To say that Lady Merry Sapphire was growing impatient was an understatement.
She would have marched a small, circular trench from pacing if there wasn't already a parade-and-a-half’s worth of show-ponies, crew members, and floats of all sizes crammed into the Crystal Palace’s inner courtyard. Instead, she was sitting between a yodeling tap dancer practicing his moves and a torch juggling unicorn applying salve, trying to keep herself from grinding her teeth into dust.
She huffed and she puffed, and she adjusted the Princess Platinum set as it sat frumpily upon one of the Empress’ old dress forms in its little wagon.
“Commander,” she hissed silently to herself. “You had one job, just the one.” She checked the massive sun dial on the wall and frowned. Sure, immortality had a way of screwing with a girl’s sense of time, but they can’t be that late… Can they? The parade was now fifteen minutes behind schedule. Everypony around her was waiting now, no last minute prep, no reorganization. Just waiting.
The float drivers that weren't happily strapped into their saddles collecting holiday-overtime-and-a-half were chatting amongst each other about what Sapphire assumed whatever the latest sporting event was. Off by the ‘front’ of the parade line, if the cramped semi-circular courtyard could be considered to have a front, the marching band members were overheating in their velour uniforms, wrapped as they were in drums and flugelhorns.
The local collective branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders that hadn't cried themselves into a fitful nap were literally getting into everything: bushes, floats, the manticore cage. Meanwhile, their volunteer Cutie Mark Caretaker for the parade was scrubbing away with a mop at a small puddle of what Sapphire prayed was lemonade.
Sapphire diverted her eyes and sought out the special guard unit assembled to march in the parade instead. At least they were behaving. The unit assigned to the parade had their own color guard who would lead the Empress’ float through the streets of the capital. Fraternizing with the color guard were some ponies she also recognized as palace guards, though they weren't in uniform. Onyx must have some sort of plainclothes operation underway. Mixed in with the un-uniformed officers was Major Tom, commander of the elite Diamond Division.
Huh. I didn't realize Tom had a bald spot. Sapphire stood up between the torches and the yodeling and stretched her back. Oh, what she wouldn't give to fly out of here for just a moment to stretch her poor neglected wings. She last used them in Rarity’s dream-realm, but… it just wasn't the same as the real thing.
Instead of manifesting her wings to go for a roll among the clouds, and undoubtedly reveal herself to the rest of the world before it was time, she strapped herself back into the harness on her little wagon and walked back into the Palace. Sapphire grumbled to herself as she pulled along the priceless treasure that was the Princess Platinum regalia like it was dirty clothes being sent to laundry.
She’d only traveled half the length of the Noble Hall, from its egress out into the inner courtyard, when she spotted the object of her ire coming towards her at a brisk pace.
“Commander!” shouted Sapphire exasperatedly. Onyx froze in place at the sound of his title, eyes wide as she charged over to him, but Lady Sapphire paid little heed to his expression and her rattling cargo. “Commander, praise the stars that you’re here. We have got to get this parade moving before… Where’s the Empress?”
“There’s been a slight… issue with that,” said Onyx as he pivoted to his right to open a nearby door with a hind leg while Sapphire undid her cart harness. “Get in, I’ll explain everything,” he said as he scoured the hall for watchful eyes.
Sapphire walked into the opened room, fearing the worse. Had her cover been blown? Did Rarity relapse so soon? Was th— Something brushed up against her flank, and she spun in place to determine who and in what way somepony would die this day.
But instead of the unwanted affection of a pony destined with doom, it was the outstretched hoof of the dress form being wheeled in behind her.
“This janitor’s closet isn't big enough for the cart, what are you— OOF!”
Onyx gave the dress form one final shove to get it all the way into the darkened closet before shutting himself in the cramped space as well.
“Commander Onyx,” wheezed Sapphire, pressed as she was against the back of the closet with its hanging mops and bags of sawdust. “If you don’t explain the meaning of this I’ll—”
“I lost Rarity.”
Sapphire stared ahead into the darkness. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the sound of her heart beating away in her ears. “Come again?”
“I. Lost. Rarity.”
“Ha. Ha. This is… Ohh, Blessed Moon, please tell me you are joking.”
“No, I am not.”
“WHAT!?” Sapphire yelled. She struggled to get up and over the dress form to throttle the Commander. “HOW DO YOU LOSE AN EMPRESS?!”
“I know, I know,” Onyx said with an audible wince, placing a hoof on the wagon to steady it against the mare. “Please, keep it down though.”
“How, in the name of all that glitters brightly, did you manage to lose the Crystal Empress in her own Palace,” hissed Sapphire as her slow crystal eyes finally adjusted to the dark. “How is that even possible?”
“I… I don’t know that one,” said Onyx. “But I have a unit of guardmares looking for her without raising suspicion.”
“Without raising suspicion? Without raising suspicion?! Did you not hear the gathered crowds outside the palace walls? Their disorganized half-hearted chants of ‘Happy Happy Birthday’? That’s the sound of nearly thirty thousand—”
“Current estimates put it more at forty thousand, give or take,” interrupted Onyx.
“—Forty thousand crystal ponies gathered. They all want to see Empress Rarity. And now she’s late and lost? What are we going to do? Are you going to tell them that you lost her?”
Onyx shook his head and slid off his saddlebags. “No, I have a plan. They’re going to get their Empress, it’s just not going to be Rarity. Now if I can just… find… the light switch...”
“What are you tal— Ah!” Sapphire’s eyes blinked back stars as brilliant white light filled the small room from an overzealous and utterly utilitarian crystal orb embedded in the glassy ceiling.
By the time her eyes had adjusted, she realized that she was watching him open his saddlebags to reveal a bag of flour, a curly purple wig, a small tube of blue paint, and a crude stencil of Rarity’s cutie mark.
“Oh no. No, no, no. I am not g—”
“Sapphire, please,” said Onyx as their eyes met. She could see the desperation, but it didn't make her any happier about the circumstances. “You’re the Seneschal to the Crown. If anypony can mimic her, it’s you. Plus, the Princess Platinum set will cover most of you up, but your face and hair will still need some work.”
Sapphire looked at the Commander, the bag of flour, and then back to him. "Fine, bu—"
HOOMF
Sapphire coughed and stumbled back into the closet wall once more as a scoop of flour hit her full in the face. "Wait, what ar—"
"No time," replied Onyx as he clambered past the dress form and emptied the rest of the bag onto her head. “Here, put the wig on. You said it yourself, there are thousands of ponies waiting out there, and I have to get back inside to help look for the Empress."
"Yes,” croaked Sapphire through a mouthful of doughy sludge. “But you could have at least waited for me to change out of my clothes!" Sapphire looked down with a pout as she dusted a hoof across her once silver vest and cream cravat. "This is griffinain silk."
Onyx winced as he pulled the cloak around her neck. "Sorry... There, what do you think?"
Sapphire fished a small clam shell mirror out of her saddlebags, eliciting a sleepy pert and prodding from Severus. "Maybe if the Empress had been shocked with lightning, and her skin was falling off,” she groused while looking at her floured face and mane in the reflection. “My coat color shines through in some places."
"It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to fake it from a distance," said Onyx. “Your coat isn't that bad.”
“Come again?” offered Sapphire diplomatically.
“Er, that is to say, it looks like it could just be ice buildup. Just go out there and smile and wave. I’ll find Rarity.”
“You’d better,” she said curtly. “Oh, and Onyx?” she asked him as he had one hoof out the closet door already.
“Yes?”
“You owe me, buster.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said with a nod, and with the soft click of the door that followed, Merry Sapphire was left to her thoughts. She was caked in flour, holding a purple wig, standing in a janitor’s closet, and wondering where it all went wrong.
She blamed Celestia.
Carefully, she activated her own magics and changed her appearance so she looked more like Rarity. A tuck of the tummy here. A bloom of rich eyeliner there. The flour was pulled from her coat and mane by her magic into a spherical mass which began to ripple and wave a bright gray, like the surface of her moon, as she washed it over her. She tossed the wig into her own saddlebag, much to Severus’ cuddling delight, as her mane and tail coiffed and curled themselves in Rarity’s unique style. There was a burst of light, and her mane was no longer silver, but instead the royal purple of her Empress.
Last but not least, she sprouted a horn— a smallish thing really, cute and decorative like Rarity’s own— before she floated the crown off the dress form’s featureless head and plopped it onto her own.
Merry Sapphire now looked exactly like Rarity. She took a deep breath and focused. Now to walk the walk and talk the talk.
Hurriedly, she popped out of the closet and trotted at a healthy clip back down the Noble Hall to the inner courtyard, where a lot of mucking about was still the order of the day.
Sapphire cleared her voice as she’d heard Rarity do on countless occasions, and a small cheer went through the menagerie. “Thank you, darlings! Thank you all for waiting, I am terribly sorry, darlings,” she called out as she trotted across the courtyard and climbed up into the main float, which was a near replica of Rarity’s Crystal Throne. “Let’s get moving, darlings. We can’t keep those poor darlings waiting forever now, can we?”
A mad scramble washed over the crew and show ponies as they wound gears, emptied spit valves, and groggily woke up from naps.
A moment later, Sapphire felt the float lurch under her as it began moving. Daintily, as she’d seen Rarity do, she took her seat at the top of the float and tried her best to put on a winning smile. It had been a few centuries since she’d been the headline of a parade, but she knew what to do. She knew she could handle it.
But smile as she may, Sapphire’s thoughts were stuck on Rarity. She hoped her Empress was alright.
That was, until the massive palace gates were pulled open by the team of a dozen some-odd domesticated tundranculas, giant snow spiders, and their whip cracking handlers. The thunderous roar of thousands of ponies beyond the gates assaulted her ears. The feeling was ecstatic, and the carefully chosen smile bled away into a genuine ear-to-ear grin as she waved to the crowd in earnest.
* * *
Rarity could barely keep her eyes open as she hugged the wall down yet another flight of stairs, grumbling all the way. Somehow she’d been separated from Onyx and lost in some far off staircase within the palace that she hadn't seen in… Gosh, how long had it been?
Rarity knew that she must have been somewhere around the thirtieth floor since the walls were that sickly shade of fuchsia that she’d been meaning to swap out for a soft violet for some time now. Not that she’d get around to it anytime soon.
Rarity’s frown was in danger of becoming a permanent feature of her drawn face as she glared at the next flight of descending stairs that awaited her. She’d just been down on the main floor, walking to the inner courtyard. How did she get so high up? Did she teleport herself up here accidentally? No, likely not. Not with her magic as sapped as it was from the day’s earlier trials.
Perhaps it had something to do with the cloak Onyx gave her. She recalled how the awful thing itched and tingled ever so dreadfully just before she lost track of him.
Absentmindedly, Rarity scratched at the spot on her shoulder where the cloak still tingled. "What in the name of the Northern Wastes am I doing up here?" she huffed in frustration, only to yawn immediately after the fact. Blinking away heavy lids, she waved a dismissive hoof at the stairs before her and turned down the hall to find a soul who could help her.
"Hello? I say, is anypony here?” she called out into the empty corridor, whose only answer back was the thrumming of magical machinery from a door labeled ‘Incinerator’.
“Your Empress is in need of assistance! Or a nap. Or a drink. Maybe all three? Hello?” she pleaded while pawing at a locked door across the hall.
Still no answer.
“Where is everpon— Oh, a map!" said Rarity as her eyes fell upon a nearby bulletin board where, pinned beside all sorts of various notes and work safety compliance notifications was a map of the palace, complete with legend.
She trotted over to the map, her spirits renewed. "Let's see, let's see… 30th floor, ah here. Okay, elevator… The elevator is down another flight of stairs, left, right, right, kitty corner, the... rock garden? Oh come on! I'm in the plot end of nowhere! I just can't belie— We have a Sun-Bucks?"
* * *
“The situation looks… rather grim, Your Majesty.”
The ponies in the room shifted uneasily at this news. Princess Twilight Sparkle herself, despite her centuries of dealing with situations much worse than this, felt an uneasy tremble quiver through her wings. But there was no room for trembling in a situation like this. Action was needed. Action that called for a firm and steady hoof.
It was here and now that she would lay it all on the line. She only hoped she wouldn't regret it.
Twilight leaned forward, resting a single forehoof on the table, as she moved the other forward. Her tongue, unconsciously poking out where her upper lip curled by her right cheek, was caught snugly between her teeth as she gently pulled a single wooden block out from the bottom of the small tower leaning this way and that at the table’s center.
Daring to release her breath, and risking another, Twilight slowly and methodically placed the block into position atop the tower.
It rocked. Nearly faltered. But her aim was true, and the game was as good as hers. The bottom of the wooden block tower had but a single of its three original pieces remaining.
“What?!” exclaimed Director Manesfield from the seat to Twilight’s right. “There’s no way you could… I mean how did… From the bottom?”
"Your turn, General Shears," Princess Twilight said to the stallion on her left as she put on a show of absentmindedly polishing a hoof against her chest while leaning against the back of her chair.
General Shears let out a throat-clearing rumble that bristled and bounced his white whiskers around like a caterpillar on a hot stove. His bushy eyebrows rose up and crashed down repeatedly like foamy waves on a beach. The tower wobbled slightly as he tapped one hoof on the table while rubbing the stubble on his olive green chin with the other. Many manners of ‘hmm’s and ‘ah ha’s rolled from his mouth just as he rolled the stem of his favorite pipe from the left to the right and back again.
After a short eternity, he turned his head on his stout earth pony neck to look at Princess Twilight. “My turn for what, Your Majesty?”
Princess Twilight looked over at Director Manesfield who screamed with her mouth closed, and eyes clenched shut in frustration.
“It’s your turn to play the game, you crazy old coot,” groaned the good Senator Underhill, who sat across the table from Princess Twilight. “Now get the glue out of your ears and move a piece, for goodness sake!”
General Shears, also the oldest pony in the room who wasn't immortal, turned sharply at the comment and leveled his eyes at the good Senator, blustering and harrumphing all the while. Then, quicker than any of the ponies present would’ve given him credit for, he spat his pipe out into a raised hoof and whapped it on the table as hard as he could.
The table bowed and flexed beneath his assault, and the small wooden blocks rose into the air as a cohesive unit. Using the saddle and bowl of his pipe like a golf club, he smacked the last remaining block on the bottom row. Out it shot like a cannon ball across the parlor room, bouncing against one of their host’s many self-portraits before landing firmly in General Shears’ open hoof.
As the din and dust settled, the rest of the pieces fell back into place.With a smile as wide as his mustache, General Shears placed the one he’d swiped upon the tower’s top.
“You do know it’s only impressive the first time you do that… Right?” asked the blue uniformed pegasus to his left.
General Shears chuckled to himself as he repacked his pipe with his favorite brand of Prench bubble formula. “Never underestimate the value of good strategy, Sky Marshall Firefly.”
Director Manesfield sighed and threw her head back over her chair’s headrest. “This is just like the Neighagra Falls incident.”
“Please don’t bring that up,” said Senator Underhill as he ruffled his wings. “I still get nervous whenever I see barrels.”
"What in the world is going on in here? I could hear the banging from the stables."
Twilight turned in her seat and looked over her shoulder. “Hello Ambassador Blueblood,” she said with a cheerful grin. “Won’t you join us? We’re playin— Oh my goodness, what happened to you?”
Blueblood stood in the doorway with an ice bag strapped to his head, a blanket draped across his back, and a frown plastered against his face. But he wasn't looking at the Princess. His eyes were glued to the wall.
“Did… did something hit that portrait?”
“Oh? What’s this?” asked General Shears as he looked about, eyebrows a-wagglin’.
“I asked ‘Did something hit that portrait?’” asked Blueblood again, pointing a hoof at the particular piece.
“Did it?” asked Sky Marshal Firefly, playing with the medals on her blue uniform before glancing up briefly. “Looks fine to me. Very lifelike.”
“Something… has knocked out... all of the teeth,” seethed the Ambassador as his otherwise white cheeks developed a lovely shade of rageful red.
Firefly looked up again, this time squinting. “Huh,” she said with a shrug. “Ohh, I guess I... didn't notice.”
Blueblood snarled and scraped his hooves on the ground and finally, when things were at its worse, he looked at the Princess and did what he did best.
He pouted.
Princess Twilight’s horn lit up as she shook her head at the childishness of it all. “Alright my little ponies, let’s play nice now. Yes?” As she spoke, Twilight used her magic to make the portrait’s pearly whites pop back into existence.
“Why are you so bent out of shape about just one painting anyway?” asked Firefly, waving a slender sunflower colored hoof in a broad sweeping motion. “The walls are covered in them.”
“I feel like I’m being watched,” said Manesfield with a curled lip.
The good Senator Underhill looked at her flatly. “You’re the Head of Equestrian Intelligence. Of course you’d feel like you’re being watched.”
“Be that as it may,” interrupted Blueblood as he limped his way across the room before stiffly taking the empty seat next to the Senator, “I apologize for my tardiness, Your Majesty. To both you and my other guests here. You've only just arrived after a long train ride and I wasn't here to greet you, though I’m glad to see the butler was good enough to let you in.”
Twilight magicked up a plate of jam-filled pastries and mint tea before asking the question on everypony’s mind. “What happened?”
“I was... delayed.”
“Delayed, Blueblood?” asked Shears as he reached for the plate of pastries. “Good gravy sir, you look more like the victim of a sound beating at the hands of a pack of wild snarling minotaurs!”
“Racist much?” asked Firefly with a swift kick under the table.
“What’s this?” blustered Shears. “Assaulting a superior officer?”
“I’m the Equestrian Air Force Commander, Grandpa. We’re peers.”
“Grandpa? That’s ageist!”
Blueblood let out a soft chuckle, which quickly developed into a violent fit of coughing. “Not quite. Let’s just say a round of discussions with the Crystal Empress went poorly.”
All manner of kicking and tomfoolery came to a quick end at his mention of the Crystal Empress, and the mood went from a dalliance of leisure to a meeting of the most powerful leaders in the Kingdom of Equestria.
“She attacked you?” asked Twilight with both caution and concern. She had known Rarity to be dramatic at times, but never truly moving beyond her eccentricities. Attacking a diplomatic representative? That was new and worrying.
“But I speak too freely, Your Majesty,” said Blueblood as he levitated one of the offered teacups to his hooves. “We had a disagreement over the proposal for the Telegraph system, things got out of hoof, and… Well, it was basically my fault.”
Twilight smiled softly at him. A smile of disappointment. “That’s unfortunate... and very unlike you, Ambassador.”
He nodded at her assessment.
“You were chosen specifically to improve relations between Equestria and the Empire, not make them worse. Princess Cadence and I hoped that you could be the Ambassador to the Empire that we needed. One that could heal the rift between our two kingdoms.”
“One kingdom, Your Highness,” demanded the good Senator Underhill wearily. “The Crystal Empire is an empire in name only. By right, it belongs to Equestria.”
Twilight frowned at the Senator, who did an admirable job of standing his ground given the circumstances. She could only see one of his hooves shaking uncontrollably.
“As I was saying,” Twilight continued where she’d left off, looking once again at Ambassador Blueblood. “You are charming, smart, and diplomatic to a fault. After all, your family has been Equestrian Nobility for as long as Canterlot has existed. Founded before the castle’s last stone was set into place. Your ancestors have defined what it means to be a Noble in Equestria, and Equestrian Nobility has always been a soft spot for Rarity,” she finished with a sigh. “Oh, where did this all go so wrong?”
“I apologize, your Majesty,” replied Blueblood with an exaggerated bow. “I am doing my best, but despite your good intentions, I feel I must report that the Empress still holds some… disdain for those very same ancestors.”
Twilight wrapped the wooden blocks in her magic and shuffled them absentmindedly into their box, then teleporting it out of the room. “Well, I can’t blame her for that. The first Blueblood she met was a real jerk.”
“Yes…” he said flatly at the unintended slight. “I've heard the tales.”
At that, Twilight winced. “I’m sorry, Blueblood. Your service to Equestria is appreciated, and you’re a much better stallion than… That is to say, all those nice things I said about you are true.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Just try not to…” Twilight paused and rolled her hooves in front of her while searching for the politically correct way of saying what she wanted to say. “Antagonize the situation with her any further?”
“So I take it the Empire won’t be joining our little project then?” asked the good Senator Underhill.
“I’m afraid that is the case,” said Blueblood. “She’s deemed the project to be prohibitively expensive, with little in the way of return on investment for the Crystal Empire.”
Director Manesfield pulled a small spiral bound notepad out of her breast pocket and flipped through it, speaking as she scanned its pages. “I would have thought that with her distant nephew— Graham Belle, I believe his name was— being the renowned creator of the telegraph and architect of this, his greatest work, would be all the incentive she needed.”
“Yes, well…”
Before Blueblood could bluster on, there was a light rapping on the door, and the butler let himself in with a cart of cheesy comestibles.
“Ah!” said General Shears with a smile and a wave. “Perfect timing, lad. I’m practically esurient!”
Sky Marshal Firefly balked and looked over at him. "Do you even know what that means?"
The butler nodded silently as he wheeled his tiny gilded carriage of goodies over to him and his Master’s other esteemed guests.
“Did you explain the extra costs were because of terrain difficulty and railroad projections?” asked Princess Twilight, ignoring the two military commanders.
“In the words of the simple, E’yup,” said Blueblood as he paused for another moment to sip his tea. “Not that it did any good, mind you. She is insistent that the Empire will remain out of the project. If you’d like, I can use my various contacts to see if we can, perhaps, bypass her and appeal straight to the Crystal Council?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, I don’t like the idea of going around her like that. Besides, Rarity could still veto the Council’s decision. They aren't like the Senate; they serve at her discretion. I’ll speak with her this evening; I’m sure I can smooth things over. Anyway, now that we’re all here, shall we get this cabinet meeting officially underway?”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Blueblood said with a wide, genuine grin as he looked up at the painting Princess Twilight repaired with her magic. “Nothing, not one thing, would make me happier.”