3: The Rich Lands
The ride across the Heartland was long and interminably boring. Due Respect tried to teach her a bunch of useful stuff about the court, but it just went right in one ear and out the other. If she couldn’t fly, she couldn’t learn. Simple as that. She told him all about it, but it wasn’t until his third attempt lost her attention that he learned his own lesson about teaching her. Not that it stopped him entirely. He was a clever pony. He could understand how to be diplomatic with anypony, not just foreign rulers. He picked a different tactic. They had a long time while traveling, and it wasn’t like Rainbow Dash was totally unable to remember anything at all when she wasn’t flying; she just didn’t learn stuff the same way.
So he told her stories about court life instead. Lots of them were old historical events from before she was even born, but the way he told them, there were duels and intrigue and plotting and outright battles going on like all the time. Sometimes he made them funny stories, sometimes tragedies, mostly epics. He tried telling her a romance one, one time, and that actually turned into a regular old conversation instead of a story at all.
“Mom loves romantic stuff, but it doesn’t work for me,” Dash said.
“Not much into the ‘mushy stuff,’ then?” Due Respect asked, gesturing with his hooves. Dash thought she’d started to figure him out a lot more than she guessed most unicorns ever got to. Underneath all that dry exterior and calm voice, and the cynical side he’d let her see about the court, and that one always-askew eye, he was a proud pony, and he took his job very seriously. He wouldn’t let anything go wrong if he could help it. But respect went both ways, and he would give Rainbow Dash her due too, if he thought she was worthy of it. And a pony he could respect was a pony he could trust to relax around.
“I just can’t relate to it,” she admitted. “I mean, I just saw with Cadence and Shining how some ponies really are like that, but… it’s just not me, you know?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I do. Considering how very carefully controlled your entire upbringing was, you are an exceptionally independent pony anyhow. You don’t want a stallion to sweep you off your hooves; you want one who’ll be charging in at your side.”
“Sorta,” she agreed. “But… well.” She looked down at the carriage’s floor. “It’s hard to think about romance when you know most of your life’s job is gonna be dedicated to making foals, and anypony you think about is gonna have to get checked over for genetics and stuff… if I even get to look for myself. Even with a title, I’m still Princess Twilight’s experiment, and I can’t just let pegasi die out all over again by not picking anypony, or making a bad choice.”
Due Respect reached over to pat her on the shoulder. “I understand, Countess. If it helps, you may rest assured that many generations of nobility have borne a very similar burden. To carry the weights of expectations and history is no small thing. I believe you will handle it well. A mare of your active nature will attract a stallion of similar type, and Princess Twilight will understand the difference between a genetically optimal match and one that will make you happy.”
“Do you have a family?” Dash asked.
The stallion shook his head. “I have often felt the lack,” he acknowledged, “but my duties demand that I travel often. I could not inflict on a foal either an unsettled life on the road, or an absent father. I have time.” He sat back on his seat, his hoof sliding from Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “I have dreamed of having a filly,” he told her. “She is impatient with me, asking when she can ‘come around.’ It is hard to imagine the change my life would take when I settle down, but at the same time, in my dream, I know that she is worth it. I like to think that I will be as fulfilled in such a life in reality as I am in my sleep. One day I will find out.”
“You’ll be a great dad,” Rainbow Dash told him. “If you love her like that before she’s even born, you’re gonna do everything right.”
He gave her a smile - not one of his usual small twitches of his cheeks, but a full smile. Rainbow Dash could suddenly picture him, a filly on his back, laughing down the streets of the Queen’s City, maybe heading down toward the sleepy suburb of Manehattan, all that proud reserve cast aside for the only reason good enough.
She thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have some little pegasi of her own one day after all.
***
They passed through Baltimare and skirted Horseshoe Bay on the way down to the Rich Lands in the southeast. Rainbow Dash did know the history of that area; Twilight had taught her about it before leaving. It used to just be called ‘the Southeast’ for a long time, but then about sixty years ago, Stinking Rich had taken the whole area over. He hadn’t been the strongest unicorn around, which was the traditional way to claim a throne, but he’d been the smartest.
Stinking Rich started out with a pretty big base; the Rich family had owned factories making equipment for mining for a long time. He used a string of clever deals to corner the market - and then he deliberately engineered a shutdown. Without a source of equipment, the mines of the Southeast went into an economic tailspin, and Stinking Rich more or less bought the throne outright, paying the former Princess to abdicate in his favor, then using his wealth and newfound political power to prevent any rivals from challenging him. Seizing their homes and savings was a favorite tactic, forcing them into poverty and then offering them a sizable ‘relocation plan’ for themselves and their families - in effect, a comfortable exile to some other region. Many of his targets were his biggest supporters, never realizing he had caused the turmoil that he then saved them from.
He had a colt after a while, named Filthy Rich. Stinking came up with a clever plan to ensure he wouldn’t have any more challengers to worry about in the long run - he abdicated in favor of his own son, who was still too young for anypony to challenge, but kept all the power for himself. As the Donager Prince, he could run the entire area of the Rich Lands behind the scenes. When Filthy Rich grew old enough to rule in his own right, he had his own filly, the current princess Diamond Tiara, and retired to take on the role of Donager himself, while Stinking Rich retired for real. Princess Twilight didn’t much like the loophole the Rich line was using to prevent challenges, but unless she wanted to start a civil war, there wasn’t much she could do about it.
The Southeast was dominated by the Hayseed Swamps, the Badlands, and the Platinum Hills. The Badlands were nothing but rocks and sand, and the Hayseed Swamps were basically filled with the descendants of bandits, eking out a living from the muck, scavenging for rare and sometimes-valuable ingredients for magic spells that didn’t grow anywhere else. But the Platinum Hills were what made the area worth having.
The Hills were on the south of what were still called ‘Buffalo Territory,’ even though the buffalo tribes had long ago been driven west into the Mongrel Lands or south and out of Unicornia entirely. A few little towns dotted that dry grassland, but it wasn’t considered viable to do much farming except for unicorns with a particular talent in the field. Princess Twilight had considered trying to restore the old Earth Ponies and see if they were really as good at farming as the legends said, but the problem there was finding any Earth Pony genetic material to work with. Feathers got preserved for being pretty, but an Earth Pony had just looked like a hornless unicorn. So Buffalo Territory stayed a dull and lifeless place to cross. Fortunately the caravan had plenty of supplies. There were no clouds at all most days, though, so Rainbow Dash had to settle for sleeping on cushions like everypony else.
It was upon entering into the Platinum Hills that Rainbow Dash found her new Least Favorite Place Ever. The capital of the Rich Lands was Rich City, in a valley past the first ridge of mountains at the edge of the Platinum Hills. There was a tunnel that had been magically blasted through the rock, permitting an easy and safe road from the mines out to the roads beyond instead of having to haul the gold and silver bits from the mint out over the steep and dangerous pass. It was quite well constructed, with a smooth floor and carefully-reinforced walls. And Rainbow Dash hated it.
She couldn’t hide her twitchiness from Due Respect, and he tried to help, but at the end of the day, it was a long walk through a narrow passageway with no room to spread her wings - even if she had gotten out of the carriage - and with thousands and thousands and thousands of tons of rock all around. She didn’t freak out or anything, and she didn’t say anything too rude to Due Respect, but they were both tremendously relieved when they emerged on the outskirts of Rich City and she could calm down.
Rich City was a series of terraces carved into the mountains. The highest terrace dominated all the others, with a grand, graceful castle overlooking everything else. White marble walls and gold-domed towers shone in the sunlight with an ostentation that might as well have had ‘RICH’ actually written on the walls in twenty-foot tall letters.
Large homes on the next level down vied with each other for gaudiness; the sheer size of the manors there and the ornate, neatly-trimmed gardens around each made it tremendously clear that these were the homes of rich, powerful ponies who could afford to waste bits on that sort of display. The homes on the next tier down were far more modest, and the ones below that were wedged in between workshops and factories, where a haze of soot clung to the buildings. And below that were the ugly gashes of the mines themselves. One side of the valley was an open pit going straight down; the other had holes boring into the mountain across from Rich City. Dirt-covered unicorns trudged around both mine types with weary hooves.
But the caravan headed upward, not down. As a diplomatic envoy, the first order of business for Due Respect was to present his credentials. A tour of the mines was on the agenda, but not until later. Rainbow Dash was not looking forward to that, after riding through the entry tunnel.
The palace was way shinier than anything in the Queen’s City. Gold leaf decorated pillars and arches, the doors themselves were simultaneously overly-ornate and menacingly functional, and the pleasant holes along the entryway for airflow were just big enough to stick a horn into and shoot. The Southeast’s miners had never been the happiest of subjects, and more than one revolt had tested the castle’s defenses through its history. Some of those had succeeded, and then the new Princess had found herself interested in her new home’s defenses as well. To say nothing about the possibility of dragon raids.
***
The caravan pulled into a wide courtyard and stopped with Due Respect’s and Rainbow Dash’s carriage in front of a line of steel-armored unicorns with spears at their sides, enchanted tips lightly glowing. Dash had added the skirt back to her flight suit, and Due Respect was impeccable as ever. He led the way again.
There wasn’t a red carpet this time, just a tiled stone floor. Their hooves rang off the stone loudly as they passed. There was no crowd either, just the guards. Rainbow Dash much preferred the Crystal Empire already. Shining Armor’s land was warm and welcoming. This was a land that expected trouble and prepared accordingly.
Princess Diamond Tiara was sitting in the throne room beyond; ranks of “advisors” sat in attendance. Mostly younger nobility, bored with nothing to do but jockey for position until the Princess became Dowager in turn and made her courtiers meaningful. Older nobles couldn’t wait that long, and attended the Donager instead. The Princess had settled sideways on the throne, looking with undisguised contempt at the diplomats heading her way. Meeting with the Donager would be where anything of note happened, but the protocols had to be observed.
Due Respect stopped at just the right position, and Rainbow Dash stopped behind him. “On behalf of Her Majesty Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign of the Queen’s City, Duchess of the Canterlot Range, Lady of the Heartland of Unicornia, I, Ambassador Due Respect, do greet you, Princess Diamond Tiara, Sovereign of the Rich Lands, in friendship and peace,” he intoned.
The pink unicorn rolled her eyes, and her voice was laden with sarcasm as she gave the required reply. “We greet you, Ambassador Due Respect, and welcome you to the Rich Lands.” With the bare minimums of courtesy completed, she added, “So what did you bring me?”
Due Respect cleared his throat and twitched his head. Rainbow Dash stepped to the side as several of the caravan’s haulers, unhooked from the carriages, came forward with a series of trunks. “As a token of friendship, the Heartland presents to you these products of our artisans and our friends of the Crystal Empire.”
The stallions’ horns glowed, and the trunks opened. One trunk was clearly from the Crystal Empire; neat rows of magical gems glowed inside. Another was filled with dresses and accessories; Rainbow Dash recognized a couple of outfits that Mom had been working on for a while. A third was full of what Dash could pick out as a new sort of card game that had been catching on in the Queen’s City. A fourth had finely-crafted dolls - one of them was of Dash herself. And so on. It didn’t look like a region paying tribute; it looked like a particularly over-indulged foal’s birthday party.
Princess Tiara seemed unimpressed. She waved a hoof at the display. “Yeah, yeah, put it over with the rest.” And she gestured at a wall, where dozens of similar gifts sat. The wealth of those unused presents alone would have made for a minor house’s fortune. “Now gimme the real one.”
Due Respect regarded her, nonplussed. “The real one, Your Highness?”
Princess Tiara snorted. “Yeah. That one.” And she pointed at Rainbow Dash.
Due Respect cleared his throat. “Indeed. I present to you the Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt.”
Rainbow Dash started to step forward, but then a pink magical glow grabbed her wings and hauled her up into the air. “Hey!” she blurted out.
Princess Tiara smirked nastily. “Princess Twilight’s pet freak. How fun. Guess she wanted to get some matching decor.”
Rainbow Dash squirmed, but that magical grip was holding her wings pulled to the sides; she couldn’t build up any speed to break free. “Matching decor? What are you talking about?” she demanded - and then found herself spun around in the air.
Above the throne room’s door, where they had passed underneath to enter, a large frame held a pair of pegasus wings outstretched, neatly cut at the base. The feathers were still bright after all the intervening years. A plaque underneath read in large, clear script, “War Trophies Claimed From Commander Pansy, Last Commander of the Pegasi.”
Rainbow Dash felt her stomach drop underneath her in a way that had nothing to do with a sharp dive. Then she yelled as the magic holding her yanked hard - and ripped out a pair of primary feathers on each side. Princess Tiara dropped her, and Dash didn’t have time to break her fall before she landed hard on her back. Four blue feathers floated over to hover in front of Diamond Tiara’s face, red drops clinging to them each at the base.
“These should make a nice contrast,” she sneered, then gestured. “Now get that thing out of here. This is a court for unicorns, not performing animals.”
Due Respect’s voice betrayed no rancor as he said, “Your hospitality is noted, Your Highness.” And he turned and helped Rainbow Dash to her hooves, and out the door.
Her wings were bleeding; red trickles ran down her sides from where the feathers had been torn free. Due Respect waited until they were out of sight of the throne room door, then asked, “Are you all right, Countess?”
Dash tried stretching her wings. Nothing had been strained or torn, other than the missing feathers, but they were still bleeding. They hurt, though. And her head and her tailbone were sore where she’d hit. “I’ll live. I dunno what to do about these, though. My feathers molt in the spring, but those don’t hurt or bleed. I don’t remember ever tearing any out early. What a horrible little brat!”
Due Respect made a small noise that in no way disagreed with the sentiment, without actually saying it himself. “Perhaps we’d best get you to the castle infirmary. If nothing else, they may be able to disinfect the wound and stop the bleeding.”
Dash looked over her shoulder and glared in the general direction of the throne room. “Yeah. Geez, I never thought I’d start rooting for a dragon raid inside Unicornia.”
***
The doctors in the infirmary had already heard the word from the throne room by the time Rainbow Dash and Due Respect arrived, or had been warned ahead of time about Princess Tiara’s opinion of the world’s only living pegasus. “Try a veterinarian” was their sneering response. Dash’s wings were still bleeding, but the ‘bird’ taunts stung far worse anyhow. She gritted her teeth, and was angrily pleased to see that even Due Respect was tensing up alongside her.
Fortunately, a higher power intervened. The duty nurse, Nurse Tenderheart by her nametag, scolded the doctors back to their patients, then personally took Rainbow Dash into a room to tend to herself. A pale rose unicorn was in the room’s other bed, but was asleep, with wet wraps strapped around her horn.
“I can’t pretend to have much experience with pegasus wings, but bleeding is bleeding,” Nurse Tenderheart said, carefully examining the injuries. “If I disinfect these and pack them with gauze, that should help it clot. Since I don’t know what effect a magical healing spell might have, I’m not sure any of the doctors could have done any better even if they weren’t such a bunch of stuck-up prigs.”
Rainbow Dash snorted in amusement. Due Respect calmly raised an eyebrow. Nurse Tenderheart rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, they are. The miners’ hospital plays at court games down below, and the doctors who get called up to be Palace Physicians let it go to their heads. I have to browbeat them into paying any attention at all to unicorns who aren’t noble in the first place.” She gestured over at the other bed.
“Take Rose Quartz over there. Poor dear is a weak caster, but she can’t afford to leave the mines. The Donager does provide a stipend for ponies who get injured on the job, so the only way for her to make ends meet is to work until she burns out her mana reserves, then come up here for an infusion. I try to keep her as long as I can, but in the end, she just doesn’t have enough magic to keep up with her job, and there’s no amount of rehabilitation that can help. If I don’t personally escort these stuffy twits into the room to prepare the horn-wrap for her, they ignore her, every time.”
“That’s awful,” breathed Rainbow Dash, then “Ow!”
Nurse Tenderheart patted Rainbow Dash on the side. “Sorry, dear, but I find that the ‘this might sting a little’ warning just makes ponies tense up. But that disinfectant is strong stuff. You shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than anything but more of those beautiful feathers from there.”
Dash flexed her wings. The gauze was in place, and the sting was already ebbing. “Thanks,” she said, then, “So… why are they such jerks? A sick pony is a sick pony, right?”
Nurse Tenderheart’s mouth twitched. “Not everypony takes the Hippotherapan Oath seriously once they start competing against each other,” she said. “Especially when they get in here and find out that the fashion is to declare every non-noble unicorn a ‘mud pony in the making.’ But that only applies to the doctors themselves. Thankfully, nurses are ‘lower’ and so we’re not in any of that muddle, and I can choose my staff based on actual talent and readiness to do their jobs properly.”
She checked Dash’s wings one more time, then nodded. “I’ll be back in an hour to look at these. If they start bleeding again, yell and an orderly will come get me. I have to go drag Doctor Horse out of Lady Fleur’s room or he’ll stay there fawning over her all day.” She patted Dash on the side, then said, very quietly, “The court is a terrible place for a filly to grow up. Her father was an awful colt too. They get better when they get older. Don’t count her out.” And then she retreated from the room.
Due Respect sighed quietly. “I’m afraid I must depart as well, Countess,” he said. “The Donager has graciously agreed to let me delay presenting my credentials to him this long, but I must not keep him waiting. I’ve directed one of our haulers to retrieve some reading material for you, but it might be a while. Will you be all right here for an hour or two?”
Rainbow Dash adjusted the pillow under her head. It wasn’t nearly as soft as her clouds, but she’d had to get used to unicorn pillows on the ride lately. “Yeah, I can wait that long. If they can find the Scooter Pilgrim ones, I’m like halfway through those.”
“The haulers will likely be here before I get in touch with them, but you can give them directions when they arrive,” Due Respect told her. “I promise, they are every bit as appalled at the treatment you received as I am, and will be quick to retrieve whatever you ask for. I may not be back for a while myself, however. The Donager Prince will have a much more extensive reception and actual trade details to discuss, so I likely will remain occupied until late into the evening.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “I understand. Good luck.”
He nodded back to her. “Thank you. And to you as well.” And he stepped out of the room as well.
The door had barely closed when an unfamiliar voice, high and a bit thready, spoke up. “I’m sorry you got hurt, milady.”
Rainbow Dash looked over to the other bed. The pale pink pony still had her eyes shut, but that was where the voice came from. “You can call me Dash,” she said. “You’re Rose Quartz?”
“Yes, milady,” the unicorn said quietly. “I hope you don’t mind sharing a room with a low-born pony. I can’t stand up right at the moment, but if you want I can try to go away…”
Dash cut her off. “You don’t have to go anywhere. You were here first. And you look like you’re feeling a lot worse than I am.”
“It does hurt a lot,” Rose Quartz confessed. “I try so hard, but every few weeks my magic just gives out and I pass out again, and come back here. The Donager is so generous, taking care of me all the time even though I’m not a good worker.”
“You shouldn’t have to work like that,” Dash said, adjusting her pillows so she could sit up. “I mean, hard work is one thing, but if it’s hurting you like that, there oughta be something else they can find for you to do.”
“There’s nothing else,” Rose said, eyes still shut, laid on her back. “The Quartz family’s been digging rocks as far back as anyone knows. It’s all we’re good for. Just mud ponies in the making. It’d be better to be mud ponies. At least then I’d have a reason to not be any good.”
“Hey!” objected Rainbow Dash. “Don’t talk like that. Just because you aren’t good at magic doesn’t mean you aren’t any good at all! I don’t even have a horn, but I’m still awesome!”
The pink unicorn turned her head and squinted over. She had to rub her eyes; a short sharp intake of breath said that the light made her headache spike. But she looked anyway. “... What are you?” she asked, blinking. “A half-griffon? Is that even possible?”
“I’m Rainbow Dash, and I’m a pegasus,” Dash said firmly. “Princess Twilight figured out a way.”
“A way to what?” Rose Quartz asked, still rubbing her eyes. “How did she turn your horn into wings? Did it hurt?”
“Um…. No. I’m a pegasus. You know, like, flying pony? Wiped out a thousand years ago? The whole thing with the Windigos and Princess Platinum and everything?” Rose Quartz’ expression showed no sign of enlightenment. Dash wasn’t sure she wasn’t being pranked. Not believing her was one thing, but not knowing what she was talking about? What was that about?
“There were flying ponies? So… mud ponies were real too? It’s not just a taunt about how weak we are?” Rose Quartz timidly asked.
Dash blinked. It had simply never occurred to her that some ponies might not have ever heard about pegasi. Or Earth Ponies. Or the whole War of Survival. She mentally thanked Princess Twilight for figuring out how to teach her, way back when, and making her learn all that stuff. “Yeah. They were called Earth Ponies. They were strong and really good farmers and stuff. But with no magic, they lost really quick. And pegasi could fly and move clouds, and I proved that part is true, but the unicorns could grab them in the air.”
Rose Quartz’s eyes were still wet. “Then I wish I was an Earth Pony. If I was strong, at least I could push carts. Or I wish I was a pegasus and I could just fly away from here forever. Do… do you think Princess Twilight wants more unicorns to turn into pegasi? I’ll volunteer. Does it hurt? I don’t care if it hurts. It hurts to be a unicorn worse.”
Rainbow Dash winced. “I never was a unicorn. She had to make me be a pegasus before I was even born,” she said. “And it’s dangerous to fly. Unicorns see anything in the air and want to pull it down.”
“Unicorns see anything and they want to pull it down,” said Rose Quartz. “Mountains, the moon, the sun, other unicorns, it doesn’t matter. I wish pegasi won. Maybe then I’d be a pegasus. And you’d still be one. We could fly together then.” She started crying.
“Hey… hey,” said Dash awkwardly. She wasn’t used to being on the ‘comforting’ side of things. “Look. Um. Uh… I’m here doing a diplomatic thing. I’ll try to talk to the Donager and see if he can fix things for you. He can probably find something for you to do that you’d be better at, okay? He’s supposed to not be a bad pony, so he probably just doesn’t know how bad things are. I’m sure he’d want to help if he knew about you.”
Rose Quartz’ tears stopped and she stared at Rainbow Dash. Then she started laughing. Hysterically. Before Dash could do anything, the pink unicorn passed out.
***
Nurse Tenderheart came back about forty minutes later, and pronounced the bleeding apparently stopped. She told Dash to not move her wings around very much for a day or two anyway, to give the wounds time to heal up, or they might tear open and start bleeding again. Rainbow Dash didn’t much care for that idea, but doing some kind of permanent injury to her wings was an even worse idea, so she unhappily agreed.
Then Dash asked about Rose Quartz. Nurse Tenderheart sighed softly and shook her head. “I was hoping she would stay asleep all day,” she admitted. “She’s an unhappy pony at the best of times, and when her horn is disabled she goes into full-blown depression. She’s had hallucinations before when it’s particularly bad. She probably thought you were one. I doubt she’s ever heard of pegasi before. I don’t think she’s had enough education to write her own name.”
“Aw, geez, that’s really awful. I told her I’d ask the Donager to help. Do you think he can do anything?”
Nurse Tenderheart stared at Dash. “You’re going to just go ask the Donager to help a miner? What did she offer you?”
Dash looked back quizzically. “Nothing? She just needs help.”
Nurse Tenderheart looked over at Rose Quartz. “Nothing is all she has. Miner foals go into the mines as soon as they can walk. Schools are supposed to be free, but miners can’t afford to have a mouth that’s not earning bits for food, let alone paying for school supplies.” Then she reluctantly said, “I suppose in her condition, things won’t get much worse.”
“Worse? What do you mean, worse? I’ll tell him how bad things are for her and he’ll fix it.”
Nurse Tenderheart took a deep breath. “Countess… I don’t know how things work in the Heartland. But in the mines, getting the attention of the bosses is never, never a good thing. Even getting noticed for being a good worker means being assigned even more work. Every pony I’ve ever met from the mines is afraid to tell me anything at first. They think they’re in enough trouble having been brought here at all. Even if the Donager does help her, do you think the other miners will be happy for her? They’ll resent her for getting special treatment.”
Dash slumped back against the pillows. “I can’t just leave her sitting around being miserable, can I? She needs somepony’s help.”
Nurse Tenderheart put a hoof on Dash’s side. “I’m helping her, Countess,” she said gently. “As much as I can. She’s a very unhappy unicorn with a very serious, chronic problem, but I can help her manage it.”
“Well… I can help too,” Dash said, after a bit. “It’s not like anypony else would even try to talk to the Donager about her, right?”
Nurse Tenderheart slowly shook her head. “I suppose not. All right, Countess. For all the good it’ll do. The mines chew unicorns to bits, and all the Donager cares about is how many bits he gets out.”
***
Despite his warning about not returning, Due Respect came back in the middle of the afternoon. Rose Quartz had not woken back up, even when one of the haulers came in. Thankfully, the box the hauler had with him had included the Scooter Pilgrim series, so Dash had plenty of reading material. It kept her engrossed enough that she didn’t know Due Respect was there until the cockeyed stallion cleared his throat.
Dash’s head shot up. “Wha! Due Respect! Did I read all night?” She looked around, but the sun was still well in the sky.
The diplomat gave her a small smile. “No, Countess. The Donager was courteous enough to request a break in our meeting to tend to some internal affairs, by which he meant giving me time to see how you’re doing.”
Dash flexed her wing carefully. “Everything seems to be doing okay. The nurse says to not flap it in case it breaks the scab, and she wants me to come back until she’s sure it’s healing right, but I’m basically okay now. Can I come with you to see him?
Due Respect tilted his head. “You wish to meet the Donager? I can certainly request an audience for you, if you’re well enough to move around. And if you promise to abide by Nurse Tenderheart’s restrictions. Might I inquire as to why? I had thought you would be relieved to have as little contact with court meetings as possible, after our disastrous contact with Princess Tiara.”
Rainbow Dash gestured with a hoof at the other bed. “I promised her I’d help. She’s got like a really bad horn, and she’s super-poor, and really unhappy. Unless you wanna invite her to join the caravan and let Princess Twilight come up with something for her, I figured the Donager would be the best pony to help.”
Due Respect looked over, then back. “He is a very busy pony, you understand,” he warned. “He may well be annoyed at being asked to take the time to interfere in a single one of his employee’s situations. I understand compassion, but politics is a poor arena for compassion to make a stand. Why do you think this one miner’s problems are worse than all the other miners?”
Rainbow Dash looked at the sleeping unicorn again. “Maybe they’re not. And I know I wouldn’t wanna go down into mines like that. It probably does stink to have to do that. But… maybe he can make it stink less.”
“It is not the place of a diplomat to tell another Princess - or ex-Prince, in this case - how to run their land,” Due Respect said cautiously.
“Good thing I’m not very diplomatic, then, huh?” She looked back to him.
The corners of his mouth moved upward again.. “I suppose it is. You are intent on this, then?”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “I just… something makes me wanna see her smile.”
***
The Donager’s throne room was just as enormous and overdecorated as the rest of the palace. It was a little bit smaller than the Princess’ throne room, but the activity inside made it utterly clear just where the real power was. Princess Tiara’s throne room was filled with bored young nobles gossiping and plotting with each other, awaiting power that lay years down the road. The Donager Prince’s throne room was tumultuous, with speeches, bargains, and wheedlings all being spewed about the place at the same time.
It reminded Rainbow Dash of the throne room in the Queen’s City before Princess Twilight came in to call it all to order. But in this case, Filthy Rich was sitting up on the throne cheerfully taking part in the babble. Somehow he was keeping track of all the conversations at once, it seemed, because he jumped in and out of everything. Voices were sharp but civil, and the most aggression Rainbow Dash could see was between two mares giving each other the ol’ stink-eye while delivering what were surely biting barbs veiled under shared references, but to Rainbow Dash they just sounded like they were dickering over a delivery of fish that was overdue.
They weren’t sticking to their seats, either, but somehow the way always opened up as Due Respect stepped forward, pushing Rainbow Dash in a wheelchair in front of him. She totally didn’t need it, and she’d argued with Nurse Tenderheart, but the nurse was adamant that she stay in it at least to keep herself from forgetting to stay on the ground, and Due Respect had pointed out that appearing to be wounded would impose a certain impetus toward reparations on the part of the Donager. So the wheelchair it was.
“My lord, the Countess Rainbow Dash,” Due Respect pronounced, once they got to the front of the room. Filthy Rich’s face turned to them, a smile on his lips.
“Countess! Such a pleasure to meet you,” he declared, as cheerful as his daughter had been sulky. “I heard about your mishap earlier. Fillies will be fillies - and lessons will be lessons, I promise! Can’t have her pulling feathers or she’s going to get into an awful lot of trouble with the griffon ambassador, next time they send one.”
“Uh, yeah,” Dash agreed. “They’re making enough trouble already.”
Filthy Rich winked at her. It was simply amazing how trustworthy he seemed within just a few sentences of meeting the stallion, as though he was sharing an inside joke with her already. “Oh, indeed! I’ve heard all about your heroics up north, Lady Wonder Bolt. I’m not the illusionist that Princess Cadence is, and I’ve got quite a lot of outlying prospectors who aren’t terribly good with their letters, so it would be rather difficult to ensure a safe clear sky for you around here, but one day I’d love to see those rainbows of yours. SCRIBE! Have somepony start looking for a place suitable for an aerial performance!”
A colt in a boxy hat and a belt with scrolls, quills, and inkbottles trotted up. He had a cutie mark of a quill and paper as well. “Bad Flank, milord,” he suggested. “Near the entrance to the Badlands. Hit by a dragon raid sixteen years ago and deserted ever since.”
Filthy Rich flicked a gem at the scribe. “Right! Get somepony on that. Next time you come by, Countess, we’ll have an arena ready at Bad Flank - hah, didn’t even get that at first - for you to show us all what you can do.”
“Dragon raid?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Filthy Rich nodded briskly. “Every so often some young dragons decide to try to steal a hoard and attack one of my towns. Keeping a big enough garrison to defend every town would be too many mouths to feed for the town to support, so I keep up roving patrols. Sometimes a raid gets through, sometimes we catch them.”
“Oh. That… stinks for the ponies who get caught up in it.”
Filthy Rich nodded. “It certainly does. I put shelters in the towns, so there’s rarely loss of life, but losing a town is a hard thing for anypony. They can always come back to the mines!”
“Uh, about that,” Dash said. “I met a pony who works in the mines. She’s really unhappy…”
Filthy tsked. “Well, that’s no good! Happy ponies are productive ponies, after all. What seems to be her problem?”
The volume level in the court was dropping steadily, and more eyes were on Dash. She kept going anyway. “She’s not good at magic, but she can’t do anything but mining, so she’s always hurting.”
Filthy shook his head, the very paragon of sympathy. “That poor filly! Well, if she works hard, and takes some night classes, I’m sure she can…”
Dash interrupted. The remaining other conversations stopped. “She works until she passes out, and she can’t read.”
Filthy Rich blinked at her. “She can’t read? What’s wrong? More problems than just magic?” he asked, a degree of uncertainty entering his voice.
Dash shook her head. “No, she never learned how. She couldn’t afford to. She had to go work in the mines.”
“School is free,” Filthy Rich said, but his tone promised he knew there was another horseshoe to drop.
“Food isn’t. Paper isn’t. Her family couldn’t afford for her to take the time to go.”
“Abacus,” said Filthy Rich calmly. In the newfound quiet of the room, his voice echoed a little. “What was it you told me about the enrollment rate last year?”
A mare with an abacus on her flank swallowed and stood. Her face was ashen. “Full enrollment, my lord.”
“You’re fired,” Filthy Rich said, without heat. “Bloodhound, comprehensive audit on Abacus, starting now. Countess Dash, thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He sat up in his throne and openly glared around. “If there are ANY OTHER PONIES who would like to ensure their Royal Funding has been properly used, I suggest they get it done IMMEDIATELY, as audits are going to be UNCOMMONLY thorough!”
The room was still silent as he dropped back down. “Now, Countess, I’ve had an idea,” he said, voice back to his genial, personable tones as though he hadn’t just threatened all the most powerful ponies in his realm at once. “If matters underground have gotten quite as bad as your friend seems to think, then there ought to be a pony tasked with making sure that my workers are happy - one who isn’t in a position to benefit from making them miserable instead. Mining is a dangerous profession, and I will not hide from you that it’s hard and unpleasant work, but I am a fair pony, and what’s more, I am not a stupid pony, and making the miners miserable is how you get a revolution! So you go back and you tell Rose Quartz that she is now the Mining Morale Monitor, and she will be assigned an assistant until she learns to write her own reports, and she will be reporting directly to me! How’s that sound?” And at the last, Rainbow Dash could have sworn she felt him laying a foreleg across her shoulders to strike the deal, even though he was still sitting in his throne.
“I think she’ll be happy to hear that,” Rainbow Dash said, and then blurted out, “You don’t mess around, do you?” She was half-stunned. She’d been expecting to argue for hours, maybe to have to try to convince him to spend a few extra bits to make the miners’ lives better instead of hoarding them for himself. And probably have a bunch of other ponies denying anything was wrong at the same time. She had enough court experience to know that anything somepony brought up for debate would get a counter-argument. Having it over and done with that fast? Princess Twilight would be done with court every day by noon.
Filthy Rich beamed at her. “Time is money, Countess. And I waste neither.”
***
It wasn’t until Due Respect had pushed her almost all the way back to the infirmary that something clicked and Rainbow said, “Hey, I never said her name!”
Due Respect nodded his head briefly. “I suspect that the Donager made quite sure to learn of the arrangements for your care as soon as he heard of your injury. He is as good with details, in his own way, as Princess Twilight.”
“Do you think he knew about the school thing already?” Dash asked.
“I sincerely doubt it,” he replied. “Filthy Rich has an excellent head for details and coordination, but he does not have the time to personally double-check the information provided to him. If the former head of the school system was falsifying her enrollment figures and skimming the excess off the top, I have little doubt that he trusted her and believed her up to that point.” He paused, and then a quirk showed at the corner of his mouth. “Actually? Now that I consider the matter…. Filthy Rich is a very clever pony, and, as I said, he has an excellent head for details. Consider. His daughter, the titular leader of the area, committed a gross insult in full view of the Heartland’s ambassador and her entire court. By taking your charge seriously and taking immediate action, he demonstrated that he, by contrast, takes you seriously and trusted you. He may have been looking for a reason to replace his Minister of Education already, in which case you also provided him cause to act without allowing her court allies to defend her. And if he wishes to conduct larger-scale reforms, but faced internal opposition, your blunt declarations tore through normal court decorum and provided him the opportunity to clean his own house. And all starting from a single poor unicorn’s life story.”
“Okay… I think I get that,” Dash said, then shook her head. “But stealing from schools… That’s really low.” She reached out a hoof to push the door open, as they returned to her room.
“Indeed it is, Countess,” Due Respect said gravely. “I suspect that the Donager will view the matter the same way. Along with a number of other matters.”
Rose Quartz was sitting up in the other bed, staring at them. “I didn’t make you up,” she whispered.
Dash beamed at her. “Nope! I’m as real as you are, and I’ve got good news!”
Rose Quartz just repeated it. “I didn’t make you up.” She sounded surprised.
Dash’s smile got a little more forced. “No, you didn’t! And the Donager is gonna fix stuff around here!”
The pink mare shook in her bed. Then she said quietly, “How… how do I know I’m not hallucinating again? That I’m not going to wake up and… and…”
“Do you ever dream about flying?” Dash asked.
Rose blinked and looked at her. “... Sometimes.”
Dash got out of the wheelchair. Due Respect cleared his throat. “Countess, Nurse Tenderheart advised you to rest your wings,” he reminded her.
“Diplomatic immunity,” Rainbow Dash said, and walked across the room. She pushed open the window and turned to Rose Quartz. The pink unicorn was staring at her. “If everyone sees you flying, then is it real?” Dash asked.
Wordlessly, Rose Quartz nodded. Rainbow Dash came to the bedside and stood by it. “Can you climb on?” she asked. Her roommate nodded again and turned over. She was still moving weakly, but she managed to pull herself across Rainbow Dash’s back. Dash adjusted her wings to get them clear…
… and a rainbow burst through the window.
Rose Quartz was screaming at the top of her lungs in Rainbow Dash’s ear, but the pegasus didn’t care. It was the good kind of scream. The kind that said that whatever happened before or after, right now everything was so awesome, the only thing anypony could do was scream to let it all out. Dash’s wings felt fine. The rainbow trail that blazed behind her was as bright as ever, shining across the valley of the Rich Lands. No magics reached up to grab at her - or, if they did, they couldn’t catch hold.
She curled about in the air, not putting on a stunt display like she had in the Crystal Empire, but turning, letting Rose feel the pull of the air. Inspiration struck, and she went up, up, and over, making a loop in the air - and then spinning an S-curve on the way down before levelling out. Rose was still screaming in delight, and Dash thought she might be going a bit deaf in that ear, but she didn’t care.
Some days were for being awesome for the whole Empire. Some days were for being awesome for just one pony at a time.
***
She came in neatly through the window and landed perfectly; Rose let go at just the right moment to tumble right off of Dash’s back and into bed. The covers even somehow ended up rolling right back over her. The wind had turned her straight mane into a wild tangle, and her pale pink coat seemed to have deepened in her exhilaration and the sunlight. She was laughing, crying, hugging at herself in glee.
Rainbow Dash saw Nurse Tenderheart waiting there, but she had one last thing to do first. She grinned at Rose Quartz. “Oh… and the Donager says you’re the new Mining Morale Monitor, you’re gonna learn to read, and you report to him directly now. So you’re gonna make a lot of ponies very happy, Ms. MMM!”
“You can make me very happy by getting your multicolored tail back into bed and letting me check your wounds, Countess!” snapped Nurse Tenderheart.
“Yes, ma’am!” Dash had never felt quite so little bothered by medical attention.
***
For the next few weeks, Due Respect had a lot of boring diplomatic work to do, talking with Filthy Rich about exchange rates for various kinds of gems, and deals for stuff the Heartland produced from the Platinum Hills’ mines, and things like that. He told Dash about it in the evenings, but mostly it was lots of watching the Donager’s underlyings running around like crazy backstabbing each other to try to blame all their embezzling on each other. Sometimes literally. It turned out there were a lot of horns at Filthy’s court with blood on them. Not just miners’ either; one secret feud came out that had already been going on for six generations when Stinking Rich launched his coup.
Rainbow Dash didn’t have to go to court and see any of that for herself. For all the drama, it didn’t sound all that exciting to her - lots of speeches and secrecy, but not much out in the open. She spent her time with Rose Quartz instead. The newly-promoted pink unicorn was beside herself with glee; she just about bounced everywhere she went, her wind-tossed mane a riot of tangles atop her head.
Meeting the Quartz family was a shock, despite having heard from Rose just how poor they were. Dash had never met anypony who was genuinely poor before. Living in Princess Twilight’s castle was not a way to run into the lower classes. Their home was made of rock slabs poorly fused together by magic, and they were all very skinny ponies. Her father, Four Quartz, and her mother, Cloudy Quartz, gaped when they first saw Rose laughing, and then they had the biggest, most tearfully happy family hug Rainbow Dash had ever seen. They pulled her in, and Rose’s sisters, Smoky Quartz, Sugar Quartz, and Phantom Quartz, joined in, too. It was like hugging steel cables - all wiry sinew and bone, not an ounce of fat on any of them. Dash thought it might have been the first time any of them had ever smiled.
Dash went with Rose to help her start her report on the miners’ morale. Since Rose couldn’t write, Dash started showing her how. With a foal’s mouth-pen, the same one she used to write her own reports to Princess Twilight. It felt incredibly weird to be on the teaching end of things, but good, too, like she was passing something along that she’d been given. She tried to be really patient and encouraging, and was surprised at how easily it came to her. She’d thought she’d get bored with it, but there was something that felt really warm inside her to see Rose Quartz making progress. Dash put that into her report to Princess Twilight, too.
She also wrote down the results of going with Rose Quartz down into the mines one day. Dash stuck it out, but it was even worse than the tunnel. It didn’t feel all that awesome to admit it, but she knew Princess Twilight would want to know, so in it went.
By the time the caravan left, Rose Quartz could write her own name, and all her family’s names, and the miners’ wages had already gone up. Rose promised that she’d write reports to Rainbow Dash, just like Dash wrote her reports to Princess Twilight, and gave her a rock sculpture that one of the miners had made. They’d taken a geode, pretty but useless, and inset a pair of quartz crystals inside, carved into two pony shapes. The top pony was a pegasus - an okay likeness, Dash thought, for an artist who’d clearly never seen her up close - lifting a unicorn below toward the top of the geode. Rose said the artist had named it Rising Spirits.
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Interesting, so Dash is going to meet all of her friends as unicorns. Though I am not sure Fluttershy is going to happen (though she might be the first child).
Like most things that involve making a sad Pinkie happy, this chapter brought a smile to my face.
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Actually, a couple of them have already made their appearance by this chapter. ^_-
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I have noticed.
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Fluttershy's in there. Just look closely at the descriptions of some unicorns.
Reminds me of Game of Thrones, except without the "everybody dies!" part.
Good story, but just who was Flutters then?
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Re-read the second story, it took me two reads to notice her.
As for the other three cameos in that episode, it took the author pointing them out for me to notice. Some of them are really subtle or esoteric.
that he learned his own lesson about teaching her
1. Just some extra spacing.
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Good eye! Thanks!
oh my gosh author what are you doing to me?
this story is just too much for me to handle in one sitting
This is so good! What a wonderful chapter!
Oooooh, that stings. The picture of her wings being cut off AND fluttershy crying is too much.
This is an interesting system of government. Semi-permanent interlocking monarchies, but not much bloodshed that's been mentioned so far. Almost like how other fics depict the noble court under celestia.
We thought it was cool to see rainbow dash read and write her own fanfics, but it's great to see her teach someone to read. You can really see Twilight's influence.