The Phantom of Canterlot

by Azure Drache

Hope, trust and harsh revelations

Dim moonlight softly seeped through the shutters, highlighting the small motes of dust dancing in Snowy’s room. In the last hours, the floors outside her room had become more and more quiet and, in the end, silent. After a long day, the night had settled into the hospital.

It was when the nurse had finished her final round, that Snowy was alone and thought about the day again. She relaxed and watched the ceiling wondering why her team hadn’t shown up, but soon she pushed that thought aside, they will come soon enough and with them, a lot of unwelcomed questions.

She sighed, but quickly smiled again when her thoughts reached back to Pear’s visit. In the end, he had turned out to be a welcomed visitor, not only were the flowers he bought fresh and tasty, much to his luck, more so, he had brought up some interesting topics to speak about. They had a very lively conversation, he had found the right mix between telling her about himself and asking questions about how her life was, especially that of a shapeshifter.. Pear, despite how thoughtless he could be, somehow had the right sense of how far he could get with his questions to not anger her or make her feel uncomfortable.

When the visit time was over, Burning Snowflake had caught herself thinking that she would prefer him to stay a bit longer. “If he tries, he can be a good company,” she had told Sugarcube when the nurse came back to ask Pear to leave, but she didn’t want to hear about it.

“Nonsense,” Sugarcube had said with a smirk and when her gaze came down on the flower stalks, she added, ”you two can continue your flirting tomorrow.”

Both Pear and Snowy had reddened by her words.

“We didn’t…” Pear had started and quickly risen from his chair, nearly flipping it over.

“You misunderstand!” Snowy had added in the same moment.

Both didn’t impress Sugarcube, she had just raised her hoof and waved it. “Spare me that, I know what I see.”

All protestations that they were not flirting fell on deaf ears and when Pear tried to stand his ground to clear up this mistake, wanting to stay a bit longer, Sugarcube taught him not to mess with a nurse in her hospital. In the middle of his oration, she had grabbed his ear and twisted it. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” was all he was able to say while she dragged him to the exit like a little colt.

“You can visit your lovebird tomorrow again,” she had said and hoofed him over to the guards at the door. “And if you have to bring flowers, then tulips, they are more healthy!” she shouted over her shoulder, returning to Snowy’s bed.

Snowy had blinked, baffled, calling her a bird was one thing, an insult, but how the nurse had enforced her authority, that was really over the top!

“Effortney! Poor Pear!” she had thought for a short moment, till the anger about the insult raised in her belly, replacing her compassion with anger. “Calling me a bird! I don’t call you spikehead, do I?” But when she thought about it again, she had decided against saying that outloud. Truth be told, she was pretty helpless at the moment and angering the one who had to care for her didn’t sound like a good idea. Slowly, she had breathed in and counted to three, then, she was able to ignore the insult. Also, she was able to eat up that horrible carrots without too obviously shown disgust, much to the delight of Sugarcube.

“See? Wasn’t that bad, was it?” Sugarcube had said and reached out for the pudding, “time for your reward.”

Well, the pudding had been indeed nice, still Snowy was more than happy when Sugarcube had ended her shift and the nightshift nurse, Tight Bandage, already had showed up checked the patient and let her rest for the night.

Focusing more on the here and now again, Burning Snowflake used the chance as well as the peace that the night brought to check on her own body. As far as she could tell, the last two days had done her good. The food and warm shelter allowed her body to heal again, something it didn’t do during her time under the ruin. At least not with the speed it normally did. There was a reason why ponies were known for their quick recovery from injuries, at least among the species that knew them good enough. Which other species were able to heal a broken wing in a few days, for example?

Anyway, looking at her state now, she had a good feeling about how fast the healing process proceeded. Her legs and chest were on a good way, the cuts she got didn’t hurt any longer when she was breathing, and she guessed it was only a few days, till she could at least walk again herself, not needing a wheelchair anymore. Her wings, however, had taken quite a toll. She stretched them slowly feather by feather, creating a rustling noise when they streaked over the pillow till the unpleasant feeling started to turn into real pain.

“So much for healing in a few days… this will take at least a full week, maybe two,” she thought. “This means no enjoyable preening soon,” she grumbled unhappily. “If only I could use my magic to heal faster…”

Knowing it wouldn’t work, she still tried to focus on her magic. A soft tingle moved down her skin, starting from her forehead, over her nose down her body till her green tail tip. Where normally her magic flowed through her like a strong and deep river, it was only like a fine rivulet at the moment. Not much to her surprise. It always regenerated so slowly and she had given all that she had when she fought against that griffon. On a second thought, she was a bit surprised though, not about the speed of its regeneration, but that it did so still when she had been injured so badly. It seemed her magic regeneration didn’t really depend on her body’s healtyness.

“One day, one day I will understand this all.”

She was going to pull on even that little amount of magic she had, to help herself heal, knowing it wouldn’t work anyway, when she remembered that without her hooves freely moveable, she couldn’t do the necessary gestures. With another sigh, she dropped that thought.

Only one thing was left to check then, she took a deep breath, licked her lips and formed them into a funnel. A second later, a small flame escaped her mouth, throwing dancing shadows on the walls. The orange mare smiled and let the fire vanish, still the flame had been bigger than she wanted, due to her lack of control of it, but still, her body had already started to fill up her reserves.

Eased, Snowy allowed herself to relax once more, if nothing bad happened, two weeks at best and she would be alright again. That uplifted her mood and she was able to push her worries about the future away for the moment, allowing her to sink back into her pillow, closing her eyes and finding some sleep.

***

A quiet sound lingered in the air for a moment, its source hard to locate. The mare in the bed didn’t notice, her sleep was too deep. When the sound repeated however, the mare’s ear flickered, still it was not enough to disturb her sleep for real. Only when another sound mixed in, it was enough to make the mare frizzle her snout, turning her head slightly. A metallic clank echoed through her room, followed by the sound of something metallic hitting the ground. That last sound startled the mare in the bed out of her dreams.

Slowly with much effort, one of the mare’s eyes opened, then the other. Unsteady, the mare lifted her head till a sharp pain shot through her body, stopping her. With a groan Burning Snowflake fell back into her pillow.

“What the hay!”

When the pain diminished, she opened her eyes again and threw a look into the room. It was still dark, only a small bit of moonlight slipped past the closet shutters, not enough to illuminate the room.

She wondered what had woken her up. Her eyes tried to get used to the dim light. Her free ear peaked around. Everything was silent. Her gaze peered around into the darkness. Nothing, neither to see or hear. But something had woken her up! She listened again… silence. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Maybe she… her ear peaked in the direction of the door. There was something! She focused on it, was there…? Nearly unhearable, the scratching of wood on metal lingered in the air.

“Hello?” Snowy asked into the darkness. The sound stopped immediately.

The door was on the right side of the room. Far away from the window. Too far to be illuminated by the moonlight.

Silence was the only answer she got. Her heartbeat sped up a bit.

“Hello? Is somepony there?” she asked again. Her eyes accommodated to the dim light. She was able to see the contour of the door, it was open a bit!

“Hey, there is somepony! I know!” Her voice got louder. It was in that moment that a cloud moved over the moon and even the dim light vanished.

Now quietly, but painfully loud for Snowy’s nervous ears, the door swung open with a squeak.

“Who is there?” she yelled. “Answer me!”

Silence. All she was able to hear was her own breathing. It became faster.

Then, she heard steps coming in her direction. She listened. That weren’t hoofsteps! She looked for the candle on the nightstand. It was out of reach. She still wasn’t able to move her hooves. The steps came closer.

“Whoever you are, stay away from me!”

Unimpressed, the steps came closer till they were right at the side of her bed. A shiver of fear ran down her spine. She pressed back against her pillow as best as she could. “Wh..who are you?” she asked with trembling voice.

When no answer came, fear won over her caution. She spit a small flame to the side the stranger stood. In the flash of light there was… nothing.

The room was empty.

“But she had heard somepony!” Somepony was here!” She shot a look at the door in the already vanishing light, it was closed. “Impossible, I saw it was open! Just a few seconds ago!”

The room was completely dark again. She peaked up her ear, focusing on any sound that may come up, but she only heard her own breath. She breathed fast, far more than she had been aware. She forced herself to a little smile, “Nothing to be afraid of, your mind just played a trick on you, Flöckchen.” Slowly, her breath became slower, more and more, till she took a deep one and held it for a second… when she heard somepony breathing to her left!

Panicked, she threw her head to the other side. The cloud just moved away in time and the moonlight flooded in again, revealing a guard standing next to her! A knife shone in his raised hoof and in a split second, he thrust it into her chest!

***

A burst of fire escaped Snowy’s mouth, flying straight forward and dangerously close to Cool Air, who barely saved himself with a quick dodge. So close the hair on his snout started to curl. He covered it with his hoof, which he removed from Snowy’s chest.

“Whooo! That was close!” he said, a bit shocked. “You nearly toasted me, Snowflake!”

Ignoring him and the pain, Snowy unsuccessfully tried to rip off the bandages to lay her hoof on her chest, making sure there wasn’t a knife stuck in it. The guard had stabbed her at the same spot Cool’s hoof had touched a second ago, but her skin was unharmed as far as she could see. She looked around panicked, sweat covering all of her body. What the hay was going on?

All of the sudden, Cool, Potato and all the others of her team stood in her room, looking at her worried.

Snowy took a few heavy breaths. “What are you doing here? Where is the guard ?” Still panicked, she tried to free herself from the bandages again. “He tried to stab me!”

“Wait! Wait.” Cloth moved closer and tried to calm her down. “Everything is fine.” She laid a hoof on Snowy’s chest and softly pressed her back down. “You had a nightmare, you are safe now, nopony is going to harm you and there is no guard here.”

“But, but…” Snowy protested, quickly looking from one to another, her breath as fast as if she had run ten miles straight.

“Everything is alright,” Cloth ensured her once more, putting up a smile as best as she could. “Look around, take your time,” she said quietly, “only we are here, your team, nothing to worry about.” She put a little more force into her push when Snowy tried once more to stand up, but then she calmed down a bit.

In the light of a small lantern, which Cheese was holding, Snowy recognized them all one by one. Cool slowly raised his head up again, patting it with a hoof to see if some of his mane had gone missing by her firespitting. Next to him stood Cheese, who was holding the lantern a bit higher so Potato was able to ignite the candle on the nightstand with a match. On the other side of the bed stood Chimney Cleaner, next to the last member of her team.

“At least you didn’t lie about your firebreath,” Potato snapped and blew out the match. She shook it for a moment to let the smoke vanish and dropped it into the little iron trash can. “You nearly toasted our little sergeant,” she added with a smirk.

“I am not little, Potato,” Cool said, removing his hoof from his head, “and I am still your sergeant,” he furrowed his eyebrows, “so a little more respect.”

“Chill, Cool.” Potato rolled her eyes. “We are not on duty, relax.”

Ignoring the little banter that she knew so well, Snowy asked, “But how did you get in here?” She threw a quick glance at the candle, then to the lantern and finally to the window, it was still dark outside. “Visit time is long over and the security stuff didn’t even...” she stopped and hesitated to say Pear’s name.

“If he wants them to know, he surely would have told them already.”

“They don’t let ponies in so easily, even during visit time because of all the newspaper mares and also... for my own safety,” she said instead and lowered her ear. “Still, I think they are not sure if they can trust me..”

“Well, you can thank me for us being here,” Cheese said and raised her head a bit higher. “I pulled a few strings and used my influence to get us in.” She polished her hoof with her chest fluff and tried to look cool.

“By using her influence she means that the chief physician is her uncle,” Chimney Cleaner explained.

“Oh come on!” Cheese complained. “Was it really necessary that you had to blow it? Can’t I have a moment in the spotlight too?” She seated herself on the ground and crossed her forelegs.

“You still did a good job, Cheese. Without you, we wouldn’t be here now,” Cloth tried to comfort her.

“And then we had to come here in the afternoon, something that really would be unpleasant,” Cool added and tousled through her mane. “So thank you, Cheese.”

“Ha! Far better!” Cheese acknowledged, letting her forelegs go back in a normal position. “Good to get some recognition for my doings.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question completely,” Snowy interfered. “I now know how you got in, but still not why you chose to be here at this time?”

“It just came in hoofy,” Cool answered her question. “We are all still a bit out of our normal day and night rhythm, so we thought it would be for the best if we took advantage of that, given what are we going to talk about. There are not so many ponies around at this hour.”

“Yes,” Cloth supported his statement, “some of the things you promised to tell us are,” she spun her hoof around, “maybe a bit too private to risk somepony just walking in on the wrong words.”

“I didn’t promise to tell you anything…” Snowy thought and flinched her free ear back. “But, to be fair, you saved my life. I think I owe you at least a bit of honesty.”

“I told you we would wait till the doctors had taken care of you,” Cool took over again, addressing Snowy, “but after that, you owe use some explanation.” He spread his hooves including the whole team, “So, here we are.” He sat down next to Cheese. “Now, tell us a bit more about you, we are all ears,” he said, flickering his ears to underline his point.

Snowy waited till the others had taken a seat too, which took a moment. Chimney was the only one who had a chair to sit on while the others sat themselves on the ground around her bed. Snowy sighed, thinking about what she actually wanted to tell them… and what not. She was very well aware that, if they got too suspicious or felt like she lied to them, they would probably spoil her secrets to the guard. On the other hoof, there was no need to tell them everything, some secrets were better kept secret, that was the best, for all.

She needed a bit more time to make a decision and think of a way to present it, why hadn’t she thought about that earlier? To be fair, nopony could have guessed they would all show up in the middle of the night to demand answers from her. Now when she looked in their faces, Burning Snowflake really wished she had thought about how to handle this earlier. She licked over her lips. “Could I have a glass of water first? I assume this to take longer.” An apologetic smile underlined her request.

Her team changed a look and then all eyes focused on Potato who sat the closest to the nightstand with the carafe on it.

“Arg, fine!” Potato grumbled and got up. With more speed than sensitiveness, she grabbed the carafe and filled up the glass next to it. “Here.” She grabbed the glass and held it right before Snowy’s face.

“Uhm, I can’t take it,” Snowy said, pointing with her eyes to the bandages.

Following her gaze, Potato mumbled, “This can’t be true…” and pressed the glass against the orange mare’s lips, tilting it slowly. When it was empty, she pulled it back and asked, “Are you happy now? Or do you need another? I will not stand up again, once I sit down.”

“Thank you, I am fine now.” Snowy gave her a little smile, to which Potato responded with a snort before she took a seat again.

“I can’t remember she was ever so unkind to me before she found out what I can do. Is it really a good idea to tell them even more?”

The doubt must have been visible on her face, forcing Cloth to speak. “Don’t mind her, she is just a bit grumpy today.” She laid a hoof on Potato’s shoulder to keep things calm before the other mare could respond to this. “But we are all curious about you, so don’t let us wait anymore, do tell, am I right, are you really from here?”

“Yes, yes I am,” Snowy nodded to Cloth, “and to go ahead and answer your next question, yes, I also still have relatives here.”

“Oh, I knew it!” Cloth smacked her hooves together. “I…” she stopped when she looked back at Snowy’s face, “I mean, uhm, alright, go ahead. Who are they?”

“And why are you hiding from them?” Cool added.

A flare of anger and regret flowed through Snowy mind, no, not regret, sadness was what she felt. A strong sadness, which normally was buried deep in the back of her mind.

Snowy hesitated. “Do you really need to know that?” she asked, looking to the side, tensing visibly. “Does knowing it give you anything useful?”

“I think we must insist,” Chimney Cleaner said. “You ask a lot of us to trust you, in return we can expect nothing less than the whole story.”

Sounds of approving raised up, even the three who had voted for helping her in the first place, Cool, Cloth and the other stallion besides Chimney and Cool seemed to be obstinate about it.

Snowy bit her lip. “My ‘parents’,” she pressed out the word like it was pure poison. “Don’t get fooled, they didn’t earn that form of address in any way, they are heartless, they are… they are…” She growled in frustration when she failed to find an insult, a curse to describe them. “ There is no word in Equestrian, or any other language I speak, to describe them!”

“What did they do?” Cheese quickly asked and knocked on the wood of the bed to get Snowy’s attention before her anger could rise too much for her to speak on.

At once, the pegasus turned her head around to her, the growl still lingering in her voice when she spoke, “They cast me out! Their own daughter! They threw me out of our home, sending me to an unknown fate, denying their relationship with me from that moment!”

“Because you had turned into,” Potato said and made a gesture including Snowy’s whole body, “this?” She obviously wasn’t emotionally touched by Snowy’s revelation. “Whatever you would call yourself now.”

“No!” Snowy hit the bed with her tail and looked to the side again. “But they probably would have done that too,” she added a bit quieter. “My parents are cruel heartless ponies before everything else.”

“Then why did they cast you out?” Chimney pushed the conversation back on track after a short look around.

“Because! Because. Because…” Snowy trailed off, even her anger wasn’t enough to make her keep eye contact with them.

“Yes?” Chimney prompted her to go on.

“You really mustn't know that!” Snowy’s gaze became ashamed and her cheeks reddened, even more than they were already from her anger.

The force of her denial surprised her team. Cloth exchanged a look with Cheese, but the other mare only shrugged, unsure, and turned to Cool. He had shored his chin on his hoof and was thinking, as the team leader, it seemed natural that he would respond to Snowy’s denial.

Instead of saying something at once, he first checked on his team's opinion with a few quick looks. Chimney slightly shook his head, a sign that he wouldn’t let this go. The stallion next to him just shrugged as Cheese had done, while Potato rolled her eyes, not hard to guess for him what she thought.

When he had taken all that into consideration, he spoke again, “No, we won’t let you keep that to you, Snowflake. It may be something private, but we want, and have to know what kind of mare we are dealing with, so we demand an answer.” He placed his hoof on her bed. “What made your parents cast you out?”

Keeping her gaze on the floor, Snowy didn’t show any sign that she was going to answer soon, so it was Potato who spoke, “Fine,” she crossed her forelegs, “if you don’t want to tell us, I am sure the Royal Guard will be most curious about you too.”

“Potato!” Cloth poked her in the side with her elbow and furrowed her eyebrows.

“What?” Potato hissed back. “If she doesn’t tell us the truth, we will hoof her over to them, that was the deal.”

“We…” Cloth started, but was interrupted by Cool.

“Stop it!” He threw an reproachful look at them both. He nodded to Potato. “Potato is right, for a change.”

“But we…” Cloth started again.

“No.” Cool shook his head. “We excavated her,” he pointed at the mare in the bed, “because we all agreed to stick with the vote we had made, even against Cheese’s and Chimney’s objection. In return, we now demand the full story from her. Trust works only in both directions.”

The last sentence silenced Cloth. She threw a last unsure glance at Snowy, then retracted her protest.

After he was sure Cloth would stay silent, Cool threw another look around before he spoke to Snowy, “Alright, come on Snowflake, don’t hold it back any longer, what was the reason?”

It still wasn’t possible for Snowy to look at them again, so she told the floor, “They… they…” She ground her teeth and fell silent, only her face turned even more red, till the scarlet hue reached her ears.

Pushing Potato away, Cloth took the place at the headboard of the bed, carefully placing her hoof on Snowy’s, supporting her.

So it was Cloth’s face that Snowy looked into when she finally had the courage to look back up.

“You can tell us,” Cloth ensured her with a small smile.

A moment passed by, then Snowy spoke, not breaking eye contact with Cloth. “They didn’t,” she gulped, “they didn’t agree on my idea of who should be my special somepony.”

Cloth flinched her ears back and raised her eyebrows, this was a surprise. The others felt the same surprise as she did, only Potato stayed unimpressed and snorted.

“So you had a liaison with some stallion that was not meant to be by etiquette? Really big deal,” Potato said sarcastically. “A little romance with,” she thought for a second, “who was it? The son of the Captain of the Royal Guard, or maybe the younger brother of the leaders of the Wonderbolts?”

“No, and the problem was not who she was,” Snowy said, lowering her gaze to Cloth’s hoof.

“You mean, he was, right?” Cheese corrected.

“No, she is correct.” Cloth’s hoof became the most interesting object in the world… and it hurt like a dagger in the back, when Cloth pulled it back. It was only for a second before she placed it back, while the realisation of Snowy’s words sunk in, but it was enough.

“Like I had a contagious disease.” Snowy thought and tears formed in her eyes while the shame burned in her heart. “They hate me for what I felel, like all the others.” She didn’t see or hear what the reactions of the others were, her world had shrunk to her inner dialogue.

Her mind returned finally to the here and now when another mare leaned over her and pulled her head in for a hug, stroking softly over her mane. It hurt, but the comfort it gave was more than worth it.

“Shhh,” Potato made, “shhh, everything is fine.”

Even with her voice whispering right into her ear, it took Snowy a moment to comprehend this was Potato. She turned her head around as best as she could without breaking the hug and although her tears blurred her view, she saw it was indeed Potato who was comforting her. Neither had Snowy recognized that Cloth had removed her hoof, or that Potato had pushed her away to get closer.

“Potato?” Snowy asked, her voice a mix of stutter and nearly broken. “Potato....”

The other mare didn’t respond, she ony made calming sounds and kept Snowy’s head in her embrace, not minding the tears that rolled down into her coat.

“Seems your parents know what is appropriate,” the stallion between Cool and Chimney said, disgusted. “A bit over the top to cast you out, but still… ” he lifted his head in arrogance.

“Have you lost your mind?” Potato lifted her head too and turned it around, baffled. “How can you dare to say that?” she spit out the words at him.

“Because it is the truth,” he looked down at her, “there is no place for such unnatural behaviour in our society.”

“Oh really? And you are the one to judge that, right?”

“Not only me,” he pointed at the others, “they think so too. There are things that are not meant to be, things that are incompatible to the pony-way.”

Another shiver of Snowy, triggered by his statement forcing Potato’s attention back to her. “Shhh, shhh.” She patted the other mare’s mane and head once more, turning Snowy’s gaze up to her own. “No need to cry, he is totally wrong, we don’t judge you.” Potato could only hope that was true. Till now, none of the others had really made their standpoint clear.

Potato quickly let her gaze wander around, trying to see what the others thought. Chimney just stood there, a bit unsure what to do it seemed. Cool on the other hoof blushed slightly, rubbing his neck, obviously uncomfortable with the situation, but not really hostile. Cheese and Cloth, however, stared at the third stallion, disbelieving what he just said. It may be that Cloth had her reservations about a pony that was interested in the same gender, but bluntly attacking it was not along her alley.

“Speak only for yourself,” Cheese said, “I am not part of your opinion here. To be fair,” she turned to Snowy, “also not alright with your preferences either. I don’t think it's healthy or good. Still as long as you keep your hooves to yourself, I don’t judge what you do in your free time, … at home,” she quickly added, “where nopony sees you.”

“I agree on that,” Chimney said after a short moment of thinking. “I don’t wanna hear about it, but it is none of my business either.”

“Am I the only one with a bit of common sense here?” the third stallion said, annoyed. “Such behaviour would ruin our society for sure! What do you all think foals come from, huh?” He threw a look around. “Iit doesn’t work with two mares or,” he shivered, disgusted, “with two stallions. And think what influence it would have on the foals, if they see such abomination of a relationship in public!”

By the word abomination, Snowy burst into tears once more. This time, however, not a few ones, it was like somepony had opened the gates and a stream of tears flowed down her face, accompanied by her cries. “That's exactly…. what my father… had called me, an abomination,” Snowy pressed out during her sobbings.

While Potato instantly moved to comfort the orange mare once more, the stallion, who was against this way of life, spoke again, “And he was right with it, to a degree. If I had an adult daughter who turned this way, I probably would act nearly the same way he did.”

“I wasn’t adult!” Snowy shouted when anger mixed into her sobbing for a moment. “I was eleven years old! I was a filly back then!” After this outburst, she fell into crying again.

Now consternation befell her team, no matter what they thought or may thought on her taste about mares, all of them except one gasped for a second, then came closer, forming a group hug, as best as they could with Snowy still injured on the hospital bed.

The second time today, a sharp sting of pain shot through Snowy’s body, when all the ponies tried to hug her. Nonetheless, the comfort of her team accepting what she was, or most of her team, was more that enough to let her don’t care in the slightest.

***

It was a good while later when they broke the hug, no matter how urgent it was, it couldn’t last forever. It had fulfilled its purpose anyway, Snowy seemed to feel a lot better, her crying had stopped and she wasn’t sobbing anymore. Even her only adversary, watching the scene, stayed silent for the moment.

It was a good moment to move the conversation on, Cool thought, before somepony could extend that topic more. There was still to know were she got her powers from and Cool asked her about it. This time however, Snowy refused to tell them for real, or at least, that is the version which made it through time. If she really had told them anything, who could say seven hundred years later? Some ponies may say she did, some may say she didn’t, Climber however, told the princess she did not.

What made it through history was, that the conversation reached the topic of the griffons at one point. Surely, Snowy had expected Princess Celestia to do something about them, but in the situation she was and without any further information, she hadn’t spent too many thoughts on the political consequences. Now she heard that the griffons probably were part of a diplomatic legation, which happened to reside in Canterlot Castle.

Truly, there were other independent griffons in Canterlot too, but not so many or so well organised that they could have done such an act of chaos, what the destroying of the factory was, by themselves. More so, as far as the firefighters knew, something had been stolen out of the Castle the same night as the incident happened. It didn’t seem to them like a coincidence.

The Royal Guard thought the same, causing them to set the griffons under house arrest for the time being. Without any tangible proof that they were to blame for both acts, still, there was no way to send them to prison without risking heavy damage to the diplomatic relationship with Griffonstone. Even if it was only a city state more or less, Equestria did not want to anger their oversea neighbours.

Strangely enough that Griffonstone would order to steal something from Canterlot, but the item in question wasn’t to be found anywhere in their belongings and also not in the Castle anymore. The night guards swore that no griffon has left the city that night and a quickly set curfew for Canterlot made sure that the item didn’t leave Canterlot any time soon.

The question now was, were had it gone and, more important for Snowy, how could they prove that the griffons were to blame? One would think that it wasn’t important, but for her, it was a question of her existence in Canterlot as Waterdrop. If the griffons would walk out of this free, it was not only a great injustice, it also would bring her in great trouble to explain where Waterdrop has gone, not to mention that she already got the feeling that the guard suspected her to be the one who blew up the factory.

Snowy could just vanish and return as a new pony, but if she didn’t find a way to solve this situation, her days as a member of the firefighters were gone and with it, all she has reached as Waterdrop.

***
“And that was the point, when things got out of hoof really quickly,” Climber said and reached out for his cup of tea. He took a great sip and a sigh of joy escaped his mouth when the liquid refreshed his throat. “I mean, who would have thought that they would infiltrate the royal palace and try to find the item by themselves?” He placed the cup back, stretching his legs and moving his shoulders a bit to get rid of the tenseness that had crawled into them.

Twilight raised an eyebrow and shifted a bit under the blanket. “Wasn’t she too injured to do such a risky mission? It was the royal castle after all.” She softly moved a bit back to a more upright position, careful to not wake up Distant Shine, who had snuggled into her wing. A little smile showed up on her face when she remembered how excited he was to hear a good part of the story and now was dozing off.

“It was nine days later,” Cave Light explained before she yawned. “The firefighters waited as long as they could.“ She rearranged her position according to Twilight, tapping Twilight’s wing and shoulder with her hoof and then, when she found out the princess’ new position wasn’t suitable for the way she had lay before, simply placed her head on Twilight’s chest. With closed eyes, she continued, “Two weeks was all they had. Without any evidence, that was the longest time Princess Celestia could keep the griffons under house arrest, also the curfew started to break.” Now Cave Light pulled the blanket back above her and with a satisfied sigh, she let her head sunk into Twilight’s fur and remained silent.

“Indeed,” Climber nodded. He had overcome his reservations about his children snuggling with the princess, because of the fact she hadn’t complained till now, so she wouldn’t probably do so soon. “Burning Snowflake needed some time to recover, but the time was running out. Nopony could have guessed at this point that she would become the Phantom of Canterlot later and therefore it seemed important to keep a place for Waterdrop in Canterlot.”

“Obviously, that’s not what happened, right?” Twilight asked. “Burning Snowflake didn’t return to her life as firefighter, or?”

Climber smiled and slowly stroked his chin. “Maybe…” He threw an eye on his son, who had instinctively grabbed Sev again, after he didn’t have Twilight’s wing to snuggle anymore. “Yes, I think I can tell you what crazy idea they had concocted, and, how this all turned out.” He nodded. “Alright, some more tea before I go on, Your Highness?”

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[Dr Blankflank]

Whew! Took me a while, but here we are.

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