• Published 16th Nov 2014
  • 10,566 Views, 605 Comments

Chrysalis Visits The Hague - Dan The Man



In a universe where Equestria recently arrived on Planet Earth, Queen Chrysalis sits in chains. Now she must answer herself in front of this world's highest court - the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Netherlands.

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IX. The Help

IX.
The Help

Princedom Hospital, Ponyville, Equestria
18. November, 2015
10:38 am MET

Edith’s mind was bobbing in and out of consciousness like a buoy in a stormy sea. She was overtaken by an incredibly strong urge to close her eyes and drift off into sleep, but she fought valiantly to stay awake and aware of her surroundings.

The whole day had been like that, the sole struggle of her fighting against the flurry of her own confused thoughts. Even the throbbing of her gums did not manage to make her focus for even an instant. The forensic had left behind three molars and both her right wisdom teeth back in the caves, that's what some voice had told to her half-conscious form. Her organ of equilibrium had been violently shaken to the point of damage, punishing her with nauseous vertigo if she tried to stand up and walk further than a few metres. At least her jaw and gingiva, although dislocated, could to be saved with few complications.
She had been hurried to Princedom Hospital in the nearby hamlet of Canterlot by an Argentinian White Helmet peacekeeping platoon that happened to be in the vicinity of the Everfree when she dispatched her distress call. They were later joined by an entire company of Royal Guard Pegasi who had flown in all the way from Canterlot upon hearing the news of the discovery.
With combined efforts, they had managed to free all of the unfortunate ponies from their changeling prisons. Three hundred and fifty earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi - according the last count – were carried out of the godforsaken cave that afternoon.

Earily, Edith supposed that she should feel glad; glad for all the ponies whose lives they had saved, and glad for all those that had missed them so dearly.

But actually, she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t feel happy, or sad, or even horrified. The tragic, harrowing images of the degenerated and lifeless equine bodies trapped in the changeling sacs like rotting flies inside amber, they bounced off the trained forensic like hail off a tin roof.

All she felt was a dull droning inside her head, a pounding, a confusion of utterly trivial thoughts and considerations making a mess of any attempt at sorting out her feelings. In a way, she felt distant and uninvolved, like a disinterested observer entity hovering around the unsealed death, destruction and misery without batting an eye. It was a very strange state of mind, indeed.
She hadn’t gone sociopathic, had she?

She kept wondering, until at one point, she noticed she couldn't get any of it out of her head after all. She realised how manically she plunged herself into work the other day, typing a report describing all the findings and send the horrifying account on its way to Canterlot, from where it would be sent straight to Europe. All that despite being trapped in her state of perpetual vertigo, She even had to hold off some unicorn doctor’s attempts at treating her just long enough to get her task over with.
And as she wrote and typed away, ignoring the pony medic’s concerned neighs directed at her hunched-over back, she realised just how badly she wanted to accompany the letter to the old continent.
Whatever feelings of accomplishment, of triumph or esprit de corps there may have been at some point in this assignment, they had all been replaced by a thought vacuum. It didn't matter what her colleagues from the ICMP said. It didn't matter what the ICC said either. She was fed up to the stumps that had once been her back teeth.
Only when she resigned, laying down her laptop on her lap, did the doctor strike her with something warm and tranquilising in the back of her head, causing her senses to finally fade away for good.

But as much as she grew weaker and less willing to pull her work in the new continent through, there was one thing that eventually made her reconsider – something that kept her from leaving the country and reserving herself a bed in some Sarajevo hospice instead.

It was some time after the persistent pony physician had catapulted her into a deep slumber, when she noticed, through the fog of strange fantasies, a pegasus in formal golden armour and a bandaged wing standing in her room.
She didn’t know whether she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or actually seeing the pony in her chambers; but she was almost sure it was Lieutenant Fighting Fit.
She had been about to raise her head and ask him what he was doing there - after all the hope she had inspired, and so much she ended taking away from him - when he suddenly sank down next to her bed, and began to cry uncontrollably.

"You were right." The pegasus soldier sobbed. "You were right and I was wrong. They are all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!"

She had never heard any of the equines utter that word before. Was this all just a hazy dream?
And what was going on? Who was dead? The ponies from the cavern?

"What was I thinking? What was I thinking..." he cried on.

“What…” Edith mouthed weakly.
Even through the mist of sedation, the human felt concern swell up in her. There was a grave premonition lingering at the back of her mind.
But… hadn’t they already rescued them? Wasn’t it all over?

She caught her numbed hand travelling over to the despairing stallion holding onto her bed, and weakly caressing his chalk-white, buzzcut mane and his burning-hot ears.
"June..bugh?" she suddenly asked, her mouth reticent.

"They didn't find her..." he whimpered. "We'll never find her! Not now... not anymore!"

She could not think of anything else to say, but...
"But we will... we will..."

Then she dove back into the murky sea of unconsciousness.

That was a day ago.
And now she was here. Still here.
Her investigation was continuing. She was going to find Junebug. Whether she wanted or not.


“Uh, Miss? Excuse me?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Are you… uhm… alright?”

Edith lifted her head from the bed, and blinked to see who was speaking to her. The golden gleam of a Guard cuirass blinded her.
“Lieu… Lieutenant?” she slurred.

“Uh… heh, no. It’s Sergeant First Class, actually.”

As her eyes got used to the morning light, she spotted a grey unicorn eyeing her intently from her bedside.
“Who are you?” she immediately inquired.

“My name is Sergeant Golden Dirk, Miss.” he said with a smile. “Service Number Two, Two, Seven, Niner, Three, Eight, One.”

“Aha...” She muttered, and wearily turned her body to face him.

“The Royal Palace has sent me, Miss. I should come and look after you.”
Despite his friendly tone, there was a sense of urgency in his eyes, he himself seemed a bit fidgety as he spoke to her.

“Okhay… er…”
It unsettled her just a bit. She remembered her ‘dream’. “Why, has somethingh happened?”

“Well… I’m supposed to confirm that you are feeling well… and are being cared for.” He paused awkwardly. “You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”

She sighed and lowered her eyes. “No. But I had worse.”

“Oh, good. I’ll tell them that when I get back.” He said with a reserved grin.

Then he said nothing, and just stared at the waking human a bit more.

“Is… there anythingh else?” Edith asked.

“Oh… uhm. Not really. I am bringing you the condolences of the Equestrian Crown, and their sincere wishes of a speedy recovery.”

“Thankh you… Is there – anythingh – else?” she asked again.

He bobbed his head back and forth unsurely. “N...nope. All I wanted to say is that… I am in charge of the Royal Archives security command in Canterlot. I have the day shift first half of the week, and night shift the second half. And… if you need something… anything… you just need to ask for Sergeant Golden Dirk, Service number two, two, seven…”

“What about the dead?” she cut him off, so abruptly she took even herself by surprise, not to mention the unicorn at her bed.

“What… what about them?” he asked a bit perplexed.

“How many of them are there now? How many are left alive?”

“Oh…I have… no idea. I just got here. You’ll have to ask the doctor. I think I just saw him trotting around outside.”

Brushing messy dark hair out of her face, she stared at the guard pony as she lifted herself and slipped her feet on the floor by the bed. She was only wearing a plain white hospital gown, just as she remembered it when she was put to sleep.
“What about… Lieutenant Fightingh Fit?”

“Lieutenant?” he asked, “Oh, you mean Captain Fighting Fit?”

“No. I mean the Lieutenant. He was a Sheriff around here a few years ago.” She repeated. “Where has he ghone?”

The unicorn smiled again. “I know. The good Lieutenant has received a promotion, Miss.”

She could only raise her eyebrows. “What? When did that happen?”

“This morning – for his exceptional deeds in the field while in the Everfree. He was summoned to Canterlot the other evening. I suppose to report on the discovery, among other things.”

“I see…”
How long exactly had she been out? It felt like an eternity.
She carefully positioned herself on the cold stone floor, trying not to fall over again due to her head spinning.

“Should I…” the unicorn quickly asked, bracing himself to catch her, “…call the doctor, maybe?”

“No, I’ll find him myself…”

But then it hit her.
If the Lieutenant was gone now, how was she supposed to find her way around the place without an interpreter?
Only then did she notice that something was very wrong.
“Wait a moment… why are you speakhing Enghlish?”

“Me?”
He seemed confused. “I’m… not. I’m pretty sure I’m speaking Equestrian, Madam. And… so are you.”

“What?!” Her right hand shot up to her throat. “How…? I chan’t speakh Eqhuestrian!”

“Well…” he just smiled, “From what I’m hearing… you’ve got no problem speaking our language. Maybe it’s the language spell they gave you.”

Shocked, she glared around the place, as if she had just been given an appendix removal against her will.
“...Who did?”

He shrugged.
“The doctor, I guess. He looks like an experienced unicorn.”

Maybe it was because of her Christian upbringing, or maybe she liked to seek refuge in anatomical science, but the inherent ‘magic’ abilities of those equines still gave her a shiver.
“I… specifichally askhed to not get magich performed on me!”

He smirked. “Hey, I’d be happy if I were you. It doesn’t happen every day a doctor gives you an enhancement like that for free. Don’t look the gift-horse in the mouth, as the gryphons like to say.”

Feeling her throat some more, her hand hit a bandage under her chin that made her wince out in pain. She came to the conclusion that she didn’t actually feel too different after all, even with the magic she was now carrying inside her. It was probably wise to ignore this for now. More urgent things were at hand.

She peered around for her clothes and possessions, but she found nothing. From her laptop to her mobile, everything was gone.

“Say, chan you do me a favour and hand me the flippers over there in the chorner?”


Peering out of her room, the human scanned the doorway of the archaic hospital building. It was all white-painted tiling and bricks, interspersed with some rural wood panelling, like any county hospital from over a century ago would have looked like.
However, it didn’t smell of disinfecting alcohol and misery like human hospitals, and perhaps a little bit more of barley.

From around a corner, she could make out two ponies’ voices clashing loudly.

“I’m sorry, Carmel. I need to get out of here!” A female voice declared.

“You can’t leave now! Redheart already gave her farewells this morning. Do you want me to run this place all by myself?” a male voice begged.

“Carmel, these halls are for the living! Ponies that I can actually help!”

“For Celestia’s sake! Get a hold of yourself! You are a nurse and you have a duty to fulfil!”

“You go and handle this mess, Doctor! Why don’t you ask some of the Guards to help you? Look how many of them are strutting around the place and doing nothing! I need to go home and check on my children. Maybe you should just go and do the same.”

Edith could manage to catch a glimpse of a mare with a white medical cap fleeing out the ward doors as she rounded the corner. The forensic found a unicorn doctor with an amber coat and a brown mane sitting there on his haunches, drooping his head in defeat and adjusting his spectacles with a hoof.
When he noticed the human approaching him, he quickly turned around and put a big fake smile on his face.
“Well, well, well…” he greeted her in a raspy, but yet typically equine voice, “If that isn’t my favourite human patient. It’s good to see somepony else trotting around the place who isn’t a Guard. How’s your jaw doing?”

Edith just nodded carefully. “Better. Much better.”
Looking around the otherwise completely empty corridor, and asked, “What is ghoing on?”

“Oh…” he smiled nervously, “Just some… hot heads, nothing more. You must understand, my staff and I have been pulling an all-nighter, taking care of the… changelings’ victims.”
His smile broke and faded away. “Not everypony’s quite up to the task. “

Edith pulled her bathrobe even tighter across her body. “But… chould you manage it all okhay?”

He hesitated before he gave an answer.
“We… certainly tried. We never had anything quite like this before. I know the Everfree holds a lot of dreadful secrets, but… we never had anything quite like this before.” He repeated, lost for words, and carved on the ground with a hoof.

“How many are dead?” the human asked.

The doctor’s eyes sank in at the mention. “I… they…” He dropped his head a little. “I don’t know the exact count. Many have passed in the hours since yesterday evening.”

“Many?”
Her heart sank. A shiver ran down her aching neck.

“Most of the survivors were in such a… exceedingly poor state that no magic in the world could help them. They simply… drifted away.”
Then he lowered his head.

It was not over. Far from it.

“It seems, for all the damage their changeling traps dealt to them…” the doctor assumed solemnly, “they did have some preserving qualities to them. It drained them, but it kept them alive. When you guys broke them out, it’s almost like years of pain, of starvation, and plain aging caught up with them. Their bodies couldn't have handled it even if they hadn’t been as frail as they were.”
His glasses reflected in the light of the lamps as he looked the human in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should have told you about it earlier.”

Edith simply shook her head. “No. I… I already heard.”

“Really? How?”

She harrumphed, thinking back further than her moment with the Lieutenant.
“Even back in the cavern… they looked more dead than alive.”

He adjusted his spectacles in disbelief.
“I have never seen any pony look like this. Not even the ones who had already... passed on.” he clarified.

She looked up and down the unicorn doctor’s body.
It was shaking.
“Do you… deal with the deceased often?”

“It’s part of the job, right?” he asked rhetorically, trying to make a light-hearted shrug. “Ponies come and ponies go… It’s the law of life, both here and elsewhere. It’s normal.”
He gulped, and his expression took a form much darker than any Equestrian pony should have. “But… by Celestia. This isn’t normal. Ponies do not go like that. Not like that. I mean… of course… this… might be a day-to-day sight in the place you humans come from. But for us, here in Ponyville… this is the stuff of Nightmares. No wonder my nurses are all running away.”

Pained, the forensic scrounged up her hands.
“Day-to-day? I… I really wish I chould refute that.”
This sentiment struck her as all too familiar. She tied up the belt around her bathrobe anew and straightened herself up.

He combed his ruffled mane straight with a hoof.
“Have you seen the… rescuees from the cave lately? They look so… so… empty. I would say they’re but coat and bones, but it would be an understatement. It almost seems like they’ll turn to dust as soon as you lay a hoof on them. It’s terrible.”

She quickly tried to stow her growing concerned expression away in a sigh.
“How many… how many are still left?” she then asked, trying to walk a lighter path.

She was glad to see his head nod very hesitantly.
“We have some very very lucky ponies who seem to be making it, all things considered. They either happened to be younger, and abler to cope with their captivity, or they didn't happen to be trapped as long as most of the of the others. There are fifteen or twenty at most, though none of them are responsive yet.”

She nodded. “So have you beghun with identifichation process already?”

He looked up again.
“Um… I didn’t think now would be time for… that. I mean, we haven’t even managed to… accommodate most of them yet.”

Wondering, she paced a few steps further down the corridor, both trying to get a grip on her equilibrium, and to remember her primary responsibility at the moment.
“I am looking for an earth pony mare challed Junebugh, born in Cholton’s End. I don’t suppose you happen to have information on her whereabouts?”

He opened his mouth and nodded. “Ah. Junebug… orange mane, cream coat, green eyes, 19 years, height 15-12?”

Her eyes lit up.
“…Yes.”

“A Lieutenant from Canterlot already asked for her the other day. I can only tell you what I told him.”

Tense, she held her breath.
“…And what’s that?”

“She… she might be among those who… who passed on this morning. I did see one poor pony that fits her description very much, but I still have to take a closer look, at some later point. But... not right now.”

"Why not?!“
Her question answred itself when she caught on to his left hoof carving a little faster, descending into a slight nervous shiver. “Listen... I chan also takhe a lookh myself, dochtor. If you don’t mind, at least.”

He eyed the human with a mystified expression. “You… really want to go among those...”

“I am a ghovernmentally certified forensich scientist with a deghree in Anatomy. I have seen worse.”


During her years with the ICMP, Edith had witnessed many catastrophes and great tragedies from the inside of a treating room. The places were always filled with tumult and chaos - sometimes more somber, sometimes less - but always would there be the subtle background chorus of moaning, of coughing ,of spluttering, of screaming, and crying, and shouting, and yelling, and sometimes perhaps even the constant beeping of life-sustaining apparatus.
But in this room, the only thing she could hear was the muffled pattering of thick snowdrops whirling into the room through the open windows.

The Rescued, or rather what was left of them, were stored in this large hall just adjacent to Edith’s single chamber. It was one of the larger spaces, filled with several dozen beds, and certainly intended to be just another one of the hospital’s normal patient rooms.

The doctors and nurses had probably opened all the doors and windows to let in the winter’s cold air, in a desperate attempt to stave off the decomposition. But even in this cold air, the room was filled with the unmistakably pungent, petroleum-like aroma of changeling secrete.
Edith, still clad in her bathrobe, was freezing. But that was the very least of her worries; she was quickly becoming almost as unsettled as the unicorn doctor.

Each one of the great hall’s beds was occupied by one of the Changeling terror’s tiny hapless victims. Each one was carefully positioned to lie as gracefully and comfortably as possible, to give them the everlasting rest they would need. Each one was covered by their white blanket, hiding them from the living world from ripped ear to barren tail.

With all of the ponies accounted for, the place was still bursting at the seams. In one corner, two unfortunate ponies had even been left on the trolleys they had been carted in on, due to lack of space to lay them down on.

Apart from the odd nurse darting in and out of the many doorways, a few Royal Guards solemnly paced up and down the rows of beds throughout in an endless patrol cycle, checking each of the bodies for any indications of life.

“This room used to be our emergency department, if you can believe that.” The doctor said, half-whispering, as he gazed around the place hurtfully.

“Why not use the morghue?”

“Because it's already full. We only have four or five gurneys down there.”
He looked up to the ceiling, muttering, “My nurses were right, you know. This isn’t the place for those who already passed on. I don’t mean to sound ridiculous, but… I am absolutely scared when I look at them. Whenever I have to lift a blanket, and look into their faces, I realise that I know… or rather knew, many of them. I think I can recognise faces I haven’t seen in years. Friends, patients, colleagues… None of whom I will ever get the chance to speak to again...”
He gulped and pressed his eyes shut. “But then again… maybe I’m just imagining things. Maybe it’s just me going off my head. I cannot wait for them to finally move on to everlasting rest.”

So much for the tight-knit countryside, Edith thought to herself.
“We channot have them moved until we have begun numbering them for identification.” she reminded him sternly.

He just gave her a pained glance. “Number them? You... cannot be serious. They're still ponies, not tree stumps. They have names.”

Were.” She corrected him, her face neutral. “And until we chan find out their names, we need to manage another way.”

“Another way…” the doctor parroted her bitterly, “I know another way; let the Princess’ finest handle them.”
He trotted past the beds, beckoning the human to follow him, “I received a message from Canterlot. They will send medics and more Guards to move the bodies to the Royal Canterlot Hospital.”

Edith was surprised. “When?”

“This week. From tomorrow onward, I think.”

“At such short notice?” she asked him. “Chanterlot is more than a hundred khilometres away. I don’t thinkh that’s wise.”

“They have the facilities, they have the technology, they have the magic.“ he explained stubbornly, “And I’m sure the Princess has her own plans for these poor ponies. Maybe she will give them some dignity back and have them laid out.”

Of course, Edith reckoned, the ponies wanted to hold these ponies high. Less as victims, and more as heroes and martyrs. She couldn’t imagine the ponies stashing their Returned away in silent mourning.
“But before we lay them out,” she reminded the unicorn, “...we should try and get their identities fixed. If we don’t pay attention, they chould end up buried without name or number.“

“I’m sure you’ll get your turn too....”
He glanced at the human, far too long for her own comfort – almost as if he was morbidly fascinated by her obstinate sense of duty. “Follow me. I think this might help your search.”
Walking to the end of the row of beds, they stopped in front of a partially uncovered pony’s faded remains. Only to a trained pony’s eye could this one have looked any different than any of the other crumpled bodies. “I found her earlier this day. She is an earth pony mare, just like Junebug. Judging by her dental situation, she’s in Junebug’s age group, give or take two years. Her height is average for her age. But as for her colours…”
He gave the body a long stare. “I have no idea. As you can see, most of her fur has fallen out with time. The little that’s left is heavily greyed. It could have been cream, but it could just as well have been white, or yellow, or even red. The same for her mane. This could be Junebug… but it might just as well be somepony entirely else.”

“And…” Edith mentioned, pointing at the face. “What about her eye cholour?”

“Her eye colour?”
The doctor stared at the tightly shut eyelids of the late mare, as if he was trying to see right through them. “I… honestly cannot tell.”

“Chould we maybe takhe a lookh?”

The doctor just froze up, his own eyes hiding away behind his spectacles.

But Edith was too short of temper to wait any longer. She was so close to a definite answer. She wanted to know.
Espying a pair of tweezers sitting on the night cabinet next to the bed, she quickly snatched them and, with freezing hands, led it towards the corpse’s face.
Under the terrified scrutiny of the doctor, she seized the right upper eyelid of the mysterious pony, and carefully lifted it.

Slowly, the eyeball came to light.
It was a milky, blank, perfectly featureless sphere, with no iris and no pupil anywhere to be seen.
Before even Edith could get lost in the vast, horrifying emptiness of the dead creature’s gaze, she lowered the lid again, and placed the tweezers back in their place.
“I… I want a hair sample.”


“What do you mean, we do not have authorisation? Are you shitting me?” the man yelled.

His beard was flaming red, his ski trousers and jacket were pearly white.
Discontently, he paced through the hospital waiting area, ignoring the curious passing eyes of Pegasi soldiers waiting outside the countless windows of the courtyard. “I couldn’t care less about any military operations! We’re not fucking tourists, we are part of the intervention force. You can go and play war whenever you like, but-”

His boots clacked angrily as he turned back around just before walking into a column. “I don’t think you get the concept of UNEVEG, do you? You can send a Million fucking soldiers into that forest, but we need to be there too! If you haven’t heard yet, there is a court investigation going on, so we need to have at least one eye on the situation.”

His fingers scraped against the walls as he paced back where he started. His Canadian intonations became rougher and more stretched out as he began to enunciate and stretch his words. “No, I am not a soldier. Neither was my ‘colleague’, as you keep calling her. But let me tell you one thing: she got injured in the line of duty! She knew fully well what she was in for. If you’re trying to imply we cannot guarantee for our own safety, then try again; We have peacekeeping platoons on the ground, and she was under your soldiers’ protection! Yes, Her Majesty’s Hoofington Territorials - so I’ve read. If seven of them couldn’t keep her safe in there, I somehow doubt even four thousand could! Your guys are the real problem here! Do you know what happened to me on my way here? I was stopped and interrogated at Guard road blocks not twice, not thrice, but-”

He stopped. “No no! Don’t come with ‘I wish we had more of you here but the Princess said no…’ shit, I heard that three times today. Your Princess has to adhere to the UN resolution Two One Nine Three! If she can’t remember the terms she signed herself, then I can’t help either of you!”

He took off his pelt ushanka, still wet from the molten snow, and threw it onto one of the many narrow pony benches. “You bet your ass you can quote me on that! Yes, Deputy Programme Officer for Southern Equestria, that’s who I am! And if your fucking pencil pushers want a confirmation, they can fucking well call New York and beg for it! Let this be a fair warning: If you, or one of your four thousand other guys, tries to obstruct UNEVEG workers anywhere in the sector again, I will personally make sure that, in one week’s time, you’ll be your Princess’ groom of the stool! Do you understand?! ...Yeah, fuckity bye!”

Punching the red button and barely avoiding the temptation of letting the phone crash on the marble floor, he shoved it in his pocket.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He mumbled, “’Leave thinking to the horses’, they said. ‘They’ve got bigger heads’, they said…”

Then the man heard steps echoing in the corridor outside – human feet. Just as he was about to poke out of the door and catch up to the conspecific before it walked past, a human woman came tumbling into the waiting area, incessantly toying with the belt of her white bathrobe with one hand, and limply holding some sort of tiny plastic bag in her other. Even with the bandages around her chin, the man immediately recognised her. She was the one he was waiting for.
“Edith? Jesus Christ, Edith! Look at you.” He swiftly got up from his seat and clasped the woman by her shoulders. “How are you?”

“Pierre?” She asked, dumbfounded at seeing the UN official standing in front of her. She was surprised, but too tired to show it.

“Here comes the woman of the hour…” he said.
She quickly noticed that his voice was beyond just sarcastic; it was rahter broody and disconcerted. It worried her.

“What’s goingh on?”

“You.” He stated flatly. “You are going on, Edith. Can you tell me what the fuck happened here?”

She gulped down her silence and instinctively took an step backwards.
“I was in the Everfree-”

“Let me stop you right there.” Pierre shushed her. “What were you doing in the Everfree? My list tells me you ought to be in the Canterlot General Hospital Morgue. Either alive or dead!”

“There was a development. I was followingh a lead, Pierre.” She said plainly. “A lochal was presumed missing, and a Peghasus lieutenant from Chanterlot askhed me for help.”

“And?” He smugly stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. “Found her yet?”

She wasn’t sure whether to nod or shake her head. She opened her hand and presented a little bag with a bundle of grey clotty hair.
“I need to make a DNA test to be sure.”

“Give me that!”
With a quick hand movement, the bearded official snatched the bag out of her hand.

Wide-eyed, the forensic jerked forward. “What the hell do you thinkh you’re doingh? Give me my sample backh!” she yelled in - quite frankly, uncharacteristic - anger.

But man held the bag out of her reach and struck out a finger at her with his other hand.
“What did I tell you ICMP guys during orientation?” he reminded her severely. “You’re supposed to stick to your assigned sectors, and only move around in company of designated UN personnel. You stay away from, and do not engage, the local population, unless it's explicitly on official business.“
He huffed, "I did not say, 'ride off to God-knows-where with some pegasus lieutenant without leaving as much as a post-it note on the door'!”

Caught somewhere between derision and confusion, she quipped, “My Ghod, you almost sound an Intourist ghuide…”

“You don’t get it, do you?” the officer hissed, “You’re not here on vacation. You are on commission! Equestria is an international exclusion zone. And we are supposed to be the neutral force in this mess!”

“Why are you shouting at me? Was I doingh my job, wasn’t I?!” she snapped back, pointing into the direction she had just come from. “Have you even been to the treatment rooms upstairs yet? I… I helped to find those ponies. I helped to lookh for them! I just did my job!”

“You’re a forensic, Edith.” He merely reminded her again. “Leave the whole ‘looking’ part to the ponies. It's their turf, it's their wood. You’re here to man the dissecting table after the fact, not play ‘field agent’ in some godforsaken forest that wasn’t even on our search radar.”

“Exachtly why wasn’t the Everfree on our radar?” she immediately inquired.

The man could just sigh and look away with a mocking, humourless smirk.
“Because, apparently, we gave our dear pony colleagues too much of the benefit of a doubt. The office of the Princesses assured us that all the changelings were balling up in the Frozen North. That’s where they sent all their troops, and that’s also where most of our personnel are at work. No one would have thought to look for changelings any lower than Canterlot… much less the Everfree region.”

The forensic nodded, and took a very long pause before she answered. “So what's your problem? Would you have preferred that we wouldn't have discovered the changelings here?“

He exhaled nervously. “You know... I am really not sure how to feel about it.“
Clearly uncomfortable, the official folded his arms. "You've kicked off a shitstorm back in Canterlot. The royal court – the nobles and, by the looks of it, the Princesses too – cannot decide whether they should be pissing their pants or baying for blood. Now that it turns out there might be changelings lurking in the Everfree, the ponies think they’re being surrounded by the enemy. Nobody's sure if the changelings are hatching a plan, or if they’re simply creeping around the countryside aimlessly... but in any case, the ponies want to nip it in the bud.”

“How do they want to do that? Chomb the forest?” she breathed frothily.

Pierre just kneaded the plastic sample bag in his hands.
“Haven’t you wondered by this place is suddenly swarming with Royal Guards?”

Edith looked around unsurely.

Discretely he glanced out the open doors into the corridor.
“Whatever the Princesses are planning, it’s gonna involve open warfare. ” he murmured,

“Are you serious? That forest is enormous…”

“I know. I saw the maps. It’s like a 7th fucking rainforest. But that isn't my concern.”
He leaned closer to his ICMP colleague. “What’s really unsettling is that the ponies now want to put a kibosh on UNEVEG activities in the area for the duration of the skim.”

She cocked her head.
“Why would they want that?”

“Supposedly, to keep certain idiot humans from wandering into the forest and getting themselves killed or captured by the changelings…”
He glared at her and her bandaged side of the head.

“Pierre…” the forensic growled, feeling her bandages, “It was a fuckhing rockh. Not a changeligh. I didn’t even see any changelings. What does this even have to do with our UNEVEGh achtivities?”

“The ponies don’t want us watching over their shoulder when they comb the place, and they want to use you as the grist to their mills.”

Me?!” the forensic rapped out and hung her head in disbelief.

“Did you wonder where all your stuff went while you were knocked out?”

She opened her mouth to bring forth a stammered answer, but in that moment Pierre let a wallet and a mobile phone slip out of his pocket. He tossed both things into her arms one after the other, which Edith was only barely able to actually catch.

“Ask me where I found those.”

“...I'd rather not.”

“Strapped to the back of a Pegasus Guard courier bound straight for Canterlot.”

Pressing her phone and wallet against her chest, she combed her hair out of her face nervously.

“And this, dear Edith, is why you should never ever leave the side of your UN charges. Because shit can happen, and sensitive information can fall into the hands of the wrong people. If I were you, I wouldn't trust anyone of those ponies even an inch!”

“I don't ghet it...” the forensic muttered, almost automatically flapping her phone open and checking the display for any manipulation. “Why did they do that?”

“Short version: There was some confusion over the term 'casualty'. The Princesses' little helpers all thought that you had died in that forest in a changeling attack. So the first thing they did was to send an honour guard here to impound all your belongings and ship them back to the capital. Supposedly for safekeeping.” Again, he gave her an enervated stare. “Supposedly.”

She could only bring forth a nervous, tired smirk. “Well... what else would they have done with it? I don't charry any 'sensitive information' around with me.”

“As I said, I'd trust them with anything.”
Absent-mindedly, he resumed pacing left and right. “They could have just as well packed your clothes on a wagon and paraded them around town in your honour – as the first confirmed human victim of the 'Changeling terror'.” he theorised, waggling his fingers sarcastically.

Scratching her nose, Edith looked down. A subtle smile crept over her countenance as she connected the dots. “I know they may be slightly overbearing... I mean, they even posted an 'honour guard' in my hospital room...”

“They did?” he gasped. “Check your belongings again. Check them twice!”

But...” she continued staunchly, “...I don't thinkh they would be that overbearing.”

“You call it overbearing, I call it fucking exploitative.” he continued to rant. “It all makes perfect sense to me, you know. First this, then they try and keep UNEVEG out of the Everfree...”

“Don't tell me there isn't anythingh we chan do to overrule them...”

His chest visibly inflated.
“We could. I called the Princess' secretary about it. I tried to make it clear – very politely – that barring our people from their missions in Equestria means breaching the goddamn UN Council resolution.”
He them followed up with a sigh. “They threatened to take it a level higher, to New York. So we might just as well pack our stuff and get the hell our of here now.”

“What makhes you say that?”

“I know my typical UN desk jockey – soft as play-doh. They would cut off their own hands and eat them if it means staying on good terms with all the involved parties. I don't think the Equestrians will have trouble convincing them to pull their own personnel out of one area for a certain amount of time if they cited safety risks. After all, who knows the dangers of Equestria better than the Equestrians? And after all, what wouldn't the UN do to avoid bad publicity?”

Slowly, Edith let the mobile and wallet disappear in the pockets of her bathrobe.
“Maybe you're overthinkhing all of this a little bit, Pierre.” she looked up at the slightly taller man with a critical glare. “Who knows, maybe there is a very real danger. Maybe there really are still Changelinghs lurkhing in the Everfree. Maybe they are trying to surround Chanterlot. Who are we to tell? Maybe we're not the ones to judge what is really ghoingh on here.”

The official angrily chewed his gums at that comment.“Edith... I don't think you quite grasp the concept of neutrality. Neutrality does not mean getting suckered in by what everyone's saying. It means to punch through other's bullshit and form your own opinion. And what I am seeing here is one side vying for some room to settle an old score.”

Edith crossed her legs
“You seem to be forghetting that the Ponies are the vichtims here. Aren't we here to protecht them?”

He let out a derisive laugh. “Even if... Do you really think they need it?”

To drive the point home, Edith placed a hand on her chest.
“I have seen with my own eyes what the changhelinghs have chommitted. That's why I should be on my way to Chanterlot and ghet started with the identifichation of one of the vichtims.”
Excpectantly, she stretched out her arm. “Please ghive me back my sample, Pierre.”

But the man just snorted, and quietly placed the bag with the strands in his jacket.
“You're not going to identify shit, Edith. When I said I was going to get you out of here, I meant Equestria.”

A breath of despair left the forensic's body.
She shot up from her bench, almost stumbling to the side in the process, and hoarsely hissed into his face “Are you khidding me? You're not ghetting rid of me now."
She was confused at herself. Wasn't that what she wanted all along? But... what about the Lieutenant? In her lingering thoughts, he was still clinging on to her bedside, despairing...
"W-why do you want to send me home?"

He sneered nigh-cruelly.
“Because you sound like a de-fanged bonobo, you wobble around the place like a drunken Ménière's patient, and Regional Command clearly thinks that you have caused more than enough of a stir one assignment's worth, and that's why you need to go. You can continue your work from Sarajevo, if you can get your hands on the material, but New York's not ready to let you loose in a crisis area again after all that has happened.”
He couldn't help but snort at his own words a little. “I suppose it requires less paperwork to get you out of the picture than to meet all the necessary security requirements for your likes.”

“What about the bodies?” Edith asked, nervously, “I thought those ponies needed instruchtion in chriminal examination.”

The official shrugged and stroked his beard.
“You can delegate the task to one of the other ICMP guys on scene, right? Like... that young guy who got air-sick on the way here... What's his name, Ibrahim?”

“Yeah, right. Ibrahim's a sechond level archivist, not a forensich.” Edith immediately interjected, “He's never been near a obduchtion table in his life!”

“Well, nuts. Then I'll take him. I can always need someone to sift through old records.”
Sauntering over to the desk where his fur cap still rested, he picked it up and buckled it on his head. “But right now, you are coming with me, back to the Embassy, until we can arrange your travel documents and a flight in the general direction of Europe.”

“I. Am. Not. Finished. Here. Pierre.” she snarled, punctuating her words, greedily eyeing the pocket that held her sample. “This taskh is - has always been - well within my chompetence. Those hairs may belongh to a mother's daughter who has been missingh for more than two years now. The mother must know if her daughter's still out there. That's why I need to takhe that DNA test, and ghive her the results. Ibrahim won't be able to do that on his own.”

Pierre said nothing at first, just gazing down at the hospitalised woman.
“That's funny.”

“What?!”

“Many ponies these days want to know what happened to their children. It would have been very nice if only you could have shown as much commitment and devotion to the rest of them.”

Edith stared and glared. Folding her arms, she stood fast, watching the officer as he got ready to depart.

“Edith...” he uttered, visibly short of temper. “You can either leave with me now, or it'll be the Ponies who will kick you all the way to Canterlot tomorrow. I know which choice I'd make.”
He rounded the stoic woman, dangling a big rustic iron key in front of her face. “Clothes, jacket, bag, kit, laptop, it's all waiting for you in the cloakroom.”


The snowing outside had finally subsided. Even though all the surfaces had gained another thick snow coating and the distant mountain ranges were fogged, the air was mercifully crisp and dry, as was to be expected of Equestria. There wasn't any wind blowing the snow.

Was this the calm before the storm, or the eye of the same?

The two humans followed a trail trodden through the fresh snow by a hundred armoured hooves. On the lawn in front of the hospital building, several tents had been raised amidst rows of covered wagons and golden chariots. Not far away, they could see about two platoons worth of assembled Royal Guard Pegasi receiving a briefing from their lieutenants. Undoubtedly, they were readying for the big push into the Everfree.
That wasn't long after they passed two earth pony Guards who were busy hauling several barrels out of a wagon, each packed chock-full with halberds, spears and arrows.

“Don't bring your fists to a spear fight...” Pierre quipped as they marched on. "This is gonna be war, alright."

Further down the path to the village, two Guards patrolling the road were seemingly expecting them, their own spears planted into the snowy earth.

“Ugh, shit.” the official huffed when his stare met theirs, “Edith?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favour; go ahead and straight down to the Jeep. I'll take it up with those two guys down there. They're not terribly bright.”

He had barely uttered these words when a sudden “Halt!” brought them to a standstill.
Immediately, the two Guards were on their way to them, spears in mouths.
“You humanth! Thtate your name and buthineth.”

Edith was by them first. “Edith Šarić, I've-”

“You may go.” the guard unexpectedly cut her off, his scrounged-up equine face turning to the dumbfounded UN official. “You! Thtate your name and buthineth.”

Pierre groaned, “I already passed by you guys not even two fucking hours ago!”

“Your name and buthineth. Princeth' orderth.” the guard repeated stoically.

“Look, are we planning on doing this all day?” he asked as he flashed his badge, “I'm from UNEVEG Regional Command, she is with the ICMP. We have permission from your Princesses to pass through the area un-hindered.”

The pony reared his muzzle up to inspect his badge. “I can't read that.”

“No shit, you couldn't read it two hours ago either!” Pierre growled through clenched teeth. "Can't you see the UN symbol, or are you blind as well?"

“Stop shouting at them!" Edith hissed, her eyes nervously wandering between him and the ponies.

“Just go ahead, Edith!” he hissed back, “This is going to take a while.”

The forensic complied too happily, burying her head in embarrassment as she trudged on down the hill, hearing the UN official's barks clashing with the two soldiers tenacious repetitions of the same order, their weapons still between clenched their teeth.
The ponies certainly had a way to them that could become very grating very fast. Pierre had a point insofar.

She could soon make out the white-painted vehicle standing by the side of the street, faintly blending in with the shimmering white roadside.
But next to it, she noticed a rather familiar unicorn in armour standing right out.
It was the 'honour guard' from her room.

“Ah, you're already leaving, Miss?” he approached her as soon as he spotted her, still unpleasantly smiling. “Are you bound for Canterlot?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“Huh. Listen, I know this may sound silly, but...”
He took a strange pause to gulp. “...could I get a lift?”

“You need a lift...?” she remarked rather perplexed. Looking up and down his innocently smiling form, she couldn't hide her suspicion.

“My... my chariot must have been ordered back to Canterlot, and now I'm stranded. Silly thing, innit?”

Inadvertedly, she remembered Pierre's warning. 'If I were you, I wouldn't trust anyone of those ponies even an inch!'

She tried to see past his friendly grin, trying to find some ulterior reason why he wanted to accompany her. Had he been tasked to keep an eye on her? He couldn't be that clingy out of pure goodwill. She did see something, though she wasn't entirely sure what it could be.
“I...” she said, hesitantly, “I don't thinkh that would be a ghood idea.”

“Oh? Why not?”
The unicorn then stopped himself by biting his lip and quickly backing down. “Oh sure. Fine. No problem.”
He briefly peered left and right, as if demanding a little privacy from the landscape. Awkwardly, he opened his mouth to say something. “If that means that we'll part ways now...”

“...Yes?”

His horn lit up, and he telekinetically unbuckled his golden helmet, “I just wanted to... to take a moment and say that I really appreciate the work all you humans are trying to do here. Helping us, without asking for a reward. All while trying to stay neutral. I've read all the brochures. That's really grand of you.”
He took it off, magically holding it in front of himself respectfully.

“...Thankh you.”

Again, the conversation petered out into awkward staring. He harrumphed. Then he bit his lip again.
Was he waiting for something in particular?

Again, the human's eyes frisked the pony's body nervously. They peered into his upturned floating helmet.
There, they came across something peculiar.

In the helmet lay a piece of paper.

Quickly, she gave him a searching, questioning glance.
"There's..."

His big eyes returned a tense, urging stare. He nodded, ever-so slightly.
The helmet floated a bit closer to her, waggling like a beggar's hat.
“As... as I said earlier...” he stuttered, “My name is Sergeant Golden Dirk. Canterlot Archives Security Command. Service number, Two, Two, Seven, Niner-”

“Edith!” A voice thundered over the hillock, sending a frightened shiver over both creature's spines.

Jolted, her hand speedily but hesitantly reached out for the paper and picked it out of the helmet. She briefly caught a glimpse of its contents. It looked like the copy of something handwritten, in an alphabet she could not deciphre. Probably Equestrian.

Before she could form the words to ask him about the strange way he passed this note onto her, the voice called out again.
“Edith!”
Turning around, she spotted Pierre running down the pathway towards the both of them. “Who was that?! What was he doing by my Jeep?!”

Edith tried to summon a quick explanation, but as soon as her attention settled back on the unicorn sergeant, she noticed he was gone.
The only thing he left behind was a track of hooves quickly galloping away and heading down to the main road, the crumpled paper in her hand, and an eternally confused human.

“Little shit!” the bearded official cursed as he reached the Jeep in a quick jog. “What was he doing here, loitering by my car? Did he try to get inside?”

“No, Pierre.”

“Was he asking stupid questions?”

“No, Pierre!”

“I tell you, if he tries to get into this car, that's a breach of extraterritoriality. Did you know that? They've got no right. Don't let them in your car either!”

“No! Pierre!” she repeated aggressively.
Inspecting the paper in her hands, she folded it shut and let it disappear in her backpack.

“What was that?”

She promtply ignored his inquiry and trudged past him.
“Just ghet me backh to my Land Rover. It must still be parkhed somewhere by the Everfree...”

He scrunched his teeth, then nodded knowingly.
After he unlocked his Jeep and had given it a thorough searching, they finally got in.
"I won't warn you twice." he advised her grimly, leaning over to her from the driver's seat. "Don't get intimate with those bastards now. Nothing good will come of it."

All the Bosnian forensic could do was to shake her head, lost in thought.
"I've had worse."

"Huh! You keep saying that like it means something!"

Author's Note:

Hello, lads and ladies.
I greatly apologise for the delay, but university work has been rearing its ugly head again recently, as well as *insert standard life-related excuse here*.

Next chapter will be ready come next week. However, I can't promise that there won't be any more delays. Because, you know, see above.

Ayways, as always, enjoy and stay true!