Lightning Rod

by SilverNotes

Cirrus

The zebra mare strolled into her home in Silver Shoals, and the tension of the outside world rolled off her like a wave. As well as she'd taken to retirement, she still couldn't help but be on guard whenever she left her front door, and so she only ever fully relaxed once she stepped in, locked that door, and settled onto her couch.

She limped over to the couch in question, hauled herself up with an ungraceful grunt, took the extra effort to pull her bad leg up with her, and then sank into the dark red fabric with a sigh. There was a stack of letters on the coffee table, and she leaned down to seize the first one in her teeth.

This town had become a popular retirement location for many Equestrians, but few knew the fact that most of those who came here had served their country in some way. Retired guards, adventurers, magi, and spies made the coastal town home, and it was the final category that the mare on her couch occupied.

Covert ops had taken their toll on Kisu. She could feel it in every bone, every joint, every old scar, and she could see it every time she looked into her own eyes in the mirror. The Crown had sent her across the globe, needing her eyes, ears, and knives. She saw so much of herself in her neighbours, in the other creatures who had given all they could to Equestria, until what was left of them needed to stop and live for themselves instead of the nation.

Some of the others here wanted to still be out there, the fire in their soul burning bright with vigor that aging bodies no longer could back up. Others were just... tired. Service had hollowed them out and they were still in the process of healing the wound. She could see the fatigue in ones like old Grigori, the hulking griffon with his chipped beak, missing eye, and mangled talons. He, like too many, had had a sense of aimlessness to him without a duty to perform, though she could see the spark coming back to him whenever he joined her for cards.

He'd told her once that she'd had "the eyes of the griffon." He'd laughed off the accusation of flirting she'd retorted with, but he'd still taken her invitation to join her for dinner at the local omnivorous restaurant. It'd been one of the best dinners out she'd ever had, though given how many of those she'd had to fight her way out of before she'd even finished her meal, it wasn't as high a bar as it sounded.

Envelopes were opened, contents skimmed, and set aside. Much of it was junk, one was Good Stablekeeping reminding her to renew her subscription, and a couple of them were letters from old friends.

She smiled as she looked at the one from Night Light. He'd included new pictures of his grandfoal, and her heart warmed at the sight of the alicorn filly. She would need to take the trip out to the Empire when Flurry Heart's birthday came around and finally properly meet her. She was supposedly a hooffull of a foal, but she couldn't be much worse than Twilight Sparkle had been; Kisu could still remember being there for the little unicorn's wild magic phase and needing to climb a tree to retrieve her after she'd teleported into it.

Kisu had started to shift her weight, intending to haul herself off the couch again to fetch her photo album, when a familiar warp of magic made her freeze. Her home was warded, and only a few creatures could freely cast their magic within, so she didn't have to guess who the scroll that materialized in the air before her had come from, even before she spotted the royal seal.

Kisu let the scroll fall to the couch, and took a breath to steel herself. Someday, she'd see correspondence from the palace and not need to brace herself for trouble.

Today would not be that day.

---

"I appreciate you heeding my call so quickly, Kisu."

It was a scene that she had grown accustomed to, entering through the giant doors and approaching the throne. And yet, so many things were different. She saw no familiar faces among the set of Solar guards, there were new stained glass windows and tapestries depicting history that had been made in all-too-recent years, and most starkly, there were two thrones now, though the moon-decorated one was unoccupied, its owner presumably having gone to bed after the sun had risen for the day.

Kisu had met Princess Luna in the flesh exactly once, when she'd still been in the process of regaining her full power. In her dreams, there had been several more meetings, on the nights when Kisu kicked in her sleep at enemies long dead and needed help to remember that the battles were over.

Now wasn't the time for reminiscing, however. She glanced at the guards--had they always been recruited so young?--then gazed up on the sun-emblazoned throne and cocked her head to one side with a chuckle. "As well you should, Your Highness. I'm going to miss today's bingo game."

Princess Celestia gave her a wry smile back. "That may be for the best. After all, now someone else may be able to win."

Kisu snorted. "Exactly. I'll have some new upstart to crush when I get back." She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the twinge in one of her ribs, where it had long ago been broken. "Now, what is it I can do for you?"

The next part was something she was accustomed to as well, the princess looking to her guards and then gesturing with her wings for them to leave the room. She always saw that moment of hesitation in them before they obeyed, not wanting to leave their monarch--diarch, now that both sisters stood vigil again--alone with a seeming stranger.

Nevermind that she'd been serving Equestria longer than they'd been alive, but none of them knew that. That was the whole point, that if she did her job right, nopony would ever know she'd done anything, and Kisu had been very good at her job.

Had been. To be called now...

The moment they were gone, Celestia sighed deeply. "It's the Thunderstrikes."

No beating around the bush today. "It comes back to those powermongers far too often." She shook her head. "What have they done this time?"

"It's not so much what they've done, but what they may be preparing to do." Celestia's mouth set in a grim line. "A new Storm King came into power several months ago. One sympathetic to their cause. And there's already talk that he's consorting with cloud demons, among other troubling things."

It was everything they'd feared, every time she'd clashed with the power-hungry agents. What had always kept them from being a worse threat was a lack of support from their monarchy. Unfortunately, the Storm Kingdom didn't have the luxury of an eternal benevolent monarch, and when the current one died and a new election came around, there had always been a chance that the one who ultimately took the crown would be the one who would elevate them.

Every emotion Kisu was feeling, every bit of fear, dread, and rage, emerged in three words. "Well buck me."

"It gets worse." Magic gleaming with sunlight picked up papers from a stack near the throne, and Celestia started to flip through them. Reports from her active agents, no doubt. "An army is being gathered, with rumours that the Storm Kingdom is planning to declare war on Abyssinia." She set the papers down again. "But rumours is all I have. Which is why I need you to travel there and become a new set of eyes and ears for me... and make some friends."

It was a world gone mad, and yet, some things didn't change. Kisu couldn't help the sardonic smile. "If you want friendly, you may be better off with Savannah or Impisi."

Celestia shook her head. "Savannah is adept at endearing themself to others, but they also have a tendency to draw attention to themself. Unless they want to constantly reek of fur dye, they will stick out even more than an abada would already. While zebras are not common there, you are still comparatively... nondescript."

Kisu's smile didn't waver. "You're a bit like a mother to me, Celly, so I'm going to assume that you didn't mean to say that zebras all look alike."

Her eyes widened. "That's--!" She snorted and gave Kisu a glare, but there was no true sharpness in her eyes. "You know what I meant."

She did. Kisu was an average height, build, and facial features. Painfully average. Not particularly attractive or unattractive, able to draw attention or blend in depending on how she dressed or held herself. Her two distinguishing characteristics were her golden eyes and her knife-shaped mark, and there were ways to obscure one or both if needed.

Well, three distinguishing features now, she supposed. And a limp was a lot harder to hide. Still, she'd always been perfect for espionage, far better than a neon yellow abada who spoke at a mile a minute was.

Celestia rolled her eyes slightly before she continued on. "And as for Impisi, I need her in Trottingham. She's been invaluable."

Kisu snorted a little. "I'll bet. Even if it weren't safest for her to come to Equestria, you would've still paid her way to have a crocotta at hoof."

"I can't deny that having someone with a talent for counter-magic close by hasn't been a silver lining of her network in Farasi collapsing, as tragic as it was for her to find out she'd misplaced some of her trust." The wide barrel expanded with a deep breath, that turned into an even deeper sigh. "But even if I could spare her, she's not combat trained to the same degree you are, and neither is Savannah. If the situation goes south, you have a better chance of getting out."

There it was. The reminder that Celestia needed to ask other creatures to put their life on the line every day, but that she always wanted to give them the best chance to come home again. Silver Shoals was full of those who'd served because she'd tried to make the calls that allowed them to reach retirement in the first place. "Glad to hear that you still have confidence in me, even when I'm an old mare."

Celestia gave a sad sort of laugh. "Speaking as the oldest mare of all, trust me, you're nowhere near past your prime." That was when she moved, getting off of her throne and walking toward her. "While the Crown does have the right to press citizens into service when the situation is dire enough... I would rather not. And you indeed are no longer an agent, but solely a citizen. And so..."

It was so long ago when they'd first met. When Kisu had been a young mare, snooping around where she shouldn't, and had found out too much. The ageless titan of an alicorn had lowered herself to the floor, laid next to her and spoken soothingly to her until the trembling and tears had stopped. She'd taken the potential in the young zebra, and had molded her into what she'd needed: a terrifyingly efficient agent who fully understood what was at stake.

Today, Celestia lowered herself down again. She hadn't aged a day, she never would, and she laid her head across Kisu's withers just like she had that night. "...I am not ordering you, but asking you: Will you do this for me? For Equestria, and beyond?"

You asked then, too. Asked me if I would use what I'd learned for good.

I've learned some things about you, oldest mare. You don't ask unless you know the answer.

You also wouldn't ask if you thought I didn't have a shot at coming home.

I get to go back into retirement when this is done. But you can never stop, can you? Your duty is to the sun, and you'll never put it down.

Kisu breathed a soft laugh. "As if you need to ask. If you need me, then I'll give it one last rodeo."

"Thank you, Kisu." The great head lifted, and looked to the hanging tapestries. "And of course, you won't be traveling alone."

The new tapestries, ones depicting events that Kisu hadn't recognized, caught fire, green flames devouring the fabric as Celestia got to her hooves again. The sight initially made her tense, falling into a combat stance with something deep as instinct, until she remembered what that shade of flame meant.

Where the art pieces had been, soon stood three iridescent figures, one green-blue, one orange-red, and one purple-black. All three walked toward the alicorn and zebra together, hoofsteps in perfect sync, stood at attention, and looked at them shining compound eyes.

Kisu looked at each at turn, and a grin pulled at her lips. "Ah, I'd wondered if you'd take advantage of our new alliance to employ a few changelings."

"There are risks alongside the benefits," Celestia admitted. "For one, wards and other spells can disrupt their disguises, and with their existence more widely known, the countermeasures are more common than they used to be. But they indeed have their advantages." She nodded at the trio. "Meet Damselfly, Ladybird, and Beetle. They'll be able to assist in your cover, but it's still best if you are the one spearheading the mission."

Kisu nodded absently. This was the first time she'd been so close to a changeling, post-reform. They were shinier than she'd expected. "So it's get in, establish myself, and then start sending home all the information I can?"

"As well as seeing if you can steer anyone away from a destructive path. Not all of the Storm Kingdom are like the Thunderstrikes. Plenty of ordinary citizens may be serving their new king due to fear, desperation, or propaganda." Celestia nodded at her three changeling agents again, and Kisu couldn't help but see her point; the creatures before her had no doubt been victims of all three beneath the rule of the changelings' previous regime. "As I said... see what friends you can make, and see if you can help them."

"Espionage and sabotage?" Kisu whistled. "You never did give me the easy jobs." She nodded. "Alright, then, what sort of cover am I going to be working under?"

Flashes of green fire consumed the changelings again, and they were replaced with a trio of zebras. One was a bit taller, another a bit stouter, but otherwise they were very average. They had that look to them that made it hard to pinpoint their age, easily able to pass as anything from late adolescence to around as old as Shining Armour, and their stripe patterns were all similar in size, distribution, and colour, while still having enough variance that they didn't look like obvious copies of one another.

The tallest of them, who used to be the red changeling, tilted her head and grinned in amusement. "Congratulations, Miss Kisu. You're a mother."

It was then she realized each of them had her eyes.

"I have an existing agent in the Kingdom, who'll be posing as a relative of yours," Celestia explained. "You'll be newly widowed and coming to stay with him, alongside your three children."

Kisu examined each of the changelings again, hunting for any kind of flaw, and finding three zebras who could easily pass as her flesh and blood. The taller had stripes that were a little browner than Kisu's stark black, the stouter one had slightly more robust facial features, small things that would be attributed to her conveniently-late husband. Any one of them, so long as they knew how to hold themselves right, would blend into a crowd flawlessly.

Seeing them like this, she could see how they hid amongst other species for centuries without notice. Kisu finished her examination, looking from the changelings to Celestia, and smiled.

"I can work with this."

---

Below the scorching sun, the mare walked.

Her cloak kept the sun from burning her, thin material of a fabric that repelled heat without the need of a single drop of magic. She needed things that worked without magic, because to try to use her own to recharge spells was too much of a risk. She hadn't been able to perform proper magic in years, and to try to enchant her cloak would likely see it damaged beyond repair.

She was barely a mare, walking on long legs from a final adolescent growth spurt that hadn't been long ago. Her hooves were unshod, and her hoofprints in the sand were swiftly blown away by the desert wind. She would pause, frequently, looking from the position of the sun to her map, and then continue on once she was certain she was still going in the right direction.

A dark shadow passed overhead, and she looked up, allowing her hood to fall back. The roc was starting to circle, and she stood still, eyes following the movement. She saw talons poise themselves, the great bird angling into a descent, and she sighed, before taking a deep breath.

Power crackled and arced, raw magic exploding out without form and only the barest sense of direction. The cry of shock and smell of singed feathers told her that it'd still hit the mark, and she smirked to herself as the roc flew off in search of easier prey.

The satisfaction was short-lived, however, and with another glance at her map, the hood went up again, obscuring broken horn and scarred face alike. The desert was harsh, and her destination may prove to be even harsher, but it was where she needed to be.

In the place where all storms came to rest, she would finally find what she sought.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

She was supposedly a hooffull of a foal, but she couldn't be much worse than Twilight Sparkle had been

Okay, I need a story where an infant Twilight has half of Equestria's espionage corps scrambling to keep up with her.

And there's already talk that he's consorting with cloud demons, among other troubling things.

We never did get a good explanation for what Strife was, did we?

When Kisu had been a young mare, snooping around where she shouldn't, and had found out too much.

That raises some intriguing questions...

Your duty is to the sun, and you'll never put it down.

If only she knew... though given that this is an AU, I suppose we have no guarantee of Celestia's long-term goals.

Ooh, Tempest. A very important friend to make indeed. Eagerly looking forward to seeing where this leads.

[new55]

That was a good first chapter goodluck with the rest of the story.

[redmar]

I like the callbacks to the previous story and how Tempest Shadow was introduced.