— Twilight —
Twilight took her time flying into Ponyville to take in the changing sights of the city. Things had calmed down since Ember had made her announcement and used the Ring of Ashmund to alter the dragon race, and it did seem to be an improvement. There were still signs that not everypony was quite happy with the dragons in their midst, but with the largest of them being only alicorn-sized now, there were far fewer disturbances than there had been when the only limit had been that they could squeeze themselves onto the streets—or thinking that they could squeeze themselves onto the streets.
On the construction front, progress was being made faster than it had been. The block of stone that Applejack had grown to support and scaffold the palace was half gone now, as was the palace and the tree winding up through it. Soon, that reminder of her previous problems would finally be gone and they could get back to actually having a library and a palace to put it in.
The area around the palace, on the other hoof, was in a strange place. The land had inevitably all been bought up and gentrified, many of the buildings all in the progress of being renovated to match the palace's style, but construction had stalled with the destruction of the palace and the resources being needed elsewhere. Now, even those that had already been completed and furnished were conspicuously empty, waiting for a reason to exist.
In contrast, Rarity's tower, which had been offered up as a temporary palace for Luna to do her governing from, had added several floors in the past few days, and the neighborhood around it was notably similar.
The rest of the towers had seen only a little work. There was a guard regiment stationed around Rainbow Dash's tower where Twilight and Luna had been sleeping and there was a portal to the ex-dragon-lord Torch's lair, and what there was of Applejack's tower was being used for storage, not much of a priority since the mare in question didn't seen to have any real desire to spend time in the city at the moment. Twilight made a note, though, to talk to Applejack about putting a portal to her farm there, if only for Apple Bloom's sake—or maybe she'd just ask Apple Bloom since she'd be the one using it.
The last two towers hadn't even been started yet due to the need to integrate them into Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy's existing homes—or so Twilight had thought. The tower that was now growing out of the top of Sugarcube Corner did look like it matched the rest of them and it was further along than Rainbow Dash's, but given how the structure blended from one to the other, Twilight suspected no traditional stonemason had been involved.
She was just going to... not point that out to anypony. Pinkie Pie could just go on being Pinkie Pie, and if Twilight wasn't allowed to put any contractors out of business with her magic, at least one of them wouldn't have to wait on the limited amount of crystal being shipped in from the Crystal Mountains and the skilled craftsponies to work it—not that they'd have been able to duplicate Pinkie Pie's unique feat of architecture.
Huh. Now, there was an idea. Nopony could argue that Twilight should let regular ponies do the work if she was the only one who could do the work, and Fluttershy's tower was going to need special attention. She wasn't even being facetious; there was a reason that nothing had been done yet about Fluttershy's tower, and it wasn't just the lack of crystal and equine resources. After getting her hooves wet with Spike's castle-manor, though, Twilight was thinking that she could really go wild with Fluttershy's tower—literally—and maybe something similar for Applejack.
Heck, maybe she could even come up with something big to do with Rainbow Dash's tower... Yeah. Yeah, it could work. The palace itself was probably too high-profile to get away with any such reasoning, but for the towers for her friends—her demigods—that were going unfinished anyway, coming up with special plans for them should be enough, and what do you know? Spike was off doing his own things and she had a full day and no pre-existing plans. It was perfect.
And that was when a giant orange dragon winged it's way into town and headed right for Rarity's tower, where Twilight was in the process of landing.
— Twilight —
It was a bit awkward levitating a large crate of gray-market goods down the stairs of Rarity's tower and into the throne room, but that just made it that much more satisfying to walk in on whatever it was Filthy Rich was discussing with Luna and dump the crate in the middle of the room before climbing the makeshift dais and giving her marefriend a nuzzle in greeting.
She was just turning around to see how her entrance had been taken when she heard a joyous, "Ah ha!" of triumph. Curious, Twilight finished turning around to see the brown-coated posterior of Filthy Rich sticking out of the crate, his legs wiggling for balance. An awkward dozen seconds later, he finally managed to leverage his way out of the crate with something metallic in his hooves that thumped heavily on the ground.
"Yes!" the stallion cheered. "This is it! This is my toaster!" Prostrating himself, he bowed obsequiously. "Thank you! Thank you, Princess Twilight! I didn't think that I'd ever see it again!"
Twilight stood there and blinked, this being a... not entirely new experience for her, but definitely not what she'd been going for or expecting.
Oh well; she supposed she couldn't win them all.
Once Filthy Rich was gone, Twilight turned to Luna and asked, "Did he really come to petition you in court over a toaster?"
Luna fell heavily back into her throne, rubbing her eyes. "Yes. Yes he did," she confirmed. "It was apparently his grandmother's, doubles as a space heater and was used to incapacitate his grandfather before the divorce."
Twilight took a moment to come up with a response to that. "...You know, I'd like to say that's unusual, but I've heard Applejack talk about a diesel-powered blender that they used to have; I think they held a funeral."
Luna seemed to be having trouble with that, scrunching her muzzle in thought.
"Blenders are the ones that have a large glass stein with a set of blades at the bottom that's spun by a motor," Twilight clarified with some cheek.
Luna felt it best not to dignify that with a response. "So, how did you come by Mr. Rich's long lost toaster, and am I to take it that you've brought me more such missing items?"
"Well," Twilight prevaricated. "I'm not sure how much of it's stuff that's gone missing, but apparently Spike and his harem ran into a bunch of dragons that were running a scam and these were some of the proceeds."
"What was the scam?" Luna asked, curious.
Twilight thought back, scratching her chin with one hoof. "You know, they were kind of vague about that, come to think of it. Something about charging other dragons for access to a public resource? Spike did say that they'd had to chase some dragons off of their lawn, but that can't have been in the time since I was there since it hasn't been that long. Maybe it was the giant emerald salt lick? I guess that might count as a public resource, and it's nearby. When did that go in, anyway?"
Luna blinked. "The what?"
— Twilight —
Five minutes later, Luna had joined Twilight on a cloud to the south of the city, overlooking the giant emerald salt lick that Twilight had described.
"You didn't mention the ruby apple," Luna pointed out, looking down on the scene with some interest.
"Well, it wasn't there twenty minutes ago!" Twilight defended, rather irked. "You know what this means, don't you?"
"That Applejack will have fewer theoretically stolen apples to report?" Luna offered.
Twilight cocked her head to the side in question. "Theoretically stolen apples?" she parroted.
"Yes, she said that you suggested that they might be regrowing before she could notice them missing due to her demigoddesshood," Luna reminded her.
Oh. Right. That. "She actually brought that to you?" Twilight asked, just a bit incredulous since it had been an offhoof comment.
Luna shrugged. "She wanted us to post some guards to find out for certain."
"Oh," Twilight said, reconsidering her opinion. "I guess that's not actually unreasonable."
"Unfortunately, Sweet Apple Acres is no longer considered to be within the city limits since its relocation to Sweet Apple Mountain."
"Oh." Twilight frowned. That was unfortunate.
"So, what does it mean, then?" Luna prompted.
Twilight took a moment to track the conversation back. "Oh, right." She gestured at the apple. "Well, I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? It's Pinkie Pie. She grew up on a rock farm, and these are even kind of like party games, though they're missing a sizeable lake if anyone's going to be bobbing for apple."
Luna nodded along, seeing the logic. "Yes, that does make sense. I shall have it marked down as an Act of Pink as soon as we get back."
— Spike —
Boxing up the small stack of comics that he had accrued during his time living in the once and future library, Spike felt a little bad, leaving the place in such a state. It wasn't that it was a dump, exactly, but Twilight had been moved out in such a rush that a bit of a mess had been made, and without her there it just never seemed quite as urgent to clean up.
And then Ember had moved in, of course. You wouldn't think that one dragoness tracking dirt and grit up from the additions she'd dug down in the basement could make much difference in the short time she'd been living there, but she had claws and on the occasion she wasn't lounging somewhere, she liked to pace.
"So, this is the infamous basket, huh?" Kindle said, pulling the slightly charred wicker basket out of the closet where it had been stashed after Ember had used it for magic practice. "Man, that's weird. You know that's weird, right?"
Spike rolled his eyes and took the basket from her. "It's not that weird," he said, giving it a fresh look. It was not in good condition and the charred bits were making a sooty mess.
Spike concentrated on the burnt wicker of the basket and breathed his evanescent fire over it. He still hadn't figured out unburning things as Ember had mocked him for, but it looked remarkably better with the charred surface gone.
"How is it not weird?" she asked, claws on her hips. "I grew up around ponies too, remember? That's not just any basket—it's a pet basket. For pets."
"It certainly seems offensive," Carnelia offered, giving the basket a derisive look as she came in from the stairs. "Though I cannot say that I have the same sum of experience."
"Ponies put their own foals in baskets," Spike pointed out, stuffing the basket in another box, plenty of which were left over from Twilight's move. He then took the box over to the bed and started packing up the various small knickknacks he'd accumulated that were on the shelf, there, occasionally cleansing them with fire where necessary. "And with how dragons age, I never really outgrew it until Ember came along."
"Oh, yeah," Kindle remarked, thinking back. "You were the youngest one of us, Ember said—practically a baby—not that I can talk. I didn't get that good a look at you before she changed you."
"It is easy to forget," Carnelia agreed, examining the things that Spike was packing away. "You do not seem so adolescent."
Spike scratched the back of his neck, bashful. "Well, I did grow up around Princess Celestia, and Twilight was always engrossed in her studying back then with blinders on for anything that wasn't involved in her current obsession, so I kinda had to be the sensible one." He wasn't going to mention the other reason he'd had to want to seem more adult—that being the crush he'd used to have on Rarity.
"Huh," Kindle said. "So, what you're saying is you came into this with prior experience wrangling difficult females."
Spike's hackles went up and he froze, instantly hyperaware of what he was being asked. "No," he said diplomatically. "I wouldn't say that."
"And that is why you are so successful," Carnelia sassed.
— Twilight —
"So, speaking of Acts of Pink," Twilight said once they had returned to Luna's makeshift throne room and delegated the matter of the questionably legal goods. "I saw Pinkie Pie's tower and it gave me an idea."
"That is a terrifying sentence," Luna pointed out. "Do go on."
"Well..." Twilight said, drawing the word out like a filly who was about to be in trouble. "I was just thinking about how Fluttershy's tower has been going nowhere because towers and nature don't usually mix. Me, though? I installed a lava fountain for Spike and his harem. I can make it mix. I have ideas—expanded spaces; a different biome on each floor; portals to places all across Equestria—it'll be great."
"Hay, yeah, that sounds awesome!" shouted Rainbow Dash, who was suddenly in the room, startling Twilight off her hooves and onto the nearest grippable object. "Now I want a tower!"
"You have a tower," said Luna, the nearest grippable object, who was suddenly sharing a throne with her marefriend. She didn't seem to mind. "Twilight and I have been living in it for the past week or so."
"What, that place with all the guards, recently?" Rainbow Dash asked, making the incorrect connection between the guards and the princesses living there but still managing to come to the right conclusion. "That place is lame! It's like, two floors—it doesn't even count as a tower! I want something big and magical, with portals!"
"Why am I not surprised that that is what gets you interested in the project?" came the voice of Rarity, who was entering the throne room from the stairs. She was a neat and tidy pencil skirt suit today, and the Rarity doll was nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
Fluttershy followed Rarity in, her eyes already looking in the direction of the throne before she rounded the corner. "That sounds lovely, Twilight," she said, a small yellow chickadee flying over from the corner to land on her head. "It's been a little concerning how fast the city has been growing."
Twilight was simultaneously glad that Fluttershy liked the idea and a little creeped out that she hadn't realized that she'd been watching them—which was more than a little hypocritical since she'd looked in on her friends with her starlight before. Still, she graciously accepted Fluttershy's thanks and turned to point something out to Rainbow Dash.
"Your tower does have a portal, actually," she pointed out.
"Huh?" Rainbow Dash looked doubtful. "To what, the Canterlot Library?"
Twilight considered that. "That's not a bad idea, actually—except it is, kind of, because the portal in your tower goes to the ex-dragon-lord's lair, and if something happened and he got past the guards, we don't want there to be any more places than necessary that he could end up."
"Um... Pardon me for asking, but I've been wondering... is there a reason you don't just put the portal in a cell at the guard house?" Fluttershy questioned, adding, in a tiny, whisper quiet voice, "That seems like it would make much more sense."
Twilight blinked.
Luna blinked.
"Well, I guess I have something else to get done today," Twilight said. "In my defense, I made the portal when Luna and I were the ones on watch, so it's really an inherited oversight."
"Speaking of inheriting—that's his lair, right?" Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her chin. "Like, with a hoard and everything? Doing a little asset forfeiture?"
"No," Twilight said at the same moment that Luna said, "Yes." They both turned to look at each other in confusion, which put their muzzles inches from each other since Twilight was still sharing Luna's throne and didn't have any immediate plans to change that.
"Just because we are waiting on a solution for holding the hoard does not mean that our plans for it have changed, nor do I see any reason to mislead anypony about it," Luna reasoned, looking to Twilight for an explanation for her disagreement.
Twilight's explanation was simple. "It's not asset forfeiture unless the assets in question are the proceeds or instrument of a crime," she pointed out. "Otherwise, it's just garden-variety theft."
"At least call it looting, please," Luna insisted, pouting.
"Fine," she said and turned back to Rainbow Dash. "Yes, looting it to the bedrock is in the plans, if only to deny it to him and so we don't have to devote quite so many resources to guarding it."
"Won't that make it less likely you'll catch him, though?" Rainbow Dash asked. "'Cause, you know, if he sees there's nothing for him there, he's just gonna bolt without getting too close, right?"
"That is true," Luna admitted. "It may be better in the long run to leave it there as bait, unless you can cast an illusion that will fool an adult dragon?"
Twilight shook her head. "Illusions aren't something I've ever spent much time on," she admitted. "And that probably won't change in the immediate future. You do realize that I could probably recreate his hoard easier than I could create an illusion of it? And it probably still wouldn't even work since it wouldn't have his magic in it and that's apparently something you can subconsciously feel."
"I know this is rich coming from me, Twilight, but yeesh," Rainbow Dash commented. "You started out bribing waitresses with gold bars and you've only gotten worse from there, huh?"
"She did what?!" Rarity asked, aghast. "Twilight!"
"It was a tip," Twilight insisted quite calmly.
"Well—I don't care what you call it—don't!" Rarity hotly insisted, getting ruffled—literally, she was gaining ruffles in her distress. "You'll do more harm than good if you go around doing things like that!"
Twilight let out a huff of displeasure. Yes, she was well aware of that and she understood the concept, but it was a little close to all the other things she was being told she couldn't do even before she learned to brute force magic. "Anyway, I didn't say I would, just that I could. It'd make no sense to cart it all off somewhere only to replace it with something less convincing in spite of being just as real."
"Well... good," Rarity said, slightly mollified. "Please, if you're going to be doing anything of the sort, at least do it with subtlety."
"Seriously, Twi," Rainbow Dash added. "For somepony who was freaking out about being connected in any way to you-know-who, you sure do seem to be jumping at any chance to use your 'dream magic,'" she said, making air quotes with her wings.
"Dash, do you want a tower with all the impossible magical bells and whistles or not?" Twilight asked, suggesting that her current line of inquiry wasn't entirely in line with that.
"Hey, I already said I wasn't the one who should have to bring it up," Rainbow Dash said, defending herself. "And besides, if it's coming from me of all ponies, you've gotta admit it means something."
"Look—just because it bears a resemblance to the way That Creature did magic doesn't mean it's not still magic," Twilight said, taking a breath in an effort to stay calm and reasonable. "Are you really surprised that I've gotten excited about a new kind of magic? —That I want to do things with it?"
That brought Rainbow Dash up short. "Well—no, but—c'mon, 'Shy, you agree that she's kind of overdoing it, right?"
Fluttershy blinked, not expecting the sudden attention. "Oh—um—no. Not really," she admitted. "Twilight wouldn't actually make a dragon's hoard of gold unless she was asked to, and I also don't want to be a hypocrite."
"I guess, but—" Rainbow Dash halted mid-sentence, her train of thought crashing into something she didn't have the context for. "Wait, why would you be a hypocrite?"
"Well, I did ask her to teach me how to do it," Fluttershy pointed out quite reasonably. "I've been hoping she's figured out enough that we can do that soon."
"Wha—but—you?!" Dash gaped, not having expected that in the slightest. "Wait, teaching it? Is that possible?"
Rarity, on the other hoof, had a bit more tact. "Fluttershy, dear, I'm not certain that that is a good idea..." she said, mincing her words. "I trust you, of course, but the fact of the matter is: the more ponies there are that know something, the more likely it is to get out—especially if Twilight works out how to teach it."
Twilight, meanwhile, tried to pretend she hadn't forgotten entirely about that request in all the turmoil since the coronation and Ember's announcement, especially since she'd been envying Spike for his harem's enthusiasm towards rediscovering dragon magic for the past few days—not that they seemed to be getting anywhere with it.
Fluttershy tilted her head. "Um—would this be a bad time for me to mention that Spike and the others seem to have already figured several things out just from watching Twilight?"
— Spike —
Spike was packing up the heavy-metal-tainted pots and pans from the kitchen of the ex-library when the tableware in the cupboards rattled. That hadn't been all too unusual since dragons had started showing up in Ponyville, but now that there shouldn't be any more unreasonably large dragons walking casually down the street, there could only be one dragoness responsible.
"Does someone want to go downstairs and see what's got the empress in a snit?" he shouted out into the library as a whole.
"Yeah, yeah," Slag shouted back in her squeaky baby-dragon voice. "Not like I can reach anything like this anyway," she grumbled, navigating the stairs.
Spike was carrying his box of kitchenware out into the main room of the ex-library just in time to see the small black baby dragoness reach for the doorknob of the door leading down into the basement, only to have it slammed open in her face, sending her across the room.
Spike winced in sympathy, having been on the receiving end of that more than a few times when working for the over-eager Twilight Sparkle, but what came through the basement door was no simple pony.
Ember didn't charge out of the door so much as she flowed into the room, squeezing through the door in the biggest size the room would allow—or slightly bigger, according to the cracked doorframe and the scales scraping the ceiling of the room.
Ember wasn't just angry or pissed, she was absolutely livid. Spike hadn't been entirely happy with the dragon princess when she'd come rudely into his life and they'd had a few arguments, but he'd never seen her so completely furious as she was at this moment—not even when her father, the previous dragon lord, had escaped with the mind-controlling bloodstone scepter had she been so beyond reason that he was actually scared of her.
Well, he was scared of her now, and if he backed into the kitchen just a little out of reflex, that was just a reasonable reaction to the snarling, gnashing force of scales and teeth that was taking up most of the room.
"Woah, woah!" Kindle shouted, holding up her arms as if she could ward off the dragon empress. "Calm down and—"
It was a mistake. The moment the orange dragoness caught Ember's attention, a monstrous claw shot out and picked her up. "Was it you?!" she snarled, sounding beastly and feral, her voice shaking the building. "Are you the one that took it?"
Kindle wasn't in much of a condition to respond, but she squeezed out an answer anyway. "I—have—no—idea—what—you're—even—talking—about."
Took it? Took what? Ember hardly owned anything, and she clearly still had the Ring of Ashmund. The only other thing was... "Do you mean your book on the dragon empires is missing?"
Ember dropped Kindle and turned to Spike. "Yes, the book!" she growled, and reached for Spike, who was suddenly glad to have the cover afforded to him by being in the kitchen.
"Hey!" he shouted, ducking out of the way of Ember's claw as she reached through the door. "Cut it out!"
Failing to find him, Ember pulled her claw back out through the kitchen door and things went quiet for long enough for Spike to consider peeking his head back through the door to see what was going on.
He needn't have bothered, though, because just when he was edging warily closer to the door, a regular-sized Ember came flying at him, picking him up by the chest, which was suddenly much narrower than it had been a moment ago.
"Wha—hey!" Spike squirmed in her grasp, flailing his suddenly little baby dragon arms at her. "Not cool! Not cool!"
"Where is it?" she demanded to know, holding his face close enough that he could feel her heavy, irregular breaths.
"I! Don't! Know!" he said, and swung his stubby legs up to kick her in the jaw, causing her to drop him.
Ember just stood there shocked.
"You kicked me," she said, dumbfounded.
"And you deserved it," he said with a sour note as he picked himself up off the ground. Fortunately, he seemed to be fine.
"Yes, but... it's you," she said, as if that explained everything. "You kicked me. You."
Spike wanted to do a lot more than that, to be honest, but he settled for leaving the kitchen to go check on Kindle and Slag.
Slag was on her feet and not significantly affected by her tumble, but Kindle had propped herself up against the base of the stairs and had her head between her knees, wheezing.
"Grit," Spike cursed, rushing over to Kindle's side, though he couldn't think of anything that he could actually do. "Is anything broken?" he asked, hovering over her. "Do I need to go get someone?"
Kindle shook her head and took a deep breath. "No," she wheezed out. "No, I'm... I'm good. Muck, that hurt."
Spike was distracted from Kindle by Ember walking into the center of the room. She seemed to have calmed down some, but she was still clearly incensed. With Carnelia and Drift coming down the stairs now that the commotion was over, Ember crossed her arms and announced: "The book has been stolen," eyeing each one of them as if one of them was responsible.
What in tartarus?
"Okay?" Slag said, still a bit cantankerous over having been thrown across the room by a door. "Are you seriously blaming one of us?"
"To suspect us makes... uncertain sense," Carnelia offered, sparing a glance and a frown for Kindle's condition.
"Don't think I haven't noticed the looks you all get when I'm reading it," Ember shot back.
"Well, yeah," Drift said with a carefree shrug. "You never even let us read it—"
"So it was yo—"
"—But that doesn't mean one of us is going to just go ahead and take it," she finished.
"None of us—have even been—away from you—since—we met," Kindle said, and Spike realized that that was true. Sure it had been less than a week since Ember had gathered the other girls, but ever since then they'd all pretty much done everything together. Well, except for—
"Except for Spike," Ember declared. "He's always going off with that princess of his."
Spike facepalmed. "Okay, first," he said, pointing up at her, the size difference more than a little daunting at his younger height. "That is my *job. Second: I haven't gone off with Twilight since the coronation. And third: No."
"'No' what?" Ember asked, peeved at being contradicted.
"No, you are not going to stand there with Kindle on the ground because you hurt her and continue to throw blame at me and the girls, hoping you hit the right target through sheer luck," he told her.
If there was one thing that Spike knew about Ember, though, it was that she did not like being told 'no', and this was no exception. The fire in her eyes as she stepped closer, looming over Spike brought back a little of that fear that he'd felt when she was tearing through the ex-library grabbing for whoever was closest, and that... that was not okay.
"And what are you going to do about it?" she asked, her voice full of menace.
That was the question, wasn't it? There wasn't much that Spike could do against Ember—at least in the here and now. Not with her having returned him to his original age, and probably not even if she hadn't.
He supposed the only option he really had was, ironically, to be adult and mature about it.
"The only thing I can do," he responded rather dourly, quite serious. Maybe it was a bit quick, but he needed to head things off before they became even worse.
He turned, said, "Not be here," and walked out.
— Spike —
Spike was frankly shocked that he'd gotten out of the ex-library without anyone saying anything, but maybe it was like when he'd kicked Ember, and she was really just that shocked.
Was it really that unusual? Did she really expect him to just stand there and take that kind of treatment?
Apparently.
Admittedly, they'd had their share of arguments—especially back when she'd first shown up and made herself home in his space, but there'd always been the fact hanging over them that he didn't really have any choice in the matter. What was he going to do? Leave?
Well, yes.
He'd be damned if the street didn't suddenly look intimidatingly large after having spent only a short while standing head and shoulders above the ponies.
Tentatively, he stepped out into the street and started going... somewhere, but the sound of the door behind him made him instantly wish he'd put some distance between him and the ex-library a bit sooner. To his... not much surprise, actually, since her pride would keep her from chasing after him, it was Kindle, one arm wrapped around her side and not too happy about it.
She didn't say anything or try to stop him; she just fell into mincing steps beside him. Well, if that was going to be how it was, he didn't blame her.
He felt really bad that he couldn't even help support her, though.
Then, suddenly, Drift was there, silently slipping herself between them and under Kindle's arm. That surprised him, but maybe it shouldn't have; she didn't seem like the type that would stick around where she wasn't wanted—and just when he thought he had her figured out, she looped her other arm underneath his and lifted him up onto her shoulder.
"So, where to, boss?"