The Crystal Palace was tall enough to be seen from every province of the Crystal Empire. The crystal heart gently revolved in its forecourt, protecting the empire against all forms of magical threats. By daylight, the spire of the palace glistened in the sun, providing a sight that was inspiring and reassuring to all the crystal ponies who saw it. But tonight the spire glistened in an unfamiliar light — the light of the signal fires along the northern wall.
The large doors to the palace's central chamber swung open as General Moss walked in, flanked on his left and right by soldiers, and approached the Empress. He bowed, then looked up. "Your Majesty, the minotaurs have crossed our Northern border."
Chief Hooves, the advisor to the Empress ruffled her wings. "Impossible! None can get through the Great Wall."
Empress Heart motioned for her advisor to be silent.
General Moss stood to attention. "Shan Zebu is leading them. We'll set up defences around your palace immediately."
The empress stamped a hoof forcefully. "No! Send your troops to protect everypony." She turned to her advisor. "Chief Hooves?"
"Yes, your highness," the grey pegasus answered meekly.
"Deliver conscription notices throughout all the provinces. Call up reserves and as many new recruits as possible."
General Moss interrupted. "Forgive me your Majesty, but I believe my troops can stop him."
The empress slouched back on her throne, contemplatively. "I wont take any chances, General. A single oat can tip the scale. One pony may be the difference between victory and defeat."
☯
The young mare concentrated on a single grain of rice, allowing just a tiny amount of her magic to flow through her horn. The grain floated from the top of the pile, and into her mouth.
The pale green unicorn furrowed her brow. "Quiet and demure... graceful... polite..." She picked up some more rice, eating a mouthful. Still chewing, she continued. "Delicate... refined... poised..." A quill moved, wrapped in a magical field, writing notes on the inner side of one of her front legs. A cock crowed in the distance. "Punctual... punctual!" She was running late! "Aiii!"
Falabella Mulan panicked. "Little brother! Little brother!" she called. Falabella Yao, her younger brother, came running. "Lit— ahhh, there you are. Who's the smartest pony in the world? Come on smart boy, can you help me with my chores today?"
Yao frowned. He took a sack of grain in his teeth. Being an earth pony, he didn't have the option of levitating it with him. The young colt dragged it off to feed the chickens.
☯
Nurse Goodheart wiped the old stallion's brow with a cloth, trying not to disturb him, but he started to stir. She sat down on the chair beside his bed. He opened his lips and started to mumble something.
"Wa… water."
"Of course, Mr Rich, I'll go get you a glass." She trotted out of the room to the bathroom next door.
Filling the glass with water from the tap, she heard a commotion outside and wondered what it might be. Probably nothing of her concern — Manehattan was a lawless town and there were often scuffles and fights on the street. Still, that was why it paid so well being a private nurse in this city.
Heading towards the bathroom door, she stumbled and knocked a bottle of expensive cologne off the counter onto the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces. "Buck it! This clumsiness will be the death of me!" she muttered to herself. She put down the water and started to sweep up the fragments of broken glass.
☯
Falabella Zhou knelt at the family temple. "Honourable ancestors, please help Mulan impress the matchmaker today."
His son galloped up the temple steps, looped around Zhou, and ran back towards the chicken coop, screaming all the way, and leaving a trail of grain behind him. A flock of chickens followed him, clucking and flapping.
Zhou watched in disbelief. "Please, please, help her."
Mulan came out of the house, wearing an elegant but simple dress, and walked past her little brother, resting from his daring escape from a flock of chickens and passed him an apple. He accepted it gratefully, and took a bite. The young mare continued towards the temple.
She approached her father from behind. "Father I brought your—whoops!" Zhou stood up, knocking a cup and teapot out of Mulan's field of levitation. The cup fell to the ground, but Zhou caught the teapot with a hoof.
"Mulan..." he started.
The small unicorn levitated another cup from behind her. "Don't worry. I brought a spare."
This time he spoke more loudly. "Mulan..."
She interrupted again, knowing what he wanted to speak to her about, but trying to avoid the topic. "Remember, the doctor said three cups of tea in the morning..."
"Mulan...!"
"And three at night." She brushed a lock of her green mane away from her face.
"Mulan, you should already be in town. We're counting on you to up..."
Mulan interrupted again. "... uphold the family honor. Don't worry, father. I won't let you down." Mulan adjusted her sleeve to cover over the writing on her foreleg. "Wish me luck!" She hurried down the stairs.
Zhou called out to his daughter, "Hurry!" He turned and poured himself a cup of tea. Putting it down he muttered to himself. "I'm going to pray some more."
☯
"Ready the Skycoach!" the Empress ordered, striding down the shimmering hallway of the crystal palace, shortly after sunrise.
Chief Hooves hurried along in the empress's wake. "I must advise against this, your majesty. They cannot be trusted. They will use this as an excuse to annex the empire."
Empress Heart came to a sudden halt to confront her advisor. "They are my aunts, Chief Hooves, and our closest allies. Of course I can trust them."
"They are the sisters of your distant ancestor. How old must they be? What sort of a deal did those sisters make with the devil to live so long?"
"They are born alicorns." The empress started up the stairs. "They have naturally long lives."
"With those horns and their magic, why, they could read your mind, or plant thoughts into your head. They could stop your heart from beating in your chest through force of will."
"Well, they have never done so before," the empress chuckled. "You are letting your prejudices inform your counsel again, Chief Hooves."
Chief Hooves scowled.
They arrived at the balcony and Empress Heart stepped onto the Skycoach. "Now good day. I should return before nightfall."
"Good luck, your majesty." Chief Hooves bowed. "And be on your guard."
Empress Heart shivered in the cold, crisp early morning air. The team of armoured pegasus ponies took off, towing the Skycoach behind them, bound for Reverie.
☯
An elegant unicorn mare waited impatiently on a street corner. Another mare poked her head out of a door further down the street and shouted, "Falabella Lee, is your daughter here yet? The matchmaker is not known for her patience."
Lee shook her head. "Of all days to be late. I should have prayed to the ancestors for luck."
"How lucky can they be?" an older unicorn beside her asked. "They're dead! Besides, I've got all the luck we'll need." She turned to address a small cage she was levitating. "This is your chance to prove yourself." An unintelligible squeaky voice came out of the cage. The older mare closed her eyes and stepped into the busy street.
Lee reached out to grab the mare, but she was already out of hoof's reach. "Mother, no!"
Traffic swerved out of the old mare's way. The breezie inside the cage shut his eyes in terror. A pony pulling a cart of apples collided with another pushing a wheelbarrow of hay. Other ponies skidded to a halt to avoid the accident.
The mare arrived safely at the other side of the street, stepping onto the kerb. "Yep, this breezie's a lucky one!" The breezie collapsed with relief.
Falabella Lee spotted the pony she had been waiting for. "Mulan!" she called.
Mulan crossed the street, hopping over the recent accident. "I'm here." She was greeted by a stern look. "What? But mother, I had to--"
Lee pulled hay from Mulan's mane. "None of your excuses. Now let's get you cleaned up." They walked to the building down the street.
☯
Nurse Goodheart tipped the last pieces of glass into the wastepaper basket and picked up the glass of water again. A crash came from the room next door. She hurried to see what had happened.
Standing in the doorway she saw two strange earth stallions by Mr Rich's bed. One held a crossbow. Nurse Goodheart's eyes followed the bow's trajectory. The glass of water fell from her hooves when she saw the arrow in Mr Rich's chest.
As the glass smashed on the ground, she turned and ran towards the stairs.
"Hey! Who's that?!" a voice called from the bedroom. "Get her!"
She stumbled at the top of the flight of stairs that led downstairs, seeing two more earth ponies heading up, alerted by the commotion. She turned back and headed for the other stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, three at a time, she climbed up towards a doorway which led out onto the roof.
☯
Inside the spa, there were a number of tubs of various sizes filled with bubbling liquids. The spa pony hurried Mulan towards a screen. "So this is what I have to work with?" She removed Mulan's dress and pushed her towards the nearest tub. "I've seen worse, honey."
Mulan was pushed backwards and stumbled against the edge of a tub, tripping and falling in. She shivered. "It's frozen!"
Her mother replied softly, "it would have been warm if you'd been here on time."
The spa pony ignored Mulan's complaints. "We'll have you washed and dried and groomed before you know it. We will have you looking like the perfect bride. You'll bring great honour to your family."
Falabella Lee wrapped a sponge in her magic and started scrubbing her daughter. Coming to her right foreleg she discovered the writing. "What is this, Mulan?"
Mulan snatched back her leg. "Umm... notes? In case I forget something?" She fluttered her long eyelashes.
Mulan's grandmother sighed and passed the caged breezie to her daughter. Lee accepted the cage into her field of levitation. "Here, hold this," the older mare said, "we're going to need more luck than I thought."
Mulan looked at her mother and grandmother with embarrassment.
Finished washing Mulan, the spa pony helped her out of the tub and used a towel to dry her. She led Mulan to a seat, and another, almost identical, spa pony appeared, carrying a brush and comb. She looked at Mulan's mane and frowned, deep in thought.
Mulan grimaced while the second spa pony brushed and combed her hair. This spa sadist didn't seem to go easy on the tangled parts. "When we're through, you'll look like a whole new pony," she promised. "Oooh, you're going to get such a surprise when you look in a mirror!" she squealed.
The first spa pony dipped in here and there with a pair of scissors, making strategic trims to Mulan's mane and tail. "You'll have all the stallions fighting over you," she predicted.
The second spa pony finalized the hair-do. "Perfect." She levitated a mirror over for Mulan to inspect the result. Mulan looked into the mirror to reveal a hairstyle exactly like that of the spa ponies. She raised an eyebrow.
☯
Falabella Lee guided her daughter along a busy street, avoiding carts and ponies. Walking past a café where a couple of elderly stallions were playing chess, Mulan held back for a moment to observe, while her mother carried on, not noticing that she'd left Mulan behind.
Mulan wrapped the white queen in her magic and moved the piece forward three squares. One of the players stared at the board for a moment, before burying his face in his hooves. The other player smiled.
Mulan felt a jerk as her hoof was suddenly pulled. Her mother was hurrying her along. "Come on, Mulan. You can bring great honour to our family by finding the right match. Today is the day you need to make an effort to impress the matchmaker." They arrived outside a shop. "Here we are," Lee announced.
Inside the shop two dress-maker ponies fussed around Mulan, squeezing her into a much more figure-hugging dress than she would normally wear. "Men want girls with good taste," said one of the ponies. Mulan had to admit that it was a rather elegant outfit.
The other dress-maker picked out a belt from a rack and slipped it around Mulan. "Calm," she offered.
Mulan's mother interjected. "Obedient."
"Full of grace," suggested the first dress-maker again.
Falabella Lee stood back to admire the work being done by the dress-maker ponies and smiled. "With good breeding," she contributed.
"And a tiny waist," said the second dress-maker while tightening the belt so much that Mulan could barely breathe. Mulan grunted as the wind was pushed out of her, and the other ponies frowned to hear such an inelegant sound come from her.
Lee paid the dress-maker ponies some bits, and took Mulan by the hoof, whirling her around and out of the door. They crossed a busy street and took a shortcut to their next destination by cutting through the park diagonally.
An earth pony colt bumped into Mulan and ran off down the path carrying a donkey doll in his teeth. Moments later a young pegasus filly ran past her in tears. Lee was pointing out the different flowers that were in bloom at this time of year, but Mulan was not paying attention to her; she used her magic to gently lift the donkey doll and return it to its owner. By the time Mulan and her mother caught up to the filly, she was playing happily with her doll again.
The two women trotted into the beauticians'. It wasn't long before Mulan was sat in a chair with the mother and the make-up pony fussing over her, applying powder, lipstick, eye-liner, mascara, and all other kinds of lotions and potions that Mulan would never normally wear.
"It must be soft and pale," Falabella Lee said, "like a lotus blossom."
The make-up pony reassured her. "Don't worry, when we're done, she won't fail to impress any stallion."
Mulan sighed and crossed her forelegs. She couldn't stand everypony talking about her like she wasn't in the room. She wouldn't want to be single for her whole life, but she felt that she had more to offer the world than to just be an obedient wife.
The make-up pony held a mirror up so that Mulan could see her finished look. She wasn't happy with the severe-looking impression that her mane style and makeup gave. With a quick glow from her horn, her mane instantly resumed its natural appearance.
"No!" scolded her mother, and used her hoof the snuff out Mulan's horn. The reality distortion field Mulan was casting dropped, and the neatly styled look returned. Mulan groaned. She reached up with a hoof to free a single bang from her mane, and let it hang down the side of her face. She smiled — she supposed it didn't look too bad now.
Lee placed a white lily in Mulan's mane. "There; you're done."
"Not quite," corrected Granny Falabella. She shoved an apple into Mulan's mouth. "An apple for serenity, jade beads for beauty, and a pendant for balance." She used her magic to wrap Mulan's neck in a jade necklace which beautifully complemented her coat. A diamond pendant hung down from the necklace. "Last thing: a breezie for good luck." She tucked the tiny cage she was carrying into one of the folds of Mulan's dress.
☯
"She went that way," said one of the earth pony thugs and gestured up the stairs.
One of the others smiled. "Those just lead to the roof. She'll be trapped."
While one of the ponies stayed to clean up the bedroom, the other three climbed the stairs and stepped out onto the roof. Spotting Nurse Goodheart in her white gown by the edge of the building, they fanned out and slowly approached her.
Calmly, she took a step backwards and fell out of their sight. The three stallions looked at each other and rushed to the edge of the roof, prepared to be greeted by the sight of a dead mare on the pavement five stories below.
They peered over the edge only to stumble back as Nurse Goodheart soared past them, her grey–white wings outstretched.
☯
Mulan's mother and grandmother led her to the town square, where the matchmaker would be holding her consultations. Dozens of other young mares dressed equally glamorously were milling about the square, waiting for their appointments.
Mulan muttered a silent prayer to not screw this up, and to make her family proud.