• Published 13th Dec 2011
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The Ambassador's Son - Midnightshadow



A colt loses his family, Celestia deems his best hope lies not with ponies, but a dragon.

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The Box of Delights

The ══════════
Ambassador's
══════════ Son

Chapter Fifteen
The Box of Delights
An MLP:FiM Fanfiction by Midnight Shadow


Chip hummed happily to himself. No lessons, the whole house to explore... it sounded like fun. Really, though, he wanted some fresh air. Not only that, but he wanted a way to get more fresh air whenever he wanted. Cleaning under the bed had been a chore, a nasty one at that, but he thought it better than to leave it. With the run of the house, he'd fetched a bucket of soapy water and a rag and had done his best. The carpet under his bed was damp, but clean.

After that, the next port of call was Sunshine Filigree. Rescuing her from lessons was relatively simple; apparently pulling Baronial rank was enough to quiet the private tutor, at least when he, a colt, had been excused.

Chip wanted the filly for one reason - he had to work out why Pyrite seemed to have a Chip-shaped blindspot at times. He had his suspicions, but it would behoove him to try them out with a captive audience.

"Okay," Chip said as they entered his bedroom and he pulled the black box out from under his bed, "this is my dad's case I was showing you yesterday. I want to try something out."

"Your dad? I thought you said... Is that really leather? I thought it was last time I saw it but- Where did you get it? Why would-"

"Okay, I'll tell you what I know, but you've got to promise to help me, okay?" Chip put his hoof gently on her muzzle, silencing her. He took it off again, looking pleadingly into her eyes.

"Okay." she answered. Chip breathed out.

Chip took a deep breath and started talking. Haltingly, he began the tale several weeks back with his night-time flight in Celestia's chariot. He explained about his parents, how they had died in an accident, but Celestia had sent him to be with a dragon called Sharptooth. Celestia herself had feared for his safety, goodness knew how she'd found out about the accident, or how she had known where to look. She'd appeared on his doorstep and swept him up and delivered him to the dragon.

"So... you're telling me, this dragon adopted you?" Sunshine asked, raising an eyebrow and perking her ears up.

"Yeah. Ever since then, I've... been... different." he ended, lamely.

"Different how?"

"Don't worry about it right now," Chip said. Truth be told, he wasn't sure how much of a dragon he was. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be, he wasn't sure if he had a choice. He wasn't sure of a lot of things, but he was sure he needed somepony he could talk to. Sunshine and he had a lot in common, sadly. He reasoned she would be a good choice. So far, his hunch had proved correct.

"Okay," said Sunshine. She smiled.

"Really?"

"Yeah really. So, what do you wanna do?"

"I think... every time I hold this box... I become invisible!"

"Invisible." Sunshine looked at him flatly. "Uh huh. Right. Go on then."

Chip scowled, picked up the box in his muzzle and then tried to sneak behind Sunshine.

"It's not working you know."

"Fearfy?"

"Yeah, really."

Chip put the box down. "Damn. I was sure..."

"What's in it, anyway? Maybe it's something in it, if you really did turn invisible."

"Open it and have a look!" Chip motioned towards the box with a hoof. He sat down to think as Sunshine poked it with her foreleg.

"It's locked," she said.

"No it isn't! See?" Chip lifted the lid easily.

"Wait, close it again."

Chip did so, and Sunshine tried to open it. Again, she couldn't.

"What did you do to it?" the filly asked.

"Nothing! I swear! It just... maybe it will only open for a dr- I mean for me." Chip ended, shortly.

"A magic box?"

"Yeah, a magic box. That's kinda cool." Chip grinned, flicking his tail happily, "I never knew."

"So, what's in it?"

"I... kinda have all that armor you saw yesterday and... I dunno."

"Well open it up and let's have a look, dufus!"

Chip grinned, Sunshine reminded him of Carmine. He found it a warm feeling, although he wondered at it. Chip opened the box. He hadn't really explored this small 'hoard' yet, now was as good a time as any. He started with taking out the armor, and there was a lot of it. Dragons had training spikes for everything. Four bands that fit on his hooves as guards, the bolas, the ripper ring, the haunch-plate... and more. Head plates, neck plates, barding.

"Wow, this stuff is cool! What's it all for?" Sunshine asked. Chip was about to asnwer, when he realised that looking like a princess wasn't a big enough draw today, as Sunshine was digging past the shiny treasures and pulling out other things with her magic.

"Hey! Careful with that!" Chip took something from the air in his teeth as she levitated almost everything out.

"Gems? You've got gems in here?"

"Yeah, they're tast- I mean, uh, pretty. Yeah." Chip eyed the small collection of precious stones. The fire-ruby, a big one. An emerald, a diamond, and what looked like a sapphire. The other thing was something wrapped in black velvet. It was small, flat, and seemed very light and delicate.

"What's that?" Sunshine turned her attention away from the pretty stones, to the object that Chip was very, very carefully unwrapping.

"It's..."

"An eggshell? Why would..?"

"Shut up," Chip snapped. Sunshine's face screwed up in anger, but softened when she saw his own expression. "This is... something so precious, I can't tell you how precious it is."

"It's an eggshell, Chip..." she said softly, in a questioning tone of voice.

"From a very special egg." Chip wrapped it back up, almost reverently, and placed it back in the box. Chip then picked up a piece of the armor, one of the hoof-guards, intending to examine it.

Uncle Pyrite took that moment to barge in to Chip's room in a fluster, "Hey Chi- oh, hello Miss Filigree, have you seen Chip?"

Sunshine opened her mouth to tell Pyrite that Chip was right there, but saw Chip's expression. "Yeah, Chip is, uh... in the bathroom. He'll be out in a minute." The filly looked from Chip to Pyrite and back again.

Pyrite frowned, "Okay, I was just... this... came in the post and... I was... I gotta run, okay?" The earth pony dropped a sealed envelope on the bed and vanished. Sunshine breathed out.

"That... was weird. He didn't see you at all!"

"Yeah," said Chip thoughtfully, "like I was invisible. So it's just him, and this stuff. It's not just the box."

"It's gotta be magic! That's so cool, I could do with that sort of thing when I don't want to go to lessons."

"I think it only works on Uncle Pyrite, sorry, Sunshine."

"Welllllll... can I borrow something? See if I can duplicate it?"

Chip blinked, mind already scheming. He shook his head, "Sure, just don't take the hoof guards, haunch-plate, bolas or the tail-ring."

Sunshine hummed and hawwed, and picked up a circlet that featured a rather wicked set of spikes around it. Chip didn't know what it was for, but he guessed it to be either a head piece or a collar. Sunshine trotted happily out the door with it dangling from her jaws, humming quietly to herself. Chip smiled, she liked him too. He sighed, though. He missed Carmine, Belle, Penny, Beth... he even kind of missed Butch. He wondered what they were up to, they probably hadn't even noticed he was gone.

♦♦♦

Carmine flew high above Tacksworn, thinking heavily. She missed that butt, Chip. Well, she didn't miss his butt. Not literally. Not even slightly. Yes, it was kind of pert, and he was easy to talk to... but he was just a pony, after all. Kinda. There was that... awkward word on the tip of her tongue though, hippogriff. Why was it on the tip of her tongue? As if her father would approve. As if she cared about Chip like that. She did though, she admitted to herself, worry if he was okay. She decided to find out what had happened to him, he hadn't been seen for this entire week so far, and had disappeared the previous week with only a note from the teacher that he would be away for an unspecified amount of time. The empty seat at their table was... almost painful, in a way. It wasn't as if their little group needed a male or anything.

Carmine snorted at that, they really didn't. But she did miss him, even if just a little bit.

There was an ear-splitting screech and a large, eagle-winged mass dropped out of the skies and fastened it's talons on her backside.

"Heeyy! Shards and shells, B! What'd you go and do that for?"

"Not payin' attention, C. Sloppy. You're not gonna get any rabbits like that."

Carmine folded her wings and dropped from under the other griffon, and then rolled over lazily in the air and rose up level. Beth was her good friend, neighbours since forever. Absolute pain in the tail. "Who says I was hunting?"

"Ah, mooning over Chippy then."

"I was not. You think he's okay?"

Beth burst into raucous laughter, "You do like him!"

"Yeah, I guess I do. Shut up! You're one to talk, with that pegasus your mom's hooked up with." Carmine swiped her claws playfully at Beth, who scowled.

"Steelfeather's alright. He's not my dad, but he makes my mom happy."

"I miss your dad too, my dad and mom also."

"Not as much as I miss him."

The two flew in silence for a while, just circling the town. Tacksworn was pretty small, it had been for as long as they remembered. It had no real weather team - as a designated desert town it saw little actual rain and imported most of its goods, making by on a mixture of neighbourly concern, trade and taxes. Old Stallion Withers the pegasus saw to watering what crops there were and protected the forest that kept the worst of the desert wind and dust from blowing through. The earth pony Flitch was the local forest ranger and tried to keep the forest and the animals it sheltered alive. Both needed assistants, both were already getting on in years, but so far nopony had volunteered. Two inns, one cheap and one less cheap, provided all the accommodation that was needed outside of the fairs. A small library with a surprisingly young unicorn family was situated next to the medical centre, a salt bar was across the one main road from that and the school was set a ways off further out into the desert. Thriving was too busy a word for what Tacksworn was, but getting by tended to fit.

"Come on, I can't hunt. Let's go to Beryl's Bar." Beth said.

"Just cos you like her son Thorn."

"Oh come on, he's a diamond dog."

"A big, buff diamond dog you mean. He's so dreamy." Carmine held her forepaws up to her beak and fluttered her eyes before diving out of the way of Beth's swipe, towards the ground, and the diner.

Beth snorted, squawking as her neck feathers visibly fluffed up, "I'll stop teasing you about Chip if you shut up about Thorn." She landed easily, shaking herself out, before glaring at Carmine.

"No blood from my kill, B. Come on, it's Rabbit Surprise day at Beryl's."

Beth laughed, "It's always Rabbit Surprise day at Beryl's. Every time..."

"Surprise! Is rabbit! Good surprise, yes? Yes?"

"Sure is, Beryl. Smells good!"

"Is good. Pretty birdy like Beryl's rabbit surprise. Beryl happy." Beryl wandered away from the counter, back into the kitchen where she continued making food. Her place was full, much more packed than normal, and normal was crazy enough.

Carmine and Beth took a seat at a window, they wouldn't even have to order. Very few customers did unless they wanted something special. Beryl made plenty from a limited menu, but what she made was good. The diamond dog was a nice older lady. She'd been cooking for ponies, griffons, diamond dogs and even dragons, on request, for years. She had plenty of talent with food, what she didn't have was tact or imagination. Thorn, her son, was a young adult diamond dog. As a second generation Tacksworn diamond dog, one that had actually gone through schooling, he could form whole cohesive sentences. As a bit of a beefcake, even Carmine had to admit that, he still wasn't the intellectual.

"Thorn! Thorn! Stop picking nose and deliver rabbit surprise! Shhh! Don't spoil surprise though!" Beryl shouted from deep in the kitchen.

"No, mama." Thorn said, and he visibly straightened behind the counter. He turned and picked up the trays Beryl had placed ready under the lights with expertise.

"And deliver message! To pretty birdies in booth..." Carmine winced as she could almost hear the old lady counting under her breath, "five!"

"Yes mama."

"No looking at note."

"No, mama."

"And don't slouch, is bad for posture! Ugly grandpups if you slouch!"

"Sorry, mama!" Thorn blushed through his embarrassment. Though everybody heard Beryl shouting at her son almost every time they dined, and invariably laughed it off, he still wished the earth would open up and swallow him. He was a diamond dog, he could make it happen. The only reason he didn't was he knew quite well that Beryl would march out of the kitchen and order the ground to spit him back up, and then proceed to yell at both of them for it.

"Hey Thorn," Beth smiled, fluffing her neck feathers out and raising her crown feathers.

"Hi Bethanie. You look pretty today! I mean, uh, you look always pretty! I mean, uh."

"Hey Thorn. Close your beak, Beth. Thorn? Thorn! Note?"

"Yeah, Mama gave me this note for you." Thorn dropped it on the table and then sat next to Bethanie.

Carmine rolled her eyes as the two began to moon over each other. I hope I'm not like that with Chip. Not that I would be of course, dumb pony. Instead, she unrolled the note. She peered at it, blinking. The note was short, very short. It read, simply, 'trouble, four o'clock'. Carmine looked up at the clock on the wall, powered by a very small thaumatic battery tube that fizzled and spat occasionally. It was already half five, what was that dumb dog on about- suddenly, Carmine twigged. Full house, busy, exceptionally so, even for a fair-month. Behind her. Carmine sniffed the note, sure enough it was made from rice paper. She stuffed it in her beak, chewed, and swallowed. Rice-paper wrapped desert possum was a speciality of Beryls when she was done with the days allotment of surprises, and the odd candied timberwolf brain was a real delicacy. Sweet, sticky, and sitting in a case you didn't have to pull off - which was a good thing, candied brain was impossible to get out of the feathers- darn it, Carmine, she thought to herself, get a grip, get up and see what the daft old biddy wants you to.

Carmine got up, as if she'd had enough of moon-beak and puppy-eyes - which was true enough, she had - and went to get a drink. She heaved her forepaws up on the counter and savaged her drink of water. She peered over her shoulder at Thorn and Beth, and serruptitiously at the booth behind them. Diamond dogs, four of them. At least two had strange brand-like markings on their shoulders, dimly visible under their fur. Markings like those were reserved for certain more-feral packs that didn't usually come bother a town like Tacksworn. Not enough property to worth protecting in a racket, not enough gems left to haul up from any mines, not enough excitement even with the railway. These diamond dogs were strangers, not settlers. Of course, Beryl would know her diamond dogs. Carmine's heart jumped. Trouble. She was a predator, through and through. One predator knows another, and right now she knew that four of them were sitting in a booth in the diner and pretending to eat Rabbit Surprise.

"So, Beryl, ya say your surprise ain't ready for us? When did you start making it?" Oh please oh please oh please...

"Surprise? Rabbit Surprise is- ah! Beryl is joking, haha, you caught Beryl. Was making special surprise for you and... friend. Yes. No, surprise was... started two days ago and is not ready yet. You go tell your friend," the old diamond dog said, waddling out of the kitchen with a bowl of snacks on sticks, "surprise not ready yet, yes?"

"Yes. The food was delicious, Beryl, ma'am."

"Have snack, for trip." The diamond dog handed over something animal-shaped on a skewer.

"Thanks." Carmine said, pecking at it, "I gotta run. Thorn and B are cool here though, right? I'll pay my tab later."

"Miss C, you and your father are good to Beryl, like... daughter I never have."

"I think Beth is setting to be your new daughter, Miss B."

"Thorn like her, he good boy. You think it work?"

Carmine squawk-coughed, laughing, "Probably not."

Beryl bark-laughed softly, "He good boy though, Beryl let him find out own way."

Carmine stalked out and took off, laughing to herself. Carmine the match-maker. Kind of. There was only one place she could go now, but she'd have to take it easy, circle the town a bit first, then strike out for the peak.

She didn't know what was up, but if Sharptooth didn't already know, she'd just been picked to tell him.

Oblivious, the four strange diamond dogs pecked at their food and ate, whilst Thorn and Beth pecked at each other.

♦♦♦

Chip lay in the oversized bed. He'd made out he was tired, had duly been sent to bed and had prepared for sleep. It would soon be time to put plan escape-during-the-night-so-Pyrite-doesn't-know into action. The plan was good. The title... not so much. There it was, the snick of the lock.

Chip sat up in bed, silently hoping. There was an odd scraping noise, and then silence. Chip counted to one hundred under his breath, and then rolled silently out of bed. Walking ever so slowly to the door, he spotted the piece of paper, with a key on it, and a note: Don't get caught.

Chip grinned. Caught? He was a ninja, silent like the wind, fast like the arrow, smart like... a very smart thing. He picked up his bit-bag and slung it over his neck, wriggling until it fitted snugly, and carefully pulled on the bolas, using his teeth and knees to tighten the clasps and straps. They would be loud if he swung them at something, but they were also noticeable enough by sight alone, from the box, and formed the sneaky part of his ensemble. Laughing at that thought, he gingerly put the key in the lock and turned it. He winced as the mechanism turned with what seemed to him to be a loud grinding noise now that the house was silent, but nopony stirred. He swung the door open, sneaked out, pulled it closed and locked it again. It wouldn't do for Pyrite or somepony the stallion sent to check up on him the find the door open, should they check. They probably wouldn't actually go into his room, would they? Chip entertained the thought for a moment, then shook his head. Naa, Pyrite was alright. Weird, but alright. As if his uncle would want to hurt him, he probably had his reasons for keeping Chip locked in. It was a big city, after all. Pyrite just didn't know he was a dragon and could take care of himself.

The house was dark, his hoofsteps fell muffled and silent on the thick carpet as he eased his way along the upper landing, down the stairs (avoid the fifth step from the top, it squeaks) along the hallway (pull the door open, push handle upwards, downwards it squeaks) and into a study. There was his prize, one of the only rooms without bars on the windows. Why, he had no idea. He eased the window up and clambered onto the desk to turn around and ease his hindquarters outside. From the outside, it would be a bit difficult to get back in, but Chip was nothing if not adventurous, he was sure there'd be something he could move to climb onto. He fell onto the cold, wet grass and rolled over.

He was outside. He'd done it. The elation was only momentary, he still had to get off the grounds. He trotted towards the gates, lifted the latch and eased himself through out into the night.

♦♦♦