"Hey," said the sphinx in Felicity's doorway, her numerous mane bows and hanging curls flouncing at the slightest movement of her head. "Are you the paparazzi?"
Papyrus glanced at Larceny. Larceny glanced at Senescey. Senescey glanced at him.
"I require an answer," the sphinx said, sizing her visitors up with unrecognition even as her her claws flexed eagerly. "Mother is not home right now, so if you mean to approach at an opportune time with your covetous backroom dealings, this is it."
"Hey, Glitter." Papyrus winked, having no trouble picking out a suitable nickname for such a flamboyant creature. "Are you asking in an 'I want to meet the press' sense, or an 'I want to eat the press' one? Because I'm getting some conflicting vibes, here."
Confusion crossed the sphinx's face. "Is that a cannibalism joke?"
Papyrus backed off a little. "If you can't share the sentiment, I gather you've never met many real paparazzi."
"I see." The sphinx's expression morphed to concern, and settled on coldness. "Arrive at your point, then, please. If this is simply a social call at the door of a stranger, I imagine many other swaths of the populace will be more receptive to your sense of humor than I."
"We're business associated of Felicity," Papyrus volunteered. "She's the one we're actually here for. Give us the best way to get a hold of her, and we'll be out of your mane, quick as can be."
"Now I know you are up to no good," the sphinx accused warily. "Any true associates of Mother's workplace would have access to the proper channels. Do you even know what she does?"
"Today? Haven't the foggiest," Papyrus admitted. "We're from twenty years ago. Time travelers, actually. It's a complicated business."
The sphinx shook her head. "What a preposterous notion. Make your case or step aside and let your associates do it for you." She attempted to peer over Papyrus's shoulder, and her eyes widened. "Is that a suit of power armor!?"
"Not right to call armor if no one is inside," Braen answered. "But underlying principle is same."
"...Quaint," the sphinx said, a feather held to her chin as she appraised Braen. "Your dialect, I mean. And you two?" She tilted her head at Senescey and Larceny. "Your colorations are oddly familiar..."
"This would be easier to explain directly to Felicity," Senescey sighed. "Much easier. Can you tell us how to get in contact with her, or do we just have to wait outside this building until she comes home?"
"This again? I think not." The sphinx shook her head. "While I have leave to conduct my own dealings as I please, for her dealings, there are rules. And the foremost of those rules is that anyone who doesn't know the rules doesn't get to play. I cannot simply go making exceptions willy-nilly just because you asked multiple times."
"Fine, then." Papyrus raised a wing, turning to leave. "Next time you see her, tell her High Prince Gazelle wants a word about her old line of work, and will be loitering in the alley out front."
The sphinx's eyes bulged. "High Prince Gazelle? So you did dye your coat that way on purpose! What is the meaning of impersonating such an odious historical person?"
"Ah, so she told you about me." Papyrus grinned. "It's no impersonation, Glitter. Go ahead, put us to the test. They know just about anything you might ask me as well." He swept a wing back, indicating Senescey and Larceny.
The sphinx looked skeptical and worried. "...Tell me my parentage. Including the reason for their union. And leave nothing out. I demand you put your outrageous statements to the test."
Once again, everyone looked at everyone.
"Geribaldi Stormhoof," Larceny eventually said. "He was your father."
"I hired your mother to seduce him, if memory serves," Papyrus said, rubbing his chin. "So that she could subsequently ditch him as part of a plot to drive him to suicide. Looking back on it, I suppose that wasn't one of my saner moments... although she did her part with gusto, so at least you can't blame it only on me."
Senescey cleared her throat. "The point was to control the sole surviving heir of the Stormhoof dynasty."
The sphinx's eyes grew wider and wider, and started to shake. "...Perhaps I misjudged you," she eventually admitted. "You might want to come inside."
The apartment's interior was a dark yet opulent affair. Spacious skylights provided the only lighting, putting the penthouse's rarefied location on full display but leaving the blue shag carpets and plum purple walls to speak for themselves. Antique couches, their carved wood beginning to separate along its grain from age, guarded the walls as occasional do-not-touch setpieces, but the house as a whole felt surprisingly empty, like it had been pre-furnished and then moved into by someone who valued austerity and didn't have much of their own. Room after room served no discernible purpose, and yet they were hardly in disrepair. From how clean the carpets were, Papyrus almost wondered if it was serviced daily.
In the cornermost room, two entire walls were made only of glass, looking out on the open ocean, a balcony recessed several feet down beyond them so as not to block the view. This room looked more like ponies spent time there; its furniture was meant for sitting rather than an art display.
"My name is Floria," the silvery sphinx explained. "A purposeful deviation from the Imperial naming traditions, lest you think to blurt out the obvious. You will spare no detail in explaining to me how and why you know the things you know, as well as what business you have with my mother. Nothing that is fit for her ears is unfit for mine. Speak."
"Question from the peanut gallery," Papyrus began. "Do you have to speak so stiffly? I seem to recall you first greeting us with a pedestrian 'hey', which personally, I find so much more relatable."
"I mistook you for someone else," Floria griped, "which we will not speak on again, if you value your presence here."
Senescey cleared her throat. "We want to know how and whether Felicity found a way to have her body restored. And, beyond that, we'd like to see her again. We are... friends. From before."
"From your appearances I can get a perfectly good idea of whom you are pretending to be," Floria informed her. "What I would like to know is what plausible explanation any of you can think up for actually being those people, all of whom perished decades ago."
"That's a long story," Senescey said. "Especially when it's different for each of us. And I doubt you'd be satisfied by mine anyway."
"I fled the Empire before it collapsed," Larceny volunteered.
"And I was reincarnated," Papyrus gloated.
Braen shook her head. "Braen creation was more recent than imperial war. Was not there like others."
Floria raised an eyebrow, sitting up straight in her chair. "What part of 'spare no detail' did you not understand? Reincarnation? Do you mean to insinuate that you are undead? Clearly, you are no longer a sphinx, if you ever were."
"Well, when you challenge a vengeful angel to a duel, make your challenge impossible to ignore, and then she rips out your soul-" Papyrus cut off, realizing how intently Senescey and Larceny were looking over their shoulders.
In the doorway was a sarosian mare who looked to be in her fifties, with a heavy build and a business suit and a floor-length red mane that was streaked with silver.
"Well," she breathed. "Here I was planning to come home early and surprise you, only to find I'm the one getting surprised instead. Is this...?"
Papyrus sat up, faced her, and flashed a grin. "We're getting the band back together for another run at taking over the Griffon Empire. Are you in?"
Felicity dropped her briefcase.
Senescey and even Larceny got to their hooves. Papyrus prepared to cover his eyes and ears in case things got too mushy, but he needn't have bothered: for a long, long minute, nobody spoke.
"I-I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Felicity asked. "This can't be-"
"Someone's world will burn," Senescey said solemnly. "Just like ours. Remember?"
Whatever the significance of that phrase, Felicity ran to her, and Papyrus had to cover his eyes after all. "How is this possible!?" Felicity asked, emotion streaming from her voice.
"That's what I was trying to figure out ere you returned," Floria began, frustrated. "They obstinately-"
"Hush, you. And Larceny too?"
"And me."
"Floria, go fetch our guests some tea! I... I don't even know how to begin to..."
Papyrus idly scraped at his tongue.
"I fled the Empire to the west. I always wondered, had I tried harder to convince you to join me..."
"And I was miraculously on Valey and Shinespark's ship at the moment of truth! Senescey, how...?"
"It's a long story. We might want to sit down, first."
"Yes, yes, of course. I just... This wasn't exactly something I let myself dream of, you understand..."
Papyrus made a show of clamping down his ears.
"Would you knock that off?" all three sisters said as one.
"We're trying to have a reunion, here!" Felicity added, exasperated. "Speaking of which, what are you doing back from the dead as well? Because I have it on very good authority you hunted down your demise and embraced it."
Papyrus yawned and allowed his eyes to open. "Ask Starlight. Long story. Any particular order we're going in?"
Once it was established that everyone had a long story to tell and that no one was good at leaving the floor well and truly up to someone else, lots were drawn to determine a fair and impartial order the stories would be told in. And then they were immediately discarded when Floria returned with the tea.
"Mother," she said, balancing a tray on her back with her wings. "I take it you've decided your guests are... legitimate."
"I think we've reminisced enough to determine that beyond a shadow of any doubt," Felicity said, motioning for the sphinx to join her.
"That one, I like the least," Floria decided, nodding at Papyrus. "Perhaps you will have better luck forcing him to explain himself than I."
"Actually," Papyrus cut in, "my own antics following the destruction of the Empire are... Forgive me for never directly confirming this, but is it true that they aren't yet common knowledge among my minions, here? So might we want to cover everyone else's stories before we get distracted with all the thorny bits in mine?"
Senescey and Larceny gave him sharp looks, and Braen tilted her head.
Felicity stared at him in concern. "First off, you are High Prince Gazelle, and you've recanted of your crimes or at least regained sufficient control of your faculties to participate in a normal conversation, correct? I'm acutely aware of the change in your... ahem... features since we parted ways, but you should know this house is equipped with numerous security measures, in case you feel like having a repeat of the Kinmari incident." She turned to her sisters. "By your placid coexistence here, I presume you mean to vouch for him, but if this is all unsettled business..."
The duo warily shook their heads.
"Ahem." Papyrus furtively cleared his throat. "So, essentially, I lost my marbles to a greater degree than usual in a room full of uncatalogued historical artifacts. Caused a lot of damage, countless sacks of gold worth of losses, big scandal, might have also sent half a dozen or so students to the hospital with debilitating injuries and lifelong trauma. Yes, I was having a power trip, I know I was in the wrong, and I won't do it again, but I'm also laying ever so slightly low from the law as a result. That about cover it?"
Felicity stood up. "That does not 'about cover it' in the slightest! You destroyed any diplomatic possibility for Valey and her friends to have a happy ending in Equestria!"
"An act for which I am sincerely and contritely sorry," Papyrus said, lowering his head and making the strongest effort of his life to show genuine remorse - even though he was fairly sure he didn't feel that the same way as others. "And, more importantly, attempting to atone for. By the way, not to change the subject, but do I have to watch my mouth around here with regards to certain sphinxy secrets...?" He glanced at Floria.
Felicity shook her head. "She knows everything I do, and if you know more, I would appreciate the both of us coming into the know."
Floria nodded.
"Right." Papyrus sighed. "In that case, I also devoured dozens of souls and had a brief taste of immortality, before it was stripped away. And before I met my end, I got to try again, with more like a million that time."
Senescey and Larceny's eyes went wide.
"You didn't think Starlight killed me for no reason, did you?" He shrugged at them. "All I did was recover Garsheeva's stockpile, plus all the innocents from Mistvale. Only managed to keep them for a few minutes before I was crushed to death between Starlight and a mountain, but so it goes. I needed them to become strong enough to threaten her friends and convince her to put me out of my misery. Which, in the end, she didn't do, because she hates not getting the final word, and so here I am. No more ancient sphinx insanity curse, on account of no longer being a sphinx."
Floria grimaced. "You are referring to the tendency of my kind to succumb to madness regarding things we care strongly about, and inevitably sabotage our deepest desires."
"Ah, so you do know!" Papyrus nodded wildly. "Even back in the Griffon Empire, that was a tightly-kept secret. Most sphinxes never learned of it themselves. I only learned about it myself after nearly tearing apart the continent I was trying to unite. For a while I even thought Starlight and her friends stopped me in time, but then you-know-who came along and finished what I'd started..."
"Chrysalis," Senescey said.
"Yes, yes, that one." Papyrus nodded along, then pointed a feather at Floria. "Don't suppose you've had better luck with the curse than I did?"
"That is an exceedingly impolite question to ask a lady," Floria said coldly. "But as a matter of fact I have. In full awareness of the potential my kind can exhibit, I endeavor to conduct myself at all times with utmost humility and self-control, and thus far have not had any of these 'lapses into chaos' exhibited by my progenitors."
"Even the way you greeted us?" Papyrus winked. "Because that-"
"Was also calculated, thank you very much," Floria interrupted. "And no, I will not elaborate. Suffice it to say that knowing what I now know of you, I would not greet you in such a cavalier manner again."
Papyrus pursed his lips. "I think you'd get along famously with Corsica."
"Speaking of Chrysalis," Felicity cut in. "I survived her assault within the sanctum of Valey and Shinespark's airship, where I had stowed away in a vain attempt to make reparations, but what of you two? When she attacked, every sarosian in the realm was torn apart into a soulless husk, and all of their souls were taken back in short order by Starlight. Valey, I witnessed being put back together, and it was a monumental effort that could never be replicated at scale. And the magical protections I enjoyed were hardly commonplace, so how is it you yet live?"
"I wasn't in the Empire any longer," Larceny said. "After we parted ways, I left. Was out of the range of whatever she did."
They looked to Senescey.
"I... was put back together," Senescey sighed. "I don't know how. I remember dying. For the longest time, it felt like I was in a dream that I could never remember. And then, one day, I was me again."
She held up a foreleg, then flickered with green flame, showing off her changeling transformation. "I can do this now," she explained, cycling through the appearances of everyone in the room before returning to her own. "Perhaps as a byproduct of being broken and then reforged."
"Such an event is exceedingly unlikely," Floria pointed out. "Sarosian souls are connected to their bodies by their cutie marks, or brands. Remove the brand, as Chrysalis was actually doing, and the soul goes along with it, a phenomenon that does not happen in other ponies as their souls are also tethered to their bodies, forming a triangle. Such a rudimentary concept ought to have no need for explanation to individuals with your history, and yet you are stating that the impossible has occurred with little in the way of explanation. How?"
"How were my brand and soul re-attached to my body?" Senescey shrugged. "It's my body and my memories, beyond any doubt. But I just woke up one day and was myself again."
"What were the circumstances of this?" Floria pressed. "The time, the day, your precise location. Were there others?"
"Two others," Senescey said. "It happened on the day that Chrysalis attacked Canterlot, several years ago - living in Equestria, I'm sure you're familiar with the event. Presumably, I was a drone in her horde. When the attack ended, according to everyone, the changelings were flung from the city by a powerful force field. But I, along with two others... We came to our senses in a cave beneath the city. We went our separate ways, and that was the end of that."
"All of this basically boils down to what we're doing now," Papyrus cut in. "Basically, I've got nothing better to do with myself, so I want a redo. Take another swing at the Empire, you know how it is. I haven't been following it quite as closely as I could have, but I've heard enough to know that they survived, and then never properly moved on. It's the same old feuding nobles as it always was, except this time without a conniving goddess holding the place together. Power trading hooves and centralizing itself under whoever has the biggest army, that sort of thing."
Senescey spoke up. "I've been there since I reawakened. Currently, the two dominant factions are a group based in Gyre known as the Night's Boon, and a reclusive noble who's calling himself High Prince Gustadolph Everlaste. But the Night's Boon doesn't have a centralized leader, and no one seems to know for certain whether this Gustadolph even exists, let alone is a member of that house's line. Whether he's real or not, the consulate operating in his name holds most of the imperial south."
Papyrus rubbed his chin. "The Empire does have an impressive history of leaders obfuscating their true identities, powerless figureheads and kingpins pretending to be henchmen. By the by, I happen to have first-hoof confirmation that in the months immediately following the attack, Chrysalis stayed there in the Empire. Any chance she could be involved in these mystery cults?"
Senescey shook her head. "We know for a fact that she was in Canterlot when she attacked it, and the current governing situation has been in place since before that. It could be the work of these Changeling Bishops like the ones in Ironridge, though. Do you know about those?" She glanced at Felicity.
"Changeling Bishops?" Felicity tilted her head. "I must admit, this is the first I've heard the term. Though, I can tell you one thing that's unusual about the Canterlot attack: I have acquaintances there, sarosian circles, and they gave me no reports whatsoever about a repeat of the Empire's soul-draining taking place. That is to say, not a single new changeling was added to the swarm, even when things were going in Chrysalis's favor."
"Unusual." Senescey frowned. "In Ironridge, some of the Bishops - one in particular - were stopping at nothing to find a new way to make more changelings, one that didn't involve stealing the brands from native sarosians. They also seemed to be actively working to protect our kind. At first, I assumed they thought of us as natural resources and were attempting to restore our population as a matter of protecting their ability to sustainably farm us, or perhaps that the Bishops weren't even capable of draining us. But you say Chrysalis herself visited a city with a fresh sarosian population and left it untouched?"
Floria nodded. "By all accounts, Canterlot has one of the largest sarosian populations in Equestria - and, by extension, the world, if the north was as decimated as we have been led to believe. It is possible that something has interfered with Chrysalis's ability to enslave new members of your kind."
"Perhaps she was injured during her attack and never fully recovered," Felicity offered.
"Could be." Papyrus shrugged. "I stabbed her good, but she seemed to barely care. Regenerated almost instantly."
"One more question to ask her if we ever get the best of her," Senescey said. "At this rate, I don't know if that will ever happen. But it's what I was working on for most of the time between waking up and running into Papyrus again."
At Felicity and Floria's looks, Papyrus quickly added, "Oh. Yeah, I have a new name now. Comes with being literally born again, with new parents and everything. Actually, most of us do. I just don't respect theirs, is all."
"Nehaley," Larceny said. "I didn't need a reminder of my old life in my new one."
"Leitmotif," Senescey added. "Long story. As usual."
Felicity shrugged. "For my part, I'm the same old Felicity I've always been. Minus a few glow-ups, of course."
"Forgive me for changing the subject, but you said you were attempting to subdue Chrysalis," Floria cut in. "Are these contingencies for an unavoidable meeting, or are you planning to arrange such a confrontation on purpose?"
Senescey hesitated. "...I would like to do the latter. Since I don't have a way to fight her, or even survive being in her presence, attempting to track her down is the only part of the plan I've been able to pursue up until now. But in the hypothetical situation where I could have her at my mercy, there are some things from her that I need to know."
"Hey, you didn't tell me about this!" Papyrus leaned in. "Things such as?"
Senescey pointedly looked away from him. "Crystal - the mare Chrysalis used to be before ascending - had an even worse lot in life than we did. She had every reason to tear down the existing system and build something better in its place. We laid most of the foundation for her, and it was still in place after we broke up. All she had to do was finish our work. But then she left it all in ruins. She didn't make anything better. And no one who came after her was able to do so either, not in twenty long years of feudal governments and ponies getting trampled by circumstances beyond their control. I have to find out why."
She set her shoulders. "Those ponies failing once she was gone, I can understand. As mere mortals, we don't have the kind of power required to mold society into a utopia. But those limitations don't apply to gods. She had power enough to command hundreds of thousands of souls to perish instantly from countless miles away, but she stopped halfway through the cycle of destruction and recreation. She tore it all down, but that's something we could have done on our own. What she didn't do was the important part. I want to hear her reasoning... and if I don't like it, find out how to get that power for myself, so that I can do the job better."
No one seemed to quite know what to say. "You know," Papyrus pointed out, patting his chest, "I used to be a god too, and you never asked me about this."
"That's because you're deranged," Senescey said, as if it was simple.
"No, really! I can give you a fantastic answer." Papyrus adjusted himself in his seat, leaning closer. "Maybe not the answer you're wanting to hear, but a true one. About how someone can wind up with that much power and still want nothing more than to disappear."
"That sounds too philosophical for my tastes," Floria said. "From your repeated japes about returning to reconquer the Griffon Empire, I gather the reason for your appearance here is a much more pressing topic of conversation. Are you being serious?"
"I'm dead serious," Papyrus answered, setting aside his joviality. "Frankly, I've got a second chance on life I didn't deserve and don't know what to do with, and I might as well spend it cleaning up after Evil Me. Regardless of your feelings on the old Empire and what it did or didn't deserve, what it got was a pretty stingy deal. Finish what I started, except this time not tearing anything down purely for the fun of it. Now, I'd like it if you three were in this with me. You were my loyal lieutenants, and I'm sure the way things ended stings for you as well."
Felicity's ears fell.
"I'm not demanding your fealty, or anything," Papyrus went on. "If it wasn't for me, you three wouldn't have gotten split up, and so I figured a good place to start would be getting you back together again. See? Nothing in it for me: sincere atonement. But, I know you all had big dreams of being revolutionaries, so I'd be remiss not to offer you a chance to join me for your own sakes, and of your own volition. I sure could use you. Stripped of my sphinx powers and with my name in the gutter, all I've got to work with is a passing skill at fisticuffs and a very good memory of how things got to be the way they are."
"Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly," Felicity cut in. "You're proposing that, out of the blue, we uproot ourselves from the lives we've built here, journey north to the remnants of the Griffon Empire, help you overthrow its current crop of rulers, and then install ourselves in their place, and somehow build a new system of governance around us that will stably endure long after we're gone."
"Which is basically what we were planning the last time around," Papyrus pointed out.
"Is it?" Larceny asked. "We were chasing the destruction of the nobility as a means for revenge. We never talked about what would come next."
"That's because rebuilding is the hard part," Senescey said. "From the sound of things, the current political situation in the Empire is much less stable than it was in our time. Toppling it again should be easy. Papyrus might even be able to manage that on his own. The true problem is what comes next. It's what we forgot to consider the first time around, and what I didn't even realize was missing until I found out what Chrysalis had done."
"And how do you feel about this?" Felicity asked her, focused.
Senescey shrugged. "I've... expanded my thinking since we last met. The old me had never traveled outside the Empire. The new me has seen much of the world. I would like to believe there is a solution out there, a way ponies can live indefinitely, without social hierarchies which lead to the weak trampled by the mighty. Papyrus's experiment... It's a chance for me to test my ideas."
She closed her eyes. "I haven't given up on our old dream. You... It looks like you've found a new life, now. The kind of stability we fought the entire Empire because we were denied. And I never thought I'd see you again. But my path is clear. If I continue, and you stay behind... This time, I'd like to part ways properly. Without a chip on my shoulder, and without leaving so much unsaid."
Larceny nodded.
Felicity bit her lip. "Darling, before rushing to conclusions... How long can you wait?"
"Huh?" Senescey blinked.
"Let me explain myself," Felicity said. "I am not intrinsically opposed to joining an effort to put right what we once allowed to go horribly wrong. In fact, I'd quite like to... to spend that much time with you once again. It's just that I currently have some very compelling reasons not to. Among them are a job in which I provide a completely irreplaceable service to an important client, and a headstrong child who might not appreciate such a move."
"Worry about your own affairs," Floria reassured her. "I am capable of taking care of myself."
"Also," Larceny added, "in case you didn't notice, I can barely move."
Felicity got to her hooves. "Might I have a look at you, darling?"
Larceny shrugged, opening her bathrobe. "Knock yourself out."
Felicity stepped forward and tapped her, positioning her hooves on Larceny's body in several stances that looked halfway between a doctor and a combat artist. Eventually, she stepped back, wearing a small frown.
"Well?" Larceny looked up. "You were always the best of us at Mistvale Arts. Anything?"
"...I don't quite know what to make of this," Felicity admitted. "You feel... faint. It reminds me vaguely of actively using an art on someone who is in the process of dying, which is a profoundly unsettling experience I don't advise any of you to partake in. Except instead of actively feeling you slip away, you are merely partly slipped away, and moving neither closer nor farther. It's like something killed you on a metaphysical level, but didn't quite finish the job."
Larceny frowned.
"Have you any idea what did this to you?" Felicity asked.
Larceny hesitated. "I didn't... quite make it out of the Empire on time. I was right on the edge of what Chrysalis did. As you said, it must have been unable to finish the job."
"I see," Felicity mused.
Floria retreated to a doorway, giving her a wary look.
"Oh, what's that for?" Papyrus asked, glancing over. "You don't know something about this, do you?"
"You know what spinxes are capable of," Floria replied. "If this mare is truly suffering from a failed attempt to remove her brand, perhaps it simply isn't 'set right' or some such. Seeing as we have multiple confirmed instances of sarosians recovering their minds and memories after having stolen brands restored to them, I could try to remove and replace it. See if that unsticks the issue."
"And the catch?" Senescey leaned in, intrigued. "You don't sound too eager."
Floria glowered. "I enjoy my sanity. If utilizing my powers as a sphinx could lead to the onset of conditions, I would rather stay well away. Unlike some, I do not have access to a nebulous process of reincarnation with which to outrun my mistakes."
Papyrus gave her a too-wide grin. "Before you go meowing up that tree, I'm running straight back toward my mistakes. And it's probably going to go horribly for everyone involved. And anyway, off the top of my head, the only sphinx in recent memory who went insane for being too charitable was Ginger Guardclaw. Oversaw House Guardclaw's destitution and eventual replacement with House Goldoa by giving away all their assets. Terribly tragic, I'd never do such a thing. So if you don't want to end up like me, you have little to fear from helping."
Floria gave him an owlish look. "I shall... think on it. For Mother."
"That does return the question of how long you can give us," Felicity said. "I, for one, need to examine the feasibility of taking a temporary leave of absence, see what assets I could potentially furnish you with, and most importantly see how I feel about this whole thing after sleeping on it. Impulsive relocation, I've had ample opportunity to learn, rarely ends in sustained happiness for anyone."
"Assets, you say?" Papyrus perked up.
"Like I said, I shall see." Felicity shook her head. "Perhaps it will be that I cannot help you in person, but can support you in another way. I work for the Equestrian government, did I mention that?"
Senescey's ears stood straight up. "A government job? After..."
"After what happened to us in the Empire, yes," Felicity finished for her. "I thought about it long and hard, and determined that I would feel more comfortable having myself in that position than a nameless stranger I couldn't trust to understand my own experiences. Regrettably, it's highly classified, and I can't tell you more - especially when one of you is officially a wanted fugitive, which we're going to have to clear up with the officials, no buts."
"Vouching for me sounds like an excellent way to earn a rock-solid excuse to flee this country in a hurry." Papyrus grinned. "Anyway, I wouldn't say we're in an extreme rush," he admitted. "And this place seems cushy enough. Say I found a way to entertain myself up here for a week, completely out of sight of the city and anyone who could get me in trouble. What could you do with that?"
Felicity bit her lip. "One week? That... should be enough for me to get my thoughts in order on how I feel about all this, at least. And I really would like to do something for Larceny. Perhaps... Hmm, but that would be an awfully big favor..."
"You would grant them leave of our entire home?" Floria asked, indignant. "Am I to have no privacy when you are gone at work!?"
"Perhaps they would get through to you that it's not so bad to have a rough edge here or there," Felicity gently chided her. "But I will forbid them from entering your room."
"Just my room? Mother!"
Papyrus leaned in and smiled beatifically. "Does this have to do with whoever you thought we were when you answered the door so cheerfully?"
Floria gave him an evil eye. "I thought you agreed never to speak of that again."
"If it's that embarrassing, you ought to thank me." Papyrus stood and slicked back his mane. "After all, your mother dearest might have walked in while they were still here. And wouldn't that be a sight to behold?"
"I will bite you," Floria threatened. "Mother, is this toad truly who you used to work for?"
Felicity smiled fondly. "On second thought, perhaps this would be a good week to put in overtime..."