Deals were something made in back alleys and dark, smoky rooms. Colonel Ironwing did not indulge in deals; he crafted policy. Every step was painstakingly researched, every line item meticulously placed and worded so that there would be no mistake about the will of the Princess as it pertained to her finest soldiers. But where policy failed, deals had to be made.
Soft shadow enveloped him, wrapping the booth in protective darkness that was only broken by the milky white circle of light cast by a tiny fixture above. The colonel idly swirled his drink around in the bottom of his glass before taking a small sip; slowly, deliberately as if stalling for time. He reached down to table level and took an already-lit cigar between his lips from its prior resting place in the ashtray, taking a long, slow puff on it before allowing it to idle at the corner of his mouth.
The bar was quiet, most of the patrons having turned in early on a weeknight. Only the most stalwart of drinkers and staff remained and all knew to keep their distance from the burly pegasus stallion in the long coat and cigar in the corner booth. It was the perfect place to make a deal.
But when Caesura walked out, I didn’t have the Princess offer her ‘help’ to me like she did for you.
Fletcher was not wrong. The elder Ironwing’s impropriety had very nearly cost him everything. He snorted angrily at his own dilution of the narrative. No, it did cost him everything -- everything that mattered. He was not one to believe in the old gods or karma or fate, but Ironwing could not help but feel at times that his late wife’s death had been some cosmic entity mocking him for his sins. It was only the whims of said cosmic fate that prevented the scandal from fulminating into the cataclysmic destruction of his career. The twist, of course was that it came with the cataclysmic destruction of his family.
Ironwing took another drag of his cigar. Now was not the time to dwell on past sins. Celestia’s instructions had been clear. Look forward, not back. There was work to be done.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for too long.”
The mare’s voice was thick like honey and just as sweet. Barely glancing up at the new arrival, Ironwing merely gestured with his muzzle to the seat across the booth. Caesura’s mane was worn in a tightly wound bun, tucked under a faux flower trimmed with lace. Her cream white coat glinted in the dim light, her lines clearly standing out against the dark slate of her trench coat.
“I’m notorious for arriving at appointments early,” the colonel said, smoke slowly wafting out of his nostrils and the ashen tip of his cigar. “So no, I didn’t wait for long.”
As she took her seat, the bartender trotted by, delivering her drink without so much as a word exchanged. “I trust your journey was a pleasant one, Aristotle?”
“As pleasant as a weather-beaten redeye airship from Canterlot to Stalliongrad and a mile’s trot in the rain could be, yes.”
“Such is Svetlahorse. The price one pays for privacy these days.” The mare chuckled to herself before sipping at her drink. “So what brings you to a dive bar in a farming village in the shadow of mighty Stalliongrad?”
“You know exactly why I’m here.”
“For an officer of the crown, you certainly don’t tolerate much smalltalk.”
“Smalltalk is for self-satisfied courtesans, not those who can truly consider themselves in the know. Now what do you have to report?”
The lady unicorn produced a small cigarette case from her pocketbook, drawing a single hoof-rolled cigarette to her lips and lighting it with a mild flash of magic. She drew a tiny draught, cupping the smoke as if to taste it before blowing it out through her nostrils. “Mission accomplished, if you can really call it that. Honestly, Ari, if you have to resort to this kind of methodology to get what you want, perhaps you should reconsider your choice of friends.”
“Do you have a good doctor?”
“Well...” Caesura paused, somewhat surprised but mostly bemused at Ironwing’s intent to keep questioning off himself. The relish dripping from her words gave away any attempt at euphemistic subtlety. “Being -- how shall we say -- doted upon means I am rarely in want of much.”
“A good doctor doesn’t ask the patient what the cure is; they tell them.”
“A good doctor also doesn’t force the cure upon their patient,” she countered.
“Then why do institutionalized wards exist? Vaccines? Thaumaturgy? Sometimes the cure needs to be administered whether the patient wants it or not.”
“You’re a piece of work, Ari,” Caesura scoffed. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any darker dipping into your abyss of intel and spec ops, you go even deeper.”
“I’m doing everything I can to save my country...” Ironwing grunted. His voice suddenly softened. “...and the closest I have to a second son.”
“What of your first?”
“I’ve kept him as far away from the intel community as I could. He needs the opportunity to grow up without being tangled up in my world.”
“Still working that mail job?”
“He’s happy there. No one snoops around. There’s no need for protection details or counter-surveillance. He may think I’m aloof and disinterested, but a normal life is the greatest gift I could ever give him. If that comes with the necessity of keeping my distance, then that’s the way it has to be.”
“That at least makes sense and involves minimal deception. But did you really think doing this to Fletcher would help him heal?”
“Fletcher has a tendency to fixate on things, which is an asset on mission. But with Caesura, he’d gotten stuck. Caesura was the only thing on his mind, a mind where the talents we needed were locked in a prison of his own making.”
“Didn’t you ever think to reach out to Caesura herself?”
“She wanted nothing to do with him or us. She went to pursue her dreams as a violinist in Long Guo and we left her at that. There was nothing I could say or do that would bring her back.”
“But you needed Fletcher and the only way to Fletcher was Caesura, so...”
“So I called in a favor.”
“Of all the things I’ve done in my line of work, this was by far the most bizarre.”
“Surely you’ve cavorted with far more salaciously eccentric marks?”
The mare turned her nose up at the remark, clearly annoyed at the implication but all the while stifling a laugh at its absurdity. The bartender was making his final rounds, shooing out stragglers and bussing and wiping down tables as closing time drew near. The mare waved her hoof to dismiss him as he got close, making the bar keep skip over to the next booth. It wasn’t long before Ironwing, his companion, and the bartender who knew better than to ask questions were the only ones left.
“I think it’s safe to drop the act now,” Ironwing said.
The mare leaned forward, carefully eyeing Aristotle before sighing deeply. The air around her seemed to shimmer a faint green, the pupils in her eyes disappearing in unearthly glow before settling on a fine emerald green color. The cream of her coat faded to a dark grey that glinted like polished onyx and her auburn mane rotated hues until it arrived at an iridescent morpho blue. The changeling had shown her true form.
“Pulling intel from horny MPs or councilors is nothing,” the changeling said. “You can manipulate a lot of weak-minded individuals with a flick of the tail and the right kind of wink. No matter how weird their kinks, the sex never bothered me. It was all part of the job.”
She took a sip from her glass before continuing. “But impersonating somepony’s ex-wife to give him closure on her departure? I’ve been infiltrating for most of my life and even I think that felt wrong. Protecting your son using obfuscation is one thing, Ari, but trying to cure your old protege with an outright lie is another thing entirely.”
“It’s not the lie that cured him,” Aristotle countered. “The lie was merely a catalyst. It broke his fixation, made him focus on something else, a place where he could truly use the full extent of his talents and leave the disaster of his former marriage behind. Fletcher cured himself. We merely facilitated his awakening.”
The changeling took one last drag on her cigarette before snuffing it in the ashtray. “I know you’ve been in the game for a long time, but I must remind you that lies are only foolproof if you intend never to see the pony you lied to ever again. I’ve had to burn identities because somepony missed an old lover and decided to come calling at an inopportune time.”
“I assure you, Arete, I pick my fights very carefully.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, Ari dear. We’ve worked together a long time and you’ve never steered me wrong before, at least from assignment to assignment. But what if the entire game is wrong? All the little white lies you told to set things up, all the little things you did to tweak ponies and assets into place could suddenly come crashing down and we’d never know it until it happened. Then what would we do?”
“I’m well aware that it’s a house of cards. But we’ll deal with that when the time comes. Until then, we continue to gather intel and hope that it’s better than that of our enemies.” Ironwing said. The colonel downed the remainder of his drink, took a last puff of his cigar, and snuffed the stub in the ashtray before shuffling out of the booth. “I believe we’ve overstayed last call.”
“The barkeep knows me,” Arete chuckled. “We can stay as long as we need to.”
“Duly noted. But I’m done for the night. My flight is out of Stalliongrad tomorrow morning.”
Arete slid out of the booth, the green shimmer returning for a split second as she reapplied a disguise. In an instant, she was a different mare, an earth pony with a fiery red and orange mane and a pearl white coat. Arete dropped a hoof full of bits on the table from her pocketbook before joining Ironwing at the door.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, old sire,” she whispered as they stepped outside.
“Only because I understand the stakes,” the colonel replied. “We live in interesting times, Arete.”
“Let us hope the excitement of it does not make fools of us all.”
******
Fletcher’s muzzle was buried in a book when the knock on his apartment door came. He rose from the couch, flicking his tail and stretching from head to toe before trotting to the front door. The magic glow of his horn gripped the handle and swung the door open.
“Colonel Ironwing. To what do I owe the honor?”
Ironwing was out of the customary military garb, sporting only sunglasses and saddlebags. The elder stallion pushed his sunglasses up onto his head before looking to Fletcher. “It’s less of an honor and more of an apology.”
“Apology?” Fletcher raised an eyebrow.
“For the presupposing that my help was needed or desired.”
Well that was certainly new. Fletcher was almost certain the number of times Ironwing had ever apologized was in the single digits, if ever. But now he was apologizing to him? As much as it was an eyebrow-raiser, Fletcher wasn’t about to be impolite. He stepped out of the doorway and waved Ironwing inside, shutting the door behind him.
“What’s that in the saddlebag?”
Fletcher craned his neck to peek at the box that protruded from Ironwing’s saddlebags. Ironwing reached behind, gently nudging the box out of its harness until he was able to present it to Fletcher with his hoof.
“It’s a glass set, since I seem to have ruined your old one,” the colonel said with a wan smile.
“Old sire, you really shouldn’t have,” the captain chuckled. “It was probably my cue to stop drinking anyway!”
“Then accept it as a new beginning for your collection.”
A new beginning. Ironwing always chose his words carefully, and the slight clunkiness at which the words’ fit was clue enough to Fletcher’s analyst sensibilities to know something was up. He cocked his head to the side and looked Ironwing in the eye.
“What’s this really about, colonel?”
“Fletcher, don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt somepony while they’re admitting they’re wrong?” Ironwing mock implored.
Fletcher raised an eyebrow. Ironwing placed the box of glasses down upon the coffee table and began pacing around the couch. He continued, confirming Fletcher’s understanding of the true nature of his visit, “The Princesses are not terribly fond of recent political developments in Aquellia. I’m sure you’ve read the papers.”
“Of course,” Fletcher said, tallying off articles with motions of his hoof in the air. “The post-Indrek row, the Hammercrest scandal, the emergency election scramble, and the proverbial fisticuffs between the Nationalist Party and the Aquellian Progressive Party in Parliament are all over the radio.”
“But have you been following the intel trail?”
“I’m an analyst now, Colonel. Of course I have. The entire thing is one enormous mess. Nopony knows how deep the rabbit hole goes; that’s how pervasive the corruption has become.”
“I won’t pretend that Equestria is exactly a beacon of purity...”
Fletcher shook his head. “I never expected you to.”
“...but it is in the best interest of the Princesses to remain on top of things. The diplomatic situation is dangerously unstable and Celestia fears it has the potential to escalate into all-out war.”
Fletcher blinked, his mind finally coming to grips with what the colonel was telling him. He knew most of the information already. But it was the way the colonel addressed him that felt different. This wasn’t declarative talk on politics and personnel, it was the preamble to a request.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I need you back in the saddle, Fletcher. The Princesses have quietly signed off on a new mandate to establish and train a new asymmetric warfare group and we are in need of your expertise.”
Ironwing’s proposition hit like a bomb blast. Fletcher immediately was on alert. Expertise? As in analyst expertise? Or the expertise that came with years of being a soldier? It couldn’t have been the former. Fletcher had already served his year as a desk jockey analyst. Why would the colonel make a special trip just to ask him to do more of the same?
“We?” Fletcher ventured.
“I’m hoof-selecting individuals for this initiative. The Royal Equestrian Army has been keeping pace with Aquellian military developments, if only barely, but we need every edge we can get in the coming fight.”
“REIN said they wanted me on analysis,” Fletcher said flatly. “It’s been ages since I’ve done field work.”
“You were never one to take things sitting down, Fletcher. Do you plan on staying at your desk forever?”
If Ironwing had asked weeks ago, Fletcher would have said ‘yes.’ He every bit deserved his prison of sheet metal and old concrete, barred with stacks of papers eternal. But after the previous night, it felt like a great weight had been lifted from his back. Fletcher may not have been any cheerier, but he was energized. His hoof involuntarily tapped on the floor and every computational fiber in his mind was chomping at the bit to be challenged with something; anything.
“Get me back in the field, colonel,” he finally said.
“That’s the Fletcher I know.” Ironwing smiled. “So I have to ask. Why the sudden change of heart? Last weekend you seemed intent on kicking me out of your house and having nothing more to do with anything I could possibly bring to you!”
“Because I realized I couldn’t dwell on the past. You’re still a bastard, sir. But there’s nopony else I’d rather be working for.”
“I’ll see you in my office tomorrow, then,” Ironwing said. “Good to have you back, son.”
“Good to be back, colonel.”