> The Disappearance of Harissa Honeycomb
>  by Miller Minus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 – The 'D' Word
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We looked damn good in our new armor. And that's the highest-ranking curse word I ever use, so I'm not kidding around. They were the newest leather models from Canterlot's best designers: sleek yet rugged, light yet warm, and comfortable yet still sure to keep us safe from harm. What or who might try to harm us, I didn’t like to think about, but as I held my folded outfit on the morning of our mission, it was starting to make me feel pretty damn brave.

If only our campsite wasn't trying so hard to change that. We had stumbled on the little clearing in the dense pine forest the night before, and it was so dark that we couldn't see past the first trees in any direction. I had hoped the morning would be different, but the greying fog had other ideas.

A loon's call sounded through the trees behind me, and my shoulders tensed. It wasn't a pleasant, melodic tune like normal. More like the call of a loon with a pencil lodged in its throat. Sideways.

I peeked over my shoulder to see nothing but a couple slender branches, covering a patch of fog in the distance like a child playing peek-a-boo. But inside the nothing I heard the sounds of hooves, stepping purposefully through the twigs and branches, and snapping several on its way towards me. I held my breath for all of two seconds when a shape resolved in the fog, but then I laughed at myself.

A pony I knew very well emerged from the mist behind the branches and ducked into our clearing. Slightly panting and with wings fully sprung, she walked around me like I wasn't there, wagging a stray twig covered in pine sap off her hoof. Her braided red hair was matted to her forehead and neck, and she wore a large grin across her face. Or at least, it sure seemed that way. She always looked like she was grinning when she had the hilt of a sword in her teeth.

"Stupid horseshit forest," she declared, finally flinging off the niggling twig.

Needless to say, she went to higher ranks than I did. She was Captain Minerva, and she was Brave with a capital 'B', because it was literally her second name. Third if you counted the 'The'.

I laid my armor on my log and saluted. "Good morning, Captain!"

Her ears fluttered. She flicked her eyebrows up in acknowledgment, slinging the sheath off of her shoulders and thrusting the sword back in place. She let the assembly fall on the floor, then exhaled like she had just returned from a relaxing swim in the ocean, as opposed to a morning training session.

"Well, look at you," she said. "Using the correct titles and stuff. What's yours again?"

"Uh, I think it's… Private."

She snorted. "That's hilarious. I'll just call you Foghorn."

"Okay. Should I just call you Minerva?"

"No."

"Okay."

The Captain scowled at her chest, where a blob of sap had seeped into her armor. She spat in her hoof and scrubbed as much out as she could.

I didn't blame her. Across the chest of our new clothes was the best part: the chevrons. They were embroidered overtop of the leather—a thick purple one underneath a thinner red one. Those were our captain's colours, fur and mane. They stopped at our shoulders, where they transitioned neatly into two halves of a sun. And it wasn't just any old sun. It was the very same markings found on Princess Celestia herself.

The whole design looked pretty impressive on just about anypony. Even me! But nopony wore it like Minerva. I suppose that was the point.

"Let’s do a roll call," the captain suggested.

I glanced over to the log lying on its side next to mine, where the lieutenant was tightly coiled, facing away from us. He was using his armor as a cushion for the jagged bark. On the ground next to him was his short sword, holding down a library book with "A Brief History of Pinery’s Brief History: A Summary" written on the cover in shining silver letters. A bookmark with an image of Princess Celestia leaned up against the book's spine, having just recently finished its journey through the pages.

"Um," I answered. "I think… all three of us are here."

"You say that," Minerva said, "but one of us doesn't look alive."

I watched the lieutenant’s stomach carefully. It rose and fell with perfect rhythm, brushing up against a small green offshoot jutting out from the log.

"I… think he is," I deduced.

"Tell you what. I'll fly him to the nearest river, huck him in, and see if he floats." Minerva lowered her eyes at the sleeping stallion, likely imagining her plan with glee.

The lieutenant’s body grumbled, "I'm alive," but it didn’t bother to uncoil.

"Well I'm still kinda set on the whole river thing."

"Like you could carry me."

"Actually, I can carry exactly one fully grown pony. They test pegasuses on emergencies, y'know."

The earth pony’s ear twitched when the captain didn’t say ‘pegasi’. With an anemic groan, he pushed his forelegs against the log and rose as if from a grave. He swung his hind legs over to face us and knocked his sword off his book in the process. "Present," he said, though his eyes had yet to open.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Terrain," I said, saluting again.

Over the course of five seconds, Terrain revealed his green eyes to the world. They were already much sharper than the rest of him, accented by the thick black outlines around them. For the longest time, I thought he wore makeup, but Minerva told me he didn’t. She said ponies from where he was from just looked like that. 

I never asked where he was from. It never seemed appropriate.

"I've had better," he replied, and I just smiled.

Minerva, meanwhile, was enjoying her morning. At the sight of her two support ponies awake and alive, she began trotting around the fire pit—black and smouldering from last night’s campfire.  Her right wing was pointed out and to the right, and her left wing was pointed out and to the left.

"You guys read the thing, right?" she asked.

"The… thing?" Terrain mumbled.

"Yeah, you know. That thing we had to read."

"You mean the dossier?"

"No, that thing that talks about all of our instructions and objectives and whatever."

Terrain’s eyes fell back shut. "Yes, Minnie. I read the goddamn dossier."

"Okay, good. SO!"

Minerva came to a halt in front of us and plopped on her rump. She glared at us like she was a teacher staring at the only two students who had shown up at her lecture.

"To recap," she began, "Pinery's top chef, Harissa Honeycomb, was kidnapped about seven days ago. Vanished, poof! Without a trace, y'know? The ponies there are all pretty unhappy about the whole thing, so the Big Girl Upstairs has sent her best damn field knights to find the mare, bring her home, and throw whoever the sack of cowpie is who's behind it all into the darkest dungeon in Pinery."

"Right!" I responded. I saluted again even though it wasn't an appropriate time.

My captain continued, "Now, the thing said 'diplomacy' a lot? So we have to be on our most kickass behaviour. If we screw this up, we go from field missions to field trips. Foalsitting new recruits on pointless journeys to Celestia knows where."

She wasn’t lying. Her Highness was in charge of that decision.

She rubbed her hooves together but had to stop when they got stuck. "Pinery and Equestria are… counting… on us… boys!" she struggled, trying to free herself from the sap trap.

I started a neverending nod. Her briefing was a little different from what I had read in the dossier, but I figured she would know more about it than I would. She was captain, after all.

When she finally ripped her hooves apart, she saluted and winked. "So that's it! Any questions?"

Terrain massaged his temples and strained out a breath. "I have one."

"Alright, make it quick. It's still a ten-hour walk to Pinery, so—"

"Did you read the dossier?" Terrain interrupted.

Minerva scowled. "Yeah."

"Okay. Then… Where did you get those lies you just told us?"

"What do you… From the disarray!"

"Dossier! Daw-see-ay! And it didn't say any of that!"

"Well, yeah, I had to read between the lines a little. C'mon, Terry, I thought you were good at that!"

"I am good at that," Terrain asserted. "But there's a difference between reading between the lines and scribbling in your own lines with a blunt crayon."

I stifled a chuckle and hoped they didn't hear it. I always enjoyed their banter, but it never felt right laughing at something I wasn't involved in. Maybe someday I could, though, if I could just get a little more proficient at comebacks.

Minerva got up and went to her bag, stuck her hoof in and ripped out a stack of scrolls. She marched back to her seat and started poring over the front page. "I swear it's all in here..."

Terrain snatched the dossier in a heartbeat. "It's not."

"Alright smart-ass, what did I get wrong then?"

"Well for starters, Harissa has disappeared from Castle Pinery."

"S'what I said!"

"No, you said she was kidnapped, which was grossly presumptive. Dangerously so. Second, nowhere did it say we're tasked with finding her. We're only there to be three extra heads and twelve extra hooves. Patrols, escorts, security advice, whatever they want us to do, we do."

Minerva did a quick count of how many hooves we had. "Okay, but… What about dungeon-throwing?"

"Not in the itinerary. They might not even have a dungeon."

Our captain gasped. "But where will we put their bad guys?!" Terrain had no answer, or perhaps he just didn’t want to give one, so Minerva crossed her hooves and let out a harrumph fit for a captain. "Lame. Well, I got the diplomacy part right, right?"

"Everything but your immature 'kickass' comment, but yes, it stressed diplomacy. Which means Foghorn should do the talking."

My heart made room for an extra beat.

"Wha—?" Minerva blurted. "Why can’t I do the talking?"

Terrain recoiled and held his hooves up. "You guys are gonna find this funny… but for a second there I could swear I heard Minerva the Brave volunteer for diplomacy."

"That doesn’t sound like you," I added.

The captain threw a petulant gaze at Terrain and me. "I can totally do the talking! Name three reasons why I wouldn't be good at it."

Terrain paused. "Okay. How about respect, tact, and swear density."

"What the shit is swear density?"

"Don't worry yourself. Foghorn is perfect for the job and we all know it."

I butted in to the argument. "I don't know it… Why me?"

"Yeah!" Minerva protested. "Why him?"

There was a hint of venom in that, but I forgave her. It was a weird choice.

Terrain put his hoof around me and patted my shoulder twice. "Because Foghorn here respects everypony he's ever met, and everypony he’s yet to meet. He's a born diplomat."

Minerva got right in my face and peered into my eyes, inching forward for every inch I leaned back. It was like she was trying to find my soul and call it names.

I looked away. "I mean… Everypony deserves respect."

"Disagree," Terrain replied. "But that’s why you’re perfect."

Minerva spun away, then spun right back to throw a hoof at me. "Alright, fine. Fog, you take care of the introductions, but after that, I wanna talk to them."

Terrain snorted. "You're as generous as you are tactful."

"Okay," I said, standing up. I floated my armor in the air. The chevrons between Celestia's cutie mark emerged from the folds, almost like they were looking for me. "Okay," I repeated. "I can do introductions. How hard can it be?"

"Couldn't tell ya," Minerva answered. "I don’t have the tact," she hissed in Terrain's direction.

He responded with a cringe. "That doesn't make any sense."


*****


I was hoping to continue the discussion a little longer, but at that point, Minerva and Terrain were done talking, and that was all that mattered. Pretty soon, our saddlebags were packed, and we were scanning the campsite to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything.

Not that we had much to forget. My superiors had our few essentials in their bags already. They had suggested that I carry some too, but I refused. The idea of carrying the food, the water, the budget, the emergency medical kit, or anything else so important made me squeamish. They would probably be more responsible with them, after all.

Accompanying the essentials in their tightly packed bags was the dossier, their sword licenses, and of course, their own personal bandage rolls. Terrain packed his for first-aid purposes, because 'the sandpaper they packed in our kit wasn’t getting anywhere near us', while Minerva's roll was for wrapping around her hooves and applying the opposite of first-aid to anypony she felt had earned it. Then again, she was considering giving the sandpaper a try.

My bag was the easiest to pack, and the easiest to carry. Only my bandages, tucked in the pocket on my right side. Just in case either of them needed a spare roll. I could do some first-aid too, sure, but so too could everypony who graduated from the academy.

And it was good that I didn’t have too much to pick up around the campsite, because I was having trouble paying attention. I was busy thinking about my upcoming first task.

The talking.

Did I need to be nervous? No. Minerva and Terrain were incredible friends and even better comrades. It was always sort of a fluke that I had gotten as far as them, and I mean that in the least self-deprecating way possible. My numbers simply weren't as good as theirs. But I knew that when I dropped the ball, they’d pick it up before it hit the ground and probably do an even better job with it.

So no, I had no reason to be nervous. Was I anyways? Well, let's just say that my quivering jaw and itchy forelegs were already showing how good they were at 'the talking'.

But that could have been more than just the dread of my first task looming in the back of my thoughts, because somehow, from the time we woke up to the time we were ready to depart, the fog managed to thicken, and the wild creatures in the forest were making their presence more and more, well, present. I couldn’t tell what was more off-putting: the distant sounds in the woods, or the pockets of silence in between them.

"Hey," Minerva said, gesturing to Terrain as she slung her sword back on and pulled the straps tight. "What's that word for a place that kinda makes you want to shit your pants, but like, is subtle about it?"

Through a yawn, Terrain answered, "Ominous."

"Yeah! That’s the one… Such a great word."

The howl of a wolf pierced the thick air around us, tensing all of our bodies. It wasn’t a majestic and empowering howl like normal. More like the howl of a wolf with a loon with a pencil caught in its throat caught in its throat. A howl that made it clear it had to pass through sharp teeth before it reached our ears.

The captain wasted no time pointing into the fog, the opposite direction from where the howl had come. "Let’s make tracks, yeah?"

We got started on the last leg of our journey—my armor shifting and lurching on its own around my body the whole way. The humidity must have worn it out, I thought, as it suddenly felt a little big on me.
> 2 – M-F-'n-T
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We only took one break between the campsite and our destination. I couldn’t pinpoint it on a map if I tried, but I know it was somewhere along Pinery's multitude of shallow rivers—the ones that weaved in and out of the forest's outskirts, serving as a sign to tourists and travelers alike that their journey was almost over.

It was the perfect place to collect some thoughts and some water before embarking one last time. Plus, the weather had cleared up, and the deranged wildlife had decided to leave us alone, for whatever reason. Maybe they figured we weren't worth picking out of their teeth. Or maybe they could tell that my two companions were not ponies you could prey on. Either way, it was a welcome respite.

If Terrain had gotten his way, we would have taken two breaks before we reached our destination. If Minerva had gotten her way, we would have taken none. So we made a compromise. Or, as Terrain called it, "a good way to make sure nopony is happy."

I was okay with just the one, though. Especially since, from where I was sitting, I could already see our destination way up ahead, through a hole in the thinning canopy. 

The Town of Pinery. 

Glistening like brown water in the afternoon sun. 

Patiently waiting for our arrival.

The moment my eyes caught the quaint little settlement was the moment that I knew what it was like for a gryphon to use your heart as a stress ball.

Because the thing about arriving in Pinery was that I was woefully unprepared for it. Not that it was really my fault or anything. I had only been given my task that morning, and now we were almost there! I couldn't have been prepared that quickly.

So I took some initiative. I broke out the dossier for the sixth or seventh time that journey and gave some solid attention to the parts I had skimmed the first five or six times. Maybe then I could get a good plan of attack going for when we arrived, and I could get that damn gryphon to relax her grip.

The planning didn't go as planned.

The first thing I did was remove the paperclip holding all the different pages together, causing them to scatter all over the damn grass. I stuck the bent piece of metal in my teeth and started snatching at the pages with my hooves, before realizing I could just use my magic.

When I had the document all together again, I took a quick glance to my right and to my left, where Minerva was standing waist-deep in the river, and Terrain was cozying up against a mossy rock, respectively. The lieutenant’s eyes were fully closed—the front of his armor covered in sap and the back of it covered in lichens. The captain's eyes were narrowed at him, as she dunked our three flasks in the water with increasing force.

I was in the clear.

I floated the pages in the air and put them back in order, save for the one I was looking for, which I placed on top.

The primary contacts. These were the ponies we were supposed to find once we got to Castle Pinery. These were the ponies who would eventually be standing in front of me, patiently waiting to hear some polite and prepared introductions.

The page featured descriptions of these three ponies alongside template portraits—the only discernable difference between them being their race, gender, and colours. The top of the page also featured strict instructions reminding us that none of the ponies on this list could find out that Equestria had files on them. Not that there was anything sinister going on—It would just be a little hard to explain.

"It was that guy."

I jumped and whirled around to see my captain—frigid water dripping from her maw onto my shoulder. Two leather flasks, labelled with an 'M' and an 'F', respectively, were bouncing against her chest. She brought the third flask to her mouth and tipped it upside down.

"Uh…" I uttered.

She pointed to the first picture—a headshot of a brown-and-blue pegasus in profile. A little drawing of a crown was next to him, which I assumed was his cutie mark. "Ah… I’m sure of it. Chef-kidnapper. It's in his eyes."

I blinked a couple times at the flask she was holding, but when she looked at me I broke eye contact immediately and turned my attention to where she was pointing.

"That's… the King," I said. "King Pinery the Second."

"Oh, but ask yourself this. If he’s the Second, what happened to the First, y'know?"

The current king's age was written beside his name in the dossier. He was thirty-four.

"I think he… passed away, probably," I guessed.

Minerva gasped. "Oh, shit. The plot thickens! Hey, TERRY!” she barked at her reclining lieutenant. "You gotta hear this shit!"

Terrain took in a deep breath through his nose and released it through his mouth. He gradually rolled up to his hooves and trotted over—opening his eyes when he was halfway to us. "What is it?"

"Check it out," Minerva buzzed, "The king murdered his dad and then kidnapped the chef out of spite!"

The lieutenant halted and recoiled like he’d walked in on a decomposing rat. "No more Prancy Drew novels for you," he advised.

"What? It's plausible. Who else we got, Fog?"

The next pony on the list was another stallion and another pegasus. He had swampy-green fur and a charcoal mane. His cutie mark was a rusted hacksaw, and his description was only three unsettling words long.

'Beware of Charles.'

I gulped hard. Too hard, really. My friends probably heard. "Commander… Fellsaw," I read. "He runs the Pinery Guard. We're reporting to him and the King for as long as we’re there."

Minerva swallowed another swig of water and exhaled. "I don't like him already. Who else?"

"Queen Nevergreen," I read from the third and final entry. A sky blue unicorn with a blond mane. Her cutie mark was a needle. Not one from a pine tree, surprisingly enough, but one meant for sewing, and with a yellow string through the slender hole in the top to prove it.

Minerva whistled. "She looks pretty, damn."

The lieutenant chimed in, "You're gleaning an awful lot from coloured-in templates."

"Yeah, I'm just that good at this."

"Well, I hope it's out of your system, because detective work stops when we get there."

Minerva threw her head back and groaned. "Celestia on fire! You know I’m captain here, right?"

Terrain plucked a page out of the bundle I was holding and placed it right in front of Minerva’s nose. Page 1 of our instructions. "A captain with orders. What's got you so keen, anyways?"

"Gee, Terry." Minerva snatched another page out of the air and held it up to Terrain’s face. The teamsheet, with our own portraits and skillsets listed in descending order. "It's not like I wanna nail my first mission as captain or anything."

The lieutenant took both sheets and put them back in the pile, and then patted her on the back. "See? There you go."

She scowled in response. "You suck at sarcasm."

"You suck at counter-sarcasm."

Terrain turned to leave the conversation, but Minerva didn’t let him get far. She leapt over the lieutenant’s head, flasks banging around the whole way. She landed in front of him and placed her hoof on his sap-covered chest, taking a moment to make a displeased sound at the state of the chevrons.

"Terry, I have a challenge for you," she said.

"Goodie."

"I want you to look me in the eyes… and tell me you aren't a little bit interested in using that big smart brain of yours to find this chef-lady."

Terrain opened his mouth, but Minerva cut him off.

"And then! We tell Celestia that we went above and beyond what we were asked to do! All for the good of our allies, y’know?"

I couldn't help but smile.

Terrain closed his mouth. "Her Highness… would like that," he conceded.

"That’s badge-of-honour shit right there."

"Well, that's wishful."

"Are you in?"

Terrain let out a long hum and blew his mane out of his eyes. "If you leave the thinking to me."

That was the only obvious conclusion. At least, it was obvious to anypony who knew who the lieutenant was. Not only did he never shy away from a puzzle, but he actively sought them out. There wasn’t a single mystery back at the academy that he couldn’t solve before anypony else. Mysteries like:

'Who stole from the armory?'

'Who stole the Major’s fake moustache?'

'Who shaved off the General’s real moustache in his sleep?'

I remember I told him once, after he had solved the curious case of the egged stallion's wing, that it was very kind of him to always solve the academy's runaway mysteries. That way, he wasn't giving anypony else a chance to botch them.

And he told me that was a really weird thing to say. Which goes to show he was modest, too.

Minerva flicked the cap of the flask she had drank from earlier, letting it spin off onto the ground. "Fine. But if Foghorn's doing the talking, and you're doing the thinking, then what does that leave me?"

Terrain had an answer prepared, but had to stop and rethink it when she took another gulp of fresh water.

"Oh, I dunno… You could start with learning what letter your name starts with."

Minerva slowly brought down her drink and curled her upper lip. "My name starts with 'M'," she asserted.

Terrain snatched the flask and pressed the front of it to her face. The middle of the 'T' that was clearly scratched into it sat right between her nostrils.

"Oh, hah! My bad. I had no idea."

"Uh-huh."

The lieutenant slung the leather strap of the flask off of his captain's neck and onto his in one swift motion. Brushing past her, he made a sour march towards the river, pouring the remaining water into the grass.

"Best captain ever..." he mumbled as he passed me.

I giggled.

Minerva did not. Instead, she watched her lieutenant with an impatient look as he reached the edge of the river and rinsed his flask out.

"Why are you reading that thing, anyways?" she asked me, but she was still focused on Terrain.

I looked down at the pages in my hooves and sighed. I wasn't even sure anymore.

"Oh, no reason… Just, um… Captain?"

"Yeah, Fog?"

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"Hold on a sec."

Minerva shot off towards the riverbank, gliding low and quiet through the air, and sending every page of the dossier flying in different directions. I didn’t even bother snatching at them. Instead, I watched her skid to a stop before the unsuspecting earth pony and dig her front hooves under his back ones.

Terrain became a suspecting earth pony, but he was a hair too late.

"What the… Don’t you DA—!"

The captain thrust her wings down and threw her front hooves up, flipping her lieutenant in the air like a kicking, screaming pancake.

"I'LL KICK YOUR SORRY—!"

splash.

Face-first.

"Ohhh…" I murmured.

Once he resurfaced and knocked the water out of his ears, Minerva called out to him, "And don't come out until your armor and your attitude both SPARKLE!"

Terrain crinkled his nose. "And don't come out unti—"

His flask landed in front of him, splashing water in his mouth. He choked it out and smacked the bottle away.

Minerva the Brave twisted on her hooves and cantered back towards me, grinning like an athlete who had just beaten their own personal record.

"That was a good idea," she confided in me.

"Wow," I said. "You lured him to the water by drinking from his flask?"

"…Yes. Yes, I did. Thanks for noticing."

"Wow."

My friends were so smart.
> 3 – Between A Graveyard And A Cemetery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The town of Pinery was quaint and bustling. That was, if it was even considered a town. The vibrancy and energy of its structures and inhabitants made it feel like it could be upgraded to 'city' at any moment.

Its houses were small and many and impressively tidy for things made entirely of pine wood. The outer surface of every plank was detailed with artistic carvings, displayed to passersby on the street. Every roof, arch, column, and wall was crafted in a strikingly different style, like every single Pinerian had built their home themselves.

It was also like Canterlot, in a way, in that it was built into the side of a mountain—just a wider, shorter one than ours, and a lot less precarious. Instead of jutting out from the side of a cliff, the town was sitting on a flat plot of land carved into the mountain itself. 

The town was surrounded on most sides by a great ridge of rock, which couldn’t possibly be scaled. But, if you wanted, you could still get to the top. All you had to do was exit the town into the forest to the south, walk around the perimeter, and you could be two hundred meters above the tip of the tallest structure by the time you were at the town's north side. You couldn’t keep walking too far, though—it dropped back down eventually.

Maybe the casual thought of uprooting myself and living in Pinery might have crossed my mind, if not for one small problem: the smell. At all corners of the town were pulp and paper mills, and the sulphuric stench that they exuded had seeped into everything. I knew it had spurred the town’s growth back when they were first founded, but I couldn’t believe how bad they had let it get.

It was the only part of Pinery that wasn’t fully welcoming, but it was a big one. Thankfully, its citizens knew how to take care of their guests. When the three of us, clad in our country and captain’s colours (and Terrain’s freshly washed), waltzed into their fields of view, many of them turned on a needle towards us, wonder enveloping their faces. They greeted us earnestly, insisting we sit down for dinner at their finest restaurant before we moved on. There, they served us pancakes and waffles, all soaked with a rich, tangy pine syrup. They must have been fresh off the griddle, too, because it sure felt like they melted.

Our arrival must have coincided with some traditional Pinerian holiday, because the restaurant was packed to the doors with townsfolk, all drinking and celebrating with a complete disregard for how they would feel in the morning. Even for a Saturday, it seemed excessive.

About three quarters of the raucous ponies in the restaurant queued up to greet us throughout our meal. They asked questions about Equestria, Celestia, and all the different colours our leaves turned to in the fall. They left us gifts, too. Mostly food and drink, but there was one item that stuck out from the rest, and I was keen on keeping it for myself: a hoof-crafted wooden figurine of a great blue heron. Or perhaps it was a crane. The artist had gotten the proportions a little mixed up.

"Is that bothering you too?!" Terrain shouted from across the table, raising his voice over the sea of singing and dancing.

"Only a little!" I replied, tracing my hoof along the bird’s neck.

Terrain reached over the table to smack my shoulder. I put the carving back in my bag with the rest of the gifts and snapped to attention.

The lieutenant gestured to the bar, where our captain was balancing a pint of Pinerian lager on her hoof alongside a portly stallion sporting a green Mohawk and his own mug. Their drink-bearing hooves were entwined, rims of their glass resting on their lower lips. They glared at each other, smirking wide, and a crowd of ponies started to form around the two of them in anticipation.

"I think it's nice!" I answered. "Ponies here sure are nice to us, huh?!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "…Well, sure! You know why, right?!"

I blinked and shook my head. I had an idea of what he was getting at, but I wasn't sure.

The lieutenant made to shout again, then rolled his eyes again and walked around to my side of the table. He pulled me in and spoke in my ear. "Fog, do you know about the politics here?"

"Um… A little. I’m not totally sure, though," I laughed. A little bit awkwardly in hindsight.

"Pinery's a very small country. And it's surrounded on all sides by Equestria’s borders."

"Okay."

"Everypony's friends and everything, but the Pinerians are starting to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just assimilate and become part of Equestria."

"That’d be cool!" I said. "Do you think they’ll do it?"

"Who knows? They might be leaning towards it, but not everypony's on board."

"Why?"

"If they were, they'd've done it already," Terrain concluded. He shuffled back to his seat to take another swig of his water.

I had meant something else by that question, but I hadn't worded it well enough. Either way, this was all great information. I already knew all that he said from reading everything Pinery-related in the latest issue of the Canterlot Chronicle, but now I at least knew I hadn't misread anything. He summarized it better than I could, too.

"Who would be against joining Equestria?!" I asked.

Terrain stopped mid-drink, eyes widening. He shot a look to his left and back again in an instant.

I did the same to my right. In the booth across the aisle was a shaggy group of ponies, all with a glass of alcohol, none with a plate of food. They wore darkly coloured overalls, flat caps, and mostly-healed scrapes all over their faces and hooves. They were frozen stiff, save for their blinking eyes, all of which were pointed at me. Each had their own unique blend of disgust and offense etched into their faces.

I squirmed in my seat and coughed.

A mare at the table shook her head and said something, and they all snickered grimly. My heart sank into my stomach.

"Oh," I muttered.

Terrain set down his water. "Yep."

Suddenly, a violent crash sounded throughout the restaurant, silencing everypony in earshot. The clinking of glass shards along the floor took two seconds to peter out.

Minerva, sitting tall and alert at the bar, gawked at the shattered remains of the beer mug in her hoof. The stallion next to her, hanging his head in shame, slid his mug across the table. It was intact, with a small pool of amber liquid remaining at the bottom.

Minerva slowly pivoted in her creaking barstool.

"I won!" she announced, and the bar erupted in cheers.


*****


I had done really well up until that point. 

Or at least, I thought I had. 

I was doing what I was told, I wasn’t getting in the way of either of my superiors, and I was making sure that nothing I did threw our mission off course.

Up until that point, all that had gone wrong was a group of workponies scoffing at me at a restaurant. Ponies I'd never see again. Quite frankly, I would have jumped for that if I thought it was the only hoof I set wrong all mission.

But after we left the bar, and a somehow-sober captain told us we were still going all the way to the castle that night, we found ourselves at our first real obstacle.

Castle Road.

I hated that stupid road.

It was the only way to get to the castle from town, and it was inexplicably a one-hour journey. A meager six ponies wide, it was enclosed on its left by a wall of mountain rock about three hundred meters high, and open on its right to an equally lofty drop to the dense forest below.

And it was on Castle Road that I, Private Foghorn the Field Knight, completely, sincerely, and unceremoniously, blew it. 

And I’m sorry to say that this mistake sits at the top of a list of errors I made throughout the mission. A list sorted in chronological order, and a list carefully stored in about a hundred different places in my mind for me to stumble upon whenever I least expect it.

It started out innocuous enough. Minerva flew ahead to make sure the way was clear, and Terrain and I walked the line between mountain and air. Terrain was in front, saddlebags jingling with our untouched budget (the Pinerians didn't let us pay for anything). I wasn’t too far behind, bags stuffed with our syrup, liquor and trinkets from our most gracious hosts. I had accidentally gotten the weight wrong when I packed it, so it was slipping a bit to the right, but I wasn’t about to stop our progress to fix a little balance issue.

Terrain, meanwhile, had no such qualms stopping. When Minerva was out of sight, he took a break without notice, strolling to the edge of the road to oversee the forest below. I suppose he was confident we would make it before sunset.

"Fog, check this out," he said. It was hard to see him now, enveloped in the mountain’s shadow, but I was fairly certain he was closer to the cliff than I ever wanted to be.

"Do I ha… I mean, is it important?" I answered, my left hooves stuck firm in the corner of the wall.

"You wanted to know why some Pinerians don’t want to join Equestria, right?"

"…Okay, yeah, sure, I guess so."

I huffed out my newly developed acrophobia and pretended like I was actually successful. I cantered out to the edge, as far as Terrain and absolutely no farther. When I was standing next to him, though, I relaxed a little. If he wasn’t nervous, why should I be?

And then I saw what he saw.

"What the…"

There was no forest beneath us at all. Not anymore. From the base of the mountain all the way out as far as I could see was an array of tree stumps fanning out in every direction. Strewn out between the stumps was a thick layer of severed branches, twigs and needles, completely covering the dirt floor.

I peered along the wall back towards town. The forest did spring back to life eventually, but there was still a clear line between the trees and the stumps that nature had taken no part in drawing. The dividing line between life and death. And it would likely creep even further on Monday.

"They've got… quite the industry," I observed. I suppose that was obvious.

"Count the saplings," Terrain said.

"Um… Okay."

I lifted my hoof up and prepared to note every young tree in the mix. 

I squinted.

Nothing poked out from beneath the mess. Not straight up, anyways.

"I'm sorry…" I said. "I… can’t see any."

Terrain laughed. "Fog, you’re the only pony I know who would apologize before giving a right answer."

"…I'm sorry?"

Terrain laughed again. "They’re clearcutting, Fog."

"Oh… But that's so… destructive. Why would they do it?"

"S'cheaper, that’s why."

It didn’t make sense. I focused on the forest floor again, certain that there was life hiding in there somewhere.

"They're not replanting?" I asked.

"They might be trying, but clearcutting doesn't exactly leave the nicest land for it. It harvests faster than it regrows."

"Won't they run out?"

"Maybe. If they do, it'll be after every Pinerian is dead and replaced with new ones. For now, this suits them just fine. The question is—will it suit Equestria?"

A chilly wind ran up my back, carrying with it an empty whistle. In the vast graveyard of trees, not a single object moved.

"…Princess Celestia would never allow this," I realized.

"Bingo."

"EXTRA, EXTRA!"

A shrill bark crashed down on us from above.

Terrain cringed. "Uh-oh."

We slowly tilted our heads back to see Minerva, hovering with her forelegs crossed. She didn’t stick out very well against the purple and red dusk-filled sky, but her voice had no such camouflage.

"READ ALL ABOUT IT! TWO STALLIONS UNABLE TO WALK AND TALK AT THE SAME TIME! ANNOY HELL OUT OF CAPTAIN!"

Terrain griped and shook his head. Trotting away from the ledge, he held a hoof up to his mouth and hollered right back.

"TRAGEDY IN EQUESTRIA! PEGASUS MARE ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL WITH HER TITLE LODGED IN HER BRAIN! DOCTORS UNABLE TO EXCISE!"

Minerva growled with venom. She bit down on her sword and drew it out in one swift motion, flew to the mountain and slammed the blade into its side. She flew away into the clouds, having made her point. Both with words, and with stones.

"Heads up!" Terrain called, nimbly evading the falling rocks, and whooping the whole way along.

He didn't really have to say that. Minerva had aimed for him. And she had very good aim. He was able to evade easily and continue trotting down the path.

There was nothing for me to evade.

But I still did a tiny half-turn. That’s all. Just to have my eyes on the situation.

Just a puny little turn.

But the next thing I knew, I had only two hooves on Castle Road. And I very much preferred having four.

"Ah!"

My right hooves shot inwards and slid down the wall, burning the insides of my legs. I whimpered and grappled the ledge like it was the only thing that could save me.

Because it was.

My chest bounced hard off the ledge, and I shot upright again, scrambling my two wayward hooves back onto level ground.

"Guh—!"

I tackled the wall in a panic, wincing in pain and skidding down to my seat. And as soon as I stopped hyperventilating, the ordeal was over as quickly as it had begun. I dusted off the underside of my armor and scanned the scratches along the inside of my legs.

Not too bad. Crisis averted! Terrain was off ahead, Minerva was above the clouds, and nopony else was around to see what had happened. Or almost happened, rather.

Suddenly, there was a hollow thump from below me. I froze, and I heard another. 

I inched my way back to the ledge and peeked down at the graveyard, where I had almost made a reservation.

"Oh, Celestia, no."

One bounce. Two bounces. Three bounces. Thud.

My saddlebags came to rest at the base of the mountain in a pile of abandoned forestry tools. The contents exploded everywhere. It was too far to even hear the glass bottles shatter, but I knew they all had.

"Fog!" Terrain called, peering around a bend in the road.

"Uh… Huh? Uh-huh!"

"You coming or are you waiting for Minnie’s next issue?!"

"Uh… Yeah! Coming!"

I took one last glance at the mess I’d left on Pinery’s land. My egret-crane hybrid figurine, now with a leg snapped off, sat in the folds of the bag on its side, staring up at me like an abandoned child.

"…Damnit, Foghorn… Get it together."


*****


"Is this mare actually serious?"

The walls of Castle Pinery weren’t so imposing up close. When they first came into view, the size and spread of the dark wooden boundaries immediately spoke of the amount of work that went into its construction. Unlike the houses in Pinery, it didn’t have any artistic carvings on its outside. It was all business. The only thing in it that was probably more flashy than practical was the largest pine tree I had ever seen, sticking out from its center, like an immeasurable being had plucked it from the earth and placed it there after it was built.

But up close, the castle bared its scars. There were growths of moss in the numerous cracks covering the walls. The door had knife-marks from children who had carved messages or scratched their favourite curse-words permanently in the wood. All that was missing were pairs of initials proclaiming love for each other inside anatomically-incorrect hearts.

Speaking of proclaiming love, Terrain was doing the opposite of that behind me for a certain captain of ours.

"She screams at us to hurry up. She throws rocks at us. And then we beat her here. Pegasi, I swear. They have no respect for us walkers." The lieutenant spat in the dirt and stepped on it. "And that's not even bringing up her little stunt at the river. My clothes are still moist."

Over the top of the mountain, against the final rays of twilight, the tiny, growing silhouette of a pegasus appeared.

"Here she comes now," I pointed out.

"Good," Terrain said, focusing his ensnaring emerald eyes on the mare in the distance. "I hope her ears are as clear as the space between them… because she’s getting an earful."

This was good. He hadn't noticed my absent saddlebags (probably because they didn't have anything important in them), and every second he spent looking away from me was a second he wasn't spending noticing that I was carrying less weight than normal.

Just about 800,000 seconds more to go. Give or take 80,000.

"Guys!" Minerva exclaimed as she arrived, so excited she didn’t bother to land. "You’ll never guess what I found up there!"

"Do you have any idea how lon—?"

The captain waved her hooves in front of the lieutenant's face until he stopped talking. "Holy crap, Terry! Shut up and guess already!"

Terrain let his complaints go with a grumble. "I don't know, Minnie… a large cemetery at the mountain’s peak or something? Maybe one that overlooks the entire country?"

Minerva landed. "What the what?"

"And did it have a large wooden statue of King Pinery the First, standing over the gravestones like some kind of postmortal sentinel?"

Minerva sat down. "'Kay, I know you're smart and everything, but how did you do that?"

Terrain went to retrieve something from his bag, and I braced myself. I didn't want anypony’s attention on our two-out-of-three bags. He drew the library book, and I exhaled.

"Mt. Foreverest. It has a dedicated chapter in this book. You should read it sometime."

"There’s really a cemetery up there?" I asked.

"It was so rad!" she exclaimed, suddenly looking directly at me. "Imagine being buried at the top of a mountain overlooking the whole freaking continent! What a way to… Where… in SHITTING HELL—!"

I tried to step back behind Terrain, but it was no use. Minerva followed me, leaving her mouth open, and drawing a circle in the air with her hoof.

"Where are your bags?" Terrain finished for her.

"I… don't know," I lied. I scanned all sides of my back, eating up the opportunity to avoid eye contact.

"My liquor was in there!" Minerva protested.

"Did you leave it at the restaurant?" Terrain guessed.

"Oh," I said. "Oh!" I whacked myself in the forehead. "It must be sitting in the booth…"

Terrain ruffled my hair. "Nice one, Private. Not a problem; we’ll get it tomorrow sometime. What was in there?"

"My liq—!"

"Oh, what, Minnie! Were you planning on getting plastered between today and tomorrow?"

"No, but there's nothing wrong with having the option!"

My superiors put all their attention on berating each other, and I had to pinch myself to make sure what had happened had actually happened.

They had bought it. And if any of us went to town to look for the bag, we would have no luck, so long as none of us looked down. I thanked Terrain (in my head) for giving me an out, because I was awfully close to letting the truth spill over.

I mean, I was going to come clean eventually. I promise I was. Once we were leaving Pinery, the success of our mission as fresh in our minds as the thought of returning home, I could tell them in passing, and we would all have a good, hearty laugh about it. 

But if they knew before we even got in the castle? They wouldn't find the humour in the situation. They'd get mad, not to mention disappointed, and then they'd be distracted during the mission! So I kept it a secret, for the good of Pinery and Harissa Honeycomb.

In case it wasn't obvious, that was mistake number two.
> 4 – These Wooden Walls
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The castle doors rattled. The sound of bolts being withdrawn from inside could be heard. With a high-pitched whine, the doors swung outwards at a moderate pace.

I threw my head left and right, at my friends behind me, and finally back at the opening portal.

"Did you knock already?" Minerva asked.

"No," I assured her. I hadn't even considered it.

The stench of pure, concentrated pinewood emptied out into the mountain air with a silent wheeze, and I blinked away a pair of tears. The sun had just ducked under the mountains, so all I could see inside was a faint, yellow glint that flickered as the crack in the doorway grew. I leaned in to get a better look, and noticed far too late that the light was bouncing off a slender, dirty tooth. It flew towards me without warning, along with the rest of the teeth in the set, and the bullmastiff who owned them.

The first bark shook the ground beneath me.

"ACK!" I yelped, throwing my hooves over my face.

The sound of a chain being pulled taut spared me. I peeked out to see the grey, short-haired dog snarling and chomping, oblivious to the collar holding it up on its hind legs. Its bottom tooth jutted out from the rest, sitting overtop of its upper lip whenever its mouth was closed, like a weapon being flashed.

"Guh…Good boy," I managed.

"Charles!" a strained voice called from behind the beast. "That’ll do!"

The dog’s ears flipped down, and it eased back onto the ground—its entire body gradually giving up the attack, save for its eyes. It backed away into the castle, lit only by a single candle, and sat to the left of the pony that owned the voice, and the pony that owned that Celestia-sent chain.

Contact #2. Commander Fellsaw. His three-worded description was admirable, but given the scars he had all over his hooves, the gash across the bridge of his nose, and the unwashed mane sitting over his eyes that made him look like a sea monster eyeing me through greasy kelp, it maybe should have said 'Beware of Fellsaw' too.

He patted the hound on its head with one hoof and scratched its chin with the other.

"Good boy, indeed," he sneered.

The dog swept its tail to one side and left it there. As it scanned us left to right, it did a double take on Terrain and began to growl. Its master followed its gaze, and it looked like the growl might soon spread to him.

Terrain narrowed his accented eyes at the pair, and tilted his head less than ten degrees. The flickering candlelight burned brightly in his pupils.

And it was at this point that I decided to take a glance at the pony holding the candle. The last member of the welcome party. 

I saw his colours, brown and blue, and my heartbeat tripled in an instant. It was already running fast from Fellsaw and Charles's unique welcome, but they were a budgie and a poodle next to this particular stallion: A groomed pegasus in a red robe lined with spotted-white fur, held together by a golden rope. And resting on his temples was a sparkling, yet modest crown made of wood and jewels.

My mouth hung open.

That was either the King of Freaking Pinery, or it was an awfully convincing impostor. And if it wasn't for the commander or his dog, I would be the closest living thing in the world to him.

I shut my mouth and swallowed firmly. There was no time to be in awe. It was my time to shine, or burn out trying.

It was time to do the talking.

"Forgive us for the surprise," the king spoke first (thank Celestia). "But my guards heard you behind the door and decided to alert me of your arrival." He chuckled and cast out his left wing, long and slim. "And it was the commander's idea to bring Charles, not mine," he claimed.

The king went silent, and when it was my turn to speak, I had a horrible epiphany.

I hadn't planned my greeting. With my missing bags hanging over my head like a ghost, I had been too distracted. Then again, even if I had prepared one, Charles would have barked it right out of me.

I dug in, gave the bejeweled figure and his colleague a quick bow, and got started.

"Yes."

No.

Was I serious? What kind of greeting was 'yes'? It left no way out! I had trapped myself with my first word!

"Hello!" I continued, getting it right the second time (when it no longer mattered). "Good tidings from Her Majesty, Princess Celestia!" I shouted.

Did ponies say 'good tidings'? Did they ever shout it?

I realized my hoof was weirdly extended in the air so I brought it down. I coughed to give myself time to think of what to say next, but I only spent that time wondering if it was obvious what I was doing.

"It’s a pleasure to have you," the king answered. The hound and its master stared at me with tinges of impatience and disbelief painted on their faces.

But the King wasn’t finished. "I am King Pinery II, and this is my most trusted guardspony, Commander Fellsaw."

The commander nodded to me. I nodded back. He cringed and shook his head. I looked away and shuddered out a breath.

Now I couldn’t even nod correctly.

"You've already met Charles," the king continued. "Don't worry about him… he’s all bark."

"…And no bite?" I hoped.

The king nodded a damn good nod. "Exactly. He prefers holding his victims down while someone else does the biting."

"...Oh."

"Someone like me," the commander declared. “Because I have to know… Why is the unicorn the only one without a sword?"

Oh, Celestia damnit. Not this question. Not this stupid, awful, dumb question. As if I didn’t have to answer to it enough back in Equestria.

"Yes, I was wondering that myself," the king agreed. "You haven’t dropped it, have you?"

"Uh…" I stammered. But then, in a moment of clarity, I realized that this question was way easier to answer in a foreign country. "Well, I… don’t have my sword license yet."

The commander scoffed. "You need a license to carry a sword in Equestria, do you?"

"Well… Of course," I explained. "You can't just let anypony walk around with such a dangerous weapon… They could hurt somepony, commander. Or… themselves, more likely."

The king liked my answer. I think. "My, such different customs we have," he noted. "Don't we, Fellsaw?"

"Pfah."

"Pardon me, Your Highness," Terrain interjected, strolling up beside me. Like when we were on the ledge, I relaxed a little. "But did you say your guardsponies heard us through the door?"

"Indeed I did."

"That’s interesting… We were standing a few paces away. And it’s not like we were yelling."

The king responded, "That doesn’t surprise me. These wooden walls have kept many things out over the decades that they've stood. Enemies, weapons, storms, are all no match for them… But they don't fare so well against sound. I think you'll find secrets are very hard to keep here."

Terrain scratched the space under his chin. "But not impossible, I'll bet."

"Nothing is impossible," the king said. "Surely that is one of Equestria's mottos?"

Terrain cracked a smile. "Probably."

The king smiled right back, but then again, he had been smiling the whole time since we arrived. His warmth was reminiscent of our own royal princess, but it was hindered by the cold stare of the old stallion accompanying him.

"Now, then," the king continued. "Um…"

Terrain nudged me in the shoulder. I rubbed it and gave him an inquisitive look. He gave me an even more inquisitive one.

"I didn’t quite catch your names…" the king said.

Oh, crap!

Names!

After he had introduced himself and Fellsaw, I was supposed to introduce us! Like, right away! How could I forget such an important part of the talking?

I smiled away the embarrassment and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I bit my lip.

Should I do descending or ascending order?!

I looked to Terrain for help, but my question was really hard to communicate with just a facial expression. I just needed something to go on—just the first word!

Terrain sighed. "Forgive—"

That would work!

"Forgive me!" I cut in. "I've… been so rude. My name is, uh… Foghorn, and my partner next to me is Lieutenant Terrain."

The king hummed and peered over our heads to our third member, who took the chance to stride forward and brush her subordinates to either side.

"And… this is our Captain, Minerva," I finished, silently praying that ascending order was appropriate.

"Hey," she said.

"So, you’re the captain?" the king said with curiosity. "I suppose you are quite the delegator."

Minerva cocked her head, pinching her gaze on the regal pony. "I can't tell if that’s an insult or a compliment."

Terrain whispered something in her ear. She scrunched up her nose and searched behind the Pinery ponies.

"What ladder?" she simmered.

King Pinery brought his hoof to his chest and released a tremendous laugh that carried on for several seconds. It was the kind of laugh that made you want to join in, but you couldn't when it was shaking your stomach so hard. "So, the rumors are true! Equestria really does export comedy!" he celebrated. "This is great news… we could all use a laugh these days…"

The king's smile vanished, and he quietly sentenced the conversation to death. The only sound that remained was the commander’s hollow wheezing. That was, until Charles started to growl at the quiet between us.

"Ah, you're right, Charles!" the king blurted, "I have yet to invite them in!"

Fellsaw shook his head.

The king fluffed his cape and stepped back, extending his wings like he was about to embrace all three of us at once. He seemed to have room to do it, too. "Please… it looks better on the inside."

We had to take his word for it. As we entered the wooden fortress and the king shielded the candle from the wind entering with us, the only thing we could see was the first few planks, illuminated by what little moonlight fell in through the door. I took a survey of everything I couldn't see, and even let out an impressed sound, just to be polite.

The king bowed. "I hope your stay will be worthwhile… for all of us."

Minerva affirmed, "We'll make sure it is."

She saluted. Terrain followed and I mimicked them.

"That is good to hear, Captain Minerva," the king said, but his smile was still absent. "You know… You're awfully young for a Captain."

My ears twitched.

Did I hear that right? I listened to it again in my mind a couple times to be sure. 

There was no doubting it. That was a challenge.

Just who did this guy think he was? Ruler of an entire country or not, that wasn't something you just said to Minerva the Brave.

"Be that as it may," I found myself saying, "the mare who stands before you is as accomplished as some more senior captains in our ranks aspire to be."

The king rotated his head. "Is that so?"

I puffed out my chest, making room for the words I was about to unleash. "Certainly, Your Highness. Speaking as a pony who has watched her grow from an academy freshmare into a fully fledged captain, I can assure you – nay, I can promise you – that her talents with weapon and guile are unmatched. And as her one-hundred percent mission record shows, she's not one anypony would want on their wrong side."

Now that was how you did the talking. So good it left everypony else unsure of what to say next. And definitely did not cause an awkward silence.

"High praise," the king eventually agreed. "But… I meant no offense. Your age and your rank say enough about you, Captain Minerva."

"Uh-huh," she concurred.

Nopony spoke for a few seconds. The closest anypony came was the commander, who released two emphatic coughs into his shoulder. I wondered if he was thinking about what to say next.

"Well!" King Pinery said, clapping his hooves together. "I trust you three are exhausted from the long journey. Would you like to take a tour of the castle now, or head straight to your bedding?"

"Tour," Terrain answered for us.

"Very good. Unfortunately, I will be taking the 'ladder' option." He chuckled to himself. "Commander?"

"Hm."

The king held out the half-burnt candle to his subordinate, who took it, but not right away. 

"Please make sure your new guardsponies are acquainted with the castle. I will speak to them again in the morning."

With that, the king made his exit, swallowed by the darkness in an instant. A pair of double doors creaked at the other end of the foyer, and then creaked in reverse.

Fellsaw waited for the doors to latch together. "Unicorn."

I tried not to react like he had just thrown a rock at me. "Um… Yes, Commander?"

"Close the castle doors," he ordered. "Then follow me, all of you."

The scarred pegasus placed the candle dish on his dog’s flat head, and the bullmastiff didn’t even react. The two of them pivoted to their right and down a hallway that was three ponies wide—the flame staying remarkably still between the tall grey ears of Charles the Terror.

"Amiable chap, isn’t he?" Terrain commented, trotting after them.

I turned to take care of the doors, but in my way, I found Minerva. She squinted at me like I was a bruised apple at the grocery store.

My breath caught in my chest.

"What's, um… What's going on?" I asked with a stupid, toothy grin.

"Hey, Fog, can you do me a favour?" she asked.

"...Yeah, Cap—Uh—Captain?"

"Take a deeeeeep, deep breath through your nose, Fog. And then tell me what you smell."

"Um… Yeah, okay."

It was an odd request, sure, but it was an easy one. I liked easy requests.

I shut down all my senses but one, and inhaled as far as I could, wincing as the aromas of the castle blended together in my nose.

"I smell… dinner, I think. Or at least, leftovers… They had something cheesy. There's… a bit of paprika coming from…. Somewhere… and over top of everything… is… just… a lot of pine wood."

I opened my eyes again. Minerva was thoughtfully nodding. It looked like I’d done a good job.

"…Why do you ask?"

Minerva huffed out a happy huff. "Oh, just wondering what my ass smells like."

"…Wh—?"

Her hoof shot to my mane and she yanked my head in, pressing her nostrils against mine. Still grinning from ear to ear, she snorted like a bull and I breathed it in.

"Ready to get your nose out of there?"

She released me and I fell on my rump. "S-sorry…" I stuttered. "I thought…"

"Just a small note. Other than that, y'know…” She dusted off my shoulders and patted me on the back. “G'job!”

My captain twisted on her hooves, leapt into the air and flew down the hall after the rest of the tour. I wanted to follow, but she was so fast that the darkness took her immediately. I let out a harsh exhale and started to find my spot on the floor downright comfortable. I could use a few seconds alone anyways.

"There's another one for the screw-up list," I counted. Then I remembered the entire conversation I’d just had with the king. "Make that another ten…"

I searched for something easy to do. Something that I couldn’t possibly end up on my list. A gust of wind barrelled in through the entrance, nearly picking me back up onto my hooves.

"Right. The doors."

Without moving from my seat, I enveloped the towering wooden assemblies with my magic and pushed them shut. By doing so, I succeeded in stopping the wind from pouring inside.

As well as the damn moonlight.

I waved my hoof in front of my face, and saw nothing.

"That's fine. I like the darkness anyways..."

I thought about opening the doors again to get my bearings, but on the off chance somepony heard them rattle open and closed again and realized what had happened, I rejected that thought, electing to sigh instead. Twice.

"Nice going, Foghorn."

A third sigh.

Sighing was how I spent my few seconds alone, and I regretted it, because it really only was a few seconds. As the sounds of hoofsteps and flapping wings faded away to my right, they started right back up again on my left. Only this time they were lighter, and notably more frantic. Panting settled in with these two sounds, and the three of them grew louder in unison.

"What now…?"

And then it hit me. Straight in my side, in fact—bowling me over onto the rough, wooden floor. A wave of feathers brushed the back of my neck and a crashing of furniture erupted from beside me.

The high-pitched voice of a filly cracked through the darkness. 

"Ah!"

"Ow!" I complained.

"What the—!" the filly’s voice cracked again. "Who's there?! And where is your candle?!" she berated, and I realized that the cracking I was hearing was the filly's actual voice.

"Where’s yours?!" I shouted back, a little surprised by how angry I came off.

"Okay, sorry, wow!"

The voice sounded hurt, and I felt instantly awful. I needed to keep myself in check.

There was a tapping on the wooden planks, and I was prodded by an outstretched hoof, feeling its way through the darkness and finding my shoulder. It rested there for a moment, and then starting tapping me with increasing speed and vigor.

"Hey, you!"

"Hey, me?"

"Are the um, the um, the um, the uhhhhhhhh, the Equestrians here yet?" the filly inquired.

I tried to retreat from the assault, but she was determined to keep striking me. 

"Would you… stop?!"

Miraculously, the filly followed my order, feeling around my chest instead of hitting it. 

"Our armor isn't… leather… Oh, shallots!"

The hidden hoof dug underneath my elbow, and the next thing I knew I was being dragged in what I was pretty sure was the opposite direction my friends went.

"Where are you...?" I began to protest, but I trailed off.

I was done fighting this stupid day.

We came to a stop, and the filly let go.

"Stand here!"

Her wings flapped (one of them hit me again), and in the next moment there was a whine of rusted hinges, and a burst of pale, white light enveloped me from above. I shielded my eyes from the moon, shining in from an open window, and rotated in the dimly lit hallway, searching for the filly.

"Whoa!" she cried from above me.

With a powerful thrust, she threw her wings up and slammed her hooves on the ground in front of me. She stuck her nose right up against the chevrons across my chest, and I'll admit it, my cheeks started to burn up a little. Because my attacker wasn’t a filly at all, but a fully grown mare with a voice that betrayed her age. Her body and mane were a solid shade of orange, except for the brown highlights in her short hair and the smattering of white freckles across her nose.

"Whoooooaaaaa!" she repeated, stepping around to view the half-sun on my shoulder.

"Um."

Her wonder faded. She threw her hooves over her mouth and squeaked. "I'm so sorry for yelling at you, sir!"

Sir. 

"That's alright," I answered. "I yelled a little, too… Uh…"

"Oh, names, right, sorry!" Her hoof shot forward and she put all of her teeth on display. "Prika!"

"That's okay," I assured her. "I should be the one introducing myself."

Did that sound conceited?

I shook my head clear. Or at least I tried. "…I’m Foghorn."

"Which Foghorn? Lieutenant? Captain? General? Admir—?"

"“It's—! Just… Foghorn."

The strange mare barely nodded, and her attention went right back to my armor. She tilted her head to get another angle. 

"Whoa…"

A rush of pride energized my muscles, and I realized that this wasn’t just strange. This mare was a stranger. And strangers were the perfect opportunity for practicing the talking. 

I needed all the practice I got before I met Contact #3. That was, if I ever met Contact #3. I very well might have missed her during the mission, and that would be okay with me.

But, practice! Practice was good.

I started by saluting to her, for some reason.

"Whoa!" she responded.

I put on my most rehearsed ‘noble’ voice and said, "It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mare."

Who in Equestria was Ms. Mare?

She put on a frown that was almost sarcastic, and mirrored my salute. "As I, you, Mr. Stallion!" she said in a deeper, but still cracking voice.

And that’s when the silence started. Ten whole seconds, we stared at each other, hooves raised to our foreheads like a couple of statues. She developed a smile that grew and grew in the silence, as she found something particularly funny about my inability to speak like a normal pony.

Small talk!

I asked, "Um… What do you do around… these parts?"

These parts.

What was I, from Appleloosa?

She guffawed at my question, and she had every right. "What, you can’t tell?" she said. She pinched the space above her head with her hooves and winked. 

The entire gesture was strange.

"I… really can't…. Ma'am."

Her hooves came together with a clap. "Oh." She looked over her shoulder, perhaps in the direction we'd come. “I… flew too fast again," she lamented. "Oops. Hey, pretend there's a chef’s hat on my head, okay?"

"So, you’re a chef?"

"Nope."

"N—…No?"

"I'm the sub-chef! Normally I’m the sous-chef. For Harissa! But…"

There was that vanishing smile trick again. Her eyes fell down so far I thought she might fall asleep where she stood.

I reached a hoof out to her, but realized I had no idea where to put it and brought it back in. "My apologies," I settled for instead.

The sous-chef woke up and hovered in the air defiantly. "No need! I'm only filling her shoes till she gets back!" she cheered. "So, hey, did you… come alone?"

"No… I'm with my Captain and Lieutenant. We were going to take a tour with the commander."

Prika blinked, and she did a full turn in the air. "…Whereabouts?"

"…I don't know."

"Oh."

Either awkward silences were following me around, or I was the problem. But what was I supposed to do? There's not always something to say.

"Ohhhhhhh." Prika put her hoof on my shoulder. A lot gentler this time. "It's so dark in here that you lost 'em, right?"

"Something like that. I guess."

"Yeah, I hear you. We actually used to have torches? Buuuuuut, they give off a lot more smoke than light, so we threw 'em all out and started using candles. Here! I'll help you find your friends, Mr. Stallion."

She landed – a lot lighter this time – and held up her foreleg like I should take it. 

I gave her a funny look. A look to which she was oblivious. Or maybe she just couldn't see it.

"…Okay, Ms. Mare."
> 5 – The Sunken Balcony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prika was the perfect kind of navigator. Not only did she guide me back to my friends with as little to go on as 'front hall and turn left', but she got me there as promptly as a mother dragging her colt to school after he'd slept in ten minutes too late.


She was a talker, too—regaling me with stories, tales and anecdotes of all the great ponies in Castle Pinery I was going to meet. I mean, every pony she mentioned just sounded like another pony I could fail to introduce myself to, but still! At least she was trying to distract me from the fact that I was running through a castle I had never seen (and still could not see) with only a high-pitched, disembodied voice to guide the way. Who needed a candle when you had a native pegasus to show you the way?


The answer is me. I needed a candle. Talented tour guide in tow or not, I was still happy to see the hovering ball of light bouncing off the two sets of armor that matched mine, even if that meant seeing the hunched-over commander and his loyal candle-holding dog.


I got right to work apologizing, but I was beaten to the punch by my new companion.


"Sorry!" she exclaimed. "I distracted him! He didn't miss much, did he?"


I wished I had met her first and not third.


Charles growled at me, and I came embarrassingly close to apologizing and correcting my thought to 'fourth'.


But no, Charles the bullmastiff was not psychic. He just hated me. Twisting on his paws, he galloped away from his master, muzzle pointed at me. The candle dropped out of the air and the chain skidded away from the commander, who elected to save his light source instead of me.


The dog leapt towards me, but Prika swooped in and caught him in midair like a professional hoofball player catching the winning throw.


"Hey, Chaaaarliiiiieeeee!" she sang, nuzzling her cheek against his. "I missed you too!"


The dog kicked and seethed—saliva dripping from both corners of its mouth. His tail, however, gave him away.


"You haven't missed anything," Terrain assured me as Prika held the bullmastiff up by its front paws and took him on a waltz around the group.


"That's good," I replied, breaking eye contact with him and Minerva as quickly as I could. It wasn't always easy to notice when you've inconvenienced your friends, but I had gotten very good at spotting it.


"I'd say he's missed everything," the commander interjected. "The tour is already over."


"Huh? But… you took us down one hallway!" Minerva protested.


"Two hallways!" the commander corrected, "And I'd say you've been downright spoiled. Because they are very typical hallways. Lucky for you three, you've seen one, you've seen 'em all."


Terrain frowned. "And… kitchens, barracks, storage rooms…"


"Oh, we have those, sure. But since you three will be patrolling the same hallways every waking hour of every meaningless day you spend here, I don't see a reason why I should show you anything else."


"Oh, c'mon, Commander!" Prika pleaded, still holding the beast in her grasp. "These guys are Equestrians! They're the real deal! They could help us find H—"


"PRIKA!"


The sous-chef dropped to the floor and released the dog, who cowered underneath her wing. But for all the shock Fellsaw had given them, he'd done the most damage to himself. He buckled over and coughed these horrible, sopping-wet coughs, over and over into his hoof. Charles crept towards him and sat by his side, and the commander patted his dog with a spare hoof when his lungs gave him a break.


"Fine… You want a tour?" he wheezed. "I'll give you a spoken tour. We have a throne room. Our guards train in the courtyard out back. There's a laundry room where you can wash the syrup and alcohol off of your little costumes."


I looked down at my chevrons. They were a bit dirty.


"We have a kitchen and dining hall for the royals, and a kitchen and dining hall for the rest of us. Breakfast is at sunrise. And hey!" he shouted with a crack in his voice, "There's a chapel in the dead center of the castle, so if one of you idiots gets yourself killed, you can still talk to each other there. Will that do?!"


Commander Fellsaw set the candle down on the floor. He needed both front hooves for the returning storm of coughs. Harder and harder he sputtered, like he was exorcising an inner demon all on his own. Terrain and I backed away, while Minerva stood her ground and let out an impressed whistle.


Prika inched forward and raised a hoof to the sickly stallion's shoulder. A hoof which he immediately smacked away. She gasped and stepped back, rubbing the offending appendage.


"I'm going to bed," the commander muttered as the coughs petered away. "If there aren't any other concerns."


"I have one," Terrain said.


"Make it quick…"


"You said 'if one of us gets ourselves killed'. Are we in danger, sir?"


The commander straightened his back and took in a long, shaking wheeze. "Lieutenant Terrain, was it?"


"Yes, sir."


"Let me ask you… What do you three plan on doing here?"


"Our plans are your plans, sir. We were told to follow your orders."


"Oh, yeah? Well I don't remember ordering you to lie."


"Sir?"


The commander drew two imaginary circles around me and my superiors. "I've met Equestrians before… Nosy, naïve little ponies hell-bent on saving the day… No matter how many walls you have to knock over to do it."


The damaged pegasus heaved a few times into his foreleg as the coughs threatened to return. He swallowed hard and glowered at the three of us, and even Prika, in succession.


"Listen carefully. The only way you three will be in danger is if you go snooping in places where you aren't welcome. You've arrived knowing nothing of our affairs, and I suggest you leave the same way. Do I make myself clear?"


"Not at all," Terrain answered. "What is it you think we might uncover?"


I wished Terrain would stop prying, but not as much as Fellsaw. He rolled out a kink in his neck and approached us, peering into Terrain's inert eyes and baring his teeth. "The thing about uncovering secrets, little lieutenant… is that those who hold them might not react kindly."


"Noted. That was my only concern."


The commander let out a tsk, but he was so close to Terrain that he might as well have spat on him. The lieutenant shut his eyes, but didn't respond otherwise.


With that, the commander snatched the candle off the floor and made to leave, dragging Charles's chain along with him. The dog ran to catch up, accepted the candle on his head again, and turned back to snarl at Terrain one final time.


"Commander, wait!" Prika called after him.


Fellsaw stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around. "…What."


"I'm just… I'm sorry about… Harissa."


That made him turn. "What are you apologizing for?"


Prika waved her hooves in the air. "N-nothing, Commander! I just meant… In general, I…"


The young mare couldn't help but trail off. Everypony in the room could fill in the blanks, though—including the commander, who let out a raspy sigh.


"I am sorry too, Prika," he said, voice shaking. "Harissa… She was a good friend of mine."


"Yeah… I know what you mean. If there's anything I can do to help… Just say the word."


The commander arched his back, took in the stale, piney air through a noticeably clogged nose, and blew it out through his mouth. "Okay," he replied.


"…Okay?" Prika asked.


"Yes. Meet me in the dungeon after you’ve tucked our little friends in."


Minerva poked Terrain and I in our cheeks with the tips of her wings. "They have a dungeon!" she whispered. "I repeat—!"


"Mute," Terrain said, resting a hoof on the captain's nose, and earning himself an elbow to the ribcage.


"Y—… You want me to help?" Prika stuttered.


"Yes. Unless you don’t want to?"


"N-No, sir! I do, I'll be there!" Prika saluted, and I could almost hear the spark of joy that let off in her heart.


As the commander and his nightstand-with-teeth made his way out of sight, our only light source went with him. I quickly opened a window up above to let in some sparse rays of moonlight.


"Please don't hold that against him,” Prika said when the stallion and his hound were out of earshot. "He's… going through a lot. He's normally pretty gentle with guests."


"Maybe forty years ago," Minerva jabbed.


"…He’s thirty-five," Prika and I said together. She gave me a curious look, which I avoided like a pro.



*****



Like any good show, the tour went on, even without Commander Fellsaw. It was also greatly improved as a result.


Who knew?


True, we had no light, but we did have Prika, who had a real knack for making the castle glow. Which was good, because although Princess Celestia had done a dynamite job (as usual) raising the moon, she couldn't exactly light up the castle from every angle. Still, it was a small price to pay to not being growled at. By Fellsaw or his hellbeast.


But although the commander was out of the picture, his presence still lingered in a way. For the Pinery Guard patrolled the castle that night.


I took to calling them the commander's 'spirits', because of the way they stalked the hallways, chattering away with each other when they were in the distance, becoming eerily silent as we passed them, and then starting up again when they were (almost) out of range. Plus, they all looked at us the same way Fellsaw did. Not that they wanted to look at us. There were only a few spirits that did, and they never failed to curse and look away afterwards like they had just disobeyed orders.


"Don't worry about them," Prika assured us. "They're just on high alert. You’re lucky I'm here!"


"They seem equally wary of you," Terrain commented.


He wasn't wrong. All four of us were being haunted.


"Uh… Yeah, I guess. I mean… I think… they just don't like where I'm standing? So to speak?"


Terrain hummed. "They liked Harissa."


"Yeah, exactly… There's just nobody like her. She knew everyone's favourite meals and… favourite jokes and… We all want her back. Most of all me."


"Why most of all you?" Terrain questioned.


The sous-chef's voice shook. "Uh… Did I say that?"


"Lighten up, Terry!" Minerva said. "Like seriously, if you could give off some light… would be super helpful. Fog, don’t you know any light spells?"


I gulped. "Uh… No. I mean, if I could see something, I could levitate it, which does a little bit, but…"


"You're cut," Minerva joked. Or at least, I was pretty sure she was joking. Until I remembered she definitely had the power to do that. And arguably the right.


"There's no need!" Prika announced. "Look over there!"


It was faint, but there was an opening in the darkness up ahead. A blurry, navy blue glow piercing the side of the black castle walls, like a portal to another world. Its edges gleamed orange and yellow.


We all sped up, drawn to the light of a perhaps-unattended candle. We found it, supported by the railing at the edge of a balcony. Unfortunately for us, that railing was also supporting the two front hooves of the candle's bearer, who was overlooking a sea of glorious, green trees below the castle. She was a unicorn.


A unicorn with a shining, blonde mane and fur as blue as the night sky above her.


And that's when a fresh dose of anxiety started to settle to the bottom of my stomach.


Contact # 3. Queen Nevergreen.


Once again, the drawing in the dossier didn't do the real thing justice. Because the pony scrawled on that page next to her name was any old mare. One you might pass in the street or see shopping at a local store without even noticing. If you saw this mare at the store? You would notice, and you would probably bow.


Not that you could get too close. She was protected on all sides by a long silken gown made of a translucent blue and accented with a thousand shimmering stars. It was thrice as large as it needed to be, covering most of the balcony, and even being munched on by the darkness inside the castle.


And perhaps it was the edges of the gown, made of thin, woven ribbons, curling upwards towards the ceiling like they were tied to it by invisible strings. Or perhaps it was the tips of her wavy hair, curving upwards towards the sky, as if she was loosely tethered to the stars above her. But as her image resolved, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was walking underwater.


An insignificant current passed her from left to right, slightly pushing the upturned bottoms of her hair back and forth, like bleached seaweed soaking in what little the moon could offer her from so far down.


I felt the pressure, shrinking my entire body. The lack of oxygen around me. I took one, tiny, tired, terrified step forward, and tried to breathe in, but found nothing on the ocean floor.


Terrain stood in front of me.


"I'll take this one," was all that he said, and I was able to resurface.


"Alright," I gasped. "…If you… want to…"


He approached the queen, taking care not to tread on her engulfing clothes, and I took four whole steps back, nearly bumping into Minerva.


"Good evening, Your Majesty," Terrain began. Already nailing his greeting.


The queen turned her head, and revealed a face almost completely hidden with makeup. It was quite the design. White, shining fog obscured her cheek, like a galaxy hidden in her fur. She had a tiny, arcing slice of a crescent moon to complete the picture, both points forming a pincer around her solid blue eyes—they themselves outlined by a thick coating of black eyeliner.


Or did her eyes just look like that?


When she met Terrain's gaze, she inhaled and spun her whole body around, casting a spell to throw most of her dress over her back. Her movement was quick, but somehow, she still seemed like she moved in slow motion.


She scanned each of us, pupils growing smaller with every new face. But when she got to Prika, she found a way to exhale. She let her dress back down, spilling it over the railing.


"Sorry for the shock," she said—her voice as smooth and dark as pine syrup. A faint smile appeared under her makeup, and she let out that small, relaxed hum that Princess Celestia made whenever she was in thought.


"I should think that's my line," Terrain said, transitioning perfectly into a bow that all four of us followed. "Apologies for sneaking up on you."


As we stood back up, the Queen gasped again and poked her head in Terrain's direction. "Your eyes," she cooed with wonder. "You are from Caspia."


Terrain shook his head. "You are mistaken, Your Majesty. My name is Terrain, and I hail from Equestria."


Nevergreen took in every detail in his armor. "So it seems. Tell me, Terrain… Is Equestria pretty this time of year?"


"Your question confuses me."


"Why?"


"Your Majesty, Equestria is year-round beautiful."


The queen's eyelids fluttered closed, and she hummed again. "I don't doubt you." She gradually spun back to the mountainside vista and placed her hooves back on the railing. "Do you think that my forest could be part of Equestria?"


"I think we are remiss without it."


Damnit, Terrain was smooth. I tried to figure out why I didnt suggest he do the talking instead of me. He was a natural! I wish I had a scroll and a quill to take notes, but then I realized I would look ridiculous if I was the only one doing it.


"May I ask you a question?" Terrain inquired.


"Certainly."


"Who are you mourning?"


The queen's candle holder glowed a dark blue, rotating gently in place. "Do I have to be mourning someone?" she answered. "Can I not… just mourn?"


"I think the queen of her country can do whatever she wants."


The queen turned her head to look at Terrain. It was a moderate pace, but it was noticeably faster than she'd been moving so far. "You think your eyes give your origin away," she said as the space between her eyebrows creased. "But it is your words."


Terrain didn’t reply. Not that he didn’t have an answer (having answers was kind of his thing), but he elected to shrug his shoulders and enjoy the view himself instead.


A cloud passed in front of the moon, turning the royal mare just that subtle shade darker. A strong gust of wind threatened to blow out the candle, but a magic blue shield protected it just in time.


Prika shifted her weight from her front hooves to her back. She opened her mouth twice, but nothing came out.


Meanwhile, Minerva found herself without reservation. "Hey!" she blurted. She stepped forward, nearly treading on the silk gown, but catching herself just in time. "Since we're all asking questions…"


The queen turned and smiled at Minerva. Slowly this time.


"Who made your dress? It's… something else."


"I did. I am a seamstress."


From a foggy piece of silk on her flank, I saw the needle and thread cutie mark. I didn't look long, though; staring felt unforgivably rude.


"Oh, yeah?" Minerva continued, a dangerous smirk forming on her face. "Hey, if I find Harissa, would you make me a dress?"


Terrain"s entire body revolted, and for a moment I thought he might have a seizure. He spun back to his captain and shot at her, "What is wrong with you?"


"What?!" Minerva shot back. "I'm just asking, y'know?"


The queen raised a single hoof, and everypony went quiet. "Miss…?"


"Minerva! Captain Minerva, actually."


"Minerva… Like the dragon?"


"I dunno if I like her. I've never met her."


A subtle hum buzzed in the queen’s throat. "Such charm," she commended. "Miss Minerva?"


"Yeah?"


"If you brought Harissa back to us… I would make you one thousand dresses."


Terrain's ears flicked back and forth.


"But I would not condone it," Queen Nevergreen decreed. "I don't want any of you to get hurt."


Minerva tapped her nose. "Loud and clear," she said with a wink.


"I am not joking," the queen maintained. "I don't want to have to tell your lovely Princess that something happened to you while you were here."


"She's pretty tough," Minerva said. "Almost as tough as me."


"I don't doubt you. But please," the queen pleaded, and to the audible surprise of everypony present, she bowed to Minerva.


"Uh... okay, sure," Minerva said, returning the bow in kind.


"Thank you," the queen said as she rose again. "And do be careful."


Queen Nevergreen announced her departure in the way only a pony of her stature could. Silently. She started by floating the candle holder into the air and over towards me, of all ponies. I wondered if I should announce my name or something, as neither of my friends had introduced me, but I decided that keeping my mouth shut was working really well. I replaced her levitation spell with my own, and nodded to her.


And it must have been a much better nod this time, because she nodded right back. I chuckled with satisfaction. She raised an eyebrow. I cleared my throat and nodded again. This time, I got nothing in return.


Ruined it.


The scintillating mare strode away from the balcony—the four of us all parting way for her after her first step. Terrain, Minerva and I bowed. Prika, however, did not.


"Cheer…" the sous-chef started, but she bit her tongue.


The queen halted. "Speak if you wish, Prika," she ordered politely.


"Sorry, I was just gonna say… Cheer up!" Prika squeaked. She didn’t make eye contact. "We'll find her… I know we will! We… can't give up."


The queen closed her eyes and nodded. She approached her subject, placed her hoof behind her neck and took her in a close embrace. Prika gasped, and her wings fell out from her back.


"Thank you for caring, little Prika. You know, you fill Harissa's shoes very, very well."


Prika's eyes glistened, and she found no way to respond.



*****



The grand tour of Castle Pinery ended with the Queen, and Prika never fully recovered. The shimmer from her warning tears never dried out, and we spent the last leg of our journey to our rooms in total silence—Prika thinking about whatever was bothering her, and the rest of us wondering the same.

She talked when we got to our rooms. Which was a real shame, because when I saw the freshly made beds in the corner of my eye, my legs started to buckle in anticipation. Meeting the ponies of Pinery had taken a lot out of me—even more than the ten hours of walking I'd put in that day. But for the distraught sous-chef, I would have been home free.

"Hey, you guys don't think it was me, do you?"

Terrain and Minerva had travelled just as far as me—I mean, obviously—so I knew they must have been pining for sleep too. But when Prika said that, they became awful curious.

Minerva countered right away, "We don't think what was you?"

"You don't think that I... kidnapped Harissa, do you?"

That set my friends off—Minerva with thickly veiled (but still observable) excitement, and Terrain with questions. Three of them, because that was all he ever needed.

"Why would it be you?" was his first.


"It's just... I mean, with Harissa… out of the picture…so to speak," she shuddered, "I kinda... I don't know how to say this…"


"You took her place?" The second question.


"Yeah, and with that comes... access… to the royal kitchen and... Harissa’s... payroll..."


"Don't think you earned it?" The final question.


"That's the thing, I don't! I still have so much to learn from her… I don't know, it's just..." The sous-chef's tears threatened to leak out faster than her words. "Everypony thinks it was... me... and—"


"It wasn't you," Terrain concluded.


"It... it wasn't?" Prika sniffed. She looked to Minerva and I for confirmation. We both just sort of shrugged.


"He's kinda good at what he does," Minerva admitted, much to Terrain’s amusement.


"Oh, that must have stung."


Minerva jabbed him, "Quiet, you. I can be nice."


"Oh, thank you!" Prika elated, rushing over to Minerva to give her a hug. She paid the same respect to the three of us in descending order and rubbed the last signs that she'd been crying off her face. "See you tomorrow! It's pancakes for breakfast!"


Minerva, Terrain and I crouched down in unison—our stomachs twisting in pain and regret.


"Okay!" Prika laughed. "I'll whip something else up!"


The sprightly young mare zoomed up the stairs and out of sight, leaving us with our single candle and our two rooms. One for stallions, and one not for stallions. When Prika was gone I had to fight with everything I had to not sprint into our room and leap into whichever bed was closer. I could worry about taking my armor off in the morning.


But I didn't want to seem too eager. So I waited for one of my superiors to move first.


Terrain filled the role. His back half faltered and he let the weight spin him around towards the doorway. I made to follow him in, but he was blocked off by a purple hoof nearly punching him in the chin as it slammed into the door frame. Even before she removed it, I knew she had left a dent in the wood.


Terrain grumbled and rested his forehead on the Captain's foreleg.


"Alright, Lieutenant," she said. "What've you got?"


"Tired legs."


"Besides that."


"A mosquito problem."


"Damnit, Terry!"


"I don't know, okay? We’ve met four of them."


"I'm not asking you to solve it!" Minerva clarified. "I'm asking you to tell us who we can trust!"


Terrain brought his head off the blockade. He pulled the front of his armor down and cleared his throat. "Alright. Prika. Can I go to bed now?"


"Who else?" Minerva persisted.


"That's as far as I can throw them right now."


"No shit?  Not even the King?"


Terrain grumbled. "Patriarchs…"


"What about the Queen?" I asked. "You seemed to get along pretty well."


"Oh!" Minerva gasped, waving her hoof in the air. "Pick me! Pick me!"

The way to our room was open for a mere second, and Terrain almost dashed for it, but Minerva flew in front of it just in time, still with her hoof raised.


Terrain rubbed his eyes. "I'm curious if Foghorn knows."


I gulped. "The Queen? She seemed… fine to me."


"Ooo! Ooo-damnit-oooooo!"


Terrain shook his head, "O-kay… The purple pegasus blocking the way to paradise…?"


"KNIFE!" Minerva shouted.


"Knife?" I asked.


"Knife," Terrain confirmed. "Strapped around her waist. Concealed by the dress."


"Or so she thought!"


I dropped my head in shame. Reason #7,647 that I was leagues behind these two. And the next reason was that I still didn't understand even after being told. "Does that mean we can't trust her, though?" I asked. "You guys have swords… I mean… she's probably scared, right?"


"She's terrified," Terrain said. "Celestia knows she has every right. Some poor mare was kidnapped in her castle. What if she's next?"


"So she can't be trusted?" I followed up.


"It's not that I don't trust her. It's just simple math. Knife plus scared mare equals… Well, that's an equation that's better left without a solution." He hissed at Minerva, "Now?"


She relented, but she definitely didn't do it right away.


"Alright, get some sleep, boys!" she said as she ushered us into our room. Terrain shuffled in, slid his bags off his back and kicked them under the frame of the closest bed. I followed and kept our candle behind him. It was mostly just a pool of wax and a wick now, but it was all we had.


Terrain hoisted himself up and collapsed flat on his side, and then groaned like he'd just been stabbed.


"Oh, great," he croaked, "Imported mattresses…"


"From where?" I asked.


"Tartarus."


I flipped the sheet off my own bed, and found that there was no mattress at all. Just a flat wooden plank at the same height as the bedframe. And on top of that plank was a smattering of hay that was downright sarcastic.


"You two slept like logs, on logs," Minerva reminded us. "I swear, if I hear bitching through these paper-thin walls…"


"I hope you sleep well, too, Captain…" Terrain murmured from inside the pillow.


"Yeah! Sleep well, boys. Big day tomorrow!" she declared as she creaked the door towards her. "Big, big, big day."


Terrain craned his head up—the doomed candle next to him reflecting in those ensnaring green eyes. "What's so special about tomorrow?"


Minerva stopped the door with just a crack left. Only the corner of her mouth could be seen, but its curl made the rest of her face easy to assume.


"Isn't it obvious?" she said.


Terrain looked at me. "No…"


The candle died between us.


"We're gonna catch the guy that kidnapped Harissa."

> 6 – Sludge I
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Y'know they caught the guy that kidnapped Harissa, like."

Minerva thrust her spoon into her bowl with a clink, and a spray of pasty-white porridge stung my left cheek and Terrain's right. And I mean stung. I set my own spoon into of my untouched serving and pushed the bowl away. I hoped Prika was just short on resources, because whatever bubbled in our bowls left a lot to be desired.

The spirit across the table gleamed at Minerva’s reaction, eating it up as happily as he ate up his mushy breakfast. "Mm-hmm," he continued. He pulled his spoon out of his mouth and wagged it at my captain's face. "Commander went 'n' nabbed 'im last night. Guess you lot'll be packin' it in early, eh? Cryin' shame, that."

Terrain wiped his face with a napkin. "Harissa's safe, then?"

"Nah, commander's still on that job. Won't take 'im long, though—never does. He's a maverick, that one. He'll get the bugger talkin'."

"Who was it?" I asked. I don't know why I asked that. We only knew two stallions from the castle, and unless it was the king, I wasn't going to know the culprit's name. Just a really silly question all around.

The spirit—who I took to calling Portly, as I never did catch his actual name—made an unsure sound. He nudged his partner—a much skinnier, less alert stallion whose head was seconds away from falling into his meal.

"Eh? Who?" the second spirit muttered. Drowsy was his name. Perhaps. "Wot you want?"

"You know that guy wot gone and kidnapped Harissa, like? Wot's 'is name?"

"Wot you on about?"

"Ahhh, you know, that guy! Pilfered Ol' 'Arry? You told me 'bout 'im, you did."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"You’re imaginatin' things, bruv."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Terrain brought his hooves down on the table, jostling everypony's cutlery. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't sleep well… Sir?" he addressed Drowsy, "Could you please tell us who the stallion was that kidnapped Harissa?"

The sleepy spirit stared at the lieutenant, then the captain, then me, growing more and more unimpressed as he went along. He probably wondered why we were even sitting with them in the first place, when there were other empty tables in the dining hall.

It sure wasn't my idea.

"You lot sh' be ashamed," he declared.

"Yeah," Portly agreed. "Wait… Wot've they done, then?"

"You sh' be ashamed too," Drowsy continued, digging his spoon into his meal. "This day 'n' age, honestly."

"Go on, then, wot've we done?"

"You've assumed it wos a stallion that went and took 'er. That’s wot you've done. D'you even know wot year it is?"

"You're 'avin' me on. How could a little filly carry a big girl like 'Arry around?"

"It wasn't a filly, bruv, it was a mare, like. And I'm not one fer the phy-sicks and the sir-cum-stances of how they gone and done it, all I know is who gone and done it."

"Go on, then."

Minerva and I leaned closer to the spirits, while Terrain brought a spoonful of porridge to his mouth.

"S'obvious when you think on it," Drowsy explained. "It wos that little filly who done took 'Arry's place, like."

My heart sank as far as Terrain's spoon, which crashed into his bowl and got Minerva back for the earlier spray.

"…Prika?" I muttered.

Drowsy nodded. "Commander locked 'er up 'n' even had time leftover to whip up our breakfast in 'er stead, like. Dynamite, he is."

"Run that by me again?" Terrain inquired, doing his best to ignore Minerva's subjugating smirk next to him.

"Ahhhh, that's right," Portly recalled. "Thought she deserved top chef's chair or wherever it is those guys sit."

Drowsy yawned. "Or girls, like."

"Aye, aye, or the girls, like."

Terrain pondered this new development. Or at least, he tried his very best, despite Minerva prodding the side of his face.

"Why are you so happy?" Terrain asked, making no effort to break free. "I thought you wanted to catch the kidnapper."

"Yeah," Minerva admitted, "but watching you be wrong is so much fun sometimes."

Rudely, Minerva and Terrain's banter was interrupted by the clamor of a dirty steel chain being thrown between us and the spirits. All five bowls jumped, and mine spilled all over the table. I didn't mind. I was fairly certain whatever was in that bowl had been dissolving my spoon. Besides, now with it all over the place, it was easier for a large and imposing grey dog to lay its head across the table and lick up what was left.

Maybe it would make him sick.

"Good morning, you three!" Commander Fellsaw shouted—his scars less pronounced in the dimly-lit dining hall than they had been in the candlelight. "Did you sleep well? I made your beds myself."

We all groaned, and his smile opened wide.

"Heard the news, I presume? It's too bad things didn’t work out like you wanted."

"Cryin' shame," Portly said. "S'what we were sayin', like. Ain't that right?"

Drowsy concurred, "Proper cryin', that shame."

"Shut up, you two," the commander ordered. "And stop with those ridiculous accents—you're natives."

"…Sorry, sir," Portly and Drowsy responded in sync. They picked up their breakfasts and hurried off to another table.

"So!" the commander continued. "Hope you three haven't unpacked yet. I imagine you'll be on your way soon."

"The king decides when we leave," Terrain recited from the dossier, even though he had left it with his bags in our room.

Charles stopped his licking and restarted his growl-at-the-lieutenant routine. Like no time had passed since the night before.

"Well, that's why I'm here!" Fellsaw elated. "Their Royal Majesties have requested your presence."


****


Would it be bad to say I was a little happy about the news? Granted, the girl that had been so friendly and hospitable to us was locked up in a cell in Pinery's darkest dungeon, but it's not like she was hurt or anything. And if she really did have Harissa stuffed away somewhere then who was I to say she shouldn't be in jail?

Besides, it sounded like we'd be on our way home soon! And although we hadn't done anything per se, nopony would be able to tell from our mission records. Not with the fresh red "SUCCESS" that would soon be stamped in them, that's for sure. All that was left to do was have one last chat with the King and Queen—two of the nicer ponies we had met the previous night—and there were no stressful introductions to worry about this time!

All things considered, I'd say it wasn't horrible that I was a tad happy about the situation. I even found a spring in my step that I forgot I had. 

It's just too bad it wouldn't last. And the first thing to hamper it was a stark realization about something the King of Pinery had said to us the night before.

'It looks better on the inside.'

An easy claim to make in the dark, but now that Celestia's sun was illuminating Castle Pinery from top to bottom (despite the overcast's best efforts), I could test that theory, and confirm that it was utterly misguided.

Planks were splitting. Walls were leaking. There were holes in the ceiling leading to nowhere but ashen sky. The railings along the staircase that led up to the throne room were partially torn on one side, and missing altogether on the other. The thought of the pleasant and finely groomed king and queen even living inside this castle let alone ruling it was bizarre. The scraggly, battle-worn commander and his loyal, deranged hound? They looked like they owned the place.

They acted like it too. Back in Equestria, if you ever wanted to speak with the Princess, no matter what your title was or how important you thought it made you, you knocked on the throne room doors. When we arrived at the towering, decades-old portal leading to Pinery's throne room, Fellsaw just opened it, ushered us inside, and shut the doors behind us. He did not follow us in.

The inside of Pinery's most private room was a lot like the rest of the castle, except it was somehow even worse off. The ceiling was no longer missing—the pieces of it could clearly be seen strewn about the floor, or hanging from the openings they were supposed to seal. Fallen pieces of wood had torn the (formerly) red carpet, while other tears in the fabric had no discernable origin, just like the stains of different colors all along its length.

The highlight of the room had to be the royal couple—still wearing the same furred cape and engulfing gown from the night before. When the doors latched shut, the royals snapped to attention and got off their thrones—each missing the inside legrest.

"Please, forgive the mess," the King said as they approached. "We haven't had much time to clean lately."

"We heard the news," Terrain replied after our bow. "Does this mea—?"

The king's front hoof shot upright in the air. He peered past us to the tall, wooden doors, where a pair of thin shadows rested underneath. A few seconds passed, an angered sigh could be heard, and the shadows disappeared to the sound of heavy hoofsteps and soft pawsteps.

"Okay…" Terrain intoned. "What's going on?"

That question had to be asked. If not by Terrain, then by Minerva, or even me. It was too curious. Too pressing.

But if I had the ability to go back in time and change just one tiny thing about our mission, it would be to make sure none of us ever asked that. The question itself wasn't a big deal, but the answer. The answer changed everything.

"Harissa Honeycomb," the king started. His jaw quivered. He mouthed the next two words instead of saying them. The Queen laid the side of her face across her husband's back and withdrew a tissue from a pocket in her gown. The king inhaled, exhaled, and finished. "…Harissa Honeycomb is dead."

The throne room wasn't big enough for those words. I could swear I heard them echo.

The king's eyes watered, but he bit his lip and forced them to dry out. His wife gently removed a tear from her face with a wisp of magic.

I'd never been told something like that before, so I hadn't a clue what to say. Maybe I wasn't supposed to say anything, but I also didn't know what to do with my face.

So I did what I always did. I looked to my friends for guidance.

Terrain was sullen, the point of his hoof pressing hard on the bridge of his nose. Minerva, meanwhile, let her mouth hang open, while her nose wrinkled further and further until she looked ready to draw her sword on whoever spoke next.

I couldn't use those expressions. They were so determined. So I just looked down at my hooves and waited for something, anything, to shatter the silence.

Terrain obliged. "That's not the commander's take on it," he pointed out. "What makes you so sure?"

Queen Nevergreen inhaled and shouted, "Because we buried her!" Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. She floated her tissue up to her face and quietly apologized, while the king brought her closer with his wing.

"She found the body herself," he explained.

A particularly thick cloud passed in front of the sun, dimming what little light reached the throne room.

Terrain cleared his throat. "Why do I get the feeling we're the only ones you've told?"

"Because you have good instincts, Lieutenant," the king answered. "We only hope you will continue to keep this a secret."

Minerva's teeth shot closed, but her mouth stayed open. "Why?" she snarled, surely only seconds from breathing fire. I sidestepped twice away from her.

"Because we don't know enough," the king replied. "We don’t know who. We don’t know how. And we have no earthly idea why."

"And you want us to find out," Terrain surmised.

"We need neutrals," the king elaborated. "I trust you understand that there is a… discussion occurring behind the scenes here in Pinery. The discussion of our… possible… assimilation into Equestria. We have not told anyone of Harissa because we don't want her death to become political. It could have been an accident; it could have even been just a… sudden death with nobody to blame for it. But on the off chance it's not... Look, I know this is not what you signed up for, but would you three be able to help us?"

Terrain began to ponder. Minerva continued to glower. I, meanwhile, held whatever petrified expression I was holding, seconds away from turning on a bit and running away as fast as I could.

I didn't belong there. I was in over my head. A few seconds ago the only things weighing on my mind were a few botched sentences, some embarrassing nods, and a pair of lost saddlebags. And those thoughts were heavy. How was I supposed to deal with this?

The answer was simple: I couldn't. I was irrelevant, and I don't mean that in a self-hating way. I got cats out of trees and taught new recruits how to tie knots! I was not a life-or-death-scenario pony!

Whatever I was doing with my face now, Terrain noticed. His knife-like eyes stuck on me, and all I could do was squirm. He nodded at me. I nodded back, although I wasn't sure what for.

He turned to Minerva next, who also paid him a nod. And I realized what I had just signed up for.

"Well, alright," Terrain said to the king, battering my nerves. "We'll look into it. What can you tell us?"

"What?" I whispered. Nopony heard me. Or maybe I was being ignored.

"It happened… last week," the king recounted. "We had organized a dinner between ourselves and… and the commander. To settle some of the tension between us."

"Tension," Terrain noted. "What tension?"

"Just… tension, is all. Anyways, you see—"

Terrain waved a hoof. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, you're going to need you to do better than that."

I gasped. I shuddered in excitement. I'd never heard Terrain say anything more relieving in my entire life. That sharp, determined response was a beautiful reminder of something I still had going for me. 

Our Priorities. Page 3 of that life-saving dossier.

Priority One didn't tell us to listen to the king's orders. Priority One didn't instruct us to find Harissa at any cost (or in this case, her killer). Priority One was simpler. 

Keep each other safe. Every dossier had it, written right at the top of Page 3.

Minerva's angry glower, Terrain's courage to interrogate royalty—it was all in service to Priority One. I had nothing to fear with these two ahead of me. As much as a killer on the loose was a killer on the freaking loose, I knew three things: Terrain would find them, Minerva would catch them, and I would be safe so long as I stayed close.

I took a deep breath, stepped back towards my friends, and remembered why I was there.

To learn from them.

The king stuttered, even treating Terrain with a rocky stare. "The tension isn't relevant to Harissa."

"What do you think?" Terrain asked the Queen.

She chewed the inside of her lip and looked away. "We disagree with him… on the assimilation," she uttered, avoiding her husband's eyes.

"Alright, then," Terrain accepted. "Please continue, Your Majesty."

The king sighed and gathered himself. "The dinner was Harissa's idea, and she catered, as always. Her best-cooked meal and most selectively chosen wines. Before dinner was served… we found her in the kitchen."

"May we see this kitchen?" Terrain interjected.

"You may… Right this way."

The king cantered to a pair of double doors at the end of the throne room, followed closely by Terrain, and the still-scowling Minerva. Nevergreen and I were last, both caught in our own separate trances. Hers was focused on the torn carpet, while mine was on her.

She broke free and got to her hooves, pulling her gown together so she could walk easier. In the process, a translucent piece of her dress passed her right hindleg, and I caught a glimpse of her weapon. A sheathed dagger with a handle shaped subtly like a pine tree.

She adjusted her dress and watched me knowingly. I pretended I hadn't been looking, definitely didn't fool her, and listened to her leave the throne room.

And then I remembered my safety was getting away.
> 7 – Sludge II
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harissa's royal kitchen was in the best state of anywhere we'd been in Castle Pinery. Empty were the redwood countertops around the edges of the room that sat on stacks of shelves and cupboards, and sparkling was the pinewood island in the center of the room that sat over the drawers and pantries. The floors were spotless, too, if a bit sticky. 

There were no pots and pans out of place (or out at all), no food scraps had been left lying around, and there wasn't a single lingering smell of leftovers—rotting or otherwise. The only objects in the room that you could move with bare hooves were the two hard-looking chairs on the room's left side of the room, sitting perfectly aligned, as far away from the shreds of light coming in from the room's only window. 

The king explained that when they found Harissa’s body, he took her up to Mt. Foreverest and, in an effort to curb her oncoming panic attack, told the queen to clean the kitchen to keep herself busy. That explained the emptiness, and the faint aroma of cleaning supplies.

The mares took to the chairs. The queen sat with her side against the wall, turned away from the rest of us, clutching the shoulders of her gown with either hoof. Minerva plopped herself in the other chair, slinging her scabbard off of her shoulders and letting it thunk onto the floor. She threw her eyes back and forth between Terrain and me, like we were about to do something wrong.

Terrain waltzed towards the island in the center of the room and sniffed the countertop, either not noticing or not caring that the King and I were watching his every move. 

"She was, um... She was here," the king said, pointing underneath the island. "She was…"

"Beg pardon, Your Majesty," Terrain interrupted, "but if it isn't too much trouble… I'd like to hear from the one who discovered her."

The queen gasped slightly, and puller her shoulders further in.

"I don't think that's necessary," her husband said. "The first thing she did was call for me."

"It's fine," the queen managed. "If it will help…" She pushed herself out of the chair, crept up to the island and used it for support. "My husband and I were at the table. She… seemed to be taking a long time, so I came to check on her… and I found her here. She was s-so… still. Sh-she could have just been asleep, if not… for her eyes… Open wide, s-staring straight ahead… as if she…"

"Your Majesty," Terrain stopped her. "Those aren't details you have to revisit. Could you tell what happened to her?"

"N-No… Not at all. No… wounds… or blood, or… anything."

King Pinery weighed in, "It must have been a spell of some kind."

Terrain raised his hoof just like the king had to silence us earlier, and it had the same effect on His Highness himself. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have Terrain's confidence.

His investigation continued. "Anything out of the ordinary? What about the meal?"

"It was all ready…" Nevergreen tapped the top of the bare island. "The food and drinks were lined up and everything…"

"What did you do with them?"

The king interjected, "It couldn't have been the food. Harissa was on strict orders to never taste test anything."

"It's alright," Nevergreen said. "If you must know, Terrain… I threw it out. It would have gone out for compost the next day."

"Drinks too?"

"Er… No." The queen tread lightly over to the window, shut tight with a small, metal lever arm holding the two panels together. She barely lifted her hoof to gesture to it. "…I tossed them out here."

Terrain approached the window and wasted no time flicking the arm up and throwing the panels open. He put his forehooves on the sill and peered out. From behind, all I could see was grey sky and pine trees, extending outwards forever. He looked up, left and right, down, and did a double take on the last one.

"…Uh-huh," he murmured.

The king followed and tried to peer over Terrain's shoulder. "Have you found something?"

Terrain nodded. "Sure did. Bad news, Your Majesty. Harissa disobeyed orders."

"What?" The king pushed Terrain out of the way. He scanned the same directions, and stopped cold on the 'down' part. "What in the world…?"

The queen took a careful step towards them. "What… What have you found?"

They didn't answer her, but they stepped aside to give her a turn at the window. She only had to look for two seconds before her hindlegs buckled.

"Dear…? Dear!" The king and the lieutenant caught her before she collapsed. Her husband carried her over to the wall next to the window and sat down with her, wrapping her with his wing and his cape. "This is too much. I'll get you to bed."

The queen pulled the velvet closer and shook her head. "No… I—… I'll stay. If it will help, I will stay."

My curiosity got the best of me. I snuck over to the window to get my own look, and looked straight down. I had to stop my stomach from turning at the sight of the three-storey drop. Turns out the fear of heights that Castle Road gave me had stuck.

The forest did not meet with the castle directly. There was a good twenty yards of empty space between the walls and the trunks, as if the trees didn't want to get too close. Filling the gap was a patch of grass—green and vibrant as an Equestrian field, save for a red stain patterned into the grass directly beneath the window. Well, I say it was red, but part of it—just about a third, actually—was painted jet black, and totally wilted. I stared at the ruined patch, and my eyes burned.

Maybe the trees were smart to keep their distance.

Nevergreen held herself closer, shaking like a bluebird in a blizzard despite the warmth of the cape. "Is that… what happened to her insides…?"

"Not a nice way to go," Terrain said.

A harsh breeze stormed through the space between the castle and the trees. The black patch of grass lost several shreds of itself to the wind, like a disintegrating feather.

I stuck my nose further out. "Um. Is the black part...? I mean, is it kinda pointing—?"

"Shhh-sh-sh-shhhhh…" Terrain shushed. "I'm getting to that." 

He started a saunter around the kitchen, opening cabinets and cupboards as he went. He ignored the contents of the first three cupboards before restarting his inquiry. "So, burning question, where was the commander when all this was going on?"

The king's ears flicked. "He wasn't here yet."

Terrain froze reaching for another cupboard. "He arrived after dinner was made? Why was he so late? There you are…" He hoisted out a large jug plugged with a cork, and placed it on the island.

The king looked at his wife and then back to Terrain. "…I never got the chance to ask him. Nevergreen told him she'd been kidnapped. Taken out the window. So he ran out of the castle, saying he was going to find her. Isn't that right?"

The queen nodded slightly.

"What a nice guy," Terrain mumbled. "So how long before he gave up?"

The royal couple watched Terrain, and the king answered his question. "I'm not sure... Wait." He lifted his head and glowered at Terrain. He made to scramble to his hooves, before remembering he was supporting his queen. "No!" he shouted, stopping Terrain as he reached into another cupboard. "Do not for a second think that he is involved in this! I've known him since we were foals! And I won't have… you…"

He trailed off when he noticed everypony staring at him.

Terrain looked at the patriarch quizzically. "Did you say you weren't sure?"

"…What?" the king replied.

"Did 'Commander Dependable' not report back to you after he couldn't find her?"

The queen lifted her eyes and stared into the distance, shaking her head slowly.

The king stamped his hoof. "It wasn't him. And it wasn't Prika, either. Please focus on finding the real culprit here, Lieutenant."

"…Alrighty, then." Terrain reached back into the cupboard he was so rudely interrupted from searching, and pulled out a set of three wooden cups. He set them down next to the jug, uncorked it, and started doling out crystalline water evenly into each cup. "Foghorn," he said mid-pour.

"Ah… yes, Ter—… Lieutenant?"

"Tell Their Majesties what you were about to tell me."

I gave the grass one more glance to make sure I remembered it right. "Um… The black part is pointing out to the left… Kinda? I mean, I could be imagining it, but—"

"For this next trick!" Terrain interrupted, lining up his filled cups in a row. He lowered his head and reached a hoof over to the queen, who shrank back. "I'll need a volunteer."

Queen Nevergreen hesitated, but eventually nodded to her husband and obliged. She stood slowly and shakily—with the king supporting her every step—and let Terrain guide her to the cups.

"Let's say," Terrain continued, waltzing over to the chair next to Minerva and plopping down. He crossed both pairs of his legs to mimic her. "For example, that you had to throw three glasses of water through a window. All hypothetical, of course…"

He noticed Minerva bobbing one of her hindlegs over the other, so he started to do the same. She stopped.

"…How would you do it, Your Majesty? How would you expel the water?"

The queen looked to her husband, who could only shake his head and shrug. Her dark blue magic enveloped the three glasses, and she carried them over to the window, finding the strength to walk without an aide.

She lined the cups in a row, looked back at all of us one last time, and then chucked the liquid out the window. The middle cup went straight out, while the other two angled slightly away from center.

Terrain shot out of his chair and rushed her, snatching the left cup out of her magic and holding it up high. She stuttered and stepped back. Her husband approached him, likely to ask what on earth he was doing, but again, Terrain stopped him with a raised hoof.

"I know you were probably very shocked during all of this," he spoke to the queen. "And with shock comes adrenaline, and with adrenaline comes a very good memory."

"…A-and?"

"Whose glass… was on the left?"

The queen swallowed. She and Terrain focused their intense, shrouded eyes on the empty cup, as the latter pushed it closer to the former. Nevergreen pursed her lips and shook her head.

Terrain eased up. "Here's a hint… it was yours."

Nevergreen didn't react at first. But after a quiver in her lip and a wetting in her eyes, she started to crumple like paper. "That's..."

"That's preposterous!" the king shouted, rushing to the weak mare's side and practically wrenching her away from Terrain's deduction. "It must have been my glass! Why would anyone go after my Nevergreen?"

"He's right," the Queen realized. Her eyes overflowed. "It was mine, I remember... Oh, Harissa..."

Terrain merely shrugged his shoulders. He carried the offending cup back to the island as the king and queen sank into a royal pile on the floor. He passed the jug and emptied the rest of the water into his cup as Nevergreen sunk her head into her husband’s mane and sobbed.

Terrain took a swig of water and sat back down next to Minerva, who only stopped glowering at him when he reached the chair next to her. I trotted over to them, partly to stay in their vicinity, and partly to get away from the sadness by the window.

Terrain lifted the cup to Minerva. "Hmm?"

She didn't respond.

"You’re a quiet one today. I guess this is heavy stuff, isn’t it?"

"Not to you, clearly," Minerva commented.

Terrain wriggled around in his armor and sighed. "I saw worse when I was a kid."

"…Basically tortured that poor girl."

"I'm getting information. If you cared, why not stop me?"

"…You're getting information." Minerva got up from her seat and put her sword back on. She tightened the straps as far as they could go, and then tightened them further. "We done here?"

"For now, yes," Terrain replied.

My friends looked at me.

"...I'm fine, yeah. Just a little... in shock still..."

"Then let's go," Minerva declared. "The three of us need to have a little chat. Somewhere where there's clearer air."

Before we could slip out, the king noticed us. He set his wife down next to the wall and cantered over to us.

"I want to apologize for all of this," he said, blinking fast. "I know this is not a pleasant development."

Minerva recoiled. "This isn't a development."

"I… I beg your pardon?"

Minerva idly ground her hoof into the floor. "You knew this from day one. You knew this when you asked Celestia to send help, so nothing new's happened. I mean… with all due respect, or whatever." She tried to leave, but the king stepped in front of her, eyes widening and lips pressed together. Then, without warning, he bowed to the three of us. He actually bowed.

"I am terribly sorry. I should have been more up front with this," he admitted.

"It's fine," Minerva said, sounding entirely unconvincing. "I just wish these two were wearing better armor."

I almost choked on the air. "Something's wrong with our armor?" I looked down. Not a thread or piece of leather out of place. Just a syrup stain or three.

The king regained his composure and stood up tall. "If that is your only concern, you may borrow some of ours. I promise it's not made of wood."

Minerva crinkled her nose. "That’s really nice and all? Buuuuut…"

"Too obvious," Terrain said. "Don't want the killer to know he should be wary of us."

"...Yeah, what he said."

The king somehow bowed even lower. "I thank you graciously for your help. If you find anything—anything at all—do not act on it. Come talk to us first."

"Roger, roger," Minerva said. "We'll keep an eye out."

Minerva and Terrain flanked the king on either side and disappeared behind him. I tried to follow, but had trouble picking a side. The king tried to get out of the way, but we kept moving in the same direction.

"S-sorry," I murmured when we finally got it right. I sprinted out after my friends, already a whole room away. "Guys? …What's… What's wrong with our armor?"


****


Captain Minerva sat against the railing next to the stairs outside Castle Pinery's throne room—her long tail and braided mane scattered inside the gaps between the posts behind her. She chewed on one of her own feathers—still attached to her wing.

"Are you… okay?" Terrain asked.

"No, Terry. I’m not freaking okay."

"Why not? We have our mystery. There's a bad guy to catch. Isn't this what you wanted?"

Minerva spat out her wing. "NO! This isn't the same thing anymore, and DON'T act like it is!" She started idly flicking her sword in and out of her sheath. "Kidnappings are easy, Terry. Half the time they're just idiots who don't have a clue what they're doing, just trying to get some shitty ransom with empty threats. This? This is somepony ready to kill to get their way. And we don’t even know anything about who they are!"

"I wouldn't say we don't know anything," Terrain responded, placing his hoof on her sword so she would stop fidgeting.

Minerva paid her lieutenant a growing smirk and a raising eyebrow. "Do you know something…?"

Terrain smirked right back. "I wouldn’t say that either."

Minerva stood up. "Do you know everything?"

"I'd say I'm at 95%."

"...Does that last 5% have an E.T.A.?"

"Erm...6 o'clock."

"...That soon?"

"No, Minnie, as in your six o'clock."

"Why the shit would our clocks be diff—?"

Terrain grabbed the captain by the half-sun on her shoulder and spun her around.

"Oh. That six o'clock."

Ascending the stairs to the throne room was our scarred, sneering, gracious host. He had put on some clothes—a set of shiny silver armor, donned with pine trees all around the collar. And stuffed inside that collar was a roll of papers that looked awfully familiar.

"You know what I like about you three?" the Commander buzzed as he approached. "You come with instructions." He pulled the papers out of his collar with the tip of his wilting wing and unfurled them in front of us. Minerva joined Charles in a guttural growl.


TRG-EFK
INCREASED SECURITY IN PINERY: DOSSIER
OUR MISSION NUMBER: 16-7648


"You went through our shit?!" Minerva barked. Charles barked right back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Fellsaw responded. He shook the dossier, allowing all the papers to fall out but one. The contact list, with his portrait painted right in the center.  "Did you want to talk to me about privacy?"

Fellsaw let go of the last page. He made a small tsst noise, and before it could hit the ground, Charles speared it with his emancipated tooth and began tearing it to bits. When he was finished, he moved on to the other pages.

Fellsaw clapped his hooves. "So! Did you have a nice little talk with Mr. and Mrs. Pinery? What did they say…?"

"Just formalities," Terrain lied. "Wanted to make sure we were settling in okay. Now if you'd excuse us… we have some pointless halls to patrol."

Minerva tried to walk down the stairs on the commander's right (there was a hellbeast on his left), but before she got to the first stair, the commander thrust his scarred foreleg into it, splitting the plank in half.

"GOOD NEWS!" he boomed. "I've had a change of heart. Your little manual tells me that one of you is quite the accomplished fighter."

Minerva stepped back, unable to hide the twinkle of pride in her eye. "That depends who's asking."

"…I didn't... ask anything, but if you are so talented, then perhaps my guards can learn something from having you attend this morning's training drills. Whaddya say, Mrs. the Brave?"

This was another time when I thought the answer was obvious. Especially for anyone who knew who Minerva was. A chance for her to get into a fight, while simultaneously teaching others how to do it properly? 

Sign her up.

But she didn't react like herself this time. Instead, she backed a single step towards Terrain and I, so that we were all standing in a line.

"Can these two come?" she asked.

The commander laughed and pointed at me. "Well, he can't! He's unequipped!"

I fought back the shock that went through my body, and I tried not to break our line. It was a good line.

"Then I'm not teaching your kids shit," Minerva declared.

The commander smiled so hard his front teeth appeared. "Why?"

"Because I'm not comfortable with it."

"Oh, is that right? I didn’t read the part in your little manual that said you could wussyhoof around things you found uncomfortable."

"That's the thing about me," Minerva said, stepping out of the line and getting snout-to-snout with the commander. "I don't always follow my instructions."

"Indeed. You must be defective."

Terrain squeezed his foreleg in between the two pegasi and pushed them apart. "Okay, let's just… take a step back here. Training sounds like fun, right Captain?"

Minerva sucked on her teeth. "A little."

Terrain patted her on the back. "Then let's do that. We're all friends here, nopony needs to… commit assault."

"I'm glad to hear it," the commander claimed. "But I'm still not taking He Who Has No Weapon."

My head dropped.

"You got something else he could do?" Terrain asked.

My head rose.

"Not overly. What are his skills?"

That was a very interesting question. I listened carefully to my friends to hear what they would say. That was, until I realized everypony was looking at me.

"Oh, uh…Skills, right." There had to be something. I knew I was kind of good at a few things, but I didn't know anything I would call a skill. "Uhhhh—"

The commander rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't strain yourself… How does rooftop lookout duty sound? You can even see the courtyard from up there, where the rest of us will be doing something of value."

"Sure!" I said. That sounded like it was my speed. "But, um… just one question?"

Terrain and Minerva had now both gotten a chance to get up close and personal with Commander Fellsaw. And for some reason, just by saying I had something to ask, he decided it was my turn. I held my breath as he pressed his nose against mine. I couldn't say what he smelled like, but whatever it was, it was making my eyes water.

"Go on, boy… What would you like to know?"

"Uhp…Uh… What will I be… looking out for?"

"…Invaders."

He withdrew from my personal space, but it was ten more seconds before I started breathing again.

"Spectacular," he said. "We all know our place. See you two in the courtyard."

With that, he yanked Charles's chain, and the commander and his dog stomped down the stairs, shaking the floor underneath us with every step. They disappeared around a corner, and I found room to breathe again. 

Terrain came over to me and rubbed the back of my neck. "Hey, at least he didn't spit in your face."

His words kind of did.

"Terrain," Minerva blurted, pointed like a bloodhound in the direction the commander had gone.

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Was it him?"

"No spoilers... Not until I'm at 100%."

"And what do you need to get there?"

Terrain tapped a hoof against his chin. "By pissing off the Commander as much as we possibly can."

Minerva sneered and licked her teeth. "Oh, I think can do that."

"Don't be so modest; you're a natural."

Minerva spun towards me and I flinched. She put her hooves on my shoulders. "Fog?"

"...Uh, yeah?"

"The only reason I agreed to that is because you'll be in earshot. Keep your head down and holler if you need us, got it?"

I saluted "Of course!"

"Good. Terrain?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"We've got dukes to put up."

"Hot diggity."

As the two went the way of the commander, I was left alone again. It was at this point that I noticed it was happening an awful lot. I wondered if it was my fault. Like maybe I wasn't enough of a go-getter to immediately know where I was going when my friends weren't around. What could I say? Sometimes I just needed a kick in the rump.

I would get one, thankfully, when the throne room doors clattered around and swung open at a leisurely pace. But not so leisurely that I could avoid getting bumped.

"Ah!" I gasped as I swiveled away from the doors—glowing a dark blue.

"Ah!" the queen responded in kind, releasing them. She clutched the front of her dress close to her and stared at me like I had just jumped in front of her in an alley.

I saluted, then remembered that royalty was for bowing, not saluting. "…Hi, I mean… Good evening, Your Majesty."

It was barely 10 A.M.

"…It's fate," she said back.

"What's fate?"

Queen Nevergreen pulled the collar out from her neck, and something glowed inside her dress. I looked away, not entirely sure what was going on.

She pulled out a small silver key from her dress, tied around her neck by a loose-fitting string. She pulled the string over her head, unraveling her ensnaring blonde hair along the way, and held the tiny key between us with her magic.

"Here," she said, placing the key around my neck. "I wasn't going to give you this, but… I think our meeting here is fated."

I shrunk my neck into my body as she tucked the string under my armor. "What's this for?" I asked.

"It's the master dungeon key. It will open the main door and everything else inside."

I realized exactly what she was doing. "You want me to release Prika."

Nevergreen blinked. "Er… No. That might not be a good idea. Not yet, anyways."

I realized nothing. "Then…?"

"The lockers are in the dungeon," she explained. "One is assigned to each member of the Pinery Guard. The largest one on the left… is Fellsaw's. I don’t know what you will find… in any of those lockers, but please, have a look."

I gulped. That sounded like a huge task. Not in terms of time taken, but in terms of weight. "Maybe I should… give this to my superiors?" I suggested with a weak smile.

The Queen paid me a worried frown and tucked the key behind my chevrons. "I think you'll be fine… You seem very light on your hooves."

It was a nice thing to say, but I was still going to give the key to Terrain or Minerva anyways. Whether or not I could do it aside, it was way too much responsibility for my ranking.

"Please don't speak of this to my husband," Nevergreen continued. "He wouldn't condone such a… betrayal of privacy."

"That's okay. I don't think the commander respects our privacy either."

"Do it discreetly. When you know he won't catch you. Can you do this for me? Please?"

I bowed to the mare. "Of course, Your Majesty," I said, trying my very best to ignore the fact that the string was pulling down the skin on the back of my neck, and the key was digging into my sternum.

Was my armor always so tight-fitting?
> 8 – Spirit Spar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Princess Luna Knight Academy (Or "the PLKA" for short, and yes, that's pronounced like the dance or the dot), is actually a lot like any other post-secondary school in Equestria. I mean, apart from it being one of the only schools named after a fictional character instead of a historical figure.

We had the mean courses, the meaner profs, the meanest schedules, and the occasional nice ones of each, too. We had the late nights at the library (or the gym), the frustrating group projects, and the intimidating solo ones. Granted, we had a lot more Phys Ed than anypony else, but it was still a pretty similar atmosphere. I should know! I studied two years of ornithology at Canterlot U before dropping out and, as the seniors put it, 'doing the PLKA'.

But the biggest similarity between the academy and other schools was that when you graduated from the PLKA, you were faced with the same daunting decision as all graduates did at the end of their program. You had to decide what to you were going to do next.

Luckily, unlike other schools, the PLKA didn't drop their alumni out the backdoor with a fancy piece of paper and a fancier hat, only to be in touch as often as an estranged family member. That is, whenever they wanted some money. No, the PLKA was in part a city-subsidized establishment, and Canterlot invested way too much in its guardsponies for that kind of treatment.

Instead, they laid out your post-grad options clearly, what the first steps were to taking each option, and told you what you would encounter down whichever path you chose. And then they promised to contact you if they were short on cash.

A popular choice was the Royal Guard, of course, if daily patrols, escorts, and opportunities to get shown up by the Princess whenever trouble came to Canterlot sounded like fun. There was the Pony Peacekeeping Force, too—an equally popular option if you had a particular city in Equestria where you wanted to be stationed, be it for family or touristic reasons. Actually, that option was a little more popular, seeing as peacekeeping in one of the most peaceful nations on the planet is widely considered to be a gay old time.

But then there's the Field Knights. The choice that Minerva, Terrain and I found selecting very easy. My friends felt they could get the most altruistic work done by being outside of the land of eternal sunshine. And hey, I wanted to help others too, but if I'm honest, I also had a powerful need to avoid patrols, routines, routine patrols, and of course, the most monotonous task in the world.

Lookout duty.

But I want to make something very clear here. Lookout duty on Castle Pinery's rooftop was the absolute highlight of my mission, and not just when you compare it to everything before and after it, which, admittedly, helps. But if I could have spent an entire week up there, sleeping there and eating there, I would have gone home more refreshed than if I'd spent a week at the spa.

My walk to, and up, the staircase to the roof was a grumpy one—punctuated with sighs and dragging hooves. I was all excited after learning I'd been given a task that sounded easy, but the monotony of the task itself started to seep into my thoughts before long.

But then I took my first steps on the flat, wooden roof, I turned to my right, and I got a chill up my spine. The excited kind of chill, that goes down your limbs and gives you goosebumps. True, it could have just come from the crisp autumn air settling over the castle, but it was more likely from laying my eyes on the tree.

The tree!

The same tree we'd seen when we first made that trip down Castle Road. That awesome, wide-reaching spectacle piercing the heart of Castle Pinery like a shish kebab, and sprinkling the castle with tiny needles at every breeze.

And then, I saw something I couldn't have seen from Castle Road. I saw the spiral staircase leading up from the base of the tree and disappearing into the prickly green lush. The chills got stronger and my heart shrank with happiness—back to the size it was when I was a kid.

I sprinted to the tree and bounded up the stairs as fast as I could, and in hindsight, it's a miracle I didn't trip over my hooves and crash through the foliage. The steps peaked and troughed over and under the barrel-thick branches in the way, and there wasn't any railing, but still, I twisted and leapt like I'd been climbing them my whole life.

The top was about three storeys up, where the stairs levelled out into a platform with a barrier, not unlike the crow's nest of a galleon. The branches around the nest had been sliced off at the base, giving the lookout ponies a perfect view of everything happening off of each of the four walls.

Well, I say "lookout ponies", but that's not accurate, because there was only one lookout pony up there.

ME!

JUST me!

I was alone!

For the first time since I had gotten to Pinery, I was right where I needed to be, and there was nopony around that I had to interact with! And that meant there was nopony around to screw up interacting with, and nopony to give me that you're-doing-something-wrong look! I was getting dead sick of that look, and it would be staying far, far, far, FAR away from me for at least a short while.

And all I had to do was stand there and look out for things. I didn't even have to be very good at it!

And I wasn't very good at it! Truth be told, I sucked at lookout duty. Granted, I never did get any instructions, but it was still awfully intuitive, right? I'm pretty sure I was supposed to walk around the nest, take some mental notes of what I saw over each of the four walls, and notify the castle of incoming invaders by screaming until my lungs went flat.

It's quite simple on paper, but in practice, Pinery made it impossible, because while I assumed I should have been overlooking the four walls equally, it was hard to give them each a fair share of attention, considering they were busy competing against each other to determine which wall was the least engaging.

And what a fierce competition it was.

The east wall had Castle Road, which was probably the most likely place to spot 'invaders', but unless there was a particularly elaborate invasion involving supply carts coming in from town, there wasn't going to be anything worth screaming about.

The south wall had the forest, or at least the parts of it that hadn't been sacrificed to Pinery's lumber demands. And unless the foresters decided to go to work on a Sunday, there wasn't going to be any entertainment for the poor sap on lookout duty.

The north wall had another pathway, and another avenue for invaders, but not even supply carts graced this one. They wouldn't fit. It was narrow and unbeaten and winded through a mess of really old, really tall pine trees. Looked a heck of a climb, too. It had a short wooden sign next to it that was just too far to read, so that was kind of engaging, and I had to dock some points.

The west wall, meanwhile, was the clear loser. It didn't enclose any exterior rooms, but it acted as a barrier between the forest outside and the courtyard below me. The very same courtyard where the spirits—and their two special guests from Equestria—warmed up for their mid-morning training session under the watchful stare of Tartarus's canine warden, and the malevolent stallion that held his chain.

So I watched that the whole time.

I didn't have a fantastic view of the courtyard; I had to vault the barrier and lie down on the thickest branch available, where I could peer down through a mess of even more branches. But for a stallion with a green coat and brownish-grayish mane, it made for some pretty awesome camouflage. So long as I didn't move very much, the commander wouldn't see me, and I wanted to keep it that way. I was disobeying orders after all. One hint that I wasn't doing as he said, and he’d probably jump at the chance to fly up and yell at me until I couldn’t hear anymore, and then yell at me further.

Which brings me to the biggest problem about my perch: I couldn't hear the chatter from the courtyard from so high up, so I was only audience to war cries and the louder grunts. That was, until I remembered I had a spell up my sleeve. 'Auditory Amplification Enchantment'. Or in laypony's terms, 'That spell what turns up your ears'. It made the farther sounds easier to hear, and the closer sounds kind of ear-splitting.

But that wasn't a problem when you were all by yourself.

It would be easy for me to say that I learned that spell for a course at the PLKA—maybe one about unicorn espionage, or spatial awareness 101. But the truth is that I picked it up in high school. Self-taught, actually. It's amazing what you can teach yourself when you're worried about ponies talking about you when you're not around. Take it from me—they're usually asking each other why your ears are glowing.

But this tangent isn't important.

I settled into my new perch, took one last look down the staircase and around the roof, and I flared my horn. I felt a warmth around my ears, like a heated blanket. The twinkling of needles and crunching of bugs and critters in the bark grew louder, and I breathed in deep. I focused on the wooden planks far below me, and heard them creak against the sway of the tree. I breathed even deeper, and I turned my attention to the courtyard, where I heard running hooves.


****


The spirits jogged around an elliptical track of beaten dirt and grass that spanned the entire area of the courtyard. They wore simple white t-shirts with shamrock-green collars—adorned with a pine tree on each shoulder. Next to the sets of Equestrian leathers at the front and the back of the running pack, they looked like trainees graced by the presence of heroes.

Commander Fellsaw and Charles stood in the track's center. A burlap sack filled with gleaming red apples sat limply on a tree stump between them. The iron in the commander's armor matched Charles's collar so well they must have been forged at the same time—same encroaching rust stains and everything.

The two watchers rotated in place at different speeds—Fellsaw watching Minerva come within seconds of lapping his quickest guard, and Charles watching Terrain trot at a measured pace with the slowest spirit there. It was Portly, and Terrain was chatting it up with him—neither of them threatening to take the warm-up seriously.

"Alright, that's enough!" the commander beckoned, scratching Charles on his head to stop the growling. "Bring it in!"

The spirits flocked to the center like a group of highschoolers in gym class—with no real order or formation, and already looking winded. There were only about forty of them all told, and none of them looked a day over twenty, save for Portly, who could have been thirty.



The spirits huddled together behind their bigger comrade and stayed a good few yards away from the new ponies that came to training that day. Minerva stretched herself out—from her neck all the way down to her fetlocks, like she'd been trained. Terrain sat down beside her and picked at his teeth.

Fellsaw addressed his guards. "I trust you've all met our new friends from Equestria by now!"

The spirits glanced at their guests briefly—so quick to throw their gaze at the ground like they were trying to avoid a disease spread by eye contact.

Minerva cheered mid-stretch, "Hey!", while Terrain waved with a limp hoof and a limper smile.

"I would tell you their names," Fellsaw continued, grinning, "but they escape me."

"Nuthin' 'scapes you, boss!" Portly boomed from in front of the spirit pack, taking his leader by surprise. "Least of all that chef-kidnappin' chef, eh, wot!"

Fellsaw smiled as a few murmurs of congratulations followed. "Now, now… I don't want any of you to worry about Prika's little stunt. She'll see the error of her ways once I'm through with her."

Portly smacked his hooves together once. "That's my boss," he confided to the guards closest to him. "So when d'ya think she'll spill the beans on 'Arry? We miss 'er sumthin' awful. Don't we, fellas?"

The spirits nodded, but made no sound. They set imploring frowns on their commander and waited for him to respond. Minerva, stretching out her shoulders, spat on the ground and stamped it—a dreadful crease appearing between her eyes. Terrain leaned over and whispered something to her. It was long-winded, and it caused her to sneer. She nodded approvingly, and Terrain patted her on the back.

Commander Fellsaw cast a blank stare over his constituents. He cleared his throat. "I will… deal with Prika. But more important than any of that… We need to entertain our guests from Equestria. They are, after all… the ones I've been warning you about."

A fog of whispers fell over the spirits. They took a much longer look at Minerva and Terrain this time, no longer afraid of what they might catch. Only of what they saw.

Fellsaw jangled Charles's chain and the whispers vanished. "Let's show them what the Pinerian Guard can do, boys! We'll start wit—"

A hoof shot up in the air, and Fellsaw paused. He lowered his head and sighed through his nose. "...What is it, Terrain?"

"First, congrats on remembering my name. And second—"

Fellsaw grumbled.

"—why's he over there?" Terrain pointed through the spirit pack, and they parted in a hurry, as if he were about to shoot a laser from his hoof.

At the west end of the courtyard was a cracked yet level wooden bench sitting parallel to the wall. The lethargic pony from breakfast, Drowsy (perhaps) had curled up on one side—his eyes firmly shut, and his T-shirt one size too large. A bubble burst from his nostril, causing him to stir.

Portly piped up. "He's got CFS, like. Mighty fierce today, innit."

Terrain's eyes brightened. "No way! He has CFS too? I thought I was the only one!"

Charles's throat vibrated in rage.

"...You have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome," the commander spoke in monotone.

Terrain froze for a second, and then belted out an exaggerated yawn. "AAAHHHhhhh... yeah, heh, I'll bet his comes out of nowhere too, right?"

A tentative giggle came to life in the middle of the spirit pack, and Fellsaw killed it with a jerk of his head.

Minerva pushed herself into the final stage of her warmup—the standing seal, which stretched the backs of her hindlegs and pointed her nose to the sky. "I never knew you had CFS," she strained.

"Well...I don't like to talk about it."

"But you love talking about things." She came out of her stretch. "Sometimes I'd do anything to shut you up."

Terrain pressed his teeth together in a grin. "It's funny you should say that."

Another giggle was born—a little louder than the last. This one was murdered by Fellsaw whipping Charles's chain against the tree stump.

"ENOUGH!" he burst. "YOU!" he pointed to Terrain. "If you don't want to participate just say so!"

"I don't want to particip—"

"Then GO!" Fellsaw roared, throwing his hoof at Drowsy as if damning him to Tartarus. A few seconds passed as the stiff pegasus panted through his teeth.

"Aye-aye!" Terrain cantered to the tree stump, successfully avoided the commander's disdainful stare, grabbed a couple apples and made his way through the crowd of spirits towards the bench. "Have fun, everypony!" he sang on his way. None of them reacted. They all just stared at their commander as he fought back something awful in his throat.

When he reached Drowsy's bench, Terrain nudged him awake and offered him an apple. The gift was accepted, warily, and they got to talking.

His airway clear, Fellsaw addressed his soldiers again. "It's Sunday, so we're practicing hoof-to-hoof combat. Split off in pairs and start sparring. I'll come around and give pointers."

The heads of the spirits cocked in several different directions. Familiar friends found each other's eyes and elated as the usual pairings formed, and moved to open spaces in the courtyard.

Portly, left all alone, made a dart for Minerva. Fellsaw went to grab his own apple as the spirits spread out into the courtyard like bees.

"Time out!" Minerva blurted.

Everypony froze.

"What?" Fellsaw seethed, apple already in hoof.

"You said that you wanted your guards to learn stuff from me!" Minerva recalled.

"That wasn't my exact wording."

"Oh, I think it was! How is anypony supposed to learn from me if I'm stuck only sparring one freakin' guy!"

Fellsaw rolled his eyes and whipped his apple back into the sack. "What would you prefer, everyone against you?"

Minerva chuckled and inhaled through her teeth. "Maybe another day. No, I was thinking we have an actual match! Me versus a pony of my choice, and the rest gather around us in a circle and watch. That way everypony's learning, y'know? Like you wanted!"

"We aren't an after-school martial arts program. On Sundays we spar and we do not ever debate my schedule."

"I'd watch her, boss!" Portly chimed in. He twisted his hoof in the dirt and blushed like he was about to ask Minerva out for coffee. "I'd fight her too, iffin that's alright with the lass." The big stallion paid Minerva a hopeful smile, and she cringed like he actually had asked her out.

"Okay, um… Loving the enthusiasm, pal, but I said I get to choose. Whaddya say, Felly ol' buddy?"

A murmur of amusement snaked its way around the spirit pack. It was clear they liked the idea, whether it was for the chance to see an Equestrian captain in action, to avoid getting their hooves dirty, or a bit of both. They even broke away from their partners and started forming a group in front of Fellsaw again, like the decision had already been made.

The commander slowly buried his face in his hooves and heaved out a sigh like it was a weight he'd been carrying all morning. When he came out, he looked skyward and grumbled, "I have to approve the opponent."

Minerva's smile burst forth. "I think you will." She turned to face Portly and winked at him.

Portly swelled out his chest.

"Eeny," she said, and disappointment enveloped him.

"Meeny." She pointed broadly to the curious spirits, who dispersed from her hoof, still wary of lasers.

"Miny!" she called after Terrain, who was too busy listening to Drowsy to scowl. He still did, though.

And then, Minerva the Brave, the sprightly and vulgar young Captain of the Equestrian field knights, spun around and pointed right at Castle Pinery's commander.

"You."

The declaration sent a quiet cluster of gasps through the spirit pack, which only made Minerva's smile double in size.

Portly made the biggest sound. "Yore jokin'!" he exclaimed. "Yore talkin' crazy, lass! The boss doesn't fight nobody!"

"What?!" she retorted. "What better way to learn than from watching the two most experienced fighters in this whole castle duke it out? Right, Commander?"

Fellsaw didn't respond, but the look he was giving her would have caused a less confident mare to burst into flames. Minerva returned the look in kind, trying her best to set him ablaze.

"You!" Fellsaw shouted at Portly, who sat down like a trained animal.

"Y-yeah, b-b-boss?"

"…Look after Charles for me, will you? The rest of you, form a circle."

The courtyard exploded in movement. The spirits fanned out around the track, with one of them volunteering to relocate the bag of apples from the stump. Fellsaw took Charles to his biggest guard and relinquished the chain, rubbing Charles—a concerned, upward look in the dog's eyes—on his chin one last time before Portly took him away. Minerva, bubbling over in excitement, took off her sword and threw it over to a group of spirits, who dodged it with a less-than-stalwart shriek and let it thump against the dirt.

In less than a minute, the arena was built, and the two fighters stood as far apart as possible in the negative space created by the crowd. Fellsaw's silver armor shimmered a little in the grey light of the clouds, while Minerva's leathers were perfectly blunt and constant.

"Do you want a rundown of the rules?" Fellsaw called to Minerva, condescending.

"Real fights don't have rules," she responded.

"…Agreed."

Minerva scraped her hoof against the dirt, and whispered, "Let's do this, shithouse."

And so it was.
> 9 – ARDEA ALBA!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commander Fellsaw shot first. Minerva unfurled and swept right as he whizzed past her like a dirty firework. He tucked his head into another tackle and she vaulted him. Dust sprayed into the crowd as he dug in and twisted back towards his opponent, who opened her wings to dodge again.

They stopped for a second, maybe just to lock eyes, which they did. They stood a meter apart, breathing carefully, and a smothering quiet filled the courtyard—thickest between the fighters themselves.

They both grinned. Their hooves came up to chin height.

"Faster'n you look," Minerva observed.

Fellsaw spat in the grass. "It's my business to be faster than I look."

With a leap, he threw his first punch—a jab from the right, whistling past her ear and clipping her braid.

She straightened her wings and hopped to her side, strafing around him in a half-circle—one of her favourites. One quick movement, cutting through the air like she was part of it, and she was behind you.

But Fellsaw swung around too, drawing the rest of the circle and throwing an uppercut at her neck. She sucked in a breath and swept back around, and the commander followed her the same way.

This went on for a few more steps—Minerva dodging just faster than Fellsaw could strike. His body moved separate from his head, like the tail end of a wiry snake following the front end as it struck out for prey. As Minerva dodged left and right and backward, he twisted his head after her and let the rest of his weight follow his flying hooves.

Minerva didn't attack, but Fellsaw was getting closer. A right hook sailed under her chin, and only the two of them knew if he had clipped her. She ducked a left and rolled end over end past the commander as he threw a pile driver down the middle. She stood and neatly craned her head away from a mighty kick, which she snatched out of the air, clutched to her chest, and flipped over it like it was a gymnast's high bar.

The commander grunted and did two barrel rolls before he slammed into the earth with an "Oof!" The offended leg kicked out in pain.

Landing her flip, Minerva did a quick prance around the makeshift arena, rolling out her shoulders like she was still warming up. Her eyes caught those of a scrawny spirit with a buzzcut and a low-hanging jaw.

"Learning anything yet?"

The kid shrieked and pushed with the rest of the crowd out of the way. Minerva frowned and turned, and she had no time to evade the oncoming rocket.

"Shit!"

She fell backwards and he was on her, but with a tuck of her legs, she absorbed his momentum and redirected him over her head.

Fellsaw recovered in midair, swooping upwards and barrelling towards her with both hooves raised.

"SHIT!"

She flipped back to her hooves as Fellsaw crushed the ground in front of her. He slid his forehooves under himself, before throwing a boisterous battle cry and a blistering buck behind him.

Minerva raised a block, but at the last moment, lowered her hooves and arched her body, back farther than she had ever gone before, avoiding the hind legs like a limbo dancer.

"Ssshhhhhhit!"

With an unsure exhale she hopped backwards and away towards the west wall.

The grins at the beginning of the fight were absent now. Fellsaw breathed low and snarling, spittle hanging from one side of his mouth. A trick he learned from Charles, perhaps, who was watching the scene standing upright and alert, with his nose pointed at Minerva like a hunting dog identifying the direction of fresh game.

The crowd dispersed. They had to. Spirits were stranded inside the ring and all around the courtyard as the fight repeatedly crossed boundaries. Every time the poor bystanders grouped together they ended up having to scatter out of Minerva's way, getting herself out of the way of Fellsaw's attacks, with decreasing wiggle room between the strike and the dodge.

"Fight BACK!" Fellsaw finally screamed, causing all the spirits to cringe in unison.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" was the reply, which only made him angrier.

And then he got her. It was inevitable.

It all happened in an instant. It started with Minerva swooping backwards in a hurry, and tripping her leg on the back of the tree stump marking the center of the courtyard. Fellsaw pounced, raising his body on his hindlegs, and spreading his wings and forelegs wide, like a magician fluffing his cape. There was no cape, of course, only the threat of envelopment.

Minerva pulsed her wings backwards and threw her first punch. It undeniably connected, on the side of his chin. His head spun around fast, but snapped back to her faster, and there was no way to stop his momentum now. He fell on her like an engulfing wave, and she couldn't redirect him. They hit the turf in front of the stump. Minerva groaned, the crowd gasped, and Fellsaw was silent.

The onlookers waited, frozen, for the fighters to scramble back to their hooves, or for Fellsaw to stand and demand Minerva surrender, but neither of them moved, though they both panted a storm together. At some point, Terrain and Drowsy had joined the crowd. Everypony present crept up to the pile uneasily.

They stopped when Fellsaw stirred. Shoulders first, he rose like a zombie from the grave, his chest supported by a pair of straight, trembling, purple forelegs.

"Gedd-off!"

He landed like a soaking wet sweater, his tongue springing from his mouth and hitting the dirt.

Minerva exhaled harshly, and wiped sweat off her forehead from where she lay on her back. "Any of you know if… Know if this guy has narcolepsy?"

She waited a moment for an answer, and took the silence as a no.

"Alright then… Eat shit... Learning... Curve."

For a few moments the ponies in the courtyard looked back and forth from the winner, the loser, and the tree stump that had caused it all. The last few seconds of the fight likely replayed in their heads; the answer for what had just happened was simply hiding somewhere.

Portly got tired of trying to find it. "What did you do?!" he belted, jumping to the commander to help, though he didn't know how.

Charles was next, zooming towards Minerva like he was next in line. She yelped and jumped high in the air, hovering just out of his reach.

"He's… He's not waking up!" Portly cried, nudging his commander on the shoulder.

Minerva laughed. "Yeah, that's what being unconscious—Would YOU!?" she drew up her lower hooves to stop Charles from snatching them like apples in a tree. "Somepony get this thing away from me!"

The spirits' only lowered their heads in disbelief.

Minerva cleared her throat annoyedly. "I really should be helping your commander back to his hooves."

Portly snapped to attention and grabbed Charles' chain, wrestling him away. The dog was unwilling, but Portly was stronger.

Minerva landed behind the fallen commander's head. She crouched down and lifted him by the base of his skull in the air, and started to massage either side.

"Wakey, wakey," she sang.

Fellsaw's eyes fluttered open, and Minerva giggled. In a flash of realization, he scrambled to his hooves and swatted hers away. "What did you—?!…Whoa…"

"Not so fast!" Minerva laughed. "You're gonna wanna sit down for a sec, pal."

Fellsaw pressed a hoof to his temples but stayed upright despite a constant sway in his step.

"What just happened," he said after a moment, noticing that the circle of ponies had gotten a lot closer. He looked at Minerva. "We… were fighting and—"

A downcast voice from the crowd said, "You lost."

Fellsaw nearly fell over as he tried to shake out his head. "I…" He swallowed. "I remember…"

The same voice: "It only took one hi—"

"I said I remember!" Fellsaw exploded, and fell back to his rump to shake his head some more. "Ow…"

Charles went to his master's side to nuzzle him, but the stallion didn't acknowledge him, even when he started licking his cheek.

"Right, how'd ya do it, then?"

Fellsaw gave a bewildered look to Portly, before noticing he was looking at Minerva. He wasn't the only one, either. Every single one of his guards—distinct wonder and amazement blooming on their faces—stared at the victor, who, with her lieutenant at her side, was giving the commander a triumphant but dignified smile.

"Whaddya think, Felly?" Minerva asked. "Can I teach your guys a lesson in Equestrian self-defense? I'll make it worth their while."

Fellsaw didn't answer, but it wasn't clear that he knew how that was done. One at a time, he watched his guard's expressions, waiting with mouth-breathing curiosity at what he'd say. And each face he saw seemed to make him more tired—seemed to make his body slump a little bit further on a gradual slide back to the ground.

He stood up and idly stroked Charles's chin. "I think…" he breathed, "I think I need… to go for a


SQUAWK!


"GUH—! No-no-no-no-NO!"

Bang!

"Oof!"

Bam!

"Agh!"

Slam.

Three. Damn. Storeys.

"Ow…" I whined. "What in the…?"

I rolled over to my back and peered up the tree. Staring back at me, not two branches from where I had been perched, was a Pinerian great egret. It made that familiar egret chortle—the one that sounded half like it was gargling water, and half like it had just remembered a joke it once heard.

The bird blinked, hopped twice along the branch, and then flew off into the sky, where its grey coat blended into the clouds.

My ears rang and stung as if there was a blizzard inside my head. The comforting spell was broken. No, shattered. Obliterated. I rubbed my ears softly and slowly; and I nearly broke out in tears from the pain.

I sat up and found more sore parts. My lower back and the right side of my neck had each hit a branch. I stood up, and I felt a dull numbness in my right side, which had kissed the planks. Both my rear hooves throbbed for some reason I couldn't recall. I groaned and rolled my injured parts out. Thankfully, nothing was broken.

I chastised myself, "Wow, Foghorn… Way to almost die on lookout duty. Idiot…"

I limped my way over to the edge of the roof's west side and peered over the courtyard. Nopony seemed to have noticed my fall. Or indeed cared. But I was close enough to hear them now unaided.

"So!" Minerva shouted, commanding everypony's attention. "What I'm about to teach you is super cool. This old fart named Learning Curve back in Canterlot showed me. And, might I add, he guaranteed me, that I would never be able to do it first try."

An impressed sound reverberated through the listening spirits.

"Your ego could fill this courtyard."

"Eat needles, Terry."

"Pine or hypodermic?"

"Pick one."

A few spirits laughed, but most of them cringed at their own imaginations.

"Now, where was I?" Minerva asked the air, sincerely. "Right, okay, so, basically, there's this thing at the back of your neck, right? Here, Terry, can I borrow you?"

Begrudgingly, Terrain skulked his way over to the demonstrating Minerva.

"Right… here," she pointed out a spot at the joint connecting Terrain's head to his neck. "…Maaaayyybbee a little higher? There's this thing called the… Medusa Oblong Cat. Uh…"

Terrain snorted. "Not even close."

"Well, whatever it's called! It's that thing that controls like… all the vital stuff in your body. Like the heart and the lungs and the… other vitals and stuff. That's why sometimes when somepony breaks their neck it's just plain curtains for 'em, y'know? Because the whatever-it's-called gets damaged, so they can't breathe or have a heartbeat anymore. Like I said, really cool stuff."

The spirits went frigidly quiet.

"So! If you can knock a guy real good on the chin, his head spins around so fast that all the muscles around that vital point go all tense and they rub up against it, and your brain goes, 'Oh, shit! My medusa thing! And then you just… power down for a few minutes."

"Does that cause brain damage?" Terrain asked pointedly.

Minerva laughed. "I mean, probably it doesn't."

Terrain swatted Minerva's pressing hoof away from his neck. "Doctor Minerva, everypony."

The spirit pack started laughing, and my heart burst into flames.

Sorry, I guess that's over the top. But I noticed something that I think warrants that reaction. I noticed that Fellsaw and Charles weren't there. They hadn't been since I fell.

They were coming after me. It was the only explanation. The commander and his canine compatriot from hell were coming to take out their anger and embarrassment on me. It was the only damn, freaking explanation. And all I was doing was licking my stupid wounds.

I thwacked myself on the back of the head. "Why did you have to fall?"

Sprinting back to the tree, I found my pain had taken a back seat to the adrenaline. I took three bounds up the stairs and promptly backpedalled back down.

The crow's nest only had one escape route. It was Sitting Ducks 'R' Us.

The roof was the better option. It had two stairs—one at each of the North and South ends. Fellsaw wouldn't approach quietly—he'd be stomping and bellowing names—not one of which would be the one my parents gave me. All I had to do was stay put at the tree, wait for him to come up one stair, and then run down the other.

I slapped my cheeks with my hooves.

There were two of them! What if they pincered me? Was Charles trained enough for that? And Fellsaw had wings, too!

There was only one option. I pressed my back against the tree. I sucked some air in, and got ready to scream my captain's name.

"…don't normally do this…"

My cheeks deflated.

"Hello?" I asked, but I was alone.

"I know what you're going to say, but… I don't see any other way."

I looked down. The voice was coming from under the wooden floor. It was scratchy, it was laboured, and it was unmistakably Fellsaw's.

"…that damn mare from Equestria…"

I scanned in and around the branches overhead for any more boisterous birds, but the tree was empty. I brought the spell back. I closed my eyes and focused my attention on the planks below me. I heard them vibrate, I thought deeper, and the voice rang out clearer.

"I know you won't like it. But the way is clear now."

When Fellsaw spoke his voice echoed around as if he was speaking into a bucket. And when he didn't speak, there was just emptiness where somepony's voice should be. I listened really hard, honest. Nothing.

"And I can promise you… That once this is all over and the dust settles…"

"She… is going to wish she never set hoof in Pinery."

A chill ran from my hooves to my ears and back down again. I heard hoofsteps below and I let the spell go. "Minerva," I said. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, MINERV—"

"—AH! Sheesh, Foghorn, I'm right here."

I spun around, and there she was. Hovering over the west wall, shining like a red-and-purple beacon next to the grey-and-grey clouds.

"Captain! Thank Celestia you're here. I have to tell you… Hey, where's—?"

"TAXI!" came a holler from the courtyard.

Minerva's face blanked. "Hang on a tick," she groaned. Without moving her head, she fluttered back down to earth. A few seconds later she was back, carrying a pained grimace in her face and Terrain in her hooves. A fresh apple was lodged in his teeth.

She heaved the pony onto the roof, and he landed more gracefully than she had probably hoped.

Terrain spat his apple into his hoof. "Cheers, Minnie! Whoa, Fog, what's eating you? Lookout duty that bad?"

"No," I shook my head. It was great, I thought, but I didn't say it. I looked Minerva right in the eyes and told her what I knew. "The commander is after you,."

She blinked. "...We were in line?"

"No!" I pleaded. "As in... I think he's going to try and... kill you!"

Minerva laughed. "Oh, yeah? That's hilarious. Y'know, my opponent for the PLKA exit exam tried to kill me."

"Allegedly," Terrain clarified. "Where is this coming from, Fog?"

I told my friends what I had heard below the roof. Like Terrain told the Queen—adrenaline makes for a really good memory. I repeated every word.

Terrain's eyebrows fell into a concentrated furrow. "But you don't know who was he talking to?"

"Uh… No. Nopony responded. There was just… quietness. Like he was talking to himself, sorta?"

"Charles," Terrain identified.

"Ohhhhh..." I said. I slapped my forehead for good measure. "I really should have thought of that…"

Terrain wagged his apple at me with a confident smile. "Don't worry about it. This is great intel, Fog."

"It is?"

"Yeah. First I was gonna say we need to hightail it to the queen to protect her. But since Minerva did such a great job of turning Fellsaw's anger towards her, we can actually relax a bit."

"Why?" I asked.

Terrain breathed on his apple and rubbed it against his chevrons. "I was speaking to the guard down there for a little bit—the... tired one—and I learned a lot of great information. A lot of pointless junk, too, but it was worth it. I know what's going on now. One hund-o percent."

"'Bout freaking time," Minerva replied.

Terrain smiled. "So, before the commander comes after the mare of the hour, let me tell you guys a story."

Minerva paused. "Oh no… here we go."

"A story?" I repeated.

Terrain nodded. "Yep. I think I'll call it…" He bit hard into his apple. Minerva and I gave him a moment to chew and swallow. And then to wipe the juice off his maw.

"…The Tale of the Racist Pegasus."