• Published 26th Feb 2019
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Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl - Estee



Yesterday, she was a sweet, somewhat old-fashioned exchange student trying to find her place in a strange culture. Today, Centorea Shianus is a new world's greatest terror.

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Treasonous

There are always secrets, and those who work in the palace long enough tend to learn a few.

Nothing about the Discordian Era or the origins of alicorns: not even the sisters know very much about what might have existed prior to their births, and when it comes to the true events of their early lives -- the vast majority of that has been hidden. For safety, and not just that of the Princesses. Because the transformation of the current Magic has told modern ponies that becoming an alicorn is possible, and now the sisters are watching the populace. Waiting for somepony to try again, and dreading the moment when it all goes wrong.

Perhaps only the seneschals, those carefully chosen once-a-generation confidants, know the truth about the Princesses -- and even then, they only gain a portion of it. The pony currently moving through Solar and Lunar wings suspects nothing of those origins (and, were they to somehow learn, would take the news rather poorly). But that individual has been serving as CUNET's source for weeks now. Information has leaked out from the palace -- no, was voluntarily carried, because the source interpreted doing so as necessary.

The centaur is inherently corruptive. Its mere presence is ruining everything. This has been proven again and again. But the Princesses won't see it. There are times when the source doesn't think much of the sisters and, while involved in the current activity...

There was some hesitation at first. Legs initially refused to work at a normal walking pace -- or rather, the one which tells any observer that the pony has every business in being here: anypony who questions them is clearly in the wrong. (Ponies tend to avoid talking to the source for very long, which means most of the information has been gained through careful listening and the occasional bit of luck.) Peeking around corners before advancing was going to look too suspicious and at the start, it was happening anyway.

But then the pony thought about the truest reasons for their actions. The justifications formed a clear path, one leading to a single conclusion: what will happen today is deserved. The nation will see, once and for all, that no centaur can ever be allowed to exist within Equestria's borders. Everything else is just a side effect. And it's not as if anypony's going to get hurt.

...well, nopony who doesn't deserve it.

(The source has heard rumors. Tales which claim the centaur is leaving. This changes nothing. There are fools within the palace staff, those stupid enough to favor abomination, and they'll undoubtedly try to talk the monster out of it. And in what's a rather fine reason for taking action, the two biggest idiots turned out to be in charge.)

That pony is moving more steadily now. Normally. Glances are still being risked, but the pony has to make sure they're not being observed too closely. Because when it comes to secrets, most of what the long-term staff could learn concerns the palace itself.

All the ways it works.
Some of the ones where it almost doesn't.

It's an old building. It's been an old building for a very long time. Attempts to update it for the modern era tend to produce problems: a recent change in the plumbing wound up putting a few holes in the walls, along with flooding the younger's private bath and begging a few unanswered questions regarding the properties of crystal pipes. And there's a lot of magic laced into the structure. All sorts of effects, some of which have to be prevented from interacting with each other...

Old buildings, along with those which experience frequent revisions, tend to develop certain -- quirks.

The source has a rather low opinion of the centaur, has deliberately avoided anything which would allow that pony to learn more about the monster, and so is unaware that the girl would be quick to understand. The centaur hasn't been in the palace long enough to learn these secrets, wouldn't understand what the pony is doing -- but if the purpose behind those simple actions was explained...

There was a household which had been asked to host seven liminal girls, when the number of original intent was 'one'. Thanks to the needs of its residents, some of the construction was under near-constant revision. The same applied to the power requirements, along with a few concepts which would have made translation wires hiss with the sound of indignity for a very long time. And when a building is being altered...

The centaur would understand. You can't flush that one toilet while someone is rinsing off under the showerhead. Too many simultaneous pulls on the wifi, in too many different directions... not only does streaming become impossible, but let Papi try to download a live service game update and even email may grind to a near-halt. Mero needs to have her own water supply: something which possesses a much higher saline content, and the pipes aren't supposed to mix -- but if three critical taps are all being used at the same time...

There have been assaults against the palace before this, because the structure was planned in an era when it had to be its own city. The founding of Equestria was more tumultuous than most of the history books suggest, and when it comes to relationships with the other nations -- there have been wars, and a number managed to reach the gates. But in just about all such cases, there was warning. A chance to prepare, with nearly every attack originating outside.

But with the source...

(Not even the changelings became this deeply entrenched, because getting onto the palace staff means passing a background check: even the best forged paperwork might only hold up for so long. The real snags start to appear when interviews are scheduled with references who don't exist.)

The intensity of a given standing defensive measure will match the criticality of the area. This particular pony can't go everywhere in the palace: some portions are simply blocked. And when it comes to magical tampering -- for spellwork, everything is secured: magic used in a way which makes those effects resistant to any further castings. It doesn't matter much for the source, who couldn't do anything about two-thirds of it anyway.

The critical sections are blocked.
Others are not.

There's a minor distortion in the left wall for one staff-only section of the palace, near the budget offices: something you have to know to look for. The marble in that section has become damaged -- but the portion which was initially knocked loose wound up being placed back within the faint outline of its own crater: a stopgap measure. And if you remove it, peer into the shadows... that's when a small length of exposed silver wire becomes visible. A tiny portion of what's required to channel thaums into the palace's defenses.

Maintenance has that on the schedule. They've had it on the schedule for a few Bearer-intensive years, and it keeps getting shuttled to the bottom of the list. Cleaning up broken columns comes first. And until then, the marble plug suffices. After all, it's not as if anypony's going to touch the wire.

This particular corner looks perfectly ordinary. It is perfectly ordinary, except for the fact that you can't leave any copper resting in that one spot. But how often is that going to come up?

Here's a door. Always close it fully because these days, the latch needs to slot into place before the workings will kick in.

It's also possible to figure out where some of the secret passages are, especially if you see the Guards exiting them during drills -- something which can also hint as to how a few routes are opened. Give any member of the staff enough time, and they could probably draw a partial map. In this case, Mrs. Panderaghast asked for the exact location of the cells, some suggested routes down, and a guide for just which parts of the wall need to be rapped.

You learn the quirks of an old building, if you're paying attention. All its little idiosyncrasies. And the pony isn't even entirely sure as to what all of the changes might add up to: none of this has any relationship to their mark.

But they listen.

(Some might consider that kind of eavesdropping to be rude. The source disagrees. They know what true rudeness is. It lives in the barracks, and this will make it leave.)

Everything the source is doing would be counted as minor --
-- individually.

There are things you're not supposed to do, and they're all being done.

Doing the needful, because the cause is sufficient.

The centaur breaks every rule, simply through existing. The foolish alicorns have forgotten what the rules are supposed to be. This is... simply a reminder.

If anypony of sanity knew about the sabotage making its way through the halls, truly thought about it -- then they would clearly understand that the pony was acting out of duty.

Duty, and what the pony believes to pass for love.


The girl is asleep.

She's been sleeping at odd hours, and doesn't seem to be capable of true rest. Part of that comes from the disruption imposed by two days of unconsciousness, and the remainder can be laid at the hooves of the ongoing illness. If she concentrates, she can move normally -- for a little while. Speak. But she does so while holding everything back with an effort of will. Something which is always going to give out, and when it does...

She can't focus to that degree while she's sleeping. Some part of a saturated body reports its inability to heal from whatever happened, whatever's still happening, and... she wakes.

The girl has awoken to find new items near her bed. For starters, somepony has been bringing in her mail -- or at least, that scant portion which the palace cleared to be read to her. She's already heard the one from Fancypants: it was filled with apologies, multiple excuses for how nothing which had happened could possibly be her fault, and ended with his regrets for having to leave the city. There is still a fragile storm hosted in the tallest tower, and the next chaos pearl could be the most crucial. Or the one after that.

There was also a second letter. The envelope features a near-endless trail of consonants trying to wrap around the paper. The girl has neither opened that one nor requested that anypony do so for her, because she's still convinced it got in by mistake and besides, the writing has somehow gotten worse.

Sometimes she finds a pony in the room. Both of the Royal Physicians have been in and out, and the scent of their fear never truly fades. Acrolith dropped by for a few minutes, and... the girl isn't sure that particular Guard knows the centaur is leaving. That news definitely hasn't spread to the whole of the palace staff, because somepony else brought in her unreadable textbooks and some illegible notes regarding the lessons she'd missed. She feels vaguely guilty for having lost her perfect attendance record so easily. Even within the chaos of Japan, she usually managed to log into her classes on time. A true centaur would pride themselves on promptness.

A true centaur is also capable of getting sick, which means perfect attendance requires either incredible luck or being too stupid and/or stubborn to allow themselves any time for recovery. To gain any blushing details on that, all she has to do is think of the forge.

...Barding came in again. He didn't argue about her upcoming departure this time: instead, the smith brought a length of chain and asked her to examine it. Test the metal for strength. The girl feels the true implication is that he was trying to figure out how to attach her to the anvil.

Yapper peeked into the room, but was visibly uncomfortable: the scents from the medical equipment weren't sitting well, and the canid couldn't stay for long. Sizzler drops off food and teaches her about why well-done is its very own sin. Barely-heard, too-soft words from the outer hallway almost suggest that Fluttershy may have tried to get in. Apparently she had some treatment ideas.

Perhaps the doctors tried them. They've been desperate enough (and the girl can scent that too) to attempt a few tactics. The stomach tonic was one of the first failures.

The illness shows no signs of fading. It generally isn't intensifying: in just about any given moment, the girl feels exactly as sick as she did in the instant before. And she feels so stupid, just for being sick. It would have been a better story if she'd died in battle. This is too slow...

...she isn't dying.
The doctors have started telling her that. She isn't dying.
(They can't know.)
When nothing works or makes her feel any better.
Without treatment, without medicine, when she can't currently hope for even a single moment of normalcy, even knowing that it would always be followed by torment...
What if it isn't fatal? What if it's just... permanent?
Is it possible to live like this? Where she has to concentrate just to reach a restroom, focus in order to get herself positioned over the trench, and she always wants to vomit from every cell and it never gets any better?
What kind of life...

Too many reasons for why she can't stay asleep. Thoughts which made it hard to sleep at all.

But the girl is sleeping now. And as she sleeps, she dreams of home.

She is in her bedroom, with her legs folded and her lower torso resting on the tatami mat. There's art on the walls: Japanese brushwork, which she fancies simply for the precise delicacy of it. The practice blade has its own mounting rack on a shelf, the bonsai is close to that, and she added a long, low table to the native furnishings. Something she can only use in comfort when she's just about flush against the floor, but... she liked the style. It also had the benefit of not having been used by ten generations of centaurs before this.

Additionally, when she's on the floor, she loses the height advantage. Their host can look down at her. Perhaps there's some way in which that might help.

(Maybe she needs to find a blouse which would display cleavage. Give him something he can look into. But that would mean going shopping.)

She's next to the table, sorting through the displayed brushes. There's also a few carefully-chosen combs. A number of specimens sport long handles. And after she chooses the first, she drapes a portion of her hair over one arm, begins to gently work bristles through strands...

Brushing her hair. Also her tail and, once she lifts the skirt somewhat, her fur. She has to reflect well on the program. On their host. And when one's overall appearance is seen as inadequate, proper grooming becomes all the more important --

My mother is beautiful.

It's an old thought.

I look just like --

That one is new.

The girl stops. Looks at the brush, examines the long blonde fall in confusion. Begins again.

She's been letting her hair grow out, even more than usual. The magazines and websites suggest that some humans like long hair. Perhaps he's one of them. She's already taken the overall lead in that portion of the household's collective race, but it might not hurt to get further ahead. Besides, centaur hair grows quickly. It'll give the others real trouble in catching up.

If he just likes long hair.
(If he truly likes her.)
(If he loves...)
I thought it had to be love.

...it takes a few seconds before she can resume.

Anyway, some humans like long hair. This one also likes grabbing onto things, especially when he's on her lower back and failing to find some degree of balance. The hair would give him an extra option. One which is going to hurt. And if he grabs onto her hair with the same amount of force which he uses for clutching at her breasts, she's going to be left with a bleeding scalp. If she could just get him to go for her upper waist --

-- there's movement in the hallway. Hoofsteps: she can hear the impact of keratin on the floor, and the girl automatically, almost frantically checks the room. Making sure it's clean enough, that there's nothing which has to be hidden because her mother --

-- no. The scent isn't there, the hoofsteps are too light, and that means it has to be someone else. One of the other girls, or a M.O.N. agent --

-- she's the only one with hooves.

The girl glances towards the door. It's a shoji screen style: more durable than the rice paper which the white patches so resemble, but still somewhat translucent in the paneling. It lets her see the outline of the party on the other side.

She recognizes the shape, and does so at the exact moment when she becomes aware of the dream.

The shadow of a horn is slightly lowered. Silhouette wings awkwardly rustle. And the outline of a left forehoof carefully knocks on the door.

It's a rather awkward sort of knock. The sound somehow suggests that the pony truly wishes to see the door open, while having no means of making it cooperate. It's a knock which is rather directly waiting for someone else to act and, barring that... well, based on the way the mare is shadow-shuffling her weight from hoof to hoof, it's a knock which is also waiting for the girl to tell it to go away.

The alicorn is within the dream: there's no other way for the knock to have occurred. And yet, she seems to be slightly outside it. Waiting for permission.

The girl carefully places the brush back on the table. Straightens all four legs, which takes a few extra seconds: the knowledge of the dreamstate has brought with it a memory of illness, and nausea tries to surge. Approaches the door, lowers her right hand, and carefully slides the barrier aside.

The dark alicorn's head tilts up. The crown fails to shift with the movement, mostly because it isn't there.

Softly, just a little too much so, "May we speak?"

The girl isn't quite sure what to do with that.

"If you do not wish to speak with me," the alicorn quickly adds, "I will depart. And not trouble your rest again in such a manner --"

"-- is this a debriefing?"

It was the first thought to arise in the centaur's mind, and the alicorn's little snort proves it was the wrong one. A sound which, just for a moment, almost comes across as bemused.

"No," the dark mare says. "Orders from one's... superiors... remain orders." With another snort, "Superiors in a rather limited, extremely restricted category -- and yet, one which continues to arise on..."

The mare's head dips. Dark eyes briefly close.

"...too frequent an occasion," the alicorn quietly finishes. "We have both have been ordered not to debrief you until the Royal Physicians feel you are ready. It is why they are reluctant to allow us into your presence, as they suspect that even the most simple questions might eventually create a path into Tartarus. When you awaken, if you choose to speak of this..." Both wings rustle again. "...you will be able to truthfully inform them that no debriefing took place. I simply wish to speak, and... this is the only means of communication currently available."

The girl doesn't move.

She's in my mind.
I don't want...
...the sword is right over --

She knows she's dreaming. She's also aware of what took place in the waking world and when that knowledge is brought into dream, the room is filled with the scent of melted plastic.

The alicorn's hooves awkwardly shuffle against the hallway floor.

"I ask permission to speak," the Princess requests. "To -- be here." And, as the dark head dips again, with the flow of mane and tail slowing enough to let the girl make out every dimming star, "Please. It..." One breath, then another. "...it should not take too much of your time..."

Permission.
When there are no hairpins. No defenses.
The offer of control.

The mare looks up at the girl. Dark eyes roam across strange features, pause briefly on shoulders and chin. And then she waits.

She was my liege...
The girl wasn't a very good Guard.

"Do you want to come in?" And immediately second-guesses the offer, because she's not sure about how her room is going to come across. Following local styles gave her a template, but -- the girl had never tried to decorate a space before. There's a lot of brown.

The mare, caught in the middle of examining the girl's skirt-covered flanks, blinks.

"Into the bedroom? No." Followed by a sigh. "I could argue to gain another glimpse of your world, but... some degree of boundary should be established. The hallway will suffice."

The girl nods, and the alicorn steps back. Making room. It still takes a few seconds before the girl can commit herself to emerging, and her ears never completely stop searching for sounds. She can't hear anyone else in the house. No siblings, and their host's voice is absent. It's just the two of them --

-- she doesn't even know how much of the house exists here. If any room only forms when she trots towards it.

The alicorn is looking up at her. Something about the mare's breathing is uneven. Not forced, but... weary.

"I shall be brief," the Princess states. "There are... two questions. Or rather, two which I see as crucial, and then perhaps a third."

The girl nods. Waits.

Uneven breathing from the mare. Visibly fighting to keep her hooves still, to make her eyes stay open as stars go out and the flowing night sky fades into light blue.

The words barely reach the level of whisper. And yet every syllable sends a little ripple across the walls.

"What must I do to prove atonement?"

The girl's breath catches in her throat.

"I..."

"To be forgiven, for words and deeds?" the Princess forces into the world, hooves scraping against the floor as feathers seem to twist against themselves and dark ears flick back and forth. "Things I have done, and those I did not. What do you require of me?"

...royalty is asking her...
She doesn't know how to deal with that. What to think of it or, with the impossibility directly before her, how to think at all.
She doesn't...

Her upper shoulders tense, then slump again. A deep breath tests the limits of imaginary buttons.

"...I don't know."

The mare's eyes close.

"A fair answer," the alicorn says. "Especially when the query is so unexpected. But the second... that may be easier for you." She won't look at the girl. Won't look at anything. "Do you hate me?"

You knew more about me than anypony.
Anyone. Ever.
You saw my life.
Every doubt.
Every failure.
And you wanted me anyway.

"No."

Fur ripples across the full breadth of the mare's tiny shiver.

"Then there is a third," the alicorn tells her. "After you rest, contemplate the first question in the waking world... may we speak again?"

There had been a meeting in the forest, and the girl had been shown a sort of kindness.
She hadn't done anything to earn that.

"Yes."

The alicorn nods. Turns, with her eyes remaining closed. Slowly trots away, and the girl watches her go --

-- nausea surges through her body. Her right hand tries to brace against the wall, finds it rippling into intangibility. Waking comes, and the sickness...

I need to give her a better answer.
I have to forgive her before I die --


Just about all of a centaur's upper body was double-jointed, and nothing in the overall arrangement would have ever allowed Cerea to put her forelegs over her head. Trying to start from a side-sleeping position (and it seemed that when she was sick, she slept on her side a lot) was only going to allow for faster fractures.

"Twitching a little there," the old stallion calmly said, and shifted no portion of his posture upon the bench. There was no need to adjust military-grade perfection. "Dreaming, or something from the fight?"

Which meant that while there was an official Greeting Stance for a graduate meeting their Sergeant, she couldn't assume it. One more failure for the top of the stack. But at the very least, she'd slept with the disc against her throat. Her waking hours were too irregular to keep taking it off all the time, and any resulting ear soreness was the least of her problems.

"A little of both," Cerea wearily told him, and Emery Board nodded.

"Doctors are still looking into the second," he stated. "They're good. They'll come up with something."

Your words can be confident, Sergeant.
Your scent isn't.

Her blankets vibrated. It wasn't from her own movement: the protesters were just especially loud today. Probably demanding to see Tirek's corpse. Or, more ideally, hers.

"Talked them into giving me some time," he evenly told her, gazing out from beneath the brim of the hat. "Sergeant's right to check on his own."

I'm not --
-- I'm not going to be --

"Told them it wasn't going to be anything close to a full debriefing," he added. "But I want to get one part of it. I want to hear about the fight. Because there's only one mare in the world who's gone up against Tirek, up close and personal. I know how it came out, Recruit, because I saw the results." And snorted. "He isn't all that intimidating when he's not moving or breathing, and he's down to the size of a colt. So tell me what happened --"

He hesitated.
He hardly ever --

"-- if you're up to it," the stallion finished.

She felt sick.

Maybe she needed to get used to it.

"Yes." The girl began to shuffle her way out of the blankets, trying to get into a normal sitting position. Fabric began to slide away.

"If you need to get dressed --" the Sergeant shrugged. Not that he cared about anything she might display, but...

She shook her head, moved one sleeve-covered arm out from under the draping and displayed the fabric. "I'm okay." While nothing had been done about the full-body nausea, or possibly could be done at all --

I have to give them a chance.
Maybe it'll go away.
Maybe this isn't forever.

-- the Royal Physicians had been satisfied with the way her upper torso was healing. Nightwatch had been allowed to bring in a blouse, along with a bra -- but not a skirt, because they still wanted to check on that bruising. It meant everything had to go on over the uneven hospital gown, and her exposed left flank stayed under the blankets whenever possible.

(Her breasts were still lightly bruised. Wearing the bra was producing a little pain, but that was something which mostly got lost in the nausea.)

The Sergeant nodded. "Whenever you're ready."


She did her best to give him all of the moves: everything she'd done, along with every opportunity she'd missed. (Her failure to completely test the armor's jointing was brought up twice.) He listened to all of it, while she waited for an interruption which never came. Cerea was starting to feel like he was saving up all of the criticism for the end and a very long, potentially very loud rebuttal.

(It would have to be loud. She'd had to raise her voice a few times to get past the increasing background noise. Cerea almost felt she was on the verge of making out the words within the chant...)

But he just listened. And after she finished...

"Smarter fighter wins," the Sergeant decided. And then kicked in a snort. "Especially when she's going up against Paddy One-Tactic. Drain and blast. Sounds like he didn't learn much from the first round. Probably didn't think he needed to."

Not when Discord is gone.

Her pasterns writhed under the skin. Fur turned against itself, and she fought to keep her expression steady --

"-- do you need to stop?" the earth pony checked. "I can get one of the doctors --"

Another spark floated past her eyeline, then drifted towards the open door.

"This is how I've felt since I woke up the first time," Cerea quietly told him. "If they think there's been a change, they'll come in."

It took a few seconds before he nodded. His expression remained impassive.

You smell so worried.

She almost wanted to tell him, if only to see if he could find control over that too.

"How many seconds was that fight?" he asked her. "Best guess at the total, starting from when you started the charge for the cell bars, and stopping when you both went down."

She thought about it, then automatically offered her estimate. She hadn't exactly been checking her watch during the fight, and there had been no opportunity to use it as a flail. The timepiece was currently sitting on top of the rolling cabinet. She'd been avoiding putting it back on, because nausea had a way of distorting time. Fighting for twenty subjective minutes of control was bad enough: discovering the objective duration had actually been less than five was worse --

-- the Sergeant's eyes had narrowed.

"Right," he said. "Next question. What didn't you tell me?"

And she knew.

...oh no...

"Had you out at the training grounds for weeks," Emery Board softly reminded her. "I know how strong you are. How fast. I ordered you to give me your best, and the stopwatch told me what that was. But the only way you could have pulled that fight off, with everything you did, every move, in that time... was if you were moving faster than I ever saw. So you get one chance to explain yourself, Recruit. Make it work."

She was leaving the Guard. (Technically, she already had.)
He wasn't her superior any more. She didn't have to follow orders.
But he'd spent hours with her. Talked to her, as much as anypony ever had. Taught her. Did everything he could to keep her alive.
She'd never had a stallion take an interest in her before.
I never had --
-- he wasn't her father.
She'd never really had a father. Just a stallion who was usually on the other side of the house, who had to be kept away from alcohol at all costs.
Who wasn't allowed in the same room with his daughter without supervision.

She felt her ribs shift. Upper, then lower. (For the lower, the bare shift was all she could manage.) And then she made a decision.

"It's... called the Second Breath..."


He was silent after she finished. It didn't feel like a natural state for him, especially when it held for more than twenty seconds.

"Why didn't you tell me before this?" took its time about coming out, mostly because it needed to make sure every syllable possessed an even coating of disappointment. "We could have built tactics around it. Unless you were planning on never --"

"-- I would have used the Second Breath, if the situation was important enough," Cerea softly replied. "I did. But it's not fully reliable, Sergeant. I don't have it mastered. Just about no one ever masters it. Plus you usually need to use it at the start of a fight, because pain can make it harder to initiate." Which was why she hadn't been able to get it going in Palimyno: she'd been hit too fast, and then she'd been fighting off too much at once. "And... it's dangerous. Even practicing too much is a risk. If I overused it during training --"

"-- I push," Emery Board told her. "I push recruits until they go under a tree for a while. Into the showers, and then into bed. I don't push them into the ground."

Blue eyes briefly closed with shame.

"Why?" the Sergeant repeated. And waited.

"...I was scared."

"Of me," felt as if it should have emerged with more tone. Any tone.

"Of letting anypony know." She was fighting to keep the nausea from surging. To let every word be audible. "Because the ones who didn't hate me were afraid, and the ones who were afraid could have it take over, and... it was the last thing I had, Sergeant, if everything went wrong. It almost felt like the only thing. I was holding it back, because..."

It was becoming hard to keep her head up. Shame had weight.

"...I was scared," she just barely finished. "You keep secrets because you're scared..."

His expression was steady. Nothing about his posture shifted. But the Sergeant was silent, and...

...his scent changed.
I think...
...Nightwatch after the training exercise, the Princess outside the locker room...

The hat slipped forward, and brown eyes slipped into shadow.

"Yes."

...remorse?

"Sergeant?"

He tilted his head back. Careful ear pressure readjusted the hat.

"Yes," the earth pony repeated. "That's exactly right. No blame, Recruit. You -- used it when you had to."

The camouflage-patterned tail slowly swept across the bench. Left, then right.

"Nightwatch tried to talk you into staying," the stallion told her. "Asked me to take a turn. But she just wants you to stay in Equestria." His eyes narrowed. "I want you in the Guard."

"I can't," was the most immediate part of the protest. "Without --"

"-- so we treat you as a minotaur," he cut her off. "Only with four legs, who can't twist themselves into the ground --"

"-- they have their magic," she forced in. "Strength." Which still had some outliers, and he'd told her about a few of them. So many of the species seemed to be about categories of magic... "I don't. It won't work --"

"-- they've served with ponies," the Sergeant volleyed back. "I told you that. Not in the Guard, but in armies. Our oldest allies."

"In battle," Cerea countered. "Not as Guards. It's different when you have full units on the battlefield. There's more people involved. You can have ponies on watch. But with Guards, it's usually just a few at a time. A squad might be a dozen ponies, for something big. There aren't enough --"

"-- so you work with a partner. Guards cover each other. You're already working with --"

The girl took a breath. Illness flowed down the branching trachea, then failed to come back out.

"Every pony Guard," the centaur said, "can look out for themselves in one category of magic." Presumably earth ponies had a way of blocking wasteland. It was probably channeling extra power into the soil. "And somepony can help them with the other two --" the stray thought got through "-- unless there's been alicorn guards?"

He gave her a Look: one which, among pony expressions, was distressingly familiar. It was the Look which said that no one else in the world would have asked that question.

"No," the Sergeant answered. "Let's just say the population's a little low. But the Generals guard each other."

She fought back the blush, nodded. How rare is that bloodline...?

"I can't fight off anything," she quietly said. "I can't even improvise, trying to use whatever I have to withstand somepony else's tricks. Or someone's." Ibex stability, rooting in place to stop a unicorn's telekinetic lift... "Sergeant, there would have to be a Guard focused on me at all times. And a Guard whose primary task is watching me -- won't be looking out for the Princess. It's the wrong priority, and... you know it."

It briefly silenced him. But with the Sergeant, that state was always going to be brief.

"You're focusing too much on magic," the stallion decided. "Same mistake Tirek made. Nightwatch too, far as that goes. Not everything is about --"

She felt her arms spread out to the sides, the palms turning up. "-- am I wrong? What if I get caught alone? And --" the thought was almost funny "-- somepony could always just drop a rock on my head."

His tail swayed again. None of the scents changed.

"Nightwatch told me a lot of things before I went in," the Sergeant informed her. "Nothing too personal. Just a couple of details which came up before. Thought they might sound better coming from somepony else. So... what if the world still needs a centaur?"

She had an answer for that. And if only for a moment, it made her smile.

"The world needed a sword," she replied. "The centaur just happened to be holding it."

He inhaled. "Recruit --"

"The sword is gone, Sergeant," Cerea softly told him. "It can't be reforged: there's barely enough left for a dagger."

"So you make a dagger --"

"And even if there was, I don't know how to work with plastic." And paused until the wires stopped hissing. "Plastic which doesn't cut through magic any more. I also don't know how to recreate the base material and even if I could, I don't think it would ever have the same effect. Making a fake out of metal means waiting for somepony to call my bluff and when that happens, I'll just be helpless." Decibels fell away. "I don't think that can be kept a secret forever. Eventually, everypony's going to know I'm vulnerable. It was always the sword, and... there isn't a sword any more."

"So they'll attack you," the Sergeant concluded, "because they're still afraid. And you would be defenseless."

She nodded.

"And what happens when the Generals tell them the full story?" he asked. "That you killed Tirek?"

A few small instruments skittered atop the rolling cabinet, jolted by passing vibration. They both watched, waited until everything came to a stop.

"Getting loud out there," the earth pony muttered. "Timing's lousy. Recruit, what happens when everypony finds out you're the reason some of them can start sleeping for more than two hours at a time?"

Her eyes closed.

All I do is make things worse...

No. Tirek was dead. It was something which made the world a better place, and that wouldn't change.

But she could still make things worse for herself. For everypony who knew her.

Her words had some tremble within them, and part of that was illness. But some of it came from power. Honesty possessed a strength of its own.

"They'll just say one monster killed another. And the survivor must have been the stronger, so... I'm the bigger threat."

She heard hooves pushing against wood. A wiry, solid body stepping down to the floor.

"You're not a monster," Emery Board decided. "If you were... then that thought wouldn't have hurt you." She heard him inhale. "Cerea --"

-- the sound hit them, and four twisting ears could barely take it all in. It was shouts and yells and in the translation provided by the disc, it was the overlap of too much at once, where it was impossible to understand any of it --

-- she couldn't make out the words.
She didn't have to.
They both heard the screams.


What does it take to get into the palace?

Under normal circumstances, most of what's involved is a willingness to wait in line.

There are tour groups, and a nominal admission fee helps to keep taxes down. (School groups come in for free.) They follow a familiar route through the public sections of the structure: something which is regulated, closely observed, and still has ponies trying to sneak off. It's easy to track those ponies, because there's generally a trail. One leading off towards an alicorn bedroom, made from excess sweat, and that was in no way what the stray meant all those years ago when they wrote that letter. The one which featured a heroic excess of the word 'fluids'.

Don't want to join a tour group? Need a little private time? Both Princesses host Open Palace sessions once per moon, where any citizen who's willing to wait in what's often a very long line might gain the chance to speak with royalty directly. The last few moons have seen a lot of ponies approaching to talk about the centaur, and just about all of them believed they were saving the alicorns from themselves.

And when the holidays approach? Hearth's Warming is the season for gifts. But the sisters have been dealing with the groupthink of a herd species for a very long time. In order to prevent the palace from being flooded with wrapping paper, ponies who wish to give something to a Princess have to submit their names moons in advance. There's a random draw, two hundred winners (per Princess), a price limit, far too many baked goods -- and in all cases, there's a security screening. Everything is inspected. Everypony is looked into. Because the Princesses have been at this for a very long time, and they aren't stupid.

Even so, there are those who would say the palace operates under a shocking lack of security. (Others would claim the true shock is in the lack of decorum. That there are no rules for how ponies should speak, let alone whether they should be allowed to speak at all.) But the government needs to operate with some degree of openness. Yes, there have been times when the palace was locked down -- but not during periods of peace. Citizens should never feel as if the Princesses are completely inaccessible, or shut away from the normal world. The dream is that they might approach as nothing more than one pony to another and one day, it might even come true.

So for the most part, the palace is more concerned about where ponies go once they're inside. There are public sections. There are also private ones and no matter what the cumulative sweat of generations might desire, the bedrooms are going to stay in that category. Keep the divisions clear, and all is well. That's how it's always been.

As definitions go, 'always' is rather fragile.

All it takes is one exception.


The plan was put together in haste, because there was no other way. Nopony's sure of when the interrogation might take place. It has to happen too fast if it's going to happen at all, and...

...there wasn't much time to plan. To set things up. To consider everything which might go wrong, and -- for the last, there wasn't a lot of that happening at all. For those who truly believe, this has become a day which will change everything. And when it comes to the one who touched it all off... she doesn't care if it fails.

It's all been worked out. The details caught on quickly. Bad ideas often do.

Weather? Starting conditions are dictated by the Bureau schedule, and there was some luck there: cold, but clear. Less than ideal in many ways, but it's just about winter now. At any rate, climate-based attacks won't matter once they get inside. And cold, but clear... it's a reason to dress up. Clothing hides marks. Hoods obscure features. Some went as far as fur dye, and those within the crowd that aren't involved in the plan are starting to wonder about the massed scent.

When to move? There's a popular theory which claims the palace is at its most vulnerable when shifts are changing: one group tired, the other not fully ready to take over yet. It's very likely true. It also means that the building is either occupied by a doubled population or may have quite a few departing staffers in hearing range and ready to turn back. So with very little of the clock to work with, knowing that the interrogation is being done by the alicorns and hoping they'll at least have breakfast first...

The Lunar staff is believed to be somewhat smaller than the Solar. However, taking advantage of that means having a large group outside the palace under Moon. The night protests, even during the strongest surges, have been smaller than those which arrive during the day. Even with the surge initially produced by the stories of renewed magic drain, a huge night crowd would look suspicious -- and the ponies foolish enough to believe the Princesses about Tirek's death have gone home.

(There are still doubters. Some of them remain outside the palace, demanding answers. And even so... there are two stories moving through the crowd. One of them concerns Tirek. Can he truly be dead? Who was responsible? What's the proof? Perhaps there would be less to fear, and healing might be possible -- if it wasn't for the other centaur. The monster. The one who, despite the shape of her lower body, is nothing like a pony at all.)

So it'll have to be the Solar shift. More numbers to work with, spaced within a more natural-seeming protest crowd. Far enough into the day for the Lunars to be either back home or most of the way there, unable to return so easily. There's no other choice.

Additionally, it took time to notify everypony involved. The heads of three organizations had to contact as many followers as they could, with only a few hours to work with. Part of that ran into the early morning, and... the results are not ideal. A rough majority of the memberships have shown up. Anything under a hundred percent means some ponies stayed home. Because they were afraid, felt this was the line they couldn't cross, or they didn't believe and decided everything would fail.

Not offering support, at the moment it's needed most. The ones waiting outside the palace are already wondering about when their leaders will begin to cull the ranks.

(Their leaders aren't going to be part of the first wave. They've been told that's part of the strategy.)

The believers are present. They've told themselves that they're about to prove what real ponies can do. And because there's three factions, there are three definitions of 'real' in play. No single meaning agrees with the other two, and the fragile alliance already has several within it wondering if they'll get a chance to kick a few inferior ribs when nopony's looking.

Real ponies are going to act. Not the sheltered, or the brainwashed, or the freaks within the palace: that last category will just be pushed to safety once everything starts. (All of the ones who came truly believe that and for a few, it's the only reason they were able to show up at all.) They will prove the strength, the willpower, and the drive of true Equestrians. And there will be no consequences. There can't be. The court system is only so large, and you can't arrest that many ponies at once. Their leaders said so.

Besides, the courts would only come into play if they lose. That won't happen.

They've been waiting for this day. For some, it's a wait which has gone on for most of a lifetime. They're going to do something which matters, and that means it'll be the day which changes everything.

(They're right.)

How could the attackers have been identified within the crowd, before it all began? The scent of fur dye. Extra clothing layers present on those who previously claimed their species was hardy enough to take anything. But they're also the loudest, because all of that energy has to go somewhere. They're chanting and shouting and sometimes, they pause to pass on a story.

The crowd numbers surged when the news of renewed magic drains broke, because so much of Canterlot was hurt and wounded and effectively raped, and -- they needed reassurance. To be told it wasn't real, or that it wasn't going to reach them again, or that there was some other way to save everypony when Discord was gone. A number of those believed the palace when the claim of Tirek's death came, went home. Others are looking for proof. And they talk about whether Tirek is truly gone this time, those waiting for their hour to come do the same...

...there would have been a pair of additional ways to identify them.

Two stories are moving through the crowd. Both concern centaurs. But only those waiting to begin the assault will hear the second.

'The centaur is no longer a problem.'

It was the sword. It was always the sword, only. And the sword is gone.

If they find the centaur, they can win.

Some of them plan to look.

(It won't be a crime. A crime is something you commit against a pony. 'Pony' is solely defined as 'those who completely agree with you'. It's so obvious.)

All they have to do is get inside.

They also keep looking up. Over and over.

And as for how they're getting in...

They can't really use a tour group, because there's too many ponies for that. Sneaking a few inside as advance scouts might have been possible moons ago, but some of them have been screaming at the walls for just about that long. (For a few, it's their job, insofar as they still have one.) It might make them recognizable, and participating in the tour means having to take a hood off.

(The ones who can truly think about becoming recognizable through everyday presence, compared to the supposed protection of a hood, are the ones who stayed home.)

Also, there's been less tourists since the centaur arrived. They have to pass through the protesters to get in, and nopony likes to be screamed at.

The next Open Palace session is in two weeks. (Before this, it would have mostly been about the centaur.) Hearth's Warming is a little less than a moon away. Far too long to wait.

They can barely wait for the signal.

And then it appears.

The pegasi arranged for this part. (Two-thirds of the alliance will grudgingly decide the featherbrains are good for that much.) It's a cloud. One made into a very special, extremely distinctive shape. It moves into the open sky above the front of the palace: the only cloud in the area, riding a wind which the Weather Bureau never arranged.

There are Guards watching the ground-based portion of the crowd. Others check the sky, because there are pegasi among the shouters and you never know. It means just about everypony sees the cloud at the same time. And before the Guards can truly react, even when so many think this is just a pointless use of the symbol, white and wispy with no lightning lurking within at all...

...the alliance moves.

They've made this shape before, on a smaller scale. Now it's just so many more of them doing it at once, and it takes up just about all of the street space available. They need the palace to know why this is happening --

-- no, it's more than that. They're saying who's responsible. Identifying the party who's truly to blame, just for existing.

More than a hundred pony bodies form the symbol. A hand superimposed over a hoof.

And then they charge.


There had been some hope for herd instinct to take over. Emotions always run high in this kind of crowd. Get the herd worked up enough and where one goes, all others might follow. There are potential reinforcements everywhere in the form of those protesters who aren't organization members, and all that's needed is for a moment of clarity to show them the way.

It almost works. A few of the weakest see the movement, start to follow because that's where everypony else is going -- but then they see what's happening, and it's a shock greater than freezing water. Stronger than lightning. There are limits to what herd instinct can both accomplish and inflict. Limits which accompany rules, and one of the latter allows thought to return. There are a number who start to charge unawares, who almost join in -- but then they stop. Try to find a way out, and too many fail. They become the first of the wounded, kicked and trampled because there are so many more of the others. And yet they keep trying to push themselves away, because the herd does not casually attack its leaders.

But the attackers are going directly for the gates. And unicorn fields pull at the great hinges, pegasus winds push on metal and earth pony strength kicks into the bolts, the collective weight of the assault is piling against the gates and the spells activate as the Guards are starting to move, to call for help which will have time to arrive because the effects meant to hold the line are keeping everything intact, but none of them can raise a shield that quickly, something which would still need time to harden and Captain Armor is in the Empire, the sheer scale of the attack is draining the local charge levels too quickly, the attackers are trying to counter and negate everything and an inanimate call for more thaums is sent through silver and copper and hidden iron --

-- a call which passes through everything the saboteur had done.

There is a single instant where the power doesn't respond.

It is the same moment when the gates fall.

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