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// 37 - Another quiet day in the Crystal Empire 
// Story: A Penny for your thought 
// by Damaged 
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I didn't stretch the way I normally would have at waking. There was a mare curled up so very close to me that I didn't dare flinch for fear of waking her up. Memories of the previous night stirred my thoughts in a particular direction and even though I hadn't become a stallion, that part of me was, however, quite sated with what we had done.

She roused slowly, my precious mare. "Mmm, Stick?"

I kissed her nose, remembering how delightful she tasted last night when I had done it. She giggled. "We have a lot more to do today, not only do we need to start making moves to get our projects advancing further, but we need to meet with Cadance to tell her about yesterday."

Penny looked confused for a bit and muttered something under her breath.

"Huh?" I disentangled my legs with hers, the two of us pulling apart and, as one, blushing.

"I said, 'I need coffee' but I don't think that is going to happen. What about a bath?"

As she climbed out, I noticed a spring to Penny's steps. She might be having a hard time waking up fully, but something had her body perked up. And I knew just what it was. I reached out with my magic for the water and felt a little weaker than I should. "You feeling up to some channeling?"

My answer came tentatively first, then with a greater rush as her magic poured out. She let her horn spark a little before she clamped down and sent it all to me. Oh damn but I would have to find her something special for breakfast.

The flow reduced as I climbed into the bath with her. I remembered her efforts and lifted the brush in my own mouth today, starting to clean each other. "I see why you wanted to do this, yesterday. It is nice to do something so… so personal, with just my mouth."

Penny blushed to the tips of her dark ears at the words and I sat clueless for a second before I figured out what I had said. "Oh you naughty mare!" I splashed her with some water. Our bathing continued with little silly games, but nothing too untoward, we had business today, very important business.

Fitting Penny with the most adorable pink shawl I could find in the things Rarity had given her, I was accosted by clothes myself, the special dress I had gotten from the merchant, the dark black color set off my own green wings, mane and tail quite nicely. "Need to get you something more than just those shawls. Maybe a whole dress. Do you think I should contact Rarity, I bet she knows your exact dimensions."

"I am so not wearing a dress." Penny, wearing the cute pink shawl over her no-longer blank flank, seemed quite hypocritical. 

"They are for fillies?" I had hit the nail right on the head with it. Penny blushed and looked completely defeated. "Don't worry, you are a mare now, a very pretty one, who will fit a dress just perfectly. I doubt Rarity could possibly make an ugly dress."

"One dress!" Penny seemed adamant.

However, she was not pitching her argument against a mare who hadn't dived in the deep end of court politics and taken off swimming. "Three. I will order them, you are required to wear one each day for three days, after that you can wear whichever you like."

"Two." She was learning, well, to be fair she had taught me some things. But I was better at this game.

I sighed. "Five then."

"What! You said three!"

"Six!"

"Damn you Stick, okay, just stop!"

"Six dresses and you get to pick a seventh after you have worn them all at least once." I didn't need to push that, but I wanted to. If she really didn't want this then she wouldn't have tried to haggle. "And you will be the most pretty mare wherever I take you."

I saw the blush and tasted her gently, it was a complicated taste, still very much love in there but she was conflicted. "Okay, but you will wear dresses too, the whole week."

This made me smile, she had accepted the deal. "Done, lets get to court early, we might be able to speak to Cadance before it starts."

We needn't have hurried, it seemed. There were annoyed ponies in the halls. Court had, apparently, been delayed.

Working our way up to the door to the court, we found it blocked by two very business-like guards. "Is this a bad day to ask for a private audience before court?"

They looked at me as if I had spoken madness. "The princess is not seeing anypony."

Penny, however, cut to the quick. "We were charged, directly by her, with a special task. We think she will want to hear what we have to say about it."

I nodded along.

"Wait here." The other guard turned and entered the court and soon returned giving a nod. "Go in then, but please don't trouble her too much."

The words sounded more like a plea of a caring brother than demands of a guard. What had happened?

Cadance was in the court, but not on her usual podium. She was on one of the petitioner couches. "Princess?" To say she looked terrible was an understatement. The worst of it was, though, she didn't even try to look the part of princess.

"Stick, Penny. Come closer, my guard says you speak of your… mission." She almost spoke in a monotone and Penny pressed in against me and I felt a wave of love radiate from her. Cadance looked up from where her eyes had lost track of us.

"You first." I said it as I sat neatly in front of her. This was about as informal as princesses get and she really looked like she needed somepony to talk to.

Her eyes seemed to lose focus. "Yesterday, Silver found me… distracted, well, more I was being controlled-"

"Sombra." Penny said the word, cutting in and surprising the princess. "He did something to me too, remember how I ran from court? Sorry, go on."

Cadance gave a half smile at being given permission to continue. "He made me do bad things, things I would never do… he made them seem so right." Tears formed at her eyes and to my shock Penny rose up and stepped forward, lifting her relatively smaller legs up and giving the leader of the Crystal Empire a hug. "I almost killed foals…" It was just a whisper from her, but to my amazement Penny didn't so much as flinch.

"He almost killed foals, you mean." Penny's words were just as quiet, it was obvious it didn't really sink in to Cadance. "There is more?"

I moved up when Cadance nodded, laying at her side and pressing close. She seemed scared to say more and if something scared her more than what had happened, well, I was a little scared too.

"Last evening, my Shiny… Shining Armor, got a note asking him to meet with Silver Lining on the parapet. Silver got a similar letter but it was only by luck that he was late. Shining was… attacked."

Penny was hugging all the tighter and I found myself chittering a little. If the crown prince of the empire could be attacked, the princess subverted…

"Sombra did something to me, he made me scared of Stick." Penny was crying against the princess. "I ran and ran, I couldn't stop, she wouldn't leave me." The lunar unicorn gave me a smile. "He had two shadow things waiting for us.  I… I got rid of them. I wasn't even sure it was him, I mean I guessed as much but-"

"It was him." Cadance drew one wing around to hug Penny back, the other spreading and resting over my own back. Feather wings were so soft. "Night Watch believes this latest wasn't his work, that there might be friction within our enemy."

"You believe her?" I said it, I had to, everypony would dance around this elephant.

Cadance just sighed.

It was Penny who spoke first. "Night is a very clever pony, very. But sharp as her mind is in these matters, do we… do you, dare to rest the lives of so many ponies on it? What odds did she give?"

"Where is he." I knew the distraction that was eating at Cadance, it was clearly part of the intended result. Not only was Shining Armor a great asset of himself, but with him injured Cadance was in pieces. "Tell us and we will go. We cannot heal him, but I think changeling minds work just oddly enough that he isn't going to be subverting me." I looked at Cadance and she nodded.

We left her moments later, and we were nearing the room where Shining was being cared for when something dawned on Penny. Something enough that she froze and called. "Go in and guard him, I need to tell Cadance something else!"





I left Stick there, she was what was really needed guarding him. I really hoped what I guessed wasn't true.

My hooves pounded, I wished there was music or anything that would speed me up but as I wove through the ponies waiting for court the guards stopped me again. One look at me, however, had them letting me back in.

"Cadance." She was up on her podium now, using her magic to try and set her fur, mane and tail to rights. "I… how long did they think it would take for him to recover?"

"What do you mean?" She looked confused.

I shook my head, trying to work out how best to explain it. "Princess, if you had a spy in an enemy court, enough to be able to leak fake messages. If you tried to kill the consort of the leader to distract them from what they needed to do. If you failed and only wounded them instead…"

She caught on quickly and nodded.

"It may sound silly, princess, but when I was a human, I… I played a lot of strategy… games. I studied a lot of humanity's conflicts. If you need advice, just ask. They might have been games, but strategy is strategy. I am going to make sure your stallion is safe."

She nodded again, not having given any words to voice her own thoughts at this. I left at an equally fast run, on my way back to where my mare was waiting for me.

The guards for the room were inside the outer door. Looking more like veterans, they held their spears at the ready. They both glared at me but let me pass. "Penny?" Stick's voice beckoned me in.

Inside, the big stallion, Shining Armor, was bandaged up and being tended to by a few ponies that seemed dedicated to the medical sciences.

"Why did you run?" Stick nosed me as I sat down beside her to watch over Shining. 

"A revelation I would rather not mention now." I leaned against Stick, wishing she had telepathy as well as this odd emotional sense. I decided there was something completely different between playing a real time strategy game and being in a city you are fairly sure is going to be attacked by an army.