Chapter Twenty Nine : Drawing Blood
- - -
(29)
Drawing Blood
- - -
Sand Dune smiled as she passed Blueblood in the mahogany hall. “Nice to see you again, Your Grace.”
“Dune?” he asked, betraying his very real surprise at her sudden appearance. “Since when did--”
“Don’t have a heart attack. Your paramour and I just needed to have a little talk,” the breathtaking mare explained, swaying her hips as she walked away, tail gently waving back and forth. She added, over her shoulder, and just before she left his sight, “She’s rather hardnosed, it turns out.”
He raised an eyebrow at that.
But ultimately, he let the Bitalian mare go. There would be time to look into that a little later.
Then again, it was also possible that this ‘friend’ Miss Applejack wanted him to speak with was actually Rarity herself, in which case he could bring it up sooner rather than later. It seemed like a roundabout way of bringing him in for a private conversation, but it would be somewhat less suspicious than relaying the request to him via a highly visible guardpony.
As Blueblood began ascending the stairs to the second and then the third floor, he began to favor that interpretation of events. It implied that Rarity and Applejack had already talked over this whole Sweet Apple Acres Bailout business and returned to their usual positions as friends, albeit friends who tended to argue a lot. Rarity would have also just recently met with Sand Dune, which meant they likely did have some serious matters to discuss.
Passing by the stairwell guard, Blueblood nodded once to the stoic pony; the response being little more than a blink and an almost imperceptible smile. The Royal Guards were ubiquitous, but they had proven absolutely invaluable during the Gala time loops. Sir Mercury, especially. Blueblood had taken care, since the Gala loops ended, to treat his guards as well as he was able. Much of the company business was dictated from Canterlot and the Guard Captain, but it wasn’t too much for Blueblood to provide well-appointed bunking quarters for his stallions or to give them a yearly bonus for serving on his rotating staff.
‘It is just a small reward for all they did for me, that nopony else even remembers,’ he thought, nodding again to the guard stationed outside his personal study. With a click, he opened the door.
“Hello?” he asked, looking around. Then his grin widened as he saw a special somepony emerge from behind the closed window curtains. “Rarity!”
She had shed her dress from before, and he didn’t see any sign of it anywhere, but thoughts of gowns and guises quickly evaporated as he caught the look in her eyes and the way she approached him. Even in his line of work, and his particular line of play, he had encountered few mares more practiced in the art of the ‘come hither’ hooded look than the little dressmaker from Ponyville. She stalked towards him, eyes on him like a cat fixating on a particularly handsome canary.
“Well! This is a surprise!” Not one to shy away, despite his curiosity and a bit of confusion to boot, Blueblood trotted forward with his usual confident swagger. “I had thought you asked me up here to talk? The guests will--”
“Don’t worry about our guests,” Rarity told him, she inhaled deeply, drinking in some non-existent scent, and a faint glow appeared over her horn. “Don’t worry about anything. I want you thinking about me, and only me.”
“That really isn’t very difficult at the moment,” he quipped, and raised a leg to give her a perch to step up and rest her front legs around his shoulders. The job done, he then snaked that same foreleg around her back. Rarity’s lips hovered just above his own for a split second before crashing into him with almost frantic urgency. Only seconds passed before her tongue teased his upper lip, and mouths widening, the two intensified their embrace.
- -
Rarity shielded her eyes from the light outside as she and Fleur descended the stairs from the upper front door of the villa and down to the front yard. A quick swirl of magic and a small parasol shaded the two mares. It wasn’t warm out, this late in the fall season, but the sun was rather bright and the skies were clear. A light breeze caressed the ornamental pines around the festival, the DJ spun up a new track with an energetic violin duet from her table close by, and the two mares took a moment to look around the pavilion grounds.
“I don’t see him,” Fleur said and her expression brightened. “I do see my Fancy, though!”
“Please keep an eye out, and if you run into Blueblood, tell him we need to talk,” Rarity asked, and Fleur readily agreed.
“Of course!” She began to trot away from her hostess and friend towards her fiancé.
“Fleur!”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I made the right decision?” Rarity asked, and the parasol hovering over her dipped slightly. “About Lady Sand Dune?”
Fleur thought a moment before answering.
“I pray so,” she said, and cantered towards a small group of ponies outside the art pavilion. Even hurried, she was so effortlessly graceful. She and Sand Dune, both. They had been raised to be noble mares since birth. Rarity still envied them a little for that, but having seen so much of the world they must have lived in since foalhood, she felt rather sorry for them, too. Fleur had come around and become a trusted friend in noble circles. Rarity hoped Sand Dune would, too. One day.
“Now… if only I could find that royal pain,” she muttered, continuing her search. “Where on Equestria is he?”
- -
Blueblood felt himself pushed back and away from the door as Rarity’s hooves and magic worked in tandem to unbuckle his jacket and vest. One of the study chairs fell onto its side as the two spun, their mouths wrestling for dominance. Blueblood felt his back slam against a wood and reinforced glass cabinet, and then with a spin, Rarity had him in the remaining chair. She had always been a rather aggressive lover, once the mood struck her, but never during mid-day!
“Rarity,” he gasped, as she straddled his lap on the chair. “You do know one of our guards is just outside?”
“I know,” she whispered, biting his ear. A little hard, too. “I’m counting on it.”
- -
“Yumi-hime?” Shigure was not an easily confounded pony, but seeing his charge approaching from the opposite direction she had left, minutes earlier, had to cause some initial confusion. He wouldn’t have seen her at all, if not for his decision to leave his post for a closer one near the manor estate.
Just in case he was to be called on.
She didn’t seem to hear him, however, and continued on her way to the front of the villa. Close behind her were two stallions. One of them, Shigure recognized as Shining Armor, the Captain of Canterlot’s Elite Royal Guard. The other was another, lower ranked knight in that same esteemed guard unit.
“There must have been some mistake!” he overheard Shining Armor say, ashamedly apologizing to the foreign mare. “Once again, I’m sorry for the mix up! Arrow Head, assist the Lady, would you?”
“Entirely my fault,” the second stallion said, but Yumi brusquely waved him off with an offended hoof.
“You have both made me late for an extremely important meeting with His Grace!” Yumi snapped, and Shigure knew that once roused, the heiress’s anger was something to behold. “Do not seek me out again, sirs, or I may begin to suspect that you are merely trying to delay me.”
Without another word, she stomped angrily up the stairs and into the building.
“Arrow Head! See how upset you’ve made her?”
“My apologies, Captain.”
Shigure frowned at the two, and at the manor itself. ‘I thought… no, I could have sworn Lady Yumi had headed straight for the castle. What in Equestria is going on?’
- -
“Rarity? What--”
“Don’t spoil this with words,” she hushed him, and their lips met again until her teeth found and nibbled on his lower lip. He really didn’t mind her being so assertive in bed, but they had guests outside! At this rate, they’d both end up looking like they’d literally had a roll in the hay, instead of a proverbial roll in the hay, which was usually less messy. It took hours for him to look presentable! Both of them!
Sand Dune must have really riled her up to be acting like this.
“You love me, don’t you?” Rarity asked, and her kisses trailed down his throat and to his collar. “I can feel it. I can feel her love for you, too. If only I could have them both!”
“Eh?” Blueblood opened his eyes, though a greenish haze, but his ears still worked. “What?”
Rarity just giggled into his chest.
He ran a hoof through her indigo mane, to try and coax her into showing him her eyes, but when she looked up at him again it was with black and green slits in place of cerulean blue. He barely had time to boggle at that - to wonder why - when she lunged, mouth wide, to bite down on the junction of his neck and shoulder. A bright, white-hot flash of pain was followed by a swiftly creeping patch of numbness. His magic tried to coalesce, to knit together the patterns and spells and fields necessary to teleport away--
But it fizzled.
“I… don’t… understand?” he asked, faintly, weakly, as the chair beneath him teetered and fell backwards. By the time it hit the floor, he was too far gone to hear or feel it.
Standing over him, Rarity licked the blood off her lips, a thin black tongue hungrily circling each of her two longest venom filled fangs. It took a moment, but then the rush of magic surged through her. Rarity’s skin-deep disguise rippled away, revealing the earth pony, Yumi… and then that, too, melted away. Her body grew, taller, wider, more muscular…
Until Blueblood stood over Blueblood.
With just the slightest flexing of duplicated magic, the changeling lifted the Prince’s unconscious body into the air, closer, and closer. Putting a hoof to the aristocrat’s chest, the two stallions teleported - just a few feet - just to test out the newly acquired magic. A sabre toothed grin emerged on the face of Equestria’s New Prince.
“Fantastic,” ‘Blueblood’ exalted, poisonous fangs still tinted with red, even as they receded into a pony’s smile. “This body and this magic are everything I was promised… and more.”
- - -
Yumi only passed a single guard on her way to Blueblood’s study, the one outside. It was a rather chilly reception, and in light of how that oaf Arrow Head and that bumbling foal Shining Armor had conspired to delay her, the Neighponese Princess was already in a foul mood when she approached her rendezvous. Seeing the door to the study - having followed the directions to it as well as she could - Yumi slowed her trot to focus her mind and try and at least appear less vexed than she actually was.
This moment was the culmination of so much time and effort and work.
She knew Alpha Brass was still skeptical of her ability to convince the Prince to marry anypony aside from his Ponyville paramour. He had always considered it a gamble and Yumi suspected that Miss Applejack felt the same way. The Prince was taken by this new Lady Rarity. He loved her. Not that Yumi had ever imagined that could be the case when she had left her homeland on this belated trip. She shook her head as she passed by a series of landscape pictures, hanging neatly from the wall to her left.
It had all begun with that letter she had received…
Antimony had been defeated, it said, all but inviting her to a party in Ponyville, with the crown of Canterlot as the prize. She still recalled when Antimony had defeated and humiliated her. It was a slight Yumi intended never to forget or forgive. Like so many others, she had been lured into challenging the Terre Rare’s family successor and had swiftly run afoul of the ruthless mare’s evil eyes. She had tried to fight on, even after realizing that she was trapped in a small sea of enchanted illusions, but for naught. It was galling! Yet, now, somepony - some little pony from a no-name village - had beaten the demon herself, Antimony?
It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so she had gathered a few loyal retainers and headed for Canterlot to press her claim anew. It was during that trek that Alpha Brass had contacted her, suggesting that they were not at cross-purposes. It was well known that there was a rivalry within the ranks of Cruciger’s heirs. Chalice, the pawn that she was, was proof of that. Alpha Brass could never inherit Canterlot himself, but he wanted a hoof in its affairs.
‘I’m backing a few ponies in this little race. I would make you one of them.’
In return for his assistance, if she were to succeed, certain arrangements would be made to secure the friendship of Neighpon and certain concessions made on the part of Canterlot. Notably, that Terre Rare ‘honor’ be restored by clearing the name of Lady Arsenic. He didn’t seem overly concerned about re-integrating the Blueblood and Terre Rare bloodlines, just clearing his ancestor’s name and eking out an apology for how she was exiled from Canterlot. It was a face saving measure, Yumi figured, and one she could sympathize with. Brass would be happier to salvage at least something from the situation, and this token would be better than nothing. Nothing being exactly what Antimony had garnered, for all her years of effort. Yumi had agreed, especially given that it would end up spiting the mare that had humiliated her, but also because it was clear she would need support from unicorns to rule unicorns as an earth pony. It was a pragmatic alliance.
Alpha Brass had provided logistical support from that point on, though he had left her to her own devices otherwise. The pas d’arms had been her idea, one that ultimately became a debacle when her retainers were bested by a duo of barnyard locals and the freshmare Baroness herself. Yumi still seethed a little at that memory. She had been forced to teleport away to avoid more complications after that.
‘See my daughter, Eunomie,’ Brass had suggested, on hearing that her attempt to humble Rarity had fallen through. ‘She has a little project you may be interested in.’
Yumi did not particularly like Brass, despite his cooperation, but she liked his step-daughters even less. Euporie was a hedonist and a libertine, embracing just the sort of vices Yumi intended to quash if ever she ascended to the Princess’s side in Canterlot. She was also cruel, especially towards her useless doormat of an Aunt. Eunomie was different, but still somewhat unsettling. Yumi had cooperated with the mare, but she was strange: methodical and hard to read. She never seemed upset or excited, happy or sad. She merely acted, devoid of any sort of passion, and that struck Yumi as fundamentally un-pony-like. Ponies were creatures of passion, emotion, and - yes - duty, but what good was devotion or dutifulness without the driving fire within? Eunomie seemed more an animated statue than a mare.
Still, she had listened to her plan and decided it could be made to serve her ends as well.
‘The Ponyville Barony is in poor financial straits,’ Eunomie had explained in her usual bored monotone. ‘Our target is Sweet Apple Acres, also in a tenuous financial position. The town was founded by the family there, so it has historic and cultural value compelling the government to preserve it. Additionally, the current owner of the property is a personal friend of the Baroness. I have determined that if the farm is stressed by competition during the cider season than the likelihood of Lady Rarity being forced to act to protect it is… almost one hundred percent.”
Later, Yumi had seen the ponies the twins were using to test the farm and the Barony: two traveling tinkerers named Flim and Flam. Yumi had been asked to wait a short time before offering to help Sweet Apple Acres with her special talent. If the plan had been her own, she likely would have needed some time to first be sure the Barony had borrowed to secure the bailout of the farm and then to seek out who Rarity was using as a creditor. Squeeze the ponies lending the Baroness money and she would quickly lose face, if not title, in the eyes of the Stable of Lords. An unintended - or perhaps intended - consequence was also to stress the friendship between Applejack and Rarity.
Yumi felt a little guilty over it, now, but it was part of her new plan so she had pushed forward. She had played her part in saving Sweet Apple Acres, after all, thus making things roughly even in the grand scheme. Yumi had even gone above and beyond just what she had bargained for, using her magic to heal and bolster the life force of as many of the trees as she was able. The farm would thrive for years. Despite being somewhat rough around the edges, Applejack was a good, honest earth pony - she deserved that much. The heiress from Neighpon never expected to apologize for her part in the deception; her actions would simply have to speak where words could not.
It had all been for this.
All for this meeting with Prince Blueblood and this chance to plead her case for being Duchess… the trip, the alliance with Brass, the pas d’arms, tagging onto Eunomie’s deception… it was all for this. Directly dueling with Rarity, she was convinced, was not the right course to take with Blueblood. Yumi didn’t expect Rarity herself to bend on the issue, and meeting with Blueblood outright was also out given how few cards she had in her political deck. Now, though, she could say she had helped to save Sweet Apple Acres. Now, she could prove that the Barony and even the Duchy would benefit from her talents. Blueblood could well love Rarity, but the Duchy itself would be better off in Yumi’s hooves. He had to see that!
‘I must be convincing… and attractive. Rarity is prettier than I am, and she’s a unicorn.’ Yumi paused, briefly, at a small mirror. She gently evened out her mane behind her ear with a hoof. It was so straight it was hard to do anything with it. Putting on a small smile, she also patted down her dress over her flank, smoothing it out to better hug the curve there. Stallions liked that.
‘He must listen to me,’ she thought, taking a breath and opening the door t the study. ‘He must.’
She found Blueblood, back turned to the door and looking outside the window. A snifter glass floated by his side a thin layer of amber liquid on the bottom. Nearby, a small, square bottle of copper colored cognac sat invitingly next to an empty glass. The study was well lit, though Blueblood turned and kept the curtains closed. Yumi noticed one of the chairs, slightly out of position given the dimple in the carpet, and moved it back with a gloved hoof.
“Your Grace,” she said, bowing her head with due respect. “Thank you for meeting with me like this.”
“I would be remiss not to give Lord Yama’s daughter my attention,” he replied, swirling the cognac in his glass before bringing the snifter to his lips for a little drink. “You took your time in requesting an audience. Feel free to help yourself to a drink while we talk.”
“Thank you,” Yumi replied, but only gave the glass a passing glance. “I only wished to demonstrate that Lady Rarity, with all due respect, is not the right mare for the job of being your wife.” She saw quiet contemplating in his eyes, and taking that as consideration for her to continue, did just that.
“I know that the two of you feel strongly for one another, but is it wise to thrust her under the crown so abruptly? She did a passable job of defending Ponyville, I will grant her that, and she is an Element of Harmony, but neither of those things will help her when her coffers dry up. I have seen first-hoof how even the bedrock of this area’s farming community struggles to stay solvent, year after year. This is an earth pony town, my Lord, and as an earth pony myself I understand their needs intimately.”
“You have lent your talents to Neighpon for many years,” Blueblood observed. “You have personally saved many harvests, have you not?”
“I have!” Yumi replied, glad that he was seeing things her way. “I can do the same for Canterlot. Canterlot and Neighpon are very similar…! Geographically, both realms are mountainous, making productive farming difficult. Both realms must strike a balance between trade and agriculture. I have experience dealing with this that Lady Rarity does not. I… may not be as experienced as some, like Lady Antimony, when it comes to managing guard regiments, but Canterlot is in no danger. It is far from any border with any neighbor.”
“Marry me, my Lord!” Yumi pleaded, and he smirked, tellingly. Still, she pressed on, “My family is known for our fertility, not just in what we can coax from the land. With my magic, I swear I can bear as many heirs and heiresses as the Blueblood line needs. Enough to secure a dozen alliances! Enough to push back the influence of the Terre Rares!”
It wasn’t a card she had thought she would need to play, but it was out there, now.
“If - if you are worried about our foals being earth ponies,” she quickly added, for good measure. “I can control that, as well. I can guarantee that they will all be unicorns, as you are.”
“Yet,” he said, tilting his head to the side in amusement. “You are an only child, yourself. Why is that, if your family’s specialty is fertility, as you say?”
Yumi shrank back an inch at the question. “It… that is to say, the ability is unique to mares: to control what grows within our womb. My Lord, my mother is a good and worthy Lady, but she does not have my abilities. With the passing of my grandmother, no other living pony can do what I do. That is why I am an only child.”
“Ah.”
“Additionally, Your Grace, wedding me would secure the friendship of Neighpon.” Yumi took a few steps closer to the Prince, trying to sound as confident as she usually felt. “We are a wealthy Duchy, and industrious. We supply a majority of Equestria’s shipping, along both coasts. Neighpon is a natural ally and friend of Canterlot.”
Especially with the encroaching Terre Rares to the north and the avaricious Quartz clans in the south.
“Unlike other mares, I promise to be your wife and Duchess first. Neighpon can pass onto one of our younger daughters… and - and if you prefer, I can further vow not to interfere if you make Lady Rarity your first mistress. You may think of me as an... administrator…”
“An administrator?” he asked, and rolled his shoulders, amused. “That could be convenient.”
Yumi bowed her head, eyes down. He could see it, too! He had to see that this was what was good for Canterlot! He pouring out a little more cognac, for himself, and for her.
“Prince Blueblood,” Yumi began again, picking up the offered sniffer glass, but not drinking. Alcohol. It was another common vice here in Canterlot. “I’ve wanted to be your wife for years, and not simply because… because it will bring honor to my family. I always thought of you as a handsome stallion, and -and we met once in Canterlot. I was vising the Stable of Lords with my father, and I met you briefly and…”
“Yes, yes,” Blueblood interrupted, coughing into a raised hoof and clearly growing a little impatient. “Frankly, I am much more interested in just what Neighpon will do without you, Lady Yumi.”
“I beg your pardon?” Yumi asked, not quite understanding. “Without me? I will rule Canterlot first, of course, but we are not at odds. The two realms can be as close as…”
“You still don’t understand,” Blueblood said, smiling amiably as he reached over to rest his hoof on her shoulder. His magical hold on his glass of cognac vanished, letting the glass fall to the floor and shatter.
Yumi blinked, now terribly confused. “Your Grace--?”
Still smiling, Blueblood pushed into her shoulder with sudden and unexpected force, sending her stumbling back. Eyes wide even as she fell back over a chair hard enough to break one of the legs, Yumi hardly believed it when Blueblood turned to the window and roared.
“GUARRDDDS!”
“W-wha--?”
Curtains fluttered wide, bright light streaming in as a pair of Royal Guards answered their lord’s summons and rushed in through the window, shattering the lock in the process. Blueblood fell to his side, pointing across the study at the still stunned and staring Lady Yumi.
“Poison! My throat…! I - I have been poisoned!” Blueblood gasped, his face turning blue. “Fetch me a doctor and seize that mare!”
“N-no!” Yumi cried, the two pegasus guards advancing on her, expressions stern and wings wide. “I didn’t! I would never! I - I have always…!”
Strong hooves grabbed her by the forelegs, roughly hoisting her up.
It almost seemed to be happening to another Yumi. She couldn’t believe it. Poison? She saw Blueblood, gasping and choking, his face blue ad his throat constricted. There was no faking that. He must have been poisoned, but she wouldn’t… she’d never…! Dark eyes zeroed in on the bottle of cognac. Blueblood had been drinking it. He’d been drinking it even when she came in. The glass he had dropped. He’d dropped it right after pushing her. He hadn’t looked poisoned then. It didn’t make any sense!
None of it made any sense!
The halls… why hadn’t there been any guards posted? There should have been at least one in the stairwell, given all the ponies milling around on the grounds outside. ‘Frankly, I am much more interested in just what Neighpon will do without you, Lady Yumi.’ Why? Why had he said that? Was this… was this because of Lady Rarity? Had she planned this? Had both of them planned this?!
“No,” she muttered, still in the grip of the two pegasus guards. “No, I… I won’t…”
“Put a gag on her,” Blueblood demanded, his voice strained but still clear. “She can confess after the party. I am most curious to hear about her no-doubt numerous accomplices in this crime.”
Red, hot, boiling rage bubbled up within the mare at those words.
“SHIGURE!” she screamed.
And, to her satisfaction, it was the wall that crumbled next, not just the window. The two Royal Guards barely had time to mutter a curse. In the span of a second, it was over, and Shigure stood over them, one back hoof planting the helmet of a guard into the floor, and one front hoof lowering from having sent the second flying. The old pony’s eyes were fixed on her.
“You called for me,” he stated.
“I did,” Yumi replied, brushing herself off. “We’re leaving.”
- - -
Blueblood watched the pair jump from the third floor. He heard the screams and shouts from below.
He ignored them.
“You pathetic silk chewing grubs,” he growled, and a pulse of magic ripped one of the stunned guards from the hole his face had made in the wall, and the other one off the ground. Both were flung into a cabinet hard enough to rattle the books within.
“She didn’t…. drink…?” one of them moaned, struggling to keep her disguise intact.
“No. An attempted murder-suicide would have been too easy,” Blueblood snapped and Arrow Head and Gale Force slowly came to.
“What do we do?” Gale Force asked, looking worriedly at the smashed wall.
“Chase them down,” Blueblood snarled. “Take as many of my guards as you need. Our Queen still has a use for her. Go! Now!”
“Yes, sister!” “As you command, sister.”
Blueblood sneered at the two drones took off. Already there was chaos outside. The Queen had hoped to either replace Yumi, or use her to undo Alpha Brass with some trumped up charge. Or both. The stupid little pony should have drunk the poison, too. Then she’d be on the floor, choking and clinging to life, and the others could have been neatly disposed of, one by one. Still, this could do. If she was captured, she would be replaced. If she escaped, knowing what she did, she would prove a thorn in the side of both Canterlot and Alpha Brass.
Standing on the edge of the ruined wall, looking out, Blueblood noticed a shape below.
Eunomie was staring up at him.
Blueblood smirked again, and headed inside. His face paled on command, perfectly mimicking the symptoms of the poison in the cognac. Things were about to get entertaining.
- - -
Roseluck, Lily and Daisy were three perfectly normal Ponyville earth ponies. All three had lived in Ponyville all their lives, and until relatively recently the town had never once been swarmed by ravenous parasprites, used as a back scratcher by an Ursa Minor, threatened with eternal night, or cursed by more than the occasional inquisitive Timber Wolf puppy. The Mayor may have been rather incompetent, and the local nobles’ non-existent, and yes, that was a wild forest full of untamed and possibly terrifying creatures next door, but in general life in the town had been safe, routine, and delightfully mundane.
“Now this is the kind of adventure we need more of,” Roseluck said, clopping her hooves happily in applause as the trio of musician ponies on stage finished their piece.
“I know! Rarity’s done a really great job today,” Lily chimed in, nibbling on one of the complimentary chocolate chip brioches provided by Sugarcube Corner’s stall in the commerce pavilion, and paid for by their lovely new Baroness.
“There are so many nice ponies from all over Equestria!” Daisy had her eyes on a few of the Canterlot stallions in particular. “A day off, free food, free entertainment, the chance to meet new ponies…! And best of all, nothing weird!”
“Nothing crazy!” Roseluck agreed.
“Nothing scary!” Lily concluded, and the three mares smiled and laughed together.
The band on stage began to play a new song, airy and alive with the notes of spring, but just as they began, the sound of a crash caught everypony’s attention. The musicians paused, turning around to try and pinpoint the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from one of the sides of the Blueblood manor out of sight. Had somepony broken a window? Everypony seemed to pause and hold their breath, but there was no commotion following - though a few guards were buzzing around the building now, agitated by the noise. After a couple seconds, the band decided it was best to try and continue.
“What do you suppose that was?” Lily asked, craning her neck, but unable to see anything of the east or west sides of the large manor house.
“You know what?” Roseluck asked, forelegs crossed in a confident pose. “I’d bet somepony was moving something around, or maybe even up on the roof, and it fell. A statue maybe?”
“That could be it,” Daisy agreed after a moment’s thought.
The band continued to play.
“Oh, and look!” Lily pointed to a one of the ornamental spruce trees set down around the festival pavilions. They were artfully arranged in varying heights, like a green sea of undulating pillars. The trio of lucky mares all watched as a few small red dots of color emerged on the tree.
“Pollen cones?” Daisy guessed. “They must have a skilled horticulturist somewhere to cause them to bud out of season like this!”
“Do you suppose this is one of the art displays?” Roseluck wondered, and gaped as more and more of the red buds formed, growing into beautiful clusters of juvenile pine cones.
Ponies around them ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed and, figuring it had to be another artistic exhibit, somepony began to clap, rapping her hoof together. It quickly caught on, and soon almost everypony was on their haunches, clopping in praise and giving a sitting ovation. Then, just when it seemed like the display was done, the crimson cones all sprouted and opened, all at once, filling the air with sparkling pollen.
“Amazing control!” Daisy commented, duly impressed.
“And so pretty!” Lily said, holding out her hooves to catch some of the drifting pollen.
“As long as you don’t have allergies,” Roseluck noted, with a petite sneeze. “Excuse me!”
“Princesses bless… you?” Lily replied, and also sneezed. More than that, she blinked, extremely slowly, her vision starting to get strange. Blurry.
Funky.
Trippy.
Why, it was DoWnRIghT biZzZzzare.
Looking down at her hooves, Lilly was suddenly struck by a question. It was an odd question, but one that never seemed to have come to mind before. It was so silly. Why? Why was one hoof larger than the other? Shouldn’t they all be the same size? That was… weird…
Roseluck, on the other hoof, fell onto her back. What funny clouds they had today? They were all blue… wasn’t the sky supposed to be blue? Clouds were - they were white or something, right? No. A cloud could be any shape, right? So it made sense that it could be any color, too! She reached up and found, to her pleasant surprise, that she could touch the clouds way up in the sky. She giggled as she batted them around. This had to be what it was like being a pegasus. A big, super pegasus!
Daisy just sat there, stroking Roseluck’s belly. “You’re a big, fluffy kitty, aren’t you? Who let you out of the zoo?”
- -
“Ooohhh! Everypony’s acting really silly!” Pinkie Pie observed, deeply inhaling the fresh, clean air... and another mouthful of pollen to boot. “In fact, they’re acting even sillier than … oh no! They’re acting sillier than me! If this keeps up I’ll be out of a job!”
She glared at Bon Bon as the mare walked by, swaying like a drunk pony at a Karaoke bar. It wouldn’t have been that bad, except she was walking standing up.
“That’s Lyra’s bit!” Pinkie complained, pointing angrily at the mare. With a flash, she ran up to Berry Punch and the often tipsy mare started to freak out.
“Bats!” she exclaimed, grabbing Pinkie by the frontal curl of her mane. “Bats making love to parasprites! Sweet Celestia! What will the babies look like?!” She pulled Pinkie closer, eyes wide as saucers. “What will the babies look like?!”
“Miss Pie?”
Pinkie let Berry Punch go and slowly turned around. “Oh!” she quickly recognized the red mane and tail, bundled up like a bun. It reminded Pinkie of how her mommy Pie always did up her mane. “Hi there!”
“Hello, Miss Pie,” Eunomie said, deadpan, despite the pony on the grass trying to suck on one of her hooves. She dislodged herself without comment and moved to the side, just out of reach of the inebriated and trippy mare.
“Are you feeling alright?” the pale mare inquired. “Curious. You don’t seem to be adversely affected.”
“Affected by what?” Pinkie asked, blinking cutely.
“The psychoactive pollen currently filling the air,” Eunomie explained. She slowly reached up to her mouth, where Pinkie noticed a small bubble of magic. “We are rather fortunate that the pollen requires inhalation to affect a victim. I was going to offer my assistance… but you do not seem to need it?”
“Psychoactive pollen?” Pinkie sat down for a moment and pondered that possibility. There was a lot of the stuff all of a sudden. She looked to her right, where a dozen ponies were muttering to themselves or prancing around in a haze. She looked to her left, where a few ponies were talking to one of the paintings and another was trying to dance with a statue. Then she leaned back and looked behind her - and upside down - where the bright red pine cones were still clinging to the ornamental trees.
“Ah HA!” she declared, jumping onto all fours. “The trees are making the pollen!”
“They are,” Eunomie confirmed, watching Pinkie sidelong. “Are you sure you’re unaffected by… actually, I have been told to just accept these strange occurrences around you, so I will do so. Would you like to come with me to find Twilight and the others? We have a problem.”
“Okey dokey!” Pinkie agreed, bouncing merrily alongside the trotting mare.
“By the way, about my sister--”
“Euporie, right?”
“Ah, yes. I don’t know if you got her apology.”
“I did,” Pinkie replied, still bouncing.
“Good.”
“It was in the mail and I read it before I left,” she explained. “But I know she didn’t write it.”
Eunomie was silent for a few seconds, her gaze drifting over to the mare hopping next to her. “My sister’s signature was on the apology.”
Nothing in Pinkie’s expression indicated she noticed the look. “Are you saying you wrote it, Nomey?”
“I did,” she admitted, after a moment. “My intent was that…”
“You apologize for her a lot, don’t you?” Pinkie asked, deftly bounding over a stallion deep in thought. So deep in thought that he didn’t even seem to notice Pinkie jumping over him.
“Why are we called little ponies?” he wondered, holding his head in dismay. “We aren’t little, are we? I always thought we were normal sized? But if we’re little ponies, does that mean there are big ponies out there, too?”
“Euporie is rather impulsive,” Eunomie replied, moving around a pony dancing to music only she could hear. “She told me what happened last night. I would not like this to cause problems for us and she has promised not to repeat the experience or to cause you further trouble.”
“I want her to apologize,” Pinkie told her, and finally she met the mare’s glance with her own. “Her. Not you. And I want her to say ‘sorry’ to the other ponies at the party as well.”
For a moment, Eunomie didn’t know what to say.
“I - I will try to convince her to do so,” she finally managed to respond. “But,” she had to ask, “wouldn’t it simply be easier to let the issue be? We would not be averse to some sort of monetary compensation for any hurt feelings…”
“Smiling makes me happier than bits,” Pinkie answered, and Eunomie assumed it was an odd but politely worded rejection.
“Very well.”
Up ahead, a number of ponies were sheltered under both the commerce pavilion and a large, purple bubble of a barrier. Flecks of accumulated pollen stuck to the barrier and fizzled but Eunomie entered it without resistance, and so did Pinkie… though as soon as she did, she sneezed. A couple sparks also shot off of their coats, as residual pollen on their bodies also vaporized against the lavender shield.
“Hiya, Twilight!” Pinkie greeted the foremost of her friends in the little tent bunker. “Hiya Rarity! Hiya Applejack!”
“Pinkie Pie,” Applejack groaned. “How did you…?”
“Please tell us, both of you: what is it like out there?” Rarity asked instead. Behind her, two dozen ponies were clustered together, clearly not eager to try leaving Twilight’s shield spell. They were Rarity’s guests, but there were more ponies outside than inside.
“The air is a little dry,” Pinkie replied, helpfully.
Eunomie provided a little more information. “This pollen storm was definitely produced by Lady Yumi. One of her ancestors used a similar technique six hundred and eleven years ago before their absorption into Equestria. From what I have seen, the effects are not overtly harmful. I did not see anypony having an allergic reaction or acting violently. It is not dissipating, however.”
“Yumi? So she really did this?” Applejack was aghast. “Ah can’t believe it. Why?”
“I noticed a commotion in the manor,” Eunomie told them, simply. “I believe there was some sort of altercation. This sort of magic would be excellent cover to stage an escape or to otherwise deter pursuit. I did not see any Royal Guards in the air. They appear to have either left or been incapacitated by the pollen.”
Applejack lowered her hat and gritted her teeth, keeping whatever questions she had at that to herself. A quick glance behind her reminded her that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were all still safe under the shield spell. Not that they seemed entirely pleased by it. The curious fillies were sitting dangerously close to the edge of the barrier, pointing at the ponies outside acting… out of sorts.
“If the pollen isn’t dissipating by itself, then we need to blow it away,” Twilight reasoned.
“Do we have pegasus ponies capable of dispersing a particulate cloud of this size?” Eunomie asked, examining the ponies sheltered in the pavilion. She didn’t need to say it for it to be clear she considered the prospects of that option rather dismal.
“Twilight, you must have a spell to blast all this stuff away, right sugarcube?”
“Maybe, but I’d have to drop the shield, too, and we’re in the middle of the cloud, not the edge.”
“And those tasty pine cones are still up there making more! They’re all like poot-poot, right, and - hey! Isn’t pollen just plant j--”
“Please don’t finish that sentence.”
“Sorry, Rarity.”
“Wait a moment,” Rarity amended, eyes darting between Pinkie and the silent Applejack. “We clearly need to be rid of those nasty pine cones. Pinkie, can you jump high enough to reach them?”
Pinkie snaked a foreleg around Rarity’s shoulder, shaking her other leg eagerly. “You betcha!”
Twilight quickly caught onto Rarity’s thoughts. “That’s right! Applejack, do you think you could buck the cones off the trees?”
“Y-yeah,” the farmer replied, and then more forcefully, “I’m sure I can, yeah!”
“If I’m guessing right, Rarity, you think we can move everypony here inside?”
“Yes, your shield will follow you around, won’t it?” she asked. “Like your brother’s does?” Twilight nodded, and Rarity decided. “Good. Eunomie, you said Shining Armor was close to the manor?”
“He was before, though I did not see him when I went out to find Miss Pie.”
“Actually, I’m Ser Pie, since Rarity made us all gendarmes and stuff!”
Eunomie’s expression remained unaltered, but a slight tilt of the head meant that she understood the implications. “I was unaware…”
“We have not exactly advertised that fact,” Rarity cut in. “Twilight, is this plan doable?”
“I think so,” the magical prodigy replied. “Eunomie? Can you…?”
“Three remote, gas permeable, skin-selective micro-shields are my maximum,” she reminded them, and without preamble her horn lit. Applejack felt a tingle around her muzzle as a bubble formed and attached. She reached up to it, instinctively, poking it with a hoof. It wasn’t hard like the sort of magical unicorn barriers she had encountered before. It felt membranous and pliant.
“Gas permeable shields are inherently weaker than impermeable ones,” Eunomie explained, seeing Applejack investigate the new addition to her face.
“And if this were an, uh, impermeable bubble…?”
“Then it would suffocate you, of course.” Her blunt response prompted a grimace from the apple farmer. “But then, the skin-selective part of the spell would have to be different, as you would attempt to reject the magic placed on you. As it is, you can dispel the bubble any time you wish.”
“Yeah,” Applejack muttered, giving the barrier around her nose and mouth one last poke. “Alright, Twilight. Ah’m ready.”
“I’m always ready!” Pinkie was already headed for the edge of Twilight’s shield.
“In that case,” Rarity said, turned and addressed the festival guests with a raised voice, “Excuse me! Everypony! Yes, over here! Hello!”
The curious mix of Centerlot nobleponies, Manehattan businessponies and socialites, Ponyville residents, two Saddle Marabians, one pop singer and one DJ quickly turned their attention to the well dressed and well-spoken mare calling to them. They all knew who Rarity was, and like most ponies, they were quick to defer to who they perceived as the ‘mare in charge.’ A few cried out in complaints, but Rarity hushed them with a raised hoof and a few soft words.
“I know you are all quite perturbed by this unexpected interruption in the day’s events, but we will soon have things under control,” Rarity assured them. “We just need everypony to keep pace with my friend Twilight Sparkle here. We are going to take shelter inside the manor while my good friends assist in clearing out this mess. Everything will be back to normal soon, I promise.”
The various clusters of ponies seemed amenable to the idea and began to mull around, eyes on the purple barrier surrounding them. Rarity broke into a quick trot herself, to find her little sister and her friends.
“I would be grateful if you three helped as well,” she said, and the trio of fillies literally vibrated with excitement - and a chance to get their cutie marks. “I need you to make sure everypony keeps pace as the shield moves. Can you do that?”
“You can count on us, Rarity!” Apple Bloom was the first.
“Sure thing, sis!”
“But those ponies out there look like they’re having so much fun…” Realizing what she had just said and to who, Scootaloo shook her head and said, “I mean: sure! No problem!”
“I’ll be counting on you three,” Rarity said, choosing to ignore Scootaloo’s little outburst. She waved to Twilight, and the town librarian began to walk.
As the epicenter of the shield, the glowing purple barrier moved with her.
Soon, they were out from under the pavilion and into the open area in front of the manor. Even through the purple haze of the shield, it was clear that the pollen storm hadn’t just settled close to the ground. It had drifted upwards as well, high enough to snag pegasi, higher even than the chimneys of the house and the tips of the tallest of the ornamental trees.
Ponies fortunate enough to be under the moving shield were quick to start to recover, as the barrier burned away the pollen around them. They were soon helped up by others, though a few were able to stumble along by themselves, their motor control coming back in fits and starts. Most were disoriented, but not complaining. One claimed to have ‘seen the face of Faust’ but then soon forgot what he had seen (‘she looked, um, uh… I can’t remember?!’) and fell glumly in line.
No pony was hurt; it was a small saving grace.
Outside, Pinkie Pie and Applejack began clearing the trees, the former jumping up to snag clusters of male pine cones in her hooves or teeth while the latter kicked a tree at the base, sending a dozen bright red cones falling. Just as they had hoped, removing the cones prevented the release of more pollen. Once the trees themselves were cleared, then they could work on blowing away or zapping the entire cloud clean.
“I can’t believe this had to happen, today of all days!” Rarity, seeing things going along well, felt the need to vent, if only a little, of her growing frustration.
“It’ll be over soon,” Twilight reminded her.
“Even if it is, my perfect day has been absolutely ruined! What will all these ponies think of me, after this?” Rarity watched her guests, huddled together as they kept under the shield spell, herded by the three overly enthusiastic fillies.
“I know I say this often,” she continued, and she had to remind herself that a proper lady should not sigh, no matter how much she wanted to. “But this really is the Worst. Possible. T--”
“Rarity!” Twilight yelled, as a speeding blur plowed into the fashionista, carrying her out through the shield. “RARITY!”
Caught in a pony’s hooves, Rarity had to remember to try and struggle. She had to remember, too, not to inhale. The pollen cloud was all around her. But what had - who had --
Fierce yellow eyes filled Rarity’s vision, a teal colored coat belonging to a pegasus. “We meet again, Baroness.”
“You!” Rarity snapped, recognizing the face instantly. One didn’t easily forget the face of a pony one had fought with before.
“You remember me. Good!” Suzukaze, the pony known as Cool Breeze, released her catch, and Rarity fall helplessly into the pollen cloud, a scream in her throat. “Yumi-hime sends her regards.”
- -
Twilight felt the barrier around her lurch and waver as something - another barrier! Collided with it!
“What’s going on?” Twilight spun around, still spooked from how Rarity had been grabbed. “Are there…?”
An orange barrier grew upwards, engulfing the purple and pressing inward… until cracks began to appear.
“Lady Yumi’s retainers,” Eunomie reasoned, forming a protective barrier should her mouth, and Twilight’s. “It appears that they are immune to the pollen’s effects.”
- -
Applejack was halfway to the next tree when a pony emerged from behind it. Skidding to a stop, figuring it had to be another pollen-addled festivalgoer, it was only when she got closer that she could make out the identity of the pony in her way. Copper eyes and a brown coat emerged from the swirling magical pollen along with a mane the same color as her own, perhaps a shade lighter.
“I’m sorry about this, Miss Applejack,” White Dew said, holding up a hoof. “But Lady Yumi’s orders are absolute. I cannot let you interfere until she is safely away from here.”
“Ya know?” Applejack replied, brows knitting into an angry scowl. “After what you pulled, I was hopin’ I’d run inta one of you fellas! Lucky me.”
- - -
“How long can Yudachi, Suzukaze and Shiratsuyu hold them, do you think?”
“As long as you need them to, Yumi-hime.”
Master Shigure’s words were encouraging, and running alongside the weathered old retainer, she felt secure enough to begin planning her revenge. Blueblood would not get away with this - she vowed it. To think that he - and no doubt that vile mare of his - that Rarity, would sink so low? It stretched the imagination and beggared belief. She had always heard that the Equestrian Prince was vain, but nopony had ever mentioned him as being violent or dangerous.
No matter. Once she returned to Neighpon, there would be Tartarus to pay for this affront!
“Yumi-hime…” Shigure asked, as the two ran across the rolling hills surrounding Ponyville and the Blueblood estate. “What happened? I can only guess…”
“Blueblood poisoned his own drink to frame me.”
It was the only explanation that made any sense. She had seen the symptoms with her own eyes. He must have developed a resistance to it before. He did not seem the type to put himself in danger, but… what other explanation was there? He had been all but jumping at the chance to accuse her. Yumi shuddered at the thought of how she had considered sharing a drink with the stallion. Only fate had kept her from it.
“Where is Pixie Dust?” Yumi asked instead of dwelling on what may have been. “Do not tell me she fled?”
“I am afraid so, Yumi-hime,” Shigure replied, frowning in displeasure. “I could not find her. The others had not seen her either. Did you intend to return to Lord Alpha Brass?”
“No!” Yumi snapped, angrily. “I do not trust him, and I can feel the… the wrongness in that lair of his. It is just as well that Pixie abandoned us. We shall return to Neighpon. If the Stable calls me to answer for a crime I did not commit, it will be with a thousand spears at my back.”
“As you say, Yumi-hime.” The two earth ponies raced across a stretch of gravel country road, then back over another hill. Shigure still wore his shirt and bow tie, but Yumi had torn her dress, the better to gallop to safety.
“We are being followed,” he remarked, eyes forward. “I believe it to be more Royal Guards, but some of the Free Company ponies may also be chasing us instead of trying to rescue Lady Rarity.”
“Can we outrun them, Master Shigure?”
“Not for long, no.”
Yumi slowed slightly, and he did the same to keep pace with her.
“The Everfree is close enough,” she said, and as the two crested a grassy hill they could see the thick vegetation of the wild forest in the distance south of town. “It truly is an ugly forest.”
“Yumi-hime, are you sure--”
“I am,” she interrupted him, her ire still raised from what had turned a hopeful day into a disaster of truly epic proportions. “You may need to carry me for a time, but I can do this. How large of a distraction do we need?”
“As large as you are able to provide,” Shigure told her, expression betraying his concern.
Yumi stopped, then, still facing the forest.
Closing her eyes, she let out a breath and the grasses around them rippled. Inhaling, the grass rippled again. Shigure took up a position behind her, towards the direction of their pursuers. Yumi breathed again, in and out. Past the hills and in the forest, birds took to the sky, squawking in outrage.
“Yumi-hime…” Shigure whispered, feeling her thrum with earth pony magic.
“What an ugly forest,” Yumi repeated, slumping forward and needing to be caught by her protector. “But it has answered me.”
From within the Everfree, an ear splitting howl pierced the air.
It was followed by another howl, and another, and another…
Yumi glared over to the forest, knowing what was coming to answer her call. “Get me out of here, Master Shigure.”
“Which way?” Shigure asked, gently lifting the weakened mare onto his back.
“Around and into the edge of the forest…” Yumi closed her eyes to try and rest. “Let them follow us, if they dare.”
Shigure ran.
Galloping as fast as his old hooves could carry him, he had the honor of seeing the first of the Timber Wolves emerge from the Everfree. It was three times the size of an adult pony: a nature-spawned golem of wood, with vines for veins and splinters and leaves for fur. Bright green fire burned in place of eyes, like a macabre facsimile of a jack-o-lantern, and the creature sniffed the air as the two ponies sped by. It tensed for a moment to give chase, but recognizing something - the smell, the magic, Shigure didn’t know - it ignored them. As he knew it would. These creatures were now Yumi’s.
As he galloped away, more emerged… one, two, until a dozen started to lope out of the forest and into the hunt. Shigure never saw the result of the wolves crashing headlong into their pursuers, but he could hear the sounds of battle far behind him. Against so many forest golems, the Royal Guards must have called up large numbers of Free Company ponies to fight for them.
Yumi still half asleep on his back, he kept galloping, skirting the Everfree border.
Even during the day, the forest canopy here was thick and dark, casting a pall over the rough ground below. It was like stepping hours into the future: the sun disappeared from the sky and the gloom could have fooled anypony into thinking it was caught perpetually setting. Thick webs blanketed the upper branches overhead, some boasting cocoons far too large to belong to just captured insects. Broken trees rotted where they had fallen in this forest, and the floor was slick and matted with moss and decomposing leaves. Large, gnarled roots forced a pony to constantly be wary of galloping too fast or too recklessly.
Slowing as he moved around another root, seemingly placed just to trip somepony or break a leg, Shigure came face to face with a creature - a frozen creature - with a serpent’s body and the head of a rooster. The beak was open, as if screeching, and the eyes wide with fright.
“A cockatrice?” Shigure knew of the beasts.
Still on his back, Yumi reached curiously for the creature… only for it to crumble at her slightest touch.
“Master Shigure,” she whispered. “Up ahead.”
Gently, the old stallion lowered his hindquarters and let Yumi dismount and back away. He had noticed it, too, but too late to try and avoid it. Somehow, somepony had caught up to them… or been waiting for them.
She emerged from beneath a low hanging branch, tentatively moving it out of her way with a small pink hoof. Their surprise obstacle was a unicorn, petite, with a rust colored mane bundled up behind her head. Soft violet eyes studied the two Neighponese ponies as she walked closer. Both of them knew this unicorn.
“Lady Chalice?” Shigure asked.
“Sir Rains,” Chalice greeted him with a respectful little bow. “Lady Yumi. Sorry to scare you.”
“What are you doing here?” Yumi demanded to know. “If you’ve come to bring us back to your brother--”
“Oh, um… no,” Chalice replied, shaking her head sadly. “That isn’t why I’m here.”
“This isn’t a safe place, my Lady,” Shigure tried to warn her. “You should not be here.”
“I wish I did not have to be,” Chalice told him. “I really do.”
She took a step towards them, lowering her eyes.
“And I’m really sorry, but… I’m not here to talk to you,” she admitted, and the already dim light in the forest seemed to deepen. Previously light shadows became pools of glittering black oil and some-thing began to form first around Chalice’s horn, and then across her entire body.
“By Lord Blueblood’s command,” Chalice said, and when she looked up, her eyes were gone, replaced by a sea of stars. “I’m here to kill you both.”
- - -
In an abandoned building outside Canterlot, Princess ‘Cadance’ stood over her comatose brother.
“Oh, Blueblood,” she said, turning the drooling stallion over with a hoof until he was face up. The oaf had been stripped bare, and rendered insensate by a rather generous dose of paralytic changeling venom. “It really did pay off, waiting to replace you.”
Kneeling closer, she sniffed the air, tasting the residual emotion around him. There wasn’t much left. Just enough to detect the traces of his last emotional state: tart confusion and sour fear mixed with notes of berry-sweet love. It was an exquisite vintage.
“To think, big brother, we wouldn’t have bothered replacing you at all if you hadn’t found your… what do they call it?” she asked one of the unmasked changelings around her, but never expected an actual answer. “Your ‘special somepony?’ How fortunate for us that you not only fell in love with somepony, but that somepony fell in love with you! I really did have to see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears, smell it with my own nose, and taste it with my own tongue.”
A black, forked tongue snaked out of her mouth at that comment, waving teasingly while she laughed.
“Today, I capture a Prince’s skin and put the first dagger in Alpha’s back to boot!” she exclaimed, rather pleased with the day’s activities.
The timing was excellent, too. It would have been too risky for her tastes, trying this while staying with Alpha Brass. The canny stallion would be expecting some sort of betrayal, naturally, but would not see one coming just hours after their parting company.
The poor foal had no idea that his own teleportation guards had been infiltrated by the most skilled of her changeling swarm. Brass’s influence on all those in the gardens made infiltration difficult, but the teleportation specialized unicorn mares he relied on came and went so often that they could be replaced without him noticing the substitution. She knew the ponies who came and went from the gardens, and though it had taken some doing, she had even gotten one of her own to replace the teleporter assigned to Lady Yumi.
It was only a shame that the swarm was no true hive mind; she could not see what her underlings were up to, exactly. A scrying mirror could be set up, though with all the moving around she had to do as well, it was impractical. No: she had faith in her underlings, especially her fertile sisters and daughters - her potential replacements - and this was the result! Success! She had traded a Pixie Dust for a Yumi and a Yumi for a Blueblood.
It would be simple, now, for the changeling-Blueblood to control this Rarity mare, just as she herself controlled Shining Armor. The Elements of Harmony were already broken, but she would go one further and replace one of them with a changeling as well. Just to be one hundred percent sure. All the while, Brass would think them in his pocket and, even if he suspected they were not, what could he do about it?
All she needed now was her Yumi, back. That was a valuable piece to have.
“Where should we keep this one, my Queen?” one of the changeling drones asked, slinking around the unconscious Blueblood. He had been delivered early, ironically enough courtesy of his own surprisingly impressive teleportation abilities. It had apparently been pupa’s play to clandestinely move him far from the mansion and to the pick-up point.
“The crystal caverns will do,” Chrysalis decided with another cruel laugh. “Yes. I like the irony of it! Let him rot in the cell next to his sister. But keep him unconscious, understood?”
“Next to… that cell?” the changeling asked.
“You heard me!” ‘Cadance’ snapped at the drone, dismissing her with a slash of her hoof. “I will relish the look of despair on her face when she sees that even he is not beyond my reach! No pony is!”
The changeling bowed, and together with a comrade, dragged the Prince of Equestria away.
“Brass, Brass, Brass,” Chrysalis repeated the name in a sing-song of mockery. She licked her lips; too, remembering what was pre-destined to be their last night together. He was a poor lover compared to Shining Armor; no matter what she did to him, no matter how she pleased him, no matter what pain she caused, he was indigestible. Even in that one instant of release, where every stallion’s barriers fell, and where Shining’s emotions presented her a banquet of lust and possessiveness and pure unbridled love and hope, Bass’s emotions were like oil and sand and ice. Grit and poison and freezing cold.
Still, she resolved to remember the night fondly when he was dead and Equestria reduced to fodder for the swarms. When he was gone, she really would be Queen, and for the first time in her life, alone in that lofty station. It was almost… sad… to think of it.
“What are you going to do now, Brass?” she wondered. Turning around, she motioned to a pony in the shadows behind her. “Come along, my little pony. A bridesmaid should attend to the bride-to-be. I will introduce you to your two new friends.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
Lyra Heartstrings followed, her eyes subsumed by dull green.
- - -
“Lady Olive Branch is dead, my Lord.”
“She is?” Alpha Brass asked, spearing a slice of red potato with his fork and briefly submerging it in a thick cremini mushroom sauce. “I see. Thank you.”
Despite the news delivered by the head nurse, the musicians did not even pause in their rendition of Valse des Fleursat. Nor did the Marquis of the Equestrian Frontier, a Duke in all but name, pause in his late lunch. Taking a bite of the potato gratin and washing it down with a tipple of white wine, he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and took a small note on a scroll unfurled across a quarter of the length of the long wooden dinner table.
“Sir?” The nurse insisted. “I know this news must be… unsettling, but wouldn’t you like to see…?”
“I have seen enough dead bodies to know what they are like,” Alpha Brass reminded her in a conversational tone. “More than you ever will, I dare say.” The nurse shrank a little at the reproach, fiddling with her white scrubs and feeling out of place among the other servants in the room. Not a one seemed disturbed by the news either.
“Follow my orders,” he told her, savoring the music. “You know what to do, don’t you?”
“Yes, we - we are to let your guards cremate the body,” she said, and backed away towards the door. “I merely thought you should know.”
“Thank you again. You and the other staff have done a wonderful job.” Brass spared her a charming smile, and the nurse nodded eagerly.
“It was an honor, sir!” she replied, trying to remember to be somber as she exited, gently closing the door behind her. “Enjoy your meal.”
“I will,” Brass replied, more for his own sake than hers. He looked out over the gardens and the musicians and speared another cut potato.
- -
Elsewhere, three hard eyed mares in armor struggled with a panicked and supposedly sickly - supposedly deceased - Olive Branch. She kicked and struggled and hissed as they dragged her off, shedding her disguise in panic, screaming as they stuffed her into a metal incinerator. The changeling tried turning into other shapes, other ponies, using other voices, but the Amazonian guards may as well have been deaf for all that they heeded her pleas.
One of them slammed the furnace breech shut, locked the handle, and nodded to another by a switch.
- -
Alpha Brass watched the small coil of black smoke rise from a distant chimney in his garden.
“The music,” he whispered to himself. “It really is quite lovely.”
Yes, it was lovely, even though he had lost his new harpist, the young Miss Heartstrings. It was a terrible shame, but in the long run, the loss was a necessary one. A dagger was of little use without a handle to hold it with. Alpha Brass nibbled on another slice of gratin and smiled. In one garden courtyard, two mares flew silken kites, like streaks of gold and red against green and gray and a false dome of blue. Their laughter reached his ears as he ate, mixing with the melody of the music to create a pleasant ambiance.
Well beneath them and out of sight, other so called ‘ponies’ soon joined the first in the fire.
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
985 users online
365,213 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
OH SHIT
It just got ugly.
So wait, I'm confused, have any of the Mane 6 been taken yet, or is it just Blueblood?
Also that was pretty dark (and seemingly unnecessary) at the end with that one Changeling that got burnt. Yeowch.
Starting to lose the plot thread, but that's probably just my fault.
Alpha Brass seems a little like a bond villain, nice job.
Wow... gota find one of the 'shit just got real' images. Because... it did!
Yumi's gone all paranoid, Chalice is set to kill her, though at who's command is anyone's guess at this point. Blueblood is effectively removed from the picture, and Rarity just got yoinked and dropped by a vindictive pegasi. Oh, and the lethal power-plays between Crysalis and Alpha Brass just kicked off... Fun!
So Blueblood has been Replaced, Chalice(whom I believe to be the real one) was ordered by Changeling!BB to kill Yumi, Alpha Brass is working against the Queen and she is working against him, Yumi thinks that Rarity wants her dead and Pinkie Pie commented about plant jizz. Yep, fecal matter hit the air coolant device.
2185411
Like this?
dontdrinkbeer.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/1332397100700.jpg
or this?
i179.photobucket.com/albums/w293/til21/kill-fire.gif
I...
Wow.
This changes everything. You are really good at setting out chapters that throw your status quo into upheaval.
But it sounded like Chrysalis hadn't replaced any of the Mane Six with changelings yet, but Applejack already is one.
The Chalice/Yumi fight looks like it will be interesting. I want to see what terrible powers from the depths of the stars she wields. I hope Yumi doesn't die, though. Or Shigure, although he's so awesome he might end up dying because he's just too tough not to have to die(?). I wonder why Alpha Brass is having Chalice kill Yumi now? And why say Blueblood ordered it? Unless he doesn't want her to die, and she's supposed to spread the word that Blueblood tried to assassinate her (which I'm guessing that Alpha Brass didn't know would already happen that night. Unless he did, and... um... is just trying to kill her now to prevent the resulting chaos her spreading the word would cause? I get pretty confused by these Machiavellian plots).
So Blueblood is going down with Cadance? Maybe we'll finally get to hear what Brass, her, and Twilight talked about. Or we'll find out that the real Cadance never got out of there, and [insert wild theory].
Amazing chapter, what with... things... happening. Lots of things.
Wow. Plots within plots. Still, it does seem as if things are beginning to wrap up. I'll be watching
Things took quite a dark turn there. Perhaps not yet enough to justify a tag change... or perhaps it does.
Let's see what's in store next.
Well, it's nice to see that Yumi and her retainers really were on the level, though since they're the foils to the ever-honest Apple Family that shouldn't be much surprise. Hopefully they'll be able to patch things up with Rarity later, this fic needs a few more good characters for there to be any cast left after the dust settles. You paint a vision of Equestria that, while very compelling, is also exceedingly dark with regards to how prevalent corruption seems to be and how impotent anyone is to do anything about it. Not that I expect a fairy-tale resolution, but it would be nice to get the sense that whatever new bosses are left after all this won't just be the same as the old bosses.
A few random thoughts while reading:
-D'aww. Daisy, Rose and Lily are just adorable. The poor, panicky little things just need a vacation away from Ponyville.
-Also, my mental voice maaaay just have added an 'Oh Yeeeeeah!' when Shigure burst through the wall.
-I can't wait to see Dark!Fluttershy... err.. Chalice fight. Hopefully it isn't just a background event we cut to the end of, or something. She has that whole built-up-by-mystery thing going for her.
-Alpha Brass is best villainous savior of Equestria. I totally want Celestia to pin a medal on him by the end, then spend six hours in a shower trying to wash the feeling of filthiness away. The guy that throws living creatures in an incinerator is just about as far away from the Love and Friendship squad as you can get.
I have to say that my favorite thing about the chapter was Pinkie's immunity to the hallucinogenic pollen. It makes you sit there pondering exactly how messed up her perception of the world already is, that it doesn't even make her miss a beat.
I have a huge weakness for authors that explore her Ponythulhu nature without being too wacky about it. The fact that she breaks all the rules can be very epic, when you come at it from a more serious point of view.
I was a bit disappointed by not getting to see Rarity kick flank again, at first, but I got over it. You're doing incredibly well in capturing that feeling of rising toward the kind of climax that needs a forty-person choir belting out ominous latin chanting over the action. The tension is building, the excitement is ramping up, and I'm eager to read more!
Damn you for writing a 400,000 word story that seems interesting and has its own TVTropes page!
Hot damn! If Yumi makes it out of the forest, Neighpon will go to war.
And having Cadence and Blueblood in adjacent cells will easily allow Twilight and Rarity to rescue them both at the same time when they inevitably head down to the caverns.
One question though: Why the hell is Chrysalis keeping those two alive? My understanding is that Alpha Brass' alliance with Chrysalis was the only thing keeping Cadence among the living, and with Blueblood assimilated, keeping him alive seems foolish. I know my own personal headcanon requires Changelings to keep their hosts alive in order to draw upon their power and form, do you hold to a similar idea?
And damn, Chrysalis' plan is a good one. Weaken the aristocracy by having them all start killing each other. Really, all it would take is one successful assassination; the nobility would take care of the rest on their own. Waiting for a well-attended garden party only ensures that more nobles will have to quickly declare sides.
Applejack must be feeling really shitty right now.
Man. I really, really can't wait for the wedding.
This.
This plotline.
Is it even a line anymore? Is it more of a plotcurve? I have to say, you have have notes for this story they must be dizzying.
Yesterday after finishing the previous chapter, all my toughts were "Oh boy! Battles! Lots of them! I can't wait!". However, in retrospect' it was way too simple, there had to be 20 plot twists at the same time... Good Lord this fic' is just too good for my poor heart.
2185523
In fact Pixie Dust, the last of Yumi's bodyguards (specialized in teleportation and appointed by Brass) was a changeling; and to keep her/him/it-self on good shape it fed on the affection of the Apple family, no need to replace AJ, just impersonate her for a few moments to get her meal (Everypony's asleep but the lil' sis? Pretend to be the stetson wearing one and Ta-daa! Midnight snack get!).
Little vicious creatures...
2185733
I'd also like to see Yumi patch things up with Rarity/BB by the end.
This chapter finally made me like Yumi, only for her to be betrayed by Changelings.
Coming up on 400,000 words. I continue to be amazed at the quality of this work.
Things just got fun!
The beginning was a brilliant series of misdirections. I had 3 different guesses for what was happening. (It was my second one.)
I really liked how the escape was handled, many, many times I had to stop because it was so funny.
This just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If the "being" was a "was" I'd have no issue with it. But, you know, you can do whatever.
Should be "well-lit"
"hooves"
Inconsistent comma usage.
Yeah, that isn't an independent clause. I'd suggest cutting the semicolon and the "too".
there's just to much happening. Honestly I wish fimfiction had the ability to downvote individual chapters.
ok, now Chrysalis is going too far......I relish her defeat...
I think I should've seen this coming, I think you put it out there that this could happen. If you did I missed them all. Forgoing the usual praises people sing I think I will just do this instead.
My thoughts on this chapter?
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/35445577.jpg
Looks like all the plans are unfolding, and colliding quite spectacularly.
dl.dropbox.com/u/69811530/Reaction%20pics/isxY6j6IavKLM.gif
2185759
"This Platinum Crown " is interesting the way "war and peace" is interesting, This is the most flat out ambitious story on this site. This epic will demand a lot of you. but it will also richly reward you . you are in for a ride, enjoy it.
goddammit Blueblood, you just had to be in the mood for a quickie
also to say this opus has now entered "heart attack mode" seems superfluous...
2185289
Nope, as 2185967 outlined, that was just a brief imitation to get some sisterly love from Apple Bloom. By this chapter, it is very much clear enough that I can confirm that the changeling was always Pixie Dust (the teleporter). As of yet, none of the manes have been replaced (as in the real pony being secreted away), though Chrysalis plans to do so to at least one of them, reasoning that would then have two ways of shutting down the elements of harmony.
2182015
True. True. Well put!
2185316
There'll be fewer plot threads soon, as I start snipping some (and turning others into knots)
2185523
Much of that will be revealed in 31, I expect, Chalice said and is doing what she is on Brass's orders, not of her own initiative. Recall, Euporie actually asked to be the one to get rid of Yumi when the time came, back when the three of them left for Ponyville. And then there's Cadance! I've been waiting a while to get to her part in things!
2185876
Very astute, and your headcannon is mine as well! Why (in the original canon) did Chrysalis keep Cadance alive, albeit imprisoned and under guard? Like you, I figured that she might need Cadance alive (besides the evil joy of tormenting her by pointing out what Chrys was doing on the outside). In TPC, Changelings DO need to keep their hosts alive in order to mimic their powers. If Cadance or Blueblood were dead, then the changelings impersonating them would still look like them, but be unable to use unicorn magic. So the disguise would end up being pretty flimsy!
And, in addition to just the practical necessity, Chrysalis also finds it amusing to torment Cadance, as in canon. And yes, she's trying some divide and conquer. Weaken the enemy from within... and then strike! As Yumi said, Neighpon is a natural ally of Canterlot and one that would likely have come to its theoretical aid, even if the Rares and those allied with them did not. Yumi herself can also be used as a cat's paw against Brass, by implicating him in her "conspiracy."
2185627
Or will I? 
Eh, probably not then.
Heh. I've gone this far without it being too dark, and I don't intend to be quite so explicit in the future, so I don't think its too necessary to change the rating. It isn't like I'm suddenly throwing in a clop-chapter!
2185733
Ironically, what's bringing out the worst in outsider ponies is the fact that Rarity isn't one of them. That's what's attracting them and prompting a lot of this. There's also the problem of the Terre Rare feud coming due and the changeling stuff that is like candy for conspiracies. The environment does need some sorting out, though, that's for sure!
2185743
OH YEA! lol
You'll see some Chalice and just what she can do. I promise. It's been built up and hinted at for too long for me to cheese things by having it all be 'off-screen.'
Saves country and is reviled for it still 'saves country,' or so you could posit. Though it really wasn't necessary to burn the changeling alive (this was the same changeling he was defending to Chrysalis one chapter ago), it fit his character. Brass isn't the sort to seethe outwardly, but I wanted the scene to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that, yes, this is a guy - a pony - who would literally calmly eat dinner while they were being exterminated, even right in front of him. That when he said to Twilight that his intention was to bring the changelings together only so he could be sure to eliminate every single one that it was not an exaggeration or hyperbole.
And then there's Pinkie. Everypony around her going crazy, and she's worried about the competition. I gotta admit writing The Pink One can be fun.
2186015
Heh. Well, Rarity needs all the help she can gather up!
But I'm glad people, in the end, warmed up to Yumi some. Like all the OCs I had to create for TPC, I always had the worry about them being completely unsympathetic. Well, except maybe Euporie, who is okay with the hate! haha.
2186016
2185759
I never thought the fic would end up being this long when I outlined it! haha. I figured it'd be maybe 250 or 300k at the most!
Blame it on inflation!
2186027
Excellent! More corrections. Made, of course!
First the chases, and the escape, and now the battle royale!
2186123
There may be no individual chapter downvote, but by commenting, I know how you feel about things, and that's better, isn't it? There is a lot happening, or, was and will be. But I have a lot to work on resolving, too, which means running quite a few different plot points at the same time to show how they intersect. So it is sort of by necessity.
I got your opinion, though! I read every single comment!
2186127
If she has her way, she'll go further still!
2186181
Some of it, you could have seen coming... most is only supposed to be all that clear in retrospect. Like a changeling in Yumi's group? You might have guessed it, since she had been to Brass's gardens, but who would have in turn guessed that the changelings had infiltrated one of the groups of their ally? Not just that they'd try, but that they'd succeed? But then, were did Brass get the changeling whose wing he removed?
Don't sweat it. Once the surprise factor is expended, I'll clarify all the stuff that's happened later via the narrative, like how Chrysalis outlined her plan this chapter.
2186650
I'm super excited for the RD Ridercruz fight! I love me some dog-fighting. (Sorry if I mangled her name.)
Edits are complementary. (In both meanings! If I give edits, it means I think the story's worth it.)
2186650
For me, at least, forcing the changelings to keep the originals alive to impersonate them is staying true to their parasitic existence. They not only depend on others for sustenance, but require them to remain relatively healthy in order to do so.
And I can't wait for this to be over so I can reread it and hit myself for not catching all the clues in the narrative.
If this is the Quiet before the storm, This is going to be one hell of a storm
RANDOM BUT ENTERTAINING QUIPS PERTAINING TO THE STORY, WRAPPED UP WITH A SUDDEN AND RESOUNDING EPIPHANY.
lol, jk
Seriously though, I can't get enough of this story. You do a really good job on character development.
This is my least favorite part of these kinds of stories. Not least favorite as in it's bad, but least favorite as in the part I have the most difficulty reading. The part where the antagonist looks unbeatable and the protagonists are unaware of the danger they're in. I can barely stand reading it. In fact I practically skimmed this chapter, and parts of the last few as well.
Jesus, this is Gordian. Who's got a sword...?
I kind of expect Antimony to be the one to deal with Alpha Brass... though I don't know why. I look forward to seeing the real Cadence in the crystal caves, too.
I think that Chrysalis has just made at least one fatal error. Likely two. Possibly even three.
Eunomie and Euporie are also in a world of trouble if Yumi and Shigure manage to get away from Chalice, and Rarity & co. realize that they're being set against one another.
And Alpha Brass is also making his move. I doubt that he has everything as well under control as he thinks...
2186650
Aye.
And honestly, with Brass and Chrysalis both moving ahead on their plans to have the other murdered (among other things), it was only a matter of time until something had to give.
Incidentally, Yumi's rambling was very endearing. Especially as we knew all this insecurity, all this vulnerability wouldn't even reach the real Blueblood:
"I must be convincing… and attractive. Rarity is prettier than I am, and she’s a unicorn"
I winced. That couldn't have been a happy thought.
A masturbation joke out of nowhere? Really? I like this story primarily because it is among the classiest fanfictions I've read. Even the little bits of dirtiness were at their most humorously dignified, was the 'skeet-skeet' REALLY necessary?
Also, I hate to join the crowd being snippy about this, but it really is getting VERY tiring to read chapter after chapter of 'things getting worse.' Typically every few tens of thousands of words things are supposed to get better for the protagonists (unless it's a tragedy, but this story isn't arranged for sadness anyway.)
The storm begins. Looks like the plotters have finally decided to stop bothering with behind the scenes dealings and turned to open confrontation. If fallout from Euporie's party was going to be hard to conceal, events at Blueblood's manor are outright unsalvageable. Very intensive chapter, but with events set in motion (I'm going to disagree with some of the previous readers) it's definitely becoming easier to keep plot threads in my head.
It was sad watching things from Lady Yumi's perspective... Of course, she plays her own political game, like everyone else, but at least she has decency to feel bad when she has to resort to questionable methods. It's hard not to feel bad for her after she offered to make her foals unicorns... This whole unicorn supremacy thing cannot die fast enough. If not for Rarity, I really wish she would be the one to get Platinum Crown.
So many things set up for future chapters:
- Why would (real?) Chalice take orders from (fake) Blueblood? Did Alpha Brass catch wind of Chrysalis replacing Blueblood and told Chalice to declare that she acts by his orders?
- What did Chrysalis mean by "the Elements of Harmony were already broken"? Is she referring to fake Blueblood's influence on Rarity (like Chrysalis did to Shining Armor) or quarrel between Rarity and AJ?
- Did Pinkie, Flim/Flam and Pokey come up with some plan before the whole mess at Rarity's party?
- Will we finally see (real) Cadence or is (real) Blueblood is going to be enjoying his dreams in crystal caves for the foreseeable future?
This is in when you are in that kind of situation you need pegasi. Unfortunately, RD and Fluttershy are not here to swept away the pollen
So, if Blueblood is abducted, does that mean Rarity will be the white knight who will save her prince ? Unless he can save himself... and Cadance, of course
I can't wait to see some kickass fight. I need to see the Elements handling the situation before it's going to be too dark
"Fall" should be "fell" to match tense with the rest of the sentence.
2185967 Ah. Right. That makes sense... I suppose I got a little lost.
2186650 I suppose I forgot some of the specifics of that conversation. That happens in long-running series, but it's always a bit disconcerting. So Chalice is going after Yumi on Brass's orders, but why say it is on Blueblood's in this chapter? Your reply said that she said it was on Brass's, but that isn't what she said to Yumi. Unless you meant to say something else on your reply, or accidentally typed Blueblood instead of Brass in the story?
2188747
Chalice said exactly what she was told to say. In this story, more than most, what a characters says, especially to other characters, may be just what they are meant to hear.
2188388
got it!
2187351
You'll like next chapter more, then, as it settles two things and is basically solid action. No schemes.
2187448
I'm looking forward to writing it, too.
2187689
After thinking about it, I made an adjustment to that line of dialogue.
2187753
2187475
Things are getting chaotic, but that isn't a bad thing. It benefits the mane six, who thrive on chaos! Well, some of them do.
A few reviewers have come forward to express a similar feeling, and I'm glad that Yumi is getting some sympathy, even if it is this late in the game (actually, it is just what I hoped to do with the character, so I'm doubly glad). And yes, there is still that bit of unicorn elitism, even in modern times - if Yumi had somehow succeed, as she said, she would be the first earth pony mare to ever wear the crown. Given that the Blueblood line does have some earth pony blood in it (hence Arsenic) there must have been at least one or two earth pony stallions marrying in, but the top spot? Seemingly always denied, though not without reason.
As I said above, don't take anything any character says to another at face value in TPC. They could be lying, they could themselves be deceived and thus not know they're wrong, or they could simply be bias. As for the other questions: the former, yes, yes.
2188244
Pegasi are just too handy.
As much as I'd love to see Rarity in heavy armor, I'll just say, we'll see. I wouldn't have had this happen in the fic for no reason.
Unless I deviate from the plan...
Next chapter, The Big Chapter 30, is solid action. And it is also longer than any other chapter so far in TPC.
It would have to be, given all the buildup to it!
2185876
2186650
Beyond any other reasons, I always figured that capturing Cadance was like Chrysalis winning the lottery.
I mean, the poor thing's talent is spreading love. If the changelings could break her, control her, or at least batter her into obedience, she'd probably be a great way to continually produce delicious, nutritious emotion. In stories where she's an immortal, instead of just a winged unicorn, she could theoretically do it forever. It's horribly dark, admittedly, to pretty much be forced to facilitate continual murder, but changelings are an incredibly dark foe, when you get down to it. They replace your loved ones in order to suck the soul out of you.
As for Blueblood, clearly NewBlueblood is just too damned charming to kill.
2188879 I thought that was what she was supposed to say. But your first reply to me said that Chalice said she had been sent by Alpha Brass, which confused me as she didn't say that at all (although I may have misunderstood what you meant to say to me, as I have a long and embarrassing record of such misunderstandings).
So I think we've successfully agreed that you are right, and that I think you are right, despite both of us thinking that I thought you were wrong before? Or something like that.
Okay, so real-Yumi was on the wrong side, but on the level once she got what she wanted. And now she's probably going to be killed and Neighpon goes to war over it.
Also...good lord this escalated fast
I'm really curious about exactly what Rarity's response to Sand Dune was. On the whole I'm going to assume it must have been a "no" considering the hardnosed comment, but I'm guessing that it was more than just a straight no based on Rarity's statement about friendship immediately before that response.
At this point I'm a big fan of the Neighponese group. I may even have stood up and cheered when Shigure came through the wall. As irritating as it may be that they're now in a bit of a mix up with the girls, I hope they come out of the fight more or less unscathed. Suzukaze could use a few bruises, however, given her stunt with Rarity.
As for Chalice's fight with Yumi & Shigure, I have a wild ass guess that there's going to be a little zebra striped interruption.
Leaving Blueblood with Cadence feels like a huge mistake.
Hmn, one changeling down, many more to go. Woah, make that several down. I guess the partnership between Brass and Chrysalis is officially over now.
Looking forward to reading what sounds like an epic chapter next time.
I'll just back up what others have said: We see that Yumi isn't as deep into (any of) the conspiracy(s)* as we might have feared, and that her assistance with the apple trees truly was what it looked like on the surface (even if it was somewhat out of guilt and not simply her being generous). We even get a look inside her own head which, really, should have been the tip off that something was going to go terribly wrong. And now it's all falling apart. Here's to seeing how long it takes someone to figure out that BB ain't BB, and whether or not Yumi gets away only to return with a thousand spears. Neighpon is far enough away that, maybe, its military forces haven't been infiltrated to anything like the same level.
*Question. When using the bracket ess bracket convention for possible pluralisation, what am I supposed to do when the plural of the word changes earlier letters? Is it conspiraci(y/ies)?
I'm guessing from all the backstabbing that's going on, Alpha Brass's family line is going to be gone from the Stable of Lords in the end, except maybe Eunomie.
Oh.
...
Um... I'd just like to say that I loved The Best Night Ever. And I love this. Really- even if I kind of cringed with the party bits in chapter 28.
But... Well, I'll say it outright. I've always had something of a soft spot for the Changelings. Part of it is I was first introduced to them in My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time, which painted them in a highly favorable light in the breif time they are featured. Another part is I'm a sucker for underdogs.
Lastly, I understand the desperation of hunger. I once went on a summer long camping trip, this was about eight years ago. Long story short, there was a period of almost two weeks in which I got intimately familiar with the concept. Most people are never forced to confront that, but I can see where Crysalis was comeing from.
Look, i understand that it's your story, and I think I'll keep reading whatever the outcome. But from what I've seen, Alpha Brass has at the very least entered into this scenerio with his eyes open. Crysalis inherited much of it from her mother. And the circumstances of her upbringing and culture give her a decent ammount of leeway in my book.
'Je ne desire rien
ni gloire ni bien
mais le coeur dui a faim
doit mendier son pain'
I am not asking for anything
neither glory nor money
but a hungry heart
has to beg for his food
The Changleing story could have been used to develope metephores of empathy and lonliness and... I just... I just don't see a happy ending precludeing an ending that's favorable to the Changelings too, not yet at least. Thoughts?
2187448
Twilight, I'm guessing.
I'm still waiting for her to start causing panic, btw. Where's the panic, Capn?! I WAS PROMISED PANIC
This ... wow. I just ... wow. I left off reading for a bit a few chapters ago because of Euporie's "party" out of frustration. I just couldn't stand to see Pinkie hurt like that. Then you got her to overcome it quite handily. I like that. I just read the last three chapters straight through, and WOW there's a lot happening. I have to say, you do an excellent job at writing villains. This chapter in particular was one where you really made their villainy shine. It's not often that I read a story with a villain that I end up wanting to eliminate so much. Most of the time I simply see a villain as just the individual holding the villain ball. If Alpha Brass isn't dead by the end of the story, then it will be a bitter-sweet ending at best.
Looks like all the pieces on the gameboard are in place for the game now, and it looks like Chrysalis is attempting the first move on Alpha Brass.
Hmm, looks like Yumi was just a puppet in Alpha Brass’s schemes. Though I have to wonder to what end other than to put pressure on Rarity and Blueblood? Very interesting. Though it looks like Yumi is a loose cannon from this point forward if she can survive whatever Chalice brings to the table. And it looks like she might be working with Chrysalis now. Yumi is about to be maneuvered out of the game (and possibly killed) unless she can make one heck of a recovery. I really do feel bad for her at this juncture. Too bad she came into a fairly cut throat world.
Really digging Alpha Brass as an antagonist-ic type of character. And here when I first heard his name and role I thought he would be a throw away in this mess. Though this look like about the phase of things where Murphy decides to show up and start tap dancing over everypony’s plans given much the Yumi angle was just messed up.
I for one AM able to follow all these plot threads, and am enjoying them immensely! I think the tension is building up wonderfully. It’s darkest before the dawn and all that good stuff. Victory for the protagonists is all the more rewarding the harder they work for it in my opinion. Stay the course my friend!