The Glass Kingdom

by RainbowDoubleDash

First published 12th of March, 2015

Trixie and Lyra uncover a conspiracy in the nation of Zaldia

The ancient kingdom of Zaldia, the Platinum Kingdom, has stood apart from Equestria for centuries, its culture and its ponies fiercely independent and cultivating a culture of propriety, etiquette - and secrets. Trixie and Lyra, Elements of Magic and Loyalty respectively, find themselves in this land for reasons that appear simple enough on the surface. They soon find themselves embroiled a game of conspiracy and treachery - one that threatens not just their lives, but the whole of Equestria...

Short version: Tom Clancy Writes Pony. A Lunaverse story, set during the second season.

1. Establishing Communications

The pony was acting paranoid, and he knew it. But he was one of the most powerful ponies in all of Zaldia, and by extension, one of the most closely watched. The Guard Department - Guardia Saila, which most Zaldians shortened to the Guarsai – had eyes and ears everywhere, even here, in the pony’s own residence.

So he scanned, and looked physically, and used both his own magic and that a magic monocle that he had created some years ago at great expense. But at length, he found the room was empty, devoid of any kind of scrying sensors or other listening devices, just as it should have been. And so the pony went to the center of the room, looked around one more time, and then uncovered it.

“It” wasn’t much to look at, just a mirror – at least, at a glance, to any who couldn’t detect magic. Even amongst those who could, it certainly did not seem to radiate any kind of catastrophically powerful magic, because it indeed did not. It was a speaking mirror, half as tall as the pony who was now looking into it, connected via magic to a hoof-held mirror that was currently in the possession of…somepony else. It was a rare but not unheard of artifact, with a useful but by no means illegal enchantment that was something of a specialty amongst Zaldian mages.

Of course, being a communication device, the true power – and the true danger – of the mirror lay not in what it could do, but in who it could reach.

The pony pressed a hoof to the mirror, his horn glowing a pale blue color as it activated the magical device. It flashed once, and quite suddenly rather than looking at a reflection of himself, the pony found himself looking the blown-up image of a red-coated pegasus, his wings, hooves, and body clad in golden armor while his mane and tail were made to look like billowing flames. “Why are you calling me?” The pegasus demanded without introduction, in Zaldian that was passable at best. “Again?”

The pony glared hard at him. “Because, O Voice of the Sun, I did not get to where I am without keeping one eye on everything. You are in place?”

“Very nearly. My salamanders say that we will be there within the hour.”

“Your ssalamanderss?” A voice, coming from the mirror but out of sight, asked incredulously.

The Voice of the Sun – Kindle was his real name, but the pony in his study could understand and appreciate wanting to make oneself grander via the acquisition of titles – ignored the comment. “The question, then, is if you are ready.”

“I am.”

“There can be no backing out – ”

“Do not speak to me as though I do not know the risks!” the pony interrupted. “I have been doing this, Kindle, since before you were born. The skeletons in my closet could fill a graveyard full to bursting. This is the penultimate move in a plan decades in the making. Whatever benefits you may acquire in the process, you and your Queen are tools, nothing more.”

Kindle bristled. Pegasus emotions were so easy to read, thanks to their wings doing all the emoting for them. Raised and splayed wings were the giveaway here, arched forward, ready to push Kindle forward at the object of his ire – despite said object being some miles away and on the other side of a mirror. “You will not speak about the True Queen that way!” he demanded in a tone of voice used only by true fanatics. “Queen Celestia is Sol Invicta – she is no mere pawn!”

The pony avoided rolling his eyes. “We all have our part to play in each other’s schemes,” he said, his voice almost conciliatory. “Play your part in mine, Voice, and I will play my part in yours.” When a third bridge is built, the pony mentally appended – a Zaldian euphemism meaning ‘never.’ But Kindle didn’t need to know that he had no intention of subsuming Zaldia to Equestria’s will – nor supporting Corona the Tyrant Sun’s bid for power there. He had his own designs.

Kindle looked in no way happy with the pony, but he had been given a mission by his Queen, bid to aid the Zaldian, and he would not disobey her. He nodded curtly, snorted, and deactivated the mirror on his end. The pony in his study was surprised at that – Kindle was a pegasus and should not have been able to interact with a magic item so. Evidently the Tyrant Sun’s boon extended to more than just the appearance he now wore. The pony resolved not to forget that, as he covered his magic mirror once more, and then trotted over to a nearby window in his study, glancing out. The window looked southeast, and from its vantage point he could see the broad, hilly fields and foothills of eastern Zaldia and, much more closely, the city of Gotorleku Hiria, the capital of Zaldia on whose outskirts his own estate rested.

“Soon,” he decided. Very, very soon. But not quite yet. No, first, he had to finalize arranging his plausible deniability – and his scapegoats.

---

Zaldia.

Even now, part of Trixie couldn’t believe that she was actually here, within the Platinum Kingdom. Occupying part of the eastern coast of Cissanthema, north of Cavallia and east of Equestria, it was a mountainous, rugged land for the most part that had steadfastly pursued a policy of independence from Equestria and her exarchies. Still, it was no hermit nation. The Platinum Kingdom, as its ponies liked to refer to it, maintained generally friendly trade relations with Equestria, mostly in the form of imports from the vast network of trading posts and small colonies that Zaldian merchants had established in Maghrib, Farasi, Shouma, Occidenta, even distant southern Cheeron, bringing products from those continents back to Cissanthema and ensuring that Zaldia was possessed of wealth that belied the size and natural resources of the homeland.

That wealth had gone into building up the capital city of Zaldia, Gotorleku Hiria, to be unlike any other city that Trixie had ever seen. At a glance, seen from the foothills far below, Gotorleku Hiria would have looked much like Canterlot – a city tucked away onto a mountain. But any detailed examination of the city showed the differences immediately. Not content with a single mountain, Gotorleku Hiria stretched across three nearby peaks, with a pair of long bridges connecting the northeastern and southwestern portions to the central one. Zaldian architecture also favored tall, thin buildings that reached into the sky, towers in silver or black or white that curved as they ascended, laced with platinum filigree. There was a fortune in the construction material alone of the city. And even Trixie, who had grown up in Equestria with stories of the Tyrant Sun driving her to take shelter every noon as per a thousand-year-old tradition, had watched entranced as sunlight played off of the walls and roofs of the city’s tall buildings.

“We need to get along better with the Zaldians,” she decided aloud as she looked out the balcony of the hotel she was staying at, front hooves perched on its railing.

Lyra glanced up from where she was sitting, a couch within their hotel room, though she said nothing as she focused on practicing playing her lyre. The mint unicorn was here as a further step on her musical career; the famous zitherist Ohar Garai had extended an offer for a duet concert with Lyra’s mentor, Octavia Philharmonica. Octavia, however, had been tied down by other obligations, but had recommended Lyra as a replacement, noting that lyre music would probably compliment a zither better than a cello would anyway. Lyra and Ohar had communicated via letters several times since then and arranged the concert for tonight – something of a routine performance for Ohar at the city’s Royal Auditorium, but potentially a major career-making move for Lyra, as playing alongside a musician like Ohar would be quite the feather in her cap.

Trixie was here for dual purposes; she was attending the concert in support of Lyra, of course, but the day of the concert had happened to line up with an already-scheduled meeting between her, in her capacity as Princess Luna’s apprentice, and a Zaldian pony named Kristal Zati, the apprentice to Ispelu Magikoa, High Mage of Zaldia. Princess Luna wanted to meet with the High mage of Zaldia, but getting through the complex, almost intentionally impermeable social mores of Zaldia was difficult even for the Alicorn of the Night and required multiple stages of preparation, of which Trixie and Kristal meeting was only the latest. Trixie was not looking forward to what would undoubtedly be quite the headache.

Trixie came back into from the outside, shutting the balcony door as she did. Beautiful or not, Gotorleku Hiria was also cold at the moment, the drawback to being located several thousand feet above sea level when Spring was still new. The chill had been invigorating for a moment, but she didn’t fancy getting hypothermia. “Alright,” Trixie said as she trotted over to the small desk in the hotel room, gathering some papers together. “So, first thing’s first, breakfast for the two of us. Then you go to Ohar and I go to Kristal. You get to have fun and I get to bang my head against a brick wall.”

Lyra chuckled as her hooves made familiar motions across her lyre. She would have preferred more time to practice with Ohar than right before the concert, but in sharp contrast to the rest of their society Zaldians preferred their concerts, even the important ones, to be as impromptu as possible, any mistakes made during it considered a natural and even important part of the show. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “I don’t even speak Zaldian,” she said. “Kristal Zati doesn’t speak Equestrian.”

Lyra paused in her practice at that. “Then how…?”

“We both speak Prench. But I just know that he’s gonna have something to say about me.” Trixie turned around and sat back, waving her hooves in the air. “Hon hon hon, Lunesianan Prench, zis is not real Prench! No, it is a regional patois zat actual Prench ponies despise! I am insulted, hon hon hon!”

Lyra chuckled once more at the incredibly fake accent that Trixie had put on, resuming her practice. “You’ll deal with it. Is he even Prench?”

“I don’t think so,” Trixie said, as she lowered her hooves and resumed packing up. Technically, actually, nopony was really Prench anymore – the country had been largely absorbed into Equestria several centuries back, though Zaldia itself had taken some of its northeastern marches – but she didn’t think Kristal Zati was of Prench descent, either. “Which might make it worse. Hon hon hon, I have studied Prench in ze grrrreatest academies! Your Prench, zis is not how it is spoken! My tutors say so!”

That earned a full laugh from Lyra, and she used the excuse to set aside her lyre and start packing it up for the trip to the auditorium. The relatively thin air of Gotorleku Hiria was having an interesting effect on her acoustics that she resolved to make sure she took into account at the concert.

“How do you think Ponyville’s holding up?” Lyra asked as the two made their way from the hotel room, heading for the elevator that would take them to the first floor – a luxury that basically didn’t exist in Equestria, but given how tall Zaldians liked to build their buildings Trixie wasn’t surprised that they’d be more ubiquitous here.

The blue unicorn waved a hoof as they entered the elevator, nodding politely to its operator and indicating that they wished to go to the ground floor. “Everything’s fine, I’m sure. It managed to survive near the Everfree before I arrived there, I’m sure it can last a month or two without us there.”

It was Lyra’s turn to roll her eyes at that, though Trixie raised a good point. Following a diplomatic trip to the Griffin Kingdoms that their recently-acquired duties as Knights of the Realm had required, Princess Luna had hit on the idea of sending the bearers of the Elements of Harmony on what amounted to a series of diplomatic visits with Equestria’s neighbors. Given how the six of them had come to bear and to some extent control the most powerful magical artifacts known to Ponydom, Princess Luna’s hope had been to show that the wielders of said artifacts were just ordinary ponies, no threat to the surrounding nations – essentially trying to head off an international version of the difficulties the six had experienced with the Night Court in the first few months of bearing the Elements.

The upside to this was extraordinary travel opportunities, but the downside was being away from their hometown of Ponyville for several months. It constantly seemed like they’d only just gotten home when the Princess would have some new trip lined up for them, which they couldn’t exactly refuse – not when most of it was being done on the Princess’ coin, anyway. If Lyra hadn’t known any better she might have thought that Luna was getting some small revenge for some of their actions at the Grand Galloping Gala.

So really this trip to Zaldia was a three-parter, then. A concert for Lyra, a diplomatic meeting for Trixie, and the two of them just wandering around Gotorleku Hiria for a week or so being friendly with the natives and answering any questions the Zaldians had about Equestrian intentions for the Elements. Somehow. Without speaking Zaldian.

“Wait, if neither of us speak the language, how are we supposed to do this?” Lyra asked as the two of them reached the restaurant, which was named in Zaldian and had a menu posted outside, also in Zaldian.

Trixie waved a hoof. “Easy as pie,” she said, strutting confidently up to the restaurant’s host. “Mahai bi personentzako, mesedez.”

“Eskuin modu honetan,” the host replied. A unicorn, her gray telekinesis grabbed a pair of menus, and she escorted Lyra and Trixie to a table near the restaurant’s front window, affording a view of the street outside. “Norbait izango duzu laster,” they were informed as they took their seats at somewhat rough but certainly serviceable seating cushions.

“Eskerrik,” Trixie returned as the host wandered off. She turned to Lyra, smiling. “Page of everyday Zaldian phrases for a traveler. I used my memory-spell on three of them. For the next twenty-four hours I am a master of the Zaldian language – ”

“Arritxu Egunon,” said a pale blue unicorn that seemed to appear from nowhere. “Nire izena Perfektua Denboran da, eta zure zerbitzari gaur egingo dut. Ezin dizut edan ezer lortu?”

Trixie and Lyra both stared at him. “Trixie?” Lyra asked.

“W-well…” Trixie said, “maybe not a master. Um…” she looked to the unicorn. “Ez Ekwestriko hitz egiten duzu?”

The pale unicorn blinked a few times in confusion.

“…Parlez-vous Prançais?” Trixie tried.

Lyra let out a sigh.

---

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony –
We're as close as friends can ever be!
My little pony –
So come on take a trip with me!
A big world tour; new people to meet
New sights to see; and new things to eat
When you're seeing the world with your friends
The fun you'll have will never end!
You have my little ponies –
We'll be seeing all of you real soon!

---

The Royal Auditorium – Errege Auditorio – of Gotorleku Hiria was one of the few structures that went in for width rather than height in its construction, though it still favored the austere black-white-and-platinum coloration of most of the city, and its entrance was a long tunnel of twisting filigree metal. Its interior was much more familiar to Lyra, however – a stage with a long row of seats leading down to it, sloped so that nopony’s view would be blocked by the pony in front of them. Several boxes for VIPs lined the walls, and the stage itself, curtains currently drawn back, revealed a concave wall that would serve as a natural amplifier for sound.

Lyra glanced around as she stopped just inside, taking in the sight. Equestrians didn’t often get to play in the Auditorio – for that matter, Equestrians weren’t that common in Gotorleku Hiria to being with. The Zaldians were fiercely independent as a rule, an ancient rival for Cavallia to the south that, in turn, made them wary of Equestria, Cavallia’s closest ally. While Zaldia was willing to trade with both during its more friendly periods, most of that trade happened on the border or in the coastal cities. Equestrians were by no means forbidden from journeying inland to the capital, but it didn’t happen much. She wondered when the last time the Auditorio had had an Equestrian in it was.

She smiled a little, though. On the other hoof, Ohar Garai had asked for Octavia himself, and hadn’t seemed in any way perturbed with getting Lyra instead at Octavia’s recommendation. Music trumped international borders and rivalries, it seemed.

“Barkatu, ez hemen bizitzeko arrazoia bat izan duzu?” a voice asked. Lyra started slightly, and turned to see a unicorn with a fine red jacket on – probably an employee for the Auditorio.

“Um,” Lyra said in response, closing her eyes a moment and trying to recall the very, very small amount of Zaldian she had managed to cram down. “Ni Zaldun Lyra Heartstrings naiz.”

The unicorn paused a moment, and Lyra wondered if she had managed to completely bungle Zaldian. The Auditorio employee brightened after a moment, however. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Zaldun Lyra, bai. Ohar, agertokiaren atzean dago, ikuskizuna landuz.”

Lyra blinked a few times at that. “Er,” she said. “Ez dakit Zaldiaz. Barkatu,” she explained, hopefully intelligibly, that she didn’t speak Zaldian.

The unicorn shifted slightly at that, probably understanding Lyra. “Er,” he echoed her, glancing down and waving one hoof as though coaxing a memory. “Ohar, stage behind, practicing is.”

Lyra smiled and nodded in understanding. “Eskerrik asko,” she said in thanks, as the Zaldian turned and guided Lyra through the Auditorium and around a hidden door set near the stage. If the front of the Auditorio had looked familiar enough, the backstage section was downright identical to any backstage that Lyra had ever seen, a tall ceiling with scaffolding and ropes for controlling curtains and props, said props scattered everywhere in an almost-organized chaos that the stagehooves would understand, the performers could almost grasp, and anypony else would be helplessly lost in.

Sitting just behind the curtain, on a comfortable-looking cushion, was a middle-aged earth pony, with a pine-green coat that went well with his aquamarine-blue mane and eyes. Set before him on a special stand was an instrument, looking to the untrained eye almost like a guitar that had lost its neck and gained far too many strings – a zither, the form if not the precise coloration of which matched the two crossed ones that appeared as a cutie mark on his flank. He also wore around his neck a simple necklace that had what looked like a horn-ring hanging from it. The earth pony looked up from his practice as Lyra and her escort approached.

“Ugazaba Garai,” the unicorn escort said, and then waved a hoof at Lyra. “Zaldun Lyra. Ah…berak ez duela Zaldiaz egiten.”

The earth pony stood, stepping forward and offering a small bow. “Zaldun Lyra,” he said, his voice somewhat high, but by no means unpleasant, and he spoke both clearly and slowly. “Ni Ohar Garai naiz.”

Lyra returned the bow at the introduction. “Kaixo,” she said as she rose, then shifted a little. “Um…do you speak Equestrian?”

Ohar spent a few moments visibly running that through his head, before letting out a small sigh. “No,” he said, a little stiffly. “Ray-ahd I, spay-ahk…good, not.”

Lyra rubbed the back of her head at that. “That could be a problem…” she noted.

“Però…” Ohar tried, “Cavalliano?”

Lyra blinked a few times at that, before smiling and switching mental gears to a language she hadn’t really had a chance to speak since her early days at Luna’s Academy. “A little,” she said in Cavallian. “Um…good enough. I got a good, uh…grade. Almost.”

Ohar chuckled. “I, not good much either,” he continued in Cavallian himself. “But, better than Ekwestriko speak.”

Lyra returned the laugh as her horn glowed and she unslung the carrying case for her lyre from her back. She noticed the unicorn shifting a little, unsure at the two ponies who had suddenly started speaking a foreign language in front of him. Ohar noticed as well, and waved at him. “Hurrena dugu nola elkarren artean hitz egin,” he said, returning to Zaldian for a moment. “Orain joan ahal izango duzu.”

The other Zaldian bowed slightly, then turned and trotted off. Ohar chuckled a little. “Now, Guarsai will he get, say, ‘Ohar is speaking Cavallian, must spy be!’” he said with a chuckle, returning to Cavallian. “Concert get cancelled, knowing luck.”

Lyra chuckled as well, reassured by the older pony’s mirth. Cavallia and Zaldia were usually lucky to be on speaking terms as a result of Zaldia feeling that it was pinned in by two alicorn-ruled nations, Equestria and Cavallia. On the other hoof, Cavallian was roundly recognized as the international language of music, and musicians tended to pick it up during the course of their high-end studies as a sort of lingua franca between each other. Ohar was probably just making a joke at the Auditorio employee’s expense, he wasn’t actually going to get the police, or whatever Guarsai translated out to.

“Octavia apologizes,” Lyra said once their chuckling died down, as she got out her lyre and commenced to making sure it was tuned properly. “Concert scheduled. Um…ambassadors from Heststed.” Lyra was glad that Octavia wasn’t here, too, her Cavallian had grown atrocious, even to her own ears.

“Oh?” Ohar asked, not noticing the slips since his own Cavallian was scarcely better. “Ah, well. Some concerts, important more. This, put on for, ah, noblezia handiko…high nobles, so they no angry I when play for King, two days.”

Lyra rolled her eyes at that. She didn’t know too much about Zaldian nobility, but she did have some rather unpleasant experiences with the Night Court back home in Equestria. She paused then. “Uh…I play for King?”

Ohar’s eyes widened at that and he missed a note on his zither. “Ez, ez…ah…no. No. You, Ekwestriko. Not possible, not…appropriate. Sorry, so sorry.”

Lyra waved a hoof, guessing at the political implications. She’d also been exposed enough to the Night Court to know that her – or even Octavia, as had been the original plan – playing in front of Zaldian nobility was probably a veiled insult of some variety from the King to his nobles, but she resolved not to let it get to her. No one outside of the Zaldian nobility would understand the insult, and it would still look good for her when trying to arrange future shows.

“I, do not find not appropriate,” Ohar continued quickly, worried about causing offense. “Music is music. Musician matter not. Except Red Magician.”

Lyra burst out laughing at that. It was an old joke amongst musicians about a spectacularly arrogant unicorn from about five centuries ago, and apparently it transcended nationality. “Yes,” she said, as she finished checking her lyre’s tuning. She had been right, the thin air of the high mountains was slightly throwing off the acoustics of, well, just about everything, but she was fairly certain that the stage’s construction would compensate for that – that was what it had been designed to do, after all. “Um…I know Zaldians, like improvisation some – gah, some improvisation – but…any pieces you like, want do, tonight?”

Ohar shifted a little, setting into a more comfortable position as his hooves lightly touched the strings of his zither. “Like I, Noble Brook,” he said, as he started playing. “Violin and cello, normally, but, we make work,” he grinned a little mischievously, “and make Octavia sad, not come, yes?”

Lyra smiled at that, waiting for a moment appropriate for her to enter before gliding her own hooves across her lyre, taking the parts normally reserved for the cello and leaving the somewhat more complicated violin pieces for Ohar’s zither. “She hates, actually. Same eight notes, repeated, fifty-four times.”

Ohar laughed as the two continued playing. It was a fairly simple piece on the whole, more of a warm-up then anything, but its very simplicity meant that a lot of ponies tended to like it since it could easily get stuck in one’s head. Which was also a reason to hate it, Lyra supposed, but then Lyra found the surest way to get a piece out of one’s head was to hear it again, which meant seeing another concert…

---

Breakfast had been ordered mostly successfully, Zaldian, Prench, and Equestrian having just enough cognates between the three of them for Trixie to be able to order for herself and Lyra and get everything basically right. Trixie’s ability to conjure illusions was definitely useful there.

Stomach full of toast, celery, and coffee, she had bid Lyra adieu and made her way to the High Palace of Zaldia. Trixie didn’t know its Zaldian name, but it wasn’t hard to find. Occupying the great majority of the northernmost peak that Gotorleku Hiria was located on, the High Palace certainly lived up to its name – set on a small plateau above the height of even the other buildings on the north peak, and consisting of a multitude of tightly-packed filigree spires that glinted brightly in the morning sunlight. Like Canterlot back in Equestria, it was surrounded by a wall, though rather than stone the wall was made of interlaced bars of black metal that made Trixie’s horn thrum when she got near to them. There was powerful magic imbued in those bars – they would be as sturdy as any stone edifice. Also like Canterlot, the palace’s gates were guarded by the local Royal Guard, dressed in silver, intricate armor with capes of green and white across their backs and helmets that covered much of their faces and were crafted to look like the open mouths of roaring bears.

Trixie had all the correct credentials, and was ushered inside the High Palace without much ceremony – expected, given her relatively low station. A page who could stumble through Prench escorted Trixie into the High Palace through a maze of twists and turns that would have been disorienting had the unicorn mare not lived in Canterlot Castle for ten years and learned how to orient herself when within such a twisted network. She ended up finding herself in a medium-sized meeting room, with a large window that looked out into Gotorleku Hiria, with a table, chairs, a clock, and a painting of somepony looking very royal and noble – a former king of Zaldia, Trixie guessed.

Trixie turned to her escort. “Où est Kristal Zati?” she asked in Prench – wondering where the pony she was supposed to meet was.

“He, ah, be along small,” the page provided helpfully in Prench that was suitably atrocious. Trixie, however, was beneficent as she shucked her saddlebags, recognizing a seldom-used second language when she heard one. “Wait here, no be long, Dame Lulamoon – ”

The page wasn’t wrong, as at that moment a gray unicorn stallion chose to sweep into the room. His pale blue mane was swept off to his right side, almost hiding his right eye, and he was bedecked with a black-and-silver cape clasped about his throat with a white diamond.

Trixie instantly didn’t like him, and almost instantly was able to put that aside in the interests of international diplomancy. “Monsieur Zati?” she asked as she approached, while the page bowed out of the room.

The stallion glanced at Trixie but barely slowed down as he went to the other side of the room, horn lighting up in pale blue and conjuring two small stacks of paper on either side of the table. “Lord Kristal Zati, if you please,” he said in clipped, precise Prench, his voice pretty much the exact opposite of what Trixie would consider to be ‘pleasant’ and still not really looking at Trixie.

International diplomacy was a game only the most patient played. Trixie grit her teeth. “Lord Zati,” she said, remembering that Zaldian convention used a pony’s second name rather than first with titles of gentry. She approached the table and put on her best smile. “I’m Dame Trixie Lulamoon.” She badly wanted to stress the ‘dame’ part – a knighthood was a higher echelon than a lordship – but resisted the urge. “I am here on behalf of Princess Luna, who wishes to arrange a meeting between herself and your master, High Mage Ispelu Magikoa.”

Zati blinked a few times at that. “Oh, well, that’s a relief, I was concerned that you might have simply dropped by to chat.”

International diplomacy was a game for sadists and masochists. Trixie forced her smile to remain. “Forgive me, Lord Zati,” she said, sitting down – still no pillow, she noted – and tracing a small circle on the desk in front of her with one hoof. “Perhaps I’m unfamiliar with some Zaldian customs. In Equestria, in a relatively low-key meeting like this the two members would spend some time exchanging pleasantries and platitudes.” Her horn lit up, and she pulled from her saddlebags a small box. “I even come bearing a gift.”

She placed the box in front of Kristal Zati, who blinked a few more times as he regarded it. “Are you trying to bribe me?” he asked.

Trixie’s smile finally dropped. “What? No!”

“Has this been cleared with the Guarsai?”

Guarsai – Guardia Saila, the Guard Department of Zaldia, which Trixie know basically nothing about except that they were some kind of national police and investigative force. She’d heard the term ‘secret police’ bandied about once or twice but rather doubted the notion. “It made it past customs,” Trixie said, opening it up and pulling out a sheet of silver with platinum outlines that showed a stylized dragon’s-eye-view of Zaldia. “It’s just a fancy map.”

“Made of silver and platinum,” Zati noted, “but it is not a bribe? Of course.” His sarcasm was thicker than molasses.

Trixie’s patience was hanging on by the barest of threads. “Fine, then. I’ll keep it. I regret your offense at the offer.”

Zati’s head tilted slightly. “You mean you apologize for offending me.”

Trixie’s smile returned, perhaps a touch too wide. “Of course. Forgive me.” Zati didn’t as Trixie packed the map back up and stowed it away, and Trixie ran through a mental checklist of the past few months to try and figure out what Equestria in general and Trixie in particular could have possibly done to upset Zaldia, or at least Kristal Zati. Granted, historically it didn’t take much, but things had seemed to be going well recently…she put both hooves on the table. “Well, forget the gifts and platitudes then – ”

“Miss Lulamoon, I am not going to forget an attempted bribe and will be reporting it to the Guarsai as is expected of any such attempt – ”

Fine, you do that, and they can confiscate it and maybe they’ll appreciate the fact that I had that specially commissioned and hang it somewhere nice, Trixie wanted to interject.

“That’s perfectly alright, I’m sure we simply had a misunderstanding due to cultural differences,” Trixie said aloud instead. “But for the moment, let’s just get down to business, shall we? Princess Luna needs to consult with the High Mage over some ramifications from Tambelon’s recent permanent return to our plane. She has already consulted with a number of magical experts from Naqah, Paardveld, Cavallia, and Caballeria, but High Mage Magikoa’s expertise with divination magic would be appreciated. He would be needed for about a week as part of a joint expedition to the island.”

“Luna is quite mad if she thinks that the High Mage has that much time for personal excursions to a region that does not concern the Platinum Kingdom,” Zati said with certainty.

“It doesn’t concern Cavallia, either, but Sfera di Cristallo, one of the continent’s most renowned experts on teleportation magic, has agreed to go.” The continent’s foremost expert on teleportation magic was unable to go, unfortunately, due to her house arrest in Ponyville. Trixie had promised to ask Luna to send Twilight Sparkle anything she was able, though.

“Of course di Cristallo has,” Zati said, leaning back a little and waving a hoof. “He is Cavallian. Equestria’s loyal hound. A Cavallian would lick a road clean of mud for Luna.”

“Be that as it may,” Trixie said through her teeth, “the High Mage’s participation would be appreciated. But, if he is too consumed with his duties to Zaldia to spare the time to investigate a two-thousand-year-old city returning from Shadow and the effects its lingering magic might have on local leylines, I can understand that. Simply say as much and I will report to Luna that Zaldia is simply too preoccupied with its own affairs to see to concerns on the rest of Cissanthema.”

If Zaldia is too chaotic and inept to spare its High Mage for a week for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity then perhaps we’re better off without him coming along, was what Trixie had really said. She doubted Zati missed the veiled insult. She didn’t care, not at this point. If Kristal Zati was unable to get over his own prejudices about Equestria and Cavallia and ended up costing Ispelu Magikoa the magical opportunity of a lifetime, that was egg on his face, not Trixie’s.

Zati was quiet for a few moments, occupying his time by looking over some of the papers he had conjured. “It may be possible to arrange for the High Mage to undertake this excursion,” he said, seeming to deflate just slightly as he realized his predicament. “Some concessions would be required on the part of Equestria, however. An express train from Zaldia to the Sea of Tranquility, to minimize the time he would spend away from the Platinum Kingdom.”

Trixie suppressed a small grin at her victory. “That could be arranged.”

“We will also have to work out the particulars of salvage from Tambelon – what could be taken back to the Platinum Kingdom. If I am going to go to the High Mage with this he must be able to present some form of material benefit to the King. And we must ensure that Equestria does not get ‘first pick’ of any potent artifacts.”

Trixie nodded in agreement – an overall minor concession to make, given the cornucopia of such objects that Equestria already possessed and the low likelihood that any remained in Tambelon anyway. “But nor would Zaldia get ‘first pick,’” she noted. “You’ll be part of a joint expedition. And the point isn’t salvage anyway. Princess Luna believes the city should be preserved as-is, to serve as a memorial for its citizens.”

Zati considered a moment. “Understandable,” he conceded, perhaps the nicest thing he had done since Trixie had met him. “I apologize for my earlier attitude as well, Dame Lulamoon.”

Trixie smiled a little for show.

“I’m afraid I was simply having trouble parsing through your Prench. Your accent is…distinctive.”

Trixie’s smile dropped and didn’t return for the rest of the meeting.

Author's Notes:

The Zaldian language is based off of Basque, or at least Google Translate's best go at Basque. That Zaldia has evolved into an isolationist nation in the Lunaverse makes this choice perfect - Basque, spoken in parts of northern Spain and southern France, is a language isolate, not related to any of the surrounding languages. In fact it's not even an Indo-European language - it is as closely related to, say, Spanish, as Mandarin Chinese is (although millennia of interaction and pressure from other languages does ensure that there are a lot of loanwords that Basque has picked up).

2. Theft

It was like something out of a mystery story, or a crime drama. Kindle had been an actor before attaining his current and much-desired position as the Voice of the Sun, and as a result had read quite a few books and even performed in several mystery plays, and so knew all the tropes. Everything was in place now, and all he and his eight salamander compatriots had to do was wait for the appointed time.

It wasn’t easy – pegasi didn’t tend to do well underground, were instinctively uncomfortable with the thought of having tons and tons of earth and stone between them and the open sky. They’d been travelling underground for days now, too. Kindle held the small mirror in his hooves, waiting for the signal, the small green flash that would mean that their ally in Zaldia had played his part and would allow him to carry out the mission for his Queen and, almost as importantly, get out from underground, even if only for a few minutes.

Only a couple more hours…

---

Lyra didn’t know a single word of Elkheimer, but she still loved listening to Peer Gynt; she couldn’t speak Pferdreicher but could sing along with “An Die Freude”. She wasn’t even restricted to the classics – Luna’s Academy had once been visited by a camel from Maghrib, who had brought with him a record that had a number of modern Dromedary songs on it; the one Lyra remembered most was from a style of music called raï. It had taken her the better part of four weeks, but she’d finally been able to teach herself how to sing it phonetically to the camel’s satisfaction, and still had a lyric sheet for it somewhere.

Music, like most art, transcended language and culture. Lyra was reminded of this as she practiced with Ohar Garai before the concert, the two establishing a quick rapport as they worked out what pieces they wanted to play, helped each other learn them if they didn’t already know them. Ohar was very skilled at his zither – she’d heard him on records, of course, but hearing what he could achieve with his hooves on the strings of his instrument reminded Lyra that she could still stand to improve her own abilities.

“I think we as good as can be,” Ohar said at length, about half an hour before the concert. His Cavallian hadn’t improved, and neither had Lyra’s, but both had decided to stop worrying about it. Out on stage, various ushers were doing some last-minute cleaning and polishing, even as other ushers did their own checks throughout the Auditorio. Ohar pursed his lips a moment, before nodding at Lyra’s horn. “I am impressed you play with hooves.”

Lyra smiled at the compliment, not an unfamiliar one. “It feeling more natural,” she said, even as her telekinesis worked at one of the strings, which was wound a little too tight. The last thing she needed was for a string to break in the middle of the concert. She glanced at the horn-ring that Ohar wore in a chain around his neck. “Who gave to you?”

The earth pony blinked in surprise, glancing down at the chain. “Oh,” he said, smiling as he raised it, showing the front of the sigil to Lyra – a bear, the national animal of Zaldia. “Gift from King Tronua. Very special gift. I play at his coronation, many years ago. Was not supposed to, not proper, but musician supposed to play, Ardo Abestia…” he made a motion with his hooves, suggesting sculling back a drink – or several drinks, a wry smile on his face. Lyra chuckled, nodding in understanding. “So I found, and I play. King Tronua come to me afterwards, say ‘you better than hoped! Save my coronation!’ And he give me this ring. In Zaldia, it is sign of King’s favor. King sponsor me ever since.”

Lyra nodded, though some of what Ohar said nagged at her. “Not proper?” she asked. “You, uh…” she tried to find a delicate way to put it, but her grip on Cavallian just wasn’t strong enough. “Because you are not noble?” She knew that commoners ascending to nobility, or even gentry, was much harder in Zaldia than in Equestria, and in the heavily stratified society, that could quite obviously cause problems – rather silly problems, to Lyra’s way of thinking.

Ohar shook his head. “No,” he answered, and waved his hoof at his head, then his body. “Because I simple earth pony. To play before a king – very unexpected. Great honor!”

Lyra blinked a few times. Because he was a simple earth pony? That was what she had asked after, right? If his being a commoner had played into it? It took a moment more, but at length Lyra realized that she had focused too much on the simple part and not on the earth pony part. “Why…does being earth pony matter?” She asked, fairly certain she wouldn’t like the answer.

Ohar shrugged. “Earth pony have place, have part to play, just as unicorn,” he answered, then shrugged again. “But, some exceptions. Artists come from any tribe. Still, very unusual for earth pony to play for unicorn …or unicorn for earth pony. We are separate. Equal, but separate.” Ohar sat up straighter, though, tapping a hoof to his chest, and the horn-ring that hung against it. “But, I Ohar Garai. I play for all. Twenty years now I am in King’s favor, not change soon, even most nobles come around by now.” He nodded. “Good friends, King and I. Very liberal, forward-thinking pony.”

He sounded positively backwards to Lyra’s ears, but then Ohar made it sound like the rest of the nation of Zaldia was even more so. If she was understanding him right, then Zaldia wasn’t just stratified along class lines, but along tribal ones as well – and the best an earth pony could hope for was to get a horn-ring that he or she couldn’t even wear, which would make him or her an ‘honorary’ unicorn, basically. It occurred to Lyra that the vast majority of ponies that she had seen in the city outside had been unicorns. Sure, back in Ponyville, earth ponies were a majority, and Canterlot had a unicorn majority, but both were by much smaller margins and more the result of historical trends than intentional segregation – which Lyra had a funny feeling was not the case in Gotorleku Hiria.

Had Zaldia just missed the Hearth’s Warming, or something? How the three tribes were supposed to come together in harmony? Plus, what would that mean for Lyra and Bon Bon? The love of Lyra’s life was an earth pony. Had the two been born in Zaldia, would they not be allowed to see each other or something? Would the Zaldians try to keep them apart or think their relationship scandalous? Lyra felt her teeth grinding together at the thought.

Ohar Garai seemed to realize that a nerve had been touched, and held up his hooves to try and placate Lyra. Before he could, though, a unicorn usher appeared and said something in clipped and precise Zaldian. Ohar said something back, then turned to Lyra. “They are beginning to let ponies into Auditorio,” he said. “We must ready ourselves. Please – ikuskizuna joan behar. The show must go on.”

Lyra took in a steadying breath at that, and let it out slowly, nodding. “Sorry,” she said. “I not mad at you. I just…” She paused, thinking. “I did not know Zaldia very well.”

Ohar shrugged. “Earth ponies not oppressed – our rights, equal. We simply have place, as unicorns have place.” He nodded. “Da zer da. It is what it is.”

Lyra wanted to vehemently disagree, but she had a concert to put on, and Ohar was right – the show had to go on. Plus she wasn’t exactly here to change the nation, and it was probably beyond her ability anyway. Play the gig, never get involved in the politics – that was an old musician’s maxim, too.

She nodded to Ohar again, and looked down to her lyre, hooves gliding across its strings. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get ready, then.”

---

Trixie had met a plethora of unpleasant ponies in her life, and indeed had once been an unpleasant pony herself, or at least could definitely come across as one. She was an expert on the archetype and so felt pretty sure that she could correctly decide whether or not a pony was a pleasant one or not.

“Well, now that we are finished, we should attend to the matter of your attempted bribe.”

Lord Kristal Zati was an unpleasant pony.

Trixie glanced down, using the opportunity to count the tiles on the floor she could see. They were big, each one about two feet across, but very tightly fitted together. Wouldn’t have been able to slip the thinnest sheet of tin foil between them, even. Though still not as tight as Zati’s –

“It was not a bribe,” Trixie said, interrupting her own thoughts as she looked back up and to her Zaldian counterpart. “It was intended as a gift. I had thought to bring a fruit basket but decided on something more personal. But if you insist,” she kept going, before Zati could interrupt, “then fine. Let’s go to the castle guard or whoever,”

“I already called for an officer of the Guarsai,” Zati said, tapping a hoof to his horn, indicating a simple spell he must have cast. “Several minutes ago. One will be along shortly.”

“Alright, then,” Trixie said. She considered putting on a disarming smile, but decided against it as she instead used the opportunity to look over her documents. Princess Luna had given her relatively broad authority to negotiate on the Equestrian Crown’s behalf – inwardly Trixie beamed at the responsibility – and Trixie thought that she had managed to secure fairly reasonable terms for Equestria and Zaldia to begin the investigation of Tambelon. They would have to be finalized in yet another meeting in a month, this time between the High Mage and the Princess themselves, but Trixie was sure that she had given Luna a good starting position for any final negotiations.

At length, and interrupting Trixie from her thoughts, another unicorn pony entered the room. He wore a Zaldian military uniform – a green jacket with silver buttons up its length, with a thin platinum chain stretching from the shoulder and into the jacket – but Trixie didn’t see any kind of rank insignia on him, other than a thin strip at the chest, where a badge would be on a police officer, with the letters GS emblazoned on it. This, then, was probably the Guarsai agent.

If Trixie had been concerned at all about meeting an officer of the Guardia Saila, her concerns evaporated once she got a good look at the stallion. He nodded to Trixie, looked to Kristal Zati, and the look spoke volumes. Trixie had a feeling that this wasn’t the first time that Zati had called up the Guarsai over something frivolous. “Jauna Zati,” the agent said. “Izeneko duzu?”

“Bai,” Zati said. “Ez Prantsesa hitz egiten duzu? Zaldun Trixie daiteke, ez ordea, oso ondo.”

The officer of the Guarsai nodded, then looked to Trixie. “Can you understand me?” He asked in Prench, his accent a match for Zati’s own. He also spoke very slowly, clearly, and loudly – as though he wasn’t sure that Trixie could speak Prench. She had a funny feeling she knew what Zati had just told him.

“I can understand you just fine,” Trixie said, her voice deadpanned. “I grew up speaking Prench as often as Equestrian.”

The officer’s eyes narrowed a little, though he directed his ire at Zati, not Trixie. “I am sorry,” he said. “Perhaps Lord Zati was simply unused to the Neigh Orleans accent. I can understand you just fine, however.” Trixie had a sense that the officer had just made a small dig at Kristal Zati, and Trixie decided that she liked him for that. “In any event,” the officer pressed on, “my name is Armarria Solidoa, and I am an agent of the Guard Department – the Guarsai, we call it here. Do you know why I have been called here?”

Trixie nodded, turning around and telekinetically grabbing the platinum-and-silver map she had commissioned for Lord Zati, holding it up. “I am certain it is simply a case of culture clash,” she said. “Lord Zati thought I was trying to bribe him, but that was not my intention. It’s just that Equestrian officials often trade gifts when first meeting.”

“Zaldian officials do as well,” officer Solidoa noted, taking the map into his own telekinetic grip and looking over its surface. “Though usually just fruit baskets, nothing with obvious monetary worth like this. Also, in the case of foreign gifts, the gift and its intended recipient must be specifically cleared by the Guarsai ahead of time – not simply passed through customs.”

Trixie started to defend herself, though a look at Solidoa told her that, despite his admonishment, he was actually on her side. Kristal Zati chose that moment to step in. “Given the nature of our discussions,” he said, “I felt it prudent to alert the Guarsai. I will not allow Equestria to gain any sort of upper hoof in negotiations concerning Tambelon.”

“Where?” Solidoa asked, though before either other unicorn could explain, he held up a hoof. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” He looked to Trixie. “Dame Trixie, Lord Zati unfortunately does make a good point in that, since this did not go through the proper procedures, this could be seen as a bribe. A formal inquiry could be required, which could take several weeks to complete. During this time we would desire you to remain within the Equestrian embassy. Equestria could extradite you, but the Kingdom of Zaldia would look poorly on such an action.”

Trixie blanched at that. Kristal Zati didn’t seem to have a good point at all, but she guessed that the somewhat insular and paranoid mindset of Zaldia saw the matter differently. She had to resist the urge to let out a long and low groan. Her first official meeting with a foreign representative and she’d managed to spark off an international incident – not one that would start any wars, mind, but it would still be an embarrassment to Equestria, and to Princess Luna. Great. Trixie didn’t need to look at him to know that Kristal Zati had a smug smile on his face.

“However,” Solidoa said after a moment, looking again to the platinum map, then back to Trixie, “that would only legally have to apply if the value of the alleged bribe exceeded one thousand puskas.”

Trixie blinked at that, trying to remember the exchange rate between the Equestrian bit and the Zaldian puska, but coming up blank. “Uh,” she said, rubbing a hoof to the back of her head. “I had it commissioned for three hundred bits.”

“So a little less than four hundred puskas,” Solidoa continued, giving Trixie a wry smile – he’d just had a little fun with her, but had meant it in a good-natured way, at least as political matters went. “In that case, the Guarsai will simply confiscate the item, note this incident in our files, but waste neither the King’s time nor that of the Equestrian ambassador by beginning any formal investigations.” He nodded to the map. “We’ll hang this somewhere nice.”

Trixie noticed Zati’s smug grin disappearing, and decided to put on one of her own. “That would be just fine, officer Solidoa. And I’ll be more careful in the future. Lesson learned.”

“W-wait,” Zati said, looking truly flustered for the first time since Trixie had met him an interminable number of hours ago. “Eroskeria saiakera bat egin – ”

“It wasn’t an attempt at bribery, it was a gift from a novice foreign national who was simply unaware of our procedures for foreign gifts,” Solidoa interrupted, purposefully sticking to Prench rather than switching to Zaldian, as Zati had tried to. “Still, your concern for Zaldia’s national security is commendable, Lord Zati. I shall mark our files on you for your vigilance.”

Zati started at that, and Trixie had a sense that there was some subtext going on that Trixie was unable to parse through, given that she wasn’t Zaldian. She decided that it wasn’t really her concern, though, as Solidoa turned back to Trixie and offered a small bow. “I understand that there is a concert at the Errege Auditorio with an Equestrian musician tonight?”

Trixie nodded, glancing at the clock. Her eyes widened – between the time with Zati and the arrival of the Guarsai agent, she’d lost track of time, and was already running late regardless. “Actually, yes – a friend of mine is playing in just a few minutes, and I have tickets…”

“Then I will not keep you. Good evening, Dame Trixie, and enjoy your stay in the Platinum Kingdom.”

He left at that, platinum map in tow, though Trixie didn’t wait to watch him as she proceeded to pack up her documents into her saddlebags. She spared Kristal Zati a final glance, and though she really didn’t want to, she forced herself to step before him and give a bow. “I’ll take my leave then, Lord Zati,” she said. “Equestria thanks you and High Mage Ispelu Magikoa for your time.”

Trixie waited precisely two seconds for a response of any kind, but got none as Zati looked away and began gathering his own things. She decided that she didn’t care that much, and instead left the small meeting room and hurried for the castle’s gates. Despite her need for speed, though, there was a notable happy spring to her canter. She’d secured Zaldian help in studying Tambelon under favorable conditions, shown up a snooty member of Zaldia’s gentry, made a good impression with the Guarsai, and now was off to see a performance by two of the greatest musicians in all of Cissanthema.

Tonight was shaping up to be a very good night, indeed.

---

It was called the Armería Urrutira in Zaldian. Though there were several potential ways to parse that into Equestrian, the ponies of the more powerful nation had a passion for alliteration, and so tended to translate its title as the Arcane Armory. The building managed at once to be grim and imposing as well as beautiful – built of solid stone blocks instead of the normal thin filigree that Zaldians preferred, it still was covered with inlaid platinum and silver and carved crystal. This somewhat compromised its physical robustness – though it remained quite durable – but the metals and crystals channeled magic through them that ensured that the Armería was all but impenetrable to magical invasion.

Of course, strong walls and magical wards, however potent, are not very useful without ponies to tend and supplement them. The guards of the Armería were called the Sorginkeria Behatzailea – the Spell Watch, usually just called the Sorginbehat. All of them were unicorns of considerable magical talent. All of them were personally chosen by the High Mage of Zaldia himself, and bound by magical oaths to the Platinum Throne for the duration of their service to the King.

At a precise time that had never changed once for over five hundred years, the second guard shift of the Sorginbehat relinquished their posts to the third shift, who would guard the Armería for most of the night. The off-duty Sorginbehat left the Armería, returning to their homes or out to spend the night as they chose. The third shift of the Sorginbehat, meanwhile, did a complete sweep of the Armería, posted guards at all the locations visible to the rest of Gotorleku Hiria, and waited.

Two hours into their shift, a green light flashed three times on top of a distant mountain. That was the signal, and on seeing it, word was spread throughout the third shift, and their part in the plan was officially underway. Their role was simple: don’t do anything, and stay in the outer parts of the Armería.

Meanwhile, in an out-of-the-way storage closet in the lowest level of the inner Armería, the stone floor began to glow red.

---

Lyra stepped onto stage to applause and aplomb. If the Zaldian nobility and assorted other guests were in any way affronted by having an Equestrian play for them, as Ohar had suggested earlier, they at least had the politeness to not let it show. The applause for her was somewhat more subdued than for Ohar, but then that was expected and right, too, for the greatest musician in their nation.

Despite the smile on her face – she’d never mastered the stoic expression that Octavia preferred and, in truth, never really tried to – her eyes glided across the audience and she did indeed notice the presence of a lot of horns. Nine in ten of the audience here were unicorns, and so were all the ushers she could see. Although, on the other hoof, the few earth ponies and even fewer pegasi present didn’t seem to be relegated to the peanut gallery. Maybe Zaldia wasn’t some kind of repressive regime, at least not intentionally, and really was just different from Equestria. Or maybe not.

Regardless of which was the case, at the moment Lyra couldn’t worry about it. She looked to where Trixie was supposed to be sitting, in one of the mid-level boxes, but found it to be empty. That, too, was something of a let-down. Trixie’s meeting with the Zaldian representative must have gone on longer than expected.

Still, she couldn’t let that stop the show, either. As the crowd quieted down and Lyra took her seat, though, she couldn’t resist making at least a small jab at Zaldians. She normally played her lyre by holding it in her telekinesis while using her hooves to pluck the strings; however, for this concert, she opted to instead hold her lyre with one foreleg, while the hoof on the other would do the work – as an earth pony would play. She wasn’t quite as good like this, but still more than passable, if she said so herself – and anyway, Zaldians liked small mistakes in their concerts.

If Ohar noticed her personal dig at the unicorns in the audience, he didn’t say. Instead, he simply nodded at her once, she returned the nod, and the two began to play.

As agreed, the two started with Noble Brook’s “Canon in D”. A very low-key and soft piece designed more for cellos, violins, or other bowed string instruments rather than plucked ones, it was nevertheless adaptable enough – and Lyra and Ohar both more than skilled enough – to play the piece on their own instruments. The initial notes started soft, barely audible even in the hushed auditorium, with Lyra taking the part normally reserved for the cello, while Ohar’s somewhat more versatile zither covered the violin sections; Lyra was surprised that he could use the lightest glide of his hoof to simulate the sound of a bow on a violin if he wanted; not precisely the same sound, but close and still melodic. He hadn’t shown that he could do that when practicing with Lyra; a glance over at him showed her that his eyes were closed, but he had a knowing smile on his face. Surprise, he was basically saying.

Lyra closed her own eyes, smiling as well. She increased her tempo slightly, and gradually. Ohar noticed and kept pace easily enough. After another few measures of the now faster pace, Lyra decided that Octavia had a point about the cello parts of this tune being repetitive. She began to add some small, additional flourishes, ‘jazz things up’, as the phrase went. Adding in additional notes necessarily meant speeding up her, and therefore Ohar’s, tempo again – as she was playing the normally-cello parts, that meant that she was the one who was keeping time between the two of them – but Ohar was more than able to keep time.

The canon was now playing at about a quarter again its normal speed when Ohar introduced the next change. The zither, like a guitar or bass, had a body comprised of a hollow wooden chamber that reverberated quite nicely when tapped, particularly in the sound-amplifying concert hall. The two stringed instruments found themselves playing with a small but growing percussion section as Ohar would insert in light taps in between his string motions. Lyra’s own lyre couldn’t be used in the same way, but her hind hooves were unoccupied, and she stood on her two rear legs – a balancing trick she’d learned from Octavia – to add to the percussion, careful to strike the wooden floor beneath her softly so that the clack of her hoof wouldn’t overwhelm Ohar’s own contributions.

And so the two continued for the remainder of the canon, adding in their own personal flourishes to the performance, increasing the tempo more, and fairly soon finding themselves playing a tune that only had a general resemblance at most to the “Canon in D”, unless one was a musician and knew what to listen for.

At length – a few minutes longer than the normal canon – it came to an end. Lyra and Ohar both opened their eyes at the same time as the hoof-stomps of the nobles greeted them. They were generally subdued at the moment, since the next song would soon begin, but Lyra could tell that the two of them had impressed the audience, and a glance at Ohar revealed that the Zaldian musician was no less confident than she was.

During the applause, a door at the back of the theater opened, and a certain blue unicorn bedecked in a purple hat and cape entered, the usher allowing her entrance during the few second’s break. Lyra spotted Trixie, and her smiled widened. Trixie made her way to her box before looking down to Lyra, an embarrassed and apologetic smile on her face for missing the opening of the show, but Lyra just smiled herself and offered a slight shrug and shaking of her head. It couldn’t be helped, and Trixie had only missed seven minutes of what was scheduled to be an hour and a half long concert.

Nothing was wrong at all, and this night was only looking like it was going to keep getting better.

---

Kindle reasoned that a good commander wouldn’t push his way past his troops in a desperate bid to escape the confines of the subterranean tunnels, and so allowed some time for the salamanders to slither on through the hole they had melted in the floor of the Armería before getting out. Even after he had left, he still found himself surrounded by stone passageways, but there was a marked difference between being inside and being underground. Though he had intended not to, he couldn’t conceal his long sigh of relief at being free from his prison, even if only for the moment.

The salamanders, if they noticed, didn’t voice their opinions. Their leader was Jaculus, who was surprisingly smaller and lighter than the rest, but he had a talent for navigating tunnels and mazes that could make a minotaur jealous. Though he hadn’t been in the Armería before, he had studied the floor-plans thoroughly and so without any prompting pointed down one hallway.

The salamanders were off, making very little sound as they glided across the stone floor. Kindle couldn’t say likewise; he wasn’t walking for fear that the sound of his hooves might echo, but the beating of his wings still made noise as he followed Jaculus.

The bowels of the Armería swiftly gave way to a wide hallway. Overhead, the ceiling was replaced by a crystal dome that allowed a brief but much-welcome-to-Kindle glance at the night sky; the dome might have been a curious oversight in a fortress if not for its magical properties. It gathered the light of the celestial bodies overhead and channeled it down along one wall of the hall, and into a doorway of solid metal surrounded by gemstones. The gems were supposed to be glowing bright green, creating a magical field that the most powerful unicorn magician in the world would have needed several days to bring down.

But the gems weren’t glowing. Kindle flew up to the door and pushed on it; it swung inward without resistance or sound, just as they had been promised. The pegasus grinned, as did his salamander troops. They entered quickly, closing the doors behind them. Now behind a safe barrier, Kindle closed his eyes and focused upon the boon that his Queen had extended to him. A second later, his mane and tail seemed to ignite into flames that burned without heat but with ample light, illuminating the contents of the chamber.

It looked like a museum, a dozen pedestals in a long hallway. Each pedestal was made of gem and metal and, like the gems in the door outside, was supposed to be glowing. Also like the ones outside, they weren’t, and Jaculus advanced before the rest of the salamanders up to one pedestal, upon which lay an ordinary-looking bangle. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out, grabbed it, and lifted it off.

Once again, as they had been promised, nothing happened. There were no alarms, no explosions, no curses or hexes activating. There were only twelve artifacts of unspeakable magical power, the Armory of Zaldia, the weapons they would wield when confronted with the greatest possible threats to their nation – two threats in particular. Princesses Luna and Cadenza, the alicorns. These were all of them weapons expected to even the odds of Zaldia against Equestria and Cavallia, should the unthinkable ever happen and the alicorns go to war.

And they were just sitting here, ripe for the taking.

Kindle smiled, and so did the salamanders. “Take everything,” Kindle instructed.

---

The concert went on longer than scheduled, a natural consequence of Ohar and Lyra being encouraged by both Zaldian tradition, and the fun they were having, to expand and improvise thoroughly during the concert. The finale of the concert was a complete reversal of its opening, playing a lively and rousing piece not unlike the flamenco music of Caballeria, adapted to their own instruments that had much been a competition between Ohar and Lyra to see who was faster on their strings as it was a performance. Lyra had naturally added hoof-beats to her performance, that had quickly turned into a full flamenco dance – and Ohar had surprised her and the crowd by being able to stand up and dance on two hind legs himself, even while maintaining his zither playing. The heavier stallion could put more force behind his taps, but Lyra’s lighter and quicker hooves movements allowed for greater variety. By the end of it, the two of them were both sweating and breathing heavily, and were only barely able to do a mix of bow and collapse before their audience.

As with any real musical battle, the true winners were those who had been able to listen in. They certainly applauded with immense enthusiasm by the end of the show, the many unicorns using their magical talents to set off small firework spells. Lyra noted that Trixie, in her box, wasted little time in making sure that her fireworks-applause was the greatest of them all – though only by a small amount, so as to not draw attention to herself and away from Lyra and Ohar.

The two musicians returned to backstage, tapping hooves – they were too winded still to even try to stumble through Cavallian – and making a beeline each for the inevitable first stop of a performer after a show – the lavatories – followed by the next inevitable stop, the nearest source of water. Once basic bodily functions had been attended to, they found themselves confronted by about a dozen press ponies who wanted pictures of the two performers together to go with the headline that would feature in the morning’s papers. The concert wouldn’t be a front-page story, but it would be the highlight of the paper’s entertainment section.

Lyra and Ohar took the time to answer some small questions and provide some quotes for the papers – nothing of substance, really, but all of it would look nice in print – before a pair of unicorns approached the two. One was Trixie, who slided up to Lyra, while the other said a few words to Ohar before turning to the reporters and speaking to them.

Trixie hugged Lyra before nodding to the other unicorn. “Ohar’s agent,” she said. “By the way, if anyone asks, I’m your agent. It’s how I was able to get backstage.”

Lyra shrugged, not begrudging her friend the lie, though it did remind her that she probably needed to find an agent of her own at some point in the future. Eventually. Not right now, though. “Glad you made it,” she said, as the reporters – who had probably been told that they’d asked enough questions and gotten enough pictures, which was true enough for something that, while a big deal to socialites and entertainers, was otherwise not exactly a breaking news story – started to thin out without much fuss.

Trixie nodded, and once again offered an embarrassed smile. “My meeting went long. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Trixie,” Lyra said, giving a friendly nuzzle to Trixie. “You didn’t miss anything much.”

Trixie’s sigh of relief was genuine. She’d once opened up to Lyra that her greatest fear was doing something to screw-up her friendships and drive her friends away one by one – a fear she was quite familiar with – and even though the rational part of her mind had to know that there was no way that even missing the concert entirely for work-related reasons could have done that, the irrational part must have been quite concerned. But, Lyra had managed to assuage it.

Lyra turned to Ohar, who had just finished speaking to his own agent. She pointed a hoof at Trixie. “Ohar, questa è la mia amica, Trixie,” she said in Cavallian – fortunately an introduction phrase was still something she could say perfectly. She switched back to Equestrian as she looked to Trixie. “And Trixie, this is Ohar Garai.”

“Urte askotarako,” Trixie said in Zaldian, tapping her hoof to Ohar’s own outstretched one.

Ohar smiled, but his eyes widened in surprise. “Zaldiaz hitz egiten duzu? Harrituta nago. Agian Lyra irakatsi izan duzu, horrela errazagoa denbora bat berriro jolasten etorkizunean izan dugu?”

Trixie blinked a few times at that, eyes wide. “Uh…” she said after a few moments, “…parlez-vous Prançais?”

Lyra couldn’t help herself – she laughed, though she also playfully bumped her flank against Trixie’s own to show that her laugh was in fun. “Come on,” she said. “Me and Ohar both speak Cavallian – mostly – so we can get dinner and I can translate.”

Lyra explained the situation to Ohar, who laughed a little even as Trixie turned a bit pink from embarrassment. Unfortunately, at a word from his agent, he held up his front hooves. “I no can get dinner, dame Heartstrings,” he said in Cavallian. “Obligations elsewhere. I am sorry. Tomorrow night we all go out, celebrate then?”

Lyra nodded as she translated for Trixie, then looked back to Ohar. “Call me Lyra,” she said, extending a hoof.

Ohar wasted little time in bumping it back. “And me, Ohar,” he said. “Buona notte e buona fortuna, dama Lyra.”

“Buona notte,” Lyra returned. Ohar and his agent took off, and Lyra looked to Trixie. “C’mon, let’s get going,” she said, a spring to canter as she set off, Trixie keeping pace. “I’m so hungry I could eat your cooking.”

“My cooking is fantastic,” Trixie countered.

“Your ingredients, on the other hoof…”

Trixie stuck her tongue out at Lyra, and the two set off to see what the restaurants of Zaldia had to offer for dinner.

---

The mare of the Sorginbehat walked through the interior of the Armería on her normal patrol route, now that the appointed time has passed. Her horn was lit up brightly, both to illuminate the relatively dark and tight hallways of the Armería and to cast a continuous spell that would reveal any who were hidden by illusions. She passed by many of the less potent, but still quite versatile and powerful, artifacts contained therein. They were exactly where they were supposed to be.

At length, she reached the hallway that had the main doors of the Armería’s interior, beyond which the greatest and most dangerous artifacts of Zaldia were stored. The gemstones were glowing with an active shield, though the Sorginbehat mare knew the long and nonsensical code-phrase to temporarily lower it. She did so, pushing open the door and glancing in.

It was empty. Every single one of the artifacts was gone, disappeared without a trace. As was expected. The mare nodded at that, letting out long sigh. Then, her horn glowed brighter, casting a new spell as she started galloping for effect.

“Alarm!” she called, for effect, even as her spell ignited the various defensive spells of the Armería. “Alarm! The vault has been broken into! The Armory is gone!”

3. The Guarsai

“…the look on his face,” Trixie said as she finished relating her story about Kristal Zati. The two ponies sat at a restaurant somewhere in downtown Gotorleku Hiria, near their hotel. Once again, the cognates between Zaldian, Prench, and Equestrian plus Trixie’s illusioncraft had saved the two Equestrians from the language barrier, and right now the two were enjoying broad smattering of traditional Zaldian dishes – txakoli wine as an apéritif, pipperada, pisto, and talo bread for the main courses, and cuajada with honey and almonds for dessert. The purely Zaldian dishes made them look like tourists, but then again they essentially were and so didn’t mind.

Lyra took a bite out of her cuajada, smiling at Trixie’s description of her encounter. “Score one for Equestria?” she asked.

Trixie had a knowing grin on her face, though she shook her head. “Not really. I wasn’t going against Zaldia, I was going against Lord Zati. So score one for me.” She tapped her hooves together. “I can’t wait to tell Princess Luna about it. I know that she knew what Zati would be like. Probably thought of this as a kind of test. And I passed!”

Lyra honestly wondered if that was the case – that Luna had used this negotiation between Zaldia and Equestria as a ‘test’ for Trixie. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea fully, though on the other hoof it’s not like anything vital had been on the table, and politicians had to learn their tradecraft somewhere. She decided to be happy for Trixie.

“But enough about me,” Trixie said, making a cutting motion with one hoof as her telekinesis grasped the stem of the txakoli wine bottle and refilled her glass – Lyra wasn’t worried, the txakoli wasn’t terribly potent – then looked to Lyra as she set the bottle back down. “What was Ohar like? I gather you two got on well.”

Lyra nodded. “He’s…something else,” she said, her front hooves gliding across the table as lightly as possible, the same way Ohar had been able to on his zither to simulate a bow string. “I didn’t think hooves could make sounds like that come out of a zither – or that a zither could make them either. I could have sworn he was playing an actual violin. But to be able to play it like that and play it like a plucked instrument at the same time…” she shook her head. “Octavia said he was good. I forgot she tends to understate things.”

“You weren’t too bad yourself,” Trixie noted.

Lyra grinned at that. “I wasn’t, was I?” Before meeting Trixie she might have been a bit more humble, but her friend was rubbing off on her. “This one was big, Trixie.”

Trixie leaned back, closing her eyes and holding up her hooves as though framing a stage. “How big?” she asked, wanting Lyra to paint the picture on her mental canvas.

“Big,” Lyra repeated, but then expanded for her friend’s benefit. “Not I’m the best in the world big, but my name is gonna start appearing on a lot of pony’s short lists without me having to work to put it there.” She considered. “I should probably get an agent…properly record myself, too. I wonder what Vinyl Scratch charges for that…”

She drifted off when she happened to glance at the door to the restaurant. Two unicorns and an earth pony had walked in; the unicorns had finished a conversation with the earth pony, then were showed to their seats, while the earth pony left. Lyra had no real context. Perhaps he was a secretary or adjutant to the two unicorns who was simply filling in his bosses with some last-minute stuff before heading home. Maybe they were friends but he’d already eaten. But it still reminded Lyra of what she’d heard from Ohar…and now she noticed that every single pony in the restaurant was a unicorn…

Lyra looked away, and back to Trixie, buying a moment by sipping from her own glass of txakoli. “Trixie,” she said in a low voice. “Did you know how they treat earth ponies here in Zaldia?”

Trixie started slightly, looking to Lyra in surprise at the question. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice equally low. “I thought you knew.”

Trixie lied a lot, but Lyra had known the other pony long enough to be able to know when she was doing so. She wasn’t lying here, trying to placate Lyra, which was at least some small relief. “I didn’t,” she said. She glanced around again, then leaned forward. She wasn’t sure why she was keeping her voice down so much, not when it was unlikely that anypony else in the room could understand Equestrian, but the moment felt like it required quiet. “Trixie, why are we trying to be friendly with this place when they oppress a third of their population?”

Trixie took a few long moments to consider. “Hear me out?” she asked. At Lyra’s nod, Trixie continued. “First, it’s actually more like a quarter, with unicorns making up the other three quarters, mostly. Zaldia’s pegasus population is basically a statistical nonentity.

“Second…to you and me they seem oppressed, and to Luna, too. But the earth ponies here really don’t see themselves that way. Zaldia is a very stratified society, but it’s the society they grew up in. Earth ponies live one way, unicorns another. They think that’s normal and okay. And from a legal perspective, things aren’t…that bad. Unicorns can’t just rob or beat or something earth ponies. Earth ponies are barred from inheriting noble titles or serving in most government agencies. But there are things that unicorns aren’t allowed to do, either.” She took in a deep breath. “But…if I’m being honest, most of those things are physical labor jobs, and earth pony education is…lacking, compared to unicorns. They’re kept mostly ignorant.”

Lyra’s hooves pressed down on the table in front of her in anger, hard enough to actually tilt it slightly. Trixie quickly used her own hooves as a counter-balance, and Lyra forced herself to calm down. “They’re basically a servant caste,” Lyra observed.

“They don’t see it that way,” Trixie said, but quickly followed with “although Princess Luna does. It’s one of the reasons we don’t really get along with Zaldia.”

Lyra wholly sympathized with Princess Luna’s stance. “So why do we want to make nice with them?” she asked.

“Because they have things we want,” Trixie said, grimacing. It occurred to Lyra that Trixie had probably once asked Luna the same question, and gotten the same answer that Lyra was getting, and, from the looks of things, hadn’t liked it any more then than Lyra liked it now. “The Zaldians sailed to Shouma a century back and managed to negotiate with the Emperor at the time. They leased a small town called Ti Zhen from the Empire, and they’ve had nearly exclusive access to goods from Shouma ever since then. That gave them the idea to get real big into the trade business.”

Lyra hadn’t known the specific backstory, but she did know that Zaldia maintained a network of trading posts – a string of them in the Great Eastern Archipelago connecting Cissanthema to distant Shouma, a few to the south, in the sweltering climes of Farasi and Maghrib; and even a small outpost in Occidenta, further east from Shouma. “What do they have that we want?” she asked.

Trixie shrugged. “Off the top of my head? Tea from Shouma, and medicinal opiates from Gia Suc. Rubber, cotton, cane sugar, and a bunch of metals from Farasi and Maghrib. And they have favored access to the cocoa trade from the tapirs and alpacas in eastern Cissanthema. Just under half of all cocoa in Equestria passes through a Zaldian market first.”

Lyra guessed that Trixie had brought up sugar and cocoa for a specific reason – because her marefriend Bon Bon was a candy-maker, who depended on cocoa and sugar both for her livelihood. She looked away, not knowing how to feel about that, wondering if Bon Bon had ever considered the hooves that her product had passed through first, if she should even have been expected to.

Trixie held up both her hooves. “We are working on it,” Trixie said, ‘we’ here meaning the Equestrian government as a whole. “But Equestria doesn’t have much of a naval tradition. Cavallia’s started setting up merchant colonies of its own, but they’re late to the game, and if Cavallia were to push too hard to try and get into the same markets as Zaldia – hurting Zaldia’s market in the process – then the Zaldians might cut Equestria and our exarchies off from their markets, which would damage our economy for years.”

Lyra looked back to her friend. “This is about money?” She asked heatedly.

“It’s about Bon Bon being able to make candy,” Trixie countered. “Or about doctors having laudanum to give to patients who need it, or everything else. Like I said, Equestria’s working against it, trying to get into a position where we don’t rely on Zaldian imports, but it’s going to take time.” She paused a moment at that, then offered a grim smile. “Not everything can be fixed by turning galas into free-for-alls.”

Lyra stifled a laugh at that, remembering well what had happened when they’d tried to push through a big change literally overnight and the last Grand Galloping Gala. Ultimately everything had worked out, more or less, but it hadn’t been fun for anypony involved. “Okay,” she said with a nod, taking in a deep breath and letting it out again. “Let’s…let’s just focus on other things.”

“Like more dessert?” Trixie asked, then waved the bottle of txakoli around. “Or more of this? Or something stronger than this.” She glanced down the neck of the nearly-empty bottle. “Tastes good, but it couldn’t give a buzz to Raindrops.”

Lyra’s laugh was more genuine at that. For all of their pegasus friend’s physical strength and robustness, she was something of a lightweight where alcohol was concerned. Lyra also wasn’t normally one to get smashed, but what the hay? She’d just had a majorly successful concert and deserved to celebrate, right? “Been awhile since we said ‘hi’ to Lulamoon, too,” Lyra further noted.

Trixie sputtered a little at the mention of how…personable…she tended to get when sufficiently drunk. “Non,” she said in determined Prench as she glanced down the drink list that was still at the table. “Non, non, non…”

Lyra was doing likewise, and pointed to one drink in particular. “Nettle Dusk’s Fine Agister Bourbon,” she noted – the brand name was still in Equestrian. “I think that says…thirteen years old?”

Trixie’s eyebrow raised a little at the mention of an excellent age for her favorite drink. If she was about to change her mind, however, she never got a chance to do so aloud, as the two unicorns heard a commotion at the front of the restaurant. Glancing up, they saw a collection of three unicorns walk in, all dressed in what looked like the green dress uniform of the Zaldian army, save that it lacked any visible rank insignia – the outfit of the Guarsai, Trixie knew, and somehow Lyra just knew it as well, even though she’d never seen the Guarsai before.

The three Guarsai officers, all unicorns, stopped just inside the door, looking around evenly. Everypony inside noticed, and the restaurant suddenly grew very quiet, even the small band that had been playing off to one side stopping. Lyra glanced at Trixie, but the latter pony only shrugged and turned back to the drink menu and her options, unconcerned. Lyra wanted to as well – but she was a musician, and so was very, very attuned to sound, and just as importantly, a lack of sound. Her eyes may have been on the menu, but her ears were alert and noticed how everypony else in the restaurant had stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped even breathing, some of them.

It was too much – Lyra looked back up, and saw that all eyes were still on the green-uniformed ponies. A pony in a very finely tailored suit – the restaurant owner, probably – had emerged from somewhere and cantered swiftly over to the Guarsai, speaking to their apparent leader in low and worried tones. Lyra couldn’t make out the words, and wouldn’t have understood the language anyway, but after a moment the lead Guarsai’s eyes met her own. He said a single word to the restaurant owner, who stopped speaking, paused only a moment, and then stepped out of the way.

Then the Guarsai were off, walking into the dining area, across the floor – and coming right towards Lyra and Trixie’s table.

“Uh…Trixie…?” Lyra asked.

Trixie looked up, then over at the approaching ponies – finally joining every other set of eyes in the restaurant. The Guarsai ponies, unicorns all, stopped right at the Equestrians’ table.

“Dame Trixie Lulamoon,” the leader said in a low voice that seemed like it barely held back hostile intent, his Equestrian having only the slightest of accents. His eyes shifted to Lyra. “Dame Lyra Heartstrings.”

It hadn’t been a question. Lyra felt herself tense, and saw Trixie to likewise. “Yes?” Trixie asked after a moment.

The Guarsai’s eyes narrowed. “On the authority of the King, I am placing you both under arrest for acts of espionage against the Kingdom of Zaldia.”

With that cue, the other two unicorns walked around to flank the table that Trixie and Lyra sat at. Lyra, meanwhile, found herself sputtering. They’d been here for two days! That wasn’t even enough time to have done anything that looked like espionage! Was it? “Hang on – ” she began.

Trixie held up a hoof to stop Lyra, matching glares with the Guarsai officer. She looked to her fellow Equestrian. “Don’t worry, Princess Luna covered this,” she said to Lyra without breaking eye contact. To the Guarsai officer, she continued. “I am a diplomat in the service of Equestria, and Lyra has been designated my adjutant. Under Article XVII, section 2, of the Treaty of Valet d’Écurie, you are required to immediately contact the Equestrian embassy and wait for a representative of – ”

Trixie got no further when the Guarsai officer nodded once. Instantly, Lyra felt a powerful telekinetic field wrap around her, and saw a similar one wrap around Trixie. There wasn’t time for much else than that as the field lifted Lyra up and threw her to the ground, forcing the air from her lungs and stunning her for a moment. The first Guarsai officer conjured a quartet of manacles in a flash of yellow magic, clamping them down on the two Equestrians quickly. Then the two were lifted back up

No one in the restaurant did anything – most of the ponies pointedly looked away, in fact. Lyra looked to Trixie, who no longer had a look of confidence on her face.

“Trixie…?” she asked again. But that was when a pair of black bags were conjured and placed over both their heads, and then they were lifted and physically grabbed by a Guarsai officer each. Before either could even begin to speak, both heard a pop sound that was familiar to them – the sound of a teleportation spell.

---

The remaining Guarsai officer turned and looked at the other ponies in the restaurant. He didn’t say anything – and he didn’t need to. This matter was not to be discussed. The arrest of two foreign nationals was not to be mentioned. There had been no abrogation of the Treaty of Valet d’Écurie. The two Equestrians and three Guarsai members had never been here. These things were simply understood by the remaining ponies – loyal Zaldians all. Actions such as these ensured that.

The Guarsai officer walked outside the restaurant. It was dark out, and so he lit up his horn, a natural enough action for any unicorn. That his horn momentarily glowed green rather than its normal yellow was a fact noted by exactly one pony, who passed the message along quickly.

---

It felt like an eternity before the bag was removed from her head, and Trixie gasped at finally being able to breathe air that wasn’t stale and warm from her own breath. The first thing she looked for was Lyra, and she found her fellow Equestrian easily enough, sitting right across from her as her own bag was taken off. That taken care of, she looked around the room they found themselves in. It was unremarkable – gray stone and a single door. Set before Trixie was a table. There were neither chairs nor sitting cushions, and illumination came only from four candles, two on either side of the door and two behind Trixie, casting the entire room into deep shadow.

Instinctively Trixie lit up her horn to provide more illumination, Lyra doing likewise. There was no sign of who had removed the bag – no sign of anypony at all, for that matter. “Trixie…?” Lyra asked, eyes wide as she stood. The manacles were still on both of them. “What did we do…?”

“Nothing!” Trixie said instantly, and truthfully, as far as she was aware anyway. She looked down at the manacles. They were real, not magical constructs – they had been teleported from some prepared place, although it occurred to Trixie after a moment that trying to magically dispel them probably wouldn’t look good anyway. Then again, how bad could things get?

“Well obviously we did something!” Lyra continued. She went up to the door, but there was no knob or handle on the inside – it could only be opened from without. “How much did you piss off that Zati guy?”

Trixie felt a moment’s panic – had some Guarsai officer thought more of her ‘bribe’ than Solidoa had? After a moment, however, she shook her head. “This is way too extreme for it to be anything related to him,” she said, breathing a few times. “Okay. Okay. Calm down. This is probably a misunderstanding. We’ll just…find a way to handle things…”

“Step away from the door,” a stallion’s voice cut in suddenly and from nowhere. Lyra leaped in fright and did as she was told, more out of instinct than an actual desire to obey the command. Once Lyra was clear of the door, it opened, admitting a pair of unicorns, both in the uniforms of the Guarsai, though neither looked familiar to Trixie.

“Before you make any pointless demands,” one of the Guarsai, pale blue in coat color and with a stark-white mane and tail, said just as Trixie opened her mouth, “understand that we have just arrested you and brought you here in clear violation of whatever treaty you’re about to cite. We did so in a public restaurant and in full view of dozens of private citizens.” He looked evenly at Lyra, then Trixie. “What makes you think that we care?”

Trixie closed her mouth at that. Lyra took the opportunity to speak up instead. “That officer said that we were being charged with espionage,” Lyra said. “How could we have committed espionage? We’ve been here for two days!”

“A day and a half, really,” Trixie noted. “Considering how long it took us to get through customs, go to our embassy, get set up in the hotel…”

The Guarsai officers seemed particularly uninterested – and impatient. The second one, who had an orange coat and a yellow mane and tail, stepped right up to the table and put both front hooves on it. “We really do not have time for this,” he insisted. “My name is Zurda Su. My comrade is Zurda Izotz. We’re not related. What did you do with the Armory?”

Lyra and Trixie looked at each other. “Armory?” Trixie asked.

“What are we being charged with doing?” Lyra added.

The two Guarsai officers looked to each other, the two Equestrians’ protestations of innocence clearly not having any effect other than to incense the guards. Even still, the blue one, Zurda Izotz, decided to play along. “Three hours ago,” he said, “the Armería Urrutira was invaded. Its deepest vaults were broken into, and the Platinum Armory itself was stolen.”

“Three hours ago…?” Lyra asked, growing increasingly annoyed. “I was playing a concert three hours ago! There’s hundreds of witnesses – ”

Zurda Su’s horn flared dangerously, and Lyra shut up. “Do not insult our intelligence,” he warned. “We know about your concert. We know you were playing there; we confirmed this easily, as well as your time backstage with Ohar Garai practicing. You were the cover, obviously.”

Both unicorns looked to Trixie. “It is your movements we cannot track.”

Trixie blinked. “I was at the – whatever you call the castle. I checked in, was stuck in a really long meeting with Lord Kristal Zati, then went back to the hotel we’re staying at for a few minutes to drop off my bags, then came straight to the concert hall,” she said. “There isn’t any time in there for me to have – ”

“You were not at the castle today,” Zurda Su interrupted. His horn glowed again, and a logbook appeared – one that Trixie had signed, or remembered signing, to get into the castle. “Your name doesn’t appear here.”

“We have also spoken to Lord Zati,” Zurda Izotz continued. “He has not met with you. He waited some time for your arrival, but you never showed.”

Trixie sputtered. “That jerk!” she exclaimed. “Yes I did! And he accused me of trying to bribe him but I wasn’t I was just trying to give him a nice map and officer…” she struggled to remember the name. “Officer Armarria Solidoa! He was a Guarsai officer, he was there when Zati called for him…”

The two Guarsai officers traded looks, but not unhappy ones. If anything they looked like they’d spotted a hole in Trixie’s story. “Officer Solidoa was indeed supposed to be assigned to the castle today,” Zurda Izotz said. “But at the last moment he was reassigned. He wasn’t even in Gotorleku Hiria today, let alone the castle.”

Lyra and Trixie both had wide eyes at that. Lyra stepped forward. “Trixie was at the concert,” Lyra insisted. “Ohar Garai can back her up on that! He spoke to her afterwards. She was in the audience – she was late! She had to come in late, meaning she must have spoken with an usher to know when to open the door…”

“We have consulted the employees of the Auditorio. None saw your compatriot.” Zurda Su explained. He paused a moment after that, however, then looked to his companion. “However, we should track down Ohar Garai, if he did indeed interact with Lulamoon.”

“They would need inside help,” the other unicorn confirmed, eyeing the two Equestrians dangerously. “Somepony who could know how to get around the Armería Urrutira’s defenses. Garai could have learned it, with how often he is in the castle…”

“W-wait,” Lyra said, holding up a hoof. “You sound like you’re going to – we didn’t even do anything, let alone Ohar!”

“We’ll determine that for ourselves,” Zurda Izotz said. He had a thin-lipped smile on his face. “I don’t imagine this will take very long. Your claims are full of holes.”

“So’s your accusation!” Trixie objected. “I’m Princess Luna’s apprentice! Why would I be the one to try and break into the Armory? That would be a job for, I dunno, actual spies or something! Not somepony whose name and face you would be able to recognize instantly!”

The two Zaldian unicorns didn’t seem phased in the slightest by Trixie’s objections. “The Platinum Armory of Zaldia has long been the greatest defense our nation has against Equestrian annexation,” Zurda Su said, flicking his tail in annoyance. “The artifacts therein defend our land against the designs of Luna and her puppets. Since the Armory was fully assembled four centuries ago Equestria finally stopped its reckless annexations.”

“What?” Lyra asked, confused.

“The Zaldian spin on Equestria’s growth over the years,” Trixie provided. “Latigo, Prance, Meleñia, Folaland…as far as Zaldia’s concerned Equestria conquered all those places and forced the ponies there to give up their distinct cultures.”

“We believe what we see,” Zurda Su continued. “And after the Platinum Armory was assembled, the annexations stopped. It is what has allowed Zaldia to maintain its independence from Equestria. We know it has always been a high-priority target for Equestria. And now, with Corona returned and your ongoing civil war? Perhaps Princess Luna feels that the Armory must be taken now more than ever in order to stop her sister from taking her throne.”

Civil war? Trixie’s eyes fluttered rapidly. The Zaldians thought that Equestria was in the middle of a civil war due to Corona? And that Luna was using it as justification to attack another nation? How paranoid were the Zaldians? “That’s insane,” Trixie said at length. “You’re completely insane! None of this explains why you think that we would have anything to do with this!”

“You know something,” Zurda Izotz said, horn glowing a dangerous blue. “And you will tell us. Don’t think Luna can find you here. This place is magically shielded, protected against all intrusion, magical scrying, and teleporting. She will never find you. So you better start talking, now. Or if you want, we can do this the hard way.” His eyes narrowed. “The painful way.”

Lyra looked to Trixie. “But we don’t know anything,” she intoned.

Trixie looked between the Guarsai officers. They didn’t believe Lyra. They didn’t care about what Trixie had to say, either. They just thought that Trixie and Lyra were guilty, that they knew what the Zaldians wanted to know, that they were responsible. And they were willing to do anything to get Trixie and Lyra to talk.

Trixie took Lyra’s hoof with one of her own. “Lyra,” she said. “You know that thing that Sparkle’s really really good at but I’m terrible at?”

“Studying?” Lyra asked incredulously.

Trixie started, then looked at Lyra. “I’m perfectly good at studying! I did fine in – ugh. No. Not that. The other thing.”

The two Guarsai rolled their eyes, almost as one. “I assume you’re referring to Twilight Sparkle, who now resides in Ponyville,” Zurda Su said. “The continent’s expert in teleportation magic. Did I not just say that this place was guarded against teleporting?”

“Sparkle’s version of the spell is a little different than most, though,” Trixie said, smiling at the Guarsai as she charged her horn with magic. “And, I learned magic at the hooves of Princess Luna herself! The teleportation spell I know can be used not merely to move from place to place, but from world to world, if I so chose to do so! Indeed, you Guarsai are so well-informed – surely you are aware that this last summer I did exactly that, and not long before, Twilight used the very same spell to do as much herself – escaping a magical shield in the process! Don’t you think that that is a skill I would want to develop?”

There was the faintest doubt in the Guarsais’ eyes at that, and Trixie smiled. “Watch in awe,” she intoned in a low and smug voice, horn glowing even brighter blue, then brighter. The Guarsai stood to intervene and stop her, but it was at that moment that her horn let out a blinding flash of light – and, once it cleared, revealed her and Lyra to have both completely disappeared.

The Guarsais’ eyes widened. “Alarma!” Zurda Su called, switching back to his native language and turning towards the door, which opened quickly to let him leave. Zurda Izotz took a moment to cast a dispel over the room, just in case Trixie had turned the two invisible, but nothing was revealed.

“Presoa ihes!” the blue Zaldian called, rushing from the room as well. “Presoa ihes! Jarri hiriko alerta!”

The sound of the two unicorns rushing from the room and down the hallway beyond faded after a few long moments. Trixie and Lyra waited a full minute, however, before emerging from beneath the table and heading out the now-ajar door as quickly as they could with their hooves still bound by manacles, a fresh invisibility spell over each of them. Zurda Izotz’s dispel had worked just fine – but in the bare moment between its completion and the light from its casting fading, Trixie had simply woven her invisibility spells again over the two of them.

Trixie didn’t have the raw spellcasting ability of a prodigy like Twilight, or even Lyra, for that matter. She could teleport – barely, and badly – but probably would never have been able to get the sheer power behind a teleportation spell needed to overcome any kind of barrier that prevented it. But, Trixie was pretty fast on the draw, if she said so herself.

“Right, so, we’re fugitives,” Lyra noted as the two headed out into the hallway. Lyra couldn’t see through Trixie’s invisibility spell, so she instead simply had a few stray hairs of Trixie’s tale in her mouth to guide her. “What the hay are we supposed to do now?”

“One thing at a time, Lyra,” Trixie said, freezing in place and pressing quickly against the wall – Lyra doing likewise – as a number of Guarsai appeared around a corner and rushed down into the room they had just been in, horns glowing, probably trying to scan the room and see if they could figure out where they had gone. “One thing at a time…”

Author's Notes:

All the Zaldian food and drink mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter are actual Basque dishes. It was hard to track down dishes that didn't involve a lot of meat, though.

As I've established elsewhere, the Guarsai are meant to be modeled after Soviet Union's KGB or, even moreso, the Russian Empire's Okhrana (right down to the Guarsai's name being a contraction of its full title, just as the Okhrana's was). The KGB and Okhrana had a few things in common, most particularly institutional paranoia, as well as the common Russian being utterly terrified of them - for good reason.

Also, in broad terms, the Okhrana, like the CIA and KGB, had an area of specialty, or at least a thing it was most known for. The CIA is known for a complete mastery of SIGINT - signals intelligence. You wanna know what someone in Cairo is talking about? The CIA's got your man. The KGB was known for its sheer pervasiveness, meanwhile. The KGB at its height was overwhelmingly the largest and most insidious intelligence organization in the world, with sleeper and hidden agents in the most disturbing of places.

In the case of the Okhrana, its specialty was agent provocateurs - folk who commit crimes or, more ideally, entice others to commit crimes in order to implicate them in illegal acts and discredit the cause for which they are ostensibly fighting. Say, for example, you've got a peaceful protest against something. An agent provocateur might be someone among the protesters, ostensibly part of them but in reality a member of the Okhrana, who starts flinging Molotovs at the police - or getting others to do such - turning the peaceful protest into a riot which can then be both put down legally and used to discredit whatever the protest was supported to be about.

Whether or not the Guarsai specializes in this, well...we'll see.

4. Escape and Investigate

The Guarsai dungeon had only one way in or out, as Lyra and Trixie discovered while making their way through it as quietly as possible – a set of stairs leading straight up, presumably to their headquarters. It was guarded, of course: two members of the Guarsai in their green military uniforms, both alert and attentive, not standing still but instead looking each way down the three corridors that lead to their charge. Of course, at the moment, every spare Guarsai was behind the two Equestrians, searching and magically scanning the room they had been in. These two Guarsai were alone, at least for the moment. One moment would have to be enough.

As alert as the two guards were, they weren’t – couldn’t have been – ready for two invisible, inaudible mares sneaking up on them and delivering strong bucks to the sides of their heads. Lyra’s crumpled instantly, while Trixie’s only staggered a bit, but a follow-up buck with her hind hooves took him down before he could call for help. Once that was accomplished, the two crept up to the door.

“What do we do?” Lyra whispered.

Trixie looked the door over. She didn’t see a lock on this side, and didn’t have anything to even try picking it with anyway. It did, however, have a sliding window, closed at the moment. Pressing Lyra and herself against one wall, she banged on the door a few times and shouted “laguntza!”, one of the few Zaldian words she had been able to memorize – ‘help!’ Even as she did, she created an illusion of herself standing over the two guards. The slat covering the door’s peephole opened, a pair of eyes glancing out. They widened at the sight of the two fallen guards and the illusory Trixie standing over them. She made her illusion’s eyes widen as well, then had it gallop off and out of sight, whereupon she dispelled it.

It had the desired effect: the slat closed, there was the sound of several locks being undone, and the door was thrown open, three Guarsai running through it. Once they were past, Lyra and Trixie both dashed through the door before it could be closed again.

It wasn’t long before Trixie and Lyra were in the Guarsai offices themselves – and Trixie paused at the sight of the place. She had been expecting panic, ponies rushing back and forth, the paranoia of Zaldia coming to a head as it was surely going to do with the entire Platinum Armory (whatever that was) having been stolen. Instead, the Guarsai offices seemed relatively subdued. Ponies moved back and forth undertaking various tasks, filing paperwork, questioning some ponies…they looked tense, yes, glancing around a lot, speaking in harsh tones, but they didn’t look panicked. Professionally concerned, maybe – but there was, simply put, no way that the Zaldians’ secret police force should have been so calm right now.

“What?” Trixie breathed. She felt a tugging on her tail then, though, and remembered that she didn’t have time to analyze the situation. Glancing back at Lyra to make sure the pony still had her tail in her mouth – Trixie made a mental note that she should try and change her spell so that her friends could see through her invisibility spells as well as Trixie herself could – she started off, the two carefully making their way through the office and doing their best to avoid bumping into ponies.

They almost made it, too. But just as they reached the front door to try and open it, it swung inwards of its own accord, two Guarsai officers charging in for some reason – and hitting Trixie square in the muzzle with the door as they did.

Trixie cried out, falling backwards and onto her back, dragging Lyra with her. Her concentration on the invisibility and silence spells was disrupted, and both disappeared in a faint puff of blue smoke – leaving the two mares, still in manacles, suddenly very visible. There was a pause as everypony in the room, a dozen or so Guarsai in all, turned to look curiously at the two mares. Trixie put on her best, most innocent-looking smile.

One Guarsai smiled back – and then shouted at the top of his lungs. “Alarma!”

The Guarsai all sprang into action, horns glowing. Trixie tried to think of something to do – but Lyra beat her to the punch, covering her eyes and setting her horn glowing gold as bright as possible – and then brighter still, releasing a flash of golden light that felt like it plunged straight through Trixie’s eyes and into the back of her skull, then proceeded to bounce around inside her head a bit for good measure.

“Gyaaah that is not fun when someone else does it!” Trixie exclaimed, rolling to her hooves. None of the other Guarsai in the room reacted any better. Trixie felt a hoof with manacles around it reach out to her; she followed it as Lyra trotted forward as quickly as possible, Trixie being guided by Lyra now that the mint unicorn had rendered her blind for a few minutes thanks to her flare spell.

“When did you learn to do that?” Trixie demanded, eyes fluttering rapidly as she tried to regain her sight. Then something else occurred to her. “Why is it brighter than mine?!”

“Not now, Trixie!” Lyra exclaimed. The two were outside now, Trixie could tell thanks to the cool air on her. She felt hair brush against her muzzle, figured it was Lyra’s tail, and took it in her mouth, following her friend. With the manacles around their legs, they couldn’t exactly gallop, but they kept up a relatively good pace for what had to be several city blocks before Lyra finally stopped, breathing heavily. Trixie was as well – this high mountain air meant they were quickly out of breath.

“Okay…okay…” Trixie said, squinting. Her vision was coming back. “We’re fugitives now. Yay…”

Lyra nodded, closing her eyes a moment as her horn glowed again. Trixie flinched and her eyes automatically squinted in memory of what had happened just a moment ago, but all that happened was that a gold sphere appeared in front of Lyra and popped, releasing her lyre. She hugged it close.

“Oh – right, good idea,” Trixie said, duplicating the spell herself. With a flash-pop, a gilt necklace with an inlaid red gem shaped like a lyre, and a matching golden tiara with a purple gem shaped like a magic wand, appeared. Trixie doffed her hat and put on the Element of Magic underneath it – it wouldn’t be comfortable, nor as ostentatious as she normally liked, but it would also be less likely to come off – while Lyra slipped on the Element of Loyalty.

“When did you learn to summon these?” Lyra asked. They had been in their hotel room, part of the ‘official’ wear the two had for their trip to Zaldia.

“First chance I got after Tambelon,” Trixie answered, as though it should have been obvious – why wouldn’t she want to be able to easily summon the six Elements of Harmony to her side? She pouted after a moment of thought, though. “But I didn’t tag anything else I brought with me! I had some really nice outfits, too…” She looked down at her manacles, then to the Element of Loyalty. “Hey, give me that a second.”

Lyra did so, and Trixie found the pin at the back to be suitably long and thin enough for her needs. With a little telekinesis and gentle hoof-work, she managed to undo the lock to the manacles around her front legs – not as fast as Cheerilee would have been able to, but fast enough. She quickly repeated the process with her other set of manacles, and then Lyra’s own two pairs.

“You just picked locks with an ancient artifact of unspeakable magic,” Lyra noted.

“Whatever works,” Trixie answered with a shrug, hoofing the Element back to Lyra. “Okay. Now what?”

“Embassy,” Lyra answered, glancing around. They were in an alleyway between two of Gotorleku Hiria’s tall, filigree buildings; despite the sheer height and thinness of both towers, space remained at a premium on the plateau and so the alley they were in was quite cramped.

“Not a good place to go,” Trixie countered. “It’s the first place the Zaldians will think we’re going, they’ll be watching it. And, the Zaldians think that we stole their Armory as a lead-up to an Equestrian invasion. If we try to get to the Equestrian embassy, that’ll just make it look more suspicious.”

“Who cares?” Lyra asked. “We didn’t steal their stupid Armory!”

Trixie held up a hoof. “And I think there’s more going on here. What happened to Amarria Solidoa? Why did Kristal Zati lie about not seeing me? Why did all the Auditorio’s employees do the same? And if the Armory really has been stolen, why did the Guarsai’s office look so calm before we appeared? There’s some kind of conspiracy here, Lyra. I think that somepony is trying to harm Equestria’s diplomatic relations with Zaldia – maybe enough to get Zaldia to go to war.”

Lyra considered, then let out a long sigh as she nodded, conceding the point. “This is starting to sound like some kind of Ace of Clover mystery.”

Trixie grinned despite the situation. “I know, right?” she asked. She was a fan of the series. “Look, we can’t go to the embassy, we’ll be spotted – by now they probably realized I turned us invisible, so they’ll be looking for that. We can’t just hop a train, they’ll be watching those too. And we can’t just contact Luna,” she tapped her hat, which she could use to magically send messages to Princess Luna’s desk when she wanted, “because I don’t have anything to write with or on, and because there’s nothing Luna could do at the moment that wouldn’t just escalate matters with Zaldia. We’re on our own and we need to go to the last place the Zaldians would look.”

Lyra’s golden eyes met Trixie’s own violet ones. “No,” she said firmly, knowing what Trixie wanted to suggest. “Because even if you could sneak us into that Armory place, then you could probably sneak us into the Equestrian embassy just as easily.”

Trixie opened her mouth to object, but Lyra leaned in close, muzzle practically touching Trixie’s own. “No, Trixie,” she hissed.

The blue unicorn sighed after a moment. “I don’t like ponies thinking I did something I didn’t,” Trixie grumbled as she looked around, then pointed in the direction she was pretty sure the Equestrian embassy was in. “At least, not something bad. Why couldn’t we be accused of fostering Equestrian-Zaldian relations? Kidnapped so that they could throw me a surprise party for the nice map I gave the Guarsai?”

Lyra rolled her eyes as Trixie’s grumbling grew quieter and less intelligible. The two at first moved stealthily through the city, flitting from shadow to shadow and sticking to alleyways and blind spots, a skill they’d started to pick up when they’d visited Tambelon and refined with help from Cheerilee thereafter. Gotorleku Hiria wasn’t a nocturnal city the way Canterlot was, so there were few ponies to avoid at this time of night anyway.

“Shouldn’t somepony be looking for us?” Trixie asked after half an hour of careful movement. “I haven’t seen or heard any guards or search parties…”

Lyra had wondered as much as well, but had decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth – and had used wondering about the origin of that phrase as a means of distracting herself from the overall situation. Still, they were finally nearing the Equestrian embassy, distinctive due to being built in the castellan style of Canterlot architecture rather than the thin filigree of Gotorleku Hiria, which made it look a bit like a small, fortified castle in the middle of a city.

Completing the image of it being a fortress, the two saw as they approached, was that it was currently under siege. Well, perhaps not something so dramatic – but the embassy was surrounded, and the ponies – unicorns all – doing the surrounding were all dressed in green and platinum armor, with helmets that incorporated gemstones just below the horns and capes that had the image of a swan on them. One of their number, whose cape had platinum epaulets and who lacked a helmet, was pacing among the presumably lower-ranked troops, inspecting them for something.

The Equestrian embassy’s own guards – a more-or-less even mix of the three tribes – were out in force, dressed in the somewhat less ostentatious but no less functional blue-silver armor of the Equestrian military. They were doing their best to look unconcerned with the situation, but weren’t succeeding very well in that regard.

Lyra and Trixie stared from where they ducked in the alley, behind a collection of rain barrels. “Is our embassy under siege?” Trixie demanded.

“You said it would be watched,” Lyra noted.

Trixie shook her head. There was a huge difference between placing a few nondescript-looking ponies within easy sight of an embassy’s gates, and surrounding that embassy with troops. The Zaldian ponies didn’t appear to have weapons, but that meant little when the entire force was made up of unicorns presumably trained for combat. Though on that note…

“Those aren’t the Zaldian royal guard,” Trixie noted, eyeing their capes. “The royal guard uses bears. And their military uses a double-headed eagle. What’s with the swan?”

“Who cares?” Lyra asked, hooves lightly gliding along her lyre’s strings in nervousness, too quiet to be heard from more than few feet away. “Can you get us past them?”

“Maybe – ” Trixie began, when the epaulet-adorned unicorn among the Zaldians stopped his pacing and stepped outside of the circle they’d made around the Equestrian embassy, then barked a command in Zaldian. At once, the Zaldian soldiers-of-some-description had their horns light up in a multitude of colors. As Trixie and Lyra watched, a platinum-colored, somewhat transparent dome erected itself around the Equestrian embassy, shimmering into reality and settling into place firmly as the Equestrians trapped inside watched with wide, unbelieving eyes – not at the spell itself, so much as the fact that the Zaldians were performing this action, for reasons they probably couldn’t even begin to guess at.

Trixie and Lyra looked to each other. “No,” Trixie answered after a moment. “I can’t get past a shield spell, not without getting us noticed.”

The two Equestrian unicorns sat close together, considering. They were trapped in a city that had, very suddenly, become hostile to them. The only place they could have gone to escape it, or at least been somewhat safe, had just been sealed off from them. There had to be members of the Guarsai looking for them, and if they were caught a second time, there would be no chance of escape – the Guarsai would make sure of it this time.

Lyra took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay,” she said softly. “Where’s the Armory?”

---

The Guarsai did not often have good days, but today was shaping up to be a particularly bad one. The captain-lieutenant – in the Guarsai’s police forces, roughly equal to an Equestrian chief inspector – had hightailed it from Guarsai headquarters for the Armería Urrutira as soon as he had heard the news of the theft, bringing several lieutenants with him. Being the highest-ranked Guarsai on duty, it was his job to cordon off the Armería and begin the investigation of who had stolen the artifacts. He’d heard that Equestria might be responsible, but the captain-lieutenant couldn’t think of a single reason why and could think of a number of good reasons why not – particularly with two of Luna’s Elements in the city at the moment, which would make any Equestrian action against Zaldia a virtual death sentence for the two of them – and refused to let his upcoming investigation so important a matter be based on biased assumptions. He made a mental note as he galloped to have some of his ponies keep an eye on the Equestrian embassy just in case, however, though it was doubtful that any thief would then go to literally the first place the Guarsai would check.

The captain-lieutenant and his small herd of underlings arrived at the gate of the Armería Urrutira in record time, and found the gate to naturally be closed and guarded by two members of the Sorginbehat, with a third behind it, a commander from the lack of helmet and platinum epaulets, pacing back and forth and apparently waiting for him.

“I am captain-lieutenant Bilaketa Sakon,” the Guarsai captain said as he flashed his credentials. “Open the gate. You must hurry, time is of the essence in these matters.”

The commander on the other side did so, but he held up a hoof before the captain-lieutenant could enter. “I cannot let you pass,” he said. “This is an internal matter for the Sorginkeria Behatzailea.”

Captain-lieutenant Sakon had started to walk forward and almost didn’t hear the Sorginbehat commander, until that pony lit up her horn in warning, and Sakon had a moment to consider what he had heard.

“What?” he demanded. “Any act of espionage falls under the authority of the Guardia Saila, regardless of where it takes place – ”

“You are mistaken. The Sorginbehat has ultimate authority over the custodianship of the Armería and the artifacts therein. That is our jurisdiction. We will, doubtless, need to coordinate with the Guarsai once we have determined where the artifacts have gone in the city, but – ”

“Have you gone mad?! Let me in this instant or I will get Ispelu Magikoa here and have him…”

---

The Armería Urrutira was relatively easy to find in Gotorleku Hiria – the tightly-packed buildings gave way to a wide, bare plaza in which sat the Armory, the idea being to give the Armory’s defenders a wide degree of view and make it difficult for anypony to sneak through. Of course, this didn’t work so well when the ponies in question were invisible.

“Aren’t there ways to see through invisibility?” Lyra asked as she and Trixie galloped up to the walls of the Armería, Lyra once again holding Trixie’s tail in her mouth in order to be able to follow her invisible leader.

Somehow Lyra knew that Trixie was smirking, particularly since for once didn’t call Lyra out on her tendency to speak while invisible, a bad habit Lyra had tried to break, so far unsuccessfully. “Zaldians tend to focus on ‘practical’ magic,” she noted as they came up against the Armería’s wall, “and I don’t cast any ordinary invisibility spell! It would take a master diviner to see through my magic.”

The two unicorns glanced up. The walls of the Armería were thirty or forty feet tall, at least, far too much for either unicorn to use telekinesis to lift the other up – they could slow a fall, but not lift a hundreds-of-pounds pony dozens of feet, and additionally both were more used to fine manipulation with their magic rather than heavy lifting. Instead, the two unicorns trotted along the wall towards the Armería’s main gate.

The gate was open, guarded by another two unicorn ponies, once again wearing the gem-encrusted helms and swan-marked capes that the Equestrians had seen at the embassy. A third pony, without the helmet but with platinum epaulets, was talking to several more Zaldians – Guarsai – outside the gate in angry tones. The Guarsai themselves seemed far more incensed, gesturing profusely to the Armería but making no headway with the other Zaldian. Lyra didn’t understand a word of it, of course, but she did pick out a name she thought she recognized – Ispelu Magikoa, the High Mage of Zaldia.

Regardless, the distraction coupled with the open gates at least solved the problem of getting in – the two unicorns simply ducked between the talking Zaldians as quickly as possible. Unlike the plaza that surrounded the Armería, the courtyard was not wide, and the doors to the Armería itself were similarly open and guarded, but easy to pass through to get inside the fortress itself. Inside, it was dimly lit by glowing crystals set into the ceiling, the walls of its wide hallways broken by the occasional door that looked like it belonged to the safe of a bank vault more than anything. Standing outside each of the doors – there were five in sight – were more swan-caped unicorns.

Lyra leaned against Trixie so that she’d know where the other mare was – she really needed to come up with a way for Lyra to see through the invisibility as well as Trixie. After a few moments of silent contemplation trying to decide which way to go, the two decided on ‘deeper’, trotting quickly into the bowels of the Armería on the theory that wherever the artifacts had been kept was probably there. As they trotted, Lyra noticed something immediately: guards, or rather, the lack of them. After just a few dozen feet, the two found themselves trotting alone through the Armería, without any Zaldians in sight at all.

“That does it,” Trixie said aloud after a few minutes, causing Lyra to jump even as the invisibility spell faded around both of them, disappearing into blue smoke. Trixie had an incensed look on her face as she glared back the way they came, tipping her hat over her eyes. “I think I know what happened. Those swan-caped ponies are part of some division meant to guard this place, and – ”

“And they’re responsible for the thefts,” Lyra continued, nodding as she made the same leaps of logic that Trixie was. “Then they somehow framed us. Maybe some of the Guarsai are in on it. But not all of it, which is why the Guarsai’s office didn’t look too concerned; they must not have heard about the theft yet, or at least not all of them. It’s also why they were stopping the Guarsai from entering, and why they locked down the Equestrian embassy, and why they don’t seem too concerned about things in here.”

Lyra glanced back at Trixie, and was surprised to see that Trixie’s glare had, if anything, doubled. “Oh, come on!” she exclaimed, albeit quietly, throwing her hooves in the air. “I thought I’d figured it out first.”

Lyra rolled her eyes even as Trixie pouted, the two of them heading deeper into the Armería. “So the swan ponies steal the artifacts,” Lyra resumed, “but why? And why frame us?”

Trixie shrugged as the two proceeded. They avoided taking any turns that looked like they might deposit them at the outer edges of the Armería, since those were probably still guarded. But the inner parts weren’t, it seemed – after all, there was nothing left to guard. At length, the two found themselves standing before a pair of gem-encrusted platinum doors, both of them thrown open and revealing a room that looked like it had once contained artifacts on display as though they were a museum – though that museum had been cleared out. At a guess, this was probably where the stolen artifacts had been, but none were present.

The two proceeded into the room, looking around, but didn’t find anything – which, really, wasn’t a surprise to Lyra. They were just normal ponies who occasionally read Ace of Clover mysteries, not real detectives, nor experts in divination magic. After just a few moments of searching it became obvious to Lyra that if there was evidence here, they weren’t going to find it. Although…Lyra sniffed at the air. “You smell that?” she asked as they continued into the room, looking around. “Smells like something burning…or was burned.”

Trixie nodded, taking in a deep breath, looking around the room. “Not just burning,” she said. “Brimstone.” She shuddered a little bit, looking to Lyra with a slight smile on her face. “Remember that time I was kidnapped by salamanders? They all smelled like that.”

Lyra did, then frowned. “You don’t think…?”

“Salamanders?” Trixie asked, considering. She shrugged after a moment. “Anything’s possible. They managed to sneak into Canterlot’s Royal Library, so why not here? Probably not the same ones, though, given how far away we are…”

“I think we’d need more than a smell to convince the Guarsai, if it even was the salamanders,” Lyra noted. She considered the repertoire of spells available to her and Trixie. “Hey, Trixie. You know that magic sight thing you do? Think you could see salamander magic?”

“Probably, if it leaves a trail,” Trixie said, horn flashing and eyes taking on a blue glow as she glanced around the room, before finally squinting at something. “Maybe…it’s really faint. Let’s see where this goes…”

Lyra followed Trixie out, keeping her eyes on Trixie but her ears open for the sound of anypony approaching; fortunately, though Trixie had cancelled her invisibility spell, she’d maintained the silencing one on their hooves. The path that the two ponies took lead them to an out-of-the-way, unlocked door, down several flights of stairs, and finally to something that could only be described as a broom closet – on account of the brooms. The two unicorns had to use their horns for illumination.

“Trail ends here,” Trixie said, sniffing. “But I still smell brimstone. And look – the handles of those brooms are blackened, like they were burned.”

Lyra nodded. She brightened the glow of her horn – Trixie still flinched, apparently not yet over Lyra’s flare spell – to get more light in the room, studying the ground. “Look,” she said, pointing a hoof at a large, roughly circular part of the floor. “The stone right here, it’s…different. A different shade from the rest of the floor. Like it’s new.” She glanced to Trixie. “Salamanders can melt stone, right? No reason why they couldn’t replace it.”

“Right, so there’s our working theory,” Trixie said, nodding. “It makes perfect sense: subterranean lizard folk stole the Royal Armory of Zaldia as part of some conspiracy against the Zaldian government, and they're being helped by a special branch of the Zaldian military.”

Lyra and Trixie both paused, glancing between each other as Trixie finished speaking. “Yeah…” Lyra ventured, grimacing, “maybe, when we tell the Zaldians, we don’t lead with that.”

“It’s all we have to work with right now,” Trixie countered, though her own incredulous look at her own words didn’t go away. “But it’s not much. Argh! This is a dead-end!” She stomped on the discolored floor with one still-silenced hoof, but it didn’t budge. “No way to break this down. And we’d be lost underground, too, even if we managed. If we’re gonna figure out what’s going on, we’re going to need to find somepony in-the-know.”

Lyra considered a few moments. “Kristal Zati?” she asked. “He lied about meeting with you…assuming the Guarsai weren’t lying to us, anyway.”

The blue unicorn’s ears perked up at that. “Track down Kristal Zati and make him spill the beans? Probably have to threaten him a bunch first? Oh, I am all over this plan.” Her horn glowed, turning both of them invisible again. “I know he lives at the High Mage’s place. We’ll go there first and then beat some answers out of him.”

“Well, I mean…we might not have to beat him. He might not even be in on things – ”

“Lyra, let me dream.”

Author's Notes:

I have no damn idea why this chapter took so long to write, but it did. But, it's done now. Maybe I can get back to writing at my old speed again?

Probably not. Ugh...

Anyway. Apart from the time spent writing it being interminable, this chapter was actually fun to write. It's a spiritual twin to the 1st and 2nd chapters of Great Dragon Coronation, specifically the parts in there were Cheerilee and Raindrops casually discuss their previous adventures as though it's no big thing because, to them, it isn't. Similarly, here Lyra and Trixie are, talking about salamanders and being able to casually call up the Elements of Harmony, learning each other's spells simply as a matter of course, and so on.

5. Coming Together

Sneaking out of the Armería was no harder than sneaking into it – the swan-caped ponies were still at the entrance and still arguing with the Guarsai pony, who by now was looking furious, horn glowing bright in anger – and spell-casting, Trixie could tell with a quick application of her magic sight, something that sent out a signal back into the city. Calling for backup, most likely. As Lyra and Trixie reached the other side of the plaza that surrounded the Armería, the latter paused, holding out her hoof to stop Lyra as she did.

“Okay, so the swan-ponies are the bad guys,” Trixie said, “and not all of the Guarsai are bad guys. Right? That’s what we’ve decided?”

“Yeah, why?” Lyra asked.

Trixie considered a moment more, one hoof to her mouth, then nodded to herself and reached out her magic, weaving an illusion of a black-clad, black-masked, black-coated pony – the very image of a thief – with a large sack over one shoulder trying to creep out of the Armería’s entrance in an incredibly obvious way. The illusion wasn’t particularly realistic looking, but at this distance it wouldn’t have to be. The Guarsai couldn’t help but see, and let out a shout of surprise, pointing. The swan-ponies all turned, saw Trixie’s illusion, and let out shouts of their own, charging. The Guarsai ponies followed. Trixie had her illusion scamper back inside, out of sight, and dispelled it.

“There. My good deed for the day,” Trixie said, as she and Lyra turned, heading off. “Guarsai’s in the Armería now, can start investigating. He’ll smell the brimstone, probably be able to track the salamander’s magic the way I was.” Plus, when the Guarsai’s backup arrived, there wouldn’t be as many ponies at the gate – not nearly enough to stop them from entering.

“I suppose, if this doesn’t work out, we’ll want to make sure the Guarsai can at least back up what we’re saying…” Lyra noted. “Okay, now where’s the High Mage’s place?”

---

It was clear on the other side of the city, naturally, past both of the bridges that spanned the three peaks of Gotorleku Hiria, in the same district that housed the Royal Castle (whatever that was called in Zaldian). The Castle itself was a far larger complex than the High Mage’s estate, of course, but the estate was constructed on slightly higher ground and was organized around a tall central tower, the tip of which seemed like it would be higher up than the castle’s own tallest tower. There was probably something significant to that fact, Trixie thought. Mostly that it must have been a pain in the hooves to climb it often.

The estate had a gate and was surrounded by walls, but both were far shorter than the ones that had surrounded the Armería. More to the point, the owner of the estate had made a fatal flaw in his landscaping decisions – several trees surrounded the wall from the outside, their branches in some places stretching over the wall itself. Ponies as a rule were not very good at climbing, but that rule didn’t count for ponies that had put in a lot of time and effort learning to do just that thanks to one Cheerilee, Element of Laughter, and self-appointed Sergeant-at-Hooves for the Elements of Harmony.

Which was not to say that it was without incident.

“Ow!” Trixie hissed as Lyra jumped down from the top of the wall. The tree limb she had been on, freed from her weight, had snapped back, and several of the smaller branches had smacked Trixie in the face and horn both, the latter of which disrupted her concentrating on the invisibility spell she had woven around the two of them.

“Sorry!” Lyra called up as quietly as possible while Trixie approached the edge and glanced down. Ten foot drop – further than most ponies would feel safe dropping without the risk of breaking a limb, but once again Cheerilee’s insistence on the six Elements improving their physical ability helped out, as Trixie leaped from the tree branch, tucked her legs up, and rolled. She wanted to end the roll on her hooves in a crouch the way Lyra had managed, but instead somewhere between the landing and the rolling she got her directions mixed up and ended up on her back, legs straight up in the air.

Lyra put a hoof to her muzzle at the sight, stifling a laugh. Trixie was up in a moment, dusting herself off. “Oh, shush,” she said, glancing up at her head. “My hat stayed on. That’s an achievement, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Lyra noted, and glanced at herself. “Invisibility again?”

Trixie shook her head. “I should probably give my horn a break for a minute or two anyway – and besides, if nopony’s come running at us already, they probably won’t at all.” She waved a hoof in the direction of the main gate. “If that’s unguarded, then the entire place probably is, at least in my experience.”

Lyra considered as the two set off towards the back entrance of the estate. “In your experience…? Oh, wait, right. You used to try and sneak in on nobles and listen to them, before you came to Ponyville.”

Trixie nodded before she realized what she was doing. “I mean,” she said quickly, “that was a long time ago…”

“Not much more than a year, actually.”

“Only that long?” Trixie wondered, considering. Lyra was right, it had only been a little more than a year since Trixie had come to Ponyville. She shook her head in amazement. She hadn’t exactly lead an inactive or boring life before, of course, but she felt like she’d been living in Ponyville for a lifetime. “In my defense,” Trixie said after a moment, “it’s not like I learned how to turn invisible with the intent of spying on ponies.”

“Why did you, then?”

Trixie smiled guiltily, as the two had reached the back entrance to the estate, a simple wooden door that no doubt would strongly contrast with the front doors. “To sneak into the Royal Kitchens for cookies,” she admitted as she bent down to examine the lock, waving her hoof at Lyra for the Element of Loyalty or, more correctly, its pin needle again. After a few minutes of work, she had the door open, revealing a darkened kitchen inside. Lyra and Trixie both lit up their horns, blue and gold glows mixing to bathe the room in a pale coriander light.

“So where to first?” Lyra whispered as the two entered, closing the door behind them.

“Highest room in the big tower,” Trixie whispered back, starting forward, confident she could navigate her way there. Beyond the kitchens were long, narrow hallways punctuated by tall windows that made sharp turns, but as long as Trixie kept moving forward she’d have to reach the central tower eventually. “That’s where Ispelu’s bedroom is going to be, meaning that Kristal Zati’s won’t be far away.” Trixie quelled her horn’s light, Lyra doing likewise; there was just enough natural light filtering in through the estate’s windows to see by.

“So what exactly is our plan here?” Lyra asked. “Just shout at Zati for lying? How do we get him to confess? What if he isn’t actually in on anything, he just wanted to spite you?”

“Ooh, that would be just like him,” Trixie noted, grimacing. They came across a set of stairs and took them up; a glance out one of the windows showed that the tower was only a few dozen feet away at most “I know it. ‘Oh, Trixie’s in trouble with the Guarsai? Well, I don’t know the details, but I’m sure I can make it worse!’” She shook her head. “I have no idea what his problem is – ”

The two had been trotting past a pair of double-doors, Lyra right next to them – just as they opened, naturally, banging into her and causing her to yelp out in a mixture of surprise and pain. A distant part of Trixie experienced the tiniest bit of happiness that something had unexpectedly hit somepony other than her for a change; most of her attention, however, was locked on the room beyond. It was a private library, looking much like any other private library in any other location in Cissanthema: tall shelves full of books, comfortable couches for sitting on and tables for setting down drinks or papers or whatever, a few tchotchkes and collectables, and the inevitable globe of the world. The library was lit by gaslight lamps behind green-tinted glass, giving the whole room an eerie look.

Also Kristal Zati was standing right there in the doorway, still wearing his black-and-silver cape, several books clasped in his pale blue aura. He had been looking down at one, but his eyes widened when they locked with Trixie’s.

“Duzu!” He exclaimed, dropping all the books he held.

Trixie grinned her most wicked of grins, the kind she normally only pulled out for foals on Nightmare Night. “Moi!” she called, horn glowing bright blue and telekinetically shoving Zati back a dozen feet. He stumbled, but didn’t fall, eyes narrowing.

“Me too…” Lyra groaned as she stood back up, rubbing her snout where the door had hit her, getting her first look at Kristal Zati. “Wow, he looks exactly like what I thought he would look like…”

“What are you doing here?!” Zati demanded, setting his hooves down more firmly, horn glowing bright and readying himself.

“We’re here because you lied to the Guarsai!” Trixie responded with a stomp of her hoof, then advanced a few paces into the room. “You told them that we never met! Why did you do that…” she trailed off a moment, then her eyes widened and she pointed at him. “And you’re speaking Equestrian! You lied about that, too?!”

“Is that important?” Lyra asked as she advanced into the room as well, her own horn glowing gold.

“Yes!” Trixie exclaimed, glancing down at the floor quickly as she did, and around the room as well, taking stock quickly. “Because it shows that he’s a lying liar about everything!” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing? How are you involved with the thefts at the Armería? Why are you involved in them? Why are you trying to blame Equestria? We’ve been at peace for centuries!”

Kristal Zati’s eyes narrowed. “Peace?” he asked. His somewhat nasal Zaldian accent, at least, remained thick. “The peace of ezpata – the sword. The Ekwestriko juggernaut looms over the whole continent. It surrounds Zaldia on all sides. Don’t even try to pretend that Cavallia is anything other than your puppet! And now? With Ekwestrika falling into civil war?”

“We’re not in a civil war!” Lyra objected. “There’s just Corona. Nopony would follow her! Nopony sane, anyway!”

Zati smiled a grim smile at that. “I’m sure the loyalists in every revolution think that of the rebel leader, at first,” he said. “I don’t have to explain our actions to you – ”

“Our actions?” Trixie caught, stepping forward again. “Who else are you working with?”

Zati clamped his mouth shut, and his glare intensified. “Nahikoa,” he said. “I don’t answer to you.” His horn flashed brightly, and Trixie and Lyra’s own horns both felt the thrum of a simple spell being cast. “I have alerted the Guarsai. They will be here in just a few minutes. More than enough time to subdue – ”

His horn had lit up again, but Lyra responded first, letting out a shout and weaving magic into it, creating a wall of sonic force that disrupted Zati’s concentration. The unicorn turned to face Lyra, but Trixie was already spell-weaving herself, conjuring a quartet of bright glowing lights right in his face, then wrapping magic around the rug that Zati had been standing on and pulling. He let out a yelp of surprise as he lost his footing and fell to the ground. Trixie used the opportunity to dash to one side of the room, Lyra to another, even as Trixie’s magic reached out and conjured an illusory double of herself and Lyra where they just had been.

Zati stood up, glowering at Trixie. His horn flashed brightly, dispelling the illusions without a glance, then conjuring a shield to one side of him to ward off another sonic attack from Lyra. Once the shield was up, he fired off a bolt of energy at Trixie – and his eyes widened in shock when the bolt only went through and dispelled the second illusion.

Trixie allowed herself to appear in a puff of blue smoke, standing on her hind legs atop one of the couches’ backs – she’d had plenty of time to move and turn invisible there while Zati laboriously cast one spell after another. Her horn glowed as she grabbed the globe in the room and threw it at him. He ducked it, but then a book grabbed from a shelf hit him in the flank. He sent out another lance of energy at Trixie, but she brought up her own shield spell even as she continued to grab things with telekinesis and throw them at Zati. Like most unicorns, it seemed Zati could only cast one spell at a time. They were probably even very good spells – but Trixie had learned years ago that quantity had a quality all on its own.

Zati let out a roar, ignoring the pain of the next book to hit him and unleashing a far more powerful burst of magic at Trixie’s shield, shattering it and sending a jolt of pain straight down her horn as that happened. She fell off the back of the couch – a tactical move, she would tell anyone who asked, since it got her out of sight of Zati, who had begun another spell. He didn’t get a chance to cast it, though, as Lyra had made her way around Zati’s shield, taking her lyre from her back and running her hooves across it. The spellsong entwined itself around Zati’s horn and quenched the magic there – painfully, from the way he grabbed at his head. He turned to regard Lyra, but another spellsong washed over him, and he somehow instead managed to twist himself too far, falling to the floor again, legs flailing around as though his sense of balance had been totally stolen from him.

Trixie stood up, smiling and saluting Lyra in thanks, then looking to Zati, who’d barely managed to get to his own four hooves again and looking like he was about to be sick. “Give up – ” she began.

Zati’s horn glowed bright – and then brighter. Trixie had just enough time to muffle a shout of annoyance and listen as closely as she could for Zati as bright, hot light flooded the room, blinding everypony in it.

---

“This is the worst!” Lyra exclaimed as she stumbled backwards, clutching at her eyes and blinking rapidly. She felt a couch and grabbed it telekinetically, putting it up in front of her as a shield while she blinked rapidly, trying to clear the glare from her eyes. She set it down after a few moments, though, when she didn’t hear any sounds of fighting anymore.

“Come on, come on…” she heard Trixie mumbling. Squinting, she saw a blur of blue off to one side, and started towards it, stumbling only a little along the way. By the time she got over, her eyes had cleared enough to see that Trixie was pulling books seemingly at random off of the book shelf.

“What?” Lyra asked. “Trixie, what are – ”

“He’s gone,” Trixie responded. Her own eyes were fluttering rapidly as well as she tried to restore her own sight. “But I was listening. He didn’t run out of the room, but he’s not here. I heard something like scraping, which means secret passage.”

Lyra stared. “Really?”

Trixie shrugged. “They’re all over the place in Canterlot Castle.” She had thrown all the books off the shelf already, but to no avail.

Lyra rolled her eyes a little, looking over to another shelf and pulling all the books off in one go, then repeated it for each subsequent one – she had more raw magical power than Trixie, as well as more precise telekinetic control, and didn’t find it troubling to grab all the books on a shelf at once. Trixie stopped her own efforts, watching and for once not looking jealous. In a moment, the library was a mess of empty shelves and books scattered everywhere. “Nothing. Trixie, if he really summoned the Guarsai…”

“I know, I know,” Trixie responded, looking around the room, considering and looking for something out of place. Lyra, however, spotted it first – an unlit candle sconce against one wall, despite the fact that the rest of the room was lit by gas light. Smiling, she reached out and tugged on it. It actually gave as she did, dropping like a lever and causing a nearby section of the floor to simply give way as a trap door opened up. “Ha,” Lyra said in triumph, trotting over. Trixie followed, and both their horns glowed, ready to defend themselves. They found only a set of spiraling stairs leading down, however – as well as a horrible smell.

“We sure he went this way?” Lyra asked, nose scrunching.

“I’m sure that there’s a horde of Guarsai coming here,” Trixie responded.

That fact was as good as any reason to go down, Lyra supposed. The two headed down the stairs, Trixie taking the lead at first. She paused after a moment, gagging. “Ugh, found out what the smell was…what did you do to him?” her horn glowed a little brighter as she used telekinesis to shove something off to one side, then gingerly stepped around it. Lyra followed, doing her best to ignore the noxious puddle on the steps.

“Messed with his equilibrium,” Lyra responded. “Ever spin in circles a bunch? Basically that, all at once. Guess that’s the natural result…ugh.”

“Ugh,” Trixie agreed. The two reached the bottom of the steps, and found themselves at the start of a long, smooth tunnel hewn from bedrock, its roof only a little taller than the mares. The tunnel proceeded in only one direction, thankfully.

“Good thing Ditzy isn’t here…” Lyra noted of her claustrophobic friend. She whispered as she did so, not entirely sure why – something about being underground simply made her want to keep her voice down. Trixie, for her own part, only nodded in agreement as they set off, keeping their horns glowing as low as possible so that if Zati’s own horn was lit up somewhere ahead, they’d be able to see it.

Trixie glanced at the walls of the tunnel they were going through. “These aren’t natural,” she whispered. “Too smooth and even…and, familiar…”

Lyra nodded, remembering the tunnels that she, Raindrops, Ditzy, Carrot Top, and Cheerilee had once trekked through when chasing after a certain tribe of reptilians and their certain blue unicorn captive. “Salamanders again,” she responded. “Definitely salamanders, they left smooth tunnels like this. So Zati’s working with salamanders. I guess they could get around most of the Amería’s defenses…though if they’re working with those swan-cloak ponies, why would they even need to?”

Trixie shook her head, not knowing. The two proceeded in silence after that. They didn’t see any sign of Zati, but nor did the tunnel branch off in any way, either. They also didn’t hear a hoard of Guarsai coming up behind them. Maybe Zati’s spell to call for them was only a general distress call, unable to give any specific information. If that was the case, then Trixie and Lyra probably had plenty of time, given that the Guarsai were probably pretty occupied tonight – hunting for her and Trixie, ironically. She suppressed a slight chuckle at that thought, that the Guarsai were too busy hunting for the two of them to actually come to the one place they were.

Eventually, the tunnel's walls began to change, the rock around them becoming less smooth and even, probably transitioning from an artificial tunnel to a natural one. Even as this happened, it started growing wider, flaring out like a trumpet. Quite suddenly the two ponies found themselves on a natural ledge about ten feet wide, with a ramp leading down into a wide-open chamber, already lit with an orange glow – and revealing within it a vast deposit of faintly shaded, translucent crystals that grew out of the floor, walls, and ceilings of the cavern, reflecting the light within – and Lyra and Trixie’s own light, though they quelled their horns as soon as they noticed that fact, and they hadn’t been glowing very brightly anyway.

“What is this place?” Trixie asked. “There’s crystal deposits under Canterlot…are these the same?”

Lyra shrugged, not knowing, when something made her ears twitch – she heard talking coming from deeper inside the cave, though the echoes combined with the low voices meant that she couldn’t make out the precise details. Motioning for Trixie to keep quiet and follow, the two set out, down the ramp and then over the crystalline floor of the chamber. The various crystal protrusions at least gave them cover as they approached the sounds. Ducking behind one particularly large crystal, each mare peeked out.

Lyra wasn’t particularly surprised to see Kristal Zati, apparently having recovered from his fight with Trixie and Lyra, looking only slightly worse for wear. Nor was Lyra, at this point, surprised to see eight salamanders – serpentine folk, with long tails at least three times the length of Lyra from snout to dock, colored various shades in orange, yellow, and red marred by the occasional black. They didn’t have legs, but their upper bodies did have a pair of strong arms ending in clawed hands, while the heads that lay at the end of their long necks were shaped much like that of a python snake.

No, what surprised Lyra was the presence of two other ponies. One, standing near Zati, was another unicorn, with a green coat and mane and tail that came in two tones of gray, the brighter of the two shining almost like platinum. About his shoulders was a long cloak, emblazoned with a stylized swan – the same swan that adorned the ponies who had guarded the Armería. This new pony was taller than Kristal Zati, older-looking, and had a look on his face that suggested he was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

But it was the other pony that made Lyra’s heart sink when she saw him. What could be seen of his coat – and feathers, for he was a pegasus – was deep red, but it was hidden behind plates of golden armor that protected his head, back, sides, and legs. His mane and tail burned as though alight – though Lyra knew it was merely an illusion. She knew this because she recognized him from her time in the Griffin Kingdoms, where she’d had the distinct displeasure of meeting the pony who could only be described as a complete solartic.

“Good thing Raindrops isn’t here,” Lyra mumbled to herself as she regarded Kindle, the Voice of the Sun and one of Corona’s most trusted lieutenants. She made to listen in to the conversation more, but then felt Trixie grab her and pull her back behind the crystal.

“We have a very big problem,” Trixie whispered harshly. Her eyes were wide with panic, and her voice wasn’t sounding much better.

“Yeah we do,” Lyra replied. “Kindle’s here, meaning Corona’s involved. So those probably are the same salamanders who kidnapped you – ”

“That is not the problem,” Trixie interrupted, though she paused for a moment. “Okay, so yeah, that kind of is a problem, but on the other hoof it means I can get a little payback, maybe. But that’s not the real problem.” She glanced out from behind the crystal again, as though confirming something, then turned back to Lyra. “The real problem,” she continued, “is that the pony standing next to Zati? That’s Ispelu Magikoa. That’s the High Mage of Zaldia.”

“Oh,” Lyra noted, blinking. “Oh…that’s not good for us.”

“In more ways than one,” Trixie responded. “Because he’s working with Corona. But he’s one of the most powerful ponies in Zaldia already, and I don’t mean magic, I mean politically. He’s just about as high up as a pony can get here, I think he’s even titled as an Archduke, and Zaldia doesn’t have viceroyalties the same way we do, so that’s as high as their nobility goes. But there is one more step he could take. And given that he seems to be turning the Zaldian government against itself? Playing those swan-caped ponies against the Guarsai? Misdirecting the Guarsai to think that Equestria’s doing something against them when really it’s him? There’s only one thing he could be trying to do.”

Lyra didn't really need all of that to understand what Trixie was driving at, but her friend said it anyway, since it needed to be. “He wants to make himself the King of Zaldia.”

Author's Notes:

Against all odds, I'm actually a pretty significant way into the next chapter, too, which should be the last one.

Ugh, I have no idea what's happened to my writing speed. Can I put together a 20-Page, d10-based Dragon Ball PnP RPG that no one will ever play over the course of four days? Yes. Can I write a chapter in a story that I want to write? Evidently yes, but only if I take months to do it.

Sorry.

6. It's Treason, Then

“Do you even have a claim to the throne?” the Voice of the Sun asked of the High Mage of Zaldia.

Ispelu Magikoa glanced up from his inspections of the twelve artifacts assembled before him, before directing his gaze back down. He picked one up, eyes glowing a bright silver as he examined its potency, confirming that it was real. “Testy, aren’t you?” he asked. They were sticking to Equestrian, as Kindle didn’t know Zaldian. “I suppose that makes sense. Pegasi were not meant to be cooped up underground.”

Kindle fought back the urge to snort in anger, instead wondering what had happened to the panicking, paranoid, micro-managing pony of just this morning. Probably, now that Kindle and his salamanders had done all the hoof work in acquiring the Armory of Zaldia, Magikoa thought that the remaining tasks before him would be so much easier. He probably wasn’t wrong.

“To answer your question,” Magikoa continued, “a claim can always be found somewhere in my family tree. The dangers of monarchy and an entrenched nobility, I suppose. There are one or two ponies with stronger claims that I know of.” He set down the artifact he had been examining, a chanfron with a hole in it to admit a unicorn’s horn, and then glanced back to Kindle. “They will be dealt with.”

Kindle resisted the urge to roll his eyes only with great effort. Before he had sought out his True Queen and been rewarded with a position at her side, he had been a stage actor. It wasn’t even that Magikoa was attempting to be dramatic that bothered Kindle, it was that he was being so obvious about it. He supposed that it made sense that a master of divination magic wasn’t very skilled at obfuscating his true intentions, though it did make Kindle wonder how Magikoa had managed to maintain his conspiracy in the first place.

The older unicorn – his apprentice, Kristal Zati, simply stood still, though occasionally checking a pocket watch kept in his cloak as though waiting for something – finished his examinations of all the artifacts, and seemed satisfied. He looked to Kindle, using telekinesis to heft one of the artifacts, the smallest – a ring, intended for the horn of a unicorn. “The Ring of Serena,” he said. “I hope that Celestia will greatly enjoy the ability to duplicate as much gold or swords as she wants, or…whatever she was planning on doing with this.” He let Kindle take it from the air. “I have honestly never understood why that was kept with the rest of these. It is an amusing trinket, nothing more. Celestia is welcome to it.”

Kindle did not know what his Queen wanted with the Ring, and didn’t care to question – she would tell him when the time was right, or not, as she willed it. But he was certain that she had a plan, and he trusted in it implicitly. If Magikoa couldn’t see the plan, well, so much the better, as it was doubtful he would have surrendered the Ring so easily if he could see Queen Celestia’s true desires for it. Kindle instead simply took the Ring of Serena from Magikoa’s telekinetic grasp, and tucked it safely into his armor.

“Then with that, our business is done,” Kindle said simply, turning around and doing his best to resist the urge to fly full-tilt towards the exit that his salamanders had bored through the other end of this cavern to create. He wanted to see the sky again almost as much as he wanted to be once more by his Queen’s side. Before he left, however, he looked over his shoulder at Magioka. “When you sit upon the Platinum Throne, do not forget that it was only with Celestia’s aid that you gained it.”

Magikoa smiled a transparently rueful smile. “Of course not, Voice of the Sun.”

Kindle turned back around, nodding to his salamanders, who turned themselves and started for the exit. They looked longingly at the remaining artifacts, no doubt wanting them for themselves – their leader, Jaculus, had even obliquely suggested simply taking all the artifacts once they had them. But that was not the will of the True Queen. For this successful mission, the serpent folk would at least be compensated by Celestia, though the knowledge of her satisfaction would be enough for Kindle –

There was suddenly an ear-splitting thrum, and a solid, almost visible wall of sound passed over Kindle’s head, causing him to drop to his stomach and clutch at his ears as he did. The sound reverberated through the chambers, picking up force from the echoes, before colliding with the roof of the chamber overhead and shattering a section of it, a huge piece of crystal that fell down before the exit that the salamanders had bored.

Kindle’s eyes widened and his wings snapped open at the sight, mouth going dry. He turned around just as another cacophony cut through the chamber, colliding with and sealing in its only other exit. The pegasus realized quite suddenly that he was trapped underground, hundreds of feet of rock and earth and crystal between him and the open air…

Two mares made their presence known then, hopping on top of a large crystal protrusion. Kindle recognized them both – Lyra Heartstrings and Trixie Lulamoon, Elements of Loyalty and Magic respectively. Lyra had a look of determination on her face, while Trixie wore the same cocky grin that she seemed to have been born with.

“Ispelu Magikoa!” Trixie proclaimed loudly, jabbing a hoof at the unicorn, whose own horn and eyes lit up with platinum light. “In the name of your King, we’re gonna – ”

Magikoa’s horn pulsed twice, firing two magical beams at each unicorn mare faster than they could react – but the two only burst apart into blue-tinted smoke. The beginnings of a mocking laugh were heard, but Magikoa only closed his eyes, a bored expression on his face as he let loose another spell that washed over the cavern. Suddenly, there was another puff of blue smoke from near the first one – and Trixie and Lyra were revealed, both of them looking like foals with their hooves caught in a cookie jar as they had been trying to sneak closer to the artifacts stolen from the Armería.

“Trixie Lulamoon,” Magikoa observed. “You are quite the illusionist, I’ve heard. How sad that you’ve wasted your life on what is by far the most useless school of magic.” He tapped his eyes. “One single spell and I can see through anything you could care to cast – ”

The two mares didn’t wait for Magikoa to finish his sentence, instead turning around and diving behind nearby crystalline protrusions. The High Mage of Zaldia snorted in annoyance, glancing to his apprentice, his calm façade dropping. “Those two are supposed to be locked up in a Guarsai oubliette somewhere,” he noted.

“Sorry, master,” Kristal Zati responded, bowing slightly. “Though when the Guarsai are as easy to subvert as we’ve found them to be, I suppose it’s only natural that they’re not as competent as we’d like.”

Magikoa snorted again. “True enough – ”

Trixie dived out from behind the crystals, throwing a few rocks she had found at the pair of unicorns. Magikoa and Zati caught them in the air easily enough, but Trixie had only served as the distraction for Lyra, who emerged and lashed out with musically-augmented telekinesis of her own, reaching beyond the Zaldians and grabbing hold of the artifacts on the ground.

“No!” Magikoa exclaimed, eyes going wide in panic and grabbing for them himself. The two telekinetic fields overlapped, shuddered, and then burst apart, scattering ancient relics of power across the chamber.

Kindle considered for a moment, but decided that the two Element bearers were, at the moment, not his problem. He turned around, pointing a hoof at the salamanders. “Dig us out of here!” he commanded.

---

Lyra looked to Trixie quickly. Without a word, Trixie nodded her head at the salamanders currently at work melting the crystal barrier Lyra had collapsed over the cavern’s exit, as well as Kindle, whom Trixie and Lyra knew still had one of the artifacts – he couldn’t be allowed to escape with it. Lyra nodded herself, turned, and ran back behind a crystalline outcropping, out of sight of Magikoa and Zati and circling around, approaching Kindle and his salamanders from the side. Behind her, she heard the shimming sound of spells, and knew that Trixie had begun her fight with the High Mage of Zaldia. She could only hope that she was up to the task – once she’d grabbed the ring from Kindle, she’d come back to help her.

“Hey Kindle!” Lyra exclaimed as she leaped over one crystal outcropping, landing on her hind hooves and steadying herself as she stood on just them, forehooves playing across her lyre. “This is for Raindrops!”

Kindle turned and looked just in time to be smacked in the face with telekinetic force. The pegasus was thrown into the air, and almost hit the roof of the cavern before his frantically beating wings stopped his ascent. The Voice of the Sun’s eyes were wide. “Traitor!” he exclaimed as he dived at Lyra.

“That’s my line!” Lyra retorted, nimbly stepping out of the way, making sure to keep an eye on the salamanders.

Several of them broke away and headed towards her, but when Kindle noticed he pointed a hoof at them. “No! Keep digging! Get me out of here!” the former actor cried before turning his attentions back to Lyra. He beat his wings several times, sending sparks and cinders at Lyra courtesy of the Tyrant Sun’s enchantments. Lyra avoided most of them, though she felt herself being singed in several places.

Lyra did her best to ignore the pain, horn glowing gold as she wrapped magic around her hooves, granting them speed. Her lyre’s strings thrummed at a breakneck pace as she dove forward at Kindle. He leaped into the air, wings beating, but Lyra expected that dropping onto her back and sliding across the smooth crystalline ground, lashing out with sound when she was directly beneath him. He shot up to the roof of the cavern, colliding with it. The pegasus got his wings under him quickly, however, turning swiftly and kicking off from the ceiling and soaring down at Lyra, finally connecting solidly just as she was standing back up. She cried out in pain at both the force of the impact and the burning heat of Kindle’s enchanted armor, and rolled off of him, one side of her barrel far more singed than it had been from the cinders. Her coat had protected her flesh somewhat, but she could still smell burnt pelt.

Kindle landed with all four hooves on a crystal outcropping and kicked off again, but Lyra was prepared this time, leaping over the pegasus and stomping down with one hooftip. The pegasus let out a gasp as he fell to the ground, Lyra landing on top of his back, though she quickly hopped off before the heat of his enchanted armor could burn the sensitive frogs of her hooves. She left with a parting buck from one hind leg, however, which clipped Kindle’s wing. He cried out in pain at that, too, though given that he took to the air again a moment later he didn’t seem too hurt.

Lyra grimaced. So far she didn't think she was doing too bad – but if she didn’t defeat Kindle fast, or if he decided he needed the help, he had eight salamanders to draw on. What could she do about them…?

---

Trixie avoided a magical blast from Magikoa, rather deftly if she said so herself, diving behind a pillar of crystal. She glanced out from behind it and saw Magikoa focused not on her, but instead on retrieving the various artifacts and gathering them back to himself. She noted, however, that he didn’t put any on or try to use them.

Something something magical binding ritual required, she supposed – not something that could be done in a hurry, in any event, else there was no reason for him not to use them here. Glancing around her, she saw one that he’d missed near to her: a peytral, chest-armor for a pony. She smiled and grabbed it, slinging it around her neck and fastening it into place.

“So, hey,” she asked, stepping out from behind the crystal. “What does this – ”

Magikoa’s eyes widened. “Give that back,” he demanded.

“Hey, you stole it, you don’t get to be mad about somepony else stealing it,” Trixie responded, horn glowing blue and conjuring an illusion of herself even as she worked her simplest invisibility spell over herself – conserving magical energy. Her illusory self, meanwhile, charged forward.

Magikoa rolled his eyes, dispelling Trixie’s glamor, then casting his invisibility-dispelling spell again. Trixie puffed into being, having run a few feet away, and did her best to look surprised. “I told you,” Magikoa said, starting forward, “I can see through your every spell.”

Trixie allowed herself a nervous grin. “Technically you aren’t seeing through my invisibility, only dispelling it since you – ”

Magikoa grabbed Trixie telekinetically and threw her to the side. She braced herself, but it still hurt when she collided with a solid wall of crystal, knocking air from her lungs. She got to her hooves, glaring at Magikoa.

Magikoa glared back, then glanced behind him, at Zati, who was standing nearby. “Watch and observe, my student,” he said, as Trixie’s horn glowed. She once again conjured simple illusions of herself, a half-dozen two-dimensional images of them in a wall before her, and then made to sneak away behind them – even as she wove magic of her own into her eyes, her magic sight cantrip. She watched Magikoa closely, though, and noted that he cast his glamor-destroying spell individually each time.

Trixie was revealed, and Magikoa grabbed her telekinetically again. “The dangers of specializing in illusion,” Magikoa pointed out to Zati with a grin. “She depends utterly on it.” He tapped his eyes. “But of course, with the simplest of spells each of her glamors are highlighted to me.”

“But you can’t see through them!” Trixie objected, horn glowing. What looked like a solid rock was suddenly dropping towards Magikoa. She put a little actual effort into this illusion, to make herself seem desperate.

Magikoa shrugged. “An illusion isn’t useful if I know it’s an illusion,” he noted, not avoiding the ’rock’ at all. It was harmless, of course, and he dispelled it once it should have ‘crushed’ him. Trixie took note of that as well as she felt herself being hefted into the air by Magikoa’s telekinesis

“Why are you doing this?” Trixie demanded, playing for time as she stared intently into Magikoa’s eyes. She conjured a simple illusion of her escaping his grasp, but he dispelled that too, giving Trixie more information.

Magikoa smirked, as his magic wrapped around Trixie’s neck and retrieved the peytral. The Equestrian mare made an attempt at grabbing for it, but he drew it away without much effort. The older unicorn then shrugged once more. “I have disagreements with the King,” he said. “Amusingly I think that were you not personally involved in all of this, you would support me. I find Zaldia’s suppression of our earth ponies distasteful. No doubt it is what drove so many of our pegasi south into Cavallia over the years. Oh, and of course the ongoing feud with Cavallia. Pointless waste.” He shook his head. “There are more reasons. Shall we sit here all night and talk about them? I think not.” He looked to Zati once more. “The illusionist, once she realizes her spells are without merit, will often try and buy time as Trixie here has, to try and come up with a plan. None of them will work, of course.”

Trixie let a look of panic overcome her features, but inwardly, she grinned, as she’d finished examining the spell that let Magikoa notice her illusions. “Want to bet?” she demanded, conjuring up an illusion of a stone held in her telekinesis and throwing it at Magikoa. He didn’t dodge, only shook his head at what seemed like a pitiful display. She did it a second time, and again, he didn’t react.

“Pitiful – ” Magikoa cried out in pain and dropped Trixie when a third stone came at him and actually hit him right at the base of his horn – because it hadn’t been an illusion. Trixie landed on her four hooves evenly, as Zati stared at her in shock. Magikoa had a similar look in his face, one hoof at his horn. The Equestrian unicorn, meanwhile, bowed, then rose with a cape flourish and a dramatic stamp of her hoof.

“How – ” Magikoa demanded.

Trixie put a hoof to her lips. “Trade secret,” she said, allowing her own still-enchanted eyes to flash blue – she’d spent the past few minutes studying his spell and figuring out what glamors would look like to him with her own magic sight spell. She looked at Zati. “Hey, as long as this is a magic lesson, here’s one for you: never depend on a single spell to overcome an entire school of magic.” She hefted a series of rocks and conjured illusions of several more, ‘painting’ all of them in the glow that would tell Magikoa that they were all glamors, and then hurled them forward.

Magikoa ducked under them – rather gracelessly – and rose with a look of fury on his face. His horn glowed bright silver, and he cast forward a bolt of energy at Trixie. She yelped, diving out of the way, but Magikoa was ready and lashed out with another, catching Trixie in the side and sending her flying. She landed with a thud behind a small wall of crystal, and took a moment to catch her breath.

Maybe nettling one of the most powerful spellcasters in Cissanthema hadn’t been a good idea…

---

As a pegasus, Kindle’s natural instincts were for hit-and-run tactics, but the former actor had seemed to realize that his best bet against Lyra was to get close and keep the pressure on her, not giving her time to do anything with her magic other than summon up simple shield spells or telekinetically block hoof or wing strikes – or the heat from his flaming tail, she had learned when he had spun and swept it at her once, burning her cheek slightly.

Fortunately, aside from all the training that Cheerilee had insisted they all go through, Lyra was a very flexible pony, and a more than adept dancer, if she did say so herself – although the same seemed to apply to Kindle, probably a result of his stage training. From the outside the melee that the two had going on probably looked more like ballet than a brawl.

But it was a brawl, and Lyra emphasized this point when she saw an opening in Kindle’s defenses and took advantage of it, falling onto her back at a haymaker buck from Kindle and lashing upwards with her hooves at his barrel, protected not by golden metal but instead by simple, if magically heat resistant, cloth and padding. Lyra was pretty certain she heard a rib snap, and Kindle cried out in pain as his wings beat rapidly, dragging him backwards and away from Lyra, saving him more pain – but also giving Lyra the space she needed.

The unicorn spun around and got back on her hooves, then strummed out a long, low note on her lyre, hoof leaving the strings behind as magic swirled off her lyre and seemed to collect into a javelin of pure sound. She threw the javelin at Kindle, but he avoided it and flew over Lyra, stomping his hind hooves several times on what looked like a loose piece of crystal. Lyra let out a gasp and dove out of the way as a chunk of ceiling bigger than she was started falling, smashing apart into a million shards that cut her up more than a little when it landed.

Lyra stood, glaring up at Kindle, but then she heard a hiss of triumph. Glancing away, she saw the salamanders, each of them glowing white-hot, had at last melted a hole through the crystal chunks she had collapsed over the exit, and were now using the claws to make the hole wider, pulling it apart. Kindle let out a cry of triumph at the sight, tucking his wings against his body and diving straight towards the hole. The salamanders let out cries of surprise at that and pulled away. For a moment Lyra hoped that the hole wasn’t large enough for Kindle and he’d get stuck, but the pegasus managed to make it through, his armor protecting him from the heat.

The unicorn couldn’t stop herself from swearing as she charged forward, but the salamanders were already pouring into the hole themselves, slipping through like their bodies were well-oiled. By the time Lyra reached the still-searing hole, they’d all gone through – she arrived just in time to see a salamander place a glowing-hot rock in front of the hole they’d made. Lyra started to think of ways she might be able to get around the heat and the barrier, but none of them would be fast – and then she heard Trixie cry out in pain behind her

---

Trixie picked herself up after having taken another blast, panting a little and glancing at Magikoa. The High Mage’s horn was glowing bright silver again. She dove out of the way of this next blast, or tried to, but at the last second Magikoa corrected his angles, and the beam struck her straight-on, just like each of the previous ones had. She went flying again.

Fortunately the beams just seemed to be kinetic force, not something like fire or some other exotic form of energy that could have done real harm to her. Though her body could only take so much abuse…Magikoa was either a really good shot to have not missed her once or, more likely, he was using some kind of Divination magic to augment his aim. Given that he probably couldn’t miss her even if he tried, then, she didn’t attempt to dodge the next blast, instead conjuring up her trusty shield spell and bracing herself. The magical force collided with it like a ton of bricks and sent enough pain down her horn to make her cry out, but it did its job of stopping the next blast.

Once the light from it cleared, Trixie conjured up some illusory doppelgängers of herself again, scattering them even as she ran herself. Magikoa harrumphed and shot out his illusion-dispelling beams at each of them until he hit Trixie herself. The beam didn’t hurt, but it did cancel out her remaining doppelgängers. Before Magikoa could blast her again, however, she used telekinesis to heft a large, broken shard of crystal in front of her, ducking down as she did. The kinetic beam broke the shard in two and sent slivers of it flying, but Trixie managed to avoid taking too much damage.

Trixie stood back up, looking at Magikoa. The mage had some serious raw power behind him, and even if he couldn’t see through Trixie’s illusions effectively anymore, he could still dispel them. And yet, as Trixie looked at him, she saw him struggling not to pant. One of his advancing steps missed slightly – he faltered.

Trixie put on what was by far her most condescending grin. “Oh, come on, High Mage!” she called out. “You can’t be tired from all this spellcasting already!”

Magikoa roared, letting loose another kinetic blast. Trixie threw up her shield spell again, but the blast shattered the spell and some of its energy still passed through and hit Trixie, staggering her. She grimaced in pain…but really, now that she thought about it, this wasn’t really nearly as bad as Tambelon. That had involved a lot of running, hadn’t it? As well as trying to do most of it while her magical reserves had been severely depleted by Corona, albeit restored by Corona as well later.

The memory of Corona’s infusing her with some of the alicorn’s own magic made Trixie smile a little bit as she cast forward illusory fireworks, dancing lights and ghost sounds going off in front of Magikoa’s face. He yelled in annoyance, dispelling them, but then had to avoid an incoming rock. He needn’t have bothered, though, it was just an illusion – and a good distraction, as it let Trixie reach out with her telekinesis and grab Magikoa by one hoof, pulling it out from under him and causing him to fall.

Trixie started to grin again. “I am good at this – hrk!”

The last came as telekinesis wrapped around Trixie’s throat and hoisted her into the air. Magikoa rose from where he’d fallen, murder in his eyes. “Isildu,” he hissed, dragging Trixie closer. “Isildu! Shut up! Shut up, you annoying – ”

Trixie wasn’t sure why, having grabbed her by the throat and telekinetically strangling her from twenty or so feet away, Magikoa had decided to drag her closer to him. Probably something to do with wanting to make his point face-to-face, or watch her die, or something dramatic. It was a bad idea regardless, because as soon as Magikoa was close enough, Trixie bucked out with her hind hooves, catching Magikoa right in the jaw. It wasn’t a particularly strong hit, but the pain did disrupt his concentration, and his grip on Trixie dropped.

Trixie sucked in air, mostly to make sure that her throat still worked – it did, he hadn’t crushed anything – and then threw herself as Magikoa bodily. The Zaldian’s eyes widened as Trixie’s forehoof lashed out and caught him across the jaw again. Trixie ducked under a clumsy, panicked counter-swing from Magikoa, then threw herself forward, body-checking him and making him stumble away and fall to the ground, cape going over his head. He scrambled away and got back up after a few moments, tearing his cape from his eyes and seeing Trixie charge. With a shout, he shot another telekinetic blast at her – only to have it pass straight through the illusion.

Trixie instead came at Magikoa from the side, quick invisibility spell falling as she body-checked him again, sending him sailing – she augmented his flight with a little telekinesis as well. Afterwards she stopped, getting her breathing under control, taking stock of her injuries – mostly bruises, maybe a somewhat-twisted hoof that she could ignore but wasn't doing her any favors – and centering herself like she’d learned from both Cheerilee and Raindrops, letting adrenaline do its job of keeping her up and fighting but not letting it dictate her actions.

Magikoa did no such thing himself, scrambling to his hooves with a roar and immediately lashing out with magic. His aiming-spell must have been disrupted at some point, however, as Trixie found it fairly easy to avoid his first two blasts, while the third only clipped her and sent her sliding, but not stumbling or falling – and more to the point, the blast didn’t really seem to have the same force behind it anymore. Magikoa was breathing in great heaving gasps now, and Trixie thought she saw a stutter in his horn’s silvery glow…

And then the blue light of Trixie’s own horn glow was joined by another color, a golden effervescence that mixed to bathe the area in a coriander light that seemed to overwhelm the silver aura of Ispelu Magikoa. Trixie glanced to her side, and saw Lyra standing there. She had patches of burnt fur and what looked like the beginnings of a welt under one eye, but otherwise seemed like she was still in fighting condition.

“Hey,” Lyra said, horn glowing a little brighter and golden magic washing over Trixie’s form. Almost immediately, the pain of Trixie’s bruises and small cuts was lessened – it didn’t go away, but it definitely felt better. Lyra offered an apologetic smile. “Kindle got away,” she informed Trixie morosely.

“Zut,” Trixie responded, but shrugged. “Well, Magikoa can’t.” She stomped a hoof on the ground, glaring at the High Mage. “So…we still fighting, or are you gonna surrender now?”

Magikoa roared, horn glowing bright silver – and then brighter still as his eyes snapped shut. Lyra let out a cry of exasperation at what was coming, trying to turn away herself, but Trixie saw it coming this time and acted quickly, conjuring magical darkness around both her and Lyra’s heads.

The flare-spell went off with a magical whine that swiftly passed, and Trixie discarded the darkness, smiling at Lyra with one raised eyebrow even as she noticed Magikoa fleeing. Lyra returned the grin as the two set off after Magikoa, Trixie breaking off after a moment to come at him from the side while Lyra kept right on him, sending out a blast of magical energy not at him, but at where he was about to be. The ground beneath him burst open, and he skidded to a halt with a whinny of fright. That was when Trixie struck, appearing beside him in a puff of smoke and grabbing him telekinetically, hurling him backwards towards Lyra. The mint unicorn stopped her own gallop and lashed out with telekinetic magic, sending Magikoa flying into a crystalline pillar. He managed to pick himself up quickly, however, diving for cover behind the pillar from a rock hurled by Trixie. She hurled another one, and a third, as Lyra charged forward, leaping around the pillar and sending Magikoa flying with another telekinetic burst.

“This isn’t even fair!” Trixie cried out as she charged at Magikoa. “I love it!”

She skidded to a halt, though, as Magikoa stood – and appearing right beside him, stepping out from behind another pillar, was Kristal Zati, carrying in his telekinetic aura the eleven remaining pieces of the Armory of Zaldia. Somehow, the other unicorn had completely slipped Trixie’s mind. Magikoa grinned at the sight of his apprentice, knowing that now the odds had been evened.

Trixie began to call to Lyra to watch out, that Magikoa had some back-up of his own now – but all of a sudden Zati leaped at Magikoa, horn glowing bright green. A pair of manacles appeared and quickly bound up Magikoa’s legs, while a ring appeared and was swiftly slipped around his horn. Magikoa cried out in surprise and shock, eyes wide.

Then there came the sound of an explosion. Trixie turned to look, and saw the crystalline wall blocking one of the exits to the chamber – the one that lead back to Magikoa’s estate – had burst apart. A dozen green-clad unicorns, members of the Guarsai all, came pouring in, horns glowing bright and shouting in Zaldian, advancing on Trixie, Lyra, and Zati and Magikoa all.

Zut alors, Trixie thought, throwing her hooves up before her, horn glowing bright blue defensively. Think, think, think, think…

Two Guarsai advanced on her, and Trixie opened her mouth to begin protesting her innocence and explaining everything – but then Kristal Zati was there again, standing between the Guarsai and Trixie, speaking Zaldian rapidly as he showed them something that he had concealed in his cape – and hoofed over the bundle of artifacts that he had in his magical aura. The two Guarsai ponies nodded, spared Trixie only a single other glance, and then turned their attention to Ispelu Magikoa, who was looking at Kristal Zati in shock.

Trixie was as well, as was Lyra as she was allowed to make her way over to Trixie, the Guarsai not impeding her at all. “What?” Trixie asked.

Zati looked to her. “I explained to them,” he said, indicating the Guarsai, “that you were not part of all this and did not need to be arrested.”

“What?” Trixie and Lyra said at the same time.

“Which reminds me,” Zati continued, turning around and trotting over to Ispelu Magikoa, the other Guarsai making room for him as he did. Zati looked down at Ispelu Magikoa in disgust. “Ispelu Magikoa. I am Officer Kristal Zati of the Guardia Saila. For colluding with the enemies of the Platinum Throne, for subverting and corrupting the Sorginkeria Behatzailea and leading them in rebellion against the Platinum Throne, for attempting to dangerously destabilize the foreign relations of the Platinum Throne, and for committing acts of conspiracy and treason against your Liege the King of Zaldia, I am in his name placing you under arrest.”

He began speaking again, probably repeating himself in Zaldian. There was only one thing Trixie could say in response to that.

“WHAT?!”

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that I keep making you all wait months and months between upda

Wait it's only been like a week.

7. Royalty

The palace was one befitting the True Queen of Equestria in all ways save one – the fact that it was hidden away from the prying eyes of her treacherous younger sister, who yet sat upon the usurped throne of Equestria. Kindle never knew whether to be awed or angered by the sight of Celestia’s volcano lair for that reason. At the moment, however, he settled on relieved.

The salamanders had left, retreating back to the colony that they had established somewhere in the volcano’s bowels. The dragon Solrathicharnon was missing at the moment as well, from his normal spot of guarding the front entrance of the palace, across a stone bridge that led from the lip of the caldera to where the palace sat, suspended over boiling magma. With nothing around, then, Kindle could finally take a moment to drop his act of being perfectly alright. One hoof went to his ribs, and he took a moment to try and inhale deeply.

That was a mistake. He doubled over in pain, falling to his side – fortunately, not the one where the pain was coming from. That Lyra Heartstrings had hit a weak point in his armor, and definitely snapped at least one, maybe two ribs. It was a good thing that he hadn’t needed to walk all the way from Zaldia, that a specially-prepared portal had been readied by his Queen to take him and his salamander entourage from Zaldia all the way back to Celestia’s lair.

Breathing was laborious at best at the moment. The heat of the caldera and the thin air also combined to make him so tried all of a sudden…he resolved to close his eyes for just a moment…

The next thing he knew, he heard a pony’s voice, a mare’s he knew well, calling his name. Eyes fluttering open, he saw himself looking at a unicorn mare, gray and nondescript – Smoke, an illusionist and former special-effects expert who had helped Kindle out for many of his plays, but who had given all that up to follow him to Corona…both of her hooves grasped one of his. He wasn’t on the stone bridge anymore, either, but instead was lying on a soft bed with Smoke beside him…

And then She appeared. Her. The Eternal Day, the Glorious Sun, the Undimmed Daystar. Celestia, the True Queen, looked down at Kindle. He could feel her appraising eyes, her righteousness…the pegasus stifled a gasp, reaching for the Ring of Serena that he had hidden within his armor, but he found that armor to be missing. Glancing around desperately, he saw it lying off to one side.

“Fear not,” Celestia said, her horn lighting up with white. The Ring floated into view. “You succeeded in the task given to you.”

Kindle’s mouth opened and closed a few times of its own accord as he struggled to get into a proper sitting position. “N-no!” Smoke said, trying to hold him down. “Hang on, Kindle, you got yourself hurt and you need to – ”

“Get off!” Kindle cried, pushing Smoke away before turning back to Celestia, focusing on the alicorn and not Smoke. “M…my Queen, I…I failed! The Elements, two of them, appeared. Lyra Heartstrings and Trixie Lulamoon. They fell upon me, I thought only of escape to get your prize to you, but I fear that both of them together – ”

“Were too much for Ispelu Magikoa, yes,” Celestia finished for Kindle. She shook her head. “It does not matter. Magikoa’s revolution would have been ideal, but Zaldia being thrown into internal chaos, its various security services competing with and suspicious of one another, serve just as well.” She looked to the ring she held in her telekinetic grip. “It will keep them too occupied to search for this.”

Celestia concentrated, one eye narrowing slightly – and the ring shattered. Magical energy was unleashed, but Celestia contained it easily before it could cause any harm to those within the room, then began draining it into her horn. “It was not the ring I was after,” Celestia said after a moment. “But the knowledge and skill that went into its creation, that remained within. Serena was a master of duplication magic.” She looked to Kindle as the last of the magic of the ring was absorbed into her. “With this, I can correct the flaws of the Mirror Pool. You have done well, Kindle.” She nodded to him. “I have knit your bones and repaired your other injuries. The pain will fade in a day, two at most. Rest now, my Voice. You will be called upon again ere the season is done, when we go to the Contest of Champions.”

Kindle nodded, and Celestia turned, walking from the room, or starting to. She stopped, however, looking over at Smoke, who was standing off to the side, fidgeting a little. Celestia nodded to the unicorn. “Our magic lessons shall be done for the day, Smoke. You may remain at Kindle’s side if you wish.” With that, Celestia left.

Smoke watched her go, before returning to Kindle’s side. “S-sorry,” she said softly. “I…I mean, I know that telling Celestia what happened was important…I was just worried about you…”

Kindle lay back down, smiling brightly. His Queen had praised him! Said that he had done well! “It’s alright, Smoke,” he said. “Queen Celestia was pleased! That’s all that matters…”

---

The Guarsai had questioned Trixie and Lyra extensively about what had happened, how Ispelu Magikoa had been defeated, what had happened to the Ring of Serena. They had tried to give chase to the salamanders, but even after making their way past the block that the salamanders had reinforced once melting through, they found themselves within a maze of tunnels, any one of which the salamanders and Kindle could have escaped through, assuming that they hadn’t just melted a new one. The Ring was lost, then, on its way to the Tyrant Sun. Trixie didn’t know what Corona wanted with the Ring, but she had a sinking feeling that she would find out.

The Guarsai were nonplussed at the loss of their artifact. They were even more incredulous when Trixie described her battle with Ispelu Magikoa – that she had been able to essentially stalemate him, had probably even been winning, if she said so herself. Traitor or no, the Zaldians apparently didn’t like the idea of an Equestrian hedge-mage being able to go hoof-to-hoof with their High Mage. Trixie didn’t much care whether or not they liked it, however. Kristal Zati had explained some details himself, in Zaldian, and Trixie couldn’t help but think that he had somehow taken credit like the jerk he was. Trixie had also been sure to describe how Zati had initially fought Lyra and Trixie, and how he had lied to the Guarsai, framing them, just in case Zati was somehow trying to cover his own flank.

By the time they all left the crystal cavern, the sun was rising over Gotorleku Hiria. Trixie and Lyra were being escorted by a pair of Guarsai, but the rest of them remained on Ispelu Magikoa, who seemed to have gotten over the shock of his betrayal and now held his head high, trying to look dignified. Trixie didn’t care much for that, either. Right now what she most wanted to do was go to the Equestrian Embassy – provided it was no longer under siege – and file a very florid, very colorful, incident report. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that. She and Lyra were instead put in carriages that were escorted not by Guarsai, but by ponies wearing the bear-shaped helmets of the Zaldian Royal Guard, and taken straight to the Royal Palace…alongside Kristal Zati.

If looks could kill, then Trixie’s glare at Zati would have scoured Gotorleku Hiria from the continent. Zati, for his own part, had at some point been given an official Guarsai uniform and changed into it. He made no attempt to explain himself to Trixie or Lyra. Instead, his visage was grim, but behind that grimness Trixie could see the look of a pony who was patting himself on the back for a job well done.

Trixie had never wanted to buck a pony more than she wanted to buck Kristal Zati right now.

The carriage reached the Royal Palace quickly enough – it was early morning, after all, and what few ponies were out and about already would step out of the way of the carriage without it even needing to slow down. Once there, Lyra and Trixie were escorted straight through its main gates without pomp or circumstance, and brought to a small room, appointed with comfortable-looking couches and hung with tapestries depicting great events in Zaldia’s history.

Trixie eyed them, then eyed the great double-doors that also featured in the room, and the two Royal Guard that stood outside of it. One of them, much to her surprise, was an earth pony rather than a unicorn. An outreach program, maybe?

“Antechamber,” Trixie said after a moment to Lyra, recognizing the basic setup of the room they were in. Canterlot Castle had a similar room set up before its own Throne Room. “We’re about to meet King Platinozko Tronua.”

“Indeed,” Kristal Zati said. “This is one of the most important operations the Guarsai has ever undertaken – and of course you played a part in – ”

“I will buck you through that wall,” Lyra interrupted, raising a hind hoof to emphasize the point. She glared at Zati. “If this was all some kind of sting, why didn’t you tell us when we met you? Nopony else was around! Nopony else would have heard! Maybe we could have stopped Kindle from escaping if we’d just been working together from the start!”

Zati blinked a few times at the outburst. “You would not have trusted me – ”

“I wouldn’t have,” Trixie confirmed, glaring herself, “but only because you went out of your way to be a jerk to me at our meeting yesterday!” Zati opened his mouth, but Trixie raised a hoof. “Shut up. Just…just shut up.” She turned, looking to Lyra. “We’re going to meet their King. Bow, but don’t genuflect. We’re Equestrian citizens, we only get on our knees for Luna and her viceroys. Try not to shout.”

“I wasn’t going to shout,” Lyra objected.

Trixie shook her head. “Sorry, that last part was for me. But I’m not very good at following directions…”

Kristal Zati looked between the two Equestrians in a panic, and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could the double-doors opened up, and the three of them were permitted to enter the Throne Room of Zaldia.

There was platinum everywhere, of course. It was a wonder the metal still had any value at all with how much the Zaldians had laced the room with it. The white marble walls and columns had filigrees of the stuff curling through them in intricate patterns, the light from the stained glass windows reflecting off the silvery metal and brightening the entire room, dispersing any shadows. The Platinum Throne itself, meanwhile, was set against the far wall. Despite its name, the throne looked like it was made of marble like the rest of the room, carved out of the wall itself, though still laced with platinum filigree that came together into a bust of a standing, roaring bear against the throne’s back, the bear’s teeth, eyes, and claws made of platinum.

Trixie had heard once that if you attached a pair of bells to your saddlebags when walking through a forest, the tingling sounds would keep bears away. She wondered if the same was true of Zaldian royalty.

King Platinozko Tronua looked pretty much exactly what Trixie expected him to. He was an older unicorn, but quite fit, his horn of impressive length. His coat was gray-silver, his mane, tail, and well-tended beard white, while his eyes were a dark yellow. He wore a long black cape with epaulets and trim of platinum, though the cape was not cast over one flank at the moment, so as to reveal his cutie mark of a balanced merchant’s scale. Upon his head was a surprisingly simple crown, a platinum circlet inset with a white diamond that rested just beneath his horn, the crown itself also featuring a ring that went over his horn. Which Trixie actually had to admit was a brilliant idea to keep headwear on – she wondered why the Element of Magic didn’t come with a similar ring.

There was no set protocol for exactly when Lyra and Trixie were supposed to bow, so the two Equestrians settled on just before the steps that lead up to the throne. Zati genuflected at the same time.

“Jaun Goren,” Kristal Zati began when he rose. “Naiz Ofizial Kristal Zati –”

King Tronua raised one hoof. “Equestrian, Zati,” he said. His accent was thick, but understandable. He nodded one head to Trixie and Lyra. “We have guests…and from what has reached my ears, we have offended these Ekwestriko mares quite enough already this day.”

Zati seemed taken aback by that, mouth opening and closing on its own a few times as he glanced at the Equestrians. Trixie, for her own part, suppressed a grin. After a few moments, Zati began again in Equestrian, relating what had happened not only over the past few days, but going back some time.

Ispelu Magikoa had been subject to Guarsai suspicion for awhile – years, the Guarsai officer revealed. Kristal Zati was inserted into his confidence, an apprentice meant to appeal to most of Zati’s ideological viewpoints, one whom the High Mage would take into his confidence and reveal his plans to. Zati glanced over most of the details, eyeing Trixie and Lyra as he did. He was uncomfortable, it seemed, with a detailed description of how Magikoa had been able to subvert the Sorginbehat, the ponies charged with protecting the Armería and its contents. They had oaths of loyalty to the King that were magically enforced, but Magikoa had found a way to subvert the arcane promises, twisting them to be loyalty to the throne, not whoever sat upon it – and then using more mundane methods of bribery, blackmail, or other methods of coercion to get the Sorginbehat’s members under his control.

The magical oaths were difficult to cast and maintain, so other branches of Zaldia’s military and security services – such as the Guarsai – were not under them, and so were easier to subvert. Magikoa had already subverted a number of agents before Zati had “joined” him, and Zati’s main assignment had become identifying those elements before Magikoa could be moved in upon.

The web that Kristal Zati described was tangled, but hardly unfamiliar to Trixie or Lyra, both of whom had read detective and spy thrillers in their time. “…the Ekwestriko,” Zati said in conclusion, using one hoof to indicate the two of them, “and their nation were to be scapegoats. Distractions for the loyal Guarsai and the military while Magikoa moved on to the next stage of his plans. He considered outright war unlikely, something Ekwestrika would attempt to avoid at all costs while still in the middle of their own civil war – ”

“Stars’ sake!” Lyra finally blurted out, fuming. Trixie considered, but didn’t try to stop her, instead stepping closer in a show of support. “Equestria isn’t in a civil war! Why do you ponies think that?!”

Zati opened his mouth, but King Tronua raised his hoof to silence him before looking to Lyra himself. “I don’t know what to think at the moment, Zaldun Lyra,” he said evenly. “All I know is that an alicorn, who by all indications is even more powerful than Luna, escaped from the Sun, pinned that Sun in the sky in the middle of winter for twenty hours, and claims right to the Ekwestriko throne, a claim that, thanks to the vagueness of Ekwestriko law on the subject, we do not believe can actually be disputed, only denied.” He leaned forward. “The nations of Cissanthema – of the world – are rather focused on Ekwestrika at the moment. Focused and concerned.”

Trixie was about to begin a carefully-worded mix of retort and placation, but before she could Tronua had turned his attentions back to Zati. “Ofizial Zati,” he said. “The Guarsai may well have preserved the Platinum Kingdom from great harm this day…”

“Eskerrik asko, Maiestate – ”

“…which would be praiseworthy had they not seemed to do everything in their power to threaten it in the first place!”

Zati recoiled at the king’s shout, eyes wide. “Y-your Majesty?” he asked.

Tronua stood, though he didn’t descend from the throne. His horn, however, did begin glowing bright yellow in anger. “The past hour is the first I have heard of any of this! By your own admission, the High Mage subverted not only the Sorginbehat, but the Guarsai as well! Why did the supposedly loyal elements of the Guarsai not seek aid from the Royal Guard, from Military Intelligence? Gurekin azpian harriak, the civilian police, even!”

Zati blinked rapidly at the accusation, confusion evidenced on his face. “It could not be known who else was subverted – ”

“Me, Ofizial Zati,” Tronua growled low. “Why did you not come to me? Or did the Guarsai believe that I, too, was a possible conspirator to overthrow myself?” Before Zati could respond, Tronua jabbed a hoof at Lyra and Trixie, though he didn’t look at them. “You met with Zaldun Trixie. Why did you not warn her of what was going to happen, how she was going to be used? Make even the slightest attempt? Did you think she was in on the conspiracy as well? Zaldunak Lyra and Trixie could have retreated to the Equestrian embassy – an embassy placed under siege without warning, I shall add! But there the Zaldunak would still be accused, still be scapegoats as Magikoa intended so as to preserve your operations against him, but without the lives of two Ekwestriko nationals placed in mortal danger!”

Zati cast a glance at Trixie. “O…of course, Maiestate, b-but the knowledge that Zaldia might soon be in the middle of its own internal troubles…we did not want to risk exposing any weakness to – ”

“You have made the Platinum Kingdom seem stupid, Ofizial Zati – the greatest weakness there is!” Tronua glowered a moment more, before sitting back down on the Platinum Throne, though his eyes still did not break contact with Zati. “I shall tell you what I think of this, Ofizial Zati. I think that the Guarsai became so caught up in its own machinations and paranoia, so enamored of its own supposed superiority and its webs of lies and deceit, that it forgot that its purpose was not the perpetuation of those webs and lies! Its purpose is to protect the Platinum Kingdom, no matter the cost! Or was the cost of the Guarsai’s pride too high?”

Zati stammered. Tronua stood again. “The Guarsai,” he began, his voice quiet now, “is to turn over all evidence, all prisoners, all things concerning this investigation to the Royal Guard. Again, by your own admission, the Guarsai is rife with traitors. I see no reason to believe you have identified them all, especially if the last day is any indication of your usual skill and if you are indicative of the typical agent. I shall seek other avenues of investigation into this matter – and the Guarsai themselves shall be thoroughly investigated as well.”

Tronua’s glare at Zati finally broke, and he looked to Trixie and Lyra. “Zaldunak Trixie and Lyra. The Platinum Throne was not privy to any of these goings-on. Certainly I would not have approved of your part in the Guarsai’s designs. Your escape from Guarsai custody and any crimes committed in the course of doing so or maintaining your freedom thereafter, then, are pardoned on my authority as a matter of course. Further, having escaped, you chose not merely to hide from unjust imprisonment, but to investigate what was going on – and in so doing played a vital part in preserving the Platinum Kingdom. For that, you have the gratitude of the Platinum Throne.”

His horn glowed slightly brighter, and a pair of rings appeared from thin air. Trixie recognized them – she’d seen a similar one hanging from a necklace worn by Ohar Garai earlier, emblazoned with the image of a bear. The rings were levitated over to Trixie and Lyra, each of whom took one in their own telekinesis. “These rings are symbols of that gratitude,” Tronua continued. “I understand that the events of the past day – particularly the Sorginbehat besieging the Equestrian embassy – have likely damaged official relations between Zaldia and Ekwestrika. It is my hope, however, that you will not hold the Throne responsible.”

Trixie fidgeted slightly. Several months ago, a part of the Equestrian government had also performed acts that had caught Trixie, Lyra, and indeed all of Ponyville in their wake. When that had happened and Luna had learned about it, she had not hesitated for a moment to take responsibility in front of hundreds of pony witnesses, even though she had not known of its happening – because ultimately, Luna was the Princess, and so everything that happened in the Equestrian government was her responsibility. King Tronua, meanwhile, was doing just the opposite. On the other hoof, however, he really hadn’t known, and he certainly was doing all he could to make amends…

Lyra, for her part, stared at the ring before her, taking it into her hooves and examining it for a moment. Just as Trixie was about to accept the rings, however, Lyra held out her hoof, ring on the end of it. “Thanks,” she said. “And…I don’t blame you. And I get what you mean. But…I don’t need one of these.”

Trixie’s eyes widened, and she was about to take Lyra aside for a quick once-over on international diplomacy, but before she could the King withdrew both rings, dispersing them back to wherever he had called them up from. Tronua still looked angry, though with the way his eyes kept darting to Kristal Zati, at least that anger wasn’t really directed at the two Equestrians. “Very well,” he said. “I suspect I know your reasons, Zaldun Lyra. Just this once, in light of what has happened, the Throne shall not take offense at the peculiarities of Ekwestriko culture.”

Lyra looked like she wanted to say something about that, but several rapid jabs from Trixie’s hind hoof at Lyra’s own put a stop to that. “With your leave, your majesty,” Trixie said, “Dame Lyra and I have had a very long day. We would like to return to the Equestrian embassy.”

King Tronua nodded, waving a hoof. Guards that Trixie hadn’t even noticed appeared at their sides. “Go then, with my blessing,” he said. “You shall be escorted straight there. Your belongings from the hotel you were staying at will be brought to you in full, you have my word.” As soon as Trixie and Lyra started to turn, Tronua turned his attentions back to Zati, and if anything his anger seemed to increase tenfold.

Trixie did the best she could to suppress a smile at that sight. There was justice in the world after all…

---

Lyra did her best to nod and agree with Trixie on occasion as the other unicorn outlined why turning down the offered horn rings was a bad idea despite what Lyra thought of Zaldia and how they were lucky that the King had bigger fish to fry at the time. Lyra knew that Trixie didn’t agree with Zaldia any more than she did, it was just that she’d been educated by Princess Luna to be diplomatic about things, to be wary of committing slights against political leaders. Over the past year, Trixie had even become good at it.

Still, Lyra didn’t regret turning down the horn ring in the slightest, particularly not given how Tronua had phrased his ‘understanding’ of Lyra’s refusal. The peculiarities of Equestrian culture? What the hay was that supposed to mean? And how gracious of him to ‘just this once’ not take offense at them…

The unicorn shook her head as they were escorted through the palace. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts, and faux-paying attention to Trixie, that she didn’t notice her name called the first time it was. The second time she only noticed because Trixie stopped, as did the guards that were escorting them.

“Lyra!” Ohar Garai exclaimed, trotting up to the mint unicorn from down one of the hallways. “So good to see,” he continued in Cavallian, nodding slightly to the Royal Guards as he did, “but what are you doing here?”

Lyra opened her mouth to start a very long explanation, but it occurred to her that Trixie would probably throttle her if she did for one political reason or another. “A long story,” she said, in Cavallian herself, smiling a little and extending her hoof. Ohar tapped it lightly. “In the papers you will read about, probably.” She sighed. “Me and Trixie not in trouble, but probably going back to Equestria early. Miss meal we said we do. Sorry.”

Ohar shrugged. “Da zer da,” he said in Zaldian, then switched back to Cavallian. “It is what it is. Plans change. I was going to speak with King, recommend I go to Cavallia soon – Princess Cadenza’s birthday soon, yes? Good opportunity.”

Lyra grimaced. “Now…not best time. King Tronua…” she waved her hoof a little, trying to delicately suggest how bad a mood he was likely in.

Ohar nodded. “Yes, I hear some of that, though not why. More important I go to him now! Talk him down. Good friends, King and me.” He tapped the ring that hung from a loop around his neck again. “King Tronua and I, good friends! Even a King needs friends sometimes, yes?”

Lyra’s grimace didn’t lessen at Ohar’s words. “Why?” she asked at length, stepping forward. “Zaldia…” she shook her head. Her grip on Cavallian wasn’t nearly strong enough to try and say everything she wanted to say, the way she wanted to say it.

Somehow, Ohar seemed to get it anyway, however. He placed a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder. “What do you love?” he asked.

Lyra blinked a few times at the seeming non sequitur. “Bon Bon,” she said after a moment. “She my marefriend. My dads, my friends…”

Ohar nodded. He looked down, tapping a hoof to the stone floor beneath him. “I love Zaldia,” he said. “It be my home, for all problems. And King Tronua is Zaldia’s king. He is Zaldia. And I am his friend!” He looked back to Lyra. “Things get better in Zaldia. I not blind, I see problems. We all see problems. We look for solutions. It take time, but you see. King Tronua change Zaldia for better, slowly but surely.” Ohar stepped back, waving his hooves. “Now, go! Guards stare at me now, think me Cadenza’s spy if we keep speaking Cavallian!” he laughed, as though what he said was absurd to even consider.

Lyra didn’t think so herself after the past day, but she chuckled anyway, nodding and waving goodbye. She started trotting off again with the guards and Trixie, and watched over her shoulder as Ohar visibly steeled himself a little, then set off for the throne room. Well, she thought, if Tronua really is friends with Ohar, then I guess he can’t be that bad…maybe he is trying to make the country a better place…

She noticed Trixie staring at her. “What?”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “You heard absolutely none of what I was just telling you, did you?”

Lyra offered a guilty grin. “The next time a king offers me a piece of jewelry, accept it, no matter what I think about him. I’m pretty sure it all boiled down to that.”

The illusionist rolled her eyes. “I mean, yes, but there was a lot more to it…”

Lyra shook her head, bumping Trixie’s flank with her own. “I’ll remember, Trixie, don’t worry. Right now, though, I just want to find a bed and sleep.”

Trixie nodded. “Yeah, me too.” She blinked hard a few times, as though the fact that she had been awake for the better part of a full day was finally catching up to her. “Maybe a bed on a train though. I want to get out of here yesterday.” She glanced up, one hoof to her chin. “I bet we could arrange for an express train out of here…maybe a private car, even…”

Conspiracy

Author's Notes:

This is the canon epilogue.

Several days later…

The room was dark, not out of any need for secrecy, but rather because the being that at the moment was calling himself Kristal Zati preferred it. It was more like home, and as much as he had wanted to leave that home for his new one, he still found that he missed aspects of it on occasion – hence why the room was also warm and clammy in addition to being dark. He regretted that he wasn’t going to get much time to enjoy his native environment, but the Zaldians had him under constant surveillance. He couldn’t disappear for too long.

The room itself, located beneath one of the parks in Gotorleku Hiria, was strange to pony eyes. The walls were made of rock, but molded and smoothed out like a living thing, with an uneven floor and ceiling that Zati had no trouble standing on. There were several hidden doors that lead to the room, but any pony who somehow wandered into it would find nothing out of place. The room did not, and had never, contained anything out of the ordinary beyond what appeared to be a bizarre architectural decision. Even the corridors that lead to it let themselves out in publically-accessible places, never going anywhere near anything of importance. Even in Zaldia, there was nothing illegal about two ponies wanting a private place for their discussions. The worst that could happen were this room discovered was that it would get filled in with concrete, and that would hardly be a setback for any of the beings that made regular use of it.

Zati felt a familiar buzzing down his horn, and smiled as his compatriot entered from another corridor. “Everything is proceeding as we had hoped,” he said, turning around to look his superior in the eye. “The Sorginbehat is essentially dissolved. The Guarsai’s numbers are being eviscerated as we speak, so many placed under arrest.”

The other being, wearing a pony disguise of his own, considered. “Yes. Is it safe to assume that you’re using the arrests to extract some of our own?”

“Of course,” Zati said with a bow. “They’ll be brought to some prison, forgotten about, then extracted when no one is looking anymore. New identities can be created for them.”

“Excellent,” the other being said, stepping forward. With a sigh and a flash of green light like fire, he sloughed off his disguise and assumed his – her – true form. Zati took it as an excuse to do likewise. “Ispelu Magikoa?” Zati asked, his voice now having a distinctive buzz to it.

The other nodded. “Prison for the rest of his life,” she said. Her own voice buzzed as well now, but deeper, which went well with her taller stature. “King Tronua wanted execution. I convinced him to stay his hoof. Pointless waste of food.”

Zati shifted at that. “I don’t agree,” he said. “He is a powerful diviner. If any being in this world can come up with a way to see through our disguises…”

The other smiled brightly, showing off her fangs, wings letting out a long droning buzz. The sweet taste of mirth permeated the air. “What, Clavus? He will, from prison, tell the world that his land is being invaded by giant insects who can appear as anypony? He will be considered mad.”

Zati – or Clavus, his true name – still didn’t agree, but his hive lord had made her choice clear – he could taste that too. Clavus was but a drone. He could voice disagreements, and indeed, this hive lord even encouraged such, but once the hive lord made a decision, it was final. “What now, lord Pleurite?” Clavus asked, changing the subject.

“The long game again,” Pleurite said, stepping around Clavus as she spoke, now tasting of confidence, a strong flavor that Clavus couldn’t help but eating. “We shall move more changelings into position as these ponies and griffins and camels and others fight amongst themselves. Soon this entire nation will be ours. Then we can start moving on the real target. Then, the Queen can bring forth the Hive to the promised land.”

Clavus watched Pleurite as she spoke and walked, grimacing a little at her words and plans for the future. Pleurite noticed the taste of that worry, and Clavus flinched. “We’ll be bringing so many more changelings,” he said. “So many more stomachs to fill…”

Pleurite faltered in her pacing, standing still as she considered Clavus’ words, worry now fermenting the air from her as well. “This world is a cornucopia,” she said at length, closing her eyes. “There’s…there’s…enough. Enough food, enough love. For all of us.” She looked to Clavus. “We’re making sure of it. We’ll be ready for them.”

Clavus knew on an intellectual level that Pleurite was speaking the truth. In a way, they were like pony farmers. They were ripping out the weeds and spreading the seed that would prepare this world, this promised land, for the Queen and the Hive – the thousands and thousands and thousands of changelings waiting for a way onto this world that was brimming with so much food and love.

But for now Clavus and Pleurite and all the other infiltrators had it to themselves. More love than they could ever consume in a thousand lifetimes of gluttony was theirs for the taking. And a small, tiny part of Clavus, a part that wasn’t going to go away, was worried that once the whole of the Hive and the voracious Queen herself came through…that the love and food would run out.

Hunger gnawed forever at the stomach of every changeling. It wasn’t so bad on this world, wasn’t a driving force that dominated their every thought. But it was always there, at the back of their minds and a tiny ache in belly…

Pleurite let out a low hiss, and shook her head, scents and tastes of determination now coming off of her. “We can’t stop the Hive or the Queen from coming…and we shouldn’t want to. And if we tried, the Queen would take all our love and leave us as husks if we were lucky.” The hive lord turned on Clavus, moving right up to him so that she could use the extra head of height she had on him to stare down at the drone. “We are here for the Hive, we are preparing the way for the Hive. It’s all for the Hive. Understood?”

Clavus swallowed. “Yes. For the Hive.”

Pleurite stared down at him a moment more. Her tongue flicked out, tasting his emotions. She wouldn’t taste any deception – he was truthful, even if he didn’t like it. He didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it. Still, resigned obedience didn’t taste good, and so after a moment Pleurite stepped away from him. “Go. Prepare yourself for extraction and reassignment. Your current role has run its course.” She considered, then looked back to him. “Get arrested if possible. But nothing too…noticeable.”

“Of course,” the Clavus said. “What about you?”

“My role continues,” the hive lord said, slipping back into her disguise so that she – now he – could roll his eyes – an action that was physiologically impossible for the multifaceted eyes of a changeling. The annoyance was palpable enough that even a pony might have tasted it “What is the Zaldian saying…da zer da. It is what it is.”

Clavus slipped back into his disguise as Kristal Zati and went out a different exit, of course. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a member of the Guarsai, an organization currently out of favor with the Zaldian King, to be seen associating with Ohar Garai, the king’s closest friend.

Original epilogue (non-canon)

Author's Notes:

This version of the epilogue is no longer canon, but you can still read it and enjoy it if you like.

Several days later…

The room was dark, not out of any need for secrecy, but rather because the being that at the moment was calling himself Kristal Zati preferred it. It was more like home, and as much as he had wanted to leave that home for his new one, he still found that he missed aspects of it on occasion – hence why the room was also warm and clammy in addition to being dark. He regretted that he wasn’t going to get much time to enjoy his native environment, but the Zaldians had him under constant surveillance. He couldn’t disappear for too long.

The room itself, located beneath one of the parks in Gotorleku Hiria, was strange. The walls were made of rock, but molded and smoothed out like a living thing, with an uneven floor and ceiling that Zati had no trouble standing on. There were several hidden doors that lead to the room, but any pony who somehow wandered into it would find nothing out of place. The room did not, and had never, contained anything out of the ordinary beyond what appeared to be a bizarre architectural decision. Even the corridors that lead to it let themselves out in publically-accessible places, never going anywhere near anything of importance. Even in Zaldia, there was nothing illegal about two ponies wanting a private place for their discussions. The worst that could happen were this room discovered was that it would get filled in with concrete, and that would hardly be a setback for any of the begins that made regular use of it.

Zati felt a familiar buzzing down his horn, and smiled as his compatriot entered from another corridor. “Everything is proceeding better than we had hoped,” he said, turning around to look his contact in the eye. “The Sorginbehat is essentially dissolved. The Guarsai’s numbers are being eviscerated as we speak, so many placed under arrest.”

The other being considered. “Yes. Is it safe to assume that you’re using the arrests to extract some of our own?”

“Of course,” Zati said with a bow. “They’ll be brought to some prison, forgotten about, then extracted when no one is looking anymore. New identities can be created for them.”

“Excellent,” the other being said, stepping forward. With a sigh and a flash of green light like fire, he sloughed off his disguise and assumed his true form. Zati took it as an excuse to do likewise. “Ispelu Magikoa?” Zati asked, his voice now having a distinctive buzz to it.

The other being nodded. “Prison for the rest of his life,” he said. His own voice buzzed as well now, but deeper. “King Tronua wanted execution. I convinced him to stay his hoof. Pointless waste of food.”

Zati shifted at that. “I don’t agree,” he said. “He is a powerful diviner. If any being in this world can come up with a way to see through our disguises…”

The other being smiled brightly, showing off his fangs, wings letting out a long droning buzz. “What? He will, from prison, tell the world that his land is being invaded by giant insects who can appear as anypony? He will be considered mad.”

Zati still didn’t agree, but the other one had made his choice clear. Zati was a drone, bonded to the hive lord. He could voice disagreements – indeed, this hive lord even encouraged such – but on a chemical level it was nearly impossible for him to disobey a command from his lord. A buzz down his horn let him know that the hive lord had made his decision. “What now?” he asked, changing the subject.

“The long game again,” The other being said. “We shall move more changelings into position as these ponies and griffins and camels and others fight amongst themselves. Soon this entire nation will be ours. Then we can start moving on the real target. Then, we can bring forth the Queen.”

An involuntary shudder went through Zati at the mention, the thought, of the Queen, making his wings buzz in excitement, his horn glow. Yes, he obeyed his hive lord, but he loved his Queen. Loved her with a totality that no pony could ever understand or appreciate. Every last mote of his being was hers, would always be hers. “When?” he asked with baited breath.

“Not today,” the hive lord said, stepping up closer to the drone. He reached out a hoof and stroked the drone’s cheek, and the drone could feel that the hive lord, too, was thrilled at the thought of the Queen they both served, both loved. “Not tomorrow. But soon. Everything is proceeding apace. There is no need to rush things. The ground must be prepared.”

The drone quivered with anticipation and desire to go forth and do just that. In a way, they were like farmers. They were ripping out the weeds and spreading the seed that would prepare this world for the Queen. At the moment their actions were destructive. But soon they would turn towards creation instead. Soon the ground would be prepared. Soon the Queen would arrive…

…and feast.

The hive lord stepped away from the drone. “Go now. Be prepared for extraction and reassignment; your current role has just about run its course. Get arrested if possible. But nothing too…noticeable.”

“Of course,” the drone said. “What about you?”

“My role continues,” the hive lord said, slipping back into his disguise so that he could roll his eyes in annoyance – an action that was physiologically impossible for the multifaceted eyes of a changeling. “What is the Zaldian saying…da zer da. It is what it is.”

Kristal Zati went out a different exit, of course. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a member of the Guarsai, an organization currently out of favor with the Zaldian King, to be seen associating with Ohar Garai, the king’s closest friend.