5. Diplomacy
Like Zorn’s room, I found the library without needing to ask; in fact, my partner was still within earshot by the time I located it, so close was it to the foyer. It sat adjacent to the manor’s boiler room, whose hardworking machinery filled the library with a constant yet meditative hissssss at low frequency.
Once inside the library, my search for language materials also met with immediate success; a clustering of bilingual dictionaries were to be found in the technical reference section, which spanned a two-sided shelf near the back of the library. I was feeling lucky today.
Alas, my search specifically for translation materials out of Zebrish ended in disappointment. Old Ponish, Traditional Mandeerin, Dragalog, Seaquestrian, Griffonic, even well-worn manuals on some godforsaken dead language called Prench. And yet, nothing on our foreign-born chemist’s native tongue. Or, at least, nothing that remained: There was more than ample space on the shelves accommodating the language books, compared to the rest of the library’s snugly packed arrangements.
Has someone already checked most of these books out? Did Zorn himself take such a paranoid precaution?
It was at that moment the library door opened, and I heard footsteps tread gently on the carpet. Barely audible at first, they grew louder with each step—they were making their way straight toward me.
Preparing for the worst-case scenario was second nature to me. This could be an ambush.
I couldn’t escape, trapped as I was in an isolated corner. I could only adopt a solid stance, clutch the syringe inside my trench coat (if the serum was a placebo, the large-gauge needle most certainly was not), and wait.
As reality would have it, the footsteps did not home in on me, but instead on the aisle directly adjacent to mine. I heard as a book was pulled from the opposite side of the shelf, and the fluttering of its pages. If this isn’t a changeling, then is this Zorn, coming to make sure he’d cleaned up? No, that wouldn’t make sense… And indeed, an idle cough soon informed me it was none other than Gloria.
My shoulders relaxed, and I released my grip on the syringe. I would feel comfortable announcing my presence—my current mission having failed, it was convenient timing for me to interview her, anyway. I walked over to her aisle, but she was engrossed in her selection from the bookcase. While holding my badge aloft, I rapped my hoof on the shelf to grab her attention.
The book in her claws slammed shut, and she turned to me with a shudder and a screech. “My goodness, Detective, you startled me!”
My ears were ringing. “My apologies. I would like to know if you had time for an interview, Gloria.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, her ruffled wings settling back to her sides. She gave a wide smile, then blushed. “I do hate for that to be your first proper impression of me, Detective! It’s quite unbecoming.”
“It’s no matter. I believe we’re all wired the same when it comes to our instincts—even royalty.”
“Actually, I see myself as a diplomat first and foremost,” she corrected. She walked on over to me. “Shall we sit?”
She pointed my attention to a reading table near the entrance and led me to it, and in her politeness, pulled up a spare chair for me. I forgot to thank her for the gesture; I was too focused on the book which she had not returned to the shelf, but instead held semi-concealed underneath the crook of her wing. Her wings appeared to strain to hold the book in place—unnatural body language, to be sure. I kept my eyes on the book as she spoke:
“It appears you have already heard of my station, so allow me to formally introduce myself,” she began. “I am Her Royal Highness Princess Gloria the Third, daughter of Duke Grayson and Duchess Gloria the Second, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Kralle-Karom.”
She delivered her title with regal grandiloquence. I had not heard of this Kralle-Karom before, but this was not necessarily surprising, given the endlessly shifting feudal borders of Griffonstone. Something to verify later.
“But you can forget all that,” she said, now warm and casual. “If I had wanted to play princess, I would’ve stayed in Griffonstone. So, feel free to drop the honorifics and just call me Gloria!”
She shifted her shoulders very deliberately, burrowing the book more deeply into the pit of her wing. Closer to full concealment, but not quite. This was the time to pry, while it still remained visible. “Been doing some light reading then, Gloria?”
“Oh yes, more than light: A diplomat’s studies are never-ending!”
To my surprise, she willingly relinquished the book from underneath her wing, and tossed it on the table in front of me. An old-looking volume with an artistic cover, it appeared to be a historical anthology of Saddle Arabian poetry.
I feigned interest for the moment, pretending to peruse, when in fact I was scanning the pages for anything at all suspect. If my hunches have any basis in reality, I told myself, there is definitely something here. And yet, nothing caught my eye. Absolutely nothing at all. I even doubled back, but to no success. (Un)satisfied, I pushed the book back to her.
“Interesting,” I said, in a contrived tone of voice. “Nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose, for a dignitary-to-be to want to familiarize herself with the world’s cultures.”
“Oh not one bit! Bridging the cultural gap helps immensely with understanding foreign politics, I find.”
“Though frankly, I have to admire your wherewithal to be reading poetry at a time like this,” I said with a drip of venom.
Immediately I regretted the effect. I saw nothing but honest offense from Gloria as she awkwardly held a claw up to her beak. In her posture, a new hesitancy to express herself to me was born.
I chided myself—I was off my game, and I had misread griffon body language with the book. I couldn’t let my frustration get the better of me, however.
“I’m sorry, that came out poorly,” I attempted to recover. “All I meant to say was, I can tell you’re a griffon who’s cool in a crisis. I wish more people I interviewed could be like that.”
“Hm, I see what you mean,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve had the chance to interrogate my cousin yet, have you?”
“Interrogate? Don’t be mistaken, Gloria, we haven’t found the need to interrogate anyone at this point!” I assured her. “But no, we haven’t gotten around to interviewing Girard just yet.”
“Right.” She stalled momentarily, clutching a pendant around her neck. “It’s just, I don’t suppose there are any pressing questions you have for him, which I myself couldn’t answer on his behalf?”
I held back a sigh. A protective attitude. A common obstacle in interrogation, and one I specifically saw coming with this pair. Worse, I wasn’t postured to play hardball with her. “We have no specific questions for him at this time. Nonetheless, either I or my partner would appreciate an opportunity to speak with him.”
“Face-to-face, and one-on-one, I assume?”
“If at all possible.”
She shifted in her seat. “I understand. It would only be your due diligence as an investigator, wouldn’t it? I hold nothing against you for your techniques in assisting us. It’s just, how to phrase this… perhaps he isn’t so cool in a crisis, as you may have already noticed.”
She looked into the distance, somewhere behind my head and beyond the confines of the library.
“It’s not that his heart isn’t in the right place, or even that he’s not brave: Despite, well, repeated attempts from our family to dissuade him, he’s stuck by my side, remaining convinced of our shared belief that royal status means less than nothing, in the end. Not unless you’re willing to leverage it to help remedy the world’s problems.”
Family pressures. Grid might have been onto something after all. “And how would you say you and your family get along these days?”
“Hm, not as well as I might like. My father and other members of our family used to travel to see me and my cousin all the time, to wish us well in our studies, and to meet our friends. Now it’s only once in a blue moon, to scorn us for our plans after graduation. We’ve seen and learned so much of the world, and we could never go back to sitting on our wings in Griffonstone…” She closed her eyes, and held her claws over her heart.
I had no evidence at this point to suspect her or her brother of having been replaced. But, the threat had to be thoroughly considered: Their status rendered them prime targets, and potentially easy ones, too. “Have you or your cousin undertaken any sort of diplomatic missions, lately? That is, in the weeks or months before your vacation here.”
“Oh no!” she answered readily. “We’re still just students, after all. In any official capacity, we’ve only ever been charged with handling affairs by scrolls and correspondence. But I would very much like to start traveling abroad, just as soon as we graduate and can be taken seriously as negotiators.”
“Naturally. When you do graduate, where do you hope to go first? Which international issues speak to you?”
“My station lends itself well, of course, to easing up trade and immigration restrictions between pony and griffon territories. And call me a fool on an errand, but I look forward to cutting my beak on furthering peace in the Middle East, as well.” She thumped the poetry book for effect. Then she leaned in, and with a coy smile, taunted, “But something tells me, Detective, that you don’t care about my attitudes toward either of those countries.”
“Oh? Am I so transparent?”
She sat back down. “Not particularly, no. But in my vocation, I would be remiss not to know how to read between the lines in a conversation. My opinion vis-à-vis the changeling nation, you want to know. If I’m likely to be sympathetic, or otherwise influenced or bribed, by one on a mission. I don’t know which answer would have me look the least suspicious in your eyes, so I’ll simply tell you the truth: I would think it ideal if all creatures could live in harmony with one another. Alas, realistically speaking—it will never happen with changelings.”
“Not even by a fool on an errand, you don’t think?”
“Apt contention. But the Saddle Arabian quagmire is one caused by misunderstandings and clashing cultural values, ultimately. These things can be fixed over time. The changelings’ nonnegotiable hostility to the world, on the other claw, is one all but necessitated by their biology, I fear.”
“That’s quite a dour outlook. Although, not an altogether uncommon or unreasonable one, I would say.”
“These are only my honest impressions, without the political correctness. Changelings are incapable of planning for themselves, without deferring ultimately to a changeling queen, a leader, a dictator—that’s the way their society works, and they don’t complain. They lose all semblance of self-control in their gluttony for love—that’s the way their bodies work, and the queen knows this better than any of them.”
Altogether, this perspective was reminiscent of the one that Bluebird had encountered from Blanche regarding the changelings. But I wasn’t entirely sure if it was the same sort of disgust, or if it really came from the same place.
Profitably, I shifted back: “You’ll understand, then, why we are handling this incident as seriously as we are. And why, as sensitive as we can be regarding your cousin, we should not cut corners in interviewing him. For the safety of you both.”
She nodded reluctantly. “I understand. His physical well-being is of course my highest priority. And believe me”—she protruded razor-sharp claws below a razor-sharp glare—“I would be in no fit state for reading poetry if there was the slightest possibility in my mind that a changeling had gotten to him.”
“Oh? But you can’t really be certain about that, can you?” I tested.
“I can be. It is impossible to me that he isn’t the real Girard,” she said, claws retracting. “And I don’t say this for reasons that I’m sure a strict professional such as yourself would find trite and tiresome, such as ‘I know him!’ or `he just couldn’t be!’ No, I have an alibi for him, and he for me. This morning, my cousin and I were playing a game of draughts in our room.”
“I see. I’ll be sure to confirm this with your cousin. What was the timeframe of this game?”
“That’s the first complication, I’m afraid,” she said, shaking her head. “Girard doesn’t remember the exact times, and neither do I. But I know it overlaps entirely with the time Blanche could’ve been out: I noticed she was busy writing in her room, when I first made my way to my and Girard’s room for our game. We played all the way until Blanche summoned us and apprised us of the situation.”
An alibi with a mutual witness was a good start. But, I liked to stick to a rule of multiple, unrelated witnesses before I accepted an alibi without contest. There was a certain kind of “one-two punch” I liked to employ in situations like this one:
“Blanche said she was out for an hour and a half, from nine to ten thirty. To me, that’s an awfully long time for a single game of checkers…”
Doubt planted, I would now tempt her to “improve” her story, and cross-reference later with Girard. It was a tried and true strategy, in the presence of collusion.
“… Are you sure you didn’t play multiple games, for instance?” I tempted.
“Not mere checkers, Detective, but draughts. Specifically, Griffonstone draughts,” she said. “It’s a fabulously cunning game, much more comprehensive an experience than the checkers that ponies are accustomed to. It’s modeled after ancient griffon warfare, you see. In the hazardous, misty cliffs of our homeland, that meant constant planning, risk-taking, and deception. The best-laid plans can go awry at any moment. I bet a serious, analytical type like yourself would adore it!”
No trap was sprung. As it stood, hers was a consistent and coherent alibi. “You’ll have to teach me how to play sometime.”
“I would love to. Anyway,” she said, withdrawing her enthusiasm, “I understand this isn’t a fully satisfactory alibi for you.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I’m still a suspect, aren’t I?” she reasoned cheerily. “Girard will tell you the game happened, sure, but if I were a changeling, I could be lying about having seen Blanche in her room beforehand—about the timeframe, in other words.”
“And taken that time to place the wing fragment,” I completed.
“Exactly, you already see the problem. But I hope the information is still useful to you, somehow.”
I put my hoof to my chin, contemplating. The way to make sound deductions in the presence of unreliable data was to adopt only the implications that were shared across all possible scenarios. In this case, that meant—
“Just one more thing, Detective,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. “Again, I don’t know what it means or how useful this will be to you. And I’m even more hesitant to say this one aloud, since this concerns the behavior of someone else.”
“We’ll take it for what it is, Gloria, and nothing more. Don’t worry.”
“Right. It’s just, it’s about Zorn, in the end. Have you talked with him? Has he mentioned anything about me?”
No was the immediate answer that came to mind. “It would not be proper for me to say one way or another.”
“Of course, you’re right. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t, even if it’s clearly bothering him. He’s a very aloof personality, and I love that about him, but it’s sort of the problem at claw here,” she segued. “I can tell when someone bears something against me. I can tell when someone is suspicious of me. I can react accordingly, diplomatically, trying to apologize for whatever misunderstanding they might have. But I just can’t do that with Zorn when he won’t say the problem to my face.”
“So you mean to say, Zorn has been acting coldly toward you?”
“Yes. And only recently, since about the start of our vacation.”
“Does this extend to your cousin, then, as well?”
“Not as best I can tell, no. And I’m not the only one to think as much—Grid agrees it’s strange, that he appears to be singling me out. I relish the chance to play draughts with him, for example, but he seems to have all but given up on playing with me.” She gave a despondent look down at her claws, continuing, “Anyway, I won’t waste any more of your time with our interpersonal asides. Do you have any more questions for me?”
“That will be all for now, Gloria. Thank you for your time.”
She bade me goodbye, picked her book up from off the table, and alighted from her seat. After politely pushing in her chair, she then walked past me and out of the door, leaving me to my original privacy in the library…
Not a moment later, it struck like lightning.
My memory sounded the alarm, and my mind now rushed to confirm it.
Almost of their own accord, my body jolted up from the table. My hooves carried me back to my corner of the library, and my eyes scanned the scene.
It was undeniable: I had been had.
Both sides of the shelf I had been scouring for translation materials were stocked with technical reference manuals—I double-checked. And Gloria had been consulting a book on the other side of that shelf—my ears were not mistaken.
Right where I had initially spotted her, on the shelf there sat an empty spot amidst miscellaneous manuals on various technical trades. Welding, dentistry, typesetting, accounting. An unpredictable pattern that would’ve nonetheless left a Saddle Arabian poetry book feeling very out of place.
And on the adjacent shelf, some distance away (perhaps exactly where she had distracted my attention in inviting me to sit), there I found them: Sonnets of Withersby and Rhymes of the Jungle, and in between them a conspicuous gap.
Two books. One of them hidden on her person during the entire conversation. I cursed under my breath for not even having considered it. I had no idea what could have possibly been so important about the book she’d kept hidden, but the insidious manner in which she had smuggled it past me told me it had to be damning. And all this according to what could only have been an entirely improvised plan, born in the very moment I’d walked in on her.
If Zorn’s withholding bothered me to no end, then Gloria’s lying and making a fool of me was strictly enraging.
I galloped out of the library and after Gloria—she couldn’t have been far. I had to strike while the iron was hot, before this book disappeared forever. I arrived in the foyer, and there she was, perched on the divan, book between her claws, prim and proper and perfectly pompous. My pounding hoofsteps alerted her to me.
“Where’s the book, Princess?” I demanded midstride. “And don’t you dare say—”
“—this book?” she suggested in confusion, holding up her reading material. Poetry. Her wings unfolded, clearly emptied of whatever contents they’d once held.
I didn’t know if I imagined it, that smirk at the corner of her beak. What I did know, was that I had never seriously considered laying a hoof on a minor up until that moment.
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
1,000 users online
1,708,265 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Ooh, nice pun with "Dragalog." Never seen that particular play on words before.
An interesting thing for a horse to tell a cat-bird.
I do love the ongoing theme of dramatic irony. But then, Thorax is a very notable anomaly.
Hmm. Very suspicious behavior from Gloria... but it could be for innocent reasons. Or at least reasons unrelated to the ongoing investigation. Still, best to keep an eye on her...
Indeed! More politicians in our world ought to do it themselves.
Well...for now, perhaps.
A pity, then, that Chrysalis isn't an especially capable planner either.
The conspiracy deepens, then. Interestingly, none of it seems so much to protect themselves individually but rather one another. This makes me wonder all the more if most, if not all, are in on this scheme to protect (though whether or not said scheme to protect is because specifically of the changeling or because of some other, unrelated, matter that is just happening to come to light at the same time, remains to be seen--I fully expect our detective duo will accidentally uncover some other secret of this lot's that they hadn't wanted to come to light in all of this regardless, since the door for that happening too is wide, wide, open).
I've also been wondering if no one's actually been replaced at all, and the changeling (if it exists--I haven't ruled out it being a red herring altogether so to cover up some other matter) is some separate individual that is trying to hide here in this mansion, and one or more of the group is simply assisting it in secret for whatever reason, fearing the others would not understand their reasons.
If not that, though, then I suspect that whoever has been replaced, it happened quite some time ago. We may even be looking at an "X was always a changeling" sort of scenario here.
This chapter makes it appear as if the Griffin here is actually the changeling and making a very convincing case to mislead the detective. It also implies that Zorn discovered her to be the changeling in his earlier experiment and that's why he's acting so cold towards her. Still, I'm not going to make that my official prediction. I'm actually seriously considering the idea that there may be more than one changeling amongst this group.
I'm happy to see so many readers expounding on their theories in such depth! Suffice to say, I hope to reward that depth; I've worked hard to leave the right little clues, and I'll be ashamed if there are any plot holes left after so long a writing and editing process.
In fact, I would say a very eagle-eyed and genre-savvy reader could piece everything together from just these first few chapters. There are a couple of clues and lines whose relevance would stand out very differently on a second reading. There was one clue in particular that I was very afraid to leave in, in fact, given the close reading and analysis so far. Thankfully, no one seems to have picked up on it :)
An easter egg not really related to the mystery: Anyone who can explain the relevance of Zorn's chapter title gets a gold star. There are at least three aspects to it, I'd say.
Also: There will be 26 chapters. Remember this.
11232730
I'm hoping it was that last one and they themselves might not have known before unexpectedly and accidentally demorphing.
So there IS a changeling kingdom, then! I suppose it would make sense that some information about them would be more openly available, then. And this would be where Blanche got hers from. Through I can't say I'm convinced by the rather... uniform portrayal of them that's been done by both Blanche and Gloria. Only Zorn seems to consider so far that the "replacement" or infiltration might have happened from before they even all met each other.
Oh, and I have to echo the sentiment of other people in the comments; that changeling's probably not working alone. Either there are several of them, or they have at least one "associate" in the group.
11233064
You monster! Now I'll have to go back and read it from the top again
See? Shooting them all and letting Celestia sort em out is looking like the ONLY logical solution, isn't it?
MY MADNESS IS NEVER WRONG!!
For this, it's Chapters 4 and 5.
It does remain to be seen whether Blanche's chosen memory of Bon is true, but that's that, other than with Bon playing the piano in front of an esteemed audience and then faltering being something that happens both in the memory and in the first chapter. If Blanche were the changeling, that's some really nice improvisation, making a memory out of Bon's little mistake and just filling in the details knowing Bon's high-born childhood... and if Bon were the changeling, well, I'll just have to wait and see Bon once more.
Girard doesn't get much time in the spotlight for either chapter, but what's said about him (by two different suspects, no less) does match up. Considering Gloria's defense of Girard (and well, I would like to see a game of Griffonstone draughts; it has to be at least as interesting and complex as chess to live up to just half the description she's giving it), there's the assumption that there is only one changeling, she herself wouldn't know if Girard was a changeling, given Blanche's assumption that the changeling is a high-ranking bug (and is thus highly skilled). Given Zorn's assumption that the changeling is also belligerent, it would be tragic to see the reveal if Girard was the changeling, and the changeling ends up hurting Gloria...
Okay, that aside, that only makes Gloria more of a suspect, even without the whole suspicious book-swap-maybe thing at the end of Chapter 5. It's of course a common depiction for changelings to stuff themselves in romantic love (and Grid saying that the last part in Girard's conversation was about romance, and then there's "Bon's apparent affection for [Grid]"... I'm calling dibs that this is a distraction), but what about filial love? On that topic, actually, it would be harder to form an alibi if you were one of the siblings in this suspect pool, and that's already four out of six down. Sure, it might be lame to determine the changeling's identity via the path of least resistance, but unless circumstances forced him to or he somehow didn't scout the mansion's residents ahead, why would the changeling disguise himself as someone that has a sibling there to make things complicated? Again, that may be the reward here... filial love is still love; it's still food.
It's an entangled mess for now, but more info is more info.
Blanche cares for Bon, and Gloria cares for Girard. Assuming the changeling is trapped here and is unable to escape until the blizzard passes by, these two go down a notch because, well, they're giving love to someone... which thus raises the suspicion of Bon and Girard. It does leave Grid in a bad position. Grid is now on the end of Bon's advances(?) as well as having Girard talk to him about love. This is not to mention that he doesn't have any family in this house, and apparently, by default, he's had a relatively fine background (with Bon and Blanche presumably facing the pressures of high expectations from high-standing lineage, and Girard and Gloria facing the same; Zorn would've had it the worst, having to leave his homeland behind, only to then find that Equestria just has its own set of problems).
And speaking of Zorn, what did he say? Or, rather, what did he focus on in his speech? One of his focuses was the problem of herd mentality. If Zorn is not a changeling, then of course, he would rather want the investigators to find the truth for themselves... having Zorn say who he's scientifically proven to be the changeling would not only be unwise investigation-wise should it be revealed to the others, it would also whip up many accusations against the target, and all the evidence would now be skewed on proving whether this specific target is the changeling or not.
So what would cause the worst fallout, then? If it's just isolated to Zorn's speech near the end of Chapter 3, it would be Grid the pony, being the changeling discovered by other ponies, who were sent over here by yet other ponies. And given this Chapter 5's bit about diplomacy and the mention of the changeling kingdom (given, as well, the events of the Season 2 finale happening), this would be the most terrible outcome, as it would then necessitate an escalation of action between Equestria and the Changeling Kingdom.
Grid is the least interesting and intriguing character to me, which isn't a bad thing. But noticeably, everyone's talking about either themselves or someone else... except for Grid. If I were a changeling, I'd go out of sight, out of mind, and Grid seems to have it good... but of course, Pesco noticing his holding onto the chair rather tightly is rather off.