Harmony 6: The Coming of Nightmares

by CopperTop

Chapter 1: The Long Twilight Struggle

Colonel Twilight Sparkle spent the majority of the ENS Lickity’s docking maneuvers mostly just doing her best to stay out of the way of Captain Keelhaul’s crew. Pulling a galleon into port wasn’t the sort of thing that benefited from the ‘help’ of a laypony who didn’t know anything about sailing a ship. So the little purple unicorn instead perched herself in a corner of the vessel’s quarterdeck and contented herself with appraising what was to become her new home.

She hadn’t been sent on her assignment completely blind, of course. A posting as important as this one had come with a good bit of background information, though apparently not all of it—Twilight had made a note to write somepony back in Equestria as to why she hadn’t been clued in on the fates of the five preceding Harmony Fortresses. But most of that information had been quite dry—even for her—if she was being honest. She knew Harmony’s dimensions, armaments, population, cargo and passenger throughputs—Harmony Six was more than just a military fortification—and other such trivia. She’d even been provided with a few sketches and early design concepts.

None of which had prepared the mare for actually seeing the fort with her own eyes.

Twilight had seen plenty of military forts during the Equestria-Zebrican War. They had mostly been small, thick-walled, utilitarian affairs. Constructed to withstand attacks from roving packs of monsters or the occasional ambitious bandit gang, those old stone bastions hadn’t lasted long against zebra artillery during the war. Twilight had read many reports compiled after the war—and had even written a few herself—which enumerated the failings in the design philosophies of those forts when it came to resisting a technologically advanced foe like the zebras. The purple unicorn was relieved to see now that the conclusions reached in those reports, and the suggested changes that had been proposed for future construction, had not been overlooked by the powers that be.

The fortress’ massive curtain wall did not merely ‘encircle’ the island; it projected forth from it in massive pointed bastions, each one bristling with cannons whose facings converged with that of their neighbors in order to provide overlapping fields of fire. On land, this arrangement ensured that an approaching army would nearly always be taking fire from two directions. On the open water, against ships, this feature was even far more effective.

As a consequence of how galleons needed to be designed in order to sail effectively, ships-of-war packed nearly all of their weapons into their sides. Most purpose-built ships of the line possessed two or three decks of cannons on each side, with perhaps an additional armament of carronades on the topmost deck to assist with close-in fighting—the latest designs that Twilight had seen leaving the Manehattan Dockyards boasted a fourth gundeck. Pony ships thus needed to arrange themselves with their sides facing an enemy in order to shoot at them. This meant that those ships also tended to take fire on their sides as well, and so that was where most of the thicker timbers were piled on, with little protection afforded to the rear of a ship in order to save on what weight they could.

Which was why going up against a ‘star fort’ design was the next best thing to a death sentence for the galleon: bringing their guns to bear against—and thus sailing parallel to—one of the fortress’ cannon-armed bastions would nearly always mean exposing their unprotected stern to another. Or at least their almost as equally exposed bow. A fortress like Harmony would be the next best thing to invulnerable!

…Against a pony ship, anyway.

As the Lickity sailed closer into the docking area proper, Twilight caught sight of an anchored zebra ship. The unicorn was an army officer, and so she didn’t have a working knowledge of every design which traveled the seas, even those of her former enemy. She’d never had to face a ship in battle, after all. However, it wasn’t necessary to be naval-minded in order to identify that any given ship belonged to the zebras.

Their ships had steel hulls.

Twilight had run the numbers when she’d first heard about the striped equines using ships made exclusively of metal. After all, at first pass, the notion did seem outrageous. A metal boat? Metal sank in water! That was why any sane creature used wood—had been using wood for centuries. But numbers didn’t lie. Many layponies—and more than a few of the more stubborn ‘knowledgeable’ shipwrights in Equestria—still laughed off the notion of ‘metal boats’, even now; but Twilight had become a believer before she’d even seen her first zebra ‘dreadnought’ with her own eyes.

Because she knew that the math worked out.

The only thing that stopped Equestria from building similar steel warships today was the fact that they simply didn’t have the experienced dockhooves who knew how to actually do it. Or the industrial capacity to produce enough steel to build a whole navy in the first place. Not yet, anyway. Equestria’s industrial capacity was expanding every day. Slowly, yes, as much of their domestic focus was still on rebuilding what they’d lost during the war, but the projections that Twilight had seen suggested it would only take a generation or two for the ponies to catch up to where the zebras were now.

The mare’s amethyst eyes scanned over the smaller ship anchored just outside the docks—a ‘destroyer’, she believed—lingering on its guns. For that was what they were: not cannons, but proper guns. Long, narrow barrels; loaded from the breech rather than down the barrel. Every one of them rifled, she knew. Compared to any pony galleon, there were paltry few of them—she saw only four. Even the zebra dreadnought she’d seen had only possessed eight guns in its main battery. The new four-decker ships-of-the-line coming out of Manehattan equipped over a hundred cannons in total. But Twilight had seen what similar rifled guns—and their high-explosive conical shells—fielded by the zebra army could do to their targets. They’d knocked down ponylength-thick stone walls as easily as a foal kicked over a sandcastle on the beach. She shuddered to think what such weapons would do to a wooden galleon.

Twilight noticed that Captain Keelhaul’s crew seemed to be guiding the ship as far around the zebra vessel as they could safely get away with as they slipped past it into Harmony’s waiting port. The unicorn tore her gaze from the foreign warship and resumed appraising her new home.

She was finding herself struggling to remember that, while the island did boast massive fortifications that encircled nearly the whole of it, Harmony was not, strictly speaking, a ‘military installation’. Both officially and in a very real practical sense. It was a city, by every metric that truly mattered. It hosted a civilian population of well over fifty thousand creatures who lived and worked on the small island. While most of what passed for the ‘local industry’ was ostensibly geared towards simply maintaining the fortress’ readiness—masons to service the walls, smiths and engineers for the cannons, dockhooves and shipwrights for its ports—Twilight was led to understand that Harmony was organically developing additional local industries as well.

In order to make Harmony an appealing location for as many races as possible to establish their embassies, the fortress had been constructed within an archipelago that was nearly geographically equidistant from the planet’s three main continents. This was intended to ensure that no particular nation felt that they were being favored or slighted, and all would need to travel approximately the same distance to reach Harmony. This thought had been well received by the governments of the world’s major nations…

…And also the major shipping companies. Harmony had quickly emerged as a natural layover point for much of the world’s sea-born transportation. There was every indication that, in a few more years, the fortress was going to cement itself as a major trade hub, even though it didn’t produce any wares or goods of its own.

It was simply that it was far cheaper for a company selling goods to only pay to ship them to Harmony and then let the buyer worry about finding a way to get them the rest of their way to the destination. As it turned out, even the buyers were amenable to this arrangement. With such a dramatically shorter distance to cover, cargo ships could get away with carrying fewer provisions to support the crew during the voyage, which lowered their operating costs while increasing the quantity of goods they could haul on each trip.

Sellers could ship out their products more cheaply, buyers could import their goods more cheaply, and the carriers moving them made bits coming and going. Everycreature won.

Which wasn’t to say that there wasn’t a significant military aspect present on the island as well. There had to be. Trade ports—especially ports that were thousands of miles away from the support of a mainland—were quite attractive targets for pirates and raiders. Which meant that Harmony needed to be sufficiently protected to ward them off. Preferably boasting defenses formidable enough that the mere reports of them scared pirates enough that it removed even the temptation to launch a raid on the island or any local shipping.

Given the scores of cannon muzzles that Twilight could spot poking out from between the merlons of the towering pointed bastions, the little purple unicorn judged that a sufficiently formidable appearance had been achieved. She pulled out a sheet of parchment and a pencil from her saddlebag, making a note to conduct a tour of the wall to inspect those cannons up close. Looking intimidating was good—and hopefully that would deter raiders on its own—but Twilight wanted to see for herself that those cannons were being maintained in proper fighting condition. Those weapons were perched atop a wall on a fort located in the middle of the sea. Water and salt were not kind to most metals if left unaddressed.

Twilight’s attention was next drawn to the fortress’ docks, which were visibly already packed with ships of all sizes. The unicorn knew that Harmony had more than one dockyard—it had three, in fact. However, one of those was rather small and reserved for the fortress’ own small fleet of patrol craft charged with pirate interdiction duties and local rescue efforts. Civilian traffic was not allowed there. Similarly, the fortress’ so-called ‘Mission Docks’ were likewise reserved exclusively for use by vessels transporting material and personnel on behalf of the various embassies maintained on the island by their represented nations.

Given that one of the roles which Twilight would be filling was that of Equestria’s plenipotentiary representative during diplomatic meetings, it would technically have been permissible for the Lickity to debark her there. However, most of the ship’s cargo was actually of a non-diplomatic nature and so it would have been more convenient to have it unloaded where it was expected to be by those ponies who were waiting for it. This also gave Twilight the opportunity to see the fort’s main dockyard in action and make note of any issues that might need her attention.

The mare’s amethyst eyes suddenly darted towards the island’s central spire, and the location of an unofficial fourth ‘dock’—though Twilight knew the technical term for it was actually: a mooring mast. Like the Mission Docks, it was not intended for, nor accessible to, the general public. It was reserved for use by official government vessels only. Unlike the Mission Docks though, there was only a singular government with the technological capability to make use of it.

Thus it was immediately obvious that the dock was in use. Twilight used every ounce of her will to wrench her gaze away from the mooring mast, lest she find herself—and far from the first time in her life—trying to work out the enchantments and mechanisms in place which allowed for the berthed vessel which was present to remain present in its berth. It wasn’t using simple physics to do so, she knew that much. She’d done that math too, and it definitely didn’t work out. Not even when factoring in her own understanding of what was permissible where enchantments were concerned.

Twilight would have given up her commission for thirty seconds aboard that ship.

She didn’t want to think too long about what price she’d be willing to pay for five minutes…

So, instead, she distracted herself by watching the Lickity’s crew in action as they docked their relatively underwhelming and mundane galleon. It felt a little bit like watching a choreographed dance number in a stage musical, Twilight thought to herself, only without the actual music. Unless one was of a mind to count Keelhaul’s nearly constant cadence of shouted profanity-laden orders as being ‘musical’ in nature—which Twilight was not.

This was mostly due to the technicality that the earth pony mare’s shouts didn’t consistently line up with any formally established meter.

Soon enough, the nearly mesmerizing movements of ropes and bodies saw the galleon sidled up to its assigned dock and lashed snugly into place by the fortress’ workers. Twilight was the first pony down the gangway, at Keelhaul’s insistence. Most likely to ensure that the purple unicorn was now fully and properly out of the way of her crew as they set about preparing to unburden the ship’s hold. The mare didn’t argue the point, and was more than happy to walk herself down onto the dock, her two trunks of personal belongings floating behind her in her telekinetic grasp.

She still had her parchment and pencil out, scribbling away as she idly noted how many ponies appeared to be assigned to each of the dockhoof crews, so that she could compare them later with the prescribed regulations. She also added some personal reminders to herself to look at the logs and manifests for the past six months or so to give her an idea of the amount of traffic that the fortress saw. It was possible that she might spot some predictable pattern to the number of ships that arrived at the fort—perhaps in line with seasonal weather and wind shifts in this part of the ocean.

Using that data, it should be possible to create a dynamic schedule for shifts that would optimize dockhoof-to-ship numbers so that ponies weren’t sitting around with nothing to do when there weren’t a lot of ships or being overworked because there were more ships than usual—and why was it suddenly so quiet?

Twilight’s pencil stopped moving in her magical grasp as she glanced up from her parchment. The purple unicorn blinked as she realized that the pier she was on was all but deserted. It wasn’t just this pier either, the mare noticed a second later. The neighboring piers were likewise devoid of ponies. The decks of the moored ships as well.

The mare jerked as the sound of a bell rang out over the fortress, drawing her attention to a large clocktower that rose up out of the middle of the fort’s civilian quarter. According to the clock’s face, it had just reached two in the afternoon. As the bell continued to peel rhythmically in its announcement of the local time, Twilight dug around in her saddlebag with her magic, searching for one of the briefing documents that she’d been given.

Was there some sort of fort-wide afternoon break that she’d overlooked? It seemed wholly impractical if there was one. Inefficient too. She might have to look into changing that policy so that the break was taken on a rotational basis so that all work didn’t just suddenly stop throughout all of Harmony—

A violent thundercrack of sound behind her caused Twilight to leap into the air and spin around. For a heart-stopping moment in time, the little unicorn was back on the battlefield, surrounded by explosions, agonizing screams, and thick gunsmoke, but then the moment passed and she was on the dock in the present again. She’d forgotten her writing materials in her shock as her horn flared anew with a readied magic barrier and a primed spell to fend off attackers.

Twilight found herself facing off against a towering wall of water.

The battle-tested mare froze in shock, confronted with a ‘foe’ that was completely outside the realm of anything that she might have been expecting. Her hastily-erected shield, intended to deflect lance, bullet, or even smaller cannon shells, was not up to the task of protecting the mare from a veritable tidal wave of seawater.

When it was over, Twilight was left blinking out into the once more serene ocean beyond the fort, her brain still trying to process where the unexpected tsunami could possibly have come from. Her ear twitched as she once more detected the drone of a working dock: ponies yelling directions, ropes straining beneath their burdens, crates thumping onto decks and piers—all of the noises that had vanished just a minute ago.

The clock’s bell had ceased ringing though, Twilight idly noted.

“What just happened?”

Twilight wasn’t sure who exactly it was that she was asking in that moment. She’d simply felt the need to put the question out into the universe in the hopes that an answer would somehow manifest.

Interestingly enough, it did. And the answer took the form of a mare speaking in a prim and proper Canterlot accent. “‘That’ would be Captain Rainbow Dash, who leads Wonderbolt Squadron, one of Harmony’s air patrol wings, performing the fourteen hundred perimeter sweep.” Twilight turned around and used a hoof to sweep aside her dripping wet mane so that she could see who was speaking to her.

The ivory white unicorn mare was dressed in the same deep blue duty uniform that Twilight herself was sporting—if considerably dryer—with the notable difference being that her black-brimmed hat was emblazoned with a golden sun while Twilight’s was—

—Apparently no longer on her head. The unicorn jerked at the realization and started looking around for it, fearing that her cover had been washed away by the freak wave which had hit her earlier. Her search was interrupted a moment later by the hat’s appearance, floating in a cyan field of magic. Twilight accepted the offered soggy cover from the other unicorn and sighed as she dumped out the last dregs of seawater from inside of it. She grimaced before stuffing the ruined bit of uniform in her saddlebag. It wasn’t like the thoroughly soaked parchment inside it could get any more ruined…

“Thank you, Major…?”

“Rarity,” the unicorn supplied crisply. She then clicked her rear hooves together as she came to a more formal position of attention and raised a hoof to her forehead in salute. “Presuming that you are indeed the Colonel Twilight Sparkle that I was informed would be arriving today?” There was the hint of a questioning note in the ivory mare’s tone, prompting the purple mare to nod in confirmation. “Then I will be serving as your executive officer.

“Welcome to Harmony Fortress, colonel.”

“I’ve had better receptions,” Twilight couldn’t help but mutter before returning her new XO’s salute. Then she added, “No offense, major.”

“Hm. Quite.” There was the slightest uptick of one corner of the white unicorn’s mouth before her horn began to glow again. A pulse of magic washed across Twilight, leaving behind a tolerably dry uniform. The purple mare blinked in mild surprise as she evaluated the results of the other mare’s spell. Curious—and more than a little hopeful—she opened up her saddlebags…only to find that her writing materials were still thoroughly soaked. She raised a questioning brow in the major’s direction.

“I’m better with fabric than I am with parchment, I’m afraid, colonel,” the mare admitted with an apologetic shrug of her neck.

“That’s fine. I remember most of what I wrote down,” Twilight said. At least her luggage had survived the freak wave. “However, I wouldn’t mind swinging by the quartermaster’s office to pick up replacement writing materials on my way to my quarters. Then I’ll want to arrange a meeting with my new command staff.”

“Of course, ma’am. Right this way,” the ivory mare motioned for Twilight to follow her away from the docks even as she took up one of the lavender colonel’s trunks in her own field. Or rather, she tried to. There was a brief moment of struggle on the part of the major, followed by a grunt of effort and flared nostrils as she finally managed to get the chest—barely—into the air. “I’ve heard about the ‘weight of command’,” the mare huffed under her breath as she eyed her superior, “but this is a bit more literal than I was expecting.” Finally she conceded defeat and allowed the chest to drop back to the pier.

“What’s in there? A boulder?”

“Books,” Twilight said as she wrapped the trunk up in her own magical field and floated it much more effortlessly alongside the luggage which contained her uniforms and personal items. The ivory unicorn’s eye twitched slightly at the casual display of magical power, but she didn’t comment on it directly. “I’ve never served in a diplomatic capacity before, so I don’t have any experience as an ambassador. I’ll need to learn on the job.

“These are a collection of treatises by some of the most well-regarded philosophers and academics in the fields of government, politics, debate techniques, and social engineering. Just in case. I don’t expect to be able to match the other delegates in skill and experience right out of the gate,” Twilight admitted, “but I at least want to have an understanding of the foundations of diplomacy so that I’m not completely blindsided during negotiations.”

“Ah. I see.” Major Rarity eyed the floating chests a brief moment longer before turning back around. “The quartermaster is this way, colonel.”

Twilight fell into step beside her new XO. As they left the docks behind and entered the fortress proper, the lavender mare sought to avail herself to the insight which could only be provided by a ‘local’. “So, I don’t suppose I can get a more detailed explanation as to how a pegasus squadron creates a tidal wave?”

“Oh, that wasn’t the whole squadron, colonel,” Rarity stressed with a slight flick of her head back towards the docks. Twilight frowned and glanced back just in time to see the better part of a dozen pegasus ponies flying in formation just beyond the anchorage. “That was just Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight’s eyes were wide now. “...One pegasus did that?”

“She’s quite fast.”

The stunned unicorn did some rough calculations in her head regarding how much air pressure it would have taken to raise a wave that high, along with the speed which would be necessary to create that quantity of cavitation…and immediately concluded that ‘fast’ was a criminally understated descriptor for how quickly the pegasus in question must have been moving. “...If she can maintain that speed the whole way, she’d complete the circumferential patrol in—”

“Ten seconds,” the major supplied, sounding far too nonplussed for her superior’s liking. “Most days she does it in about ten seconds.” Twilight tried to keep the audible click of her jaw closing quiet when she realized it had been hanging open.

“That’s…” The violet mare spent longer than she would have preferred combing through her vocabulary in search of a more appropriate word than, “...fast.” She hadn’t succeeded.

“Quite.”

As the two unicorns made their way deeper into the fortress, Twilight found herself inclined to revise part of her impression of the nature of Harmony. On paper, and at a glance, she’d thought of it as being: ‘a military installation which hosted a civilian population and performed a political function.’ However, now that she was wandering through the heart of the island and was fully immersed within the throng of sounds and moving bodies of all shapes and races, she found herself feeling as if she was walking through the middle of what could be any other mainland city. One that just happened to be encircled by high walls.

There were named streets, roadside stalls with creatures selling wares of all sorts, she even walked by a mare and stallion with a filly giddily prancing around them. Everything that one would expect to see while trotting through an ordinary town.

A wisp of a smile curled Twilight’s lip as she watched the little pony family go by. She paid special attention to the little pink filly laughing between her parents. The unicorn vividly recalled when the sound of laughing foals wasn’t something that was heard in towns.

When all that filled the streets were explosions of artillery shells. The moans and wails of the injured and dying—

Twilight forced herself to stop, closing her eyes as she took a breath and let it out slowly. Even after so many years of peace, it wasn’t easy to keep such memories away. It took a few seconds for the major to realize that her charge wasn’t following anymore. “Colonel? Are you alright?”

Twilight was about to respond when she found herself distracted by the faint—but quickly rising in volume—sound of heavy steps against a wooden floor. It was coming from the building to her immediate right. The sign hanging above the door identified the establishment as ‘Trade Wind’s Tavern’, and the unicorn presumed it was a bar of some sort. She turned towards the sound that had attracted her attention—

—Just in time for the large pane of glass on the bar’s front to shatter outward, pelting the purple mare with a shower of transparent razors before she could get a ward up. A heartbeat later, Twilight was bowled over as the two grappling bodies—whose passage had caused the window to break—crashed into her. Her telekinetic field winked out, dropping her baggage to the ground, as the purple mare was half crushed with a pained grunt.

The two combatants continued their roll after flattening the unprepared colonel, only coming apart once they’d landed in the middle of the road. While Twilight had not been afforded enough warning of their imminent arrival to get herself out of the way, the rest of the creatures in the area were able to make sufficient room to avoid being drafted into the scuffle.

A piercing screech from one of them—a tawny-furred griffon hen with white feathers—caused the nearby spectators to pin back their ears and wince away even further. She squared off against her opponent—a sapphire-scaled dragoness—and reared up, her wings splayed out in a clear sign of aggression and dominance. “You fucking lizard! I’m gonna turn you into a handbag!”

“You’re welcome to try it!” The dragoness snarled in response, wisps of smoke slipping out from around her narrow muzzle before it pulled back into a fierce grin which revealed rows of sharp glistening teeth. “I’ve suddenly got a craving for roast turkey…” Flickering firelight was just visible behind the mirthless smile.

Rarity was in the process of helping her new commander to get back up onto her hooves when the pair of quarreling creatures launched themselves back at each other to resume the barroom brawl which had presumably carried them out into public. Twilight was still too stunned by the blow she’d received to effectively concentrate on casting a spell. All the smaller purple unicorn could do was stare on in mute horror as the griffon and dragon closed on each other, their respective claws bared and ready to rend their opponent apart in front of her.

The griffon darted to the right with a loud squawk. It was an exceptionally sudden movement. One that Twilight wouldn’t have believed a griffon to normally be capable of. The purple unicorn’s assessment was quickly proven to be correct, as she soon learned what the griffon hen’s own surprised squawk indicated that she had just discovered too: The maneuver had not been of the griffon’s own doing.

Just before the two could make contact, a coil of rope had all but materialized around the leaping griffon’s hind leg, going taut almost immediately before yanking the eagle-headed feline out of reach from a swipe of the dragon’s claws. Twilight and Rarity followed the new trajectory of the griffon and saw that she was headed into the waiting hooves of a distinctly unhappy-looking pony clutching the other end of the rope in her teeth.

The griffon slid backwards along the road, skidding to a halt before the hooves of the pony with the rope. With a deft hop, the pony, a well-built orange earth pony mare dressed in the regulation slate gray vest of the Equestrian Army’s Military Police branch—and also wearing a very non-regulation brown stetson hat—cleared the snared hen and positioned herself directly in the path of the oncoming dragon. The earth pony’s emerald eyes flashed as she glared at the approaching combatant. While she took no other overtly aggressive action of her own, Twilight noticed the muscles of the mare’s hanches twitch with anticipation.

She was prepared to kick. Hard.

Whether it was because the dragoness recognized that this new challenger was prepared to counter her charge, or because the orange pony wasn’t who she had any interest in fighting, or simply because she judged the fight to be over now that the griffon was on the ground, the sapphire dragon ceased her advance and drew up well short of the pony. She looked far from totally mollified though. Her eyes remained narrowed, darting between the earth pony and the griffon beyond her, her nostrils flared in frustration. She flexed her talons, as if trying to wring the tension out of them.

“Now Ah know y’all know better’n’t be fightin in mah streets. Don’t’cha?” The orange mare declared in a thick drawl. Her green eyes took note of the damage to the nearby tavern. Her muzzle pulled back in an annoyed sneer. “Ah’d ask how this all started, but we’ve been down that road b’fore.

“Any y’all wanna try tellin’ me something novel this time around?” The orange earth pony’s emerald eyes darted between the dragon and the griffon. “Like the truth?”

“It was just a misunderstanding, AJ,” the griffon hen said as she got back up. She deftly used a talon to snip the coil of rope off from around her hind leg. “As in: this dragon doesn’t understand that it doesn’t belong here.” She flashed a mirthless smile at the dragon. “They’re stupid like that. Something about their tiny lizard brains not being able to manage complex thought…”

The dragoness snorted forcefully enough to expel a generous quantity of smoke as she jabbed a claw of her own at the feathered feline. “Must make you cat-birds pretty pathetic if us ‘dumb lizards’ kicked your tufted tails off our island so easily!”

“We left on our own!” The griffon shot back almost immediately. “We got sick and tired of dealing with your lameness!”

“Why you little—!”

“Quiet down! Both of y’all!” The earth pony snarled, stomping her hoof for emphasis. Much to Twilight’s surprise, both creatures did, in fact, stop trading verbal bards. They still glowered at each other though. Each broke their stare long enough to meet the piercing gaze of the pony chastising them though, and looked mostly visibly cowed when they did.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen: both y’all are gonna go back to your quarters. An’ that’s where y’all stay for the rest of the day. Later on tonight, one of my ponies is gonna stop by your quarters and give y’all ‘guides’ on what parts of the fort y’all can be in. See if’n we can avoid any more unpleasantness like this in the future.”

The griffon’s chest puffed up as she glared at the mare. “Hey, you don’t get to tell me where I can and can’t go—!”

“The alternative,” the earth pony continued on, fixing the griffon with a hard stare as she cut off the protest, “is that any time y’all are out an’ about, Ah’mma gonna be hoverin’ around you like a hungry parasprite.” A thin smile creased orange lips when the mare saw how little that prospect appeared to appeal to either creature. “Ah’ll sit on you two like a broodin’ chicken. Don’t think Ah won’t.

“Ah’ll bring a whole entourage,” the mare gestured towards other ponies that were standing around the area forming a loose ring and keeping other creatures away from the scuffle. They were all wearing gray vests similar to that being worn by the orange mare. “Y’all like making a scene so much, figure you’d want an ‘audience’ around you at all times…

“Or we can try it mah way?”

Both creatures regarded each other once more in silence, glaring at each other. Finally, it was the dragon who relented first. “Okay, chief. We can try it your way.

“For now.”

It appeared that the earth pony mare didn’t particularly care for the caveat, and was about to rebuke the dragon further, but before she could, the dragon sneered at the griffon and added: “Gilda won’t be a problem forever.”

The dragon stormed off, the other ponies on the security detail making room for her as she passed. At a subtle nod from their chief, a couple followed the dragon at a respectful distance. Behind the earth pony, the griffon snorted. “Fucking lizards. We should have just skinned them all and been done with it.”

“Gilda…” The mare breathed out in an exasperated sigh.

“Yeah, yeah,” the griffon said with a dismissive wave of her talons. “I’m going, AJ, I’m going. See you around.” Again, a couple of ponies trailed the griffon to ensure that she did as she’d been told.

The orange mare took a deep breath and let out what sounded like a long-suffering sigh. Then something caught her attention by the tavern’s window. For a moment, Twilight thought it was herself, except that the purple unicorn noticed the earth pony was actually looking past where she was still laying, in the bar’s interior.

“Sorry, AJ—”

“Yeah, we’re really sorry about this, Applejack—”

“—I tried to tell her we should go somewhere else, but—”

“—doesn’t even like cider! I don’t know why she even—”

“Bap-bap-bap-bap!” The earth pony mare cut off the pair of voices that were starting to talk over themselves to the point of incomprehension, holding up a staying hoof. “T’ain’t y’alls’ fault.” Her expression softened somewhat now. “But Ah appreciate it all the same. Thank you.”

Then her eyes hardened slightly once more, though her tone wasn’t anywhere near as aggressive as it had been earlier. “Ah trust Ah can count on you two to make Single Malt whole on this?” Her hoof waved to take in the damage to the front of the building.

“Yes, ma’am!” Both voices affirmed in unison.

Finally able to tear her gaze away from the earth pony mare she’d just watch browbeat a griffon and a dragon, Twilight turned just in time to see another feathered and scaled duo—an entirely gray griffon and the smallest purple dragon that she’d ever seen—vanish deeper into the tavern. Presumably to go and compensate the owner for the damages that had been done to their business.

Only now did the orange earth pony mare seem to take notice of the two unicorns near the tavern, her emerald eyes locking onto Rarity first. “Well howdy, major! Got yerself ringside accommodations for the latest dust-up, Ah see,” the security mare chuckled, eyeing how close the two were to the busted window.

“Hm. Quite, yes,” Major Rarity grumbled as her magic collected Twilight’s hat, which had been knocked off again during the tumble she’d taken. The ivory unicorn used the restoration spell once more to mend the bill of the cap before returning it.

The ivory unicorn was in the process of returning Twilight’s hat when she visibly balked, her sapphire eyes widening in concern as she regarded the other unicorn. “...Colonel, you’re bleeding.”

It was Twilight’s turn to hesitate now. As though it had been waiting for somepony to point out its existence, only now did the smaller purple mare’s cheek blossom with pain. A reflexive application of a fetlock to the aching region revealed that, as the major had already announced, she was indeed bleeding. The wound wasn’t deep, and it was unlikely to be anywhere approaching life-threatening—certainly just a shallow cut from a shard of glass from the nearby broken window—but even minor lacerations to the face tended to produce a lot of bleeding.

The “I’m fine” was automatic, and issued before Twilight had even confirmed the presence of the blood for herself. She’d seen combat. She’d seen what true wounds looked like. Those experiences served as the foundation for her opinion that any injury which didn’t consist of, at minimum, the complete loss of the limb, was a triviality not worth bringing attention to. At least when it concerned herself. The unicorn had certainly directed many subordinates to have even their minor injuries treated by medical personnel.

She acknowledged the hypocrisy. She also dismissed it, just as she tried to dismiss the visible concern on the face of her new XO.

“We should still get it looked at,” Rarity insisted. “Let’s get you to the clinic—”

Twilight was already shaking her head. “It’s nothing,” she began in protest.

“I’ve read your jacket, colonel. You possess a host of degrees and academic accomplishments. But I don’t recall seeing ‘doctor’ among them. You’ll forgive me for seeking the opinion of a professional,” the other unicorn said in the firm-yet-even tone an officer might use to admonish a subordinate who was doing something ill-advised. She ignored the narrowing eyes of her commanding officer in favor of summoning the orange earth pony to assist her in wrangling the purple unicorn. “Applejack? If you would be so kind as to have a few of your ponies take the colonel’s luggage to her quarters…”

“Can do, major,” the head of security nodded before summoning some of her officers to collect the pair of trunks. She then took up a position on Twilight’s flank opposite the major. The clear intention there being to dissuade the colonel of any further argument about being escorted to the fort’s clinic. The orange mare flashed her new senior officer a broad grin. “Welcome to Ponyville, ma’am.”

The purple mare allowed herself to be escorted from the scene of the fight even as she cast a parting glance at her trunks as they were hauled away. The sturdy earth pony security officers didn’t struggle with moving them nearly as much as the major had. She glanced back at the orange mare with a raised brow. “‘Ponyville’? I’ve seen the map of the fortress and the names of the districts. That’s not one of them.”

“Not officially, no,” the other mare conceded with a shrug. “But that’s what everycreature in Harmony calls this part of the fort.” Her hoof was directed at a minotaur cow who was forced to duck down into a near squat in an effort to get through the front door of a shop they were trotting by. “Different shapes’n’sizes of creatures means different structure requirements.

“To keep things lookin’ mostly orderly an’ such, the fortress got divided into areas where places are made to different scales. This part here where things’re about pony-sized gets called ‘Ponyville’. There’re a lot of creatures that live here other’n ponies though,” the earth pony went on with a nod towards a pair of donkeys trotting by. “It’s jus’ a name.”

“Oh.” Twilight supposed that name was probably more palatable to the residents than the official designation of: Zone Two.

“Just so you’re not caught off guard later,” Rarity chimed in from her other side, “the central tower where most of the Equestria Command delegation is quartered is known as: The Citadel.” She nodded her head in the direction of the fort’s largest spire, which also served as a lighthouse for the area’s sea traffic.

Twilight nodded in acknowledgement before turning her attention to the orange mare once more. It only occurred to her now that, in all the commotion, some of the more common courtesies had been overlooked. If this mare was who Twilight suspected she was, then the purple unicorn had just met another member of her senior staff. “Am I right in assuming that you’re the fortress’ head of security? Captain Applejack?”

“That Ah am, ma’am.” The green-eyed mare snapped briefly to attention and rendered a quick salute which Twilight briskly returned before relaxing her posture and once more resuming their trot through town. “At least on paper.”

At the purple mare’s once again raised eyebrow, she elected to elaborate. “Well, y’see, colonel, most of the creatures around here, they ain’t military types.” Her head broadly nodded towards their general surroundings, and the clearly non-uniformed, non-military, beings walking the street around them. There were a few ponies in their duty uniforms, but they stuck out as the clear exception rather than the rule. “The idea of being ordered around by ‘soldiers’ ruffles fur’n’feathers alike.

“So Ah kinda ‘unofficially’ rebranded my MPs as ‘constables’ and myself as a ‘Chief of Police’.” Applejack’s hoof touched her hat and a silver six-pointed star pinned to her uniform. “It don’t actually change nuthin’ o’course—Equestria Command makes the rules an’ we enforce ‘em—but folks around here are a lot more relaxed since we changed up the name an’ the image all the same.”

“Seeing soldiers keeping order reminded ponies too much of what things were like during The War,” Major Rarity chimed in, earning a nod from Applejack. “Changing the name and tweaking the uniforms lets the civilians at least pretend this place uses a more traditional law enforcement apparatus.” This time the security chief did a brief turn as she walked to model off her modified duty uniform. While the colors were certainly those used by the army’s military police branch, the cut and style of the vest reminded Twilight of local policing uniforms back on the mainland.

Not exactly regulation, the purple mare thought to herself, but there are provisions for ‘commander’s discretion’ when it comes to altering uniforms if the situation justifies it…

“If either of you have some reports about how the change has affected fortress operations, I’d appreciate taking a look at them,” Twilight finally said. The other two nodded. Her eyes then darted back towards the direction of the damaged bar. “Now, while modifying uniforms is one thing, I have to say that I’m a little less inclined to agree with how you appear to be modifying enforcement of punishments for infractions.

“That dragon and griffon were clearly fighting and they caused considerable damage to private property,” Twilight pointed out, turning her head to cast a pointed look at the earth pony. “That should have meant a minimum of three months confinement, civilians or not.” The colonel frowned. “And you just let them leave?”

The pair exchanged glances before an exasperated sigh escaped from the earth pony. “Those two go at it at least once a week,” she said with a hint of frustration. “Ah tell’em to stay on opposite sides of the fort, but they always seem to wind up in the same place eventually and then, well…” She gave a helpless shrug. “You saw the results.”

“Once a week?!” Twilight blurted. “Why haven’t you kicked them out of the fortress yet if they’re that much of an issue?”

“We can’t, colonel,” Rarity sighed. “They have diplomatic privilege.”

“Diplo—?!” Twilight bit off the furious outburst and let out the rest of it as a sigh of her own. If that was the case, then it really did mean that there wasn’t much that Captain Applejack or her MPs could do about the pair fighting. They certainly couldn’t be arrested or directly expelled by Equestrian personnel under local judicial statutes. It needed to be addressed through political channels.

While Harmony Fortress was ‘neutral ground’, it was also officially Equestrian soil. As Twilight’s role on Harmony was to serve as both its commanding officer and the Equestrian government’s official representative—with full plenipotentiary powers—it meant that she had the final say on who could stay on the island and who must go. If she went directly to the ambassadors of the Griffon Imperial Republic and the Dragon Protectorate and issued a formal directive that those two troublemakers be sent back to their respective homelands, the missions from both nations would be obliged to follow it.

There might be some minor political blowback, the purple unicorn conceded to herself. Official protests would be lodged against her back in Equestria, at the least. But Twilight wasn’t too concerned about that. She’d be able to justify the expulsion easily enough, especially if she included copies of Captain Applejack’s incident reports.

“I’ll go and speak with their ambassadors and get them removed,” Twilight promised.

Her subordinates exchanged another look.

“Umm…” Rarity considered.

“Well, y’see, colonel,” Applejack likewise struggled to form a full sentence. “The thing about that is…”

Twilight looked between the pair as she awaited the reason for their perception of her stated course of action being problematic. What could the issue possibly be? Sure, maybe the ambassadors wouldn’t be happy about it, but it wasn’t like they could actually do anything to stop her from expelling those two—

“They are the ambassadors,” Major Rarity finally managed to finish their shared thought, flashing her commander an apologetic smile.

The purple unicorn came to a dead stop. Which prompted the other two to pause with her. For several long moments, all that she seemed to be able to do was blink at the other two ponies as her mind valiantly tried—and repeatedly failed—to accept the information which had just been provided to her.

Those two vitriolic brawlers…were the ambassadors…of their respective races? And would be responsible for ensuring that peace endured between their nations?

“...Oh.” The already daunting task that Twilight was facing suddenly felt even more so.

“Yeah…” Applejack shrugged sympathetically.

“Maybe the clinic isn’t a bad idea after all,” the purple unicorn conceded. “I’m feeling a headache coming on…”

Applejack made her departure to return to her duties shortly after arriving at the fort’s primary clinic. The day’s events had left her with more than a few incident reports to write up, along with gathering the information on the uniforms that Twilight had requested. Rarity likewise excused herself from the clinic’s waiting room, citing her need to attend a briefing at The Citadel. She offered to stop by the quartermaster and pick up the replacement writing supplies that Twilight needed, as well as confirming that her baggage made it to her quarters safely. Twilight took her XO up on both offers and made arrangements for the two of them to meet first thing in the morning, along with the rest of the fortress’ department heads and senior staff.

Twilight prepared to settle in for a long stay in the clinic’s waiting room, knowing that her injury was a fairly minor one and so she would likely be triaged as a rather low priority patient. However, the moment she stepped into the clinic, she discovered that it was empty, save for the white earth pony mare wearing a nurse’s cap sitting at the reception desk.

The nurse perked up upon seeing Twilight enter. “Oh, hello! What brings you by—oh my!” The mare’s eyes locked onto the blood staining the purple unicorn’s cheek. “What happened?” She stood up from the desk and stepped up closer to examine the wound.

“Just a cut from some broken glass. It’s nothing serious,” Twilight said with a dismissive wave of a hoof. “You can just get me some gauze and tape and I’ll get out of your mane. Oh, and maybe some aspirin too?”

It was hard to tell if the earth pony hadn’t heard Twilight’s self-diagnosis, or if the nurse simply dismissed whatever patients merely thought was wrong with them out of professionally acquired habit. In any case, the mare elected to direct Twilight towards a nearby examination room. “I’ll go and fetch the doctor.”

Twilight briefly entertained the notion of trying to fend off what she saw as an overreaction to such a minor injury once more, but ultimately relented. As minor as the injury was, it would doubtlessly be quicker to simply let the staff here treat it and send her on her way than it would be to continue to argue. So Twilight lay herself down on the exam bed and patiently waited for the doctor to arrive.

If she hadn’t been looking at the door, the unicorn had to wonder if she’d have noticed the pegasus mare enter, as quiet as she was. A chiffon yellow face that was almost entirely obscured by the fall of a long pink mane poked in through the nudged open door. There was a brief moment where a singular sapphire iris met a pair of amethyst ones…and that was the only eye contact that Twilight was able to recall from the whole encounter.

“Are you…the doctor?” The unicorn ventured.

There was a prolonged moment of silence and lack of movement on the part of the other mare. Then, finally, there was a “...yes” which floated by, lofted by so few decibels that Twilight wondered if she should ask for an audiology exam in order to check herself for a sudden loss of hearing.

The yellow mare slipped the rest of the way into the room. A long white coat obscured most of her body, though Twilight was able to pick out the pair of subtly twitching bulges to either side of the doctor’s body which suggested a pair of wings were tucked beneath it. A nameplate fastened to the coat read: ‘Fluttershy, M.D.’ The sole visible eye darted to Twilight’s cheek for only a moment, and then was looking anywhere other than her patient once more. Wordlessly, the chiffon pegasus stepped over to a cabinet and began to carefully extract supplies and tools.

Twilight would be the first to admit that she wasn’t generally the most outgoing or social of ponies. She wasn’t the sort to host a party. She was barely the sort to attend a party, unless doing so was required due to her rank and position. As far as ‘small talk’ was concerned, the unicorn was having a difficult time recalling when she’d been the one to initiate it. Generally that was always done by another party, with Twilight offering the sorts of polite responses that were expected by social convention.

In her experience, doctors were prone to initiating conversation during exams and treatments. Part of the ‘good bedside manner’ which was expected from those in their profession. She’d noticed that this was the case with nearly every medical profession. Dentists especially were prone to conversation while they had their hooves deep in their victim’s mouths—for reasons that Twilight still couldn’t fathom. Her working theory was that all dentists just liked to hear themselves ramble, with no actual desire to engage in true conversation with their patients.

However, in the face of what was becoming a progressively ever more awkward lack of verbal exchange between two ponies in the same small room…Twilight conceded that, as uncharacteristic as it might seem, she was going to have to be the one to start up a conversation.

“...So…” Her lack of prior expertise in the matter left her with few ready topics into which to delve and necessitated a pause to think of what the two of them could reasonably talk about. But…maybe she should look at this as an opportunity to further her knowledge about Harmony instead? That felt like a reasonable topic. “How are you liking Harmony Fortress so far?”

The pegasus paused. “It’s…nice.” She resumed gathering her supplies and spread them out on the nearby counter. “...Turn your head, please.”

Twilight obliged, offering her injured cheek to the mare, but also continued in her efforts to extort information from her. “‘Nice’…how? Do you like being around so many different creatures? It must be quite the experience treating so many different kinds of beings. Definitely something you couldn’t do back in Equestria,” Twilight reasoned. There wasn’t much of a non-pony population back home. For…obvious reasons.

Gauze was dabbed at the wound, mopping up the drying blood and bringing the details of the injury into focus. “They’re…nice,” came the eventual response once the gauze was discarded. No further words were offered by the pegasus.

It was still unclear to the purple unicorn if the compounded awkwardness she was feeling right now was because she was simply so inexperienced at initiating conversation, or if the onus here was on the physician. Still, she tried a valiant third attempt at getting words to flow in both directions for more than a single exchange. “Is it hard? Being so far from Equestria? Away from your family?”

The single visible eye critically examined the laceration in silence. Then the pegasus fetched a cotton swab in her teeth and dabbed it into an open jar of some sort of balm. The swab was delicately brushed along the cut on Twilight’s cheek. Whatever it was stung a little when it met the wound and the unicorn winced slightly. When the doctor was done, she disposed of the swab.

“It was…nice.” She fetched and applied a simple adhesive bandage over the injury before backing away and beginning the process of clearing away her supplies. “...I’m done. You can go, colonel.”

Twilight cocked her head. Even though she recognized that she’d been freed of any presumed social obligation to converse, the fact remained that the doctor’s last answer had piqued her own curiosity. “‘Was’ nice? What changed?” If there was a problem on Harmony, then it was something that she could likely do something to address.

The pegasus finished cleaning up the exam room. She didn’t turn back around to look at the purple mare. The bulges beneath her white coat trembled. “...please go.”

Twilight was frowning now as she slipped off the examination bed. “Doctor, if something’s wrong, I need you to tell me. As the commander of this fortress, it’s my duty to address serious issues.

“Is there a problem?” Her tone didn’t quite rise to that of a ‘demand’. The doctor wasn’t one of her officers; Twilight couldn’t give her any actual orders. However, as the commander of the fortress, she possessed a certain nominal executive power over every creature that lived and worked on the island. Much like the mayor of a town might.

The chiffon pegasus winced, her head bowing low at the edge in Twilight’s words. Still no response came.

“Doctor—”

Then the unexpected happened: the yellow mare spoke. With both some measure of volume, and at length.

Relatively speaking, anyway. The pegasus’ words were barely above a typical speaking voice, but they were the loudest she’d uttered thus far. There was also a firmness to them that almost compelled Twilight to stop talking and listen to the mare, who had turned and was now regarding the unicorn with both eyes.

Eyes which possessed a strange sort of intensity.

“I know who you are, Colonel Sparkle. So I also know what you’ve done.” The words contained no real vitriol. There was barely even anything which could reasonably be categorized as a ‘biting tone’ to them. From anypony else, they would have simply been regarded as calm and inoffensive statements.

“You’re not…nice.”

Yet, somehow, from the lips of that pegasus, that last line cut Twilight to her core. “I did what I had to do,” was the automatic defense, and perfectly echoed the recurring phrase she recited to herself on those nights when memory kept her from sleep.

“We all do only what we choose to do.” Again the words contained no audible bite…and yet they rocked the unicorn regardless. “...I chose to leave.” The pegasus turned back towards the door. “Goodbye, colonel.” Then she was gone as quietly as she’d appeared.

It was several minutes before Twilight was composed enough to leave the room. She was vaguely aware of the nurse at the front desk wishing her a good day. Twilight didn’t remember if she responded. Her mind was elsewhere as she trotted back through the fortress, heading broadly in the direction of the central spire, as she wasn’t yet familiar with the street layout of Harmony.

It was a war. The survival of ponykind was on the line. It was us or them. I had a duty—

A familiar flash of memory. A town that was there one moment…and gone in the next; leaving behind only a crater where it had once stood. Twilight had seen a recent map of the area. It was a lake now. Debatably, it also doubled as a graveyard of sorts.

Equestria had given her a new medal.

The zebras had given her a new name.

Twilight cared for neither.

…I did what I had to do.

The purple unicorn was eventually able to wrestle those thoughts back into the deeper recesses of her mind, where she tended to keep them. By the time she had, Twilight realized that she was back in Ponyville. The spire of The Citadel wasn’t that much further off, and she even identified an avenue that looked like it would take her the rest of the way there. She took a few hoofsteps in that direction when something made her pause.

Nostrils twitched. The mare inhaled deeply. Then she had to swallow back the saliva which threatened to drown her.

Two weeks spent on a ship in the middle of the ocean had meant that Twilight had been removed from quite a lot in life which most ponies who spent their lives on land took for granted: stationary beds, proper bathrooms, space to trot around in to stretch her legs. But, perhaps most noticeably in this moment, the unicorn had also been deprived of the simplest of underappreciated ‘luxuries’:

Fesh. Baked. Bread.

Stale hardtack and drier-than-a-desert oat cakes might sustain life, but they didn’t in any way enrich it. It had been the better part of a month since the unicorn had been able to enjoy a decent slice of toast!

Twilight didn’t even remember making her way to the baked goods stall in the market. She didn’t even remember seeing it until she was practically drooling over its wares, which consisted of more than simple bread, she soon discovered. There were muffins, cupcakes, and full cakes. Flaky croissants and fruity tarts. There were items that the unicorn didn’t even know the proper names for because they weren’t of Equestrian origin.

They all had one quality in common though: they smelled amazing!

“I’d ask if you see anything you like,” a mare that Twilight hadn’t even noticed until that moment lightly chuckled, “but I think I’m picking up on a few context clues…”

The purple unicorn finally realized that her mouth was hanging open and slammed it close with an audible ‘clack’ of her teeth. She lightly flushed with embarrassment as she finally looked up towards the proprietor of the stall: a pink mare with an even pinker curly mane that skirted the line between apathetically unkempt and styled to a very particular taste. Her blue eyes were very nearly sparkling with amusement at the prospective customer who’d been on the cusp of glazing her wares with drool.

“Sorry,” Twilight sheepishly offered the baker. “I just spent the last two weeks on a ship. The food…wasn’t the best,” she offered by way of understatement.

The pink earth pony winced in sympathy. “Oof! I know how that is. Equestrian ship rations are the worst! Mostly it’s because they don’t have any cold storage aboard—wood’s not so good for that long-term and most captains don’t want to give up potential cargo space for an ice-box. After all, flour stores just fine on a ship so it’s hypothetically possible to bake fresh bread on a ship. Dried yeast and sugar keep for a long time too. But, any bread you bake with just that is barely worthy of being called ‘bread’ at all, in my opinion!

“If you’re not using milk, then why bother baking bread at all? Just stick to the bardtack, I say!” The mare went on. As she spoke, her hooves were busy loading a selection of her wares into a basket. “And that’s where you run into problems: storing milk requires an ice-box. And you don’t find those on Equestrian ships. Griffon ships have them, but they don’t store milk in them. They’re mostly used for meat.

“Zebra ships, on the other hoof,” the baker absently went on as she continued to pile goods into the basket, seeming to barely even be paying attention to what she was selecting, “they have whole walk-in freezers on some of their bigger cruisers! Proper cast-iron ovens too! Forget bread, you can throw together a proper three-tier cake aboard one of them!

“Ask me how I know that!” Twilight very nearly missed the wink.

The prompt snapped the purple mare out of her baked-goods-induced trance and she found herself looking directly at the baker once more. The mare was clearly a pony, and to the best of Twilight’s knowledge that meant that there was little to no possibility that she would have ever been aboard a zebra vessel. Certainly not a military vessel. Despite the existence of the peace treaty that now existed between their races, the zebras didn’t let Equestrians aboard their warships.

“How do you know—?”

The rest of the unicorn’s question was interrupted by the unexpected shoving of the overladen basket of baked goods into the mare’s chest which sent her falling onto her flanks with a grunt. Both hooves and magic desperately lanced out in an effort to keep the teetering spire of fresh treats from falling into the street.

“Welcome to Harmony, colonel!” the now-obscured baker called out. “Enjoy this complimentary gift-basket. By which I mean that the contents of the basket are a gift, not the basket itself. I’m going to need that back, it was my mother’s. But you don’t need to give it back right now. Because you still need it to carry your gifts.

“I’ll swing by and collect it later!”

Twilight only half-heard the words, as she was far more focused on stabilizing the tower of treats that had been shoved at her by the pink mare. Once she was confident that her telekinesis had everything secured, the purple unicorn finally stood back up with this intent to confront the baker and get answers to the many questions that she now had.

“Hold on! How do you know what’s on zebra ships?! I’m also not authorized to accept gifts valued at over a certain amount, and this…” Her eyes darted to the top of the stack of baked goods which somehow wasn’t collapsing under their own weight, “has to be over that amount.” It was certainly over the nearby building’s awning.

Twilight shifted the basket and its contents out of her line of sight with the baker. “I have to pay you…for…

“...Huh?”

The baker wasn’t there anymore. While that initial realization was, in and of itself, a little puzzling; it paled in comparison to the second thing that Twilight noticed: the baker’s entire stall was no longer there. The counter and all of its goods had vanished.

Twilight spent a brief moment reviewing her memory of the baker and confirming whether or not the pink mare’s curls might have possibly concealed a horn. She concluded that the baker had indeed been an earth pony.

The unicorn glanced at a nearby stall and its proprietor, a donkey with a shabby black mop of a mane which, for some reason, struck Twilight as not sitting quite right upon his head. He was sitting amidst a series of shelves which displayed wigs and toupees. “Where did she go?”

Twilight was answered with a light snore. Twilight frowned, noting that the dull brown donkey’s eyes were half-lidded and so reasoned that he might be intentionally ignoring her. “Sir. Sir.”

The jack jerked with a start, smacking his lips noisily before glancing around his surroundings for the source of his nap’s disturbance. When his only slightly-wider pale blue gaze finally identified Twilight, they narrowed in annoyance. A hoof idly went to his head and adjusted the set of his mane. Which turned out to also be a—rather well-worn—toupee. “What do you want?” He grumbled. He took obvious note of Twilight’s mane and concluded that the mare was unlikely to be a prospective customer.

“The pink mare who was right here,” Twilight pointed a hoof at the empty space beside the donkey’s stall. “The baker. Where did she go?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The baker,” she repeated, trying to keep her own annoyance from coloring her tone too much and further antagonizing the obviously quite annoyed donkey. “The one who was right here not two minutes ago: where did she go?”

“Lady, I’ve been here all day; there was no baker,” he insisted. “This isn’t even the food section of the market. If you want baked goods, then you have to go over there!” He elaborated his point by jabbing a hoof to his right. Twilight followed the direction he was pointing in and saw that, indeed, it appeared that the stalls which sold food were all clustered into their own section of the open air market. All of the other stalls and stands around her appeared to only be peddling in non-edible wares.

“And what do you need a baker for anyway? How many more bread rolls do you need?” The donkey further snorted, eyeing the swaying tower of tarts Twilight was holding in her magic.

“No, I don’t need a baker,” Twilight countered, some of her frustration creeping into her words now. “I’m looking for the baker who was right here—”

“And I already told you this isn’t where food vendors are allowed to set up,” the donkey snapped back. “So if you want more bread, go over there!” His hoof was up and pointing again, this time singling out a stall which had a pair of earth ponies standing in it, a gangling yellow stallion and a squat blue mare.

“Now, if you’re not going to buy anything from me, scram!” He snorted and rearranged himself back into the napping pose he’d originally been in.

Twilight clamped her mouth shut against the temptation to get into a verbal altercation with the mule. It wouldn’t be productive. Instead, she cast one last glance around the market, reasoning that the pink-on-pink mare would be rather easy to spot if she were in the area. The fact that her search proved entirely fruitless suggested that the baker had indeed managed to make a clean escape. Somehow.

With a heavy sigh, Twilight resigned herself to the fact that her questions would remain unanswered…and that she was in possession of a regulation-breaking gift. On the other hoof, it was unlikely that the disappeared mare was trying to curry any favor with her, so maybe there was some wiggle-room to be had. Plus…maybe it only really counted if the ‘gift’ endured for a protracted length of time?

Twilight floated down a cupcake and began to dispose of the evidence of her possible impropriety.

She’d put hardly any kind of dent into the tower by the time she reached The Citadel. To further aid in her efforts to erode the basket’s contents, Twilight tipped the helpful pegasus guard at the door who informed her which floor her quarters were on with an apple pie. The two guards sitting at the desk in the tower’s lobby likewise received muffins for their revelation that her possessions had been transported up to her room. A fourth pegasus guard who offered to carry up her delivery from the quartermaster was compensated with a strawberry torte.

A quick trot up the two flights of stairs brought the purple unicorn to her apartment, for that was pretty much what it was. Twilight came as close as she dared to overburdening the pegasus who’d walked with her with approximately half the remaining contents of the basket, directing him to deliver them to the enlisted barracks with her compliments.

Twilight predicted that she was well on her way to becoming Harmony’s most popular commander. True, as the fortress’ first commander, she was going to hold that title regardless of the objective level of regard with which her ponies held her. Still, as with most aspects of her tenure on the island, Twilight’s intent was to set a high bar in nearly all aspects of her command. One which her eventual replacement would be motivated to maintain, if only so that they didn’t come off as looking incompetent by comparison.

The door closed behind the grunting pegasus, leaving Twilight alone in her suite of rooms.

‘Rank has its privileges’. Twilight had entered her service during the war as an officer, due to her family’s—nominal—nobility and a range of higher education degrees which she’d possessed at the time. Even during a war which was quite quickly growing ever more desperate, that had garnered her better rations and quarters—which mostly meant actually having quarters at times.

As a major in Canterlot, this had meant having a modest two-room suite with a private bathroom. Her promotion to colonel wouldn’t really have seen her getting accommodations which were much better, assuming she was given new quarters at all.

However, as the de facto governor of the island, as well as Equestria’s official representative to the other races while on Harmony, her position qualified her for more than merely a decent sized bedroom and private washroom. Since there was the expectation that she might need to host official visitors from other nations for dinners and parties, Twilight had been provided with a dining room, a separate den, and even a parlor. They were, by far, the nicest living accommodations that Twilight had known in…a long time.

Her two trunks had been deposited in the den. Glancing around, it was clear to Twilight that she was going to need to make some trips to the fortress’ markets to buy…well: stuff. Otherwise, her accommodations were going to look embarrassingly spartan in the event that she did end up hosting one of the island’s other dignitaries for an evening. But that could wait.

While it wasn’t really all that late, the voyage aboard the Lickity hadn’t afforded the unicorn much in the way of restful sleep. Retiring early seemed like a good idea. Before she could sleep though, there was still one piece of business that she needed to see to.

Twilight opened up the chest which contained her personal possessions and sifted through them with her telekinesis until she found what she was looking for. Carefully extracting the items, the purple unicorn made her way into the parlor, which was positioned near the outer wall of the fort’s central spire, and had access to a balcony through a pair of large glass doors. She didn’t go outside though. The window beside the exterior door would suffice for her needs.

The mare cleared off a small end table and moved it closer to the window. Upon it, she deposited the pair of objects that she’d retrieved from her chest: a picture frame and a lantern.

A brief charge of magic was enough to illuminate the small gemstone nestled at the heart of the lantern, and it immediately began to glow with soft yellow light. Twilight spared a moment to appreciate the perhaps comically redundant nature of her little lantern when compared to the much larger and brighter bona fide lighthouse which existed at the peak of the spire she was presently in.

She wasn’t intending to use it to guide the near constant convoy of ships which streamed into and out of Harmony’s ports at all hours of the night and day. She was concerned with only a singular ship.

Most of her knew that it wasn’t ever going to appreciate the lantern’s existence. It couldn’t. Anymore…

The second item she erected on the table near the window was a frame that contained a faded daguerreotype. The subject of the image was a unicorn stallion. It wouldn’t have been immediately obvious to most observers when they looked at the picture, thanks to its limitation to black and sepia tones, but when Twilight looked at the stallion, she could vividly make out his two-toned blue mane and white coat. His kind blue eyes that had looked upon her with love the last time they’d seen each other…

Time had passed since she’d received the news.

The ache of loss hadn’t faded all that much.

She returned the image’s static smile for a few lingering moments before tearing herself away from the reestablished memorial and finally heading off to get some rest. Her first hours in Harmony had certainly left an impact on the mare—literally.
The morning would see whether or not Twilight could leave a lasting impact on it…

Author's Note:

Get it? The title's a pun!

As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

If you like the cover art and want to see more stories get them, I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around!

Comments

[Mix-up]

Great chapter it was certainly a lot of fun to read through with the humorous surreal situation Twilight finds herself in. Looking forward to se what happens next. Keep it up.

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

Lieutenant Dash
Your going to die at the end of this episode. You need to come pick up your cheque now

[Sotharan]

Shouldn’t AJ be a Chief Warrant Officer rather than a Captain? Just a thought.

[Sotharan]

There is a rank between colonel and major if you’re interested: lieutenant colonel. You could use it if you want to promote Rarity like Ivanova was promoted from lieutenant commander to “full” commander.

(Sorry about all the rank stuff; I’m a military guy)

[CopperTop]

11961643
I know Garibaldi was a warrant officer in the show, but that rank in that position is too 'unrealistic' for me to use here (I somehow say in regards to a story about magical talking ponies with a straight face). Warrant officers are technical specialists, and rarely in positions of outright leadership for larger outfits. In the real world, a warrant officer in any kind of military police force would perform investigative duties, not command ones.

I will only suspend my disbelief so far! /s

Obviously, B5 can have it's military rank structure function however its writers want; it's their universe. I suspect they wanted to be able to refer to the leader of the station's 'police force' as 'chief', and so picked a rank with that in its name. Star Trek did the same thing to O'Brien, heh.

I've elected to give AJ a rank more appropriate to her position and duties on Harmony and explain the 'chief' title through alternate means so I wouldn't inwardly wince every time I called her a warrant officer :P

And, yeah, I'm aware of the LTC rank :P We'll see if Rarity earns a promotion or not by the end of the story