — but there doesn’t seem to be any point in talking for a few seconds. Not until the unicorn stops panting, and the flattened ears lift away from the skull. “Every Guard knows the words,” the pegasus neutrally offers, with all physical pretense towards flirting vanishing in an instant. “Feather-duster: sexual attraction to pegasi. Bone-poker: wanting a unicorn. When there’s a training group, we’re encouraged to use every term. Anything somepony might see as derogatory, no matter how stupid it is. Casually. Until the words don’t mean anything any more, because we’re all. Just. Guards. Some of us start kicking around the phrases as greetings. You know you’ve been accepted into the ranks when somepony has a go at you, right to your snout, because they know you won’t care —“ — nopony had spoken to Cerea that way. Not within the centaur’s hearing, and… there weren’t all that many ponies who were still on speaking terms with the pegasus. There had likely been no casual insult. Not towards a girl (and the pegasus knows her roommate is young) who usually treats her own existence as a mortal offense. And the pegasus hasn’t tried it, because she knows how sensitive Cerea is. How… fragile. No acceptance. Has the integration process ever truly come close to working, for a training group of one? …perhaps it doesn’t matter. Not for the Lunars. Not when the centaur can no longer serve as a Guard. “We know all of the words,” the pegasus makes herself finish. “We don’t have to use them. You think they’re important. I don’t. And as soon as somepony stops caring — the terms don’t matter. There are words which are more important.” “And what are those?” rides into the world on the wave of a sneer. “Squadmates,” the pegasus quietly says. “Partners.” And then, because she knows nothing will wound more deeply than the truth, “Friends.” The unicorn’s eyes… The prisoner dismissively sniffs. “You’re a fanatic,” she decides. “All Guards are. That’s why they can’t think properly. Why they don’t care about the herd. Why they don’t care at all.” There’s a certain amount of morbid curiosity involved in continuing to listen, along with a rather significant quantity of internal notation. Some of this may have to be repeated during testimony, and the pegasus isn’t looking forward to that. They’re the sort of words which foul tongue and brain. “Monsters…” The unicorn stops. Takes a hoofstep forward. “You’re protecting a monster.” And then she smiles. “Or is it two?” Somehow, the pegasus keeps her wings exactly where they are. “I would never hurt anypony,” the prisoner tells her. “But somepony who protects a monster — that’s a pony who can’t care properly. Just associating is bad enough. Not striking to remove it? What kind of Guard wouldn’t clear an obvious threat out of the palace? But to say what you just did…” There’s horror in the unicorn’s features, and none of it reaches the eyes. “Definitions,” the unicorn decides. “This is about definitions. And that’s why I tried to warn you.” “Warn.” There was acid in the prisoner’s words. Repetition doesn’t seem to be doing anything to dilute it. The smile arrives too quickly on the other mare’s face, and does so as a unit. No transitional movements of facial features seem to have been involved. “It’s the sufficiency clause,” is all too close to a chant. “A sufficient warning. Two. Two more than you deserved.” “A notice on my door,” the pegasus states. “One doused in a chemical which would make me sick.” “It’s not my fault you don’t have proper magic,” the prisoner decides. “Being stuck taking down everything by mouth for your whole life. And it’s also not my fault that you can’t think properly. That you can’t even spot —“ the brow briefly furrows as the brain behind it searches for vocabulary ”— what the griffons are… oh, right!” The smile gets wider. “An invasive species.” “There’s only one of her,” feels like a reasonable point to make. The slim forehooves stomp. “It could breed.” And before an even more reasonable ‘How?’ can be offered, continues. “I had a duty to warn you!” The pegasus believes herself to understand something about duty. Cerea had… …she’s been trying not to think about it. But she believes the centaur. That Cerea saw her friend. And there are positive aspects to that: for starters, the residents of that strange household now know Cerea is alive. Her friends, her rivals and, after the news reaches the herd, her parents. That the girl is lost, but — alive. And somepony is trying to look after her. …she’s sick… That’s the best way to look at it. The more practical one states that if the centaur spoke to the psychopomp, then the centaur had died. It might have only been for a few seconds. (It might happen again.) (She’s sick.) But she had died. Traded her one life for all lives, like a true Guard. What has the arsonist ever done for duty? “But you didn’t listen,” the prisoner continues, and those strange eyes skim across tight wings and self-paralyzed feathers. “And it would be a pity, except there’s nopony worth pitying.” And licks her lips. “No pony. Not any more, not that you were ever much of a real pony in the first place, or ever could be —“ “— you hurt a foal.” Just to see the lack of reaction. “The fire did that,” the prisoner says. “Which you started. How am I supposed to be responsible for the movements of a fire?” Thoughtfully, “Really, isn’t it the centaur’s fault? All of it? The magic drains: I’m sure you know about those, since it’s done that to you over and over. All of the anger, all of the fear. All the centaur’s fault, just for existing. And it could stop doing that at any time.” The smile thins. The pupils widen. “With,” the unicorn adds, “a little help.” Which is when the pegasus decides she’s had enough. Her ears feel as if they’ve been clogged with sewage. The memories of the unicorn’s words aren’t exactly an improvement. And she’ll have to repeat those words to herself over and over as she leaves the cell area, fixing them in her mind for testimony. Carrying what feels like fresh vomit — — Cerea is sick… The pegasus turns. Begins to trot away. It only takes a single step before the sound of metal scraping into wood resumes, and the pegasus wonders whether the prisoner has decided that damaging palace property doesn’t have any possible charges attached. One long scrape — and then the unicorn stops. “This isn’t a very good cell,” the prisoner petulantly declares. “Why isn’t it any better?” The pegasus knows the cell is basic. A place to sleep, a few things to read (with almost none from unicorn authors, just because). There’s a restroom trench and a sink. Furnishings are minimal. And that’s because this is a cell meant for a criminal. Cerea’s cell was more towards ‘honored enemy’ — — she instantly regrets at least half of that designation — (Cerea has to stay.) (Has to.) (But she’s sick…) — but for the unicorn, the arsonist, there are no special touches. Nopony is going to offer bedsheets of rich purple velvet. Most of the cell is a dull grey. The most colorful thing within is the prisoner, and that just barely. “I tried to warn you,” that one sadly offers. “But there was no reason to. Not when it was too late, and you were already corrupted. Because you can’t care properly, can you? Not about ponies, real ponies. Just monsters. I would never hurt anypony. But you associate with monsters. Call them your friends. And what does that make you?” Her wings are under control. The left hind leg, recognizing a recent plural, nearly succeeds in kicking backwards. “You should have been separated from it at the start,” the unicorn declares — — the voice changes. Lifts in pitch, takes on hints of song. “Separated,” the prisoner repeats. “Separated from each other, like bad fillies…” The pegasus doesn’t understand. She doesn’t want to understand. She wanted to see the arsonist. Face the mare who had done so much. Now she just wants to get out of the area. She’s seen the mare. Seen her eyes. Something about the eyes is wrong. The pegasus trots a little faster. The words follow. “Reinforce, and drag,” the arsonist merrily sings. “Reinforce, and drag…” There were certain sacrifices which had to be made when controlling your lessers and as far as Mrs. Panderaghast had previously been concerned, she’d already made just about all of them. Simply being in the same room felt as it had been the worst which could ever happen to her. Except that she’d been wrong. She couldn’t really say that the true worst had taken place. She was simply in a position, one which was in no way her fault, where it had the potential to happen. And it was utterly unfair, undoubtedly unjust, she was being made to suffer and she had done absolutely nothing wrong. No matter what happened in this small, dark, criminally-unadorned stone underground room (because the earth pony was hosting, and that mare was stupid), she was going to wind up paying a price. She saw no realistic means by which anything about her comfortable, well-supported, perfect life failed to go through some level of near-total upheaval. She didn’t deserve that. Not when she’d only made one mistake. And now they were having a meeting. Another meeting and, as with the cellar, Mrs. Panderaghast wasn’t officially there. She hadn’t officially been in a lot of rooms over the last few weeks, she was frankly sick of talking to those whom she wasn’t provably associating with, and if the upcoming upheaval of her life had any level of dubious benefit, it was that she was very likely to be not officially meeting with them for the last time. “So she’s being kept in the palace,” said the head of the pegasus supremacy organization, and did so in a tone which suggested he wasn’t all that distressed about it. That he didn’t understand: something which CUNET’s head had very little trouble believing. Anypony so delusional as to believe pegasi were important was obviously going to miss out on any number of additional basics. The earth pony mare was worse. “Yes,” Mrs. Panderaghast tightly stated. “That’s what my source has told me.” It’s not fair. Why was the universe punishing her? Simply for having been right? But she’d received the word directly, and…. she didn’t like dealing with the source. With any of the parties in the room. Not when they were delusional and stupid and her obvious inferiors, and they never admitted to that last part. They thought they were better than she and if anypony had challenged them on it, they would be ready with a full parade of Facts. Mrs. Panderaghast had no idea where they’d found the nerve to even try that. She was the one with the Facts. Everything else was obviously a lie. The alliance existed within a definition so loose as to be on the verge of plummeting from the dictionary. In the wake of the pressure exerted by the weight of a centaur, the three in the room had agreed that Equestria was for ponies. They would just settle on which ponies later. And that was equally stupid, because it was obvious to Mrs. Panderaghast that the other two weren’t really ponies at all. They were her lessers. They had been born that way, and so their status would never change. They were also exceptionally delusional, and that didn’t seem to have any chance of changing on its own. Not until somepony educated them. “So they’re going to question her themselves,” the earth pony recognized. (And how obvious was that Fact, if an earth pony could see it?) “Interrogated by the Princesses.” Mrs. Panderaghast nodded. The mare smirked. There were probably dozens of appropriate responses to that news, and smirking comprised none of them. It was unfair. She’d had a life. More than that: she’d had a lifestyle. What did CUNET do, as an organization? It found the unicorns who understood that they were special. Nopony could ever take away the gift of a horn, for it was theirs by right of blood. CUNET said the horn was the most important thing about them, got them in a room with others who felt the same way, reinforced just how special they all were and in exchange for the heady, perfect, unending intoxication of superiority, all the organization asked for was money. As far as Mrs. Panderaghast was concerned, it was a perfectly fair trade. The real trick was in finding ways to ask for that money at least three times per moon. Skill came from spending as little of it as possible. …well, the organization had minimal internal spending. Mrs. Panderaghast had dresses to purchase and for some unfair reason, the designers always charged more for what they claimed as ‘extra fabric costs’. Which was proof of magical incompetence, because a truly superior unicorn would create something which was enchanted to fit. CUNET told its members that they were superior. Also that they should be unhappy about not having that recognized by everypony around them, because the eternally-persecuted majority (relatively few of whom belonged to CUNET, but far too many unicorns had simply become corrupted) should have been in charge based on blood alone. And it collected dues, it had fundraising drives, and it reliably stepped onto the battlefield to wage its eternal war against those numerous lessers. A battle which was never truly won. Because if that ever happened, then how was Mrs. Panderaghast supposed to pay for the next dress? …a dress which was probably going to have a foreign label. The mere thought made her sick. She’d always intended for CUNET to triumph one day. Somehow. She had the Facts. Get enough Facts together and they would lead to the Idea. The one which put her — which put CUNET in charge, while still guaranteeing a steady flow of bits. It probably would have had something to do with a newly-acquired tax base. But until then… The current profit margin of hatred barely required any actual work. She’d reached the point where she could get other ponies to write the articles for her just by saying she was busy: they never minded when she signed. Besides, it was her organization. That meant the credit was hers to take. She had been doing perfectly well for herself, largely by doing just about nothing at all. And now that was over. “She’s in the palace,” Mrs. Panderaghast repeated. “We have to do something about that.” The pegasus shifted on his bench. The unnatural wings extended somewhat, folded back in. CUNET’s head watched him think. Waited for the question, which was going to be ‘How?’ She was ready for that. As primary queries went, ‘How?’ actually had some legitimacy — “Why?” And now he was smirking, She was going to make him pay for that. “She knows things,” Mrs. Panderaghast told them. “Things which can’t come out under questioning.” Which was the truth. Mrs. Panderaghast had spent years operating within the shielding fog of a legal gray area. Other ponies could write the articles, but art and perfect protection were found in the editing. She always avoided direct orders, and tamed down any text which felt too authoritative. Pointed suggestions had to be sanded. Bluntly: how could she ever be responsible for others acting on what they felt she’d implied? That was their interpretation. As long as she could take rather temporary custody of the court’s witness bench and declare that she’d never directly said any such thing, then the Facts suggested she would be immune. She wrote the kind of articles which served as a waiting schoolhouse slate, and allowed her members to fill in the blanks from an invisibly-attached list of the obvious. She did as little as possible and the organization’s members, acting under her direction, never really accomplished much at all. (Also, the pegasus and earth pony at the underground table had clearly copied her. This was unfair. She’d copied an earlier organization first.) And then the young mare had acted on her own. In terms of the membership as a whole, it hadn’t been the first time. Work a group of ponies into a frenzy, load them up at the starting line for a race which would never be won, and it wasn’t exactly surprising to see one prematurely jump the gate. But she’d always stepped back from those ponies, and justifiably so. They’d had their own interpretations of her words: how could that possibly be her fault? A remorseful few agreed that she needed to deny their actions, because the organization as a whole needed to carry on. The truly devout even signed over control of their estates to her before entering prison, and she honored them through nearly bothering to remember their names. But none had ever gone so far as the young mare. Not to the point where it involved a foal. A wounded infant was something which very few ponies could stand to see. A cry of pain, produced by one too young to understand what hurt even was — that served as a rallying point. With a foal involved, investigators might chase a little longer. Laws might be ignored. Or worse, enforced. For a foal, a jury could wind up making the wrong decision. The one which said Mrs. Panderaghast was somehow responsible. And then it would all come crashing down. So she’d made a mistake. (Was the palace tracking her already? Surely nopony there was that intelligent. It was a Fact.) (It had to be.) And it was unfair. She’d been protecting herself by getting the mare out of the capital, but — when you looked at her actions from the more nauseating perspective, hadn’t she shown some degree of kindness? She was being punished for kindness. The so-called pony virtues. Nothing more than alicorn lies. …it could be said that the young mare knew very little, and Mrs. Panderaghast would have readily agreed. When it came to CUNET’s membership, the pony in the palace cell existed as a trotting echo (and it was trotting because the lesser species kept sabotaging field strength and self-levitation alike). She’d wanted to be special. The organization had told her that she already was. Mrs. Panderaghast knew the young mare was weak-willed and suggestible. This had been proven, because she’d mindlessly agreed with whatever CUNET said. (Why didn’t more ponies align with her through thinking for themselves and coming to the only sane conclusion? After all, she was right…) The young mare knew very little. The last few things she’d been told, perhaps — and in the absence of that, she probably knew whatever she’d been telling herself. But for all her lack of knowledge, the pony in the palace cell was still in possession of a rather unfortunate Fact. She knew the cellar meeting had taken place. (So did the pony who had told Mrs. Panderaghast that a member was in trouble, but — one problem at a time.) She knew the head of CUNET had been there. Had gotten the young mare out of the city. A witness. A way to verify events. A Fact in the possession of somepony who was weak-willed, didn’t think for herself (or didn’t do it very well) — and, after weeks of isolation… Would spells be required at all? She might just listen to the first pony who showed sympathy. Who told her she was special, but… in a different way. Claimed the young mare was strong. And the best way to prove that strength was through the simple act of confession. She’s the sort who might slip. And she can be connected to me. Something had to be done. That was obvious. There had never been a more self-evidentiary Fact, and it had led to her plan. Something born out of desperation, marinated at the temperatures of injustice and reluctantly served up as what would have to be her final effort — but it was still perfect, because it was hers. However, this was the part of the plan where Mrs. Panderaghast was stuck dealing with inferior morons. “She knows things about you,” the earth pony mare smirkingly observed. “Why should we care?” The pegasus nodded. Then he looked disgusted with himself for just having agreed with an earth pony, along with having been part of a ‘we’. Mrs. Panderaghast almost understood. She took a breath. A soft sound of straining seams informed her that the current dress had failed to magically adjust itself. This is the dangerous part. “Because,” she told them, “I’ve been keeping notes about our alliance. Writing up papers about all the little secrets which the spells discover, when we’re all so close together. I’ve put those notes aside, where they can’t be found. And if anything happens to me, such as my going to prison — the papers go to the palace. It’s all been arranged.” She briefly wondered if such spells actually existed. Perhaps she needed to get some papers. Full, blank reams in sealed envelopes. That should let ponies believe whatever they liked… They were looking at her. Their lips had pulled back from their teeth. Wings had flared. Muscles were bulging. She knew she could win. She was utterly confident that a unicorn could defeat a pegasus and earth pony in a fight. She just wasn’t sure whether these two idiots were prepared to agree with her. Maybe they’ve been writing up papers. They might be getting ready to… No. They couldn’t be that smart. They would cooperate with her. They had no other choice — — the pegasus shifted forward on his bench. Spoke through the snarl, as sparks began to cluster around the edges of his feathers. Electric-blue anger lit the room, and ozone saturated the unicorn’s lungs. “So we,” he spat, “have to do something about this.” Mrs. Panderaghast nodded, and considered it to be the bravest thing she’d ever done. The earth pony still looked furious — but there was something thoughtful laced into that. “The goal is to keep her from talking,” that mare matter-of-factly considered. “And you have someone inside the palace…” Another nod. The bravery doubled. Why is that mare smiling? She found out. “Then it’s easy,” the earth pony decided, and the satisfied expression was stone. “Have your source kill her.” Something deep in Mrs. Panderaghast was measuring the casualness of the tone. It was the same aspect which had busied itself with monitoring how closely the mare was watching her, at least when it wasn’t concerning itself with figuring out time and distance to the door. The words had made the pegasus pull back a little. She felt that made him look weak. Or for a pegasus, weaker. “It’s not that easy,” the unicorn pointed out. “There’s Guards in the area, patrolling. My source doesn’t have easy access to that section. They can’t open the cell on their own. And even if they can reach the interior, the odds are too good that ponies will know they were down there. The first, best suspect. They won’t do it.” Which, now that Mrs. Panderaghast thought about it, was somewhat irritating. She was sure she had at least a few CUNET members who might be willing to kill for her, and the unjust universe had left her reliant on somepony who wasn’t in the organization at all. (Multiple someponies, and every last one stretched the terminal syllables to the breaking point.) The most she had been able to rely on her source for was listening. Collecting information, passing it along, and that was about the limit. Even after the pony had approached her freely, hoping to help. All you could ask the source for was information, and even that was limited. (Some of what she’d been recently told was precious indeed.) (She almost longed to tell her inferiors.) (Just to watch their faces.) Mrs. Panderaghast’s plan meant asking for one thing more. The earth pony was smirking again. It made the unicorn wonder if the proposal had been a test — — it didn’t matter. She had a plan, and neither of them was capable of seeing it. The pegasus was thinking. It made him look stupid. Thankfully, it was also making the sparks slow down. “We’re sure your mare is in the palace?” (The unicorn told herself that there had been poorly-cloaked desperation in the tone. A new Fact.) “Can we verify? What about Spinner?” Mrs. Panderaghast promptly decided the snort was justified. “In the palace,” she said. “And not coming out.” It had been betrayal, and she didn’t understand why. What cause ever would have been sufficient for the reporter to justify cooperation with the alicorns? She’d never seen Wordia as being that weak, and it had created another problem. Fortunately, both issues just happened to have the same solution. “The half-gallop marker,” she told them, “is that we’ve all had our members blocked from palace service. It’s the security clearance screening.” (All three nodded in frustration, followed by feeling equally disgusted for having chorused.) “We can only look for those who approach after being hired. But when it comes to getting reliable ponies to do what we need, within the palace… there’s an easy answer.” “And that is?” asked the very stupid pegasus. She had no idea how he’d even reached the point of being in charge. Best of a particularly bad lot? Mrs. Panderaghast smiled. “We’ve had forces outside the palace for weeks,” she reminded them. “So?” inquired the world’s lowest non-measured intelligence, and did so as the earth pony began to go pale beneath her fur. “So now,” Mrs. Panderaghast told him, “they’re going in.” Wings flared. Flapped. Sent their owner into a wall, where the electricity discharged. The earth pony simply thrust herself to her hooves, and did so with enough force to crack the bench. “ARE YOU INSANE? WE CAN’T —” “— papers,” the unicorn reminded them. “It’s the palace!” the pegasus gasped as he picked himself up from the dirty floor. “The palace…” “If I go down,” she softly said, “you all go with me. Or maybe you should go first? Try listening.” And because she had been there far too long, stuck with her lessers in room after room when she never should have been there at all, not when the gift of blood had made her superior, ”To your better, like proper guanos and clods —“ She never saw the earth pony move. On the rare non-fashion occasions when Mrs. Panderaghast thought about her body type, she usually saw herself as being highly attractive: it was just that very few ponies had the intellect to appreciate a mare who was carrying an extra bale-weight or so. (She liked to round down.) The impact which drove her off the bench at the terminal point of the earth pony’s jump, sending her into the floor and leaving the mare standing atop her — if nothing else, it gave her something else to appreciate: namely, just how thoroughly she’d (subconsciously) planned ahead. Extra weight had turned out to be outstanding at redistributing force, because nothing was broken. Yet. Her horn was weakly sparking in all directions. That was good. She would soon have a working to cast. It might even be a new one. Unicorns in stressful situations had been known to spontaneously create spells, and the clod on top of her probably didn’t even know what backlash was — “— I don’t care how it might all come out,” the earth pony snarled, and leaned in to let hot breath blast against the rotted pearl snout from a mere hoofwidth away. “Or where I wind up, for doing what should be done. You say that to me again, and your part ends here, Majorica. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” And the pegasus, forever useless, did nothing more than watch and smile. They thought they were her betters. It was amazing how inferior ponies could be that delusional. “…yes,” Mrs. Panderaghast said. It was easy to fake the tremble in her voice. It was what an intelligent pony would have done, especially when the plan’s success required living to see the next part. The clod got off her. It took a few seconds before the unicorn could stand. More until speech returned, and she told herself it was more dramatic that way. More stately. Then she told them the plan. They cooperated. They had no other choice. There were questions, of course. They wanted to know how everypony was getting in. She told them, and they were satisfied. After that, there was some discussion of the Princesses, but — that didn’t last very long. She hadn’t expected it to. The trio agreed on very little, but one of the few commonalities of belief centered on the alicorns. Namely, that they were weak. The siblings who had originally defeated Discord (somehow), made a new world, founded their own nation and held it for nearly thirteen centuries, were just so obviously weak. And the proof of that? Was all three of their organizations, and the continued existence thereof. None of them truly understood that full freedom of expression meant allowing that which was hated: they just would have never have allowed ponies to disagree. And as it was, they all knew that the palace tried to tell ponies what to think: the recent one-sheet (which none had read, because it was obviously propaganda) proved that. The palace should never tell ponies what to think. That was their job. Perhaps they existed at the palace’s sufferance. But that was the alicorns’ mistake, and so it was finally time to make them suffer. (All of them also saw the alicorns as freaks. Something nearly singular, in no way one of their own. Impure. Inherently corrupt. And when it came to the power, all had become skilled in hiding their envy.) It was quickly agreed that the Princesses were too weak to get involved. The Guards existed to keep them from getting involved. As with the most recent attack, they would merely be evacuated: something else which kept them from learning what real Equestrians wanted. And when it came to the rest of the palace forces — why would any of them ever strike against real Equestrians? Once they saw the herd charging, they would simply… give way. Perhaps a few might even join in, because all three recognized war as a condition where the other side never fought back. (All of them said the palace staff would give way, and Mrs. Panderaghast briefly considered that none of them might truly believe it. But they were all at the head of their respective organizations. Perhaps the other two had somehow come far enough to realize that when it came to hatred, the actual vessels were — fungible.) After that, it went to the issues involved in getting the young mare out. Along with what needed to be done if that, for some unknowable reason, proved impossible. The unicorn agreed to all of it, because she had to make it look as if she was giving a little. (Perhaps the other two had their own plans.) (They couldn’t be that intelligent.) (They…) And there were other topics. “What about the centaur?” asked the pegasus. “The centaur,” Mrs. Panderaghast stated, “is a distraction from the centaur.” They were both staring at her. She refused to rephrase. If they had possessed any intelligence, they would have known what she’d meant — “— which centaur,” the earth pony slowly said, “are we all talking about?” — right. Intelligence, lack thereof. “Tirek?” the pegasus checked. “The palace claims he’s dead —“ “They’ve obviously been using Tirek as a distraction,” Mrs. Panderaghast offered up, because it was a newly-minted Fact and they were the only ones she could share it with. “Maybe they brought him out of Tartarus and had him create a few small drains, just to make it look as if there was a threat outside the palace.” Which just showed how badly the alicorns needed to be kicked off the thrones, because what kind of mind would think of that? “Or they found some way to weakly simulate the effect, since the draining wasn’t complete or permanent. But we know this was a distraction, because my source saw what they’ll be trying to pass off as the corpse. It’s too small.” They all thought about that. “This is insane,” the earth pony finally muttered. “Insane…” And that was wrong. To Mrs. Panderaghast, it was simply the next logical step. She had founded her organization. She had collected funds, and put a fair amount of those well-earned bits aside. But she had also protected a young mare who, quite frankly, hadn’t deserved it. And now she was doing this because she’d already done so much, and there was no way she was going to stop. Stopping was for fools, and a fool who stopped for something as idiotic as self-reflection was distracted, motionless, and particularly easy to catch. Majorica Panderaghast had established a place in the world through directing her forces into battles which were never truly won. This was simply advancing the basic philosophy. Ultimately, she didn’t care about how it all came out, not for the participants. There would be a battle. And the thing about having a battle within the palace… …if she was particularly lucky, there would be more real Equestrians who would see it as their chance, join in on the side of the alliance. But she didn’t really care. It was enough of a Fact to know that lesser ponies (including far too many unicorns) were timid creatures, and would simply stay out of it. But a fight at the palace would command the full attention of the Guard. Every police officer would be called in. And with the entirety of those forces concentrated in a single location, nopony would be watching the trains. A unicorn mare whose fur had been soaked in dye, carrying letters of credit made out to whoever possessed them, regrettably cut down on total luggage capacity — that mare would enter the Grand Gymkhana, pass beneath the ceiling-embedded constellations and, watched by nothing more than false stars, depart from Canterlot. It was a regrettable sacrifice. For starters, she would have to abandon so many possessions, and they would be hard to replace. Additionally, traveling alone meant moving without the reassurance of a protective opinion bubble. But there was no other choice. The young mare would talk: Mrs. Panderaghast was sure of that. And if it somehow wasn’t her, then somepony would: the stakes had grown too great. And this was the alternative. She’d already decided to hide in Prance. (Perhaps she should have sent the young mare there, but… it would have been too expensive.) It was a nation of ponies. It was also one whose citizens generally felt they were better than Equestrians. How hard could it be to exploit that? All she needed was a primer in the so-called culture, a little time to practice the accent, and she could start all over again. She didn’t care about what happened to the young mare, or CUNET: she would no longer be any part of that. Nothing in her was capable of caring about anypony else involved. It was her plan. Her distraction: the greatest in Equestria’s history. And with that had come the realization that a proper unicorn was best off caring about nopony but herself. They would do it. They had to. They had no choice. And she would be safe. The earth pony briefly marshaled herself. “And the… other centaur?” she asked. The unicorn noted the little tremble in the earth pony’s voice. Reveled in it, and almost wished she could keep the sound there forever. But the upcoming assault was a chance to solve multiple problems. Her source had provided precious information indeed. And when you had a Fact this good… you had to tell somepony. Mrs. Panderaghast smiled. “The centaur,” she announced, “is no longer a problem.”