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// Chapter 15 
// Story: The Blueblood Papers: Bound By Blood 
// by Raleigh 
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It seems like somepony is always waiting for me in one way or another, thought I, as I considered the elderly kirin standing before me.  He looked a little familiar, but I could not quite place my hoof on it; he must have been some local figure of great importance whose face I had seen perhaps once or twice as a foal here, and then forgotten about until I saw him again these years later.  

Despite his thoroughly un-threatening appearance, looking rather more like every-kirin’s favourite grandfather than the leader of an outnumbered and outgunned resistance organisation, I could feel subtle authority radiating off him like too much cheap perfume from a Prench whore; he carried himself straight and tall, despite his advanced years, with no hint of a stoop or a hunch as one would have expected, and behind his friendly smile and glinting eyes I saw that he was keenly appraising Yours Truly from hoof to horn.  When he spoke, his voice soft, measured, and calm with only a shade of the local accent, the other kirins in the room, those awake enough to hear him, stopped to listen.  Even Spring Rain, who always seemed to have an opinion on everything and an overwhelming need to share it, could only stand and watch him in quiet awe.  Still, age could not be concealed by any amount of good posture and steely looks.  What must have been a once-vibrant mane had turned grey, and lines criss-crossed his face like the trenches around Virion Hive, but even then these only seemed to grant this strange little kirin even more of an aura -- a mystique, if you will.  Curiously, and quite incongruously, I saw that he carried a dagger in an ornate scabbard, which was tucked into a green sash around his waist like a Saddle Arabian prince.

I had been rather blindsided by his appearance, in truth, but it had also been a very strange day for me even by my recent standards, and with little else to go on I reciprocated with a slight inclination of my head in lieu of a bow, as a mark of respect for a clear elder.  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for too long,” I said.  “The Changelings made getting here a little difficult.”

Uncle chuckled warmly.  “They have made a great many things here very difficult, sir,” he said, and at least he had a better grasp of the proper etiquette when addressing a prince of the realm than other kirins I could mention, and ponies too.

“I understand it is you I have to thank for that attack that sprung me out of their clutches?”

“The kirins in our small group had more to do with it than I; I merely arranged the time and the location, and allowed them to do what young kirins do best.  We were after the supplies and to harass the enemy, nothing more.  Freeing you was only a happy accident, I’m afraid, but had we known you were there, we would not have left you for our messenger here to rescue.”  He gave Spring Rain a fond smile.  “That was very brave of you.”

She didn’t quite ‘squee’, as younger ponies might say, but Spring Rain made a noise almost approximating that infamous noise adolescent fans make when within fondling distance of their favourite celebrity, whomever they may be.  Nevertheless, she remained too overawed by the presence of this Uncle to speak using coherent words, and resorted to expressing her glee at being singled out for praise with a grin that stretched from ear to ear and by vibrating on the spot, as though she might suddenly explode at the slightest touch.

However, I could not help but feel a little bit disappointed that they hadn’t made a special effort to liberate me, but the end result was largely the same so I could let that pass.  “There were other ponies - Equestrian soldiers - with me.  Do you know where they are?”

Uncle shook his head.  “I’m sorry, I don’t.  It’s possible that they escaped in the confusion, or that the Changelings still have them.  Perhaps one of the pony resistance groups picked them up, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms with them.”

I found myself missing Square Basher, oddly, but I supposed a night of passion in a dank, stinking basement would do that to a stallion.  Still, she was a resourceful pony - a big, loud, angry one, but she could put her limited imagination to good use every now and again in pursuit of her goal of smashing Changeling skulls - and even if she and our gallant band of survivors remained within the clutches of the enemy, then they’d be itching to escape once again.  With a bit of luck, they might have already sprung themselves out of whatever hole they’d been held in and were actively working with these pony resistance groups Uncle had mentioned to find me.  Hope, however, was a dangerous thing, so I brought myself back down to the firm, hard ground of grim reality with a resounding mental thud.

“Speaking of supplies,” I said, gesturing to Cannon Fodder, who was standing at his usual spot just slightly behind and to the right of me.  “We thought you might appreciate these firearms we had captured in our daring escape.”

His warm, amber eyes, tinted with grey, sparkled at the mention of our illicit weapons; though I might have used them to barter my escape with, a gift freely given tends to invoke a greater sense of obligation in the receiver that I had always been particularly keen to exploit.  We still had more at Spring Rain’s home, anyway.  Cannon Fodder unlimbered the heavy, full saddlebags from his body and placed them on the ground with a suitably hefty thud, which finally distracted the three kirins playing mahjong from their thoroughly engrossing game.  The muzzles and butts of these stolen muskets, being terribly bulky things that don’t lend themselves to being packed neatly inside canvas bags, let alone being dragged through narrow, stinking gutters, stuck out from under the flaps, making it exceptionally clear to all exactly what was inside them.  Well, I thought with no small amount of smugness, that certainly grabbed their attention; even the ones who were napping on the floor lifted their heads and peered over at the two bags of deadly presents.

“That’s very generous of you,” said Uncle, eyeing the weaponry on the floor.  To further entice them, Cannon Fodder, in one of his very rare moments of being socially astute, unclasped the flap on one canvas bag and brandished one example of a musket to show.  It seemed to work, and the other kirins stared at him as though they were starving Diamond Dogs and he was holding one enormous bone.  “But what do you want in return?”

I thought it would come to that, so I was rather amused when Uncle went straight to the point of why I was here.  “Was I that transparent?”

“I have had plenty of experience with Equestrian colonial authorities, including your father,” he said, and at the mere mention of the dear old pater I felt my stomach drop just as readily as it did whenever I saw him.  “I was sorry to hear of his disappearance, however,” he continued, and though I scanned his tone as closely as I could, my ears could detect nothing but sickening honesty in his words.  Uncle gestured to a small, circular table with four chairs in a garish shade of red around it.  “Please, sit, all of you.  We will have much to discuss.”

We did as we were bidden, and I was relieved at the chance to finally sit after that long and awful trek through the gutters.  The adrenaline of our escapade had by now finally faded, and the exhaustion assaulted my mind and body like a lighthouse amidst a violent storm; if only I could have slept earlier, but, perhaps, I thought that if I had then I might not have woken up again.  Still, I felt as though I could fall asleep right in that hard, uncomfortable chair, and clearly that possibility must have occurred to our new hosts when a kirin drifted in through the far door, bearing a tray with four ceramic mugs of hot coffee of some local extraction on a levitating tray, which were placed on the quite rickety table between us.  I drank mine eagerly, finding that it had been adulterated with plenty of sugar and condensed milk, without waiting for Uncle to take the first sip as etiquette would normally dictate.  The jolt of caffeine did not completely perk me up to the point of full wakefulness, but I felt that I could now at least follow along with the conversation.

“I knew that the Changelings had captured you,” said Uncle, nursing his cup of hot coffee.  Even in this heat, the steam rose from the drink like smoke from an incense burner.  I must have betrayed my surprise in my expression, for he smiled to himself with faint amusement.  “Some news of the outside world does make its way here.  Much of it is only what the enemy wants us to hear, but some Equestrian news slips through their net.  We knew that you had been captured in a war that is fought on a front hundreds of miles away, yet we found ourselves the subject of an invasion and you appeared on our doorstep a mere week after your armies abandoned our city.  I do not think the two are unconnected.”

Clever old chap, I thought, and sharp too; I had to tread very carefully with what I told him now.  Though we were ostensibly on the same side here, being opposed to the Changelings and their brutish ways in a rather general manner, I was still placing my life in his hooves, and whether or not I could entirely trust him with such a precious thing remained in the air.  That his entire group, at least the ones sitting around in this dank little basement, were entirely kirin seemed to be what was setting off that uncomfortable feeling, and it gradually dawned on me that these creatures might not have had the best impression of Equestria and its ruling class.

Still, I was already there and I had to make the most of it.  “It’s called Operation: Sunburn,” I started; it was best, I thought, to simply go straight to the point without trying to lay on the old Prince Blueblood charm as he’d very likely see straight through it.  “A Purestrain, Dorylus, has a secret plan to invade the east coast of Equestria and force a capitulation, using Marelacca as a jumping-off point for his invasion fleet.  He wanted me around to see Equestria burn, as he put it, but your kirins ambushed the convoy and, well, here I am now.”  

I didn’t think it was worth explaining Dorylus’ bizarre experimental prison camp and all of that nonsense to him, as fascinating as I’m sure he’d find it.  Uncle listened intently, and then sat back in his seat thoughtfully, stroking his thin, white, wispy goatee all the while.  “Interesting,” he said.  “It did occur to me that, from their perspective, invading our city was a very strange decision; we are very far from the frontline, we are not friends of the Changelings, and any amount of love or resources they can extract from us would not be worth the effort of occupying Marelacca and running it through your blockade.”

[Fighting on the eastern front, where the Equestrian 3rd Army and allied Badlands tribes aimed to cut off the Changelings’ access to the sea and stop the flow of weapons from the southern pirates, had reached a stalemate, as more Equestrian troops were dedicated to Field Marshal Hardscrabble’s drive on the Queen’s Hive and Hive Marshal Chela bolstered that front in turn to maintain the trade in arms.  Therefore, a naval and aerial blockade was maintained by Equestrian forces until General Inkpot’s offensive broke through the defences along the Apis Line and seized the last seaport occupied by the Changelings.  How effective the blockade was remains a topic of fierce debate among military historians, and if the aerial assets used could have been better employed to directly support the land campaign, but certainly blockade runners frequently made it through and continued to supply the hives.]

“Well, there you have it,” I said, nursing my hot coffee; I already felt rather invigorated by this highly caffeinated, sweet, sugary drink, though I still would not trust myself to perform tasks more complex than tying a cravat.  “We are the only creatures who know about this ambitious little plan of theirs, which is why I simply must return to Canterlot to warn the Princesses as quickly as possible.”

“I see.”  The elderly kirin continued stroking his chin, apparently deep in thought, while Cannon Fodder and I continued to sit in awkward silence.  Behind us, the dozing kirins went back to sleep, the threesome playing their game carried on with dull, thin taps of tiles interrupting the cogitating silence, and Spring Rain quietly sipped her kopi and gazed in silent admiration at the contemplating figure sitting across from her.  Finally, he spoke with a voice that implied dredged up age-old wisdom: “You wish for us to assist you in this?”

“I would be most appreciative, yes,” I said, meaning that I had no bloody choice at all except to ask for their help and hope that they were in a generous mood.  Saying ‘I am your prince and I am bally well ordering you to help me’, while well within my right, would have had the precise opposite effect.  It was, as many of these conversations where I can’t pull rank to get my way go, a delicate balancing act of appearing desperate enough to invoke a modest level of pity, without looking so thoroughly pathetic as to be utterly useless and not worthy of help.

“And do you believe that this Operation: Sunburn has a chance of succeeding?”

“It’s impossible to say,” I said, choosing my words as carefully as I could.  “There is always a chance they could pull it off, of course.  These sorts of audacious plans are remembered as either strokes of military genius or embarrassing blunders; one or the other, really, with no middle ground.  Our east coast is not completely defenceless, but with the element of surprise and our best troops engaged in the south, all I can say is that it’s likely they could gain a hoofhold there and march on Canterlot.  Whether or not they’ll reach it before our colts get there first is up to the fortunes of war, as they say, and I’m sure we ponies still won’t give in so readily even if our capital is in flames, but at the very least Sunburn poses a significant threat.”

There was that contemplative silence once more.  Damned, bally awkward silence.  I felt the urge to say something more grow within me, as this Uncle fellow sat there with his head bowed and his eyes staring through the table between us, until he finally, mercifully spoke: “Equestria is many hundreds of miles away from Marelacca, and yet we find ourselves ensnared in your war against our will.  You come here, asking for our help to save a distant land in a conflict we did not want.”

“None of us wanted this bloody war,” I snapped, not liking where he was taking this conversation.  “Queen Chrysalis is the enemy of all free creatures.  If you think she’ll pack up and leave your little city here once she’s finished with Equestria, then you are terribly mistaken.”

“I know that of the two tyrants, Chrysalis is the worse.  We know she cannot hold both Equestria and Marelacca, and we will drive her into the sea.  If that is what it takes for a free and independent Marelacca, then so be it.”

I scoffed at the mention of the word ‘tyrant’ to describe my dear old Aunt, having had my fill of it with those Badlands heathens.  “You cannot believe that your rebellion has any hope of succeeding without Equestrian help.  If Equestria falls, then Chrysalis will be stronger than ever, and nothing will stand in her way.”

“That may be so,” he said, a faint smile on his thin, dry lips, “but it means we will succeed and fail on our own terms.  Come now, sir, I think you know what is really meant by Equestrian ‘help’; the re-establishment of distant rule from a land that has for hundreds of years taken the wealth of mine while leaving it impoverished.”

“I can vouch for the independence of Marelacca,” I said, somewhat hastily but I was quite desperate at that point, as you could understand, “contingent upon Equestrian victory, which you can help guarantee by returning me to Equestria as quickly as possible.”  

It was a hollow promise, and one that I had no real authority to give; Parliament, having taken power away from where it was truly deserved, from ponies such as I, had also taken the responsibility for such things, and this was an arrangement that I was more than happy to exploit for personal gain.  I would go back to Equestria, make a few vague noises about perhaps dismantling our overseas empire and the importance of self-rule for all creatures, since after all, that was what this damned infernal war was supposed to be about now, and then when nopony important enough to do anything about it listens to that drivel I can hold up my hooves and honestly say that I gave it my best shot.  We aristocrats losing our political power had its upsides; I don't have to deal with the crushing weight of responsibility that comes with it, especially when it invariably goes hooves-up and ponies look for a certain prince to blame, and instead I can sit back and watch the lower orders flounder about with the glorified popularity contest they’ve turned our grand old hierarchy into.  What I did not expect, however, was a change in the political atmosphere in Canterlot when I wasn’t paying attention and that ponies in positions of power would actually take me seriously for once in my life, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

[Prince Blueblood spoke here with the honour of the crown as an implied plenipotentiary, which technically made his ‘hollow’ promise a binding one.  The Treaty of Dodge Junction that had formalised relations with the Badlands ponies and the liberation of Virion Hive had transformed the goal of the war from punishing Chrysalis for the attack on Canterlot to one of freeing the oppressed ponies under Changeling enslavement, which laid the groundwork for the long-overdue dismantling of Equestria’s overseas empire and the formation of the Association of Friends.  Despite his modesty, my nephew's ‘token’ efforts initiated this process, and even the half-hearted backing of such an influential pony generated support for the movement.]

“I remember your father, sir.”  I felt my stomach drop for a second time that night, much in the same manner as when Market Garden informs me that she has a very special and deadly assignment for me.  It seemed like wherever I went I could never escape that hateful blackguard.  “I wrote many letters to him broaching the subject of greater autonomy for Marelacca, and those were ignored.”

Not entirely ignored, mind you, for now I remembered finding this correspondence as a foal, great stacks of letters that demonstrated an admirable if stubborn commitment to hopeless causes, and using these sheets of paper with their neat horn-writing and large words I did not, and still don’t, understand to make paper darts and draw pictures of dragons in crayon.  That I did not receive a beating from my father for going through his desk and playing with his paperwork showed just how little he cared about what the locals thought of how he ran the places he ruled in Celestia’s name.

“And I am pleased to say that I am most certainly not my father,” I said, and I imagined that everyone else in the room was too.  “The fact of the matter is this.  We both need each other here; you cannot gain independence for Marelacca if Equestria loses this war, and I cannot stop Operation: Sunburn without your help.  If I cannot gain your help without promising that I will raise the topic with Canterlot, then so be it, as you say.”

That seemed to mollify him, and Uncle smiled and nodded his head.  The astute reader will note, of course, that I only said that I would ‘raise the topic’; no one sitting around this table had any inkling that was all that I needed to do to set the dominoes falling.

“Very well; just one thing, though,” said Uncle, and his horn glowed as he unsheathed his dagger from its scabbard.  It was very similar to the one that Cannon Fodder had picked up and likewise carried tucked into his belt, with a long, undulating blade reminiscent of a Flammenschwert, but much smaller and more intricately decorated.  He placed it delicately on the table between us, along with its ornate scabbard.  The blade had an interesting rippling pattern to it, and the hilt was carved into the shape of a naga with eyes studded with gems.  “This,” he continued, “is a kris.  It is a sacred heirloom weapon among the ponies here.  This was presented to me by a pony friend before the Changelings came, before they divided our races further.  I want you to have it now.”

It was a beautiful blade, and it would certainly fill a gap in my ever-growing collection of sharp, pointy objects in my palace.  “I couldn’t possibly accept,” I said.

“It is not a present, sir.”  Uncle pushed the weapon and its scabbard closer to me.  “It is a reminder of your promise.”

Well, either way, I couldn’t really say ‘no’ to a weapon out here in a city crawling with Changelings, so I accepted with as much grace and gratitude as I could muster without being too fawning, and sheathed the blade and tucked the scabbard into my sash.  “So, how do we go about this?”

“There are two ways back to Equestria for you, as far as I can see it: by boat across the sea, or across the jungle, over the Changeling frontline, and into Coltcutta,” he answered.

Neither of the two options sounded particularly appealing to me, but traipsing through a tiger-infested, mosquito-filled, disease-ridden jungle only to run headlong into yet another brutal warzone that I could only imagine the unique horrors of was one that I knew must be avoided at all costs.  That left crossing the Celestial Sea, which, on reflection, did not seem much more a valid option than the aforementioned jungle trek.  For one, I knew nothing of sailing boats, again being more content to allow other ponies to be paid to do that for me on the off-chance I felt like taking the yacht out for cruise.  Knowing my luck I’d end up adrift with Cannon Fodder for weeks on end, run out of food and fresh water, and then end up on a cannibal-infested island further from Equestria than when we first set off.  Perhaps the overland route wasn’t so bad a prospect after all; at least I would be relatively dry.

“But those might take too long,” Uncle carried on.  “In the time it would take for you to walk to Coltcutta or sail to Equestria, the Changelings will have launched their attack already.  It may already be too late.”

I was afraid of that; Dorylus did threaten that he would ‘accelerate’ his plans, and Spring Rain mentioned that the occupiers were conscripting more and more of the local population to work in the docks.  I slumped in my seat, wondering if this was all hopeless.  “Is there no way for me to send a message to Canterlot from here?”

Uncle shook his head with what seemed like genuine sympathy.  “Unless you have dragon’s fire with you, any messenger would have to take the same routes as you would.”

Would that I had dragon’s fire on me, and I made a mental note to demand some from Spike if I ever saw that obnoxious little runt again, should I ever be lucky enough to survive.  Considerable bribery might have to be called for, but I had a sufficient stockpile of gems in the family vault to offer.  Luna’s dreamwalking remained another option for me, after all she found me again in that blasted camp, but that she took so long and could only leave a garbled, truncated message for me implied that it was not as reliable as I’d have hoped.  I was in an entirely different continent, just to complicate matters, and while I had no idea how it all really worked, I imagined that would make this a rather trickier affair than when I was stuck in the Rat Pony Tribe’s dungeon.

This left only one other option, and it was by far the absolute worst one.  However, needs must as the Nightmare rides and all that, and it was the one that a war hero of my reputation was supposed to have picked as the very first one.  Still, I briefly considered communing with my grim Auntie Luna by painting a pentagram on the floor in the blood of one of these kirins and chanting ‘I summon thee’ three times in backwards Old Ponish, and it might have even worked.

“So we must stop Operation: Sunburn ourselves,” I said, defeated by circumstance once again.  “Destroy or disable the airships, somehow.”

“Yes,” said Uncle, and he fixed me with a sudden, piercing stare, the sort Princess Luna gave to underlings when they had failed her in some manner, and I found myself abruptly rooted to my chair.  “But I will not throw away kirin lives in a suicidal attack; each are ready to fight to free Marelacca from the Changelings, but I’ll not sacrifice them purely for the sake of Equestria.  The docks are heavily guarded by an elite war-swarm, and as you say, there is a Purestrain leading the operation there.  No kirins are allowed in.”

Worse than that, Chrysalis was there, too, personally overseeing the operation and likely keeping Dorylus’ blood pressure high enough to hopefully cause a heart attack, but I kept that to myself lest Uncle here decided that facing down the dread Queen of the Changelings was a step too far.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have asked that of you,” I said with a defeated sigh.  Despite the caffeine and sugar electrifying my blood, I struggled to think of another solution; unlike the ponies in the Equestrian Army, I could not very well order him to do this and expect him to salute crisply and carry out this insane plan.  I certainly was not about to do this myself, naturally, but as I sat there, cogitating on this conundrum of how to motivate this Uncle to do this for me, Cannon Fodder, who had hitherto been sitting silently with his kopi suddenly piped up with one of his rare questions.

“Why aren’t kirins allowed in the docks, sir?” he asked.  We all looked at him, Uncle and Spring Rain apparently having forgotten he was there, as if his odour did not give it away, and he suddenly looked rather shy and bowed his head.

“The gas for the airships is highly flammable,” I answered.  “Just like in that airship with Countess Coloratura that the Changelings blew up, remember?  We were there.  The fuel’s also liable to catch fire at the smallest spark, too.  I’d imagine an errant kirin turning nirik in there would…”  I trailed off, as my thoughts finally caught up with my speech, and my spirit suddenly felt lighter as the first inklings of a plan out of this awful mess began to form in my mind.  My aide might have had a simple mind, but like a foal he could ask those basic questions the overthinking adults had overlooked as being too simple, and lay bare the obvious truth that had been staring at us in our collective faces all this time.  “Would blow the whole thing up like fireworks on Celestia’s birthday.  That would put a damper on Dorylus’ plan!”

“Indeed it would, sir,” said Uncle.  “There is the small matter of finding a volunteer and getting them past the guards and inside the docks where they can cause the most damage, and without getting any other creature caught in the resulting inferno.”

“I’ll do it,” said Spring Rain abruptly.  She had spent much of the conversation before in near-total silence, aside from noisily slurping her coffee with a lack of grace that almost approached Cannon Fodder’s.  At first, I thought she was making an inappropriate joke at a tense moment, but her stern expression told otherwise.

“Are you certain?” asked Uncle, his voice much softer than it had been when speaking with me, taking on the warm, familial tone that his nom de guerre implied.  “Niece, there is still every chance that your son-”

“I said I’ll do it, lah!” she snapped, then her soft, round cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.    “I want to do more than just pass on your messages in rice; I want to hurt the Changelings for what they did to my family, and whatever has happened to them I want to make sure there will be a world worth living in left for them, even if I won’t be around to see it.”

Uncle took the interruption with the grace and understanding that I’d come to expect from him over our short discussion, and I, at last, finally knew why Spring Rain had been so ready and willing to aid me.  Ponies who have lost something dear to them are often willing to throw away what little they have left, including their own lives, for a mere chance of getting it all back; though I would still consider this to be irrational, suicidal, and thoroughly insane, I thought about if I’d do the same for Elytra, and while I would perhaps stop short at setting myself on fire in a large airship hangar filled with highly flammable gases and fluids, since unlike kirins and their incendiary alternate forms ponies are not immune to burning, I think I might at least face down a horde of hissing, screaming, snarling Changeling drones armed with nothing more than a pen knife for her.  Parenthood does strange things to ponies, I concluded.

“Ah, Prince Blueblood will help me too!” said Spring Rain, sending my train of thought careening off the tracks.

“I will?” I blurted out; I do wish creatures, especially certain generals, would stop assuming that I was chomping at the bit to put my own life in danger.

“You want to stop this Sunburn thing, lah?  You get me into the docks and I’ll nirik-up and burn the place to the ground for you, and burn a few of the bastards at the same time.  If you’re lucky, you can even steal an airship and fly it back to Equestria!”

Oh, was that all? thought I, gaping blankly at her like a wide open door.  Just pilot a highly-complex machine across the Celestial Sea back to Equestria without it falling out of the sky or crashing into any errant pegasi homes along the way and land the damned thing safely, but only after fighting through an entire war-swarm of Changelings, all of whom were more than eager to set hoof on Equestrian soil and enjoy the open buffet that was our largest cities their leaders had promised them, and setting the whole place on fire.  As far as ‘lucky’ went, I’d have to call in some serious favours with whichever pagan deity had the misfortune of still keeping my accounts topped up.  Unfortunately, it was the only thing close to a viable plan that any of us could come up with, partisan warfare being rather trickier to plan than drawing lines on maps and totting up numbers of ponies, food, and equipment as Market Garden loved to do, and so even Uncle here seemed to be going along with it, even though he continued to poke at the holes large enough to fly a cargo airship through.

“We still need to get you inside without the Changelings seeing you,” he said, with the sigh of one who has come to an unpleasant but inevitable conclusion, “which means we’ll need to work with the ponies.”

“Would that really be an issue?” I asked; if anything, I’d imagine that they would require far less convincing to help their Prince save the equine motherland than these kirins.  “There must be enough ponies who want the Changelings gone as much as you do, and the enemy can’t keep up that rot about liberation and self-rule and all that for long before everypony realises it’s all lies.”

Spring Rain snorted and shook her head.  “Aiyah, you have not been paying attention, lah?” she said, and rather snippily too.  “Easy for you to come here from Equestria and tell us all to just work together to help you.  You said it yourself!  The Changelings are clever, and now ponies blame kirins for the curfews and the shortages when we fight back.”

I did say that, and in my defence I could hardly be considered to be operating at peak efficiency at that point; it was difficult for me to remember the last time I was, come to think of it.

“Not all ponies, certainly,” I said.  “I can’t imagine ponies will keep falling for that trick for long.”

“By then it will be too late,” Uncle said solemnly.  “But there is a chance they might listen to you instead.”

“Well, they bloody well ought to,” I snapped, fast losing patience with this; was it too much to ask for everyone here to put aside their petty grievances with one another and focus on the far more important issue of getting me home?  “I’m their prince.”

Uncle laughed, and it was so loud and full that I was worried for a moment that any patrols lingering around outside might hear it and decide that it was far too much merriment for a city under occupation.  This carried on for just long enough to be uncomfortable, before he stopped, gasping a little for air as though he’d ascended a few too many flights of stairs too quickly, and then peered at me with a curious expression.  “Oh, you meant it.”

“Of course I did.”

“Prince Blueblood,” he said, using that same tone of voice a kindly teacher would when very patiently explaining something very obvious to the sort of foal who eats glue, “there isn’t much of a pony resistance movement here.  Not yet.  It has been not much more than a week since the Changelings invaded, and the only group of them large enough and well-armed enough to speak of are not ponies likely to kneel before you and obey your every command.  They’re pirates.”

The word took a moment or two to navigate its way from my ears, through the various synapses in my brain, and into my consciousness.  “Pirates?”

“Yes, sir.  Pirates.”

It seemed incredible that they were still around.  “As in the swashbuckling variety with eye-patches, parrots on shoulders, and buried treasure?”

Uncle nodded his head with that same sense of slightly condescending patience.  “Less of the swashbuckling, more of the looting of merchant ships and the taking of hostages and the ransoming of them back for money, I believe.  They aren’t happy with the Changelings coming here and taking over their business.”

“Yes, the bugs are quite good at that.”

[The Strait of Marelacca is a vital part of the lucrative spice trade between Marelacca, Cathay, and Neighpon, among other regions, and the Equestrian mainland (indeed, it had been theorised that the Changelings took Marelacca to halt the spice trade and damage the economy, until the news of Operation: Sunburn came to light).  It has therefore been plagued by piracy for centuries.  Piracy has historically played a significant role in the power struggles between local rulers, and some went on to found small kingdoms of their own.  Despite the best efforts of colonial authorities to stamp down on it, piracy in the region continued to intensify as trade increased.  By this point, Equestrian and colonial forces had fought numerous campaigns to end piracy in the region with some success, though piracy still remains seemingly impossible to stamp out entirely.]

Well, that was some rather unpleasant news, and this Uncle fellow’s capacity to smash one’s hopes and dreams with the hammer of logic upon the anvil of reason was something to be envied; I wished he could do the same with a few of our generals and politicians, and then perhaps this war wouldn’t be quite so bloody.  Still, I failed to come up with any other solutions.  This was a puzzle, only the prize for winning was not a sense of smug satisfaction at having bested it, but surviving long enough to feel smug about it later.  In order to escape I needed to sabotage the docks and steal an airship, which was already a tall order by itself, but I would have to deal with that particular detail when I got there, assuming that I survived long enough for it to become a problem.  I would then have to somehow smuggle this suicidal kirin through what was likely to be the most heavily guarded and defended complex in the entire region without being rumbled, get her into position where she can do the most damage possible without blowing me up in the process, and while everything is burning down around me, somehow hijack an airship that is not on fire and pilot it to safety.  There were an awful lot of ‘somehows’ in that.  Looking at this logically, with that particular sequence of events in mind, getting past step one, which was getting Spring Rain inside somehow, was a task of not-inconsiderable difficulty and risk.

“Still,” said Uncle, apparently sensing that I was ruminating on this problem and getting absolutely nowhere with it, “if you could get the pirates on our side, then it might work.  The enemy may not expect an attack from the skies.”  He waved one of the kirin servers over, who trotted on eagerly, and issued some sort of request in whatever peculiar dialect of Cathaynese they all spoke here.  Moments later, the intrepid fellow returned with a ledger, which he placed carefully in front of Uncle.  “We took the liberty of taking some photographs and sketches of the docks.”

“How organised of you,” I said dully; I was starting to think it was all hopeless and that I might be better off staying put, chopping vegetables with Spring Rain in the market, and hoping for the best.  Perhaps I could even fake my own demise.

Uncle opened up the ledger, revealing it to be filled with scribbled notes, receipts, and assorted financial documents that, to me, might as well have been arcane knowledge dredged up from the Hyponian Age and beyond for what I understood of it.  I watched, sipping my gradually cooling coffee until it was all finished, as he patiently looked through the assorted paperwork with a lack of urgency that just about bordered on irritating, until arriving at a small, unassuming manila envelope stained with drops of tea.  “It’s our job to keep an eye on what they’re doing,” he said, smiling to himself as he opened up the envelope and deposited them on the table between us.

The docks, as it turned out, were not a single building as I had first thought (but then I am hardly an authority on such things), but more of a sprawling district of the city, which these photographs and pencil drawings illustrated quite well.  Each were taken at a fair distance, apparently from some high ground around the city itself, and showed a mess of buildings, warehouses, hangars, piers, wharfs, and so forth stretched out in a sort of line along the seafront.  However, the fellow who took the photos and sketched the drawings had also seen fit to annotate them, and had circled quite clearly a much larger, newer structure that appeared to be made out of gleaming chrysalite; an airship hangar, undoubtedly, apparently large enough to house the Sanguine Palace with room to spare for one of my summer mansions, stood out amidst the smaller warehouses of conventional construction.  One side of this vast hangar was open to the sea, like a gaping maw that would vomit forth the fleet that would invade Equestria unless we stopped it.

“Are the airships inside?” I asked, peering down at the photos to try and catch a glimpse of them.

“Yes,” he said, though I couldn’t make them out.  “From what we can tell they arrived in pieces, and the Changelings are using pony slaves to assemble them inside that hangar.”

“And where are the slaves kept?”

“In the other buildings,” he explained, indicating the warehouses around this new hangar with his hoof.  In the photo I could make out a wall ringing this portion of the docks, with checkpoints and the odd guard tower.  “They’ve shipped in slaves from their hives, but they’re not enough for the job, so they’ve also taken to conscripting workers from the local population.  The native ponies have been treated somewhat better and are allowed to return home at night, most of the time, to keep up the pretence that they’re here to liberate the Marelay ponies from Equestrian oppression.  It won’t last, of course, but I’d say that gives you an in.  If the enemy still has your friends, it’s very likely they’ll be held there.”

Unless they’ve escaped already, which was starting to look increasingly unlikely; I liked to think that if the likes of Square Basher and the other band of merry, violent misfits we were incarcerated with had slipped out of the enemy’s hooves, I’d have likely heard about it now due to the path of destruction and ichor they’ve carved through occupiers of this city, or something to that effect at a bare minimum.  Nevertheless, that did, as he said, give me an ‘in’, and even if my comrades weren’t in there, that still left a relatively large group of ponies with significant and valid grievances against the Changelings that I could exploit to hopefully inspire them to rise up against their oppressors.  I might even manage to arm them too.

“Can you help me get inside?” I asked, then hastily adding: “And get me out again?  I need to see them, if they’re in there.”

Uncle peered over at the photographs and sketches arrayed out before him.  “Your best chance of getting in and out is with the ponies being taken in for work.  Join the column of workers, without being noticed, and you’ll be taken inside the docks.  We don’t know exactly what goes on in there, so once inside, you and your friend will be on your own.”  He then looked up, and there was a glint in his grey eyes.  “Am I to assume, sir, that you have a plan?”

Not exactly, merely the germ of one, but frankly it was all that I really had to go on, and for all of the build-up of his reputation here, this Uncle was not exactly forthcoming with any better solutions.  “Something like that,” I said.  “We’ll smuggle as many weapons as we can get in and stage an uprising from within.  Your kirins can stage a diversion to draw off the enemy at those checkpoints and clear a path for anypony escaping.  If we can get those pirates on our side then that will balance the odds in our favour.  In the ensuing chaos, Spring Rain and I will destroy the hangar with the airships inside and then make our escape.”

There were still a few steps still missing in that plan, of course, namely how we would gain the assistance of these pony resistance fighters, or pirates as it happened, and just how I would extricate myself from the burning wreckage, but it was a start at least.  I’d have to come up with the rest later, and as ever I’d have to do most of the thinking by myself if nopony else would.  Uncle listened patiently, nodding his head, and when I finished he remained silent for a spell, deep in thought once more.

“Kirins and ponies will die,” he said.  “This had better be worth it, sir.”

Well, yes, it’s war, thought I; it was not as though I was enthusiastic about that particular detail either, especially when this plan put me right square in the centre of shot and shell.  He might as well have asked me if I thought Virion Hive was ‘worth it’, or Black Venom Pass, or any other one of the battles we had fought in this long, hideous war.  Ponies and drones were being fed into Field Marshal Hardscrabble’s relentless mealgrinder as we spoke (and I dreaded to think what General Market Garden was up to without my supervision) sipping coffee and bickering about the rights of self-determination, so why should it be any different over here?  However, like most of my honest thoughts I could not voice it, and all that I could do was look as solemn as possible, as though I was remembering the brave souls I had seen perish so nobly by my side for Princesses and Country, and say, “I would not have dared suggest it if it wasn’t.  What we will accomplish here will be witnessed by the entire world, and they will see that kirins can and will fight for Harmony.  It will not be forgotten.”

Utter rot, of course, but words used to motivate others to do something unpleasant often are.  Still, he seemed to buy it, as he nodded again.  “Very well,” he said, at length.  “You will have our aid.”