Blackacre

by Princess Woona

Legiones Redde

16 June, Y.C. 970
Canterlot

“An entire company,” muttered Aspia to herself. “An entire damned company.”

She skimmed the briefing again, as if a fifth reading could squeeze some new facts into it.

It was entirely possible for them to have gotten lost. Sure, that was reasonable. Never mind that the road was decently well-marked, the path was almost a straight line, and the company’s commander — what was her name, Vera? — was by all reports competent.

Two hundred and fifty ponies didn’t just disappear for three days. No trace of them, either. Not that there would be: between the strong rains and the mudslides, everything short of the paving stones themselves would have been washed away.

Still, the scouts should have found something.

She skimmed through the resolutions attempted by the Saddle Lake command. Their aerial recon had been limited to high-altitude overflights — enough to determine that the company wasn’t anywhere between Saddle and Foal Mountain, but not enough to actually pick up any traces. The local commander had plead insufficiency of forces on that one; most of the pegasi in the region were stationed out of the Ponyville command, and so she hadn’t wanted to risk the few they they did have in a low-altitude flight.

The thought of flagging Canterburg Forest as hostile territory was more than a bit disconcerting. After all, it was just on the other side of the Canterlot mountains….

Never mind that. The company would turn up somewhere. They would have taken a left instead of a right, something stupid like that. Any minute now, a report would turn up from Hayseed asking why a company’s worth of dazed and confused ponies turned up at their doorstep.

And then she would personally demand that their commander — Vera Quilly, the report said; she didn’t recognize the name — give her back her company.

Depending on how badly the pony had screwed up, she might even make her answer to the Princess. Stringing somepony up was never a good policy as a matter of course, but a high-profile scapegoating every once in a while had its uses….

Anyway. She would have to find them first.

She jotted down a few notes on a piece of paper, stapled it to the report, and sent it down the tube to the secrepony offices far below. This kind of search operation required pegasi. If Saddle wasn’t going to risk them, then let Ponyville give it a shot. The company had originally been slated for Saddle, but at this point, whoever could actually find the reinforcements could keep them, for all she cared.

Aspia rose from her desk, loosing a minor symphony of pops and cracks as her back reminded her that she should have been in bed hours ago. Well, that would have been lovely, but sometimes things piled up. Emergencies tended to not care much for personal schedules.

Anyways, late or not, this was the kind of news that the Princess would want to be informed of. She resigned herself to having to hike to the top of the Sun Tower. If there were signs of life, she would brief the Princess personally. If not, she would leave a note and stumble back down, grumbling all the way.

She reached the bottom of the broad spiral staircase that led up to the Princess’ chambers. As usual, there were a pair of guards there; unlike normal, though, one of them made as if to flag her down.

“The Princess left word that she is not to be disturbed.”

“Understood,” she said.

A slight pause.

“Not to be disturbed,” repeated the other guard with a trace of hesitation, “at all.”

Aspia nodded. The guards had long since learned that she wasn’t usually included in the category of “everypony.” That was just another benefit of having the Princess’ ear: if the Secrepony of Defense thought there was something worth disturbing the Princess about, then nopony was really going to stop her.

On the other hoof, if the Princess had made it clear that she was absolutely not to be disturbed, then not even Aspia herself would interrupt. Every pony in Equestria, unicorn or not, had a healthy respect for magic, and when the single most powerful creature in the land said she was absolutely not to be disturbed, one didn’t go and interrupt. The Princess’ residual magic alone was stronger than half a dozen unicorns working at maximum output; startling her was… not a wise idea.

“That’s fine,” she said with a nod. “I’ll leave the Princess a note. She needs to be appraised of current developments.”

“Of course,” said the first guard, relaxing slightly, undoubtedly glad that he didn’t have to stop her. Technically he only had to make sure the Princess wasn’t disturbed, and if the Secrepony of Defense of all people said she wasn’t going to disturb the Princess, then who was he to argue?

With a friendly nod to the guards she passed through the arched door frame, the clacking sound of her hooves muffled by the appropriately royal carpet on the stairs. At the top of the third step her hip cracked.

She paused, sighed, and continued up. This had better be worth it.