//------------------------------// // 3. The Guarsai // Story: The Glass Kingdom // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// “…the look on his face,” Trixie said as she finished relating her story about Kristal Zati. The two ponies sat at a restaurant somewhere in downtown Gotorleku Hiria, near their hotel. Once again, the cognates between Zaldian, Prench, and Equestrian plus Trixie’s illusioncraft had saved the two Equestrians from the language barrier, and right now the two were enjoying broad smattering of traditional Zaldian dishes – txakoli wine as an apéritif, pipperada, pisto, and talo bread for the main courses, and cuajada with honey and almonds for dessert. The purely Zaldian dishes made them look like tourists, but then again they essentially were and so didn’t mind. Lyra took a bite out of her cuajada, smiling at Trixie’s description of her encounter. “Score one for Equestria?” she asked. Trixie had a knowing grin on her face, though she shook her head. “Not really. I wasn’t going against Zaldia, I was going against Lord Zati. So score one for me.” She tapped her hooves together. “I can’t wait to tell Princess Luna about it. I know that she knew what Zati would be like. Probably thought of this as a kind of test. And I passed!” Lyra honestly wondered if that was the case – that Luna had used this negotiation between Zaldia and Equestria as a ‘test’ for Trixie. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea fully, though on the other hoof it’s not like anything vital had been on the table, and politicians had to learn their tradecraft somewhere. She decided to be happy for Trixie. “But enough about me,” Trixie said, making a cutting motion with one hoof as her telekinesis grasped the stem of the txakoli wine bottle and refilled her glass – Lyra wasn’t worried, the txakoli wasn’t terribly potent – then looked to Lyra as she set the bottle back down. “What was Ohar like? I gather you two got on well.” Lyra nodded. “He’s…something else,” she said, her front hooves gliding across the table as lightly as possible, the same way Ohar had been able to on his zither to simulate a bow string. “I didn’t think hooves could make sounds like that come out of a zither – or that a zither could make them either. I could have sworn he was playing an actual violin. But to be able to play it like that and play it like a plucked instrument at the same time…” she shook her head. “Octavia said he was good. I forgot she tends to understate things.” “You weren’t too bad yourself,” Trixie noted. Lyra grinned at that. “I wasn’t, was I?” Before meeting Trixie she might have been a bit more humble, but her friend was rubbing off on her. “This one was big, Trixie.” Trixie leaned back, closing her eyes and holding up her hooves as though framing a stage. “How big?” she asked, wanting Lyra to paint the picture on her mental canvas. “Big,” Lyra repeated, but then expanded for her friend’s benefit. “Not I’m the best in the world big, but my name is gonna start appearing on a lot of pony’s short lists without me having to work to put it there.” She considered. “I should probably get an agent…properly record myself, too. I wonder what Vinyl Scratch charges for that…” She drifted off when she happened to glance at the door to the restaurant. Two unicorns and an earth pony had walked in; the unicorns had finished a conversation with the earth pony, then were showed to their seats, while the earth pony left. Lyra had no real context. Perhaps he was a secretary or adjutant to the two unicorns who was simply filling in his bosses with some last-minute stuff before heading home. Maybe they were friends but he’d already eaten. But it still reminded Lyra of what she’d heard from Ohar…and now she noticed that every single pony in the restaurant was a unicorn… Lyra looked away, and back to Trixie, buying a moment by sipping from her own glass of txakoli. “Trixie,” she said in a low voice. “Did you know how they treat earth ponies here in Zaldia?” Trixie started slightly, looking to Lyra in surprise at the question. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice equally low. “I thought you knew.” Trixie lied a lot, but Lyra had known the other pony long enough to be able to know when she was doing so. She wasn’t lying here, trying to placate Lyra, which was at least some small relief. “I didn’t,” she said. She glanced around again, then leaned forward. She wasn’t sure why she was keeping her voice down so much, not when it was unlikely that anypony else in the room could understand Equestrian, but the moment felt like it required quiet. “Trixie, why are we trying to be friendly with this place when they oppress a third of their population?” Trixie took a few long moments to consider. “Hear me out?” she asked. At Lyra’s nod, Trixie continued. “First, it’s actually more like a quarter, with unicorns making up the other three quarters, mostly. Zaldia’s pegasus population is basically a statistical nonentity. “Second…to you and me they seem oppressed, and to Luna, too. But the earth ponies here really don’t see themselves that way. Zaldia is a very stratified society, but it’s the society they grew up in. Earth ponies live one way, unicorns another. They think that’s normal and okay. And from a legal perspective, things aren’t…that bad. Unicorns can’t just rob or beat or something earth ponies. Earth ponies are barred from inheriting noble titles or serving in most government agencies. But there are things that unicorns aren’t allowed to do, either.” She took in a deep breath. “But…if I’m being honest, most of those things are physical labor jobs, and earth pony education is…lacking, compared to unicorns. They’re kept mostly ignorant.” Lyra’s hooves pressed down on the table in front of her in anger, hard enough to actually tilt it slightly. Trixie quickly used her own hooves as a counter-balance, and Lyra forced herself to calm down. “They’re basically a servant caste,” Lyra observed. “They don’t see it that way,” Trixie said, but quickly followed with “although Princess Luna does. It’s one of the reasons we don’t really get along with Zaldia.” Lyra wholly sympathized with Princess Luna’s stance. “So why do we want to make nice with them?” she asked. “Because they have things we want,” Trixie said, grimacing. It occurred to Lyra that Trixie had probably once asked Luna the same question, and gotten the same answer that Lyra was getting, and, from the looks of things, hadn’t liked it any more then than Lyra liked it now. “The Zaldians sailed to Shouma a century back and managed to negotiate with the Emperor at the time. They leased a small town called Ti Zhen from the Empire, and they’ve had nearly exclusive access to goods from Shouma ever since then. That gave them the idea to get real big into the trade business.” Lyra hadn’t known the specific backstory, but she did know that Zaldia maintained a network of trading posts – a string of them in the Great Eastern Archipelago connecting Cissanthema to distant Shouma, a few to the south, in the sweltering climes of Farasi and Maghrib; and even a small outpost in Occidenta, further east from Shouma. “What do they have that we want?” she asked. Trixie shrugged. “Off the top of my head? Tea from Shouma, and medicinal opiates from Gia Suc. Rubber, cotton, cane sugar, and a bunch of metals from Farasi and Maghrib. And they have favored access to the cocoa trade from the tapirs and alpacas in eastern Cissanthema. Just under half of all cocoa in Equestria passes through a Zaldian market first.” Lyra guessed that Trixie had brought up sugar and cocoa for a specific reason – because her marefriend Bon Bon was a candy-maker, who depended on cocoa and sugar both for her livelihood. She looked away, not knowing how to feel about that, wondering if Bon Bon had ever considered the hooves that her product had passed through first, if she should even have been expected to. Trixie held up both her hooves. “We are working on it,” Trixie said, ‘we’ here meaning the Equestrian government as a whole. “But Equestria doesn’t have much of a naval tradition. Cavallia’s started setting up merchant colonies of its own, but they’re late to the game, and if Cavallia were to push too hard to try and get into the same markets as Zaldia – hurting Zaldia’s market in the process – then the Zaldians might cut Equestria and our exarchies off from their markets, which would damage our economy for years.” Lyra looked back to her friend. “This is about money?” She asked heatedly. “It’s about Bon Bon being able to make candy,” Trixie countered. “Or about doctors having laudanum to give to patients who need it, or everything else. Like I said, Equestria’s working against it, trying to get into a position where we don’t rely on Zaldian imports, but it’s going to take time.” She paused a moment at that, then offered a grim smile. “Not everything can be fixed by turning galas into free-for-alls.” Lyra stifled a laugh at that, remembering well what had happened when they’d tried to push through a big change literally overnight and the last Grand Galloping Gala. Ultimately everything had worked out, more or less, but it hadn’t been fun for anypony involved. “Okay,” she said with a nod, taking in a deep breath and letting it out again. “Let’s…let’s just focus on other things.” “Like more dessert?” Trixie asked, then waved the bottle of txakoli around. “Or more of this? Or something stronger than this.” She glanced down the neck of the nearly-empty bottle. “Tastes good, but it couldn’t give a buzz to Raindrops.” Lyra’s laugh was more genuine at that. For all of their pegasus friend’s physical strength and robustness, she was something of a lightweight where alcohol was concerned. Lyra also wasn’t normally one to get smashed, but what the hay? She’d just had a majorly successful concert and deserved to celebrate, right? “Been awhile since we said ‘hi’ to Lulamoon, too,” Lyra further noted. Trixie sputtered a little at the mention of how…personable…she tended to get when sufficiently drunk. “Non,” she said in determined Prench as she glanced down the drink list that was still at the table. “Non, non, non…” Lyra was doing likewise, and pointed to one drink in particular. “Nettle Dusk’s Fine Agister Bourbon,” she noted – the brand name was still in Equestrian. “I think that says…thirteen years old?” Trixie’s eyebrow raised a little at the mention of an excellent age for her favorite drink. If she was about to change her mind, however, she never got a chance to do so aloud, as the two unicorns heard a commotion at the front of the restaurant. Glancing up, they saw a collection of three unicorns walk in, all dressed in what looked like the green dress uniform of the Zaldian army, save that it lacked any visible rank insignia – the outfit of the Guarsai, Trixie knew, and somehow Lyra just knew it as well, even though she’d never seen the Guarsai before. The three Guarsai officers, all unicorns, stopped just inside the door, looking around evenly. Everypony inside noticed, and the restaurant suddenly grew very quiet, even the small band that had been playing off to one side stopping. Lyra glanced at Trixie, but the latter pony only shrugged and turned back to the drink menu and her options, unconcerned. Lyra wanted to as well – but she was a musician, and so was very, very attuned to sound, and just as importantly, a lack of sound. Her eyes may have been on the menu, but her ears were alert and noticed how everypony else in the restaurant had stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped even breathing, some of them. It was too much – Lyra looked back up, and saw that all eyes were still on the green-uniformed ponies. A pony in a very finely tailored suit – the restaurant owner, probably – had emerged from somewhere and cantered swiftly over to the Guarsai, speaking to their apparent leader in low and worried tones. Lyra couldn’t make out the words, and wouldn’t have understood the language anyway, but after a moment the lead Guarsai’s eyes met her own. He said a single word to the restaurant owner, who stopped speaking, paused only a moment, and then stepped out of the way. Then the Guarsai were off, walking into the dining area, across the floor – and coming right towards Lyra and Trixie’s table. “Uh…Trixie…?” Lyra asked. Trixie looked up, then over at the approaching ponies – finally joining every other set of eyes in the restaurant. The Guarsai ponies, unicorns all, stopped right at the Equestrians’ table. “Dame Trixie Lulamoon,” the leader said in a low voice that seemed like it barely held back hostile intent, his Equestrian having only the slightest of accents. His eyes shifted to Lyra. “Dame Lyra Heartstrings.” It hadn’t been a question. Lyra felt herself tense, and saw Trixie to likewise. “Yes?” Trixie asked after a moment. The Guarsai’s eyes narrowed. “On the authority of the King, I am placing you both under arrest for acts of espionage against the Kingdom of Zaldia.” With that cue, the other two unicorns walked around to flank the table that Trixie and Lyra sat at. Lyra, meanwhile, found herself sputtering. They’d been here for two days! That wasn’t even enough time to have done anything that looked like espionage! Was it? “Hang on – ” she began. Trixie held up a hoof to stop Lyra, matching glares with the Guarsai officer. She looked to her fellow Equestrian. “Don’t worry, Princess Luna covered this,” she said to Lyra without breaking eye contact. To the Guarsai officer, she continued. “I am a diplomat in the service of Equestria, and Lyra has been designated my adjutant. Under Article XVII, section 2, of the Treaty of Valet d’Écurie, you are required to immediately contact the Equestrian embassy and wait for a representative of – ” Trixie got no further when the Guarsai officer nodded once. Instantly, Lyra felt a powerful telekinetic field wrap around her, and saw a similar one wrap around Trixie. There wasn’t time for much else than that as the field lifted Lyra up and threw her to the ground, forcing the air from her lungs and stunning her for a moment. The first Guarsai officer conjured a quartet of manacles in a flash of yellow magic, clamping them down on the two Equestrians quickly. Then the two were lifted back up No one in the restaurant did anything – most of the ponies pointedly looked away, in fact. Lyra looked to Trixie, who no longer had a look of confidence on her face. “Trixie…?” she asked again. But that was when a pair of black bags were conjured and placed over both their heads, and then they were lifted and physically grabbed by a Guarsai officer each. Before either could even begin to speak, both heard a pop sound that was familiar to them – the sound of a teleportation spell. --- The remaining Guarsai officer turned and looked at the other ponies in the restaurant. He didn’t say anything – and he didn’t need to. This matter was not to be discussed. The arrest of two foreign nationals was not to be mentioned. There had been no abrogation of the Treaty of Valet d’Écurie. The two Equestrians and three Guarsai members had never been here. These things were simply understood by the remaining ponies – loyal Zaldians all. Actions such as these ensured that. The Guarsai officer walked outside the restaurant. It was dark out, and so he lit up his horn, a natural enough action for any unicorn. That his horn momentarily glowed green rather than its normal yellow was a fact noted by exactly one pony, who passed the message along quickly. --- It felt like an eternity before the bag was removed from her head, and Trixie gasped at finally being able to breathe air that wasn’t stale and warm from her own breath. The first thing she looked for was Lyra, and she found her fellow Equestrian easily enough, sitting right across from her as her own bag was taken off. That taken care of, she looked around the room they found themselves in. It was unremarkable – gray stone and a single door. Set before Trixie was a table. There were neither chairs nor sitting cushions, and illumination came only from four candles, two on either side of the door and two behind Trixie, casting the entire room into deep shadow. Instinctively Trixie lit up her horn to provide more illumination, Lyra doing likewise. There was no sign of who had removed the bag – no sign of anypony at all, for that matter. “Trixie…?” Lyra asked, eyes wide as she stood. The manacles were still on both of them. “What did we do…?” “Nothing!” Trixie said instantly, and truthfully, as far as she was aware anyway. She looked down at the manacles. They were real, not magical constructs – they had been teleported from some prepared place, although it occurred to Trixie after a moment that trying to magically dispel them probably wouldn’t look good anyway. Then again, how bad could things get? “Well obviously we did something!” Lyra continued. She went up to the door, but there was no knob or handle on the inside – it could only be opened from without. “How much did you piss off that Zati guy?” Trixie felt a moment’s panic – had some Guarsai officer thought more of her ‘bribe’ than Solidoa had? After a moment, however, she shook her head. “This is way too extreme for it to be anything related to him,” she said, breathing a few times. “Okay. Okay. Calm down. This is probably a misunderstanding. We’ll just…find a way to handle things…” “Step away from the door,” a stallion’s voice cut in suddenly and from nowhere. Lyra leaped in fright and did as she was told, more out of instinct than an actual desire to obey the command. Once Lyra was clear of the door, it opened, admitting a pair of unicorns, both in the uniforms of the Guarsai, though neither looked familiar to Trixie. “Before you make any pointless demands,” one of the Guarsai, pale blue in coat color and with a stark-white mane and tail, said just as Trixie opened her mouth, “understand that we have just arrested you and brought you here in clear violation of whatever treaty you’re about to cite. We did so in a public restaurant and in full view of dozens of private citizens.” He looked evenly at Lyra, then Trixie. “What makes you think that we care?” Trixie closed her mouth at that. Lyra took the opportunity to speak up instead. “That officer said that we were being charged with espionage,” Lyra said. “How could we have committed espionage? We’ve been here for two days!” “A day and a half, really,” Trixie noted. “Considering how long it took us to get through customs, go to our embassy, get set up in the hotel…” The Guarsai officers seemed particularly uninterested – and impatient. The second one, who had an orange coat and a yellow mane and tail, stepped right up to the table and put both front hooves on it. “We really do not have time for this,” he insisted. “My name is Zurda Su. My comrade is Zurda Izotz. We’re not related. What did you do with the Armory?” Lyra and Trixie looked at each other. “Armory?” Trixie asked. “What are we being charged with doing?” Lyra added. The two Guarsai officers looked to each other, the two Equestrians’ protestations of innocence clearly not having any effect other than to incense the guards. Even still, the blue one, Zurda Izotz, decided to play along. “Three hours ago,” he said, “the Armería Urrutira was invaded. Its deepest vaults were broken into, and the Platinum Armory itself was stolen.” “Three hours ago…?” Lyra asked, growing increasingly annoyed. “I was playing a concert three hours ago! There’s hundreds of witnesses – ” Zurda Su’s horn flared dangerously, and Lyra shut up. “Do not insult our intelligence,” he warned. “We know about your concert. We know you were playing there; we confirmed this easily, as well as your time backstage with Ohar Garai practicing. You were the cover, obviously.” Both unicorns looked to Trixie. “It is your movements we cannot track.” Trixie blinked. “I was at the – whatever you call the castle. I checked in, was stuck in a really long meeting with Lord Kristal Zati, then went back to the hotel we’re staying at for a few minutes to drop off my bags, then came straight to the concert hall,” she said. “There isn’t any time in there for me to have – ” “You were not at the castle today,” Zurda Su interrupted. His horn glowed again, and a logbook appeared – one that Trixie had signed, or remembered signing, to get into the castle. “Your name doesn’t appear here.” “We have also spoken to Lord Zati,” Zurda Izotz continued. “He has not met with you. He waited some time for your arrival, but you never showed.” Trixie sputtered. “That jerk!” she exclaimed. “Yes I did! And he accused me of trying to bribe him but I wasn’t I was just trying to give him a nice map and officer…” she struggled to remember the name. “Officer Armarria Solidoa! He was a Guarsai officer, he was there when Zati called for him…” The two Guarsai officers traded looks, but not unhappy ones. If anything they looked like they’d spotted a hole in Trixie’s story. “Officer Solidoa was indeed supposed to be assigned to the castle today,” Zurda Izotz said. “But at the last moment he was reassigned. He wasn’t even in Gotorleku Hiria today, let alone the castle.” Lyra and Trixie both had wide eyes at that. Lyra stepped forward. “Trixie was at the concert,” Lyra insisted. “Ohar Garai can back her up on that! He spoke to her afterwards. She was in the audience – she was late! She had to come in late, meaning she must have spoken with an usher to know when to open the door…” “We have consulted the employees of the Auditorio. None saw your compatriot.” Zurda Su explained. He paused a moment after that, however, then looked to his companion. “However, we should track down Ohar Garai, if he did indeed interact with Lulamoon.” “They would need inside help,” the other unicorn confirmed, eyeing the two Equestrians dangerously. “Somepony who could know how to get around the Armería Urrutira’s defenses. Garai could have learned it, with how often he is in the castle…” “W-wait,” Lyra said, holding up a hoof. “You sound like you’re going to – we didn’t even do anything, let alone Ohar!” “We’ll determine that for ourselves,” Zurda Izotz said. He had a thin-lipped smile on his face. “I don’t imagine this will take very long. Your claims are full of holes.” “So’s your accusation!” Trixie objected. “I’m Princess Luna’s apprentice! Why would I be the one to try and break into the Armory? That would be a job for, I dunno, actual spies or something! Not somepony whose name and face you would be able to recognize instantly!” The two Zaldian unicorns didn’t seem phased in the slightest by Trixie’s objections. “The Platinum Armory of Zaldia has long been the greatest defense our nation has against Equestrian annexation,” Zurda Su said, flicking his tail in annoyance. “The artifacts therein defend our land against the designs of Luna and her puppets. Since the Armory was fully assembled four centuries ago Equestria finally stopped its reckless annexations.” “What?” Lyra asked, confused. “The Zaldian spin on Equestria’s growth over the years,” Trixie provided. “Latigo, Prance, Meleñia, Folaland…as far as Zaldia’s concerned Equestria conquered all those places and forced the ponies there to give up their distinct cultures.” “We believe what we see,” Zurda Su continued. “And after the Platinum Armory was assembled, the annexations stopped. It is what has allowed Zaldia to maintain its independence from Equestria. We know it has always been a high-priority target for Equestria. And now, with Corona returned and your ongoing civil war? Perhaps Princess Luna feels that the Armory must be taken now more than ever in order to stop her sister from taking her throne.” Civil war? Trixie’s eyes fluttered rapidly. The Zaldians thought that Equestria was in the middle of a civil war due to Corona? And that Luna was using it as justification to attack another nation? How paranoid were the Zaldians? “That’s insane,” Trixie said at length. “You’re completely insane! None of this explains why you think that we would have anything to do with this!” “You know something,” Zurda Izotz said, horn glowing a dangerous blue. “And you will tell us. Don’t think Luna can find you here. This place is magically shielded, protected against all intrusion, magical scrying, and teleporting. She will never find you. So you better start talking, now. Or if you want, we can do this the hard way.” His eyes narrowed. “The painful way.” Lyra looked to Trixie. “But we don’t know anything,” she intoned. Trixie looked between the Guarsai officers. They didn’t believe Lyra. They didn’t care about what Trixie had to say, either. They just thought that Trixie and Lyra were guilty, that they knew what the Zaldians wanted to know, that they were responsible. And they were willing to do anything to get Trixie and Lyra to talk. Trixie took Lyra’s hoof with one of her own. “Lyra,” she said. “You know that thing that Sparkle’s really really good at but I’m terrible at?” “Studying?” Lyra asked incredulously. Trixie started, then looked at Lyra. “I’m perfectly good at studying! I did fine in – ugh. No. Not that. The other thing.” The two Guarsai rolled their eyes, almost as one. “I assume you’re referring to Twilight Sparkle, who now resides in Ponyville,” Zurda Su said. “The continent’s expert in teleportation magic. Did I not just say that this place was guarded against teleporting?” “Sparkle’s version of the spell is a little different than most, though,” Trixie said, smiling at the Guarsai as she charged her horn with magic. “And, I learned magic at the hooves of Princess Luna herself! The teleportation spell I know can be used not merely to move from place to place, but from world to world, if I so chose to do so! Indeed, you Guarsai are so well-informed – surely you are aware that this last summer I did exactly that, and not long before, Twilight used the very same spell to do as much herself – escaping a magical shield in the process! Don’t you think that that is a skill I would want to develop?” There was the faintest doubt in the Guarsais’ eyes at that, and Trixie smiled. “Watch in awe,” she intoned in a low and smug voice, horn glowing even brighter blue, then brighter. The Guarsai stood to intervene and stop her, but it was at that moment that her horn let out a blinding flash of light – and, once it cleared, revealed her and Lyra to have both completely disappeared. The Guarsais’ eyes widened. “Alarma!” Zurda Su called, switching back to his native language and turning towards the door, which opened quickly to let him leave. Zurda Izotz took a moment to cast a dispel over the room, just in case Trixie had turned the two invisible, but nothing was revealed. “Presoa ihes!” the blue Zaldian called, rushing from the room as well. “Presoa ihes! Jarri hiriko alerta!” The sound of the two unicorns rushing from the room and down the hallway beyond faded after a few long moments. Trixie and Lyra waited a full minute, however, before emerging from beneath the table and heading out the now-ajar door as quickly as they could with their hooves still bound by manacles, a fresh invisibility spell over each of them. Zurda Izotz’s dispel had worked just fine – but in the bare moment between its completion and the light from its casting fading, Trixie had simply woven her invisibility spells again over the two of them. Trixie didn’t have the raw spellcasting ability of a prodigy like Twilight, or even Lyra, for that matter. She could teleport – barely, and badly – but probably would never have been able to get the sheer power behind a teleportation spell needed to overcome any kind of barrier that prevented it. But, Trixie was pretty fast on the draw, if she said so herself. “Right, so, we’re fugitives,” Lyra noted as the two headed out into the hallway. Lyra couldn’t see through Trixie’s invisibility spell, so she instead simply had a few stray hairs of Trixie’s tale in her mouth to guide her. “What the hay are we supposed to do now?” “One thing at a time, Lyra,” Trixie said, freezing in place and pressing quickly against the wall – Lyra doing likewise – as a number of Guarsai appeared around a corner and rushed down into the room they had just been in, horns glowing, probably trying to scan the room and see if they could figure out where they had gone. “One thing at a time…”