Flash Sentry is sent to Canterlot to be Blueblood's personal guard. It's no surprise to find that a sizeable mass of ponies want the prince dead.
A thousand years is a long time to be cooped up in a city full of crystals.
Two years after the return of the Crystal Empire to the realm of Equestria, Flash Sentry was itching to board the next train to anywhere the first chance that he got. That chance came in the form of a reassignment when Equestria and the Empire merged their royal guard corps. He was shipped off to Canterlot to become one of Prince Blueblood's personal guard, a position of great honor and prestige. Flash was determined to perform his duties to the best of his abilities.
Of course, his best may not be enough seeing as how almost every mare on the planet wants to murder the good prince.
Few of the Crystal Empire’s citizens had ever laid eyes upon the city. Given how Equestria’s current capital was nothing but an empty space on a bare mountain the last time the crystal ponies walked the earth, that only made sense. Much had changed since the days of Sombra's rule. Over the course of the last millennium, the world had seen wondrous advances, and fantastical changes. Science, culture and the arcane arts had all been among the beneficiaries of this march forward, and Canterlot was Equestria’s center of all three.
Flash Sentry, a humble guard in the service of Her Majesty Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, had been ecstatic when he learned that he would soon pay Canterlot a somewhat permanent visit. It was a welcome break from his breathtakingly old duty station at the Crystal Palace, as he had not been anywhere else for literally a century.
Quite frankly, Flash was absolutely sick of crystals. Back up in the north it was crystal this, crystal that, crystal ponies, crystal houses, crystal trains, crystal everything. Nothing could ever not be made of the stuff. "I need a new couch for my living room!" he would say to one of the only furniture vendors in his part of the city. "Okay," the pony would reply "what kind do you want, blue crystal or pink crystal?" His eye would then twitch uncontrollably, which was not a sign of mental stability.
Canterlot was a breath of fresh air to a pony who was drowning in crystals. The buildings there were alien to him, made from stone, clay, metal, and wood, in stark contrast to the translucent walls of crystal buildings. The colors in the city were new and vibrant with their whitewashed walls, flashy gold trim, and dusty grey cobblestone streets. The ponies there were quite different as well; their coats and manes were opaque and not ridiculously shiny, their colors were flat and much easier on the eyes. No longer did Flash have to wear sunglasses around outside and risk being blinded from the reflection of the sun off of the locals' coats. On a particularly bright and cloudless day, crystal ponies could reflect light like walking disco balls.
On paper, Canterlot was just a new duty station to the guard; another set of doors for him to stand like a statue at from nine to five. But to him, it was an endless vacation. When Equestria and The Crystal Empire became buddy-buddy to the point where they merged their royal guard corps, he was first in line to apply for a transfer. He guarded the same city cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years, and the chance to go beyond the borders of the Crystal City after all that time was almost inconceivable. Almost.
And so there he was; a relatively young pegasus one thousand years out of time, standing at a train station in an unfamiliar place, wondering what new life and new experiences lay ahead of him in this city of golden spires.
What did Flash Sentry do first? The same thing any self-respecting stallion would do in his situation! He took a selfie.
"Oh for the love of- Stop fidgeting and look at the camera!" Rose Quartz, his best friend and fellow guard griped as she fiddled with the tripod upon which the camera was mounted.
"I can't!" Flash said, his eyes unable to stay on the same object for more than a second. "Everything here's just so- uh, so- I can't even think of a word for it! Is "awesomemazing" a word? Kuz that's what I wanna use."
Rose rolled her pale violet eyes. "No, now shut up and say cheese."
Giving in for the moment, Flash looked at the camera and gave it the biggest and dopiest grin that he could manage. "Cheeeeeese!"
There was a click and a blinding flash (the light kind of flash, not the orange kind) and the camera spit out a glossy rectangle of paper in an instant.
Rubbing and blinking away the colorful floaty spots in his eyes, he said "How do I look?"
Rose hoofed him the photo "Same as you always do, only on paper."
Flash carefully inspected the image of himself and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, letting out a ponderous hum. "Hmmmm... I hope that the thing about the camera adding ten pounds isn't actually true. If it is, I’ll need to gallop a few extra laps around the barracks tomorrow morning."
"I like that photo. It's kind of cool," Rose said. "It's the only way I can ever see you quiet and still outside a castle."
Flash tucked the photo of himself in the side pocket of his saddlebags. "Pfft. I have to stay quiet and still all day six days a week. If I did that any more than I had to, I might explode. I mean, really explode. Do in you want to be the one who cleans Flash goo off of the walls? I'd think not."
'Flash goo'...Yet another one of Flash's odd statements. He was having quite a few more of them lately. Quartz had gotten used to these after a thousand years of being his friend, and they always tend to either amuse or confuse her, sometimes both in equal measure. "Wonder who's job that would be, a janitor's or a mortician's?"
"Uh-dunna." He shrugged noncommittally. "Hey, we should probably get moving. We've got to be at the barracks at eleven hundred hours and I don't even know where the hoof we are."
"What time is it now?"
"Uh," He checked his hoofwatch "ten fifteen."
"Then we had better not oogle the city any longer! See if that desk lady over there knows the best way to the castle."
"Right-o."
* * *
A brisk trot through the semi-crowded streets of Canterlot later, the two passed through a drawbridge that led to an ornate golden horseshoe gateway that went on into the castle itself. Flash was surprised to see that the interior of the castle was not unlike the Crystal Palace in the way of décor. The halls consisted of fuzzy red carpets, long banners hanging off of the walls, high ceilings, grand staircases, and unnecessary stained-glass windows. The only real difference between the two was that the crystal walls and floors were swapped out with marble walls and floors. It was a bit of a letdown, really. Oh well, not everything could be as he anticipated. He quickly concluded that posh was posh no matter where a castle was built, and it would be perfectly fine place to serve his realm... as long as they kept the crystalline decorations to a minimum.
After several wrong turns and Rose Quartz admitting that she had no idea where she was going, they stopped to ask a castle servant where the guard's barracks were. It took them only a few minutes to find what they were looking for after that. It turned out that the main room was located not twenty paces from the entrance to the castle. A freshly painted white sign hung above the plain door. "Capt. Whitewater, Equestrian Royal Guard" it read.
"Ah-ha! I told you we already passed it." Flash said with a triumphant laugh.
"I told you we already nuh nuh nuh blah blah." Rose made an unflattering puppet of Flash flapping his gums with her hoof. "I got us here, didn't I?"
"No, you got lost and that nice kitchen colt showed us the way here. You just trotted faster than I did to give the illusion that you were leading and I was following." He shot his friend a sly grin. "It didn't work"
"Oh be quiet, professor psychology. Come on, we're already late. Let's report in before they dangle us off the side of the mountain."
Flash hummed in agreement as he pushed on the door, his bright eyes and smiling face instantly hardening into the telltale stony grimace of a practiced guard. He had always had this habit of being able to flip a switch in his head and turn from the normally jovial Flash Sentry to Lieutenant Sentry, a stoic and dedicated royal guardspony. To Rose, it was remarkable the way he could just become a completely different pony on a whim. It was as if he had multiple personality disorder and could call on it like a unicorn calls on magic. He certainly could pass for a whacko at times.
Rose tried to emulate her friend and put on a neutral face as she trotted in behind him.
Sitting in that mildly cramped and cluttered office was the officer that manned it. Whitewater, as the sign outside suggested, was his name. He was a stallion that's seen a few too many years in the service, his mane a shade of silver reserved for the elderly and his coat a faded cornflower blue. His colors clashed terribly with the cherry red officer's uniform that he was required to wear on duty.
The two quickly trotted in and gave the captain a rigid salute in unison.
"Second Lieutenants Rose Quartz and Flash Sentry reporting for assignment!" Both of them barked, also in unison.
"Ah, Lieutenants." He said, his gruff voice filling the claustrophobic room. He didn't even look up from the mess of scrolls and documents sprawled out haphazardly on his desk. "You're late."
Flash was the first to speak. "Apologies, sir. We had diffic--"
The captain held his hoof up, silencing the lieutenant instantly. "Don't bother." A pair of tired blue eyes looked up at Rose and Flash from behind a pair of thick reading glasses. "It's the same for the new recruits that come from anywhere but Canterlot. They see this big city in the side of a mountain, then they get lost. It happens at least once every year. Though, it mostly happens to country folk. I had you two Crystal Empire ponies pegged for city slickers, guess I was wrong."
"Oh, right. At ease, lieutenants." He said. "Take a seat."
They did as he said and wordlessly pulled up a pair of chairs that had been set off the the side. Despite not having to be at attention any longer, they still sat up a little straighter and more rigid than they would on normal days.
He took off his glasses and casually tossed them on the desk. "Now, I ain't got time beat around the bush, I need to find you two an assignment and put'cha to work so you can get out of my mane sooner. Let's see here..." Whitewater pushed aside a dozen scrolls and about fifty pieces of loose paper as he searched for two special manilla folders in particular.
"I know I put it here- Got'cha!" He had found where he stashed the documents under an empty coffee cup and a used hayburger wrapper. He cracked open the first, which was the size of a decent paperback novel and as heavy as a brick. "First off, we have Rose Quartz."
Whitewater went silent as he idly flipped through the pages of Rose's duty records. "Huh. You were one of the Crystal Palace's general guards while the Empire was still locked up in time. Not bad, your record was pretty decent until, uh..." He flipped the folder around and pointed out a yellow-highlighted paragraph. "A month ago you punched a Saddle Arabian dignitary and broke his muzzle for insinuating you were a homosexual. Wow, just wow. I don't think I've ever seen something like that on somepony's file before."
"Sir, I'm sure you're aware of how they treat their mares over there." Rose said. Her tone of voice was flat and respectful, but Flash knew her long enough to tell when she was miffed. "Saddle Arabian mares aren't even allowed join their guard. It's all stallions, like they think we can't do the job. He was out of line talking to me like that."
The captain shrugged. "Hey I don't blame you, sister. I've been over there a few years back on one of Celestia's diplomatic missions, that place was a mess. But what can you do? They have ridiculously big spice fields and silk farms, we don't. Equestria has to play nice with them."
He went back to the file. "Okay, after that we have market guard, treasury guard, bodyguard, on and on and on...I see you did a bit of squiring for Shining Armor, that must've been fun as a rock farm. How is that crazy guy by the way?"
"As thick as a log, sir."
"Ha!" Whitewater guffawed a bit. "I see you've got some guts on ya, I like that in a recruit. Yeah, that stallion never did understand much other than swinging swords and wooing mares." He chuckled to himself. "Now look at him, Prince of the Crystal Empire with a smoking-hot rich princess as a wife. I wish I had looks like his, maybe I'd be prince of somewhere."
"Back to the point," he went on, shaking his head "With your record I can probably get you a decent job somewhere in the castle. The castle's where you wanna be. I take it you're not a fan of condescending nobleponies? There'll be tons of them to deal with outside."
"I don't mind them, sir."
The captain smirked at Rose. "Heh. You've never met Canterlot nobles. The only ponies that like them are other nobles. Hmm, yeah, that might work. Okay, I've got the perfect spot working in the dungeon." He grabbed a spare piece of notebook paper and took an ink quill in his teeth.
He scribbled down a name and some basic directions then tore out the paper and hoofed it to Rose. "Here, I know it ain't the most glamorous of jobs hanging around thieves and drunks all day, but it's the best we've got. Report to Sergeant Hoofcuffs. He might seem a little kooky, but he's one of the best jailers in Equestria."
Rose Quartz took his paper, scanned over it, and tucked it in her saddlebags. She rose up from the chair and gave her superior a crisp salute. "Thank you, sir."
"Yeah yeah, try not to start any prison riots. Dismissed."
Rose did a face-heel turn and trotted out the door, off to the other side of Canterlot Castle. She didn't say her usual farewell to Flash, but that's just how it was in the guard. Brief hellos and few goodbyes. Oh well, he would probably see her around the city next Sunday.
"As for you, Lieutenant Sentry..." He cracked open a file reading SENTRY, FLASH G. on the front in faded lettering. His was notably thicker than Quartz's due to the fact that he had been an Equestrian guard since before the beginning of King Sombra's brief rule. He was one of the dozens of ground troops that were dispatched to take back the city all those years ago, and as a result he and his comrades were trapped alongside thousands of crystal ponies when the Slave King imprisoned the empire in the very fabric of space and time.
"Hoo boy, where in the dark bowels of Tartarus do I begin?" He licked his hoof and began flipping through numerous pages. "Boring, boring, boring, boring, fought in the battle for the Crystal Empire, became crystal guard for a thousand years, boring, boring, boring... Why in Equestria did they write all this down? Ah, here it is. 'Personal guard for Princesses Mi Amore Cadenza.' Personal." He looked up at Flash with a half amazed, half serious look. "Not many guards get personal with princess pink. In the two years she's sat on that throne, she's hoof-picked less than a dozen ponies to be her closest defenders, and you're the only one she hasn't fired yet."
"This thing-" He picked up the file and tried to shake it like a ragdoll to emphasize the point, but it was a little too heavy, so it just flopped out of his hoof and on to the desk. "It's cleaner than Celestia's own pearly white flanks. Spotless, is the word your Shining Armor used. It makes me, of all ponies, look like a rutting juvenile delinquent!"
"I do my duty, sir, and I do it to the fullest of my ability." Flash's stoic face didn't move a single muscle, but inside he was grinning from ear to ear. Flash was immensely proud of his blemish-free record. In a thousand years, he didn't make a mistake. Given the lack of any real crime in a city literally cut off from the rest of the universe, it was hard to really screw anything up more than it already was. But still, even after the Empire was restored to the world, he kept his guard up, so to speak. It was hard giving absolutely all of his focus to a job where the main requirement is to stay still and silent for hours at a time. Some days it may not have been worth it, but it would have all payed off when he was to retire.
"The question is," the captain said "where do we put you?"
Whitewater cast a few more glances at the document. In a moment of brilliant inspiration, the guard captain realized something important. No other pony would be better suited for the job that he had instantly come up with in his devious old mind, and few ponies have ever even qualified for it. Fewer still actually kept the thing for any significant amount of time. It was an opportunity to fill a role that desperately needed filling. He was the one.
"Lieutenant Sentry," He said quietly. "I think I may...I may have the perfect job for you."
Flash said nothing in return, he gave his captain a subtle nod telling him to go on.
Whitewater ran a hoof through his hair. He was a little nervous, which wasn't common for the seasoned veteran of the guard, but he was too damn excited to be anything but nervous. He had found the one.
"What is it, sir?"
"I-" He trailed off. It took a moment for Whitewater to gather his thoughts. "I'll tell you this upfront, my friend: this is the absolute worst job in the Royal Guard. There are only four ponies in Equestria so far that have had the physical and mental abilities to perform it effectively and, uh... Well, I think you can be number five."
"I assure you, sir, I am capable of performing any task that you would put me to."
"Colt scout." Whitewater murmured under his breath. "I'm sure you are, son. Don't say you haven't been warned though. This is one hell of an exclusive job and, heh... you're one hell of an exclusive pony, Lieutenant."
"I think we need a drink to celebrate." the captain declared merrily.
What's gotten him so exited? Flash asked himself. It's like he wants me to be the next alicorn princess or something. That would be cool, though.
In a blink Whitewater had fished a poshly decorated bottle half-filled with a dark amber liquid and set it on the desk with two shot-sized glasses. Before Flash could even protest, both glasses were filled with an expensive brand of scotch that Whitewater saved for special occasions such as this.
He looked at Flash expectantly. "Go ahead, you're not on duty yet. It won't bite. Well, not until you drink it anyway."
Tentatively, he eyed the glass of scotch. Flash wasn't a drinker, but neither was he rude. He took the glass in hoof and sipped it slowly. The captain wasn't lying, it did have some kick. So much, in fact, that it made the guard cough as the juice screamed its way down his poor defenseless throat.
"Heh heh, clears your sinuses, don't it?" He emphasized his point by downing the entire thing in one go. "Aaah, it should too, for the price."
He took another sip. "Sir, I don't believe you've told me what this job even is yet. I'd like to know what we're drinking to."
"Alright, you've got me." He theatrically raised both of his hooves as if he were surrendering. "I can't beat around the bush any longer. Son, I'm assigning you to the personal guard of our very own Prince Blueblood."
"Thank you sir, I-" Flash's composure faltered for the briefest of seconds. "Huh?"
It was odd. So very odd. The hardest assignment in Canterlot was guarding a stuck up royal? Sure, jobs like that were pretty prestigious and the pay was phenomenal. He was lucky to have it, but how could it be so difficult shadowing a pampered prince all day? Flash had heard stories of how Blueblood was a monumental clophead, but that was something one fully expected from being assigned to a member of the royal family. With the exception of Celestia and Luna, royals were obnoxious by nature.
Though, why was the prince so important that only four ponies had been accepted to guard him? He certainly wasn't next in line to rule, should the sisters be unable to do so. Celestia help him if that happens.
"Sir, may I ask you a question?" He asked.
"Go ahead."
"What makes this job so special?"
Whitewater didn't answer at first, he instead idly hummed whilst pouring himself another drink. With a smirk he pushed Flash's mostly full glass toward him. "You may want to finish this, son. You're really going to need it."
Chapter the Second: Blue Morning, Blue Day, Blueblood
Flash Sentry's gold-painted full body plate armor made an obnoxious noise not unlike that of a string of tin cans being dragged behind a carriage with each step he took. The armor was not standard issue among the royal guard, it was a much heavier and more protective model made specially for those in the "Blueblood Corps." He was told he was going to need it for what lay ahead. It was sturdy enough to stop everything from an arrow to a decently sized sword dead in its tracks, but by the Sisters it was not very stealthy
The new personal guard of His Majesty Prince Blueblood didn't need stealth to do his duty, but he did prefer something a little less restrictive than this unnecessarily fancy set of armor. He had from the guard barracks to the recreation wing of the castle to get used to how he was supposed to move in it. Luckily, his two new friends and fellow guards were there to give him pointers and to poke fun at his discomfort.
"If you think this is fun now, wait til you gotta get it all off when you hit the sack." said Cotton Swab with a wry smirk.
"Yeah, oodles of fun." Flash drawled. "Oh, I can already feel it now! No, wait, that's just the chestpiece chafing." He fiddled with the straps in an effort to make it a little more comfortable, to no avail. "No fun to be had there."
She snickered. "Well, get used to it. Like it or not, that's your new second skin."
* * *
Earlier
"So you're the new guy, eh?" a mare from out of nowhere asked a mere moment after Flash passed through the door titled "Royal Guard's Barracks".
"By the sisters!" Flash's heart may or may not have lodged itself into his throat at her words. He whipped his head around to see the owner of the voice idly leaned up against the wall, her coat as grey as the underside of a storm cloud, a shock of red hair falling from her head that mimicked the shade of an early-autumn leaf. She eyed the pegasus without a word, sizing him up like any senior guard does to a new recruit.
"I- I am." Flash said, finding his voice and trotting forth and offering a hoof to the armor-clad mare. "Second Lieutenant Flash Sentry, transferred from the Crystal Empire."
She stared thoughtfully at his hoof, left hanging there without another to complete the gesture.
"You're- uh, suppose to shake it." Flash muttered.
"I know." She placed the flat of her hoof on his own and gave it a brief up-down shake. "Cotton Swab. Second Lieutenant, like you."
"Huh." Flash's stare was vacant. "That's an odd name. Sounds like you should be-"
"A doctor?" She finished his sentence with a smirk. "Yeah, I used to be. I joined the guard instead. Hell, the only reason they ever stuck me here was because of my med degree."
"Well...." He blinked. A real live doctor-turned-bodyguard. Now he had seen everything. "Excuse me if this sounds like a pickup line, but how did a mare like you end up in a place like this?"
"Heh heh." she chuckled. "I might have a license to fix ponies up, but I was always better at tearing them apart."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Beg away." Cotton detached herself from the wall and lifted a plate that revealed her exposed flank to Flash. Her cutie mark depicted a thorny white rose writhed in orange fire.
"Woah, that's edgy." Flash said.
"Tell me about it." Swab agreed. "I was the first pony in five generations to get a cutie mark that didn't have a big red T on it. My dad had a cow. My mom had three. The medical profession kinda ran in our blood, you know? My mother was a doctor, my grandmother was a doctor, my great great grandmother was a doctor, so on and so forth. They waved their horns around, closed ponies' wounds with magic, and me? I set things on fire. Didn't stop me from going through the Manehattan earth pony-slash-pegasus academy, though. Graduated the only unicorn in my class. And you know what?"
Flash couldn't help but ask. "What?"
"I hated it. The office, the patients, the nurses, the paperwork. It drove me up a wall. Eventually, I ended up in the guard where my talent for handing out elemental whoopass could be put to use. It's simpler here. I like it."
"So that's my life's story. Feel like ya know me any better now?"
* * *
"So," Flash said, trotting ahead and turning around to regard his new friends "Is what they say about the prince true? I heard he beats puppies and eats kittens. Or was that eats puppies and beats kittens? One of those."
Xander, the giant black and white striped guard clanking along next to him laughed loudly, his throaty voice echoing off of the castle's walls. He playfully punched Flash in the shoulder as if to say 'That was a good one!' Flash, in turn, tried not to fall over in a heap of flesh and steel from the nearly armor-denting blow to the body he had been given. Man, that guy had a hell of a hoof!
* * *
Flash blinked.
He blinked.
Nopony spoke.
Cotton Swab facehoofed.
Flash was staring down what could be considered the beefiest pony to have ever have graced his eyeballs. Standing a head higher and a foot wider than the two average-sized ponies was a zebra, his limbs and body bound in a thick layer of raw, pulsating muscle. His powerful legs threatened to rip the grey stripes that ran vertically over the rest of him to shreds with every step.
Flash tentatively offered a hoof. "Hello. I'm Second Lieut-"
The wind was immediately expelled from his lungs like air from a bellows. His ribcage threatened to collapse, his spine wanted to snap in half. The zebra was trying to crush the life out of him! Flash knew that he should've written up his will before he left the Crystal Empire! Of all the places and all the times to die, it had to be this place and this time.
Then, as suddenly as he began, he zebra released Flash from his kung-fu death grip.
"Ooooh, trademark bear hug. Gets 'em every time." somepony said.
Flash laid there on the floor, battered and confused, a bright white light filling his vision.
"Dad? Is that you?"
The unamused visage of Cotton Swab eclipsed his view of the heavenly light. "Quit'cher whinin'. And sorry, I should've warned you how friendly Xan can get sometimes."
Cotton's grey face was replaced by a black and white one sporting a dopey grin. This "Xan" waved his hoof "hello" at him with almost childlike energy.
"Xan, this is Flash Sentry, the new guy." Cotton said."Sentry, this is Lieutenant Xander, Longest-surviving member of the Corps. "
He didn't even want to know about the longest-surviving last part.
Cotton helped the prone pegasus back to his hooves. Flash muttered his thanks and turned to regard Xander with as much dignity as he could salvage.
"Nice to meet you too. And might I ask where you're from? It's not every day the guard employs zebrafolk."
"Zony." Cotton instantly corrected him. "Look at his tail, he's half-zebra, half-pony."
Xander did indeed have an atypical tail. Instead of long, slender tail ending in a tuft of fur, he had one composed of less skin and more hair like a pony's. Of course it was cut short like most stallions'.
"Well, I've never heard of a zony before." Flash admitted. "Though, that's probably because I lived in a fantastically conservative time where even an earth pony-unicorn matrimony was a little weird."
The zony had no reply, he merely smiled warmly at Flash.
He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "What's the matter? Cat got your-"
Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Xander opened his mouth wide, revealing a typical set of pearly whites, gums, a dangly uvula, and absolutely no tongue whatsoever. There was a simple pink stump hanging at the back of his mouth.
"...tongue? Boy do I feel like a jerk for saying that."
"I was wondering when you'd figure it out." Cotton said. "Yeah, Xander ain't exactly the chatty type. Not after that voodoo witch mare cut his taster into giblets when he was a colt."
Flash blinked."That's an awfully dark backstory."
Xander shrugged, as if to say 'Well, what can you do?'
Cotton nodded in a sagely manner, despite her apparent lack of sage-ness. "They never did take too kindly to halfborns out in the Summerset Isles." She nudged the the zony playfully. "Big mook was lucky to keep the rest of his body intact living there."
"What a life." Flash said. "And I thought I had woes."
Cotton tilted her head to the side. "Woes? You? Please... what problems could you have that could ever compare to ol' silent-but-deadly here?"
"I spent most of my life living in the Crystal Empire stuck in an infernal pocket dimension where time stood still for a millenia." He said nonchalantly.
Cotton Swab's ears went flat. "Oh."
"Huh." Xander said, a vacant stare painted on his face.
"And it's not like "here one moment, there the next" kind of deal." The pegasus went on. "We could walk and talk just like any other day in Equestria, but time just refused to flow. The sun never set, the grass never grew, we never got tired, hungry, or old. Nopony was born, nopony died. Life was just on pause for a while. After the first, I don't know, two hundred years or something we got used to it. I became a hell of a whiz at poker. But hey, at least I had somepony to play poker with. Not like Princess Luna, from what I've heard. She definitely got the short end of the stick."
"So," Flash said, "anypony else I need to meet?"
"No pony," Cotton said, trotting off to throw open a large wooden hoolocker "but you will have to get acquainted with mister Ironsides here..."
* * *
Clankity, clankity, clank.
The trio of ragtag guards from three dramatically different walks of life trotted down the grand halls of Canterlot Castle, on their way to their posts defending the one and only prince of Equestria from any harm that would come to him. Flash could feel a sort of camaraderie with Cotton Swab and Xander, despite having known them for all of two and a half hours. Then again, he always did have a knack for making friends. There was just something about how three ponies with nothing in common could be so easily brought together by a shared goal.
After a few more twists and turns through the castle, the three of them emerged into a spacious square courtyard with an excellent view of the partially cloudy sky and the afternoon sun. At the center of the place was a concrete-lined swimming pool that radiated the sour scent of chlorine. Lounging beside said pool in the shade of an umbrella was a milky white unicorn stallion with a shock of golden blonde hair and a rather thick tome in his hooves.
Blueblood's eyes momentarily flicked to the three with little interest before returning to the book, as he had seen his personal guard countless times before. The prince did a double-take when he realized that the guard consisted of one pony more than he was accustomed to. Without much warning, he locked his baby blue eyes with Flash's, who met that icy gaze with his own stony look if indifference.
The old book let out a cloud of dust as it was clapped shut. Blueblood set it to the side, never once breaking eye contact. "Ah," he said in his distinct high society accent."it seems I've gained a new guard. I was wondering when that old bag would finally send me somepony new." He beckoned Flash over. "I make it a point to know all of my guard, seeing as how I seem to have so few. Please, approach your prince."
Flash did as Blueblood bade him without a hint of hesitation. He bowed as low and as humbly as his armor would allow him to and held it.
"Oh please," the unicorn said with a hint of annoyance "don't be so formal. I can hardly talk to a pony with their nose dragging the floor."
Flash rose.
"What is your name, my subject?"
"Flash Sentry, your grace." His voice was dry and emotionless like a dessert.
"Hmm." Slowly and methodically, the prince paced around Flash as he looked him over like a piece of meat.
After a full circle around the guard, he asked "And from where do you hail, Flash Sentry?"
"The Crystal Empire, your grace."
"You don't say? How fascinating!" Blueblood sounded... I impressed? Flash couldn't quite place his hoof on it. "An Equestrian pony from the Crystal Empire. By the sun and stars, have I met one of the First Guard?"
"So that's what they're calling us." Flash remarked. "Not what I would have picked."
Blueblood trotted over to the tome. "I was just reading about you, you know." He grabbed the book with his levitation magic and flipped to a seemingly random page.
"...and lo," He read "the King of Slaves looked upon one hundred spears held in one hundred sets of hooves and wept, a babe in his mother's embrace, for the prowess and glory of the First Guard on the field of battle could stand against armies of fifty times fifty like a mountain against the wind. A wonderful piece of history, don't you think? "
"Those history writers tend to exaggerate, your grace."
Blueblood casually tossed the book aside. "I know, but those exaggerations are not without cause, are they?"
"They are not, your grace."
Blueblood rolled his eyes like a surly teenage child. "Enough with the ‘your grace’ manure. I hear that from everypony that has a pulse and a set of vocal chords. Well, except Aunty Celly or Luna, of course. I'm quite sick of it, really."
"Yes, your--"
Blueblood gave him a glare that could've stopped an elderly pony's heart.
"I understand."
"Excellent!" He declared merrily. "Now, I'm sure you're itching to go stand in a corner and practice your impression of a stone golem. Go ahead, I've quite a bit of reading to do. Let me know if anypony tries to kill me."
* * *
Flash Sentry had embedded himself in the upper left corner of the courtyard and his two comrades chose the other corners opposite of his. He had fallen into the comfortably familiar routine of a palace guard. His eyes robotically swept from right to left, then left to right over and over again until every inch of the area had been permanently seared into his mind.
Flash was in his element. This is what he lived for, boring as it was. It was his duty to stand watch while the royalty went about their lives day by day in a grossly oversized castle. To say it was a thankless job would be a tragic understatement. It was a contender for worst career choice on the planet, but he didn't mind. Somepony had to do it, and if that pony had to be Flash, so be it.
Even the best of the guards will eventually get bored with the scenery. Most of the greats had their little tricks for keeping sane while they worked those long hours. Flash liked to count things. He felt that it kept him observant and his thoughts didn't wander off in a random direction like most minds tended to do given enough time.
For example, since he had taken his post Blueblood had turned exactly twenty five pages and drank three glasses of iced tea, Flash guessed that he would soon have to use the bathroom. Xander had scratched under his left breastplate eleven times, he must have had a bad case of armor rash, a common affliction among guards. The same brown-feathered bird had flown by three times in either direction, there must have been a nest with chicks nearby. Noticing all the little things kept him sharp, and it had on occasion helped him prevent a few crises in his days with Cadence.
One by one he filled the long minutes with more counting. When that eventually wore out his attention, he resorted to playing word games. His favorite one involved taking last letter of the name of an object or person and finding something in the vicinity that started with the same letter. For example, Water ended in R and there were several decorative Rocks stacked against a wall serving no purpose at all. Rocks ended in S and Cotton Swab guarded the opposite end of the courtyard. Swab ended in B... and so on and so forth.
He might've had to fight to pay attention sometimes, but Flash never got bored. A thousand years of life tends to leave a pony remarkably numb to monotony. He could've done it all day if he wanted.
* * *
Flash was right, soon Blueblood did have to get up and use the restroom. Naturally, he followed the prince to his porcelain throne in case there was an assassin hiding in the latrine. As one might expect, there wasn't a single assailant to be found. Walking with him through the halls and back did provide a welcome, if brief, change of scenery. He could admire the tastefully sewn tapestries and chandeliers or whatever.
As the armored pegasus leisurely shadowed Blueblood's steps, he couldn't help but notice how difficult that this job wasn't. It was exactly like guarding Princess Cadence, right down the the bathroom breaks. Did Captain Whitewater overblow the difficulty of this gig on purpose? Flash was, more or less, the "new guy". It wasn't unheard of for senior guards to mess with new recruits for kicks. Funny... he was at least nine hundred years older than all of the other normal ponies in Canterlot, and yet they saw him as if he wasn't yet out of his mid twenties. Most likely because he didn't look like he had a millennia of guard experience under his belt.
Flash was almost disappointed. The captain suggested that it was the most challenging position he knew of, but serving in the so-called "Blueblood Corps" was downright easy. He decided that the guards were just trying to play a trick on him, and a weak one at that.
What, did they expect me to be nervous? Flash thought. Did they think that I'd be on the tips of my hooves waiting for something to jump out of the shadows and go "boo"? Thats not how guarding w-
He didn't see it coming at all. What happened next completely blindsided the otherwise watchful guard. He heard a sharp clunking sort of noise, like metal grinding on wood. The next thing he knew, a stocky steel-tipped wooden shaft had embedded itself in the floor right beside where Prince Blueblood stood an instant before.
"Crap! Stupid piece of shit..."
The voice came from above, Flash whipped his head around to the source. Barely balanced on the narrow rafters was a thin pegasus struggling to reload a worn crossbow that looked a little too big for him. His face and most of his body was obscured in tight-fitting black wool clothes and mask.
"I believe somepony has tried to kill you, my prince."
"Oh really?"
"Well, you said to tell you if that happened, and so I have."
"Well done. You're the best guard ever. Have a cookie."
The pegasus froze the moment he registered what the two had said. He instantly dropped the weapon, which shattered in an explosion of splinters from the ten foot drop, turned tail, and ran.
"Freeze!" Flash shouted.
"Bite me, tin can!" He- No, it wasn't a he, that voice was too high to be a stallion - she replied.
The nameless mare lept off the roof's support and gracefully glided her way down the hall. Flash took off after her, and with a single flap of his powerful wings... nothing happened. He might have managed a half-hearted hop, but that was it. Flash panicked, he couldn't get off the ground because he was too damned heavy in that blasted mess of scrap metal they called armor.
Flash could do nothing but burst into a clumsy sprint. The Celestia-awful noise of his armor plates colliding with one another was akin to that of somepony trying to play Bucktoven's Fifth with an orchestra of kitchenware. He felt like a pony trying to run through a pool of molasses.
The pegasus rounded the next corner before he could even make it ten feet, but that didn't stop Flash from forcing his way down the hall. Clankity clankity clank. By the time he reached the corner, the mare was nowhere to be seen.
Or so he thought. Had Flash been standing out in the sun too long, or were his eyes telling lies? He couldn't make sense of it. There she was, in all her assassin-ey glory, the mare in black flying back like a feathered boomerang. In fact, she was coming right for him!
"Halt!" He hollered, firmly planting his hooves into the floor, bit down on the hilt of his blade, and drew it with a hiss of steel on leather.
It turned out that yelling "halt" had the same effect on the mare as yelling "freeze." A powerful gale blew Flash completely off-balance when the mare rushed past like the gust of a hurricane.
"S'cuse me!"
It was too much for even a highly-trained crystal guard to withstand. He was knocked on his flank like a total rookie, his sword clattering to the floor. Flash ended up on his side, robbed of the basic dexterity required even pull himself back up on his own. He was as helpless as a turtle lying on its back.
Flash soon felt pounding tremors in the earth and found himself staring at a set of four massive armored hooves alongside another set of sensibly-sized ones.
"S'up, guys." Flash greeted the two.
"Which way did she go?!" Cotton Swab demanded.
Flash grabbed ahold of one of Xander's tree trunk hooves and was easily pulled back to his good ol' vertical self.
"Down there." He gestured to the empty hall behind him. "Good luck chasing her down, she's fast like a freak. Where's the prince?"
"Present and unhurt!" Blueblood chirped, stepping out from behind a stone column.
"The prince is okay, but we lost her. Dammit!" Cotton cursed. "Did you at least get a good look at 'er?"
"Ah, not really." Flash said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was a bit of a blur. And how did you know it was a her?"
Cotton scoffed. "Rookies."
"Hey!" was Flash's oh so snappy comeback. "I'm over a thousand years old, kind of not a rookie."
"Hmmhmm hmmm!" Xander mumbled, grabbing the two's attention.
"What's up, Xan?" Cotton asked.
Clenched in between the zony's jaws was a feather, bright bluish green in color.
"Eh, that's a start." Cotton Swab said. "I'll put out an APB: pegasus, female, teal feathers, exceptional flier."
"Turquoise." Flash corrected.
"Huh?"
"That feather," he said "it's not teal, it's turquoise."
"Pfft, are you colorblind or something? It's totally teal."
"No, teal is darker, turquoise is on the light side."
"Oh come on, Sentry, it's the other way around."
"Hey, when you spend your unnaturally long life in a city whose ponies are all named after a limited pool of minerals, you get to know what a turquoise looks like."
Xander rolled his eyes.
"Can't we just say it's green?" Blueblood suggested.
"No," Cotton said "then the guards will have to stop everypony ranging from spring green to herbal green and everything in between. Besides, teal is more blue than green."
"Sompony need to retire the art teacher that taught you your colors." Flash snarked. "Both teal and turquoise are on the green side of the spectrum."
"Oh go rut your self with a flaming cactus, Sentry."
"I don't know, would that cactus be blue or green? You seem to get those two mixed up."
"Oh don't you give me that-"
"Both of you shut your mouths before I have your tongues removed!" Everypony froze where they stood.
"No offense, Xander."
Xander smiled and waved a dismissive hoof at his prince.
"Honestly," Blueblood said in a much calmer tone "it's pretty bad when I'm the one who has to be the mediator."
Cotton Swab sighed defeatedly. "You're right, BB. We could have caught up to her with the time we spent arguing, but it's too late now. Oh well, better luck next time."
Flash opened his mouth to say something, but the words were immediately forgotten when he finished processing that sentence.
"Better luck next time?!" he echoed. "What the hay is that supposed to mean?"
The three ponies gave Flash queer looks, as if he had accidentally spoken an entirely different language.
"It means "maybe we'll succeed next time we encounter such circumstances," my friend." Blueblood raised a blonde eyebrow. "It's a rather famous phrase."
"B-but somepony tried to murder you in cold blood!" Flash all but shouted. "It's not like a servant spilled coffee on your favorite shirt, you almost died!"
...and I would have failed to do my duty on the first day. He mentally added.
Several ice ages passed before anypony said anything. Blueblood, Cotton, and Xander all shared a knowing look amongst one another. Flash barely noticed the traces of smiles that crept onto their muzzles. They quickly grew into full-fledged dopey grins, and soon the three burst into a chorus of laughter.
There the newest member of the Canterlot Royal Guard stood, eyes wide and mouth agape as he failed to comprehend the scene before him. The prince had just had a brush with death and those tasked with guarding his life were laughing it off.
"Ohh..." Xander wiped a joyful tear from his eye.
"Re- heh -remember when I was a rookie?" Cotton elbowed the hulk playfully.
Xander grinned and nodded vigorously.
"If memory serves, you had nearly that exact look on your face." The prince, who was much more composed than his guards, pointed at Flash's dumbfounded expression.
What am I missing out on here!? Flash panicked. Was there something so obvious about this situation that went over his head? It couldn't have been, he did his duties to the fullest of his ability without any mistakes - barring those he could not control. He was vigilant, steadfast, and professional, yet he just didn't get the point.
"Should we tell him?" Cotton asked her friends.
Xander nodded again.
"It seems to be the most opportune moment to do so." Blueblood agreed.
"Tell me what?" Flash demanded.
They shared another look.
"Why we're here." Blueblood said in a mock mysterious tone.
Cotton Swab muttered a few choice obscenities as she clumsily fiddled with the pieces of delicate and expensive equipment. "Oh come on!" She said through gritted teeth. "Why did they have to make these things so- Hah! Got it! Wait... no, nevermind." A bright spark briefly illuminated Cotton's angry visage, followed by a fizzling noise that didn't sound like it should come from that machine.
"Ow! I hate this piece of junk."
Flash Sentry sipped from the complementary mug of steaming hot coffee and shifted uncomfortably in his hard steel chair. Thankfully it wasn't nearly as bad as that armor had been. Blueblood had graciously allowed the guard to shed his obtrusive regalia before they started the whole- What did they call it? -"Orientation Presentation."
"For Celestia's' sake, I'm a doctor, not a- Yesss!" The electrical projector sputtered to life. At once a bright white square of light illumined the blank brick wall.
"Okay, rookie," Cotton grunted "it's time we brought you up to speed on what the BB Corps is really about. We were scheduled to do this tomorrow morning, but apparently those cursed mares don't give a hoot about our schedule."
"Wait, what?" Flash asked. "Mares?" What in Equestria were they talking about?
"All will be explained, so sit down and shut up." Cotton Swab slapped a clear plastic picture on the projector and the wall lit up with a black and white photo depicting two strange ponies clad in painfully familiar sets of armor standing on either side of Prince Blueblood.
"Did I really look like that two years ago?" Blueblood's voice came from the dark recesses of the room. "Ghastly. "
"In the second year of the fifth age," she began in a factual tone of voice "Captain Torrva Whitewater commissioned an exclusive new chapter of the Equestrian Royal Guard. This chapter was to be assigned the singular task of guarding the life of our beloved Prince Blueblood."
"Beloved?" Blueblood parroted.
"I'm reading from a script, here."
"Ah."
"Who are those ponies?" Flash asked.
"Hold all questions til the end, please."
"The need for this chapter was realized several months prior to its creation after the fifth consecutive attempt on Prince Blueblood's life was made by one still unknown mare."
Flash shouldn't have been drinking from his coffee mug when she said that. The scalding liquid burned like molten lava as it sprayed from his nose. He coughed the rest of it back into the cup.
"Fifth?!" Cough. "What in the name of-?"
"Questions, Sentry, you gotta hold 'em." Cotton snapped.
Cotton withdrew the picture and replaced it with another. This one was a collection of blurry mugshots, twelve in total. Flash couldn't say for sure, but they all looked like mares. Pretty mares, too. Smokin' hot, as one would describe them.
"Okay, blah blah blah, boring. Skipping ahead...In time," Swab went on "it became apparent that our prince had an unintentional habit of attracting the negative attention of many ponies. To this day, a total of fifty-three mares were held in Canterlot Castle's dungeon for the crimes of attempted regicide. Even more have gotten away with the act. A large number of them claimed to have been in a romantic relationship with Prince Blueblood."
Flash didn't see Cotton shoot Blueblood an odd look through the darkness. "None of these relationships were ever formally confirmed by the prince."
"And, uh, some more irrelevant stuff. Junk. Junk. Junk. You know what? Screw it. I'm going to the last page."
The photos were swapped out again. The third image was an insignia of sorts, a cobalt blue shield with an eight-pointed compass rose emblazoned upon it, Blueblood's cutie mark. Written above the shield in an arc were the words "The Blueblood Corps" and below the shield were the words "Nos sumus, nec requies ".
"We are those without sleep." she read. "This is our motto. Learn it, love it, take it to heart. The prince rests easy because we don't. There are ponies out there, ponies who want to see His Majesty six feet under. It is our duty to stop those ponies, to stand between him," Cotton dramatically paused for a moment too long "and death."
Xander tried to hold back his laughter, but failed miserably.
"Who wrote this crap?" Cotton asked, flipping back through the pages of script. "It's not even true. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep last night. In a bed. On purpose."
"Well, anyway," Cotton said, carelessly throwing the papers over her shoulder "the bottom line is this: tons of ponies have tried to kill Double B before, and they will keep on trying til death do us part. That's why we exist. Our track record is pretty good seeing as how he's still breathing. You are still breathing, right?"
"I sometimes stop when I'm underwater." Blueblood responded without missing a beat.
"Close enough." The guardsmare turned to Flash Sentry. "Any questions?"
Flash's mind was reeling. This was a prank, it had to be. They were just making a joke out of attempted murder, that's all. He didn't want to accept their explanation, but he still found that it made sense... in a senseless sort of way. He saw the mare in black with his own two eyes, he saw her fire at the prince with a second-rate crossbow and miss, and he saw the three of them shrug it off like it was a normal occurrence. It was the only explanation to fit what he saw perfectly. It couldn't be real, but it had to be truth.
"Uh, yeah, one question." Flash tentatively raised a hoof like a colt in a classroom. "Why?"
Cotton and Blueblood shared a glance. "Why what?"
"W-why do these mares want to kill the prince?" Sure, he seemed a little pretentious at first, but that didn't set him apart from, like, ninety percent of Canterlot.
"Uh-dunna." was Swab's carefully chosen answer. "Honestly, I've stopped asking that question a looong time ago."
Without warning, Cotton trotted away from her spot at the projector and mercilessly flipped the lights back on. The room was flooded with painful beams of light, assailing the eyes of everypony in the room.
"What my dear friend is trying to say," Blueblood said, blinking the floaty spots from his vision "is that none of my assailants seemed to be linked. Each one had their own unique motives, and were quite unaware of any previous attempts on my life. The Royal Guard prefers to keep news of these assassins off of the streets."
"They do know about that one time in Vanhoover, though." Cotton added.
"Ah, yes, that one is public knowledge." Blueblood nodded. "It was quite a close shave, if I recall."
"They're all close shaves, hon." Cotton said with a bluntness that could have rivaled a warhammer. "If they were any closer, you'd be forever known as "Prince Bluebaldy"."
Xander grinned.
The prince hummed thoughtfully. "Not the best nickname I've heard. Not the worst, either."
"Well, uh, my prince," Flash said before carefully sipping more coffee. He wasn't sure how to address him after seeing how informal he was with Cotton and Xander "you don't seem to live up to all those names that I've heard. You're not so bad now that I've met you."
That simple statement caught the prince way off-guard, and Blueblood didn't even react at first. He merely stared for scarcely a moment, his mouth slightly agpe. He drew breath for a response, but the words left him.
"R-really?" He managed to ask, his voice a mixture of disbelief and flattery. "You don't think I'm a greedy, narcissistic, pompous little colt who doesn't deserve the title bestowed upon me?"
"That's oddly specific." Flash observed.
Blueblood let out a dry, humorless laugh. "You have no idea."
"Well, I really haven't known you that long, Your Gr-" Flash stopped himself just in time "Er, Prince Blueblood. I can tell you're not as a bad as some of the ponies I've seen. You're a hell of a lot less uptight- pardon my Equestrian -compared to some of the nobles that have visited the Empire."
"Huh." The prince said, his face holding no clear expression. He was too deep in thought. What he was thinking of, Flash could not tell. "Thank you. I think. It's been a long time since..." He trailed off.
Flash went rigid, and not in the way he does when in guard-mode. Flash froze because the conversation had taken a turn for the quiet. Not a day at his duty station and he had already said something to prince to render him speechless, more or less.
"Ohhhh-kay." Cotton broke the silence like a troll in a crystal ball shop. "Well, I guess it's time to get back to work. According to our schedule, the prince is almost late for a dinner, right? Let's roll out, boys. Chop chop."
* * *
The Royal Guard's barracks were actually pretty nice.
At the end of Flash's eventful day, the pegasus and the zony were allowed to retire to the guard's community quarters for the night. It was apparently Cotton Swab's turn to take owl's shift, she would guard the prince all night as he slept. Flash was so not looking forward to his turn when it came.
The barracks cots were much too soft and comfortable to be called cots, these were full-fledged beds, like the kind that real ponies slept on. Thanks to the magic of mass production, every guard in the castle had their own nightstand and armor locker as well. This was a four star hotel compared to the vastly outdated Crystal Guard quarters.
Flash had taken a cot between Xander's and some other guard he hadn't met yet. While each pony there belonged to a different branch of the castle guard, all of them slept together (but not in a dirty way). There were even a few of those fuzzy-eared, leather-winged Selenic Guards still milling about before their shifts started.
After shoving all of his armor into the hooflocker, Flash blissfully let himself slump into the cot.
He glanced over at Xander, who was busying himself with a number two pencil in clenched his teeth and a pad of paper lying on the bed. The zony looked a little smaller without his heavy armor, but he still dwarfed everypony else with ease. The bed crraked under his weight every time that the hulk moved. Flash noticed his cutie mark, or whatever the zebras called it. What he noticed was that it didn't represent anything he recognized. It was a mishmash of swirly patterns and weird hieroglyphics assembled into a picture. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. He guessed that zebra and zony symbolism isn't as obvious as any other equine's. Flash's cutie mark, for example, was a blue shield with a lightning bolt. It meant that he was meant to be a guard with fast reflexes. It made sense to him.
Xander scribbled something on the notepad, then spat the writing implement out and presented the notepad to Flash.
Having fun? It read in hastily scrawled lettering.
"I can hardly contain myself with all this joy." Flash snarked. "It's practically an all-day party."
Xander rolled his eyes and went back to scribbling.
Enjoy it. This job will get worse before it get easyer.
"He-ey! No need to get testy." Flash said. "Geez, I thought big guys were supposed to be jolly."
Xander wrote nothing, but clenched his jaw, flared his nostrils, and gave the guard a cross look.
"All right, all right!" Flash raised his hooves in a gesture of surrender. "I'm sorry."
The zony's face lightened up a bit after he apologised. Xander gave a content nod, as if to say 'Apology accepted'.
"So uh, by the way..." Flash said, his tone turning serious.
Xander cocked an eyebrow. "Hmm?"
"What was up with Blueblood earlier? You know, when we were talking and he got quiet for some reason. He acted like I asked him for his hoof in marriage."
BB's too used to ponies thinking he's a scumbag. He wrote.
"Well, he wasn't. Not to me or you guys, anyway."
Pretty much every pony in a position of power always had their own nasty rumors and jokes floating around the water cooler, but the things that ponies said about Blueblood were special. He was often portrayed as the epitome of douchebags to the point where it couldn't be anything but hyperbole. That was what Flash always assumed anyway.
Xander ripped off the front page of his notepad and crumpled it up.
Starting a fresh page, he wrote He used to be bad. Way bad. Total plotface. Now he's starting to grow up.
"What made him change? I mean, did he just wake up one day and realize "Hey, I'm a memetic jackass! I should probably fix that soon, dont'cha think?"."
Xander shrugged, then wrote Could be, but your guess is as good as mine.
Flash gave a frustrated sigh. "Of course, the likeable by-the-books foreigner gets assigned to be the personal bodyguard of the mysterious yet handsome bleach blonde unicorn noble with self-esteem issues. Sounds like the beginning of a bad gay romance novel, If you ask me."
Xander mimed gagging himself with a hoof.
"No kidding." Flash chuckled lightly and Xander with him.
A moment passed wherein neither party said anything, they merely shared a brief spell of contented silence.
"Anyway," Flash said "I'm going to grab some shuteye. Unless I wake up and find that this was all a weird dream I've been having on the train ride over here, I'm gonna need the rest. 'Night."
Without another word, both of them rolled over and set their heads on the decently soft, yet firm pillows. It didn't take long for either of them to fall asleep. Royal Guards have the learned skill of being able to fall asleep anywhere at any time and under any circumstances, as most barracks have ponies coming and going at all hours of the night with their armored hoofsteps and loud voices.
Flash was no different than the Canterlot guards. Despite being hundreds of miles away from the Crystal Empire, he felt right at home amongst the other ponies of his kind. Funny how he no longer considered Equestria his home, despite being born not far from where he laid his head that night. It was at the very base of Canterlot mountain, if he correctly recalled what his mother told him. Of course, it was referred to as "Mount Everfree" when he was a foal.
Soon, the pegasus found himself drifting. His thoughts became scrambled and less focused. Flash was was no longer aware of anything but that twilight between the world of dreams and the world of waking. He was eventually taken by the comfy black cocoon of sleep...
* * *
"Unacceptable!" the blond unicorn screamed as loudly as his lungs could muster, the white-robed hoofmaiden trembling under his seething gaze.
"I- I- I um-" Her eyes darted to everywhere but the snarl of her prince. She couldn't look him in the eye, no matter how much he invaded her personal space.
"Don't speak!" Blueblood poked her demure shoulder with a hard hoof, effectively silencing the filly. "I've no use for excuses. I've no time to waste fixing grievous mistakes as this, as I am responsible for the oversight of this entire operation!"
Her voice was strained, ranging somewhere in between a whisper and and a mutter. "But I wasn't offering excuses Your Grace, I merely set out what the delivery pony gav-"
"Oh really?" he said with a mocking tone. "Because those plates and silverware just scream "Winter Solstice is here!" And look, they match the decor perfectly!"
Blueblood was violently gesturing to a grandiose dining table as long as a house and as wide a wagon. It was covered in a midnight blue table cloth trimmed with silver thread and dotted with hundreds of glitzy white sequins. The dozens of sets of silverware starkly contrasted the cloth with its pale alabaster plates and gold leaf utensils.
"Oh." The moment of dawning comprehension on her pale face was as plain as day.
The prince was on the verge of grinding his teeth to dust. He then bopped her on the head. It wasn't hard enough to cause any real pain to the teenage filly, but it was enough to nearly stop her heart from the surprise. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe the diningware themed after Aunty Celestia didn't go with the the table themed after Aunty Luna, hmm? Well, did it?!"
"No, Your Grace, it didn't." She couldn't look up. Her eyes were affixed to the floor as if the pony before her were part cockatrice.
"I can't believe-" Blueblood suddenly did a one-eighty degree turn and rubbed his aching temple with a hoof. His voice was tuned down to a tolerable level. "Such a travesty. It will all have to be redone, all of it. This is Aunty's first Winter Solstice in a thousand years and I'm going to look like a fool for mucking the celebration. Oh, of all the days the help decides to check their minds at the door..."
The prince sighed. Without even looking at the filly, he waved a hoof at her saying "Get out of my sight. Jus- just go clean something before I fire you."
She didn't need to be told twice. The servant turned tail and slipped out as quickly as her hooves could carry-
- - -
Flash Sentry awoke with a sharp gasp.
The bleary-eyed guard threw off the covers and bolted upright. Looking around the room, Flash found that it was the same as when he left it. Dozens of fellow guards laid peacefully, their snores filling the barracks. They were completely oblivious to him.
Waking from dreams like that always left him with an odd feeling; the feeling of sanity finding it's way back into his mind the instant before he realizes that it was all in his head. It was just a dream.
"Great." Flash sank back into bed. "An oddly vivid dream of things I've never seen. Five bits says that this is going to be really important in the near future."
With that being said, he rolled over and went back to sleep.
Short books, long books, old books, new books, books on magic, books on politics, books on rocks, books on trees, novels, novellas, short-stories, poetry compilations, biographies, autobiographies, fan fiction and everything else under the Pony Decimal System was housed in Canterlot's Royal Archives. It was a forest of monolithic ceiling-high shelves filled to the brim with all manner of tomes and scrolls. This wing of Canterlot Castle was the largest repository for the written word in all of Equestria, and perhaps the entire world. It housed a few copies of nearly every book ever published in Equestria, as well as many of those published in other countries. It was, as some have called it, the ultimate library.
This was where Prince Blueblood chose to spend most of his time.
Flash Sentry never would have pegged him for the bookworm type. He wasn't much of a reader himself, though that was partly due to the fact that personally owning any kind of book was a major luxury in the days before the printing press.
Establishing an effective patrol routine in that place was an absolute nightmare for the guard. Flash could've blindfolded himself, spun around three times, and thrown a rock in any direction and that rock wouldn't fail to hit a potential hiding space for any would-be assailants. It was like trying to protect the prince while navigating a labyrinth. At least he didn't have to march in that Celestia-awful set of armor, as Blueblood graciously allowed him to wear the normal guard's lighter armor.
Upon entering, Flash found that the labyrinthian library was guarded not only by the Blueblood Corps, but by a musclebound female minotaur that could've easily given Xander a run for his money. It followed them like a shadow. "Brecca," Blueblood said "is the Loremaster of the Archives. Her duties are much like your own, actually. There's a strict policy about checking these things out. The library must contain within its walls one copy of absolutely everything at all times- a measure to prevent knowledge being lost forever. It's her job to enforce that rule."
The hulking cow glared fire beams at the pegasus from behind a pair ridiculously oversized reading glasses. He couldn't help but swallow a lump in his throat when her gaze met his. Flash could have sworn that a puff of steam rolled out of her nostrils every once in a while.
The prince had situated himself at an empty round table, a ten ton tome spread out under a reading lamp before him. Blueblood squinted hard as his eyes scanned line after tiny line of squiggly cursive text. The guards opted to patrol the nearby corridors, each choosing their own random routes that circled the prince. So far, they found no signs of anypony else at all. They were essentially alone in the nonfiction section of the archives.
Every once in a while, Brecca would disappear into the annals of the library and come back to leer at them some more. The prince continued to sift through his sizeable stack of books, mouthing words with no sound as he went. Flash had fallen into a decent routine that covered quite a bit of ground. He checked each crevice of the bookshelves again and again, keeping his peepers peeled for any suspicious activity. If somepony was lurking amongst the spacious shelf tops, he would be ready for them.
* * *
Flash found himself idly daydreaming as he put one hoof in front of the other. There were a lot of books here. Heaps of them, actually. He could've stopped patrolling to build himself a castle out of all those texts, then he would put a throne in that castle and declare himself "Lord of Literature." His first royal decree would implement a law requiring all the citizens of his land to know the difference between affect and effect. Anypony caught using either word incorrectly would be flogged on the spot. His second decree would be to outlaw using the letter "U" interchangeably with the word "you". Anypony caught using either term incorrectly would be flogged on the spot. His third decree would be to hire more ponies trained in flogging.
Flash eventually realized that if somepony was coming for the prince that day, it would be better to have a pair of eyes on him at all times. Wandering the aisles like an automaton wouldn’t be much help much; the archives were a ghost town.
Flash stood stock still at the end of a bookshelf, his eyes moving from place to place, as was his routine. His word games kept the guard busy for longer since the library wasn't as sparsely decorated at the poolside.
Much to his surprise, Blueblood had tried to strike up a conversation alongside his studies. The prince didn't even look up from the ancient texts when, out of the blue, he asked "So how are you handling your new career so far, Flash?"
Flash fidgeted in place a little, but Blueblood didn't notice. "Sir, is it proper to speak like this in public?"
Blueblood rolled his eyes. "Oh, I can already tell you're going to be five pounds of fun in a fifty pound bag."
He turned away from the book just long enough to gesture to the rest of the area. "As you can plainly see, Lieutenant, there's nopony here. Besides, I have no other friends to speak with that aren't utterly insufferable."
"Bite my flank!" Cotton's gruff voice echoed from somewhere behind a bookshelf.
"Present company excluded!" Blueblood hollered back.
"QUIET IN THE LIBRARY!" The bellowing and almost demonic voice of Brecca exploded from within the deeper parts of the archives. It made Flash's body seize up like he had been given surprise prostate inspection.
"Don't mind her." Blueblood didn't seem to react to the minotaur's bellows at all. "So spill it. What do you think?"
Flash cast another glance at where the roar came from. He was reluctant to answer, but his prince requested it, and so he shall oblige. "I- I cannot say for sure yet. I've witnessed one assassination attempt too many, and I'm not looking forward to the next one, if it does occur."
Blueblood barked out a derisive laugh. "Trust me, it will. Another pony will try again. She could come today, she could come tomorrow. It's only a matter of time."
He paused briefly, then added "Think of it this way: apples grow on trees, rain fall from the sky, and ponies try to kill me. You may still be in the denial stage, but I've long since arrived at acceptance."
"I'm not in denial." Flash denied. "I'm just... surprised."
"Mmmm," the prince hummed "who wouldn't be? Stop me if I'm wrong, but you're still on the fence about everything thing we've told you so far, even if you don't know it yet. All you've seen is a single shot taken by a masked mare, and you're still trying to wrap your mind around it. You've got a vague idea of what has happened and what will come to pass in the Corps, but you won't get the whole picture. Not overnight."
Flash opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but no words came. He did not stop the prince. He still couldn't believe the way Blueblood and the Corps spoke about all the assassins they've faced. From what the guard learned, a countless number of ponies have come at him with blades, bows, and booby traps, and all of them have gotten close to success, failing only by a hair's width or a fraction of a second. Flash saw that assassin's shot with his own two eyes, a foot to the left and she would've put Blueblood six feet under. To go through that on a daily basis... he couldn't even think of what it would do to him.
The prince smiled, but not out of joy. It was more for himself than for Flash. "You'll get used to it. I know I am."
"Me too!" Cotton Swab poked her head from around a corner, then promptly went back to patrolling.
"Uh huh!" Xander agreed, then followed suit.
"Having those two around does wonders for my sanity as well. You might not be picking up on it, but they've gone through the same thing that you're going through. All you need is time."
Blueblood looked as if he had more to say, but decided against saying it. He instead buried his nose back into the book, only casting a glance at Flash every so often.
After a while longer, Flash was starting to feel a bit chattier. After all, a thousand years of talking to the same ponies tends to leave one remarkably hungry for conversation with somepony a little more opaque. Blueblood seemed desperate for a reason to tear his eyes away from the book, so he thought Why not?
"So, what are you reading?"
"Alchemy." the prince said instantly. He lifted up the cover of the tome to reveal the crude outline of a fuming flask filled with some bubbling liquid. "Alchemie" the title read.
"I know." Blueblood cut him off. "Equestria Equestrian didn't have as many rules as Imperial Equestrian back then, so it was technically correct at the time. We eventually adopted their superior methods."
Flash found that deeply disturbing.
"You should keep away from anything written in the second age if you don't like a more, ah, liberal approach to Equestrian. It's actually an interesting read if you like ponies curing diseases and mixing tonics that enhanced sexual vitality and whatnot."
"Put me down as a definite "maybe" for that one."
Under his breath, Flash added. "Heh, vitality."
* * *
"Well I don't think that there's much of a difference between- Shh!" Flash held up a hoof, effectively ending their barely stimulating conversation on the myth of the Fillyosopher's Stone.
"What is it?" Blueblood whispered, his neck reflexively pivoting to check every spot that a potential sniper could be hiding.
"We've got company." He muttered, a grim grimace upon his face.
"Where?"
"Ground floor, behind the bookcase."
"Which bookcase?"
Flash gestured to the offending wooden construct "That one."
"Wait, that one?"
"No, that one."
"That o-?"
"Just get down, okay!" The guard hissed.
Blueblood immediately sank under the relative safety of the reading table.
Sshhhhhwaaaang. The blade sangma sad song as it was released from its sheath.
Sword hilt clenched in his teeth, Flash Sentry crept forward on the tips of his hooves. His senses were on the razor's edge, his muscles were tensed in anticipation. Whatever came from behind that mass of books, he was ready for it.
Flash hugged the flat end of the shelf. Peering around the corner as little as possible, he caught a brief glimpse of the assailant. A sliver of purple-ish fur was all he needed to confirm that there was indeed a pony lying in wait.
He wasted no time. Flash threw himself around that bookcase and brandished his blade, a guttural warcry sounding from within his chest. The new pony's eyes became as wide as basketballs as he caught sight of the fearsome pegasus guard with his weapon ready to meet the flesh of his enemy! This assassin would rue the day that he crossed paths with the bodyguard of Prince Blueb-
Flash froze. His jaw dropped, the sword rolled out and onto the floor with a clatter.
His only reflex was to bow low. As low as he could go. Bow limbo. The uniform helmet rang like an iron bell when Flash's head hit the floor.
Twilight Sparkle breathed a sigh of relief a pregnant moment after she realized that there was no need to fear for her life.
"My princess! Forgive me!"
The princess blinked. She stared vacantly at the guard swabbing the floor with his face before her. "It's okay. I think. Hey, don't I know you?"
Flash detached his forehead from the wooden flooring and put on his favorite stony expression. "Your Highness may not recognize me immediately, but I am a former bodyguard for Her Highness Princess Cadence."
"Could you be any more of a horseshoe licker?" Cotton Swab rounded the corner. "Hiya, Twilight. S'been awhile since I seen you in Canterlot."
The princess's features instantly perked up upon seeing the mare. "Cotton! It has been some time, hasn't it? I've just been so busy with this whole princess thing that I hardly have any time to sit down with a good book anymore!"
The unicorn guard jerked her head toward Flash. "S'cuze the new guy. He's still green as a blade of grass."
"I'm a thousand years older than you!" He instantly protested. "And does anypony in this corps besides me know the meaning of discipline at all?! That is a member of the Triarchy you're speaking with!"
Cotton gasped. "You don't say?" She rolled her eyes and regarded Twilight. "Like I said. We still need to perform a stick-in-his-ass-ectomy on him."
Flash clenched his jaws so hard that he could've split the shell of a walnut. Despite this, his tone of speaking was as calm and respectful as they came. "I apologize for my outburst in front of Your Highness."
Twilight furrowed her brow and mouthed out Flash's last two words. "Who's highness? Oh wait, you mean me!" Her face grew so red that it could've been mistaken for a strawberry. "Yeah, I uhh- apology accepted."
"Thank you, Your Grace." Flash bowed again, prompting the princess to shuffle her hooves awkwardly as he held it a little too long.
Twilight forced a grin."You're... welcome? By the sun and stars, I'll never get used to that."
Cotton could only watch their exchange with mild amusement.
Twilight cleared her throat. "Ah hem. Anyway, I don't have that much free time set aside for the library. It was truly nice seeing you again, Cotton, and meeting you, Flash Sentry-"
"Thank you, Your Grace." Flash hadn't yet gotten back up from his second bow.
"So I'll just be on my-" Twilight's entire body went rigid the moment she looked up from the two. "Duck."
"On your duck?" Flash uncurled. "I didn't know Her Highness could ride ducks."
Thonk.
Flash watched in confusion as the bright blue bristles that were supposed to be attached to top of his helmet fell over his face like snow.
He uncrossed his eyes to see the two mares staring at the bookcase before them. It was as ordinary as a case in the Royal Archives got, except for the fact that had a dull iron double-edged hurling axe deeply embedded into one of the shelves.
They all whirled around in unison.
The source of that axe was the mare in black. Well, it was a mare in black. This one wasn't a pegasus. She stood in the open space, as easily seen as the sun in the sky, not making any attempt to hide from anypony. The first thing that one would notice about her was the literal arsenal strapped to her person. One could count two broad and curvy blades strapped across her back, a variety of oddly-shaped dagger sheathed along her front hooves, some kind of four-pointed star on either of her flanks, and several black spheres strapped to her chest. She. Was. Loaded.
What caught Flash's attention, though, was the mare's eyes. Those cyan orbs burned with... something. He couldn't tell whether it was hatred in those eyes, or determination, or sheer excitement, but he knew that whatever emotion the mare was feeling, it was strong. He had seen that look before, he just couldn't remember where.
"What's going on over here?" Blueblood trotted from around the bookcase. "Did you find who-?"
The mare locked eyes with the prince.
"Oh, dear."
"Prince Blueblood!" Her voice held the energy and eagerness of one who still clings to youth. The mare twisted her neck at an angle that made Blueblood wince. She bit down upon the hilt of a blade and whipped it out with practiced fluidity. The sword was planted nearly a half foot into the wood floor.
She stood tall, speaking with a voice that commanded
attention. "I am here to rid myself of the taint that you have brought upon me with our abominable acts of coitus!"
"Coitus?" Twilight turned even redder. "Oh my."
"Acts? As in plural?" Flash asked.
"Ho-kay, here we go again." Cotton let out a shrill whistle. "Xan! We got a troublemaker."
"Yes, citizens of Equestria, coitus," The mare when on, not once averting her gaze from the ever-shrinking prince "of which I am deeply ashamed. I have met flesh with flesh before I could be made a whole mare, and broke my sacred oath to The Mother. For indeed, one such as myself cannot have honor with an oath in pieces. My moment of weakness has led me to be an outcast! An undesirable! My life can not have meaning without sacred vows to uphold. I have strayed from the path of the faithful and from Zircon. Into exile I went, into this land of colorful ponies. I have traveled long and far to be here, to repent for my sins. And so, I must finally face the ultimate price! Only death may pay my debt to The Mother, and that death shall yours, Prince! Let us see if you actually do bleed bl-"
The mare was too caught up in her own speech to notice the hulking being of armor and muscle waltz right up and almost casually deliver a devastating steel hoof to the gut. She flew like a rock for a good five feet before skidding across the floor.
"Hey, that wasn't fair." Twilight said out of the blue. "She didn't finish monologuing!"
Xander shrugged.
"I'm not complaining." Blueblood said.
The mare pulled herself up with one hoof while pressing against her aching side with the other. "This is none of your concern, halfborn. I do not care if the blood of Zircon flows through your veins, it spills just the same."
Xander put himself directly between Blueblood and the assassin. He dug his hooves into the floor and bared his teeth like an animal, as if to say 'I'm not going anywhere.'
Both Flash and Cotton shared a knowing look and promptly joined the zony. Taking their spot on either side of the prince, they formed a protective semi-circle around him. Flash picked up his trusty sword, Cotton ignited her horn with a pale red light, Xander remained motionless, and Twilight just stood there and watched in shock and awe.
"If that how events must unfold, so be it. I will cut down all that do not stand aside." The mare calmly trotted forward and took the floor-blade in her hooves' grasp. She used the blade to push herself onto her back haunches and handled the sword not with her jaws, but her front hooves while all of her weight was balanced on two hind legs. She was standing bipedally, like a diamond dog or a dragon, and was showing no signs of pain or discomfort.
"Shall we begin?"
"Thought you'd never ask!" Without further warning, the magical aura that encased Swab's horn flared in intensity. A bright beam of shining red light cut through the empty space, kicking up dust and stray papers as it went.
The assassin fell backwards in response, the bolt of arcane energy missing its target and melting a few innocent texts into a pile of papery goo.
The nameless mare caught herself on her front hooves and easily flipped back onto the hind two with flexibility that confounded the five others.
"Holy Tartarus!" Cotton breathed. She stepped forward, her brow furrowing as she launched another bolt as a follow-up. The mare cartwheeled away from that one just as easily, and the beam ended up singing the corner edge of a bookcase.
Three more spells were launched in rapid succession, each with exactly the same effect.
"Aaaagh!" Cotton roared. "Stand still Celestiadamnit!"
Pew pew pew pew pew. She weaved and ducked around the destructive bolts without breaking a sweat.
It was the assassins turn. She dashed forward- still on two legs -and brought the blade around in a horizontal slash that Cotton barely backpedaled away from. Several more swings followed the first at alarming speeds, two of them managing to scrape against her armor with a grating screech.
Xander wasn't about to let his friend fight alone. He backed up a few paces, lowered his head like a ram, and charged the assassin with enough weight and momentum to bring down a brick wall. The mare's eyes widened comically as she caught sight of what closed in. With the reflexes of a fly, she leaped over the zony with an acrobatic roll and landed safely behind him. Xander on the other hand, was as agile as a freight train. He could neither stop nor turn on a dime. This led his unprotected face to an unpleasant meeting with a polished marble wall. The resulting impact could be felt throughout the castle.
* * *
Rumble.
Brecca the minotaur was roused from her reading session by an unexpected tremor.
She looked up from the book, gritted her teeth, tensed her biceps, and growled. There was only one pony in all of Equestria that could cause a ruckus like that.
"Blueblood."
She stuck a folded scrap of paper in her book and shoved it back into the shelf. The earth quaked with each step that she took toward the origin of the disturbance.
* * *
Though his fellow guards preferred the direct approach to combat, Flash adopted more subtle tactics. Cotton and Xander kept the assassin busy trading spells and blows, neither side seeming to get a good hit in. The guards were covered in shallow cuts while the mare sported a few mild burns and bruises. While the three duked it out, Flash took to the air and crept across the tops of the shelves, leering down at the spectacle below. He quietly observed them going round after round, with beams and blades flying about making a general mess of the place. At one point the mare sheathed her sword and started flinging around small triangular knives. Most of them missed, some were lodged into the guard's armor. When those ran out, she just threw whatever was within her reach, which were primarily books.
"This chick is crazy!" Cotton hollered, ducking under a limited edition copy of The Schizopedia! All you need to know about mental illness and more.
"It is not I whose mind is sick!" The mare yelled back, returning to her two-hooved cheater's stance. She waved around that sword like it was made of cardboard. "Insanity is the only excuse for standing between my mission and I!"
"Get over yourself!" Somehow Cotton's horn found a way to glow even brighter than it had been. Its ruby red aura flared like a fire that had been doused with whiskey. With a high-pitch squeal of magic, a slender shaft of light shot forth from her forehead, but this spell was no laser beam. An ethereal spike two feet in length enveloped her horn, shimmering and undulating with raw magical prowess. She charged at the assassin and wielded the spell like a sword, wildly slashing and stabbing just like her opponent.
The mare was caught way off-guard. She was forced to either parry or dodge each strike just to keep from losing the rhythm, and then the battle. Cotton left no room for retaliation, she swung her mana weapon with all the fury that she could muster. One two three, one two three. Stab, right slash, left slash, then stab, stab, left slash. Again and again magic and steel clashed with a ringing that resounded through the lonely halls of the archives.
Klang!
The curved sword of the assassin sang a shrill song as it sailed through the air and embedded itself into the floor a ways away.
She had lost the upper hoof. Before she could reach for her second weapon, the mare was forced back from the first farther and farther by Cotton's advances. Her entire body was too busy to even attempt anything other than retreat.
This was when Flash made his move.
Up high from the towers of literature, the pegasus dove like a falcon at a field rat. The assassin had barely registered his presence before it was too late. Some ponies say that time slows down when one recognizes an imminent loss approaching...this was not the case. In fact, it seemed to speed up. It was over in a fraction of a second. Flash grabbed her by the neck and dove to the floor, both bodies colliding with a dull thud.
And just like that, she was pinned. Flash's forced her forelegs in to the ground with his own, leaving her bottom half to thrash and buck helplessly.
"L- let go of me!" She screamed pathetically.
Flash's muzzle was inches from hers. "Hmmm, lemme think. No. In addition to that, hell no."
The mare eventually conceded and continued to struggle no more. Flash took the opportunity of a calm moment to remove the mare's cotton mask.
This revealed the slender black and white face and short-cut mohawk mane of a zebra. She glared at Flash so hard that he thought her brow would stick like that forever.
"What's your name?" He asked.
"My name is Katarina! Shamaness of the great nation of Zircon!"
"Yeah, that's nice." Flash wadded up the mask and shoved it into her mouth, eliciting a series of muffled mumbles from her.
Cotton shot an annoyed look at her prince. "You jumped the bones of a zebra shamaness? Celestia's mane, have you romanced a mare from every country on the planet?"
"No, only nineteen of them. Despite what the tabloids might say, I've never known a dragon or seapony that well. Or a changeling, but then again who knows if they even do reproduce our way."
"Well that put some ugly images in my head." Flash glanced back at the two other guards. "Get this lady's stuff before she stabs me, will ya?"
The two crowded round the tangle of ponies and snatched every blade and bauble that they could find off of her person. Cotton, her horn dulled down to a soft glow, levitated a wad of equipment onto Blueblood's reading table.
"Day-um, girl." Cotton Swab said to the assassin. "You got you some toys."
Unfortunately for Katarina, she could only speak gag. "Rrrrrrf!" and "Mmmpf!" were certainly not words in the Equestrian dictionary.
"Yadda yadda yadda. They're cool anyway." She sifted through the pile of stuff and withdrew one of those odd black spheres.
"What do these even do?" She asked.
The eye-roll that Katarina gave needed no words.
"Ho-kay, now that that's over with..." Flash disentangled himself from the zebra and coaxed her to her hooves at swordpoint. "We can cuff Miss Katarina and escort her to the dungeon."
The guards happily obliged and shackled the assassin with a pair of gangly black iron hoofcuffs that made every step she took that much harder and noisier. With their prisoner in tow, the guards-
"Hey, does anypony feel that?" Cotton asked out of the blue. "Kind of like a rumbling."
The room grew completely still for a moment as everypony awaited something to happen.
"Well, I don't feel anything." Flash said.
"BY THE PRINCESSES THREE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Heavy decibels forced the six equines to flatten their ears against their heads to keep from going deaf. Brecca's roar was mighty.
Everypony looked up in horror to see a chocolate brown minotaur almost as tall as the bookcases looking down upon them with all the fury of Tartarus.
"LOOK AT THE PIGSTY YOU'VE MADE! LOOK AT IT! THIS WILL TAKE DAYS TO REORGANIZE!"
She pointed a meaty finger at the floor, which happened to be littered with heaps of beaten-up texts and crumpled pages. One could not also forget the shallow nicks and burns covering the floorboards and shelves. They had made quite a mess with their little scuffle.
Blueblood was first to come to his senses. "Ah, Brecca. I do apologize for-"
"SAVE IT."
The prince recoiled. His voice was barely audible. "Saving."
"THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS YEAR YOU AND YOUR HUSSIES HAVE DESTROYED MY LIBRARY. I HAVE BEEN AS LENIENT AS I CAN BE THESE PAST TWO YEARS, BUT NO MORE."
Brecca had to get down on her hands and knees to look Blueblood in the eye. A gale of foul breath blew everpony's manes back with every word. "AS LOREMASTER OF EQUESTRIA, I HEREBY STRIP YOU OF YOUR LIBRARY CARD AND ALL PRIVILEGES ASSOCIATED WITH IT FROM HERE ON UNTIL THE END OF DAYS."
It was the first time that Flash had ever seen Blueblood completely lose his composure. The shock on his face was as plain as day. Flash could have sworn that the prince's heart had stopped.
"N-no! Please, not that!" He sounded like a child who had his favorite toy taken away. "Please, you can't do this to me!"
"HAND IT OVER, LOSER."
Even Twilight Sparkle agreed. "But Brecca, isn't that too harsh? It wasn't his fault!" She looked from the minotaur to Blueblood in panic. "There has to be an exception. He's Celestia's nephew for crying out loud!"
"It's just a library card." Flash said, but his words fell on deaf ears.
"GIVE ME THE LIBRARY CARD OR I WILL SHOVE A COMPLETE SET OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS DOWN YOUR THROAT."
"But I-"
"SPINE FIRST."
"Okay." Tentatively, Blueblood levitated the simple paper card he had been using as a bookmark. He took one last longing look at it before presenting it to the loremaster.
Brecca plucked it from his magical grasp. Between two fingers, she held it tight and glared harshly at the inscription that read "Property of Prince Blueblood".
"Again, what's so important about-"
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" She bellowed with all the force that her lungs could muster. Her voice somehow changed its pitch to be even lower than before, warping and twisting into something not of this world. The noise seemed to cause the earth to quake with it, shaking books off of their perches, knocking over inkwells, and dislodging a chandelier or two from the ceiling.
Before their very eyes, the card in her hands burst into flames as she continued her roaring. It flared in intensity and rapidly devolved into ashes that were blown away on a wind that nopony felt.
"How did she do that?" Still nopony paid attention to the guard.
"I've had enough of this." Nopony knew where Katarina had gotten that knife from, or how she got the gag off. Sometimes it was better not ponder such things. The dagger had a short blade that gleamed like a light, and it was jammed deep into Flash Sentry's left shoulder, right where there was a gap in the armor. Fresh blood poured freely from the wound, running down his chest and legs, staining the fur and armor a crimson red.
He crumpled to the ground, squealing a high pitched squeal that no professional soprano singer could dare match.
Before anypony knew which way was up, the assassin had a hold of one of her black spheres. She threw it to the ground and poof, nopony could see a thing. A smokescreen as thick as pudding filled the immediate area, followed by a chorus of hacking, wheezing, and eye-watering that came from such a fog.
One pony in particular was having quite a bit of trouble breathing, though it was less from the smoke and more from the chain wrapped tightly around his neck.
"Ack!" was all he could say. Being strangled to death tended to leave one with a remarkable speech impediment.
Things had gone to shit pretty fast.
Then, as quickly as the trouble began, it ended. All one would be able to see was a brilliant purple glow piercing the fog for the briefest of moment before a gust of wind came along with an immense force. And just like that, the smoke cleared, revealing everyone in the room except the princess and the minotaur lying helplessly on the floor.
Twilight Sparkle extinguished her horn, huffing and puffing from the sudden exertion of will and with a mightily pissed look upon her face.
"You guys really ruined my day off." the princess growled at nopony in particular.
"Quit whining and help me!" Blueblood tried to say, but had to settle for a deathly gurgle.
"You, off of him!" The zebra was little more than a ragdoll in the alicorns magical grip. She flailed all of her extremities wildly, only succeeding in rattling chains as she was caught in the zero gravity of a levitation spell.
"Foul witch queen!" Katarina spat.
"Hippie shaman." The princess shot back.
"Shamaness. Shamans are male, knave! It is a wonder how Equestria still functions under the rule of an imbecile."
Twilight was never much of a violent mare. She solved as many problems as she could with a spell, the help of her friends, or a magical deus ex machina. But there are some problems that you gotta just beat the crap out of sometimes.
Katarina was one of those problems.
Twilight whipped her horn around, maneuvering the telekinetic field right into a shelf. The zebra bounced off of it like a fleshy basketball with a half-surprised, half-pained cry.
"Anypony else wanna correct me?!"
Her words were met with complete silence, save for the mewling of one Flash Sentry.
"Bleeding out, here!" Flash whined through the pulsating jolts of pain running through his shoulder like lightning. His vision was starting to blur.
"Oh right, sorry."
* * *
"Hold still!"
"I am!"
"Are you kidding? You're prancing around like a friggin' rabbit."
"For a doctor, your bedside manner is really bad you know."
"Yeah, that's why I quit. It's wussy ponies like you that drove me up the wall. It's just "I've got the flu, I need antibiotics!" and "Does this inconsequential and slightly off-color scrape look serious?" Bitch, moan, whine, complain all day long. It's a wonder I haven't broken the Hypocritical Oath yet."
Cotton gasped and pointed a hoof at the doorway. "Dear Celestia, she's loose again!"
Flash bolted upright from the operating table and looked to the object that Cotton gestured to.
"Psyche!"
"Aaaaahhh! Sonofa..."
The oddly shaped knife slid out of Flash as easily as it slid in, its slender blade soaked in a red hue.
Sure, she had lived there all of her natural and unnatural life, and she yearned to see what the rest of the world had become after a thousand years, but at least there she did more than sit behind a desk. The Empire wasn’t the most active during her tour of duty, but juggling paperwork comprised less of her time. It didn't help that her desk was crammed at the end of the same hall that led to all of the dungeon's individual cells. It was about as gloomy as gloomy got.
She missed the view from the Crystal Palace, too. Iron bars and grey bricks were all that the underground jail could offer her.
Shuffle. A stack of completed forms were finally pushed into the plastic bin marked "OUT" in permanent marker.
Shuffle. A new stack of nearly identical pieces of parchment were withdrawn from the "IN" folder.
Scratch a scratch. A quill dipped in ink scribbled away a thousand various names and number combinations onto the dotted lines that made up these papers.
With all that being said, Rose Quartz breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the door in need of some oil at the end of the hall creak open.
"Heya Rosie." Flash Sentry said with an unusual lack of enthusiasm.
"Flash!" the jailer cheered. "Thank Celestia. I really needed somepony to talk to."
The pegasus stifled a yawn. "Mmm hmm."
Rose cocked her head to the side. Flash was acting strange. "What's the matter? Wow, you look like somepony beat you with a rubber mallet.
"I feel worse than I look, trust me." Flash turned around and yanked on the chain he held in his hoof. "Come on, killer. In here. Keep on trottin'."
A well-built zebra mare in a black bodysuit and a clinking set of hoofcuffs shuffled in behind him. She took one look at the crystal mare and grimaced like somepony who was having an abysmal day.
"Which one you want her in?" Flash asked.
She made a sweeping gesture to the entirety of the hallway. "Take your pick. We're not exactly overflowing with criminals right now. Keys are on the left wall."
Flash nodded wearily and lightly prodded the prisoner with the pointy end of his sword, ushering her into a random cell. He smiled as he slammed the prison door shut, closing the forlorn assassin into a space where she could not longer be a threat.
Rose Quartz grabbed a spare quill, pot of ink, and prisoner detainment form and waved them at Flash. "I'm gonna need'ja to fill these out for me."
Flash laughed half heartedly "Heh, ponies love their paper nowadays, don't they?"
For the first time that day, Rose genuinely smiled. "Can you blame them? I remember when the stuff was so valuable that they only wrote really important things on it. Now you can just go to a store and buy yourself paper made specifically for writing boring stuff like shopping lists."
Rose was about to make more casual conversation as Flash put ink to paper, but she went right to the big stuff when she noticed his heavily baggy eyes and the red-stained bandages peeking through the gaps in his armor.
"By the Sisters, Flash, what happened to your shoulder?"
The pegasus stopped writing for a moment to cast a disinterested glance at his wound. "Oh yeah, that. Long story."
"I stabbed him." The zebra called from within her cell.
"Not that long, apparently." Flash finished filling out the forms and passed them back to Rose. "Here. That all you need?"
"Damn," she said, skimming the paper over.
"Alright then. I'd love to talk, really, I would. But I gotta go get back to my post. I'll see you on my next day off."
"Okay, some other time then." Rose Quartz did a double-take when she passed over the box marked "Cause for Incarceration".
Flash was already trotting out when she stopped him. "Is this right?"
Flash turned back and cocked an eyebrow "Is what right?"
"It says she's being jailed for... attempted regicide?" Rose checked again then rechecked to make absolutely sure that what she was reading was not a mistake.
"That's it."
"Really?" Her eyes flicked from the forms, to Flash, then back to the forms. "Well you don't see that every day!"
"Actually..."
* * *
If Rose Quartz had been drinking something, she'd have done a spit take "How many countries?"
"Nineteen, he said it himself, and you know what? I believe him. Judging by how they talk about it, that sounds just right."
"The promiscuous porcine prince said that I was the first mare he had known!" Kat ranted from within her cell. "The scullion!"
"Your fault for being gullible, sweetheart." Rose droned back. She rested a pair of elbows on the desk and rubbed her temples. "I still can't wrap my head around it."
"Tell me about it."
"And you said it happens daily?"
"I've encountered two different mares in two days, and both of them wanted the prince to take a dirt nap. I think it's safe to say it's a regular thing for him."
"Wow. Just... wow."
"I know, right?" Flash laughed. "I couldn't believe it myself. It's like the universe has some kind of running joke. Dozens of different mares, all taking potshots at him one by one, and it's just me, a mute zebra, and an ex-doctor keeping Blueblood from being... Spilledblood."
Rose snorted. "Spilledblood?"
"Shut up. It's funny and you know it."
"Sure. Whatever you say, bodyguard."
They shared a laugh.
"Yeah." Flash said. "Anyway, that's just how it's gonna be. Crazy as it is, this is my new life. I've crammed more excitement into two days than a hundred years in the empire."
"At least you're job isn't dull." Rose Quartz said. "I've got paperwork coming out of my flank down here."
"Uh hello?" Flash gestured to the mass of bandages soaking up enough blood to make them soggy as a wet cloth. "You haven't been stabbed yet! I bet you've barely gotten a papercut."
"Mmm, too true."
* * *
Clankity clank. The steel cuirass clattered as Flash deposited the last of his armor into the hooflocker. He stretched out into the unfamiliar comfort of the barracks bed and tucked both forehooves behind his head. Glad to finally get some rest, the pegasus let out a long, unwinding breath.
Then, lo and behold, Cotton Swab trotted up to the side of his bunk and poked him with a hoof. "Sentry, get up and pack your panties. We're going on a field trip tomorrow."
Damn it.
He pulled the standard issue pillow over his face and let out a groan. Peeking out from behind the warm comfort of the sack of goose down, Flash asked "Where are we going?"
"Maretonia."
***
"Hmm.
A filly who thinks herself something more,
Sits cold and alone on a stone floor.
She would see the good prince dead,
After with him sharing her bed."
Katarina awoke from a fitful sleep.
The young zebra squinted at the dark figure of a pony lurking on the other side of the iron door. The pale light of a waning moon revealed only a pair of ocean blue eyes hiding underneath a deep hood.
"H-hello?" She asked tentatively. "Please, I tire of your endless questioning. Leave me be, I will answer you no more."
"Her spirit so easily wanes,
Can she not cope with her pains?"
That pony... was no pony. Only one type of person in Equestria has the mental discipline to speak only in rhymes.
"A shamaness." Katarina whispered.
"... is something you are not.
Tell me: did you truly think that you would not be caught?
They say imitation is highest form of flattery,
But no shamaness should partake in assault and Battery."
"I- I'm sorry!" she said instantly. "I had a debt to the Mother! There was no other way to-"
"Repaying the Mother is no easy deed,
But murder of an innocent is something
She does not need."
Katarina slumped into the bundle of straw that had served as her bed. She did not even want to think of that conceited stallion as anything even related to the word "innocent".
"It was the vile prince that broke my oath." she spat out her words as if they tasted bitter. "He owed the mother just as much as I did, if not more."
She could barely see the shamaness shake her head under that hooded cloak.
"How could an outsider so ignorant of our laws
Be the irrefutable cause?
Indeed it does take two to bone,
But the debt is yours and yours alone.
The Mother has seen fit to show me a meeting that has Come to pass as I lay one day in the greenest of grass.
I have seen what you both have done,
It was an agreement of two ponies, and not one."
"Are you saying...?" No. It couldn't be it. She couldn't accept that as fact.
"Are you saying the price is not to be paid by the guilty party in this?"
"Are you so foolish in your youth
To not see the obvious truth?
The blue-blooded one is not to blame, it was you alone Who has brought you shame."
"But he's a stallion!"
The shamaness threw back her hood in contempt, revealing a mohawk mane identical to Katarina's. Her face was cool and impartial as a glacier. Her words were flatly spoken, but held a dark undertone to them.
"And you are a sexist whore.
Wake up your mind, I must implore.
You are so blinded by shame that you refuse to heed
The voice in your head that says "It was you who is to Blame for the deed!"."
Verbally defeated, Kat sighed. "It's true. I do admit that I was just as willing and eager to copulate as he was, and perhaps I may have bought some part of this upon myself,-"
The real shamaness rolled her eyes.
"-but what else am I to do? I must pay my debts. Only blood may mend my broken vows."
"Ah child, the things your teacher must have told, as you Are one who still clings to the ways of old.
Blood is a dirty way to repay a debt, but there is always A way that is better yet."
The zebra mare reached into an inner pocket on her cloak, and soon the jingle jangle of metal on metal filled the empty jail.
Katarina's eyes widened as the mare stuck a wrought iron key into her cell door. A scrape, a creak, and a squeak later, there was nothing but a shamaness standing in between her and freedom.
"I don't understand."
"The prince and I have struck a deal.
We bargained our desires over a hot meal.
He still cares for you, I'd bet.
I am allowed to assist you in paying your debt.
You may walk out of this prison scott free,
But only if you walked out with me."
"He's just letting me go?" Odd. Katarina had almost felt... rejected. She tries to murder him in cold blood, and he let's her off without punishment? Without justice? What kind of a person would have the best opportunity to take revenge and throw it away like that?
"Make no mistake, filly so frail, you are still in jail.
But you will find the brick walls and iron door
Replaced by a straw roof and dirt floor.
Off we will go to my fortress of isolation,
In the forested heart of this very nation."
The mare smiled warmly, beckoning Kat from her spot resting on the dirty pile of straw. She tentatively picked herself up and inched closer to the mare.
Flash Sentry and Xander watched with foalish fascination as the gooey green glob of phlegm disappeared into the shifting blue scenery far below.
The two stallions shared a look and a goofy wide grin.
"I love skyboats." Flash said.
Xander nodded in agreement.
"Wanna chuck something else over the side?"
Xander nodded even harder.
* * *
Woosh.
The guards giggled like schoolcolts as the hefty cannonball was rapidly swallowed up into the watery oblivion of Equestria's western sea. The boat was so far up that they weren't even close to hearing it hit the surface.
"Say," Flash said "if a big chunk of lead falls into the sea and nopony is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Xander shrugged.
The two continued to stare out at the endless expanse of churning waves. The Tumbling Sea was most definitely not known for its calm waters and stormless nights. Some had taken to calling it the "Sailor's Obstacle Course" simply because everything that could ruin a seafarer's day was present in the stretch of ocean between Maretonia and Equestria; sea serpents, whirlpools, hurricanes, hundred-foot swells, sirens, you name it, the Tumbling Sea had it.
This is why Equestria had taken to traveling over rather than through it. Skyships were a must for making the trip to Maretonia, and so Canterlot's royalty spared no expense. Three flying machines of wood, steel, cloud, and cloth sailed straight and true with the favorable tradewinds. The largest of them was Vas Autem Solis, a behemoth of a boat large enough to pass as a flying hotel that sported a flamboyant white, yellow and orange paint job. She was held aloft by not one, but two full-sized nimbus-filled cloudcatchers that would've each comfortably fit a whale within. This was where Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadence rested for their long journey across the sea. As a result, the ship was heavily defended, the three floors of her hull equipped with canons on both sides.
Flanking The Solis were two gremlin-class vessels; ships much sleeker and lighter in design than the aforementioned mammoth-class cruiser. They weren't half the weight and surface area of the boat that they escorted, but they made up for their size by having a ridiculous amount of firepower. With hull mounted full-size black powder cannons, rail-mounted swivel cannons, enough steel small arms to start a military coup, onboard ballistas loaded with oil-soaked bolts and state-of-the-art propulsion engines, size did not matter a damn bit.
The first of the gremlins was The Rocketmare, an older model of airboat that had seen many a refurbishment. No portion of her original construction remained. Her prow sported a snake-eyed selenic figurehead, its pointed fangs bared and leather wings unfurled. "Rocky", as she was often and fondly called by her captain, sported an unassuming grey paintjob with dark green, almost black, trim around the edges. There were some spots where the paint was scraped off as a direct result of her directly ramming into other ships (accidental or otherwise), revealing the oaken planks underneath. Though some would say the scrapes were ugly, one could not ignore that they were like shallow scars on a pony's face: too damn cool and to cover up.
On the other side of the royal vessel was a ship that differed little in shape and size as compared to The Rocketmare, yet bore a showy high profile paint job of jet black with stylized hotrod flames on its hull. This one was called The Intimidator, and its name was rightfully given. If The Rocky was armed to the teeth, The Intimidator was armed to the colon. In addition to a standard defense arsenal, she was equipped by a highly experimental, highly dangerous mana-powered freeze beam cannon designed by Princess Twilight Sparkle herself. This was mounted in the center of the deck to provide maximum area coverage in case it is ever needed. The freeze ray wasn't even all of it. Her thrusters, like all other skyboats, were powered by natural coal. But the coal engines in her belly were treated with various alchemical concoctions, making the furnaces burn twice as hot and twice as bright. It also caused the flames expelled from the thrusters to burn a dark red, and who the hell doesn't love that?
Naturally, The Intimidator was where Blueblood and corps laid their head for the five-day journey.
* * *
Flash and Xander had finally tired of chucking things over the side, so they merely leaned against the railing and stared at the cloudy skies to pass time. The gloomy grey tint of the sky and the sudden chilly wind that ruffled Flash's feathers left a familiar contented feeling in the guard's chest.
"Looks like rain's in the forecast today." Flash said, breaking the quiet between the two.
"Mmm hmm." Xander hummed his agreement
Nopony that Flash had ever met outside the Empire really liked the rain, and some were even deathly afraid of lightning and thunder. He, on the other hoof, loved every drop of precipitation that fell from the heavens. After the Empire's Return, Flash would sometimes spend hours of his days off sitting on a covered porch and watching the snow fall in thick flakes. He hadn't seen water fall from the sky in any form for a long time. It reminded him that things were right again, that the thousand-year haze of maddening boredom was over.
"Should we even be out here like this?" Flash asked, looking to Xander for an answer. "I mean, I won't even be able to protect the prince just twiddling my hooves all day. I don't even know where he is."
The zony shrugged.
"Chill out, rookie." Cotton Swab called from halfway across the main deck. "We had Double B look over every last member of the staff on this ship. He didn't recognize anypony on the boat as a past flame, so there ain't nopony within a hundred miles to get him."
Cotton Swab had been slumped up lazily on the side of the experimental ice laser that definitely might not have blown up at any minute. The machine had a weird shape that looked like a cannon and a telescope locked themselves in a workshop, made a foal, and that foal was adopted by a skyboat. There were a small collection of crudely scrawled phrases carved into the the surface of its armor plating, phrases like "ICE 2 MEET U", "Celestia's Air Conditioner", and Flash's personal favorite "Emergency Beer Cooler".
"Why not come over here and talk?" Flash shouted back. "It's easier not to have to yell!"
There was a long silence from the other end.
"No thanks." He could barely hear her over the low thrum of the ship's engines.
Flash furrowed his brow. That mare was an odd one."Why not?"
Xander bumped Flash in the shoulder.
"Huh? What is it?"
The zony turned his head to look at the long drop over the guardrails, then he turned to look at Cotton Swab, then back to the sea, and finally back to Swab.
Flash shook his head. He was never good at charades."What do you mean?"
Xander let out a long whistle that started high and gradually lowered in pitch. He gestured a hoof to the sea, then to the unicorn.
"Falling.... Cotton?"
The gears in his head turned.
"Oh!" His face lit up like a lightbulb. "Cotton's afraid of heights!"
Xander put one hoof to his nose and pointed at Flash with the other.
"Cotton!" He shouted. "Why are you afraid of heights?"
"I'm not afraid of heights. I'm afraid of falling." The distance between them was not so great that Flash couldn't see the unicorn shuffle her hooves awkwardly. "There's a difference."
"Yeah, right." he muttered.
Xander shrugged.
"Fine." Flash said. "We'll do it your way."
It took them seconds to leisurely trot away from the edge and toward the machine that Flash didn't at all feel safe around.
"Better?" he asked with a trace of humor in his tone.
"Better."
"So what's with this trip anyway?" Flash began "I've only ever heard of Maretonia once or twice back in the Empire. Didn't exist in my time. I never thought it'd be so important that every royal in Canterlot would drop everything to go there."
"Eh, Maretonia's a big deal with the royalty." Cotton said with a great nonchalance.
"Why?"
"Damn you ask a helluva lotta questions." She chuckled. "Guess I've been working with a mute too long. So, you want the history lesson or a quick rundown?"
"Well I've got a thousand years of history to catch up on." Flash said. "Hit me."
"Alrighty, so...." Cotton glanced out at the sea, but shuttered and decided to eye the floor instead. "Maretonia used to be a big ol' Equestrian colony way back when. A big fleet of normal water-floating ships found a kinda-sorta safe route through the Tumbling Sea and made landfall on a whole different continent. Took 'em half a year to get there. They were supposed to be on an expedition just to see what was on the other side. Most of 'em were too sick of sailing this sea to make the trip back, so they planted some crops, built a few towns, and gave the place a name. That was that."
Everypony jumped when a sudden crack of thunder split the skies and stopped their hearts for the briefest of moments. A light rain had started to fall, but the bulbous cloudcatcher holding the Intimidator aloft kept the water off off of them like an umbrella.
"Aaaaaanyway..." the guard went on. "Fast forward to about, I don't know, a hundred and fifty years ago and tons of ponies from Equestria have made the trip over the ocean after hearing what a tropical paradise Maretonia was and all that jazz. Next thing you know, Celestia gets a big scroll teleported onto her desk signed by nearly everypony important over there. The colony got so big that they wanted to be their own country and declare independence from Equestria so they don't have to keep sending their crops over for free."
"What kinda crops?"
Cotton smirked. "Mostly hemp."
"The stuff they make rope and paper out of?"
She and Xander shared a knowing look. "Yeah. That."
They laughed, but Flash remained confused as ever.
"Well," she went on "Celly let them be do their own thing without a fuss. Kuz, you know, she's Celestia. Fast forward again to today and they've got a badass economy nearly as good as Equestria's. The royalty over there has alway been sensitive about our relations kuz we're basically Maretonia's big brother. They always want the swankiest balls with everypony who's everypony in attendance and the ambassadors have to have the finest of cuisine on official visits and yadda yadda. That's why everypony who's even laid eyes on Celestia and Luna is coming to this wedding between the Duke of Maretonia's son and some warrior princess chick from the neighboring gryphon tribe."
"That's an odd couple." Flash remarked. "A pony and a gryphon."
Xander loudly cleared his throat.
"Not that there's anything wrong with interracial marriages." He added quickly.
Xander gave a satisfied nod.
Another crack of thunder shook the ship, but nopony reacted this time.
"Odd as it might seem," Cotton said "it'll do the country a world of good. They've been bickering with the gryphons over territory for, like, ever. I heard BB say that this white wedding will merge their lands together so they could finally share it and stuff."
"Why didn't they just learn to share in the first place?" Flash asked. "No need to set up a marriage for that."
Cotton opened her mouth to reply, but it kind of just hung there for a moment. "That's a good question." she said after a moment. "I dunno."
Their conversation carried on for some time. They spoke at length about the oddities and intricacies of Maretonia, all the little things that made the country what it was. Flash was slowly getting a feel for what to expect for the upcoming wedding. All the while, the rain outside the protection of The Intimidator’s cloudchaser came down in waves, accompanied by the brief flashes of lightning and the rolling roar of thunder. The three eventually lapsed into a comfortable silence and they were content to stand together and watch the rain pound the waves.
* * *
Somewhere below the trio of guards, deep in the belly of the of The Intimidator, a uniformed unicorn squinted at a translucent sphere of glass that floated of its own power atop a silver pedestal. The shifting images and symbols contained within the crystal ball would have meant nothing to an onlooker uneducated in their meaning, but this unicorn was a navigator. He did not see just moving pictures, he saw latitude, longitude, elevation, direction, wind speed, and everything else a ship at sea needed to function. Something new had appeared in the viewing orb, something with no definite word or symbol to represent it. He didn't know what the object was, but the crystal had estimated its elevation to be three thousand feet and moving at fifty five knots.
"Captains!" he said, tearing his eyes away from the orb.
Two pegasus ponies turned their heads away from gazing out of the forward viewing platform in unison. These two were near identical in every way save for the color of their coats. While one sported fur as red as a brick wall and a mane like dark chocolate, the other had a coat that was exactly the same color of his brother's mane, and vise versa.
"What have-" one said.
"-we got?" The second finished
"The VO just picked up something flying at our relative elevation about two and a half klicks to the south." the navigator answered "It's big. Real big."
"Another skyship?"
"Another airboat?"
The captains asked their questions in stereo. They both trotted from their places to look over the shoulder of the navigator.
The unicorn's face scrunched as he took a second look at the sphere just to be sure. "N-no. Not another boat. It's moving too fast to match any vessel we've seen."
"And it's heading-"
"-our way."
The two captains looked at one another, identical expressions of worry on their faces.
* * *
Prince Blueblood stretched and gave a yawn of epic proportions as he stepped outside of his cabin to be greeted by the brisk chill of wet air and the dull roar of a heavy downpour. His nap had been a good one. It had been quite some time since he had the chance to take a rest like that.
He looked over the deck of the ship and his attention immediately shifted to the small crowd of sailors and his guard corps gathered around the side of the ship. They were all looking in the same direction, their murmurs audible through the droning rain.
Blueblood cantered over to Cotton Swab, who had not moved from her spot by the canon since he laid his head down to sleep.
"What's going on here?" He asked. "Are we there already?"
"Nah." she said "everypony's just gawking at something off in the distance. Probably a mountain."
Blueblood cocked and inquisitive brow."A mountain out in the middle of an ocean? I've never heard of that."
Cotton shot the prince a nasty look. "I'm not going out there to find out."
"Here." She turned her away for a brief moment and levitated something from her pocket.
A silver cylinder floated in front of the prince's face. "Why don't you take a look? Come back and tell me, kuz I'm kinda curious."
He took the telescope in his own magical grasp. "Why don't you go do it yourself?"
Cotton's stare was so blank that it could have made a brick wall jealous.
"Fine fine, whatever." he huffed. "You're going to have to get over that fear of heights one of these days."
Cotton's face hardly moved. "Maybe I will when I become the alicorn princess of babysitting royalty and grow a pair of wings. Maybe. But for now, I’ll leave that to the pegasi."
Blueblood rolled his eyes and pushed past the small crowd of ponies. He ended up sandwiched between the ship's guardrail and a few beefy sailors.
"Fancy meeting you here, my prince." Blueblood was suddenly aware of how he was really invading Flash Sentry's personal space. "Can you not step on my hoof, please?"
The prince squirmed a few inches to the left. "Sorry about that."
Blueblood maneuvered the spyglass around the crowd and in front of his face. With a clackity clack, the metal tool extended and was levitated to the prince's eye.
He squinted hard into the lens. Whatever they were staring, it wasn't any kind of mountain or island, it was flying. Though, the darkness of the thick clouds and the heavy downpour made it difficult to see this flying object as anything but a blobby silhouette over the horizon. It changed its shape at a rhythmic pace, bending up and down and up and down. Was it getting larger? Blueblood could have sworn that it was. Funny, it almost looked like...
The milky white stallion’s coat somehow grew paler. "By the silvery moon."
That look on the prince's face did not make Flash feel too comfortable. "What is it?"
Blueblood levitated the spyglass to him.
Puzzled, the guard took it in his hooves and gave the mystery shape a good look.
"Oh shit." He would later apologize to the prince for the use of profanity.
The crew, having seen and heard their exchange as clear as day, collectively stared at the prince and his guard, most of them fidgeting with unease. They all gave each other sideways glances, but nopony breathed a word.
"Um, guys?" one of the younger sailors spoke up. "W-what is it?"
Flash lowered the telescope. Staring out at the grey horizon, he put on his signature guard face.
"It's a dragon." His voice was a dry as a desert.
The sailors took a step back.
There was a brief moment where everypony's heart momentarily stopped at the same time, the silence only broken by the murmur of rain and a crack of thunder.
"Don't just stand there!" Blueblood shouted, causing everypony to jump "Battle stations!"
The sky roared with cracks of thunder and growled with heavy rainfall as the sailors aboard The Intimidator scrambled back and forth over the ship’s main deck. They smacked into each other like bugs in a jar and tripped over their own hooves as the twin ponies in matching tricorn hats barked out a flurry of commands.
From behind the caravan came the muffled bellows of a dragon, steadily growing louder.
The prince and his guard corps found themselves in the middle of it all, watching the chaos unfold, standing out from the crowd like cats at a dogshow.
Xander and Cotton Swab were giving Blueblood an awkward look. He pretended not to notice for a little while, but he couldn’t maintain the charade.
The two glanced at him, but looked away a millisecond before Blueblood’s gaze met theirs.
"What?!" he finally blurted out.
Xan and Cotton gave each other a knowing side glance.The flurry of commotion on deck held Flash’s attention.
"Um, Blueblood-" Cotton began, but her words trailed off.
The prince rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming. "What is it? Go on, say what you need to say. Celestia knows you've never resisted the urge before."
Cotton looked at the ever-growing shadowy blob on the horizon. She bit her lip. "You know we've been up to our eyeballs in your dirty laundry plenty of times.
"Yeeees?"
"Did you, umm, you know...?"
Blueblood scoffed, the expression his face not unlike that of a foal eating brussel sprouts. "I can't believe you would insinuate such a thing!"
Flash Sentry blinked, finally tuning in to the conversation. "What thing?"
Xander rolled his eyes. He tapped Flash on the shoulder and pointed to the dragon in the distance, then to Blueblood.
Flash shook his head. He wished Xander had his pen and paper. "What does a dragon have to do with the prince?"
Xander facehoofed.
Flash shrugged. "I don't get it."
Cotton couldn't possibly fathom how one pony could be so clueless. "You do know what Blueblood tends to attract, right?"
"Many murderous mares" he answered instantly.
"Exactly."
"Okay, so you think this dragon has something to do with the prince's old flames?"
Cotton stared at Flash.
"Why would a dragon have a problem with-?" Then it hit him like a sack of potatoes. Flash's face flushed a few shades redder than he intended it to. "O-oh. Oh my. Um, wow, I didn't even know that was possible."
"Theoretically, yes it is." Cotton said. “The anatomy is, uh, let’s just say ”compatible,” but there are no medically recorded cases of any male pony having interc-”
Blueblood gritted his teeth. "I didn't sleep with a dragon!"
Several sailors stopped dead in their tracks to give the prince an odd look, then tentatively went on their way.
“And we believe you.” Flash said with as much honesty as he could fake. He leaned over to whisper in Xander’s ear. “We do believe him, right?”
Xander solemnly shook his head.
“Everypony is innocent until proven guilty.” Blueblood reminded them, barely restraining his irritation. “And why would the random appearance of a dragon-”
The next round of bellows could be heard over the thunder.
“-be connected to my past relationships?!”
“Well what else could it be?!” Cotton Swab had to yell to be heard over the noise. “It’s not like there’s some other assassin magnet hanging around here!”
“We’re on a ship guarding the entirety of Equestria’s royalty and the majority of its nobility!” The prince’s face was like a cherry. “Do you even know how much the contents of these three ships are worth in ransom?! Last time I checked, dragons! Covet! Wealth!”
Woosh. The three were suddenly aware of a powerful gale that swept over the deck of The Intimidator. Mane styles were ruined, balance was lost, and several small items not tied down flew overboard. A few crew members had to hold on to the rigging to keep from taking a long dive into a raging sea.
Flash. A bolt of lightning that struck dangerously close to the airboat illuminated a snarling reptilian visage for the briefest of milliseconds. Anypony who saw it would have sworn that it was just their imagination playing tricks on them if not for the inequine cry that pierced through the roar of the storm.
It was here. A dragon. Not fifty feet away from the port side of the boat, the great black silhouette of a flying beast hovered in the air like a phantom, staying aloft with the rhythmic beating of its leathery wings. Even in darkness like the dead of night, one could still see its golden snake eyes shining through.
Every weapons aboard the ship that could be aimed turned toward the dragon.
There was a brief silence, save for the song of the storm.
Flash. Boom. The thunder rolled.
“GREETINGS,EQUESTRIAN PONIES.” The foul stench dragon breath like burnt fish washed over the ponies, curling nose hairs all around.
Its voice was as gruff as a tin can filled with gravel, but its pitch suggested neither masculinity or femininity. It was a dragon, after all. Most of them sounded like that, be they dragon or dragoness. This did not help Blueblood’s case at all.
The small sea of sailors parted as the twin captains marched to the edge of their ship’s railing. Each step that they took was in perfect synchronisation, each minute movement the same. It was as if each of their limbs were bound together with invisible strings. One of them had a megaphone in their hoof, he leveled it in front of his mouth and the other leaned in to speaking range as well.
“Unidentified dragon!” Even though the first brother’s voice was amplified by the machine, everypony had to focus on hearing the mechanically muffled words over the cacophony.
“You are interfering with an official Equestrian diplomatic mission!” the second said.
“Reverse your course one hundred and eighty degrees-”
“-or we will take your presence as a threat.”
The dragon needed no amplifier. “MY COMPANION AND I DO NOT INTEND TO THREATEN YOU PONIES OR THE PRINCESSES YOU SO FAITHFULLY GUARD, WE MERELY SEEK AN AUDIENCE WITH ONE OF YOUR OWN.”
The twins shared a look.
“With whom-”
“-do you wish to speak?”
“THE ONE WHOSE BLOOD IS BLUE.”
Then at once all sets of eyes turned toward Flash, Cotton, Xander, and Blueblood. They shrank under the gaze of over two dozen sailors and a dragon.
Despite all that was going on at the moment, Cotton couldn’t help but smirk. “Didn’t sleep with a dragon, huh?”
Blueblood used one of his hind legs to kick Cotton Swab in the knee. Of course, it merely rebounded off of the heavy armor. “I will have you flogged.”
“IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, YOUR GRACE.” It sounded like the dragon was trying to use a respectful tone of voice.
“I don’t know you!” Blueblood snarled in such a way that was the polar opposite of the dragon’s tone. “I don’t know you, I’ve never slept with you, and I’m not even sure if you're a male or female!”
Nopony saw the dragon raise its brows in surprise. “My my, North Star was wrong about you.” Its voice had lowered down to a dull roar. “You have changed from the pony she once knew. Be you better or worse, I cannot tell.”
The prince’s jaw dropped. “N-North Star? By the sun and stars, is that you… Crowe?”
Everypony blinked.
“Who’s North Star?” Flash asked.
Xander shrugged.
“I’ve got a pretty good guess.” Cotton answered.
The dragon, tiring of beating its wings, swooped in closer to the ship and grabbed the guard railing with its knifelike claws, splintering the wood like twigs under a hoof. At once the entire boat lurched a few degrees to the side, nearly causing an avalanche of surprised sailors. Everypony stumbled around clumsily, struggling to keep their weapons pointed at the dragon.
“Yeeeeesssssss!” the dragon supposedly named Crowe crooned, stretching its S’s. The beast’s neck was nearly half the length of its body, it slithered its head closer to the prince like a snake across the ground, forcing every one of the sailors in its path to step aside, some of them dropping their armaments and squealing like a filly.
Before it could come muzzle to muzzle with the prince, the guard trio formed an impromptu defensive line and brought their weapon of choice to bear. Three mostly average equines stood against roughly one third of a fully grown dragon.
The dragon gave them a half-smile, revealing a brief glimpse of white fangs starkly contrasting with black scales. “Be calm, little ponies. I intend no harm to your the one you guard.”
The corps held their ground, horn, hoof and sword still ready for action.
Its smile vanished and quickly turned to a frustrated grimace. The dragon allowed a deep growl to resonate from within its throat, a brief flash of orange flame escaping from its nostrils.
They didn't budge an inch.
“Do you always have to be this standoff-ey, Crowe?” a new voice cut through the intensely tense tension like a knife cuts a string pulled taught.
Farther down the body of the impossibly long creature, a young mare poked her head out from behind the shark-like fins running along the dragon’s spine. One would hardly be able to see the pony with her deep blue coat and chocolate hair with the storm going on around. She casually vaulted over its spines and used the beast’s neck like a slide to reach the deck of The Intimidator, her pegasus wings unfurled.
“Yo.” she said to the guards.
“Who the hell are you?!” Cotton growled, eliciting a louder and meaner growl from the dragon.
“Shhhh, it’s okay boy.” the mare crooned, pressing her hoof lightly to the side of Crowe’s neck. He simmered down almost immediately. “She’s just cranky ‘cus she’s not used to seeing a dragon like I am. Why don’t you go fly a few laps around the ship and I’ll take care of things here, eh?”
“As you wish.” the dragon said in an almost foalish manner. He detached from the side of the ship and went plummeting down into the ocean an instant later. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Silent as a pin hitting a pillow, quick as a hiccup. The ship lurched back to it’s more-or-less correct position without a dragon to weigh it down, throwing around the crew once more.
* * *
Out of earshot from the exchange going on several feet away, two identical radios owned by two identical captains crackled to life with with hissing static and muffled voices.
The two pegasi shared a look and answered in their usual synchronisation.
“You’re breaking up.”
“The storm’s interfering with the signal.”
“Please repeat, over.”
“I said,… lock on yo-... ermission to fire?”
They looked off of the port side of the shyship. Through the heavy curtain of the storm the twins saw a dark silhouette shaped like the Rocketmare not a quarter klick away, her stern side exposed and no doubt readying weapons.
“If you’re asking permission to fire on the dragon-”
“-we do not recommend it.”
“It is a friendly-”
“-as far as we can tell.”
“Over.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the radio.
“Ackn...lged.”
* * *
“So how have you been?” the mare asked, standing on the tips of her hooves to see Blueblood past the wall of guards.
The prince motioned for the three to stand aside, which they did despite the three nearly identical “Are you crazy?” looks. They kept their weapons at the ready and their eyes trained on her.
“North Star.” Blueblood regarded her with a neutral tone of voice. “Quite an entrance you’ve made. For what purpose have you come to see me?”
North Star flashed a hurt expression for the briefest of moments.“So straight to the point, Bloody. Can’t an old flame stop by to chat for a minute or two?”
Xander lightly elbowed the prince in his ribs at the words “old flame”.
“I know, I know!” he muttered sharply to the zony.
Blueblood awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, ah, you landed on a heavily armed ship during a raging storm on one of the most menacing and historically grumpy beasts in Equestria.”
Thunder rolled.
“You can’t just be looking for some idle conversation.”
“No but I am!” she declared with a toothy grin. Blueblood took a step back. “I haven’t seen you in, oh, how long has it been now? Five years? I’m just ah,dyingto catch up.”
A dark chuckle escaped from North Star’s lips.
“I mean, would it kill you to write a mare a letter every now and again?” She tittered like a schoolfilly.
“Blueblood.” Cotton Swab put an armor-clad hoof on her prince’s shoulder. “She’s using double entendres.”
“No I’m not!” North denied instantly. “That was just a slip of the knife- TONGUE! Slip of the tongue. Heh heh…”
North Star sighed.
“Ah, to Tartarus with it. I never was good with other ponies.”
And then she stabbed at Blueblood.
Surprising, right? She went right for the heart, but fortunately, Flash Sentry deflected the blade in a flash with his own. Unluckily, its path was diverted from his ticker to his foreleg. It dug into him like a diamond dog digs into the earth.
“AAAAAGH!”
His screams were still more stallionlike than Flash’s.
Then the next thing that the ponies saw was the mare’s hindquarters as she bolted for the side of the ship.
“Disregard our last!” one of the captains shouted over the radio.
“Repeat: Disregard our last!”
“Dragon is hostile!”
“You have permission to fire!”
With a great leap over the guardrail, the mare disappeared over the side of the ship.
There was a brief moment of silence. Not even the storm could be heard.
Woosh. The behemoth form of the dragon named Crowe, using its full wingspan, ascended from below like a bat out of hell, a piercing cry of victory splitting the day. One could have seen a slightly less darkly-colored pony strapped into some kind of leather saddle in the center of the dragon’s back.
“We’ll catch up later, okay?!” North Star screamed at the top of her lungs.
Cotton and Xander were already supporting a crippled Blueblood before he hit the ground. “EAT MANURE AND DIE!” he wailed back, hurting the ears of everypony within a ten foot radius.
“Never a dull moment!” Cotton Swab said, but without her usual tone of bored sarcasm. It was… softer, somehow. Almost tired. “We really need to start frisking everpony that comes into contact with the prince.”
* * *
The two pegasi, having stood by and watched the entire exchange with a dumb look on their faces, promptly closed their mouths and gave each other yet another nigh-telepathic side glance.
“Open fire?” one asked
“Open fire.” the other confirmed.
“Canons!Open fire!” they barked out their order in unison.
At first there was nothing…
...but then there were cannons.
A chorus of bone-rattling explosions sent wave after wave of intense vibrations throughout the ship as the first volley of shots were loosed from their chambers of steel. At once the acrid scent of burnt gunpowder was mixed with the fresh scent of rainfall.
The swarm of cannonballs found a clear path through the space between The Intimidator and the prince’s assailant.
* * *
North Star’s eyes were welling up with tears of laughter, threatening to completely fill her wind-goggle.
“You didn’t even see the look on his face? Ho-boy, you missed out big time! He was all “Uuuuhn eat manoor and die!” and stuff. We really cheesed him off. I didn’t even know he could get that mad. High-larious.”
“Most fortuitous indeed.” Crowe agreed. “But, Star, I, uh, I am having some trouble comprehending our motives. Please explain again why we’re attacking the nephew of one of the most powerful political figures on the planet. One would deem that move to be...unwise.”
“To send a message, silly!” she answered as if stating the sky was dark and rainy. “Why do you think we-”
Boomboomboombomboom.
North Star wiped the rainwater from her goggles and squinted behind the both of them.
Two ships worth of hot lead were barreling through the air, headed straight for them.
“Uh-oh.”
“Wha-oh?” Crowe looked down under his belly to see just what Star was staring at.
“Huh. Intriguing.” he murmured.
* * *
“Look’it ‘em dance!” a sailor hollered, watching with fascination as the dragon and its rider ducked and weaved through the hail of cannonfire. None of them seemed to make contact, but that was only the first volley.
“Ballistas at the ready!” the captains cooly spoke into the radio.
Underneath the deck of the skyship, several sets of oversized shutters three feet high and twelve feet wide burst open, revealing the innards of the boat. A unicorn pony poked his head out of one of the openings, a compass and sextant floating in front of his face.
“Adjust X-axis twelve degrees.” the unicorn relayed to his partner, who was a bulky earth pony at the trigger end of a very large crossbow. He swung the giant machine of wood and steel a few inches to the right, and flipped the safety switch into its “fire” position.
“Volley!” a pair of voices crackled through the overhead spakers.
“Volley! Volley! Volley!” the unicorn echoed.
Klunk. Woosh. The giant bowstring that was pulled tight against the firing mechanism an instant ago rushed forward in the blink of an eye, taking a ballista bolt that was longer than the body of a pony from muzzle to tail with it. It silently sailed in a wide arc, cutting a precise path through the air like a bird of prey, on a perfect collision course with its intended target.
Crowe only grunted in moderate pain as the razor-sharp projectile bounced off of his black scales, its shaft splintering in two.
The unicorn pony, having watched the bolt’s five second journey through a telescope, whinnied several curses that only a sailor would know under his breath.
“Did we hit it?” the gunner asked.
“Aye, was a perfect shot.” He collapsed the telescope and gave his partner a grimace. “Damn thing split in half like a pencil!”
“You’ve got to be joking!”
The two spat out a series of choice words that would horrify any non-skyfaring pony.
* * *
The rider flattened her ears to her head as tightly as she could before Crowe gave off a rage-filled roar that may or may not have caused several ponies a half-klick away to temporarily lose bladder control.
“Owie owie owie!” the great beast whined. “Stars above, it stings so hard.”
“Remember that feel.” North Star patted the back of his neck lovingly. “That’s what getting punched in the gut feels like to a pony.”
The dragon grumbled. “Four hundred and twenty three years of life and I still cannot fathom how a race of unarmored creatures such as yourself have survived for so long.”
“We manage.” she chuckled. “Come on, we’ve put on enough of a show for today. Time to get the hell outta Dodge.”
“At last.”
* * *
“Captians! They’re headed for cloud cover!”
Half of the Intimidator’s crew watched the tail end of the dragon-silhouette get smaller as the beast beat its wings harder and harder, gaining altitude with each flap.
“It’s time! Radar...” captian number one said.
“...activate the prototype!” number two agreed.
“Aww shit!” a crewmember squeed. “Cap’ins bringin’ outda big guns!”
“Gogiddem, Radar!” another cherred.
A scrawny kaki-colored earth pony barely old enough to be a stallion scrambled to the hulking mass of wires and armor plating in the center of the deck. He was already flipping switches and turning dials before his rump hit the seat. An unnatural rumble erupted from beneath the deck as the machine came to life. A rapidly repeating sort of sputtering noise emanated from the ice laser, reminding most ponies of the sound a combustion engine makes when it gets fired it up.
“Charging twenty percent!” the earth pony called out, his voice cracking on the last syllable.
“It needs to charge?” Flash Sentry asked nopony in particular.
“Fourty five percent!” Radar bit down on a handle and swung the gun around with a mechanical whine, lining up the perfect shot.
“That’s no good,” he looked at the ever-shrinking dragon nearly two klicks away by then. “he’ll never make that shot!”
A sailor that Flash had never met before bumped him in the arm, saying “You ain’t nevah seen Radar shoot sumthin’, ‘ave ya?”
Flash shook his head.
“Eighty percent! Almost there…”
“Boy are you in for a treat.” The pony grinned wide.
Flash’s eyes went wide as the very end of the gun’s barrel produced a pulsating sphere of pure blue light, the rumbling from below intensifying the moment it appeared. It grew in size bit by bit, going from the size of a tennis ball to the size of a beach ball in a mere second.
“All systems green! Clear for fire!”
The earth pony flipped open a small glass case, revealing a big yellow-and-black striped button marked “FIAR”. Without a moment’s hesitation, Radar slammed his hoof down on the button and-
Thhhhhbbbt.
Radar blinked. The energy sphere at the end of the cannon dissipated back into the air. The rumbling ended. The cacophony of sailor’s cheers died down. The only thing that cut through the quiet was a constant electrical beeping originating from the machine.
A red bulb blinked on and off rapidly, and directly underneath it read the words “Insufficient Charge”.
Flash looked up. The dragon and his rider were gone like a fart in the wind. Nothing but the grey oblivion of the storm was left.
Thunder rolled.
* * *
Twilight.
A pair of soft magenta eyes slowly tracked the sun’s path across the sky, watching as the dim ball of fire was enveloped by the looming storm clouds that gathered on the horizon. A narrow patch of sea water glistened with an orange sheen as the day’s final light shone down upon it. Soon, she could see only a sliver of the faraway star left naked.
Princess Celestia’s horn lit up with a shining golden aura, giving the sun that final nudge needed to end the day, letting the sky become the black canvas on which her sister could paint the new night’s stars.
The solar princess sighed, releasing the tension that had gathered in her muscles for the past hour.
“Another day, another fiasco.” Celestia said with fake cheer.
She briefly tore her gaze away from the port window to glance over her shoulder at the young prince slumped over his quarter’s couch, quietly failing to hide the guilty look on his face.
The prince’s room was quite lavish for a military vessel, meaning that he had a little bit more than than a twin-sized bed and a hooflocker to call his own for the time being. Perhaps it may not have been fit for a king, but it was good enough for the prince.
Blueblood idly scratched the stitches on his left hoof, trying not to make eye contact with his aunt.
The princess furrowed her brow. “You’re going to have to talk sometime, you know.”
“It would be quite a redundant conversation.” He meekly offered her a half-hearted smile.
Despite the heavy mood that hung in the air, Celestia laughed. Her voice was like silver bells.
“Yes, we’ve been in this situation far too many times, my dear nephew. So now it’s a full-fledged dragon rider? Your old flames do seem to become more colorful as time passes. Perhaps you should have considered dating more boring mares.”
The prince cringed at the thought. “Then it would be boring mares trying to kill me.”
Blueblood hung his head like a child being scolded, only without any actual scolding going on.
“Everypony ends up hating me at some point.”
Oh boy, here we go. Blueblood was in one of those moods again. He was quite difficult to snap back to his normal sense when feelings like that took him.
“That’s not true!” Celestia replied instantly.
“Guard corps and family aside, name one pony.”
The princess bit her tongue. She moved in and took a seat close to him. Celestia wrapped a motherly wing around her nephew and pulled him into a warm hug. He muttered something about being too old for this in protest like a teenage colt, but did not resist. Celestia knew all too well that nopony was too old for a hug.
“I won’t say that you didn’t used to be a plotface.” she admitted. “You… well you were pretty bad. Maybe some of those ponies need a chance to meet the reformed Blueblood since the old one left quite a bad taste in their mouth.”
The prince finally managed to work up the nerve to look his aunt in the eye. “Reputations and first impressions do tend to stick to somepony like concrete, you know.”
“And it’s that kind of thinking that keeps the assassins coming.” she retorted, causing the prince to wince like he had been poked with a needle. “Perhaps if you weren’t so bitter, you’d see that.”
Blueblood wriggled free from his aunt’s wing and slipped off of the couch, opting to move to the other end of the room and stare out the window at the last trickle of light on the horizon.
“It’s just that…” he began, but his words trailed off.
“Yes?”
“Look at all of these mares that I’ve known. All of them I’ve lured into my bed with false promises of love, intimacy, and lasting relationships. I saw them only as tools to satisfy myself, not as living, breathing ponies with lives and passions. Like fish on a hook. I kept telling myself that it was their fault for falling for it, that they should have been smart enough to notice what a colossal scam it was. I assumed that when morning came, they would forget about me and I’d never have to see them again. Just poof, goodbye, hope you had fun, see you never. Ever since the Corps was formed, I’ve been reaping what I’ve sewn. Big time. Perhaps the, ah, “normal” reaction to my lies were a tad bit extreme, but can you blame them? I knew little about the impact a one night stand could have on a mare. Some of them- like that Katarina I told you about yesterday -have had their entire lives turned upside-down because of me. I didn’t think of the consequences of my actions until they were right on my doorstep. Let’s face it, I’ve deserved everything I that I-”
Blueblood was torn from this monologue by the subtle creaking of a door on its hinges. Flash Sentry poked his head in he room.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Graces,” he said in that flat guard’s tone “but Princess Twilight Sparkle has boarded The Intimidator and requests an audience with the princess.”
“Requests an audience.” Celestia echoed. “Is this the newest member of the Corps that I’ve been hearing about?”
“I am, Your Grace.” Flash removed his helmet, placed it over his breastplate, and bowed his head as low as it could bow.
“And still so formal, too.” Celestia sounded impressed, making the guard swell with pride. “Tell me, Flash Sentry, do you hate my nephew?”
Blueblood shot an annoyed glare at the princess, who in turn stuck crinkled her nose and stuck a pink tongue out at him.
Flash withheld his curiosity at their little exchange, as was the place of a guard. “I do not, Your Grace.”
“And you have yet to know his old self.” Celestia said. “Tell me, is it because it is your duty to withhold any signs of dislike or because you genuinely like him as a pony, and not as your prince?”
Flash hesitated, unsure if that was a loaded question or not. “Both of them at once, I suppose.”
She flashed Flash a warm smile. “There is hope for you yet, Blueblood.”
The princess pulled herself from the comfort of the couch and put on her ruler face. “Well then, let’s not keep my former pupil waiting. Lead on, my little guard.”
Flash Sentry stepped aside and held the door open for the alicorn, gesturing for her to follow. Princess Celestia gave her nephew a nod as she left his quarters, the door shutting behind them.
Blueblood lingered on, slumping up against the window, staring at the spot that his aunt and his… friend stood moments ago. He chuckled to himself.
"Unacceptable!" the blonde unicorn screamed as loudly as his lungs could muster, the white-robed hoofmaiden trembling under his seething gaze.
"I- I- I um-" Her eyes darted to everywhere but the snarl of her prince. She couldn't look him in the eye, no matter how much he invaded her personal space.
"Don't speak!" Blueblood poked her demure shoulder with a-
Wait.
Flash had seen this before.
The guardspony somehow found himself in the middle of Canterlot Castle’s grandly decorated ballroom. Every word spoken and every move made echoed off of the polished marble walls as if they were all standing in a great cavern, only not nearly as dark thanks to the glass dome ceilings, bright colors, stained glass windows, and chandeliers that gleamed with beams of sunlight refracted into tiny rainbows.
The two ponies arguing was the centerpiece of it all. Even up close, they seemed like little dolls in a playhouse a little too big for them compared to the wide open space of the ballroom.
"Oh really?" Blueblood said to the teenage filly with a mocking tone, snapping Flash’s attention back to them. "Because those plates and silverware just scream "Winter Solstice is here!" And look, they match the decor perfectly!"
The prince was violently gesturing to the longtable at the other side of the room. What was wrong with it, Flash couldn't tell, but it sure made Blueblood red in the face.
Blueblood went on ranting about something, but Flash kinda tuned it out as he tried to figure out just what the problem with the table actually was.
“Well, did it?!" He was practically screaming at the little white-robed mare by now.
"No, Your Grace, it didn't." Her voice was barely audible.
“My Prince, if I may interrupt...” Flash tried to draw attention from the filly, but Blueblood ignored him completely.
"I can't believe-" he started to rant, but words were lost on him. "Such a travesty. It will all have to be redone, all of it. This is Aunty's first Winter Solstice in a thousand years and I'm going to look like a fool for mucking up the celebration. Oh, of all the days the help decides to check their minds at the door..."
“Sir, if I may, just what has gotten into to you?” This wasn’t the Blueblood he’d seen these past few days. The normally calm and cool pony looked as if he were about to have a mental breakdown.
It was like he hadn’t heard the guard at all.
Blueblood sighed. The way he waved his hoof at the hoofmaiden gave Flash an eerie feeling of dejá-vu, like he had seen the prince do exactly the same thing just yesterday. “Get out of my sight. Jus- just go clean something before I fire you."
The filly bolted out of the room like the floor was on fire.
Blueblood shook his head in frustration, mumbling to himself. “A nightmare, just a nightmare. The rest of my life will be a nightmare if I royally screw this up…”
“Blueblood, I don’t understand what’s going on.” Flash moved to put a reassuring hoof on his prince’s shoulder, but he didn’t. He tried, but failed. The hoof merely passed through him as if he were thin air.
All of a sudden, Flash Sentry was frightfully aware just how transparent and ethereal his foreleg had become.
He gasped at first, as one with a normally would in such circumstances, but then he followed up with a tired sigh. "Oh great, am I dead already? Bowels of Tartarus, I knew this job would be the death of me."
"You are still very much alive.” the dark figure lurking just beyond Flash’s peripheral vision said.
“Ahh!” The guard nearly jumped out of his armor.
Standing before him in all her see-through glory was none other than Princess Luna, Warden of the Night and second member of the Triarchy. The alicorn towered a head higher than her pegasus subject, though it was partly due to the fact that Flash had nearly buried his face into the floor when he registered her presence in his brain.
“I did not mean to startle you.” Her voice wasn’t soft and sweet like her sister’s, nor was it dripping with dry humor like her nephew, it was quite hard and authoritative, even as she apologised to him.
“The fault was mine, Your Majesty!” Flash replied instantly. “I should have paid more attention to my surroundings.”
“There is no need to kiss flank here, Flash Sentry.”
“Here, Your Grace?” Flash rose, but his gaze was trained straight ahead, not meeting Luna’s at all. “In the Royal Ballroom?”
Flash didn’t see the lunar princess roll her eyes. “In a dream. Your dream.”
Flash’s rigid stance faltered for a brief moment. “Good to know I'm not dead, heh. But why would I be dreaming about Blueblood? I think I’d rather be in a swanky hotel room filled to the brim will all kinds of beautiful mares clad in those colorful fuzzy socks.”
His eyes went as wide as dinner plates the moment he remembered just who he was speaking with. “...Y-your Majesty.”
Luna’s retained her expression of emotional distance. “I’ve seen weirder.”
“The reason you are dreaming of such things is because I allow it to be so.” she said. “I have taken your subconscious mind and delivered it into my realm as your conscious body slumbers aboard The Intimidator. You have entered a dreamscape that is molded by my own thoughts, allowing me to bend your perceptions of reality to my will.
Flash hummed with mild interest. "Far out."
If one were to pay close attention to the princess’s face, they would see a faint ghost of a smile in the corner of her mouth. “You have changed little in one thousand years.”
Flash had to force himself not to grin like a buffoon. “I am honored,Your Majesty, that you would remember a single lowly guard from a time so long ago.”
“You remember me quite clearly, why would I not remember you?”
The guard cursed himself internally for saying such foalish things in front of royalty. Perhaps his time with Blueblood had already begun to dull his guard instincts. "Apologies, Your Grace, I have underestimated your memory. I will not do so again."
Luna allowed herself a barely audible chuckle. "Have you begun understand why I have brought you here, my subject?"
Flash was hesitant to answer. He chose his words carefully. "Something to do with your nephew, I presume. Was this truly how he behaved before I had met him?"
"Aye. All of this and, as they say, a bag of potato chips."
Flash whistled, all pretenses of watching his manners around the princess flying out a particularly well-crafted stained-glass window. "Wow. The tales were true then."
He glanced up, expecting the midnight princess to share his mirth. Her face was was as easy to read as a dissertation on theoretical arcane physics. She must kick flank at poker.
"Some of them are the truth, yes. Some of them were fabricated gossip. He was not a particularly kind equine being, that much everypony knows, but you are one of the few who do not judge my nephew for his unfortunate reputation."
The princess paused briefly, watching every move on Flash Sentry's face as she spoke.
"Tell me, Flash Sentry, do you know why my sister and I call him nephew?"
Flash furrowed his brow. "Because you're related?"
"I have no siblings, save for Celestia, and neither of us have bared foals in all of our long lives. He certainly isn't Cadenza's kid, nor Twilight Sparkle's for that matter."
Flash nodded slowly. "So he's adopted?"
"Aye. I am surprised that nopony has realized this before."
Luna nodded her head toward the dining table, which bared one forlorn prince sitting at the very end of it, idly pushing around a gilded chalice with his hoof.
She stared long and hard at the dream-Blueblood before turning back to Flash.
"Would you like me to tell you something that you would not believe?"
"I'm a thousand and twenty something years old with a full-time job guarding the most promiscuous stallion in Equestria from a legion of angry exes." Flash deadpanned. "I'd like to see you try."
"Blueblood was once a street urchin."
If Flash were drinking something, he would have done a spit take."I rescind my previous statement."
Luna smirked. "It is true. Not even I- one who can see the deepest secrets of a pony in their own dreams -know who his true parents are. My theory that he is the bastard child of a stallion who lived his life one naive mare at a time. His mother may have been a noble who could not bare the shame of having a child on her own, and abandoned him to the streets of Canterlot. It would not be the first time such a thing has happened. Perhaps it would be better if nopony knew."
Luna smiled to herself. “Of course I was not here to see with my own two eyes, but one day the guards caught this bony little colt with his blonde mane in tangles and his white fur stained with filth. He had been stealing food and the finer silverware from the castle kitchen.”
The two watched fake Blueblood hop out of his seat, skulk across the ballroom floor, and slip away quietly.
“And after that, Princess Celestia took him in?” Flash asked.
“Aye. She plucked him right out of the dungeon, had the servants bathe him, gave him a room, and he’s lived in Canterlot ever since. She started introducing him as nephew at some point, as being essentially the adopted son of Princess Celestia herself would draw far too much attention. It was likely for the better. He already has more than he can handle.”
Flash started to say something, but he shut up when Luna’s instantly went rigid, like one of the deerfolk when they get spooked.
Flash put a hoof on his sword and swiveled around the room, looking for anything out of place. “What is it?”
She blinked like someone had shone a bright light in her eyes.
“Blast. Another pony is having horrid nightmares.” the princess said solemnly. “I must intervene. It seems we have little time to continue our chat.”
“Sooo…” Flash hesitantly loosened up from his battle-ready stance. “You can sense nightmares. Where the hell were you when I had that one about the chickens coming after me last year? I couldn’t sleep for like three nights after that.”
She shot Flash an annoyed leer. “It was a busy night. I was backed up. I’m only one princess, you know.”
Luna’s long horn was set alight with a magical aura that shone like silver. Then out of freaking nowhere an arcane portal as black as the darkest of abysses materialized right in front of the two, prompting the guard to take a few steps back. He sure as Tartarus didn’t want to come near anything like that.
“Farewell, Flash Sentry, perhaps next time I will finish what I have to tell you.” And with that, the whole world melted away into a-
* * *
-a jarring yank back into the land of the waking.
Flash Sentry’s thrashing nearly caused the rope hammock that he slumbered in to turn over, but he calmed down in time for his face to not have an impromptu rendezvous with an unswept wooden floor.
The guard soon regained his senses. He peered through the darkness at the dozens of sailors surrounding him, all fast asleep in hammocks just like his.
Flash let out a long breath as the memories of Luna’s uninvited visit to his subconscious came back to him. He slumped back into the swaying comfort of the ropes. “Alicorns.” he muttered, then turned over and shut his eyes. “Alicorns are weird.”
The rhythmic snores of the sailored lulled Flash back to sleep. He was thankful that it was a dreamless sleep.
With a snort Flash Sentry was rudely yanked out of his slumber, flailing like as fish out of water.
“Ah! Whuh? Hmmm?” Was the witty reply Flash made to his newly-acquired state of consciousness.
“Yep. I think that dun woke ‘im.” somepony with an accent like a banjo remarked. “Gall darn it, Pinkie, any higher pitched and only mutts could’a heard ya.”
“Sorry!” replied another pony whose voice sounded like she had been sucking on helium.
The first thing that Flash noticed about the room was the severe lack of any decent light source. The only thing that kept his world from being pitch black was a flickering orange tiki torch that caused all of the ponies shadows to dance on the walls.
Oh, and then there were the ponies. Lining the sides of the ten foot-by-ten room were five strange ponies with neon colored coats, an alicorn princess, and one very familiar unicorn guard, all snugly tied to their chairs with heavy-duty rope. It was like one of those situations that always ended in a punchline.
Flash groaned. “So, did we win?”
* * *
“Land ho!”
A dozen sailors serving aboard The Intimidator dropped what they were doing and simultaneously swung their heads westward. The rumble of a hundred hooves on a wooden deck rang out across the ship.
“Hey, what’s the big-?” Flash started to ask, but his jaw dropped as he spotted the stampede heading straight for him. Before he could react, Flash was swept up in a current of sweaty ponies like a leaf on a river.
“Ah! Hey!” Flash was forced to run with the crowd in order to not be trampled over.
“Ooof!” The group was jerked to a haltby the railing just before they ran themselves over the edge of the ship.
Looking out, one could see a vague shape on the horizon, barely thicker than a strand of hair if somepony were holding it up to their face. One would only spot this land if they were specifically looking for it. After a grueling five days over an endless ocean, the crew had been doing just that.
“Wah-hoo!”
“Land! Land! Land! Land!”
“Maretonian ladies, here we come!”
“Cool your jets, sailors!” one of the senior members of the ship’s crew commanded, having managed to avoid being swept up in the crowd. “We still have flying to do, so I’d recommend getting back to your posts before the captains see how lazy you all are.”
With a collection of gripes, grumbles and dirty looks, the crew reluctantly trotted away from the guardrail and went back to their stations. Some of them tossed a last glance over their shoulder before disappearing below deck.
Flash Sentry, comforted with the knowledge that Blueblood was safely reading more of his books in his room, elected to hang back and admire the view a little more. Save for the small speck of terrain hugging the horizon, there wasn’t much else to see that he hadn’t been seeing for the better part of a week.
* * *
“Well, that’s a lot of trees.” Flash observed.
Klang. Xander’s hoof bopped the pegasus’s helmet hard enough for it to ring like a bell and hoofed Flash a note.
Rubbing the back of his head, Flash read the note.
No shit Lt.Obvious.
Flash made a face and Xander made one right back. Cotton Swab chortled, still standing a few paces behind the two.
Growing half a klick under The Intimidator was a jungle. Not just any jungle, mind you, this sprawling mass of trees was Thicket; the largest continuous forest known to ponykind, rumored to cover a minimum of seventy percent of Maretonia and her territories. Thousands, if not millions, of towering tropical trees bearing shiny neon green leaves and spindly branches packed tightly together made up Thicket’s blanketlike canopy. Those on the ship wouldn’t even be able to spot the forest floor if they had a telescope.
Two of the three corpsponies looked down upon the jungle and watched as a flock of blindingly colorful birds of paradise weave in and out of swirling white mist rising from the greenery below like a group of dolphins in the ocean. Funny how, in the span of a half hour, one could trade an ocean of deep blue water for an ocean of bright green plant life.
“Sure beats the Empire.” Flash mused aloud. “I don’t know about anypony else, but I was getting pretty sick of--”
“Crystals?” Cotton asked.
“--snow.”
The medic nodded. “Ah.”
Flash noticed one of the ship’s captains trot up beside him; the one with a brown coat and red mane rather than vice versa.
“Welcome to Maretonia,” said the captain. The stallion’s voice was much less off-putting when he could finish his own sentence. “I hear this is your first time aboard a skyship.”
Flash slipped back into the comfortable familiarity of his military etiquette. “Yes it is, Captain, ahh…?”
“I’m Cloud. The fat one is Lightning.” he answered.
Flash blinked, still retaining his tried-and-true expression of neutrality. “Oh, the...fat one.”
He scanned the captain's visage for any sign that he was just joking with him as all other members of the guard seem to do, but Cloud’s facial features were set in stone.
“I told you, C,” came Cloud’s voice from another pony trotting up from just behind them “I’m only-”
“-two pounds heavier than you.” the captain finished his brother’s words. “Which makes you the fat one and me the thin one.”
“By two pounds!” Lightning sighed. “Excuse my brother, he’s the dumb one.”
“By one IQ point.” Cloud shot back.
“Pshh. Imbecile.”
“Lardo.”
“Heathen.”
“Pig.”
“Ignoramus.”
“Must have taken forever to think up a comeback like that.”
“Been practicing it in the mirror all morning.”
“Your mother.”
“Your mother too.”
“Okay, Our mother.”
“Good afternoon, Captain Lightning.” Flash cut in, hoping to interrupt their impromptu pissing contest.
Both captains shot each other a glare in unison before turning to Flash. Cloud cleared his throat, followed by Lightning thereafter.
“It is our duty as captains of this vessel-”
“-to inform all non-crew personnel-”
“-that we will be reaching Spire City in approximately four hours.”
“So be prepared-”
“-to disembark soon thereafter.”
“We trust you can relay this to His Grace by then, correct?” Cloud finished.
“Yes sirs!” Flash said, giving the two a crisp salute.
“Good.”
“Then we’ll be off.”
And with that being said, the twins turned tail and went off, presumably to do more captain-ey stuff.
“... … … “
“Okay, does anypony else think that’s really creepy?” Flash asked.
Xander nodded.
“More than you will ever know.” Cotton said.
* * *
Thicket.
As the convoy of airships rolled steadily across the great jungle landscape, the very air that everypony breathed became noticeably thicker, wetter and hotter - growing steadily in intensity the farther inland they flew. The cool, salty breeze of the Tumbling Sea was gone, replaced by a muggy wind that caressed the crew like the breath of an angry dragon. How could anypony live like this? Flash internally took back everything he said about the Crystal Empire’s climate, the air in Maretonia was like living in a pot of boiling stew.
Bzz-zzz-zzt...zzz-zzt.
“F-flash.” Cotton said.
“Flash’s ears perked up at the utterance of his name. “What is it?”
Bzz-zzz-zzz-zzt!
Both Cotton Swab and Xander were looking at him like he had sprouted a horn and an extra set of wings.
“What?”
“Hold...very...still.” Cotton Swab’s horn lit up with a light crimson aura.
Zzz. Zzzt.
He tensed up. “What are you doing that for?!”
Cotton furrowed her brow in concentration. Then, zap, a single bolt of pink lightning erupted from her forehead.
Bzzz...thud.
Flash felt like a ten pound sack of rocks was lifted off of his back, which- oddly enough -was accompanied by the smell of burnt toast filling his nostrils.
He looked down to see the blackened carcass of some kind of insect about the size of a hoofball, its appendages slim and fragile like a toothpick, a long needle protruding from between two spherical masses of compound eyes.
It was a mosquito.
A big. Ass. Mosquito.
Flash looked at the bug, then to Cotton, then back to the bug.
His mouth was hanging wide open like a venus fly trap.
“Uh, th-thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Do you mind if I pass out?”
“Go ahead.”
* * *
One short nap later...
Spire City.
Hundreds upon hundreds of octagonal towers composed of nothing but hardwood logs and crudely cut planks rose forth from the foggy recesses of the jungles, each one closer than the last to scraping the clouds themselves, some of them even overtaking The Intimidator in sheer altitude. An intricate web of rope bridges connected these towers, crisscrossing over and under with enough room in between to fly a small airboat through. All of the spires were capped with steeply slanted thatch roofs. Most of them flew Maretonia’s signature flag of golden palm leaves on a royal blue background.
Like a colony of bees floating in slow motion about their hive, a multitude of skyships that matched the entire city’s wood motif floated lazily amidst the many towers, bumbling to and fro from the docks jutting out over open space. Flash cringed as the ships rolled farther into the city airspace, passing other ships with barely ten feet of open space to spare. He watched The Intimidator’s crewponies and the crew of other boats exchanged casual salutes and short greetings as if missing a collision by a narrow margin was nothing to worry about.
“Do they always cut it that close?” Flash asked.
“Yes.” Cotton groaned. “They do it all the time here. It’s a wonder these hulking monstrosities don’t end up knocking down this city like the world’s biggest set of bowling pins. I mean, we’re being held up by a cloud in a cloth balloon that could rupture and send us crashing to the ground in a blaze of glory if anything at all goes wrong. We should have just left the flying to the pegasi.”
“You’re just a ball of sunshine on long trips, aren’t you?”
“Bite me.”
* * *
Land sweet land.
Well, sort of. While technically not land, the wooden boards of the airboat dry dock were not suspended in the air by a sketchy balloon that relied chiefly on pegasus magic. They were good enough for Cotton, seeing as how she was trying to hug the entire dock.
All of the ponies that weren’t accustomed to flying on a ship- read: Flash -instantly went wobbly in the legs the moment that they set hoof upon immobile ground. Flash hazily looked around as a small herd of sailors wove around him, and it was as if the world was still drifting by at a cloud’s pace for a minute or two. He felt like he might fall over from motion sickness.
Xander slapped his fellow guard on the back and snickered.
“The magic of modern technology, am I right?” Blueblood said with a smirk.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Flash tried to stand up as straight as his body would allow. “I”m fine.”
“Welcome to Spire City!” Out of nowhere, a young mare with a blindingly bright green coat and an intricately dyed dress threw a delicate ring of tropical flowers around Flash’s neck, planting a light kiss on the side of his helmet.
The guard nearly punched her in the face, but either sheer dumb luck or instincts kept him from knocking the poor lady on her flank as soon as he realized her intentions weren’t at all violent. “Uh, good afternoon, miss?”
The filly giggled without a word, moving toward the prince and giving him a kiss and a flower necklace as well. “Hello! Welcome to Spire City!” Blueblood merely smiled and nodded his thanks. She went on to do this to Xander and Cotton as well, both of them reacting with more grace than the pegasus.
“My name is Bright Leaf and I’ll be your liaison for today!” The mare flashed a sparkling set of pearly whites at all of them. “Should you have any questions about our fine city or need any help in finding anything at all, simply ask me and I will provide all the service you need.”
“Smashing,” said Blueblood with that polite politician tone of his. He dipped his head in a quarter-bow. “It is a pleasure, Miss Leaf.”
“Oh, no no no,” she immediately protested “the pleasure all is mine.”
Flash cringed internally. That was almost exactly what he sounded like when sucking up to royalty.
“Now,” she said, maintaining her nearly impossible grin “if you all would follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be spending your stay here in Maretonia.”
Blueblood held his expertly faked smile. “Lead the way.”
* * *
Flash was pretty sure he could vacation here.
A short while after Cotton pulled the prince aside and quietly made it known to him how she absolutely refused to set hoof on those “deathtrap” rope bridges, Blueblood requested that Bright Leaf take a route crossing the ground level of Spire City as much as possible.
From up on the skyship, Flash had imagined the forest floor to be as thick and leafy as the canopy, but in fact it was a veritable garden of well-groomed alien plants, lit only by the sparse rays of sunlight that managed to penetrate the jungle’s shroud. Wide-leafed ferns, sprouting seedlings, grasses soft as silk, fruit-bearing vines and nameless flowers in all colors of the rainbow and then some lined the winding wide paths in between buildings.The forest’s choir rung in their ears with its unending harmony made up of the buzzing of oversized insects, the chirping of crickets and birds, and the gurgle of brooks snaking their way through the jungle. If one were to crane their neck to look straight up, they would notice the majority of the spires disappearing as soon as they passed the canopy, like pillars that supported the inside of a castle. Now that Flash could see them up close and personal, these spires looked much bigger from the ground. The smallest ones, he guessed, could have been at least the width of a sizeable house from the Empire.
Every few paces they would pass by a small group or pair of ponies strolling the paths with them, the majority wearing brightly dyed flower-print clothing much like Bright Leaf, who would smile and offer sincere greetings to the passers-by.
The guide led Blueblood and his corps to yet another hardwood tower nearly identical to the rest, save for some minor variations in exterior decorations and architecture. Flash supposed that only one who had lived here their whole life could even begin to comprehend which spires were what at a glance. This one was one of the largest largest located roughly in the center of the city, being maybe twenty paces wide on just one of its eight sides.
The mare stopped to wrench open one of the building’s reed double-doors for them. As they filed in with minor nods of thanks to Bright Leaf, Flash noticed a intricately carved sign next to the entrance reading “Euphoria: Spire City’s Premier Hotel and Resort”.
...for ponies with far too much money on their hooves, Flash mentally added.
The inside could only be described as pure, unfiltered swank. Carpets intricately woven with images depicting all kinds of flora and fauna from the jungle, artsy-fartsy oil paintings from the middle years of the fourth age, the employees all decked out in uniforms that probably cost more than his weekly paycheck, obligatory white crystal chandeliers, the whole nine yards. It was okay compared to the Empire’s palace and Canterlot’s castle. Flash had long since become completely numb to fancy decorations.
“If you’ll follow me this way, Your Grace,” Leaf said, stepping into another room, “I will show you to your room.”
Flash was the last to file into the the… incredibly small cage.
It was like standing in a matchbox. Four ponies and a hulking zony barely had enough room to fit inside without seriously invading each other’s personal space.
Bright Leaf reached into the doorway and slid closed a gate, shutting them in the claustrophobic room.
Then the pegasus then noticed how tight Cotton Swab had shut her eyes.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why are we shut in this tiny room?”
At first, Blueblood looked at his guard like he had been speaking gibberish, then his face softened. “Ah that’s right, you’ve never ridden an elevator before.”
“What’s an elevator?”
Cotton opened one eye. “Tartarus in Equestria.”
With a few thumps on the wall, Bright Leaf called out to no one in particular. “Operator. Penthouse floor.”
“Got’cha, Bright!” A voice came from behind the wall.
Blueblood snorted. “In that case, I guess you could call it a...hellevator.”
Flash chortled. Everypony else, including Bright Leaf, let out a long groan.
For the first time that day, the guide’s composure faltered. “Really, Your Grace? With all due respect, that was uncalled for.”
Flash patted the prince of puns on the shoulder consolingly. “I thought it was funny.”
“Goooo-ing up!” The voice declared merrily.
Rumble. The cage was jerked to the side, causing everypony but Bright to lose their footing a little. With a mechanical clickety clack and the droning squawk of a wagon wheel in need of oil, the room ascended, creating a slight dizzying in its riders. They watched as the walls surrounding the elevator fell off, leaving naught but a steel cage between the riders and open windows that revealed the tangle of tree trunks and branches as far as anyone could see. Higher and higher the machine climbed, passing the canopy in a heartbeat and ascending through the open blue skies like a bird.
“Is it over yet?” Cotton asked, her eyes locked up tight and her brow damp with sweat. Flash could’ve sworn he heard her heart beating from the other side of the elevator.
“I wouldn’t recommend you open your eyes yet.” Blueblood said.
Rattle. The elevator jerked to a stop.
Ding.
“Penthouse floor!” Bright cheerily announced.
With a clatter of armor, Cotton dove out of that claustrophobic space the moment the guide slid open the elevator’s door.
* * *
It was a nice day for a white wedding.
Then again, as far as Flash knew, it was always a nice day in Maretonia.
A hooffull of ponies and gryphon-folk sat scattered on the benches of an outdoor amphitheatre. The large construction felt naked, like a leafless tree, with so few ponies to occupy it. Though, an average pony may not find that to be an accurate description if they were to lays eyes upon the lush decorations lining the entirety of the building. The theatre itself was as much a construction of ponies as it was a construction of nature. Every carved stone brick that held the walls up was wrapped with tangled vines or furry moss to the point where one would not be able to see the stone part anymore without peeling away at the layers of flora first. The cracked walkaways were lined on both sides with potted plants, flower petals, and beeswax candles - unlit for the time being. The slightly uncomfortable rock pews bore carvings of forest creatures, and were dyed a slight yellow with all the pollen floating around this season.
Trotting along the dozens of rows in the semicircular theatre, the prince decided that he wouldn’t be intruding upon anypony’s spot if he picked one at random. He took his place at one of the higher rows, giving him a view of the center where the bride and groom were to be wed. The Corps chose the row just behind his.
“The turnout seems a bit lighter than I expected.” Blueblood mused aloud, fidgeting a bit to get used to the stone bench.
“Not many ponies actually come to a wedding’s rehearsal.” Princess Celestia said, taking a seat next to her nephew. “Most would rather see the show in its entirety with all the bells and whistles.”
“Aye.” Luna agreed, sitting down on the prince’s side opposite her sister. “Only the betrothed couple and the ponies that wish to kiss their royal asses actually show up to the damned thing.”
“Now what does that say about us, dear sister?” Celestia teased.
“That we have little better to do.” the night princess bitterly admitted. “Truthfully, I would rather be in my quarters with the shades drawn tight and a blanket over my own head than stroking a Maretonian noble’s ego.”
Celestia gave her sister a look that only the two of them knew so well. She was not amused. “You always were cranky without your sleep. Have you ever tried coffee, Luna?”
“Coffee?”
“You know, that hot black stuff that keeps you awake.”
Luna returned that look tenfold. “I am no knave! I know what coffee is, Celly, and I find it repulsive.”
“Even with cream and sugar?”
“Yes, even with-” The princess did a double-take. “You can do that?”
“It’s quite delicious.” Blueblood chimed in.
“It’s even better when they flavor the cream with vanilla, mint, chocolate, and stuff.” Cotton added cheerily.
“Mmm mmm!” Xander hummed.
“I’m with the princess. I’ve never heard of it.” Flash said.
“That’s because it’s a royal secret.” Cotton said.
Flash clammed up like someone had just told him the dirtiest joke in existence. “Then should we be discussing it so openly on foreign soil?!”
Everypony but Flash laughed.
Princess Luna turned around to regard the guard with a smile. “You and I have been away too long from the world, my friend.”
Cotton’s ears perked up as soon as the realization hit her. “Wait, you’ve both been alive for over a thousand years without coffee?!”
“Aye.”
“Not a drop.”
Cotton’s mouth was left agape, and Xander shook his head slowly, mouthing the word “wow”, both Flash and Luna merely looked confused.
“Oh!” Blueblood said, gesturing at the stage and snapping the others out of their temporary stupor, “I think it’s starting.”
Everypony cast their eyes down to the raised platform upon which a bearded pony dressed in silken robes that covered all but his face and an unnecessarily large headdress that looked like it could be used as a kite stood.
He trotted center stage and put his muzzle to a comically large brass horn.
“H-hello?” His voice echoed through the building, coming out of the instrument all muffled and scratchy. “Ah, Princesses Celestia, Luna, and company! It is an honor. Can you all hear me in the back?”
Without any warning whatsoever, the princess of the night’s lungs exploded with sounds of an eardrum-spotting volume, blowing back manes and ruffling feathers like a windstorm. “SALUTATIONS, DUKE HORACIO, WE CAN HEAR YOUR WORDS QUITE CLEARLY. CAN YOU HEAR US AS WELL?”
His ears ringing like a stick of dynamite went off in his face, Flash was pretty sure that even the ponies in Saddle Arabia were clutching their heads in agony. The only one that didn’t seem fazed by this at all was Princess Celestia, which...didn’t surprise him all that much.
“Yes, I do believe I can. Very well then.”the duke said, turning his attention away from the group. “Now, as you all know, this grand ceremony is a wedding between a Maretonian prince and a tribal gryphon princess, both of which hail from distinctly different cultures. As a symbol of our joining together as one nation, we’ve agreed to not strictly adhere to the matrimonial traditions of either side. Our planning team has composed a ceremony that will be a blend of both gryphonfolk and ponyfolk. It is quite simple, if I do say so myself.”
Duke Horacio paused as the few ponies and gryphons stomped their hooves and clapped their claws in applause.
“As an old Equestrian hymn begins,” the duke gestured to the choir of ten ponies and ten gryphons “both the bride and groom will enter from either side of the theatre, marching to the cadence in unison, matching one another pace-by-pace. They will meet the wedders in the center - a role which will be assumed by both myself and High Feather Tiana, the bride’s mother who unfortunately could not make it to the rehearsal. This represents the path that both sides have taken to finding one another. Once in the center, the lady and I will perform marriage rites consisting of some holy proverbs and brief rounds of chanting, then we will say a few words reflecting the bride and groom’s life, and the couple will recite the vows which they have both written. And then that’s that.”
“That doesn’t sound too dull.” Blueblood commented. “It could be fun.”
“Oh,” the duke added “and in accordance to the ancient gryphonian tradition that has not been practiced for many a century, the bride and groom will be required to consummate their marriage in they eyes of family and gods, as proof of their love.”
A deafening silence washed over the place like a tidal wave.
Duke Horacio, a pleased grin on his face, waited a few beats before leaning back into the horn.
“Just kidding.”
If one was to take a few paces back and look upon the thin crowd in its entirety, they would notice the a distinct pattern of behavior in both races that made up the group. One side was the gryphon-folk, slapping each other on the back and squawking uproariously in an odd way that somewhat resembled laughter to someone without a beak. On the the other side were the ponies, who were otherwise silent, a shade of red flooding into their collective faces as if they were trees at the beginning of autumn… with the exception of Princess Luna and Xander whose reactions mirrored that of the gryphons.
Horatio waited a few moments for the audience to simmer down with a dumb grin.
“Now, with all that out of the way, let us begin the wedding rehearsal, take one. On my mark…”
There was a brief moment when all was still, then the duke waved his hoof and the baritone section of the choir immediately rung out with low, hollow notes, chanting in a mix of tribal gryphonian and ancient Equestrian. Soon enough, the sopranos joined the mix, followed by the altos. Flash couldn’t make out a word of it, save for a few familiar Equestrian phrases and words mixed amongst the birdspeak.
As the chanting suddenly intensified in volume and tempo, the group caught their first glimpse of the bride and groom, each one slipping out from behind the walls on opposite ends of the theater, both equine prince and gryphonian princess had their eyes locked upon one another, marching rhythmically, their paces almost in perfect synch. Of course, neither of them wore their wedding garbs to the practice - leaving them for when the real wedding takes place. Wouldn’t want to spoil the whole thing, now would they?
“Oh, send me to Tartarus.”
Both solar and lunar princesses looked to their nephew in shock of his sudden outburst.
Uh oh. That can’t be good. “What is it?” Cotton and Flash asked in stereo, thier hair immediately standing on end.
“We’ve got another one.”
Xander groaned.
Celestia cleared her throat awkwardly. “Tell me she isn’t-”
“She is.”
“The bride, Blueblood? Of all the ponies it could have been...”
“I’m not proud of it.”
Luna smirked. “Oh my my my, this has just become much more interesting, hasn’t it?”
Cotton put a firm hoof on the prince’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “As your loyal bodyguard of three years, I recommend we get the hell out of here right now.”
“Seconded.” Flash seconded.
“Mmm hmm!” Xander hummed in agreement.
By then, the bride and groom had met in the center. The chanting had died down, and the soon-to-be-wed couple were both discussing something with the duke and choir, what they were discussing, nopony knew. Probably marriage suff.
“Take two!” Duke Horacio said into the horn. The prince and princess briskly trotted back to their places, as did the choir.
Princess Luna cast a concerned look at the stage. “Have you considered not assuming she want’s my nephew’s head on a platter?”
Xander had to smother his muzzle with a hoof to keep from laughing too hard.
Cotton elbowed the zony in his armored side. “Will all due respect, Your Highness, we are not in the business of gambling with anypony’s life.”
She stood up and ushered the corps and its prince to do the same.
“But it makes little sense!” the princess went on. “What are the chances that every last mare on the planet that Blueblood has romanced desires revenge?”
“Astronomical,” Cotton Swab grunted “but odds never were our thing. Now can we go before she notices us?”
Luna shook a series of puzzling thoughts from her head. “This is madness, but if you insist then I will not hold you here.”
“Stop! Stop! Everypony stop!” the duke shouted out.
Naturally, everyone within earshot froze.
“Prince Blueblood!” Horacio called out.
Flash- thanks to his sharp pegasus eyes -immediately noticed the gryphon princess’s eyes widen to the size of tea saucers the moment those words escaped her soon-to-be father-in-law’s lips. She was making no effort to hide it, she knew that name without a doubt.
“Shhhhhhit.” the prince hissed.
“If I recall correctly, you performed a lovely rendition of Equestrian Fields Forever at our charity ball last October.” the duke chirped. “You’ve got a knack for for music. Would you be so kind as to come down here and show this rabble how Ode to the Earthbound is done.”
“Blueblood can sing?” Flash blurted out.
The prince gave a noise that was some kind of half-chuckle, half-whimper. “Quite well actually. How do you think I seduced so many mares?”
“Of course.” Cotton said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Okay, guys, new plan. We help the duke, then we vacate. If the gryphon lady makes a move, I taze her.”
“That sounds like a horrible plan.” Blueblood said, blunt as a club.
Defeated, the prince and his guards trotted their way down the stairs, gaining a few interested glanced from the other ponies and gryphons, who were blissfully ignorant to what could unfold in the coming minutes. Lucky bastards.
Clippity clop. Their steel horseshoes made hollow sounds as they clashed with the stone stairs, the echo seeming to fill the pregnant silence. Why had it become so quiet all of a sudden? Where had the calls of the birds and the screech of the monkies gone? This place was normally abuzz with such hustle and bustle. When did the jungle become quiet as a graveyard?
The bride, a gryphon chick with a sickly olive green tint to her feathers - she was staring hard. She made no attempt to hide her sudden fascination. Her chocolate eyes, burning with a great fire behind them, were locked on the prince the entire time, unblinking, ignorant to anything else.
Flash could only swallow the dry crackers in his throat and hope that his heart didn’t break his ribs beating against his chest at such a rate. He couldn’t help but brush a hoof against the hilt of his sword every few steps, ensuring himself each time that it was indeed still there, at the ready what whatever was to come.
“Now then, what was it the choir was having trouble with, hmm?” Blueblood asked, his voice didn’t even reflect how he felt inside. It was as if nothing was about to happen.
“It seems they’ve harmonized with each other perfectly,” the princess spoke up, still not averting her gaze “but our poor altos seem to have a bit of trouble with the timing.”
Every word of hers was practically dripping with sultry tones.
A single bead of sweat appeared on the back of the prince’s neck. “Ah, Princess Moyra, it’s been some time since we’ve last met, hasn’t it?”
“Mmm, it has.” Her stare had softened a little, her eyes had dropped to being half-lidded.
Blueblood cleared his throat and directed his attention to the choir. “Anyhow, let me hear the part you all are having issue with.”
They began to sing some old hymn that Flash recognized from the days when even he was a foal. It was tuned out instantly when the still unnamed prince pulled Moyra aside and spoke in hushed, yet frantic tones- casting an aside glance at the prince between sentences.
He felt a twinge of alarm in his gut. Something wasn’t right. Xander and Cotton needed only to exchange knowing looks to confirm that the feeling was shared amongst them. Cooperating wordlessly, the three spread out their formation a little, making sure that each of them stood close to the prince, but not so close as to make their alarm too obvious.
“Ah!” Blueblood said, making everyone that wasn't oblivious to the situation tense their muscles. “I see what you are doing here. Some of you are going a bit too rock and roll on the bridge. You, you, and you: try slowing down for the others instead of expecting them to keep up with your tempo. Remember that the song won’t last the whole ceremony, you have to give the happy couple as much time as possible to do their stroll down the aisles, right?”
“Yes, yes, excellent!” the duke beamed at the prince. “Thank, you, my friend. Let’s try this from the top. On my mark...”
As Blueblood turned his attention away from the choir, he regarded the princess with a curt nod. “Now, it has been wonderful meeting you, however briefly, but my guards and I be going. So much tourism to be done in the little time we have here.”
“Well that’s no good!” Moyra whined. “I needed the opinion of somepony with good taste some of my, ah... ceremonial accessories. Yes! You know it’s bad fortune to allow Prince Gabriel to see such things before the wedding.”
She fluttered her eyelashes at the prince like she was in the middle of a sandstorm, her fiance standing aside with a dull look on his face.
Celestia’s flanks, Blueblood’s poker face was the stuff of legends.
“Thank you, but I have no eye for the more feminine side of wedding garbs. Now we should be-”
“No, you’re perfectly fine for the job. If you would just follow me backstage, it would only take a moment of your time.” she pleaded with him a little too hard.
A brief pause.
“Perhaps, without the guards?” She shot a glare at the three. “I’m a bit uncomfortable with them staring at me like that.”
Nope! Flash screamed internally. If this isn’t a trap, then I’m a rutting unicorn wizard from the moon.
“I’m sorry.” Cotton cut in with uncharacteristic politeness. “Due to recent anonymous threats on the royal family, we’ve been ordered to not leave His Grace’s presence for any reason.”
Xander smirked.
“How convenient.” the princesses quipped.
“Will we be escorting you to your hotel room, My Prince?” Flash asked.
“Yes, you will.” Blueblood said with… was that a smirk? A faint ghost of a smile. He turned his back and trotted off toward the exit, the corps following closely behind.
Xander turned his head for a split second and offered the bride and groom a friendly wave goodbye.
* * *
Prince Gabriel, son of Horatio and heir to the throne of Maretonia, stood by his wife-to-be and waved back at the funny zebra guard.
“Later, dudes!”
Princess Moyra bit her tongue so hard it nearly drew blood.
“Man, that Blueblood guy didn’t seem like the total dick you always said he was.” Gabriel said, offering her a playful nudge in the shoulder. “He seemed downright okay to me. But kind of a flamer, you know? All that shiny stuff on his jacket.”
“Yes yes, all to true. But remember that you never were a good judge of character, dear.” Moyra replied in an icy tone.
He shrugged. “Right on. I just don’t see why you want him to... y’know-” The prince slid a hoof over his throat, rolling back his eyes and sticking his tongue out comically “-take a dirt nap.”
“Royal wedding, take three!” Duke Horacio merrily declared.
“Well, sweetie, that’s my own business, and not yours. So it’d be best to not ask so many questions.”
He stared at Moyra with an empty face, caught in a serious case of brain lock. “‘Kay. Whatevs.”
The two turned away and headed back to their respective positions.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll end up napping with him too…my love.” Moyra spat out the last two words like they were acid, just as the prince was out of earshot.
Back at Pretentious Name Hotel- or whatever it was called -the prince and his corps were standing once again in the confounded metal contraption called an elevator, listening to its inner workings squawk and squeal as they climbed the sky itself back to Blueblood’s suite.
“We’ve got to do something other than stand around with our hooves rammed up our plotholes!” Cotton shouted, all the blood rushing to her face from both her frustration and the dizzying height they had reached.
“What would you have us do?!” the normally mild-mannered noble shouted back. “Commandeer a skyboat and fly back to Equestria with just four ponies who haven’t the slightest clue how to operate one of those things? You can’t even look over the edge of one without passing out!”
Cotton wasn’t even paying attention to the outside. Her apparent phobias were forgotten in a split second. “Well excuuuuse me, Your Worshipfulness! It’s a better idea than waiting around for somepony to slip a dagger in your throat or a rock of rat poison in your coffee!”
Flash stared at the two feuding ponies going back and forth with an annoyed scowl. “If you’ll let me interject-”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?!” he hissed. “You’d finally able to get a job that doesn’t require you battle the forces of estrogen on a daily basis!”
“That’s assuming they don’t throw me in the same shallow grave as you, sleazeball!”
Flash cleared his throat. “We’re not going to die here, we just-”
“Sleazeball?” Echoed the prince, a stream of hot steam nearly coming out of his ears. “You know better than anypony that I’m not the lying sex-junkie I used to be.”
“Sure, you’ve gotten over the physical addiction just fine, but in every last addict to ever see the light of day, there is always that nagging desire in the back of their mind. Always a little voice telling you how Sisters-damned badly you want another drink, another smoke, another snort, another mare.”
He gasped. Flash didn’t think that Blueblood had ever been surprised enough to gasp.“How dare you insinuate that I’d ever consider luring another innocent mare back into my bed!”
“Yeah, they sure are innocent all right!”
Something inside of Flash snapped like a raw spaghetti noodle. “Would both of you bickering foals shut your jabbering jaws for one solitary moment and let me concentrate before I throw you both through a window!”
The only sound remaining was the squeaky elevator.
Xander stared at Flash like he had just met his foalhood hero.
“Look who grew a pair.” Cotton nickered.
“Shut up.” Flash rubbed his nose. “Arguing will get us nowhere. You’ve all been in tighter binds before, correct?”
Cotton Swab, Xander, and BB exchanged glances. Hesitantly, they all nodded.
“And those were just with the three of you, and now you have me.” Flash took a deep, cleansing breath, closing his eyes and putting a hoof to his breastplate. He moved his hoof off of his chest and let out the air at the same time, clearing his head as best as breathing could. Nopony could say that he never learned anything from guarding Cadenza.
“Everything will be all right.” He murmured slowly, almost in a meditative state.
Screech. Rumble. Ding. The elevator stopped.
“Now,” Flash said, sliding open the gate “we sit down and unstick ourselves from a sticky situation before it all gets out of hoof.”
And then it got out of hoof.
“Freeze!”
And just like that, four ponies with suspiciously identical coat colors and shiny silver-coated armor not dissimilar to Equestrian Royal Guard’s design surrounded the elevator in a semicircle. Each and every one of them directed a spear and an unhappy grimace towards the corps.
“By the order of His Grace, Prince Gabriel the Second, we are to escort you to a holding cell for your crimes against the people of Maretonia.”
Here we go.
“On what charges?” Blueblood instantly asked.
The lead guard leered at him. “He didn’t say.”
“Hold up.” Cotton Swab said. “We can’t be arrested without any charges against us. Anypony with a fifth grade education knows that. What about due process?”
One of the guards, a bit younger-looking than the rest of them lowered his spear for a moment to scratch his head. “What’s due process?”
The leader shot him a nasty glare and a barely audible growl, snapping the colt right back into shape.
“Right.” Cotton groaned. “Equestrian law doesn’t apply. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this today.”
“Do what?” Flash made the mistake of asking.
Cotton’s horn burst into flame.
“Oh.”
“Hit the dirt!” The unicorn screamed through gritted teeth, and, lo and behold, Xander, Flash, and Blueblood hit the floor.
The smell of ozone gas filled the room in the blink of an eye as not just a single bolt, but a tangled web of lightning bolts streak from the unicorn’s forehead and danced across the four guards’ bodies, sending them into an embarrassing mess of flailing and pained screams. Getting electrocuted was not a dignifying experience.
With the four ponies spasming on the ground and everyone else with their fur standing on end from static electricity, Cotton turned around, looking very pleased with herself.
“A-are they…?” Flash started to ask.
Cotton rolled her eyes. “They’re fine. The voltage was only high enough to knock them out-cold for approximately fifteen minutes, give or take.”
“Now,” she said. “I say we lock them in the stairwell and then get our asses-”
Thud. Cotton Swabs eyes rolled into the back of her head, followed by the rest of her collapsing to the floor. Standing over the newly comatose medic was a mightily pissed and out of breath unicorn guard with a baton in his magical grasp, the other three standing behind him like they hadn’t had hundreds of volts coursing through their bodies a second ago.
That was a mistake.
“RAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
The Maretonian’s eyes widened as if three hundred pounds of angry zony had let out a eardrum-damaging warcry and was charging right at him. Which, incidentally, was exactly the case.
Whump. Hoof met face. One unlucky guard was sent flying into another, knocking her over like a baseball hitting a milk bottle at the county fair.
The other two stood with dumb looks on their face for a millisecond before remembering they they were actually royal guards and that meant that they had to sometimes fight big, scary things. The two thrust their spears in unison at the raging hulk, one glancing off and another getting stuck in between the plates of his armor, only giving him a shallow wound.
Flash sprang forward and unsheathed his blade in one swift motion. He slashed the first goon’s wooden spear handle clean in half, part of the haft still protruding from the zony’s side.
The first pony, a pegasus stallion, spat out the useless pole and went for his sword, he had his mouth around the hilt when Flash threw a left hook his way and smacked the guard right on his silvery helmet, ringing his proverbial bell. He stumbled back a bit, but still managed to ready the weapon. Their blades clashed with a cry of steel on steel. Flash parried a stab to the left, then ducked a follow-up slash.
Xander, on the other hoof, was having a much better time hitting everypony that could stand to be hit. Down went the second guard with a headbutt before he knew which way was up. The zony didn’t even feel the armored skull colliding with his naked head. By then, the two he put down earlier were back up and ready for more. With a wild grin, Xander shoulder checked the mare guard into a wall, shattering the thin planks like twigs in a hail of splinters and putting her right out of commission. Guard number four- the apparent senior officer -levitated his sword in a spring green aura, holding it in between him and Xander defensively, matching the hulk step for step. They danced for a while. Xander would move forward, and he back. One goes left, the other goes right.
Step. Xander crept closer.
Step. The guard shied farther away.
Step. Closer.
Step. Farther.
Step. Closer still.
Step. The guard’s flank pressed up against the wall.
Xander grinned.
On the other side of the room, two ponies pitted blade against blade. Their pieces sang a metallic song of nothing but soprano notes as the twin shafts of steel spit out hoofulls of sparks with each crash.
“Mmmf mphfmrrk!” (Nice hoofwork!) the guard mumbled at Flash through the hilt of his sword. “Mff mf mrr mm mmr?” (Who was your master?)
Flash beat his wings once, giving him enough lift to maneuver his piece and strike from above the guard, aiming for the stallion’s exposed side. The silver swordspony twisted his neck and shoulders just enough to deflect the blow onto his armor, leaving a deep scratch on the surface of the plating.
One. Two. Three stokes in quick succession by Flash forced his foe against a tall window that spanned nearly an entire side of the room from floor to ceiling. Desperate to gain lost ground, the Maretonian switched his target from his foe... to his foe’s weapon, knocking it aside with the flat of his blade. Flash was stunned and confused for a split second, which was all the guard needed to spring around one hundred and eighty degrees and deliver a powerful two-hooved buck right into Flash’s center of mass, knocking him off balance and sending him on an intimate date with the floor. Needless to say, he would be the one paying for dinner.
The silver guard thrust his weapon downward, embedding the sword in the floorboards. “No so fancy now, are ya?”
He rolled Flash onto his back and grabbed him by his armor straps with one hoof, using the other to throw a quick series of jabs right into his jaw. Punch. Punch. Punch. Flash struggled to roll the stallion off of him, but the beating his face had been taking made it a little hard to concentrate.
Punch. “Had enough?”
Flash sucked in as much air as he could and spat a wad of crimson phlegm out, right into the other guard’s face.
He let out a guttural, wordless roar. “I’ll take that as no!”
Punch.
“Say uncle, bitch.”
Punch.
“Say it!”
Flash coughed up even more red saliva.“Xander!”
Getting a bit bored with tossing three guards around the room like a foal with a collection of ragdolls, Xander twisted around to take notice of the predicament that his fellow guard had caught himself in.
Xander narrowed his eyes and let out a wet snort.
Another half-raged, half-gleeful roar exploding from the zony’s throat, Xander casually tossed the youngest of the guards over his shoulder and charged over to the two.
His foreleg cocked back for another blow, the guard looked up the moment Xander’s roars reached his ears.
“Uh oh.” was all he could muster before it was too late.
Next thing he knew, the guard got a taste of his own medicine times ten. The world almost turned to slow motion as Xander put all of his weight, all of his strength, and all of his momentum into one single hoof. Flash watched in horrified fascination as the zony’s hoof met the steel plating of the guard’s chest, forcing the metal to buckle as if it were nothing more than tinfoil.
Perhaps it was the ringing of his ears, but Flash could have sworn that Xander broke the sound barrier with that punch.
It was like watching somepony play tee ball. One instant the ball was there, the next it was already far away. The nameless guard was sent screaming across the room and then some, crashing through the broad window with a shrill shriek and a hail of broken glass, then the next thing anypony knew, he was gone - disappearing into the thick canopy of Thicket. If one listened carefully, then one would notice a constant “Aaaaahhh”, quickly fading into silence as a few moments passed.
Struggling to regain his composure, Flash was helped up by the same hoof that sent his attacker flying. He murmured his thanks, wiped the coagulating blood off of his face, and brushed the glass shards out of his coat. By the Sisters, did he have a headache that could surpass even the worst of hangovers.
Taking a few steps forward, Flash peered out of the brand new hole in Blueblood’s suite and into the thickness of the jungle’s branches. There’s wasn’t even a trace of the guard. Being a pegasus, the sheer height shouldn’t have made Flash dizzy at all, yet he felt like he would’ve fallen over if he looked any longer.
“Sun and stars, Xander,” Flash tried to shake the temporary vertigo from his head “I asked for help, not for you to punt him like a hoofball.”
Xander rubbed the back of his head, a shy grin on his mug.
Flash laughed. Whether it was from the lingering hysteria of what had just happened to him, or actual humor, he didn’t know.
Flash looked around. “Uh, where’s Blueblood?”
The two guard’s hearts both stopped at the same time.
“Celestia’s tears, where is the prince?!”
Then he noticed how there were no guards left in the room anymore, only one unconscious Cotton Swab and a scattering of broken furniture.
Flash’s entire body suddenly felt very heavy as the realization hit him like a zony.
“Tarsus in a handbasket.” he said. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
Hesitantly, Xander nodded.
Flash sighed. His head felt like it would pop like a melon under the wheel of a carriage. His heart didn’t feel too far off either. “Okay, okay. Don’t panic. All part of the job. So, sitrep time. The prince is gone, the guards are gone. It’s safe to assume they took him. Now, they’ll be headed down to take him Luna knows where. The only way to do that is either down the stairs-” He involuntarily glanced where the pegasus had been a minute ago “-or out the window.”
Gears grinding. Mind thinking. Plan formulated. “Okay, I think I got it. I’ll fly down and meet them at the lobby. Xander, you wake Cotton up and follow them down the stairs. We’ll come at them from both sides. Classic pincer strategy. Got it?”
Xander gave his brother-in-arms a salute.
“Good. Meet you down there.”
* * *
Somewhere in the twisting, turning halls of a posh hotel, three guards and a noble were having a very bad day.
“HEEEELP! SOMEPONY FOR THE LOVE OF- Urp!”
Captain Garrison Grey, leader of Alpha Squad Three of the Maretonian Duke’s Guard, used his telekinesis to pluck a stray pillow case from a room service cart, wad it up, and forcibly insert it into the captive prince’s piehole, rendering his words little more than unintelligible noise.
Grey didn’t exactly like how visible he was being right now. What he would have given just to slip out a back door and disappear into an empty building until everything was calm again. The trio had no less than four pairs of eyes on them at any given time. Said eyes mostly belonged to fancy ponies with deep pockets and the service ponies that kept them comfortable. A few stern glances and the general reputation of Duke’s Guards kept anypony from opening their mouth.
The captain trailed behind his two underlings who shared the task of carrying the bound and gagged unicorn on their backs.
“I do apologize for doing this.” Garrison said to the prince, who could only shoot a red hot glare back at him.
Unperturbed his captive’s obvious non-acceptance, he went on. “I’m sure, as a royal, you know that what we do is just following orders. Can’t exactly ignore them when they come from the prince of Maretonia himself. Kind of. Boy could never really make decisions on his own.”
The unicorn rolled his eyes.
“Hey, I’m not exactly a happy camper myself. You think I wanted to go from sitting around in nice comfy chairs and watching the world go by to getting zapped, beat up, and thrown around by your buddies?”
There came a crashing from further down the red-carpeted halls.
“Speaking of which…”
There was a flash of black and white as a pony-shaped blur cut across from one hall into another. It was followed by a less blurry grey unicorn with a shock of rose-red hair struggling to keep up. She disappeared behind a wall, but a millisecond later just her head reappeared from around the corner.
“I got ‘em! They’re over here!”
Garrison clenched his teeth. “Hang on to your undergarments. Time to pick up the pace!”
Shuffle. The guards’ armor clanked together even harder as they sped up from a trot into a canter. Alpha Squad Three couldn’t help but glance back at the pair of ponies charging at them in a full gallop.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity left a black scar on the tastefully tacky wallpaper.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity left a black scar on Grey’s already roughed-up armor.
“Okay, this mare is really starting to piss me off!”
Doing a one-eighty and planting his hooves firmly into the carpeted floor, the captain's horn lit up with emerald mana. Gritting his teeth in concentration, Grey Garrison let loose his own bolt of energy, but it was no destructive spell. The wad of power stopped mid flight and rapidly expanded to cover the area of the hallway, creating a magical barrier as clear as glass and thin as paper.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity struck the shield and dissipated harmlessly.
Crash. The unicorn rebounded off of the glowing green shield like a bird hitting a particularly clear window .
“Uhhnn....” she mumbled, lying on the ground as she had been not minutes earlier. “Bad day.”
“Indeed it is.” Grey said before turning to catch up with his squad, who had disappeared down a flight of stairs. “Nothing personal!”
“I hope you fall down those stairs!” she called back in a shrill voice.
* * *
Cotton Swab threw another forceful blast at the shield, even harder than the last time. Her spell had managed to crack the surface, only chipping it like a Celestia-damned gravy boat. The blowback from such a strong burst of energy nearly swept the guard off of her hooves.
“I only like it when I’m the one who screws people with magic!” she yelled at the inanimate wall.
Xander merrily trotted alongside her, gently nudging the unicorn to move back a few paces. Cotton reluctantly stepped aside, a sour grimace on her face.
The zony stretched all four of his legs for a few moments, as if he were warming up for a hoofrace. He cracked his neck, his joints making quiet pops with each movement. Realizing what he was about two do, Cotton took a few more paces back just to be sure.
Pivoting on his front legs, the zony raised his rump in the air toward the shield and let loose a wild buck that could have crushed a lump of coal into a diamond.
A spiderweb of cracks appeared on its glowing surface.
Xander grinned.
Another buck.
Poof. The wall went down less like a window pane and more like a cloud of smoke, losing all of its remaining energy and vaporizing into the air, leaving behind no evidence that it had ever been there.
Xander turned back to Swab with his trademark crazed grin, then jerked his head in the direction that the other guards went.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Cotton said.
* * *
In the lobby of the hotel, Cotton Swab was still having a bad day.
She didn’t particularly care for this place’s choice of decor. Red on gold on even more gold wasn’t the most creative of color combinations. For some reason, ponies thought that particular pairing gave one a feeling of “royalty”, like they were special if they were given the proverbial red carpet treatment. All it did was make her eyes hurt.
And what was the deal with those paintings covering the walls anyway? Back when she was a filly, the artists painted great scenes with intricate details that chronicled something they deemed beautiful; sometimes they were important battles fought in the name of Equestria, sometimes they were vast tracts of land that spread out for miles. Nowadays, ponies painted these weird, simplistic shapes that had no real form to them. It was as if the artists smeared paint all over the canvas with their hooves at random and called it a masterpiece.
Swab wasn’t too fond of the ponies that patronized the place, either. She would bet money that ponies from Equestria wouldn’t run around screaming their heads off when a minor rumble between a couple of guards suddenly erupted in the hotel’s lobby. It was like they had never seen a three-on-three skirmish in a public place before. What a bunch of lightweights.
Swords clashed with swords, spells clashed with spells, and hoof clashed with hoof as the guards fought tooth-and-nail for the still helpless prince tied up in a corner. Ponies not involved in the battle busied themselves by getting as far away from it as possible, or those not smart enough to do so merely chose to gallop in circles, calling for help that was not likely to come.
“What-” Cotton Swab ducked under a blast of pale green fire “-in the six levels of Tartarus-” she let loose a swift beam of sub-zero ice magic, covering the unicorn guard in a layer of frost and stifling his fire magic “-DO YOU WANT WITH HIM?”
The leader guard shook off the numbing cold and summoned forth a laser-horn-sword-thing with a hiss of raw mana, prompting Cotton to do the same.
“I haven’t a clue!” The two of them galloped forth and their horns met with a shower of sparks and a shrill crack as two beams of light perfectly equal in power tried to repel each other like magnets.
Back and forth they jousted, their energy weapons of fire hissing and snapping with even the lightest of contact. It was almost rhythmic, the way they switched from attacking to defending in a flash, stopping briefly to circle each other and wait to see who would chose to strike next. Up, down, left, right. Left, up, down, right, circle. It was only a matter of time before somepony missed a beat and lost the rhythm.
Clash. The ponies found themselves locking horns, both green and red blades sliding down the length of one another with a hail of sparks that singed tiny bald spots into their fur. They ended up pressing forehead to forehead, faces not inches away, eyes locked, both pairs of them filled with the rage of battle.
“Listen, sweetie,” the dark grey guard grunted, his hot breath curling Cotton’s nose hairs “it doesn’t have to be like this, all right? I’m just doing my duty, you’re just doing yours. Why don’t we just drop our shit and talk about this like responsible adults before somepony has to go home in a wooden box, all right?”
Cotton hesitated. By the Sisters, she didn’t want to die for the prince. He wasn’t that bad of a pony but neither was he the patron saint of fluffy kittens and lollipops.
“You drop yours, I drop mine.” Cotton said slowly.
“Done.”
“On three?”
“Sounds good.”
“Three.”
And just like that, the two laser swords dissipated. Both the unicorn stallion and Cotton signaled their fellow guards to stand down. Xander planted his hooves firmly in the floor, Flash let his blade roll off of his tongue, and the others did the same.
“Theeere we go. Nice and friendly.” the leader said.
“So what is it you wanted to discuss?” Cotton’s voice was icy as ever.
“Hey hey, let’s not start off on the wrong hoof here-” he said.
“Too late for that.” one of the guards commented.
“Okay, yeah, we’re past the point of the “lovely weather we’re having” smalltalk.” He let out a genuine chuckle, relaxing the mood just a smidge. “My name’s Grey Garrison, Captain of this squad of ah, well, foalnappers.”
“Cotton Swab,” Cotton deadpanned. “Queen of bad days. Get to the point.”
“Ohhh, not a trusting pony I see.” He spoke as if they weren’t trying to stab each other with light swords sixty second ago. “Fine, fine, I have but one thing to say, and I’m pretty sure that it will convince you to allow me to make off with the prince unscathed.”
“Over my dead body.” She snapped, her horn erupting into another bout of red light. While she wouldn’t lay her life on the line for Blueblood, she had no problem doing it just to contradict some random plotface. Cotton was fickle like that.
“Funny thing is, it’s only a single word.”
“What word?!” Cotton shouted louder than she meant to.
“Backup.”
She furrowed her brow. “Back up to where?”
“Oh hell.” Flash sighed, performing a particularly defeated facehoof. “Backup.”
And then it got even more out of hoof.
At once many doors- really nice doors made from bamboo bundled together and painted red -were blown apart in succession like somepony lit the fuse on a bundle of dynamite. One, two, three, four, an entrance on virtually every side of the building was made, and a swarm of silver-plated guards flooded in like locusts, their collective armor plates banging together like a symphony of tin cans.
In the time that it took for a pony to say “This sucks”, the hotel lobby had vacated to all tourists and been filled by a miniature army of Maretonian guards. One, two, ten, thirty, Cotton couldn’t have counted them if she tried.
“Welp,” Cotton let her horn sword dissipate “we surrender.”
The still bound and gagged Blueblood let out a muffled scream of protest.
Cotton unhooked that straps that kept her scarcely used shortsword on her side and threw it to the floor.
If Flash Sentry were drinking something, he’d have done a spit-take.”What? Just like that?!”
Cotton scoffed bitterly. “Didn’t they teach you math in the third age? Three of us versus enough of them to start a marching band.”
“Not good odds.”
“Hey you!” one of the guards yelled, thrusting a hoof at Xander. “Stay away from the fugitive!”
Xander put a hoof to his chest and raised an eyebrow at the guard.
“Yeah you, stripes.”
Xander, a completely cool look upon his face, let his hoof hover an inch away from the prince’s face.
“What did I just say?!” He drew his sword and took a menacing step toward the zony.
Xan had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He poked Blueblood lightly multiple times in multiple places, making direct eye contact with the guard and not once breaking it.
“All right smartass, you asked for it!”
Whump. It’s like ponies never expect the hulking half-zebra to punch them in the face.
If ever there was a time where things were as far out of hoof as equinely possible, this would be it.
Quick for his size, Xander grabbed Blueblood by his bonds and flung him onto his back like a sack of grain, eliciting a series of surprised mumbles from the prince. He lowered his head and bolted for the thinnest part of the crowd, the zony guard’s thick skull knocking them aside like bowling pins. He didn’t even bother with using a door, choosing instead to make his own and crash straight through the wall, leaving a Xander-shaped hole in its side.
“Aaaaand he’s gone.” Garrison said. “Smashing.”
“Well set me on fire and call me the sun.” Cotton breathed. “That zony never ceases to do something I didn’t see coming.”
“Yeah.” was all Flash could say.
He was then suddenly aware of a white unicorn horn in his personal space.
“Hey, watch-”
Poof. A cloud of powdery substance coated his face.
“That smells kind of nice act-”
* * *
“Hey.”
“Waaake uuuup.”
“Heyheyheyheyheyheyhey!”
“...”
“WAKE UP!”
With a snort Flash Sentry was rudely yanked out of his slumber, flailing like as fish out of water.
“Ah! Whuh? Hmmm?” Was the witty reply Flash made to his newly-acquired state of consciousness.
“Yep. I think that dun woke ‘im.” somepony with an accent like a banjo remarked. “Gall darn it, Pinkie, any higher pitched and only mutts could’a heard ya.”
“Sorry!” replied another pony whose voice sounded like she had been sucking on helium.
The first thing that Flash noticed about the room was the severe lack of any decent light source. The only thing that kept his world from being pitch black was a flickering orange tiki torch that caused all of the ponies shadows to dance on the walls.
Oh, and then there were the ponies. Lining the sides of the ten foot-by-ten room were five strange ponies with neon colored coats, an alicorn princess, and one very familiar unicorn guard, all snugly tied to their chairs with heavy-duty rope. It was like one of those situations that always ended in a punchline.
CHAPTER TEN: A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare - Part I
In.
Twilight Sparkle sucked in a lungful of humid Maretonian air through her nose, the sweet scents of exotic flowers filling her head.
And out.
She exhaled that breath through her mouth, letting all of the stresses of her daily life as a purple princess be carried away by the wind.
This was the life.
What other career in the world give her a free ride to a tropical paradise with no responsibilities other than enjoying the sights and attending a triple-A royal wedding? A small town librarian certainly wouldn’t get such opportunities.
Yep. Being a princess was awesome.
Well, ninety percent of the time.
There are the days when something catastrophic happens.
Like, for instance, getting abducted.
“Princess Twilight!”
The ice cubes in Twilights lemonade clinked together as the glass stopped an inch away from her muzzle. She set it down and turned, removing her sunglasses to look the pony before her in the eye.
“Yes?”
It was a stallion; a unicorn guardspony clad in silver armor so polished that the princess wanted to put her sunglasses back on. He was flanked by three more armored ponies with the same off-white colored coat that all the normal guards back in Equestria seemed to have. Though, she hadn’t seen any Maretonian officers before.
The four bowed their heads briefly “I’m sorry for the interruption, but you are going to have to come with us, Your Highness.”
Twilight fidgeted in her reclining chair. “Is something wrong? Did something happen?”
She paused, hanging her head to let out a sigh.
“Do I have to go off and save the world again?”
The three behind the unicorn shared awkward glances.
“Uh, no, nothing is wrong.” the lead guard said. “You are merely required for a... special event this evening.”
Twilight Sparkle’s eyes went wide. “The wedding!” Her horn flared with magic and a purple glowing calendar appeared out of thin air. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was- Wait. It’s only Thursday! I thought the wedding was… on…”
Twilight noticed how all four of the ponies flinched when she cast that spell. They all seemed to jump like she tried to throw a punch at them.
“You’re a horrible liar, Lucerne.” One of the others- another unicorn -said, stepping toward the princess. “Just gas her and get on with it.”
“Gas me-?”
* * *
“It’s horrid!”
“But it’s the latest fashion in Gryphonstone!”
“Do I look like I live on a mountain and eat roasted lamb for breakfast?”
“Does Canterlot count as a mountain?”
“Well, yes it does, but I don’t live there and that’s not the point! The way you desecrated this shade of cocoa, if the fashion police did exist I could have you arrested for serial murder!”
“I dunno, Rares. I kinda like it.”
Rarity whirled around to give Applejack an expression straight out of a cheesy horror flick.
“You what?!”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “I think it looks cozy. Now are ya gonna stand here and harass the poor shopkeeper like a hungry rottweiler or can we move on to the next shop?”
Rarity shot a seething glare over her shoulder at the poor salespony half-cowering behind the counter.
“If you insist.”
With a toss of her mane, Rarity trotted toward the door.
“C-come again!” Then, when the angry mare was out of earshot, “Or not.”
Apparently Rarity was too busy sticking her nose in the air to see the group of four Maretonian guards blocking the doorway. Her face met the first guard’s breastplate.
“Oof!” She recoiled instantly. “Terribly sorry, dear!”
Rarity looked up into a- she wouldn’t lie to herself -incredibly handsome unicorn stallion.
“Hello.” she cooed “What can I do for you, hmm?”
* * *
“Yeah, real fascinating.” Spike drawled sarcastically, snatching a random berry off of a vine hanging over the beaten dirt path and popping it in his mouth as the pony whose back he used as a recliner trotted along and rambled on about flowers or something.
“It is, isn’t it? Fluttershy said, not catching on to his lack of subtlety at all. “And see those yellow and red ones in the patch of sunlight? Those are called coreopsis, just like the patch I have in my garden in Ponyville! The wiggly little caterpillars like to munch on them in the springtime.”
Spike hummed idly. He spotted a random plant and pointed to it. “And what’s that one there? The one that looks like a cross between a christmas tree and a fern?”
“Oh! Um, that one’s called cannabis…”
“And what does it do?”
“Oh, well. In olden times, people used to to make clothes and paper, and rope. They don’t, um do that in Equestria anymore, though.”
“Why not?”
Fluttershy clammed up like a clam.
“We found better things.” she said quietly. Well, quieter.
“Excuse me, miss?”
Fluttershy almost jumped out of her own skin, nearly throwing off Spike in the process.
“Oh, uh, hello? I mean hello!” Fluttershy gave a nervous smile at the squadron of guards that had somehow managed to sneak up behind her. “You startled me? What can I do for you ponies?”
“Are you Fluttershy, Element of Kindness and hero to your home country?”
“I guess.”
The guards shared a look.
* * *
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“Miss Pie, you need to come with us. His Highness the Prince has urgent business that he wishes to discuss with you.”
“Sure!”
* * *
Woosh. A crew of sailors aboard a Maretonian vessel all jumped as a sky-colored blur raced not three feet over their heads at an inequine speed, leaving a brief rainbow contrail in its wake.
Rainbow Dash was having a good time.
Over the ships, under the bridges, and through the forest of towers she sped. The entire city was a vertical paradise, like a giant, populated obstacle course for the speed-hungry mare. Ponies lounging in windowsills and on the decks of skyships cast their eyes upward at the pegasus as she showboated her way across Spire City, basking in the attention.
Then, at once, the shrill screech of sirens reached her ears.
Slowing her speed from supersonic to breakneck, Rainbow Dash glanced behind her to see a trio of white pegasai clad in bright grey jumpsuits and goggles hot in pursuit of her, one of them carrying a crank-operated box emanating that horrible noise.
She banked left, they matched her course.
She banked right, same thing.
Guess they wanted her to stop.
Rainbow Dash spotted an empty platform on a random building and further reduced her speed from breakneck to somewhat reasonable and skidded to a stop on the deck, leaving scuffmarks on the nice hardwood planks.
The three took their sweet time getting to her. They eventually caught up with her and landed on the same platform.
“Ma’am, do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
“Dunno. Did I break any Maretonian airspeed records? That would be awesome.”
“Oh, you sure broke something alright.”
“Heh, yeah.” Rainbow Dash swallowed a dry lump in her throat.
* * *
Flash’s was sure his brain would pop like a water balloon at any moment. The world felt like it was enveloped in a soupy haze as he sat in that dark room, immobilized by a coil of particularly thick and chafe-ey rope around his body, ears ringing like a stick of dynamite went off in his head and surrounded by six national heros, one of them being Princess Twilight Sparkle herself.
He was probably hallucinating it all.
Flash groaned, which was the only way one could react to a situation as this.
“So, did we win?”
That one unicorn pony he worked with scoffed like a teenaged foal. “No.”
What was her name again?
“Oh hi, Cotton.” Flash said blearily. “Why are we tied up with the Elements of, uh, something?”
Flash paused a moment to nod his head at Princess Twilight Sparkle. “Your Grace. We have to stop meeting under such, uhh-” The awful ringing in his ears flared up. He grit his teeth “-circumstances.”
He also regarded the multitude of pretty mares tied to chairs. “I have no idea how I should address you guys. Heroes? Elements? M’ladies?”
“Wowie, that guard looks like he had a few dozen drinks too many!” The pink pony declared. Which was the pink one again? Charity? Flutterfly? Flash couldn’t remember. He was usually good with things like that.
“Yeah, you do look a bit off, Flash.” Cotton said. “How do you feel?”
“Like a mountain troll sat on me, thanks for asking.”
“No no no, be specific.”
Unnngh. His headache discouraged him from thinking too hard.
“My head hurts.”
“And?”
“My ears are ringing, I can barely remember my own name, I kinda feel like, urr…”
“Like?”
Flash’s stomach felt like it was trying to strangle itself.
“Like- Ohhh…”
Flash forced himself forward as far as his neck and upper back would let him.
Splat. He threw up all over the dirt floor.
His mouth tasted like digested hotel food. “Like that.”
The fancy white one dry-heaved.
“In my professional medical opinion,” Cotton said “your clock was cleaned and you’ve probably got a concussion. Getting a facefull of magically conjured and highly concentrated chloroform probably isn’t helping your brain functions any.”
“Fun.” Flash murmured weakly.
Cotton sighed.
“Drat!” the princess of friendship spat out. “I’ve got a half-dozen spells that could help, but I’m useless!”
“No you’re not, alicorns can cast spells, right…?”
The guard rolled her eyes “Look closely, numnuts.”
Flash squinted through the shadows at the princess. It was hard to focus with his brain doing the funky chicken in his skull, but he eventually took notice of the chunk of rock or metal or something shaped like an ice cream cone where her horn should have been. In fact, both Cotton and… Rareglitter(?) had a matching set.
“Huh,” was his brain’s witty response.
“Wha-? What’s going out there?” A new voice came from out of nowhere.
“Is hearing voices in my head a symptom of a conclusion?” Flash asked Cotton.
“Well yes, but it’s not in your head.” Cotton said.
“Down here.” the voice beckoned.
Flash looked down to see that the chair he was tied to was not a chair, but a thick pewter barrel with a backboard fastened to it.
“The barrel I’m sitting on is talking.” Flash groaned.
“I’m not a barrel!” denied the barrel.
The gummed-up gears in Flash’s head turned.
“Who’s in there?”
“Spike!” the princess cheered. “Spike, are you okay?”
“Can’t see a thing, Twilight. Oh wait, there’s a bunghole here.”
“Spiiiike!” the bleach white one scolded. “Where did you learn such language?!”
“Y’all mean the hole that’s made fer draining cider out of a cask?” The orange redneck one asked. Apple-something.
Rarity was silent. (Rarity! That was her name!)
“Wow, it’s darker out there than it is in here.” Spike remarked, his eye nearly bulging out of the hole.
“I can’t believe they would just lock a baby dragon up in a wooden barrel like that!” The yellow one with a voice like two pillows hitting one another said. Flutter...by? Fluttercry? It was on the tip of his tongue.
Cotton blinked. “Wait, there’s a dragon in there?”
“Yep.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Dern tootin!”
“For the record, I’m still pretty much a baby.”
“The rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper.” she muttered.
* * *
Creak. Rattle. The crude plank door in serious need of oil nestled in the corner of their prison cell threw itself open with no warning. In came two more of those Celestia-damned guards, trailing behind them a very familiar gryphon and earth pony.
The guards shook their spears at the already subdued prisoners, putting a scowl on their faces that was only somewhat convincing.
The earth pony smiled timidly and waved at the ponies tied in their chairs. “H-hi.” He was instantly frozen with a sharp glare from the gryphon.
The soon-to-be princess of Maretonia cleared her throat. “I do apologize for your… accommodations.”
“Accommodations?!” the element with hair like a gay pride flag shouted. “This is a freakin’ jail cell!”
“Oh man.” the prince murmured, taking a step back. “Oh man. The Elements of Rutting Harmony. Oh hell. Oh hell.”
“Let me do the talking, Gabriel dear.” the princess shot back with a voice that could freeze oil.
Gabriel shut his trap.
“Guards, you may leave.”
“But, Princess Moyra-”
“They’re tied up. Leave us.”
Reluctantly, the guards filed out.
The gryphon's wings fidgeted as she regained her composure. “This is indeed a regrettable turn of events, but rest assured, as soon as the remaining princesses give my fiancé what he wants, you will be set free without hesitation.”
Cotton Swab scoffed. “Great. We’re bargaining chips in a high-stakes game of ransom.”
Princesses Twilight narrowed her eyes. “And what does the prince want?”
“Well, I don’t really-”
“Be silent!” Moyra snapped. “Go back to smoking your green, my husband-to-be.”
“Okay.” His voice was comparable to the shy pegasus in the corner. He wasted no time in drawing an odd wooden pipe from his pocket and stuffing a wad of dark green plant matter in it. The smell that the stuff made surely wasn’t tobacco.
The gryphon slipped back into her sweet tone instantly. “I’m so terribly sorry. My husband isn’t exactly a master in social situations.” She laughed. By Celestia, Flash was normally good at detecting the fakeness that comes from nobles when they speak to each other but he wasn’t sure if her laugh was genuine or not. It could’ve been his concussion.
“What he wants, Your Highness, is to see a certain Equestrian prince who has been illegally procuring Maretonian state secrets and selling them to the Saddle Arabians to be brought to justice.”
“Bullshit.” Cotton grunted, hopping in place so that her chair faced Moyra. “You just want your royal claws on him because he dumped you like a two-dollar wh-”
The princess casually sauntered over to the unicorn and swiped three razor talons across Cotton’s cheek, leaving smooth cuts a tenth of an inch deep from her jaw to her lips. Cotton cried out in pain and surprise, recoiling from the princess. Blood immediately began dripping from her wounds, streaming down her face and falling to the dirt with soft pats.
Flash wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard everypony in the room but the princess gasp.
“That’s not very nice!” the pink one shouted.
“One guard is not as important to my prince’s plans as six Elements of Harmony. He can do this with or without you in the equation.” She idly wiped her red-tipped claws on Cotton’s fur.
“I will have a nurse tend to your wounds shortly and a servant to serve your meals thereafter.” The princess turned to leave. “See you in the morn.”
“One of your cronies gave the other guard a concussion.” Cotton said. “He’s stable, but it’s best to keep a nurse close by in case his symptoms get worse.”
Moyra threw Cotton Swab a look over her shoulder like a cat watching a mouse. “Very well.”
She nodded at Prince Gabriel. “Come, my dear.”
“Yes, Moyra.”
The princess left without a word more, but the prince hesitantly stopped to say “It was nice meeting you all.”
“Gabriel!”
“Coming!”
“...”
“Ain’t she a peach.” Rainbow Dash commented. (Yes! That’s two names!)
“I simply cannot believe such a barbaric bird exists in this world!” Rarity said, tossing her somewhat disheveled mane.
“Yeah,” Cotton said “gryphons are dicks.”
* * *
Blueblood drew the velvet red curtains open a crack, letting a golden streak of evening sunlight into the room. He peered with one eye out the window at the tangle of bridges and platforms that made up Spire City’s docking district. The end of the day was slow, with only a few stray sailors and a skiff-class airboat or two still floating about. It was quiet, but not too quiet.
He let the curtain fall back into place.
“Nephew, I recommend that you cease your incessant paranoia at once.” Princess Luna said from her cozy spot in the room’s only chair.
Fat chance, Moonbutt.
“Aunty, it’s paranoia that’s kept me alive these past three years.”
Luna peered over her book at the prince who had been pacing a hole in her chamber’s floor for the past hour. “It is not as gargantuan a problem as you believe it to be, Blueblood. So your bloodthirsty old flame for today just so happens to be a princess of a large gryphon tribe. All you need’st do is hide until the wedding draws to a close and we will soon have a raging ocean between you and her. Celestia and I will abuse our power a spell and pull your guards out of whatever cell they’ve likely been contained in before we are underway. We will be out of this wretched boiling jungle and back to Equestria before you know it.”
Blueblood let out a mumbling groan. “This one just doesn't feel right. I’ve never been the target of somepony with political power before.”
The princess hummed in agreement. “Everything will work out, you shall see.”
Knock knock knock. There came a light tapping at the door.
“Who is it that disturbs the princess of the night?” She asked in a bored tone without looking away from her book.
“Moondust, Your Grace.”
Luna licked a hoof and turned another page. “Enter.”
The door’s knob turned, the door cracked open, and a wiry dull grey stallion with eyes like a cat and ears that ended in tufts of fur poked his head in.
”I have urgent news, Your Highness.” The selenic said in a ragged tone like he had just ran an obstacle course.
“My dear servant, it’s always urgent with you ponies. Proceed.”
Beads of sweat formed on Moondust’s forehead. “The Elements of Harmony have been captured and are being held for ransom by Prince Gabriel.”
Blueblood stopped pacing. Luna dropped her book. They both shared one of those “oh shit, we’re in it deep now” looks.
“Take me to the duke.” Luna said, all traces of her normally dry tone disappearing in an instant.
“Duke Horacio, Princess?”
“What other dukes are there in this blasted city?!”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Luna shot a firm look at the prince. “Stay here.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
* * *
“HORACIO!”
Crash. The finely carved mahogany double doors with intricate and tasteful gold-leaf accents were reduced to a pile of splinters and firewood with only a single wave of a horn from the sovereign of the night. The princess stomped the remaining bits of the innocent doors to pieces as she strode further into the Duke’s mansion at the outskirts of the city, a squad of leather-winged selenic guards following in her wake.
This was not Luna who crossed the threshold into Horacio’s abode, not any more. Her coat of deep blue had darkened to a shade of black like fine ink. Her teeth had morphed from the flat, equine kind to a shape more suited for an apex predator. Her sparkling silver regalia was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a dull blue chestplate and helmet.
Luna was gone.
Nightmare Moon was on the prowl.
There stood a lone teenaged colt in a fine suit, looking as horrified as one might expect one to upon seeing a villain from a well-known fairytale kick down the door. It took all his concentration not to lose control of his bladder.
The demon looked right at him, her snake eyes piercing his body like twin lances.
“Where is your master?” she said slowly, inching her way closer to the colt until he was backed into a corner.
“Dining room. End of the hall. Door should be open.” The simple act of talking left the butler out of breath.
Nightmare Moon turned away and stormed off without another word, her pose of batponies following suit, almost hovering off of the ground like wraiths.
“Move to the city, ma said.” he murmured to himself. “Get yourself a nice job and a nice mare, you’ll be fine out on your own she said. Pah.”
* * *
Crash. Another set of somewhat smaller double-doors fell to the nightmare’s wrath.
Duke Horacio spilled his tea.
His jaw agape and his evening pretty much ruined, the leader of Maretonia watched Nightmare Moon herself galloped into his dining room, scattering his servants and lowering the room temperature about ten degrees.
The duke visibly grit his teeth and and slammed his hooves on the dining table. “Princess Luna! What in the bowels of Tartarus gives you the idea that you can barge into my home and destroy my property-”
“BE SILENT.” The royal Canterlot voice was indeed as harsh as he had heard. The force of her yelling had blown back his hair like a gale of wind. “Luna isn’t here, knave, you are speaking directly to Nightmare Moon! Not her weaker half.” She looked like she might’ve vomited at the mere mention of her less angry counterpart.
He coolly swept his mane back into place. “Intimidation won’t work on me, Your Bitchyness.”
“Sir!” A squad of silver-clad guards came clanking into the room, stopping dead in their tracks at the sight of the Nightmare. The selenic guards moved to intercept them with the full intention of starting a skirmish.
Horacio held up a hoof to stop them, not breaking his full eye contact with the princess. “Stand down. I’m all right here, just another idle threat. Leave us be.” The duke was holding his ground both metaphorically and literally.
“You all as well.” Nightmare Moon said to her own posse in a voice that was much cooler than how she spoke to the duke.
“Now tell me what has given you cause to invade my home unannounced.” he said.
“Do not play the fool, Duke!” the Nightmare spat, barking her fangs. “Did you truly think that my sisters and I would allow your abduction of Equestria’s greatest heroes to go unnoticed for a sssingle sssolitary sssecond?” She was starting to stretch her S’s like a snake.
The duke’s face would’ve made any professional poker player weep. “I haven’t got a clue what you're talking about, demon. Let me speak to Luna. Perhaps she can make some sense of your madness.”
“THIS IS NO MADNESSSS.” Her temper was back. It seemed like the angrier she became, the more the temperature in the room dropped. The Maretonian guards were shivering at this point. Horacio was almost sure he could see his breath.
“My sister and I were delivered the news that your son had detained five national heroes and a princess and is holding them for a ransom.”
The duke’s composure faltered. “My son would never do such a thing! Neither he nor I have any reason to do so. Equestria has nothing of value that we do not already receive in trade. I’m beginning to tire of these games, Nightmare.”
“Duke Horacio!” A new voice called. “I have a very important message from- AAH!”
A wiry pegasus mare halted like her hooves had turned to lead the moment she set her sights on Nightmare Moon.
“Is every last colt and filly in Maretoniea going to ruin my dinner or is it everypony accounted for?” the duke drawled sarcastically.
“I, uh, Sir, I’ve-” the mare stammered.
“OUT WITH IT, FOAL.”
“I’ve got a letter from your son marked very important okay bye!” The pegasus zipped back out the way she came, leaving only a few flying feathers and a sheet of paper that fluttered daintily to the floor.
Grumbling, the duke marched around his dinner table and picked up the slip of paper lying amidst the door debris.
“Dear Father,” he read aloud “As you may have heard by now, I have in my custody eight Equestrian-born ponies and one baby dragon, six of which are-” Horacio trailed off, his face growing less stony and more worried with each line he read.
“Do you believe me now, Duke?” Nightmare Moon was almost purring with smug satisfaction.
“By the sun and stars,” he breathed “it’s true.”
Horacio crumpled up the paper and chucked it at the wall. “I’ll have you know I had nothing to do with this! This is- this is- it’s pure rutting lunacy! I refuse even consider the fact that a twenty year old stoner with a spine make out of raw pasta and access to anything he could ever want would do such a thing!”
Nightmare looked at the smaller pony with a cold expression. “Perhaps it is not he who orchestrated this.”
The duke furrowed his royal brow. “Don’t look at me! I don’t want to provoke Equestria! Too many damn alicorns in my city to piss all of them off at once.”
“I was speaking of your son’s bride-to-be.”
“Moyra?” The duke scoffed. “Equestria and the western gryphon tribes have been nothing but live and let live to each other. What cause could she have?”
Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes. “I can think of one…”
“If you order now, I’ll throw in a second bored, absolutely free!”
“Boredom? Not even once!”
Pinkie Pie sighed, looking around at the other seven ponies trying desperately to ignore her and focus on something else, despite the sheer lack of anything to focus on.
“I am become bored, destroyer of fun!”
“PINKIE!” the other elements shouted in unison, making Flash’s head pound even harder and faster. What a day to be a guard.
Pinkie hung her head, her hair deflating slightly like someone had let the air out of it. “I’m sorry girls, not being able to run and jump and skip and dance is killing me!”
“Who knew getting abducted and held for ransom could be so dull?” Cotton snorted.
“Perhaps we can play a game to pass the time,” suggested Rarity.
“Let’s play I-Spy!” exclaimed Pinkie, her hair poofing back to its usual poofiness.
Rarity rolled her eyes.
“I spy with my little eye, something that is… bright orange.”
“It’s me.” Flash said instantly.
The pink one pursed her lips. “Hey, at least give somepony else a chance to think, Mr. Jumpsthegun!”
All was quiet.
“Is it Applejack?” Twilight asked.
“No, Flash was right. It was Flash.”
* * *
Nightmare Moon awkwardly shuffled her hooves.
Duke Horacio coughed.
Nopony spoke for the longest time. Both the Night Guard and the Duke’s Guard stood nearly frozen, swapping aside glances and shrugs with one another, unwilling to interrupt the painful silence that had erupted.
“It seems I owe you an apology.” the Nightmare said, unable to look the duke in his eyes.
“No.” Horacio replied hesitantly. “You merely… flipped out. J-just as any good ruler would! I think.”
“It seems the time for charades has passed.”
“It has?”
Right before the duke’s eyes, Nightmare Moon’s body began to glow with a faint white light. With a low hum of power, she shrunk slowly to the size of a pony about a head shorter and more than a hair thinner. The glow dissipated like smoke and, lo and behold, Princess Luna herself had returned.
“Ptew!” the princess spat out a set of pearly white dentures, it’s teeth filed to razor points. She casually hoofed them off to one of her selenic guards who stowed them in his pack.
“Neat trick.” the duke said.
“Aye, it is,” she said “I can never get the teeth right, though. You’d be amazed how hard dental spells are. It matters not anyway, my illusion was unsuccessful. ”
“Oh come now, Luna, you must remember who you’re speaking with!” He laughed. “I’ve been dealing with a tribe of angry, barbaric gryphonfolk since I could walk on my own four hooves. I’m as immune to intimidation as a fish is to drowning!”
Luna huffed, trotting over to Horacio’s dinner table. She levitated one of the chairs back and took a seat. The princess poured herself a piping lukewarm cup of tea and drank deeply.
“Help yourself.” Horacio muttered. “I wasn’t eating anyway.” He trotted to the other side and took his place, gesturing Luna to pass the cold pot of tea.
“You are dismissed, guards.” the duke said. “I’m in no danger here.”
The pose of ponies gave their sovereign a half- bow and began to file out.
“Oh, and if anypony breathes a word of this, you’ll be spending the rest of your days as hemp farmers.”
“Yes sir.” they all said in perfect unison.
“Good.”
“You may wait outside as well.” Luna told her own group, who then followed suit.
The duke took a sip of tea. “So I suppose we should wait for your sister to discuss what there is to be done about this veritable menagerie of problems.”
“What is there to discuss?” Luna said, a scowl turning her fair visage ugly. “We ascertain the location of hostages, rescue them, and bring their captors to justice!”
“They’ve yet to make any demands.” he said, placing a dinner roll on to his plate. “We should wait until the demands are made before we rush headlong into a hostage situation.”
Princesses Luna looked as if Horacio had made a joke about how overweight her mother was. “Are you seriously considering negotiations?!”
The duke took another drink of tea, eyeing the princess with a neutral expression over his cup. “Who knows? Perhaps if it truly is Moyra, then all she wants is to not be married off to my son. Granted, the lack of any official political ties would stymie our merging with the gryphon tribes, but the safety of my Equestrian guests is a higher priority. We have forever to make peace with the catbirds.”
“My little ponies do not have that kind of time.”
* * *
Pinkie Pie beamed, her bright smile seemed to “Oh! How about this one: Somepony think of an object, and we can ask you twenty questions about that object to guess what it is.”
“Sounds alright to me.” Applejack fidgeted in her chair.
“Why don’t you start, A.J.?”
“Well, alrighty. Hmmm… I think I got it.”
Rainbow Dash snickered “Is it an apple?”
“Consarn it, Dash! How’d ya guess?”
“Luck.”
“Ooo, can it be my turn?” The quiet yellow one asked. Flash still forgot her name. Frankly, he had forgotten she was there.
“Sure!”
“Okay, uhh. I think I have one.”
Twilight smirked. “Is it an animal?”
She seemed to shrink in her bindings. “Y-yes.”
“It’s a bunny.” Dash said.
“Close, but-”
“Nope! Totally an alligator!”
“N-nice guess, Pinkie, but-”
“Puppy?”
“No.”
“Mouse?”
“No.”
“Kitty?”
“No.”
“Birdie?”
“No.”
“I’m running out of cute Fluttershy-ey things. Is it cute?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Dolphin?”
“No.”
“Penguin?”
“No.”
“Okay, I give up, what is it?”
“It’s an angler fish.”
“What’s an angler fish?”
“I think it’s a fish that fishes for other fishes.”
"Kind of."
Knock knock knock.
The banter grinded to an instant halt as there came a knock knock knocking at the door.
Silence.
Then another two knocks. Then three more.
More silence.
"You know we can't open the door, right?" Rainbow Dash blurted in her not-so-indoor voice, driving a spike through Flash's head.
"Oh, that's right. Sorry, guys."
Creak. In came a slightly chubby brown-coated earth pony with baggy eyes and a distinct scent of herbs to him.
"Well looky here, ain't this a surprise." AJ drawled. "What can we do ya fer, oh great prince of Maretoneya."
"You can't do anything, you're tied up." he said with a completely straight face.
The collective eye-rolls could be heard for miles.
Gabriel pulled up an empty chair and plopped himself down. "Sorry to barge in on ya, but I'm pretty sure my fiancé won't look for me in here. She don't like it when I'm baked."
Pinkie Pie gasped "That's terrible! I'd never marry someone who doesn't like baking!"
"Huh? Oh. Right-on then, cotton candy mare."
The prince had a serious thousand-yard stare going on. His red, watery eyes were permanently fixed to the wall. "Anyway I just wanted to talk to someone that would maybe listen, you know? The ol' gal is killing me."
"Gee it sounds like your life is so hard." Cotton mocked a sympathetic tone.
Like the many airships that passed over Maretonia, the sarcasm flew over the prince’s head. "I know, right? Damn, I might be out of my gourd right now, but even I can see she hates me. Not like an "I hate cabbage and wasps" kind of hate but a "I will throw you into a volcano and tell your mom that you slipped" kind. I mean, I don't like the arranged marriage any more than her, you don't see me dangling servants off of a balcony. Maybe that's just how she is all the time, though. Dunno. I only met her, like, a week ago."
The girls shared a glance. With a few minor grunts and facial expressions, they held an entire conversation without a word.
Twilight cleared her throat. "Well then, uhh, she's clearly an evil villain out to destroy your life!"
"Even I'm a better liar than that!" Applejack whispered.
"Shhh!"
"You really think so, Princess?"
"Of course! Trust us, we know evil like we know how to breathe."
“Right on. Makes sense, I guess.” The prince’s hoof disappeared into his robe, emerging with a thin roll of paper wrapped around something that was most certainly not tobacco. Striking a match, the prince proceeded to roast a bone.
He took a deep drag, instantly generating a skunky stench and eliciting a quiet cough. He stared into the ceiling for a few pregnant moments, then let out a wispy cloud of smoke.
He gestured the blunt to the other ponies, his voice far back in his throat. “Anypony want a hit?”
They all shook their heads, murmuring quiet nos.
He rubbed the lit end of the non-cigarette into the wall and stashed it back in his pocket. “More for me I guess. So, uh… What was I talking about?”
“Your wife.”
“Oh yeah. What a bummer. So if she’s really evil, like, what should I do?”
“UNTIE US.” everypony minus Flash and the yellow quiet one growled at him.
Gabriel blinked in slow shock. “Woah, dudes, be mellow. I get you. I probs shoulda done this earlier, huh? Load off my chest since, you know, I didn’t wanna tie anypony up in the first place. I feel really bad about that, by the way. It was all Moyra’s idea you-”
Knock knock knock.
“Gabriel?! Are you in there?!” Her voice was like a seagull trying to sing hardcore death metal.
For the first time in as long as she remember, Twilight Sparkle cursed under her breath.
“No!” the prince shouted back.
Flash was too tied up to properly facehoof.
In came the gryphon tribal, strutting inside with that air of “don’t piss me off or I will cut you like a loaf of bread” about her.
“What are you doing in here?”
He was like a kid caught with his hoof in the pot-brownie jar. “N-nothing, dear.”
Gabriel visibly shrunk back as Moyra crept closer to him. The gryphon grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back out like a sack of cinder blocks.
“I told you not to talk to the guests, and what do you do? You talk to the gods-damned guests. I swear, if you weren’t Horacio’s precious little shi-”
Slam. Their voices dulled to inaudibility as the door was wrenched shut.
“...”
“So who’s up for another round of twenty Q?”
* * *
“You know what I’ve always wondered?” asked Flash, once again tearing through the pregnant silence. “If the princesses are of the highest authority in Equestria, why aren’t they queens?”
Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow. “That came out of nowhere.”
“I was just making conversation.” Flash said irritably. “Maybe talking to somepony will keep my mind off of my head.”
“To be fair, dear, that was actually a good question.” Rarity said, nodding her head toward the guard.
“I actually ain’t never thought of that.” Applejack added.
Everypony looked at Twilight, who was staring off into space.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Why are the princesses princesses and not queens?”
“How the hay should I know?”
“Yer a princess yourself dagnabbit!”
“Oh, right. Well, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!”
“No. Should I?”
“Sweetie, you’ve associated with the most powerful ponies in Equestria most of your life and became an alicorn yourself and you’ve never even thought to ask them this?”
“Not a single time.”
Rumble. The earth shook. Clouds of dust and loose dirt fell from the walls.
“I had no idea Maretonia was on a fault line.” Rarity commented as she tried in vain to blow the dust out of her milky coat, only succeeding in making herself lightheaded.
Rumble.
“It’s not.” Twilight said.
“Does anypony else hear that?” Spike’s voice echoed from within his pewter prison.
The ponies fell silent, straining their ears.
“It sounds like… purring or, uh, Humming?” Rainbow Dash managed a half-shrug in her bindings. “I don’t know.”
“Like a hummingbird?” Flutterquiet (WAS that her name?) asked.
“Sounds more like a motor.” Cotton said.
“Why would anypony need a motor underground?”
The medic narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we’re not underground.”
* * *
Princess Celestia furrowed her brow as she peered through the eyeglass at a distant shape floating through the towers on the other side of Spire City. It was a black blotch against her golden orange sun that grew dimmer by the minute as it kissed the horizon.
She, her sister, Prince Blueblood, his guard, and Duke Horacio were gathered on the the polished granite balcony of the duke’s mansion home nestled into the side of a hill, seeming to hang off the rock in a way that reminder her of Canterlot. By the sun and stars, she missed Canterlot already. Maretonia, as beautiful as it was, had too much hustle and bustle for her. Not to mention the hostage situation. Things like that tend to sway one’s opinion of a place.
Celestia could hear the duke growl under his breath.”That isn’t right. All air traffic should have been halted.”
He gestured for the telescope.”May I?”
The princess gently floated it down to the earth pony, who took it in his hooves and closed one eye.
“Yes, it’s my son all right. No other pony besides him, my generals, and I have the authority to order a boat in the air past curfew.” The duke sighed. “Not a clue what they’re doing, though.”
“Perhaps they are trying to escape?” Blueblood suggested.
Horacio shook his head, not turning away from the eyeglass. “It would be foolish. That boat is one of our freighters. We’ve got at least a dozen models that can outrun and outgun it.”
“Then perhaps we should investigate.” Luna said, cutting between her sister and the duke to put both of her forehooves on the balcony rail.
“What are you-”
Woosh. Like a hawk diving for a chihuahua the night princess threw herself from the railing nose first, falling at speeds that would make a non-pegasus puke before unfurling her wings not fifty feet from the ground and snapping upward to a sensible height, leaving a brief U-shaped trail of glittering stars in her wake.
“I hate it when she does that.” Celestia commented, before hopping up upon the railing herself and doing exactly the same thing except with a own trail of warm glowing light. In mere moments the two were on their way to the shipping district of Spire City, leaving Blueblood, Xander, and the duke alone.
“Alicorns.” Horacio huffed. “Not every ruler has wings and an indefinite lifespan, you know.”
Prince Blueblood cracked a small smirk at Xander. “Tell me about it.”
“May as well follow suit. Chives! Tell the guard to ready my skiff. Chives? Blast, where has that colt gone to?”
* * *
The hulking machine of wood and steel crept across the city skyline like a stormcloud, flying low and close enough to the buildings to cast a wide shadow over the city’s crisscrossing walkways and balconies. Citizens of all shapes and sizes gathered outside their homes and stuck their heads out windows to witness a local airship flying well below it’s class’s minimum altitude. Some of them panicked, others just watched the ship carefully, keeping their eyes peeled for any possible- and perhaps probable -happening.
Princess Moyra leaned over the side of her newly commandeered skyboat, eying the ponies scattered below like children on a playground, always curious, sticking their muzzles where they don’t belong and yet managing to stay so naive. Moyra didn’t particularly like ponies. They had a weakness found in few other races, always so obsessed with making peace and making friends. They’d willingly merge their country and culture with another one they knew nothing of, all to save themselves a little bloodshed every now and again.
Not that she was complaining, of course. While the colorful people rejected the glory and honor of battle, they were quite good at farming cash crops. Hemp was their business, and business was booming. They could take one little plant and turn it into rope, string, cloth, food, and a whole hell of a lot of painkiller. Between the might of the gryphon’s warrior tribes and the wealth of the ponies’ coffers, there would be a great country. The greatest. She didn’t have to like her country’s partners, just play nice with them.
Moyra threw a look over her shoulder at her so-called husband-to-be, an oaf lazing around squandering his life away with cannabis and meaningless frivolities, daring to call himself a stallion. What a waste. Perhaps one day she could save him, turn him into more than a leech on his father’s wealth, teach him what it means to be a part of the world. It would be a long, arduous task, but the gryphon was sure that she could mold him into one worthy of her love.
But that was a quest for a later date. The princess had to focus at the task at claw, exacting justice on the liar. Perhaps her marriage didn’t even matter, as the path she had set herself on would likely lead to the wedding being called off. Though, she cared little. The unification of the tribes and Maretonia was inevitable, she merely slowed the process. All she wanted at that moment was the Equestrian prince that dared cross her.
“The item you require, princess.” a guard-servant drew the gryphon away from her thoughts, presenting to her a necklace of quicksilver, it’s gleaming surface carved with ornate pattern that depicted the gusting wind over a raging ocean.
She swiped it from the guard, who bowed her head and made herself scarce without hesitation.
The sensation of the artifact around her neck was an odd one. Enchanted quiksilver items were a rarity, especially outside of Equestria, and using something like that was quite a unique experience. Her throat felt warm and tingly like she had just downed a beakfull of wine while the feathers that came into contact with the pendant seemed to stand on end.
“Let’s see if this thing works…” Moyra mumbled.
“PONIES OF MARETONIA.”
Yep. Just like Princess Luna.
If the gryphon royal on commandeered cargo boat hadn’t already drawn the attention of everypony within a half-mile, she did then.
“I AM HERE UPON THIS VESSEL TO OFFER ALL OF SPIRE CITY A DEAL.”
Moyra glanced at the west horizon, making mental note of several smaller military vessels rising from their slumber like angry dragons.
“STORED INSIDE THE CARGO HOLD OF THIS AIRBOAT ARE SIX PONIES OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO YOUR MOTHER COUNTRY IN A LEAD CRATE. THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY THEMSELVES. AS YOU MAY KNOW, THESE KINDS OF FREIGHT SHIPS HAVE CARGO BAY DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE BOTTOM. SHOULD I WISH TO DO SO, I CAN OPEN THEM WITH BUT A WORD TO MY CREW, RELEASING THEM TO THE MERCY OF GRAVITY.”
“I CAN BE PERSUADED NOT TO DO SUCH AN ABOMINABLE THING. BRING TO ME AN EQUESTRIAN BY THE NAME OF PRINCE BLUEBLOOD. HE IS A UNICORN STALLION WITH GOLDEN BLONDE HAIR AND A COAT AS WHITE AS MILK. A REWARD OF THREE POINT FIVE THOUSAND BITS WILL BE GIVEN TO THE PONY OR PONIES WHO PRESENT HIM TO ME UNHARMED.”
“SHOULD YOUR MILITARY WISH TO INTERFERE, THEY WILL BE DROPPED.”
Moyra paused to take a sip of water.
“PONIES OF MARETONIA, I AM HERE UPON THIS VESSEL TO OFFER ALL OF SPIRE CITY A DEAL.”
* * *
“This is some high-powered industrial grade bullshit.” Glaive remarked, casting a glance at the ominous black box placed over the cargo bay doors.
“Stay focused, Corporal.” Grey Garrison muttered.
“How could you be so calm!?” the younger stallion demanded. “We’re literally helping some foreign catbird take Equestrian royalty and national heros hostage. We should be throwing her in a jail cell right now!”
The guard nickered. “Prince’s orders.”
“The prince is a pussywhiped idiot.”
“Language.” Grey said. “And besides, nothing’s going to happen. I saw something like this when we were still fighting the catbirds. Safest place you can be is in the custody of your enemies when you’re a royal. Only the mad actually make good on their threats when they've got a bargaining chip to end all bargaining chips.”
“And do you think she is?”
“Is what?”
“Mad.”
Gray Garrison furrowed his brow, choosing not to respond for a minute. Glaive thought the conversation was already over when he spoke again. “That’s a good question, Corporal.”
“A very good question. Right now, we’re in biggest game of poker this city’s seen.”
“More like a game of chicken.” the corporal said.
“All we can do is sit back, and wonder who has what cards in their hooves. We don’t know if she had a face, an ace, or a measly pair of twos. She could have a joker up her ass for all we know. But you can count on one thing, she’s already anted up everything she has, and this one can’t afford to fold. It’s an all-or-nothing bet on the last card of the hand. This, as they say, is it.”
Glaive chuckled. “I love poker metaphors.”
“Damn straight.”
Chapter the Twelfth: A Ballad for a Blushing Bride
“...INSIDE THE CARGO HOLD OF THIS AIRBOAT ARE SIX PONIES OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO YOUR MOTHER COUNTRY IN A LEAD CRATE. THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY THEMSELVES. AS YOU MAY KNOW, THESE KINDS OF FREIGHT SHIPS HAVE CARGO BAY DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE BOTTOM. SHOULD I WISH TO DO SO, I CAN OPEN THEM WITH BUT A WORD TO MY CREW, RELEASING THEM TO THE MERCY OF GRAVITY.”
On and on the Moyra went, barking out the same mantra over and over like a broken record. Had the ponies of Spire City not been preoccupied with the hostage aspect of the situation, they would’ve become quite annoyed after the first five or so times.
The repetition was broke by another voice, both louder and more pissed off.
“MOYRA.”
The gryphon winced a bit as the new voice’s owner swooped into view. Out of seemingly nowhere, Princess Celestia swooped down in all of her alabaster glory, followed closely by her darker- and angrier -sister. Under different circumstances, the gryphon princess would have been genuinely honored to have earned a visit from both of the original diarchs at the same time.
Of course, she will likely never have a chance like that ever again.
“RELEASE THEM.” Wow. Moyra wasn’t even one hundred percent sure Celestia could even use the royal Canterlot voice until then.
The two rulers hovered a healthy distance from her ship, not making a move or a show of force, they simply flapped their wings and glared at the griffon. It was surreal seeing the leaders of Equestria as anything but composed and in control. To witness this break in their composure felt...oddly gratifying.
Moyra leisurely unhooked the clasp on her necklace and gestured for a guard to come and take it.
“So, that’s your opening demands, “release them”? Please, Your Majesties, it’s as if you don’t know how hostage negotiations work. I mean, it wouldn’t be much of a negotiation if I just gave up because you asked. You didn’t even ask nicely, either.”
Like Moyra had flipped a switch, the princess of the night went beserk. Her eyes lit up with a white-hot glow like someone had thrown a flammable night sky on a barbecue. She darted straight for the griffon princess with all the righteous fury an alicorn could muster. “WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH-”
Luna was cut off when her advances were halted by Celestia telekinetically grabbing hold of her tail. The princess’s hooves stopped only a few feet from planting them in Moyra’s face.
“Let us not resort so quickly to violence.” The sun scolded the moon like a mother giving her foal a time-out.
“Soo…” Moyra gestured back and forth between the princesses with a claw. “Is this like a good cop-bad cop thing? Coz, I’ve seen it before. What else you got?”
“Moyra!”
Another gryphoness with a more mature body and feathers a similar shade of jungle green to the princess glided into view just as the alicorn duo did.
“Hello, Mother.” Moyra said with a grim tone.
“High Feather Tianna,” Princess Celestia greeted, softening her voice “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced yet.”
“Save it for someone who cares, Your Grace.” the spiritual leader of the gryphon tribes squaked. “I’ve come here to speak with my spawn.”
“Like mother like daughter.” Luna muttered under her breath.
In a rush of feathers and wings, Tianna landed on the deck of the ship and seriously invaded her daughter’s personal space. “What in the twisting tunnels of Tartarus do you think you’re doing, girl?!”
Moyra didn’t give any ground to her mother. She stood up a little straighter and taller than Tianna and spoke in a louder tone, trying to force the older gryphon back. “What needs to be done! I don’t expect you or father to understand, so stay out of my way and we can speak of this after my business has concluded.”
Tianna didn’t back off either, their foreheads were nearly touching. “I should have married you off to a pig farmer the moment you became of age. Perhaps then you would have learned not to be be a spoiled treasonous little shit like your siblings.”
The alicorn sisters hadn’t even seen drunken stallions put on such a display of testosterone.
“A pig farmer would have suited me better than a royally worthless lump of cannabis and failure! And do not speak of my brothers and sisters! They have no part in this! Besides, you have no say in this matter either, mother.” Celestia could have sworn she heard the growling of a lion. “The prince will be delivered to me and then we can go on with the wedding just as planned.”
“Ha!” The mature gryphon laughed in her face. Literally. “Do you actually believe that anybody in this country or ours will allow a wedding to proceed after what you’ve done? You judgement is clouded and your heart is filled with blind hate, you’ve lost all of your ability to reason. You’re finally showing your true colors, Moyra. I can see it in your aura.”
“Should we intervene?” Princess Luna muttered to her sister.
“No way, this is getting good.” Celestia whispered back.
“Who doesn’t love a family drama?”
“I am perfectly reasonable!” the princess howled, taking a step back and gesturing fervently toward the horizon. “My enemy is out there somewhere, within my grasp. I have dreamed about this day for years and it’s more than I ever could have imagined. What honorable gryphon would refuse such an opportunity?”
“This is madness!”
“Is it!?” Moyra was hysteric by now, her feathers ruffled up and her eyes several shades of crazy. “It’sno different than your incessant ramblings of gods and nature spirits and auras! If wanting justice is madness, then I’m positively batshit! ”
“You mistake justice for vengeance, my dear.”
“And you mistake vengeance for...For-!” The girl’s rage faltered for a moment as she searched for words. “Aaaggh! This doesn’t matter!”
The High Feather of the gryphon tribes was too absorbed in the argument to notice Moyra’s claw come up from below. A set of talons was already halfway across her face before she could react. Tianna recoiled with a shout, bounding back a few paces and clutching her new wounds.
She retracted her talons, starring in an almost confused daze at the crimson liquid that flowed from her face.
All signs of emotion left her voice. “If this is your choice, then so be it. Allow your aura to be corrupted and your claim to the throne forfeited. May the gods see fit not to devour your soul.”
Tianna turned toward the princesses. “I leave you to pass judgement on her.”
And with that, she flew off.
* * *
Less than a mile away, an unusually ornate Yacht-class vessel about the size of a Ponyville cottage crawled toward the center of Spire City’s attention. Sitting in the enclosed cabin behind the comically large ship’s wheel was Duke- or as he prefered to be named on his ship -Captain Horacio. The Captain stood on two hind legs, supporting his weight on the rim on the nautical-style wheel as he stared ahead with a stony gaze.
His eyes gave the milky white prince and his guard sitting off to the side a brief glance before returning to the towers ahead.
“So you’re sure you’re what she wants? There’s no possibility the catbird could want money or land or something a bit more valuable? No offense.”
“There is not a doubt in our minds.” Blueblood said, sharing a look with Xander.
“Then why come with me? It’d be safer to stay at the mansion with a regiment of guards rather than into the heart of the storm.”
“Honestly,” Blueblood got up and tentatively trotted up beside the Duke “I’ve half a mind to give myself up.”
Xander put a hoof on the prince’s shoulder and forcibly spun him around to look upon the zony’s absolutely horrified expression.
“I know I know!” he said a bit louder than he intended to “But take a look at what I’ve gotten this whole city into! Never has my past put so many ponies into so much danger. I- I don’t think I could live with myself if this whole ordeal turns sour…”
Blueblood was pacing now. Back and forth back and forth between the walls of the cabin. “It’s my fault. And I need to own up to my mistakes. Giving myself up would be the safest course of action for everypony.”
“Except you.” the captain added.
“Is my singular life equal the several lives being held hostage?”
Horacio hesitated.
“Not from a mathematical standpoint.”
“Then I’m an acceptable casualty. I surrender to her, she releases the elements and my…”
Blueblood’s head felt as light as a feather and his gut as heavy as a brick.
“...my friends too.”
”It’s your funeral, kiddo.” The captain snorted. “I woke up in a good mood this morning, you know. My son was about to be married to somepony respectable, my country was about to enter an era of peace, and a boatload of rich Equestrian tourists were throwing around bits like dirt. Now the bride’s a certified psycho, my son’s going to either end up dead or single, and I’m responsible for allowing eight Equestrian citizens to be captured and ransomed.”
Blueblood gave a barely perceptible nod. “I don’t think anypony could get a shorter stick.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Xander hummed.
* * *
“LET ME OUTTA HEE-EEE-EEE-EER!
Rainbow Dash shouted at the top of her lungs as she thrashed in her bindings, causing the chair to dance back and forth from one pair of legs to another.
Flash wanted to rub his temples in hopes of dislodging the invisible pike that had split his skull in half.
“I’M SO SICK OF THIS PLACE I COULD DIE.”
Rainbow crashed, falling face first into the prison’s unswept floor.
She struggled a bit, then managed to roll over onto her back. “I haven’t flown in hours. I think I’m losing my mind.Guys, if I go crazy and try to axe-murder you all like that one egghead writer pony from The Shineighing, it’d be okay if you beat me to death.”
“Nopony’s killing is killing anypony.” Cotton Swab interjected. “It hasn’t even been a whole day yet. At least I think so. Hard to tell when you can’t see the sun.”
“I-If anypony goes crazy, at least I’ll be safe in here.” Spike’s voice echoed from within his pewter barrel. “That’s not going to happen, r-right?”
“Of course not, you silly little dragon.” Rarity assured, speaking up so her voice carried through his stone cage. “It’s just Dash being Dash, no need to worry.”
“Okay, Rarity. Whatever you say.”
Wait a second.
“Um, Twilight?” Cotton said cautiously, eyeing the barrel. “Spike can breath fire, right?”
“Of course I can!” Nopony saw Spike proudly puff up his chest. “Wanna see?”
Woosh. Before anypony could answer him, a neon red jet of magical fire erupted from the bunghole of the barrel, the flames licked at Flash Sentry’s hind legs, causing the unlucky guard to cry out in pain and flail his hooves to and fro.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” He beat his hanging hooves together, putting out the small patches of fire that left the fur blackened and smouldering. The acrid scent of burnt hair filled the room, forcing everypony to crinkle their noses.
“My, what a stench.”
“Why me?!”
“S-sorry!”
“Barely a first degree.” Cotton said. “Don’t be such a baby. But this is perfect, though. Rainbow Dash!”
“Nuh?”
“Can you scoot over and maneuver your bindings so that they face the bunghole?”
The pegasus snickered. “Bunghole…”
“This is serious, filly!”
“Okay, fine, I can try.”
With a series of over exaggerated grunts and the mare shifting her body weight every which way, Rainbow managed to hop her way over to Flash’s hooves with the back end of the chair facing the dragon’s barrel like a fish out of water.
“Hi Dash!” Spike said.
“Heya, twerp. Can you get that for me?”
“No problem!”
“You may want to move your hooves this time, Flash.” Cotton said with a manure-eating smirk.
Woosh - take two. A second, albeit less intense jet of dragonfire emanated from the opening like a blowtorch, licking the very edge of Rainbow Dash’s rope bindings.
Snap. In a cloud of rope fibers, the pegasus was free. Rainbow’s hooves reached for the sky and her wings flared. She gave a mighty groan of satisfaction and stretched out the stiffness in her joints.
“Oooooaaaahhhh yeaaaahh… I needed that.”
The pegasus rolled her shoulders and neck, creating several sick popping sounds.
AJ was getting impatient. “So are ya gonna untie us or what, Dash?”
“Oh, right.”
* * *
Several yards of rope later...
“Can somepony get this chunk of lead off of my head now? My neck is starting to hurt.” Twilight asked, waving her metal-encased horn and nearly poking somepony’s eye out. It was getting a bit crowded in that little room since everypony was up and about.
“Dexterous claws to the rescue!” Spike, who didn’t at all look like what Flash expected a baby dragon to look like, hopped up on Princess Twilight’s back and crawled on her like a monkey. He stood tiptoed on the back of her neck to unlatch a small steel clasp. After that was undone, the anti-magic device split in half and fell to the floor with a thud. He repeated this both with Cotton and Rarity.
“Weeelll aallllrighty then!” Cotton’s horn lit up to its signature crimson red, illuminating the otherwise dim room room with an eerie glow. “Time to get out sorry flanks out of hee-yah. Fillies and children first!”
“Um, Cotton, I don’t think that’s a good-”
Too late.
An orb of solid arcane energy materialized at the end of Cotton Swab’s horn and was released with a flick of her neck.
Instead of punching a pony-sized hole through their prison like the medic thought it would, the sphere rebounded off of the wall like a golf ball and hit the opposite wall, which it bounced off of in the same way, then again and again over and over as fast as a bolt of lightning. Bounce bounce bounce bounce. Off the wall, off the floor, off of Flash, off everything in there until Cotton finally willed it to dissipate.
Flash Sentry wanted to complain, but honestly he was too tired to do something so exhausting, so he settled for a wordless groan.
“This room is lined with lead, you dimwit!” Twilight growled. Her hooves came up instantly to cover her mouth the moment what she had just said registered in her mind. “S-sorry!”
“I, uh. Yeah, that was my poor judgement.”
“Why the heck did you think it was cool to just fire some kind of spell in a tiny room?!” Dash brazenly demanded.
“I didn’t know it was made of lead, okay?”
“What does that have anything to do with anything?!”
“Lead is the only known metal known to repel magic, dear.” Rarity pushed through the crowd and put a reassuring hoof on the back of Dash’s neck.
“It’s kind of like two magnets with the positive or negative ends facing each other!” Twilight added.
Rainbow Dash only grunted. “In Equestrian, not egghead.”
Applejack rolled her eyes.
The farmer pointed to the black wall of the room “Rubber.”
Then she pointed to Rarity’s horn. “Glue.”
“Makes sense I guess.”
“So… we’re still stuck here.” Twilight sighed. “It was a good idea anyway, Cotton. At least we can move.”
“Agh!” The princess stomped her hooves on the floor like a foal in time-out. “I can’t stand this! If we had a piece of paper and a pen we could contact Celestia with Spike’s dragon magic. Does she know we’re even gone? Is she looking for us? I need to know!”
“Dragon magic, Your Highness?” Flash echoed. “Like, what kind?”
“Moving-over-distance.” Twilight answered.
“Like teleportation?”
“No, normal teleportation is based on phasing through subspace, and most of the pathways are blocked by lead. Spike knows a special dragon spell that can break down things into tiny dust-sized particles and move them over vast distances so long as there isn’t an airtight wall between him and the recipient.” She recited the information like it was from a textbook. “Whatever is being sent can slip through the tiniest of cracks. Seeing as how we aren’t suffocating yet, there must be ample space to get something through.
“It’s the only dragon spell I know.” Spike added. “Wish I knew more, but hey, I’m just a kid.”
“Like… how big can the things you send be?” Flash eyed the baby dragon ponderously, who quickly tensed up a bit and unconsciously twiddled his claws with a fake smile in response to the sudden attention.
“I dunno. Twilight once told me to send a Princess Celestia a statue of herself as a prank when we were younger. It was pretty big, and I was so drained of my magic I couldn’t send anything for like a week after that.”
“And they appear exactly as they left?”
“Down to the smallest of scribbles.” Twilight interjected. “What are you getting at?”
“Could he send a pony?”
The princess eyes went as big as the flat of her hoof. “You’re not seriously considering-? I mean, uh, yeah it has worked in the past according to some studies I’ve read, but it could be dangerous. At least two of the mages I’ve read about have died from this.”
Flash nodded, ignoring the twinge of pain in his head. “Then either Lieutenant Cotton or I will try to get word to the princess. Everypony else is much too important to take such a risk.”
The princess of friendship was taken aback. “You guys would do it just like that? Not even taking time to think about it? Because there is a significant chance that you’d spend the rest of your life as dust on the wind.”
“We’re willing to take the risk.”
“We? Woah, woah don’t look at me!” Cotton interjected. “I’m not a thousand twenty-something years old. Age before beauty, sister.”
Flash tried not to visibly cringe in front of the princess. “Then I’ll be the one do it. After all, It’s my job to protect you and the elements.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Flash sighed. “Just allow me to do it, please, Your Grace.”
The princess furrowed her brow and cast her eyes toward the floor. “I suppose, I can’t force you. Well, I can but I won’t.”
“Spike.” Twilight murmured softly to her little friend, nudging him toward Flash. “Do your best and he’ll turn out fine.”
The baby dragon gulped. “O-okay.”
Everypony cleared away from Flash like he was a bomb ready to blow.
Flash Sentry took a breath in through his nostrils, then let it all out slowly, temporarily soothing his nagging headache.
“Do it.”
After a moment's hesitation, Spike spread his feet, clenched his fists, tilted his head back, and took a long, deep breath.
“Next stop, Princess Celestia.”
Flash was engulfed in a rush of green fire.
The way he went up kind of reminded the ponies of a really dry peice of paper. Once second he was smoking like a chimney, the next he was lit up like a christmas tree. The guard just disintegrated into a thick cloud of ash that quickly dissipated into nothingness. The only evidence that a pony stood there a split second ago was a faint scorch mark in the shape of a pegasus.
* * *
Princess Luna gritted her teeth as she witnessed Moyra’s own mother leave.
“Now may we use violence?”
“No!” Celestia’s voice was uncharacteristically hard.
She fluttered within earshot of her sister leaning in so that only they would hear. Moyra idly picked at her teeth and watched the two exchange whispers with a pleased expression on her face. ”We are going to resolve this, and nopony is going to get hurt.”
“It is clear that Moyra is beyond reason. She would not listen to her own mother, what makes you think two strangers would fair any better? We could take her right now and nopony will judge us for it.”
“Then we risk losing the Elements!” Celestia tried to stomp her foot, but only hit thin air. “I will not gamble with their lives.”
“Moyra!”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Now what?”
The princesses broke their huddle and turned their necks to see Duke Horacio’s personal skyship creeping toward the scene. At the bow of the ship stood Prince Blueblood, a megaphone in one hoof and the other clinging to the railing.
“There is no need to hold anypony prisoner any longer!” he yelled into the device.
The prince paused to think a moment, then added “Besides me.”
Now, due to the facts that gryphon’s have beaks, they lack any facial expressions that would involve lips. Despite this, the princesses would be damned if that girl wasn't grinning like a foal before her Hearth’s Warming presents.
“Well now who am I gonna give a fortune in bits to?” The gryphon produced a shiny silk drawstring pouch, sagging and jingling with the weight of golden coins.
She casually let the purse slip from her claws and overboard, plunging deep into the forest below.
“I’ve got like twenty more of those in the captain's quarters.”
“Very funny.” Blueblood said, now within less than twenty yards of the ship. He turned back to make a gesture at the pilot’s cabin. “Now prepare to be boarded.”
“Nephew!” Luna cried as she put herself right in the duke’s ship’s path, forcing its pilot to halt. “I refuse to let you turn yourself into the clutches of a mad princess!”
“Luna is right, Blueblood.” Celestia agreed, following suit. “We can negotiate this without everypony walking away without chains on their hooves.”
“You know how these mares are.” The prince said, with a calmness that nopony would expect, seeing as how he was most certainly walking into either death or a fate much worse. “They cannot be persuaded, bribed, or reasoned with. I’m so sorry. To all of you.”
Blueblood’s posture slumped and his shoulder sagged. “I didn’t mean to drag anyone into such a mess. I thought I could coast on by without getting anypony else hurt, but this… I caused this. Me. All of it. That’s why I want to fix it. It’s the only way I can avoid hurting somepony else.”
“I won’t allow it!” The prince could have sworn that two jets of smoke blast from Luna’s nostrils like a broken steam pipe.
“I’m not asking your permission.” The prince turned around and nodded at Xander.
Xander cocked an eyebrow at his friend.
“Do it.”
Frowning, the zony and the prince locked forelegs, and Xander balanced as best he could on three legs. Round and round they spun, like a top on steroids. They spun until the wind whipped in their ears.
“It’s been a pleasure, Xan!” the prince yelled.
Woosh. Xander released the prince’s leg and off he went, flying like an eagle off of the deck of the ship, over the dumfounded princess, and onto the deck of Moyra’s ship with a crash that could break limbs.
He looked up into the face of a very please gryphon. “Let’s get this over w-”
“No!”
Before the prince could pick himself up and dust himself off, Princess Luna swooped in and snatched the prince with magic, plucking him from the catbird, and flying off with wingpower that could blow over a tree.
“Luna!” Celestia called after her. If Luna had heard, she did not respond. The princess kept the floating prince close and raced off into the canopy of the jungle, being swallowed up by the dense foliage.
* * *
Pop.
The next thing that Flash Sentry knew, he was falling.
End-over-end the pegasus spun like a top, uselessly failing every limb and extremity as the wind whipped in his ears and ruffles his feathers. If his concussion before the spell was being hit with a hammer, then after the spell was like being hit by a train.
He was screaming all the way, of course.
The world around him spun like he was in a planet-sized washing machine. Through his watering eyes, all the guard could see was a blur of sky blue, jungle green, and cloud grey blended together into a kaleidoscope of earthly colors.
Then the pegasus realized that he was a pegasus and spread his wings out, trying to slow his descent and maybe fight his way to a much safer glide down. Unfortunately a few hours of being tightly bound to his sides left Flash’s wings slightly better than useless with how numb they were.
Oh, by the Sisters. This was a lot messier way to kick the bucket than by dragonfire. At least he would already be cremated and had his ashes spread had he died from the spell, but now he would have to be a burden on some poor sap who would have had to scrape him off the floor of the forest or from the branch of a tree. The funeral would definitely have to be closed-casket.
“This is gonna hurt.” was Flash’s final thought before he hit the ground.
Well, at least he thought he had hit the ground for a moment. Without warning, the guard reversed course with such force that his neck would have snapped had he been a non-pegasus.
It took Flash longer to realize it than he would have ever admitted, but apparently some other pegasus had saw his falling flank and scooped him right out of the air. Somepony had saved his life. Or a large winged beast of prey like a roc or a dragon was about to indulge in an easy meal. Flash hoped it would be the former.
Whatever had caught him was warm, in a way. It felt like the sun peaking out from behind the clouds on a dry autumn day, or a woolen jacket that had just come out of a drying machine. And soft too, like a plush toy.
And then all motion stopped like a runaway wagon hitting the face of a cliff. Flash was thrown from his warm and cozy savior and onto the itchy, wet grass. He elected to lay there for a while with his eyes shut, reveling in the sweet, sweet moment of rest.
“Your name is Flash Sentry, if I recall correctly.” Came a voice. By the silvery moon, it was a nice voice.
“Yeah.” he managed to gurgle weakly, his eyes finally fluttering open.
There she was standing over him, his savior. An alicorn princess radiantly growing like a pure white ray of sun, her neapolitan hair flowing on a wind that Flash could not feel.
“Princess Celestia. Forgive me if I do not bow, Your Royalness.”
“It’s quite all right.” Her pleasant tone did more to soothe his head than any medicine ever could. “You’re hurt.”
“Only a lot.” Flash rolled over onto his side and tried to push himself out of the dirt and onto his hooves again. He got about halfway and decided that he’d break every bone in his body if he didn’t give up. “That spell really took the spit out of me. Apologies for my language.”
“Allow me.”
The princesses’s horn lit up with an aura as radiant as polished gold reflecting the sun, letting her magic wash over Flash and encase him in a cocoon of warm light. At once all the misery and pain that Flash had endured through the day was lifted. He actually felt… normal again. His head was clear, he didn’t want to throw up, and he felt like he could have run a marathon. Even the burns on his fur were gone, replaced by newly grown fur.
The pegasus got up of his own power, reveling in his mere ability to do so.
Then what happened, nopony expected, not even Flash. The guard rushed in and threw his forelegs around Princess Celestia’s neck, burying his forehead in her golden chest piece. She gave him a warm smile and lightly rested a hood on his back.
“Thank you.” he whispered, before realizing just what he had done and breaking the hug to bow down to the princess as was royal code. “Your Majesty.”
“Please, Flash, we don’t have time for such formalities.” Flash broke the bow and gave her a crisp salute.
“The situation with the gryphon is deteriorating quickly. I need to know everything that you do.”
“Yes princess. The Elements of Harmony, the princess's dragon, and a guard like myself are being held in a crate made entirely of lead. There is no way in out out aside from opening the door and some kind of dragon magic they used to transport me here. According to Princess Twilight, Spike only had enough power to send one pony, so evacuating them that way will be impossible. The princess has been bullying her husband into giving her authority over the guards, but I believe he can be persuaded to side with us. Now, If I may ask, where is Prince Blueblood? I must return to my post as soon as possible.”
“Uhmm…” The princess’s looked away, her ears cocked back in embarrassment. “He attempted to give himself up to Moyra.”
Flash’s heart stopped.
He swallowed a dry lump in his threat that quickly made itself known.
“Oh...kay.”
“My sister made off with him before he could make any decisions that would be permanent. Flash Sentry, your services are required in Equestria’s hour of need, therefore I royally decree that you are to be my personal bodyguard on a temporary basis.”
“I’m honored, Your Grace.”
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHGH!” the voice of the gryphon was perfectly audible even on the forest floor.
“And that’s our cue.”
* * *
“Open the door! I believe we have one prisoner too many.” Moyra screeched at the elderly guard standing at the lead crate.
“Yes, your-” Grey Garrison started to say.
“NOW.”
Without daring to so much as open his mouth, the guard twisted the vault wheel on the prison and cracked it open, causing the sealed chamber to hiss as fresh air rushed into the cell.
He swung the door open and the princess rushed across the threshold.
And head first into a wicked bolt of pink lightning.
“I have wanted to do that all day!” Cotton cheered.
Like kicking a hornet's nest, a mob of ponies rushed through the open door into the cargo bay, readying wing, horn, and hoof to fight the two guards that stood in between them and freedom.
“To Tartarus with this.” The younger one declared, dropping his spear. “I’m not attacking Equestrians for some entitled catbird.”
After a moment’s pondering, the older one did the same. “I was going to mutiny anyway.”
“Good.” Twilight nodded. “Will you do Equestria a favor and give Princess Moyra a taste of her own medicine.”
“Will do, Your Majesty.” Garrison saluted the ponies, before grabbing the princess by the arm and dragging her into the lead crate.
“Well ain’t that the picture of irony.” Applejack commented. “A bird in a cage.”
With a series of satisfied cheers and hugs all around, the captives made their way to the ship’s deck.
* * *
And at long last, Flash could rest.
The reunion aboard Moyra’s ship was like a party. All these ponies getting together and celebrating their freedom and safety. It turned out that the ship’s original cargo was Maretonian wine bound for the far east. Imagine that. Before he knew it the Element of Laughter was popping corks and passing around glasses and everypony was toasting to a crisis well-averted. Flash didn’t consider himself a drinker, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to partake in the merriment.
Everything just came together like a jigsaw puzzle. The High Feather and the Duke were arranging a marriage between Gabriel another one of Tianna’s daughters, the princesses had finished formally commending the Blueblood Corps for bravery, he had a shiny medal to hang on his wall when he was issued a home, the prince was safe surrounded by Alicorns and highly-trained Maretonian guards, and everything was right with the world again
Unfortunately, he didn’t see himself as much a party person. He shared one glass of wine with the Equestrian royalty and kind of shied off the the edge of the deck. He folded his forelegs across the railing and stared out at the grand wooden City of Spires.
If he never saw it again it’s be too soon.
* * *
Down below in a much darker and familiar place, a gryphon wept in the corner.
Then her sobs turned to primal rage and curse words so foul it could make a sailor blush.
Then she went back to sobbing, clutching herself in the fetal position, and muttering unintelligibly.
Moyra had been pushed over the edge, fished back to solid ground, and pushed again. Nothing made sense anymore. He was within her grasp. She should have slit his throat right then and there! No! She should have locked him up and made to wait on her as a servant. No! She should have married him instead, and united the tribes with Equestria.
But what use is it? He’s gone forever. She would never see him again. The very thought of it made Moyra wail like a newborn chick.
Oh how she hated him.
Or was it loved him?
She couldn’t even remember what the difference was.
“LET ME OUT!” The gryphon nearly popped her lungs like a balloon with how loud she was screaming and banging her fists on the metal walls. Tears rolled frelly down her face, soaking into her feathers.
She didn’t think that anyone heard.
But she was wrong.
“Hey, kid.”
Moyra wasn’t sure whether on not she actually heard what she heard. She almost passed it off as a hallucination.
“Yeah, kid. Psst. Listen.”
“WHO ARE YOOUUU?!” She managed to screech in between sobs. “JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.”
“You wanna make a transaction?”
Moyra wiped away the tears. “I don’t have any money, just…” She clutched her head, trying to dull the splitting migraine that the voice was giving her. “...just go away. Leave me to rot in peace.”
“Hey now!” the voice without a mouth said. It’s voice was feminine, but kind of nasal and had an accent like it was from Manehattan or something. “Trust me, I ain’t got no need for no material wealth. That currency ain’t got much use where I’m from, ya dig?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime deal that only a few people on this plane of existence have ever been interesting enough to get. Girl, I can get you the one thing you want most.”
“Blueblood.” Moyra spat, suppressing the urge to beat her fist upon the wall again.
“Nah, way more than that. I’m talking about revenge served so cold, you could freeze the horn off of an alicorn with it.”
“I’ll try anything at this point.”
“Great! Now…”
An icy gale ruffled Moyra’s fur, blowing toward the south corner of the room. Before she could react, a great howling tore through her head, causing the princess to cover her ear-holes and thrash as her brain was being liquified. Then without warning a great ball of glowing purple light materialized from thin air, with the howl only going stronger as it appeared.
Then, like nothing happened, everything was still and quiet.
“Sorry about the noise, babe. Lead is a bitch to get around, know what I’m sayin’?”
“What was that for?!” Moyra demanded.
“Look on the ground, stoobid.”
And, lo and behold, lying where the light had been was a sword. It wasn’t a particularly nice-looking sword. It looked crude and it wasn’t as ornate as modern cutlery, its design was outdated by a few hundred years. Beside it was a dagger that looked like something from a novelty shop with its overly intricate design and blade engravings that compromised the integrity.
“Okay, listen up. Here’s the deal. You get those two pieces for not a single coin, but the catch is you gotta kill that Blueblood mook with the little one looks like I stole it from to an emo teenager. You do that, I get his soul, and you get your revenge.”
She didn’t even pause to consider it. “Deal.”
“Awwrighty then. You can use the big one there to get outta this mess, just whatever ya do, keep your mitts away from the goddamn blade. You could end up seven miles away for just touchin’ it. And remember, kill the prince with the dagger, or else I zap him back to life and take your soul. Either way I win. Catch’a on the flipside, girlie.”
Moyra knelt to examine the blade’s hilt. It was battered and rough, not really meant to fit a gryphon’s claw well, wrapped in leather that had been dried and cracked with age. The blade looked like it hadn’t been sharpened in centuries, but there was no signs of rust to be found.
She tentatively took it by the grip. The sword was light, almost like the kind you’d give for a child to play with.
“How am I going to get out with a sword?” Moyra asked aloud.
The voice didn’t answer.
Well, there was only one thing a sword was meant to do.
With a grunt, the gryphon thrusted the old blade right at the black wall of her cage.
It impacted off of the wall with a shower of sparks.
“Pfft. Rip off.”
Then at once Moyra’s eyes burned with pain as the harsh sunlight filtering in from the ship’s portholes blinded her.
She was… out? No. She hadn’t even moved from that spot. Looking around, even without her eyes adjusting she could tell that the big black box was gone. Nowhere to be found. It had just disappeared.
“How the hell did you do that?” a guard from out of nowhere demanded.
“I don’t know.” she said, before bringing the sword down upon his neck. The blade stuck only metal, rebounding off of the stallion’s silver armor.
Quickly recovering, the guard had his spear thrusted inches before the princess’s face.
“Heh, looks you got a blunt-”
Then just like that he was gone.
* * *
“Having trouble mingling, my friend?”
Blueblood nudged Flash out of his laconic state.
He shook the cobwebs out of his head. “I can’t have trouble with something if I don’t try.”
“Too true.” The prince cleared his throat. “So… are you, you know,okay?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I nearly gave myself up to a violent criminal. I’m fine, we’re talking about you here.”
Flash thrust a hoof in BB’s face. “Hold that thought!”
He looked at Flash like he had just claimed to sleep with his mother. “I beg your-”
“No, look!”
Both stallions saw it, but neither of them believed it.
It was a great black cube, hundreds of yards off of the starboard side of the ship, just falling from the sky like a meteor. It tore through one of the city’s rope bridges, leaving it to the mercy of the wind like a broken spider web, before disappearing beyond the canopy.
“How in the-?”
The train of thought was derailed by a the cries of a mare.
“Let go of me, you Celestia-damned birdbrain! I’ll kick you into next month!”
There they were at the opposite end of the deck, Moyra herself and the Element of Loyalty caught in a grapple. Rainbow Dash was struggling against her grip, but went instantly still the moment she found a gleaming steel blade hovering over her throat.
“What, you think a cage could stop me?” Moyra asked.
Then she slit Rainbow Dash’s throat and tossed her aside.
“Ack!” Rainbow clutched her neck. “Hey wait, why am I not dea-?”
Then, like a magic trick, she was out of sight.
“Rainbow!” Flash wasn’t sure who screamed that one. Maybe it was one of the princesses, maybe it was one of the Elements. At that point, he was a little preoccupied to notice anything other than what had just transpired.
Rainbow Dash was gone. Not dead, but gone. Poof. Like she had been teleported elsewhere.
“Get below deck!” Flash ordered the prince, unsheathing his-
-blade? Oh, right. He was naked. Damn.
“I was hoping for something a little more lethal,” the princess started to say, but paused to strike down a charging guard, making him disappear as well. “but this is all right I guess.”
Next thing he knew, Flash, a squad of guards including Cotton, a gryphon spiritual leader, the entire Diarchy, and most of the Elements of Harmony had formed a semicircle around the gryphon. She was outnumbered more than fifteen to one.
“Woah, you guys are pissed.” Moyra observed. “Maybe I should surrender.”
With a catlike leap and a flap of her wings, Moyra took to the air. “I should, but I won’t.”
Then all Tartarus broke loose.
The deck of the cargo ship had become like a flock of birds, with all of the winged ponies taking off after her. It was a ballet, all of the swerving and dodging and fancy featherwork. Moyra was much more agile than she let on, pulling off maneuvers that only a pony or gryphon trained in aerial combat could be familiar with. In fact, all she did was avoid and evade everything thrown her way, be it beams of arcane lasers of the unicorns, or blades and spears of the armed pegasi. She was just quick enough to dodge these things by a foot, like a housefly that you just couldn’t swat.
Of course, it was most difficult for Flash, who was unarmed. He just kind of skirted the battle, looking for an opening to rush into.
“I have been looking forward to this!” Luna shouted, before tucking in her wings and diving at the gryphon, her horn lit up with one of those laser-sword spells unicorns seemed to be fond of. She reminded Flash of those ballista bolts from the Intimidator the way she sailed straight and true.
Her needle-like horn was mere inches away from Moyra’s heart before she twisted away just in time to smack the princesses flank with the flat of her blade.
And like the last two, Luna vanished into thin air.
“Man, this thing is fun!” the princesses declared merrily.
“Luna!” Flash wish he hadn’t caught a glimpse of Princess Celestia’s face. It stuck him in the heart like an arrow to see the head ruler of Equestria in such pain.
“What did you do to her?!” Her voice split that arrow in his chest right down the midde. Never had he heard somepony so beautiful and regal let loose with such unfiltered aggression and desperation. Even Moyra seemed shaken.
She recovered quickly. “I have no idea!”
That was it. The straw that broke the alicorns back. No more miss nice princess. If violence wasn’t an option before, it sure as hell has just become one.
Celestia’s horn erupted with that glistening golden aura, and then at once flared up to twice the size like someone had thrown gasoline on a fire. Even from twenty feet away Flash could feel the radiating heat of her fire beam as it bursted forth from her forehead.
“Woah, shit.” Mora dove to the side, making way for a pillar of blazing power as thick as tree trunk screaming past her. She made it out alive, albeit with a few singed feathers, and the spell tore through everything else in its path, and that path happened to include the corner of the airship. A whole section of the wooden vessel was gone, replaced by an empty hole big enough for a pegasus to fly through, it’s edges smouldering with smoke and hot coals.
Snap.
Of course, this section housed one of the four supports that tethered the ship’s balloon to the deck itself. The whole ship lurched when the connection was severed, keeling over toward the severed corner. With three of the tethers still intact, the ship still floated, but unstowed goods were starting to slide toward the corner, making that end even heavier. Anypony without a set of wings grabbed whatever they could reach and held on for dear life.
Celestia didn’t notice this at all. She continued to fire the beams at will, desperately trying to turn the catbird into a pile of dust and charred bones.
“Guys!” Cotton called out from below. “She’s gonna bring this whole ship down! We gotta get all the earthbound ponies off right the hell now!”
“Got it!” Flash nodded. He glided over to hover beside Princess Twilight, who was stuck watching her former mentor unleash every last drop of rage onto the gryphon. “Your Grace!”
Twilight shook some unpleasant thoughts from her head. “Yes?”
“We need to get everyone to safety. How many ponies can you teleport at once?”
“Uh, five, not including me.”
“You and you,” Flash called out two of the pegasi guards “grab a pony and glide down to the surface. We need to get this thing clear of the city when it goes down. Who knows how to fly an airship?”
“Uh,” one of the guards rubbed the back of his head “the captain does but he got zapped by the catbird.”
“Fantastic.” Flash groaned.”Okay, just… get everyone the heck out of dodge and evacuate this section of the city. We’ll take this one step at a time.”
And with that, everypony broke away to save the rest of the ponies. Twilight gathered up her friends and teleported out of sight, and the guards took the rest of the ponies off of the ship and began their long glide back down to earth.
Soon, it was just Flash and Cotton Swab left onboard, with Celestia and Moyra off duking it out in the open skies where no further damage was being done for the moment.
Cotton was latched onto the railing like a pair of hoofcuffs. “Now what? I’m no expert on flying, but I don’t think we can turn this hunk-a-junk around on our own.”
“We need to repair the tether somehow. How strong is your telekinesis?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“Can you tie a knot or something in the broken ends?”
“I don’t think there’s a knot on this planet that can hold a ship together, Sentry!”
Creak.
“What was that?” Flash asked.
“That’s the sound of three ropes holding a load meant for four. I don’t know how long this thing will last. Just get me the hell off of here the guards will have everyone far away from this deathtrap and all it’ll kill is a few buildings.”
“No!” Flash snapped. “No taking chances. We’re going to do absolutely everything we can to save as many ponies as possible.”
“Perhaps I can help with that.”
“What is it with ponies creeping up from behind and surprising me?!” Flash said, whipping around to see just who in Tartarus is going to show up next.
It was Princess Luna of course, as big and blue as she ever was. Also, definitely not dead.
“Princess!” Cotton Swab shouted. “I don’t know what happened to you or how you got here but I don’t give a flying rat’s ass! What’cha got for us?”
The way Cotton spoke to the princess made Flash miss having a concussion.
“Your Grace,” Flash bowed his head for the umpteenth time that week “how may we be of service?”
“I believe I may have a solution to the problem my sister caused.” Luna cast a worried glance at the two combatants that were still locked in mortal combat. “I may be able to teleport it far enough outside the city so that it would do no harm to the citizens below.”
“Perfect!” Cotton said. “Let’s do this! Flash, grab my hoof and let’s leave this thing in the dust.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t that easy.”
“Luna damn it!” Cotton hissed. “Er, I mean, you damn it. Or not. How does this work again?”
Luna chose to ignore that bit with a smirk. “Since I am unable to combine power with my sister and Twilight, I require a focus, something to amplify my magical powers. Perhaps a staff or arcane orb of power?”
Cotton Swab visibly grimaced. “I don’t exactly have one on me, Princess. I don’t even know where we could get something like that in this freaking city.”
“Yes, that is a hurdle.”
Crack. The bindings holding the cloudcatcher in place didn’t sound too healthy.
“The Emergency Beer Cooler.” Flash muttered under his breath.
“The what?”
“That laser cannon thingy on The Intimidator. It’s made up of all sorts of magical doohickery. Do you think there could be something like that built into the inner workings?”
“That seems like a most viable suggestion, Flash Sentry!” Luna cheered. “It is the only option we currently have time to explore. Come closer, I shall teleport us there.”
Flash winced. “I hate teleporting.”
* * *
Flash.
Both Cotton and Princess Luna stood aboard the deck of the Intimidator while Flash Sentry gracefully planted his face straight into the floorboards.
“I just want to go home.” he mumbled, his voice muffled by the wooden floor.
“Pardon, what was it you said, Flash Sentry?”
Flash peeled himself from the dirty deck. “I said thank’s for the ride.”
“You are most welcome!” Luna gave him a genuinely friendly grin.
“Now, I assume this metal monstrosity-” Luna gestured at Princess Twilight’s experimental laser cannon “-is what you spoke of?”
“Can’t miss it.”
“Then let us begin dismantling it!”
* * *
“Hey, uh, Cloud.”
The pegasus captain nudged his napping brother in the side.
“Hnng, whah, my watch now?”
“Princess Luna and those guards of Blueblood’s are tearing apart the ice cannon.”
“Yeah, nice one. Now tell me a bedtime story.” Cloud pulled his tricorn back over his eyes and kicked up his hooves.
Lightning yanked the hat off of his head. “I’m serious!”
“Fine, fine…” the twin mumbled, entertaining his brother and casing a bleary look out the window of their quarters.
What he saw woke him up faster than a double-shot of espresso.
Without another word the captain threw his hat back on and marched out onto the deck with Lightning following just behind.
“Princess!” Cloud said.
“Good eve, Captains Cloud and Lightning!” the princess of the night greeted merrily.
“As much as we enjoy surprise visits-”
“-perhaps it would be best if you had explained why you are destroying our ship’s incredibly unstable and experimental magic weapon?”
It didn’t even faze her. “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission, my friends. I require a component that could be contained within this ghastly machine to save lives!”
The twins shared a glance.
“Well in that case-”
“-go ahead-”
“-I guess.”
“Ah-ha!” With a groaning of steel being twisted out of shape, Cotton Swab telekinetically ripped apart a ball of wires and plating to reveal what could be easily described as an eye contact for a giant cat. The ovular item had a pinkish red tint to it, and curved inwardly like a bowl. When Cotton held it directly in front of her face her mug distorted into something you’d see in a circus funhouse.
“What is it?” Flash asked.
“A hyperkinetic lens.” Cotton answered with an undertone of relief she didn’t even try to hide. “Kind of like a big magnifying glass for magic. Do you think this will work, Princess? It was originally meant for destruction spells, but that’s probably the most powerful component we’re going to find in this thing.”
Luna set her jaw, pondering the situation. “It will have to do. Come, let’s away. We have no time. Prepare to be teleported once more.”
Flash groaned.
* * *
The gryphon princess nearly snapped the wooden bridge in two as she less-than-gracefully made an emergency landing. Moyra’s entire body ached, and what wasn’t aching was screaming with smouldering first-degree burns, the acrid scent of burning feathers assailing her sense of smell.
Moyra wanted to get back up, but her body refused to give in. She didn’t even have enough strength to grip the magic sword, which slipped out of her feeble clutch and fell off the bridge, disappearing into the forest canopy below.
Princess Celestia, once a pony that symbolized peace, understand, and love landed wordlessly on the bridge, her multicolored mane crackling with a ferocious yellow fire that writhed and flared around her whole body, yet producing no smoke and leaving no burns on whatever it touched.
Moyra weakly lifted her head and cast a defiant glare at the princess, a fighter to the end.
“Heh.” She coughed. Her throat was dry as a desert. “Thought I won when I tapped you with my magic stick, but no. You just popped behind me and went to town. Damn thing was useless. Wish I had a real sword.
Then Moyra remembered the dagger. She eyes the sheath housing it. With her last drops of strength, she reached for the blade on her hip.
Princess Celestia flicked it away with a spark of telekinesis, leaving the dagger to the same fate as the sword.
Despite herself, the catbird laughed. She laughed harder and longer than she could even remember doing. She nearly rolled around on the rope bridge like a buffoon, cackling as the grip of madness found its way across her throat. Her laughs turned into coughs that wracked her whole body, and continued until she didn’t have the will to do anything anymore.
“Hah-” Cough. “-you win. I give, send me to jail again.”
“Four walls and a roof over your head is too kind a punishment for you.” The princesses voice held no emotion. It was cold, serene, and calculated.
“Maybe. Fu-” Cough. “Oh man, I didn’t even get close to the prince, did I? Not with his defense brigade coming to greet me.
“So, can I have, like, a last request or last words or something?” Cough.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Great, when what are you going to do, Celly?”
The princess’s horn glowed one last time.
“Say hello to Tirek for me.”
* * *
Snap.
The mass of wood and steel creaked like a giant tree had been felled as one of the three remaining tethers could take the stress no more. The calamitous freighter swung like a wrecking ball from the remaining two lines, barreling straight into a stray tower. The canopy of splintering wood echoed throughout the city, sending a hail of shrapnel raining down and forcing the ponies of Maretonia to scramble for cover. The force of the impact was great enough to snap the building like a twig, sending a portion the size of a house crashing down on the ground below, creating a gaping wound in the forest’s canopy. The boat was hanging like a balloon now, the cloudcatcher and the deck of the ship were congruent to one another, the length of it nearly matching the tallest of the spires. Various pieces of cargo left unstowed were loosed from the ship like salt from a shaker, further pelting Spire City with a torrent of dangerous objects.
Time was running out.
The trio stood on the shingled roof of the tower nearest to the wreck, with Cotton grasping the flagpole for dear life.
“I may only have enough power to do this once, so our first attempt must be a successful attempt.” Luna looked at Flash with hard, yet regal eyes, commanding all of the guard’s attention. “Flash Sentry, take the lens and fly out between the ship and I. Present it with the convex side facing the ship, and by the sun and stars move as little as you possibly can.”
And after a moment, she added “I’ll try not to hit you.”
Flash gave her a rigid salute, then gingerly took the magic piece of glass and took off toward the ship, grasping it like a football.
“Don’t drop it, Sentry!” Cotton yelled after him.
With a glance to Luna, and another to the ship, Flash nodded to himself and presented the hyperkinetic lens out for all to see, its smooth crystalline surface projecting tiny rainbows on Flash’s fur as the warm light of the setting sun hit it.
As Luna’s horn sparked to life, he wanted to close his eyes, to hold his breath, but he just couldn’t. He had to focus on hovering as still as possible, and he was afraid that if he closed his eyes, he would blow their one chance at solving the problem once and for all. His heart raced, his throat filled with gravel, and his stomach felt like it wanted to empty its contents once again, but he stayed strong, and his resolve only strengthened.
Zap. A great beam of blazing purple light shot toward the guard and hit the lens dead center, amplifying its intensity tenfold as it screamed past him. The brightness of the spell assailed his vision, forcing him to squint as if staring right into the sun.
Behind Flash, the beam impacted on the hull of the ship and everything in a ten-foot sphere immediately degraded into glowing purple ash, dissipating into the cracks between space and time like a cosmic fire. The sphere widened, eating up more and more of the ship, slowly breaking more and more down until it looked like a great dragon had taken a bite out of it.
Luna’s head started to pound. She grit her teeth, forcing every last drop of alicorn magic out of her horn as she could muster. She felt like a wrung out sponge, getting drier by the moment. She was screaming with effort. She didn’t really notice it until the volume of her royal Canterlot voice shook some of the loose roofing shingles free. At some point, Cotton Swab had fired her own spell at Luna, allowing her magic to feed into the princess, giving her every last drop available.
The sphere’s expansion slowed as Luna’s power was reduced from a flowing stream to a kitchen faucet. She felt as if a blood vessel in her head may pop at any moment, it was like trying to squeeze water from a wet stone.
“I-” Luna said between moans of exhaustion “I- I cannot hold it…”
Princess Luna was going to make herself pass out, and Flash was helpless to do more than hover in the air and watch it unfold.
“Allow me to help with that, Luna!”
Flash. Enter Twilight. Within a blink of an eye the roof was starting to get crowded, with one extra alicorn balancing atop the tiles then there was a second before. She wasted no time in firing off her own spell that intersected Luna’s at the glass, returning the beam to its former glory. The sphere was expanding again, and at twice the speed it had before. Within seconds, what was once a proud freighter ship for the Maretonian people was reduced to a thin cloud of glowing wisps, that then dissipated into nothing like the embers of an old fire.
Princess Luna dropped her spell, then herself. She collapsed into the rough roofing tiles, Twilight had to envelop her in a levitation bubble to keep the princess from falling off of the roof.
Flash dropped the lens and raced back to the roof, landing just short of the princess.
“Is she okay?!” he demanded.
Twilight, who was knelt beside the princess waving her horn over her head looked up at Flash and smiled. “She’ll be just fine. Maybe a little weak.”
Flash collapsed next to the princess, breathing a long sigh of relief.
Flash listened intently to the lulling echoes of Prince Blueblood and his corps’ hooffalls ringing throughout the sparse halls of Canterlot Castle.
Ah, Canterlot.
Familiar sounds, familiar sights, familiar faces. Thick walls, dozens of guards, and a comfortable daily routine. Flash had forgotten what this feeling called “relaxation” was. His breath was not ragged, neither his heart nor head were pounding, and in no place was he nursing a bloody wound or a searing burn. He was not in fear for his life or the lives of others, he did not have to worry about megalomaniac princesses, crashing skyships, or anything of the like.
Everything was normal.
But of course, without warning, a pretty petite pink mare with a blindingly blue mane charged from around the corner, a spiky morningstar clutched intently in her teeth. Her eyes flared up with fiery rage the moment she caught sight of the prince. She snorted like a bull, then let out a guttural warcry, rocketing toward Blueblood and raising her mace high in the air.
Her throat ran right into Flash’s waiting hoof, forcing the mare to spit out the weapon. She was knocked on her back in a split second.
Flash sighed.
“I think it’s your turn to haul one to the dungeon this time, Xander. I took Cotton’s turn for her while she’s on leave,” he said in a bored tone.
Xander flashed his fellow guard an almost offended look.
“Oh come on, you can carry her twenty times as far as me without even breathing hard, Lieutenant Lazystripes.”
Reluctantly, Xander nodded, moving to grab the mare by the scruff of her neck. He dragged her down the halls, out of sight. Flash could hear her labored coughing between screams for vengeance fade into muffled nonsense over time.
With a mental shrug, Blueblood and his guard turned tail and went on with their lives.
Just another day at the office.
* * *
The echoes of their steps became sharper and more pronounced as they rounded the corner and slipped into a short hallway that ended in a tight spiraling staircase. Up and up the two went, clip-clopping a multitude of granite steps as they ascended the dizzying heights of the tower. Flash glanced out of the occasional window that popped up every few levels, watching as the rest of Canterlot grew smaller and the sun sank closer to the horizon every time they passed one. Around three-fourths of the way up, the prince ordered him to halt while he stopped to catch his breath, mumbling something about stairs being great cardio and cursing Flash for having the convenience of wings.
Their long trek to the apex of one of the two tallest towers in Canterlot Castle ended into another short hallway decorated in the castle's standard flavor of opulence, complete with a set of two royal guards stationed at either end of an ebony carved door, both standing casually and sharing a hushed conversation.
The two guards’ eyes went wide and for a split second, their faces contorted into the classic “oh shit, I’m in it deep now” expression the moment that the prince crossed the threshold. They immediately snapped to the position of attention and offered Blueblood a pair of salutes.
“Good evening, Your Grace!” the senior one sounded off with a military tone “Second Lieutenant Red Rover and First Lieutenant Battle Station, Daytime Security Watch, standing by for further orders, Your Grace!”
“Drop your salute, Watch,” Blueblood ordered.
“Yes, Your Grace.” The two mechanically returned their hooves to the floor.
“I'll be waking the princesses this morning,” the prince went on. “You are both properly relieved. Your reliefs have already been notified of this change. Dismissed. Go and get some sleep.”
The guards shared a look of mixed confusion and amazement. They returned to attention and flashed a brief salute.
“Thank you, Your Grace!” They wasted no time in falling out and finding their way down the stairs, with their platemail generating that familiar tin can noise.
The other guard who had yet to speak poked his head around the corner “Have a pleasant evening, Your Grace.”
Blueblood replied with a genuine smile. “And you as well, Lieutenant.”
The young stallion beamed at the prince, then skittered back down, hell-bent on getting some well-deserved shuteye.
“And they say you used to be such a clophead,” Flash said, his entire body seizing up the moment those words left his mouth. The pegasus didn't even realize he was even saying something before it was too late. What happened to him? His military bearing used to be so good!
Mentally kicking himself in the flank, Flash added. “...Your, uh, Grace.
Blueblood didn't even bat an eye. Flash knew how close the two of them had become- despite clearly defined codes about unprofessionally familiar relationships between a guard and a royal -but he would have never seen himself dropping his professional mannerisms while still on duty. He was never like that with Princess Cadenza. Then again, he never had to save her life on multiple occasions.
“Oh, I was horrible to the guards,” the prince reminisced. “I used to flick popcorn and all sorts of small stuff at the sentries when I passed by, just to see if they'd flinch or not. I'd yell at them if they did.”
“They're certainly warming up to you.”
The prince hummed in agreement. “Perhaps my abysmal reputation may turn around after all.”
“I can only hope so, Your Grace.”
Knock knock.
“Auuunnnty!” Blueblood sang in an alto tone “Are you awake yet?”
“For what purpose dost thou wish to molest us at such an outrageous hour?” The doors shuttered with the force of Princess Luna’s Not-Quite-Royal-Canterlot-But-Still-an-Earsplitter Voice
Blueblood snickered at her choice of highly antiquated words.
“You can’t rule the night if you’re still asleep!” the prince’s tone could have rivaled a canary with how cheery it was. “Permission to enter, Aunty?”
Flash could hear her sigh like a pouting filly from behind the very thick slabs of wood. “Very well.”
“The princess isn’t much of a morning pony,” Flash mused. “Or rather… evening pony.”
“You have no idea,” the prince muttered.
Creak. Blueblood undid the latch and tentatively cracked open the door to briefly poke his snout in. Satisfied with the appearance of things, he cocked his head back and waved Flash in.
“And how are we feeling on this fine Equestrian evening?”
“We liked thee better when thou were a snot-nosed narcissistic colt.”
“And I liked you better when you spoke in flowery outdated dialects.”
“Were we-?” Luna coughed. “I mean... Was I doing it again?”
The prince had been doing this ever since they had unpacked their bags from the trip to Maretonia. Every once in awhile he’d haul his corps up to this far-flung wing of the castle to personally check on Luna before she started her nightly princess duties, much to the lunar alicorn’s ire. Flash had wondered what his reasoning behind this was, but he concluded that it wouldn’t be his place to ask. After all, he had to at least try to maintain a healthy emotional distance from Blueblood, as difficult as he makes it.
Trailing behind the unicorn, Flash cautiously set hoof into the princess’s chambers. He seemed to shrink half an inch as his weight caused him to sink hoof-deep into the thick blue carpet that blanketed the room. While her bedroom was fairly small considering her position, whoever was in charge of decorating it must have believed that there was no kill like overkill. It wasn’t tacky per-se; it seemed like there was a bit too much going on in such a tight space. Lining the walls were the finest pieces of furniture Flash had ever seen, from dressers to vanities to wardrobes, most (if not all) of them carved from some rare tropical tree that he had probably never heard of. All of them were painted some shade of blue and trimmed with polished silver. Covering the sections of wall not taken by furniture were abstract paintings of Equestrian landscapes or various portraits of the Triarchy plus Cadenza. And all of that was nothing compared to the hundreds of dimly-glowing white crystals that peppered the ceiling, each one of them carefully arranged to mirror some of the princess’s favorite constellations
Finally, situated in the very center of the room, was Luna’s bed, a huge white cushion that looked like a chunk had been cut out of it. If one was to look at it directly from above, they would see the bed’s striking resemblance to its owner’s cutie mark. The bed itself would of course not be complete without The Warden of the Night herself; a dark alicorn with thick bags under her eyes and a mane so bedraggled that it could be mistaken for the nest of a very large bird. Luna looked around the room blearily, hissing and cringing like she had been poked with a needle as soon as the light from an open door hit her face.
To see the princess like this… Flash felt as if he were treading where he shouldn’t be. The image in his mind of Princess Luna he had fostered since childhood was nothing near the truth. Perhaps he should have realized that alicorns were indeed still ponies like every other equine living in Equestria, but it somehow felt better to see them as something far greater.
“How are you feeling today, Aunty?”
“Better,” Luna threw her covers off and slipped down from the bed. Flash wanted to slip out when nopony was looking or risk getting his ear chewed off for invading a princess’s quarters. This went against everything he had learned in basic training.
“My levitation has returned to full strength!” Luna merrily declared. She demonstrated it by clutching a silver manebrush that laid flat on a vanity in her magical grasp and ran it through her starry hair. “Though everything else leaves much to be desired. I am still unable to teleport without feeling as if my horn was a peeled banana.”
It didn’t take long to get her mane back on-spot. Luna let out an incredibly unladylike yawn, setting the brush back in its place. “No matter. I am still fit for a patrol tonight! I may rest, but the evildoers that stalk the night and nightmares that plague my little ponies do not.”
“No.” Blueblood furrowed his brow and set his jaw. “Can you even fly straight yet?”
Luna shrugged. “No. Yes. Perhaps, if I focused.”
The prince rolled his eyes. “How reassuring. You have an entire section of the guard solely for occasions like this to protect the realm while you cannot,” Blueblood berated his… aunt. Wait, how is he getting away with this?
“And?”
“And you let them do their job.”
Luna growled, inciting Flash to take a few steps back while the prince firmly held his ground. “I cannot stand lying around like some kind of fattened housecat while there is work to be done! I have been skulking about this castle ever since your guard and I saved Spire City. We have done the deed, yet-”
“We’ve had this conversation a dozen times, Aunty. You’ve earned some rest, use it wisely. Catch up on your reading. I’m almost certain there are some wonderful Fourth Age books that you’ve missed out on. Better your mind while your body recuperates from last month’s little adventure.”
The princess fumed silently for a moment, then reluctantly retorted, “I do not see your corps resting as much as I.”
“They’ll receive what they’ve earned. In fact-” Blueblood turned to regard Flash “-don’t you and Xander start your full weekend of leave tonight?”
Flash nodded, forcing himself into full guard-mode “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Ah, excellent,” Luna said. “Would this not be your first outing since arriving here?”
“Yes, Your Grace, I do look forward to seeing Canterlot on my own time.”
“Then I will be sure to watch over your endeavors,” the princess shot her nephew a glare, “Or I would if the one you so diligently guard would allow it.”
“You’re a big mare,” Blueblood shot back. “You can make your own decisions, I am merely offering advice and insight.”
“My lunar flanks you are!”
Flash tried not to let the blush in his cheeks show. One-thousand-something years old and he still felt like a colt in the presence of a royal.
Flash coughed. “My prince, the staff will have dinner ready for us soon. Perhaps we should depart now to ensure we are not late.”
“Yes, go,” the princess with the lunar flanks agreed. “I will be along shortly.”
Flash couldn’t even remember the last time he was out in the general public without a uniform of any kind. No helmet, no breastplate, no blade at his side, and save for a set of standard issue saddlebags, Flash was walking about Canterlot’s districts in his birthday suit. He felt naked. Well, he was naked, but not just physically. The off-duty guard imagined himself as a bird without feathers, completely vulnerable, like there was a big bullseye painted on his flank in place of a lightning bolt.
Perhaps it was just his guard instinct. Sometimes it was hard to turn off. Regardless, it wouldn’t be his only venture out-of-uniform in the days to come, so the sooner he got used to it, the sooner he wouldn’t be spending his liberty nights on a razor’s edge. It was time to let his guard down for a while and ease out the pressure that had been building up in him since Maretonia.
Canterlot’s shopping district seemed like the best place to do such a thing. Until his paperwork for an actual house goes through, he’d have no place to put any of the wonderful knick knacks that filled the windows of the cozy shops lining the cobble streets. It didn’t hurt to look, though. Perhaps there was a nearby restaurant that was open this late in the night. With the outrageous paycheck he pulled, even the snootiest of the overpriced establishments couldn’t turn him away.
With an uncomfortable gait, Flash perused the whitewashed buildings aimlessly, reading this sign and that, not really finding anything that stood out to him. The sheer variety was overwhelming. He hadn’t known what chocolate was until early adulthood, and they’ve got entire rutting stores dedicated to it! He didn’t even recognize the names of any of the dishes that were written in flowery lettering on the restaurant's’ advertisements. What the hell was ratatouille? It didn’t exactly sound nutritious. And he was pretty sure he once knew a stallion by the name of “fettuccine alfredo” when he was a kid. Then again, since birth his meals consisted mostly of oats and potatoes three times a day.
“Bah.” Flash murmured to himself. “Why do I feel like such an old man?”
Naturally, nopony answered.
It didn’t even matter anyhow. Nearly all establishments save for the twenty-four-hour hayburger joints were closed.
Then out of the corner of his eye, he caught a light. This yellow light poured out from the circular windows of a tiny two-story cottage. This place wedged between two much larger restaurants stood out like a lump of coal in a bucket of golden nuggets, with it’s walls made of plain oaken planks and a roof whose terracotta tiles cultivated a minor garden of moss. Despite its rickety appearance, this was the only place that still appeared to be open for business. The clip-clop of Flash’s hooves filled the lonely cobblestone streets as he drew closer to this interesting building. He noticed the windows were stained with a fine layer of grime and the sign hanging from an iron bar over the entrance was barely legible. It was in the vague shape of a six-pointed star and read in plain text “Radiant Sorcery: Canterlot’s Finest Magic and Trinket Shop”
Perhaps “finest” would have been a bit of a stretch. Maybe if it was the only magic shop in the city. Then again, what did he know about magic anyway? That's stuff’s for unicorns and princesses. Though he did take an interest in this particular shop, Celestia knows why.
Flash took a peek through the murky window, he could only glimpse general shapes and colors through the thoroughly disgusting pieces of glass, and what he could make out were the silhouettes of a few ponies amongst the shelves of unidentifiable goods. It seemed he was not the only one to be touring the streets at this time of night. Intrigued, he pushed open the door. Flash was greeted with a song of creaky hinges harmonizing with an old cowbell that hung loosely above the doorframe. Luna’s tears, that place was a mess. It was the first thing Flash noticed. It was like somepony had tried to stuff an entire outdoor flea market into one building. There was very little floor space left unoccupied by various forms of junk and junk accessories. It didn’t help that most of the lighting was from several candles scattered sparsely around the area, so most of the items were cast in shadow. It was like a Nightmare Night funhouse, only take out the fun and add a healthy layer of dust.
At the very back of this shop standing behind a glass counter laden with some of the better-preserved items stood a middle-aged earth pony with a coat grey like soot. He perched an exotic-looking circular hat atop his head and a pair of spectacles on his muzzle. He gave Flash a small smile and an acknowledging wave before returning to his conversation with two mares that he glimpsed from the window.
The presumed storekeeper looked a bit hot under the collar. A forced smile was etched upon his face as he politely conversed with these two brightly colored mares that had yet to give him so much as a glance.
Oh no… Flash recognized one of those mares with their backs turned to him. He could tell who she was within a split second of laying eyes upon her. A light lavender coat, spiraling unicorn horn, and pegasus wings folded at her side. Yet again, he was in the presence of Princess Twilight Sparkle herself. At this point Flash was absolutely positive that some higher power than he reveled in putting the guard in highly uncomfortable situations. He considered just turning around and walking out. To Tartarus with whatever zany adventure hanging around the Princesses of Friendship would fling him into, he wanted some Celestia-damned peace and quiet for once.
Sadly, he just couldn’t help himself.
Oddly enough, he didn’t recognize the pony that stood at the princess’s side. This one was a unicorn and had a coat like Twilight’s, but a bit on the pinker side. Her mane was a deep shade of purple with sky-blue streaks running through it. Flash tentatively crept closer into the shop, being careful as not to disturb their conversation.
“Now, mister Curio, I understand that our description is a bit rough, but I believe that it is ample information for you recall somepony you had met several hours ago.” Twilight spoke to the shopkeeper with a reserved and polite tone. It quite reminded him of Princess Celestia when she wasn’t taking her anger out on a gryphon royal.
“I am sorry, Your Grace,” the stallion laughed nervously “but I must decline. My customers tend to be very private ponies, and even if I did see the pony you described I would not compromise their privacy in such a way. Uhmm again, my apologies.”
The other pony grumbled. “Let’s go, Twilight, we need to hurry if we’re going to catch her. This guy obviously doesn’t want to help us.”
“No!” she stomped her hoof on the ground, kicking up a small ring of dust. “This is a matter of grave importance!”
“Fine, let’s try it my way, then.” The other pony’s horn lit up with a soft blue glow that quickly spread to and enveloped the stallion. She telekinetically grabbed the poor shopkeeper by his woolen scarf and hoisted him off the ground. His hind hooves kicked wildly, knocking a knickknack or two off of the counter and shattering them to bits.
“Listen here, you little rat-!”
Twilight gasped, lighting her own horn and zapping that mare with a small spark of arcane lightning. She didn't look to be hurt, but the spell holding up the earth pony dissipated at once, letting him drop to the floor with a hollow thud.
“Starlight!” Twilight scolded the mare like a foal with their hooves in the cookie jar. “That is not how we treat ponies!”
Flash seemed to recall Twilight throwing a certain helpless zebra around in a very similar way a few weeks earlier.
At this point, the two of them noticed Flash witnessing their little exchange.
“Uh, good evening princess.” Flash tried to look like he just walked in and heard absolutely none of it.
“Flash!” Oh great, him and the princess were on a first name basis. That probably broke every fraternization law ever written for the Royal Guard. “I haven't seen you since Maretonia. How have things been?”
Realizing that he forgot to do so, the pegasus instantly lowered his head and neck for yet another bow. “Very well, Your Grace.”
The other mare apparently named “Starlight” tried to stifle a girlish giggle.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Flash, you know you only have to do that when you're on duty.”
Flash popped upright instantly. “Oh, right. Of course.”
“Now,” Starlight said, turning around “let’s get back to- Aaannd he's gone.”
“Huh?” Twilight did a double-take. Indeed there was no skeevy shopkeeper in sight. “Oh horseapples!”
“What strong language for a princess of Equestria.” Starlight mused aloud with a smug mug.
“I’ll be right back.” Without a word more, Twilight disappeared with a flash of her horn and a shower of purple sparkles.
“Wh-where’d she go?” Flash asked. Things were happening so fast!
Starlight shrugged. “Uh-dunna.”
A quiet moment passed, with both of the ponies standing about, trying not to make any awkward eye-contact.
“So you're that Flash Sentry guy Twilight talked about?”
Flash’s stomach did a backflip. Her question carried enough force to nearly knock the poor guard over. “The princess talks about me?!”
Flash faked a cough. He didn’t mean to raise his voice that high.
“Mmm hmm. She said you were that crazy guard guy who had Spike set you on fire and helped Luna save Maretonia.”
‘Crazy guard guy’, oh boy did he make a lasting impression.
Flash let out a nervous chuckle. “Sounds like me.”
“So, uh, did the princess say anything else ab-”
Poof, a gust of wind and more sparkly magic. Twilight was back, this time with the shopkeeper in her telekinetic grip. He squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free of his invisible bindings to no avail.
“I’m sorry, Mister Curio, it seems you've left your shop with two unsatisfied customers waiting on you.” Twilight said, levitating Curio so he could look her in the eye.
“Allright, allright, I know when to squeal!” he said shakily. “The mare you want was in here this morning looking for some information. I hasn’t even opened up shop yet. She wanted to know where to find The Witch of the Waves, and I told her.”
Who the hell was that? Flash didn’t recognize that title at all.
Starlight furrowed her brow. “Who the hay is that?”
“That's- that's what I thought too!” Curio stuttered. “I looked it up in an encyclopedia, it was a an old legend. I didn't know what to tell her, so I just gave her a children’s book with that little short story in it. She read the thing and walked out, muttering something about having a lot of hoofwork to do. That's everything I know, swear to Celestia!"
“Well, I believe him.” Starlight chirped. “Haha this is way more fun than a friendship lesson.”
Twilight glowered at her friend a moment before returning attention to the stallion. “And where exactly is this Witch of the Waves?”
"The ocean, I'd assume.” Flash said.
“Gee, Twilight your friend here sure is a bright one.” the pinkish unicorn chimed sarcastically. How rude! He hardly even knew the mare!
“I don't know.” The earth pony admitted. “Let me go and I'll get the same book I gave her.”
“Sure.” Twilight let go of the spell, this time letting Curio land gently on his hooves. The shopkeeper rushed off again, this time he ducked back behind the counter and came up with plain old tome in his teeth.
He gently set it down and flipped through the pages. “All I can give you is a few pages out of a book of popular myths. This is the one right here.” He tapped the open book. “Now, as I have nothing more to offer you, I do bid you adieu, Your Grace.”
Curio promptly did a left-face and disappeared further into the bowels of his shop.
The three of them gathered around the book.
“Let’s see here…” Twilight craned her neck and squinted her eyes to read the dusty old faded words on the page, muttering to herself.
“What does it day?” Starlight asked.
“Exactly what I hoped it wouldn't.” Twilight groaned. “It refers to this ‘Witch of the Waves’ by another name; ‘The Mother of Sirens’.”
That name didn't ring any of Flash’s bells either. “And that means what, exactly?”
“Well, it means that the sirens have family in Equestria, and they're itching for a reunion.”
Oh how Flash loved answers that only served to raise more questions. “Sirens? You mean the old sailor’s tale?”
“Precisely.”
Yeah, that sounded like fun. They were chasing down fairy tales.
“Ah ha!” Twilight triumphantly pointed a hoof to a single paragraph in the book. “Legend tells that the Witch still slumbers beneath the salt of the Tumbling Sea in a cave blacker than the deepest abyss!”
How lovely.
“We've got a direction, Starlight!” the princess slapped the book closed and shoved it into her saddlebags, pausing to flick a few bits on the shop’s counter. She turned around and galloped for the exit, stopping at the threshold to regard Flash and Star “She's headed west! Who’s up for a witch hunt?”
“Should I gather the torches and pitchforks?” Starlight asked with a trace of humor in her voice.
“That won't be necessary, come on!” She turned and took off into the night, quickly becoming a simple purple shape in the sky.
“You ponies have too much energy.” Flash breathed.
Starlight trotted after the princess at a moderate pace. She cocked her head back and looked at Flash expectantly. “You coming or not?”
Oh Tartarus no.
“Uhhm, sure? Not like I have any other plans, heh.”
‘Damn me and my weakness for pretty mares.’ He mentally berated himself.
“Then keep up.” Starlight’s horn ignited, instantly enveloping the mare in a baby blue glow. At once she was lifted off of the floor like a feather on the wind. She bolted out of the store and into the sky much like the Alicorn before her.
Hold the phone.
Flying unicorns.
Flying
Unicorns...?
* * *
The open skies.
It had been quite a long time since Flash flew such a long distance on his own. The guard’s life seldom had room for things as simple as that. Equestria’s landscape crept past him mile by mile as the three ponies flew through the night. Below him, Flash idly watched as the seas of golden wheat that sprang up from the fields gradually transformed into dark forests of ancient oaks. Above them, a canvas of constellations peeked through the gathering clouds, dimly lighting their path to the ocean.
The wind underneath his wings was quite refreshing on this early summer eve. The heat and humidity of the daytime faded away, leaving only the cool comfort of the night. Flash allowed himself to yawn. Smacking his lips, he felt like he would doze off right then and there.
The pink unicorn swerved closer to him, stopping five feet away from the pegasus and raising her voice over the wind whipping in their ears. “Sleepy?”
“Just a bit.” Flash answered. “I'll be fine.”
“Okay."
“We should probably stop for the night, I’m starting to get headaches!” Starlight shouted at Twilight.
The princess nodded in response, rotating her wings and shedding some of her altitude. The others did the same, charting a downward path to the sparse woods below them.
As three sets of hooves met the ground, Starlight gave a relieved sigh, letting her spell dissipate.
“Oh hay,” she hissed, rubbing her temples. “I'm going to feel that in the morning. What I'd give to be an alicorn. Some wings would be nice.”
“Hey now, this throne isn't big enough for two ponies.” the princess joked, patting her apprentice on the back.
Twilight rubbed her eyes and let out a mighty yawn. “Unngh, I haven't slept since before the siren escaped.”
“I'll set up camp.” Flash said, starting to kick away loose leaves and debris from the forest floor, carving a rough firepit into the dirt.
“Actually, there's no need for that.” the princess interjected.
“Oh no, Princess, I insist. This is no work for a-”
Flash shut his trap when a stray branch enveloped in a distinct arcane aura flew past his muzzle. Twilight Sparkle was weaving her magic once more, bringing to life a tornado of inanimate objects and lighting up the dark forest with a bright purple glow. A collection of dry tree branches, loose stones and crackling dead leaves danced about, swirling around them and converging on a single point where Flash had begun his work. Within moments, Twilight had set up an adequate fire pit, stocked with a night’s worth of wood.
Crack. A small spark emanated from the alicorn’s horn. At once the pile of sticks erupted into flames, flaring high for a moment then shrinking to a manageable size.
Starlight snorted. “Showoff.”
* * *
Soon enough, the ponies were lying comfortably on warm bedrolls that Twilight had - for lack of a better word - “poofed” in with her magic. Starlight Glimmer’s head had already hit the pillow while Flash and the princess remained awake, electing to quietly stare at the glowing orange flames and listen to the aimless choir of crickets and owls singing the song of the dark.
“So…” Flash said slowly. “If I may ask, Your Grace, who is this mare we’re after? She must be quite dangerous to have Princess Twilight Sparkle hot on her hooves.”
Flash knew he had struck a nerve when he saw Twilight cringe at the question. "Oh, I didn't mean-
“It’s my fault.” She spoke like a filly who was being scolded by her mother, averting her eyes to the ground. “She’s a siren. Or rather, she used to be. She and her sisters were trapped in the, umm..."
“In the what?"
“They were trapped somewhere else by Starswirl the Bearded a long time ago. The place was unearthed by my friends and I last year where the sirens ran amok. We defeated them, though! Their power sources were broken and they technically should be harmless, but they found out how to escape this place, and It’s my fault for not sealing it when I could.”
“Should be, Your Grace?"
Twilight sighed. Flash didn’t like the guilty look on her face. “Without their amulets, they're unable to cast their spells, yes, but what if they found a way to bypass that? Whatever they are planning, it's in Equestria’s best interest for us to stop it!"
Flash nodded solemnly. “Looks like I'm working for the weekend. Princess, I pledge to be at your beck and call until this crisis is resolved. Whatever you need, say the word and it will be done.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I order you to get some sleep. If I wake up and see you standing watch or something I'll personally knock you out, you big dork.”
She smiled at him. Flash felt he shouldn't retain eye contact after that, his wandered to the fire. “And relax. Haven't I reminded you not to be so formal all the time?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“We'll work on that later.” she chuckled. “Anyway, good night.”
“Good night, Your Grace.”
* * *
The smell of the sea hung heavy in the air.
Aria Blaze used all of her strength to fight the tide that washed in and out of the cave, starting barely above the sand and rising to her flanks, then receding back a moment later. Her mane was soaked and unmanageable at this point as it dragged behind her, but she didn't care. It was not a time for vanity, but for humility. That night she would have to swallow whatever pride was left intact after her latest failure. How she missed her true form. Her pony body was even less mobile than that of a human, and her sight in the dark was laughable. Though she couldn't deny how much cuter it made her.
“Mother?” Aria called, her words reverberating off of the cavern walls. “It’s me, Aria. Are you home?”
At first, there was no reply, but Aria could feel the shifting of the waves as something moved around her in the darkness.
"Why do you present yourself to me in a form so foul?” That voice sent shivers down her spine as it echoed throughout the cavern.
Aria took a deep breath, steeling herself for the tongue-lashing that was to come. “Mother, we made a mistake. Our phylacteries were destroyed. Our powers are lost.”
The mare squinted, trying to pick the form of her mother out of the blackness.
“Where are your sisters?” the mother asked, her voice soft. “Do they yet live?”
“Yes!” Aria said, nodding her head eagerly. “They're still on the other side, they sent me because we need your guidance.”
Then she saw it. A brief glimpse of shimmering green scales reflecting the light of the moon. The waves nearly toppled her over as the presence grew nearer, but Aria stood as steady as a rock. The only thing she could make out was a pair of glowing pink eyes almost as big around as her head.
“I am relieved to see that my legacy still remains.”
Aria was prepared for yelling, but none came. Her mother’s orbs radiated serenity. Hesitantly, she asked “So… you’re not mad at us?”
“Mmmm, no.” the witch purred. “Age has taught me patience. Patience has given me wisdom. What kind of a mother bares rage toward her children? I am, in fact, pleased to see you in good health after all these years, Aria. So, what kind of counsel do you desire, child?”
“We need a direction.” Aria said. “Even Adagio doesn’t know what to do. We’re powerless, no better than common mud ponies. How can we go back to the way it was?”
“I may have the answers you seek. I know what you need, my daugher, but what do you want?”
“Revenge.” Aria gritted her teeth. “I want to return to that world and see those filthy weak things bow before my sisters and I. If it weren't for those brats and their magic, we'd be queens.”
Aria saw her mother's lips pull back into a wicked smile, revealing a full mouth of pure white razors. “A worthy cause.”
“We were so close, Mother, you have no idea. That place has no Equestrian magic, if only we had some to feed off of, then we would have won without a contest.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Aria noticed a glimmer. She turned her head to see a spiny green tail that ended in a webbed fin. Dangling gingerly from this fin was an amulet; a beautiful crimson gem set in gold.
“The solution is simple. This was your father’s before he passed. It is the only one left, so you will have to share with your sisters. Take it and return to that place, bring somepony that wields Equestrian magic with you, then seal the way. Send Sonata and Adagio my regards.”
Carefully, Aria slipped the necklace off of the fin and clutched it to her breast to keep the waves from washing it away. The stone was warm to the touch, and seemed to fill her with a familiar feeling of power.
“Thank you, Mother.”
“And don't forget-”
The water level rose even higher as The Witch of the Waves moved closer to her foal. Aria could make out her whole face, the head of a pony bound in emerald scales, spines protruding from the crown of the skull, running down her spine and smaller fins on either side.
“-mother loves her fillies.”
For the first time in a long while, Aria gave a genuine smile. “And the fillies love their mother.”
Oh what memories Flash had of the place. Visions of thunderstorms, skyships, a crazy mare and her pet dragon danced in his head as he and his newfound friends glided along with the turbulent winds that blasted the rocky western coastline of Equestria
He would count himself among the luckiest stallions in the world if he never saw it again.
The forests to the east quickly degraded into low shrubbery when the trio first caught sight of the ocean. It was quite unlike what Flash had expected; instead of sandy beaches and warm sunlight, Equestria’s coastline consisted of sheer granite cliffs being battered and beaten by an angry ocean with an overcast sky that threatened rain and lightning all hours of the day. It certainly wasn't vacation material, but had its own rugged appeal if one was an outdoors-ey type pony.
Flash, Twilight, and Starlight flew low on the ocean side as to get a good look at the rock face of the cliffs. Three sets of eyes scanned along the ugly grey surface, stopping only to inspect every crack and crevice that looked like it would fit a pony. Alas, they found no sea caves matching the book’s vague depiction. Most of the significant ones only held water, salt, stone, and the occasional pirate’s treasure stash. Nothing of value whatsoever.
Eventually they had to rest, what with Glimmer unable to hold her unfair flying spell for lengthy periods of time. They swooped back onto solid ground, at least fifty feet above the roiling waves, with Starlight moaning and groaning about her head the whole way down.
“Okay team,” Twilight began just as they landed “we'll take an hour break then it's back to the hunt.”
“Way to be a horse shoe-licker, Flash. I think ’Starlight’s Angels’ has a nice ring to it.”
“That sounds narcissistic as hell.”
“Ladies, please.” Twilight interjected. “We should be getting close to our destination. If my knowledge of obscure coastal landmarks and history holds up and this book isn't grossly inaccurate, the cave should be somewhere between Cloudstrider’s Rock and Pegasus Cove. We have to be dangerously close by now.”
“And let us hope that the siren has not arrived ahead of us.” Flash added.
“And that the witch is in a good mood.” Starlight said. “What exactly do we plan to do when we meet this infamous Mother of Sirens anyway?”
“We talk to her.” Twilight simply stated, levitating a ragged woolen blanket and a book out of her saddlebags and draping the blanket over the grass. She cracked open the book and gingerly set it down before tucking her legs under her body and diving facefirst into the musty pages.
“That’s it? And if she's unhappy to see a group of curious ponies descended from the ones that sealed her in that oh so dark and evil lair?”
Twilight didn’t even look up from her book before speaking. “Then we do what we always do. Apply diplomacy and friendship.”
Starlight leered at her mentor, she was not amused, nor did she look too pleased with that answer, but didn't press the matter further. She elected to summon in her own blanket and laid on that on that.
Flash could see something in her body language, the way her motions were jerky and exaggerated, the way she scowled back at Twilight after lying down with her back to the princess. Twilight didn't react, she didn't even seem to notice.
‘That is absolutely, positively none of my Celestia-damned business.’ Flash warned himself. ‘Not. At. All.’ With that, he did an about-face and trotted off inland, toward the sparse bit of woods that grew about a stone’s throw away from the cliffs.
* * *
The clawing branches of the bush left a trail of flattened grass and disturbed leaves as Flash dragged the prickly bush by its stump across the forest floor. Flash winced, he was pretty sure a small splinter made its way into his tongue. He stopped to pick it out with his teeth before continuing on his way. Gracefully weaving around the trees and over the fallen logs, he slipped out of the tangle and back to the bluffs where Twilight and Starlight laid, exactly as the left them with Sparkle still engrossed in her book and Glimmer still in a bad mood.
“Anypony hungry?” Flash asked with a forced enthusiasm, instantly drawing the two out of their respective trances. “I didn't think to pack food for a spontaneous adventure so I did a little foraging.”
“A little?” Twilight chuckled, eyeing the wild blackberries that he scrounged up. “That's enough to feed a bear.”
“Or three ponies, Your Gr-”
The princess glowered at him the moment that the “G-Word” started to roll out of his yap.
“Your Gra-aaah-”
Flash caught himself, his hooves flying to cover his mouth. He tried to swallow those words like a large clump of particularly dry hay.
The two mares watched Flash expectantly as he clutched his muzzle tight, beginning to sweat profusely as the urge to utter that one little syllable became overwhelming.
“Gr-g…”
‘Can't say it. Can't say it. Can't say it. Can-’
“Your Grace!” Flash blurted out, his breathing labored like he had just sprinted a lap around Equestria.
Twilight said nothing, instead she pursed her lips and shook her head at the poor pegasus.
Starlight laughed. Not with him, but rather at him.
“Just eat the berries please.” Flash hung his head, defeated by his own obsession with good order and discipline.
Flash gave himself a mental pat on the back as both of the mares went to work on his finding, picking off the fruits with telekinesis and gingerly popping them into their pie-holes. He had a few for himself, sitting down between them and sharing out at the lulling calm of the countryside. The waves crashing into the shore and the ever present whine of the summer cicadas were the only noises that broke the quiet.
“So where is this “other place” you were talking about?” Flash asked out of the blue.
The princess’s eyes went wide. At once Twilight nearly choked on her food, sending a wave of panic through the guard. “Princess, are you alright?!”
Cough. “Yes, I’m-” Another cough. “I'm fine, really.”
The pegasus breathed a sigh of relief.
Twilight made a show of coughing up and spitting out purple glob as she regained her composure and her breathing slowed. “It’s really nothing that important.”
Flash hummed. “On the contrary, it must be quite special to hold witches so powerful.”
“Well, yes. And no.” Twilight shoved her face back into the book, pretending to read. Flash had watched enough ponies lie in his lifetime to notice that something was odd about the princess her relationship to this “place”.
Starlight made her own voice known. “I'm actually curious too. You've never told me about fighting some weird siren ponies before.” She furrowed her brow, turning back to give Twilight a sour face. “What makes this place so super-special that you have to keep it a secret from your own Celestia-blessed student, of all ponies?”
“I'm not keeping a secret!” Twilight replied, beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead. Her lips crept upward into an unnatural and incredibly guilty smile.
“You're a worse liar than Applejack.” Starlight said with a voice as plain as a brick wall.
The smile dropped like a sack of dead kittens. Twilight groaned as she slumped over to rest her chin on the open book. “Fine.” she muttered. “I guess I can't hide it forever.”
She sat up straight and put a hoof to her chest, taking in a deep breath and slowly moving it away from her body and toward the ocean as she exhaled steadily.
“Well, I suppose I should just say it. This place is another reality, a parallel plane of existence that can be traveled to through a magical portal that I created.”
At this point Flash wasn't even surprised.
Starlight’s mouth was agape so far that the sweet smell of berries on her breath drew flies.
“A portal?!” the unicorn echoed. “You built a portal to another plane and you didn't tell me about it?!”
The princess shrunk back. She didn't have the heart to look her pupil in the face. “I'm sorry, I just, umm....”
“I can't believe you!”
And so the manure storm began. Oh boy, Flash really did it done it that time. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ he mentally flogged himself for asking the wrong pony the wrong question at the wrong time.
“I really can't believe you!” Starlight repeated, rising to her hooves. “I’ve dedicated all this time to you and your stupid lessons in friendship and this is what I get? You made greatest magical discovery in the past, what, thousand years and you don't even want to tell me about it! Out-rutting-rageous!”
Starlight’s face flushed few shades redder, and she was gritting her teeth at that point. Flash instinctively crept beside Twilight, tensing his muscles and preparing himself for the worst.
“It was for the safety of everpo-”
“Don’t give me any more of your excuses!” Starlight let out a shrill cry of frustration. “You expect me to take what you say in blind faith, but how can I believe you when you keep secrets? You know what? I'm sick if this. I was better off on my own playing by my rules.”
Twilight said nothing, she merely stared at Starlight with a hurt expression that made Flash want throw the offending pink unicorn off the cliffs.
“Goodbye, Princess.” she said with a voice that bit like ice. Then she turned tail and galloped away. Both Flash and Twilight’s hearts leapt into their throats when Starlight threw herself off of the cliff, but settled quickly as she rose again, enveloped by that familiar blue aura.
Flash watched with a knife in his heart as Twilight held her head low and cocked her ears back.
He had really screwed up this time.
* * *
She had found it.
The place that Twilight described from the book was only a half hour’s flight away. It wasn't exactly hidden, what with the grand stone arch carved with arcane runes that marked the entrance to the sea cave. Honestly, it was a miracle that nopony before her had found the place.
Or rather, more accurately, nopony had come back from it.
The place gave Starlight Glimmer the chills. Both figuratively and literally. The only light that penetrated the long corridor leading deeper into the cliffs shone through a crack that she could barely fit through getting in, and even that faded with each pace she took.
The floor of the cavern was a coarse mess of seashells fragments, washed-up kelp, and slimy wet sand. Her hooves made a sloshing and sucking sound as she moved them in and out of the stew of sea debris.
Starlight grumbled out a long string of ranting and raving that was nigh-unintelligible all the way through; saying this and that about her mentor and the rest of her precious little perfect friends who could do no wrong. How aggravating they were. She became a bit too absorbed into her monologue and lost her footing on a largeish rock hidden by the sand. She was planted face first into the muck.
Starlight parted herself from the squishy cocktail of sea junk, her mane caked with sand and seaweed. She let off a rapid-fire series of four, five, and even six letter words so foul they would make the saltiest of sailors uncomfortable. They echoed several times off of the wet walls of the cramped cavern.
It wasn't likely that she would be able to sneak up upon the witch at that point.
Using her magic, Starlight excavated the sand from her mane with a strong wind spell centered on herself, splattering the stuff all over.
Continuing on with a simple light spell illuminating the way forward, Starlight navigated the twists and turns as the slopes of the floor crept further downward. The tunnels began splitting off in many directions, going to and fro aimlessly, sometimes leading to dead ends or looping around. Starlight chose her paths at random every time a fork appeared, assured in the idea that she'll eventually find the right way.
“Having fun in my maze?” A mature feminine voice emanated from behind her. Starlight twirled one hundred and eighty degrees, putting on her war face readying a spell. Alas, there was nothing but more cave behind her.
“Where are you?” Starlight demanded.
“Here. There. Everywhere.” the voice answered cryptically.
“Yeah, disembodied voice. Real scary, lady.”
Starlight cautiously trotted on, keeping to her method of randomly chosen directions. She went on in silence for a few minutes more before the voice came again.
“Hmm, what will the mare do?” It asked nopony in particular. “Don't know which way to go, every path looks the same as the last? Oooh, you must be feeling a little lost by now?” It cackled madly.
What was this, a Nightmare Night funhouse?
Starlight soldiered on, paying no heed to her mocking.
“Poor little Starlight.” It cooed. “What shall become of you? How long have you been wandering my home? I wonder where Twilight and that little puppy following her are? Why, by now it’d be impossible for them to find you he-”
“Are you going to narrate everything I do?!” the unicorn screamed.
There was a long spell of silence.
“Bah, you're no fun.”
Starlight rolled her eyes and went on… and on...and on. Celestia’s tears, when did this thing end? It couldn't naturally extend this far into the earth, could it? Star had been walking for a good thirty minutes. Her hooves were starting to hurt. It was like she was going in circles!
Wait a second.
Starlight stopped in her tracks.
“Ha!” the voice cheered. “Give up yet? You'll never find your way in, but if you agree to leave this place now, I'll ensure that you find you way back to the surface safe and sound.”
“Nah.” was all that Starlight said.
At once the pink unicorn’s horn crackled with sky blue energy. Starlight grit her teeth and let loose a bolt of power straight into the tunnel ahead, painting the wet walls of the cavern in her signature color for a brief moment. It traveled several feet before it impacted upon some kind of shimmering sphere of magic, which was barely visible to the naked eye before it reacted with the bolt of power. There was a sound like shattering glass that pierced the cavern, then the sphere was no more.
“Hmm.” the voice pondered. “I thought you'd never figure it out.”
“It was a clever trick.” Starlight admitted. “Teleportation was never my thing, really.”
‘I bet Twilight would have caught it.’ She thought, making herself cringe.
Starlight walked past the point where her bolt stopped and entered a much less cramped space. The room extended far beyond the scope of her light, which faded away deeper into the blackness with every foot. The inches of mushy sand quickly became inches of seawater as she waded further in.
For a moment, Starlight swept her head to the side, and when her eyes returned forward, her heart skipped a bit more than a beat. What had been nothing several moments prior was suddenly something, right out of thin air.
Before her was a simple oaken table planted right there in the shallow seawater, complete with a modest table set for serving tea and a fancy candle chandelier seeming to on a brass chain that seemed to hang by nothing but air. Sitting contently at the end opposite of Starlight was a mature emerald-green earth pony with a silky mane colored like winter wheat and done up in an elaborate bun secured by what looked to be fish bones. She calmly sat and sipped on a piping hot cup.
“It's been some time since this old home has had a proper guest.” The mare said. Starlight was not surprised to find that her alto voice matched the one from earlier.
Starlight didn't immediately move or speak. She stood and stared at the aged mare, searching for the appropriate response.
“Oh come now,” she peered at Star through a pair of intellegent pink eyes, “I am a witch, not a barbarian. I can be civil. Now have a seat before the tea gets cold and high tide comes in.”
And so Starlight took a seat. Or rather, it took her. A simple wooden chair appeared behind her in a puff of white smoke. Before she could protest, the chair moved of its own power and swept Starlight up, nearly pinning her to the table.
The witch made a small motion with her hoof and the tea set came to life, pouring Starlight a steaming cup of what smelled to be jasmine.
Star eyed the floating cup. “I'm not much of a tea kind of pony.”
The witch gazed at her with blank eyes for a moment longer than Star found comfortable. “Suit yourself.”
With another wave of a hoof, the tea vanished.
“Interesting friends you have, Starlight.” the witch bagan in a pleasant tone. “A pampered purple princess and her humble, yet admittedly handsome guard.” She wiggled her brows seductively at that last part.
“H-how do you know all this?” Starlight asked softly.
“The sea has ears and the waves carry whispers. All one needs to do is learn how to listen.” The witch paused. “Oh, and this too.”
Poof. The teaset save for the cup that the witch held were whisked away into the darkness and replaced by something else. It was a big, luminescent sphere of glass the size of a pony’s head on a golden pedestal.
“A little scrying every now and again helps to stave off boredom.” she said. “And look what we have here!”
Star peered deeper into the orb. She saw a swirl of colors and vague shapes for the first few moments, but they soon organized themselves into a moving image. It was Twilight and Flash! They were walking through the same passages that Starlight was minutes prior.
Starlight tore her eyes away. She didn't want to look. Just seeing Twilight again so soon made her blood boil.
“They should be joining the party in a few minutes by the looks of it!” the witch hummed to herself. “You must be eager to see them again.”
The unicorn crossed her hooves across her breast and scowled. “Hardly.”
The witch felt a wicked smile creeping across her face.
“I see, I see…” the Mother of Sirens nodded sagely. “They'll never understand, you know.”
Star cocked an eyebrow at the mare. “Understand what?”
“Being anything other than a goody goody two-horseshoes.”
Starlight huffed. “Hit the nail on the head, sister.”
“They bow to laws and rulers like blades of grass to the wind. Always following somepony greater than themselves, never once stopping to think that they are the ones who could be great. It's a shame, all this wasted talent. The orange one could be a famed warrior if he wasn't seeking to please his princess like a puppy starved of affection. Twilight Sparkle could rule over all of Equestria herself, like the sisters, if only she wasn't so busy brown-nosing them. And you, Starlight…”
Suddenly, the witch kicked back her chair and slammed her front hooves on the table, nearly knocking the glass ball off of its pedestal. “You could be the same pony you used to be, only better! I can see it in your eyes, I need no enchanted crystal to know what I know about you. You want to lead again. You want to be the pony making all the rules. You want your freedom back.”
Starlight stammered unintelligibly “I- I- uh, I-”
“I can give you want you want. No need of these arbitrary rules to follow, no silly lessons of “friendship”, just pure magic. The likes of which you've never known! I've learned so many things over the years, it's all just bursting forth from my head! I need to pass these things on to a student, let the secrets of true witchcraft leave this infernal cave!”
“Starlight!”
The two mare’s attention were shifted to the entrance of the chamber as Twilight and Flash came galloping in, their hooves making large splashes as they waded through the saltwater.
“My my, you were quick to figure out my little.setup.” said the witch. “In fact, you are just in time to say farewell, as your protege shall be studying under me.”
With another wave, Flash and Twilight were instantly teleported to either side of Starlight, forceful wooden chairs pressing them to the table just as they did to her.
“What's going on?!” Flash demanded, struggling to push himself away. “I'm stuck!”
“Starlight, what's happening?” Twilight pleaded.
Starlight just glared at her.
The witch laughed a dark, humorless laugh. “Seems like the student detests the master. Tell me, Starlight, what has Twilight taught you about magic? What spells have you learned that you didn't know before?”
“Not one spell.” Star muttered, choosing neither to look at the witch, Flash, or Twilight.
“Well, seems like you're an inadequate teacher. All this time, and your pupil is no more learned than she was before you “redeemed” her.” The witch shot the princess a smug grin. “Don't worry, I'll be sure to avoid the mistakes you made.”
That was it. “You know what?!” Star shouted.
Everypony gave pause.
“I don't need a teacher.”
Her horn suddenly flared with an intense aura. With a flick of her forehead, Starlight sent a wide wave of raw magical force forward, knocking over the table, the crystal ball, and even the witch herself. The objects quickly dissipated into nothing, leaving but the four of them in the expansive cavern.
At once the witch was enveloped in Star’s aura. She levitated the stunned earth pony to eye-level.
“I'm going my own way. I don't need you,” she whipped her head back to scowl at Twilight “I don't need you, either. I'll make my mark on the world without the help of a perfect princess or a siren with an overinflated ego. Now, I came here for one purpose and one purpose only. Where is your daughter?”
The siren was silent. Oh, what a bad move that was. She began shaking her like a poor ragdoll. “Where is she?!”
“She's already there!” the witch cackled. “I gave her a head start! She's back to the portal, and if my crystal ball is correct, she should have a special little surprise in tow. A pompous, blonde, surprise of a unicorn!”
Flash’s throat suddenly found itself very full of heart. “Please tell me it's not-”
* * *
“Twilight?” Blueblood called, his voice bouncing off of the crystal walls of Ponyville’s super magic friendship fortress, or whatever it was called. “Hello? Spike?”
A very purple and very scaly head popped around the corner as the prince wandered the giant tree. “Hi Blueblood. Twilight's out looking for some super evil pony that escaped another world. Usual stuff. What can I do for ya?”
Cotton Swab faked a sad tone. “Aww, no afternoon tea with the pwincess? Too bad.”
BB shot an irritated glance at his bodyguard. “Another interesting day for her. Oh well, I was looking forward to a safe and dull afternoon. Perhaps you'd fancy a few hooves of poker, Spike? I know Twilight has to have taught you a game other than chess and “Organize the Bookshelves”. Though, she never was one for gambling.”
Spike was about to answer when Cotton nudged Blueblood with a hoof.
“Heads up.” She said, pointing down the corridor behind them. It was a lone mare at the very end, with a coat like pink lemonade and a wildly colored mane done up in two pigtails that nearly dragged the floor. Around her neck hung an ornate diamond-cut ruby. That had to be worth a pretty copper bit.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” Cotton said in an authoritative voice, positioning herself in between the mare and BB.
“Relax,” the prince said “I don't recognize her at all.”
“Well that's a relief!” Cotton immediately dropped the guard attitude. “I wasn't in the mood for shooting lasers anyway.”
“Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a mare of wealth and taste.”
Wait. This mare, was she… singing?
“Excuse me?” Blueblood asked.
“'I’ve been around for a long, long year, stole many a colt's soul to waste.”
Her voice, it was haunting. Disturbing, even. Yet still at the same time, beautiful. The two ponies and one dragon were left speechless. They could hardly even move.
“And I was 'round when Nightmare Moon had her night of dark and pain.”
Luna’s tears, Blueblood felt so tired. Her voice made him want to doze off right then and there. In fact, he did. All he could focus on was that lovely voice. All things seemed to fade away. The castle, Cotton, Spike, even the mare herself, all but the song that she sang.
Soon, he couldn't even hear the words, just the sound.
