A Unicorn Thief in Queen Haven's Court
After a few minutes journey I entered the throne room and took the position of a crowd member to watch proceedings. I knew there'd be a full dress rehearsal later on, but for now it would be interesting to see what Pipp had planned for her performance.
Whilst waiting, I checked everything else was in order. Many members of the household staff were busy shutting curtains to stop light getting in. After all, the environment would be rather different at night, after all. I glanced over to the side, to see a technician stepping into an enclosed space. He glanced back out. "Safety checks!" he called.
"Cables, check!" called a voice.
"Lights, check!" called another.
"Whinch, check!" called a third voice.
"Electrical systems, check!" said a fourth.
"Control surfaces, check!" came the final voice.
There was some brief clicking, and then the lights started to dim. The first technician spoke again. "We are go for launch. Initiating test run."
The backing beat came in as lights began to flicker upwards to reveal Pipp being lowered in. Two dummies had been attached to the other cable rigs in order to simulate both myself and Zipp. It was quite impressive how they'd thought ahead on that one.
It was then, after a short pause, that Pipp began her routine. As she soared through the room, cheerfully floating back and forth as if airborne (which I suppose she technically was) it occurred to me that the number of people required to maintain this charade was quite a lot. I mean, the staff who operated the equipment had to be kept quiet, as did the security forces, who presumably knew the truth. This raised the obvious question- who didn't know what was going on, and could I trust them?
I dismissed the temporary guilt I was feeling as Pipp finished and touched down. "How was that, mom?" she asked, as the lights shifted back to normal.
I applauded. "Marvellous, dear! I have two suggestions, however, and that includes to the technicians as well, so if you wouldn't mind gathering around that would be excellent."
The entire crew assembled down below and trotted over, intent to hear what I had to suggest.
"Firstly, Pipp, excellent song. I see your songwriting skills are still in order. However, I would suggest slowing the tempo a little, as it's a bit fast right now."
Pipp nodded. "Slow the tempo a bit," she noted, writing this down. "I'll ask the staff to slow the recording slightly without shifting the pitch."
"I'd also suggest making some changes to the lighting. Whilst the use of greens and blues was stunning, it also meant the cable harness was visible at points. Possibly shift the light balance to make it less obvious? If the truth were to come out it would be rather inconvenient, what?"
The staff nodded, and adjusted the light balance to test the effect. "That seems to work better," said one of them, and I have to say I agreed. The harness was now very hard to spot.
After returning to my chambers for the evening to clean up any remaining tasks, I suddenly noticed something on the wall that I hadn't before. There was a photograph that was slightly in the wrong position, and looked crooked. I trotted over to it and shifted it back, before stopping to really take in what was in the picture.
The image was faded, but clearly showed myself, a stallion, and Pipp and Zipp out in public. Quite apart from the stallion, what stood out most to me was how happy everypony looked to be in each other's company. Although my eyes were briefly drawn to the sign in the background of the shot, which notably had the word 'diner' spelled incorrectly (it's d-i-n-er, not d-i-n-a-h), I soon focused on the important bit of the image.
I could only assume the stallion was Queen Haven's husband. As I examined the hanging closer, I spotted something interesting. There was what looked to be a vault behind it. I removed the picture and took a look at the vault, which although it had a lock seemed to be open.
After a few attempts I got the door to open, and I looked at the contents inside. It was packed to the brim with papers and objects that were presumably meant to be hidden from the public. I took them out and put them on the desk to look through them.
What I learned was stunning, and quite sad at the same time. Queen Haven had indeed been married once, to a stallion called Golden Skies. He had been on his way to an opening of some sort out on the edges of Pegasus territory when his chopper had gone missing. Chopper is another word for helicopter, in case you didn't know.
I continued to glance through the papers. One of them was a newspaper, with the headline PRINCE SUSPECTED DEAD- QUEEN REFUSES TO GIVE UP HOPE.
So, based on all of this, he was never officially declared dead, and Haven had been maintaing hope that he would return someday. I moved the newspaper to one side, and what I found underneath that nearly broke me.
Underneath the newspaper was a stack of letters. There was one for every month of the year, and based on the pile it went back 10 years. I gave one of them a quick read, which consisted of Haven updating Skies on what was happening with their foals and how life was going for them.
In an effort to cope with the grief, she had written to him for 10 entire years. She had been filling him in to ensure he knew what was going on. Well, this certainly explained a lot about her behaviour in the film.
As I looked over this, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of emotion, but managed to compose myself. "Take it easy," I said to myself. "This is just somepony else's things. Not yours."
I was trying to distance myself from this, but it seemed very difficult as I could relate to this surprisingly well. I remained there a few moments whilst trying to decide what course of action to take.
Later that night, I had retired to bed, and seemed to be sleeping surprisingly well considering the events of the previous day. Then suddenly, I was awoken in the night! Sirens were blaring throughout the palace, and I fell out of bed as I tried to get up.
"INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. ALL ASSETS MOVE TO CAPTURE AND DETAIN INTRUDER. INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. ALL ASSETS MOVE TO CAPTURE AND DETAIN INTRUDER."
I glanced to my bedside table, and to my horror the crown was missing! "Thief!" I said, and dashed out of the door, kicking it open. Several guards met me at that moment. "Guards! Intercept them immediately! She stole the crown!"
The figure in black vanished down the corridor, and I charged after them down the corridor. Trying to keep pace with the criminal was proving to be harder than I'd thought, so I had to pick up the pace. Even with my level of physical fitness this was proving to be hard work. Clearly age was beginning to catch up with me.
Guards were pouring into the building at speed, covering every conceivable angle. I was soon joined by several more soldiers, who had also been wakened by the commotion. We sped down corridors and soon found ourselves in the main cable room, where Colonel Opwinden and his men soon had the thief cornered.
"Come with us quietly and there won't be any trouble," he said.
To my surprise, the intruder then fired some sort of grappling hook which hit the lowering controls for the cables we used for flying in and out of the throne room. "You'll never take me alive, pegasus!" the figure shouted.
I stopped for a second. That voice sounded oddly familiar. Where had I heard it before?
Luckily, the theft was pretty promptly stopped in its tracks. One of the soldiers had spotted a flaw in the thief's plan, and ran over to the control cables. He then flicked the switch back the other way to lift the attacker back up and hold them in place before us. I then notied that Pipp and Zipp had entered just as our intruder was pulled up.
Opwinden had a few words to say to her. "You, miss, are in a lot of trouble tonight," he said. "Haul her in."
As the attacker was pulled in, I saw the crown in a bag on the pony's back. As they were winched to a stop, I pulled it out and placed it atop my head. "Mine," I said, glaring at the intruder, flaring my wings as I did so. I had noticed pegasi did this when annoyed, and used it to indicate my displeasure. "We shall deal with you in the morning. In the meantime, place her in the cells. Colonel Opwinden, see to it that this is done."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Opwinden replied, and led the intruder off. In the meantime, I turned to the others. "All of you, return to your posts."
The remaining guards filed out as I turned to Pipp and Zipp. "As for us, we'd best be getting off to bed. We'll have a long session of questioning ahead, I suspect. Ensure you are well-rested and get a good night's sleep."
The next morning, I convened the court early, and instructed Pipp and Zipp to be there as well. The entire court was already assembled as we flew into the chamber and took our seats on our thrones.
"Guards, we have the prisoner to attend to," I said, as I adjusted my sunglasses to minimise the effect of the sun. "Remove her goggles so we can get a better look at her."
Thunder nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty," he said, and removed the goggles. This allowed us to get a proper look at the thief from last night.
She was a turquoise blue unicorn with a wavy mane, seemingly made of dreadlocks. Misty Brightdawn? I thought to myself. What's she doing here? She isn't meant to make her debut until after the magic has been restored!
"What is wrong with her face?" asked the Viscount of Ghastly Gorge. "She has something on her forehead!"
I feigned surprise as best I could. "A unicorn? Here? In the Palace?" I glanced to the Colonel in surprise. "How did she get in? How did she bypass security?"
The Colonel looked most embarrassed. I could tell this incident was weighing heavily on his mind. "My team are still trying to establish how she bypassed security, Your Majesty. Please accept my apology for this most severe of slip-ups."
I had to find out why Misty was here without attracting suspicion. "What are you doing here? Who sent you? Clearly it is somebody who wants to attack us!"
Misty began to speak, but was interrupted by a guard. "Let her reply," I said. "Zephyrina, ensure that the equipment in the cells is in order. Pipp, I want you to monitor communications. No news of this must get out, understand?"
As Zipp left and Pipp began to monitor communications channels, Misty began to speak again. "I come with news of a dire warning. Opaline, the one who lives far from here, comes with a warning of a grave threat. The One with the Stripes is here, and I don't know much about him but apparently he is a problem."
"What are you talking about?" asked a Duke. "Who is this one with the stripes?"
That was my question as well, but her method of getting the message to us was unorthodox to say the least. "So you came in to steal the crown so you could give a warning? I suspect there's more to this situation than meets the eye. Move her to the holding cell until we can interrogate her properly. In the meantime, I want the city on maximum alert. Nothing can be permitted to go wrong, not least with the second stage of the Jubilee beginning next week."
As the troops led Misty away, I gave the signal to fly out, and we were lifted out of the chamber. This whole situation had me worried. If Misty was here this early, what else would change around here?
And what did that mean for me or my family?
We have arrived at the end of the first portion of Queen Haven's story, and eagle eyed readers will have noticed this is where her and Misty's stories intersect. But what does this mean for the future of Zephyr Heights?
There was a fair bit of inspiration from other stories on here. The sequence with the discovery of personal documents connected to Haven's missing, presumably dead, husband is inspired by a plot thread in this story:
In case you're wondering why Haven's husband was a prince and not a king, that is another feature taken from the British Royal Family. If the sovereign is female, the highest position their spouse can reach is prince. This is why Prince Phillip was, well, a prince and not King.
In case you're wondering what the business with the mis-spelled sign is about, it's actually a reference to the musical Starlight Express, a 1984 musical penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe, a show that featured anthropomorphic trains battling to win a race. It's also notable for being Jane Krakowski's (Queen Haven's VA) acting debut; she was the first performer to portray the character of Dinah the Dining Car (character naming has never been Webber's strong suit) in the Broadway version of the show.
The court procedures are, again, modelled on UK ones.
Misty is from this story:
One final note: this chapter was written before Mare Family Mare Problems was released, and as a result does not take it into account.
Next month will see the last two of the eight heroes introduced. Until then, folks!
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Hello again. Last chapter for a bit is here.
cool chapter mate
Thanks very much for getting this chapter up. I really appreciate the work going into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Appreciated "Haven's" constructive criticisms concerning "Pipp's" preparations as well as the details concerning Haven's late husband/Zipp and Pipp's father shortly before "Misty" struck months sooner than expected (as was shown in chapters four and five of "Misty's" story.
REALLY looking forward to the final two stories in the first phase as well as more chapters of the stories already up when they can be thought of.
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Thanks.
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We're firmly at the point where the individual storylines are going to start colliding with one another, and furthermore setting up things to come. Besides, developing characters never hurts.
The next two characters (or final two, I should say) will be arriving in June.
Oh my!
Oh boy!
https://m.I'm already nervous for what's coming next.
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1. One of the biggest questions on the mind of G5 fans is what happened to Pipp and Zipp's dad-a question the show still hasn't addressed.
2. But who stole it?
3. Misty is here-and ahead of schedule.
4. You may be waiting a while. We'll be switching to a new band of characters in June.
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- MLP Gen 5
- Adventure
- Comedy
The life and times of a pony, determined to uphold the law.Good news! The penultimate entry on the Rebirth of Magic series is here!