This was it. The time of action.
This was her moment, the epitome of all that she’d strived for in these few short moments. She could feel her mind and body tense, limbs coiling with energy for that all important first step. A flying leap would be first, followed by a stealthy roll onto solid ground to ease impact and continue momentum. Then the slide into cover behind the wrought iron fences coated with crawling ivy and grape vines. Just in time to avoid the curious gazes of the patrolling guards, their eyes trained every second for the slightest movement, the single errant twitch.
Cool as a cucumber.
She’d gone over and re-ran every single second of this impending feat of stealth and agility in her mind a dozen times. She was ready. The passing sentinel wouldn’t even know she’d come and gone, like a wraith in the mist.
She was the shadow, as the shadow was her. She was stealth, her thin body possessed of a lithe grace enviable by even the most skilled of jungle cats.
She was the savior! The heroine to top all action movie heroines!
She was—!
*Croak*
— screaming like a little filly as she sprung through the air, limbs locked with terror as she flew from her hiding place amongst the vines and shrubs to tumble into an embarrassing heap on the soft, loamy earth.
Her eyes were glassy with shock, wide and unseeing as the uncontrollable hammering beneath her ribcage shook her frame harder than the bumpiest sleigh ride. The need for oxygen forgotten as her steady breathing was replaced with a high-pitched squealing gasp of intake prolonged by the all encompassing surprise.
*Croak*
With a ripe splat, the warty mass of pasty green swamp spawn landed upon her forehead. Disbelief etched a slow portrait of flushed reds across Silver’s face as she stared into the frog’s beady black eyes. The bemused amphibian inflated in a slow croak of amusement before hopping daintily off of the embarrassed foal’s face and into a nearby artificial pond with a splash.
Silver let the mortified blush on her cheeks simmer quietly for a few seconds before righting her awkwardly placed body. Giving her limbs a cursory swipe with her wings and straightening a few errant feathers, she cleared her throat loudly to drown out the silence of a moment best left to the void of embarrassing secrets she kept locked up in the deepest vaults of her mind.
Silver turned to a nearby guardspony hesitantly, a small smirk quirking her lips.
“Not gonna tell anypony about that, huh big fella?”
The chiseled statue responded as only a statue could. Silver smiled and gave the statue a rough pat, her hoof clicking on the hard marble. “A pony that can keep a secret, huh? I like that. Keep up the good work!”
Brushing past the ornamental security, Silver trotted down the well-trodden earthen path that wound its way sedately between the decorative ponds and foliage. The soft sounds of the garden wildlife gave her surroundings a soothing ambience that let Silver’s mind wander as far as her hooves.
Silver had to hand it to the bigwigs, when it came to making fancy-schmancy gardens and tear jerking pieces of art, they really went all out. She’d been working her way through the myriad twisting paths and walkways of the indoor garden since she’d left the greenhouse behind a few hours ago. She’d begun to suspect the place was enchanted to be bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, otherwise the Crystal Palace would’ve been huge.
She didn’t pretend to try and understand how exactly she’d noticed the possibility, after all that sort of thing had always been Olive’s forte. Silver had always been the more assertive of the two, and the least likely to think her actions through. Take today’s earlier situation for example.
Her daring escape from Frankenmare’s castle and stealthy infiltration of the empire’s capital was a tale for the ages! A thrilling tale of of excitement, danger and…
It had actually been pretty easy and more than a little boring.
Silver had earned a healthy respect for Vanilla over the time she had known the mare. Not only had she shown enough concern for Silver’s plight to lend a hoof in the undertaking, but she had proven herself a cunning mastermind in the arts of stealth and espionage.
It was surprising what you could accomplish with a little bit of sweet talking, a generous hoofful of makeshift mane dye and an astonishing lack of caution and common sense. With a few well placed lies and a new head of chocolate colored frizz for a mane, she’d been successfully passed off as Vanilla’s adorably rambunctious niece on an educational visit from lands unknown. Turns out that the head chef had a soft spot for foals buried somewhere under that Neigh York accent. Deep, deep down under the accent.
Despite her obvious fear of the grizzled spoon wielding kitchen pony, Vanilla had managed to beg a favor from the cooks and gotten her a few babysitters. Since the cooks would be coming along with the mass exodus of almost every member of the estate’s staff, she’d acquired a free ride straight to the palace’s doorstep! The guards had waved her and the other staff in without so much as a second glance, and had seemed to welcome all the extra help if the sheer amount of work going on to feed all the partygoers was any indication of their need.
And if the trip to the capital had been easy, getting out of the kitchens had been a breeze. It had only been a few minutes before all the head chefs decided to but heads until the hardest skull earned the right to be head head chef. Silver had taken advantage of the ensuing shouting over stoves and the clack of wooden spoons to slip quietly through the nearest door and begin the search for the nearest pint-sized egghead.
Silver usually prided herself on her ability to navigate through unfamiliar territory. Olive had said it was something to do with a pegasus’ natural abilities to predict and avoid dangerous terrain or something like that. But it seemed that Silver had underestimated the Crystal Palace’s ability to be extremely confusing.
It hadn’t even been half an hour before she’d gotten horribly lost.
Somehow between avoiding the occasional patrol and bypassing rooms filled with the sounds of music and laughter, she’d wound up shoving her way past a door and stepping into a wall of humid air that had smacked her in the face like a wet towel.
A hop, skip and a jump over the ensuing hours of time spent wandering aimlessly through a dense screen of non-native plant life and battling hordes of adorably mischievous garden critters brought her day back to the present as the endless path continued doing what it did best.
“The comics always make this sneaking thing out to be a lot more interesting.” Silver mumbled to herself, eyes roaming passively left to right in the forgotten hope of seeing anything other than a continuing glimpse of palmettos, rose bushes and the occasional bullfrog.
“It almost makes me wish you frogs could talk so I could ask for directions.” She huffed, eyeing a sedately squat leaper crouched protectively amongst his small throne of lily pads and pond lotuses.
“Bloody ridiculous…”
Silver jerked mid-stride, doing a nervous double-take to eye the pasty amphibian as her brain tried to play catch-up with what her ears had told her.
“D-did you say something, croaker?”
The croaker in question blinked languidly, it’s slack features displaying disinterest with the tan pegasus standing accusingly outside his watery realm.
“...the puffed up git…”
“What did you call me?” Silver hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously.
The amphibian blinked in alarm as the pegasus rapidly closed the distance through the shallows, upsetting the tranquil balance of the pond with splashing hooves to shove her muzzle up against his snout.
“Why don’t you say that again to my face, slimeball. Think you’re tough, do ya?”
Squirming uncomfortably on his pad, the frog gave a soft croak before springing from his perch and away from the aggressive foal. A wheeze escaped his pasty lips as two tan blurs whipped across his line of sight and grabbed his squishy body tightly, pinning his forelimbs as he was swept nauseatingly through the air back to face the smoldering eyes of an angry huntress.
“Oh don’t think you can just talk smack and hop off like that, ya little bugger. Ain’t no way a little guy like you is gonna get to squeeze away from me.” Silver growled.
Beads of sweat broke out across the frog’s brow as he gazed headlong into the pony’s penetrating stare, his body giving uncomfortable squishing noises as her hooves increased their pressure.
“Who does he think he is, orderin’ me around?”
He croaked miserably as Silver’s eyes widened in outrage, her teeth baring in a silent snarl.
“Oh that’s it! You asked for it you little—”
A sharp crash, louder than the ones that had, unbeknownst to Silver, steadily been increasing in volume startled the two combatants. Gasping softly, Silver’s ingrained pony instincts made the immediate motion to beat a hasty gallop toward the nearest available cover but her scrambling hooves slipped on the slick pond sediment underhoof, sending her underwater with a loud splash—
Just as a short, gruff stallion shouldered his way through the dense foliage, crushing plant fronds and twigs under his iron shod hooves and plowing past natural obstacles as though either unaware of their existence or too annoyed to care.
“Jus’ wait till I get my mitts on that dirty—what the?”
The stallion stared as the frothing waters of the pond slowly settled, disturbed waves lapping at the edges of the trodden path. A lone frog sat perched on a drifting lily pad looking somewhat sheepish as the water rocked his makeshift raft.
The stallion blinked in surprise as he and the amphibian watched each other warily.
“Oi,” Grout laughed, a crass grin revealing yellowed and crooked teeth. “You’re a noisy little blighter, now inn’t ya? Shouldn’t you be off hidin’ from big blokes like me instead o’ raisin’ racket? Eh?”
Grout gave a nearby rock a sharp swipe with a hoof, casting it into the water near the occupied pad with a splash. The frog gave a strangled quork as he edged away from the point of splashdown.
“Teach you, noisy devil.” Grunting in satisfaction, Grout turned back to the dirt path and resumed plowing a trench through protruding vegetation, muttering to himself angrily as he receded from sight.
The frog watched the irate stallion stomp off before giving a weary sigh. The stillness was broken by his loud croak, signalling an all clear.
He scrambled for balance as his seat rose rapidly from the surface of the water, droplets forming along the edges and dripping down with small splashes onto the damp fur below.
Silver lifted a hoof, propping up the lily pad’s dangling edge to warily scope out the trail of destruction left in the stallion’s wake.
“Think he’s far enough away to not hear us?”
*Croak*
“Yeah. Sorry for that little mistake. I thought you were bein’ a punk.” Silver grinned sheepishly up past her lily hat, her ears lowering as she saw the frog’s unamused glare.
“My bad.”
Silver hauled her drenched form out of the artificial pond with careful steps, not wanting a repeat of the events that led to her soaking. The frog gave soft croaks of encouragement as Silver stood shivering on the bank, water dripping from her mane and wings and her legs and body caked with muck and pond slime.
“At least it’s kinda warm in here,” Silver mumbled eyeing her soaked plumage distastefully. “I should dry off in a bit. Not much I can do about the mud, though.”
Silver eyed the trampled trail through the undergrowth seriously as the soft plops of her dripping fur began to slow. The frog leaped hurriedly to the ground as a sodden hoof reached up to pull the limp pad down from her head. He watched mournfully as the once-stately perch sailed majestically through the air to land with a wet flop in the bushes.
“You know who that was croaker?”
*Croak*
“I think that was one of Frankenmare’s stooges. Trout or whatever ‘is name was...and y’know what else? I think he knows where Olive is.”
A devious grin curled the pony’s lips as she swiped the frog off of the grass to give it a new perch atop her damp mane.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’ croaker?”
The frog sighed, gripping nearby strands of mane for impromptu reins and giving a resigned croak as Silver leaped down the path, hooves beating a muffled staccato on the soft soil.
Olive frowned, ears drooping mournfully as she watched the stars begin to peek through the sun’s fading light. The ponies below looked like ants from her vantage point, muzzle pressed to the thick glass panes of a guest suite window stories above even the tallest of the surrounding cities’ rooftops. The palace offered a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. Nestled comfortably in the grassy Commons, the glittering buildings within her view rolled out before her like a mosaic of painted glass lining streets arrayed like the branches of an enormous snowflake.
Beyond the city limits she could just make out the edge of the enchanted biosphere that kept the air in the capitol balmy even in the midst of the white wintry landscape that stretched as far as the horizon. It was hard to be certain in the fading light, but the frequency of the strong gusts that brushed the shell of the biosphere leaving faintly glowing trails made it seem like there was a blizzard of some kind raging outside.
As her bespectacled gaze swept across the city her eyes were drawn to one rooftop in particular. Shimmer Quarter, all the way down Bauxite lane and take the second to last street on the right.
The orphanage. The home that had never really been a home.
Olive watched it carefully, even though seeing any noticeable activity at this distance was unlikely. And though the building’s front was faced away from her, her mind’s eye could still see the creaking weather vane over the dormitories whose shrill creaking had kept her awake at night more times than she could count.
She wondered if any of the ponies she’d known before she and Silver had been adopted were still there. There’d be a good few most likely, though there was the possibility for a few to have been adopted, as she had.
Maybe Tourmaline had finally gotten up the courage to go talk to a few possible parents. And Olive had thought of herself as being socially awkward. Diadem was probably still making it her mission in life to drink as much of the party punch in one sitting as possible, so she always missed talking to a few couples due to her frequent dashes to the restroom.
She wondered if Matron Veil was still trying to make a move on the Director. She wasn’t sure what had been more painful to watch in those days. Watching Veil make her shameless passes or watch the Director’s completely oblivious bumbling.
She wondered how Matron Rule was doing.
It had been a bittersweet moment when Silver and her had left with Mr. Crux. She could tell that Golden Rule had been happy for them, but it was still a little painful to hear her say goodbye. Ms. Rule was one of the few adults at the orphanage that had made interactions with the foals on a more personal level. She bonded with every pony who met her and Olive had watched many ponies be adopted who had been very close with their matron.
She hadn’t ever told Ms. Rule that she’d seen her crying in her room more than a few times. It had been a secret she’d been too afraid would hurt Mrs. Rule to mention.
It was the orphanage policy to do a check up on any adoptions that had taken place. They were given a ‘trial’ period of sorts. The families and their new members would be given a few month’s time to get to know one another better, to see if they could live together amiably.
Most of the time it was just a formality. Ms. Rule had told her that she would often stop by and be gone within the hour, so obvious was it that the adoption had gone well. But sometimes, Ms. Rule would return with an adoptee in tow. Those were never easy times in the orphanage.
Ms. Rule had also scheduled such a trial for them. Just in case, she’d said.
~~~
“I’m sure everything will go wonderfully, girls.” Golden Rule gave them that glowing smile that always made them grin.
“The Cruxes are a well known family around the business districts, so I’m sure you’ll have tons of fun new experiences. But...just in case, you two know about the Fair coming up in the next few months?”
At their solemn nods she smiled again, though the girls could see a bit of her uncertainty in the strain around the corners.
“A little bit longer than most, but I know that Mr. Crux lives all the way in Slateridge, so it saves us the trip. I know that most likely he’ll be here in the capitol around then, most important ponies will be and I trust he’ll bring you two along as well. So we’ll have our little check up then.”
“Good luck girls! And try to get along with your new family.”
~~~
Olive scanned the streets swarming with multicolored forms for a glimpse of her old matron’s golden mane but from this distance she could barely recognize the shapes as ponies let alone tell them apart individually.
She sighed softly, her warm breath misting the glass. She wondered if Ms. Rule would come looking for them if they weren’t able to meet like they’d planned. Though the lack of any sign of rescue after Silver’s token on the serving trolley had dulled her imaginings of a quick rescue, she still found herself holding out hope. If there was one thing for certain, Silver was a stubborn pony. If she was out there looking for a way to rescue Olive, then she was completely certain it would happen.
When that might be however, she was uncertain.
“Hey, brat. Whatever little ideas you got running around in that noggin of yours that’s got you sighing like a sad little princess, forget ‘em. And get away from the window while you’re at it. Can’t have it said you fell out of the damned thing on my watch. Malice might think I’d thrown you out myself.”
Olive bit her lip, a brief flicker of annoyance washing through her before she carefully schooled her features. She didn’t want a repeat of the last time she’d let Rivet see anything other than fearful compliance on her face.
Olive turned around, hooves padding softly on the carpeted floors. She had to make a conscious effort to raise her gaze from the floor to meet that of the stallion eyeing her from his position at the only door across the room.
Of her three captors, she disliked and feared Rivet the most.
A gruff and irate stallion at the best of times, Rivet was a burly earth pony with long limbs covered in veiny muscle. A short, mussed coat of steel grey fur clung to his frame like an oil stained rag. The muscles in his thick jaw clenched and relaxed with near clockwork regularity as they corded under his skin. Dark, deep-set eyes glowered from underneath a heavy brow that bunched and beetled whenever he saw anything he disliked.
Which, as far as Olive had been able to tell over the weeks of her captivity, was pretty much everything. She’d even seen him punch a mirror once after staring at his reflection.
As she met his gaze, her eyes were drawn to the sharp shadows that flickered across his forehead as his brow bunched.
“Got something to say?” He growled.
Olive’s eyes dropped immediately to the floor, her body adopting a submissive posture.
“No sir, sorry sir.”
He snorted, the muscles in his jaw working overtime.
“Good, now get away from the damn window like I said.”
“Yes sir.”
Olive resented every step she took as she crouched down at the foot of the large four poster bed that dominated a large corner of the room. As she laid her head down on her forelimbs, Olive seethed internally. All she’d been doing was looking out the window. It was impossible for anypony looking at the palace to have noticed her, let alone recognized her for who she was. She knew this, and she had no doubt Rivet knew it as well. He’d only told her to leave the window because he enjoyed causing her as much discomfort as possible.
Before Rivet had managed to kidnap her, she’d secreted the medallion away in a small pocket dimension she’d created after reading about a similar spell used back in the days of Roam. When political spies needed someplace to hide incriminating documents where they couldn’t be found in a casual search.
When he’d shown up to his bosses carrying nothing but a bag filled with a bruised and battered filly with no signs of antique baubles or intricate prismatic discs, he’d wound up in hot water.
And he took every conceivable opportunity to repay her in spades.
But as much as she despised it, she couldn’t complain. If she complained, Rivet would find that as good a reason as any to punish her. The only pony who really seemed able to make Rivet do anything other than whatever it was he felt like was Malice. Though he didn’t show it, Olive was certain he feared the steely mare. And Olive had felt the strength in Malice’s magic firsthand. She was no pushover.
But Malice wasn’t here, she’d left Olive with Rivet and Grout when her lady had called her as escort for the evening. And Rivet had sent Grout out on some errand for something or other. As far as she could tell, Rivet had the shorter stallion running constant updates back to Malice, and she could tell the stocky pony resented the tedious grunt work.
She wondered, not for the first time, if she could somehow play the two hotheaded stallions against each other. It was obvious that the dislike was mutual and ran very deep. Whatever the two goons were being payed must’ve been no paltry sum for them to have tolerated each other’s presence for so long.
Her only concern was whether or not Grout could win the resulting altercation. Rivet may have been many things, but he wasn’t stupid. He would know it had been her idea, and if she went her whole life without feeling the power in those iron-shod hooves again it would be too soon by half.
But for the time being, Grout wasn’t here and Rivet was sitting in the same spot as he’d been in since their arrival at the palace. Watching her with his forehead rumpled like old newspaper.
So Olive smothered a sigh and turned her head to a more comfortable position on her forelegs, resigned to waiting out another day.
And then she heard hooves.
Not for the first time, Silver marveled at how completely oblivious this stallion was.
He’d steamrolled right through the palace’s indoor gardens and down the seemingly endless hallways with little to no regard to his surroundings. She’d learned fairly early on that any semblance of stealth was completely wasted on this pony, his angry mumbling was so loud Silver could hear it clear as day over the sound of party going outside the palace walls. They passed several notable markers as she followed him at a measured distance, and she made mental note of each and every one in preparation of a quick return trip.
She’d almost begun to think she’d made a mistake in following this guy, seeing how completely random his choice of path seemed when she noticed the shape and decoration of the walls began to change.
The opaque shimmering surfaces of the hallways around them was replaced with a serene turquoise material that reflected the soft light from metal sconces with a soothing glow. That and the noticeable lack of defining markers near or on every doorway led her to believe they’d entered a residential area of some kind.
Bingo.
She stumbled to a halt in alarm as the harsh banging echoed down the hall via the unnatural crystallin acoustics. Edging carefully around the corner, Silver managed to catch a quick glimpse of Grout wailing angrily away at a rather battered door frame. It seemed this particular scene had been repeating itself more than a few times.
“Oi, Rivet! Lemme in already!”
Silver’s eyes in anticipation as she watched the door hurriedly open, another stallion Silver recognized as the other half of the dastardly duo growl angrily.
“You loudmouth! Didn’t I tell you not to say my name out loud? Who knows who might hear you!”
“Oh, aye. Because that’s what’ll clue in the passersby, eh? Yer name, and not the fact that ya smell worse than me grandda’s lucky horseshoes and look half a sight sorrier. If ya’d just open the damn door, I wouldn’t hafta shout at ya now would I?”
“Watch it, Grout.”
“Watch it he says ta me!” The gruff earth pony shoulders his way past the fuming stallion and steps into the room and out of Silver’s line of sight, talking animatedly to himself.
“As if he has any right ta tell me ta watch it! He’s the one who sits on his sorry arse all day, watchin’ the wee lass, whereas me own self? I has ta go sloggin’ through some excuse fer a nature garden filled with buzzin’ insects and fat, warty little blighters—”
The tirade fades to near inaudibility as Rivet shuts the door, the protesting door rattling in its frame. Silver eased around the corner cautiously, patting the irate mass atop her head who had begun to softly croak in indignation.
“Easy there croaker, we can’t blow this now. Olive’s so close I can practically smell her.”
Silver took an obliging whiff of the air, her nose shriveling.
“Or maybe that’s just all this dried pond muck.”
*Croak*
“Right! It looks like Olive needs a hand, and we’re poised to strike!”
*Croak?*
“Well yeah! You are gonna help me rescue Olive, right?”
…
“Oh come on! After all this, everything we’ve been through, you’re gonna turn warts and hop away? I thought we had something special, croaker.”
…
*Sigh...Croak.*
“Yes! I knew you wouldn’t let me down, you sly frog. Now lets get to it. I think I saw a broom closet a few halls back and it gives me an idea."
“Croaker, next time I suggest we use four tubs of super deluxe strength floor polish instead of three, croak some sense into me!”
*Croak!*
“I said next time!”
“Silver!” Olive screeched, barreling down hallways beside her dirty sibling in full flight from the sounds of angry shouting and slide whistles as their pursuers slid uncontrollably into nearby obstacles. “Stop chatting with the frog and lead us to the exit!”
“I’m trying alright! And don’t diss the croaker. It ain’t exactly the easiest thing to find the right door in this place, it’s like a maze!”
“Didn’t you plan for this before you rode into the suite on the back of a wave of cleaning products?”
Silver dashed around a corner with Olive in hot pursuit as the two furious stallions careened by shortly afterward, unable to control forward momentum with hooves coated in oily surfactant.
“Hey, I made mental notes! It took long enough to think of Operation: Slippery When Wet anyway!”
“You just made up your plan on the spot didn’t you…” Olive groused.
“Well to be honest, I didn’t have a lot to improvise with Olive. Excuse me for tryin'.”