Book 1, 1. Customary

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The ink on the contract was barely dry, and already Rosewater was tired of the baroness. Prim Lace was more of a baroness than she was. Roseate was more of a baroness. Simpering fool that she was, the Rushing Baroness Highwater could hardly contain herself.

“What is your process?” the Baroness asked, leaning forward from her seat while Rosewater blew across the ink to dry the signature giving the Rose family exclusive access to the Highwater shipping for three months. “Please, I must know.”

“In time. You will be a part of the process, m’lady.” Rosewater tipped her nose up, taking in the mare’s scent. Too much powder in her mane; a touch of arousal, understandable for one not used to the rich accents of Rosewater’s personal laboratory; and some cheap perfume from Prance. She could practically smell the whale the base had come from. Vomitous. “First, you will be required to bath yourself. Nose to tailtip. Not a hint of another’s scent upon you. Nor that… vile odour you’ve adorned yourself with.”

“Vile?” The mare, Rushing Highwater, stomped a hoof. “I’ll have you know—”

“That particular fragrance costs five hundred bits per vial, yes, yes. I’m well aware of the esteem those whale hork peddlers hold themselves in.” Rosewater sniffed again, curling her lip into a sneer. “Should you wear that odour within my presence again before we are finished, the contract will be voided. It’s offensive.”

“Upstart,” Rushing said with a snort.

“An upstart with a better nose for fragrance and intimacy than you could dream of.” Rosewater sniffed. “The sanitation shower is through there,” she flicked an ear at the open door to the sterile, white-tiled room. “Use the soap provided, scrub everywhere thoroughly. If you fail to do so, I will scrub you myself. Nothing must remain upon you but your natural scents, Lady Highwater.”

“This had better be worth your attitude…” Highwater’s voice trailed off as Rosewater pulled down a vial of rosy pink liquid and unstoppered it. A fragrance like a summer’s day drifted out, floral scents accented by the soft loamy scent of a nearby forest. The smell of wine twined through it all, and the aroma of sex between a mare and a stallion underlay it all.

Rosewater let herself indulge for just a moment the afternoon she’d lain with a stallion outside of Merrie, just enough to hitch her tail aside and wink naturally. No need to induce a wink when the real thing was so much more believable. “This was made entirely out of flora. There is no hint of fauna in it, aside from myself. Need I demonstrate further, baroness? Further demonstrations will come at increased cost.”

She watched the mare consider the many meanings of the offer. One way, and Rosewater would gladly add secret additions to the deal Roseate had coerced her into agreeing to. Another, and the entire deal would be off.

Finally, the baroness shook her head quickly and ducked into the shower. It was amusing to see the mare trying to keep her tail modestly flat to her rear and failing.

She spent a moment longer watching to make sure the mare did as she’d been told. Rushing Highwater wasn’t an unattractive mare by anypony’s standards. She was russet, a rare color of coat, with a burnished copper mane, and a smile that would shake almost any stallion to the core, should she learn to apply the right scent upon her backside.

More off putting than the hork she dabbed behind her ears and upon her rump was the attitude and belief that she had no equal. It would do her no favors in Merrie, let alone in Rosewater’s own perfumery. There, she was queen, and not even her mother Roseate would dare to intrude without invitation or proper cause.

Not that her Baroness mother hadn’t tried. Or had her goons try, rather. Roseate rarely got her hooves dirty anymore. More and more, Roseate was trying to push Rosewater to do more and more odious things without letting her get involved in Damme directly again.

Roseate was too afraid of her again. For the moment.

Fear was an interesting emotion, and one could push a pony far using it, but there was a limit, and the more Rosewater used it to protect what was hers, the more it took in return. And the more Roseate grew a resistance to it.

This last time had lasted only a few months, and Rosewater was tired of fighting against her mother’s demands and threats. But there was also nopony else she could ask for help.

Rushing Highwater spluttering in the cold water shower brought her back to the present. Curses poured out of the cubicle as the water flowed, then further disgust at the scent of the soap—astringent, but it would dissipate on its own and break down in the cold water.

She brought a small vial of the neutralizer to counter her scent and wafted a cotton ball doused with the caustic liquid through the air to negate the aroma. A quick catalyzing spell, and the scents canceled each other out and drifted out the window in a haze of pink magic.

While the sound of the hoof-pumped shower continued, Rosewater tended to her own self with the purest water she could make and a sponge cleansed and cleansed until not the faintest hint of ocean remained upon it.

In between careful wipes down her nearly white coat, with the Rosethorn’s signature crimson curling along her muzzle from her nose to run down her throat to a heart shaped crest on her breast, she tended to the artlessly artful wisps of deepest pink mane tucked about her ears and horn.

She did not pause as she brushed over her cutie mark, a triplet of rose petals in a silver pond, nor did she stop when the Lady Highwater stopped showering, her hooves clattering on tile as she searched about for a towel. There would be none. Towels were gathers of scents. Only purest water and soaps she had developed herself were allowed in the sanitation station. But that, too, was part of her process.

“When you’re done washing yourself, please step free and into the basin in the center of the room,” Rosewater called to her.

The last part, washing her marehood, was the most delicate. She could not allow her own arousal to taint the final scent. But, standing with her tail lifted, she facing the mare, she let herself make a show of it as she pressed the sponge lightly around the outer folds of her marehood first, then dipping in to gather the last remnants of her own scent, and finally to wash over her dock and below, washing away with the purity of water and her own magic the last of her smell.

Highwater’s aroused scent flared in the room as she watched. Rosewater glanced over her back to see the mare standing at the entrance to the shower, her tail flagging obviously and stiffly.

“Enjoy the view, Rushing,” Rosewater said in a steady tone, lifting her tail higher to show the mare everything and more, but remaining calm at her core. Working with lust for so long inured one to its minor teases. “It will help with the process. Into the tub, now.”

“They said you were cold,” Rushing said in a strained voice. “H-how…” She swallowed thickly as Rosewater turned, tail lowering steadily, and stepped into the tub.

“Can I stand to be unaroused when you’re ready to be mounted by the first thing to walk through the door?” Rosewater allowed herself a moment of amusement and smiled. “Rushing, you believe that so little can tempt me? My darling,” she whispered as she strode forward, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. “Have you heard the other name the mares who sent you to my mother call our fair city?” Every step was a show, the sway of her hips and the flicking of her tail a reminder of the scent that had so briefly and thoroughly entranced a baroness.

“T-the…” Rushing licked her lips, her eyes darting everywhere but at Rosewater. “The city of Delight.”

“Delight,” Rosewater purred into the other mare’s ear, pausing to nip delicately at it before walking slowly around her, nostrils flared as she took in the myriad of scents the mare was exuding, seeking for that one scent that was the keystone of every mare’s and stallion’s desire. “My mother merely fancies herself its mistress, but I am the queen of Delight, my simple mare. What would you have to offer me in return for—” There it was, right at the base of the mare’s dock. A sharp, frantic scent, with its own pulse racing for completion. With a faint breath and an even more delicate nip to the base of Rushing’s tail, she flicked her own around the baroness’s neck like a caress. “For this?”

The scent intensified, and Rosewater called over a dab of pure cotton and a smooth, dull-edged spoon. The first, she dabbed at the softest part of the other mare’s dock, rolling it through and capturing the essence of her desire. The second, she used to collect a dollop of the mare’s arousal direct from the mare’s lips. Both went into stoppered tubes and set back on the rack they’d come from, glowing briefly pink to cement the scents.

“A-anything,” Rushing Highwater blurted as Rosewater walked away, already humming to herself. “Make love to me, here, now, and I’ll—”

Rosewater silenced the mare with a spell, binding her muzzle closed. “I haven’t even used my magic on you, and you’re already panting like a dog. Be silent or I shall, and you shan’t enjoy the experience.”

She left the spell in place for a few seconds longer as she worked through the scent’s complexities in her mind and began to formulate the mixture of herbs and oils she would need to properly bring out the arousal she needed to embody. Such a task was routine when working with familiar clients like her sisters, she barely needed to remind herself of their peculiarities to produce the scents they needed in the war.

The pointless war. A war her mother was dragging out needlessly long past its original roots. A war she was bound to participate in for the sake of a single pony she wished to protect, that she had already sacrificed much to keep safe.

And Baroness Highwater was clueless to it. Another pawn in the endless succession of jabs and ripostes Rosewater and Roseate traded. All for the sake of one love lost, and one barely held out of reach of the morass.

She caught herself staring at the door to her innermost sanctum, more protected even than her own home, and forced herself to focus on the two vials in front of her. A simple spell revealed the essential natures of both scents, drawing them through even the cork to tease her nostrils.

With somepony as easily drawn to lust as the Baroness Highwater, the scent would need to be bolder or the scent of her own lust would overpower the accents needed to instill it in another.

Then another scent washed over her, and she turned to find Rushing Highwater staring at her, tail flagged as she ravished herself with a telekinetic spell. Crude construct. Poorly adapted shape. It was roughly in the shape of a stallion’s cock, not molded to her own needs and deepest pleasures. She could offer the mare lessons… for a fee.

But the look of utter lust, without the hint of affection, repulsed her. “Have you no shame?”

Rushing glared at her and continued. “I thought this was something your City of Delights did openly.” There was a sneer in her voice.

“You know so little.” Rosewater shook her head. At least the spill would be contained, but the raw scent of sex in the air would ruin the effect if she let too much of it contaminate the base. “When you’re quite finished, wash yourself again and leave. I can’t work when you’re making a mess.”

With that, clucking her tongue at the wasted afternoon, Rosewater activated the security charms in her workspace, leaving only the front door and washroom unwarded.

Prim Collar perched atop the roof of a building across the river in the city Damme, a scope to his eye. It was crude, but effective enough to spy Rosewater’s distinctively lean, tall form leaving the front door of the Rosewater Perfumery. She was bare of the simple scarf and dress she’d went in with, and absent the company of the dowdy mare who’d met her at the docks.

“So begins week fifteen, day three of observing the perfumery,” Collar noted to his companion, Cloudy Rose, a sleek, grass green pegasus mare who lounged lazily in a hammock made of mist. “This is the first time she’s broken routine in the past month. Did you catch who her visitor was? And where was her assistant?”

“Dunno. Looks like today the shop was closed.” Cloudy stretched her wings. “When I did a flyover, I didn’t see anypony at the register.” She ticked her ears a few times. “She must be from the main family line, though. One of the lesser sisters, maybe. They all veil themselves, so it’s hard to tell.”

Collar clucked his tongue. “She’s not, right now. Do you think she’s going to Faerie…” Just as he started to talk, Rosewater’s image blurred, flickered, and fuzzed, then returned to normal. “Yeah. Well… there goes our target. Again.”

He kept track of the bright cloudy-white coat and carnation mane for a while longer. She was a beauty, even from a distance, and even as an illusion. And she was his equal, his foe, and increasingly intriguing.

The sprite vanished in a swirl of white and pink, an event that precipitated only an annoyed shuffle away from it until it dissipated..

“Pity.” Prim Collar lowered his glass and shifted his unaided sight back to the perfumery.

Cloudy let her gaze wander over the city she could never return to. Not even for a visit. As a defector, and having gone AWOL from the Merrieguard, she was an arrest on sight individual, and her imprisonment wouldn’t be pleasant at all. Not that Collar would let her stay arrested for long.

“Do you ever miss it?” He brought the glass to his eye again as the door to the perfumery opened. The blue coat of the baroness peeked for a moment before the door closed again and the mare disappeared back inside. Why do I feel like I was just winked at?

“Sometimes.”

Collar lowered his glass to watch his companion for a moment. “Sometimes?”

“Sometimes I want to wander the streets, drink in the scents of everything without worrying that I’m going to be cited for a scent violation.” Her tail did raise that time, and she let him see her wink. His loins stirred.

He swallowed and used a spell to lower her tail again. “Easy, Cloudy.”

“Sorry.” She buried her head in the cloud. “I was just thinking of this one mare. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes. “Rosemary was her name. Rosewater’s cousin, you know?”

“I know.” The only child of Carnation Rosethorn, exiled these past six years, apprentice to Rosewater. A top suspect for Rosewater's shop assistant. “What was she like?” Not that talking about Cloudy’s previous lovers helped him, but it helped her sometimes, to remember and let the pain of losing contact with them ebb away.

“Nothing like her cousin. She was… kind. Caring and gentle. But a real firecracker in bed. And a wit like the point of a spear. I…” She shook her head slowly and cast a yearning look at Collar. “I don’t want to remember her right now. But…” Her tail flagged to the side as she shivered. “You know how you get a tune stuck in your head?”

“Yeah. I do.” Rosewater, her mane wild, her legs spread and shaking, her tail canted as if waiting for him to come to her, her eyes glazed and locked on him. He could still read the message on her lips as she spoke too softly to hear.

“You will be mine.”

The image from a dream haunted him and had haunted him since she broke through his containment spell with some form of magic he wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t scent magic, and it had sent even Rosewater’s ‘allies’ into a full rout. In reality, she hadn’t canted her tail, hadn’t whispered the words, only panted and drawn deep breathes as the wild look in her eyes faded into the usual chill that he remembered from the few times they’d passed each other in formal settings.

“Maybe we ought to call it a day, then,” Collar said more jauntily than he felt. “Care for an ale? I could use one about now.”

“I’m still on shift, Collar,” Cloudy whispered, dismissing the cloud to land beside him on the rooftop. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. As your nominal commanding officer, I order you to escort your city’s heir to the bar.” Collar held the serious expression for only a few moments before Cloudy cracked up.

“Aye aye—” She snorted when he gave her a jaunty naval salute. “Sir.”

“Brat.”

The High Stepping Stallion was a place Collar wouldn’t have called upscale in his youth. The booths were all worn to a shine, the floorboards hadn’t been replaced in decades, and were worn to an almost glass-like polish tracing the path of the serving ponies and customers alike.

Now, only a few months into his thirtieth year, the place held a charm to it that was less worn and more cozy. The smooth bench seating, table-tops, and floorboards didn’t speak to disrepair, but to the opposite. There were no splinters, the wood wasn’t discolored—much—and the seats held a pony’s rear at just the right cup.

It held, compared to most other well established places, a certain air of dignity about it even from the outside, and within it was all understated lighting and warm candle-lit coves where ponies could sit and share a laugh and some of the finest Dammerale in Equestria.

“Never been in this place,” Cloudy murmured, sticking closer to his side than she usually did after a lookout. “Way above my pay grade.” She added a second later in a low whisper, “They also have a reputation for not liking Roses.”

“If they say anything to my chief lieutenant,” Collar whispered back, “I’ll have words with the management.”

Being a high-end establishment, they had to wait to be seated, but also as he was the Lord-heir of Damme, they didn’t have to wait long.

“My lord, a pleasure to have you visit our establishment again,” a short, thin stallion with a mustache and goatee said, bowing as he stopped. “Table for one?”

“Two. Cloudy is my guest this afternoon.” Collar raised his head to look around at the rest of the staff stopping to get a look at them. “Table for two, and two draughts of your finest Dammerale.”

“Is this a date, Collar?” Cloudy asked, a hint of mischief in her voice. “I thought I was still on duty.”

“Yes,” Collar said, grinning back at her shocked look. “A date, my dear Cloudy.” It’s about damn near time I took you on a public one. “One of the back booths, please. We have a few things to discuss.”

The look Cloudy gave him said that he did, indeed, have a lot to talk about. “I don’t suppose you have any Rose wine?”

“Indeed not,” the stallion said. “We only carry the finest of Dammerale and the best of the Primvine Yard.”

“Riverrock Stout, then,” Cloudy muttered, then chuckled when he gave her an affronted look. “Pinebark Red? Seafoam Light?”

Collar coughed and interrupted the continuing tirade of looks and counter-offers. “She’ll have a Feathered Bitter.”

“Ach,” Cloudy gasped. “I can already feel my Rosewing heritage crying out in horror!”

“She’s joking,” Collar said with a roll of his eyes and a nip to her ear. “Aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Now let’s go talk about our relationship, Lord Collar.” Cloudy nipped his cheek and flirted her tail in a very Roselike manner, and sauntered off to the farthest corner booth, currently empty.

Collar gave the stallion a weak smile. “She’s… very assertive. But I do love her.”

Once the Mist Faerie was covering her, Rosewater cast a short range teleport to the side, disappearing behind a hedge and pulled out her own spyglass, scanning the rooftops visible over the hedgerow blocking most of Damme from Merrie’s view.

There. Just across the river from her perfumery. Her tail on and off for the past several months. Sometimes the tail was actually hard to find, and wasn’t the stallion who was the future centerpiece of her collection.

The hooded unicorn was definitely Prim Collar. It was hard to hide that color of coat and mane cloak or not. The other, a pegasus lounging on a cloud and not at all being inconspicuous with green wings against a blue, nearly cloudless sky.

She, definitely a she from the way she moved, shifted on her cloud and dropped to the rooftop beside him. She watched, lips pursed, as the pegasus kissed him, watched longer as he met it a second time and they disappeared off the roof in a rush.

“Keep him safe, little mare,” Rosewater whispered into the shadows. There were other watchers besides they two. “For me.”

For us.

It took only a moment to make sure her mistveil would stand up to the light of day, then she headed along the hedge, flicking her tail and cleaning herself of her momentary lapse in concentration.

When she broke onto the docks, everypony shied away from her, as was the proper deference for a Veiled Rose. She smiled behind the cloaking shadows and made her way through the bubble of ponies that spread out around her, too tall to be her mother, about the right height to be one of her sisters, if viewed from a distance.

None of the spies would be in the throng. Or, if they were, it would be coincidental. Most of them would be working jobs on the docks or pretending to laze in the noonday sun and wind blowing off the North Lunan sea.

Not that it mattered. Her business with Cargo Manifest and his oh-so-cleverly named company Cargo Manifest Shipping was none of hers. She laughed, then, and cast off her mistveil, startling everypony within a hundred yards at the sudden appearance of Rosewater, the Rose Terror.

Let the Prims ponder her reasons. Maybe they would think she’d gone mad. She had another good chuckle at that, then stopped to compose herself before opening the door into the rickety little shack.

The inside of the office was cluttered with corkboards and scroll racks, the latter tacked with all manner of orders and slips, the former overflowing with scrolls tucked everywhere. A palm-oil lamp guttered as she closed the door behind her. The windows were all open, letting in both the scent of the ocean and the rotting of seaweed and other… undesirable smells.

“Lady Rosewater, an honor. We had expected your mother.” Cargo Manifest said as he rose to his feet and glancing pointedly at the windows. “No funny business.”

She chuckled softly. If he thought such paltry uncoordinated smells would disrupt hers… She smiled brightly, letting a touch of mirth ring through in a throaty laugh. “Oh, my dear stallion. There’s nothing funny about my business.” Ponies outside would smell nothing, and the scent she brought with her would not linger. “I am here on my mother’s behest, not mine own.”

“Yeah.” He sat down again, eying her warily.

She allowed a genteel smile to grace her lips as she sat and composed her mane and tail to show off the whole of her sleek form from slender forelegs to slender, muscular hindquarters ready to either leap, run, or sway. And, just between her legs, the supple pink vale between her teats, unknown to milk, and small, but alluring all the same.

She flexed her belly just so, and coughed to cover it, but his eyes were drawn exactly where she wanted them to be drawn when she shifted her legs, bringing just the barest peek of her pink lips into view.

“My mother wishes to negotiate towards these terms,” she said after a long moment of his staring and the shuffling hooves of his attendants aware, but not having seen, the lure she’d placed right in front of him.

The scroll she drew from her satchel allowed her to cover the unstoppering of one of her special perfumes, one formulated for her own use. Along with the scroll, she sent a waft of herself. Barely enough to touch his nose.

Not yet. Let him think it natural first.

His ears twitched as scroll and scent reached him at the same time. He spent a long minute studying the simple, revised table of expenses and costs the Rosethorn family would cover and expect to be eaten by the company during their weekly voyages.

“So, she wants a better deal on exotic oils from Maretronia?” He floated the scroll back to her, giving her an excuse to split her magic again and send tendrils of herself spreading throughout the small office.

A touch of lavender to the guard to calm him to a light slumber, a touch of Rosewater’s own sweet nectar bound to the scroll as she pulled another, this the signature slip needed to record the deal. She touched the stamped, gold embossed symbol of the Merrie-Damme Trade Treaty Office on the slip. “We have already filed our copy with them. We only need your approval.”

She passed both back, flexing her belly again as she shifted once more. This time, she took in the air, filtering out the scents, and found the one she wanted. His desire. For her.

It was the easiest thing to tweak it, tugging it into a swirl with her own perfume, suggesting what she wanted him to do. She smiled brightly, nothing of mirth or pleasure in it as she bared her teeth. They fell so easily. It was hardly a challenge.

“Are you uncomfortable?” He asked, his voice slipping into a near somnolent cadence. “Perhaps…” He stood, revealing the stiff erection that had been hidden behind his desk. His eyes were glazing already, locked on her belly.

“Perhaps we can conclude our business first?” she asked in a coy, soft tone, flirting her tail against the floor. “Are the terms agreeable?”

“Terms?” he asked, his eyes breaking from her for a moment to settle on the paper she fluttered on the desk. “Ah…” His eyes cleared for a moment, shrewd business sense overriding his lust. “What’s in it for me?”

“I thought that would be clear,” she said, rising to her considerable height above him. “Was I unclear in my offer, dear Cargo Manifest?”

He stared at her, his eyes roving along her body, the glazed look coming back as he stumbled, trying to cross through the desk, snarling, and leaping over it.

“Yes, my lusty little unicorn. You get to have me.” Little was right. Even glazed as he was, he stopped shy of her until she rolled her eyes and dropped to her barrel again, tail flagged as she cast the last spell she would need to conclude business. She had to leap away from the Mist Faerie as he mounted it, slotting perfectly into the telekinetic sock she’d made just for his disappointment of a cock.

“You get to have me,” she whispered again as she pulled a jar from her bag and waited as he pumped away at the vaporous mare.

He was so lost to the lust for the object that so resembled her in scent and sight that he never noticed the real her padding around him invisibly. It wasn’t out of curiosity, except perhaps macabre, watching a stallion so badly butcher the art of sex. So obviously a foreigner. No Merrier would consider such a rough display sex.

Rutting or fucking, perhaps.

She clucked her tongue as she studied his terrible technique, his lackluster power, and his ferociously awful banter as he whispered heinous things in her mirror’s ear.

“Oh yeah. You like that. Want it harder? Yeah, you do.”

For all of forty seconds. Rosewater timed it. He didn’t even last as long as a dog rutting in the alley. She sighed and put the jar away. His seed wouldn’t be worth keeping, not even for experimentation.

She could… well, there were some old flames she might entice and let them give chase or consent to be chased if she needed come for some experimental perfume.

Wouldn’t that just annoy my mother?

When he finished, she cleaned him up with the sock, tossed the entire mess out the window to be lost to the sea, and led him back behind his desk. “Deal concluded?”

“Y-yeah…” He blinked rapidly as she wafted the scent of the ocean across his nose. “Damn… they weren’t kidding.”

“They weren’t?” she asked, pretending surprise that her reputation abounded. “What did they say about me?”

“That taking you was like taking Celestia herself. Fiery as the sun, and just as passionate.” He panted and waved at the slip of paper. “Yeah. Buck, Rosewater. Take it. My blessings.”

“Like Celestia herself, you say?” Rosewater chuckled. “I’m afraid she has a good three hooves on me, yet, dear Cargo. But thank you. Our business is concluded?”

“Aye. Maybe we can do business again?” The look of hope in his eyes was pitiable, had she any pity to give. Maybe a little sad.

“Mayhap. If my mother meets my price for negotiations again.” It wasn’t likely. She’d have to be pushed back off the ‘front lines’ again for that to happen. “Do be a stranger, Cargo.”

She left him pondering the words, still half in a fugue of lust, and left to return to her sanctum.

Book 1, 2. Accord

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Baroness came, tried the sampler platter. Left without any take-home. No takers.

Rosewater snorted at the letter from Pippindril. Not the original. That letter had already crossed the river into Prim territory. She dropped it into the sealed container she kept correspondence in and set about making sure none of her wards had snapped. Any one of the nastier ones could have given her that appetite and more.

Her cupboards full of oils in enchanted jars, exotic goods and components for both spell and fragrance were all untouched. The sleep enchantments still hung about with their scent of magnolia acting as a cloying warning. Magnolia was only the warning, honeysuckle would suffocate the nose to all else and the spell would wrap the mind in layers of it, carrying the offender into a deep, dreamless slumber.

She disarmed them and went on to the door to her personal study, warded with layer upon layer of defenses. Sleep and lust, fear and confusion; all paired trap spells that struck at opposing angles. She left those in place. She wouldn’t need her diaries today. Not to create something so simple as the baroness’s perfume.

Which reminded her, along with the stench of unwashed come and apparently a fair bit of urine. Rosewater curled her lip at the smell and snapped a fragrance filter spell around the whole thing. “Adding this to my final bill, you cretin.”

There wasn’t anything to be done about it then, except to clean it up. She walked back out front to collect a few mane ties from the register where Rosemary kept hers, just in time to see the mare they belonged to turn up the street, veiled as she was supposed to be.

Rosewater pulled out her scope and leaned out of the shop to spy on the place her tail had last been.

Spyglass met spyglass, and she waved a foreleg. The other spyglass lowered. It wasn’t any of her regular tail. It was a pegasus in the purple and blue livery of the Dammeguard. He frowned at her, his ears flicking back before he raised the glass again.

“Where. Is. Prim. Collar?” She mouthed distinctly, hoping he was at least somewhat versed in the art of lipreading.

The stallion’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and shook his head.

She smirked broadly and flirted her tail before laughing, full and throaty, and ducked back into her shop where Rosemary was watching her, brows knitted.

Rosewater paused, pursing her lips, and studied her for a moment. It’d been a few days since she’d seen Rosemary, off as she had been to greet the baroness at the Rosethorn Lighthouse, a day’s journey away. And, of course, the baroness had been late.

Like her mother, Rosemary had had lighter eyes than the usual Rose, that tended towards the darker pink of a fine rosè wine, almost a soft carnation. She still had the distinctive muzzle streaks and heart mark, marking her as one of the main line of the Rosethorn branch of the Rose family, but it was fainter against her rouged coat speckled with flecks of white about her hindquarters and ankles.

Rosemary flicked an ear inquisitively and brushed back a strand of her pale gold mane. “Rosewater?”

“My tail.” Rosewater flicked hers, smirking. “They’re not even trying to be subtle about watching me. They’re toying with me, I think.”

“P-Prim Collar?” Rosemary swallowed and scanned the window, as if he might leap across a thousand or more hooves of open air and crash through into the shop right then. “He’s been tailing you?”

“Not him today. I expect he’s sleeping in. It’s his pattern after spending an afternoon with that delicious pegasus of his.” Rosewater chuckled softly and surveyed the shop. “I think we’ll close the front today. I would like to have you help me in the back as I will be going on a night mission at the end of the week, and I need to make sure I’m prepared.”

“Really?” The younger mare paused in locking up, her ears ticked back in consternation. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“More than sure. I have a future husband to entice.” Rosewater chuckled and drew down the curtains over the window, then drew the silence close, the listeners from her mother and from Damme having heard what she wanted them to hear. “But first… what news from you, Rosemary? I’m sorry about yesterday, but you know how I feel about involving you in…” She flicked her tail. “Lure creation.”

“I, um.” Rosemary flicked her own tail. “I may need your help in that regard. Roseate wants me to train for a mission.”

No. It was automatic. It had been automatic since Carnation Rose had left Rosemary in her care. Rosewater was shaking her head before she opened her mouth to say it.

“Roseate said you would say no,” Rosemary said softly with a sigh. “She told me to say, ‘Remember my one stipulation.’” She cocked her head to the side, ears flicking curiously. “What did she mean?”

It means she’s a manipulative, scheming wretch who doesn’t understand you.

Rosewater stared at the mare she’d helped Carnation raise, whom she had raised alone for the past six years. The only mare she loved without reservation or demand. The only mare who loved her as only family could.

She saw all of Rosemary’s life as a tiny gem, all of her joys, her first time with a stallion, with a mare, learning her first magical enticements, how she didn't need help with the non-magical. She had the open mind necessary to learn what Rosewater had to teach. She had the pure joy of enjoying sex for its own rewards that Rosewater hadn't enjoyed in years, and she showed no signs of letting that enjoyment go.

“It means she’s going to be pushing me to get you ready for missions. Or else,” Rosewater said through gritted teeth. “She means to keep me from pursuing Prim Collar.” Her coat bristled as she brushed past Rosemary into the laboratory. “Come. Baroness Pisswater can wait another day enjoying the pleasures of the city. There are things I must teach you. And there is one thing you must promise me.”

“What?” Rosemary sidled up close to her, cheek rubbing against Rosewater’s neck. “I’ll promise anything.”

“Promise me you won’t change, Rosemary. I loved your mother. I love you.” Irritatingly, tears began forming in her eyes. An application of will stoppered the churn of emotion. “Promise me you won’t become like me.”

“Why?” She paused to check the silence spell, smiled more brightly, and continued, “I love you too, and I could think of worse ponies to emulate.” Rosemary chuckled at her joke, but her grin faltered when she looked up into Rosewater’s eyes. “What?”

“Thank you, Rosemary.”

She would not let Roseate corrupt this gem.

A white face, beautiful, a smile that promised pleasure and pink eyes that drew him in.

“You will be mine, Lord Collar.”

He snapped awake, shaking his head free of the husky alto that still purred in his ears.

“Collar?” Cloudy licked his cheeks and between his eyes. “Collar, what is it?”

“Her. Her voice and face,” he groaned, shaking his head free of those wine-dark eyes. “Is it like that when a Rose gets a lure in you?”

Her breathing hitched for just a second. “No. Lures… only last a few days at most.” Cloudy’s eyes darted between his, then bent to sniff at his neck. “It’s not a lure. She’s got her hooves in you.”

“She’s frightening, Cloudy,” Collar admitted. “Even months later, I can’t get her out of my head.” He groaned and shook his head slowly. “I won’t let her have me. I have you, Cloudy. I want you.”

“A part of you wants her.” Cloudy Rose opened her eyes, those beautiful pink eyes, the signature of the Rose family, so like Rosewater’s, but without the golden flashes in the iris. He could still remember that detail, even from across the field. Striking. Beautiful. Dangerous. “She is frightening, Collar.”

“I can see why the Roses fear her, too,” he said, pushing himself up from her bed and smiling down at her. “But I still have you.”

Cloudy searched his eyes for a long moment, then smiled as she caught on to his desire to change the subject. “You do, and you always will, Collar.” Cloudy chuckled and nibbled at his cheek. “Stars, I never thought I’d spend this much time with a stallion before I met you.”

“I love you,” Collar whispered, smiling. “Even if you spend your off-time corrupting the mares in my guard.”

She laughed and rolled onto her back. “Oh, they’re fun, but you, my lord, are my greatest conquest. Or I’m yours. The lone Rose in the Guard, the lord of Damme’s lover. What a coup.”

“You are such a Rose, Cloudy,” he said with a laugh.

“And you are such a Prim, Collar.” She chuckled softly.

“Haha. So hilarious.” He nipped her cheek and backed up to nose aside her tail.

An hour later, after a second round in the bathtub with Cloudy riding him in a slow, heavy stroking, Prim Collar forced about him the calm and chill professionalism he adopted when in the city proper. It was right for a Prim to be as steady and firm as their name suggested. It was the hallmark of the city’s mien.

The clean streets had not a hint of scent not there naturally from the myriad of flower beds and flowering, fruiting trees that lined the flat stone boulevards and rose from the center to form shady arches that channeled the smell of the sea during the day and the sweet smell of the oat fields on the other side of Damme as the wind retreated during the evening and night.

Cloudy trotted at his side, garbed in her finest Dammeguard doublet with the colors of House Prim stitched around the neck. The silver pin in her doublet’s collar marked her as a lieutenant, one of the highest ranking Dammeguard.

She’d worn that pin with pride ever since Captain Pink had pinned it to her lapel. Her face was impassive, the control that the Roses also taught their soldiers evident in the steady set of her ears, and the calm, almost relaxed trot. Her eyes, though, darted everywhere.

On duty, she was as dedicated as any other guard, and more so than any when she was acting as his guard.

Ahead, the Prim Palace stood in its stark glory. The arches of the front portico were perfectly angular, the front of the palace an edifice of dark stone and narrow windows. It was a remnant of a time when the Rose-Prim War had been more openly fought, before Celestia had set her hoof down and forced the war to become a trade rivalry, fought with ships and goods instead of arrows and spears.

It was a reminder that, as hard as life could be with the Roses’ nighttime visits and threat of enthrallment to a prison sentence of pleasure and silk, it had been far, far worse. By contrast, the uninvited Roses coming to entice and seduce were civil, gentle affairs.

Not that they didn’t have reason to be resentful. Damme had the better port facilities thanks to geography. Merrie was left to suckle at the leavings that couldn’t find berthing in the extensive dockside piers that lined the inside of the bay’s northern edge. The southern half of the bay was rocky and hard to navigate, but the Rose navigators were some of the best in the world to compensate. It was the cost of hiring them that added to the incentive to trade in Damme instead.

Prim Collar sighed and shook his head as he passed the outer ring of guards standing watch. None of them reacted, and remained stoic statues in blue and purple livery.

They were finally stopped at the palace bridgeway, what used to be a portcullis and drawbridge, but had been permanently welded to the stone a century prior as a sign of their devotion to the Merrie-Damme Treaty.

“Your lordship,” the captain said, a mare named Prim Pink, a stern middle-aged mare with a pink mane and darker rose coat. “Your lady mother is waiting. She asked me to send you to her immediately.”

Collar started off, but stopped when the captain held a hoof up to block Cloudy Rose.

“Lieutenant Rose.” Captain Pink patted her peytral. “Her ladyship asked me to hold you behind.”

“She cannot order her when she’s acting as my personal guard,” Collar said, smoothly. “Lieutenant, with me. This is merely a misunderstanding.”

Pink snorted. “The court talks, young Collar. Be wary of what you let go in her earshot.”

That wasn’t unexpected. He allowed himself a thin smile. “The fruits of gossip grow more slowly than I remembered if that’s only now reached her ears. According to rumor, Cloudy Rose and I have been lovers for months.”

“As you say, your lordship. I wouldn’t believe it, of course.” A quirk of Pink’s lips said that was a lie. “Be wary of repeating that in front of Prim Lace, however.”

Cloudy remained impassive throughout the exchange, the only sign of her consternation a slight quiver of her ears. She waited until Captain Pink was far behind and the open courtyard gave a hint of privacy that she sidled closer.

“Don’t do it. Please. I want to stay with you.” Her tail snapped as she said the last. “She’ll find some way to send me away.”

“She will not,” Prim Collar said gently, looking up to the window where his mother’s office was, smiled at it, and stopped to draw Cloudy into a brief kiss. “She dotes on me, and she’s not as bad as that. She married a Merrie stallion. An offshoot Rosewing.”

Cloudy’s lips quivered, wanting to accept it, but he saw the doubt, the worry. He didn’t blame her. Baronesses had only caused her trouble when they’d gotten involved in her life. He kissed her again, and raised his eyes to the window his mother usually lurked at.

“Don’t,” Cloudy said as she drew away, ruffling her wings. “Not where she can see. I’m still not comfortable around her.” Her cheeks were flushed as they didn’t in private. “I’m trying to be a good Prim.”

“Ah, and the Rose is a corrupting influence?” He chuckled and drew back, gesturing forward before starting off again. He could almost feel his mother’s eyes on him.

“She thinks so. And she’s not wrong.” Her wings unfurled briefly as she stretched her back. “How many mares have you lain with before me?”

“Two. Brief little affairs.” He shook his head slowly. “They weren’t you.”

“Exactly. You’ve had more sex with me than you have with either of them. In months.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I love you, Collar. Love, and not just making love.”

“I love you, too.” In the view of the windows, he kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“I know.” Her smile was more tender than fierce, but impish still. “You talk in your sleep.”

His heart skipped a beat, but she winked at him, and then they were out of the entry hall, and Cloudy closed her mouth, drawing about her the professionalism of her position.

The main hall of Prim Palace was well lit with magic-fueled sconces that spread a steady clear light throughout corridors filled with tapestries and carpets, and even the high-arched dark stone ceilings were obscured by billowing blue silks that stirred in the slow breeze allowed to sweep through the palace.

It was as much a contrast to the outside as the warm heart of the Prim line was to their outward appearance. It was the cost of fighting against the Roses. The will and resolve to resist the pleasures of the flesh, and yet also to succumb to it with a loved one.

Rosewater closed her eyes, opening herself to the fragrance and magic that Rosemary drifted towards her. It wasn’t perfect, but the Slumbering Scintilla perfume and spell would put almost any pony to sleep. She shook her head and cast a bubble of clean air around her. Too much of it would send her to a slumber. Had she been a lesser mage, it would have put her to sleep immediately.

Rosemary pursed her lips. “It didn’t work, did it?” She stoppered the vial of fragrance.

“It did. Be careful using that scent. If you’re not careful, it can put you to sleep as well.” Rosewater chuckled. “Especially don’t use it when bound in a shield. You won’t be able to escape it.”

“Noted.” Rosemary made a note in her journal, lips pursed. “But about the lure. I’ll need it to pass the mission, won’t I?”

“No. You won’t need it to pass.” Rosewater couldn’t bring herself to entice her daughter, to take in that scent of her daughter’s desire. For her. She shivered. “You don’t need it,” she repeated. “It’s not the only way to lure a pony.”

“Then teach me how.”

“I could ask you,” Rosewater said with a chuckle. “It’s being you, darling Rosemary. The way you are. The way you charm everypony just by being happy with life, with your loves.”

“But…” Rosemary chewed her lip for a moment. “What if she expects me to have something? A lure. Even if it’s a poor one.”

There wasn’t anything she could say to that. It would be like Roseate to put hidden hooks in her orders. Some phrase that she included in her orders that could be interpreted in a dozen ways. It was how Roseate worked.

Can I do that for her? To her? Rosewater shivered and closed her eyes.

“Don’t, mother,” Rosemary whispered. “I’ve read all of your notes. I can make a lure.”

Not all of them. There were some things that were too dangerous to put to paper. Things that she could only do with her talent. But Rosemary had her own talent at mixing and bringing out the properties of herbs.

The look in Rosemary’s eyes pushed at her, and she let out a sigh with a shake of her head. “I’ll give you the use of my perfumery for the afternoon.”

Rosewater looked up to watch the same hiding place. Her tail was gone, which was odd, but not unheard of. Today was scheduled to be a boring day at the shop.

Why, Carnation? Why couldn’t you just do it? She shook her head and turned towards the Rose Palace. All around her, the city was bustling with trade and scents ranging from fragrant to foul in a careful tapestry of scents meant to draw the tourist and the trader to and from this shop or that shop, to entice and encourage the purchasing of knick knacks and souvenirs.

Baffles for wind kept the strong sea breeze from flowing unchecked through the streets, lest they muss the careful tapestry of vapors, smokes, and odors. Everywhere silks hung to direct that breeze and clear out the scent slowly into dead alleys that swept the scent up into the air, making way for fresher, stronger scents and carrying away the stale odors.

The way to the Rose Palace from her perfumery was deliberately long. The harder it was for her mother to bother her during the day, the better.

The Rose Palace was an open palace, massive pillars leading into an open courtyard bordering a tower that was the main Rose compound. The compound itself was a testament to the high pegasus population of the early city of Merrie. Eiries and balconies jutted out from the higher floors, and the top of the tower was an open dome with a myriad of platforms ready for flights of pegasi to land or take off from.

The outside of the tower was the same dark gray stone of the Prim Palace, but decorated with enchanted silks that fluttered about the tower and dome like a rose in bloom.

They did little to hide the one window she didn't ever want to see again. If she'd thought that Roseate had any inkling about how much that one room had shaped her, she would have thought her mother was drawing attention to it.

But Roseate understood feelings only well enough to manipulate her daughters and their children. The ones that had children.

Out front waited her sister Rosary, possessed of her mother’s diminutive height, temper, and ruddy pink coat. Rosary made her dislike of Rosewater apparent at every opportunity. Second eldest, second best. Rosary took coming in second with all the grace of a minotaur in a bramble patch.

“Roseate wants to see you,” she said, flaring her nose as Rosewater strode past, only flicking her ears in acknowledgement. “She wants to see Rosemary, too. Where is she?”

“Busy.” Rosewater didn’t stop, forcing Rosary to quick-trot to keep up. “If Rosemary wants to talk to her, she can. She’s still Carnation’s daughter, not mine or hers. She has no right to order her.”

“But,” Rosary said, keeping her pace quick to keep up and trying not to look like she was trotting to match Rosewaters stride, “she is your protege, and at an age she can be called upon for the militia. Roseate can command her to undertake raids.”

“She treads perilously close to a dueling insult,” Rosewater snarled. “Remind her of that, would you? She doesn't seem to listen to my warnings anymore.”

“You’ve gotten soft. That's why she doesn't listen. I take it Rosemary isn’t as good a lover as Carnation—”

Rosewater spun and snapped a foreleg across Rosary’s path, pulling the blow just enough to not crush, even in the snap of rage.

As her sister stopped, eyes wide, coughing, Rosewater pushed her horn against Rosary’s, spilling power into both horns to lock her into place even as she tried to fall. The feeble resistance her sister put up fell away under Rosewater's talent. Cold fury settled over her as she watched her sister’s eyes widen from shock and pain to horror as she found she couldn’t even twitch her tail to let the answering fury find release.

She let the chill fill her voice as she spoke, “If you ever speak that lie again, I will meet you on the dueling grounds and I will give you a taste of what I gave dear mother. I promise I will not be as gentle next time.” She let go of the fury and the magic and spun away to continue her long-striding rush to get the business with her mother done with. The less time she had to watch that cold fear in her eyes, the better.

“Bitch,” Rosary croaked behind her.

The less time she spent so close to where…

She forced the resurgent memories back and made herself look forward to the rage that would cauterize the grief again.

Her mother’s office was a mess. As usual. Pillows sat in every corner, their enchanted covers hiding the marks of stains from all manner of sex acts performed on each one. Papers and scrolls covered every flat surface and were stuffed into every cubby.

And her mother, once a beauty spoken of in song and story, she had been surpassed by her daughter in looks and stature. She still had the distinctive heart mark on her breast that marked the true lineage of the Rose, but it was indistinct against her mother’s dark pink coat and she worked hard to bring it out with makeups and dyes. The thinner lines from muzzle down to her cheeks were even harder to see.

“Mother.” It was the barest decency she could afford. She kept the chill out of her voice as much as she could. “I’ve come at your behest.”

The fear was there in Roseate’s eyes. Echoes of a fear in Rosewater’s heart; borne of love, fanned by this mare, her mother. She tried to take Rosemary away. She pushed away the fear and pain that threatened to strangle her every time she sat across from Roseate.

The cold fury, she embraced.

“Rosewater,” Roseate said in a sultry purr that did nothing to hide the glint of anger that was always there. “That look. So chilly towards your mother.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” You forced my hoof. You could have let me have her. Rosewater shook her head. “What do you want?”

“Rosemary’s told you she’s going out raiding, yes? You can’t keep her from that duty any longer.”

“I am aware. I’ve been training her.” Rosewater gritted her teeth. You didn’t bring me here to confirm that. “Promise me she’ll have support.”

“She will have the same support you have.” Roseate chuckled softly. “If you’ve trained her well, she should be fine.”

Rosewater ignored the implication. This wasn’t Rosary, who spread insults like squirrels did nuts. “When is she going?”

“Night after you, my dear.” Roseate pulled a tiny scroll. “Your night raid.” She floated a scrap of paper across to her. “Is tomorrow night. Here’s your target.”

That was an oddity. The raids thus far were usually only to capture whomever they could, not to take a particular target. It would be an escalation. And the name wasn’t one she recognized. Cloudy Rosewing.

“A traitor?” Rosewater flipped the scroll to peer at the tiny map, the little red dot noting the address. On the far side of Damme. A small district full of small houses as far from the docks as a pony could get. Nopony important would live there.

“Aye. She left the creche some two years ago. She needs to come back.” Roseate chuckled softly, languidly rolling one shoulder. “You will do this, Rosewater.”

I hope you aren’t home. She nodded slowly. Her plans shifted. From there, to the perfumery, then back to the palace after enough time passed to change the guard. A few hours.

Then, the odious moment, when she bowed her head and spoke the words her mother demanded when giving orders. “By your order, Mother, your command is heard, and will be obeyed.” When the Mare in the Moon returns.

She waited until she left the office, left the compound, and was well on her way back to the perfumery before she let herself shiver.

In his spyglass, Rosewater sat outside her perfumery, staring up at the sky. Her ear flicked towards him occasionally, acknowledging that she knew he was there.

“Do we know where she was just before this?”

Cloudy peered at the intelligence report. “She visited the Rose Palace for a half hour two hours ago. One of our spies there reported in. Apparently Rosary was taken away for a bruised throat after a confrontation with her.”

“Another fight with her family?” Collar arched a brow, but continued watching that distinctive profile. He hadn’t seen her up close often. But that dark pink streak down her muzzle and neck drew the eye to her chest and the heart outline tracing the plush swell of her breast. Enticing, even from a distance. But behind that heart was fear and chill. A dangerous mare in a pretty package.

“Maybe. Rosary hates Rosewater. She’s second-oldest. Shorter. Not as pretty. Not as skilled. And Rosary probably earned it.” Cloudy snorted. “She’s a piece of her mother.”

“What’s she thinking about?” The look on her face was hard to decipher. Her ears ticked erratically, emblematic of chaotic thoughts. If he didn’t know better, he thought she might be worried about something.

“You could go ask her,” Cloudy said with a chuckle.

Below, the door to the shop opened, and Rosewater turned her head, eyes crossing over Collar’s line of sight, and continuing without pausing to watch the Veiled mare stepping out.

Rosewater spoke silently, her lips barely moving. The other mare held up a vial of clear liquid. A lure. The other mare replied, Veil fuzzed ears ticking. She pushed the vial closer to Rosewater, then seemed to sigh, shook her head, and ducked back in, letting the veil fall before stepping back. She had a coat of a rosy pink darker than Rosewater’s, and a cutie mark that looked like two sprigs of rosemary crossed behind a rose.

“Sloppy.” Collar clucked his tongue. “Did you catch that cutie mark?”

Cloudy shook her head. “I was trying to read the label on the lure. It didn’t look like one of the Rosewater lures we’ve captured.”

“Odd.” He spent a moment sketching the cutie mark on the scroll. It was black and white, but not many cutie marks shared a shape. “This was the mark.”

Cloudy glanced at him, her ears canted back, a look of sick horror creeping into her eyes. “That’s Rosemary.”

“Your lover?”

“Yes.” Cloudy rolled up the scroll, swallowing and put it back in her pack. “If she’s making perfumes with Rosewater, it means she’s getting ready to go on raids.”

“Making her own lure?” Collar chuckled. “I wouldn’t think Rosewater would trust anypony with her perfumery.”

“She might not have a choice. Roseate can issue orders.” Cloudy clucked her tongue. “I wish she wouldn’t. She was so sweet and kind. But… Rosethorns corrupt, Collar.”

“They do.” Collar watched as Rosewater turned her attention to him, but didn’t do anything other than watch. Then she smirked, raised her chin, and her horn lit with a pink light along its length. She licked her lips. “What—”

Cloudy stiffened beside him, and a moment later he smelled it as well, a magical calm flowing over him briefly then fading into the smell of vanilla, honey, and something distinctly fruity dispersed into the wind, just a whiff, less than a suggestion, but enough to capture Cloudy’s attention a moment. He pushed it off more easily, and brushed the air away from Cloudy.

When she came back, she snarled. “I told you she was scary. She shouldn’t be able to reach that far.”

“And she shouldn’t have. Are you okay?” He turned her head left and right gently with a spell, looking into her eyes. Eyes normal, responding normally to light. Unlured. He relaxed. She was terrifying, but not that terrifying.

“Yeah. Not even horny. Just angry. It wasn't a lure. It was… calm.” Cloudy shook her head. “She didn’t intend to.”

He lowered the shield, but kept power flowing through his horn.

Rosewater smirked up at him, then spoke slowly. “I can reach you from anywhere. From any angle.”

“Go home, Cloudy,” Collar growled. “No questions, please.” He collapsed his scope, pulling more power into his horn. “She wanted to get my attention. She has it.”

“Collar?” Cloudy stood, her ears slicked back. “Don’t. It’s what she wants.”

“Now, Lieutenant.” He didn’t look at her, he couldn’t look at her. He needed restraint. Rosewater hadn't used a lure on purpose. He had to keep that in mind. “That is an order.”

“Sir.” She snapped a crisp salute to her peytral.

He would pay for that later. But he needed to do this alone. He could stand against Rosewater. Cloudy couldn't. Even that simple demonstration of a calming fragrance and her succumbing to it, or welcoming it, was a sign of that.

Cloudy leapt from the building and snapped her wings in a launch, leaving him alone to stare at the mare below, no longer smirking. Calculating, devious. Dangerous. That had been a calculated move on her part.

Power built in his horn until he felt the pressure beginning to tear away at spacetime in the pattern he needed. With a pop and a flash, he appeared in front of her, glared at her, and ducked into the perfumery and out of sight from the street, holding the door open for her. “We need to talk.”

Fury rolled off him in waves as he blocked the door farther back and spread a silencing shell around the rest of the room. He wouldn’t let her have access to whatever she had back there, and didn’t want Rosemary to hear what he had to say. She might still be the innocent that Cloudy remembered.

She followed him in, ears perked and horn glowing as she closed the door behind her, covering the entrance with a veil. “Talk under truce?”

“Under truce,” he agreed stiffly, his ears flat to his skull.

She laughed softly, lighting her horn to draw a long pillow to her. “Under truce or not, it’s still so nice of you to come visiting so unexpectedly, Prim Collar.”

“What are you playing at, Rosewater?” This close to her, her voice a dusky alto, matching her tall, slender frame, simmered in his ears near as much as the fury that had brought him here. It was a voice he'd only heard in passing at the Merrie-Damme Treaty Galas held quarterly. Up close, it was almost as enchanting as her spells. “What game was that out there?”

“Playing, Prim Collar?” Rosewater backed away from him slowly, her tail flicking against a display case. “I don’t play with my future mate.”

“You presume much. I will not be yours.” Collar snapped his tail and forced himself back to the purpose. She was dangerous, and he needed to limit the damage she could do in whatever way he could. He fixed her with a glower. “If you want to play your games, include no-one else. Do this, and I will propose an accord between us.”

“An accord. A binding, you mean?” Rosewater’s eyes left his to stray to the door back into the laboratory. “What do you propose?”

“Just what I said. Only you and I, Rosewater. Don’t include anypony in Damme.”

“What incentive do I have, Lord Collar?” Rosewater sniffed and flirted her tail. “Here you are, in my own shop, alone, at my mercy for all intents and purposes.”

“You think so?” Collar snorted and glanced at the door, taking a chance and throwing the dice. “And if I made an especial effort to capture a certain somepony.” He turned his head to look at the door, flicking an ear at it. “She’s soon to start raiding, is she not?”

He might as well have said he was going to capture a banana and eat it for all the effect it had on her.

“My lord, I would agree to it simply for the chance to have you to myself a few nights.” Rosewater’s smile told him nothing, her rose and gold eyes not moving from his even to look at the door. This close, it was hard to look away himself. “But perhaps you can offer more? The name of that delightful mare you were with, perhaps?”

“No.”

For a moment she feigned disinterest, ticking her ears and stepping back, the smile fading into a thoughtful frown. “My lord, I can hardly accept an accord with only favors on your side.”

“Fine.” Collar flicked his ears. “I’ll make sure your cousin gets a blind eye so long as she doesn’t break any laws.” It didn’t cost him anything to offer it… Rosemary was the rare Rosethorn who didn’t have a record.

“Accorded.” Rosewater drew out a slip of paper from a drawer behind the counter. It was already signed and stamped by the Rose magnate. All it would require was the Prim magnate’s stamp and signature.

“Nay. I will not put this on the official record.” He laughed. “This is between us, not the Treaty Office, and not for public record. I want you to swear it to me, Rosewater. On your cousin’s freedom.”

Rosewater’s eyes stayed on his but for the briefest flicker towards the shielded door. “You would trust my word?”

“I trust you to remember that I can order your cousin captured at any time.” He raised a brow, a small smile on his lips. “She’s going to start raiding soon. She’s also terrible at veiling. Isn’t she?”

That got more of a reaction: a flinch, barely discernible, and a chuckle. “Or she’s tricking your spies into thinking she is. It wouldn’t be the first time feigned incompetence set you all on your back hooves.”

“I will come after her myself should you break it, Rosewater.” He shoved his hoof at her. “Not one other pony involved.”

“Why not simply capture me here?” Rosewater offered, crossing her forelegs in front of her and sitting back on her haunches. “Bind me. Take me. It would be simpler.”

“You know I cannot.”

“Ah… yes. By the rules, aren’t you?” Rosewater tsked and dropped back to sit, forelegs still crossed. “No raiding. And this would be a raid if you abducted me here and now, would it not? No fun at all.”

“Walk across the bridge with me and we can make it official.”

“Walk across the bridge to me… and we can make it official,” she purred right back, grinning.

Collar glared at her, headache starting up. It was like talking to a spring. Everything he said, she threw right back at him. “Will you swear?”

Before she could answer, the backroom door handle turned and the door pressed against his ward.

A crack finally showed in the facade, her eyes widening only momentarily, then snapping to his face. “I swear. By her safety, Lord Collar. Not one hair, even should she break a law, or I will come after you.”

“You are already coming after me,” he reminded her, feeling the shift in the game and smiling himself. A sore point. Whatever it was. She didn’t want Rosemary to be involved at all in their game, if that’s what she was up to. “What difference would it make?”

“You will swear to her safety, Lord Collar,” Rosewater hissed as the door thumped against his barrier, carmine threads of magic sneaking out to probe at his barrier and start to press against it. “Or I will not swear to your terms.”

“You realize I could simply not. And nothing changes.”

“Please!” The look in her eyes changed without seeming to change at all, shifting at once from anger to… something else. “Do not force me to beg you, Lord Collar. She is not a part of this.”

The force against his shield was starting to drain, and he felt shouting against the aural barrier. He could simply drop both barriers and have it out then, but then it would be two against one, and he in enemy territory.

“By my word. Not one hair, Lady Rosewater.”

“Then I swear, not one more pony beyond us.” She slammed open the door behind her. “Now go!”

Book 1, 3. Rumors & Gossip

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The archives of the Rose Palace were, in larger part, disorganized. There weren’t many Roses that came along with talents in bookkeeping.

But the branches of the family were required to maintain their own histories and genealogies in the archives in the strictest order. It was a requirement for a society that was so free about sex and reproduction that none closer than third cousins ever mated.

Any Rose could recite, at length, their closest relatives up to three removes. Anypony outside that circle was safe. At least for breeding pairs. While it was frowned on quite strongly, Roses tended to look the other way for same sex couples of closer relations. In the past, during the hotter years of the Rose-Prim war, it wasn’t uncommon for sister-lovers to rise to prominence on the Rose side of the battlefield, using their bond-pairing to great effect.

They had also been the greatest tragedies. One side of the bond did not often survive long after the other perished. After one particularly tragic incident, the head of the family at the time had issued a decree that no future sister-lovers were to be allowed, and set forth stricter mating laws.

Still, the earliest years of the Rose family and its various branches rise in Merrie tended to look more like tangled webs rather than proper trees.

As a former Rose, even if she was a minor branch scion, Cloudy had to have left a presence behind when she left, and Rosewater was determined to find it.

It had taken hours to find the particular tome she was looking for, precious hours she would have preferred spending with Rosemary, teaching her in the hours left before her own raid.

“House Rosewing,” Rosewater murmured softly to herself as she flipped through the pages, tracing with mind and magic the pathways of family from page to page. Largely a pegasan branch, and militaristic in their earlier days, they had been scouts and strike troops, and had once been a far stronger branch, before the Rosethorns, Rosewater’s own branch, had pushed them out of power following Celestia’s treaty.

“Why do you want her, mother?” She murmured, flipping past former heads of the Rose family, soldiers, and guards, then later traders and messengers, and finally little more than commoners with the Rose name. She found Cloudy Rose in the middle of the fifth page from the last filled page. She had a two brothers and a sister, not large, but the Rosewing family branch had been in decline for centuries.

With that information in hoof, and a reference number, Rosewater was able to find a short biography about her, written by the Rosewing matriarch, Cloudy’s mother.

Fastest flyer in either city.
Prospects with a younger Rosethorn member, Rosemary.
Defected.

It was written in a shaky hoof, and there was more than a few discolored blotches on the page below it. The poor mare had had to write it at Roseate’s direction. She must have. She wouldn’t have willingly written it. Nopony wanted to write that word in the family book.

Roseate had relished writing it in the Rosethorn family book for Carnation. She’d read the first line, once, out of morbid curiosity, and couldn’t read on. It’d called the mare a traitor to everything from species to gender.

“With my Rosemary, were you?” She briefly considered breaking the accord, then dismissed it. That notation had been almost two years ago. The defection had been recorded last year. That they had recorded it wasn’t a surprise. A minor house scion bonding with a Rosethorn would bring that house up in prestige. But having defected to the Prims, she had sunk the branch’s prospects even lower.

She clucked her tongue. She’d have to be gentle with Rosemary in the questioning. Cloudy deserting her for the Prims may have hurt her dearly. If she knew about it.

If she’d only disappeared…

A memory sparked, of a period about a year ago when Rosemary had grown increasingly worried, downcast, and, at times, irritable, but she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and Rosewater had let her have her space. She had recovered after a month, and seemed cheerful thereafter. At the time…

It had been near the anniversary of Carnation’s exile. Rosewater could remember the day Rosemary had come home, stoic, hiding the fact that she’d been crying. Just as Rosewater had hidden her own pain at the remembrance of Carnation and the day that had ripped apart their happy home life.

Now…

Why did you leave her? Did you say anything? Try to say anything? Questions she would have to ask, if she got the chance.

She tapped a hoof on the table, considering the entry and the cutie mark that had been partially scratched off; a mark of Cloudy’s dishonor. Remnants of rose petals and a cloud. Perhaps a cloud raining rose petals. Perhaps a cloud shaped like a rose, shedding petals. She committed the scraps of image to memory.

She tried to recall which of Rosemary’s myriad of pegasus lovers it could be, but none came to mind. None of the ones she’d known the names of had defected. She frowned. Sometimes, Rosemary’s myriad of friends and lovers proved to be problematic, but they all made her happy.

A hint of her mother’s plan came to light, as well. Erasing the last vestiges of the mare who’d been like a mother to Rosewater in her youth. Carnation’s daughter would be the last thing to corrupt before she could claim she had won whatever petty contest she’d imagined up between them.

Take a former lover, one who’d meant enough to Rosemary to mope about for a month when others flitted through her life like petals on the breeze, would be an enticement worth the risk of having Rosewater foil the plan. Or, Rosewater thought, the perfect irony. For Rosewater to deliver into Roseate’s hooves the tool to finish destroying what she’d sought to protect for the past six years.

There would be traps along the way in whatever plan she had to keep Cloudy free of Roseate’s hooves, but she’d thwarted other plots by her mother.

Collar’s accord was going to make things trickier. She couldn’t just capture the mare and hold her for a time away from Roseate’s hooves and machinations and attempts to corrupt otherwise innocent ponies.

Her mother was, if nothing else, predictable. There would be tools the mare would leave out that Rosewater could pick up and use to her own ends regardless of the ends Roseate had intended them for.

She only had to be careful about how she used them.

Rosemary Rosethorn was easy enough to locate in the palace intelligence archives. As one of the highest of the Rose family, she had a file all her own in the main cabinet of files on ‘the enemy.’

It was also practically empty, just as it had been the first time he’d checked it months prior. Still no arrest record, so his accord with Rosewater wasn’t in danger from the start.

Hobbies, interests, possible meanings for her cutie mark, all blank. She was an apothecary, a rare skill even in Merrie, but whether that was related to her cutie mark or not was uncertain. The only definite information was that she was the daughter of Carnation Rosethorn, lived with Rosewater Rosethorn, and often spent nights away from home with lovers.

A lot of nights. She was apparently quite popular among the lower levels of the Rose family and claimed lovers all over the city. But she never brought any home.

“Are all Roses this promiscuous?” Prim Collar asked. “I mean, seriously, three pages of lover’s names?”

“She was special. Is special.” Cloudy’s ears flicked once as she stared at the sheets. “I used to be one of them, but not all of those names will be lovers. Some of them…” Cloudy shrugged. “Just friends.”

“You miss her.”

“Of course,” Cloudy growled, glowering at him briefly, then dropping her head to stare at the papers again. “She wasn’t just good in bed, Collar. I mean, she was that, but she was just as fun to be around.” Cloudy chuckled, her cheeks practically glowing as she stared past the page she’d been reading. “She was a little bubble-headed at times, but shrewd enough to know when to stop pursuing somepony. Or when to avoid somepony.”

She’s still in love. Collar swallowed and flicked his tail. It wasn’t the flings she had with her comrades; nights spent entwined with another mare. This had been a year gone and still affecting her like this.

He let the silence ride for a few minutes while he read the list of names and tried to guess who’d been a lover and who’d been a friend. It was hard to believe that all of them were lovers. Even for the purported promiscuity of Merrie, he knew that it took time to get to know somepony well enough to open up to sex.

Cloudy had said as much about her ‘flings.’

“Have you found Carnation’s file yet?” He asked.

“Yes.” She looked up from reading a mix of scrolls and flat paper pages, then dragged the wooden box over. “She’s got a huge file. Some… fascinating things.”

Collar heaved the box up and started picking through it. Early life, young life. Some mentions of Rosewater and galas they’d been to together. Carnation had been Rosewater’s guardian, just as Rosewater was apparently Rosemary’s.

To call their family broken would be calling the remnants of the Crystal Empire’s legacy a ‘ruin.’ But at the same time, a broken family didn’t excuse the things Rosewater had done.

Collar read silently along with Cloudy through the trove, making mental notes of different bits of information that he hadn’t known or had only known peripherally. Carnation’s hobbies: painting and horticulture—the latter something that seemed almost universal amongst the Rosethorns of the main line branch to lesser and greater degrees. Her likes and dislikes, habits and routines dated through the years.

Things a spy would need to know in order to follow her.

Somepony in palace intelligence had clearly put a lot of effort into tracking the spare, and some bits of intelligence were important enough that he made a short note in his own notes from the expedition.

“Fascinating reading,” he murmured sometime later, his eyes straining from reading through so many different styles of hoofwriting. He tucked away the bits and pieces of the file on Carnation, checking each against his list of things he wanted to make sure he found out.

“Alright.” He settled the box back into place, putting the label facing out just as it had been when they’d come down, and pulled up the two boxes that comprised Rosewater’s file. “Ready?”

“No.” Cloudy rubbed at her eyes, groaned, and sat heavily, staring as Collar pulled out half of one box and gave it to her. “But by the stars…” She pulled down the first scroll and stared at it. “Rumors and gossip.”

“Trash. Ignore it,” Collar said with a sigh. “I’ve seen it.”

“Then why keep it?”

“Because it tells us what other ponies are talking about, even if the rumor of her—” He leaned over and read the top line. “—seducing an entire company of ponies with a single spell is a complete falsehood.”

“She didn’t do that, is what you’re saying?”

“No. That was a mutation from the ‘battle’ of Primline Park. The spell she used that ended the battle.” It had been a powerful spell, but wild and unfocused, as much rage and fear as it had been lust. She’d been nearly broken from amplifying it to the point he couldn’t contain it anymore, and it’d nearly drained him.

She’d only been saved by the fact that she stood up afterwards and walked away amid the chaos the unleashed and unchained scent magic had done to both sides—more her own side than to the Dammeguard. It’d been the first time he’d really faced her in a tense situation.

If she hadn’t cast it… if she hadn’t lost control…

“It’s bunk,” he said, shaking himself back to the present. “Ignore it. It’s not useful for figuring out what she’s likely to do.”

“I’m more worried about what Roseate told her to do.”

“Capture a pony,” Collar said with a raised brow. “That’s all Rosewater’s good at. Roseate took a risk using her in a big raid, and it didn’t pay off.”

He read through the first page atop his pile, a recent incident report from the Merrie docks. Cargo Manifest claiming he rutted her. Further reading had the full tale from one of their informants. At least what they’d been able to see through an open window. The mare had indeed seemed to get the raw end of the deal with the cretin, a smuggler of ill repute barred from doing business in Damme, but also had a contract with several harbor pilots in Merrie.

He doubted, highly, that she’d actually let that happen to her, or that she’d welcome the… ah. There it was, at the bottom. When he’d finished, Rosewater had tossed his come out the window. It must have been a mist faerie illusion. It was the only thing he could think of that fit her style.

More reports of other incidents from informants and more reliable rumors lay underneath, including a brief note about the nature of her business with a baroness from the Equestrian Highlands. The mare had gone to a ‘House of Delight’ on the docks, but apparently found no relief and nopony willing to rut her. Pipindril, the proprietor, had sent the note apparently as a warning to Damme to watch out for her.

Older reports had conflicting information on incidents purported to be her. It was hard for her to hide as a Veiled Rose, her height giving her away more than any kind of ability did.

Why do you even bother?

That would be a question he’d need to ask when they eventually captured her. One of dozens.

He read on, occasionally glancing at Cloudy’s pile when she pointed out some interesting tidbit, slowly building up a picture of what intelligence thought of her. Something, quite frankly, he should have done long before rather than relying on the impersonal suppositions and broad strokes categorizations of why.

Now, having confronted her, poked and prodded her one-on-one, he had more experience with her than almost anyone else in the intelligence service.

From the bare observations, he was able to draw a more complete picture of the mare, from her early public life at the Rose Palace, the death of her father and her subsequent living with Carnation for most of her childhood into adulthood. All things that he knew, and all things that were part of the common knowledge, but also a part of the picture of the mare drawn together with Rosemary and Carnation.

Her own actions seemed to bely what she should have done, given whom she’d been raised with, hinting that she’d been corrupted early or even born with the same affliction her mother had.

It wasn’t until he got to the latter life portions of her file, when she was only a teenager, that a radically different mare started to emerge.

“I am more confused now,” Collar confessed in his office two hours later, staring at a painting of Damme, a piece done some hundred years before, showing a city largely unchanged. The greater changes were happening in Dammehollow, upriver. He didn’t want to look at the notes scattered across his desk and onto the floor, some touched up with red ink for inconsistencies and questions he still had.

Their intelligence service was good, but Rosewater, unlike most Roses, even most of her sisters, lived the life of a reclusive paranoid. She rarely left her home or her perfumery for anything other than business, and the few times she did and had were more than six years in the past, before Carnation’s exile.

“What happened, Cloudy? She was running raids before Carnation was exiled and wasn’t this reclusive.” He wondered if there was any truth to the rumor of Rosewater and her aunt being more than only that. It was sickening, but at least one report from an informant in the Rose Palace that hadn’t yet made it into the archive said Rosary had accused her of the same… and gotten physically assaulted for it.

“Dunno.” She shrugged and rolled over onto her side, rubbing at her temple. “I am not reading another word today. My head hurts.”

“Then… I guess I’ll have to order dinner for you tonight, won’t I?”

“Having dinner at home,” Cloudy grumbled. “Your mother had harsh enough words for you taking me out to eat already, Collar.”

“Rut the Primfeathers,” Collar grunted, wishing he’d had wings of his own to show his own annoyance the way Cloudy had. “I don’t give one stars-damned whit about what they think of us.”

“Neither do I,” Cloudy said with a snort. “But she wasn’t wrong, you know.”

“I know.” He pushed that conversation back into his memory before he could remember it again, how angry he’d felt at the time listening to his mother tell him he ought to be more circumspect about how he romanced the Rosewing known for her promiscuity.

It was her culture. He couldn’t ask her to change just because he wanted…

“And there’s that face again,” Cloudy said with a sigh, reaching out with a hoof to slap at his hindquarters. “Collar, you need to talk to me when you feel that way. You can’t just hold it in and hope it’ll go away.”

“Principes van Vrije Liefde,” Collar murmured, pulling a book down from his desk’s shelf. He’d been keeping a copy of Merrie’s main philosophical work there ever since Cloudy had started making a mess of his Dammeguard’s good order by sleeping around—off duty of course—with other consenting mares who found her just as intriguing as he had. Always the mares, though. He was, as far as he knew, the only stallion she’d lain with. “I want to understand, Cloudy.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I’m bad at explaining things. But you need to tell me if you feel jealous.” She pushed herself up and nibbled along his jaw until he leaned away. “I don’t want you to feel that about me, Collar. I just want to love you.”

Am I? He held the book against his horn, as if he could absorb the knowledge, the arguments, the history inside through osmosis. “What kind of love, Cloudy?”

“Romantic,” she whispered.

The highest form of love between two unrelated ponies according to the Principes. “I want that, too.”

“I can learn to be like Dapper. I can learn the Liefdesprincipes.”

He could hear the distaste in her voice, though she hid it under the near toneless whisper. She didn’t want to. But she would if he asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I love you, Cloudy. I can’t ask you to do something you’ll hate.”

“And I don’t want to run more afoul of your mother. I’ll be at my home tonight. You have patrol?”

“I don’t.”

“Mmm. Maybe you could,” she purred, nibbling along his jaw to his chin, capturing him with a kiss and a touch of her hoof.

He laughed softly and nipped her chin. “Maybe I misread the roster for this week.”

Book 1, 4. Raiding

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Rosewater checked her vials once more, making sure she had none of her usual lures left in the pockets of her cloak. It would be inconvenient if she, by reflex, sent a pony to sleep or calmed his thoughts for a few minutes while she slunk by unnoticed. Even such harmless things might count for breaking the accord, and she couldn’t risk that.

Not with Rosemary going out tomorrow night with decidedly Damme-illegal scents about her person.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Rosewater called.

“Be safe!” Rosemary came from her work room, mane bound back and a smock hanging from below her chin to her chest. Thick glass spectacles were tucked against her horn and a powder-mask hung under her muzzle; the signature tools of an apothecary.

Rosemary was forever experimenting with different combinations, making the powders and precursors to scents and medicines, and experimenting with different ways of spicing wine, continuing one of Carnation’s favorite past-times.

“I will.” It was tempting to play mother before leaving, just to tease her into a fit, but her nerves were too on edge. Instead, she took a breath and patted her cheek. “Practice your Veiling. You’re still too sloppy. You need to keep it up no matter what when you raid.”

“I know, mother.” Rosemary rolled her eyes and sauntered up to kiss the air beside Rosewater’s cheek, careful to keep any residues free of her pristine coat. “Be safe. I don’t want to have to nurture you back to health. Again.”

“Be safe yourself. I don’t want to come home to the house in flames.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes and went back to her work room. “One time,” she called back just before slamming the door shut. “And I put it out!”

Rosewater chuckled, veiled, sucked in a breath, and stepped out into the dim, moonlit night, the Mare’s eye twinkling in the early autumn air through the mist gathered about her.

Merrie was empty this late at night, with only a few street-lamps kept aglow by the unicorns of the watch to light the streets, and the occasional meandering light from a watchpony not on shadow watch.

The nearest bridge, Primrose Bridge, was well-lit, however, and well-guarded on both sides, but nopony noticed the patch of shadow that slipped from darkness to darkness, adjusting the shade and quality of her veil as she went through long practice to keep even the outline of herself hidden from casual view.

She passed by the guards without needing to do more than use a ventriloquist spell and emulate a cat’s yowling in the shadows of a building to draw their attention for the brief second she needed to slip by on padded hooves.

Normally, she would use a distraction scent to distract them and walk by brazenly without bothering to adjust. They’d remember, later, and report it, making things harder for her sisters in the future, even if it also made it harder for her.

She was pleased to see that they’d finally given up their taboo of scented plants and put some blueberry bushes up. Paltry, but at least the blooms were good enough to use against distraction scents… if they thought to stuff their noses in the midst of the bush.

They were getting more canny, and had changed their tactics in the last four months. At least on this bridge.

She left without being any the wiser, and slipped into the square maze of Damme, almost as devoid of scent as Merrie was fragrant.

And yet… as she made her way through the streets, following a different route than the one the memorized map had suggested, she found more scents were waking and warming even this late at night. Natural scents of spring honeysuckle and magnolia from trees of each that lined the boulevard, heady and uplifting, reminding her of the greenhouses of the Garden of Love.

It wasn’t enough to distract her from the task, nor from the feeling of being watched. She had a tail, but whether it was a pegasus high above that had spotted the faint outline of her shadow and kept track of her or one of her sisters, or one of the more skilled Merrieguard.

In any event, they hadn’t blown that frustrating whistle on her yet.

Then again… they might be interested to find out who her target was to forgo a chase.

From the commercial district that bordered the river, Rosewater made her way into the heart of the city, the oldest part, mixing business and some of the oldest and most established homes and estates the city boasted.

She passed parks and preserved natural areas where ponies came to play, all of them kept ‘wild’ in some way or another, and almost all of them devoid of flowering plants. Some of the smaller ones even had toys that’d been left out by foals looking to pick up their play right where they’d left off when the sun rose again.

It was… sterile.

It was also home to thousands of ponies that lived, played, loved, and worked just like the ponies in Merrie did.

The relative lack of fragrance in the heart of the city also let her pick out a scent from among the myriads. Warmer, fresher than the old scents of the day. A male, and… familiar.

She almost laughed when she placed it, but kept herself silent and continued on. He wasn’t the tail she’d expected, but apparently he was hoping she would break the accord and had been waiting for her. Possibly shielded from sight near the guard station and only now coming closer because, if she continued straight, her path would take her right to the front gate of Prim Palace.

Did you think I would come after you so quickly?

At the next intersection, she side-stepped into a dark alley, hidden even from the Mare’s eye, and deepened the shadows around her, waiting as his masculine odor got stronger, then a shift of light crossed in front of the alley’s mouth, hesitated long enough for her to mark the outline of the distortion against the brighter backdrop of the sky behind it, and crouched low.

It was a risk…

If his shield brushed aside her mist, she’d be unveiled and all but naked to him and within his power, clearly trespassing and no doubt with several arrest orders waiting to be served.

But the distortion stopped, the edge of it barely filling the alley’s mouth, before it backed off and continued on.

Raiding was full of gambles. Tonight, the dice seemed to favor her so far.

She exited the other side of the alley, aware now of a flaw of Collar’s shield. The distortion. It wasn’t something Rosethorn Glory had ever had to worry about. Her sister was capable of true invisibility, not merely bending light or calling shadows from mist.

It was something Rosewater could do in a pinch, but it was far more taxing despite Glory trying to teach her how to do it when they’d been little more than teenage fillies.

As she made her way along a different route, the feeling of being watched didn’t fade. If anything, the feeling got stronger the closer she got to her ultimate target, but even when she stopped and sent out a weave of telekinetic force, the cobweb-soft filaments broke over nothing but walls, trees, and bushes.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been tailed without sign.

She doubted it would be the last, either.

Wary, alert, she approached the residential block with much more caution than she would have before almost running into Lord Collar on patrol, also not the first time she’d done so, though it’d taken running into him again to know that it was him with his scent still fresh in her memory.

The fragrances of her surroundings faded to so much background noise as she strained to filter out the fresh, warm scent of ponies either stallion or mare, even drawing on her heritage to draw in more despite the risk of the faint red glow under her mist veil giving her away.

Strangely, she found Collar’s again as she got closer, and sussed out the location he was waiting, at a corner that had a good view of the broad avenue that the long line of three-story buildings faced onto. It wasn’t even hard to find the lone Rose’s first floor patio, decorated as it was with a flowering bush and hung with a Dammeguard’s doublet to dry.

Thank you for leaving out the welcome mat, Lieutenant Rose.

Rosewater took a deep breath and let go of her heritage gift, letting the sharp scent-images fade along with the strain it put on her mind.

She slunk along the sharp, even line of buildings, mindful of her veil every step of the way, until she was at the edge of the distortion of his sight shield. Another risk, and a gamble, but one she had to take as a part of the plan formed fresh in her mind. It wasn’t planned, but she could see how it would play out, and he would either take it as the warning it was or as something else…

The tiny scroll with the map on it, and the name of her target, she rolled up until it was almost a stick, then veiled it and threw it right into the center of the distortion field, then crossed the street as soon as the field shifted and flowed towards her.

It followed, as she’d intended, and in the surprise moment of her crossing, she caught a first whiff of the other tail. Mare, hidden almost completely by a thorough wash and cleaning before the night began.

Clean, she might have started, but Rose Glory’s scent was familiar enough to Rosewater that she could tell her sister apart from the others without resorting to using her heritage. Her nose was sharp enough on its own to give her individuality from a fresh, seconds-old whiff of sweat.

Watch, Glory, as I confound mother with the most inept ‘capture’ in history.

The front door of the building was locked, but simply with a mechanism that fell to her magic as if it’d been open. Not meant to keep ponies out, likely, but to keep wild animals out. Sensible, if incautious.

Then again, it was an apartment building and not an estate, though it may have been at one point, with the decorations in the entryhall and how delicate the wrought iron stairway was. By itself, it was a work of art, and the tiling under her hooves, black and white, formed the pattern of the Primline arms over and over again in block-art.

A glance outside told her that Collar was watching her, still hidden, but the distortion hadn’t yet moved inside.

For a moment, Rosewater paced the interior, sniffing at the four doors that led to four different apartments, finding two families lived there, with a foal apiece, and another foal’s scent, full of youth and the messiness of being a foal, wended up the stairs.

Regardless of what happened, she would need to be careful here.

Finally, she sniffed at Cloudy’s door, and out of the corner of her eye saw Collar drop his shielding, the edge of the distortion field vanishing though she couldn’t see him yet. She could pretend she hadn’t seen, or she could flee.

Glory would report on the latter and she’d face repercussions.

Her sister was still out there, still hidden, and clearly Collar hadn’t spotted her or he’d not have dropped his shield so soon.

There was a mare there, and… Lord Collar’s scent. Old, faded to the point she could only barely tell it was his. Perhaps Roseate had leaked whom her target was supposed to be, set up a trap for her. It would be just like her.

Rosewater tested the lock with a spell, tested the handle, and pushed lightly against the door.

It didn’t even rattle in the frame, but a faint squeak came from the other side along with a rustle of wings.

Trap.

Before Collar could spring his side of it, Rosewater slipped a tiny scrap of paper under the door and adhered it to the tile on the other side.

She barely had time to back away before Collar loomed in the apartment entryway.

“Stop, Rosewater,” Prim Collar growled. “I know it’s you.”

The squeak on the other side came again, a muffled whimper.

The Rose Terror strikes again.

“My lord,” Rosewater said with a laugh, dropping her veil to face him, eye to eye, her tail flicking against the door as she stepped away from the door. “Have you a nose, now, to tell which Rosethorn is which? I confess you’re right, but… pray tell, my lord, to what reason do I owe your… interruption?”

He stared at her, ears ticking madly, the anger in his eyes flaring as his eyes darted from the door to her again. “What nonsense are you trying to pull? Surrender, Rosewater, and—”

Rosewater teleported, burning all of her immediate reserves to place herself a mile away without bothering to build up the power first. Just as the spell went off, she felt the wisps of a teleportation interdiction spell solidifying. Yet another spell in his arsenal she had to be wary of.

She landed in a wheat field atop a hill overlooking both cities and immediately fell to her barrel, the emergency casting sapping her energy. Just as immediately, she started pulling in magic again, preparing for another teleport, farther, careful in her drawing and careful in constructing the spell.

Of course, he could follow such a sloppy teleportation and he appeared in a pop and flash right behind her.

“Not even a full day, Rosewater,” Collar hissed, binding her fore and hind legs with spells, but not her muzzle. “You couldn’t even last a full day before you broke our accord.”

“I broke nothing,” Rosewater shot back, dropping her spellweaving. “Did you get my scroll.”

“The little scrap of paper?” he asked, some of the antagonism leaving his voice. “What of it?”

“I gave that to you as a warning, not that you seemed to heed it,” she said, testing the bonds. They weren’t binding her magic, at least. “I’m not the only Veiled Rose stalking the night.”

He walked around in front of her, lifting her chin with a spell to look into her eyes lit by the silver aura spilling off his horn. He had very handsome eyes in that light, even angry as they were. “What do you mean?”

“Are you an idiot or the stallion I chose as my mate?” Rosewater growled. “I told you. I. Am. Not. Alone. And not by choice.”

He turned to stare at the city, the aura around his horn growing in intensity, and the bonds around her legs falling away into silver shards and melting into mist. “Who?”

“I have no idea,” she said with a snort. “I felt her and smelt her, not saw her. If you value Cloudy’s safety, get back to her, my lord, and consider long and hard why I didn’t break the accord. If anything, I helped you tonight.”

“Helped. We shall see.” He cast a look back at her, full of anger and suspicion. “The accord stands unless I find treachery.”

Then he was gone, leaving her to craft her spell more carefully once more.

It might have been a mistake letting Rosewater go free, but there was a chance that she wasn’t lying, and that she hadn’t been alone.

He arrived back in the foyer, using far less magic to re-open the fresh teleport path there, and causing less of a flash when he got back. If she was lying, he could get back to Rosewater much more quickly than she could prepare anything more than a short-range teleport or try to hide in the wheat field.

The door was closed, but not locked, and as he opened it, chaos met him. Scraps and bracken from everything in her apartment lay scattered as though a tornado had rolled through, and if she’d had to defend herself against a scent in close quarters, that might be the long and short of it.

“About time you showed up,” Cloudy grumbled where she laid atop a mare familiar from half a dozen galas. “She tried to get the drop on a pegasus.”

“Rose Glory,” Collar said, clucking his tongue as she looked up at him, her face a mask of pain, fear, and anger. “You really shouldn’t do that to somepony who can drop from a cloud.”

“She also tried to entice me,” Cloudy said, flicking aside Glory’s curled silver and rose pink mane to show an unstoppered, empty, vial of fragrant rose-oil. “Magic and all. That’s two counts towards arrest, Lord Collar.”

Rose Glory still said nothing, her eyes fogged by pain. It was, he surmised, caused by a bruise the table collapsed under her, the short table in front of the lounging couch—a Merrier style of furniture, and one of the pieces that he wished were more in style in Damme.

He spent a moment studying her face, the dapple of light pink rosettes on a darker around her eyes, standing out against her carmine coat. Her Rosethorn pink eyes flashed as she shifted her gaze from Collar to Cloudy and back again.

“You’re not hurt badly, are you, Rose Glory?”

“Prim Poppy,” Rose Glory said, then closed her eyes and relaxed. “I only talk to him.”

“She said that to me, too. She hasn’t said one word otherwise.” Cloudy shook her head. “If I hadn’t been expecting Rosewater, I don’t think I would have been ready for her enticements.”

“She is, but she looks beaten.” Prim Collar waved a hoof, relief flooding through him as he finally let his guard down. Rosewater hadn’t lied about that, at least, and perhaps she hadn’t even lied about breaking the accord. “Let her up. If she was going to try something else, she would have. We need to take her to the prison, anyway, unless you want to let her stay the night?”

“Of course not.” Cloudy pushed herself up, wincing as Glory let out an involuntary wheeze and whimper as the table shifted underneath her. “Gah. Do you know how much I paid to have that smuggled into Damme? And you… ” Cloudy swatted the back of the prisoner’s head.

“Cloudy, don’t antagonize her.” Collar rolled his eyes at her.

“Well, sorry if I’m a little upset that she broke into my house!” Cloudy snapped her teeth at him, flicking her wings at the overturned coffee table and couch, the broken glasses and dishes. “Look at this place!”

“I take it she fought back?” Collar asked.

“It wasn’t much of a fight,” Cloudy said with a snort. “She tried to lock me up with fragrances, I swept them away and kicked her in the shoulder. She gave up after that.”

“Rough,” he said with a sigh, “but understandable enough. Why the mess?”

“She tried to flee after I kicked her, and I had to trip her, too. That’s when the table broke. She’s not very accomplished at this.” Cloudy smirked at the captured Rosethorn. “Are you?”

That got her a glower, but Rose Glory didn’t respond or rise to it, only closing her eyes and laying her cheek back on the shattered table.

“She’s beaten, Cloudy. Stop trying to provoke her.” Collar rubbed his jaw. “It’s already complicated enough. We have to report her injury to the treaty office, and… Cloudy, I’m sorry, but a hind-leg kick is only a life and death move. You could have killed her.”

“I know.” Cloudy deflated, ears flat to her skull. “I know, but I couldn’t help it. She broke into my house. I was afraid for my life, Collar.”

“Tackling her would have done the same thing. You’re a citizen of Damme. They can’t exile you, Cloudy.” Collar shifted closer to Glory, wary still of her and the subterfuge of the Rosethorn family.

Cloudy closed her eyes and nodded. “It was Rosewater, I thought.”

Collar glanced at her once more, then gently probed the bruise he could see spreading “She didn’t break anything, did she?”

Glory’s eyes opened, the pain in them telling him he would need to call for a medic as soon as possible. She shook her head and moved her foreleg back and forth briefly, then curled it up against her chest and closed her eyes again.

“I’m sorry, Glory. You know the rules of engagement.” That was going to sting their relationship. A reason why it wasn’t a good idea for superior officers to date their subordinates. A regulation overlooked only because he hadn’t been the one to initiate. “Captain Pink is going to have some words for you tomorrow. I have to report this to her and to the treaty office.”

“Aye. Sir.” She huffed again and more gently prodded Rose Glory’s back with a wingtip. “Up.”

She glowered at Collar moving her leg and wincing exaggeratedly, but saying nothing.

“Fine.” With his help, she was able to settle in on her three good legs, holding her left leg off the ground as soon as she was able to, her eyes unfocused as she looked between them. The swelling was showing even under her coat, darkening into a solid bruise.

“I’m sorry, Glory,” Cloudy murmured, unable to meet her eyes. “I… thought you were Rosewater.”

“Glory, can you walk?” Collar asked.

Rose Glory tested the leg gingerly, then lifted it again and nodded, ears folded back.

“Lieutenant Rose, go get Prim Poppy. Shake him out of bed if you have to. Drag him to the prison by his ears if he objects. I need answers.” He waved a hoof, dismissing her.

She saluted and left.

“Do not teleport. Do not cast any spells except to support yourself. Do not attempt to run,” he said, reciting the short list of orders he gave whenever he arrested a Rose.

Rose Glory glared at him over the last one and waggled her injured leg, but she started hobbling ahead. Already a darker purple bruise was appearing under the coat.

It was turning into a piss poor night. What had been meant as a night of fun turned into a night of terror and fear.

The walk to Prim Prison, an imposing, low-slung edifice of stone, took the better part of twenty minutes, and Collar had to stop twice to apply the minor bruise-cure that was about the limit of his field medical spell knowledge. It didn’t do much but reduce the swelling.

One more thing for Prim Poppy to look at. Maybe he could pass off his appearance at the prison that way instead of… apparently whatever was going on between them.

“I apologize for her,” he said at one point, coughing. “She’s high-strung. And you did surprise her.”

Rose Glory eyed him, then nodded, and kept walking.

“Really? Not going to say anything to me?”

She shook her head, giving him a faint smirk in return with an arched brow, and he was forced to make the journey from the northwest of the city all the way back almost to the palace grounds with a silent, limping prisoner and an increasingly ragtag group of guards he picked up along the way, then sent off when they passed into another patrol sector.

By the time he made it to the prison grounds, at least five different patrols had seen Glory in his custody, limping and beaten, and the prison guards as well, a mare and a stallion who exchanged a look before letting him in.

“My lord,” they said as one.

The inside of Prim Prison was as clean as the city, as neatly kept and organized… and also empty. The desk at the front had nopony there to guard it. Not that they had any prisoners at the moment, but the fact they were engaged in active hostilities still with the Roses, even if they’d entered a stalemate for a time with Rosewater out of the picture for the last four months…

“Ahem!” Collar grunted loudly and tapped a hoof on the desk. Then louder before the night’s inside guard darted out of a side room, his glasses askew.

“Prim Quill, I really do expect that you keep to your post during the hours you are assigned there.” He stood aside and waved Rose Glory forward, noticing the amused glint to her eye and the grin she wasn’t even trying to hide. “Please open the Rose Cage. Rose Glory here will need to be shown our best while she’s under our care.”

“Aye, sir.”

When Quill ran off to do his job, Prim Collar guided Rose Glory to a settee. “Please, lay down and rest. You haven’t been walking on it, but you’ll have been straining your good leg.”

She shot him an annoyed glare that said ‘I know that, idiot’ as loudly as if she’d screamed it in his ear.

“I know you do,” he said, flicking an ear at the imaginary yell. “I’m being polite. And while you have broken laws, and you are a prisoner, you are also nobility. There are standards that we must follow to keep our little spat from growing back to the old ways.”

The glare softened somewhat as she settled gingerly on the cushions, her injured leg dangling over the edge.

“You know, it’s much, much easier to be polite when a guest talks. I’m not going to interrogate you right now. But I sure as Tartarus am going to interrogate Prim Poppy.” He stomped a hoof and started pacing. “Look, I know there are Roses and Prims that cross the bridges at night for innocent reasons. Stars above, the bridges are there because we need to talk to each other. We need each other, Glory.”

She tipped her head to the side, blinking slowly, which did interesting things to the dappling across her cheeks.

“I’m already dealing with Rosewater’s insanity. Is there one sane Rose over there, or did Roseate just breed insanity?” He stopped pacing to glare at her for effect. What effect, he wasn’t sure, because it sure wasn’t to get her talking. “Or did she exile the only sane one?”

That got a flicked ear reaction, at least.

“Carnation Rose. I know she’s Rosemary’s mother. I know she as much as raised Rosewater.” He flicked his ears, stared at her, and snapped his tail. “Stars above, I have one of the only Roses who could tell me what in the name of the Moon is going on, and she’s not saying anything.”

The floor gave more reaction to his pacing.

A few minutes later, Quill came back down and guided them up to the Gilded Cage. He stayed quiet, his cheeks flushed to the point Collar almost apologized for startling him out of what he now realized was the bathroom.

Piss poor night, he thought, dismissing Quill with another wave of his hoof and helping Glory settle in on a more comfortable lounging couch, applying the bruise-cure again to only a minute sigh of relief from Glory and a tenuous, thankful smile.

And still no words. Not even a thank you.

“This cell is permanently warded against sound and teleportation,” he said as he settled on one of the other chairs

“He was sleeping,” Cloudy said.

“I see that. Were you gentle?”

“No. I was quite loud when I woke him up.”

“Good.” Prim Collar raised his head and straightened himself despite being more exhausted than he’d been in months. “Poppy, I presume you already know Rose Glory.”

“Er…” Poppy coughed, his cheeks flushed and his ears flat as he stared at the mare, then jerked his eyes to him. “How so?”

“Lover,” Rose Glory said at last. “Poppy, come here. I've kept my word. I've only said that I would only speak to you. I've said nothing of our arrangement to them.”

“Glory…” Poppy's eyes rolled from Collar to her and back, widening until he could see whites all around. ”What are you doing?”

“You never said I couldn't talk around them when first you caught me.” Rose Glory's voice was a sultry purr bordering on laughter.

Cloudy Rose broke into giggles that descended into laughter.

“Are all Roses this frustrating?” Collar asked of nopony in particular, and Cloudy only helpfully laughed harder.

Poppy walked stiffly to Glory, appearing more apprehensive by the second. “Glory, please cooperate.”

“Why?”

It seemed an honest question, though Collar thought even a single word had room for subterfuge where a Rose was concerned. “Why shouldn't you?” he asked.

Glory shifted her injured leg, still only looking and speaking to Poppy. “Why should I trust them? I’m a commodity. And she back-kicked me in the shoulder!”

“You were trying to enthrall me!” Cloudy shouted. “And I thought you were… Rosewater.”

“I was trying to put you to sleep so I could get away!” Glory shot back, trembling, huffing, clearly distraught and in pain. Then she settled, relaxing, and opened her eyes. “Not that a pegasus could tell the difference between sleep and enthrallment.” Her lips pursed, and she glanced at her again. “And, given her reputation… I don’t blame you, Cloudy Rosewing. I might have done the same if I thought my sister was out to get me.”

She shifted her leg, moved it, and extended it. “Nothing’s broken, I think. But… Poppy, do be a dear and settle the swelling.”

Are you trying to help her, Glory?

The bruising was hard to see under her coat, but when pointed out, Poppy gasped and began a more complex casting. Warm purple light surrounded her shoulder, and Glory relaxed in ways Collar hadn't realized she'd been tense.

When he was done, he sagged to his barrel beside her.

She lifted his chin with a spell and kissed him. It wasn't the fierce, passionate kiss he'd expected a Rose to give their lover. Not a Rosethorn. It was soft, tender, and the look in her eyes as she met his, then raised them to Collar’s briefly told him enough about the nature of the relationship.

It seemed he was going to have to do a dive on Glory’s file soon as well.

“Thank you,” Glory murmured when she let it go.

“You can talk to them,” Poppy said softly, leaning against her the settee and letting her rest her leg on his shoulder. “There's not much point in hiding from them now.”

She was silent, but didn’t say anything in the negative, only watched them.

“Why were you at Cloudy’s apartment?”

“The same reason she was. I was sent to keep an eye on her and make sure she did her duty to Merrie.” Glory quirked a brow and kissed Poppy’s ear. “And perhaps to sneak a night with my beloved.”

“But…” Collar shook his head slowly, bewildered at how open she was being. He hadn’t expected such a straight answer. Not from her. “Why tell us?”

“You asked, and my dear Poppy asked me to cooperate. Now. If you wish me to answer more, I want some concessions.” Glory smiled, and it was the predatory smile he’d expected all along.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing onerous. And one, at least, that I think you’ll like. Don’t punish Cloudy Rose for kicking me. That was my own damn fool fault for not checking whether the apartment was empty. I won’t press the injury, but I understand you need to report it.”

“Why didn’t you check?” Collar asked, curious.

“Rosewater seemed to think the apartment was empty.”

“She knew I was there,” Cloudy grunted. “She just didn’t have a chance to break in before—”

“My dear. Rosewater would have had you opening the door on your own, begging to be taken from across the street.” Glory laughed at the sick look on Cloudy's face, and she wasn’t wasn't wrong; especially not after witnessing an enticing from more than a thousand paces. “I was merely curious what she'd slipped under your door.”

“Cloudy, go find what she's talking about.” He paused briefly as Prim Quill came back down the stairwell from the Rose Cage. “And pick up backup along the way.”

“Of course.” Cloudy saluted and turned to leave, but she caught his eye before she left, and he saw in her the genuine anguish at what she’d done in a fit of fear and rage.

“Cloudy,” he called after her, “I love you. Be careful.”

She froze at the gate, her ears going flat. “I love you too, Collar. I’m sorry.” Her eyes flicked to Glory briefly before she left, the sound of talking downstairs rising briefly before the gate closed and the sound wards re-engaged, the gemstone anchors flickering to life again.

“I’d not heard a peep or a sight of you,” he said. He’d only just caught sight of Rosewater, and that only because of a shift in the clouds overhead had changed the light quicker than she’d been able to react before she faded into a chameleon outline against the storefront once more.

Once he’d lost her, he’d gone ahead to warn Cloudy, entreating her to stay put and not make a sound while he chased her off.

“Nor did she, I suspect. Though she would be an idiot to think mother wouldn’t send somepony to make sure she actually did as she was told.” Glory laughed softly. “She was playing with you, Collar. I doubt she ever intended to capture your dish of a lover.”

I doubt she knew Cloudy is my lover. At least, not by her name or scent. Unless she had access to Rose Palace intelligence, which he doubted Roseate would give her, the only thing she could possibly find was rumor… and considering how cloistered she was, he doubted that possibility.

“Your other concessions?” Collar asked at last.

“I’d like to see my Poppy at least twice a week. It’s how often we manage to ‘run into’ each other. I would also like reading materials. Mother doesn’t reward failure in her children, and here I am, clearly failed.” Glory chuckled and licked Poppy’s ear. “I’ve fallen in love with a Prim…”

“Both granted.” Collar took a breath and met Poppy’s eyes, pleading silently not to be angry with him. “Poppy, stay with her for the night. Make sure that shoulder gets the best treatment you can give. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Ah. You wish him to pump me for information?” Glory laughed languidly and flirted her tail as she shifted on the couch, exposing herself more. “I’m afraid I’ll come away with more from him than he from me.”

He didn’t come back for her.

She finished pulling in the magic she needed, reserving her power, and then enough to open her wards at home before she finished her teleport.

Then she had to wait the minute to cycle through the wards embedded in her door to release and cycle before they would let her in.

It was a beautiful night, at least. The stars above were skirted only by a few cirrus and a passing cumulus. The Mare in the Moon stared down in her dark majesty, a high halo of frozen cirrus making her wink as the wind high above tossed and tore at the diaphanous veil. The Married Mare, it was called when that happened. A common enough sight in winter, but rare in the early autumn.

It promised a cold winter ahead.

She finished opening her wards before a Merrieguard contingent could see her and wonder. Reporting her failure to mother would be hard enough. If Rose Glory made it out, it would make her story more believable, but if she’d been captured—as seemed likely considering Collar hadn’t come back to finish her—then the only one telling the story would be her.

There’s still the dueling grounds if necessary.

A last chance. The last resort.

She cast one last glance up at the Mare in the Moon, entreating her to watch over her secret endeavors and not look unfavorably on her goal.

Once inside, making sure the curtains were drawn and the door locked and warded once more, Rosewater let herself relax, let herself smile. Success.

Of a sort.

Whether or not Glory had also escaped, she would have to find out in the morning.

She found Rosemary in her room with the door open, on her belly on the ground, hind legs splayed and tucked close, her hind-legs held steady by the phantom hooves bracing her.

Behind her, muzzle planted firmly into her nethers, was a head, neck, and half-torso of an earth pony mare, her form made of colorless, odorless mists drawn from the moisture in the air and the mist from a warm, steaming bowl of freshly steeped rose-petal water.

It was the simplest of mist faeries, little more than a suggestion of form drawn from memory, and Rosemary’s cries were quiet, pleasant, and not urgent. Just masturbating to a friend, one of the dozen and a half postcard portraits on her wall. Mares and stallions of all colors and types of pony, all of them done in the same style of realism that Carnation had favored.

At least she had some fun tonight.

Rosewater almost passed by, then paused to watch for a moment, wondering if Rosemary would notice her.

A minute, then two rolled by, and Rosewater picked up on other details. She wasn’t just masturbating, but reading as well, turning the page and letting the faerie slow, then pick up again.

She rolled her eyes and coughed. “You could at least close the door if you’re going to masturbate yourself to sleep.”

With a squeak of fright and a pop, the faerie disappeared and Rosemary fell to her side, flanks heaving. “Rosewater! You!”

“I,” Rosewater agreed with a laugh and stepped further into the room. “You are well? No unexpected visitors tonight, I take it?”

“Just you, sneak.” Rosemary said with a laugh, pulling a decanter of rosewater, bowl, and sponge over to begin cleaning herself.

Rosewater nodded, then closed the door and set her horn to it. A whisper of magic bled into the room’s walls, damping sound from within. It was all she had left. She sagged against the door and slid to her barrel.

“Thank the stars and Celestia.” Roseate hadn’t come. Rosemary was still safe. Not that Roseate could enter without Rosewater’s permission. The walls were warded long since against teleportation, and the windows and doors would put to sleep any that tried to open them without the watch-ward spells to unlock them.

How long will that continue, though? She might have to send Rosemary away. Perhaps to Canterlot. She was talented enough to make her way there if she had to, and Canterlot, under Celestia’s watchful eye, was a haven for ponies trying to make a better life for themselves.

There was even a fledgling nobility that she could make her way into, if she needed to.

And then I won’t see her again for a long time. I can’t leave here. Not yet.

“Is it safe?” Rosemary asked. Drip-drip-drip went the sponge as it hovered over the bowl, her cousin’s eyes wide and fearful, darting from the door to her window to Rosewater and starting the cycle over again.

“I don’t know.” She heaved herself up, stumbled to the window and tested the wards with a quick spell before she sat heavily on one of the pillows scattered about the room. “It’s safe enough here. I’m more worried about you, tomorrow night. I may have stirred up a hornet’s nest unintentionally.”

A brief flicker of fear crossed those beautiful pink eyes, then her jaw firmed and she tossed back her head, blond mane falling loosely against her neck.

“I won’t fail. I won’t give her a reason to exile me.” So earnest, that smile, so certain and uncertain at once.

She could send her away. Seek asylum in Canterlot, away from this mess, and maybe even where her mother was. It wasn’t certain, as any pony that was exiled from Damme or Merrie was protected by the treaty.

Asylum seekers had more choice, but not much. It wouldn’t be a happy or a very free life compared to her home, but it would be a safe life.

“My friends are here,” Rosemary murmured, then straightened and squeezed out the sponge and resumed cleaning herself. “You’re here. My home is here. I won’t let her take that away from me.”

“I know.” How can I think of taking that away from her? Rosewater would be no better than Roseate. “Be cautious tomorrow night. Don’t strike. Watch. Wait. Your first mission shouldn’t be a required capture, Rosemary. Study the city. Let it become your nighttime friend and it won’t let you down.”

“I know.” Rosemary didn’t quite roll her eyes. “I won’t strike this time. I’ll focus everything on my veiling. Promise.”

“Good.” It was an effort, but Rosewater got to her feet and stumbled towards the door. Rosemary was safe. That’s what mattered. She could sleep soundly for another night.

“’Water?” Rosemary paused in cleaning her marehood and tail, then resumed, her ears set determinedly. “What happened tonight?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with yet. Focus on your veiling all day tomorrow. That’s all you need to worry about.” Let me take care of the rest. “I’m sorry for interrupting your fun tonight.”

“Who was your target?”

Rosewater flinched. Everything she’d dug up, had recalled, had surmised in the genealogy library came back to her. Rosemary’s lover. Close. Prospects. They wouldn’t have written that unless there’d been talk of bonding after their second majorities. Cloudy was already past hers, and Rosemary’s in early spring.

“I can’t…” Rosewater’s throat caught. She could tell Rosemary a lie. She wouldn’t. Not unless it was to keep her safe. Will this keep her safe?

“It was Cloudy Rose, wasn’t it?” Rosemary asked.

Rosewater startled and turned, staring at her cousin. “How—” Scenarios of Rosemary finding the note, the map, learning it from some rumor Roseate had let spread to reach Collar’s ears. She still had no idea how he’d caught onto her so easily. It was as likely Roseate trying to betray her as it was Collar’s own patrol schedule.

“Roseate asked me about her. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.” The sound of sponge and water continued more slowly. Cleaning couldn’t be ignored. “When you said you had a mission… I suspected then.”

Rosewater closed the door and rested her horn against it again. “It was.”

“And?”

“She wasn’t home,” Rosewater lied, her shoulder tensing and waiting for Rosemary to catch the lie and call her on it. “Lord Collar almost caught me trying to break in.”

Rosemary was silent for a long moment, toweling herself off and dropping the rag into the wash-basket before she turned her attention away from herself.

“I… was hoping I would see her during my raid. She’s a Dammeguard lieutenant now, I hear,” Rosemary said, a touch of pride in her voice. “She’s… doing well.”

“How close was she to you?”

“Close.” Rosemary looked away, but not before the pain flared in her eyes again. “But she defected. And she hasn’t even tried to contact me in two years, ‘Water.”

“She’d put you in danger if she tried to contact you,” Rosewater murmured, surprising herself. “I’m grateful she didn’t, even as much as it hurt you.”

“I know.” Rosemary’s eyes fell again. “I… wish you’d met her before, Rosewater. You would like her, I think.”

Rosewater flinched. “I wish I could have, too.” And put her in as much danger as her other lovers over the past six years. Roseling. Gray Rose. River Petal. “Goodnight, Rosemary.”

A cough sounded behind her, stopping her again, then the sloshing of water Rosemary resettled herself on the bed, covered modestly enough to please a Dammer.

“Stay, Rosewater. I… I can tell you about her.” Rosemary’s eyes pleaded with her not to leave. She was hoping for some snippet of news she might have from her raid. Anything about her lost lover.

“I’m tired, Rosemary. I don’t know how attentive a listener I would be.”

The bedspread smoothed out under a spell, and the air cleared as Rosemary pulled out her own version of a scent neutralizer, filling the room with the sweet fragrance of rosemary mixed with the headier scent of thyme.

“Stay. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Still hesitant, and heart still aching from Rosary’s accusation… the mare had no idea how close, how many times, Rosewater’s own confused upbringing had almost made that falsity a reality, and neither did Rosemary.

The shame. The ache. The loneliness.

Rosemary’s bed creaked as she settled in, head turned away, hind and forelegs curled close. It was how Carnation had rested with her on so many nights, offering to be a rock for Rosewater to cling to when the rising tides of despair and loss threatened to sweep her away.

“I met her at a bridge party,” Rosemary said in a hushed voice, edging closer and resting her head across Rosewater’s shoulders, the thrum of her voice in her throat soothing against her forequarters. “Four years ago.”

Rosewater closed her eyes and let Rosemary’s voice wash over her and into sleep.

Book 1, 5. Two Mornings

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Stirrings of a mane under her muzzle stirred Rosemary to wakefulness well past noon. She yawned and raised her head to look down on her sleeping partner, Rosewater. Cousin, one of the two mares who’d raised her, and her only mother for the past six years. She stretched out her neck against the long, sleek one underneath her, rolling to her side and waiting for her partner to wake.

She didn’t have to wait long. Rosewater had never been a heavy sleeper, but for some reason she had been last night. She hadn’t even woken when Rosemary woke in the middle of the early morning to ease some of her nervous energy with a short reading of a different book, one guaranteed to put her back to sleep instead of arousing her.

Or maybe she had and chosen not to make her awareness known. Rosewater could be oddly prudish about the oddest things and then not even bat an eye when walking in on her making love to a mist memory.

“Morning, Rosemary,” Rosewater said in a soft whisper. “Did you sleep well?”

“I did. Mostly. I’m a little nervous about tonight.” Her first raid. That she didn't want to do. That Rosewater had been able to protect her from for a little more than two years past her first majority.

At great cost to herself.

“I noticed. Do you need a little privacy to relax?” Rosewater twisted her neck and slipped her head out from under Rosemary’s

She had noticed. Rosemary laughed softly. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

That made Rosewater frown and flick her ears back. “No. I was already partly awake. If you really want to put yourself to sleep, I’d recommend the Ballad of Frosty Rosewing. The Dammer version.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but… yes. I think I would like to expend a little energy.” She rolled to her barrel, rose, and stepped to the floor, turning to consider the paintings on her wall of some of her lovers. Rosie Night's tongue would be nice, delving and flicking. Or maybe Rosie’s husband, Trestle Night. His cock was always welcome… especially with Rosie suckling her teats and Velvet Night under her muzzle. Already her tail was flicking side-to-side, anticipating. “And you? How did you sleep?”

“Poorly,” Rosewater said, stepping down from the bed and stretching out one leg at a time.

Rosemary watched, admiring the play of muscle under coat and the slim line trailing down her neck. She waited until the older mare came closer to kiss the side of her muzzle. “Sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help?”

“Be safe tonight.” Rosewater turned her head, letting Rosemary trail light kisses down her neck until she tugged Rosemary up for a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Take care of yourself first. I need to bathe.”

Rosie Night, then.

Rosemary laid back down and raised her hind leg while she manifested Rosie in full behind her as a ghostly white mare, so far removed from the nearly midnight blue coat her long time lover had. She'd have to pay the earth pony a visit later that week to experience the real thing again. She could do things with her tongue that Rosemary just couldn't grasp.

Rosewater watched her for a moment, eyebrow arched, then smiled and sauntered to the bathroom, shaking her head slowly. “You should try the Misty Consort spell. I promise it’ll be worth it.”

“One day,” Rosemary said through a pant as the phantom pony's tongue slipped inside her, and her hooves began their slow massage of her belly and teats. There was little passion in it, though. It was all her mind, her magic directing it. She couldn’t surprise herself like a night with one of her lovers for real could.

A raised eyebrow was her only answer for a minute while her cousin faced the wall, her ear twitching and a flush starting in her neck. “You can try it. You’ve almost got the form right. Remember the Heart’s Opening sigil at the end. It will link the construct to your magic and your memory.”

A complicated structure, Heart’s Opening, she’d only managed to correctly make it a few times since Rosewater had started trying to teach her.

“Remember, you have to picture the mare wholly in your mind. Everything you want to feel, before the spell will really take effect, while the sigil is being formed” Rosewater flicked her tail and closed the door. “Maybe it will be cloudy tonight.”

She spent seconds ignoring the mist faerie’s ministrations, focusing her mind on the complex mental overlay needed to activate magic, the mental image of Rosie Night flickering back and forth between her and the last vestiges of her dream. But she finished it, and firmly implanted the image of her lover in the construct.

“Yes!” Rosemary cried out as the spell fully took hold, drawing from her memory, from her body’s needs, and took on a life of its own. She wouldn’t have been able to focus on the spell if she had to maintain control.

The misty chill of the faerie became a flush of heat rushing over her, holding her in a climax of warmth that filled her from head to hoof, the tongue inside her suddenly feeling real and alive, hot and wet as her spells never were. She rode it, her marehood tightening over the sensation of life pulsing and pulling. Even the hooves at her teats became more solid and warm as they pressed as if to meet the tongue.

She screamed as the final wave of fire coursed through her, numbing in its wake and leaving her twitching as her come pooled against her dock, hot and wet and welcome.

The spell kept going for several minutes after Rosemary stopped feeding magical power into it. That was a feature of it. It would draw on the magic drawn out by her orgasm to keep her warm, and it spent minutes cleaning her with a misty tongue. It was as pleasant as the rush had been exciting.

When it was done, the construct climbed atop her and whispered in her ear in Cloudy's voice, “You're lovely. Always so lovely…”

Shock coursed through her as she realized that the mare atop her looked like Rosie… but she had wings, and her eyes were the same as Cloudy’s, darker pink… and her voice…

Husky, feminine, always ready to descend into that easy laugh she remembered so well, even after two years.

“That's cheating,” Rosemary yelled when her senses came back to her. “Did you do that last bit?” Realizing that Rosewater hadn’t seen, she added. “That was Cloudy!”

“Not I, dear Rosemary. I’ve neither seen her nor heard her voice.” Splashing, shifting, then a groan. “You must be careful of whom you picture,” Rosewater’s voice and laugh came from the bathroom while the construct continued to lick her ear, sending shivers and shudders down her as the hind leg pressed against her clit, warm and firm. “It will draw from your memories and do what you imagine that pony would do.”

The implications sank into her slowly. “But I…” It’d been so long since she’d thought to have Cloudy as her lover… it was still too painful. “I didn’t want that, Rosewater. Not this morning.”

“You may not have, but the spell is drawn from your mind. Remember that, Rosemary. Just because you don’t want to be reminded of a lover doesn’t mean a mist faerie doesn’t listen to your mind. They’re extensions of your will. Not mine.” A pause, the sound of the water running from the cistern again, then stopping. “This one more complex than most, and it will take a life of its own once you let go. Your last thoughts will control its course.” The sounds of bathwater swishing and shushing as Rosewater cleaned herself was all she heard for a few moments. “Understand?”

“I do, and I think I might try this one again later. Just without thinking about her.” She lay still as the mist faerie of her lover dissipated into a fine, sweet-smelling vapor that settled across her. When I’m not dreaming about her.

“A very good idea, Rosemary,” Rosewater said, her tone playful as she laughed. “I’m glad you tried it, but perhaps start it when you’re more awake and not half-asleep.”

“I know.” Rosemary shook her head and sighed. “Did you sleep well?”

“You asked me that already.”

I did, didn’t I? She lay for long minutes, listening to Rosewater bathing, recovering from the bliss and shock of the spell’s working. Her heart was the slowest to recover, beating slow and fast by turns as the heat returned in aftershocks of pleasure that rocked her.

It must have been her telling a sleeping Rosewater all about Cloudy that had done it. She’d woken up dreaming of the mare more than once, her husky, brash voice, hearty laugh, and that devious sense of humor.

And her fiercely protective streak. It was no wonder she’d joined the Dammeguard. It was what she did. Even in Merrie, she’d been one of the Merrieguard from the age of enlistment, relegated to bridge duty because of her family, but taking pride in her work.

What made you leave?

Rosewater came out again, mane and tail wrapped, and bent to brush her lips against Rosemary's forehead. “It’s a very tricky spell to master. Try it again when you’re not half-asleep. And didn’t stay awake half the night tossing and turning.”

“I’ll… do that.”

Rosewater kissed her brow and left the room. “I’ll be in the perfumery if you need anything today, Rosemary.”

Cloudy stopped her cleaning an hour before dawn. She’d managed to right all the furniture and sweep up most of the largest chunks of glass and ceramic from her broken dishes. Most of it had been her fault, using her wings indoors to keep the fumes of Rose Glory’s spell away from her, frantic and thinking the mare was Rosewater in the darkness of her apartment.

She’d forgotten the mare stood out like a torch in the dark in her panic.

But in the dark, in a panic after hearing Rosewater not inches from her head, she hadn’t been thinking, only reacting on adrenaline and fear. And she’d still been coming down from an adrenaline high when she’d made the stupid, venal mistake to hurt Rose Glory for scaring her so badly. The heat of the moment. The kick landing resounding up her hind leg, the sick feeling of hurting somepony else descending like a sack of bricks on her head as she heard Glory cry out.

She’d been trained not to back-kick except in the direst circumstances. It was a pony’s deadliest natural weapon, and it had been used three hundred years ago in battles. Earth pony death squads trained to spin and kick with lethal precision. Pegasi trained to dive and kick.

Her family had been the latter, warlords of the wildest days of the conflict.

Revulsion filled her again. Her temper, slipping free at the worst moments with the risk of capture moments away, being taken away from everything she loved and had come to love, being taken away from the chance to bring some kind of justice to Roseate and see it done.

Worst… Glory had forgiven her.

That wasn’t going to save her from a dressing-down from Captain Pink nor, likely, a demotion and reassignment from patrol to something more desk related. Maybe even the prison.

Wouldn’t that just be an ironic punishment.

She was going to get a dressing down, too, for not returning to Collar to report what she’d found, instead remaining behind, alone against orders, to clean up and think about the note.

‘If you ever loved her, leave the city.’

She didn’t have to guess who ‘her’ was.

Rosemary.

A lover who’d started going through the complicated web of pre-bonding rituals, some of which were bound into law. Checking the genealogy library. Meeting with the parents on both sides—impossible in Rosemary’s case, and something Cloudy had kept putting off and off and off…

She hadn’t wanted to meet the Rose Terror. Not after watching her duel with her own mother.

Cloudy hadn’t understood Rosewater’s reason for dueling at the time, hadn’t even met Rosemary yet, but that had been the most brutal, one-sided duel she’d ever seen, and not because Rosewater was stronger than Roseate. Because she was more ruthless.

The screams of magically induced terror had haunted her for days.

They still haunted her.

But Rosewater hadn’t been after her. She’d been warning her.

Why?

She sighed and slipped the brush from her hoof. It would be better if she were early than if she showed up exactly on time, showing she was willing to take her licks. It would fall less harshly on Collar, too, if she was cooperative.

And she owed him that much for taking her in when few other Prims would trust the rogue Rose in their midst, and giving her a chance to prove herself.

She closed the door behind her, but didn’t bother locking it. Rose Glory had made the pointlessness of that readily apparent. It had taken her less than a second to finesse the ‘Best lock Damme has to offer.’

As exhausted as she was, launching into the air was still exhilarating after a lifetime of flight and pushed back some of the fatigue gnawing at her. The air rushing past her ears woke her enough to push out an envelope of calmer air until she could see where she was going, and banked left to follow the river west for a mile at a slow glide, barely trying to stay aloft.

This early, both cities were sleeping.

Even the hearty night life of Merrie had tapered off into a few ponies wandering drunkenly through the winding, silk-shrouded streets, rivers of fluttering cloth that glowed in the still brightly lit lamps that lined them. During the day those rivers would flow like rapids with ponies going about their businesses and pleasures.

It called to her heart, memories of those nights she’d spent with mares, and with Rosemary, enjoying the lively days of chasing her through the streets, laughing as they played their game of veil and hunt.

Cloudy usually won those games, and delighted in picking the day’s activities after. A play one day, running wild in one of the city’s many open plains parks. Some days she would win, and would choose a book to read, especially during the long winter nights.

And she was there somewhere still, hopefully still playing her games and finding her joys in the City of Delight.

On the north side, Damme’s straight streets began to darken as the enchantments were dimmed on street lights, turning the city from a ghostly jigsaw puzzle into a mass of darkened stone and dark greenery, a place of greater mystery than when it had been ghost-lit from within.

They were both beautiful cities on their own merits, but the hearts of them were as different as two cities could be, and she’d made her choice. It had hurt, and it had hurt more that Rosemary hadn’t seemed to get her letter. She’d waited hours at the secret place, but all that had come was a capture squad for daring to disobey an order so flagrantly.

An order to betray her lover’s trust.

She shook her head and banked away from the river and towards the sprawling stone edifice of the prim palace, and the far smaller tower barracks.

The courtyard was clear except for Captain Prim Pink, her tightly bound mane barely shifting under her captain’s circlet. She’d been waiting there, as if she’d known Cloudy would come early.

Not much passed by the captain unnoticed, and her eyes tracked Cloudy as she landed and trotted up to the regulation two places distance from her commanding officer.

“Lieutenant Rose, attention!”

Cloudy snapped to attention and saluted. “Reporting for discipline, ma’am!”

“You know what kind of manure you’re in, I take it,” Captain Pink said as she strode back and forth in deliberate, carefully measured strides, never taking her eyes off Cloudy.

“Aye, ma’am!” Despite the distraction, Cloudy kept her eyes snapped forward at an imaginary point just past her nose. Drills in the Dammeguard were harsh, precise, orderly, and expected to be adhered to exactly. The Merrieguard, her former home, was far more lax on parade ground discipline, but expected the same commitment to duty.

“Then I only have one question. Why?” Captain Pink stopped in front of her, nose inches from Cloudy’s own. “It better be good.”

Cloudy swallowed. “Because I was stupid, ma’am. And angry. And riding an adrenaline high.”

“Excuses,” Captain Pink barked. “I didn’t ask for your whining. I asked you why?”

Cloudy closed her eyes. The wrong thing to do.

“Look at me, Lieutenant!” The captain’s voice was a roar that echoed off the palace walls. She snapped her eyes open. “Or would you prefer to be a corporal again? Or a private? But before you tell me which rank you think you ought to be busted to, answer why.”

“Because they were going to take me back. Because I was going to be exiled. Because they sent Rosewater after me.” She swallowed back her terror.

“A better answer.” Captain Pink shook her head. “But not a good reason why. You both surprised each other. A little bruising is expected from a tackle or any one of dozens of take down moves I taught you myself!” The captain shook her head slowly, lip curled. “I did not teach you to back-kick, and you’d better be grateful you’re so stars-damned sloppy at it that you missed anything vital. Aimed wrong, it might have hit her neck, her head, or her ribs. You’re lucky nothing was broken.”

Just as the tirade was about to continue, Captain Pink froze and stared past her, for a second only, then fixed her with a parade-perfect drill stare. “My office, on the double. I’ll be up shortly.”

“Aye, ma’am!” Without a look back at Prim Collar, unable to face him even if she hadn’t been given an order, she rushed inside.

Faces peered out at her, some lovers offering sympathetic looks before ducking back into their bunks and ignoring her. Word had already spread through the grapevine, faster than a teleporting unicorn.

The captain’s office was as austere as the mare herself, only a desk, a padded bench behind, and two uncomfortable chairs in front. Sitting on the floor was a privilege in her office. Cloudy stood at rigid attention to the side of the door, eyes fixed on the wall between Captain Prim Pink’s portrait next to Prim Lace’s.

It didn’t take long before the heavy, steady tread of the earth pony captain made itself known, coupled with the lighter tread she knew so well. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall and swallowed, trying not to remember the hurt she’d seen in Rose Glory’s eyes. And the pain she’d seen in Prim Poppy’s.

She felt sick.

The door opened. “After you, my lord.”

Prim Collar stepped into her peripheral vision, his eyes trying to meet hers.

She kept her eyes rigidly locked in place.

Captain Pink strode in, past him, and shoved aside her bench, standing in behind her desk while she rummaged through the files and pulled out the thin folder for her. She knew it was hers. She’d seen it once before when she’d been caught ‘fraternizing’ with a superior. A mare by the name of Golden Prim, her first lieutenant at the time.

There’d been no such hearing when she’d started sleeping with Collar. Unless she counted the awkward talk with Primline Lace the other day.

“Lieutenant Rose,” the captain said, sitting on the floor and nosing open the folder. “His lordship has asked me not to be lenient, but neither to be too harsh. A part of that leniency is based on Rose Glory’s formal offer of forgiveness. We still reported her capture and injury, but since the captured is deciding not to press for restitution, only a demerit will be placed in your record for reckless endangerment.”

Collar again tried to meet her eyes, leaning forward slightly and opening his mouth as if to speak before closing it and sitting back.

“Do you understand?”

“Understood, ma’am,” Cloudy said evenly.

“Regardless of other considerations, your use of potentially life-threatening force mandates a punishment strictly defined by the Dammeguard charter under the Treaty. First, you will be broken one rank to Second Lieutenant. Second, you will no longer have command privileges and your squad will be reassigned to First Lieutenant Golden. Third, you will be barred from sleeping at your home. A bunk will be assigned to you in the barracks and your lease put on hold by order of Prim Lace. Fourth, you will be reassigned to the Palace Guard.”

The first two were expected, though lighter than she’d been anticipating. The second to last and last were odd enough to finally break her from her rigid disciplinary posture, and she flicked a look at Captain Pink. “Ma’am?”

“Certain intelligence gathered by Lord Prim Collar last night indicates that you are on Roseate’s personal shitlist, lieutenant. That encourages us to place you in confined quarters during curfew hours to keep you safe from further attempts on your freedom. Further, you ignored a direct order from your lord and did not return after investigating your apartment for clues.” Captain Pink’s eyebrow rose. “Did you find anything?”

“Y-yes.” Cloudy’s ears flicked back at the look from the captain. “Aye, ma’am. A note in block script.” Cloudy bent her neck about and pulled the scrap of paper from her her under-wing purse.

Collar took it from her, read it, and laid it on the desk. “If you ever loved her, leave the city.”

Captain Pink shook her head. “I hate mysteries. One of you tell me what that means.”

“Rosemary,” Cloudy blurted. “She means Rosemary.”

Collar bobbed his head once. “She’s right. That’s the only pony it can be. It means Rosewater gave us a warning. Or a threat.”

“As I said, I hate mysteries,” Captain Pink growled. “Explain why the Rose Terror would do anything nice for us.”

“She hates her mother, with a passion. That should be reason enough,” Collar said, shaking his head. “She was cryptic last night. I had her captured, but she let me know there was another Rose stalking Cloudy. I had to let her go to come to you.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant!” Captain Pink roared. “Control yourself.” Then focused on Collar again, every line of her screaming that she hated she couldn’t bark orders at him. “If you wouldn’t mind, my lord… please enlighten us.”

Cloudy snapped back to attention, but her ears wouldn’t follow the rest of her body’s example and stayed flat to her skull. He’d captured Rosewater, or she’d allowed herself to be captured, and then offered up just the right enticement to force him to let her go. And he’d had to bite.

She’s more dangerous than I thought.

“She’s playing a deeper game than I thought,” Collar said with a sigh, nearly echoing her thoughts save the sentiment. “She’s always been unpredictable, but this is…” He froze, snapping his head around to stare at Cloudy. “You were Rosemary’s lover. How exclusive were you?”

“Sir, we were together probably four days out of ten. Sometimes with others of her friends or mine. Sometimes alone.” She didn’t look away from that spot on the wall. Reporting their days in the sun, their nights entwined so coldly hurt. The talks they’d had, before and after, and with friends. The plans they’d started to make. “I loved her. I tried to get her to leave with me. But either she didn’t want to leave, or she never got my message.”

“Close, then. And if Roseate had you as a thrall…” Collar shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to think why she’d want to coerce or entice Rosemary. Or why she’d have to. She should be bound under the Way of the Rose to follow her orders.”

Cloudy hated the Way of the Rose. The binding that put all nobility in the city automatically in the military. She’d been bound by it, but it hadn’t been so bad. Rosewater was supposed to be bound by it, but if she’d been there, and hadn’t followed through… hadn’t taken Cloudy like she had only the day before demonstrated she could…

“She’s disobeying orders,” Cloudy said. “What makes you think Rosemary won’t as well? Roseate exiled her mother. She’s hardly a reliable soldier. Roseate will know that, too.”

Captain Pink’s face reddened until Collar waved a hoof at her.

“Candid discussion, please. Cloudy knows the Roses like we don’t.”

Like a summer storm come and gone, Captain Pink’s face returned to its normal complexion. It was a skill former drill instructors never lost. Rage in an instant, gone in a flash. “Aye, my lord. Frank discussion. Speak freely, Cloudy.” As if to demonstrate, Prim Pink plucked the circlet from her head and set it on the desk with a clink. “We’re just ponies.”

“Rosewater and Carnation Rose,” Cloudy said softly, ducking her head and flattening her ears. “They were… they were close.” That had to be the reason why Rosewater had dueled her mother, to get her to rescind an exile order already served. Except Rosewater had won. No. Not Carnation. Rosemary.“I think… Roseate is using Rosemary against Rosewater. If she can make Rosemary disobey an order, she can exile her. Guardianship or no.”

“But why? That would just make Rosewater…” Collar tipped his head. “No. She wants Rosewater to challenge her to another duel. She thinks she can win, perhaps.” He glanced at Cloudy. “You mentioned, in your intake debriefing, that you’d seen their duel.”

Screaming. Terror. The Rose Terror. “Yes.” If Roseate thought she could win…

“You said it was a nasty one.”

“The nastiest I’ve ever seen or heard of,” Cloudy said in a clipped tone, fighting to keep the images from her mind. “Roses don’t fight with fear, Collar. They fight with Lust. It’s what Roseate tried to use.”

Captain Pink shuddered and grimaced. “On her own daughter?”

“Roseate is ruthless, but Rosewater didn’t even blink,” Cloudy said, nodding and feeling not a little queasy herself. “But she wasn’t prepared for fear. I don’t know… how. Perfumed fear, perhaps?”

Collar shivered. “Dangerous mare. If she can do that, no wonder Roseate has been trying to gain leverage over her.”

“So.” Captain Pink crossed her forelegs on the desk and sat up straighter. “Roseate is walking on tenterhooks around Rosewater, knows that she’s the best to do what she wants, would probably enjoy the irony of Rosewater giving her the tools she needed to control a pony close to her, but Rosewater found out, guessed, or is generally obstinate to anything her mother wants.”

“The last of which could be a trap. Roseate is afraid to try exiling Rosewater, I’m sure, because she’s the only pony who’s a match for me on their side,” Collar said, flicking his ears. “Skill-wise, and one-on-one.”

“I think we’re missing something,” Cloudy said softly. “Carnation Rose, Roseate’s sister. How close were they?”

“Obviously not very if Roseate exiled her,” Captain Pink said with a snorted laugh.

“Not that. Rosewater was living with Carnation from age six. Four years before Rosemary was born. Why? Why would Rosewater live with her aunt instead of her mother?” Cloudy shook her head slowly, tapping a hoof on the floor. “The file said it was right after her father died. Is there anything to that?”

“Doubtful.” Captain Pink studied the desk, rolling her circlet up and letting it fall flat. “As far as I know, nothing happened there. One week, Rosewater was living in the Rose Palace, and the next, she was living in Carnation’s estate.” Captain Pink tapped the back of a hoof on the desk. “Roseate, dealing with grief and… what? Five other brooding children? So Carnation offered to take a six year old off her hooves in exchange for some favor, perhaps. I’ve got a six year old niece. Her mother wishes she could pass her off to somepony else every now and then. And she’s only got two foals.”

Cloudy shrugged. It made as much sense as anything else, and didn’t directly contradict Rose customs. “Children are often raised by a whole extended family.”

“We could ask Rose Glory,” Collar said. “She’s, er, taken a Prim as a lover.”

“I don’t like that, Lord Collar,” Captain Pink growled, picking up her circlet and placing it back on her head. “But you’re right. Assuming he didn’t spend all night cock deep in her glorious depths, I’d like to talk to him.” She patted the desk in front of Cloudy. “Or, rather, I want you to talk to them. Three times a week. You understand both sides of the river, Cloudy. But do try and not let your temper go.”

Cloudy stared at the symbol of the captain’s rank, the silver circlet with the triplet of amethysts above her brow, swallowed her immediate retort, and said, “Aye, ma’am. How long will this assignment last?”

“Until I’m satisfied.” Pink waved a hoof. “Dismissed.

“Aye, ma’am.”

Collar tugged at her chin gently as she relaxed from attention. “And, Cloudy, I would like for you to apologize to her. Sincerely.” He released her chin, his eyes softening. “It will help you, too.”

The list of things Rosewater had given her to collect in addition to all the items she needed to make on her own for the raid was a very esoteric collection, and most of it was perishable. Freshly baked biscuits for dogs that didn’t respond to other scents. Strips of dried fish for the cats. All of it sealed in scent-lock enchanted cloth bags until she might need it.

It was a beginners basic kit. Foals First Raid level of specificity.

Sometimes, she thought Rosewater just liked to annoy her. Carnation had been almost as protective, as smug in her execution of her role as mother. And just as playful.

Rosewater’s calm voice as she wrote out each item the day before came back to her.

“Just for your first raid. Once you get more comfortable with walking unseen, you’ll learn to watch ahead for these obstacles.”

She stepped from the shop, blinked, and quickly cast her veil before slipping into the crowd again. She kept the veil light, only hiding her cutie mark and shifting her coat and mane a few shades lighter than normal. A quick look over the river at the rooftops rising above the hedge confirmed her need. A glint of glass flickered briefly, then disappeared.

She flattened her ears at that much of a slip and frowned at herself.

“Remember the veil. It will save you.” Rosewater’s voice, repeating a mantra for the umpteen-thousandth time in the past two days.

Rosewater had been more her teacher in the art of spycraft than Carnation, the latter being more inclined to what Roseate called ‘indolence’ than that of a ‘proper’ Merrie noblemare. It had suited Carnation, though, and her paintings decorated their house. They were in her own style, a realistic modern aesthetic that eschewed the more impressionistic style popular in Canterlot.

That, too, was Carnation. She went her own way. Often, Rosewater had followed or tried to.

There was another part Rosewater wasn’t saying, but she’d never seen the look she’d expected in cousin’s eyes. Or in her mother’s. They weren’t mother and daughter. But they weren’t lovers, either. What they were, Rosemary had always had a hard time defining.

Rosewater was a confusing mare, and she always had been. She hadn’t always been cold to the rest of the family, and had actually found a second mother in Budding Rose when they’d been more of a whole family, and had lived together with her, and babysat her and Rose Seed both. She had imagined that there could be no happier life, and no warmer soul. They were both… more. Sometimes it was indefinable.

But then things had changed. Carnation had been exiled, hauled out of their home before they’d even had a chance to properly say farewell.

Something had broken in Rosewater then, shattered, and rage had replaced it. Anger and hate and not a little bit of fear. She’d disappeared into her perfumery for a week, and been tense and terse at dinner, the only time Rosemary saw her during the day during that frightening time.

Then the duel that Rosemary had been forbidden from seeing. Then she had become Rosewater’s charge in fact and name, and had murmured in her sleep, holding Rosemary close, that she ‘hadn’t had to use your gift.’

What that gift was, Rosewater had never said. That it had come from Carnation, and had been a private gifting between them… she’d never questioned that.

Things had changed, both in public and in private. Things Rosemary had been used to saying, she couldn’t say anymore, even in private for fear that they would be overheard and used against them. In public, Rosewater cut herself off from her old friends aside from an occasional and extremely clandestine meeting, as if she were raiding in Merrie itself just to sneak a night away from home.

In private, she was warmer than ever as if to make up for the cool aloofness she showed in public.

For six years so far, she’d kept it up. Each year wearing her down a little more, and each anniversary of Carnation’s exile taking more of a toll on her despite her outward confidence.

This latest development seemed to have shocked her out of that habit of staying aloof, and at each shop she stopped at, she got some little tidbit that her cousin had been there to place an order for her.

Hoof-holding, but… at least she was getting out.

More shops she stopped at to pick up a tidbit here and there took her coin and gave her a smile. Some of the keepers had been occasional lovers, others friends for a day of watching a play or having a picnic on the shore, sharing poems, and debating philosophy.

All things that Rosewater insisted she learn, both before and after Carnation had been exiled.

She’d also insisted that Rosemary make friends with as many shopkeepers as she could. They would be more careful with their goods if they liked her, and only sell her the best.

Of course, some of them were too delicious to pass up offering a night or a day of fun and not only friendship. Like her friend Rosie Night, a perennially bouncy earth pony with a pink coat so dark it was almost purple and a mane like the last rays of sunlight, burnt gold, red, and magenta, and a kiss that could be as soft flower petals or fierce as a tiger, and a tongue that always tasted of the sweets she made.

Her shop was filled them, jars upon jars marked with dozens of different flavor labels resting on shelves that were available for browsing and sniffing. The scent filling the small space was a cacophony to her nose, but warm and inviting all the same. She could spend, and had spent, hours sniffing each and every jar and letting Rosie tell her what they were and how she made each one.

The owner was a pleasantly plump mare, tender in bed, and knew a few things that Rosemary had yet to master.

She laughed softly as she leaned across the counter to catch Rosie in a kiss she let linger long enough to get the taste of the latest batch of rose candy.

“Mm.” Rosie licked Rosemary’s upper lip as she drew away. “Like the taste?”

“Always. What’s the secret ingredient this time?” She leaned in again for another, shorter taste. “Is that cinnamon?”

“Ooh, good. Yes. It’s a fireball for the senses.” Rosie swept a hoof down the rows of jars of candies. “Sharp, not too sweet, just enough of the bite of raw cinnamon to burn away fatigue. Good for when you need a boost. Do not use it just before going down on me.”

“Got it! No fireball clits.”

Rosie shuddered. “Never, got me? Trestle did that, and I still haven’t forgiven him.” She turned about, bustling with a cloth sack as she started measuring in some faintly reddish balls that smelled hot even above the lingering fragrance in her nose. “Say, I saw your cousin yesterday. Rosewater.” Rosie’s ear flicked nervously, not looking back. “She placed an order for you.”

“Oh?” Rosemary flicked a look over her shoulder, as if Rosewater might be watching her. But she wouldn’t be. She’d said she was going to spend the day making the perfume for Lady Baroness Highwater and send her packing on the morrow.

There was no tall mare, or shadow waiting outside, and the building opposite blocked the view of the river. No spies would be able to see what she was buying, even with her veil down, unless they happened to wander in.

“I’m a bit jealous, you know,” Rosie said as she disappeared halfway into the back and came out with a small pouch of candies she set and let spill out, bright green and striated with white stress marks.

“Jealous how?”

“How she seems to always be on your mind, dear.” Rosie rolled one of the balls forward with a breath. “I wish I was on your mind as much as she was.”

“I mean, you are, but it’s been hectic the last couple days.” It was likely to get more hectic in the next few weeks if Roseate really wanted her to start raiding. “What’s this?”

“These are Minty Minds,”

It melted on her tongue immediately and a wash of minty fresh feeling spread through her as she breathed out a stream of green sparkles. The troubling thoughts plaguing her since waking up seemed to wash away, and it felt like anything she focused on, she could do.

“Oh… wow.” She laughed and raised an eyebrow, focusing on Rosie. “Kissable safe?”

“Everything I make is kissable safe. Just not lickable safe. These are also not lickable safe.” Rosie winked and pursed her lips. “Sure you can’t stay for a little while longer? I can close the shop for a quick fifteen.”

“I’m sure. I don’t do very well at quick.”

Rosie laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Part of what I love about you, dear. Don’t keep me, or Vel and Trestle waiting too long, hear? They’ve been asking about you since they got back from Canterlot.”

“I won’t!” She stepped out, cursed, and veiled. Stars help me. At least she wasn’t on an east-running street, and no clouds in the sky to hide a pegasus spy. Though there were a fair number of pegasi in the air, and with Minty Mind rolling through her, she could see clearly enough to pick out features even so high, though the effect started to wane even as she focused on one in particular, a grass-green pony… who turned out to be a stallion.

Not Cloudy. She wouldn’t risk a flyover.

The last item on her list was… packing everything. Making sure it was all tucked away into the proper pouches, easily accessible within the cloak she would have to wear to keep all the little accoutrements an amateur raider needed.

Later, she wouldn’t need such a gimmick to hold her things. She would only need her enticement scents and her lure and her magic. The less encumbered a raider was, the easier it was to move without sound.

Rosewater went naked of all but her cloak lately, and that more to hide her white coat than anything else. Her lure was herself, her enticement a whisper of magic and whatever scents happened to be nearby.

She was nearly home when the bag of candies slipped from the top of her saddlebag. She managed to catch it before it fell, but her veil slipped for an instant. She glanced quickly along the line of buildings over the river, but saw no glint or telltale movement.

It wasn’t a secret that she lived with Rosewater, but the fact that she’d let her veil slip at all simply from a minor distraction…

That tendency towards distraction might be something they could use against her if they knew it was her going on a raid.

“Lieutenant Rose,” the guards at the jail’s entrance said, uncrossing their cudgels. The one on the right opened the door for her. “Captain Pink left orders last night that you would be expected.”

That…“Of course she did.” It’d all been a show for her benefit. She’d always been going to be Rose Glory’s interrogator. “Thank you, Corporal.”

Prim Poppy was just inside, chatting with the day warden, a scroll hovering between them as he pointed out specific lines of whatever had been written on it.

“…prohibited. Nothing more strenuous than a slow walk around the yard.”

“Understood. And I’m to understand you’re her attending?” The warden asked, taking the scroll from Poppy’s grasp and setting it on the desk.

“I am. If there are any complications, please send for me day or night. It’s in the scroll.” He pointed at it with a hoof, his ears starting to twitch.

Done with his medical duty, Poppy reverted to his usual self, nervous, more than a little anxious around other ponies.

How did you do it, Glory? Cloudy mused, studying him while she waited to get the warden’s attention. He was good at his job as their division medic, but he’d never really been very social, always preferring smaller gatherings to the usual bluster at a place like the Bridgewater Bilge, one of the only taverns in Damme that didn’t look down on her because she had pink eyes.

“Anything else, Corporal Poppy?” the day warden asked, reviewing the scroll with a wary eye. “Anything that would require an in person visit?”

“N-no. Just, make sure she does her exercises and gets chances to walk in the yard at least twice a day to keep her muscle tone, Warden Wheat.” Poppy’s confidence took a hit again as he jerked a look at the broad stairs leading up to the second level. “She’s a-an invaluable asset.”

Cloudy managed, just, to keep a smirk off her face. “She doing okay?”

Poppy glanced at her, startled, and nodded. “Y-yeah. Sh-she’s doing fine.” He swallowed, every line of him pleading with her not to tell anypony, especially not the warden, that he was Glory’s lover.

For all she knew, he was her exclusive lover. “Great. I’m here to talk to her. Not interrogate,” she added when a touch of that fiercely protective side of him came back, firming his jaw. She really did capture you, didn’t she? “How are you doing, Pop? Got enough sleep last night?”

Right back on his hind legs. “Y-yeah. She did, too. After she got settled in.”

Probably good that cell is soundproofed. “Glad to hear it. Get some rest, Poppy, you still look like you barely slept.”

Poppy laughed nervously. “Well, you know… one of the Rosethorn sisters.” He yawned and waved as he headed to the gate. “Be gentle, Cloudy.”

Warden Wheat pursed his lips as he stared after the stallion after he’d left. “He didn’t come down last night at all, the logs said.”

“She’s a high profile prisoner,” Cloudy said, tapping the logbook. “Sign me in, will you?”

Wheat raised a brow at her, but nodded. “Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

The stairs up were solid stone, broad, and carpeted with the purple and blue of House Prim, bordered with gold to indicate nobility. Her hoofsteps barely registered, and any echo she made was quickly swallowed up by the carpet.

The Golden Cage was little more than a wall of bars and a gate that closed off the rest of the prison from a suite of three rooms including a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bathroom. It was better appointed than her own apartment, almost as richly as Collar’s chambers in the palace.

While there was no privacy, or right to it for the prisoners, Roses who stayed tended not to care about such things. Rose Glory was lying on a settee in the sitting room, a book hovering before her. Aristallion’s Analytics. Her left shoulder was wrapped with white cloth, the point of impact thickly padded and stained dark with ointment.

She deigned to notice Cloudy when she set a hoof to the gate, and her rank insignia glowed, disarming the charms and breaking the silence as she stepped through and into the room still smelling faintly of sex. She didn’t have to be a Rosethorn to recognize that scent, though a Prim might mistake it.

Glory waited until the door closed again and the wards reset before put the book down. “My captor,” she said in a distant tone, eying her warily. “Why have you come?”

“To talk.” Cloudy swallowed, looking away from the binding around her shoulder. “And… to apologize.”

Glory raised a brow and glanced at her shoulder. “I’ve already forgiven you. What is there to apologize for? We both made mistakes, Cloudy Rosewing.”

“Why are you being so cordial?” Cloudy swept a wing at the cage behind her. “This has to be… frustrating, right?”

“My dear. Imagine, for a moment, if you’d completed that mission that had gotten you all but exiled.” Glory tipped her chin up as Cloudy’s ears flattened. “Imagine, for a moment, if you had used the love of that precious mare to sneak into the most well-guarded building in all of Merrie. Imagine her hurt when she found out.”

“How—”

“Now. Imagine that you have to do that every day. You have to use ponies to get secrets, even if you don’t want to, because the few ponies you care about are at risk if you don’t.” Glory’s voice got sharper with every word, her ears flattening into her mane. “Imagine if you had a reason to let it go through no fault of your own. If you didn’t have to make the same decision you did to outright disobey a direct order from your own mother.”

Cloudy stared at the mare and felt a shiver crawling down her neck to her tail.

“The analogy breaks down at the end, but I see you have quite the idea.” Glory flicked her tail against the lounging couch. “This, Cloudy Rosewing, is the lap of rutting luxury.” She blinked, grinned, and cocked her head. “I mean, it is, but not being required to run another errand because my particular talent makes me oh-so-very useful as a spy… just to protect one pony. It’s a vacation.”

“How did you know what my mission was?”

“I do more than spy on you. I spy on mother, too. And my sisters. And everyone.” Glory flicked her ears. “The secrets I hear help me keep the ponies I actually care about safe.”

There was a gap in that logic. “And now? What will you do to keep them safe now?”

“Why, by being a model prisoner, of course. I do so love Poppy, and I would marry him outright, and rut mother with a rusty tent-pole, but there are certain other ponies in Merrie that I am quite inclined to keep safe by not defecting openly.” Glory huffed a breath and glanced pointedly at her. “Nor reveal secrets that could only have come from me.”

“She rules by fear. We already know that.” Cloudy rubbed at her cheek, thinking. She needed something from Glory. Something that would help.

“Oh, and isn’t she so grand at it? Why, she…” Glory’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, grinned, and cocked her head. “Oh, but that’s a secret. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay dearly for that one.”

Cloudy growled, gritting her teeth. “What about Rosemary. I know she’s going raiding soon. Rosewater’s all but confirmed it by her actions. When is she going out?”

“Mmm. And what will I get if I tell you?” Glory’s tail flirted over her flank as she cocked her head to the side. “You’ll catch her, and you’ll take her, and then someone will know, or at least suspect, that I told you.”

“If she breaks no laws, then we don’t have a reason to arrest her. She’s not on any warrant list.” Cloudy chewed her lip for a moment, thinking, trying to think how much Rosewater might have corrupted her to the Rosethorn Way. How much of the mare I loved is still there?

“Ah, so she isn’t. She could pop over for a visit any time, couldn’t she?” Glory mused, tapping a hind hoof against the couch’s opposite rest. “Why hasn’t she, I wonder.”

Cloudy closed her eyes and started counting silently, her ears flat to her skull.

“I’m right, but I’m also wrong, and so are you, Cloudy,” Glory said halfway to ten. “Whatever reason you think she hasn’t come to visit is likely not the correct one. Give it some thought and let me know what you think tomorrow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Glory flicked an ear and picked up the book again. “It means: can you think, or can you only react?”

Book 1, 6. First Time

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Rosemary stood stock still while Rosewater paced around her, plucking at this or that item in her cloak’s pockets and nodding or tying it tighter. She winced at each of the latter and tried not to react to the former.

“Veil and prance in place,” Rosewater commanded, the familiar friendly tone gone. She was a taskmare, hard-eyed and serious. It wasn’t quite the face and tone she used in public with her mother, but it was close.

She felt silly drumming her hooves in place on the hardwood, focusing on both her veil and Silent Hooves spells, but she began smiling as Rosewater continued her pacing, nodding now and then as her eyes flicked from bulge to bulge, tugged at a knot, and then a vial. Nothing rattled or clattered, and her cloak stayed in place over her cutie mark and head. Nothing fell out at Rosewater’s gentle tugs.

“Very good. Now keep doing that and draw out Bluebell’s Bliss. And keep your veil up, your hooves silent.” Her cousin didn’t stop her pacing, a constant distraction she had to filter out.

The vial of sparkling blue liquid slipped free at a sharp tug, and the stopper came free with a twist.

“Good. Put it back.” Rosewater tugged at her tail just when it was about in. “Caught,” she said sharply as Rosemary’s Veil dropped. “No matter what, Rosemary. The Veil is your life in the night. The Veil will keep the rest of you hidden even if they grab your cloak or your tail or your mane.”

It was the same lesson as always, almost the same words. “I’ve been practicing.”

“You have. I’ve noticed the improvement.” Rosewater offered a precious smile, so rare during training. “Have you found a pegasus to chase you?”

“I’ve been looking. But none of them are… well.” Rosemary shook her head. “They’re… not like Cloudy.”

Her cousin’s expression flickered briefly, a tightening of the brow, a thinning of the lips then resumed their steady demeanor. “I know. Try to find somepony to train with. I promise it will help.”

Rosemary sighed, not looking forward to the interview process. She wasn’t looking for a lover. She’d never had to look for a lover, in any case. She stumbled into them. It was just so awkward trying to ask a pegasus to chase her.

She could go to the Garden of Love, but they would ask her about Rosewater, and Rosewater stayed away because of the stupid, however factual, notion that Roseate would target them.

“I’ll keep looking.”

“Please do.”

Rosewater paced away, head lowered, ears ticking as the mask of Taskmare started to falter. She could only keep it for so long before it started to hurt her. So her solution was… ‘don’t look at me.’

“Listen to me, Rosemary.” She stopped at one of the few paintings of them as a family that Carnation had not painted, commissioned years ago, it showed Rosewater, white coat captured perfectly with the faint creases and shading that made her look more real, her gold-flecked pink eyes and pink mane floating in the breeze, and Carnation, her bright smile and blond mane shining in the sun.

Between them, Rosemary sat impatiently facing forward, the river and Primrose Bridge as a backdrop. They could have been any other Merrier family in that portrait, two wives and their daughter.

The reality had been so very different. And also closer than any looking in from the outside would guess.

Rosewater’s hoof touched the wall by Carnation’s image, and her jaw moved slowly, whispering words Rosemary couldn’t hear. Words that Rosewater meant for Carnation alone.

When she turned around, the taskmaster was gone, and the mare in the painting looked back at her, a touch sadder, more tired, and still just as determined to be a good parent.

“Your first night, you don’t have to do anything.” Rosewater shook her head as Rosemary shifted. “I would prefer you not to even open any of those vials in your cloak unless you absolutely need to. Get used to wearing it. Familiarize yourself with the shadows and how they move in Damme. Get to know the guard patrol routes, and…”

“And?” Rosemary asked, voice trembling.

“If you get caught, don’t fight, Rosemary. Don’t let them hurt you.” Tears shimmered in Rosewater’s eyes. “There’s so much that can go wrong in a chase. I can’t lose you. I won’t.”

Tension shivered in the air for a moment.

“You won’t.”

Rosewater nodded sharply, her jaw tight, and made herself relax, another mask taking the place of the raw emotional pain shivering just behind the ‘guardian’ mask. “Most importantly, don’t attempt a taking tonight.”

“I can do that? I don’t have to bring anypony back?”

“No. You don’t. Not every raid is successful.” Rosewater turned her head to the side, towards the front door and the river, and Damme past it. “Mine, last night, was almost a disaster.”

Uncertainly, Rosemary took a step forward and pressed her cheek to her cousin’s. “Are you okay? You didn’t say much last night.”

“Yes.” Rosewater’s eyes closed, and she bobbed her head, pressing closer. “I will recover. I’m feeling much better today than I was yesterday.” She took a deep breath and pulled back, her eyes flicking between Rosemary’s before steadying.

Rosemary’s heart fluttered. She really was worried. “I promise. I’ll come back. I’m not going to leave you.”

Rosewater’s head bobbed once in a curt nod. “I know. Stay to the west side of Damme. I fear the east side will be under a tighter watch for my incursion. And be wary when crossing the bridge. I would recommend the Primrose, but it’s far too well lit, though less guarded because of that. The Dockbridge will be barely guarded, and may—”

Rosemary stopped her with a tweak of the ear. “I know my route. I’ve spent all day researching it and talking to some of my trader friends. I’m crossing the Rosewine. There’s an alley there that I can teleport to if I need to, and the bridge is barely lit at night.”

“Okay.” Rosewater opened her mouth to say more, then shook her head. The taskmare descended again and backed away. “Veil, Rosemary. Again.”

Testing continued. She had only an hour before sundown to practice more. To make sure her gear was set. To make sure she was in the proper mindset. To make sure she would return.

Cloudy Rose sat on a cloud far above the river, her wings barely stirring to keep the cloud drifting slowly in a circle. It was lucky the night was so calm, or a single cloud drifting slowly might draw attention if anypony bothered to notice that it never seemed to leave the general vicinity of the river.

She could have sat on one of the rooftop eyries, but she would have been far more visible there, and if she needed to take off, her wings would give her away with the launch and alert her.

The stoop was swamped with shade, no street lamp being near it, as every noble house preferred on the in Merrie. But it was easy enough to tell when something started to happen.

Just past sundown, with the moon still edging above the horizon, the front door opened, and Rosewater stepped out, unveiled. That was a surprise on it’s own, and the mare’s face in the scope was drawn and tired, but a tender smile played over her lips for a moment as she looked east towards the moon.

Then she turned, drew power into her horn, and turned off all the lights in the house, and started off down the river walk, heading east, drawing eyes in that direction, towards the side of Damme that she’d caused a fuss in during the past day.

The spies on the buildings watching the various noble houses would certainly be focusing on her. Rosewater gave her cloud a cursory glance as she passed by a street lamp, and saw a flicker of shadow swing just wrongly enough that it drew her attention.

It was a classic maneuver, false shadowing. And, sure enough, a few steps later…

Cloudy stifled a curse. Rosewater vanished entirely in the full light of a streetlamp. No flash of light for a teleport, nothing but a brief flare of her horn. Another thing Rosewater could do that she hadn’t been aware of. True invisibility.

A moment spent looking for her to reappear somewhere else proved fruitless and distracted her from her real purpose for being up here. No doubt the other watchers were intent on finding the most dangerous mare in two cities, quietly starting to panic and wondering if they should send out notices to bring up reserves.

She swiveled the scope back to the place where the shadow had wavered, pulling the scope back a bit to get a wider view, focusing on the span of the river walk between the Primrose and the Highline Bridges. Then shifting further down to the space between the latter and the Rosewine, the last bridge before the Dockbridge and the bay.

Just when she was about to swivel and search for other places Rosemary might have gotten off to, and cursing herself for taking Rosewater’s offered bait, a shadow moved just slightly wrong.

If it hadn’t been such a calm night, if she hadn’t been looking for just that kind of change, she would have missed it.

There! A shadow moved without the tree that had made it moving. Then the shadow of the tree next to it shivered. It was a good veil, but whomever was casting it wasn’t used to moving from shadow to shadow.

It had to be Rosemary, and she was headed for the Rosewine.

For long minutes, she followed the inexpert shifting, noting how the pattern moved, slowly becoming more comfortable with moving from deepest shadow to deepest shadow. She always had been a fast learner, but she’d apparently fallen out of practice hiding from pegasi.

An earth pony or unicorn likely wouldn’t have noticed anything from their angle, just a shadow moving along more shadows. But from above, all the shadows acted as a web, and changes to one drew the eye more readily.

Rosemary’s darker part of the night paused at the shallow rise of the Rosewine, and the Merrieguard stationed there. The made a point of not noticing the shadow that passed between them up on to the barely lighted span, then stopped.

The Damme side of the bridge was brightly lit enough to foil any veiling but invisibility, and unless Rosemary had the talent for it… and if she didn’t, it would likely cost her.

What will you do about that?

The shadow hesitated, drifting back and forth at the edge of the light. She would have to be careful, or she’d be spotted against the backdrop of Merrie by the Dammeguard watching the span. But, instead of passing, the shadow edge back down into a hedge and disappeared. Even from above, she couldn’t see through that thick growth.

But she did catch the bright flash, and a faint pop that echoed up from the city just a few dozen yards from the river.

Both Dammeguard flinched, familiar with the sound of a teleport, and aware it meant a powerful unicorn, but their eyes turned to the river, then towards the source of the sound, both glancing at each other and clearly wondering if they wanted to face the Rose Terror.

Not so powerful as you think, fellas, but still stronger than most of the Roses. It was still an impressive, and gutsy move, and showed the tutelage of Rosewater. A year ago, she wouldn’t have said Rosemary could have teleported.

Even as she thought, she launched from her cloud and dove towards the sound as the two guards crept forward, one of them having the brilliant idea that it might not be a departure.

One of them spotted her mid-dive and waved silently.

She halted her dive long enough to give the sign of ‘observation only’ and flashed her whistle.

They conferred briefly, then returned to their posts. Collar had asked her not to let any guards confront Rosemary—including herself—and only to observe and see what she did unless she broke a law. An order that couldn’t very well be passed around openly lest it enter the gossip mill.

Cloudy finished her descent more stealthily, spreading the magic from her wings to still the turbulence of her passage and cupping them in long, slow beats before settling down with little more than a tap on the rooftop overlooking the alleyway.

Rosemary stood there, unveiled, shaking and darting looks left and right as she hid between two piles of crates, curled up to be almost invisible should somepony casually glance down the narrow corridor. She was cloaked, and while it hid most of her, even her blond forelock, there was no mistaking the bit of muzzle that peeked out or the dappling on her single visible hind leg bracing her against the wall.

But she never looked up. She never turned her eyes to the sky. Never let Cloudy see those beautiful pink eyes or the surprise when their eyes met again.

Her eyes! Let me see her eyes! Let her see me, please! Let this charade end.

Almost, she abandoned her promise and threw herself off the edge. Almost. She restrained a whimper and chewed at her lip until the urge faded, even if her chest ached with longing to hear her voice again, to hear her laugh again that happy bright laugh that brightened a room with only the sound of it.

For her. She’d always felt more alive around Rosemary.

Stop. Stop thinking. The past might not live still in her. This might not be the Rosemary she remembered.

She’d promised Collar she would only watch unless Rosemary broke the law. She wouldn’t interfere with this test.

Rosemary recovered and veiled slowly, her horn’s golden glow fading into the darkness of shadow as she pulled them about her until she became little more than a flicker of movement in the dark alley.

And she never looked up to see where the soft patter of falling water came from or from where came the stifled gasps.

Just to see her and not through a spyglass, to be close enough to talk to her.

Cloudy dashed the tears from her eyes and launched to circle the block, easily spotting Rosemary’s shadow as she passed into the open space of a boulevard, adjusting the surround of her veil, but not above. Amateurish.

It was her first time. Cloudy shook her head and refocused on just following her.

Thank the stars she’s not good at moving while Veiled.

She only caught a barest flicker of another shadow as a cat darted across the way, chasing a rat.

The shadow they’d cast had been too large to be either, but so smoothly did it vanish into the darkness again after crossing the street that Cloudy would have dismissed it any other night.

Not that night.

Somepony was stalking the stalker. Stalking her lover.

Rosewater. Sudden fear spiked her stomach as she banked to follow Rosemary’s less subtle passage. Rosewater was a threat of an entirely different scale. The chance that she hadn’t been spotted in her moment of weakness was practically nonexistent.

She could have used her distraction, used Rosemary, as a foil to capture her cleanly and without anypony else being the wiser until morning.

And Rosewater still hadn’t gone after her. The capture order hadn’t been rescinded. She knew that much wouldn’t happen in one night, which meant Rosewater should have taken the first clean opportunity to take her.

If she was still following orders.

What kind of game are you playing?

Damme at night was vastly different from her few daytime excursions as a guest years ago. The city hadn’t changed much from her memories of walking with Carnation and Rosewater through the broad boulevards, dressed in their festival finest for the annual gala.

The magnolia trees were still carefully tended so their broad, waxy leaves spread a canopy of cooling shade and channeled the cooling sea air through the hot days of summer and kept the streets freer of snow during winter than in Merrie.

How the citizens of Damme kept such tropical trees alive through the decades since they’d been planted was a guarded secret, but rumor among the Rose families was that a clan of earth ponies from far southern Saddle Arabia had settled in, living their reclusive lives and tending to the trees that reminded them so much of their varied homeland.

All myth, of course. Rosemary had it on good authority from an absolutely delightful Dammeguard that it was the breeding of the trees, crossed with some form of crystal-infused bush from farther north that gave the trees their hardiness.

The poor dear had been so flustered by her proposition that she’d felt obligated to treat the young mare to dinner at a cafe to make up for her faux pas, one sweet Rose, barely of age to drink, her Rosethorn marks not dark or light enough to be seen amid her coat and aided by judicious use of a little makeup.

And afterwards, she’d accepted one night of bliss, so sweetly ignorant of the pleasures of the flesh until Rosemary enlightened her. And such a sweet waking up, the mare had squeaked and squirmed, laughing her delight as tongue and teeth teased her teats until she’d sat up and pounced Rosemary and enthusiastically, if amateurishly, tried out everything Rosemary had taught her.

Sadly, she’d yet to run into the mare again, and the night had gone by so swiftly, and the morning so turbulently, with her rushing Rosemary across the bridge before her superiors caught up to her, that she’d forgotten to ask after her name.

No matter. She knew the mare’s face and her cutie mark.

Mayhap she’d spend a little time trying to spy her out. If she was still in the Dammeguard.

She shook her head sharply and drew herself farther into the shadows along the middle of the boulevard as a patrol passed by ahead of her, looking neither left nor right as they chattered and laughed, their voices muffled by distance and the wind blowing the wrong way.

It was a reminder of the danger she was in. She was in a city that she’d be kicked out of, at best, if she were caught in it without a proper invitation. And Rosewater would be disappointed that she’d let herself fall into a daydream.

The patrol passed on, the mare and stallion raising a raucous noise marking their position easily enough.

She drew up the mental map she’d memorized of Damme and frowned as she focused on it. She was heading north towards the Prim Palace. Probably best to avoid that area, as the patrols there would be thick and numerous, and likely more than skilled enough to spot her beginner’s veil.

To the west was the docks. Mostly filled with visitors and non-Damme ponies. It would probably be best not to antagonize another city by working on a citizen they weren’t technically at war with. Not that she intended to, but a little sweet fragrance here and there to liven a party would do wonders to hide her presence.

To the east were all the residential areas and lower end shops and services that Damme had to offer, but would also likely be heavily patrolled—for the sake of the citizenry’s comfort if nothing else. No Rose raider would be so silly as to strike the same area twice in two nights, but the populace was easily spooked.

Which left the center of the city, a place of four and five story dark stone buildings with dark windows and firmly closed doors. Apartments, offices, and government buildings. Some were craft shops of course, but none of them were open this late at night. A safer place to practice her shadow craft.

Guards were the obvious targets, but they operated in pairs most often, and finding one patrolling around a building was probably her best bet to actually try enticing somepony. Just a quick distraction to slip by and make sure she got the motion of draw, atomize, and activate down without veiling.

Rosewater had drilled her, but… as she was finding out, field work was much different from the shaded sitting room or even the obstacle course of Rosewater’s laboratory

She let out a short huff and considered the map again, eyes closed and ears alert. Close to the courtyard grounds of the palace was the prison and, while it was technically in the central district of the city, going anywhere near the Prison was an idea on par with running up to Cloudy and kissing her right there in the open.

If I see her.

Still, the idea of even trying to get a glimpse of Rose Glory through one of the windows of the Gilded Cage was tempting… Glory had been one of the few of her cousins aside from Rosewater who wasn’t openly antagonistic towards her.

That she’d been captured and was being held in Prim Prison was the talk of the town. It was… not exactly a coup, but it was big news for the war and put it back into everypony’s minds again.

Yes sir jailer, I’m here to free my cousin. Oh, what? You’re putting me into that cell? What do you mean I can’t leave?

She huffed a laugh and covered it quickly, shifting around in a circle to see if anypony was around.

Nopony but us shadows. She giggled nervously and stifled her muzzle. Idiot girl. I wasn’t ready. Stars, I wasn’t ready. She lay down behind one of the bushes to consider her next move, ears twitching as she listened for anything that might indicate she’d been heard or seen.

There, she relaxed her veiling, trusting in her dark cloak to hide her from casual observation and settled in to recover a little more magic before continuing on, and considered whether or not she should pop one of the stamina candies now or wait.

Cloudy stayed high, watching both Rosemary’s pattern of movement, learning how the mare worked in the shadows—not well—and Rosewater’s increasingly familiar pattern of movement.

It was the latter mare that she had to spend more time watching and even simply looking for. She was damnably good at making sure her veil matched her surroundings, and only when she moved to keep up with Rosemary was Cloudy able to spot her again, even if she knew where to look.

Meanwhile, Cloudy at least hadn’t had to intervene on Rosemary’s behalf with any guards or wonder what might have happened did she. A part of that, when she risked landing in an alleyway behind and peeking out around a corner, was due to the face that the mare was very good at veiling from street level.

Makes sense… Rosewater, unless she stood on a chair and stared down at the mare, could hardly comment on what things looked like from above.

She took off again before Rosewater could reposition herself, grateful for the hood and cloak to hide her cutie mark and face.

But even with all the noise she made flapping it about above and both taking off and landing, Rosemary still didn’t look up. She looked side-to-side, yes, but not up except maybe once every few minutes, as if she’d had to remind herself to do so.

You need to look up, dear heart. But she couldn’t just go up to her and smack her flank, as much as she wanted to.

So far, her presence in the air was keeping away other patrolling pegasi, but that wouldn’t be true forever. She was already tiring from the exertion of staying airborne for an extended period, and she’d have to go back to the palace soon and report.

Before she did, she might have to scare Rosemary back across the river. Another of the Dammeguard would not be interested in observation, and she didn’t want to think what might happen if Rosemary was forced into a confrontation.

First… she needed to do something about her seeming inability to remember to look up.

Another intersection.

Another four directions to go.

North and south led to the palace and the river, two of the most heavily guarded place in Damme.

She spun a pirouette, came down on silent hooves in a random direction and set off, orienting her map. Little chance of divining exactly where to go since she had no concrete mission, so she might as well just go somewhere.

West. To the sea, towards some of the larger parks in Damme that were visible even from Rosewine Hill in Merrie, though only in strips seen through the streets and buildings, and the meadow of blue flowers there that were some of the only flowering plants she knew of in the entire city.

Prim Prance Park.

She’d just barely started out on her new ‘mission’ to explore the park when a whisper of wind carried the beating of wings to her from somewhere high above.

Pegasus. A dim shadow flitted across the street to her right, then to her left as the guard, and it could only be a guard this late after Damme’s normal curfew.

Stay still. Absolutely still. Motion was far, far easier to spot than something which could be simply a pattern of shadows on the stone. The trick, as Rosewater had explained, was to make sure that the veiling shifted with movement, paying attention to shadows and light to adjust the spell on the fly.

That was the hardest part. She’d never been particularly good at maintaining a constant mist-weaving. Even when she was masturbating with one, it was hard, but she had a lot more practice doing that. And that, really, was just using telekinesis. This was mist-weaving on a different level entirely.

The shadow crossed the street again, larger and lower, and the beating of wings heavier. A courier. Not a soldier. That had to be a courier carrying a heavy package.

Rosemary relaxed minutely, but kept her eyes on the sky as she continued on.

Stars, filly, finally.

Cloudy staggered in midair and dove for a flat building along the route Rosemary was taking. She hadn’t intended to spend so much time flapping about like a grounded bird, using almost none of her magic to stay aloft, and her wings were dead tired. The rest of her hadn’t faired much better.

She landed, wobbled, and braced herself against the chimney, her legs wobbly, her sides aching, and a cramp already starting at the bases of her wings.

That was stupid.

But… down below, it was harder to make out Rosemary. She was still there, but even from the low angle of the rooftop, she could tell that Rosemary had started paying attention to the sky again from the way the dappled shadows of the trees moved with her. At a jerky, halting motion, but they moved instead of staying static from one moment to the next.

A whisper of wind drifted across her ears, carrying Rosewater’s voice so softly it almost wasn’t there.

“Thank you.”

Cloudy startled and looked over the side of the building to her right. Briefly, Rosewater’s face appeared in the murky gloom, then vanished again with a wink.

What in Tartarus?

Another whisper came, this time from her left, “Why?”

Rosemary was moving on to the next intersection, and if she did the same thing, that silly blind pirouette, Cloudy wasn’t sure she could keep up if she moved too far off course.

“Because your cousin is awful at this,” she whispered as she tested her wings, ready to leap across to the next rooftop. She trusted Rosewater was listening using some means. “And I still…”

Why am I telling her?

Cloudy stopped at the edge of the roof and looked down, then across the intersection. Rosemary had already kept on going straight west, and if she kept up, she’d hit…

Primline Park was ahead, visible in the nighttime gloom some five hundred tails down the road. Barely guarded, open, and covered with a scattering of blue flowers, of course that would be where Rosemary was drawn to, even if she did that silly ‘I don’t know which way I’m going’ dance.

Once more, Cloudy called on her magic to make the leap easier, her wings cut through the air, and she gained some altitude, but almost not quite enough to make the next building. Only a sudden bubble of pink magic stifled her landing, and a telekinetic shove got her fully onto the roof.

“You need to go home.”

“Why even help me?” Cloudy growled. Safe in the bubble of silence, she didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “You tried to capture me!”

“You helped my cousin learn a valuable lesson. I repay my debts.” Rosewater’s voice came more clearly, and she didn’t deny the accusation. The bubble faded, and sound resumed, bringing with it the sound of guards laughing it up just down the street.

Down below, Rosemary crouched slipped into the shadows of an alleyway, all but disappearing into it, then dropped her veil in the deepest part of the shadows. Or… not dropped. It sputtered and went out.

Stars, she’s just as exhausted as I am.

As she watched, and tracked the guards as they turned down the street, Rosemary pulled something out, ate it, and a moment later breathed out a trail of green sparks. She veiled a second later and started south immediately, keeping to the deepest shadows.

“She returns home. You should, too.”

“Rut that.” Cloudy started to the edge, and stopped when a band snapped around her hind leg.

“You can’t fly in your condition.”

“Then give me one of those,” Cloudy growled, snapping the restraint with a sharp tug. “I know you have some.”

“Stubborn fool. At least now I know why she loves you.” Rosewater sent a puff of air to flash past her ear. “Go home.”

“I can blow my whistle and have you surrounded in seconds,” Cloudy growled. “Give me a damn candy.”

“Citrus Circus.” A dark cloth packet, twisted at both ends, rose up and hovered before her.

Cloudy let it drop into the cup of her hoof and leaned over the side to look down the narrow alley. Rosewater’s face looked back up at her, serious eyes studying Cloudy’s cloaked form.

Her lips moved, a soft pink glow covering her mouth, and another breeze touched her ear, whispering, “Go home, Cloudy Rosewing.”

As she watched, Rosewater faded into mist and shade, and the wrapper untwisted itself to reveal the candy nestled inside.

Cloudy knew Citrus Circus. She’d abused it often enough on watch to stay steady during late nights, but this… smelled different, and its core seemed to hold a fire in it that could only have come from a unicorn’s spell. One of Rosewater’s specially enchanted candies.

It was a risk, a huge risk, but she couldn’t let Rosemary be captured. She couldn’t see that free spirit dragged to prison, forced to endure monotony and loneliness.

Cloudy popped it into her mouth and chewed. Immediately, all of her senses exploded with information. The light from the moon blazed like the sun for a brief second, then faded as the edge wore off and the magic melted through her body, reinvigorating her legs until she felt like she could leap across the street without using her wings, and fly to the moon and back.

She could even see Rosewater below, crossing the street. Not clearly, but the outline of her through the mist wasn’t quite so fuzzy, the shadows not as deep.

Why don’t you use these all the time? They were so much more potent than the candies that she remembered, so much more useful.

Rosemary was even easier to find than Rosewater had been, almost completely visible to her enhanced senses, and it was so easy to keep up with her, not even needing to land, but circling high and low as she made her steady way, far too quickly for Cloudy’s tastes.

The reason why Rosewater didn’t use them became apparent not even five minutes after taking the candy, as all the energy started to leave her and the aches and pains of her earlier exertions piled back up again.

Panic surged through her as she started descending more and more rapidly, her bubble of calm air shredding itself to pieces the more and more frantically she tried to keep it together. She couldn’t even make herself glide very well, and only managed, barely, to keep from plummeting straight down into the middle of a building’s roof.

She at least managed to get her hooves under her again before—

Magic enfolded her in a shimmering web of fine lines of force, catching her and slowing her descent, guiding her away from buildings and walls to land in a heap at Rosewater’s hooves in the middle of an alleyway.

Unveiled, uncloaked, only a hundred paces from the river’s edge. She could easily teleport herself and Cloudy across, and that would be it. She’d never see Collar again, most likely, and she’d never see Rosemary.

A dim light played over her as Rosewater flipped back her cloak and checked her wings, then her legs, spells probing at muscle and bones, pausing at her cutie mark.

Cloudy tried in vain to keep her hood up when Rosewater tugged it back.

“So… we meet at last, Cloudy Rose,” Rosewater whispered. “If I’d known you were also Collar’s favorite pegasus…” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Fool.”

“Sorry, Collar,” Cloudy managed to whisper before darkness closed over her, leaving her helpless at the hooves of her greatest enemy.

Book 1, 7. Returned

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“You like to make things difficult, don’t you?” Rosewater said with a sigh.

Cloudy lay still, breathing shallowly, but still breathing, and her heart beat steadily—quickly, but steadily. She really should have been laying down for the end of Citrus Circus, but it was the only kind Rosewater had brought with her this time. A last resort kind of candy she’d enchanted just that evening.

She had two others with her, the power she’d stored in the candies enough for a teleport apiece, and enough physical energy for a short run. Or a short flight back to the palace.

Why couldn’t you have listened?

A moment later, Did you try telling her why?

Rosewater veiled again and started towards the river, intending to make sure Rosemary got across safely, but stopped as she saw a pegasus contingent of three Merrieguard making their way along the rivers’ edge. A capture squad looking for easy prey, and the reason for the curfew in Damme.

Damn you, Roseate.

If they spotted Cloudy’s unconscious form, they’d take her before any Dammeguard could do anything about it, and then she’d be in Roseate’s hooves. She’d chosen the alleyway because it was away from regular patrols on this side of the river.

Then Roseate would have leverage on Rosemary. Maybe enough to break her away from the path of freedom she and Carnation had opened for her.

She wanted to scream, rage, and curse at Cloudy’s unconscious form… but that would also be counterproductive in the extreme.

Rosemary first.

Crouched at the alleyway entrance, Rosewater watched Rosemary’s progress toward the bridges, and saw her more than once have to duck into an alleyway to avoid being observed by one of the riverwalk guard.

More were there than there had been when she’d started out—likely called by the teleport trace and looking to arrest somepony. That many could even overwhelm Rosewater, bare of her usual arsenal as she was.

That many would certainly catch Rosemary before she made it even to the foot of the bridge, and she was clearly too exhausted to make use of a teleport again. Amateur move, and one she would have to stress later with her. Management of magical stamina was an important part of raiding or spying, and that Minty Mind would only give her so much more, even if she downed a bag full. Not enough for a teleport, at least.

The pegasi roving the skies on the Merrie side of the river were probably at least as much responsible for that as the noise of a teleport had. Perhaps thinking that they were getting ready to pull an exfiltration of an agent.

They had no such orders, Rosewater was certain. They would let Rosemary flounder and be caught. Possession of illegal magics in Merrie was a minor offense, but she might panic and try to use them.

It made too much sense for Roseate to schedule an exercise like this on the same night Rosemary was on her mission just to make things more difficult for her. Or to see what Rosewater did.

Perhaps the goal wasn’t Cloudy, or it was, and this was one of a few different plots Roseate had put into play at the same time.

You could spend all night worrying, daft mare.

Just as it was important that Roseate not know she was there, keeping an eye on Rosemary, it was also important that Rosemary didn’t know she was there. Just like, it seemed, that it was important to Cloudy.

And possibly to Collar.

Why aren’t you with her, Collar? Are you out there somewhere?

Likely, after an incident with Rosewater on the recent books, he’d be waiting in reserve to head out to any trouble spot involving her. Why he’d let Cloudy out was… baffling.

Unless… Rosewater glanced back at the almost still form. You were under orders to stay high and observe only?

An insane plan settled into her mind. Stupid. Brash. Completely outside what anypony would expect from her. Enough so that it might work if she managed a bluff.

The trick was going to be making it look like she wasn’t disobeying orders from Roseate.

Time was also essential. She had to move before Rosemary decided to try and cross. She needed to draw those patrols away from the river.

‘Study the patterns. Wait for an opening.’

Rosemary lay huddled behind a crate in an alley, her cloak covering all of her from nose to tail as she watched the patrol stalk past her, eyeing the opposite side of the river and the pegasi that outpaced them several hundred feet up.

All well and good if there was a pattern, Rosewater. So far, the patrols had been scattered and random, sometimes five minutes passing before one wandered by, and sometimes two passing her hiding place in the span of half a minute.

All because of the pegasi on the other side of the river, she was sure.

‘Wait. Rosemary. Patience is your ally.’

And exhaustion her enemy. At least she’d found a place deep in the shadows, hidden from even the Mare’s sight by the closeness of the two buildings, where she could drop her veiling and recover.

The effect of the Minty Mind had worn off almost ten minutes ago by the length of the shadows from the moon, and her mind was edging towards sleep.

“Hurry up,” Rosemary whispered, laying her head down on her outstretched forelegs, listening as the hooves of another patrol started marching past. Several had peered down the alleyway already, but her cloak was a shade and texture not unlike the stone, and a casual glance wouldn’t have given anything away, hidden where she was.

They’d have to actually walk the alleyway to find her, and maybe not find her even then.

It was, perhaps, the safest place to hide right then, with most of their attention focused on the other side of the river.

All she needed to do was recover a little and then she should be able to create a veiling deep enough to cross the Rosewine just a hundred feet away, and another hundred to the midsection where she’d be safely in Merrie territory.

Patience.

The courtyard of Prim Palace was a sprawling open section of gardened gravel paths, bounded on one side by one of the former watchtowers of the outer bailey wall—two hundred years gone now—which was now the barracks for most of the palace guard, and another tower that served as an aerie for the guard pegasi.

That night, only a token guard force was present at either, though the courtyard grounds themselves were much more heavily patrolled and watched than the city itself.

And more well lit.

Rosewater checked her bait for the trap, and made sure she was still sleeping soundly, and actually sleeping and not merely unconscious. The deep sleep of the truly exhausted.

Going well past the limits of one’s natural stamina, boosted by a magical reservoir, had its costs. She’d done that herself more than once out of necessity, and both regretted and accepted it as a part of the fight against her mother.

A part of this plan working depended on Rosewater’s reputation, and the fact that, as a lieutenant, Cloudy wasn’t likely to spend her nights sleeping in the aerie, as she might if she were a lower ranking Dammeguard.

Here goes.

In the shadows, Rosewater finished empowering the Heart’s Opening sigil and sent it zipping off, gathering mist as it went, and focused on what she needed the autonomous construct to do. It was a risk, if she thought the wrong thought at the wrong time, but it was better than putting herself directly at risk.

That part came in just a few minutes.

As soon as it gathered enough mist, Rosewater’s image sprang into being with a pop and a flash, as if she’d teleported in.

Immediate cries of alarm came from every patrol in the area, and the alarm redoubled as the other part of her illusion of mist and magic, a substantial portion of her reserves, became apparent on her back as the veiling slipped away, revealing an unconscious Cloudy Rose on Rosewater’s back.

Just the same way Rosewater had transported the mare to the deep shadows of an alleyway from where she could watch… and give the signal to Collar when the moment was right. If the moment ever became right.

The Misty Consort spell stopped in the middle of the courtyard as a ring of soldiers gathered around her, led by an earth pony with a captain’s circlet.

“Give it up! You’re surrounded!” the mare bellowed, her voice loud enough to wake the dead from that close.

The Misty Consort couldn’t cast any spells, couldn’t even alter its own substance substantially. But it could speak.

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!”

Really? Rosewater grimaced and resisted the urge to rub at her muzzle and settled in to watch the play unfold. It was entirely too late to give the construct new instructions, and she could only wonder at the thought that had sprung that particular line into being.

“You don’t have much of a choice, Terror,” the captain growled, her voice coming to Rosewater through an aural spell, distorted but audible. She wasn’t Crown, who could listen to a conversation half a mile away in perfect clarity… but she managed with her own crude version of her younger sister’s finely tuned spell. “Put down the pegasus and step away.”

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!” the image cried again, with the exact same intonation and inflection.

“Send someone to fetch him,” the captain muttered. “I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but…”

Not even ten seconds later, before the guard sent to fetch him could make it halfway to the palace, Collar appeared in a flash and pop right in front of the construct.

“Put. Her. Down.”

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!”

By the stars, that’s… Rosewater had to stifle a laugh as she watched fear and fury turn to confusion. Unexpectedly hilarious.

Collar edged forward, ears flat, and touched the construct on the chest with a hoof. It didn’t react at all except to shift away from the touch. His tail snapped and he slammed a hoof into the construct’s chest. It sank in… and the construct fell apart into mist and vapor, sinking into a fog that quickly dissipated.

“A trick,” Collar growled. “Everypony, scour the grounds, and check the barracks thoroughly. It would be just like her to do this as a distraction. Alert the other patrols. I want a cordon five blocks deep five minutes ago!”

“She can’t be far,” the captain murmured, looking around. “That kind of spell takes power.”

“She has that. She also has me on range,” Collar replied, his eyes sweeping the surrounding area as he turned a slow circle. “Fetch my mother. We might need her.”

You won’t, and I won’t face her. Primline Lace was one of the few ponies in either city that gave Rosewater pause, and the reason she’d worked on her range. Lace’s talents were best employed at short-range, but they were absolutely devastating to anything that used magic.

Rosewater crushed up one of the two remaining candies and extracted some of the fragrance from them, dispelling the magic in it, and sent it off to Collar in a faint pink cloud that got dimmer the farther from her it travelled.

A second later, he startled and whirled around, his eyes scanning the streets and alleys, his mouth opened to shout an order when Rosewater dropped her veil for a fraction of a second when he was looking right at her, then ducked back into the shadows, trading her veil for true invisibility.

The strain began to tell immediately, burning away her remaining reserves with a frightening speed.

It could be another trick. Or a trap. Or both.

The misty illusion had been… real enough looking to fool him on a quick inspection, even Cloudy herself had looked real. Rosewater’s chest had even been warm when he’d pushed against it the first time, and firm. Firmer than a mist faerie ought to be.

It spoke of an investment of magic that had to have drained her, or nearly so.

But it might also not be a trick, and she’d only wanted to get his attention.

Mission rutting accomplished, Rosewater.

By the time he reached where he’d seen her face, she was already gone, of course, if she’d even been there at all, and just as he was about to turn back when another spike of citrus touched his nose, stronger in one direction.

Further into the alleyway.

“Truce.”

The whisper, a touch of air against his ear, pulled him farther along, and down between two buildings into a dead-end. At the end of the alleyway, Rosewater stood, only partly veiled, and Cloudy lay at her feet.

“Truce?” he growled, stamping forward, rage blurring his vision as he built up the shields and bindings that would keep her in place, even if she had some trick for teleporting. “You—”

“She sleeps,” Rosewater hissed, and threw up a dim dome of pink around them. “Stay your anger, my lord. This was not my doing. At least, not only my doing. I did not break our accord.”

“That little show out there,” Collar ground out, then stopped and shook his head, pulling Cloudy up gently and towards him. She was sleeping. Her heart beat with the slow steadiness of rest, and her chest rose and fell evenly. “She’s not waking up.”

“She wore herself out,” Rosewater said with a faint smile, “then blackmailed me for one of these.” She pulled out a small object wrapped in black fabric and unrolled it to show him a glowing orange candy. “Do tell her not to accept candy from strangers. Or demand it.”

“Why are you here?”

“Mmm.” Rosewater rocked her head side-to-side. “Making sure you held up your end of our accord, Lord Collar. Shadowing Rosemary. I was surprised not to see you out and about.”

Collar watched her for a moment as she rewrapped the candy and tucked it into her mane. No doubt she kept a small satchel there, since she was otherwise without a place to stow the usual cache of vials the scent mages of Merrie kept about them.

“I’ll be leaving now,” Rosewater said at last. “Your lover is returned to you, and I must make sure Rosemary gets home safely.”

“Why?”

“Because I love her,” Rosewater said, ticking her ear and facing him from a few paces away. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Lord Collar. At least grant me the courtesy of believing that I can care for at least one pony unreservedly.”

“What evidence do I have of that?” But Collar released the hold on his teleportation interdiction, though, and replaced her shimmering sound shield with his own dual-layer invisibility and sound barrier. “You took a risk.”

“Not for your sake, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Rosewater stepped back from him and considered the black-wrapped candy. “Rosemary loves her still. Even after she ran off to your side without telling her. I won’t have her used as a weapon against her.” She paused, brow arching. “Is that reason enough for me to warn you?”

“You told her to leave the city.”

“She would be safer. Roseate isn’t going to stop coming after her. And she’s not going to send me after her again, not after the hash I made of her neat little pile of potatoes.” Rosewater snorted and released a small veil she’d been holding over the candy and popped it into her mouth crunching down before Collar could stop her, or even think to.

You should have taken it from her. He grimaced and shook his head. And forced a fight. He couldn’t risk that, not with Cloudy needing care.

“Go. You won’t have Cloudy to use as a shield next time, Rosewater.”

“Shield?” Her breath glowed like sunlight for a scant few seconds as she laughed. “My lord, she makes a paltry shield. Nay… next time, you’ll come willingly. I still haven’t given up hope, Lord Collar.” She winked, gathered power to her horn in a haze of pink and orange, and vanished with a citrus-scented flash and pop.

Belatedly, he realized that he’d drawn forces away from the river to cordon off a now Rosewater-free section of the city. All because he’d thought she’d used enough magic that night to keep her from teleporting with that little display.

He’d given her exactly what she wanted: a way for Rosemary to get home.

Idiot. You walked right into her hooves, and she played you like a mandolin.

Cloudy murmured as the scent of citrus faded from the air, coughing and rubbing her cheek against his neck.

But what if she was being honest?

Rosewater staggered as soon as she landed on her front stoop and began the laborious task of undoing the wards on the door. She had to be quick, or the Citrus Circus would run out on her before she could finish.

Seconds crawled by as she drained herself of every last erg of reserves to get the last wards undone, slipped inside and kicked the door closed behind her, letting the spring loaded spells reassert themselves immediately.

She was done. She had done what she’d needed to do and made an opening for Rosemary, as well as kept the fulcrum of her heart away from Roseate. It was up to Rosemary to get back across.

I’m sorry…

She slumped against the wall just a few feet from her bedroom, her legs buckling, and slid to the floor in an unceremonious heap as the last vitality she’d borrowed from the past fled.

Holding onto wakefulness was an effort, but she steeled herself against the building fatigue and, most importantly, she didn’t try to get up or do anything else that would tax the skin-of-her-teeth hold she had on consciousness.

Tomorrow was going to be awful.

Captain Pink met Collar halfway back across the courtyard, her hooves crunching on gravel and her jaw as tight as if she were ready to make more. “My lord.”

“Captain,” Collar said wearily, aware of how it looked to her that he’d wandered off for a few minutes and came back with Cloudy. “Is my mother roused?”

“Roused and armored,” Pink said stiffly. “My lord, may I inquire as to where you found Cloudy, and what happened to her?” A polite dressing down, from former drill instructor to former trainee.

“It’s complicated,” Collar replied, wanting nothing more right then to drop into bed and fall into a deep sleep with Cloudy finally at side in his bed… and to wake up next to her. If Rosewater wasn’t lying about what had happened. If she woke up. “I need Poppy here as soon as possible.”

“Is she—”

“She’s unconscious. Or asleep. Deeply asleep,” he added, since the talking and distant shouting didn’t wake her, nor did the slight jostle as they made their way across the grass and gravel, not bothering with the artistic pathways. “She was shadowing a suspect.”

“Rosewater?”

“Stars no. If I thought she’d be dumb enough to get anywhere near the mare, I’d have locked her in the dungeon.” A small voice told him that he couldn’t make that judgement. He sighed and shook his head. “But… I also trust her judgement in the field. I can’t doubt that judgement, Captain.”

Pink gave him a serious side-eyed look, her ears drooping. “Pardon me for saying so, my lord, but I think you’re too close to her to make that call. You can’t be her commanding officer and her lover at the same time. Tonight proves that even more.”

“I’m not her commanding officer.”

“You are her lord, my lord. There’s little practical difference.” Captain Pink adjusted her circlet. “It would be no different if you and I were lovers. You might not be able to give me the necessary orders, or hesitate when ordering me. She wanted to see her former lover. You let her go. I would have sent Stride or Streak, or both.”

Collar grunted, turning his head to glance at Cloudy’s closed eyes. Her features were peaceful in sleep, absent the usual range of emotion she displayed, and beautiful to him. She’d always been that. The vivaciousness of life adding to her what nature could not.

Captain Pink was also right. She’d pleaded, and he’d extracted a promise from her not to get too close or let herself be seen. He also hadn’t thought Rosewater would be brazen enough to sneak in two nights in a row. She never had before—though usually because she only needed one trip to accomplish her mission.

What is her mission?

“You’re right,” he said at last. “But not Streak. He’s got too much Primfeather in him still. He’d not see a mare we hope won’t cross the same line the rest of her family has. He’d only see the Rosethorn marks on her cheeks and breast and take her in for that alone.”

“Or force her to defend herself,” Pink said with a sigh. “Alright. Stride, then. I’ll reassign him to your duty roster starting tomorrow.” She eyed him again. “I trust just because you trained him you won’t have reservations?”

“No.” It was hypocritical… but he couldn’t stop his heart from yearning for more with Cloudy, and to keep her safe. And happy. Two warring needs he couldn’t have as a commanding officer. “I’ll… see what I can do with Cloudy. After mother finishes chewing my ears off.”

He nodded to the figure in silver-chased steel plate making her awkward way down the steps to the courtyard, his father dogging her and making snide comments she was unlikely to let slide later.

“By your leave,” Captain Pink said, saluting.

“Dismissed,” Collar said, and picked up his pace to meet his parents.

Lace stopped at the base of the stairs up to the palace entrance, ears splayed as much as they could under her helmet, still well-fitting despite the rest of the armor visibly tight in uncomfortable ways around her breast and barrel, and even more so against her hindquarters. Her days of being a front-line defender were long-gone, but the mentality was hard to get rid of.

“Mother,” Collar said as cordially as he could manage. “That armor is older than I am. Did you think you could fit into it at the drop of a hat?”

“Boy,” she growled, a small smile replacing the frown. “Dapper has been at me since Captain Pink woke me up. Don’t you start on me, too.”

“She’s safe, mother,” Collar went on, touching her lightly on an armored ankle. “And Rosewater is already gone. I’m taking Cloudy to bed and making sure she stays safe.”

“Which is what I want to talk to you about,” Lace grumbled, stumbling up the steps in the unfamiliar weight. “And slow down, Collar.”

He did, sighed, and tested the straps holding the armor together. “You did it too tightly.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Lace growled, making her halting way up the steps. “This is about Cloudy and her future with you, Collar.”

“I won’t leave her behind.”

“As has become increasingly clear to me,” Lace said with a sigh and glanced behind at Primline Dapper. “I… wished to have you avoid the rocky political landscape your father and I faced, Collar.”

“Bah.” Dapper shook his head. “Rocky? My dear, that was just the romance!”

Lace barked a laugh and snapped her tail at him. “Roses have odd senses of romance.”

Some days, he forgot his father had been born as Rosedown Dapper, a minor branch family of the Rosewings now extinct except in Collar’s blood. “Is it any wonder I was drawn to a Rose, mother? All my life, you’ve pushed the Lace Reformation, taught me that not all Roses are as evil as grandpa said they were.”

“Because they’re not. Cloudy there is a fine example, and so are so many of the citizens of Merrie, if not most or all of the common ponies.” Lace glanced at Dapper again. “And many of the minor nobility.”

“Is it any wonder then, that I fell in love with one?” Collar asked softly.

“No.” Lace closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “But… she is a Rosewing, Collar. You need to be certain of your devotion to her, because it will be tested. And not by me.”

“I know.” Collar sighed and glanced aside at Cloudy again. Still asleep, still peaceful. Calm, and unaware of the future that awaited her as his mate. “I wish you hadn’t pushed me at first, mother.”

“I wish you hadn’t tried to hide it from me for so long,” Lace growled back. “I had no idea you were so close to her, or I would have pushed Captain Pink to detach her from anywhere near your command chain long before.”

Collar sighed. “Tomorrow, mother.”

“Tomorrow, Lace,” Dapper echoed, grinning. “Let the boy take her to bed and rest.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Patience paid off, and it almost got her caught.

Sometime past actual midnight, with the moon bright overhead in the cloudless sky, whistles started going off behind her, frantic and from more than a dozen sources.

Rosemary huddled even tighter to the ground, trying to keep her ears from twitching to focus on each individual whistle blast.

From overhead, too.

She tensed, ready to bolt and take her chances with a flat out gallop across the Rosewine when the whistles abruptly turned back and started retreating, taking quite a few of the Dammeguard patrols that had thickened the border defenses with them.

What in the name of the Mare caused that?

Rosemary waited for another minute after the patrols had left before she popped a second Minty Mind, crunched, and breathed out the initial effect.

Veiled again, nopony who was left on the watch paid much attention to a lone shadow creeping away from the city. Their attention was all on the interior, talking amongst themselves in small clumps. The rumor mill’s wheels were already starting to churn away.

They still paid attention to everything going on around them, but were less focused on it than they might have been, giving her the opportunity to create a few distractions. A mouse illusion set in front of a cat and sent scurrying between the legs of one of the guards. Complete with authentic mouse smell—dry and a little musty with the just a hint of catnip extract to give it that extra manic boost and startle the guards.

In this case, one just started laughing uproariously as the cat frantically chased the illusory mouse around his hooves, desperate not to step on it, but equally desperate to keep from being used as a climbing post.

Rosemary slipped by and sent the mouse to bother the other guard for a moment, just to make things even, before she sent it off into the bushes, leaving both of them with a story to tell later, and her lips curled into a smile.

It felt good to make them laugh. Much better than using any one of the half-dozen scents she had on her to just daze them into letting her pass.

She stayed veiled until she was across the bridge, then dropped it, startling the two Merrieguard stationed there.

“Roselight,” Rosemary said, nodding to the one she knew. “Bit of excitement on the other side, huh?”

Roselight, a handsome mare with a delightful laugh when she was amused, eyed her. “Think your ‘escape’ plan needs a little work. Haven’t heard anything like that since… well, the last time your cousin took somepony.”

It couldn’t be that. Rosemary shook her head slightly. “She’s home tonight.” That was half a lie. She hadn’t started out at home.

“Liar,” Roselight purred and glanced at her fellow guard. “But we’ll keep that to ourselves.”

“Thanks…” Rosemary turned away from the guards, tail twitching nervously. What if she did go out? “Have a good watch.”

“Boring, maybe. You have a good night yourself, little mare,” the other guard said with a chuckle. “Nothing ever happens anymore.”

She could actually relax in the night in Merrie, and drew her hood down as she made her way back home. No doubt some spy on the other side would catch her at it, but it didn’t really matter. She was too tired to veil, and nopony was going to snatch her up while she was on this side.

“Home late, little mare,” a voice said from the shadows as Rosemary passed a cartwright’s stable, startling her into a crouch and drawing out Bluebell’s Bliss, a calming and distracting scent. “Hey now, careful there.”

Rosemary hadn’t even unstoppered the vial yet when the voice linked up to a name and a face. “Rosejoy,” she growled.

“Joy to you,” the mare chuckled, and out of the shadows wobbled a mare and two stallions, the former holding a bottle of wine, and the latter two smelling of sex and wine together. Hedonists. “Your cousin sure came back in quite the state. Surprised you look just as pretty as when you left.”

On guard now, Rosemary shook her head and picked up her pace down the river walk to the estate house, one ear on the trio. “I’m not interested,” she muttered in advance of the offer hedonists like Rosejoy and her current fellows always gave. ‘Join us, it’ll be more fun than you can imagine.’ And it would be, for one night through the use of stimulating magical scents, wines, and even direct magical stimulation.

She’d seen those mares and stallions, though. Those in less fortunate places than Rosejoy had as one of Roseate’s ‘top’ enforcers, the less official muscle that she employed to do less than savory things to other ponies that earned her disfavor.

They were the side of Merrie that nopony liked to talk about. The side that had failed to constrain their lusts and desires and dove into anything that could.

There were programs to help the willing, but Roseate just tempted them right back out with promises and gifts if only they would help her with a few tasks.

Not all of them were Roseate’s puppets… but Rosejoy was.

Rosemary hurried past and up the stairs, working impatiently through the complex weaving of spells for each lock and ward, preternaturally aware of the trio watching her from the corner.

“You can’t stay away forever, little mare,” one of the stallions called out. “You’re just like us, and you love the best things in life. Just like us.”

Don’t respond. Just get inside.

The last lock released, and Rosemary rushed inside, slamming the door behind her on the jeering calls of all three together.

“I’m nothing like you,” Rosemary muttered.

A moment later, as she took stock of herself and slipped Bluebell’s Bliss back into its slot, she saw Rosewater laying on the floor of the hallway, her tail and hind legs twitching as she tried to push herself up.

“What did you do this time,” Rosemary said through a sigh, drawing free one of the Minty Minds as she settled down beside her cousin.

“‘Mary?” Rosewater’s voice sounded hoarse, and her eyes were barely open when Rosemary sank to her barrel at her cousin’s side. “Thank the stars.”

Her breath smelled citrusy, far too citrusy. She put the mint away and nipped Rosewater’s ear, chastising her. “How many did you take, you daft mare?”

The half-smile on her cousin’s lips and the twinkle in her eye shone with pride, “Just one.” Her chuckle dropped into a sigh as Rosewater slumped further, her head resting on the floor. “Was desperate.”

“I see.” Rosemary shook her head slowly and laid down beside her. “Tell me tomorrow?”

“Tightrope,” Rosewater murmured, laying her head down.

“That’s not an answer.” But it was probably the only one she was going to get. Rosewater rarely talked about her capture missions or their aftermath. For her, it was an onerous part of being an unmarried noblemare, the legally recognized heir of Merrie, and the firstborn of the current baroness.

Expectations and duties sat on her shoulders that she didn’t want, and the tenuous protection the Treaty Office provided in the form of Royal Guard interdiction was less than flimsy at times.

“It’s the only one I have right now.” Her voice was dipping down into sleep, her eyes already closed, her ears drooping. “Forgive me.”

“It wasn’t for Cloudy again, was it?” Rosemary whispered.

Rosewater was silent for so long she thought the older mare had gone to sleep before she drew in a deep breath and said, “No.”

Not directly. Rosemary let out a sigh and laid her cheek against Rosewater’s shoulder, closing her own eyes. She’d hate herself tomorrow for sleeping on the floor, but she didn’t have the energy to coax Rosewater up and into a bed. “Thank you.”

Sleep wasn’t long in coming.

Cloudy woke to the pounding of the damned souls of Tartarus’s forges beating out a new nightmare to share with the world. In her head. Right behind her eyes.

She didn’t want to wake up just yet, and buried her head deeper into the soft, warm embrace of her… lover’s forelegs. Collar’s holding me? It was his scent in her nose, strong and scented with his favorite bath soaps—that is, barely at all aside from the leftover bit of floral essence that no amount of refinement could get rid of.

Olives. It was one of his olive-oil base soaps. He hadn’t bathed last night.

What happened last night? She hadn’t gone out drinking. She’d still remember it in that case, unless she’d… Cloudy shook her head slowly, feeling the headache seeming to slosh around between her eyes as she moved.

“Ugh…”

Her ‘pillow’ shifted then, and light streamed in as Collar’s movements shifted her forelock away from her eyes. “Hey.”

“Let me die,” Cloudy moaned, pushing away from him and enduring the sloshing ache to bury her head under one of the pillows.

He nibbled her ear instead, leading down to her neck and a light kiss. “I’ll fetch some water. Poppy said you might need some when you woke.”

Cloudy groaned and shifted to curl up as much into a ball as she could after Collar’s weight shifted and moved off the bed.

That was a cause for concern. Her bed was a feather down filled mattress with a solid base-board. She couldn’t ever feel it when Collar shifted to disguise himself or use that invisibility shield of his to leave and ‘finish’ his patrol or sneak back off to the palace and pretend he hadn’t gone anywhere.

Not… whatever this floaty cloud-like bed was made of or filled with. It cupped her body like a cloud would.

Where am I?

Not in Rosewater’s lair, wherever that was, that she usually kept her captured ponies. It wasn’t a nondescript warehouse. Collar wouldn’t bring her there… unless he was also captured. Or in cahoots.

That’s patently out of the question…

Cautiously, Cloudy pulled her head out from under the pillows and looked around, wincing at the bleary, blurry scenery and blinking rapidly as yet more agony pulsed, and the forge-masters of Tartarus beat on her eardrums.

She was in Prim Palace… in Collar’s bedroom.

It was a place she’d only been to once, and that time in the dark of night… and they’d hardly had time to make use of the bed before she had to run off again. In the light of day, it was still recognizable, but there was so much more to his room than the bed, the thankfully thick rug under the window, and the door she had to be mindful of listening for steps.

He had a painting on the wall of his mother and father, and a curious and probably treasonous—to Primfeathers at least—collection of memorabilia from Merrie; largely postcard paintings of famous historical figures from Rosethorn himself to Frosty Rosewing, a very distant ancestor of the Primfeathers and source of their animosity towards all Rosewings.

Collar came back, and Corporal Stride peeked around the corner just before the door closed again. “How’re you feeling?”

“Terrible,” she murmured, accepting the glass and downing it in a few swallows. Her throat was dryer than she’d thought, and the water tasted and smelled… lemony. “Tincture of lemon?”

“Poppy’s orders. Concentrated lemon juice drops.” Collar reached out a hoof to stroke her throat. “To ease the dryness. We couldn’t get anything in you last night.”

Cloudy winced. “Wh-what happened?”

“You… passed out. I was hoping you could tell me what happened.” Collar met her eyes briefly, then looked away. “I need to know.”

“Can it wait?” Cloudy grumbled, careful not to shake her head as she reached out to touch his chest. “And why am I in your room?”

“No, and because it was the safest place to put you.” Collar opened the door briefly. “Stride, more water, please.”

“Yes sir.”

Collar closed the door again and settled in more heavily. “It can’t wait because…” He sighed, sinking further onto the bed. “Rosewater is the one who returned you. In the most spectacular, antagonistic way possible and still not get caught.”

“And… you want to know if she told me anything?”

“Yes. I don’t care if you disobeyed orders, Cloudy, I—”

“I didn’t disobey orders! I kept the damn orders, even though she was right there, Collar.” Cloudy pushed off the bed, faltered, her vision swimming, and lurched for the door. The floor kept her from going any further, sliding out from under her hooves and turning ninety degrees sideways.

But she didn’t hit the ground.

“Crazy mare,” Collar grunted as he floated her back to the bed in silvery light. “I know you love her, Cloudy. I didn’t order you not to contact her because of that.”

“Then why?” She tried to glare at him, but it was difficult when he kept swimming in her vision and the stupid headache kept roving around in her head.

“Because…” Collar sighed and looked away again. “Remember how I said my mother used to keep things from me by saying she needed to walk a tightrope?”

“Yeah. It pissed you off.” Cloudy raised a brow at one of the images of him, trying to get the point across. If she was even looking at him.

“Regardless. I can’t tell you.” Collar smiled faintly at her. “If all goes well, once things have calmed down, I can.”

“So… never,” Cloudy groused, sliding under the pillows again where at least the cool weight seemed to do something to alleviate the pain, even if the darkness didn’t.

Collar stroked her hindquarters slowly with a hoof until the door opened again, “Thank you, Stride. Bring the whole pitcher this time. I feel like she’s going to need a lot of water.”

“Yes sir.”

The door closed again.

“Rosewater said she told you to go home several times,” Collar whispered. “Why would she do that? She has an order to capture you, doesn’t she?”

Cloudy buried her head deeper.

“She also said you pushed her to give you some candy? Like those… contraceptive ones?”

“Citrus Circus,” Cloudy grumbled. “Enchanted.”

Collar stroked her flank lightly. “She’s probably in no better a state than you right now, then. She took one and left, leaving you with me.”

“She could have left me.”

Collar’s stroking stopped, and he leaned over to kiss her on the shoulder, resting behind her back and holding her with one hoof, as if he were afraid to hug her.

“She said… Rosemary still loves you. That’s why she didn’t leave you behind.”

The pain in her heart briefly rivaled the pain in her head, until her first sob made both flare.

I love you, too, Rosemary.

Book 1, 8. Gossip

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Rosewater rubbed at her forehead, squinting through one eye at the text swimming minutely in front of her. Tincture of rimeberry and plenty of water was helping her get over the migraine, but it was still there, and she had too much to do to sit still for one day, and especially not after her nightmares last night, now faded to little more than scraps.

Rosemary dragged off in chains, Roseate laughing and tearing up accord after accord, throwing them all in her face or the river, or both. Laughing at the Royal Guard as they stood by, helplessly tied hoof and tail by the precious Treaty Celestia made them enforce while the good ponies of Merrie and Damme suffered under tyranny.

And so she was in the Treaty Office in Merrie, a squat building that had once been a bridge garrison for a much smaller bridge that had fallen into disrepair and replaced with the broad, sturdy span of the Primrose.

Scrolls and tomes surrounded her in the small law library the office maintained, dusty tomes that hardly anypony looked at anymore because it was common knowledge what the treaty allowed and did not.

That was the common thinking, anyway.

Roseate had her own copy of the seven tomes of the treaty and all the amendments and addendums that had been added over the centuries, and had surely pored over them more thoroughly and more often than Rosewater herself had.

For her, there were only two amendments to the treaty that truly concerned her, and they, she could remember letter-perfect.

The amendment governing the succession of both cities’ leadership had been amended into the treaty in 260 AB, when Rosethorn the Mad exiled and banished every single one of his heirs because they refused to back a coup against Celestia herself.

When he started naming and banishing other successors, Celestia stepped in and undid the damage, reinstated his firstborn, and set down into the treaty that the succession for both cities was by order of birth and that a ruler could not exile their own heir excepting gross treason—proven in a court with Celestia as the judge.

Later amended again when a civil war erupted in Merrie following the death of Frosty Rosethorn the Second, also known as The Childless. Her sisters, both younger, had fought bitterly over the throne, and divided the city so much that it threatened to spill over into Damme, under the rule of a stallion who refused to take advantage of the fighting and end the war because… who knew. The reasons were lost to time, and the Damme histories that made their way across into Merrie curiously left that part of their history out.

So the stipulation was added, after a tense negotiation, that the heir who rose to power needed to have their own heir at the time power changed hands.

That last six words had been bitterly argued over more than once, but a further amendment after a second, much shorter civil war erupted, laid it out cleanly.

And it wasn’t as if anypony was going to tell Celestia that it wasn’t going to fly.

Merrie historians had long speculated that if a third civil war erupted, Celestia would call the experiment off as a failure and simply annex both city-states and deal with the consequences of a possible rebellion later.

That ensured that, as long as Rosewater didn’t cross the line of provable gross treason, Roseate had to deal with her. Rosewater didn’t want to step too far out of line and face that trial. She didn’t know that Princess Celestia would find in her favor, or even what the consequences would be.

Nopony in the almost two hundred and forty-odd years since had wanted to test it. Or her.

The second was more recent and more plainly laid out. Families were exempt from the war, excepting certain circumstances. Volunteering for duty was one of the exempting circumstances. Sometimes, however, Roseate found ways to ‘volunteer’ some family members with useful skills using simple scare tactics. Rarely, but she did it.

Also appended to the same amendment was a stipulation that children and offspring before their second majority, when the treaty officially recognized a pony as being fully adult and fully able to participate in life’s trials—at twenty-one for Merrie, and eighteen for Damme—were also immune from exile.

Rosemary, as Rosewater’s charge and legally recognized by the duel she’d fought with her mother, fell under that canopy. She had another card, but playing it would destroy assumptions, lay bare certain other of her plans, and give Roseate a further reason to find ways to corrupt Rosemary away.

Not even Rosemary knew. Only she and Carnation knew. And a certain few in the Treaty Office.

Those were the big two. But there were dozens of amendments, all spanning at least a few pages of a tome, and the treaty itself. And all started with what had meant to be a small pitched battle to seek restitution for prior deaths and escalated… and escalated further until the entire military might and a good deal of the civilian citizenry were up in arms and either fighting or tending the wounded and dying.

The Battle of the Red River. The last day of bloodshed between the two cities.

Three hundred years ago, in 202 AB, the bitter blood feud between two cities had been slammed to a stop with Celestia’s arrival with a contingent of Royal Guard cast in the raiment of the flaming sun, the garb of a warrior princess set to either conquer… or entreat.

In the middle of the bloodiest battle in a century and a half of on-and-off warfare, she had thrown down the forces of both cities with a single shout, a single enspelled word.

“Stop.”

The air trembled and the ground quaked at her word, and the sun stopped its motion briefly before resuming its placid journey across the noonday sky.

“I have put up with your conflict for too long. Too many lives have been lost, but until today the lives being lost in other parts of Equestria That Was were far greater, and your petty squabble has been a nuisance. That ends. Now.”

Both of the leaders at the time, Fiery Rosewing in Merrie, and Primfeather Lance were exiled to opposite ends of the land, to live their lives in simplicity and labor, never again to command armies or oversee anything like the bloodbath that had taken place that day.

Six hundred dead. Paltry compared to the mass chaos that had gripped the once-great nation of Equestria Eternal, but in the centuries that followed, it would be remembered as the Red River Day. Honored at the height of the Summer Sun celebration, both cities lamented the loss of so many.

In this day and age, the Red River Day had changed into a celebration of ancestors, and paper boats dyed red were floated down the river by both sides, each one with the names of the dearly departed written on them.

It was a day when the cities populace put aside the cold war that had descended in the wake of the treaty and remembered their ancestors together.

Mostly together.

The nobility still resisted. On both sides.

And there were yet more things she needed to look at.

The report of Glory’s injury and her refusal to press for restitution had put Roseate in a foul mood, but… Rosewater didn’t know for certain there was anything actually in the treaty about injury.

Killing was right out. Anypony found guilty of murder was exiled. They could appeal to Celestia, but there were very few that tried.

Accidental killings were more gray territory. During a raid, self-defense was expected and encouraged, but there had been very few test cases that pushed that boundary. The harsh treatment a murderer got from Equestrian law was… often more than enough to push that out the window.

Under the Lace Reformations, the Dammeguard had undergone a transformation from a mixed offensive-defensive force, with their own raiders and tactics for fighting the Rose’s tendency to use scent magic, to a purely defensive force, trained in injury avoidance and ‘gentle’ takedowns as well as mental acuity training to resist the effects of the most common scents and tactics.

Injuries had always had to be reported to the Treaty Office during the ongoing conflict for review and examination. Presumably a growing trend of abuse would bring further restrictions.

Bruising was common, and a broken bone wasn’t uncommon, but every broken bone was met with a full review, a dressing down if necessary, and if warranted, further disciplinary action.

That much, Rosewater knew from some of the contacts she’d cultivated through her alter-egos over the past two years.

It was less about getting in trouble with the treaty and more about making sure that none of them even got a glance at getting in trouble with the treaty.

Lace had even spoken of it at length at the galas Rosewater was required to attend every quarter, yet another stipulation of the treaty, this one added only a hundred years ago after the final unification of all of the former nation of Equestria Eterna into… simply, Equestria.

Save their small knot of inconvenience in the northwest.

Yet still, Celestia hadn’t forced the treaty to conclusion, and seemed to want the cities to reconcile on their own. Her reasoning, as an immortal with the patience of stone, was beyond Rosewater’s understanding, but some days she wished the mare would just end the conflict and let her and her small, broken family live in peace.

Instead…

Rosewater dragged herself back. The treaty was an annoyance to all. To her because she wanted it concluded, and she was coming to not very much care how.

Just not Roseate’s way.

“Focus, idiot mare,” Rosewater murmured, rubbing her head as it began to pound more from the frustration. Every day, she wanted Celestia to end it and just take over. Or Lace to get off her ass and stop pretending that Roseate could be reasoned with or worn down and attack.

Damn the Lace Reformation.

“Peace has to start somewhere,” she’d said. To Rosewater, even. “I hope you will see that someday. Your grandmother and I had such high hopes.”

Rosewater had barely known Roseline before the mare had passed away. When she was eight, and with failing health for three years before that. With Roseate taking more and more power every day.

“Her high hopes ended when she died,” Rosewater had shot back, stalking off to find a drink and drown the fact that she had to be there, had to act cordial to her mother. “And Roseate salted the earth where she lay.”

The mother that had, not even two months before, exiled the only other mother figure she’d known, the only one who’d treated her like a daughter, loved her as a mother should when she’d needed it.

“Focus!” Rosewater hissed, trying to drag her mind back out of the past despite the migraine seeming to want to make her suffer even more.

“Is anything wrong, my lady?” the librarian attendant, a young pegasus named Inkfeather, asked, poking her head in the door. “Any references you need looked up?”

“No… no.” Rosewater flicked an ear dismissively. “Thank you, Ms. Inkfeather. I’m just dealing with a headache both literal and figurative.”

“If you’re certain, my lady.”

Rosewater hesitated, thinking, and pursed her lips. “No… I mean… yes. I’m certain. Thank you. I’m… I only wish your mistress would stop letting us play charades and toy soldiers and end it.”

“She has her reasons.”

It was the only answer she ever got. She has her reasons. “I hope she explains them someday.”

“Rarely. But things work out.”

Rosewater raised a brow, regretted it immediately, and settled for a flat stare at the mare with the black tips on her steel-gray feathers. “Pardon me for saying, then, that this is an awful lot of working out.”

Inkfeather smiled, bobbed her head, and left, closing the door to the small library behind her.

Rosewater sighed, made a note on her scroll to apologize to the mare on the way out, and pulled down a different tome.

She had more reading to do yet.

Rosemary sat slumped at a table in the Rosy Glow tavern, staring at the grape juice in the wine glass in front of her, half-wishing it were actually wine, and grateful it wasn’t. Half of Rosejoy’s tendencies came from her drinking away her mistakes. It was one of the ways a pony could walk down the path of a hedonist and get easily lost, twisted about by the winds and promises of those holding the strings to their next fix.

Her ‘drinking companion’ Rosy Glass, the current tavern owner, sat across from her nursing a light lunch of celery and lentil stew with enough exotic spices to make Rosemary’s nose tingle even after it’d started to cool down.

The worst part of having Rosewater also be a raider was that she couldn’t very well complain about their nightly activities unless she wanted to upset Roseate.

Which she did, just not that way.

Fortunately, Glass knew where she’d gone thanks to rumors and gossip, and that she’d ‘failed’ in her mission. Whatever her mission had been.

‘Grab somepony’ was hardly a mission, and not one she wanted to do. She wasn’t Rosewater with her hidden hidey-hole to store prisoners of war so secretive that not even Rosemary had an inkling of where it was. She’d need such a place if she didn’t want her captured ponies to end up in Roseate’s hooves. Or ask Rosewater to use hers.

“You’re grumbling an awful lot,” Glass said, brow raised, and blew on the remains of her stew—more to blow the smell in Rosemary’s face than cool it down.

“Yeah, well…” Rosemary swirled the grape juice around in her wine glass and downed it. “Here I am, drinking grape juice, pining after my lost love… who was apparently shadowing me all night last night without my deaf and blind butt being aware of it.”

She had, at least, gotten some details out of Rosewater after the mare woke up with the worst migraine this side of the Merrie and before she’d doggedly dosed herself to keep it at bay and slogged off to ‘work.’ Not a lot. Merely that she was on a mission of her own and had happened to catch Cloudy shadowing her. Or did she actually say that? Rosewater twisted words like ribbons until she barely said anything plainly when she was being secretive.

It was easy to tell when she was being secretive, and she had been. Tightrope was her way of saying ‘I can’t tell you outright.’. It was less easy to tell which way the words were meant to fall.

“Well.” Glass reached over and poked her lightly on the forehead. “Could be worse. She could have dropped in and captured you. Then where would I be? Where would Rosewater be? Speaking of… you tell that mare to get her butt in here, alright? You do that, and she actually sits her ass down and has a talk with me, and next meal’s on the house.”

“You’ve asked me that every time I visit, and she’s come by precisely zero times,” Rosemary grunted. “She’s terrified of what her mother will do to your business.”

“She’s an idiot,” Glass declared, then lifted up and drained the last of her stew. “I can take care of myself, and I have some leverage over her ‘unofficial’ muscle.” The mare’s green eyes flashed as she fixed Rosemary with a glare. “If you don’t haul her butt down here inside a week, I’ll do it, and charge ya double.”

“I know you miss her, Glass, but don’t,” Rosemary said with a sigh.

“Of course I rutting miss her. All of her friends miss her.” The brash tone faded, and Glass ran her hooves over her white mane. “Stars, Rosemary, I get it. She… got hurt. But that’s not a reason to just cut all ties with everyone to protect them.”

“I know. Believe me. I’ve had that argument with her so much she just completely blanks until I’m done talking at her.”

“You’re both kind of in a rut, I think,” Glass muttered. “Try something new. Trick her. Stars know she does it often enough. Turn the tables.”

“Tried it.”

“Try it again, little lovebird.”

Rosemary sank into her seat and rubbed at her cheeks slowly, ears perking up when the door opened again, just in time to avoid getting completely blindsided by Rosie Night as she rushed in, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and took the seat bench next to Glass.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Mrs. Night,” Glass grunted as she scooted over, rolling her eyes in a ‘you younger ponies’ way.

“Hey, Glass, so…” Rosie leaned forward, and in a whisper, asked, “Did you hear what happened last night in Damme?”

Freezing panic surged through her stomach, wondering if she’d been made after all, and her name was now on a list somewhere. “N-no, I didn’t.”

“Well,” Rosie leaned even closer. “I heard that Rosewater tried to abduct Cloudy right out of the barracks, but Lord Collar stopped her.”

“What?!” Rosemary blurted, shooting up straight on her bench. Several of the things Rosewater had said snapped into focus in her mind, given context and meaning. “What… she never told me!”

Glass gave her a look that said ‘seriously, Rosemary?’

“Alright, alright, so she can’t really talk about her missions. But stars above, she’s practically…” She trailed off, a shiver trailing up her spine at what she’d almost said in public. Almost thought outside the privacy of her own warded room. “My teacher,” she finished lamely.

“Well, it’s just what I heard, lovely,” Rosie night said gently. “I was delivering some unspecial candies to my clients in Damme when one of them gave me the little tidbit that was apparently on every guards’ lips this morning.”

The whistles. That had been Rosewater making a move, using whatever stupid thing Roseate had planned for the same night to make the rest of the patrols light and had apparently done enough to give her a chance to make a move.

But for whom? Not for Roseate.

“Anything else they were saying?” Rosemary asked idly, forcing herself back to the conversation and smiling at her friend and often-lover.

“Well…” Rosie grimaced and glanced between her and Glass. “I know how close you were with Cloudy, Rosemary, and I know how much you loved her. But they did say that Cloudy was Lord Collar’s mate.”

“Wh-what?” Rosemary asked, her ears quivering, numb shock in her mind replacing all thoughts of whatever plans Rosewater was playing. “I… had no idea.” Is she a Tussen Twee follower now? Thoughts of Cloudy’s life here, with her, with their shared lovers, the fun they had, the… Why did you take me to your parents? It was the first step in expanding a family.

“Dear, you look like you’ve swallowed something awful.” Rosie reached across the table to touch her shoulder. “Should I not have brought it up?”

“No, no… it’s… it’s good to know.” Rosewater hadn’t said… Or did she? “E-excuse me. I need to go talk to Rosewater.” She started to get up, hesitated, and sank back down. What would I even ask?

“Darling, are you sure you’re alright?” Rosie Night asked ahead of Glass. “You look like you need a break.”

“Yeah,” Glass added. “You need to get out of that estate for a night. You’ve been cloistered in there night after night for a week.”

“Perfect idea,” Rosie said, grinning. “You know, Velvet, Trestle, and I have missed you dearly, sweetie.”

“They’re back?” Rosemary asked, blinking.

“Last week. Stars above, they wouldn’t let me out of a hug for a whole day, and I swear I’ve never had sex like that before.” Rosie chuckled and shivered, rolling her shoulders. “Sometimes I wish I’d gone with them, but the shop… well… they came back alright.”

It was a distraction. A good one, and one she needed, but it was still just a distraction. Rosemary took a breath and pushed her cousin from her mind for the time being. “Yeah? How’s Vel’s pregnancy coming along?”

“Oh, much, much better. She practically kissed the dock.”

“Pregnant sea-sickness?”

“Oh, stars yes. Poor Trestle held her levitated above their bed for long stretches just to get her a little sleep now and then.” Rosie laughed and continued on, detailing the exploits of her husband and wife while Rosemary settled in, losing herself in the happy reunion story. She really was happy for them… but still in the back of her mind was the mare she’d started making plans to bond with.

By the end of the tale of a trip to her spouses’ native Canterlot, Rosemary had an invitation to dinner and perhaps more to help her soothe away the ache, to help her lose herself in bliss. Just for one night.

“I’d love to have dinner,” Rosemary said gently. “But I’m not sure about spending the night.” I need to talk to Rosewater first.

“Well, give it a couple days, love,” Rosie said gently. “I understand you’re still shaken. We’re planning a good night ourselves this weekend, if you think you’ll be up for dinner at least with us.”

“Sure.” Rosemary took a breath, closed her eyes. “I’ll be there, and I’ll bring some of my jams. I’m sure Vel and Tres have missed them.”

“Of course, darling,” Rosie said, glancing aside at Glass. “Just don’t push yourself.”

“Really,” Glass said, reaching across and tapping her nose. “And give Rosewater a nip for me.”

“I will.” I need to talk to her anyway.

Rosewater was in the perfumery and had it open, running the counter herself, the blinds opened and a single patron inside that glanced at Rosemary as she came in.

“Cousin,” Rosewater said before Rosemary had even dropped her veil. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

The stallion at the counter, not somepony Rosemary recognized, eyed her for long moments before he turned back to sniffing his foreleg, and said, “I like it, but… perhaps something not quite so musky?”

“Of course.” Rosewater pushed open the perfumery door and pulled out a few small vials. “If you want to work on your perfumes, Rosemary?” She left the door open.

She nodded and closed the door behind her so she didn’t have to listen to the inane chatter as more than a background chatter and wandered the back room slowly, remembering all the times Rosewater had brought her there to teach her some bit of knowledge; the times she’d come here on her own to watch Rosewater work, to watch Carnation and Rosewater banter back and forth as they laughed and made new and interesting fragrances, each trying to outdo the other.

Rosewater usually won in the end, but Carnation was by far more creative, and pulled out surprising wins from their ‘judge,’ Rosemary.

Those were the happy days, when it felt like they were a whole family together, when laughter filled the walls.

After the duel, Rosewater had spent nearly a month almost exclusively cloistered in this room, eating only when Rosemary dragged her out of her studies of laws and spells, or the special project of enchanting the small office in the back, little more than a closet, to be an impregnable vault.

Rosemary still didn’t know how many bits her cousin had spent fortifying the closet, but in the end, it became a place where Rosewater disappeared to when she needed to be absolutely alone. The wards blocked out everything, and the door itself practically glowed with power that had been poured into the gems and gold and silver inlaying what had once been a simple wooden door.

It was now effectively a slab of steel, the cracks between the slats covered with form-fitted pieces of wood, sanded into a perfectly flat surface, and decorated with the visible sigils of magical power, gemstones at the appropriate points enchanted to give the spells longevity and permanency.

What she hid back there, Rosemary only had an inkling. Some paintings that were too sensitive to be kept in the house, that showed their family dynamic too closely, that Rosewater didn’t want to let go. Carnation, her, and Rosemary.

“That took a bit longer than I thought,” Rosewater said gently as she came in and closed the door behind her. A pink glow flowed along the walls and the sound of the city outside vanished. “I’m sorry, Rosemary. You wanted to talk?”

“It’s safe?”

“As safe as can be,” Rosewater said, glancing pointedly at the gemstone settings in the corners of the room. “I’ll know if someone tries to break through.”

Rosemary twisted around to shove a hoof against Rosewater’s chest. “You saw Cloudy last night. You saw Lord Collar last night.”

“I did.” Rosewater’s eyes fell, and she sighed. “Rumors travel as fast as Rosie does, it seems.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Rosemary hissed. “You have an order to take her in. Were you following it through? Were you going to take her to Roseate? For—”

“No.” Rosewater shook her head vehemently. “I’m never letting Roseate have her.” Rosewater teleported in two pillows from the front portion of the store and sat on one. “If you’ll have a sit, I’ll tell you all about last night.”

“Every detail,” Rosemary warned as she sat, then relented as Rosewater touched a hoof to her neck, stroking down to her shoulder. “I know you said tight-rope. But… how much can you tell me?”

“All of it, if you wish it. Roseate dragged you into her scheming, and I… I wished not to pull you into this. Ever if I could. What I do, what she makes us do, is not a happy business, Rosemary. What I’ve done, the ponies I’ve taken and held against their will…” Rosewater couldn’t meet her eyes as she dragged in a breath and settled in more heavily. “A war. We’re in a war. Not between Merrie and Damme, but between my mother and I.”

“And I’m a pawn?” Rosemary asked, a touch of bitterness in her tone.

“To her? Yes. To me… Rosemary, you’ve always been Rosemary to me. My Rosemary.” Rosewater leaned forward and nuzzled her ear gently. “I’ll tell you everything because it’s time, if you wish, but you not knowing may put you in danger.”

Rosemary opened her mouth and closed it again, then sighed. “And knowing may put me in danger.”

“Yes.” Rosewater gave her a thin-lipped smile. “But you’re a part of the war now. This private war. Roseate decided against my warnings. Against our agreements. You knowing is the best defense you have, ‘Mary. But it’s also your choice if you want to walk this tight-rope with me.”

“Tell me everything,” Rosemary said after taking a breath to collect herself.

Rosewater took a deep breath and started talking.

The report was nothing special, and a day old.

Lure successful. Sweets delivered the gossip. LIttle bird returned to momma bird. Nothing concrete said, usual silence in effect. Silence lasted for two hours, little bird and momma bird returned to nest. Nest’s cracks heard polite dinner conversation, then silence. No further word. Observation of nest continues.
Still uncertain about reason for visit to the Treaty Office. Four hours spent there.

Aside from the lure, it was nothing more than a routine report of Rosewater’s activities, and it said more than the reporter thought it did. Two hours of silence. More at night. That wasn’t normal for her. He’d spent months following the raid whose only effect was to sow discord in Damme watching her movements, reading reports of everything she said, did, and who she talked to.

He had, at best, an incomplete picture of who she really was, and even his delving into the archives and infrequent forays into the less useful gossip monger reports only told him so much. The mare generated rumor like a wet fire did smoke, almost all of it false. There were, however, some few truths hidden in the noise.

Precious few.

What did she ask you? What did you tell her?

He had no doubt she told Rosemary about Cloudy’s love still strong for her.

The most worrying part of what she’d done was the trip to the Treaty Office in Merrie, and he couldn’t ask, couldn’t bribe, couldn’t even listen in without risking the wrath of the Royal Guard. They were both separate from and intrinsically involved in the war.

“Collar?” Cloudy asked from the door, poking her head in and blinking blearily.

“How’re you feeling this morning?” Collar asked, opening the door to his office further and dragging over a pillow for her to sit on. “You were awful…” He grinned.

“Don’t say it,” Cloudy grunted.

“Cloudy yesterday.”

She bit his ear lightly and licked it. “That was a warning.” She settled in on the pillow and nuzzled his neck, then read the report. “They couldn’t pick better names?”

“They use traits. Tell me that Rosewater doesn’t act like a mother hen after that stunt she pulled.” Collar snorted and shook his head. “She’s protective of her little chick.”

Cloudy fell silent as she considered the report and its implications. But, instead of asking about anything in the report, she asked, “Do you think she told Rosemary that I still love her?”

Collar tipped his head and looked at her. “You still love her, too. Why would Rosewater keep that from her?”

“It puts her in danger,” Cloudy muttered. “If she knows I still love her, she might… do something stupid.” Cloudy slid the report back and forth with a hoof and settled in more heavily against Collar’s side.

“She loves Rosemary,” Collar said with a sigh. “She does, and I believed her when she said it. If Rosemary asked, I doubt Rosewater would lie to her.”

“Is she evil, Collar?” Cloudy asked, shifting the report about again, then dropping her hoof to the pillow.

“She does evil things, and has done” Collar replied. “She’s frustratingly obtuse, dangerous, and I’ve no doubt she’d do anything at all for Rosemary’s sake. That makes her more dangerous. She’s also, as far as we’re aware, unpredictable and possibly unstable.”

“That didn’t answer the question.”

“Good and evil aren’t like black and white, Cloudy. Not when it comes to ponies. Aside from Roseate. I’m more convinced than ever that she is evil. But Rosewater? She wants to make me her mate. Does that make her evil?” Collar grimaced and shifted on his seat. Even admitting that to Cloudy was difficult.

“Yes. If she’s going by Rosethorn tradition, she wants a thrall, not a mate,” Cloudy growled. “She won’t have you that way, Collar. I’ve seen what that does to a pony.”

“I know.” Collar shook his head slowly. “I have, too. Dad was almost one, you know. Before mom rescued him ‘by accident’ from the ceremony.” He snorted. “They were having a cross-river affair, I think.”

“Did he tell you what it entails?” Cloudy asked darkly.

“Vaguely,” Collar said, sighing. “When we rescued one of our own from the fate with a bargain last-minute. It’s not a willing marriage. It’s a rape of the mind and body. It’s… not an ordeal I’d wish on anypony.”

Cloudy leaned against him, nuzzling his shoulder. “I won’t let them take you, Collar.”

“I won’t let myself be taken.”

“Is it that time already?”

“It is, Glory,” Cloudy said as she closed the cage door behind her and settled onto one of the cushions. “But…”

Glory looked up from reading a book and cocked her head. “But what? Surely that delicious captain of yours hasn’t heaped more punishment on your head?” She clucked her tongue. “And after all that trouble of forgiving you.”

“I need to know more about Rosewater, and what she’s capable of,” Cloudy said, not meeting the sister’s eyes.

“Mmm. Straight to the heart. I do like that about you, Cloudy.” She winked. “Have you considered joining Poppy and I as a third?”

Cloudy dismissed the jab with a flick of her ear. “I know you two were closer than what our intelligence reports indicated. Or even what you’ve said.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

“Answer the question or I leave right now.”

“Fine. Fine. I have to find my entertainment somewhere, Cloudy.” Glory mused, tapping the book against her chin. “We were. Closer than mother would have approved of if she’d found out. She was the only sane one I could go to. But I properly glowered at her at every gala as mother instructed I should do, I shunned her elsewhere, and made sure that I was not seen anywhere near her precious home.”

“That… must have been hard.”

“Not as hard as you might think. Outside her small, happy family she was a bullheaded mare, and only a few ponies seemed to really see the fear that lurked underneath that facade.” Glory burnished her hoof against her coat, smiling. “I’m happy to say that I was one such. Why, I even gave Rosemary presents on her birthday. Secretly of course. It was hard not to dote on the dear.”

The oddity of the wording gave Cloudy pause, and she mulled over the word choice, aware that Glory, more so than most of her kin, loved wordplay and putting hidden meanings in what she said. “You make it sound like she was a niece, rather than a cousin.”

“Mmm.” Glory shrugged. “Perhaps. Rather, it was the age difference, dear. I’m eight years older than she, and in my family that’s practically an eternity. Thanks to mother’s legendary reproductive exploits.”

“Yeah… we all know how much she loves—”

“Loves?” Glory laughed bitterly. “That mare would not know love if it shot her through the heart with an arrow. She lusts, dear Cloudy. For power. For pleasure. But for power most of all.”

“Something we already knew,” Cloudy grunted.

“Ah, yes, well, she’s hardly made a secret of it, has she? Mother dear is very simple on the surface. If it gains her more power, she will reach for it. If she can’t have it, she will break it.” Glory held up a hoof. “Case in point, Carnation. Her own sister. Also, Rosewater.”

“How close were they? Carnation and Rosewater?” Cloudy asked in a soft voice. “How did it break her?”

“Close,” was all Glory said, giving her a wary look. “I do love her still, dear Cloudy, she was the kindest to me when my mother cast me aside because I was neither Rosary nor Rosewater. The least talented.” There was a pain in her eyes that didn’t quite reach her voice. “I’ll not give up the secrets she let slip in moments of weakness. Not to you, not to Collar, and not even to Poppy, so don’t even try to use my love against me.”

“I won’t.” Hidden depths. Cloudy frowned and sat back, staring over Glory’s head while the mare pretended to start reading her book again. There was more in the history of the Rosethorn ruling family than she would have thought possible. “How did it break her?”

Glory raised a brow, but didn’t lower the book. “I already answered you. ‘Tis not mine to tell, Cloudy.”

“If she asked you to—”

“She never asked me to keep it a secret. She doesn’t know I know,” Glory said, breaking in and lowering the book.

Acting on a hunch, Cloudy said, “Rosemary has started raiding.”

Glory flinched. It was small, but it was enough, and as soon as she met Cloudy’s eyes, she knew. “Don’t hurt her. That’s all I ask. Don’t hurt her, Cloudy. For Rosewater’s sake and yours.”

“I love her, Glory.”

“Collar knows?”

“I keep no secrets from him.”

“Then marry them both,” Glory said with a small smile. “Drag him to the Principes, teach him the ways of Rosethorn the Wise. Make him see that love can bloom between more than two.”

I wish I could. “He wouldn’t. He’s… he was raised in the Tussen Twee tradition.”

“And yet… he has half of his blood from the other side of the river.” Glory’s smile settled in deeper. “It would be one way to bring about an end to the war, you know. Reconcile the differences between the Liefdesprincipes Tussen Twee and the Principes van Vrije Liefde in one family, born of the ruling families of both cities.”

“I wish that were possible.”

Glory raised a brow and settled in again, sighing and raising her book. “You’re not even going to try.”

“Like I’d be given the opportunity,” Cloudy said with a snort. “Rosewater will never let her be taken.”

“You make it sound like she has a choice in the matter,” Glory murmured, turning a page and starting to read, then stopping and looking up. “Mother’s next assignment will close off whatever loophole it was that allowed my sister to call in all those whistles and let Rosemary escape cleanly.”

“Why?”

Glory sighed and lowered the book. “By the stars, mare, I’ve laid out all the pieces of the puzzle for you. Don’t make me finish it, too.”

“I know why, damn you, I want to know why Rosewater would go along with it!”

“Oh… she does have a brain amidst all that fury.” Glory rocked her head side-to-side. “No doubt for some ‘agreement’ that Roseate will break five minutes after making it.” She raised a hoof, cup up. “But…”

“But what choice does she have?”

“Mmm. My mother does so love the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ clause.” Glory raised her chin. “The only unknown factor is you lot. What will you do? Will you break my sister, or will you… not?”

Cloudy sat back, wings twitching. She wasn’t even sure what each option entailed or how dangerous it would make things for them. She didn’t know how dangerous a broken Rosewater was, but she did have an inkling of how dangerous an unbroken one was.

“All for one mare.” All for Rosemary.

Book 1, 9. A Night with the Nights

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“Rose jam… Rosehip preserves…”

Rosemary tapped both jars into a pouch and considered the rack of sealed jars. She had some pears steeping in a mixture of rose jam and sugar water. But she hadn’t even tried them yet, and it would be a few weeks before she’d be willing to give them a try. They might turn out slightly alcoholic, too, and that wouldn’t be good for Velvet Night. And it wouldn’t be nice to let Rosie and Trestle Night enjoy them when she couldn’t.

“Hrm.”

Rosewater poked her head in. “You seem distracted.”

“Just trying to think what I should bring that Velvet can enjoy.” Rosemary flicked an ear back as she continued perusing the shelves of preserves, jams, and pickled fruits and vegetables of all kinds.

Rosewater cast an aural shield, something she did more and more often of late, and stepped inside. “You know, when Carnation was pregnant with you, she had odd cravings for salty things. And she hated pickled things. But she loved dried, salted fruits.”

“You never talk about her much anymore,” Rosemary said, hoping she’d drop another breadcrumb about her mother. Sometimes the oddest things triggered memories. Smells, a glance at a painting at a certain angle, a sound. Sometimes, she could get Rosewater talking for a few minutes, an hour… or just one little tidbit.

“It hurts, Rosemary.” Rosewater’s eyes glistened, but she smiled. “I… you should know more about your mother, Rosemary.”

“I know you write about her,” Rosemary said softly.

Rosewater was silent for a long time, poring over the shelf without actually seeing anything, the distant look in her eyes enough to fool somepony else. “Try these.”

It took a moment for Rosemary to adjust to the shift in topic, eying Rosewater and giving her a wary tick of the ear. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Salted nuts are great for new mothers.” Rosewater’s ears dipped. “And those are letters to her, not a journal, Rosemary.”

“Have you heard back from her?” Rosemary asked, already knowing the answer.

“I haven’t even sent them.”

Roseate. The mare always seemed to loom in the places Rosemary wished her least to. “Can’t you smuggle them to her? Even if she can’t write back, she’d love to hear from you.”

“And you?” Rosewater asked, raising a brow. “I’m pretty sure that diary you write in once a week is the same thing, isn’t it?”

Rosemary huffed and flicked her tail. “That’s private.”

Rosewater chuckled and nodded. “As are my letters to her, little mouse.” She walked to the door and stopped. “You fall asleep with it open sometimes, reading what you’ve written. I couldn’t help but catch a passage or two when I tucked you in.”

“You haven’t tucked me in in years.”

“I still remember every time, Rosemary,” Rosewater murmured and touched her chin with a spell. “She used to be the one to tuck you in.” The spell warmed to almost a touch, and a phantom hoof the light pink of Carnation’s coat formed out of mist. “Have a good night tonight, Rosemary. She would want you to enjoy life and not hurt.”

It’s what you’ve always told me. “I know.”

“She’ll be back, Rosemary,” Rosewater said gently. “This war ends with my generation.”

“I believe you,” Rosemary said, smiling brightly as she could. It wasn’t certain, and Rosemary’s own study of the histories told her that there had been so many others who’d believed the same thing. “Don’t lose yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Rosemary paused a moment and slid past Rosewater, nipping her neck. “I think I’m about set.”

“Tell Rosie hello for me,” Rosewater said with a small smile as she backed up into the hallway. “And feel free to stay the night. I’ll be fine. It would be good, if you’re up to it, to accept their invitation.”

“You promise you won’t stay up all night?”

Rosewater rolled her eyes, “No, mother, I’m not going to stay up all night.”

“You’d better not.” Rosemary winked, opened the door, and let it close behind her to the sound of Rosewater chortling to herself. It was good to hear her at least halfway laugh at something.

Merrie in the latter evening on the weekends was a wild place, exactly the kind of place Rosie said her clients warned their children about in Damme, but it was also a place where rules took precedence over simple lusts, where the dance of tongue on tongue was on open display, but never more than that.

At least, not on the streets. Bathhouses were festooned with lights and advertised the availability of both contraceptive spells and candies, made by Rosie or one of the other half dozen candymakers in town that knew the formula well enough to make it in large batches.

Ponies still worked, still tended to bars and made food for taverns, delivered packages and parcels from business to business, and from house to house, but there was an added salaciousness that came and went every weekend that wasn’t there during the week.

It was time to relax, after all, time to enjoy the fruits of the labors of the last week, and Rosemary was no exception. Quite aside from preparing for her mission and practicing every aspect of needing to be a proper raider, including the deceptive arts, she had been working on her jams and her preserves, a few sampler perfumes she wanted Rosewater’s opinion on for general sale for a few extra bits, and various odds and ends projects.

Tonight was going to be for relaxing, forgetting the trials of the week, and recharging.

The broad, curving arc of Mane Street, running from the riverside up into the hills and back down to the riverside a mile downriver carried her all the way to the small offshoot road that led to one of the smaller neighborhoods that bordered the city between the sandy river hills and the verdant forests just beyond that fed off the watershed of the Merrie.

There among the hills and dales, families made their homes higher in the ridges, forming small micro-communities that ran for the length and breadth of a ridge.

Rosie’s home was on a ridge that descended almost perfectly to the top of a rounded hill with a heart of crystal-striated stone, the remnants of a long-ago glacier that had deposited the crystalline errata and later silt-covered.

At least, that’s what she’d read in one of the natural philosophy books Rosewater had insisted she read that claimed the Great Migration wasn’t a localized event caused by angry spirits of ice and wind, but by a climatological shift caused by the change of the sun’s path across the sky.

Whatever had caused it, the result was a beautifully green ridge that sported so many terraced gardens it looked like a patchwork building all on its own, with entire sections of the ridgeline taken over by single colors of flowers and single types of crops.

Ponies tending to their gardens in the middle autumn waved to her and called out greetings she returned without hesitation, laughing when she saw foals in the gardens and staked out safe places where the community of neighbors kept close watch and guided and taught as much as relaxed.

There were no communities like that in her part of the city that wanted her, nor any communities with foals that she would feel safe to be around. Rosejoy and her lot didn’t care about whom was listening to their taunts and jibes, and didn’t care about the common sense community rules about protecting foals until they were ready to learn about the sides of Merrie that Damme so vocally railed against.

Soon… there might be. At least one small community that would welcome her as a foalsitter and teacher.

Velvet Night was pregnant, and stars if she wasn’t excited for that prospect.

Seeing the mare again after their month-long voyage by sea and land, travelling part of the way with Budding Rose, now surely in Saddle Arabia clenching deals for the Rosewine Hill’s wines, was going to be the highlight of her night, no matter what else she ended up following her heart to.

She was, in fact, resting outside in the sunlight, her wings stretched out while her husband Trestle Night tended to them, carefully going over the features with a hard-bristled comb, the wooden nobs on the end protecting the features while the ‘bristles’ helped separate and clean the feathers without harming them.

“Velvet!” Rosemary called, pausing to wave a hoof. “Great to see you again!”

The pregnant mare startled and looked around briefly, her ears flicking before she oriented on Rosemary. “Hey there, little lovebird!” she called back, grinning but not rising from her spot. “Forgive me if I don’t come greet you. Just a bit relaxing in the sun.”

“She was sleeping,” Trestle said, grinning and sticking his tongue out at his wife. “Don’t let her lie to you.”

Rosemary laughed and pranced the last few steps, careful of the glass in her saddlebag, and gave them both kisses on their cheeks. “Stars, it’s so good to see you! Let me get a look at you, Vel.”

“Oh.” Velvet rolled her eyes and huffed with a playful smile. “Just like everypony else and their mother,” she said, raising one wing to almost brush the rafters of the porch overhang. “Go ahead and give a listen. She’s very active lately.”

“He,” Trestle said doggedly, as if it were a long-running argument.

“Pftle,” Velvet snorted.

Roundly pregnant, only a month or so away from giving birth, if not sooner, Velvet’s dark purple coat shimmered in the sun as she rolled to one side, giving Rosemary a better place to settle her cheek and ear. Two heartbeats out of cadence with each other, mother and child, and the firm press of a hoof against her cheek greeted her.

“Kicker, isn’t she?” Rosemary murmured, rubbing her cheek against the motion. “I’m here, little one.”

“She is,” Velvet murmured, watching her with half-lidded, sleepy eyes. “She has wings, too. I can feel her stretching them now and then. Big for her age, too…”

“Eight months along, and three months or so to go,” Trestle said at Rosemary’s raised brow. “He’s gonna look just like his daddy,” Trestle said with a wink at Rosemary. “Or just like her daddy,” he added, when Velvet gave him a stink-eye.

“Mmm. Compromise,” Velvet giggled. “Rosie should be back soon. She just ran out for some mustard for the carrots and fish.”

“Carrot-stuffed fish?” Rosemary asked, raising a brow. “That sounds delicious. One of your recipes, Trestle?”

“Oh, no. One of my parents. I just substituted the nuts for fish. Doctor’s recommendation.”

“Oh.” Remembering the nuts in her saddlebags, she shifted. “Are nuts bad for her?”

“Mmm. Not necessarily,” Velvet murmured, closing her eyes again and resting her cheek against Trestle’s chest. “Depends on the nut. Need to be careful about almonds. Peanuts and walnuts are okay, though.”

“Oh, thank the stars.” Rosemary sat back and hefted the jar out and shook it gently. “Peanuts salted with sea salt and wrapped in kelp.”

“You are a life saver,” Velvet squeaked, tucking her wings in close to the brief annoyance of Trestle. “Thank you!”

“She’s been looking for a better way to get her salt intake,” Trestle said with a sigh as he put away the wing grooming kit and nuzzled his wife’s ear. “A salt lick is just a bit too bland for her, and she’s getting tired of only fish for her high protein needs.”

“Please tell me you have more,” Velvet pleaded, sniffing the jar as Trestle opened it for her and reached in to take one. “Oh my stars… with a faint… is that rosemary?”

“It is!” Rosemary laughed, winking. “Just the plant, I promise.”

“Tease,” Velvet said with a chuckle and made an effort to get to her hooves, then stretched before she gave Rosemary a proper hug. “Stars, I’ve missed hearing your laugh, my dear.”

“It’s good to have you here,” Trestle said, nuzzling her ears. “Especially after what Rosie told us. Stars, I’ve been worried about you all week.”

“I’m okay, really,” Rosemary murmured, nuzzling one then the other and luxuriating in the warmth radiating from both of them, loving it and the closeness she felt to them, lovers and almost… “Stars I missed this.”

“We missed it, too,” Velvet murmured, dipping her head to kiss Rosemary’s shoulder. “Wh-what…” Her cheek heated against Rosemary’s neck.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Rosemary whispered in her ear. “If you’re open for it, maybe. I have… I have another I’ve been thinking about, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to delve into it tonight.”

“Quite understandable,” Velvet said, drawing back and looking into her eyes. “It’s Cloudy?”

Rosemary nodded. “How much did Rosie tell you?”

“Just that you got hurt, almost got lost… she left the rest for you to tell us if you wish,” Trestle said, nipping her ear lightly and drawing her attention to him. “You know our offer is still open.”

“You’re one of the few lovers all of us feel comfortable with,” Velvet said, her cheeks still heated but her blush all but invisible under her coat. “Stars, a couple weeks in Canterlot and thinking about the other lovers we share…”

“You’ll grow back to it,” Rosemary said, grinning. “And… I’ve been thinking about it, but my focus has been on making sure my life here is secure. I’m still mainline Rosethorn. We have… expectations.”

“I know.” Velvet clucked her tongue. “And who would we talk to for your parents?”

“Rosewater’s my guardian,” Rosemary said. “You’d either need to talk to her or find out where Carnation went to.” The custom of talking to parents was less for permission and more for… meeting, seeing if two families were compatible with each other before the joining and making sure that if there were any rough spots, they were known. It was an often stressful time, but it was customary.

Velvet glanced at Trestle. “Rosewater is…”

“She can be intense, but she…” Rosemary shook her head. “You have to give her a chance. She’s been hurt. Badly.” And she keeps hurting herself. What Glass had told her had resonated with her, but Rosewater did her usual smile and listen, then dismiss it with a good reason. Or, at least, one that Rosemary could never brush away. It always devolved into a debate that Rosewater won by simple dint of being more stubborn than Rosemary was willing to be. “She can be stubborn, too.”

Velvet lifted her head as the sound of hooves got closer. “Rosie!”

Rosemary extricated herself from the embrace just in time to be caught by another one, trapped on three sides in a triangle of love that wanted her to be the fourth side of a square. It felt good to be wanted.

“Stars, mare,” Rosie whispered into her neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Cloudy sat on the building rooftop, spyglass pressed to her eye as she watched the love of her life, barely more than a speck even in the magnifying view of the scope, as she disappeared into the home of the Nights.

Collar leaned against her, nuzzling her ear. “You don’t have to watch,” he whispered. “I know it must be painful.”

“I need to know she’s safe,” Cloudy whispered back, not even sure why she was whispering. Collar’s silence shield, and only a silence shield, was keeping out everything, the silvery surface of it barely visible. It wasn’t like they had to hide here in Damme. Everypony knew who Collar was. He could hardly hide once he started casting spells. She was in her hood and cape, hiding her Rose heritage as best she could. “Besides…” she shifted to watching Rosewater’s perfumery.

Collar had held a watch over the building while Cloudy tracked Rosemary’s veiled path through the city. “She’s been busy lately. Three customers today. As far as I can tell, they’re just regular customers. And she just went back after closing the store.”

“It’s nearing the end of the regular tourist season, and there is a ship leaving tomorrow,” Collar said with a shrug. “Los Pegasans, Canterlotians… looking for one little sample of the City of Sin before they go. They always do.”

It was safe, too. Cloudy grunted and shrugged. “She’s exotic and she has a reputation for salacious perfumes. The safe ones are pretty mundane.”

“She’s been spending more time in silence, too,” Collar said, flicking his ear to one of the other perches where an aural mage sat, his horn glowing faintly. Prim Note, the best they had. “She’s received several special deliveries over the past week. It’s making me worried about what she’s actually doing.”

“Who knows what she’s up to,” Cloudy said with a sigh and turned her attention back to the Nights’ house. Lights were coming on inside, smoke curling from the chimney, and all Cloudy wanted to do was fly over there and knock on the door. That’s all it would take to see her again, to talk to her again, to hear her laugh again.

“Cloudy,” Collar whispered in her ear. “Don’t watch. Don’t torture yourself. Let’s go home.”

“I love her, Collar.”

“I know you do.” He kissed her cheek gently. “I hope…”

“I love you, Collar. I love both of you.” But I can’t love both of you. Not in Damme. “Lets go home.”

Rosemary stared into the stew, a thickening radish and mustard stew, small cut carrots floating in the midst along with a few other tubers and various bits and pieces of flower that added a uniquely floral texture to the smell rising from the small pot.

It made her wish she would be sharing it with one more pony that night.

“Hey, don’t be mopey like that,” Velvet said, nipping her cheek as she passed by, carrying a tray of cornbread muffins on a hot pad on her tucked wing.

“Sorry. I’m just… I’ve been thinking a lot lately.” She flicked her tail and sniffed the pot again, her Rosethorn marks glowing as she separated out the different fragrances and gauged them before adding a pinch of sea salt. “Thank you for letting me.”

Trestle snorted. “Darling, you’re here to relax. If thinking helps you relax, that’s all to the good.” He flicked his tail against her as he passed by with freshly minced celery mixed with some sesame seeds and a quarter of the cooked fish they would be serving on top. “Ready for these?”

“Ready. And thank you.” Rosemary nodded and stepped back as he added the ingredients, stirred once, and sniffed.

“Oh, you’re welcome!” Rosie chuckled and patted the side of her muzzle. “Dear, while you’re here, do whatever you want. Think. Stir the stew.” Rosie twirled her hoof. “That one, you kinda have to do right now. Need the fish to separate. The big pieces are for the rice pilaf.”

“Ah!” Rosemary stirred slowly, watching the pieces come up and start to separate already. “Sorry.”

“Anyway, think, stir, sleep, stay the night…” Rosie’s eyebrow arched as she smiled, deepening into a salacious grin. “Not sleep.”

Velvet nipped the back of her wife’s ear, “That wagging tongue of yours can find my rear later if she doesn’t want it.”

“I’m still not sure,” Rosemary murmured, fighting the innate desire to hike up her tail. She wanted this. The night. The Nights. They wanted her. But to talk to her about bonding customs and sleeping together in the same night. “I… don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

Velvet caught on first while the other two stared at her. “Dear. We would love to have you as our fourth. But I, and my spouses, also understand that your choice might not exactly be only yours to make. Especially not with your heart half-trapped on the other side of the river.”

“Exactly,” Trestle said, rising from preparing the last of the fish to be baked, throwing scales into the composting basket and fileting the rest into long strips. “We do understand, Rosemary. And we would also understand if you decided to stay and make love with us. No attachments. No obligations. Just a night to lose ourselves in each others’ company.”

Rosie flicked her ears. “We love you for you, Rosemary, regardless of whether you’re bonded or planning to bond with you. This is us, three of us, offering you a night together.”

“I…” Rosemary’s ears flattened into her mane. She could do this, partake in an offer of companionship for a night. Even the offer meant more to her than she’d thought it would, even knowing they loved her like another member of their family, even knowing her heart was on the other side of the river, they were going to open their entire selves to her. “Yes. I would like that.”

“No crying, love,” Rosie murmured against her neck. “Tears make the stew taste bad.”

Rosemary laughed, hiccupped and sat back, accepting the embrace Rosie offered her, then the one Trestle pulled her into, warmed on both sides and then from behind as Velvet sat heavily behind her and leaned into her. “Stars, you…”

“Many loves make the burden lighter,” Rosie murmured to her. “Whether those loves are part of your family or not.”

“That’s not the quote,” Rosemary rasped out, her smile straining her cheeks, her throat tight as she tried to return every hug all at once. “S-stars…”

“It’s alright, love,” Rosie whispered. “You’re with us tonight. Stay with us tonight. Tomorrow is another day.”

“But we’d better get back to fixing dinner,” Velvet said after a long moment, her stomach gurgling as the fragrance from the cooking fish started to fill the main room of the home. “Or the little one will get angry.”

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Rosemary laughed, wiping her cheeks with the back of her ankle and wiggling to give herself a little room. “Really, thank you.”

Her only answer to that was a kiss from three loves at once and a heart full to bursting.

“Careful,” Trestle whispered in her ear, “Careful….”

Rosemary huffed and glowered at him. “I have plated food before, Tres.” Rosemary finished pouring the stew over the rice and nipped his cheek. “You just want an excuse to hover over my shoulder.”

He lifted one hind leg, brushing it against her hindquarters. “Well, I would prefer to hover over your rear, but…”

“Not before dinner, dear,” Velvet chided and bit his ear, pulling him away to focus on his own part of dinner. “Fish now. Sex later.”

“Fiiine.” Trestle snorted and turned away, not even erect, and his scent only aroused but not flaring to the level of pre-coital musk. “Maybe I can have a sample of dessert?” he asked, flashing a wink at Velvet.

“It’s for Rosemary tonight, darling. Maybe tomorrow night.” Rosie stuck out her tongue and laughed when Velvet flirted her tail aside. “She did ask first.”

Rosemary stared as the older mare showing off her pouty marehood, and just underneath, the soft swell of her teats, each topped with a dark nipple and shaking as she stomped a hoof. They would be soft and tender, and she could just imagine Velvet’s cries as she suckled them. And Trestle’s urgency as he mounted her.

“Careful, or Trestle might try a sample of his dessert,” Rosie said with a snort, flicking her ear and staring pointedly at his flaccid member as it slid free, halted, and retracted.

Trestle rolled his eyes and pulled out the last of the fish and began preparing it for the rice. “My dear. As much as I would like to mount her right now, I shan’t because my dearest wife has yet to eat, and my dear unborn child is also hungry.”

“And that,” Velvet purred as she bumped against his other side and kissed his neck, “is why after we eat dinner, I am going to lay down, embrace my wife and lick to my heart’s content. Because momma is also hungry.”

Rosie shivered and flicked her tail, but settled herself with a flick of her ears. “My dear. You may attempt to rile me up, but I’m not going to give you the pleasure of watching me flirt my tail.” She gave Trestle a little wink and stamped a hind hoof. “Before it’s time.”

With that, she pointedly turned her attention back to her work with a pot of artichoke hearts steeping in a honey mustard and cumin bath by the hearth fire, steaming and letting loose the fragrant scent of artichokes and the smoky, aromatics of mustard and cumin together with the strong metallic tones of the hearts.

“Hearts for all,” Trestle said when Rosie presented the pot to him. “Specially prepared just for you, Rosemary,” he said as he scooped out a heart for each bowl and set it gently atop the slab of fish slowly melting into chunks on the fish. “It’s a family recipe from Canterlot. Heated Hearts.”

“Spicy?”

“Not very much,” Trestle said with a grin. “It’s lickable safe. With a little pre-dessert dessert.”

“That’s the strawberry cream delight,” Velvet said, nodding to a frosted double-sealed clay jar sitting in a bucket of chilled water. “It’s been chilling all day.”

“And I can’t wait to taste it,” Rosie crowed as Trestle and Rosemary set the table and set the bowls of dinner about for everypony to enjoy. “Rosemary, would you care to speak the guest’s blessing?”

She nodded quickly. “Always, Rosie.” She cleared her throat and began to recite the old, not always adhered to traditional blessing a guest gave upon their host’s table, “In such wonderful company I find myself, let all know that I feel welcomed and loved. My love is your love.”

The other three repeated the last sentence in a soft undertone.

“Enjoy, everypony,” Velvet said, ducking to tuck into her stew without another word.

Trestle and his wife, Velvet, had come to Merrie on a vacation and fallen in love with the city’s beauty. And then run into its quite shockingly open views of love and sex, and sharing, wandering the streets with a perpetual blush that marked them as outsiders no matter what shade their coats.

To hear them tell it, Rosie had taken them under her care the instant they got off the ship, love in their eyes already for the city that would become their home. To hear Rosie tell it, they’d wandered into her shop, their necks and cheeks so flushed she thought it their coat color at first; a story both disputed with laughter and a tinge of pink in their cheeks.

Rosemary had been a gawky, eager lover at sixteen at the time they’d bonded together, and the vestigial mores of the Canterlotians had kept her from their bed for another two years, though she enjoyed talking and laughing and comparing notes on sexual practices with Rosie until then, and respected their preferences.

And still saw Rosie on the side.

“How is it?” Trestle whispered in an aside to her.

“Mmph!” Rosemary bobbed her head quickly and swallowed the thick stew. “Delicious. I did a good job stirring it if I do say so myself.”

Rosie paused between taking a bite of biscuit and stew to chuckle. “You don’t have to be quiet dears. Please.”

Rosemary nodded, ears flat. “Sorry. I just want to include you all.”

“Oh, we’re included,” Velvet said with a chuckle, dabbing at her lips. “Please, I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen Trestle.”

“And you,” Rosemary said with a scoff. “I love you both. I want to hear all about your trip to Canterlot.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Trestle said. “It was a long voyage with the wind barely moving half the time, and screaming at the sails the other half. Then a week-long carriage-ride to Canterlot.”

“And then back the same route. Because the roads north were mud,” Velvet grumbled. “It would have taken a whole month to get back that way, and with all the bandit activity…”

Rosemary groaned and nodded. It was one reason for the Royal Guard being cut in the last year to handle caravan guard duties. “And your parents?” She shifted her attention between Velvet and Trestle. “I know you were worried about telling them about Rosie. How’d that go?”

Velvet flicked an ear at Trestle as she slurped another mouthful of stew, her faint smile telling her she’d hear good news last.

“Well…” Trestle took refuge in a flaky biscuit, chewing thoughtfully. “Mama Table wasn’t… pleased. The least to hear all the ‘horror’ stories about Merrie were true.” He rolled his eyes. “It took a while to convince her I was still married to Velvet. I probably took a few years off her life with that revelation.” He chuckled. “Papa Table patted me on the back and wished me luck in my marriages. To which I corrected him: it is only one marriage, of course.”

He fell silent for a few minutes while he caught up on his meal, and Rosemary did likewise, enjoying the subtle burn of the radish and mustard against her tongue. Just enough to waken her nose to smells too faint for her to otherwise savor in the stew. It was a lovely bouquet of mustard, pepper, and creamy potato with a dozen other spices in small measure.

“My parents were more understanding, and congratulated her on the foal and the second marriage.” Velvet said. “When we told them about our other lovers, they were not as pleased, but they accepted it. Some of that old pegasus blood I suspect Rosewing had more of.”

“I’m glad, Velvet. Did either accept the invitation to come visit?” Rosemary glanced at Trestle, then Velvet. “When the foal is born?”

“Velvet’s did. Mine… My dad offered, and mother threatened divorce if he set foot within the city limits.” He shrugged, but couldn’t hide the pain behind his eyes. “She’s very traditional.”

Rosemary’s jaw firmed. That pain wouldn’t last past the night. “I’ll be there for the birthing, if you’ll have me.” She glanced at Velvet. “I mean, I know you still have some foibles, and I’d rather not tread on your tail if I can avoid it.”

Velvet’s ears ticked for a moment as she slowed her chewing, then swallowed. “Yes. Whatever you choose about our offer, Rosemary, yes. I want you to be there, talking me on.”

“I’ll be there. I promise.”

“Delicious,” Trestle said around his clean tongue candy and scraped out the last of the stew out of Rosemary’s bowl with his spoon before dunking it into the sink with the rest of the dishes. “And you mares never leave me anything to scrape out like generous Rosemary does,” he added, pouting.

Rosie chuckled as she rolled her hooves down Velvet’s back in a slow massage of her aching muscles, making her as comfortable as possible while she mewled soft pleasure at the ministrations.

“Rosemary is a kind and generous soul who eats far too primly to ever lick her bowl clean.” Velvet purred, displaying her candy on her tongue for a brief moment, teasing them all and rolling her shoulders before she sagged nearly to lay her chest against the table. “Just like you, Trestle.”

“Bah. That’s what spoons are for,” he declared, spinning one in his magic and plunking it back in the sink. “Why don’t you three go set up and I’ll join you as soon as I’ve washed everything.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rosie said, “and it’ll get Velvet on her side sooner. You really need to rest more, lovely. You were on your hooves far too much today.”

“Meh.” Velvet grunted as she rose, hind legs shaking again as she took the weight of her foal and water. “I need to exercise or I’ll get too fat to fly.”

Rosemary held her gently while she swayed with a spell, and set a gentle massage spell along her spine. It wasn’t as intimate or welcoming as hooves, but it would do the trick until Rosie could take over again. “How are you for tonight?”

“Eager,” Velvet said, raising her tail to show her marehood already damp. “I’ve been wanting to be in your embrace again, lovebird.” She crooned as Rosemary ducked forward to sample the damp with her tongue, a faintly sweet acidic taste to her. “Not yet, lover… Let me get to bed first.”

Rosie flicked her tail up as she fell back to kiss Rosemary and get the taste off her lips. “Delicious, Vel… as always.”

She glanced over her back, shuddering, and hiked her tail higher, marehood contracting and the tight bud of her anus puckering tighter. “Stars, you two. I’ve missed that sight.” She grunted as she stepped up to the bed, holding herself steady with her wings partly spread.

Rosemary stood behind her, waiting until she steadied herself with a with a wider stance of all four legs, an obvious invitation for her with her tail still raised, her thighs apart to show off the gentle swell of teat and nipple. One step forward was all it took to nip at the back of Velvet’s thigh to let her know she was there, then tucked her muzzle between those delicious thighs to latch gently onto one teat and draw the nipple against her teeth with a strong suckle before releasing it.

Velvet’s hind legs quivered and her clitoris stiffened briefly to part her lower petals. “I-is that the game tonight?” she asked through a stuttering breath.

“Mmhm.” Rosemary nosed her thigh again, kissing her winking clit. “Lie down.”

“Oh, Trestle, you poor stallion,” Velvet said with a groan as she settled first to her chest, then settled more tenderly and in stages to her belly before rolling to her side in the trough just for her. “I take it…” she glanced at Rosie. “You’ll be on me, too?”

“Behind,” Rosie said.

“No… no, let me take care of you tonight.” Velvet nosed the blankets in front of her. “Come lie down. You’ll get a better view, too.” She glanced at Rosemary, grinning. “And I want to watch, too. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him mount another pony.”

“Last night?” Rosie asked, eyebrow arched. “Or did you fall asleep?”

Velvet laughed and nosed the sheets again. “Slept like a foal. Now come lay down. I want to get you started before she starts on me.”

“Shoot. And we did it so you could watch, too.” Rosie sighed and flicked her tail up. “Ah well, still fun.” She backed up to the bed, tail flagging high and to the side, stepped up, and crept back until Velvet reached up to nip her hind leg, then settled slowly, dangling her forelegs over the edge of the bed to touch the ground but barely.

Rosemary settled in on the bed to watch, idly nosing Velvet’s belly and rubbing her cheek against the midnight blue expanse. Her tail flagged and raised as Velvet began her always slow starting ministrations, nuzzling and snuffling at Rosie’s hard-winking marehood and only offering occasional shallow licks that made Rosie’s breath catch before she released it in a huff.

Her ears ticked as she caught the sound of cupboards opening and clinking dishware being piled up. She shivered, anticipation wringing her thoughts into noodles, and the smell of Rosie’s rising desire and Velvet’s anticipatory need flooded her nostrils.

Rosemary cast a simple reflective spell above Velvet’s head, mist drawn into a plane of ice so pure and flat it reflected, angled so she could watch her lovers working together.

Rosie’s breathing grew shallower, then deeper as Velvet plied her tongue and nose along the deep, slick canal, then left to begin at her clitoris, licking and suckling to draw it out, then latching on with a soft sucking sound. Evelvet met Rosemary’s yes with one of hers, making the younger mare shiver and rock her hind hooves farther apart, tail flicking up to almost curl over her back.

“Vel…” Rosie groaned, licking her lips and shifting her hindquarters. “Stars… that tongue always—” She gasped as Velvet’s tongue slipped into her without warning. The pregnant mare’s violet eye trapped Rosemary’s gaze before it closed and she pushed her muzzle more firmly against Rosie’s sopping sex. “Vel! Stars, deeper!”

Trestle came in, a bowl still held suspended, and grinned. “Ah… thank the stars I didn’t miss it.” His cock slid free, stiffening quickly as he watched in the mirror. He glanced at Rosemary, shivered, and half-pranced towards, her, his member bobbing and slapping against his belly as he flexed his stomach. He glanced at the bowl, shook his head, and set it on the bedside table. “I am not missing this.”

Rosemary raised her hindquarters fractionally higher, inviting him to take her right there and then. “I want you, Tres. Come mount me.”

“Ah, with an offer like that,” he murmured, stepping to the side and pressing his muzzle against her thigh, dipping between to lick at her teat and then up to suckle at her exposed clitoris. “Such a sweetly musky odor, little bird,” he crooned, his eyes flicking from her face to the mirrored surface.

Rosie was mewling, her forehooves curling and uncurling as Velvet rocked her head up and down, coming up only for brief seconds for air, then slipping back into Rosie’s pulsing, slick vulva. Her ankle, she positioned under Rosie’s nethers to let her rock her clit against the hard surface as she wished.

She wished, and her cries rose as Trestle’s tongue started bathing Rosemary’s dock in between bites and pauses to watch.

“Stars… you learned a few things about the dock,” Rosemary said, clenching her hindquarters and feeling herself quiver with need as he did, his tail flicking as he eyed her rear, grinned, and nipped beside her tail.

“You are too kind to me,” he said in a rolling husk of a rumble, his shoulders hunching as he flexed his stomach, another clear drop of liquid budding and dribbling to the bowl.

Rosemary stamped a hind hoof, more out of reflexive need than a demand, but he nosed at her nethers and plied his tongue slowly up the crease between her petals, flicking lightly across the tiny dimple of her urethra and then up to her depths, sliding in, then out in a second and drawing a dribble of her excitement as she whimpered and shuddered, pressing her cheek more firmly against Velvet’s belly, eyes closed for just an instant.

Rosie cried out, her hindquarters twitching. Rosemary had missed the moment just before, that clenching of the brow, the twitch of lips, and the sharp, sudden breath just before the release. But not the aftermath. Rosie’s beautiful face slackened as she moaned, her mouth dropping open, her ears going slack.

Velvet lifted her head, her muzzle slick from nose almost to cheek with the excess she’d rolled against, her hind leg lifting in her own arousal, mimicking Rosemary’s own wide stance and revealing her twinned teats in all their glorious beauty.

Rosie panted softly, her withers shivering, her coat twitching with each aftershock as Velvet plied her tongue more liberally and chastely along the outer of Rosie’s thighs, cleaning her as much as she could. Bathing would be the order of the night before bed, and perhaps another quick rut. If Trestle was up for a third.

“Stars, Velvet,” Rosie said at last, swallowing and licking her lips, eyes straying immediately to Trestle. “And our good stallion, watching me become dessert.” Their eyes met as Rosemary watched, and a spark seemed to pass between them, a faint flick of his tail and a soft whinny said more between them than Rosemary imagined they could say with words.

“‘Twas only admiring the dishes before I found my own dessert. And such…” He paused to press his nose firmly against the winked open passage. “Such an eager dish she is…”

“I’m with you tonight, Trestle,” Rosemary said in a throaty husk, setting her stance farther apart. She wanted him to mount her vigorously the first time. She wanted the heat and pressure building inside her.

“Ahem,” Velvet said, shaking her raised hind leg and setting her teats to shifting and rolling against her stomach. “And I’m yours, Rosemary.”

An unaccustomed flush touched her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Vel. I was so excited by…” She swallowed, the sound of Rosie’s orgasm and the smell of it still lingering in the air making her almost want to switch places. “Stars, Rosie… I forgot how beautiful you are when you come.”

“Mmhmm…” Rosie purred a laugh. “With your head between my thighs, that’s not a surprise.”

“May I, Rosemary,” Trestle asked, his voice fuzzing with the intensity of his desire. “I fear I may not last long if what I suspect…”

Rosemary confirmed his suspicions for him, nosing the lower of Velvet’s teats before slurping the nipple between her lips with a flick of her tongue.

“Stars, you mares…” He reared up without much preamble and settled to Rosemary’s back, his forelegs finding purchase around her barrel as he sidled forward with halting steps, his cock probing the back of her leg, twitching up to prod her thigh. “Been too long,” he grumbled. “You’re too short, little lovebird.”

“Says the giant,” Velvet said, her voice already fuzzing as Rosemary plied lick after lick against the nipple, wetting it thoroughly. “The first time you mounted me, you went in the back door.”

“As I recall,” Trestle said with a grunt as he prodded again at Rosemary’s back… almost finding her backdoor. “You quite enjoyed that.”

Rosemary slipped Velvet’s stiff nipple between her teeth, gentle as she could, and began to suckle slow, pulling Velvet’s teat against her lips with each slow draw and release of breath. The hind leg over her cycled once, then straightened out as Velvet opened herself wider to Rosemary’s suckling.

“Stars… let me get in before you…” Trestle hilted himself in her canal, his cock’s head already half flared as he groaned aloud, sidled a step closer, and rocked his hips back, pulling the thick head of his shaft against her inner walls.

She drew in a sharp breath at the first entrance, sending Velvet into a mewling whimper. As the smell of her arousal peaked and her breathing grew more labored and she pressed her head against Rosie’s dam hindquarter’s her ears flicked back.

“Vel? I… I want to watch,” Rosie said, shifting herself about.

“Go, Velvet said, shivering. “I get to watch the next one. Stars, I love watching him mount you Rosie… And you, Rosemary.” She shivered and rolled her head back. “And those teeth. Gyah… More…”

Trestle grunted and hilted himself deep, his length pulsing inside her, her muscles contracting in waves as she huffed and pulled more firmly at Velvet’s teat, huffing through her nose.

“Let me know when, Rosie…” Trestle rocked his hips once, stopped with a shudder and pressed his nose into the back of her neck, his cock twitching inside her. “But hurry. She’s teasing me really badly tonight. I think...” He groaned and raised his head, his hips twitching as Rosemary released the teat and gave her mound three quick laps, teasing her and not quite touching Velvet’s clitoris..

Rosie slipped to the floor pushing herself under Rosemary and reaching up with two hooves to stroke her belly and her own teats. “He’s all the way in, Vel… I can barely see his cock at all.”

Velvet shuddered, her tail dancing on the bed. “Gah! Don’t tempt me to come watch.”

“Too late,” Trestle said with a huff. He pulled back, slipping free of Rosemary entirely to spill a thin streamer precum and marecome into Rosie’s mane and across her ears. Without more than a fraction of a second’s pause, he thrust back in, and built up a quick rhythm of thrusts, each one dragging at Rosemary’s pleasure, drawing her higher and higher, fuzzing her mind towards that ecstatic release of heat. She still tried to keep her focus on Velvet’s teats, but her suckling was becoming more erratic the faster Trestle rutted her, and the thicker his medial ring and flare grew.

Rosie’s tongue danced along the skin of her labia as Trestle pulled out again, her hot breath adding to the flushed heat pulsing in her loins and making Trestle whinny as tongue and slick flesh teased him into pulling out for longer, his hooves curling against her flanks as he settled and whined his pleasure out into her neck.

“Rosie!” She cried into Velvet’s stomach, she couldn’t focus on suckling her lover’s teats anymore, she couldn’t do much but pant and keep her stance as she rocked against him, pushed more and more against the bed as his thrusting grew more frantic, quicker, shorter, his head flaring inside her.

It was Rosie’s hooves on her belly, her lips on Rosemary’s clit, tongue slipping into her with Trestle’s final thrust, that helped her cross close to him, pressing against the surge of her climax.

She screamed out her pleasure into the space between Velvet’s belly and the bed, a short, sharp cry as pleasure and heat broke over her, shivering her hind legs as he continued pulling her against his loins, each new press of loin to hindquarter spilling his hot seed into her, flooding her with heat not of her own making as his mingled with hers.

Four more thrusts drew a short whinny from her, and she panted herself into a shuddering stop. He made one last effort, but faltered, resting heavily on her back, his breath fogging her mane as he licked her neck and nipped at her shoulder before resting his cheek between her shoulder blades.

Rosie laughed softly, panting herself as she lapped away at the mixed come dribbling from her. “Marvelous!” She paused to nuzzle Rosemary’s teats before she went back to lapping away at the results of their combined orgasms, breaking for breaths and exhortations of her own lost. “Oh, stars Rosemary. Trestle. That was beautiful.”

Trestle limpened within her and he dropped from Rosemary’s back, his cock flopping as Rosemary looked back, beautiful and red and black mottling shining with their combined lusts. “Give… ah… give me a few minutes, lovely.”

Rosie moaned into Rosemary’s nethers as she licked away at the still dribbling come. “Vel, you next,” she said when she leaned away for a breath.

“Mmm. Came once already,” she moaned. “Watching Trestle. Might have to try him in the back.”

“Any time,” Trestle murmured. “Any time.”

“Tomorrow,” Velvet moaned as Rosemary plied her gentle teeth against the swollen nipple as she pressed her lips into the tender swell of her teat. “Stars, Rosemary.”

An hour later, Rosemary lounged in the common bath just down the road, her heart and body filled with the fading afterglow of sex with her lovely friends who rested in the water around her, Velvet with her head resting on Rosemary’s shoulders, sleeping quietly and lightly.

“How are you doing?” Trestle asked softly, nuzzling her ear.

“Fine, sweetheart. Stars…” Her tail flicked through the water languidly. “I forgot how much I missed you three.”

“Not as much as we love you, sweetie,” Trestle murmured, nipping at her cheek.

“I wanted it a little hard. I was hungry tonight.” Rosemary grinned and turned to nuzzle him, then meet him in a slow, heated kiss that lasted a few seconds before he pulled back, his eyes smouldering for a moment before he looked past her.

“Rosemary, lovely, did tonight help you at all?” Rosie whispered in her ear.

“Yes. Stars yes. Just being with you, being away from the estate, even having a bit of normalcy…” Rosemary let out a breath. “I needed tonight.”

“Then we’re glad to have given it to you,” Trestle murmured from Velvet’s other side. “Our home is always yours.”

“Thank you.”

Book 1, 10. Tidal Changes

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The days passed slowly for Rosewater, preparing for her next move simultaneously against her mother and towards Collar. At times, it seemed like both plans were one, so similar in scope they were, and with similar goals.

One day, she caught herself staring across the river from her sitting room couch, lost in thoughts of what would be coming in the future if she succeeded in either or both of them. The next, she mixed up the ideas for both plans and when she finally realized it, she couldn’t tell the thinking that had gone into both sheets of paper apart.

“What in the Mare’s name am I doing?” she asked her empty, warded study. The books on the shelves around her offered no answer, and the two scrolls in front of her gave her even less of a care. In order to defeat her mother, she needed something to pull Damme to her side.

But she couldn’t openly pull Damme to her side. Making a plea to Lace or Collar would almost certainly be considered an act of at least open rebellion if not treason. At the very least she was looking at being disowned and stripped of title and heirship.

Without a child of her own, she couldn’t guarantee her disinvolvement in the war or her mother’s plots, and the best she could do was be incompetent at the tasks set to her in such a way as to disprove any plan to fail at them.

Without a mate… Stars above and Mare curse her. Any potential mates she’d gotten close to in the last ten years had been threatened, indirectly always, or enticed away. The last hadn’t even been a prospect that could give her a child. Roseling, a soap and shampoo making mare whom she’d shared one lovely night of talk about only mundane things, soaps, scents, fragrances, all near to Rosewater’s heart.

And one night of passion in the woods after a naked chase where Roseling, not Rosewater, had been the victor.

The very next day, her shop was visited by Rosejoy and her goons and warned her against seeing Rosewater again, to which Roseling had, of course, gone straight to Rosewater’s estate, knocked on the door, and kissed her right in front of the goon squad.

Thus began a weeklong campaign by Roseate to drive away customers.

Until Rosewater had put an end to it by asking Roseate to leave her alone. The price had been too high. Too much. Simply to have a lover unmolested. And no guarantee it wouldn’t continue.

Tears stained the scroll under her hoof as she stared down into memory and anguish. Just the latest cruelty made more poignant by Roseling’s pain, the hurt and the disbelief in her eyes.

Why did I do it? Why did I give her up?

Even now, she couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. ‘Because I was afraid of Roseate’ didn’t hold water. ‘Because she was losing business’ had likewise been stomped into the ground by Roseling herself. ‘Because I didn’t want it to get worse’ was the closest. She didn’t want to see what the next level of escalation would look like. Drummed up charges of treason, perhaps. Manufactured evidence of selling secrets to Damme when the Rose Palace leaked like a colander.

Roseling ripped away from her like Carnation had been.

She crumpled up both scrolls and threw them in the fireplace to be used as kindling later, dashed away the tears, and drew out a fresh roll of rough, fibrous paper.

Focus on Collar. He couldn’t be bullied like Merrie’s citizenry. He could stand up to Rosewater, and he had a reasonable chance of standing up to Roseate. Especially if Lace entered the fray at her son’s defense.

Not that she could count on the sixty year old mare for much. She was fit for her age, but she was also growing more delicate, and her husband wasn’t a powerful enough presence to hold back the tide of opposition. Collar himself was a formidable force in politics, as she’d garnered through her daytime excursions disguised as a simple seller of shampoos—one way she’d been able to see Roseling again and again, acting as a simple stallion who would act as her factor in Damme.

Focus. It’d been weeks since she’d seen Roseling, and it would be time to dust off her carmine makeup powders and the padding she used to bulk herself up without the use of magic. A simple—

“Stars above, mare,” Rosewater grumbled at herself and stood up to pace the small study, turning back and forth, trying to clear her mind of the mare who’d captured her heart for a night and held sway over her still. “It was one night, and she hates you now. Let her go.”

It was one night and the last time she’d really connected with another pony on a personal, and then romantic level.

She stamped a forehoof and snapped her tail, glowering at the fireplace. After a moment, some of the tension bled out of her, and she focused her thoughts on Collar instead, thinking about him, how he’d looked when his patrol had encountered their raiding party, the largest since the days before the Lace Reformations. Roseate’s orders had been simple: cause chaos, take nopony, but show the ponies of Damme that their leadership was unable to protect them.

It was simple. It should have worked.

What had been meant to be a strike and fade raid turned into almost a pitched battle, with both sides trying their best to subdue without harm. The Merriers to get away cleanly without their faces being shown, the Dammers to capture a bumper crop of infiltrators.

The forces had been equally matched, with Rosewater’s two sisters along for the farce, Rosary and Silk, not quite a match for the three prepared unicorns and two pegasi focused on them. The ten Merrieguard regulars had been similarly equally matched by seven Dammeguard working in concert.

Until Collar and Rosewater faced off, her tall and slender form no doubt instantly recognizable even under cloak and shadow, just as he was in his mixed mail and padded armor.

They’d shared no words as their private duel of magery began, she testing not with scents, but with spells to prod at his armor, loosen a buckle, shift a strap, make him stumble. All the while, he’d tried to capture her with silver shackles, neither of them managing more than a brief moment of capture before the spells broke or focus demanded attention elsewhere.

In the end, he’d given up the pretense of sparring and set a dome around her.

And, in that, he’d given her a tool. None on her side could see what she was up to, and thus hadn’t seen her preparing the Lustre Lilac perfume and spell, a simple psychedelic fragrance, not one to use often, but induced visions and dreams.

Surrounding herself with another dome of clean air within the dome, she’d atomized her entire bottle and pushed out with the fragrance, building pressure inside the dome, draining herself, and had taken two enchanted Citrus Circus to outlast him, to push against his strength the little more she’d needed until his spell faltered and the dome shattered, sending her spell out in a burst of lilac-induced madness that caught Merrier and Dammer alike, leaving her alone, panting and barely able to stand in the middle of a circle of expanding insanity.

And his look across the fields of blue poppies had been one of shocked incredulity, fear, and not a small touch of respect.

She focused on that look, the same one that still came to her in dreams. Respect.

Did you know why I did what I did? Did you suspect my reasoning wasn’t simply panic?

Whatever the reason, taking two enchanted Citrus Circuses had left her near comatose as soon as she’d staggered home, and left her unable to function without headaches or fatigue for nearly a week afterwards.

It’d taken her a month to get back to full strength.

“No more Citrus Circus,” she said. The boost they offered was tempting, but the cost to enchant them, almost a day’s worth of magic poured into a tiny hard candy, and the cost they extracted from using them too often…

She knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep. She would need to have at least one on her, and perhaps two or more if she meant to keep Collar and Cloudy free of Roseate’s influence.

The recollection put her back in focus on Collar, but left her with no more ideas than she’d started out with.

I really should see Roseling soon.

“Stars damnit, brain,” Rosewater grumbled, starting to pace again, then stopping. She couldn’t go to Roseling as Rosewater. That was right out. She also couldn’t just cross the river as Rosewater in broad daylight.

A plan began to form in Rosewater’s mind, around an awkward, lanky stallion and his quirky, frail gran.

“Rosetide, you genius…” It would get her just within range of a short range, small item teleport to Prim Palace. Small enough for a message in a bottle.

With a little treat attached.

It wasn’t often that Collar had no idea where Rosewater had gotten off to. Reports kept him apprised of where she was at the earliest to within an hour of her having been there. She was, after all, one of the most recognizable mares, veiled or not, in either city.

But every now and then, she disappeared around a corner and nopony saw her come out again anywhere else. For hours.

Then, as if she’d never been gone, she would come back out of the same street as if she’d never gone anywhere at all, go about the rest of her day as normal, with only the hours-long gap frustrating them.

It didn’t particularly make him feel better that the Merrier goons that seemed to shadow her almost everywhere didn’t seem to know where she’d got to either; rather, it meant that Rosewater confounded everypony equally.

Attempts to enter her perfumery or her house at those times, strictly against the decree of the Lace Reformation, resulted in only failure. They never went personally, of course, but teleportation spells sending small objects into Rosewater’s house or workspace always failed. It was expensive to ward against that kind of intrusion, but the mare that wanted privacy could do so, and it wasn't a complicated working, either, but the gems and gold needed to hold a spell for any length of time added a prohibitive expense for it to be common.

So instead of watching her, he watched the mingling of traders, workers, and the rare common pony as they wandered to and fro across the bridges.

Thirty years ago, it’d have been unheard of for so much commerce to cross either way, and that little bit of traffic that did would have been escorted by Dammeguard or Merrieguard the entire way, or under seal of the Treaty. It had been, his mother had told him during his lessons and afterwards, heartbreaking to watch the distrust that should have been honest commerce under her father’s reign.

Part of that was her association with Dapper, he knew. But, looking down and seeing the more honest cooperation between the guards and the common pony of Merrie, some of them even joking with familiar faces, trading stories while the customs inspection went through and cleared them of contraband, he knew that a larger part was this.

Camaraderie between neighbors, genuine care about others from different cultures.

Things were changing more than they had in the entire history of the Treaty, and for the better.

“Peace has to start somewhere.”

“It’s working, mother,” Collar whispered, and settled down to pony-watch. At least, during his stint watching the river, he could relax whenever Rosewater wasn’t around to give him conniptions.

He didn’t know where she was, and he couldn’t very well go looking for her.

A cart caught this attention after a few minutes, draped with the signage of Roseling’s Rosie Rinses. Cloudy still got her shampoos from salons that carried them, along with a few other brave scented soap merchants that were willing to shop their wares across the river.

Curiously, the cart was driven by a tall, slender stallion with his mane in a bun, but the one who did all the talking was the crotchety old mare in the cart’s bed. His cutie mark was an anchor sprouting roses from the eye, and hers a ship with rose decorated sails.

Sailors, then, and possibly not Roseling’s usual carting crew, but an interesting pair nonetheless.

Rose sailors. Collar clucked his tongue and watched as the cart made its way easily through the checkpoint. They’d be less awed of him, more broadly experienced with the world. And Cloudy needed something to soothe the mind.

“Corporal Primshawl,” he said, nodding to his partner for the day, Cloudy having been pulled off the active roster to take lessons with Lace. “I’m going to take a little break.”

After days cloistered inside, worrying about planning, worrying about Rosemary, and worrying about the next steps her mother would take against her, it was freeing to be able to cover herself with a mix of makeup, temporary dyes, and an illusion to cover her cutie mark, change the contours of her muzzle, and the padding under her cart blanket and go about Damme as if she were just another stallion in the stream of ponies trying to find their way to a good deal.

It was less freeing to, a few minutes after passing the bridge checkpoint, to have Lord Collar step out of the shadow of an alleyway ahead of her and her ‘granny,’ and even less when he raised a hoof while looking right at her.

He did not, immediately, shackle her, however.

She gave the mist puppet of Granny Galleon a voice she’d practiced on and off for the last few months, and said, “Why, my Lord Collar! What a surprise to see you.”

Collar blinked at the old mare, then at Rosetide, and shook his head. “Pardon me for interrupting your journey, and I would understand if you have your wares already spoken for, but my…”

“We call them mates, when we’re not bonded to them, young pup,” Galleon said with a tip of her chin.

He stared at the old mare again, huffed a soft laugh, and waved up the road, falling in uncomfortably close to Rosewater. She could smell Cloudy on him still, and the remnants of some of the same shampoo she was carrying in the cart. “Very well, my mate is running low on some of the wares your cart is advertising. Triple-R Soapery, right?”

“Roseling’s Rosie Rinses, yes,” Rosewater said in a high approximation of a male’s voice, throwing in a hint of seapony’s burr on each R.

“Apologies, good sir.” He turned his attention back to Granny Galleon. “I don’t suppose you have any that isn’t spoken for?”

“I’m afraid not, young colt,” Granny said, a touch of sadness in her voice. “But you’re welcome to try and barter away from our customers. Roseling had a full delivery route for us.”

“I see. Very well, in the interest of getting it fresh, I will accompany you on your journey, madame and sir,” Collar replied, a gaiety in his tone that had been absent in every encounter Rosewater had had with him thus far. “I trust that won’t be an issue?”

“It’s an issue so long as we’re strangers,” Granny groused. “Rose Galleon. Everyone calls me Granny Galleon. Used to be a captain of my own ship, the Rose Galleon. Till she sank and lamed my leg.”

“A pleasure, Granny. And you are…?” Collar asked, peering at Rosewater more intensely.

“Rosetide, sir. I’m just a seapony’s mate. Keep hopping from ship to ship with my scrip. Back in port every two weeks to look after her.” Was that too much? Rosewater resisted the urge to swallow nervously. You didn’t plan for this, idiot mare. You should have.

“Good stallion, then.”

They walked on in silence for a time, the tension rising until it was all Rosewater could do to keep her ears upright and herself focused on the road ahead and the slight rise from the riverwalk road into the city proper to the informally named Fashion Quarter.

Only a few ponies gave them a look, and while Rosetide and Galleon got looks now and again when Rosewater made this same trip to the gossip center of Damme, these seemed more focused on Collar.

Before they made the final turn, Rosewater prompted her mist puppet to ask, “If ye don’t mind me askin’, my lord, you don’t seem that uncomfortable around us. Mighty comfortable, really.”

Collar’s ears ticked, and he sighed. “You’re old enough to remember the days when things weren’t so peaceful, Granny. When my grandfather raided and caused as much chaos as Roseate is doing now. Or trying to do. You and Rosetide are making the difference, along with all the other Merriers who’re willing to brave the ignorance of my ponies.”

You… believe that, don’t you? It was all Rosewater could do to keep from turning to him and asking him if he did.

Instead, she had Granny say, “I do recall. I also recall when the Reforms came into play, and Roseline embraced them just before she died. And I remember when Roseate walked that back within days.”

Collar grimaced and sighed. “My mother was devastated when she passed on. But that’s why I’m not uncomfortable. Because my mother pushed me to understand that not everypony was a Roseate or a Rosewater.”

Before she could stop herself from broadcasting the thought to the puppet, Granny said, “Rosewater’s not bad, young pup.”

Collar raised a brow and glanced from her to Rosetide. “Your grandson doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment.”

Because I’m an idiot and can’t keep my thoughts from flowing into the magic. “It’s not that, my lord,” she said in Rosetide’s voice. “She’s… a cousin of mine. Distant cousin,” she added quickly at his sharp look.

“Family is important in Merrie,” Collar said, relaxing minutely. “I understand. Even if you don’t agree with them, they’re family.”

Resist. Resist the urge, Rosewater. Don’t blow your cover. “She can be scary,” Rosetide admitted, earning himself a thwack on the hindquarters. “What? She can be.”

“I knew her mother,” Granny grumbled. “Her real mother. She had the healer’s touch, my lord, in word and in magic. She helped me with me leg. Still can’t walk long, but at least I don’t need Tide to keep me goin’.”

“Carnation was an exception,” Collar said, still maintaining a polite mien in the debate. “And… possibly Rosemary.”

“Met th’ lass once,” Granny said with a grunt. “Sweetest thing on four legs.”

“Met her more’n once,” Rosewater said as Rosetide. “Too true.”

Collar’s ears perked, and he glanced from one of them to the other. “What’s she like, if you don’t mind my asking.”

Rosetide shared a look with Granny, and turned back to Lord Collar, flicked his ears once, and said, “She’s hard to describe.” He nodded down the street to where awnings and spinning barber shop poles driven by the wind started and stopped, carrying chatter and bits of conversation. “Pardon, my lord, but we do have deliveries.”

“Ah. Of course. I apologize for sidetracking you. I’m merely interested in her.” Collar coughed as that garnered some curious looks from nearby Dammers. “As a project for my mate, Cloudy Rose.”

“How is the dearie?” Granny asked, almost out of the blue just as Rosetide stopped the cart in front of Cuts and Curios, their first stop. “I heard she got into a bit of trouble.”

“She’s doing well,” Collar said simply. “I apologize that I can’t say more. Rumor has spread…”

“Oh my goodness, Rose Galleon, my dear mare!” Prim Cut cried as he bolted out of the store, then stopped when he spied Collar. “My lord. Was there trouble?”

“No… did you expect there to be?”

“Not with her, no.” Cut shook his head and blocked the wheels of the cart while Rosetide undid himself and started checking the orders against the crates of jars in the back. “Mrs. Galleon is a regular supplier of mine. She and her grandson are by every two weeks or so. Longer this time. Ship just get into port, ‘Tide?”

“Nah. Been in port. Just… well. Letting the ruckus die down a bit.” He turned his cheeks left and right to show the faint Rosethorn marks on his cheeks. “We’re not exactly popular.”

Collar pursed his lips and rubbed at his foreleg. “No. Rosewater didn’t exactly help things, either.”

Rosetide forced himself not to slip back out of character, even in thought. “I think that’s it. Four crates of Simply Lavender. She does sell other fragrances, you know.”

“I know,” Cut said with a sigh. “But we’re not exactly an imaginative people when it comes to scents, ‘Tide.” He nodded to the crates as he floated them inside. “For most of my customers, this is adventurous.”

Collar snorted. “I hope it’s not all Simply Lavender. Cloudy would chew my ears.”

“What scent does she usually use?” Granny asked while Rosetide hooked himself back up to the cart.

Collar pulled a scrap of paper from his saddlebags, studied it for a moment, and sighed, “Scintillating Sunrise. Do you all use alliteration in naming?”

“It’s a part of Merrie cultural heritage,” Granny said with a chuckle. “Alliterating alluring allegorical—”

“Stop, please. I beg you,” Collar said with a laugh. “I get it. It’s something Merriers do to torment us Dammers.”

Rosetide snorted. “That’s exactly the reason. We have some Scintillating Sunrise, but just one jar. Our next stop has a customer that asks for it.”

“That’s probably Cloudy,” Collar grunted. “She likes her mane shorter.”

“She sounds interesting,” Granny said, “and I heard about when she ran away from Merrie.”

“She didn’t run away. Get that straight if you could, over there.” Collar sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. Roseate… asked her to do something, and she refused. She fled before she could get the same treatment as Carnation.”

Oho? Rosewater glanced aside at Collar, letting the mannerisms slip for just a moment, and said in Rosetide’s voice, “She does that a lot. Roseate.”

Collar glanced at her, and Rosewater slid back into Rosetide like a glove.

Stop that, Rosewater.

“She does. You won’t get in trouble saying such things?”

“No. My master is my captain, not my baroness.” Rosetide said with a snort. “My ship of the moment sails out of Damme.”

“Interesting way of looking at it. Don’t you have anypony in Merrie you’d miss?”

“Granny,” Rosetide said with a sigh. “But she’s canny enough to seek asylum if Roseate got angry at me. And it’s not like we can’t live in Canterlot or somewhere south.”

“He keeps trying to get me to move for my health, the brat,” Granny grumbled. “But Merrie is my home. Even more than the Galleon was.”

Collar blocked the wheels at the next stop and waited as Rosetide slipped out of the harness and started checking the list and setting crates in order while Granny counted bits. It was draining keeping her illusion going for so long, and empowering her voice at the same time so much, but it was honestly refreshing to have a talk with the stallion without so much in the way of history and assumptions.

“This is the store that asked for Scintillating Sunrise,” Rosetide said, whistling and kicking his hooves, then startling and tapping at the door with a spell. “Sorry. Got distracted talking to you, my lord.”

“It’s quite alright, ‘Tide. I’ve enjoyed talking with both of you.” He chuckled and cocked his head. “It’s so rare that I get to talk to Merriers that aren’t scared of me.”

“We’re sailors at heart,” Granny said with a smile and nod. “We’ve seen all sorts in our travels, Lord Collar. Lords. Ladies. Brigands, and even a few pirates. A lord isn’t anything terribly new.”

“I see. Well, it has been refreshing.”

Prim Perm, the owner of the shop, peeked outside, startled, and ducked back in briefly, “I’ll be just a moment! Lord Collar is here.”

Rosetide tittered. “She was with a customer.”

Collar glanced aside at him, chuckled, and nodded, looking thoughtful. “Nevermind on the sale, Rosetide. Rather, I’d like to employ you as an independent trader to buy some varied, simple fragrances from Roseling’s soapery for Cloudy.”

“Sir?”

“Whatever you think a mare her age would like. Nothing magical or too fragrant, understand?” Collar pulled fifteen bits from his saddlebag, giving Rosewater a mere second to slip her message in under a veil as she accepted the bits. “Three jars?”

“Of course, my lord. Three jars. I’ll have them for you in two days.”

“How can she bottle cookies?” Collar demanded, staring at the impossible bottle and its message steeped in the smell of fresh-baked cookies. And not just any cookies, but his favorite peanut-butter-butter cookies. Freshly baked. “It’s not fair.”

“You know it has to be a trap,” Cloudy said, sniffing the paper again, then the bottle. “It’s not activated, at least… if it was even meant to be activated. We have spells to detect that kind of thing.” She pulled away and sat back down, cradling the bottle in the crook of her ankle. “I’m more worried about how she slipped it into your saddlebags in broad daylight.”

“Nopony said she wasn’t bold…” Collar plucked the letter from the desk and read it again.

My dear Lord Collar,
I am writing to you now because I believe that, for the moment, our goals are aligned. I want Rosemary safe. You want Cloudy safe. I can’t keep Rosemary safe if Cloudy is in Roseate’s custody. I would be compelled to give up guardianship to release the mare to my custody.
I doubt your ability to keep Cloudy Rose safe on your own, and so I propose an alliance in secret, even from your own ponies. I will share information you don’t have access to, and you will share the same.
Burn this letter after reading. I’ll meet you, should you agree, on the night my cousin Rosetide delivers Cloudy’s jars of shampoo.

She had to have been shadowing me the entire day. Somehow. He’d already checked into Rosetide’s history, and as a minor Rosethorn, he only had an every two-week visit with the bridge guards to deliver soaps. He wasn’t the only pony to deliver for Roseling, but he was the most regular.

“She’s involved her cousin in her schemes…” Collar sighed. “Did he slip it to me, I wonder? At her request? And why?”

“Maybe he did. Maybe she coerced him into it. Or maybe she slipped it in some other time. She has range to her magic, Collar.” Cloudy sighed and set the bottle on the desk. “Still… that was nice of you. I’m about out of Scintilla Sunset, and Prim Perm is expensive to see for a simple mane washing.”

“You know it’s probably a trap. The invitation.”

He sighed, remembering the concern Rosewater had shown for Cloudy. Or, at least, concern for Rosemary through Cloudy. He wasn’t certain at all what she was up to, but he was less certain of her animosity. Her intent to take him as a mate, she’d made clear more than once, and Cloudy’s belief that she meant it as a Rosethorn Thrall held some weight.

He pursed his lips and pulled the next paper from the inbox, another report from Priceless, indicating that Rosewater had been seen some hours later coming back out of the same side-street she’d disappeared into. Same modus.

Included as a footnote was Rosetide and Granny’s route back through the city to a warehouse far back in the hills, about as far from the sea, and the center of the city, as one could get and still be in the city. A warehouse that small could as easily have been a house at some point, and was likely where Granny holed up while her grandson was away on his sea voyages.

“Did you know them? Rosetide, or Rose Galleon?” Collar asked musingly.

“No. But, given what you told me, they were probably at sea most of my life.” Cloudy peered at the report, the footnote, and cocked her head. “Why? Do you think they’re in league with somepony else?”

“Not particularly, but they cart for Roseling’s Soapery on occasion, it seems.” Collar sighed and shook his head. “Most of the time, it seems like the makers themselves have to cart their wares over. It’s certainly the case with Rosie Night.”

“Makes sense. Sailor ponies wouldn’t have the same conniptions about wandering across the bridge as most of the rest. They have to, in fact.” Cloudy tapped the report. “Did they seem suspicious to you?”

Collar grinned. “Not particularly.”

Cloudy rolled her eyes. “You told me he seemed upset when you made aspersions against Rosewater. Doesn’t that seem a little unusual?”

“Well, I mean… for Merriers family is everything, right?”

“For most Merriers.” Cloudy flicked her tail against his flank. “Roseate’s made it clear that it doesn’t mean much to her.”

“Rosewater seems to be cut from a different cloth,” Collar said, frowning and recalling the playful manner in which she’d returned Cloudy to him. “Maybe not too different of a cloth, but different nonetheless.”

“What’s curious,” Collar said and ruffled the letter again, reawakening the scent of cookies enough to make his mouth water, “is how Rosewater knew Rosetide would be delivering the shampoos in two days.”

“Interrogated him, perhaps? He made no secret about where he went.” Cloudy pointed towards Merrie and ruffled her wings. “Made the letter, stuck it in a bottle with the scent, and got back to Damme before you got back to the palace. She had more than an hour to do that, since you wandered around enough.”

“Except she wasn’t seen at all during that time.” The mystery deepened, and he shrugged, then added, “Unless Rosetide is still out at sea and Rosewater usurped his image and his grandmother.”

“That’s getting a little far-fetched,” Cloudy said with a snort. “She’s good, I’ll grant you that, but she can’t hold that much illusion and telekinetic resistance for the cart harness to fit right. She’d basically be using her magic to pull the cart for hours, Collar. Not even you could do that.”

“Granted, if she was using only illusion. But there’s enough evidence that Rosetide is real and so is Granny Galleon, and I doubt that Rosewater could impersonate Rosetide for the hour he was out there, talking as much as he was, and not slip up to customers who knew his voice and face.”

Cloudy sighed. “Alright. So what if Rosetide isn’t real, and he’s been Rosewater all this time? What if Granny Galleon was one of those… autonomous mist faeries?”

“Yes, but Granny Galleon wasn’t one of those,” Collar said, shaking his head. “She was real and solid, Cloudy. Weak, but she handled the bits, and he did the work. And she didn’t… glitch out. She held a conversation with me. Cogently, I might add.”

“So she changed the spell after that, and now she’s in direct control of it.” Cloudy jerked her chin in a ‘so there’ gesture.

“Possible. But why go through the risk? We have spells to catch most of the tricks she uses, and they passed by the checkpoint cleanly.” Collar grimaced and sat back. “Until I have reason to suspect Rosetide as an imposter or an agent, I have to believe that he was exactly what he looked like, a sailor doing a good deed for his grandmare and a friend.”

“You know why I have to present the far-fetched, right?” Cloudy asked, relenting and settling against his side again.

“Consider more possibilities. And… you’re right. I’ll run it by Priceless later, too, and see if we can get a watch on Rosetide. Find out which ship he’s with, maybe.” He didn’t hold out a lot of hope for that. Captains were protective of their crew, so long as the crewmate in question was reliable—something sometimes hard to find and keep in the Dammer ports, when the siren’s call of Merrie promised an easier life.

Not that I’ve ever heard of sailors hunkering down en-masse. Merrie was too different for their tastes, too. Their culture was one of openness and acceptance—at least among the common pony—and the sailors from other monogamous cultures often found it harder to accept than the occasional Dammer who strayed and found their joy on the other side of the river.

Most of those who went were Dammeguard who’d gotten to know some of the Merrie traders better than most Dammers would consider safe, and most of those ended up living and working in the Garden of Love.

All possible because of the Lace Reformation.

And because of that possibility, and the potential that he would gain a valuable ally, he needed to consider that Rosewater was not acting out of malice. He read the letter one more time and set it in the fireplace.

“What are you doing? That should go to Priceless!”

“I have the letter memorized,” Collar said as he watched the coarse paper flare and curl into carbon. “If she betrays me, I’ll write it out again.”

“You’re not going alone, you idiot.”

“No, because you’re going to lead a squad of pegasi to follow us from above. You know what to look for with my invisibility spell. Follow us, stay out of sight, and don’t come down unless I give a signal or it looks like she’s trying to take me.” He waved a hoof. “Break out the lampblack for this one, Cloudy, and pick your squad. You have two days.”

Book 1, 11. Uneasy Tides

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It was the most cliched of places to meet for a clandestine deal, a dark alleyway in the middle of the night, but instead of dirty dealings or espionage, Rosewater had to meet in the shadows with a jeweler for the simple and expedient reason that she didn’t want Silver Drop to get in trouble.

The sturdy earth pony mare, cloaked in a Falling Leaves Festival red cape, had been having a grand time participating in the aftermath of the day’s festivities, heralded by the falling of the first leaves of autumn.

At a pre-arranged time, she’d broken off from the party of Garden ponies, her ‘nephew’ and his mate included, with the excuse that she had to find a toilet.

As soon as they were both out of sight, Rosewater snapped a dome of silence over them and cast a complex illusion over top of it, making the once-open alleyway seem blocked off by crates and barrels.

“You have it?” Rosewater asked.

“I do.” Silver Drop’s face in the gloom fell, as if she’d been expecting more, but she fished the pouch from her saddlebags.

Rosewater didn’t dare open it, not in the open, but she knew Silver Drop’s work. “Thank you.”

“You should come back with me, Rosewater.” She jerked her head at the hollow backs of the fake barrels. “Your friends in the Garden miss you.”

“I—”

“Can’t,” Silver finished before she even started saying the word and glowered at her. “You haven’t even seen my son, Rosewater. Raindrop Dancer has only heard stories of you, and you’re half a mythical being among the older members.”

“It’s not safe for you to be seen with me, Silver. Not you, your wife, or your husbands. And not the Garden.”

“That’s minotaur shit,” Silver shot back. “The Garden has enough economic clout and independence to tell Roseate to rut herself, and she can’t touch me or my family. We’re legally bonded, have a child, and I am one of the only silversmiths in Merrie.” She jabbed a hoof at Rosewater’s chest. “We’re safer than you are.”

Rosewater stared at the smaller mare. Rosemary had been pushing her more often lately as well. To get out. To do things. She was, but that they were all espionage-related didn’t make her happy. “I don’t agree with your assessment.”

Silver Drop was silent for a few moments before she sighed. “Petal… doesn’t think you’re wrong. But I miss you, Rosewater. Stars, getting the request from you… I thought you were going to get married. I thought you were finally going to end your isolation.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Rosewater said softly. “I’m not getting married.” She saw, for a brief second, the ‘dates’ she’d gone with Silver on, just two, to see two parts of a play a troupe from Canterlot had put on while her wife and two husbands were busy with their part of the winemaking process on Rosewine Hill. Brief though they’d been, they’d let her see the Canterlotian’s heart, and how it’d changed since she immigrated formally. “But I do miss you, Silver. And Seed, and Petal.”

“Then come with me. Please.”

“If you can protect Roseling,” Rosewater said, touching Silver lightly on the chest, “I’ll consider it. She deserves more than what I can offer her for protection.”

“Roseling? The soaper?”

“Yes. At one point, I thought I saw a path in my heart to marriage with her.” Rosewater shook her head sadly when Silver’s brows raised. “This isn’t a marriage brooch, Silver. We can’t go down that path anymore. But I would still see her safe. Mother holds grudges, you see.”

“I-I can’t promise…”

“I know.” Rosewater relented and patted Silver’s shoulder lightly. “That was unfair of me to demand. But now you know what I feel like. I can’t possibly protect you all. So I have to do this alone, Silver, as much as possible.”

“Idiot,” Silver muttered as she walked away. “You’re taking yourself away from us, too, you know. It’s like you’re Carnation, but you’re doing it willingly.”

You’re not wrong, Silver. “I’m sorry.”

Enchanting jewelry with a spell normally took weeks, but the spray of gems she’d given to Silver Drop for the piece had already been enchanted, and so long as they were put in the right place in the inscribed pattern, they would work properly, providing her with the control, sustainability, and even a bit of telekinetic presence to the mist puppet she had to make for Rosetide, and only for Rosetide.

Silver Drop was one of the best at what she did in either Merrie or Damme, and the inscriptions were line-perfect to the schematic she’d provided, measurements and volumes all marked exactly. She’d understood as soon as Rosewater provided the inscribed and etched gems what the brooch was for.

“You do good work, Silver,” Rosewater murmured as she drifted around the image growing from the pendant floating in the air. It wasn’t a full illusion, but covered the parts of her that needed to be accentuated to look more masculine. Broader chest, deeper barrel, thicker jaw and deeper muzzle. Most importantly, it hid her cutie mark. “Just as if I’d cast it.”

It would last an hour without her needing to recharge the central gem, a deep blue sapphire. It wasn’t the best for holding magical power, but it was better for fine-detail work, letting its reserves drain at a measured pace instead of releasing all at once.

She stopped the enchantment and refilled the little bit of energy spent maintaining the illusion while she’d cast it, and slipped it over her neck before slipping into the padding and the mindset of Rosetide and set about pushing her luck.

Nopony in Merrie paid him any mind, and they never did. He was a seafarer, and they were a breed apart from most Merriers, or even most Dammers. Away from loved ones, if they had any, for weeks to months at a time. Their families were almost always other seafarers, and oftentimes they made up a significant portion of a crew.

Even the Dockbridge guards only gave his saddlebags a cursory glance as they waved him through, and one even asked where they could get a sampler manewash.

“Cuts and Curios,” Rosetide said with a laugh, flicking his tail and prancing past. “And tell Cut to broaden his selection.”

“Bah.” The mare waved him on and snorted. “Like he’ll change his lineup.”

Rosetide chuckled and went on, adjusting his scarf briefly and started off, mental map in his head, and hidden, unenchanted scents, Damme inspired, nestled in small bottles against his side. He had time to play tourist and liven up the streets of Damme with a little scent that was starting to fade in the waning sunlight.

He didn’t have a schedule to keep this time, and his cutie mark all but gave him a pass to most passerby, even for one of those Merriers. It helped that he was something of a familiar face to the ponies in the business district, even if he only came around every couple of weeks.

He had the sway of the seafaring pony, the look of one, and even the scent of one. He’d been careful about that detail today.

At two corners, he left the bottles nestled in the bushes, covered by a careful veil and opened to let out a faintly stronger scent of the city.

Even as he left each area, the fragrance was starting to work its way out, just enough to liven the steps of the ponies around him, almost as if it were the height of summer again. It would be perfect to draw Collar to the more lively state she wanted him in. Without using magic, without using anything more than the same scents he’d gathered during the night before, attuning himself to the pendant.

She wouldn’t break the accord this way, not making a perfume out of a city.

Once he was done, and back into Rosetide’s mindset, he made his way to the palace, getting more and more suspicious looks from the guards the closer he got, and the prison guards off to the west took his dark rose coat to heart and glowered at him especially fiercely.

But nopony accosted him, no guards intercepted him until he got to the guard station just outside the palace gate.

“Business?” The guard asked sharply, holding out a hoof for papers, and looking for the obviously missing mark of the Treaty office.

“I’m just here to deliver some shampoos on a personal request from Lord Collar,” Rosetide drew out one of the jars, showing the label. “Could you take these and deliver them, please? I should be getting back to my ship.”

“A moment.” The guard, a unicorn stallion who looked rather like Collar, turned and tapped one of his fellow Dammeguards on the flank. “Go fetch Lord Collar.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Coat.”

Rosewater put two and two together in an instant’s surprise, and forced herself to put the mannerisms back on.

“Primeline Coat,” Rosetide said, offering a small, tenuous smile. “Lord Collar’s cousin?”

“Yes,” Coat said, grinning. “Ahh. I’m so glad he asked for a bit more variety. Cloudy’s been going slowly scent-stir-crazy.”

“That’s not a thing,” Rosetide grunted. “She’s bored of nothing but stone and earth smells.”

“And that’s not scent-stir-crazy?” Coat raised a brow and chuckled, then glanced aside as Collar and Cloudy both coming down the stairs, chatting quietly, then both glancing at Rosetide. “Ah, my lord, my lady.”

“I’m not a lady yet,” Cloudy said matter-of-factly, fixing Coat with a level stare, then turning to Rosetide. “And you, fascinating stallion. Just who are you?”

They suspect? “A sailor, my lady.”

“Don’t you start,” Cloudy groaned.

“Today, I am a simple delivery stallion, er…. Cloudy.” Rosetide tipped his head to the side. “Is that right? You’re the Rose Lady everypony is whispering about?”

“Stars and Mare preserve me.” Cloudy snapped her tail and pranced closer, hiding a sniff in the snort. “Do not repeat that if you want to be welcome in Damme again.” She backed off and gave Collar a long, meaningful look, then settled back.

“If you have time, Mr. Rosetide,” Collar said after a moment, “we’d like to invite you in for tea.”

“I’m afraid that I’m on a schedule,” Rosetide said, bowing his head minutely. “I need to decline. My ship leaves with the next tide, and I must be aboard.”

“Ah.” Collar nodded, sighed, and waved his hoof. “Then I’ll accept delivery, Rosetide. Do you have somepony that you would recommend we ask for delivery service?”

“Delivery service? You could ask Roseling herself. Write to her.”

“Or I could just ask you to be our regular delivery service,” Collar mused, tipping his head and smiling.

Rosewater froze, tongue cloven to the roof of her mouth, and forced herself to draw the jars out and pass them over to Collar while Cloudy watched intently. “Will that last two weeks? That’s how long my voyages are anymore.”

“It won’t,” Cloudy grumbled. “This jerk keeps using my shampoo now that we share a bathroom.”

“Hey, that’s why I asked for three jars!”

Rosewater chuckled, unable to keep a smile from coming to her lips. Hers. It took her a moment to push back and take the smile into a wry grin. Even through the complaint, she could tell there was love there, the ‘argument’ more comradely ribbing than an actual fight. For show or not, it was hard for them to hide their affection for one-another.

All the more reason she had to keep Cloudy safe. Rosewater couldn’t make her plan work if Collar was worried about Cloudy. She could work around his Tussen Twee mindset, but she couldn’t do that if he was grieving her loss.

You like her, too, silly mare.

Rosewater bowed her head. “Fare well, both of you. I must be off.”

Cloudy glided high overhead, watching the tall stallion wending his way through the crowds of dock workers and sailors, offering greetings to some, nods to others, and generally acting like he belonged there.

And yet… something felt off about him. His voice wasn’t the deep tone that she’d have expected from such a tall fellow, rivaling Collar in height, even if he was on the slighter side, more delicately built. His height was one of the suspicious things about him, almost exact for Rosewater, even if his facial profile, even his scent were that of a male.

She followed his track until he walked up the gangplank for a ship and descended into the hold without a single crewpony stopping him, questioning him, or even turning from their admittedly busy work of getting ready to cast off.

A quick dive and swoop, and she got the name, Salty Rose. A Merrie-owned or affiliated vessel, then.

While it was tempting to question the dockmaster about the papers and taxes, that would draw attention directly to Rosetide and possibly cause an innocent stallion some trouble down the road.

It would be up to Priceless to gather what information they needed and give the stallion a clean bill or not.

For moments, Rosewater feared she’d not set up her arrival point in her basement correctly, the spell to teleport straining to open a locus in the small space she’d spent weeks testing on and off.

Opening a gap in her estate’s defenses was a risk, but she’d mitigated it, hopefully, but putting the only gap in the basement, behind a locked and reinforced door that had once been a safe room from Dammeguard raids. Then a cellar for wine. And now both that and an egress-ingress route for which only she had the key.

It was a tiny space, only large enough for her, and surrounded by anti-teleportation wards.

Then, she was gone, and reappeared in the small cellar, her nose crowded into the space for a wine bottle, her tail prodded by another.

It was so small, in fact, that she’d failed to account for the spacing and positioning of wine bottles, and the inbuilt failsafes of the teleportation spell didn’t let her complete it if she didn’t fit.

Minutes passed while she squirmed and thanked all the stars that the door swung outwards rather than inwards, and finally got the key in the lock, then spilled out into the basement of her estate, laughing.

“Success!”

Now she just needed to give herself a purity wash to get rid of the stallion scent, the dyes, and put on her real face for Collar.

Shadows drifted along with the clouds overhead, a scattering of high cumulus drifting in from the sea to join a storm on the morrow that would drench both cities. It was an additional risk, as well. Pegasi cloudwalking that high wouldn’t smell like anything but the clouds until they left their perches.

Not that Rosewater could have smelled anything that distant. Her nose was nearly as sensitive as that of a hound, but there was nothing she could do about such a distant source, and the wind steadily carried any of their hidden scents away in any case.

That Collar would have probed her trap for weaknesses was a given. Or he wasn’t the stallion she believed he was. She allowed herself a smile as she swayed with the movement of the wind, letting her shadow shift with the tree she was using as cover as the wind blew in as she’d expected.

Primline Park was a place where, during the day, ponies would gather to read and laugh, discuss poetry and quote it to small crowds, have picnics and run with their families. During the night, it was empty save the trio of guards patrolling its perimeter on their way through the parkland district.

Gleaming unicorn lamps shone their steady glow through the faint mist that was gathering around the trees and shrubs and above the grass, lending all of it the eerie beauty of the ghostlands, shrouding everything in diaphanous silk that tore and repaired itself as the chill of the city air and the warm wetness of the ocean met and mingled.

A perfect night for mystery and the plan. For the challenge.

Roseling had been her last in nearly a year, and seeing what her attentions were doing to the mare’s business had broken her heart—almost as much as telling the mare she could no longer see her. Even giving her the reason why hadn’t lessened the hurt for either of them, and Roseling had pleaded with her to not break off their romance.

Nearly, she’d given in. Almost, her resolve had shattered under the relentless assault of her heart. Until Roseling said the words Carnation had said to her, even as the High Roseguard pulled her to a waiting carriage.

‘Everything will turn out for the best.’

She couldn’t let Roseling be another Carnation, dragged out of her home, chained, and sent to Celestia only knew where.

It had hurt, and hurt more every day until it stopped. It was still painful thinking of that night, but it wasn’t so much an agony of the heart, and more the ache of loss as it faded again into a dull throb every now and again. Just as it had with Carnation.

At least she could see Roseling and know she was safe and well, and could help her, even if she couldn’t let the mare know who was helping her sell across the river.

Collar was different.

A different sort of challenge, and a different sort of chase, where the quarry only thought they knew the rules, and couldn’t know that she was playing by a different set entirely, a set of rules almost five hundred years old, uncorrupted by time or war.

This quarry, Roseate could not touch, could not break, would not break, though she had no doubt Roseate would try.

He would take the first bait, she knew. An alliance, even a distant and amicable one, was her hoof in the door. She might even be able to leverage Rosetide into a friendship with one or both of them.

“Spies typically don’t laugh and give away their positions,” Collar said from her right, invisible behind a sight shield, the mist making the edges even more invisible than usual until she knew what to look for and saw the swirling mist vanish across the edge and reappear differently on the other side.

Her veiling, by contrast, was nearly perfect in the same environs and gave away nothing of the shape of her, or the size of her—his shield was only large enough for him and maybe one other pony. Perfect.

“You came,” Rosewater said, pushing surprise into her voice. “But…” She lifted her nose and sniffed. “Alone. Bold of you.”

“What do you have to say?” His hooves clicked on the pavers as he moved closer. “And how can you tell? I’ve bathed recently.”

“You have. Blueberry scrub and an astringent shampoo for your mane. It reeks.” She considered, then cocked her head. “Though I suppose Rosetide didn’t arrive in time for you to get a proper bath.”

“Did you just come here to insult my bathing habits?” He snorted, and the scent of him came closer, carried by a gentle wind.

“Of course I did.” She unveiled the tip of her tail and flicked it, veiling again in an instant and dancing to the side.

With a sigh, Collar edged closer, his shield expanding enough for her to fit into the space, and she slipped inside, finding Collar there with a faint aura about his nose and mouth, his horn bright with silver light. Enough to light the space, but little else.

“Cautious, still, though I mean you no harm,” Rosewater said, raising a diaphanous pink dome inside his, cutting off sound. “There. We are secret, though I am trusting to our accord, my lord. Our games between us.”

“And Cloudy and Rosemary, apparently,” Collar said gruffly.

“My mother conspired to insert my cousin where she will only make a mess of things. Not by her fault, or by her intent, but because I believe my mother is starting to suspect my designs for you.” Rosewater sniffed and tipped her head to the side, starting off at a slow walk.

“You could give up any designs you fancy you have about me, my lady,” Collar said, pacing himself to keep up with her, his voice genial, though not nearly so genial as he had been to Rosetide. “I assure you, they will come to naught and misery. More for yourself than I.”

“I am already locked in misery, something you already know unless your spies are blind, deaf, and quite possibly dumb.” Rosewater snorted. “Did you miss the tiff I had with dear Cargo? Or the delightful company of the Baroness? Month-by-month, she tests my resolve.”

“I have not been blind to it, but much of it you seem to have brought upon yourself.” Before Rosewater could offer more than a glower, he went on, “You’ve left a bit of red behind your ear, my lady Rosetide.”

Rosewater ticked her ears and laughed. She’d left no such thing. “You are accusing my distant cousin of being me, now, my lord? Honestly, do you truly think I could pass as a stallion?”

Collar eyed her for a long moment, his hoofsteps even and steady. “You have a familiarity with him.”

“I do. And he is gone from my mother’s notice for weeks, if not months at a time. In return for his services, I pay him enough to hire a pony to look after his grandmother while he’s away.” Rosewater sniffed and tossed her head. “I’ll thank you not to mention that to your spymaster, or she’ll be out of home in a week.”

That seemed to relax him somewhat, and his ears settled down. “Then I apologize for the accusation. He seems a nice enough pony, even if he makes his friends in strange places.” Collar nodded ahead, indicating the street, straight and only slightly slanted toward the sea. “What terms do you propose for our alliance?”

“As I wrote. A sharing of information. I lack the means to effectively keep watch on Rosemary and her friends, but I am also certain that my mother’s patience with me is wearing thin.”

“For that, I would ask that you cease these games you’re playing,” Collar said, tossing his head. “I have a mate, and I am not inclined towards polyamory.”

“Have you even tried to be inclined? I assure you it’s quite a natural state of being, once you wrap your mind around the core tennets of the Principes.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “It would be a union of heirs, my lord. The end of the war.”

“I neither love you nor trust you. I’m not even certain I like you, my lady.”

“My heart aches, Collar. Honestly.” She smiled a touch weakly to him. “I understand our past encounters have been tense, but they were also under the aspect of war, not this amicable meeting.”

He was quiet for a time, his ears twitching, before he let out a sigh. “I’ll not marry without all three conditions. And I already have a mate. That’s the fourth.”

“As you said.” Rosewater sighed and pushed back the disappointment. This was her first real talk with him, pony to pony. As much as she knew about him, and as much as she felt like she knew him, he could only know her as she presented herself. “How is my sister fairing?”

Collar stumbled, caught his pace again, and coughed. “Glory is doing well. We’re treating her fairly, though we’ve yet to receive an offer of terms from your mother for her return.”

“And you may not for some time yet. Glory failed in her task, and mother is not one to grant leniency to failures.” Rosewater only had to look to her youngest sister, still enamoured of her mother’s love, believing that such a fantasy existed, to know that. “Continue to treat her kindly, my lord. Please.”

“That was never going to be in question. Since it seems that you will not give up your games—”

“And you won’t even consider my offer.”

Collar tipped his head, acknowledging the fact. “I will at least assume you not to be hostile, however, I will ask that you not use scented lures or mind magics against me or mine.”

“In return for?”

“Walking free tonight.” Collar smiled thinly and plucked at her mane, his magic spreading through hairs, then spread to check her fore and hind fetlocks. “You came without scents?”

“I am never without scents, my lord. Even in your city, there are so many fragrances I can twist to use as I wish.” Rosewater took a deep breath, drawing on her heritage deeply, letting the myriad of scents unfurl in her mind as a tapestry of artful chaos. “The smell of baking bread for the morn, I could use to enliven your senses, or freshly cut sawdust to dull them, the fading scent of poppies and magnolias to enchant with dreams. Or the stink of the harbor’s rotting seaweed to knock you out.”

“You give me little reason to let you go free, if you are as dangerous as you claim.”

“I am telling you because I choose tonight to put my trust in you. You could counter before I could do anything more serious than making the street stink.”

“Why?” Collar stopped her with a tug against her foreleg, stopping her in the middle of an intersection. “Why do you trust me tonight?”

“Because I am serious, and I want you to see how serious I am about pursuing you, my lord. I will end this war. I will see it ended.” She stared into his eyes, wanting to say more, but needing not to challenge his view of her too quickly, otherwise he might get the wrong idea, and might lead him to the wrong conclusion. “Together, Collar, as bonded mates, we could end the war. Peacefully.”

“Or you could find yourself a stallion not already attached,” Collar said with a grunt, turning away and starting back up the street. “And have as many foals as you wished with him.”

You knew this might take time. Rosewater let out a breath and followed him, a pace behind until he slowed to match her pace. They’d already passed one of the vials she’d planted as Rosetide that afternoon, but he was keeping that damnable filter over his muzzle.

“I’m not interested in mating only for politics,” Rosewater growled, catching up to him and snapping her tail against his flank. “Just like you.”

“And yet, here you are, presenting a political alliance,” Collar said, brows raised.

“I’m asking you to at least not close yourself to the idea,” Rosewater shot back. “Collar, we barely know each other. We’ve not had the chance to get to know each other. I’m asking for that chance.” She snorted and smiled. “I might find you’re an absolutely incorrigible, donkey-headed prig and not enjoy my time with you. In which case…” She had no backup plan yet. This one was still in its infancy.

Collar snorted a half-laugh. “A chance. Rosewater? There’s no chance. I’m in love with Cloudy.”

“And she’s in love with Rosemary and you,” Rosewater said, raising a brow. “The law in Merrie allows for up to a four way marriage.”

“With your own cousin?” His voice conveyed his dismay and disgust enough that she could see it without looking.

“We wouldn’t be romantically involved, my lord. We wouldn’t be the first, nor would we be the only currently married first cousins with a third partner between us.” Rosewater focused ahead, her ears flat to her skull. “I’m asking you to consider, my lord.”

“And your crimes? The hostage taking? The use of scent magic in our borders? The pitched battle?” Collar glanced aside at her. “I’m still not decided on whether or not I’ll simply arrest you at the end of this talk.”

“I don’t deny them. I abhor that I had to do them, but had I not, I would have doomed Rosemary to at least her mother’s fate,” Rosewater said softly, keeping her eyes focused ahead. “As you would if you took me tonight.”

Collar grimaced and looked away. “Why would arresting you doom her?”

“I… have been lax in teaching her as my mother would wish. Without me to protect her, Roseate would… I don’t know what she would do.” She did. But she pushed the thought out of her mind before it could chill her heart.

“I will, at the very least, offer her asylum, Rosewater. She’s a good mare. I can tell that much.”

“And the war goes on.”

Collar offered no rebuttal to that, instead continuing on with her, his eyes darting to the left and right at intersections, watching for his own ponies patrolling, or for signs of another infiltrator like her. They were slowly climbing out of the mist, becoming both more and less visible to passers by as his dome distorted the light ever-so-slightly.

“If the war goes on,” Collar said softly, then trailed off with a sigh, looking aside at her. “You’re not what I expected from our prior interactions, Rosewater. How do I know this isn't a ploy to get my defenses down? What changed?”

“The amount of time I thought I had to enact another plan has changed,” Rosewater said, then smiled and winked. “Not that I didn’t enjoy sparring with you. But I’m running out of time.”

“Why?”

“Because Roseate isn’t going to let Rosemary sit idle. She’ll make her do something that’s against her nature.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “That’s a bit of information for free.”

“That’s a bit of information I’d already figured out,” Collar grumbled. “Stars, are you going to offer anything concrete, Rosewater?”

“What would it get me? Information for a favor, Collar.” Rosewater leaned closer. “Roseate’s talent. Not the flashy things she claims for her talent. Her actual talent.”

He considered for a moment, then nodded. “One favor. Minor. My discretion on whether you can call it in.” Collar stopped and held up a hoof, cup up. “Take it or leave it.”

Rosewater tapped his hoof. “Her real talent is a glamour. A visual lure. She can inspire lust with a look as long as the ponies watching her can see her clearly.”

“How do you know?”

“She tried to use it on me in our duel.”

“It doesn’t work on family, then?” Collar mused, ticking his ears.

“It does. My talent countered it.” A tidbit, a little teasing bit of information. “It’s not only a sexual lure, my lord. It’s a suggestion. It’s a direct mental effect. ‘You want to do as I say.’”

Collar’s tail twitched, and he glanced aside at her. “And your talent? What would I have to give up to know that?”

“A date. Maybe two.” Rosewater laughed at his incredulous look. “I am not going to give up, my dear Lord collar. I have my goal, and I will see this war ended, and my Rosemary sane and healthy at the end of it.”

Collar raised a brow. “Your Rosemary.”

Rosewater twitched and flicked her ears. “My dear Rosemary.”

Collar continued on for a few more paces, studying her out of the corner of his eye, then relaxed minutely. “I’ll let your talent remain a mystery for now. Your price is too steep, Rosewater.”

“A pity then. For now.” Rosewater sighed and pranced ahead into the open field, or tried to. She ran headfirst into a physical shield, grunted as it gave against her horn and flexed. She stumbled and sat hard on her rump, massaging her neck with a spell and glowering at him. “I thought you were going to trust me for this night.”

“I never said that. You chose to trust me.” Collar came up to her and set a hoof against her shoulder. “I trust you only as far as I can see you.” He nodded to the field beyond the silver dome. “You leave here and—”

Rosewater folded the light around her and ducked out from under his hoof, sending her voice to his other side as she said, “And yet I can disappear from under your nose, Collar.”

He jerked away from where she was to spread a dome of silver force around nothing as Rosewater dropped her invisibility and coughed on his other side.

“Point proven,” Collar said, letting out a sigh and flicking his tail. “Fine. But why do you wish to prance about in this field? This is the old dueling ground.”

“What better place to spar, Collar, than here?” She joined him again in the center of the dome. “Now, as we’re nearly done for tonight, as I’d rather not make Rosemary suspicious about where I’ve gone, one last offer of trade for information. What would it cost me to get a single kiss from you? On the cheek,” she added quickly. “Just a kiss.”

“Your talent has to do with your lips, doesn’t it?” Collar growled.

“No. That much I’ll give for free.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Rose Kiss is the one with the magic lips,” Rosewater said, rolling her eyes. “A kiss, Collar, what is it worth to you?”

“To stop playing your games. One kiss to have you stop this nonsense with chasing me for a mate.”

“And that, dear Collar, is a price too high for me.”

“Why? Why are you so dead set on me for a mate? I’ve seen your file, Rosewater. You haven’t lacked for male companionship.” Collar backed away from her, glaring at her.

“Did that file also include what happened to my male love interests?” Rosewater shot back, lashing her tail. “Did your file include what happened to any of my love interests? Or were your spies only interested in me and not whom I found alluring and interesting enough to be my mate?”

“Well—”

“Did my file also tell you why I’ve had barely any lovers since Carnation was exiled? Did it?”

“There were rumors about you and her having—”

Rosewater snapped a band of force about his muzzle, her ears flat, her tail lashing. “I have never lain with Carnation, nor with Rosemary. I would never.”

Collar’s eyes met hers steadily as she kept his head still, her horn glowing near magenta with the thickness of power gathered in it. He flicked his ears back once and closed his eyes.

She let him go, let the anger go along with the frustration built up over the night. “I hear it from my sisters, from Rosejoy and her goons.” She sank to the ground and brushed at her cheeks, not surprised to find tears there, fascinated by them and why they’d sprung so quickly to her eyes. “I loved both of them dearly, Collar. I still do. But I was never romantically in love with them. I won’t hear you repeat them, too.”

“I never believed them,” Collar said after a moment, his voice calm. “And no. Your file doesn’t include what happened to your lovers.”

“I won’t let anypony else be taken from me like Carnation, Collar.” She took both parents from me. The thought hit squarely in her heart, and she staggered to her hooves. “I need to go. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

“She threatened you with that?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?” Rosewater gave him a look and tried to teleport away. His dome blocked her, and she couldn’t get the spell to even form properly. “Please drop your teleportation block.”

“I’m not blocking you. That spell takes a lot more energy.” Collar hesitated and stepped forward. “Is that why you’re pursuing me? Because she can’t do that to me?”

“Yes.” She tried again, aiming for a place south of town, out of view of the city’s regular guard patrol, formed the spell more carefully, and held it for a moment before releasing it. “Don’t let her take you, Collar.”

She appeared in a glade of the Deerkin just outside of town, one of the more regularly used ones, and one of the few that had been welcoming to her and Carnation when they’d made their first attempts to reach out to the nomadic folk. They were gone for now, still in the north wandering the trackless northern forests and pursuing their simple lives free from politics and intrigues.

Their only worries were where they would get their next meal, which glades to return to, and which cities and camps of ponies to prank or avoid.

I wish, sometimes, that I had been born a deerkin.

But she had not been, and she cloaked herself in mist and shadow and made her way home.

Collar stared at the space she’d been, considering what had just happened and all he had learned from her, or what she had let slip or made up. All of what had happened could be an elaborate acting trick, something to draw him out and draw in his sympathy, but there were too many things that tracked too well with what he already knew about her.

Finally, he dropped the shield and sent a flare up into the air, calling for Cloudy and her picked squad to come down, and sat staring across the river while he waited. From there, he could make out the chimneys of her estate, and it should have been easy for her to make her escape. True, there were a good number of buildings between, but even at a steady trot, she wasn’t more than a ten minute journey from home.

Wings cutting through the air in long sweeps of multiple pegasi coming in for a landing in a circle around him, Cloudy leading and trotting around in a circle, her nose to the air, then lower, and finally flicked her tail and saluted. “Grounds clear, my lord.”

“Good.” Collar glanced at Cloudy, then around at the other ponies. “Thank you. Our plan failed, unfortunately, and I was unable to lure the mare here. She was out there, but…” He sighed. “I apologize that our mission failed tonight, but I think we’ve put them all on warning.”

“That’s the point, right sir?” One of the Primfeathers, Streak, asked. “To let them know we’re not to be trifled with?”

“That’s exactly it. Dismissed from further duties for tonight. Get some rest.” Collar snapped a salute of his own, and glanced at Cloudy. “Lieutenant, walk with me back to the palace.”

“Stride,” Cloudy added, pointing a hoof at the corporal. “Get some extra rest, you’re not used to night duty, and it shows.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The rest of them snapped return salutes and took off almost in formation, demonstrating the level of their training.

As soon as they were out of sight, Collar snapped both a sight dome and a sound dome around them, and grimaced. That slow walk with Rosewater had done a number on his reserves, already flagging from a long day.

“I’m not used to late nights, either,” Collar grumbled, giving Cloudy a sidelong look. “How do you manage to look so chipper?”

“Practice.” Cloudy walked around him slowly, ears flat back and sniffed at his shoulder, neck, and flank. “I can smell her on you. So she did meet up with you?” She frowned as she paced around him again, her tail snapping. “And… you smell too much like the city.”

“I had a scent filter on the whole time,” Collar said, reforming the filtered bubble of clean air around his muzzle. “She did tell me she could use the city against me.”

“Of course she can. She’s a master scent-mage. She needs nothing but herself, Collar.” Cloudy sat back. “Was it a trap?”

“If it was, it was the worst trap ever.” Collar snorted and glanced at her. “What did you mean by too much like the city?”

“Well, it’s the city, but Collar, I’ve been through the streets more lately. It has never smelled so strong as when it did on you just now.” Cloudy shook her head slowly, lips pursed. “I can’t even imagine what she was trying to accomplish with that.”

“Calming me,” Collar said musingly, tipping his head to the side. “The city calms me. Would she know that?”

“If she were Rosetide, she would.”

“If she is, she’s a good actor,” Collar said, shaking his head. “I confronted her about it. She didn’t react except to scoff. Which is what she’d do if she was. She did say she paid him a stipend to take care of his Gran while he was gone.”

“Inconclusive, then. Also plausible.” Cloudy sighed and sniffed at his flank again. “How heavily burdened was she? I can’t smell any perfumes on you.”

“None. She didn’t even bring any of those candies. I could have overpowered her and taken her in before she could object.” Collar sighed and looked to the sky, then turned and started back toward the palace.

“Why didn’t you? And what did she want?”

“She wanted a chance, Cloudy. She said she’s running out of time.” Briefly, he relayed the rest, the courtship offer, her determination not to give up, and the reason why she was pursuing him: to end the war. “But… that’s almost too perfect of a story, Cloudy. It fits everything we know about her, and makes her sympathetic. She even claimed remorse for her crimes.”

Cloudy didn’t immediately answer, her eyes on the road. “Damme would never accept both of us courting you, Collar. Just like they wouldn’t accept me courting both you and Rosemary at the same time.” She looked up, but not at him, and asked, “Would you accept that?”

As much as he wanted to say yes, he hesitated. ‘Your devotion to her will be tested.’ He hadn’t thought it would be tested by Cloudy. She slept with mares, even after they’d started dating. For her, sex was both more and less important than it was to him, and was often a part of friendship without a declaration of love, and fidelity was only a word to her that Dammers put too much emphasis on.

She was loyal, and her heart steady, but sex was a step below romance in the hierarchy of relationship statuses for her.

She did take care not to do it too often, or spread herself too thin, and he knew each of her three intermittent lovers, trusted them. They weren’t in love. He understood that much from his reading of the Merrie Principes, and he trusted that she told him everything important.

Rosemary was a different case, and he didn’t know how that would change their relationship. Cloudy was still deeply in love with the mare. If they’d been born in Damme, they’d have already been betrothed if not actually married.

“What would it change between us?”

“For me? Nothing. I still love you, Collar. For you? Can you bring yourself to love another mare? Can you accept that I would have a lover that I’m in love with?”

“I was brought up to respect the Principes, Cloudy.” It wasn’t a yes, and it wasn’t a no, but it was the best he could offer her.

“I haven’t been with my other lovers since we made it public, Collar,” Cloudy murmured. “I’ve been trying to respect the Tussen Twee.”

“I appreciate that,” Collar replied, nipping her ear lightly and kissing her cheek. “It’s made things easier with mother, I’m sure.”

Cloudy frowned, then shrugged. “Perhaps a little. It’s all lessons on etiquette, trade, diplomacy, and politics. Nothing about courtship.” Another glance aside at him, a small smile, and she added, “Maybe she thinks I have that covered already.”

“Or,” Collar said, ticking his ears back as he considered his mother, her marriage, and what he’d been brought up to believe about Merriers and the Principes, his father’s culture.

“Or?”

“Or she’s waiting for you to bring it up.”

Silence accompanied them for a portion of the walk, the only sound their hooves on the street as they passed back down the street Rosewater had led him down, for no other reason than he wanted to find how how she’d managed to amplify the scents of the city without him noticing her cast a spell.

Halfway down, Cloudy slowed to a stop, sniffing at the air, then led him off to the side, nosing around in a patch of poppies before drawing out a mostly empty quarter-ounce vial of perfume with only a little golden liquid clinging to the bottom.

“Perfume.” Collar plucked the bottle from Cloudy’s lips and examined it. “What kind?”

“Alcohol base to diffuse faster… but it’s just flowers and a touch of baking bread.” Cloudy shook her head. “It’s not magical. Or at least, not magically activated. It’s an enlivening scent, not a calming one.”

“And it’s just been sitting here?” Collar asked.

“It seems so. It evaporated over the day and would have made anyone around it a little more energetic, a little happier.”

Rosewater, what did you do? “Is it dangerous?”

“Stars, no. At least… I can’t think of how it could be used to entrap somepony. At the worst, it might make a pony more open-minded.” Cloudy flicked her ears and shot him a look. “Vendors in Merrie use it to make customers more open to suggestions, but it’s hardly a strong suggestion.”

Collar swirled the bottle around and sniffed at it gingerly. Flowers and bread. Innocuous, frivolous even. Just like the scent of cookies on a slip of paper. What are you trying to tell me, Rosewater?

Book 1, 12. The Mission

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The Rose Palace was a beautiful place, a garden of roses of every variety spread over dozens of acres of land on the tallest hill in Merrie proper, sheltered from the worst of storms by the surrounding hills and ringed by streets that meandered off into the rest of the heart of the city, and disorganized enough that there were usually guides for tourists hawking their ability to show off the famous gardens and surrounding area.

While the palace proper was hardly enormous, it was hard to tell where the gardens ended and it began.

For Rosemary, ostensibly one of the nobility that could have claimed a room or suite in the palace itself, it was a place that she was almost wholly unfamiliar with. She knew how to get here and there within, but the faces she saw were strangers’ faces, and the ponies that seemed to know all about her were little more than passing acquaintances from the few galas she’d actually attended with Rosewater and Carnation.

The halls were wide and brightly lit, open for most of the year to the outside, the stained glass windows that descended for the winter stowed for another two months in some cellar or basement somewhere on the grounds.

She held the summons, a red letter sealed with the bright pink wax of the Rosethorn family crest, in front of her like a talisman against interruption. Interacting with the ponies that made their home here was the last thing she wanted. Hedonists to a one, the stallions and mares that crowded the halls were in a perpetual haze of some pleasure or another; wine, sex, scent, or all three.

They were the Rose Highguard at the top, the ponies that avoided true hedonistic tendencies only because Roseate required them to remain clear-headed when she needed them. Then came the palace guard, who could only indulge off-shift.

Finally came the goons, the ponies like Rosejoy—Roseate’s chief goon—who reveled and partied, rutted, drank, and sniffed themselves into oblivion until they were needed to do something low that Roseate didn’t want tied directly back to her since she could blame it on their hedonism even as she fed it.

They leered at her from their pillows and couches, too early in the day to descend into sex and pleasure, but not too early to be lazy and try to look pretty to capture the interest of a passerby.

She ignored them and marched up the stairs to her aunt’s office on the third floor. Invariably, it was where she conducted her business.

Just as she approached, a stallion that had once had a fancy for her—an unrequited interest since he wasn’t interested in anything more than the sex—stepped out of Roseate’s office, his cock still partly unsheathed and dribbling a single thin streamer of semen.

He saw her, and his flaccid member twitched and started stiffening again. “Rosemary,” he said, his voice husky with lust.

“Is my aunt still occupied?” Rosemary asked, ignoring him and his intent. He did have an impressive cock, but Trestle’s kindness, his tenderness in and out of bed, were more attractive to her than a member.

“Just with cleaning up the rutting I gave her.”

That she gave you, you mean. “Fine. Go clean yourself up, Rust.” Of course he would be one of Roseate’s hedonists. And of course Roseate had found out about his infatuation, and talked him into rutting her right when she was scheduled. A power play meant to discomfit her.

“Maybe you and I—”

“No, Rust. I’m not interested.”

Rusty Rose gave her a chilly sneer, but pranced off, cock bobbing. No doubt off to clean himself up and then brag about the noises Roseate made—noises that were as much lies as every other noise that came out of her mouth that wasn’t a threat.

That he’d been kicked out meant Rosemary had to step carefully to avoid the little beads of come on the stone floor, and even more carefully to avoid the ones on the carpet. The room smelled like sex, strongly enough for the sex to be magically enhanced.

Rosemary covered her nose with a simple clean air spell and breathed a few times to get the scent out of her nostrils and faced her aunt as she cleaned herself languidly on a pile of pillows beside her desk, her vulva on full display and still damp from being rutted.

“Rosemary,” Roseate said warmly, lying even with her tone, “I’d almost forgotten that I had you scheduled for this morning.”

“Take your time, my lady,” Rosemary said, giving her a modicum of privacy by pretending to study the paintings around the room. All of them were of Roseate save one of Rosewater. It had dust on the upward facing surfaces while all the others were clean and shining. There was no doubt she’d dragged it out from somewhere just for this meeting as a reminder of who was at stake.

It, too, was a calculated reminder. This was a threat, and not a lie. Roseate would use her to hurt her own daughter.

“I know Rosewater helped you on your last assignment,” Roseate began without preamble. “If you’re going to be useful to the city and our struggle against those who would take away our right to mate and make love as we desire, you need to be stronger, Rosemary.”

Rosemary stood there, eyes fixated on Rosewater’s portrait. Regal, her mane in a style she hadn’t worn since before Carnation was still there, proud of bearing. Both of those proved she was her mother’s daughter and ignored the heart that lived inside her. It was the still picture of Rosewater as Roseate wanted her to be: chill, perfect, and uncompromising.

“Your cousin cares only for your short-term happiness, not your ultimate well-being, Rosemary. She doesn’t know the struggles of fighting this war like I do. She doesn’t remember the strife Prim Cord put our city through.” Roseate rose and affected a limp that she didn’t have at other times, though she did have a small scar on her hip. “We need soldiers, Rosemary.”

“I understand, my lady.”

Roseate flicked a look at her and sat down behind her desk. “Your mother told me she understood. She lied to me. She undermined my efforts to keep our ponies safe, Rosemary.”

Quivering rage surged up her spine, setting her teeth on edge.

“I can’t have soldiers that lie to me, Rosemary, just like I can’t have soldiers that can’t handle a simple mission on their own.” Roseate pulled a scroll from her desk and slid it across the desk, nodding to it. “Nonetheless, you did make it to Damme and back, and I have a task that’s too trivial to hand off to another of my daughters.”

‘I have a task that’s too dangerous for my other daughters.’ “Yes, my lady.”

“You have two weeks to complete this job, Rosemary. Surveillance, reconnaissance, preparation, extraction. Details are in the scroll.” Roseate waited until Rosemary had finished reading the details, then sat forward. “If I find out Rosewater has aided you at all on this task, Rosemary, I will consider it insubordination, and I will have you exiled.”

“But—”

“Your cousin can’t protect you if you disobey a direct order. You are neither married nor a parent. Her guardianship does not cover gross insubordination.” Roseate was quiet as she delivered the ultimate threat, the chill in her soul creeping into her voice. “I will exile her as well, law be damned. Nopony disobeys my orders, Rosemary. Do you understand?”

It was hard to form words around the pit of bile in her throat. “Yes, my lady.”

“Good. Understand that I do this for the good of the city, Rosemary. I don’t do this out of a sense of malice. I need to protect my ponies, and insubordination is not conducive to protecting the ponies of Merrie.” Roseate nodded to the door. “You have your task, and the conditions for success. I have another appointment soon.”

Dismissed, chilled to the bone and wanting to vomit, Rosemary fled.

The only answer Rosewater got about what Roseate wanted was a single phrase, ‘tight-rope’ before Rosemary disappeared into her apothecary workshop part of the estate and sealed sound away, effectively telling Rosewater she needed to be alone for a while.

She tacked a quick note to the door, telling Rosemary where she would be, and retired to her own office, enspelling the wards to keep out sound as well and settled in with a scroll and paper to keep her mind occupied and not think about what thing Roseate had demanded of her.

It would require her to move forward more quickly with her plan with Collar, and perhaps seek out some contingencies beyond the simple expedient of fleeing the city. She had a cache of bits outside the city, safeguarded by one of the Deerkin clans that meandered north and south yearly, but that would, of necessity, throw her lot in with bandits and others and she could then only win against her mother by brute force of arms and encourage regime change through conquest.

Not that she had any illusions about how Celestia would take such an act of savagery. It would be a gamble, and far more dangerous than she wanted.

Her better option lay across the river and ‘failing’ in an infiltration into the palace itself. Perhaps even to negotiate her own way out of prison and into a better placement in both Damme and Merrie.

For such a thing to happen, she’d need to see Rosemary safely in asylum. Collar had offered it for her, but it was a thing that would also strip her of her titles and inheritances, just as it had for Cloudy Rose.

She tapped the dry nib of the quill against the page and flowed magic out through the tip, outlining in invisible thoughts the plan that might happen and erase them if the thoughts didn’t quite align before she put to words what she wanted to pass to Collar for their next meeting.

First, she needed eyes on Rosemary. His spies would already be watching her every move, so it wouldn’t seem strange for them to keep an extra close eye on her. Whether or not he would actually pass her intelligence, or simply keep it to himself…

Is that even relevant? Rosewater let the magic fade from the page and sat back. If he kept an eye on her, and if she could extract some promise from him to keep her safe…

“No.” Rosewater shook her head and wrote out the first sentence to the letter in magic, read it, and enchanted the ink into a fine mist that was drawn down into the letters, then continued.

Dear Lord Collar,
I trust that this missive will find you in good health and fine spirits, but I already have some information to trade. If you agree to a trade

The door to her study swung silently open before a tentative hoof reached past the sound barrier to tap at the floor.

Quickly, Rosewater stowed the letter in the desk’s locked drawer and touched Rosemary’s hoof in the same spell. She didn’t dare drop the silence spell yet. It would give eavesdroppers the idea that something important was going on if she dropped it and raised it again.

Rosemary swallowed as soon as she came in, her ears flat into her mane, her lip caught between her teeth. “How do you do it?”

“Keeping secrets?” Rosewater asked softly.

A little nod settled some of her tension.

“By understanding the cost of not keeping them. Feeling the cost of not keeping them, Rosemary.” A glance to the side at the portrait of Carnation hanging on Rosewater’s office wall served well enough to show her point. “There is a cost to every choice we make. Carnation knew that better than I did. She made her choice, and I think she knew she was going to make that choice for a long time.”

“The… choice to disobey Roseate?”

“The choice to… yes.” Rosewater closed her eyes and her mouth over that secret. Somehow, Roseate had known it, but knowing it about her mother would only put Rosemary in danger. As much as she wanted to share it, the burden had fallen to her to carry on. “She chose, Rosemary. I chose, too, when I fought my mother to keep you here.” You could have gone with her, been safe from all this.

And left all her friends behind. Her culture. Me.

“You have a choice, too, Rosemary, and unless I gravely misunderstand my mother, it means I can’t help you with your next task.”

Rosemary startled and stared at her. “How… did you know?”

“I understand her better than she thinks I do.” I hope. “I’m still here, Rosemary. She can’t stop you from seeking comfort and reassurance from me, and I will stop her from carrying out whatever threat she levied on you.”

Rosemary didn’t meet her eyes for the span of a few breaths, then flicked a look at her and back to the floor. “Exile.”

Rosewater pursed her lips. A duel, then, to prevent it, with Roseate more prepared and perhaps even guessing at the depths of her talent and the degree to which Rosewater had honed her understanding of it in the past six years. It wouldn’t be a duel she would be guaranteed to win.

“I won’t fail,” Rosemary said softly. “You won’t have to fight her.”

“You’ll do your best, but not everyone succeeds, Rosemary. Even I didn’t.” Rosewater took a deep breath and cleared her mind of the worry, drawing out a blank scroll. “Have you heard any rumors about town?”

It took Rosemary a moment to shift tracks, her eyes clearing as she blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Lots,” she said at last, then pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nothing about Roseate except the usual stealing husbands and wives that somepony heard from a second cousin’s third wife’s aunt’s dog. Oh. And a large order of stamina candies. Er, larger than usual. From Rosie, to a pony she’s pretty sure takes everything he buys straight to the palace.”

Rosewater’s eyebrows ticked up a notch. “Really, now.” That would mean she would be moving within a couple of weeks, before the candies grew stale and the magic that filled them burned out. “That is useful. What varieties?”

“A few different ones. Citrus Circus, Amazing Almond, Fiery Freesia.” Rosemary flicked her ears at the last one. “That one… maybe they’re planning an orgy?” Rosemary asked, chewing her lip briefly. “It's the end of harvest soon.”

“And pray, Rosemary, when was the last time that Roseate held an orgy open to the public?” Rosewater shook her head. “She likes her toys kept close, not shared. Besides, the White Rose Bath House has one planned for next week. And they didn’t buy any stamina candies. Orgies aren’t meant to be lasting affairs. They’re meant to be joined, to be entered, and then to sink into the laughter of wine and sleep and wake on the morrow with friends to clean up the mess.”

“Don’t tell the bit about an orgy lasting to Rosie…” Rosemary flicked her tail aside briefly.

“Ah, but Rosie’s ‘orgies’ are for friends only. Tell me, after you have a candy, what do you do?” Rosewater sat back to listen, curious.

“Well… I suppose you have a point. We talk. Fondle and kiss a little, some mutual masturbation. But mostly talk.” She cocked her head, pulling at her lip. “I suppose the candies are more for the body and mind than the passion. I can only get so excited in a day before I have to sleep, candy or no.”

“Passion is a mental state,” Rosewater recited from memory the Vrije’s views on sex, “and it is a necessary state to be in to find the fullest joy in life. To exercise passion in one part of life, is to exercise one’s passions for the rest of life’s joys.”

Rosemary chewed on her lip for only a moment. “And the Tussen Twee states, sexual passion is a finite resource, separate from professional or artistic passions, and must be guarded and given only to the closest of hearts.”

“Ah, but that ignores that artistic and professional passions can be sexual in nature, especially for the professional artist, the author, and the playwright.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “What then for them? Do they run out of passion and die early because they have no more to give to life?”

Her daughter’s ears sagged briefly, then righted. “But so many do die young. Or younger.”

“Is that true, or is it that the young, passionate writer, artist or playwright dying young sticks in the mind far more than the aged one who passes on after living a full life, filled with passions more completely than one who only had the start of life to look at?” Rosewater raised a hoof and tipped an imaginary scale up and down. “We mourn more for the loss that takes a youngling before they can reach an age where their passion for life can burn to its fullest than we do for a white-mane whose life’s passion has burned long, slowly diminishing as the wick runs out.”

As a philosophical question, death came up often, and Rosewater was pleased to see Rosemary did not fall to tears as she contemplated the idea. Her ears did tick back briefly, as would be expected of anypony with a heart, as Rosewater’s own had done when she first encountered the conundrum in the Tussen Twee.

“Primline was a passionate pony, Rosemary,” Rosewater said gently. “He mourned the loss of any young pony, and there were many in his age, with plagues and fighting following the Collapse after the Battle of Two Nights. He wrote the Tussen Twee in his latter years, filled with grief, and I fear that his teachings gained much popularity because of the state of affairs when he published it. Every young death ate at him, and you can see it in the other works he authored. The artists most of all.”

Rosemary nodded, tears now filling her eyes, but she closed them and let the tears trail down her cheeks only briefly before she lifted her head. “And Rosethorn had the opposite reaction to the same time. He saw the world falling apart because ponies were closed to each other, that they huddled in small groups, uncertain of the future. His reaction was to open his heart to every pony that came to him for help, and take them in, love them and care for them. Not to cling desperately to one pony alone, for too many single ponies were lost. But to cling to every pony he could, that the loss of one might not break him, as it had Primline.”

“They would be ashamed of us, could they see us now.” Rosewater shook her head slowly, sighing. “They had been the best of friends.”

The next day, after a good night’s sleep and a dinner at the Rosy Glow Tavern that she tried, and failed, to drag Rosewater out for—the hermit claiming that she had things she needed to plan for—Rosemary felt like she was finally ready to actually start on her task instead of worrying about it how she would fail every other second.

Rosewater’s note on her bedroom door that morning helped as well.

Be true to yourself, above all. We will find a way through this, come what may.

The first thing she needed to do was confirm everything on the scroll. Roseate had likely lied every step of the way, trying to trip her up and make her fail. The last task had been meant to get her captured by the Dammeguard, she was certain, and had only avoided that because the pony tailing her had been Cloudy.

Of that, she was certain. Any other pony would have hauled her in by her tail and not given a care that the only edict she was breaking was the curfew—which only applied to Dammers anyway, and then only as a caution.

Also, all of the information on the paper was suspect. The address, the name, and especially the enticements. None of them could be trusted to be accurate. Nevermind the difficulty in acquiring that specific information, Roseate herself would have likely made up the ingredients at random. And the address might be a Dammeguard intelligence operative’s house for all she knew.

She could plumb Rosie for information, but that might leak out in supposition, conjecture, or Rosie herself looking for information for her. As much as she wanted to ask, doing so might put Rosie in danger, or her business—too much asking about for information about sensitive subjects might put her on a watchlist or harm her trust with store owners.

Or she could try and appeal to Roseate to get access to the intelligence reports she needed to complete her mission. That route would be near as dangerous for different reasons, far more obvious. Roseate could simply give her fabricated reports, or outdated reports. The best case on that path would likely be Roseate simply denying her access.

That left her to gather the information on her own.

She chuckled as another thought took hold. She wasn’t on any ‘Arrest on Sight’ lists like her cousins and aunt were. Yet. She could go down to the docks, cross over, and find out for herself.

And maybe run into Cloudy Rose by accident.

She did not check with Rosewater.

The Dockbridge was the most heavily trafficked bridge in either city, being how most goods got to the greater number of deepwater docks, and how the few ships that called Merrie’s three paltry docks home got goods from Damme—most of whom called Merrie home, and a few that were no longer welcome in Damme for one reason or another. Cargo Manifest had gotten his start on the Merrie docks that way, having peeved off the Damme harbormaster enough to earn Roseate’s favor.

It was almost always busy, even well past the hour that most of the other bridges were effectively locked down to traffic. Bits moved, after all, and they didn’t much care how high the sun or moon was in the sky.

However, Rosethorns were an exception. From Roseate down, and only excepting some minor cousins like Rosethorn Seed—who often had legitimate business in Damme when he could be bothered to pretend not to be lazy—they were all villains in the eyes of the everyday Dammer.

I really should drop by the Garden this week… it’s been too long.

She waited in line patiently while the midday stream of commerce made its way across the bridge checkpoints, first on the Merrie side for a cursory inspection and logging of who went across, and the more extensive customs inspections on the other side. Coming the other way, a steady stream of traders and sailors bearing goods and packages passed through the Merrie checkpoints with only a check over a bill of lading and a collection of taxes and tariffs.

“Really?” Rosewood Kiss said when she came up, raising a brow. “Rosemary, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Kiss, it’s nice to see you. How’s your family? Seed still lazy?” She pouted at him and fluttered her lashes. “I don’t suppose there’s a reason you’re assigned to the Dockbridge today and not the Rosewine?”

Kiss rolled his eyes and glanced to the side. “Look, Rosemary, just don’t, okay? Not today. They’re riled up for some reason.”

“But I’m not on any lists. I’ve barely even visited Damme except for galas and the occasional festival.”

“That’s not going to stop them from at least holding you, Rosemary.” Kiss glanced around her and sighed, then waved her past. “But… that’s probably the worst they’ll do, and it’s ultimately your choice.”

Rosemary pursed her lips and nodded. “Trust has to start somewhere, Kiss.” You say as you prepare to go on an open espionage mission.

“Carry on.”

She joined the queue to reach the other side, drawing more than a few looks from Dammers coming over for shopping or, more likely, to meet friends. The common ponies of both cities found the barrier between them more malleable than it had been in a century or more.

Before she’d even made it halfway across the wide bridge to the broad, round halfway point, the Dammeguard had clearly flagged her as a ‘Pony of Interest’ and the stone guardhouse to the side had been roused to produce a pony with sergeant’s wings on their lapel, a pretty silver-maned and gray-coated unicorn with a wary look about her.

Following her was a pegasus stallion with a courier’s light cloth garb and finery.

The guards at the incoming side of the flow of traffic stepped up to her before she could cross the threshold into Damme proper.

“Come with me, please, Rosethorn,” The mare said, glancing at the guard and waving them on to continue checking traffic.

Ears flat, Rosemary followed, though she could have bolted across the bridge. ‘The worst they can do is hold you for a while.’ That was assuming they followed their own laws equally. “I… haven’t done anything wrong,” she said as soon as she stepped into the shade of the guardhouse’s awning.

“Corporal Pridewing, please go fetch the captain,” the mare said. “We have an infiltrator.”

“Excuse me!” Rosemary huffed, snapping her tail. “All I’ve done is cross the bridge. I’m not on any lists! I know. I’ve never even been involved in this stupid conflict!” She stamped a hoof, trying to act indignant and affronted even though she was trying to infiltrate. Just… not the usual way.

“That’ll be for the captain to decide, Rosethorn,” she growled, and glared at the corporal. “Did I stutter? Go fetch the captain!”

“Aye, ma’am!” The pegasus took off and winged off to the northeast, toward the Prim Palace, telling Rosemary enough about where the Captain had her office during the day.

“Um. Hi!” She waved and bobbed her head. “Look, no magic. I’m not veiled. I’m just looking to visit the docks.”

The mare shook her head. She was a pretty mare, silver coat of coat with a dark gray mane that made her seem almost monochrome aside from her dazzling purple eyes. The impression faded somewhat with the glower she leveled at Rosemary, and didn’t say anything.

“I’m Rosemary.”

No response.

“My mother is Carnation?”

“Is she your mother or isn’t she?” the mare shot back.

“Well, she is, I’m just wondering what it takes to start a conversation with you.” Rosemary hesitantly sidestepped closer to her. “What’s your name?”

No answer still, and only a glower, but she didn’t sidle away.

“I thought I would come over during the day and do some shopping. There are things, I hear, in the marketplace that I can’t buy in Merrie.” Rosemary raised her nose and sniffed as a wagon passed by. Neutral hay smells covering for a deeper perfume. The branding on the barrels marked them as one of the cartels that ran on Cargo Manifest’s ships. “You should check those barrels.”

Rumors of Cargo’s exploits, or claimed exploits, had reached her ears multiple times already. She wouldn’t shed even crocodile tears for costing him a wagon… if the mare would listen to her.

“Why?” But the mare touched the shoulder of one of the inspectors and nodded at the wagon.

“Because I’m trying to uphold your laws while I’m in your territory,” Rosemary said, smiling brightly and cocking her head, letting her mane bounce against her neck. “I’m honestly not here as an infiltrator, sergeant. I’m just a curious mare looking to expand my horizons.”

“Platinum,” the mare grunted. “Prim Platinum.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss… missus? Platinum.”

That quip earned her a sidelong look. “I have no interest in flirting.” Platinum raised her head and looked around, then dropped her head. “Rosemary.”

Ah, but you do. Rosemary held back a smile and nodded gravely. “Then I’ll stop.”

“Why are you here, anyway? You had to know this was going to happen.”

Rosemary smiled just a touch, just enough to show her teeth briefly. “Me? I’m trying to see where my lover goes for sales on every other day.”

“Lover, eh?” Platinum chuckled. “Not just friend.”

“Well, no. Rosie’s a sweetie. I couldn’t let her only be a friend. And she wouldn’t let me either.” Rosemary clucked her tongue. “I don’t know how you can get by with just one lover.” Not entirely true, but she had no interest in pursuing a single pony or being monogamous with anypony just yet.

“Easier than it sounds,” Platinum said, then raised her head again as a shock of pink mane, crowned by a silver circlet, rose briefly above the crowd, foreleg shading her eyes as she looked ahead. “There’s the captain. Better have your explanation ready.”

The captain, Captain Pink if Rosemary remembered Rosewater’s lessons on the military hierarchy of Damme correctly, made her way through the crowds at a brisk pace, less smashing her way through than her very presence commanding that others step aside, her mien nearly regal in its intensity, and her bright, Prim blue eyes sharp as she took in Rosemary and her guard.

“Sergeant,” the Captain said in a steady voice, “Corporal Down said you’d caught an infiltrator. Please, explain why you think this mare is an infiltrator.”

Rosemary stared at the sturdy earth pony, her tail flicking as she endured another look of cool command, and licked her lips.

“She’s a Rosethorn, ma’am. Her sisters—”

“Cousins,” Rosemary said with a cough, ears flattening briefly as she ducked her head. “Apologies, sergeant.”

Captain Pink spared her a glance, then gestured for Platinum to continue.

“They’re spies. She’s looking for information on her next target.”

“Next.” The single word from Captain Pink’s voice carried a threat with it as she turned her attention to Rosemary. “Did I hear that right, Lady Rosemary?”

“Y-you know my name?”

“I know the names of all of the notables that might enter my city, my lady. It is the duty of an officer, or one hoping to earn an officer’s bars, to know not only the politics of the situation, but to know all of the players in the game.” She spoke softly, genially, but neither warmly nor cooly. “Answer the question.”

“N-no… I mean, yes, but… I’ve never used scent magic in your city, nor been involved in any of the raids. I-it goes against what I want to do, your… er… my…” Rosemary swallowed and backed up a step, her ears and tail lashing. “Captain.”

“What is it you wish to do, young Rosemary?” Captain Pink asked, her eyes boring into Rosemary’s, as if the very act of staring could provoke a confession.

“Rosie Night!” Rosemary blurted. “She sells candies up and down Confection Row. They are, um… well… they’re somewhat scented, but they’re largely for contraceptive purposes, you see. Or energy. Or just because they taste and smell good.” Rosemary backed up another step and bumped into the guardhouse wall. “Really. I just wanted to see where she goes for work instead of hearing it from her.”

Please don’t see through it.

Captain Pink turned her attention on Sergeant Platinum. “And you, sergeant. What evidence do you have to support your statement?”

To her credit, Platinum didn’t turn resentful eyes on Rosemary. Instead, she hung her head and shook it. “She’s a Rosethorn, and I thought—”

“To insult the daughter of one of the kindest mares I have ever had the pleasure to meet,” Captain Pink said stiffly. “I had the honor of being the Lady Carnation’s escort to more than one gala, Sergeant, and while Rosemary doubtless doesn’t recall me, I let her ride on my back while her mother danced with Lord Dapper.”

“Wait, what?” Rosemary gasped, stepping forward and pressing a hoof to Captain Pink’s shoulder before she knew what she was doing. “You knew my mother?”

“Intermittently.” The captain looked down at the hoof on her shoulder, then up at Rosemary. “Please forgive my guard’s brusqueness. I’ll have words with her tonight, in private. For now…”

Rosemary danced back, holding her hoof to her chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Sergeant, please finish out your shift and meet me in my office when you’re done. If I’m not there, you are to wait until I arrive.” Captain Pink raised a hoof to salute. “Dismissed, sergeant, and corporal back to your posts. Lady Rosemary, with me, if you please.”

“Ma’am?” Rosemary took a hesitant step closer, then another. “Sorry, I’m not going to be arrested, am I?”

“Broken any laws? Any locks?” Captain pink raised a brow.

“N-no. Not that I’m aware of.” Her ears flicked back and she rose to show the heart mark. “This isn’t a crime?”

“Standing up straight? No.” Captain Pink snorted. “Your cousins and aunt wouldn’t be on our arrest lists if they hadn’t broken laws. That,” she said, reaching up to tap Rosemary’s chest and the heart mark on it, “is not a crime. Now come, I’d like to see what the mare I let ride on my back grew up into.”

“C-captain Pink?” Rosemary stuttered, ears flat, blinking away tears. “Why?”

“Because I’ve heard more about you than you may think, and I still remember that silly filly who could barely string two words together wanting so desperately to join her mother.” Warmth bloomed in the smile Captain Pink gave her. “You seem cut from a different cloth than the rest of your family. I’d like to know whether that’s because of your mother or the company you keep.”

It’s more because of her than you think. She couldn’t say that. Rosewater had asked her to keep that so under wraps that she wasn’t sure if she could unwrap it herself even in her own mind.

She nodded towards a large tavern with a sign depicting two alicorns with horns locked and wings outstretched. “Come on. The Two Sisters has a decent fare. If simple. I trust that’s acceptable?”

“Acceptable?” She laughed, her voice cracking. “Stars, Captain Pink—”

“Pink, Miss Rosemary. I’m not your commanding officer. Thank the stars and all the heavens.” Pink chuckled and pushed open the door, holding it open for her. “It’s been a while since I could have lunch with somepony who didn’t feel like they had to salute before every bite.”

The inside of the Two Sisters fell silent in a wave as Rosemary entered, ears slicked back as whispers followed when the closest got a look at her muzzle and breast. She almost backed out again, but Captain Pink pushed her ahead and stepped out in front of her.

“Hey. Quiddit. She’s with me today.” Pink shook her head, flashing the silver circlet. “Table for two, Lilt, if you please,” she said to a nearby mare with an apron around her neck.

“Captain.” Lilt, a mare with a peony blue coat with a flaxen gold mane tipped her head to focus on Rosemary. “Are you okay?”

“Lilt…” Captain Pink rubbed at her muzzle with one foreleg. “Please grant me the belief that I can take care of myself with one little Rose. Look at her. She barely comes up to my chin.”

“Yeah… but you’re, er… tall.” Lilt flushed, an interesting color that turned her almost lavender coat fully lavender. “I’ll get a table ready, Captain.”

“Thank you.” Pink turned to Rosemary and nosed her to follow the mare. “Changing attitudes starts at the bottom, and you and your mother helped to change mine. I hope you don’t change.”

That seemed like a veiled warning if ever there was one. “I-I’ll do my best, Captain, but life is change.”

“It is, and it is not.” Pink said, following closely enough to whisper. “Some change is welcome, some change is not. All must be accepted as happening or about to happen. And adapted to or resisted.”

“That’s remarkably philosophical of you.”

Pink waited until she was seated at the table Lilt had readied for them, then took her own seat and bobbed her head. “I’ve been trained in philosophy as much as a noble. It comes in useful from time to time, being able to argue a point effectively rather than shout at it.”

Rosemary decided to go out on a limb and test her. “Rosewater told me that our families’ ancestors would be ashamed to look on us now.”

“She wouldn’t be wrong.” Pink otherwise didn’t react to either Rosewater’s name or her apparent familiarity with her. “You don’t need to test me, Rosemary. I know quite a lot about you. And you know how. You’ve been waving to my spies and blowing them kisses.”

A nearby stallion coughed on his drink.

“It’s amusing to think of their blushes,” Rosemary said with a wink at the stallion, who was blushing a fine shade of pink. “And they really can’t complain. I’m not the one watching me all day, every day.”

“A fair point. I can’t complain either, because it amuses me, too.” Pink chuckled. “I don’t need to tell you we’ve taken an interest in you. And the only reason you’re on the other side of that table right now is because of a certain somepony who vouched for you.”

Rosemary’s heart caught. “I-is… Is she okay? I’ve heard nothing since—” She cut herself off. She’d almost blurted what her mother had told her.

Pink didn’t seem to mind not hearing the rest. Or already knew it. “She’s fine. Were you really her lover?”

“Almost bonded.”

Pink raised on eyebrow. “Oh, that does tell me quite a lot about you. And her. But enough about the past. Why’d you come here, Rosemary?”

“Rosie Night. She comes here a lot to sell her candies.” She chuckled, flicking an ear. “The contraceptives are really popular over here.”

A mare behind her coughed. “Er… how much?”

“A bit for two in Merrie. I don’t know what she sells them for in Damme. It’s part of what I’m curious about.” Rosemary cocked her head. “She and her family offered me a bond. I’m curious to see what the family business is like, if I’m to help out. Trestle and Velvet do a lot, but I think I could help with some of the other ingredients, too. Better quality. I already sell her a lot of rosemary she uses in some of the sweeter candies.”

The mare coughed again, this time almost choking.

“The plant, I take it?” Pink asked, a grin on her lips.

“Of course the plant. I would never sell myself to her. I give myself to her freely. And she to me.” She parted her lips in a grin showing teeth. “And to Trestle, and to Velvet. Why, just the other night, the four of us—”

The mare fell into a coughing fit, the fake coughs almost turning to real ones.

“Rosemary, you shouldn’t tease too much.”

“Fine. I’ll behave like a good little Rose.”

Pink sighed, rubbing her muzzle, but smiling underneath it. “I have reason to be very afraid. But I like you. Try not to make me not like you.”

Rosemary swallowed, nodding. “I-I won’t.” The mission burned in her mind. It would most definitely make Pink not like her if she found out.

“You shouldn’t have anything to worry about. You seem very sweet. Nothing like your cousin.”

Rosemary swallowed. “You know I live with her. How bad can she be if I live with her?”

Pink smiled, shaking her head. “Ponies aren’t always who we think they are, are they?”

No. They’re not. She longed, not for the first time, to tell somepony their secret. She closed her eyes, instead, and bowed her head. Roseate couldn’t even suspect or the dream would end. Already, she could feel like she was waking up from one, and the reality of the waking world, glimpsed through brief flashes, terrified her.

“No. Not always.”

Collar sighed and slapped the report against his head again, then glared at Cloudy as she came in, an eyebrow quirked.

“You asked for me?”

“What in the blazes of Tartarus is your lover up to?” he asked, tossing the report at her.

Cloudy read it, chuckled with a strained smile. “Doing what she does best. Confounding expectation and custom. Captain Pink met her and said she was courteous to a T, for a Rose anyway. Also, she was kind, and left without causing more of a stir than she usually does.” She held up the report in a crooked foreleg. “Am I supposed to be able to read her mind when I can’t even go see her without making everything, and I do mean everything a thousand times worse?”

“And I thank you for your forbearance. Negotiating this… thing with Rosewater is going to be tricky enough.”

“I don’t trust her. She left behind vials of scent she could use to ease your mind, Collar. Are you certain you kept that filtration spell up the entire time?” Cloudy peered into his eyes again, checking them for the notable sign of dilated or contracted pupils when they shouldn’t be.

“I don’t either. She’s got plans and plots, and I know her goal now. I’m certain she wasn’t lying about that. But I don’t know whether she was being honest about wanting to court me like you have.” Collar tapped the report. “If she’s anything like Rosemary, then….”

“Don’t rely on that.”

“I’m not. And I’m not going to give her the chance.”

“If she’s being honest,” Cloudy said, pushing a hoof against his shoulder, “why not?”

“Because we talked about this, Cloudy. It would never be accepted in Damme.”

“And in Merriedamme?”

The name of the city after the war ended and both cities became one, either contentiously joined by conquest or peacefully through either joint agreement or marriage. He had a strong feeling that Merrie would resist being subjugated. Roseate kept on pushing the idea that Damme wanted to take away their freedom to love, their polyamorous marriages, and their sprawling families.

What they didn’t seem to know was the reason Lace had proposed the family exclusion was precisely because she didn’t want to see those large families broken apart when she still hadn’t been certain of her Reformation.

“You need to think of what happens after the war, Collar,” Cloudy murmured. “Will you let us keep our way of life? Will you even adopt some of our ways?”

“I’m not sure I can do that, Cloudy. I need to keep in mind what my ponies will and won’t accept from me.” Collar sighed and shook his head, shifting the paper around on his desk and trying to imagine the mare who’d caused such a frustrated message from Priceless.

There were obstacles to accepting her as a mate beyond the fact that it would be with a Rosethorn, and a polyamorous one. There was her age, for one, ten years his junior even though she was an adult and had been for four years in Damme, there was a stigma to age gaps that didn’t exist in Merrie. Or didn’t exist like it did in Damme from what Cloudy had told him.

“The language you’re using suggests otherwise, Collar,” Cloudy said, breaking into his reverie. “You’re not saying ‘I can’t accept it.’ You’re telling me Damme would never accept it.” She tapped his shoulder. “But if you want this war to end in your lifetime, Damme would have to accept it. Merrie will never capitulate if a part of the agreement is losing their individuality. Our individuality.”

She was right. “There’s a problem with that logic,” Collar said, leaning against the table and settling in to think. He enjoyed these philosophical discussions with Cloudy, even if they sometimes shattered his conceptions. “I’m only the heir to the ruler of Damme, and all of my legitimacy comes from my mother, and her power comes from the trust her ponies have in her, and in how they think I am upholding her tradition.”

“Does that include monogamy?”

“For the Primfeathers, Manes, Coifs, and Yards, it does. They control a lot of the commerce and influence a lot of the opinions of our ponies, Cloudy. They’re already upset enough that I haven’t chosen one of theirs to court.” He snorted. That was an understatement. Wing Primfeather had been none-too-subtly pressuring his mother to look to the small stable of Primfeather mares who were still unattached. “If I were to even start to look like I was going to court Rosemary as well as you, there’d be an uprising.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “Thirty years of the Reformation has taught your ponies that I’m not evil, Collar, and they’ve already put together that I’m not monogamous. Rumors of my ‘infidelity’ are all over the city, even if the names of the ponies I’ve been close to are still secret.”

“And yet even you have gone monogamous since we’ve gone public.”

“Because I’m afraid of how my appearing to be polyamorous will affect your relationship with your friends and how ponies look at us. That it wasn’t something you chose to accept in our relationship.”

“I did choose to accept it, Cloudy.” She’d come to him after they’d started ‘dating’ in private, little moments together as ostensibly commander and subordinate, something that didn’t have as much meaning in Damme, and asked him if she could have a night with another mare she’d had a previous relationship with. He’d been shocked, and they’d had a long talk afterwards, but…

“I know you did.” Cloudy leaned forward, eyes fixed on his, and kissed him gently on the lips, then more forcefully, a heat spilling from her into him, then fading as she leaned her head against his neck. “I love you, Collar, and I don’t want to hurt you with my desires, but I don’t want to give them up, either.”

“I don’t want you to give them up.”

“You know, then, what that means, Collar. I still want to marry Rosemary.” She glowered at his grin, then smiled and nipped his neck and butted her head against his chin. “Smartass. But I do. I want to marry her. And I want to marry you. In Merrie, in Merriedamme, that shouldn’t be a problem, should it? I should be able to marry both of you if you both consent.”

Would I be able to consent?

He didn’t have to answer that question right away, thankfully, as a pressure against his security and silence spell announced a visitor. A raised brow silenced Cloudy’s next volley of assaults on his conceptions.

It was two letters brought by a guard. One from his mother and bearing her crest, the other a red letter from the Rose Palace. He opened his mother’s first.

Collar,
Please take care of this request from Roseate. I leave you with full discretion on how you want to handle Glory’s negotiation for her return. I still do expect you to pass any details of the negotiation to me for final approval, but I will expect you to hammer out any corrections, rather than expecting me to suggest a solution.
With Love and trust,
Lace

He passed it to Cloudy and studied the last. It was on the official Rose Palace letterhead, complete with the gold-chased cradle of thorned roses with a unicorn horn rising from the pair reminiscent of the wings of an alicorn spread wide.

Lord Primline Collar,

I am writing to set up a meeting about returning my daughter to me, and I would like to set a meeting at the treaty office to discuss the opening terms of a treaty-bonded negotiation.
Further, pursuant to the treaty, I would like a letter from my daughter regarding her treatment and the status of her injury. I expect this as quickly as possible, tomorrow morning.

Yours,
Baroness Roseate Rosethorn

It was her right to request it as a parent, and as long as it wasn’t unreasonable, a request or a demand for communication with a parent or child was sacrosanct under the treaty, and whether birth or adopted—a requirement added to the treaty for Merrie in the earlier years of the post-treaty conflict—no parent could be kept from talking to their child.

“What time is it?” Collar mused, looking up from the letter and considering the grandfather clock in the corner of his office.

Cloudy glanced at the window. “Getting dark, but I don’t doubt Glory would be appreciative of some company. Though… I can’t recall Poppy’s visitation schedule.”

Rosewater looked up from her reading in the sitting room, ears perked as the sound of her mail slot opening and closing without any preamble or warning from her warding of the front door.

A spell delivery, then.

Rosewater sighed and glanced at the book in old Dammerlandic, her written copy of Rosethorn the Wise’s original words, and the translation sitting on the table in front of her, ink drying from her latest bout of translation work.

It wasn’t like she was in the middle of a word, and she was working only on attempting to properly interpret the language through five hundred years of dialectic shift and not let what she had learned about him and his teachings color or cloud her translation of the work true to the word.

“Rosemary?” Rosewater called out, still loath to leave off this passage.

No answer came, and vaguely Rosewater recalled that she’d gone out for a visit with friends that night. A dinner party and possibly an orgy, but after receiving her still unknown mission from Roseate, she’d been more reserved, afraid almost it seemed, even though it’d only been a day or so.

“Fine…” Rosewater carefully marked her place and set the journal down before getting up, stretching, and found herself surprised at how late it actually was.

The mudroom was silent, and a peek out the peephole told her that even the gang of goons that practically lived in the cart stall across the street were gone. Whomever had left the message had made sure it wouldn’t be noticed.

Plain paper envelope, scentless save for the crisp, faintly astringent smell of still-drying ink, told her it was a Rose, and quite possibly one of her cousins or even a hidden sympathizer among her sisters. Somepony who’d noticed Glory’s absence and Rosewater’s minor change in habit and put the two facts together.

The freshness of the ink on the page spoke further to urgency, and the contents sent a chill through her.

The jaguar stalks a strange jungle.

Rosewater spent only a few seconds considering the implications before she snatched up her stalking cloak and her two standby enchanted Citrus Circus.

Roseate was going after Collar.

She didn’t know, but she knew that was what was happening. Somehow, she knew Rosewater had her sights focused on him.

And she was going to take him away before she even had a chance.

Author's Notes:

It's hard to think up a note for this chapter. A lot gets set up here that will come to fruition in the future, and some more exploration of the world and its history as well as a closer look at Rosemary and her impish impulsiveness.

Also, Roseate is just the worst. I have a hard time writing her, honestly, because she's just... that bad. Tyrant level + medieval times + power over ponies.

It also came up a bit during editing that exile really isn't that bad of a punishment, and honestly, it's not the end of the world.

It's not death, no, but there's a reason why it was used so often, especially in city-states like Greece. Being exiled carries with it a stigma, and it can be hard to set up in a new place with that stigma attached to you. As well, it cuts you off from someplace that (in these character's cases) was your home for your entire life. All your friends, loved ones, possibly even potential spouses, plans, wealth, and property... all gone. Unlike the Greek exile, which was for ten years, this is a permanent exile. There's not really a place to include that in the story other than hinting at it (which I think I have already) so I thought I'd make that, and the reasoning for it being so onerous, explicit.

Book 1, 13. Ambush

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The dark of night descended quickly by the time Collar and Cloudy made their plans known and where they’d be with the palace guard, a necessary state with the conflict apparently ramping up again.

Front and center on Priceless’s recent reports were sightings of shadows moving oddly in the night, a sure sign of Roseate’s daughters on the prowl for guards or unattached nobility. They avoided the citizenry for the time being aside from scares and mist faerie spells in windows to startle them and drive down the confidence they had in Lace and her Reformation.

Something that Primfeather Wing banged on and on about whenever he managed to get Collar or Lace alone for a few minutes.

Collar responded in the only way he could: by going out personally.

Tonight, after the visit to the prison, he would do so with Cloudy and have a talk with her while patrolling quietly under an invisibility spell and silence spell.

“Prim Collar to see Rosethorn Glory,” he said at the gate to the prison. “On a matter of the treaty.”

Both guards saluted and the one on the right opened the gate and waved them through. Inside, Prim Plum sat at bored attention behind the warden’s desk, and off to the right in the regular cells, a pony watched him from the bars, his eyes red-rimmed and clearly drunk. Probably he had started a fight and got thrown in to sober up before being fined.

Just another night.

“Visiting Glory on a matter related to the treaty,” Collar said, stopping briefly beside the desk to nod at Plum before continuing on without waiting.

“Aye, sir. Logged.”

Collar made his way up the stairs, pondering when Poppy was due to have his next visitation, and stopped as soon as he got to the top of the stairs and turned the corner. Poppy was on his back, hilted inside Glory riding atop him as she slowly rose and fell, her mouth moving, her ears back as she spoke.

The silence spell on the gate kept both their activity and her words private. They were in the ‘bedroom’ portion of the Rose Cage, but since it was a prison cell, there was no door and no privacy. Not that either of them seemed to be worried at the moment, even as Glory looked up and winked at him.

“I guess visitation is tonight,” Collar groaned as he turned back around and stopped, staring down the stairs at Plum still playing cards behind the desk. If he went down, he’d know something was up, but he couldn’t just…

Cloudy hooked a leg around his and dragged him back to the cage door. “Silence,” she whispered.

He obeyed her command, casting a quarter dome to keep them quiet. “What do we do?”

“Go in, of course,” Cloudy hissed. “We can’t let the guard downstairs know anything is amiss. I don’t want Poppy’s relationship with her to get out.”

“Not yet,” he agreed with a sigh.

He opened the cage door without another word and stepped through into the smell of sex and rutting ponies. This is not how I wanted to see him. Or her. Cloudy closed it behind him and coughed loudly.

Poppy squeaked and thrust up at the same moment, his eyes closing as the look of an orgasm cross his features even as he covered his eyes and muzzle with his forelegs.

“Oh dear,” Glory purred. “Poppy popped. I must say, my lord, you chose an odd time to come visit.”

“It was not by my choice,” Collar growled, turning around and facing out. “Your mother—”

“Bah.” Glory growled, and a wet sound drew a blush to Collar’s ears and cheeks. He could imagine what she was doing to make that sound, and after a moment Cloudy joined him, grinning instead of flushed. “Thank you for ruining the mood, my lord.”

“G-Glory!” Poppy whined, his voice still muffled. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning, love. If my mother is involved in a visit this late at night, she’s either done some atrocity or demanded something last-minute per the treaty.” Glory’s voice was gentle and gently teasing. “Clean yourself, too, and nevermind what they saw. I daresay they’ve done it together before.”

Collar’s cheeks should have caught fire, but a nip from Cloudy on his neck drew him back. “Let me know when you’re decent, please. This is a matter of the treaty, and I’ve no idea when your mother will demand a letter from me.”

“That game?” Glory sighed and the sound of hooves came behind him. “She waited until the last minute to ask for something, yes?”

“I take it she’s done that to you?”

“Many times.” Rustling sounded, and the cushions on the lounging couch sighed as Glory settled in. “Thank you for attempting to spare my love some embarrassment and from being found out as my lover. I fear his fellows would not treat him as gently if they knew.”

“You could not make love to him when he visits,” Collar said, and knew as soon as the words left his lips they were the wrong thing to say.

“I love him, my lord. I have been in love with him, and for him I have eschewed other males. It makes him nervous, you see, if I lay with stallions, the poor dear.” Glory clucked her tongue. “But I digress. We were careful to keep a lookout, and I am not without my illusions even here.”

“You could have used one!” Poppy groused, his hoofsteps coming out of the bedroom. “My lord, I—”

“No need to apologize, Poppy,” Collar said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “I… suppose having it shoved in my face makes me believe it more. You love her.”

“Deeply. It’s because of her that I’ve avoided capture several times, my lord. Her teaching and training has helped me overcome some of my anxieties.” Poppy swallowed loudly. “We’re, um, decent… my lord.”

Collar turned around to find Poppy sitting with a towel around his hips and covering his loins while Glory was much more relaxed, her tail dancing as she watched him with amusement shining in her eyes.

“I didn’t know that. One day, I would like to hear the full accounting of your relationship with her, Poppy. For now… I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Poppy said, bowing from a sitting position, his magic still firmly clinging to the whole of the towel. “She makes me happy.”

“And he, me,” Glory said, smiling. “He was so sweetly polite the first time he ‘caught’ me that I nearly lost my heart then and there.” She chuckled and flirted her tail against his back. “Please, Lady Rose, don’t resist. And how could I resist such sweet politeness? Before I knew it, I was finding excuses to pop over for a quick kiss—clandestine kisses are such a novelty, my lord—and later more.”

“Glory,” Poppy groaned, edging forward and nipping her shoulder. “Please don’t. We could be here all night talking about our courtship. My Lord Collar came here with a purpose.”

“Right, right,” Glory said and sighed. “Fine. What purpose has you jumping at my mother’s beck and call? It had better be important or I may just defect to stick it up her craw.”

“She wanted a letter on the morrow from you ensuring you were treated well and that your injury was tended to.” Collar held out a scroll and an ink set, complete with three extra quills of the finest crow-feather.

“My lord splurges on quality,” Glory mused as she examined one of the implements and inspected the tip. “Magically hardened, still flexible enough for broad flourishes… can I keep them? And have a steady supply of scrolls?”

“As a good behavior allowance, yes,” Collar said. “I presume you know what your mother wants to hear?”

“She wants to hear that I’ve been so poorly mistreated that I cry myself to sleep nightly,” Glory growled. She considered the scroll for a moment before dipping the quill and writing quickly. “Dear mother, I have been treated exceptionally well, and have received the best care for my shoulder. I am, in fact, already healed and more fit than I was when I was captured. I am granted twice-daily the run of the exercise yard, and I use it judiciously. The Primlines have granted me, too, the use of their library, although I must request broad genres rather than books, but I have not been bored to tears with their selection.”

She spoke as she wrote, dipping the quill for every fourth or fifth word to maintain a solid line, her ears flat, her teeth bared.

“I hate her,” Glory said at last, her sweetling voice fading to a tired tone. “Please, please don’t let her take my Poppy.”

“You could marry him,” Collar said gently. “Then—”

“Then my other lovers would be in peril, my lord. They’re both sweet mares, my lord, and I couldn’t bear to see them torn away from the city they love so much.” Glory’s eyes brimmed with tears as she thrust the letter at him. “Don’t let her take him. Promise me.”

Torn between two cities, loves on either side of the river. Collar closed his eyes and flattened the scroll to let the ink dry. Just like Cloudy was, but she couldn’t even have the luxury of meeting Rosemary in clandestine quiet. The young mare was awful at veiling according to her, and a glance at Cloudy said she was thinking the same thing.

“He’ll be safe, Glory. He’s on palace rotation right now, and I wish I could make it permanent, but…”

Poppy cleared his throat. “But showing favorites might cause resentment.”

Glory nodded. “Leave me, please, with my love. We have some talking to do.”

Collar glanced at the ink on the scroll and nodded, rolling it up and passing it to Cloudy to tuck under her wing. “I’ll tell the guard you’re helping her settle her shoulder. That will give you another half hour, Poppy.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Collar padded along the road bordering Primline Park under veil of darkness and dome of invisibility, his thoughts on Glory’s situation, his eyes on the darkness around him, and wondered how he could find out not only who Glory’s lovers were, but also whether or not he could coax them across.

Both of them were quiet, watching the watch patrol go about renewing the enchantments on the unicorn lanterns, strengthening the glow of light around it, making Damme just that much safer. He’d been that unicorn before, nervously taking attention away from the surroundings while his partner kept watch, and then continuing on to the next in a cycle that took them through areas that needed the reassurance of a guard presence.

Their goal was the watch posts, to bolster the watch and receive any new intel about what had gone on since the last round from Priceless. Roseate might be trying to draw attention away from the border with that ploy, focus their intelligence efforts elsewhere, and they needed to know if there was any change in the pattern of slinking or conversations in the dark.

Somewhere out there, maybe, was Rosemary too. He’d need to decide on a regular watchpony to keep tabs on her when she inevitably made her nighttime excursions again, and alert him personally if she did anything, but…

Cloudy’s mind was clearly in the same space, she doubtless wishing it were her, and that she might reunite. But also scared of it at the same time. It would make things doubtless harder on both of them if they were to meet, regardless of what happened.

They made their way quietly down the road until a unicorn lantern flickering caught their attention. It happened sometimes when too many bugs died in the glass globe and clogged the etchings with their legs and wings, and all it needed was a quick shake to get them cleaned up enough to work properly.

As they approached it, Cloudy’s wings flared and she jerked her hoof up to her mouth, whistle at the ready in the instant before a mass of green smacked against her chest and exploded into vines and roots, the latter digging in between the cobbles and the former snapping around her barrel, forelegs, and wings.

“Collar!” Cloudy screamed, the sound not echoing as it should have.

Collar blew his whistle in the next instant, the piercing shrill tone dying without echo, and in the distance the pair of guards continuing their rounds didn’t react one bit to the distress call.

“Rosewater, you bitch!” Collar roared.

“Oh, dear me… she is going after you, isn’t she?” Roseate’s older, cultured voice purred from the darkness before she stepped into view even as a mist-shroud grew about them, jewelry on her neck and ankles glowing bright with stored power being released. Silver and gold, expensive sapphires in intricate spell-worked latices. “My dear—”

Collar slammed a dome over her, blocking her from his sight before she could use her talent, and hopefully—

Searing pain crashed through his head as a jagged spike of power lanced his dome, shattering it into silver shards that evaporated as they fell.

“My dear Collar,” Roseate continued, her tone chiding as she began to glow, her figure limned with rapturous beauty, her eyes shading to the same pink as Cloudy’s… and he couldn’t look away from her. She was beautiful, stunning, worthy of his adoration, and the insidious thought began to claim she was worthy of setting aside the feud for a night. “Do play nice. My daughter might not know your weaknesses, but I do.”

“Don’t look, Collar!” Cloudy cried out, her voice straining as she strained against the vines.

He snapped his eyes closed and snapped the shield over himself this time, his mind reeling from the shock of power and the still throbbing ache of a spell imploding. At once, he tried to snap the vines from around Cloudy’s wings and barrel and give her a chance to flee, but as soon as he did, the lance of power pressed against his shield, and he had to let it go before she snapped it once more.

“Do look, Collar,” Roseate purred, prancing about to stand between him and Cloudy, her tail raised and bobbing, her marehood exposed as she glowed once more, the slickness of her marehood shining and calling to his reeling mind. “Do more than look. Do what your stallionhood asks.”

“Rut you, Roseate,” Collar growled, closing his eyes and calling on the calm of training to remember. He needed to cut Cloudy free without hurting her, difficult with the rootbeds holding her hooves firmly to the pavers of the street and snapping new tendrils around her legs each time he cut one.

The calculation passed through him in an instant as he tore and cut the vines from her.

She fell still, her ears flat back, her head turned as she looked straight at Roseate. “No… p-please…”

“She asks so nicely,” Roseate purred, raising a hoof to touch Cloudy’s chin, then dancing back when Cloudy snapped at it. “Feisty. Strong-willed… oh, I can see what you like her, little Collar. I’ll let you keep her if you come with me willingly.”

Collar tried to teleport both he and Cloudy away, but the spell wouldn’t accept it, not while she was still bound to the earth so tightly. He might as well try to move the sun and the moon. Instead, he snapped another dome around them and poured his will into it, making it strong as steel, and settled in while he tried frantically to release Cloudy from her entrapment.

“Tsk. Very well, imp.” The musky fragrance of sex and mare filled his nostrils before he could think, filling his mind with thoughts of sex. Mounting Cloudy right there, rutting in the streets and…

Collar broke free again, snapping a filter around his and Cloudy’s muzzles. “You won’t get us that easily, Roseate.”

“Mmm. All I need to do is—” Another lance of power jabbed at his shield, drawing more strength to resist the point-pressure of a unicorn as powerful as Roseate, but letting the shield flex instead of resisting entirely. The air filter fuzzed out and the smell of sex poured in again. “—get you in the right mood. It’s been a while since I’ve had a challenge, and nopony has ever resisted me for long, dear Collar.”

He knew she was right, and he had no idea how many tricks she’d brought with her. All it would take was a moment of weakness.

“Save yourself,” Cloudy panted, her tail flagging, then snapping flat to her rump. “Get help, Collar. Don’t let her take you.”

“Mmm… but you won’t, will you, dear Collar?” Roseate’s gleeful harangue stiffened his resolve not to leave Cloudy to her. “Love is powerful leverage, is it not?” Another lance jabbed against his shield as she stood just on the other side of it, her hoof caressing the surface, then brushing her flank against it, her tail trailing over it. Trying to tempt him into lustful thoughts.

Then, in an instant, the scent vanished.

“You will step away from my mate,” Rosewater’s voice called out in the clarion silence of the dome. “Or I will face you in a duel again, mother.”

“My traitor daughter, come to protect the enemy?” Roseate sneered, stepping away from the dome. “I’ll have you exiled for this, daughter or no, heir or no.”

“That was your plan?” Rosewater laughed.

Collar dropped the sight and physical shield to watch, his mind numb from the shocks of lance and shield meeting. He couldn’t have held it for much longer, and he needed to use the time Rosewater had granted him with the distraction to recover his reserves enough to call for help somehow.

“Dear mother,” Rosewater said in an equally sneering tone, “protecting one’s mate is not treasonous, and I will fight you again in the arena to claim my right of free association.”

“Your mark is not on him, daughter. He’s open season for any. Not even the pegasus has laid claim to him in our way.”

“He is hardy against your way, Roseate,” Rosewater shot back, her expression flickering, her ears setting back, the only sign of apprehension or fear he could see in her. “I have opened courtship with him, and I will protect him from you.”

“Like you protected your other lovers?”

Rosewater flinched, but stayed firm. “I’m done bowing before your demands and your threats. You can’t take him, can’t threaten him, can’t threaten me with sending them away. I will not give!”

“Then I will see you beaten now,” Roseate hissed. “Did you think I was unprepared for you?” She stood straighter, her voice crackling with authority. “Attend to this, Lord Primline Collar and the traitor Cloudy Rosewing, I accept the duel my daughter has issued, and as my prerogative as the challenged, I demand immediate satisfaction. Here. Now.”

Rosewater’s stance grew firmer before Collar had the chance to answer. “Accepted!”

It was the only chance Collar had at the moment. To trust in Rosewater’s ability to defeat, or at least weaken, her mother. “Witnessed,” he said weakly, slowly regaining his magic and shaking off the effects of Roseate’s spells. He would wait for the right moment to strike, let them weaken each other first.

Beside him, Cloudy trembled and pressed against him. “Shield your mind, if you can.”

Rosewater swallowed back bile as she danced across the bridge in shade and silence, barely bothering to distract the guards with a splash in the river below, hoping they didn’t think it was a pony and waste time and effort searching for whomever had just fallen in.

But she didn’t have time to think about that, and melted into the shadows of an alleyway, relying more on her cloak than her veil to keep her hidden, but keeping it up as she crossed street-after-street. Keeping as much magic in reserve was going to be a necessity of facing Roseate. She’d only won her duel with her mother because of the unexpected nature of the perfumes she’d used, and the mental state she’d kept herself in for the duration.

It was the only way to effectively guard against emotional manipulation through scent-magic or otherwise.

She let her fear build, welcoming the worry that Roseate might take Collar, embracing that idea, and sent her thoughts down darker paths still, waking the old despair of losing Rosemary that she’d poured into a bottle and distilled into liquid loss. By the time she crossed the street leading to Primline Park, the most open place for her mother to play her tricks, she was reliving Carnation being taken away, grief and anguish burning her eyes with unshed tears as she funneled it all into the fore of her mind.

Her legs trembled by the time she found the telltale signs of a mastercrafted mist veil, and her ears wanted to droop, but she needed to stay strong and endure the ache of everything that had happened to her.

Roseate hadn’t spelled the border against intrusion, only sound and sight, and as she stepped through, the knot of magic at the base of her horn had started to leak out as sickly purple sparks that faded into shadow before they fell past her forelock.

In the center of the dome of silence, a smaller silver dome sat, almost too small for one pony. Magic sparked against the surface, and the silver dimmed and flared as Collar fought it off.

Surprise attack. That was the only explanation. This had been a carefully orchestrated plan, and Collar had at least listened to her, it seemed, and wasn’t looking at the shining figure of Roseate, the magic to draw the eye washing against Rosewater like a muddy stream rushing around a boulder. It could touch her, but it would not drown her.

A quick spell drawn from the grass and flowers around her, their neutral scent to counter the carnal one she could smell even from outside the dome of illusion.

“You will step away from my mate,” Rosewater ground out, halting the quaver with force of will, and stepped all the way in, dropping her veil and holding the magic at bay. If Roseate suspected, she would flee, and she needed to teach her mother a lesson in surprise attacks. “Or I will face you in a duel again, mother.”

Roseate startled only a little, then her smile broadened as she stepped away from the dome, her glamour sharpening into an angry aura that tried to tell her to bow down, to not provoke her further.

It was a broadcasted glamour, weak compared to the boiling surge of despair Rosewater welcomed, taking the glamour and using it to further fuel each of the components of her spell despite her heart aching.

“My traitor daughter,” Roseate crooned, her smile turning to a sneer, the anger billowing into rage, “come to protect the enemy? I’ll have you exiled for this. Daughter or no. Heir or no.”

“Was that your plan all along?” Rosewater forced a cold laugh free. It made too much sense. Of course Roseate would do that, then take that pony away… perhaps even use that pony as leverage. Then call her traitor and disown her, exile her, and be free of a nuisance. She took that and fed it into the cold fire burning in her heart. Exiled from the city she loved, from the friends she hoped would still be there at the end of all of the mess, never to see them again.

Collar dropped his shield and slumped against an entangled Cloudy. That explained why he hadn’t left, why he hadn’t even tried. Even as long as it took him to exit the veil, find help, and come back would be too long away from Cloudy.

“Dear mother,” Rosewater said, pushing back the ache long enough to sneer back, “protecting one’s mate is not treasonous, and I will fight you again in the arena to claim my right of free association.”

“Your mark is not on him, daughter. He’s open season for any. Not even the pegasus has laid claim to him in our way.”

The Rosethorn Way. Take whatever a pony wanted, and damn everypony else. The corrupted Rosethorn way. “He is hardy against your way, Roseate,” Rosewater shot back, shivering with the fear that she would win and take her one chance at happiness away. That, too, went into the fire, leaving her again cold and empty, each belief building on the others, her words bravado against the maelstrom. “I have opened courtship with him, and I will protect him from you.”

“Like you protected your other lovers?”

Too close to reality, her hold over the calm coldness faltered and the maelstrom almost consumed her. One look at Collar, his determined resistance, and Cloudy’s defiant snarl, fed her resolve. “I’m done bowing before your demands and your threats. You can’t take him, can’t threaten him, can’t threaten me with sending them away. I will not give!”

Perfect. “Accepted!”

“Witnessed,” Collar croaked, raising his head and letting it fall, either acting or recovering. His eyes on Rosewater, sharp and clear, told her he was playing weak for his chance to break Cloudy free.

Please don’t look, Collar, she thought as she circled wide, letting purple light spill along her horn, releasing the torrent of fear, anguish, and despair into her magic and casting a purple light around her, sparks bursting into shadowy mist as they fell from the tip.

Roseate opened with a tanglevine, her magenta magic empowering the living core of vines to explode into a writhing mass before it was halfway to her. A touch of the emotionally charged magic uncoiled the enchantment binding the vines to life and they rotted away in seconds, leaving behind foul magical matter that dissipated slowly in a green fog.

She didn’t waste words as she advanced on Roseate, through the mists of perfume that broke apart on a shield of purple light, another tanglevine that disintegrated before it had even been activated.

“You will be exiled!” Roseate roared, giving up the slow retreat around the inner wall of mist and breaking out into the wider parkland. “Across the sea, never to see your precious Rosemary again!”

Rosewater followed, cutting apart the veil even as whistles flared and screamed around them. This won’t stop me, mother. Neither could she let the fight last longer. It was a risk, but Rosewater teleported in close, taking Roseate by surprise, and locked horns with her, magic spilling free to almost freeze her in place, purple flickers of lightning crossing beaten back by Roseate’s will.

No Rosary, Roseate grunted and pushed back. “Insolent child! You will not beat me this way!”

Fear surged in her, that Roseate had found a way to beat her even here. For long seconds, she struggled against Roseate’s will, resisting.

“You’re weak,” Roseate growled. “Weak, daughter. Submit.”

“Never.” She held fast as Rosate’s hatred boiled against her fear, sapping her strength more the longer it went on, will against will. Rosemary. She’ll take her from you if you lose.

She’ll take Collar. Cloudy. She’ll win.

She embraced it, believed it, and forced it against the surging tide of hate, standing straighter and snorting as she drew from her core and beat down hatred with fear. Like she always had. It had been her strongest emotion, the fear of loss, the fear of another being taken from her. The fear of seeing another pony she cared so dearly about dying in front of her again.

It could be Rosemary.

Roseate cried out, screaming her terror as Rosewater’s magic surged through her, then faded back to a trickle of purple flaring around the tip of her horn, that final image of Rosemary’s still form keeping her upright, keeping the power of the spell flowing, dangerous still as she watched Roseate recover, shaking, tears in her eyes that had never been there for a personal reason.

“Submit, mother, and I’ll make sure they’re gentle.”

Roseate shifted her jaw and crunched down, sunlight and citrus spilling from her lips as she snarled wordless rage and vanished with a flash and pop.

Rosewater stood still, shaking, as whistles redoubled and the wings of pegasi overhead alerted her to the danger she was in. Unveiled, in the middle of a park, with dozens of new witnesses to the end of her duel with Roseate. To hear the vitriol between mother and daughter and add to the Rose Terror rumors and tales of how dangerous she was.

Unprepared, unexpected combat had left her nearly drained. She hadn’t expected Roseate to be so skilled at mental resistance, nor so ready to pool her hatred. She’d felt all of it, every reason her mother hated her, and it sickened her to think of half of them.

The pegasi coming in for landings in a circle around her could take her easily if she didn’t use her Citrus Circus and put herself out for at least as long as Roseate would be. She needed to be at the Treaty Office tomorrow, however, to be there when Collar attested to the duel and its outcome.

“Collar,” she said aloud, shaking herself from the numbness that came over her thoughts. It’d been like that after the arena duel as well. Worse, since the source of her fear had been so recent. She staggered to Collar and Cloudy, reaching without dark magic to crush the heart of the vines holding her in place into gelatin and fiber, releasing her. “Are—”

“Stay back!” Cloudy cried, leaping forward to put herself between Collar and Rosewater, wings wide, crouching and ready to rush her. “I won’t let you take him, Rosewater!”

The thought was laughable. In her state? She snorted and looked around at the pegasi landing all around her, staying back despite their overwhelming number, and she couldn’t blame them for their caution.

“I’m hardly in a state to be taking anything, let alone Collar,” Rosewater murmured, drawing free her own Citrus Circus candy and hesitating, looking around her at the ponies gathered.

Rumors would spring from tonight, from both sides of the river. What, she didn’t know. She wasn’t yet exhausted enough to need a candy to return home, but if she had to fight her way out…

How much can I salvage? What was the plan for tonight? Did I have one? She was still acting on her old plans, the ones where she kept Roseate in the dark about whom she was courting. Now Roseate knew she was at least pursuing Collar and had won her right to try and court him.

Collar rose to his feet smoothly, shaking his head free of whatever state Roseate had put him in, and said, “Stay back. All of you. Let me deal with this.”

Rosewater swallowed and turned, the candy half-unwrapped and to her mouth before a silver dome descended over her. She didn’t think he had enough strength to keep her in place, nor even to fight her with anything meaningful. She could simply teleport away, but there was still fuzz in her horn from abusing her own emotions like that, a lingering ache deep inside that would stay with her for days, if not weeks. Taking the candy would worsen it.

She’d known there would be consequences for using her talent to distill her darker emotions into pure magical essence, but she accepted it just as she had to protect Rosemary.

But he hadn’t shackled her and told them to take her. That fact alone kept her from attempting to break free and bluffing her way back to Merrie or at least until the fuzziness cleared and she could cast something other than simple spells through her horn without any lingering side-effects.

Getting caught is a major lingering side-effect.

She was about to risk it when Collar stepped through the barrier and pulled the candy from her grasp. He didn’t let the barrier drop, though, and merely glowered at her.

“What were you doing in Damme tonight?” A moment later, his expression softened, and he relaxed. “Not that I’m ungrateful, understand, but what’s your motive here?”

“Hoping I could see you,” Rosewater tried, offering a half smile along with the lie.

He sighed and unwrapped the candy the rest of the way. “You’re usually so good at lying,” he said with a sigh and sniffed the candy. “This is one of the enchanted candies you gave to Cloudy?”

“When she demanded one, yes.” Rosewater pulled it from his grasp again and rewrapped it, the urgent need for it seemingly passed.. “You’re not going to take me in?”

“I should.”

“But you’re not going to.” Again.

“No.” Collar glanced to the side as Cloudy rushed in, wings half-arched and ready to downsweep and clear out the air. He restrained the charging mare with a hoof firmly against her breast and shook his head. “Tomorrow at the Treaty Office? To register the duel? You have plenty of witnesses to your victory.”

“Tomorrow,” Rosewater said firmly, shifting her attention from Collar to Cloudy. “Take care of him for us.”

The haunted look in Rosewater’s eyes lingered in Collar’s mind as he let the shields of sight and sound remain, a look of deeper pain than he’d thought she’d been capable of. And that magic, unlike anything he’d ever seen, had pulled against his horn, feeling like a whirlpool of negativity, drawing his mind to fear and doubt.

What did it cost you to cast that spell? He glanced at Cloudy, staring thoughtfully at the ground where a black wrapper had fallen, spilling out just a touch of sunlight where the folds of it had unraveled.

“Was the duel like that?” He asked finally, picking up the candy and pocketing it.

“Nothing like it.” Cloudy’s ears flattened as she looked up into his eyes. “The color, yes, but I thought that was the perfume she’d used, not…”

“Not the raw magical aura?”

She nodded and pawed at the grass, sniffing lightly. “There was no perfume, other than Roseate’s lust. It was raw magic, Collar.”

Distilled fear. He shivered. The ponies of the Crystal Empire had been able to crystalize Love, and then fallen to Fear and Despair. That had been the start of the fall, according to the histories, a mere few months before the Battle of Two Nights had sundered the sky, leaving Princess Celestia victorious over a broken land.

The Rose Terror. He had an inkling now, of how she’d earned the title, and it wasn’t merely hyperbole. It was literal.

And yet… Collar closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head. “She is a complicated mare.”

Cloudy gave him a look that bordered on rolling her eyes. “As you say, sir.”

“I do say. Let’s…” Collar dropped the shields and straightened himself despite his exhaustion. All around the shield, a small army of ponies stood waiting for his word, some with nets ready to throw, some that even started to throw as soon as the shield vanished, then pulled them back hastily, looking sheepish.

“She got away?” somepony asked.

“Are you unharmed, my lord?” another called.

“I am unharmed. Thank you for your quick response, all of you. I am proud that all of you asleep remembered the new standing order. Tonight, you witnessed a sanctioned duel between Rosewater and Roseate. All of you saw the outcome, and I expect you to report it accurately should the Royal Guard question you.” Collar bowed his head briefly. “It is for that reason that I was compelled to let her go.”

“Because she was in a duel?”

“No. Because she started the duel over me. Roseate chose to try and pursue it now.” Collar glanced at Cloudy, took a breath, and let it out. “Because of that, I was able to talk Rosewater down afterwards rather than face off against her. I did not want a repeat of the same incident that happened here four months ago.”

Several ponies looked nervously askance at each other, but the general consensus seemed to be agreement that it had been the smarter course of action. He heard ‘Rose Terror’ whispered a few times.

What kind of madness are you playing with, Rosewater?

The darkness of exhaustion and the pull of the nightmares to come were already closing in about her as she worked the spells to open the door.

Before she was halfway done, Rosemary opened the door for her from the other side, letting her stagger in.

“What did you do?” There was concern, love, and a hearty mixture of exasperation and a touch of anger. “Stars, m—” Rosemary cut herself off, biting her lip, fear in her eyes as she darted looks about the hallway, as if one could see an eavesdropping spell.

Too close. “EIther ruined our future here or saved it,” Rosewater breathed, sinking to the hallway floor as the last of her energy drained away. “Time will tell.”

A few minutes, or moments, passed before a blanket settled atop her, and Rosemary settled in beside her. “It’s going to be cold tonight.”

“Why…” Rosewater sank down deeper into the well of sleep, towards the waiting nightmares belief always brang. Tomorrow… tomorrow after…

“I’m exhausted, too, idiot mare. I can’t carry you,” Rosemary murmured in her ear and settled down cheek-by-cheek. “And you can’t sleep out here alone. You’ll catch something.”

“You’re too kind to me,” Rosewater murmured, opening one eye to watch as Rosemary turned down all the lamps in the house. What did I do to deserve you in my life? She couldn’t shake the fear and doubt so easily, and tears came to her eyes, unbidden.

“Let me mother you for once.”

Warmth settled in beside her again, weighty, and acted as a faint ember in her thoughts as her dreams descended into the despair of true belief.

Book 1, 14. Meetings

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Cloudy sat perched on a cloud high over the treaty office, watching as Rosewater stepped into the Merrie treaty office and resigned herself to enduring the jeering of the Merrieguard that saw her only as a traitor. She sighed and closed the scope, settling in to wait for Collar to arrive.

He was still briefing Captain Pink on the situation from last night, and had sent Cloudy ahead to either meet Rosewater, a prospect she wasn’t exactly thrilled with, or at least tell him which treaty office she intended to use.

She, on the other hoof, wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with the Merrieguard that could harass her, but not actually detain her under the treaty flag. It would not be a fun day. It was… strange how much she missed being in the Merrieguard, though. The structure and teasing that went hoof-in-hoof with living in Merrie.

It was miles above the more rigid structure of the Dammeguard that incorporated the stiff history of not dating or even making eyes at her comrades. It had taken her six months to prize loose the first gentle kiss with another mare, Sunrise Primfeather. And they’d kept it secret, so very secret that they were cool to each other in the barracks before Cloudy had moved out, as was the prerogative of an officer.

Movement below, at the Treaty Office door in Merrie, drew Cloudy’s attention again, and she didn’t need a spyglass to know it was Rosewater stepping out again, the pennant of the treaty flapping against her flanks as she made her way past the line of Merrieguard that didn’t bother to harass her.

What’s your game?

“Is it even a game for you?” Cloudy whispered, drawing the spyglass free and drawing a bead on Rosewater’s face, nothing but determination and resignation visible through the unsteady glass. Any finer study would require that Cloudy actually go down there and interact with her.

But also, below her, she saw a trio of Dammeguard emerge from the Dammeguard guardhouse and approach the Treaty office before Rosewater had even made it halfway across the bridge. Word had already spread about the fight, and they must have known why she was there.

Cloudy wasn’t stupid enough to believe that they would thank her for her protection of Collar. She was still the Rose Terror to them, and the end of the fight had demonstrated that to all of them. Rosewater could wield terror as a weapon.

She spent another few moments after the trio below and Rosewater came into close proximity, the latter ignoring the former and taking a seat beside one of the Royal Guards and engaging him in quiet conversation for a few seconds before settling in to wait.

The trio of guards, all of them fairly anonymous from above with their padded armor and helmets, kept their attention focused on the closest danger from a ‘safe’ distance of a few yards.

She needed to let Collar know what to expect.

You chose to use the Damme Treaty Office… why? Rosewater asked herself as she sat at apparent rest outside the office, waiting for Collar to arrive. She had the option to use the Merrie Treaty office as well, but the royal guard wouldn’t stop Roseate from coming in while she was having… a talk, a stars-blessed talk in the daylight with Collar.

Even if it meant she had to do so in front of a representative of the Royal Guard.

They were all very cordial, even to her, as they were supposed to be. Cordial, but not friendly, and her attempt at polite conversation was met with gentle rebuffs and stoic smiles.

So she settled in to wait, breathing in the free air of Damme waking, thankful she could get a sense of the city during the day from the breeze that wafted close, and closed her eyes for a few moments to just take it all in.

The bakeries fixing the pastries and loaves of bread, each one adding its own flavor to the morning that she so rarely had the chance to simply savor. The wind did its part to help her sink into the bliss that helped keep away the darkness. It was a new sensation, and that, for now, was enough.

Before she could settle in for the wait, several Dammeguard came out of the bridgegate post, eying her warily, their hooves curling against the dark stone, itching to arrest her, no doubt.

But while she wore the gold and white sunburst pennant indicating treaty business, she was untouchable so long as she did nothing to violate the terms in which the mark had been granted. Sitting quietly, waiting for the other party to arrive most definitely did not violate those terms.

After a few minutes, she felt the despair creeping back in again. She could fight it off with novel scents only so long, and stamping it down, in her experience, only made it ressurge later, more potently. Even she couldn’t manage keeping the after-effects under wraps for long.

Conversation helped, but her only attempted partner was little more than a puppet until he was off-duty. While he was on-duty, his thoughts and words were locked away behind protocol.

Her only other prospects were eying her like she might grow another head, spit flame out one and ice out the other.

She cleared her throat, making several of them jump. Amusing, but it wouldn’t serve her purpose to scare them out of their wits. “Pardon, but might I ask your names? If we’re going to sit here staring at each other, I would at least like to converse as civilized ponies. I’ve no idea how long it will take for Lord Collar to arrive, and I’ve no wish to sit here bored out of my wits until he does.”

“Don’t tell her, she can use it to control your mind!” One of them said, a petite pegasus with a distinctly un-Primmish mane-cut, shorter than they usually preferred, and a sunset-gold coat and reddish-gold mane.

“Nonsense. I’m neither a vampony nor a betoverend paard,” she said, offering a tidbit of an ancient myth they wouldn’t understand. Perhaps curiosity would lure out their conversational skills. “And I am under treaty-granted truce. Do you trust that I am not strong enough to defy the will of her glorious Highness, Princess Celestia?”

That seemed to give them pause, at least.

“How can we trust you won’t wait until the truce ends?” asked another. “You tried to steal the Lord Collar. Again.”

Is that the story, now? “I did no such thing. I will sign an affidavit signed to the Treaty to that effect, and Lord Collar will confirm it for you when he arrives.” She sniffed and raised her nose. “Truly, you all believe the worst of me.”

“Because you are the worst,” a third added.

Rosewater pursed her lips, wishing Rosemary were there to give her advice on how to step her way out of this hole. Without tripping over a dozen and a half traps that would set her mother to declaring her a traitor and attempting to exile her. She would not succeed, but neither would Rosewater win, either. She was truly stalemated with her mother.

“You’re not denying it,” the first said.

“Would it do me any good?”

She opened her mouth, seemed to consider her words, then ducked her head. “No.”

“Then why waste everypony’s time?” Rosewater blew out a breath and allowed herself to show a moment of consternation. “What about when this war is over? If it ended tomorrow. Would I still be a villain in your eyes?”

The fiery little pegasus chewed her lip, actually thinking it over. A first step. “But the war won’t end tomorrow, will it?”

So much for hope. “No. Most likely not.”

“I’m Sunscatter Firebolt,” she said, rather unexpectedly stepping forward. “I would call you, er, the Rose Terror, but that seems a little rude.”

“Rosewater is the name I’m usually known by on the other side of the river, though some few of my own call me that as well.” She let her distaste for that show as well. “If you ever have occasion to duel your own mother, avoid it being a public one, Sunscatter.”

Sunscatter flinched, ears folding back. “You… fought Roseate?”

“And won. Twice. The second of which I am here to officially recognize.” Rosewater shook her head. “‘Twill be my mother’s second embarrassment by my hooves, and she hates me for it.”

“Stars, I can almost pity you.” Sunscatter coughed, then, and stepped back. “But that doesn’t excuse everything else you’ve done.”

“Nay, it does not. I have done things I am not proud of, in service of my city. I will do more, if I must. ‘Tis my duty, just as it is yours to stop me.” Rosewater held up a hoof, offering a greeting. “It is well met, Sunscatter. Should I meet you on a raid, I promise not to harm you or to take you.” It was an empty promise. She would avoid all of them save Prim Collar, but it cost her nothing to offer it.

“You could just… not raid,” Sunscatter grumbled, not making a move towards Rosewater. “Or, you know, turn yourself in.”

Rosewater shivered, rolling her shoulders. Rosemary would be alone in such a case. “Nay. I cannot do either, I’m afraid. But ask your brethren and sistren. Have I harmed a one of you? Have any of you seen me, when I did not wish it?”

Sunscatter hesitated again, glancing between the hoof still held up, then at Rosewater, her mouth opening, then closing, hesitating as she chewed her lip, then finally ducked back. “You still took them without their permission. We haven’t retaliated.”

Rosewater closed her eyes and held the hoof aloft for a moment longer. That was true. “I know.” It was her turn to hesitate, to look inward at what she’d done, all the things she’d done in the name of protecting Rosemary. She lowered the hoof to the pavement. “I wish things were different.”

She sat in silence for the rest of the wait, and the Dammeguard seemed to be fine with that state of affairs.

Dealing with her inner demons was her price for doing things her own way. Yesterday, she’d given them fuel, and she couldn’t rely on the ponies she’d used as fodder for her mother’s game to alleviate their gnawing.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Prim Collar and Cloudy Rose arrived, escorted by a small contingent of Dammeguard that joined Sunscatter and the rest at a cautious distance.

Cloudy eyed her suspiciously, glancing between her and the guards, then the pair of Royal Guards on station outside the office. “You’re here early.”

“I am here on time, since we never decided on a time. I take it you were watching,” Rosewater said, raising her eyes to the slowly scudding clouds above them. “And fetched him from whatever task kept him busy.”

Too much. Rosewater resisted the urge to bite her tongue out of annoyance at its flapping and, instead, smiled.

“She was. I asked her to let me know when you decided, since I can’t exactly send you a letter, seeing you don’t live in the Rose Palace.” Collar said with a sigh. “The rest of you, why are you here and not at your duty stations?”

“Sir! It’s…” Sunscatter glanced at Rosewater, swallowed, and said, “It’s the Rose Terror, sir. We’re making certain she doesn’t do anything to violate the treaty.”

“That, lieutenant,” Collar said stiffly, “is not for you to patrol. That is for the Royal Guard.” He hesitated, though, and glanced between all of them, then at Rosewater. “But perhaps you can learn something. Captain Pink will have words with you if you are not at your assigned patrol stations in the next five minutes. And I’ll have you use her proper name. You do know it, yes?”

“Sir! Yes. She… told us.”

Rosewater gave him a mirthful smile, smoothing over the forced look of it with a chuckle, when he jerked a look at her. “I was bored. They were nervous. Entertainment was had by all.”

“I’m sure,” he said drily and turned to the guards. “You have your orders. Be good ambassadors of our fine city, if you would like to not be scrubbing culverts, and remember your manners.”

A chorus of acknowledgments met his dismissive wave of a hoof.

Once they had all left, Collar turned his attention back to her. “Given your proclivities, I imagine that entertainment included a livid recital of some of your bedroom exploits?”

And he was a part of the problem with her reputation, as he kept proving. “I have not had bedroom exploits in a year, Collar. Save by my own hoof and horn.”

That seemed to shock Cloudy into an incredulous stare. “Liar.”

“And there’s the other reason why my reputation is so depressingly low. I am a liar, a serial philanderer, by Prim standards, and a soul-sucking betoverend paard on top of being a vampony and probably a foal stealer, because why not believe the worst of me?” She huffed, tossing her mane and stamping a hoof. “Do you truly believe me incapable of not having sex for a whole year, Cloudy Rose?”

“Obviously.” Cloudy looked away, rubbing a foreleg against the other. “But not the rest. Thanks. For last night.”

“It was a thwarting of my mother’s plans. Thanks are not necessary.” But they were welcome. Her estimations of Cloudy Rose ticked up a few notches. “Shall we conclude business so that I may remove my distasteful self from your presences?”

Collar clicked his tongue. “Stop that. You didn’t ask us here—”

“I did not ask the both of you at all. I asked you,” Rosewater snapped. “If you wish to hear me degraded further, please catch up to your guards and listen to their gossip. They would be quite willing to further lower your opinion of me.”

“Stop the theatrics,” Collar growled. “This isn’t like you. You have a reputation, did you not expect it? You could have waited until we came to your side.”

Rosewater stared at him, her eyes burning at the rebuke. It shouldn’t have hurt her. She should have had a bit more self-control than that.

“Have you ever considered, Lord Collar, that my reputation disturbs me? Have you? I have one place that I can be free of it.” She snapped her tail and closed her eyes, pulling the cold mask back over herself, forcing her face to calm serenity, her ears to right, and her tail to still. “Let us be done with our business that I might return to it.”

That the display was borne of truth did nothing to lessen its effectiveness. Collar put a hoof to her hindquarters as she opened the door to the office.

Cloudy swallowed as she stared at her. “Does it hurt you that much, Rosewater?”

She shot the pegasus a glare, then jerked her head in a nod. “I am not a monster, Cloudy. I’m…” I’m still feeling the effect of the spell. The lingering despair gave fuel to the monstrous fears clawing at her heart, the worries, the future she was, right then, almost certain would come true. “I will recover.”

“Will you?” Cloudy’s brow knit as she frowned. “I’ve never heard of magic that affects a pony that way.”

“Not here. And not now,” she said, her voice still in the calm, cool tone of emotionless courtesy. “We have kept the guard waiting for us to conclude our business long enough.”

Cloudy blinked, shaking her head. “Sorry? What?”

Collar touched her shoulder. “She’s right. We have business to conclude.” He pulled his own mask on, wiping away the sincere set of concern on his brow. “We can talk on this more.”

Cloudy shushed a guard as the stallion grumbled behind her. “I thought the tears were a little much.”

Was I crying? She raised an ankle to brush at her cheek, and the cold mask cracked when it came away damp. Perhaps a little too much of the real was in that. She would have to be more careful, or something might slip that she didn’t want to. She resettled the mask and wiped away the dampness on her cheeks.

“Are you feeling okay?” Collar asked her in the same calm tone she had used.

“Yes. Let’s conclude, then you can return to the palace, and I can return to—” She swallowed the words and gritted her teeth. She was too on-edge to risk thinking about Rosemary. “To my home.”

“Is that truly all you wanted out of me?” Collar cocked his head. “It’s important, but both of us are not required at the same time, so long as we seal to the magic our sides of the story.”

“Yes.” I wanted to see you again. “You’re looking rested.”

“And you are not.”

The Royal Clerk at the desk eyed them as they approached and pulled out the sunburst seal and a gold foil sheet. “Business?”

“Duel,” Rosewater said, the procedure coming back to her after six years. “Between Roseate Rosethorn and Rosewater Rosethorn.”

The clerk lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing, only noting the details. “To be held when?”

“Last night. My witness is beside me, and a second outside.”

“One is enough. Sir, if you would complete a description of the duel, the outcome, and the terms…” The guard flipped around the blank Celestial letterhead form.

“One thing,” Collar said. “They were fighting over who had the right to take me as a mate. I agree with neither party.”

The clerk sighed. “Nothing is ever simple around here.” He checked over the page, added a notation, and looked up again almost to the ceiling, rubbing at his muzzle, eyes closed as he said an imprecation to Celestia for patience. “The terms of the duel, as stated, were not for who would take you, were they?”

“They were.”

“They were not, actually,” Rosewater said. “My exact wording was ‘I will claim my right of free association’ and let me pursue him as a mating prospect. It means that she can’t accuse me of being a traitor for attempting to court you.”

“Then the duel would still be valid, but I doubt that Celestia would mark ‘courtship’ as treason in any case,” the clerk said. “But perhaps it’s better to have that solidified.” His words had the bored tone of a functionary, but his ears quivered.

“I can accept that,” Collar said with a sigh, glancing aside at her. “Is this the chance you wanted?”

“No. This is merely the legal right to have the chance.” Rosewater allowed herself a brief spark of hope, but stood still where she was, the distance between them closer than they’d ever been before in the daylight. “Have you given any thought to my offer?”

Collar clucked his tongue and took the white quill and ink the clerk proffered to him, the tip coming free with golden liquid that shimmered and glowed even in the daytime. Magical ink for contracts, enchanted by Celestia herself.

“I have. I can’t, at the moment, see any reason to go through with it, though I would rather not have your mother professing her interest,” he said drily, not looking up.

“I rather wish she hadn’t in such a blatant way,” Rosewater replied with a sigh. “I wish she hadn’t at all.” The banter felt forced, and she forced herself back to seriousness. “Are you alright?”

“I would be better if I knew what game you were playing.” He took the quill and began to jot down the details.

“I’m afraid I’m not playing a game.” Rosewater shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve been sincere. Not that I’d expect you to believe me yet.”

“I’m not quite sure what to believe right now.” He looked up briefly to the guard. “Would it help to provide a Prim Palace official after action report?”

“No. Personal testimony under the seal of truth is acceptable. Princess Celestia will review the results and the magical residues and return the declaration and its results in a few weeks time.” The clerk tried not to yawn as he said it, but it was clear that he had to explain the truth seal over and over again to ponies who tried to lie under it.

Lies with intent left a certain magical residue in the special ink the guards used, and while nopony less skilled than Celestia could detect it, it served to keep both sides at the very least honest in their treaty-bonded dealings.

Rosewater looked over his shoulder, nodding slowly as she saw the details take shape. He had a good memory, even a couple days after the event.

When he was done, she read it carefully, nodded, and called her magic to her hoof, forming her cutie mark across the cup of her hoof, patted it against the ink pad, and pressed and rolled her hoof in the square box at the bottom left for Claimant. Collar did the same for Witness.

“Very well.” The guard raised his left hoof, golden magic swirling around it from the amulet around his neck. “Repeat after me. By my responsibility as a participant of the Treaty of Merrie-Damme of 226 AC, I affirm that every word I have written is true. On pain of exile, I set my hoof to this document, and seal it to the Treaty.”

Rosewater and Collar repeated the words in solemn lockstep, feeling the magic of the words and the seal bleeding into them and the page, making the ink transform to golden light, then burned itself into the paper.

If either of them had spoken the oath with falsity in their hearts, the ink would have set fire to the page rather than set the words indelibly. In that case, an investigation would ensue, and the culprit who’d attempted to lie would be punished in scaling severity relative to the lie.

“Very well.” He set his hoof to the center box, and gold fire flared over the paper, turning it glossy. When he lifted his hoof, the seal of the Sun Princess gleamed in silver and gold. “By my responsibility as a representative of her Highness, Princess Celestia, Sun’s Ray, I affirm that this document has been witnessed and sealed. You may go.”

Cloudy Rose was laughing with the guards when Rosewater stepped out after Collar, and all eyes turned to her immediately. The smiles fell away.

At least they didn’t seem to have been talking about her.

“Our business is concluded,” Rosewater said, glancing at the pennant draped over her flanks. Considering her options, she lifted it off herself and held it out to the Royal Guard, who accepted it and stowed it in his pack without comment.

One of the Dammeguard stepped forward, hoof raised. “So… can we arrest her now?”

“You may not,” Collar snapped. “She is leaving an accorded meeting with the Treaty office. Attempt to arrest her at your hide’s peril, for I’ll strip it from you myself before the Treaty guard gets a hold of you.”

The guard stepped back, blanching, ears folded back. “Aye, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Was there truly nothing else to discuss?” he asked her, stepping closer and keeping his voice low. “Was this it?”

“I thought there would be, but I find my taste for wordplay soured.” Rosewater closed her eyes. The effects of the duel were still clinging to her. The despair especially.

“I saw your face,” he said even more quietly. “You have to feel those emotions to project them, don’t you?”

“Yes. I thought you would understand.” She forced herself to smile. “And I suspect you know the other part, now that I’ve confirmed it.”

Collar nodded, flicking an ear. “What did you use, to feel those?”

“My own feelings,” Rosewater said with a roll of her eyes. “Were you to ask it more clearly, I still would not answer. Permit me some privacy, even as you unveil my secrets one by one.”

He seemed to reach some decision as he stepped up beside her. “Walk with me.”

Rosewater startled forward a step when he flicked his tail against her side, passing her and onto the Primrose, heading towards the Sun Seal. “Collar?”

“Walk with me, I said.” He glanced back. “Or do you wish, truly, to not talk about what you did? You are hurting, Rosewater. Even I can tell. And you have nopony you can talk to about it. I, at least, have Cloudy Rose.”

Cloudy shot Collar a knowing look, then stepped forward, offering a hoof, “Rosewater, may I apologize?”

“For what? Collar has wronged me more in my earshot this afternoon than you have since we met.” Rosewater shot Collar a look. “Please, save the apology until you do something to actually harm me.”

Cloudy’s ears flattened, her brow drawing down into a scowl. “I’m trying to apologize for what I thought of you.”

Rosewater tightened her lips over a curt reply. She is trying. “Cloudy, your thoughts are private, and yours alone. Do not apologize for them. Your actions are what should require apology. Have you done something to wrong me that I’m not aware of?”

Cloudy stared at her, one eyebrow raising. “I… don’t think so.”

“An apology, to me, is a thing that is sacred. I have never apologized for what I must do. I have only apologized for my mistakes and my wrongdoings.” She raised a hoof and touched Cloudy’s chest. “Let me apologize for giving you Citrus Circus without telling you what it would do to you should you not listen.”

Cloudy continued to stare, only glancing down once at the hoof on her breast. “That was my fault for not listening.”

“Partially. You would have recovered on your own in time had I not helped you recover from your welcome attempts to educate.” She patted the hoof gently, then set it down. “That is what I consider an apology worthy of. Harm, especially unintended. Have you done me any harm?”

Cloudy finally looked away, shaking her head. “No.” She huffed. “Why are you so courteous? I had this image of you as…”

“A monster?”

“Well, yes.” Cloudy waved a hoof. “Collar’s been trying to tell me otherwise. Are you a monster?”

“I would prefer not to be.” But preferences fell aside when need reared its head.

“Can’t you stop, then?”

“Can you stop doing what you do to protect him?” Rosewater asked, tipping her head towards Collar. “Would you stop if I asked you to?”

“No.” Cloudy hunched her shoulders. Her lips formed the name of Rosewater’s daughter. “Will you try anything with him?”

“I will not try anything because…” Rosewater closed her eyes, the despair gnawing at her again, the anguish not far behind. “Fine. I suppose…” She slammed the despair away with a flurry of anger at herself. “I could use your help. I admit.”

“Good. Respect among foes, yes? It makes the war less onerous.” Collar squeezed Cloudy once more. “I promise, I’ll stay in sight the entire time.”

“You’d better.”

As soon as Cloudy was out of range, Rosewater cast a silencing spell around them and fuzzed the air enough so that their lips could not be read, but they could still be seen.

“She dislikes me quite a lot despite her apology,” Rosewater said softly. “Why?”

“Because you’re Roseate Rosethorn’s daughter, and her entire brood of daughters enthrall their mates.” He bobbed his head as he crossed the edge of the massive stone disc. “She wants to mate with me. Whole of mind and sound of spirit.”

“Then do so.” Rosewater shook her head. “Unless there is a reason why you cannot?”

“We came here to talk about you, not me. What… how closely did you have to embrace those feelings?” He asked her gently. “Despair, fear, and anguish.”

“I had to believe them. Despairing that I would never leave my mother’s power. That I would fall to it and grovel before her like a thrall, only hoping for her favor.” She shuddered as the image crawled up from her gut again and threatened to strangle her. “Fear. I cannot tell you. Nor can I tell you anguish. The despair is what hits me hardest.”

“Why can’t you tell me the others?”

“Because it is secret. Nopony knows one but I, and—” She almost said it again. “Let me go. I would return to my sanctum and recover.”

“I want you to promise me something,” he said, putting a hoof over her heart mark. “Promise me you won’t believe them. Whatever they are, they’re not true.”

Rosewater closed her eyes, reaching up to push his hoof away. She hesitated. His hoof was warm against her chest. A hoof that was not hers touching her in a way that made her feel better. For the first time in a year, somepony other than Rosemary had offered her kindness. In payment of another kindness.

“You can’t handle it much longer, can you?” he asked.

“I will handle it as long as I must, Prim Collar.” Rosewater pushed his hoof away. “Because I must handle it. The alternative is too horrific for me to contemplate.”

“Will…” He sighed. “You are… infuriating. Sometimes. Confusing. Give me something.”

Rosewater stared at him, gnawing at her lip. He was asking her to give up her most guarded secret.

“In return for what, Lord Collar? What can you offer me that can match what I have given to you already? And you ask more.” Rosewater shook her head, gathering power for a short range teleport. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!”

Rosewater let the power bleed from her horn. “You have something you think worth all that I’ve given?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working as he tried to offer something. “I have nothing of equable value to offer. But I will look more favorably on your letters. But… can I ask you something out of curiosity?”

“You may.”

“How do you know my favorite kind of cookie?” He tapped a hoof on the bridge. “It’s been confounding me.”

“My lord, sieves hold water like palaces hold secrets. Why do you think I do not live in one?” Rosewater sniffed and began gathering power in her horn again. “I have contacts in your city, though they don’t know me for true, or they’d run to you and the guard. They all talk quite freely for the chance to obtain treasures from Merrie that are otherwise near banned in Damme.”

“Of course. Goodbye, Rosewater. Until we meet again.”

“Fare well, Lord of Damme.”

Collar stared at the dossiers in front of him, simple portraits reminding him of the ponies the names were attached to, and considered his choice again. He had three possibilities in front of him, all pegasi that would be able to take advantage of Rosemary’s blindness.

Sunrise… thought she’d hidden her dalliance well, but she was too closely connected to Rosemary to be reliable. She might not act if the need as she needed because of that past association. She might let Rosemary go down a darker path simply because she couldn’t bring herself to get Rosemary arrested.

Streak, a distant cousin of hers, was too antagonistic towards all Roses, Rosethorn or otherwise. He did his duty at the bridge when it came up, but his vitriol would see him arresting Rosemary over small offenses and potentially taking away the one support Rosewater still had left.

Regardless of what happened with Rosemary, he wouldn’t let her be taken unless she actually broke the law. If that happened… he would deal with it as he could, and do what he could to repay the large favor he owed her. He couldn’t repay being saved from certain capture, both he and Cloudy, by taking away her sole support.

But neither could he allow the rule of law to be subverted either for or against Rosemary.

Not for the first time, he felt the urge to curse the war that had pitted them against each other. More and more, he was getting the feeling that if the war hadn’t gotten in the way, he and Rosewater might find themselves less at odds and more allies, if not friends outright.

The last portrait watched him over the desk, sitting at attention, his gray-dappled blue coat shifting and twitching as he watched Collar considering the three folders.

“You know why I called you here, Stride?” Collar asked in an even tone.

“A special assignment, sir,” Stride said immediately, the perfect response that Collar himself had trained into the young pegasus. His first training platoon.

“Indeed.” Collar closed the other two folders and pulled out a fourth, this one with a portrait of Rosemary that he’d had made on the fly from one of their profilers. “What do you think of Rosethorns, Stride?”

At the name, Stride’s ears flattened to his mane. “Sir? They’re… our foes.”

“All of them?”

Ears twitched, and that thoughtful look returned to Stride’s eyes. He remembered that expression from so many days lecturing his platoon on philosophy, a part of an officer training program, of whom only Cloudy Rose and Coat had made the cut. The rest of them had still garnered higher commissions from their testing under Captain Pink than they would have otherwise.

But he’d been too timid to speak out, too fumble-tongued to articulate his arguments. Officers couldn’t be either. Sometimes, he still saw the foal he had been, well on his way towards becoming just another Primfeather thug beside his brothers. Some of that timidity certainly came from his youth, as the youngest brother.

“Not all of them,” Stride said at last, looking down at the portrait. “Who is she?”

“Rosemary Rosethorn, daughter of possibly one of the kindest Rosethorns to be born in the last century. According to my mother, at least.” Collar slid the folder across the table. “This is a summation of what we know.”

Stride read it, brow furrowing. “She’s my assignment? Am I supposed to act as an escort?”

“In a way. How are you adjusting to the night shift?”

Understanding sparked in Stride’s eyes. “Well. I’ve switched to waking up a few hours before sunset, and my bedtime has shifted to a few hours after dawn.”

“Good. Rosemary’s doing the same, though she’s still active during the day. I believe she makes her bedtime sometime after midnight.” Collar pulled out another scroll from his desk and set it out in front. “This is a very delicate operation, Stride. For diplomatic reasons, I’m giving Rosemary a lot of rope. Whether she just strings it out or uses it to hang herself is up to her.”

“Sir?”

“She has a mission from Roseate. That much, we know.” Collar crossed his forelegs on the desk and leaned forward. “That is not reason to arrest her, understand? Until she actually uses illegal scents or magics in Merrie, she is not a criminal.”

Stride chewed on his lip for a moment before nodding. “Motivation to commit a crime is not commission of a crime.”

“Exactly. It is still up to her whether she commits a crime.” Collar pushed the scroll closer. “Your next mission is to shadow her, without being seen, and report on her activities. Identify her target, if you can, watch her patterns, and keep track of her. If she commits a crime, do not blow your whistle. Fetch me.”

Further understanding bloomed as Stride’s wings arched off his back. “You couldn’t trust Cloudy to this?”

“She’s as fast as you, but there are personal reasons why I can’t trust her to this… or subject her to it.” Collar’s ears flattened to his mane. The state Cloudy had been in after he’d asked her to do it, believing that he could only trust her, had been painful to see, and his fault. Not even the headache, but the heartache she wore like a collar around her neck. “Can I trust you not to judge her for what she hasn’t done?”

“Sir, justice only works when it’s applied evenly. If she has committed no crime, then it would be unjust to arrest her.”

“Textbook answer,” Collar said softly. “Do you believe it?”

Stride was silent for long moments, looking at the scroll with his potential fate in it. His eyes dipped to the floor for several seconds, then up to Collar’s. “I do. Justice is what Damme was founded on. It’s what the Reformations are about. The other side of the river isn’t evil. The ponies that live there aren’t evil.”

“They aren’t. Not even all of the nobility are evil. Rosemary,” he said, taking the folder back from Stride and closing it, “has given every indication of being a sweet mare, untouched by her relatives’ madness.”

“I understand.”

For a moment, Collar studied him, then nodded. “Then you start tonight.”

Book 1, 15. Beliefs

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Rosemary peered down at the dimly lit notebook floating in front of her, the charcoal stick she was using to make her own notes floating slowly in front of her. She was well hidden in a bush that was starting to lose its foliage while she watched the house down the way with a spyglass floating against her eye.

It was the address Roseate had given her, and she’d taken notes on the elder pony’s habits from this safe distance several blocks away in the decorative median running down the middle of the street.

She’d made sure to check above her this time before settling in, and knew that the broad leaves of the magnolia were still giving her enough protection from the overhead that as long as she hadn’t been seen slipping into place, nopony could see her from above.

He was a majordomo, that much she’d been able to gather from little tidbits of conversation she’d managed to pick up with her weak ability at aural magic. He had been. Friends had come by last night and they’d shared tales about what they’d done in their youths.

Along with the tidbits of life, Rosemary had gotten the reason Roseate wanted this one. He’d been an early noble supporter of the Lace Reformation, and had served as a nanny for Collar himself. Such a pony could give away a lot of secrets, and he was also the heart of an elder social circle that supported the changes.

They were shopkeepers, a librarian, and a retired trader, a core part of the spread of acceptance of the Reformation in Damme in the earlier days, ponies willing to trade and deal with Merriers.

Taking one of them out, the heart of their group, would be a heavy blow to the support the Reformations had in Damme.

She glanced at the notes she’d made again, the dark marks on the light paper visible even in the moonlight with one of her tinctures stinging her eyes and enhancing her night vision. It wasn’t a pleasant tincture, but it briefly improved the ability of her eyes to take in light.

But it left her vulnerable to bright lights, too.

This is the price for my citizenship. Rosemary shivered as she collapsed her spyglass and tucked away her notebook. It was the price for staying close to Rosewater and making sure the mare didn’t hurt herself more.

She was still recovering from her duel with Roseate. Rosewater hadn’t been able to hide the symptoms of using fear magic from her, and Rosemary had had to cancel a couple evenings to take care of the idiot.

That’s not fair to her. You were off doing your own stupid thing. The fight explained why it’d been so easy for her to slip across the bridges, the whistles in the background couldn’t be Rosewater, after all. Rosewater wouldn’t intervene in her task, even if it meant her capture.

Capture was better than exile, after all. It meant she could only be held accountable for what she’d done in Damme.

And if word came back that Roseate tried to exile her, she could defect.

Rosewater might even follow her.

She could hope, at least.

Tugging her cloak over her, Rosemary looked about, searching for and listening for the nearest patrol and, seeing none, she slipped into a veil and off towards the west.

Several times, she had to duck into deeper shadows to avoid a whisper of wind from above, but she made her way back to Bridge Row without issue, but the first alleyway she peered out of had a full complement of alert guards, half with scent-masks on, the other half with theirs close to hoof.

It couldn’t be easy to breathe in them, but it was a sensible precaution for anti-ambush tactics.

The next alleyway she peeked out at gave no better news. This group was keeping an active watch, even, and she was certain they’d almost spotted her. They could catch her before she got halfway to the safe point.

She couldn’t resist, or that would break the promise she’d made in her heart to Captain Pink. She couldn’t hurt the guards.

She couldn’t even hurt the old stallion. There would be a way she could follow Roseate’s orders to the letter and let him be. It might be hard to find, but she wouldn’t break that promise.

The next bridge, the Primrose, with both Royal Guard and Dammeguard on watch, the former only keeping a perfunctory watch on the door to their offices. Still, the Dammeguard presence was lighter because of it. Nopony in Merrie wanted to accidentally catch one of Celestia’s own guards in a spell.

There was also… Rosemary’s eyes widened as she recognized one of the ponies standing guard, her platinum mane distinguished in the moonlight as she wandered away from the torchlight on a short patrol.

An idea began to form. It was insane. Stupid. And it might… well…

Rosemary considered the cloak she was wearing. She hadn’t brought any scents along, nor anything but candies. The cloak itself, she had no special emotional attachment to. It was drab, mottled, and she’d bought it herself. It was something Rosewater either hadn’t thought to do, or couldn’t do.

But it was still the cloak Rosewater had trained her in. That training…

Stars damnit, mare. It was also a piece of clothing that would mark her as having been on a mission of less than above-board task. That would at least invite suspicion. More suspicion, anyway.

Taking a compromise, and hoping they didn’t frisk her, Rosemary doffed the cloak and bound it into as small a package as she could. It was something she could tuck between her hind legs. It would be barely visible, and veiling it made it even harder to notice.

Still, she’d be counting on Dammers not wanting to feel her up or get anywhere close to sensual to not find it.

She squinted at the guard on the right, cocked her head, cast a whispering voices spell, and giggled into the guard’s ear.

The guard snapped to her right, “Who goes there?”

“Stars, Platinum, you’re jumpy.”

“No I’m not. Somepony just giggled in my ear.” Prim Platinum waved her cudgel through the air slowly, as if Rosemary could turn anywhere close to invisible. “Come out!”

“Prim Platinum?” Rosemary asked as she strode around the corner, unveiled and grinning. “Hi!”

Platinum groaned. “It’s you.”

“It’s me!” Rosemary stopped a respectful distance away and brought a hoof to the heart mark on her chest, bowing to the other guard. “And I don’t believe we’ve met, good stallion.”

“Is, uh… This the pony Captain Pink chewed you out about?” he asked, not looking at Rosemary, but jabbing his cudgel at her.

“Yeah.” Platinum took a deep breath, let it out. “Hokay. This is a new one on me. Why are you in Damme, at night?”

“Well, I’ve already seen everything Merrie has to offer at night, hundreds of times over, so I thought it might be nice if…” Rosemary shrugged one shoulder, still looking at the stallion. “You know, I got to see what the night side looks like from here.”

To her surprise, Platinum smiled and relaxed and tapped the tip of her cudgel against the other guard. “It’s fine. She’s harmless. This is Rosemary and, if you hadn’t heard, Captain Pink took her out to lunch.”

“I’d heard. I’m Prim Glider, commander of the watch tonight. Explain yourself and your reasoning.”

“Well… I’m not exactly welcome here during the day, so I have to sneak over to see what it’s like.” Rosemary didn’t try to hide the shame at her actions, her ears flattening into her mane. “And it’s beautiful at night. Here.” She advanced a few steps closer, keeping her eyes turned away from the too-bright torches.

Platinum sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Stars, your eyes.”

“Yeah. Nightsight tincture,” Rosemary said. “It’s one of my own blends. It lets me see better at night. Almost like it’s daytime, actually. The downside is that everything is brighter.”

“This is all well and good,” Prim Glider said with a glower and roll of his eyes, “but what are you doing here tonight?”

“Oh, relax, Glide,” Platinum groaned, tapping him again with her cudgel. “She’s harmless. I mean, she walked right up to the bridge, completely guileless, and just sat there talking to me while Streak went to get the captain.”

“Plat, protocol needs to be followed.” He pulled out a gemstone set in an intricate golden brooch, shifted his focus, and poured magic into the clear diamond. “Stand still, Rosemary. This detects magic.”

Hesitating, Rosemary stood still, pondering the notebook wrapped up in the cloak between her hind legs. It was definitely full of incriminating evidence. But she could bluff through it. Maybe. She let it unveil and clenched her thighs together, catching the cloak and desperately hoping none of it came loose, then let go of all of her magic.

He held the brooch out, passing it over her. It flashed pink briefly near her horn, and again near her cutie mark. “No active enchantments.” Glider relaxed minutely. “Have you broken any of our laws?”

“No.” Rosemary bowed her head once. “I’ve used no scent magic. Only a veil, because I know it makes you all jumpy if I’m in town. I just wanted to see the night sky through the magnolias, to smell the night sea air rolling in from the bay without it going over the hills first. And to watch the moon’s light reflecting off the wavetops from atop Prim Rock.”

“Tourist, then?” Glider chuckled. “Alright. How was it?”

“Beautiful! Absolutely gorgeous.” She pranced in place and crouched, letting her own excitement overcome the nerves she felt. It looked like she was going to get away with it. “I never thought the gray stone would be so pretty, but it is. In the moonlight, everything is pewter and tin. Even the grass is beautiful. And who thinks that about grass?”

Even Glider smiled at that.

Platinum chuckled. “Not me. Fine, fine. Maybe I’ll stop and admire the grass someday. Lieutenant, thoughts?”

“Eh. It’s easy to see why the captain took a shine to her. Fine, let her go.” He stepped aside and lifted his eyes briefly. “Just be careful, miss. We’re watching you. Don’t break any laws, and I won’t have to see that smile go away, okay?”

“I promise!” She danced forward and offered a hug to him, which he declined, and a glance at Platinum brought her to a stop between them.

“Sorry, not tonight, Rosemary.” Platinum’s ears ticked back, and she glanced at Glider.

“Shoot. Well, thank you.” Rosemary settled for patting her on the peytral. “Have a nice night.”

Cloudy Rose stared at the stack of tomes and the spray of folders laid out before her. Reading had never been easy for her, the least of the reasons for that being a pegasus. The days of unicorns hoarding learning to themselves was long gone. It was the fact that she had to stand or sit still to read that bothered her the most.

But running and flying all over the city for the past two days hadn’t brought her the peace she needed to think about the Rose Terror. Collar wouldn’t tell her what had passed between them on the Primrose bridge, and she couldn’t very well ask the other source, but he’d come back more contemplative than when he’d gone off with her.

The only thing he’d told her was, “She hurt herself deeply to help us. I think she does not realize how deeply.”

Other than that, he would only tell her what she had already guessed herself from the brief unguarded moment when she’d cried over her reputation. A reputation that she herself had fostered. All for the sake of Rosemary.

Natural looking tears were hard to fake. They required the actor to pause to embrace something sad, or for somepony to tweak their ears until they cried. Fake tears didn’t fall out in the middle of talking. They didn’t rivulet, but dripped.

Rosewater’s tears had run in a brief stream down her cheeks, following the partial path of the Rosethorn marks. In part, it was what Collar had said. Her duel with her mother had injured her in some way. In another way, perhaps she was tired of being the monster on both sides. Especially when there was an actual monster to worry about.

She sighed and pulled down the top tome, a discussion by multiple authors about the nature of the Rosethorn magics, and settled in to read.

And closed it half an hour later, rubbing at her temple with one hoof and pushing the tome away with the other. They did like to pontificate at length in essays and musings about the oddest things tangentially related to Rosethorn magic. The chaos of spellworks here and there hadn’t helped the growing headache. By comparison, Collar’s notations had been easy to read, and she still knew nothing about what he’d shown her.

She might as well try to explain how she walked on clouds to him, or why a pegasus needed magic to fly at all reliably without sort of gliding.

The next tome, a collection of essays on the war’s history, proved no more useful. Pontifications and pride, lauding the Dammeguard for successfully raiding Merrie and bringing back prisoners to trade for concessions at the same time they reviled the Merrieguard and the Rosethorns for doing the same thing.

She pulled down the third, stared at the cover, Treatises on the Nature and Balance of Power Between Merrie and Damme, an Exercise in Political Games and Theory, and promptly set it aside. There would be nothing useful inside, despite the archivist’s boastful admission that he’d written three of the pages inside. Likely the index.

The fourth was newer, the pages still creamy wheat in color, the edges neat and orderly, the wooden cover still showing the carver’s mark where age had not softened them. Carnations and Crimsons, a Split Between Sisters.

The title promised mystery. She pursed her lips and almost shoved it aside. At least the last book had boldly stated that it would be useless. She did not like the new trend of catchy titles to draw the reader in.

She opened the book and began to read the angular block-script.

Carnation Rose, second daughter of Roseline, split from her elder sibling in personality early on. Sources in the Rose palace provide multiple accounts of Carnation being far kinder, taking more after her mother than Roseate did. The two disliked each other as sisters are sometimes wont to do. The typical sibling rivalries were magnified between heiress and younger sister.

Cloudy settled in to read, going over the early disputes that were rumored to have happened, and those that had corroborating evidence outside of Rose Palace rumor. Witnesses in the street to see Roseate taking an iced cone from her sister, to Roseline’s displeasure, of Roseate secretly belittling her sister to the few friends she was able to cultivate despite her caustic attitude. Numerous incidents involved Roseate tripping her sister, then pretending to help her up as if she hadn’t been the one to do it.

The cruelties got more subtle as they grew older and Carnation moved from the Palace to an estate owned by one of Roseline’s aunts as a ten year old filly. There, she had matured at a rapid pace, settling into her personality as a kind pony whom the commoners loved and the nobles looked down on, save the aunt, Rosefire, a rare pegasus in the line of unicorns.

Five years passed before Roseate, then eighteen and throwing the cultural underpinnings of Merrie to the wind, had her first foal, Rosewater. And then another, and another, and another. Carnation Rose had had strings of lovers, as was the Rose way, but none that she had settled in enough with to allow herself becoming pregnant. But by the time the fourth foal of Roseate’s had come, and Carnation had passed the age of twenty one, Rosefire had deeded the estate to her and returned to live and care for her mother, then entering into her dotage.

The young Rosewater, suffering from some dispute with her mother after earning her cutie mark at the tender age of six, had quit the palace of her own will and been taken in by Carnation.

Of her own will? Cloudy stared at the passage again, reading it carefully.

Invoking a little used law of parental right, and navigating the legal pathways of the treaty with the help of Carnation Rose to retain her status as the heir presumptive, Rosewater separated herself from her mother with the help of Carnation Rose and placed herself squarely into the guardianship of her aunt until her final majority at the age of twenty one.

Not exactly. But it still was interesting that even at the age of six, Rosewater was willing to defy her mother. And her talent at that age. Perhaps that was the reason why, especially if Roseate treated her own daughters the way she treated Carnation at that age. Or, she’d gotten a dose of whatever had attracted Roseate to the father in the first place. Strength, surely, and her pleasure to dominate it and subvert it. Fitting that the father’s act of revenge had been the offspring he’d sired if so.

She shook her head and read on, following the text into the beginning of Rosemary’s life, twenty years ago. Then ten, Rosewater had applied herself brusquely to the task of helping Carnation raise Rosemary and kept up with her own schooling, showing her dedication to the tasks in the businesslike manner in which she comported herself, neither showing more or less affection for Rosemary in the early years than was expected of a cousin.

In later years, as Rosemary grew into her own, little signs of affection began to creep into their outside interactions, signs of a sisterly love, or that of an aunt doting on a favorite niece. That much, she knew, and skimmed the sections for mentions of Rosemary’s name. There were few, save where their interactions seemed to place stress on the relationship between Roseate, and her daughter and sister.

Exile.

The chapter title, a single, bold word urged her on.

Not much is known about the reasons for the exile of Carnation Rose. Speculation…

She skimmed over the next few paragraphs covering speculation she’d already read elsewhere, ticking her ears in annoyance.

One immediate effect of the exile was Rosewater declaring a public duel against her mother. Roseate, as the challenged, had chosen the weapon to be scent magic, and Rosewater had agreed with a fervor that began the whisperings of the name The Rose Terror. She would cement that title during the duel.

The terms of the duel were to be kept secret, but a careful observation of the lifestyle of Rosewater and Rosemary indicated that they had not changed their disposition afterwards. If anything, their relationship in public grew cooler and more distant.

She’d seen it on her own, felt it on her own. Rosewater was a mare who could inspire terror. Even thinking back, however, she could see a few faces in the crowd that looked sympathetic, faces she’d thought had stood out among the other spectators and witnesses as unusual.

Rosy Glass had been one of them, the tavern-owner holding her hooves to her mouth as her eyes tracked Rosewater on her way out.

Collar’s familiar cadence came down the stairs several minutes later as she contemplated the last few chapters, mostly filled with speculations and a few disjointed treatises on the early lives and manners of Carnation and Roseate.

“Is a monster still a monster if the things they do are in a good cause?” Cloudy asked as he walked within earshot, paging through the index for interesting keywords.

“Ah. That book,” he said by way of reply. “Yes, but monstrous actions must also have context. And truth. How much of what she’s supposed to have done is truth, and how much has been rumor she’s cultivated or at least not bothered to stamp out?” He sat beside her and flipped to a page she’d already read. “How much of it is rumor that Roseate’s cultivated and she’s accepted as her mother giving her yet more armor?”

“And how much would she do to further her own goals?” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “I don’t trust her to not do monstrous things.”

“I trust her to act against Roseate,” he said. “I trust her little farther than that.”

“Good.” Cloudy tensed, he had that look about him that said he was going to say something to upset her. “But…”

“But I think she can be brought to see reason.” He held up a hoof, waving her down. “She’s the heir, legally by the terms of the charter forming House Rose. Until she steps down or is cast out of the family, she is the heir.”

“You’re not thinking of accepting her proposal? You know what that means.” Cloudy had to struggle to keep her tone even, and she still spat out the question.

“I do. But I don’t have to be her mate to bring the cities into accord. I only need her to agree to a partnership of cities.”

“And if Roseate passes on without Rosewater having children, it will pass to Rosary, who already has one filly and a colt.” Cloudy shook her head. “The war would go on for at least another generation.”

“Well, then. Let’s wish Roseate a long and miserable life,” Collar said with a snort.

“Toast to that later?”

It ended up being a nightly toast for two nights running, a joke shared between them over dinner with Prim Lace and the other important functionaries of Prim Palace, until the idea of Roseate living long enough for Rosewater’s apparent celibacy to become a problem soured the mood.

That question had nagged at Collar for some time after she’d admitted to being celibate aside from masturbation, and he’d set Cloudy and Stride to combing the archives for a chronology of Rosewater’s lovers. Those they knew about, at least.

The result of that report sat on his desk. It was… extensive. From her first sexual awakening at fourteen, she’d had more than a dozen lovers, the numbers petering out into her adulthood as they usually did even for the famously promiscuous Merriers. And then several stretches of months with no romantic encounters following the duel, marked only by a name or two. And then the last, Roseling, an earth pony she’d met at the Gala in Merrie last year.

He tried to recall her, but could not. He barely recalled Rosewater, and that mostly had been because she had been caught up chasing one of Merrie’s once most prominent soap makers.

Roseate probably had much to do with the reason Rosewater didn’t have lovers anymore. Roseate took them away from her by one means or another.

Collar rubbed a hoof against his muzzle and groaned. He was probably the only one safe from her predation. Something that apparently also was not true.

He pushed the report aside and pulled up the next one, the nightly report on Rosemary’s activities in the city. She continued to do everything she’d told the bridge guard she did, wandering the city to admire the sights in moonlight, but she also did so after doffing her cloak and going about only veiled—or half-veiled when she pulled in the mists and danced in moonlight and darkness.

That was already causing rumors to spread about a ghost in Primline Park, a rumor that he was reluctant to quash or address. It gave her a cover, of sorts, and made her activities at least slightly understandable.

She was getting better at hiding, too. Prim Stride was starting to have difficulty finding her in the dark, but not when she settled in for the first activity she partook in, observing the retired majordomo Prim Cottage. Last night, he’d heard her humming along with the song the old stallion sang with his friends, low enough that he’d thought at first it came from Cottage’s home. At least until he could make out her head bobbing in time with it.

Out of tune.

He chuckled and shook his head. She was too inexperienced to do what she was doing, but he would rather not push more of Rosewater’s buttons than he had to. And what she was doing thus far was harmless. Annoyingly wasting his guard’s time, and pestering the bridge guard when she returned, more brazen than the last time, but he also noted that there was a sort of quiet respect in the guard for her.

Spread in part by Prim Platinum.

Rosemary was making a habit of finding the bridge she was stationed at when she was stationed at one of the bridges and flirting with the mare. True, she’d only done it for the past week, but it was a pattern that was hard to ignore, and Platinum’s reports of her activities were growing increasingly wistful.

“Will I even be able to get them to arrest you?” he asked as he finished reading Stride’s musings on the odd mare.

Stride couldn’t quite understand why Platinum, another daughter of a hardline anti-Rose house, would admire and respect a Rose, or a Rosethorn especially. But he’d also never actually talked to her.

Rumor and watching a pony quietly couldn’t convey personality and charm the way talking to them and meeting them eye to eye could.

He glanced up at the clock and shook his head slowly. The door to his office banged open as his next appointment came in. Prim Stride. He set aside the stallion’s report, prominently placing it where he could see it when he sat.

“Sir? You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Stride. At ease, this isn’t a guard request.” He pulled over a cushion from one of the benches and set it in front of the desk. “I wanted to talk to you and get your thoughts on Rosemary.”

“Sir.” He sat, his eyes flicking to the report. “Everything is there, sir.”

“Is it?” He picked up the report again, flipping through the two pages, front and back, of it. “There isn’t anything about how you feel about her in here.”

“It’s an action report, sir. It’s not…” He gulped. “Sorry, sir. It’s not a diary.”

“No, it’s not. And I’m not upset at you for that. But I wanted to get how you felt about the mare.” He waved the report in the air, making it crinkle and crack. “You almost waver into it, but you keep away from personal feelings. I would like to hear those.”

“Sir—”

“Please drop the sir. This isn’t a guard event. I want you off your hooves, Stride. I want your raw feeling.” He sighed and rubbed at his muzzle. “Just tell me what your gut feeling is.”

“Y-yes—” He swallowed again. “She’s a Rosethorn and a scent mage. I don’t know why she hasn’t been locked up yet.”

“Has she done scent magic?”

“Not in Damme, but she’s used it. I’ve heard stories about her cousin—”

“She is not her cousin,” Collar said firmly. “Please remember that. My lover is in love with her still. And you know Cloudy Rose. Do you dislike her because she’s in love with a Rosethorn?”

“N-no, sir. It’s just that… Rosemary is…” He swallowed again. “She’s a free spirit. She unveils herself in the parks and prances in the grass and rolls around in it, laughing. She’s like a filly. But she’s a Rosethorn.”

“Let’s reverse the situation, Stride. Say you did the same thing she’s doing. Enjoying herself in her city the same way she’s enjoying herself in ours.” Collar raised a hoof to halt his exhortation. He was far too much under his parents’ influence still. “A thought experiment. I trust you’ve been reading and studying the philosophy I’ve been assigning you for off-duty hours?”

“Y-yes sir. My parents don’t like it.” Stride shook his head. “But I’ve been learning. And I’ve been talking with Cloudy and Coat about the philosophy books.”

“This is a thought experiment. Say you heard that Merrie’s night life was a wonder to behold and you had to witness it first hoof to understand its joys.” He waited, but Stride only sat, quiet, waiting for the rest. “Say you went, and it was as wondrous as you’d imagined, and you want to keep going back, but every time you do, there’s a danger that you might be caught and detained, and kept from your family? What would you do? That is the situation that Rosemary is putting herself into every night she comes over.”

To his credit, Stride didn’t immediately say anything, but stared at his hooves, his ears ticking back and forth as he worked through the ideas. He wouldn’t tell him that the night life of Merrie was a wonder to behold, or that he’d witnessed it twice in his life at the side of a Rose who took him to the tasting booths to sample the wares of the common pony.

He’d forgotten the stallion’s name already, if he’d ever been told, but it had been a moment of brotherhood, of sharing delightful tastes of wine and food that he’d never had an inclination to before.

He looked forward to the next time it was held in Merrie, this time to go with Cloudy.

When Stride looked up, his ears flat, Collar saw the answer he’d wanted to see in his eyes.

“I’d want to go back, sir. Watching her cavort, it’s… I see what you mean. Seen from that perspective, she’s… beautiful. Isn’t she?” Stride blinked his eyes rapidly. “Why doesn’t she just come over and leave the Rose Terror—”

“Please don’t call her that,” Collar said stiffly. He could still see the flicker of Rosewater’s eye as the guard called her that, the deep pain that she hid so well it might even have been his imagination. The tears hadn’t been, or the pain he’d heard in her voice as she spoke of her sanctum. “Not ever. She is a pony, Stride. Don’t let yourself forget that by making a monster out of her by naming her something else.”

“S-sir, aye, sir.” Stride raised his hoof in a salute. Collar caught it before he could complete the gesture and guided the hoof back down to the floor.

“As a pony, not as a guard. Can I ask you to consider that she does what she does for reasons as unfathomable to us as the reasons we do many of the things we do?” He shook his head. “Think about it. And remember that whatever else we are, all of us bleed the same blood and cry the same tears.”

Rosewater hesitated at the entrance to her own workshop, aware of what she was about to do might be considered ‘interference,’ but fighting with herself over the need to know Rosemary wasn’t going down the same path she had.

Appeasement after appeasement that ultimately led her to become the second most hated mare in Damme, below Roseate herself.

It’s done. You have to deal with the results.

If Rosemary was going to go down the same road, she needed to know. To prepare herself, if nothing else.

She opened the door with a purpose, pretending like her hesitation hadn’t even occurred as she came into the workshop and stopped, glancing at Rosemary working at the main bench, the entrance not even twitching her ears as she stared at the solution swirling about in a small beaker.

Rosewater settled in a little farther down and made a show of preparing her own work for the day, even though she wouldn’t start working with the aromatics. That would ruin Rosemary’s work.

Instead, she started making a shopping list and checking her stocks of certain herbs and oils, and making notes on what she’d have to ask Rosemary for help with for a precise infusion.

Minutes passed while she kept half her attention on Rosemary as she finished her work and poured the white, shimmery liquid into a perfume vial, the measure of what she’d made almost precise, and a waft of it bringing thoughts of sleep to her mind.

Gentle sleep, filled with dreams of more pleasant times.

Not the forced sleep of a capture.

But she couldn’t offer comment. This would fail, and Rosemary would be captured if she tried to pull her target across the bridge like that.

She still has a week. It was what kept her from panicking in that moment. Rosemary would have time to realize her mistake and correct it.

When she was done, and had washed out the beaker and set it on the drying hearth to bake away any residue for another rinse further down the line, Rosemary finally acknowledged her presence.

“I know what I’m doing,” she said.

Rosewater’s heart skipped a beat. “You do.”

“I’m doing this my way.” Rosemary set the perfume bottle on the counter and drew out two more vials, one filled with a glittering, ruby red perfume, the other with an orange that looked as if it weighed more than it should.

Faint essences of wine and a dinner lingered about them, the natural outgassing past the cork that nothing but a glass stopper with a perfect seal could prevent. But glass stoppers were hard to manufacture with the right precision, and had a tendency to fall out far more easily than cork.

“A full course?” Rosewater asked past the lump in her throat.

“Yes. Roseate wants information, not the pony himself. I don’t have to guess who about.” Rosemary met her eyes briefly. “I don’t need to bring the pony. Only what he knows.”

“That—”

“I’m not you.” Rosemary flashed her a brief, apologetic smile. “I can’t hide myself and another pony. I can barely hide myself, and I know it. I have another week if this doesn’t work. If she doesn’t accept it.”

“Very good planning, then.” Rosewater swallowed. It could work. It would make Roseate angry to be run around like that, but it could work very well. Especially if Roseate gave her the chance to try again inside the original time span.

“Thank you.” Rosemary swallowed and pulled her cloak from the hook beside the door. “I’m going tonight.”

Don’t follow me. That’s what she was saying, and Rosewater heard it plain as day. She wouldn’t. It would mean exile for Rosemary at the least, which meant a fight with Roseate so soon after the last duel, and her heart barely recovered.

She swallowed again, the lump in her throat tight and painful.

“Be safe.”

Even as tears appeared in Rosemary’s eyes, she looked about and strengthened the warding on eavesdropping, adding more power to the glyphs until the walls practically hummed with the silence they imposed.

“I love you, mother,” Rosemary whispered.

Rosewater didn’t correct her, didn’t stifle the secret in that moment. Instead, she pulled her close and rested her muzzle atop her adopted daughter’s head, the mare who was as much hers as Carnation’s child.

“I love you,” Rosewater whispered back. “Come back to me.”

“I promise.”

Book 1, 16. Breaking the Law

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That Rosemary was going to make a move soon seemed obvious from the reports from Stride. It’d taken her a few days of teasing the bridge guards and playing games with Platinum before she vanished. It was cleverly done, as well, with Rosemary making a remark that she needed to readjust her sleep schedule soon or ponies would get suspicious.

Platinum hadn’t thought anything of it.

The very next night, she had been a ghost, using a finer veil than Stride had seen her use before, and actually using distractions properly. Not scented ones. He’d have blown the whistle on her if she’d even used a hint of perfume on the guard.

Rather, she’d started using cats and mice. It helped that it was the right season for both to be readying for winter, the latter trying to stuff their little bodies with stores for the winter, and the former trying to feast on fat little dumplings.

That not even Stride could tell whether they were mist-faeries or not spoke to Rosemary’s gift with illusions. That he’d learned she was a painter as well made more sense. A little tidbit from Platinum’s glowing reports about the mare. She’d even brought a small postcard painting of herself to give to Platinum.

If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Rosemary was courting the mare.

What if she is?

Collar sighed and stared at the small bundle of reports that were the last few days of Rosewatching. Rosemary’s charade was only a small part of that, but it was also the most active part of it.

They had countermeasures in place, knew who her target was, and had a pony on the watch for her every night.

It helped that she was a terrible infiltrator, but…

That was the thought that made him both relieved and terrified that she was going to buck the trend, that her mission was all a guile-ploy to pull his ponies off-guard and off-center and strike somewhere else. It didn’t matter that it would only work once. What mattered was that it would work.

He sighed and stood, stretching and trying to recall what Cloudy’s schedule was for that day. She was supposed to be visiting Glory later to keep her company. It was less about atonement now, and more… He would hesitate to call it friendship, but Glory wasn’t like the other Rosethorns.

Whether that was because she was playing a long game or showing her genuine self, he didn’t know. It could be somewhere in between and probably was.

But she was proving to be a font of information.

Maybe she would drop a little insight about her cousin.

Glory was reading when they came up the stairs, a book floating in front of her. The title was one he’d grown up studying. Liefdesprincipes Tussen Twee. A curious choice.

She barely looked up to acknowledge their presence as he opened the door and slipped in, letting the silence fall again before she spoke. “You Prims follow a strange and twisted logic to bring yourselves to believe that romantic love can only be between two ponies.” After a moment, her eyes moving across the page, she turned it, placed a bookmark between the pages and set it down.

“I could say the same of the Roses,” Collar said, settling in with Cloudy beside him, her wing settling over his back as she did more and more since his bout with Roseate. “The Tussen Twee has led our customs for four hundred years.”

“As has the Principes van Vrije Liefde done for Merrie,” Glory said with a snort. “Please, Lord Collar. I’ve debated far more in depth with Rosewater over such matters. On both sides.”

“The only surprising part of that is that it is Rosewater,” he said.

“Oh, not openly. Often, at least.” Glory chuckled and patted a hoof on the wooden cover. “How did you think I got my information to her? By shouting it from the rooftops?”

“Of course not. I thought you would have met with her.” He raised an eyebrow. “You can turn yourself invisible, after all.”

“Ah, yes, and sometimes I did. Most times, it was by letter with code words. Occasionally, by dead drop.” Rose Glory shrugged. “We had a system, she and I, of talking from when we were fillies growing up. Roseate, after it became clear she couldn’t fully corrupt Rosewater thanks to her sister’s influences, focused almost solely on Rosary. I was a disappointment, and she largely ignored me.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” It was more than he’d expected to get from her from casual conversation.

“I’ve had a few days to think about my mother using me to falsely bait a trap,” Glory said, showing her teeth. “I’ve decided I’d rather not return home. But I’m also not ready to defect, as I have my lovers in Merrie to consider. Besides.” The grin grew wider. “You might corrupt me with the Tussen Twee like you did my poor, distant cousin.”

Cloudy growled. “I’ve not lost my respect for the Vrije Liefde, Glory. But I also respect the Tussen Twee, and I’ve come to adopt some of their ideas.”

“I do suppose that Primline did have some good ideas that Rosethorn abandoned in pursuit of the ultimate realization of a free love society. Only the purest of adherents will argue seriously for things like a marriage-free society, for example.” Glory said. “But you came here not to debate philosophical points. What purpose brought you here?”

“Rosemary. She’s getting ready to strike,” Collar said, glancing at Cloudy. He’d told her little, save that Rosemary was safe from arrest unless she broke any laws. He’d kept her strictly off Rosemary watch after her little incident with Rosewater.

“And you’re expecting me to land her in your tender hooves?” Glory held an arched brow for a beat, smiled, and shook her head. “Of course you aren’t. You respect my relationship with her too much to expect such, yes?”

That closed off that avenue neatly. He sighed. “She’s going to get caught, Glory. No matter how good she is, she’s going to get caught.”

“Her mentor has never been caught.”

“Her mentor is one of the most terrifying mares I’ve ever met.”

“She is only terrifying to those that endanger that which is most precious to her: family.” Glory slipped from the couch and tapped her chest. “She did what she could to ensure I would be safe. Having me captured? I’m safer here than I would be in Merrie.” She jabbed a hoof at Cloudy. “She cares more for Rosemary than her own life. She has, in fact, given it up for her sake.”

Collar closed his eyes, remembering the bleak look, the barely contained grief. All for Rosemary. Not even for him. For her.

“She’s why Rosewater is still sane.”

“You catch on quick, my lord.” Glory stepped up in front of him, her nose inches from his, her eyes fixed, jaw firm. “And you’re going to take that away from her.”

“She’s going to break our laws,” he said, gently rather than forcefully, and pushed her back. “I can’t allow that, Glory.”

“Then scare her off!” She tramped to the bedroom portion of the cell, paused, and came halfway back. “Stars, she can’t. She won’t be able to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think that mare, who prances across the bridge at night in full view, flirts with your guards—and yes, I have heard the rumors even here—would want to subvert another pony’s will?” Glory’s eyes sparkled briefly before she closed them, tears on her cheeks. “You don’t know her, Lord Collar.”

“In fact… I have a reliable inside source.”

“Who knew her for three years? Four? I’ve known her since she was six, my lord.” Glory’s tail snapped as she turned away again, hesitated, and composed herself with an obvious effort of will. “I apologize, Cloudy. I know you love her dearly. That was crass of me to say.”

“I do love her.” Cloudy took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. “And I’m thankful you’ve shared as much as you have about her early years, Glory. We…” She glanced at Collar and flicked an ear at him. “Need your help.”

“I won’t help you capture her.”

“I know. I won’t be the one to capture her, either.” Cloudy glanced at Collar. “I wish she didn’t have to be, but if she breaks the law, and—”

Glory rolled her eyes. “She’ll have to. She’s got no choice, or she’d be at the bridge hamming it up with some of your guards, and perhaps bringing them snacks.”

Cloudy smiled. “She always wanted to believe the war was already over.”

Collar sat, feeling his heart heavy over what duty compelled him to do. Rosemary didn’t want to be a part of the war. That much was clear, and it made him want to meet her even more. Some part of him hoped he might see a shade of the mare that had had a hoof in raising her and not the scheming, tragic figure sacrificing herself and her pride for a single pony.

“Maybe this will shock her out of her complacence,” he murmured after a long moment. “I know you won’t help us take her, Glory. Do you have any advice on how to make the arrest easier on her?”

“Be gentle. But firm. You’re not her friend, Collar. But you can be.” Glory flicked her ears. “But give some thought to what you’ll say to her. She’ll be panicked, freaking out.”

“Ah. Yes.” Collar shook his head slowly, then leaped back as Glory rushed him, her teeth barely grazing his nose before she sat back down, leaving a ruffle-winged Cloudy staring at her in an equal amount of shock.

“That’s how long you’ll have to think, Lord Collar, before she does something rash.” Glory slunk back to her divan and slumped onto it. “Be kind, my lord, but be prepared to restrain her.”

“Point well taken,” Collar said flatly. “I’ll give it some thought.” He eyed the mare for a moment, thinking about the logical paths a panicked Rosemary would take, considered Glory.

“In fact,” Glory said, watching him right back, “I expect she will be scared when she finds she’s been arrested. I would be willing to be there, if you would permit it my lord, to calm her nerves.”

Almost, he rejected it, then hesitated and raised his brows. “What would you ask in return?”

She snorted and smiled. “All I ask is that you allow me to visit my Poppy outside of this cell. In the palace, if you please. It should be easy to keep secret that I’m there, and it wouldn’t do to let mother know I left my little cage. I give you my word I won’t attempt to escape. I wasn’t lying that I am safer here than in Merrie.”

“Mother is going to strangle me,” Collar said with a resigned sigh. “Fine.” He lowered his head and sat. “I owe Rosewater at least the comfort of knowing her cousin is safe and comfortable here.”

“You must still capture her first, my lord.” Glory smiled sweetly. “She was trained by Rosewater.”

Slipping across the bridge had become something of a routine. Rosemary had learned how to use the smell of fresh fish to lure actual cats to the bridge, purring after a treat that would linger long after she stopped focusing on the smell. Rosewater had told her to vary the approach.

“Never use the same method twice too soon together.”

Owls were also useful, as were furious splashings in the water. Most useful were the clouds and an overcast night.

That night, Rosemary knew would be the night. She didn’t want to be detected at all. Not even by the friends who had come to know her over the past two nights. Platinum had smelled especially nice last night, and had even consented to a gentle peck on the cheek before she parted and passed over the bridge.

The mare wanted more, but was too shy to ask. For now. Like her other mystery Dammeguard mare, Platinum only needed the right encouragements and she would ask. Maybe tomorrow night, if she slipped away from her deed unseen and unnoticed.

She called up a mist-mouse, scented with the fur of a mouse, and lured forth a pair of cats she’d been enticing with the smell of fish all the way from the docks. They weren’t gentle cats, but rough and tough dock and ship cats, used to fighting for their food, already yowling at each other as the mist-mouse scampered ahead and they leapt to the chase.

She followed quickly, knowing the distraction of two cats going after the bit of fish she’d tucked into the center of the mist-mouse wouldn’t last long once they took in the catnip infused mist.

She only hoped the hopped up kitties wouldn’t get too rambunctious.

On cue, the yowling and yelling rose to a fever pitch as the cats caught the mouse, promptly tossed it away, and started dancing in a fevered, catnip fueled frenzy around the legs of two of her friends, Prim Hedge and Prim Star.

The two Dammeguard worked to keep the very real claws away from their legs as the cats sought the high ground in their fight.

Neither set of eyes even came close to her as she slipped past the post and into the night. She went far enough to the west to set off another distraction, calling down a mist owl to perch on the roof of the guardpost and hoot loudly for a few minutes at odd intervals. Both ponies there glanced at it, shrugged, and went back to watching the Merrie side of the bridge. It wasn’t until Rosemary made the bushes rustle and the owl take off that she got them to wander away from their posts to check out the noise.

A mist cat sprang free, yowling, and dashed away from them.

“Mating season,” one of the guards said with a chuckle after they managed to disentangle themselves from the two cats and calm them down enough to pet. “Gonna be a lot of kittens come this winter.”

And then it was on to her target, slipping through now-familiar alleys, shifting and swaying with the clouds above to stay in tune with the movement of the actual shadows on the ground without having to change her veiling’s pattern much.

Frequent checks above her had become a part of her routine, but no wings crossed the moon and no faces or eyes looked down at her.

There was still a feeling of being watched. Rosewater had said it would be an instinct she gained over time, but no matter when she felt it, she couldn’t seem to find anypony watching her, and she couldn’t decide whether or not it was her nerves.

A scrape caught her attention from above, just a bare shiver of sound. She would have ignored it any other night as an owl or other night bird landing.

She froze in place under a broad-leafed magnolia tree, waiting, listening to the sounds of the night, her heart thumping as she waited for a hoot or a call of some bird, or the call of a pony angrily demanding why she was trying to hide.

After a moment, the scrape repeated, and the faintest sound of wings told her it was most likely a night bird.

She sat still and frozen for long minutes more, waiting still. All the while, her ears ticked and twisted to follow every minute sound of the wind rustling the trees or catching against some upper level obstruction and making it hum or rattle as the wind rose and fell above, barely reaching down to the streets below.

More night birds she could see made similar sounds, settling her nerves minutely. Night-hunters didn’t hoot when they were hunting. It hardly made sense to alert prey to the presence of a predator.

At last, she shifted, stepping to the side rather than forward, and looked up to where the sound had come from, having to peer through the leaves. There was nopony staring at her, not even a bird, an owl, or a mouse. Just the dark of the sky speckled with stars and the silver glow of the moon reflecting off dark stone. She hadn’t used her tincture this time since she was expecting to enter the old stallion’s home.

She shivered and reconsidered, not for the first time, the wisdom of doing what she was about to do. She’d never enticed a pony to do what they would not otherwise want. She had only enticed openly, with scent and sight, as an invitation to take what she offered with a promise of more.

Deceiving with her scents would be new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. Before, she had only used her scents to tell what she wanted in more ways than she could with voice and body. It was a second language to her, and not one that lent itself to lying.

It was the fatal flaw to all of Roseate’s and her cousin’s lusts and lures.

They were lies.

The power of scent magic lay in the truth it could offer. Rosewater had taught her that. Nothing Rosewater made had a hint of falsity to it, and she had taught Rosemary that nothing of scent should be false. Even disguises, she’d said, should lie through truth. A mist-mouse could be made to look and act like a real mouse with enough observation and care, but if she tried to make it smell like a dog, it would quickly be found out.

Which was why she was going to offer the smells of foods she had actually baked and captured the essences of, of wines she had distilled to a perfection of smell to capture the purest essence of what wine was to both palette and nostril.

And dreams of the past distilled into white mist.

Fail, and you will be exiled.

Rosemary closed her eyes, gathered what little scraps of courage she had left, and stepped briefly from shadow to the brighter shade between two streetlights and made her way to the alleyway she had made her outpost for the past week of observation and contemplation.

Prim Cottage had told his friends last night that he would be alone, and intended to spend the night catching up on his reading. A new book, he’d said.

It will still be there tomorrow, night, Cottage, she thought as she settled in, shifting her dappled shadow veil to make her blend even more into the stone at her side and underneath her. She tried, for a moment, to stretch the shadows to form a bubble around her, as Rosewater could do, but the effort of bending the mists that much gave her a headache, and Rose Glory hadn’t been able to explain how she did it so well.

No matter. She was familiar enough with the ground that she could become effectively invisible. Until she had to get up to go talk to the old stallion once he came out, looking for the pony he wanted to invite in and share such a fine meal with. He would have the ingredients for her to actually cook it and make her feel better about the deception part of her plan, but the wine, she would have to give up some other time.

Stop stalling.

He was right there in his sitting room where he always entertained his friends, a book propped up on one flank while he twitched his ear.

She swallowed and pulled free the two vials, veiling them as she did so. She unstoppered the first and drew out a bit of the orange liquid. It hovered in front of her, smelling of a delicious roast carrot meal still despite being on its last day of purity. The wine tried to fizz out again, and she barely managed to catch it before it rose into the air. She let all but a little trace of it dissipate into the air. She didn’t want to loosen his thoughts yet, only enough to let in the suggestion of friendship she bound into the rest with a trickle more power, focusing on how much she wanted to get to know him.

The orange atomized and tried to sink immediately as the magic flowed into it, but the spot of red fizzing at its center kept the fog of vapor aloft as it gradually lost its color, mixing with the ambient air just enough to make it less overpowering and more inviting.

She sent a tendril towards the window and the crack she knew would be there, the same crack she’d drawn the scents of spices the second night of observation.

The tendril flowed against the window’s edge, and stopped.

She frowned, tipping her head to the side and tried a different crack. Also sealed.

They had been the avenue through which she’d exfiltrated the sounds from inside with extra clarity.

A chill wind shivered down the alleyway, tugging her veiled cloak before it subsided. The tendril evaporated in the wind, and she sighed. He must have sealed against winter with it coming on.

Another thing she’d not accounted for. Old ponies would be more careful about heat loss, especially in their most favorite rooms to sit and read. Rosewater was going to chide her for that.

Such a simple detail.

More precious wine essence fizzed into the air along with more carrot. She considered the house while she combined the two again, finding ease in it at the second attempt. She wanted to get to know this old stallion for real. He could tell her a lot about the Lord Collar that Rosewater had fought both for and against.

She shifted her attention to the chimney billowing a wispy white cloud of smoke that drifted on a fitful wind, rising almost vertically up to a ceiling where it faded into the night sky and drifted away. The heat of the fireplace might destroy the scents, unless she folded them into a solid bubble of outside air and let them in, a daunting task. Her skills were being tested already pushing scents so far from her.

But the flue… She didn’t know how the flue looked or how it was constructed.

She resisted the urge to growl and stared at the door. It wouldn’t be sealed nearly as well as a window that never opened, but it would be refreshed more often because of it. She could break the wax, but that would also alert him before she could get the scent back inside.

For a moment, she considered trying to emulate heat to melt the wax, which would be quieter, but her goal tonight wasn’t to leave evidence of her being there. She wanted only to start a conversation with a pony lulled into believing she was a friend before sending him to a gentle sleep where she was only a dream by morning’s dawning.

Or give it up for tonight and plan again for tomorrow. Perhaps a tubule she could insert past the wax to send the scents through. She knew where the cracks were. As long as she made sure it was flexible and hard enough to penetrate the wax and go around the barrier, it would work.

An echoing pop sounded behind her in the instant before a silver dome snapped into existence around her, glowing with cold gray light. The surface shimmered twice more before the shock wore off and realization snapped.

Caught.

She leaped to her hooves and dashed at the edge, turning at the last moment to throw her weight against the dome before it could fully form.

It stopped her shoulder cold, flexing only slightly. She’d waited too long. She lashed out a hind hoof with all her might, but the silver curvature deflected her kick and sent her sprawling.

She plied her horn against it from where she lay, focusing a surge of magic against the point. The shield rippled where her horn touched as she pushed magic against it, and flowed as it absorbed the blow without breaking.

She focused her magic for a teleport, but as soon as she gathered the power, the spell wavered and fell apart, distorted by the dome.

Nonono!

Caught. Caught. Caught. It rolled through her with every heartbeat, faster and faster. Her mother’s face, wracked with anguish tugged at her. Come back to me.

A hoof stepped through, followed by a pony she’d only seen at a distance, recognizable for his stature, his surety, and his bronze coat and golden mane.

Her coat tried to stand on end. All thoughts of actual escape or trying to bluff her way out shattered as she caught the stern look he leveled at her.

She could try to—

Silver manacles folded around her legs, just above the ankle, as if she’d telegraphed her plan to rush him to surprise him and startle him enough to drop the spells.

She swallowed and met his gaze, then looked away from the disappointment she saw there. Of course he’d been watching her. No doubt Cloudy had been watching her and keeping tabs on her. The thought made her heart ache. She wouldn’t even get to see Cloudy if she got captured. She’d be jailed and left alone aside from her jailor and possibly Collar for interrogation.

If there was a way out, she couldn’t see it.

“Rosemary,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Please give yourself up. I truly don’t want to do this, but you’ve broken our laws. Blatantly.”

The two vials of perfume she’d managed to hold onto trembled in her magic, the corks firmly stoppered. A quick glance at them, then back at him, and she got an idea.

The third. “M-my lord,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she lowered the two vials and tried to draw out the third covertly with another spell. “I-I had no choice.” She tried to work free one of the corks, obviously doing so. “I-I didn’t want to meet you this way.”

“Rosemary, don’t try it,” Collar growled, stepping closer and taking over her hold on the two vials without any apparent effort on his part. He tucked them into his saddlebag. Evidence of her crimes.

“T-try what?” Her teeth chattered as she eased the cork on the Ivory Dreams vial. It made a pop as she pulled it free and she tried to draw a few droplets free.

His eyes narrowed and never left hers as he started what sounded like a rehearsed speech, “You’re under arrest for attempted subversion of will by use of scent magic. Anything you say or do will be added to the—”

She was under arrest, and she couldn’t beat him. There was no way she could possibly beat him. She swallowed hard and pulled out the third vial, a distraction for him while she held the three droplets in suspension. “L-let me go. I-I don’t…” She swallowed again as he took the vial from her without any effort yet again.

But while his attention was on the last of her defenses, she atomized the three droplets and pushed magic into the cloud, making it glow in the shield and drew his sharp attention again.

“Rosemary,” Collar warned as she brought the glowing mist between them like a shield. A flimsy shield that he could brush away with a thought. “Don’t try it. You can’t win like this. Don’t make things harder for yourself.”

She gave him a small smile, shaking as she darted a look from him to the cloud of pearly white mist. If she did it, she would have no control over what happened to her. Not even to speak. It would be worse than surrender.

But then she wouldn’t need to look at the disappointment in Captain Pink’s eyes. She wouldn’t need to see Platinum’s look of betrayal after learning what she’d done.

A sob choked her as she pulled it closer to her. She didn’t want to face that. She wasn’t strong enough to watch friends lose their trust in her.

“Rosemary, what are you doing?” A note of panic entered his voice and a swipe of a spell cut away half of the cloud as she drew it closer and leaned forward to take in the gentle scent of clean linen and fragrant hyacinth soap.

Immediately, her eyes felt heavy even just from the first scent of so little. Sweet dreams would be better than being marched through Damme as a criminal. She was too cowardly to face that, to face Platinum’s accusatory glower, Pink’s disappointed shake of her head. The images started following her down into darkness.

“Sorry,” she whispered as the world started to fade away. “I’m sorry.” Mother, stay safe.

Everything else was lost as the world tilted crazily and the darkness caught her in a silver glow.

The last thing she saw before sweeter dreams took over her was Collar’s fearful, shocked expression as he loomed over her, his lips moving as he asked, “What did you do?”

I gave up.

Rosewater sat in her perfumery, staring at the vial she’d been meaning to save until Rosemary’s twenty-first birthday. It swirled on its own, seemingly alive in the bottle as swirls of pink and gold danced with the promise of coming alive with little more than a touch of magic.

She’d been working for the last year to distill the other side of her feelings into this. Love, and not the heart-pounding lust of a promise of mating. A mother’s love for her daughter. Slower, gentler, sometimes fierce, often buoyant and soaring with pride.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” she asked the empty room, her voice hoarse from sobbing. The answer, of course, was the despair. The certainty that she wouldn’t see Rosemary again. It was the stars-cursed spell she’d used against Roesate.

She’d never before pulled up so much raw emotional magic in one pool before. Even the perfume she’d made for her fight against Roseate had been dribbled out over days and distilled, refined into the purest raw fear she could make.

This had leaked out like a broken bucket.

Beside the vial was a small stack of letters, one of them exuding the faint fragrance of the perfume. It would hardly do, in a normal covert message, to provide the key with the invisible ink. In this case…

She started to fold the letter into its envelope, her heart breaking over what it would mean, but helpless to keep herself from the certainty that she was going to lose Rosemary.

Preparing for it, at least, gave her some control over the situation. Otherwise, she’d be at the estate, gnawing her hooves to nubs and worrying about what she couldn’t change. This way…

“I’m trying, Carnation,” Rosewater whispered, her eyes tearing up again as her beloved Carnation’s last words to her replayed in her mind.

‘Keep her safe, love. Keep yourself safe.’

Temptation rose again to unstopper the bottle of Mother’s Kiss and remember again the only mother that had meant anything to her. The mare who’d later become more…

She wanted to remember Carnation’s voice anew, to sink into the past and forget the fears of now.

For a moment, she studied the bottle, the silver filigree inlaid into the glass marked with Rosewater’s and Carnation’s cutie marks on either side of the bottle. On the cap, a glass stopper held in place with a simple latch, Rosemary’s cutie mark decorated the stem.

This was for Rosemary. She had some left from the original batch, sealed in her own vial of enchanted silver and glass, keeping the spells that swirled through the pink and gold alive and strong, waiting for a further infusion of the right spell to bring it fully alive with memories so real it was like living them again.

That vial was waiting for her at home.

She slipped the gift for Rosemary and the three letters into her saddlebags.

She hoped she didn’t need them.

Fear said she would.

Author's Notes:

The original version of this chapter had a lot more of the preparations Collar had made in advance of Rosemary making her move, but I decided to cut that out since it didn't really tell more than I could say otherwise in a more concise scene or through context clues.

The interview with Glory was also different, occurring from outside the cage and its silencing wards, now moved inside so they can speak more freely.

I've also gotten ahead on my editing! A large part of the change debt has now been paid, and I can focus more on cleaning up dialogue and story rather than making new from almost whole cloth.

Also, the next two chapters came in at over 8,000 words apiece, so I'm cutting them in half. Part 1 and Part 2, but fear not! The chapters will be posted as they were whole, so double chapters for the next two weeks, but shorter. I know long chapters can be sometimes harder to get through in one quick sitting, so I'm trying this out to see if it works.

Let me know if it does, and thank you for reading. (Posted one day early)

Book 1, 17. Arrested, Part 1

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His first, surreal thought, as he cradled Rosemary’s limp form in his magic was, She’s smaller than I thought she’d be.

His next was less thought and more reaction as he called upon the limited medical training he had to cast a spell to check her pulse, slow and steady, as if she’d been sent into a dream, and her breathing was slow… too slow for a mare who’d been panicking moments before.

Whatever she’d taken wasn’t agreeing with her, and all he could hope for was that Glory would be able to counteract whatever it was.

He dropped the shield and pulled in power, fixing into place the destination and expanding the spell to take himself and Rosemary with him.

It was a good thing he hadn’t done much else before preparing to settle in for a watch at the palace gates, waiting to see if this was the night Stride would come calling.

He popped out, leaving a startled looking old Stallion Cottage with his face pressed to his window, and reappeared on the steps of Prim Palace, between two very startled guards and almost on top of a panting Stride.

“Get Poppy,” he snapped. “Get him now.” He waited until Stride was just barely gone from sight before he turned his attention back to Rosemary. “Come on, calm down. Let it go,” he whispered into her ear, hoping she was still aware enough to hear him. “I’m not going to harm you.” If she was conscious, she gave no sign of it. She was either asleep, and a deeper sleep than he would have believed possible with all the jostling, or simply unconscious.

He tried to recall if she’d struck her head on her way down, but the blur of panic and fear as she’d fallen wouldn’t let him recall the moment he’d caught her clearly. Only that barely whispered ‘I’m sorry.’

He could barely bring himself to look up as he heard the voice he’d been afraid of hearing rising in a panicked gasp.

“Cloudy,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I tried to take her gently. She… she did something and collapsed.”

Her eyes were wet and shining as she took a halting step forward, ears flat, hoof raised to reach out and stroke the soft blonde mane spilling against the stairs. A moment later, her expression firmed and she fixed him with a look. “What did she do?”

“I think she was going to attack me, then she took the scent to herself and inhaled it.” Collar related what he’d seen of her collapsing, how he’d caught her, and how she’d fought to open her eyes one last time… and apologize.

Cloudy ruffled her wings. “I know who we have to consult. Keep her safe, Collar. We don’t know who else is out there.” Before he could stop her, she’d pulled out her whistle and blown a quick trill, then a longer shrilling tone. ‘Gather, but no immediate danger.’

He sighed as the distant whistle signal was repeated again and again, spreading to the barracks until a flurry of activity had drawn them in. It made sense. If Rosemary hadn’t been the only infiltrator, whomever else had come over would find him with only a few palace guards on the front steps.

It would be bold, but Roseate had proven she could be more than bold. Reckless, even.

Cloudy hesitated, staring down at the sleeping beauty Collar kept cradled close and safe, her eyes darting from her eyes to her breast and the heart mark there, then to him. Her breathing came more raggedly before she shook her head and darted down the stairs and towards the prison, visible as a dark, low lump in the night.

She’d gone for the pony who could cure Rosemary tonight, if there were any who could on this side of the river. It was the right call, but it was also a call that he wasn’t sure he would have made so soon after making the deal with Glory.

More, the whistle had drawn a cordon of ponies who donned scent-masks and faced out from the palace steps while a sandy-coated pony without one dashed up with his well-used medic bag, followed by Stride himself, hanging back at the cordon, suddenly uncertain, his eyes locked on Rosemary.

“My lord,” Poppy said without preamble, shooing him away with little more introduction before placing his cheek and ear to her breast, eyes closed as he wove spells about her. Slender tendrils touched her here and there at joints and pressure points, soon pulsing with what seemed like her own pulse.

Collar stood and stepped down to meet with Stride.

“My lord, she fought?”

“No.” Collar shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know what she did exactly, but you did well to fetch me immediately. I only hope she didn’t harm herself in the process.”

Stride swallowed. “Would she have fought you?”

Collar thought back to the shaking, scared mare who’d still had the guile to distract him with a false threat. “No. She is not a fighter, Stride. She is a lover.”

Stride glanced around at the ears listening, nodded, and said, “I’ll return to the air, my lord.”

Leaving him with a ring of guards focused on keeping the palace and a vulnerable young mare safe.

“My lord,” Poppy called.

Collar jerked himself out of his fears and trotted back up the few steps to where Rosemary was resting gently on one step. “What is it?”

“She’s sound asleep, but nothing I’ve tried to wake her has worked. She moves away from smelling salts, but she doesn’t wake.”

“Poppy, she’s a Rosethorn. Of course she would move away from smelling salts.” Collar settled to the step again, looking down at this strange mare who wouldn’t fight, but would attempt to abduct one of his oldest friends. “Rosemary?”

“She’s asleep, my lord, not faking it,” Poppy said with a sigh, packing his things back into his bag. “She has no concussion, nor is she drugged in any way that I know. She does show the signs of a magical sleep that we’ve seen the Rosethorns employ from time to time.”

“Can you wake her?”

“No, my lord. I’ve not the skill to break through their spellwork without harming her.” Poppy rose and settled a telekinetic bed underneath her, raising the slumbering mare with a full support. “We should take her to the prison and get her into a bed. She’ll need to sleep it off.”

Collar hesitated, then shook his head. “No.” He cocked his head, then nodded. “Take her to the Clothier’s suite and get her settled in, please.”

Poppy stared at him, blinking, then nodded. “As you say, my lord.”

He left, leaving Collar standing there on the steps, watching the prison and wondering just how Glory was going to trick the guards into believing she was still in her cell… or if she would even try. Maybe it would be best to show some favor…

Except no. Glory didn’t want her mother to know she might be wavering away from the Rosethorn line to his. Or to Poppy’s. It would at once paint a target on her lovers in Merrie and a bigger one on Poppy. He wasn’t exactly their best guard, and he couldn’t bring himself to go the extra step of forcefulness to arrest somepony.

But he’d volunteered for guard duty all the same.

Now he knew why, and getting to know Glory, he couldn’t blame either of them.

Collar closed his eyes and listened to the rustle and muttering around him, pushing away the ache still in his horn from a double-teleport, effectively a triple, in only the span of a minute.

He opened his eyes again as he heard a hail and response from Cloudy as she trotted up to the cordon and then passed through it and into the palace without more than a glance at him and an arched brow.

She had Glory, then.

“Double guard on the prison,” Collar called out. “And double on the palace for tonight. The rest of you, bolster the patrols for another hour. Those on duty for tonight, return to your duties afterwards. Those of you not, return to your beds and report to Captain Pink for assignments tomorrow morning.”

He found the suite abuzz with activity when he entered, Cloudy resting on the bed beside her lover, lips in a firm line as she stroked the mare’s blonde mane slowly, the shaking of her hoof the only outward sign of her nerves.

On the other side of the bed, Glory used a spell to quickly dry out some flower petals she’d snatched from someplace and raided Poppy’s medical bag for a bottle of spirits that she eyed suspiciously before replacing it and drawing out another.

“What do you need, Glory?” Collar asked quietly.

“Silence,” Glory snapped, drawing out more items from the bag, then up at him again. “Silence, my lord. On the room.”

The room wasn’t one of those enhanced with gemstone and gold to hold the spell more easily. He sighed, nodded, and pushed magic through his horn, wincing as the silver barrier pressed against the walls, then settled in as the wood, stone, and cloth drank up the magic and obeyed his will to remain silent.

“I need spirits, but not the kind used to disinfect. The stronger, the better.” Glory inspected the bottle of smelling salts, pursing her lips, then replaced it. “And some citrus.”

Collar shared a look with Cloudy, and she nodded, her jaw tight.

“Poppy, do as she asks.”

When he was gone, Cloudy murmured, “Thank you, Collar.” Her hoof never stopped moving slowly over Rosemary’s mane, and her eyes only darted to him and back to her sleeping visage occasionally. It was as if she were trying to decide whether to tell him something or not.

“Cloudy,” Glory murmured as she inspected the petals, “tell him. You’ve been away from Merrie for two years. Don’t let that absence take away your understanding of propriety.”

“He knows already,” Cloudy said. “I love her. I never stopped loving her.”

“Good.” Glory looked up briefly, her eyes locked on Collar’s. “The question is, now that she’s here, and you can see that love, my lord, what will you do?”

“This is hardly the time,” Cloudy growled.

“This is exactly the time,” Glory shot back. “I care for her, Cloudy, and I like you. The earlier you deal with how you’re going to handle the clash between Tussen Twee and Principes, the better. Don’t let her get hurt. She’s a prisoner now. She has no power to determine her course.”

“I disagree,” Collar said gently. “She has a great deal of power on how to determine her course. If she helps us to capture Rosewater—”

Glory barked a laugh.

“What?”

“My lord, you have a lot to learn about Rosemary and Rosewater.” Glory shook her head slowly and glanced at Cloudy. “As do you.”

“I’m already planning to tell her myself that Rosemary is under arrest.”

“May I suggest you wait for her to wake?” Glory asked, inspecting the small bowl of petals now looking as dried as if they’d spent a winter drying. “This won’t be the best. I’d much rather have naturally dried petals, but needs must.”

“What are you making?” Collar asked, aware suddenly that he was condoning scent magic. He would have to destroy the mess before Lace found out. But he was also certain this was the right path to take.

“A general counter to sleeping scents. It won’t be as good as a custom-made counter, but it should wake her up enough to answer questions.” Glory eyed him briefly, then returned to her perusal of Poppy’s bag. “He used to keep a tincture of rosehips in here…”

Collar’s brows rose almost to his forelock. “Just how close are you?”

“My lord, were it not for this damnable war, I’d be courting him openly and likely carrying his foal by now.” Glory sniffed and tossed her mane. “Honestly. What was that stallion thinking?”

“What was he thinking?” Collar growled, rolling his eyes and checking out the door to see where Poppy was. Out of sight, but he could hear shouts and calls that would be waking his parents and the rest of the castle staff before long. “Hurry up.”

As if his imprecation were a summoning, he caught sight of his mother’s tall figure across the palace, the straight lines of the construction letting him see her before she could see him as she talked to one of the guards.

He ducked back just in time to avoid her sight and glanced at Glory. “I apologize.”

Glory rolled her eyes. “It was my choice to listen to Cloudy’s request. I’m more worried about the fallout for you. After all, all she can do to me is extend my sentence.”

A moment later, Poppy slipped back inside with a bottle of Lace’s private stock of liquor, and he gave Collar a meaningful look as he displayed it, trusting he would know from whence and from whom it’d come from.

If he’d been hoping that his mother wouldn’t learn of his exploits until morning, they ended there. It did give him hope that she would be gentle in her reproof. All he could do was wait and keep Glory as secret from the rest of the palace as possible.

In the meantime, he rose and made his way around the bed to settle in beside Cloudy, resting against her while she both leaned against him and moved her hoof to settle in against Rosemary’s back while Glory and Poppy worked together to make scent magic.

If Glory was going to betray his trust…

“I trust her,” Cloudy whispered against his cheek.

Collar relaxed minutely. I trust you, Cloudy.

A cool compress over her eyes was the first sensation to filter up past the numbing fear of a dreamless dark. Light filtered in, red and fuzzy, and a hoof stroked her barrel slowly, gentle as a whisper. A familiar feminine scent wafted past her nose as she took a deeper breath, somepony she loved.

A tickle of an inkling percolated up from the darkness, then popped as awareness began to fill her, starting most immediately with the pain behind her eyes and the throbbing at her temples. She was under unscented sheets, freshly laundered with a hint of the washerpony left behind, and a very faint smell of roses wafting up past her nose as she shifted and a hint of citrus.

“Mother?” she tried to ask, and choked on it as phlegm caught in her throat.

The hoof left her barrel immediately, and hooves skittered across carpet, then stone before a door opened and slammed shut.

The familiar scent left with the skittering hooves. Memories started to bubble up, of the alleyway, the silver bubble, panic, and her decision.

She struggled with the sheets, kicking and thrashing with her uppermost hind leg until she was able to get some purchase, and threw them off just as the rag slid from her eyes to show the Prim quill and scroll hanging over a door, and a stallion sitting by it jerking himself awake. He wasn’t a very impressive specimen, but his cutie mark, a rolled bandage opposite a quill marked him as a pony versed in medical arts.

The sight of the pony beside him, Glory, stilled her worry for a second. She licked her lips as both ponies rose from where they’d been curled up together.

A glance at the window and its opulent window treatment told her it was still late at night, and unless she’d slept a whole day--and there hadn’t been enough Ivory Dreams to do that.

She blinked as Glory yawned and blinked sleepily at her, then kissed the medic lightly on the cheek. That was a level of familiarity there that belied the obvious Prim heritage he had.

If Glory was there, she could have brewed something to wake her up… if she had permission.

Rosemary licked her lips and glanced at the window again, then at the door—one of three doors in the room. She sniffed the air delicately, drawing on her heritage, and identified one of the rooms as a bathroom. The other smelled like… books. Lots of books.

She remembered Collar telling her she was under arrest, so she had to assume that held true even if she wasn’t in prison.

“Lay down, Rosemary,” Glory said through a yawn as she pushed herself up. “You’re going to have a hangover come morning, so take it easy.”

“I’m under arrest.”

“Sadly, yes. Though it doesn’t look like we’re going to be prison buddies.”

The medic gave her an exasperated look and pushed himself up. “I’m Prim Poppy, Corps Medic of the Dammeguard. You are, in fact, under arrest, but I will let Lord Collar explain the circumstances.”

The circumstances appeared to include a suite that was more fancifully appointed than her own room in Rosewater’s Rosefire Estate. Rosemary pushed herself up, her hooves sinking into the soft bed as the world spun around her.

“No, no. Please, Rosemary. You may not be hurt, but you went through quite an ordeal.” The pony’s horn lit with a blue-green magic that held her gently at bay. “Er… the pony who was on watch went to get Lord Collar. He should be along—”

Rosemary sank back down, her vision swimming. “Wh-what?”

“Improvised Lucid Lemon,” Glory said with a thin smile and a wink. “Though that’s a secret. You’re really just especially hardy against Ivory Dreams.”

“But—”

Glory winked more deliberately, and she got it, then. She’d done it with Collar’s approval, but not while Collar had been there, and it was a secret to everypony but the ones in the room.

“Poppy, is she awake yet?”

“She is, my lord,” Poppy called back, holding a hoof up to his lips as he glanced at Rosemary. “She is a bit dizzy, as expected from the smelling salts.”

Rosemary’s brows rose as she stared at him, then at Glory, and took in the scents in the room again, her rosethorn marks glowing bright enough to cast light on her eyes. Unicorn stallion.

Pegasus mare.

Her heart skipped a beat as the door opened. She would know and remember that scent anywhere she found it. Cloudy Rosewing.

After two years, she was just on the other side of the doorway, standing there with her wings halfway arched as if she wanted to take off, either to flee or to rush toward her.

Rosemary didn’t give her that chance.

She was off the bed before any of her jailors could move to stop her, heading for the door, but Cloudy’s panicked look stopped her in her tracks, barely halfway there. “Cloudy?” She whispered, swaying as her blood rush caught up to her.

Silver light surrounded her, lifting her back to the bed as Collar advanced on her and glanced behind him to Cloudy, still trembling on the edge of flight.

“Lieutenant, please inform my mother that the prisoner has woken up,” he said, his voice that same gentle, firm tone he’d used on her.

Orders. Rosemary swallowed and watched as Cloudy struggled with herself, then nodded and offered a shaky salute, her tail flicking and her ears flat before she turned, halted, and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry,’ before she dashed off.

Collar closed the door behind himself and sealed the room against sound. “Lady Rosemary.”

Glory stood up and interposed herself between Collar and Rosemary. “My lord. You accepted my assistance to wake her. Please accept my assistance in treating with her at least this first time. She’s scared. She’s in shock.”

“It’s alright, Glory,” Rosemary murmured, pressing a hoof to her swimming head. More than simply dizziness. Cloudy was so close. She could smell the lingering fragrance of her shampoo in the air. That had always been her favorite. “I just need—”

I need Cloudy.

Glory was on the bed when the first sobs hit her, cheek pressed against her neck, gentle coos and whispers filling her ears as a close and warm body settled in, reminding her she wasn’t alone, she had ponies who loved her close by.

I need mother.

She gasped and clenched her teeth against the ache in her heart. Rosewater needed her and she’d failed her. Captured. Arrested even after trying to do things her way and not Roseate’s way.

“I hate to break in,” Collar said, his voice almost timid as he sat and leaned against the bed, looking away. “But I need to have you write something for me to your cousin. Before the sun rises.”

“Not now,” Glory growled. “That can wait.”

Cloudy hesitated at the door to Lace’s study, the bleary-eyed guard on the side waving her in and swaying in place.

She had no excuse not to follow orders. She wanted to flee, to think, to… make her abandonment of Rosemary all the more obvious. She could have found the mare that day, talked to her, told her something. Instead… she’d fled Roseate’s goons before they could arrest her for revealing her secret mission.

There was no other way they could have been there. They’d known she tried to alert Rosemary that she was going to flee.

Cloudy pulled herself back and pushed open the door to find Lace seated at her desk, a glass of dark liquor rotating slowly as she stared into it, another glass settled in front of one of the chairs.

“Sit.” Lace waved her glass at the chair. “Please. I can’t imagine how much tonight has hurt you.”

“My lady?”

“Lace, tonight, my dear.”

She sat, uncertainty numbing her emotions as she cradled the glass of dark whiskey and sniffed it. Undercurrents of nutty flavor swirled up to her, and she took a sip. Heat coursed down her throat and began filling her belly.

“Rosemary was always going to be captured,” Lace said gently. “She was always going to be assigned something that would force her to break our laws. Roseate does not play gently.”

“I know.” It didn’t help the ache in her heart. She raised the glass for another sip, hesitated, then set the glass back on the desk. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“I imagine my son will ask me to leave her in the Clothier’s suite,” Lace said with a slight smile. “And I imagine he will also ask that you be given visitation rights.”

Cloudy sat there, staring into the gently rocking liquid on the desk. “Will you approve his requests?”

“If he asks, I will.” Lace took a sip of her whiskey and set it down. “You, on the other hoof…”

“Me?”

“You. You’re in love with her, Cloudy, but even I can tell you’re still hung up over the way you left her.” Lace’s ears ticked back briefly, and her voice softened. “Will you leave my son for her?”

“No!” Cloudy was glad she’d set the glass down, the way her legs shook. “How can you ask that?”

“I ask because I must ask, Cloudy. I must ask, because I must know to plan for the future.” Lace’s mask dropped at last as she settled more heavily in her chair, the ache of being a ruler visible in her eyes as she met Cloudy’s. “You have put me in quite the situation. You love them both, and you have made your intentions quite clear where Collar is concerned.”

“My…” I want to marry Rosemary.

As if she’d heard the thought, Lace inclined her head. “Thus, you’ve left me in quite the pickle. While polyamorous marriages are legal in Damme, thanks to the familial exclusion section of the Treaty, such a union for the heir would need popular support to retain any power among the nobility.”

“Wait. Wait. I thought Frosty’s Law prevented that from happening.” Cloudy shook her head, ears flicking. “I’ve read the law so many times, my lady. I have to—” Her voice choked off.

“Choose?” Lace shook her head slowly. “You’ve read Damme law. Treaty law allows for families to migrate from Merrie to Damme and vice-versa. Nowhere in the law does it say where the family has to start.”

“That’s a very loose interpretation of the law,” Cloudy growled. “You know that’s going to be challenged, don’t you?”

“It may be,” Lace agreed with a thin smile. “But I am willing to take that chance if Collar is.”

“Why?”

“Because I have only ever wanted happiness for him. It was his misfortune to be born into a family that requires duty to maintain the greatest amount of happiness for our ponies.” Lace sipped at her glass again and grimaced, then set it down again. “It would be easier for him if he’d been born a common pony.”

“Easier.”

“Easier.” Lace smiled thinly and shook her head. “But that’s not what’s in store for him. His path is… I can’t plan for all of what may come, but I know things, Cloudy, and I’ve done what I can to ensure that there are openings and options for the future.”

“Such as?” Cloudy stared at the glass in front of her.

“Cloudy, I will not spell it out for you. You already know what option is open to you.” Lace clucked her tongue and downed her glass. “It’s likewise up to you to follow through with it.”

And teach Collar more about the Principes. Cloudy swallowed. “He barely knows her.”

Lace chuckled, her eyes twinkling. “Just like he barely knew a plucky, scared mare both defiant and terrified of what crossing the bridge meant for her future.”

Cloudy stared at her for a long moment, then chuckled and downed the last of her whiskey. “They say the second mate is the hardest to accept.”

Lace’s eyes glittered. “They say that, hm?”

Cloudy furrowed her brow and stared at Lace for a long moment, then shook her head and set the glass down. “My lady, Rosemary is awake. That’s what I was supposed to come tell you.”

“I’ll be along shortly. Please see to her comfort, Cloudy.”

Book 1, 18. Arrested, Part 2

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Watching Rosemary in Glory’s embrace told him more about both mares than he thought should have been possible from a simple meeting. Glory acted more like an aunt than a cousin, taking the reins of guiding Rosemary back to coherence and away from whatever pain was making her curl up into a ball on the bed.

Simply being arrested shouldn’t cause that much anguish, but…

Collar closed his eyes and tried to block out the short breaths and pained whimpers. She was trying so hard not to cry it hurt him to listen to it, but whenever she raised her head to try and face him, her jaw trembled, and Glory pulled her back down, tucking her head in against her breast and holding her.

The family dynamics of the Rosethorn clan were more complicated than Glory had made it seem.

“Glory, love,” Poppy murmured from the side, “is there anything I can do to help?”

Rosemary’s head came up briefly to look Glory, then Poppy in the eye. “Wh-what?”

“We’re mates,” Glory murmured gently, nipping the back of her ear. “My Poppy and I.”

“But—” Rosemary sniffled and swallowed, then pushed herself up, ears flat. “M-my lord. I’ve been rude.”

“You’ve been distressed,” Collar said gently. “Could you tell me what has you so upset?” He knew already, or thought he did.

“C-can…” Rosemary swallowed again and nosed Glory’s neck gently. “Let me up, Glory.”

“Not until you call me auntie Glory,” she said, chuckling and nipping the back of Rosemary’s ear. A moment later, she winked at Collar, giving away the joke and how plainly written his thoughts must have been on his face.

“I am not calling you that.” Rosemary took a breath that hitched in the middle and nosed the older mare gently. “Let me up, please.”

“Are you sure?” The false levity faded as Glory pushed herself up to look down on the smaller mare. “Rosemary, if you need to go back to sleep…”

“No. I-I need to… my lord, I have no right to ask a favor, but I need to.” Rosemary swallowed and pushed herself up on trembling forelegs, then slipped to the floor, flexing her hind legs and shaking out her fore. Her jaw was still tight, but her eyes fixated on Collar firmly. “Could you please let Rosewater know that I’ve been captured? Tonight, if possible.”

“She’s already returned to her home for the night,” Collar said gently. “She stayed late at the perfumery.”

“So she wouldn’t be tempted to follow me,” Rosemary whispered, swallowing again. “She knew… she knew I might fail.” Her jaw firmed again, but it wasn’t the beginnings of another bout of sobs. Instead, she faced him directly. “Will you do it, my lord?”

“I was actually going to ask you to write the letter, Rosemary,” he said with a faint smile and nodded to the bed stand where a tray with an ink pot and scroll sat, a crow’s feather quill resting beside it. “It would mean more in your hoof than in mine.”

Cloudy Rose paced back and forth outside, her wings rustling as she stared at the door, waiting for some glimpse of Rosemary again. Awake, this time, and not merely a catatonic pony who looked, smelled, and felt like the lover and friend she’d known for two years. She was still beautiful, innocent in sleep, and smelling faintly of the roses she always smelled like for days after working in her apothecary or her cannery.

The cannery had been her favorite days to see Rosemary, to taste the sweet sugar and savory spices she used in her fruit jams on her lips and tongue, and especially her rose jams.

Then to spend the day wandering and talking about everything from the latest play by Roseby, or the match between the Vineyard Polears and the Greenhouse Rosetears. To read with her into the night, reciting favorite bits of verse and discussing them until one verse or another touched off Rosemary or Cloudy and they would find each other bound together for an evening’s bliss.

But those days might never come back. What she’d done to her, leaving her was unforgivable. She could have endured Roseate’s machinations a little longer, to plan something a little more robust. But one request had pushed her over the limit.

Use your connection with Rosemary to gain entry to Rosewater’s house. Do this, and you will be rewarded.

Use my love to infiltrate her cousin’s house. Betray her for… what? Cloudy snorted and stamped. It was the last straw. The last thing that convinced her that she needed to leave. She had written a quick note to Rosemary and left it in a secret place she knew Rosemary checked every day for messages from her, a place her cousin didn’t know to look, cryptic and alluding to a secret place by a secret pony.

And within hours she had been running for her life, chased out of her house by goons she’d been convinced were either Rosewater’s or Roseate’s, and never sure which, harried from the air, she’d only been able to escape by blind luck, her familiarity with the back ways of Merrie, and how close she lived to the Primrose Bridge.

Now… she was certain they were Roseate’s. Rosewater would never employ goons. But a younger, more scared her, terrified of Roseate’s reputation, hadn’t been as certain.

She stopped her pacing to stare at the door, a whimper building in her throat that she quashed an instant later. Everything might have been different if she had succeeded. She might not have met Collar. She might not have met her friends in the Dammeguard that accepted her despite her Rose name.

Rosemary might not have been corrupted. Or… hurt. Or whatever had happened to her. Collar had told her the bare details when she’d returned with Glory, but none of it made sense yet, and the murmurings she could hear through the door didn’t help at all.

“Calm yourself, my dear” Lace murmured gently as she mounted the stairs, her husband at her side. “You’ll wear a hole through the rug.”

“My lady, my lord,” Cloudy murmured, bowing her head briefly to both of them.

“Bah.” Dapper ruffled his wings. “Young lady, you’re practically family. Call me Dapper.” He winked. “Unless you’d prefer to skip a few steps and just call me ‘dad.’”

“Dapp…” Lace rubbed her muzzle and glowered at him over her ankle. “The mare is not in the best mind for your teasing.”

“I-it’s fine,” Cloudy murmured, stopping her pacing to nod to both of them more informally. “I’m just waiting for…” She gestured at the door and sat.

“You could just go in, my dear,” Dapper said gently. “By all I’ve heard, she misses you terribly.”

“I-I can’t.” She wasn’t even sure how to explain it to them. “I-I need to…” She pawed at the rug, then resumed her pacing. “I need to know she’s willing. I can’t push myself at her.”

“Because she hasn’t crossed the bridge for you?” Lace’s question was softly said, but struck straight to the heart of her fears. “Dear Cloudy. She is bound by much the same kind of obligation you’re under. What would it look like if she were to visit a defector? The mare is terrible at hiding, and I’ve no doubt any open crossing would be watched closely by the Merrie equivalent of our intelligence service.”

“I know that.”

“You know it, but it’s hard for you to accept it. The question of why not is a hard one to overcome, but please, don’t hold it too harshly against her.” Lace came closer and tapped her breast lightly with a hoof. “She’s not one to betray one love for another.”

“You… know her?”

“I knew her mother.” Lace’s ears ticked briefly. “And I know the kindness and devotion that mare engendered in others.”

The door opened, and there was Collar, sliding a letter into an envelope and then sealing it with the blue wax of official Damme. He paused before he could press a seal to it, his eyes on Cloudy, then flicking to his parents. “She’s awake and well, beloved.”

“What is that, Collar?” Lace asked, her magic enfolding the letter halfway in golden light before Collar’s silver light spread to take over again.

“A promise, mother.” He slid it into his saddlebag and stepped away from the door, letting Cloudy see Glory laying side-by-side with Rosemary. For a moment, it seemed like he would say more, then he smiled at her and stepped over to kiss his mother on the cheek. “I have to stop another mare from doing something insane.”

Rosewater. Cloudy jerked her eyes away from Rosemary for a second. “Collar, I—” She froze and bit her lip.

Collar raised one, smiling. “Your place is here, Cloudy. Please see to her. She needs a loving face other than her cousin’s.” He raised his voice as he called back, “Who needs to return to her cell before dawn.”

“If I have to call you brother in the future, I will be very cross,” Glory shot back, her tail lashing the bed. More quietly, she spoke into Rosemary’s ear. “It’s safe. You’re under arrest. You don’t have to pretend you don’t want to go to her.”

Immediately, Rosemary slid from the bed, her ears quivering, her legs shaky. “Cloudy, I… I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, Cloudy felt her heart start to fracture.

“I-I couldn’t come to you,” Rosemary whimpered, stepping closer still, her lower lip quivering as she took step after step towards her, Collar holding his position, watching them with a curious look in his eyes, halfway between ache and understanding. “I wanted to. Stars curse me, I wanted to for weeks. Months.”

Why not?

Lace’s presence at her back stopped her from asking. It wasn’t fair to Rosemary. She had to have her reasons.

“Why are you s-sorry?” Cloudy asked, her voice cracking at the end of the question, her step forward halting. “I’m the one who left without telling you why I had to go.”

“I know why,” Rosemary whispered as she came within kissing distance. She didn’t close the short space between them, instead looking between Cloudy’s eyes, knowledge and understanding there. “It took me only a few days to understand why. I’m not so naive to believe the story Roseate told your family. Neither did they.”

Cloudy licked her lips.

“I couldn’t come t-to you.” Rosemary’s voice broke, her lower lip trembling. “B-because she needed me, too.” Her throat bobbed as she backed away, glancing at Glory, then at Poppy peeking around the edge. “I-I can’t… I can’t say why. But she needed me.”

Glory nodded, smiling faintly, and Poppy closed his eyes, sitting back out of sight.

“No. You don’t need to be sorry for that,” Cloudy said, closing the distance between them and setting a hoof to her breast. “Please, Rosemary. Can we…” What? Start over?

“Talk,” Collar said. “Talk, Cloudy. That’s a good first step.”

She nodded vigorously, swallowing and feeling a pang at the grateful look Rosemary sent Collar. “Can we, Rosemary?”

“Yes.” Rosemary bobbed her head and backed up another few steps, but it was less a retreat and more of an invitation. Her eyes darted to Lace, then, and she froze mid-step, as if the resolution of one problem revealed another to her. “M-my lady!”

“I will talk to you in the morning. I would hear the tale that made you break our laws.” Lace raised her chin to look down her muzzle briefly. “I would compare it to how and why your mother broke them.”

Before Cloudy could finish processing that, Lace turned away and passed her son with a whispered few words she couldn’t make out.

Dapper, lingering, gave her a more cheery wink and shooed her into the room with a wave of his wing.

Uncertain still of what the future would hold, Cloudy mechanically walked into the room and felt the door close behind her, Glory spreading silence over the room as she settled down with Poppy again, her eyelids drooping as she settled in against his flank.

Rosemary stared at them for a long moment, her ears flat and ticking before she sat heavily beside her bed. “Talk…” She licked her lips, ears rising and then falling to droop again. “I’ve missed you, Cloudy. So much.”

Cloudy didn’t answer her with words. She had, in truth, no idea what to say. Words would have only muddled what she needed to do.

Instead, she wrapped Rosemary with her wings and simply held her, drinking in her scent at the join of shoulder and neck, and stayed there.

Rosemary’s scent blanketed Rosewater, pushing away the fear that had been growing since midnight’s passing. More and more as night stretched into the dawning hours.

She kept the coverlet draped around her as she sat in the sitting room, staring at the watercolor painting she had done of Rosemary, Carnation, and herself. Seven years ago. That afternoon, Carnation and she had taken turns at Rosemary’s side as they painted each other into place.

Carnation had always been the better artist, and she’d touched up Rosewater’s attempts at water colors expertly until it looked more like her, an impressionistic painting of sorts. She had done the buildings and the sky, the river and Primrose bridge behind them, Damme’s riverfront district gleaming in the noonday sun.

More watercolor paintings covered one wall, all of Rosewater’s doing as she took up the hobby Carnation had held for so many years, and had tried to impress on Rosewater at a young age. Before they started raising Rosemary together. Before Rosewater even knew that Carnation had signed treaty work noting Rosewater as Rosemary’s second mother by adoption.

Her later works were more varied and less amateurish, but still lacked the beauty and simple artistry of Carnation’s paintings. That had been her talent, as her cutie mark attested: a paintbrush with a carnation as the head instead of bristles. It had been how she carried herself through life.

Into adulthood, Rosewater and Carnation began sharing more than a home and parental duties.

They’d not been duties for long past her sexual awakening and the understanding that some day, she would be a mother in her own right, and she’d been given a brilliant chance to learn.

Learning became love, love became an understanding that progressed until she realized that what she was feeling for Rosemary was not that of a sibling. She no longer viewed her cousin as her cousin, and she’d kept it to herself for almost a year before she’d built up the courage to talk to Carnation about it. About how she felt, taking care of the then four year old Rosemary.

Carnation, rather than rebuffing her, had held her close, her breathing rough.

“This is not what I would have wished for you,” she’d whispered. “For you to see yourself as a parent so young. You should have had a joyous childhood, the same kind of childhood you’ve been making sure Rosemary has.”

Duties. They had become her joy, and every triumph Rosemary had was one that Rosewater and Carnation shared as her parents seeing a happy, bright soul move through life, unburdened by the war save for the small barriers that kept her from having the run of both cities.

Tonight, Rosemary was making her move, and all Rosewater had of Carnation was the memory and her daughter. Their daughter.

And maybe not even that after tonight. Rosemary was late. Far too late for it to be her taking her time. Far too late for her to deny the despair and anguish as remnants of her spell.

I tried to be a good mother to you, Rosemary, even though I had no idea what I was doing half the time. A thought that Carnation had confessed to her as well, saying she’d had no idea how to raise a filly who’d already half-raised herself with her father’s help, and had left her woefully unprepared for dealing with Rosemary after the stallion that had sired her had vanished into the mists.

Likely because of Roseate scaring him off, as she did for all of the potential complications to her power.

Which left me watching you in his stead, didn’t it? Of all the petty things her mother had done to scare off Rosewater’s lovers over the years, scaring off Rosemary’s sire was the one thing that hadn’t worked out as Roseate had intended. Carnation had gotten pregnant against Roseate’s attempts to keep her sister childless, and given Rosewater…

She was never my sister, was she, despite my early attempts to pretend otherwise.

Throughout the years that followed her birth, Carnation made painting after painting of them all together, always kept secret. Always painted from memory or in the privacy of a home. Sometimes the scene was sketched first and the ponies added later in the secrecy of her home.

Always, Carnation had put Rosewater at her side and Rosemary in front of them. A picture of a family with two parents.

Two mothers and their daughter. Forbidden outside the estate among other ponies.

Except for one outing where they’d worn their motherhood proudly, and neither of them had tried very hard to hide the care and love they showed to Rosemary as she played with her friends, or the closeness of their own bond, barren as it was of the customary intimacy of marriage.

Carnation had taken them all to the Garden of Love for the day, to relax in the baths there and partake of wine fresh from the cask—and grape juice for Rosemary. She’d brought her painting supplies with her, and had had Petal stand in for Carnation for the sketch phase, Rosewater’s cousin looking rather confused as to her placement at first, but settling into an easy smile once the sketch began.

It had been an unusual afternoon, one where they acted like a family among ponies that loved them. Seed had still been a little cretin, trying to tease Rosemary into flinching during the sit, Budding and her family had sat close by, occasionally dragging Seed back into line with rolling eyes before they started talking again.

Usually they kept quiet and Rosewater didn’t treat her aunt and cousin as more than housemates outside of the estate’s walls where they lived as a family.

But that one afternoon…

It had been freeing to put her feelings in front, and have them validated by the ponies at the Garden.

She pulled the painting off the wall and brushed her cheek against its edge. “We were happy, outside our home, for one afternoon.”

Had that cost us the rest?

“No…” She wouldn’t let Roseate take that from her. That one happy, perfect afternoon. She clung to it, fanning it by drinking in more details from the painting, things she’d noticed in passing and reveled in rediscovering. Little bits of Carnation hidden here and there. Her not-quite-wife hiding her warm, bubbly love in the peculiar curl of a lock of Rosemary’s mane, mirrored in the curl of a cloud above.

“I won’t let you have her,” Rosewater said, holding the painting barely a pace away as she sank into the chair, snugging herself deeper into the coverlet.

Roseate wouldn’t be able to corrupt Rosemary into willingly fighting her, but there were others that could be used to coerce her into it. The Nights, Garnish’s new family, a dozen others Roseate could threaten or drag down as she had Roseling.

A stool that had once been Rosemary’s perch when taking lessons from Rosewater in scent-craft, or painting lessons from Carnation now became a stand for the painting as Rosewater settled it into place and tucked the coverlet filled with Rosemary’s memory around her.

Staring into the past, Rosewater settled in to wait, a tiny spark of hope blooming in the gloom of her thoughts.

Morning found Rosewater waking to the tap-tap-tapping of a morning bird seeking seeds in the roofing tiles.

Everything ached from sitting in the chair as Rosewater roused herself to find the house still intact, the painting still upright with Carnation and Rosemary staring back at her, happy to have brought their frumpy housemate out and gotten her to show her happiness at being out. Rosewater’s smile in that picture looked like it was real.

It was a real smile, wasn’t it?

Rosewater pulled the picture closer to nuzzle the corner, then set it back into place on the wall between other paintings of them all together indoors.

Shaking the coverlet from her shoulders, she paced to Rosemary’s room to set it back in place, stopping as she considered the empty bed, tempted again to crawl in and sleep away the nightmare until Rosemary came in and woke her with a touch to the shoulder.

“It’s morning,” she reminded herself, recalling to mind the charade she was playing to keep Roseate distracted from what she was actually doing. Not that there seemed to be too much chance that Roseate could mistake her intent, but keeping the facade would introduce uncertainty.

She had too many ponies eating from her trough for Rosewater to sway personally. For that, she had always needed Rosemary’s help.

For six years, she’d been planning for a moment in the not-too-distant future when she did not have to what she felt, when showing her genuine affection for her Rosemary wouldn’t be cause for further reprisals, when it could be a moment that any parent wouldn’t think twice about. Always, it was in the future. Just another few months of planning.

And then Roseate had thrashed her plans.

Again.

She should have seen it coming, in hindsight, but her hopes had been churning and chaotic, overriding better sense.

When she was done retucking the sheet, she sat on the bed’s edge, her hoof tracing the trough where Rosemary normally lay and had lain since she was old enough to have her own bed. Now wasn’t the time for pretending or hiding her head under the covers hoping things would fix themselves.

Now was the time to be strong, take on the mantle of the Rose Terror as she always did when she left. That haughty mask with cold eyes. She had to plan again, adjust and react, then act.

If Rosemary was taken, as seemed not merely likely, but certain, she needed to act like it didn’t bother her. It was a risk always when raiding. Glory proved that, as had Rose Crown months before, which had precipitated the current tensions between Merrie and Damme, when a massive assault had ended in a stalemate and the return of Crown in return for rather more minor concessions than Lace had originally demanded.

In the short term, it meant Rosemary was out of Roseate’s grasp. She nodded once. In the slightly longer term, it put her under the potential to be returned as a prisoner of war under the strictures of the treaty. Which would put her directly under Roseate’s hoof.

The solution, then, was to impair the negotiations. Or take over them. Which might overplay her hoof.

Which Roseate might do all on her own. But she might also not.

First, she needed information, and a way to get that information existed for her, but doing so would potentially break a useful tool. But she needed to maintain her face in public.

“Get it together, Rosewater,” she told herself, and tweaked her ears as Carnation used to when she would get too serious.

By the time she stepped out onto her porch, the sun was already cresting the horizon. She was a little late to start, but not enough to cause much consternation if her mother’s spies managed to link the night to the events that would surely be sending rumors spreading through Damme.

The usual bevy of spies was situated in place when she looked up, watching the rooftops,

A pop and flash of light at her feet stopped her perusal.

A letter.

She picked it up and drew out the scope she always kept in her saddlebag, adjusting until the rooftops came into focus, scanning until she saw the copper coat gleaming in the sun that she expected. He was watching her through his spyglass as well.

It had been him, most likely, who’d captured her. She pursed her lips and thought for a moment, then collapsed her scope, placing it and the letter in her saddle bag. She couldn’t deal with that right that moment. Not and keep her ruse going.

She would break if she read it and saw it confirmed in his writing that he’d caught her breaking their laws, all knowing that she couldn’t make reprisal against him for it.

Yet a small part of her reminded her that he could have taken her at any night before when Rosemary had so foolishly cavorted and played with the Dammeguard in the open.

She took a deep breath and started towards her perfumery, the letter burning a hole in her side, his eyes upon her no less a weight all the way to the door of her shop.

Once inside, she made sure the shutters were drawn tight over the window, locked the door, and made her way to her sanctum. The only space she could trust was warded against everything she could find in the libraries. It was her impregnable fortress the size of a closet.

She had to wait while the enchantments withdrew, the letter afire against her chest where she held it. She had to wait while the enchantments reset behind her and locked her into the tiny study where she kept the mementos she couldn’t risk even being glimpsed.

The painting of herself at fourteen, holding a squirming five year old Rosemary between her hind legs and fore, her chin on her daughter’s head, smiling at the painter while he sketched out her appearance and took notes on the rest.

The painting of herself at ten, lying with Carnation on a bed of rose petals with a less than one year old Rosemary between their forelegs. Both commissioned from painters in Canterlot who’d come to their home, been sworn to secrecy, and sent on their way once done.

She would not risk them being taken, torn, or seen, lest anypony who would use them for malice see the mother’s look in her eyes both times, the smile that said ‘This is my daughter.’

She took solace in them, in the letters she’d written to Carnation and never sent, uncertain even where to send them and afraid that they would be intercepted. But she had to write them. She couldn’t not write her mother, her partner in raising Rosemary to share all the milestones she passed from the age of fourteen on.

And one more letter she couldn’t let the world see.

Her forelegs shook as she braced herself against the writing desk and opened it ever-so-carefully.

Rosewater,

It was in Rosemary’s hoof. She had written to her. Tears threatened, but she kept them at bay through an effort of will. Collar had allowed her to write the letter. Maybe knowing what it would mean to her.

I’m sorry. I got caught. I’m not going to be able to keep that promise. Glory is here, and so is Lord Collar. It was him, but he’s been gentle since I was captured. Please don’t blame him. Blame me.

“Never,” Rosewater whispered. “I should have found another way.”

If you know where she is, please let mother know I’m okay, and I love her.

“Too blatant,” Rosewater said, sighing. “Please tell me he didn’t read it.”

I love you, Rosewater. Please don’t worry about me.

She snorted a pained laugh, “Not worry about you?”

Everything else washed away as the dam broke and she sagged against the writing table, crushing the letter to her chest with both hooves.

Safe. She’s safe. Thank all the stars.

Book 1, 19. Before the Storm, Part 1

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Prim Collar sat on the rooftop, studying the perfumery through his scope as if he could pierce the stone and wood and whatever else was inside to see into the mare’s heart. She’d shown more reaction in the wheat field outside of Damme.

She had to have known what was in the letter and she hadn’t done more than look at it, confirm who must have sent it, and continued on, only departing from her normal routine enough to close the perfumery’s shutters. It was the only acknowledgment he’d seen that she knew.

“Was I worried about nothing?” he asked Prim Note, the Dammeguard’s best eavesdropper, a specialized aural mage whose entire life revolved around sound. He was, by all accounts, one of the best singers in Damme as well.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Note said, shaking his head. “She wasn’t silenced in the house, and she was awake most of the night. I could hear her moving about until about two hours ago. She didn’t say much, and what she did say, I couldn’t get a clear read on. But she’s never stayed up all night before. Usually only most of it. Then she naps in the perfumery.”

He sighed. “Alright. Keep a listen for her. I’ve got to get back to the palace and stop my mother from starting the interrogation. Whatever happens, report back at noon.” He clapped the stallion on the back with a hoof and stood. “And if she does anything unusual, send one, and only one of the pegasi back. Glide, Wind, one of you is to stay here at all times until your shift change.”

“Aye sir.”

He hoofed it down the stairs around the outside of the building, not wanting to go in and bother the shopkeepers and their family. He barely even noticed the traffic starting to build up as the day started, nor the whispers and praise that followed behind him, congratulating him on his latest victory over the Roses.

He wanted to snap at them and tell them to shut up, especially when they started calling Rosewater the Rose Terror.

Something about the way Rosewater seemed to defy that name in her private meetings sat wrong with him. Ever since her moment of weakness at the Treaty Office, he had trouble seeing her as anything more than a scared pony trying to make her way in the world against the near insurmountable pressures mounting against her.

Even her apparent playing to the Rosethorn tradition of entrapping and enthralling mates was suspect. He still couldn’t forget the little quip ‘Take care of him for us.’

It’d been meant, he was sure, as a barb to push the narrative she was trying to sell, but ‘us’ didn’t fit that story.

His jaw tightened as he forced himself to remember the reasons he was fighting against her. Her goal, as far as he was aware, was to take him as her mate. Whatever chinks there were in that narrative, it was the only one she was actually pushing. Even her actions today pushed a story that she was less concerned about Rosemary than he would have thought.

And yet…

She had stayed up all night. He, at least, had gotten some rest. Doesn’t that show some concern for her cousin?

That question rolled around and around in his mind the rest of the way to the palace, weakening his resolve again.

By the time he reached the steps, he was less than surprised when a faint pop and clink announced the arrival of a bundle of letters and an intricately filigreed, glass-stoppered perfume bottle.

She’d never sent a stoppered one before.

The top letter’s envelope read “Lord Collar.” The second read Rosemary.

He sighed, gathered up the letter and perfume bottle, pausing for a moment to stare at the pink liquid swirling around inside, little bits of glittering gold dust flashing and flickering in the sunlight as he swirled it. An expensive perfume.

The letter, he considered leaving unopened until he gave it to Rosemary, but reminded himself that however sweet she seemed, she was still a scent mage, and before he could give her the perfume, he had to make sure it was safe and couldn’t be used to allow her to escape. Rosewater probably expected him to read it in any case.

There were two letters inside. One addressed simply to him.

Lord Prim Collar,
Burn this letter as soon as you’re done reading it. I am trusting you to keep to our accord and not involve others.
I trust that my cousin will be safe in your prison, and that she will share her cell with Glory. She does not do well when she is isolated. If there is any concession I can grant to ensure her safety and comfort, please do not hesitate to ask.
The perfume is magical, but inert. It was magically crafted, but once made the components are inert.
Rosewater.

He considered the letter, debating.

“Your palace leaks like a sieve.”

This was evidence of collusion by the first line of it, and she was giving him something that might be considered treason. Negotiations for Rosemary’s return hadn’t yet begun, and thus any communications she sent would be considered at least infringing on the line.

Collar glanced at one of the oil lamps and pulled free the striker. A few taps later, and he had a part of the letter smoldering. A simple application of a filter spell fueled the flame with pure air, charring the letter to ash within seconds.

“Sir!” One of the guards at the entrance stared at him. “Wh-what was that for?”

“A security precaution,” Collar said absently, reaching a hoof to stir the flakes of paper ash drifting on the front step. There wasn’t enough left to put together even a corner of a page.

The next letter was addressed to Rosemary, but because she was a prisoner…

He prized it open, feeling guilty about doing so even though Rosemary’s mail fell under the law afforded to criminals rather than diplomats. This was less directly conspiratorial. A guardian had the right to communicate with their charge, and Rosewater had fought dearly for that recognition. It was two pages, the first clearly hastily written.

Rosemary,
I’m afraid I don’t know where your mother is right now. Under Celestia’s grace, she was granted asylum, and that is all that I was allowed to know. I’m sure she loves you very much, and thinks about you every day. I will see if I can write a letter to Celestia to pass along to her. She has denied my request in the past, but if it is from daughter to mother, perhaps she will relent.
Please recall every lesson I have taught you in court manners, and every lesson on secrecy I have taught you. Some secrets, I would ask you to keep. You know which is most important. That, you must never tell. Not even to Cloudy. Not even to an empty room. Try not to even think about it.

Curious and curiously worded, all of it. Surely Rosemary knew as much as Rosewater about her mother. It might have been a code of some sort. Safewords indicating fair treatment, perhaps. A key to maintaining their accord. The second was only a few lines of text, detailing the perfume.

He could hope so at least.

I love you dearly, and I miss you. This perfume was made with your mother in mind. Please be sparing in its use, as I have not the materials to make more at the moment. I call it Mother’s Kiss.

It did look a little like Carnation’s coat color, now that he looked at it with that in mind. His estimation of Rosewater rose another notch. It was, for a Rose, perhaps one of the kindest comforts he could imagine.

How much can I trust her?

Not far enough to let a magical perfume into a master scent-mage’s grasp.

He sighed and unstoppered the bottle briefly, the filigree glowing briefly and letting loose an apparently measured amount of perfume. The fragrance wasn’t like anything he could describe. It was something akin to freshly laundered sheets, a warmed hearth without the smoke, and an indefinable trait that he could only describe as… motherly.

The fragrance rose in a pink cloud as it was exposed to the air, and he stoppered it quickly.

Oddly, the pink cloud retained the golden sparkles seen flashing in the liquid, motes of light drifting on invisible currents within the rising mist. Magical indeed.

He inhaled, taking in just enough to capture more of that indefinable essence so he could try and identify it.

A brief memory of his mother, younger than she was now, vibrant and as stately as ever, stronger and with far less gray in her mane. When did I forget her mane used to be a burnished gold?

It was in their sitting room, and Collar sat at a short writing desk, his first magically controlled letters scrawled on the surface of a pebbled bit of paper in messy lines sat in front of him. The effort of an hour rose, and his eyes with it to meet his mother’s storm-blue eyes that flicked from the paper to him.

“I’m proud of you, Collar,” she said, kissing his cheek.

Then it passed, and he was standing in the corridor again, staring at a swirling pink bottle of pink and gold.

Mother’s kiss, indeed. That she could evoke that much emotion, let alone memory in him from a supposedly inert fragrance was, frankly, terrifying.

There was little chance that it was anything other than a comfort fragrance, and as frightening as her skill with scents was, this was one thing she’d made that was unequivocally love. Love magic, perhaps.

That it was a part of her talent seemed obvious, and it threw into question her heritage and just who her father, Blue Star, had been. If he was a descendant of the lost Crystal Empire, it begged the question of how he’d ended up in Merrie. Or if she was simply a fragment of skill unconnected and the white-coated stallion had only granted his coat to his daughter and not a hint of his heritage.

He sighed. She continued to confound his expectations of who she was. But perhaps the perfume, too, was a message; her way of showing off a piece of her true heart without telling anypony what was actually there.

“Why can’t you just let it out?” he muttered.

Rosemary woke to the shifting of a wing over her, a hearty yawn on her lips, and the long-missing fragrance of pegasus mare that she’d missed in her bed for two long years.

Sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the curtains, sending a warm bar of light across the covers, highlighting a grass-green coat and wings of emerald feathers.

“Cloudy,” she whispered.

“Stars,” Cloudy whispered in her ear. “I was so worried…”

“I was, too,” Rosemary whispered back, then lifted her head from the muffling feathers. “I was worried that you left because of something I did or said. You were so unhappy that last week, Cloudy. Why?”

“Not now,” Cloudy said, raising her head to kiss Rosemary’s forehead just beside her horn. “It doesn’t matter right now.”

Rosemary pulled back to kiss her. The first kiss she’d shared with her since…

She still tasted the same. Wind and rain and the hay and oats she had for breakfast. Natural Cloudy. Rosemary kissed her again when the first parted, feeling a hunger waking in her that she hadn’t ever felt so acutely.

“Not the time, Rosemary,” Cloudy said, her wings quivering as she drew back. “Please… I want you, too, but not now.”

“I know.” She reached for another kiss, stopped and bit her lip. There was a time and a place for making love. Now wasn’t it. Not just made a prisoner, not even an hour after waking up.

She glanced up at Poppy still watching out of the corner of his eye. Glory, despite the warning against returning to the prison, had insisted on remaining in place until Rosemary had had a good night’s sleep, her reasoning being that sometimes waking one from an enchanted sleep had side-effects that were less than pleasant.

“They’re really in love?”

“They are,” Cloudy said softly. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said no way. Poppy’s a good stallion, but he’s far too tightly wound to let himself loose.” She chuckled at his blushing smile. “And despite mounting her and she riding him for months, he still blushes whenever I talk about sex.”

“Shut up, Cloudy,” Poppy said, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks still darkened. “And yes, Rosemary, I do love her.”

Glory chuckled and raised her head. “I love you too, my Blushing Poppy,” she purred, kissing his cheek. “Someday, we’ll have to bond, you know. After the Merrie fashion.”

“And I think it should be after the Damme fashion,” he said. “You know—” He huffed and closed his eyes. “Not in front of my patient.”

“And I think there are more doors in your heart to open yet, Poppy,” she said gently, licking his cheek. “Rosemary will agree with me, right, cousin?”

“I agree that he shouldn’t in front of the patient,” Cloudy said before Rosemary could interject. “Nor should you, Glory.”

Rosemary sighed and nipped Cloudy’s neck. “I’m fine. Just… scared myself more than anything.” And probably Rosewater. “You should give it at least a try, Poppy. There’s nothing in the trying of another philosophy of life that’s harmful, is there? Especially if it means something to the one you love?”

“I’ve tried that,” Glory said. “I think he’ll come around.”

“I might,” Poppy said. “I might. You understand why I’m nervous, though?”

“Yeah. Your grandparents,” Cloudy said with a sigh. “Your folks are okay with you being my friend, right?”

“Barely. It was knowing you that let me think ‘maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,’ and if they found out that I’m actually in love with a Rose, let alone a Rosethorn and Roseate’s third daughter…” He swallowed and leaned hard against Rose Glory, his ears flattened back. “My granddad especially makes Stride’s parents look like moderates. Thankfully, my parents thought that caning every Rose that came across the bridges was a little on the extreme side.”

Rosemary flinched away. “What? They want to do that?”

“They talk, Rosemary,” Poppy said quietly. “They’re old reactionaries that used to raid and take just as much as any in their age. They’re one of the reasons for the Lace Reformation. Well, not them personally, but ponies like them. I promise you won’t find anypony like that in the palace or near it. Most of them dislike Lace for her ‘softness’, but won’t dare do more than grumble. The Dammeguard is all loyal to her absolutely.”

“Why?” The Merrieguard was a much looser collection of ponies, as the need to defend against Damme had fallen apart, so too had the discipline of the guard. They were little more than a token force, and some only paid lip service loyalty to Roseate.

Rosemary knew from experience some of them were there only because being on the inside afforded protection from the predations of those who were drunk with their own power.

“Because we don’t have to break apart families or see them broken apart. The Dammeguard is mostly common ponies in the ranks, but those of us with officer potential tend to be at least nominally nobility.” Poppy patted his chest. “I’m a minor branch scion, the Primblooms. We tend to be the ones to take care of the boulevards. I’m an outlier in more ways than one,” he said, nuzzling and drawing Glory into a brief kiss.

“I see.” Rosemary lay back down, drawing Cloudy with her to the bed. It was a lot to think about. The politics of Damme were just as complicated as Merrie, even if they were less subtle about the dangers they presented.

“I know that look,” Cloudy said softly, patting her nose with a hoof. “You’re thinking like Rosewater, aren’t you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way she thinks,” Rosemary said with a huff.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t had to endure her claiming Collar will be her mate.” Cloudy chuckled. “Honestly, I don’t—”

“Wait, what?” Rosemary pushed herself up, staring down at Cloudy. “She’s what?” What in the blazes do you think you’re doing, Rosewater? Claiming Collar as her mate was tantamount to stating she was following the corrupted Rosethorn way, the way she had explicitly warned her against.

“She didn’t tell you?” Cloudy frowned and nipped her chin. “I don’t think she’s as close as you think she is.”

Rosemary shook her head automatically. “It’s not that. If I asked her, she’d tell me, but…” she sighed. “She calls what she keeps from me a tightrope. What she can keep, what she can tell.”

“Can you give us any reassurance that she doesn’t intend following that path?”

“I don’t think she’s claimed him as a mate.” Rosemary pulled away from the nip and rubbed at the spot. “She’s been acting strange lately.” It could easily have been a ploy to make Roseate think she was playing the same game. But why tell Collar? “I thought it was because I told her not to interfere with…”

“With your mission,” Glory filled in when Rosemary hesitated. “Blunt. Straightforward. It’s right there in mother’s bag of tricks. As to Rosewater claiming Collar… that’s hogwash. That mare could no more follow the way of her mother than she could raise or lower the sun.”

“She’s always been strange,” Cloudy murmured, a thoughtful look in her eyes that seemed to transcend their conversation as she stared somewhere over Rosemary’s head before jerking herself back to attention. “We have a lot to catch up on, I think.”

“Yes, we have a lot of catching up to do,” Rosemary said with a sigh and caught a scent on the air, familiar and masculine, masked by bathing scents. “But later. All of you are tired, and should probably find your own beds.”

A hoof knocked on the door heralded Lord Collar’s entrance. He took a moment to take stock of the room, his eyes lingering on Cloudy and Rosemary curled up together, then on Poppy and Glory. “I think that’s a good idea. Bedtime for all of you.”

“My bed is in a jail,” Glory said with a wry twist of her lips. “And it’s daytime besides, so I’m stuck by Poppy’s side until I get put back. Not complaining, mind.” She flashed her lover a grin that Poppy returned with a roll of the eyes. “But I’d rather be with him when I choose.”

“That’s going to change soon, Glory.” Lord Collar waved a hoof. “And for today, take the next bedchamber over. I don’t care in which direction, they’re both single rooms. I’ll make sure Mother understands why I chose to do it. Just be sure to hide yourself, Glory.”

“Yes, my lord,” Glory murmured, bowing her head and vanishing with a brief flicker of magic. Poppy smiled tiredly and slipped out, the door hanging open for a moment longer than should be necessary.

“And me?” Cloudy asked.

“Stay,” Lord Collar said, rubbing at his cheek with a hoof. “I would, um…” Collar flushed and glanced at Cloudy. “I would like you to introduce us, Cloudy. Please. Maybe that will make this less awkward.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Cloudy said, still holding onto Rosemary with both forelegs and drew a wing over her almost entirely. “She means a lot to me.”

“Understandable.” He waved a hoof again and sat. “But you’ll have to let her go for introductions. She can’t talk very well if you’ve got her head covered by a wing. I promise she’ll still be here tomorrow. For which I apologize, Rosemary.”

“I broke the laws,” Rosemary said with a sigh. “I knew what I was doing was wrong to your standards.”

He nodded. “You did. But I believe you did so reluctantly. First…” He closed his eyes. “Cloudy? Come here, please. This is an official interview. I can’t have you nuzzling the interviewee.” At least he wasn’t calling her prisoner.

She stiffened against Rosemary, then nodded and let go of her. “Sorry,” she whispered and slid towards the edge of the bed, every line of her radiating her protest.

“Go. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I was going to ask to use the privy soon enough.” Rosemary said, chuckling and trying to inject a tiny bit of levity in the moment. “Go. Stand with him.” She sat up in bed as Cloudy slipped away, patting down her mane and using a spell to brush down where her coat had gotten ruffled.

“Rosemary, Collar. Collar, Rosemary,” Cloudy said shortly, snorting at the end and fixing Collar with an arch-browed look.

“Thank you, Cloudy, for removing all of the awkwardness,” Rosemary said deadpan, a smile tugging at her lips despite her situation.

Collar’s lips twitched into a smile as well. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, Rosemary,” Collar said, glancing at Cloudy. “Cloudy has been talking a lot about you lately, and I’ve been receiving reports of your activities.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Collar,” Rosemary said, following his gaze for a moment, then turning back to him. “I wish it were under different circumstances. And I wish I had not come to, as you must see it, steal away your lover.”

“I’m… more open than that. My father, as you may know, is a Merrier from your grandmother’s generation. I grew up with his teasing and his mores mixed with my mother’s,” Collar said with a smile. “I’m hoping you will not steal her away for more than a couple nights here and there. I do dearly love her, and I understand that her loving you does not in any way diminish the love she has for me.”

Rosemary stared at him, her ears slowly flattening sideways just as Cloudy’s were. He wasn’t the terrifying visage of power that she’d thought, not even last night had he been. Rosewater’s equal, he was, but he was far more nuanced than rumor and her sparse interactions with him in the past would have suggested.

“That is… very…” She swallowed. “Why?”

“My father raised me to understand that love can have more nuance than one pony to another.” His ears twitched as he glanced at Cloudy. “And I’ve been pushed by my love to understand that her loving others romantically in no way diminishes her love for me.”

“I’ve… heard much of Dapper,” Rosemary said, licking her lips. This wasn’t at all how she’d expected her morning to go. Not with her crime so fresh. The bed, reunited with Cloudy, this cordial meeting. “I’d like to meet him?”

Cloudy smiled faintly, her ears relaxing into an upright pose, a releasing of tension.

“You’ll likely meet him soon enough. He’s a regular visitor of Glory’s, and I don’t doubt he’ll want to get to know you as well.” Collar rose from his seated position and patted Cloudy lightly on the shoulder. “This will be official, gentle, and as to the point as can be made. But first…”

Rosemary’s ears flattened in turn as he pulled a letter with the seal broken and a small bottle of an unfamiliar perfume and set the bottle on the bedside table. It was unfamiliar to her, the glittering pink and gold seeming like her eyes more than anything else, as if she’d distilled the loving look she held in her heart when she was behaving like her mother.

“This was sent by Rosewater just as I arrived back at the palace. I apologize, but I had to open them to make sure there would be no contraband.” He floated the letter to her.

It was short, simple, and sweetly vague enough that she had told Rosemary all she wanted to hear from both of her mothers. And a warning she’d already taken to heart: tell nopony about our relationship, or you won’t be safe.

“Why does it smell like smoke?” Rosemary asked, sniffing at the paper.

“Er… Your cousin sent a second letter and asked that I burn it as soon as I read it.” He rubbed one foreleg with the other. “She doesn’t trust palace secrecy.”

“She has good reason for that,” Rosemary said idly as she considered the paper, front and back. There was a faint, even to her, scent marking on the back held in place by a simple spell. A hidden message. “She kept on muttering about cookies for a week, some months ago.”

Collar shared a look with Cloudy, both of them arching brows but neither gave her an answer.

She folded the letter back up and slipped it into the envelope again, working to contain her excitement. It wouldn't have remained secret long in the Rose Palace, where such things were used to send playful messages to lovers, but it was based in scent magic, and no Prim, especially in Prim Palace, would dare. She only had to figure out which fragrance Rosewater had keyed it to. If she’d had little time to prepare…

The perfume bottle drew her attention, curiosity mixed with dread and hope making her heart skip. When she looked back up, Cloudy smiled at her warmly and leaned against Collar, making the ‘interrogation’ feel more like it was a meeting between old friends.

That wouldn’t do. They would be asking for Rosewater’s secrets. Those that she knew, or thought she knew, anyway. “I'm ready, Lord Collar,” Rosemary said. “Please begin.”

Book 1, 20. Before the Storm, Part 2

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Collar glanced again at Cloudy, whose eyes never seemed to leave Rosemary, and wondered at the wisdom of keeping her there for what might be a difficult interrogation, depending on the nature of what he discovered. Or did not discover.

“Very well. First…” He took a breath and steadied himself. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Trying not to get exiled,” Rosemary said simply. That startled Collar, but not Cloudy, and he shot his lover a look that didn’t take much guesswork to figure out.

“It was the price of failure for my task as well,” Cloudy murmured. “Not explicitly stated, though.”

Collar closed his eyes and leaned lightly against Cloudy. “I know. You’re safe from that.” He let her lean against him for a moment before opening his eyes to find Rosemary studying them, her veneer of calm belied as false by the twitching of her coat and her ears.

Nowhere in her could he see the terror she’d shown last night.

“Why were you trying to abduct Prim Cottage?” Collar asked at last.

“I wasn’t trying to abduct him.” Plainly said, Rosemary’s answer had nothing on the surface to grab onto. “I wanted to get certain information from him. About you, my lord.”

“What certain information did you want to get?” Collar belatedly pulled out a scroll and made a few quick notes, wincing as Cloudy rolled her eyes. He couldn’t let the informality run the meeting, nor her apparent openness beguile him away from asking questions.

“Anything I could get him to talk about,” Rosemary said evenly. “I had planned to weaken his inhibitions about talking to a mare like me, a Rosethorn, and then approach his door openly and ask if he wanted to share a dinner with me.”

“Not sex?”

“I will not use my body for Roseate’s gain,” Rosemary growled, her ears flat, her tail lashing the floor. “Nor will I coax one who would otherwise be unwilling into bed with me. Regardless of reason.”

“Noted,” Collar said softly, glancing aside at Cloudy, her face an impassive mask… if he ignored the small tick pulling at her cheek telling him she was fighting to keep from clenching her teeth. “Please explain your plan, and any culpability of any others.”

“Others.” Rosemary’s voice was flat. “Roseate, you already know. No other was involved in my planning.”

“Not even Rosewater?”

“Do you think me incapable of executing a raid on my own?” Rosemary asked.

“Planning, no. Executing, yes,” Collar said simply, raising a brow. “It’s been clear from the start of our surveillance that your heart wasn’t in it, Rosemary, and while we had our suspicions about whether or not your playfulness was a ruse—”

“It wasn’t.” Rosemary seemed to slump even though she barely moved. “Stars above, it wasn’t.” Her eyes lifted to meet his, then slid off to the side. “I didn’t want to do any of this, Lord Collar. I had to do it. I had to take the risk.”

An inkling of what Rosemary was really like flitted through his mind. Those reports from Stride of her activities weren’t simply her making up a persona. He had no doubt in that moment that her every interaction with his guards, and her dancing and making light of her trespass were nothing more than they appeared on the surface.

A free spirit yearning to be free.

Collar checked the evidence bag he’d dragged in with him and rifled through the contents for a moment before he pulled out the three vials of perfume.

“As this will be used to determine your sentencing,” Collar said as she settled them on the floor in front of them, “please tell me what each of these does.”

Rosemary blinked at him, then at the perfumes. “My lord. What’s stopping me from using the white fragrance on you? I gave you a demonstration of what it does.”

“You did. But rather than use it on me, you used it on yourself.” Collar glanced aside at Cloudy when she flinched. “My trust in your integrity comes from a very reliable source,” Collar said. “Unless I have vastly underestimated you, I believe that you would not use these out of malice.”

“I would not,” Rosemary said, but still hesitated as she lifted the first one, the nearly viscous orange liquid lazily swirling. “Th-this is an appetite encouragement. It makes a pony hungry for the scent I captured. In this case, a brown-sugar roasted carrot casserole. I made sure Mr. Cottage had all the ingredients before I made the perfume.”

“How?” Collar asked, quickly flipping through the mental copies of the reports Stride had written.

“By smelling them. It’s how I knew there were cracks in his window. I drew out the air from inside and smelled it the night before I decided what recipe I would use.” The vial in Rosemary’s magic swirled slowly. “I would have made him hungry for it… then offered to make it for him, and talked to him while I was cooking.”

Collar resisted the urge to rub his muzzle. “Prim Cottage would have gladly welcomed you into his home, Rosemary,” he said instead. “He was…” He trailed off and waved for Rosemary to go on, the look in her eyes telling him she was at least eager to prove she wasn’t totally incompetent.

“He was the palace steward while you were growing up, and was a supporter of the Lace Reformations. Both were reasons why Roseate wanted him abducted. At least, I think so. To weaken support for the Reformations and to garner personal information about you.”

“But you weren’t going to abduct him?” Collar asked, glancing aside to see a very smug-looking Cloudy nodding along with his question.

“No.” Rosemary set the glass down again. “I was going to try to play ignorant with Roseate. I’m terrible at hiding. I know it. She knows it. You know it. I had a week still until the deadline came due, so even if playing ignorant didn’t work, I hoped she would give me a second chance.”

She wouldn’t have, dear mare. “Like she gave your mother.” For the briefest moment, Collar thought Rosemary was going to start crying again, but she held it in and shook her head. “What about this one?”

“Only if I needed to loosen his inhibitions about talking to me further.” Rosemary raised that one and swirled it, the liquid sloshing and almost seeming ready to burst into gaseous form at the slight motion, then sliding down back into a liquid. “One of the Garden of Love’s vintages, from…” She took a breath. “Before Carnation was taken from us.”

“Us.” Collar raised a brow.

Rosemary’s ears flattened, and for a brief, panicked moment she stared at him. Then she righted her ears and pushed calm back into her expression. “Us. Rosewater and I. Both of us loved her dearly, and it was devastating to both of us when she was exiled.”

“Rosewater turned into a recluse,” Collar said.

“Roseate made her a recluse!” Rosemary shot back. “I’ve tried so hard to push her out again, but she’s terrified that Roseate will take everypony else that she’s ever loved from her. Just like she did Carnation,” she finished in a whispered. “She took my mother from me. She took Rosewater’s mother away, too.”

He had to ask it. He hated that he had to, but he needed to know why. “Why didn’t both of you leave with her and start over somewhere else?”

Rosemary fixed him with a glower that he knew he deserved. “I love Merrie. I love my friends. I love that I am free to pursue love as I understand it. As for Rosewater… ask her. But as long as she stays here, I am needed here.”

That confirmed something Collar had long suspected ever since their first clandestine meeting. “You’re her sanctuary.”

He could have rubbed snow in her mane and gotten a less surprised reaction. “You know?”

“She told me.”

For a moment, it seemed like she was going to say more, then she closed up again, suspicion in her eyes and her demeanor. “Is it any wonder that we’re close? Carnation raised both of us. She’s lost two families, Collar, and I’m all that’s left of her second. I will…”

She swallowed, her ears drooping as she looked between Collar and Cloudy.

“I… I won’t be there for her, will I?”

“No.” Collar said the word softly.

He watched as the realization settled over her, the events of the night catching up to her along with all the implications of what her arrest meant. This wasn’t a jaunt across the bridge that she would joke with the friends she’d made of the Dammeguard about, and it wasn’t something she was going to simply walk away from.

“Will she be okay?” He asked after it seemed like the fullness of the ramifications had settled over her.

“I don’t know.” Rosemary stood, her legs shaking, and moved unsteadily around the bed to look out the window. The Clothier’s suite looked out over the courtyard, facing to the south towards Merrie. On the second floor of the palace, it wasn’t high enough to see over the buildings of Damme to its sister city, but she didn’t seem to notice as she sat there, coat shivering as unknowable thoughts passed over her.

She raised a hoof to set on the glass, flat and gentle as if she were saying farewell to somepony. She swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was rough and strained. “I don’t know, my lord. I don’t know.”

At the third repetition, she sank against the stone wall and wept quietly.

Cloudy was at her side in an instant, with only an apologetic look to him before she settled in to hold her former lover, a mare she still loved dearly.

Leaving Collar to stand and watch, and wonder what was going to happen to the relative calm he’d been able to gather to him in the past two years.

Cloudy found Collar reading reports, or at least pretending to read reports. His eyes were fixed on the page, but they weren’t moving, and a sweating bottle of chilled Dammerale sat on the corner of his desk, the condensation ring telling her he’d barely touched it.

He looked up briefly as she came in and slid the top page across to her silently.

Rosewater returned home early morning. She was not witnessed leaving the perfumery.

How she’d pulled that off, they would likely never know. A mist illusion on the door, perhaps. Or simply teleporting from within to without. Someplace she could observe the palace from afar and teleport the message and the bottle when Collar approached.

“She slipped up,” Cloudy said.

“But was it deliberate?” Collar eyed the bottle of Dammerale and took a long pull from it. “Or is she already cracking?”

“It’s not even been a day, Collar,” Cloudy said softly. “She’s stronger than that.”

“She is normally.” Collar drew in a deep breath and let it out, then took another swallow. “I need to ask a favor of you, Cloudy. I need you to watch for her on the river. If you see a chance to talk to her, try to take it.”

“Because if she’s unstable, we might have poked a badger.”

“The badger needed poking,” Collar said with a wry smile. “We can’t ignore the law for one pony just because her cousin—”

“Sister,” Cloudy said, certain of her intuition. “That wasn’t a cousin she was missing, Collar. That was her sister, and a dear one at that.” It was hard to describe to him, a single child, what it felt like to be separated from her family every day for the past two years. Even though it would only take a second to cross the river, and another few to land, the repercussions for her family would be wide-ranging.

Cloudy was a traitor in Merrie, and any visitation by her to her family would be seen as traitorous acts. Hundreds of years of familial history in that home would be ripped away from them in an instant if Cloudy gave in.

What she’d seen in Rosemary, what she’d felt as she settled in to cover the mare with a wing, was like that. It was a bond of family more potent than blood that had been broken.

“I see.” Collar leaned back in his chair and pushed his hooves against the desk. “I hate this war.”

“Gospel, sir,” she said and swiped the bottle to take a swig. It was a good batch, freshly brewed, but it still made her nose twitch as she set it back down. “I’ll be on the river, Collar. I don’t know that trying to talk to her won’t cause more problems.”

He grimaced and drained the rest of the Dammerale. “I wish I could just… ask her. Right now.”

Cloudy smiled thinly. “Duty.”

“Rutting duty,” he agreed. “Rutting war.”

Collar nosed his way into the suite, past the guard standing watch outside, and found Rosemary asleep on the bed, a pillow cast over her eyes and only her nose sticking out.

A nose that twitched when he pulled the cover off her lunch. “You didn’t have to cook what I made in my scent,” she murmured.

“It was from my mother’s trove of recipes,” Collar replied. “I had the kitchen make it for you.” He settled the platter of carrot casserole on the small desk and pulled out a chair, then hesitated and pulled one of the unused pillows from the bed to sit on, after the Merrier style. “You said you’d planned to cook it for him.”

“I did.” She didn’t elaborate.

“I wanted to talk to you informally,” he said softly, settling more comfortably in place and silencing the room to the outside. “About your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

Collar pursed his lips and tugged at the pillow covering her face gently. “I know she’s closer to you than most cousins are.”

“She’s been…” Rosemary tugged the pillow back down with a hoof rather than a spell.

“You care a great deal for her, regardless of your relationship.” Collar pulled the pillow away. “And you can’t hide, Rosemary.”

“I’m not hiding. I have a headache.”

“My apologies, then. But I am assured that eating will help remedy that after a good cry.” He smiled encouragingly and pulled another pillow down from the bed to set in front of the desk. “I apologize for the lack of an actual table, but this room was never intended as a prison cell.”

“I’m not going to be sent to Prim Prison?” Rosemary asked, frozen halfway through dismounting from the bed.

“No. Given her… tendency to be overprotective of you, we felt it best to keep you in a more secure location.” Collar smiled at the furrow-browed frown. “Oh, it’s not easy to break into Prim Prison, but it has been done before.” He waited a beat, holding a smile until she glanced at him, brows rising. “Getting out again is the hard part.”

She snorted and sat at the desk, sniffing delicately at the dish, her Rosethorn marks glowing a delicate pink. “My mother…” She swallowed. “She used to make it like this.”

“Lace has been saying quite a lot about Carnation lately,” Collar said, not bothering to hide that he was fishing for information. “The impression I’ve gotten is that they were once very close.”

Rosemary glanced at him. “If they were, it was before I was born, my lord.” Her eyes widened slightly as the knife she was using to cut up the carrots practically fell through them without the need for pressure. “When Rosewater makes it, the carrots are nowhere near so soft.”

“She cooks a lot?”

“She does.” Rosemary fell silent while she ate a few bites, her eyes brightening more with each one. “You want to ask about her, my lord.”

“I do.” He settled in more firmly on his pillow and crossed his forelegs as he leaned against the desk. “But I’d rather ask about you. Or, rather, what your plan is.”

“Stay put.” She raised a brow questioningly. “Unless you’re asking if I plan on making an escape?”

“I trust enough in your integrity to post only one guard and to leave you the Mother’s Kiss perfume.” Collar shook his head. “Strictly speaking, that should be contraband, but I’ve felt its effects. There’s no harm to it.”

She opened her mouth, her eyes flashing, but stopped before whatever she had been about to say came out and settled back down to eat another bite of casserole.

“Your cousin can bottle emotions and sell them as perfume,” Collar went on. “How she does it, even with a talent, I don’t know. It’s a rare and dangerous talent, if that’s what it is.”

“And here, I thought you wanted to know about me,” Rosemary said flatly, then demured, ears dipping, and raised another forkful of casserole to her lips. “That was meant as a gift to me. I know you didn’t miss the filigreed representations of our strange little family.”

He waited until she swallowed before answering. “I did notice. But forgive me if I’d rather not give a prisoner the means to escape so neatly packaged.”

“You did not need to give it to me at all, my lord, and yet…” Rosemary glanced to the side where the bottle sat on the bedside table, the latch firmly secured. “Why?”

“I owed her a favor. A rather large one.”

“When Roseate tried to abduct you.”

“She told you? Last I’d heard on the street was that mother and daughter just happened to be fighting over me and I, mighty stallion that I am,” he said with a pull back of his head and puffing up of his chest, “defeated both of them readily.”

Rosemary giggled. “Strong as you are, Rosewater would still stand on level ground with you, my lord. And yes. She told me.”

“That’s why,” Collar said more gently, resuming his more relaxed posture. “Ponies are going to wonder where the Rosethorn Princess has gone, you know.”

“What?” Rosemary stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Ah. The rumors must not have reached Merrie yet, then.” Collar offered her a smile, and added, “The ghost of a Rosethorn mare pining after her lost love, dancing through the mists of Primline Park before sitting down on Prim Rock to hold a silent, eternal vigil for her love lost at sea.”

“That… that’s what they think of my dancing?”

“A lot of emotion can come out in motion,” Collar said. “Such as the mournful movements of a mare preparing herself to do something she doesn’t want to do. I have the reports from the night before you were arrested. Our watcher reported you were melancholic, or seemed so, different from your usual cheerful self.” He shrugged. “A mare, half-veiled, dancing by the moonlight and then watching the sea. It’s not hard to put a sad tale to it from a pony watching at a distance.”

“I had no chance to pull off my plan, did I?”

“No. But we didn’t arrest you because we wanted to believe that you wouldn’t.”

“I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Rosemary. You could have defected to us, as Cloudy did. I would have loved to see Cloudy’s face light up to have you come to us willingly.”

“Do you think I didn’t consider that, Lord Collar?” Her face twisted into anger mixed with sorrow. “Do you think I wouldn’t wish for that to have been the easiest option?”

“Why wasn’t it?” he asked in as gentle a tone as he could.

It was curious to see her face close up as she shut down her emotional response to the question. It should have been an easy question to answer. It took her a long time to bring her breathing back to normal, and for the pain etched across her brow and ears to fade, but when she raised her head again, her expression one of careful, fragile serenity. It was how he imagined a younger Rosewater might react.

“Because it was not,” she said in a smooth tone, as though she’d been talking about the weather. “You read the letter. There are secrets I must hold close. Even inside a bubble of silence, I’d rather not even think about them too loudly.”

“I must ask. For the sake of my ponies and my city, Rosemary.”

Her eyes turned from him to the casserole, a look of understanding dawning in her eyes. “Was all this a setup to bring me here? To this conversation?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “I wanted to see what kind of mare Cloudy would fall in love with and hold onto for years of separation.” He had his answer, too, and he couldn’t blame Cloudy for her love. Rosemary was… different. “I didn’t want to ask, but I must.”

The fragile control she held over herself trembled, tears trickling down her cheeks as she stared over his shoulder, her throat bobbing, her jaw tightening and relaxing as she spoke carefully.

“I had a duty, too.” She closed her eyes. “I failed, and now she’s alone again.”

Rosewater. Collar swallowed. “She cares greatly for you. What would her reaction to your letter be, do you think?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Hide.”

Collar closed his eyes and saw her face again in the secret meeting on the bridge, the pain in her eyes barely restrained. “I’m sorry, Rosemary.”

“Me too.”

They stayed silent for a time, Rosemary struggling to bring herself back under control. He pondered what she’d been hiding, knew it must have been more of the same he was seeing in Rosemary’s eyes, only more expertly restrained, more firmly reigned over.

She resumed eating, but the joy of enjoying the food was gone.

“You know, Prim Cottage would have loved to get to know you even without the fragrances.”

Rosemary’s ears dipped once. “I know.” She opened her mouth, closed her eyes, her head sagging. “It wasn’t an option.”

“Why not? You made friends with my bridge guards easily enough.” He let a bit of his wry amusement show in a half-grin. “I had no idea what you were up to.”

“I didn’t, either.” She finished off the last of the casserole in silence, her eyes not lifting from the plate to give him a polite chance to talk to her. When she finished, she dabbed her lips clean, set the napkin on the plate and covered it again. “Thank you, my lord, for lunch.”

“Of course, Rosemary,” he said.

As he closed the door, he hesitated, watching her stand and take up the perfume bottle before sliding onto the bed, staring at it and the letter.

“Coat,” he said as he closed the door. “Listen for her, please. Let me know if anything changes.”

Book 1, 21. Storm Clouds on the Horizon, Part 1

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Silence had a sound in the old estate house. It was the creak of wooden beams in their stone sockets, the sigh of the wind past the four chimneys, and the tap of her hooves on the wooden floor as she paced her study.

It wasn’t true silence, not the way she could create it with a spell, but this quiet felt emptier than the absolute of magically created solitude.

Rosemary was gone, and she had no idea for how long.

Worst of all was that she was just across the river, within range of a teleportation spell. Save that she’d already taxed her limit for the day by teleporting to the promontory above Damme to watch Collar’s progress with a spyglass.

She could have used that magic to break into Prim Palace… and likely been captured herself. Lace would make it easy for her to be captured. Take away her magic, even for a minute, and she’d be in chains before the whistles stopped echoing.

That was just one of the plans currently waiting for a spell to turn them into fuel on the hearth. She’d gone through half a dozen after getting back from her ill-advised and ill-planned trip to the forested hills overlooking the city, and each and every one of them was a ball of kindling.

She’s not gone forever.

It was easy to think it. She’d thought the same thought at least a dozen times, and another half dozen variations on it at least that often.

Believing was harder. So many ponies had been taken from her through her life, scared away, exiled… dead.

Even Glory, her sometimes companion far outside the city, late into the night, was gone, captured through Roseate’s machinations, and cutting off her information from the Rose Palace.

She could, again, walk down the path of everypony she’d lost contact with through the years, or she could stop moping and start planning.

The desk passed by her left again as she paced, the newest blank page already stained by tears. It would be a hidden message to Rosemary if she left it. “Mother loves you, and she misses you.”

The crow’s feather quill rose, fell as she sat at the desk again, and settled back into place, unused once more.

She needed to plan something. The letters had helped somewhat, but what to do after she delivered them had escaped her, as if she’d only planned for it out of worry.

You should have planned for this before.

Coward that she was, she hadn’t wanted to think about Rosemary being taken from her, too. She had, in fact, done everything she could to prevent it.

Did I? Did you never consider giving it up and defecting?

She laid her cheek on the paper, staring at the quill rocking back and forth slowly as her breath stirred it to a semblance of life. Defection was an option. It had always been an option. All it would mean was doing to her ponies what had been done to her.

Abandoning them.

Only, this time it would be her choice. She would do it willingly.

She couldn’t. As much of a coward as she was, that had never been an option.

Duty.

Rosewater closed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, her neck was stiff and it was growing dark outside. The paper had wrinkled and stiffened with salty white stains where her tears had patted against it. She almost threw it away, too.

Instead, she folded it in half and kissed it lightly, then set it aside. Tearstained paper could be used in a variety of ways to write a note. It would be a message Rosemary would understand that few others would.

The fading sun in the west cast stripes of gold across her office where the storm slats didn’t quite block out everything, and where the low, scattered skyline of Merrie didn’t block the light.

Glittering silver and glass with a muted swirling pink caught her eye, set beside a special quill she’d used to pen the secret message for Rosemary, done in the hopes that by planning even this little bit for her to not make it back, she would confuse fate and make it not come to pass.

Fate, of course, didn’t care. But sleep had been kind enough to leave her feeling more numb than hurt. That the sleep had been her passing out from lack of it helped.

She slipped the vial into a mane-clip and secured it tightly. She had only a little time before the moment to use it came.

After, she stood, stretched, and made her way to check the mailbox.

Set into the estate home’s outer wall, and double-sealed against intrusion, it was a welcome feature that let her check the mail without needing to step outside.

The expected gold-edged envelope was there, sealed with silver and gilt wax, along with another in a plain red envelope. Official notice from the Rose Palace as well.

She opened the Treaty envelope first to read the formalized notice of a prisoner of war being captured in the act of performing an unlawful hostile act in Damme. As the guardian on record, one had been delivered to her, and the other to the ruling seat of Merrie.

It was expected, but it still hurt.

The red letter took that hurt and twisted it deeper.

Citizen of Merrie Rosewater,
It has come to my attention that you have sent several unsolicited letters to the Prim Palace. As I had not given express permission or denied, I will do nothing at this time but warn you that all correspondence is to be directed through me to the Prim Palace. Failure to heed this warning will result in legal action against you, up to and including exile at my discretion.
Formally,
Baroness Roseate

Forbidding her from communicating with Rosemary would be verboten, as she was Rosemary’s guardian, and Roseate knew it.

Damn her!

She took a deep breath and calmed the fury and hate burning in her, putting it away neatly into a box to be used or discarded later.

One card left in her hoof could change the outcome if she played it at the right time, in the right place. All she had to do was ask the Treaty Office to unseal the birthday present Carnation had given her for her twenty-first birthday.

Formal adoption papers signed and sealed by Carnation and the royal notary.

It had taken less thought to add her signature to them than it had to remember to breathe when she’d first seen them.

They were secret, still, held in a sealed lockbox in the Merrie Treaty Office, and she had the only key still in either city. It was one of the treasures she kept locked away in her safe room in the perfumery.

Playing the parent card needed to come at the right moment, and she needed to see if she could play it close to the heart. Letting Roseate know that the relationship between Rosemary and Rosewater went deeper than an obligated guardianship would only make her insane mother try all the harder to take yet another pony away from her.

The chance to play it would come, and if Roseate continued to be Roseate, it would come soon. The mare never could resist gloating.

That would come later. The next part of her plan, she’d come up with before she’d had time to think about what it would mean to have Rosemary actually gone from her life, however long it meant she was gone, and it meant she needed to put her mask on.

And a scarf. The nights were growing chillier as autumn left behind summer’s heat and the cooler northern weather began to remind them all just how far north they were.

Roseate’s goons were waiting right outside the door, as she’d known they must be, waiting for a glimpse of the interior of her home in an unguarded moment. They were disappointed, of course, and only got a look at the mudroom and a bit of the hallway beyond.

“Good evening, gentleponies,” she said genially. “I trust my mother is doing well?”

One mare stepped forward, somepony who might have been a beauty in her own right, had she any sense of decorum, and wasn’t perfumed with enticements that she plied against Rosewater to little avail. “She would like to talk to you, gorgeous,” the mare simpered, flirting her tail in what she surely believed was a fetching way.

“I feel the opposite,” Rosewater said, dousing the mare’s enticements with a single spell, pulling the chill fragrance from the air to cool the warming lusty scent. “Run along… Rosejoy, was it?” She thought the name fit from what Rosemary had told her of her more frequent harassers.

Now that they hadn’t Rosemary to shadow… apparently they’d picked her.

“And tell my mother to stop trying to entice me to come visit. She wastes everypony’s time. If she has official business, she knows how to reach me.”

Rosejoy pulled a vial from her mane, lips twisted into a malicious smile, apparently believing she had the upper hoof. Right up until it and every vial clipped into her mane came free and, with a series of distant plops, flew into the river a hundred paces away.

“Do not attempt to entice me, either, Rosejoy. I am not to be trifled with, and my tolerance for the arrogance of goons runs thin. On this night, thinner than most.” Rosewater glared at her, then at her nearest companion, pushing a touch of heat into her voice and her posture. “Begone.”

They scurried away. At least there was some use for her “Rose Terror” moniker, as much as she hated it.

She watched them go, holding onto the sour thoughts for a moment only before she pushed them away. This wasn’t a time for sour thinking.

Tonight, she would share with Rosemary memories of Carnation. Even if she couldn’t be there with her to remember together, she could at least catch sight of the prison and the palace.

That was no time to be in a snit.

There were a few other ponies wandering the meandering river road, couples and thruples in their conversations, laughing and prancing in the hinted at chill of months to come, their breath nowhere near to fogging. That didn’t seem to stop them from trying to accomplish the feat a month early.

Love. It was what she wanted to preserve in Merrie. The pure joy of partnership, of relationship, and of friendship. Here, like no other place in Equestria, it could bloom without restriction.

It was the love that Carnation had brought Rosewater up to believe in, that her father had passed on to her in the few years that she could remember of him, and it was the love that she and Carnation together had encouraged to thrive in Rosemary.

It was the love she held in a vial of pink and gold.

She’d named it Mother’s Kiss, but the first time she’d inhaled her triumph, she’d seen her father, too, beaming at her as she worked on her first letters, his tall, lanky frame and white coat too thin, even in the memory.

Halfway between the Rosewine and the Midway bridges, Rosewater caught sight of the Palace in the distance, framed perfectly down Damme’s straight streets.

Whether Rosemary was there or in the Prison, she wasn’t likely to get a better view of either than this.

She stopped, raised her scarf high in the air, and shone a bright light from her horn on it. The silver threads embroidered through it shone like the moon, and Carnation’s paintbrush rose Cutie mark, embroidered there by Rosemary years ago, gleamed against the creamy orange of the scarf.

The sign she’d written for Rosemary to look for.

It would confuse her watchers, both in Merrie and in Damme, but if Rosemary was watching from somewhere in the Palace, she would see it, she was certain.

A count of ten, and she lowered the scarf, wrapping her memory of Carnation tightly about her again, and counted again to ten.

She had to trust that Collar would give her the perfume. She had to trust that he was a decent pony, and that her attempts to sway him, few and paltry they might have been, had been enough to get him to trust her.

The cloud of perfume glowed soft pink as she infused it with magic, empowering the latent spell hidden in the matrix of the fragrance, and drew it in.

Cloudy napped on and off at the Rosewater watch post, Prim Note waking her at intervals to give her an update and occasionally making comment that she should find an actual bed, and not the lumpy dispatch bag she was using as a pillow and sun-shade.

Throughout the day, Note reported that the silence would come and go, but he had faint sounds of cursing, some sobbing intermittently, and then a long silence.

He woke her up again when the goons arrived to loiter in the cartwright’s yard across the way from Rosewater’s home.

By then, she’d gotten enough in the way of catnaps and shut-eye that she wasn’t groggy. She spent some time writing up a description of each of the goons while Note tended to his other watch duties, more to pass the time than to make any real attempt at identifying them. Priceless likely had postcard portraits of all of them along with their vices and known crimes.

Still, it helped to pass the time and keep her mind off of Rosemary and Collar. What she was going to do about that situation, she wasn’t sure yet, but it was something she was going to have to put thought into, and more than “I’ll figure it out.”

Just as the sun was setting, and Cloudy was sure that Rosewater had actually fallen asleep, or into unconsciousness, her door opened, and the mare walked out, scarved against the moderate chill. She watched as Rosewater dealt quietly and quickly with the goons and resume her walk without seeming to skip a beat.

Note relayed the conversation word-for-word back to her.

“She’s on a timetable,” Cloudy murmured.

“Is she going to try and rescue her cousin?” Note asked, raising a brow. “Or attempt to? Lace is at the palace today.”

“No.” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “She wouldn’t risk it. But…”

She watched as Rosewater made her way past revelers delighting in the chilling air and wished for a moment that she could walk beside her and ask her what was bothering her. She knew, or thought she did, but sometimes a simple question she thought she knew the answer to had unexpected depth.

She stopped some distance from the lookout post, and well within range of another of the main posts, almost half a mile away and still visible thanks to her white coat.

“I’m changing stations,” Cloudy said abruptly, rising and stretching out her wings before stepping onto the ledge. “Keep watch, Note.”

“Can’t do much else from here,” he said sourly. “I can’t reach that far.”

She grinned at him and took off, watching as Rosewater flashed some kind of signal toward Merrie using her scarf, and landed just as she wrapped it about her again.

From the Midway lookout post, she was able to watch Rosewater as she pulled out a silver and crystal perfume bottle, unstoppered it, and enchanted a pink and gold glittering mist into being in front of her.

For a moment, afraid of some kind of attack, Cloudy arched her wings, ready to rebuff any attempt at sending a scent her way.

Instead, she pulled the cloud closer and inhaled slowly, her eyes closed.

“My lady,” the watchstander said, his salute audible behind her. “Rosewater watch?”

“Yes. Please, do you have a spyglass?” She held out a hoof, not letting her eyes leave Rosewater. Whatever she was doing, she seemed not to be moving at all, save for shrinking the cloud as she inhaled it slowly, the glowing pink mist descending on her until it was all gone.

A heavy metallic weight settled in the crook of her ankle, and she sat back, peering through it and getting a look at the mare’s face as if she were only half a dozen feet away instead of more than three hundred feet distant.

“What’s she doing?” The stallion asked.

“Shh. Do you have an aural mage on staff tonight?”

“Nay, my lady.” Again he used the noble title she’d not earned or inherited. Not in Damme at least.

Rosewater’s lips were moving, her brows high and tight as a beatific smile spread to take in her cheeks, the cut-like marks of her Rosethorn heritage pulling to cup them, like a lover might before leaning in for a kiss. She was beautiful when she smiled so brightly, and Cloudy felt a need to know what it was that made her do so.

When her eyes opened, the smile slipping from her face, the faintest sheen of glowing pink and gold spilled from them before it faded to be replaced by tears as she went from nearly ecstatic to grief-stricken in the span of moments.

That phase didn’t last nearly so long, but it took time for Rosewater to regain the composure she’d walked down the riverwalk with. By the time she opened her eyes again, her neck was unbowed, and a fainter smile, but no less real for that, graced her lips as she raised her head to look seemingly right at Cloudy.

Then she turned and walked back up the road, her gait even and sure, and there was even a swish in her tail. Whatever that scent had been, it had improved her mood tremendously.

Whatever it had been, it was the same one she’d given to Rosemary. She’d have staked her freedom on it.

She collapsed the spyglass and handed it back to the watchstander. “Thank you.”

“What was that all about?” he asked, his ears flat. “Was she just letting us know she was there?”

“She hardly needs to do all that to make us pay attention to her,” Cloudy said with a snort.

“Fair enough,” he said with a sigh and returned to scribbling his notes down for a report. “Are you going off shift?”

“I’ve not been on shift,” she replied, narrowing her eyes as Rosewater didn’t return to her home, but continued on down the road, following the river still as the night drew close. “I’ll be back in half an hour to take reports from the watch posts.”

“Aye, my lady.”

She took off again, making her course north, then dipping below the skyline and angling east on a course parallel to Rosewater’s until she was well outside the sight of the cities before turning south again and crossing the river in the last shadows of the dying day to land behind a farmer’s barn.

Either she would get answers or she wouldn’t, but she needed to try.

Lingering memories of her father walking her outside the city to sniff at flowers and train her heritage when she had barely been cannon high to him coerced Rosewater to follow the road out, bypassing her empty home and its promise of only misery.

Rosejoy and her gang weren’t anywhere to be seen, and none of the other watchers that would normally dog her steps seemed interested in following her to wherever she went.

Even Cloudy had parted from her watchpost to return to the Palace and report what she’d seen. They would piece it together, of course. Keeping it secret from she and Collar had never been the point.

Now, at least, they would know to search her letters for hidden secrets that she didn’t want them to be able to suss out without Rosemary’s help.

That… and she’d been able to share a moment, maybe, with her daughter.

She could still remember her father’s voice as he guided a three-year old already possessed of her letters and numbers, to identify this or that flower by the side of the road.

Most of them were still the same as they had been a lifetime ago, with only small variations in the concentrations of the roadside foliage as the years went on.

The further she got from Merrie’s gate, the wilder the grasslands around her grew, interspersed with fields and farms that were beginning their late-year harvests, some with half their fields scythed and bundled, others just starting.

Cottages stood out here and there, their either silent or streaming forth white smoke and the fragrance of dinner done or being cooked, and a few barns here and there for the larger farms stood as stark and silent sentinels against the vermin that wanted to eat the silage for the coming winter.

It was a peaceful walk, letting her draw out the memories given her by Mother’s Kiss. Blue Star had been diligent in his duties as a parent, and loving in ways that Roseate could never match and had never tried.

He taught her the mores of his home of Canterlot, the noble code of the Knights of Canter, and told her stories about the long-gone Crystal Empire, of which he claimed to be a distant descendant. He taught her that love was a force in the world, and that he loved her so very dearly.

It had been that love which had tainted Roseate against the prospect of keeping future mates around after they’d sired a foal on her. It had also been that love which had woken Rosewater’s talent earlier than it should have.

Her talent wasn’t simply bottling emotion. It was emotion.

It had been her talent that let her know that her father loved her so very much.

She stumbled as the last memory, one she didn’t need a perfume to recall, that was branded into her soul, flickered through her mind before she put it back in its box. Gently.

A minute passed before she was able to find her footing again and blink clear the tears that welled up, but she continued on, maneuvering as much around dips in the road as she was around painful memories.

As the final rays of the sun winked out below the waves to the west, Rosewater stopped to watch the moon rise, the horn of the Mare coming into view first as silver light replaced golden, and the dim pewter cast to the world made it seem even more like a memory.

“What would you think of me now?” Rosewater asked the Mare as her eye came into view. “Would you approve of the things I’ve done? Were there other ways through this mess?”

She hadn’t been expecting an answer, and when one came, from the shadows of a barn set off the road a ways, she jumped and flared her magic, slipping into shadow and darting to the side before she’d placed who the voice belonged to.

“Easy,” Cloudy said, sounding much as she remembered from their nighttime repartee, but adopting a rural twang for a disguise. “I just asked who you were talking to.” She didn’t leave the shadows, a wise precaution, even if simply being there was a risk.

Rosewater swallowed her panic but kept the veil in place. This far from the city, she could more easily blend into the wild, the mottling easier to cast doubt on the shadows than it was with sconces and lanterns laid all about.

“I didn’t come to fight,” Cloudy continued, “but to talk.”

Privacy. Rosewater hadn’t given much thought to who might have followed her.

A simple spell, weaving gossamer threads of telekinetic force together in a web around her, then casting it out, let her feel her surroundings for as far as she could reach. Glory couldn’t have hidden from it, except by hiding behind something, and the only something in the area immediately around her was the barn.

There was nopony else with her on the road, not as far as she could feel, and while that wouldn’t have given Rose Crown an issue with her abilities as an aural mage, it gave her some hope that she could hide this conversation.

Another spell silenced the area as she crept behind the barn to find Cloudy watching and waiting for her, worry in her expression, but determination underlying it.

“Truce?” Cloudy asked.

“For tonight,” Rosewater agreed. “Tomorrow night, I would not count on it.”

“Why are you still acting like you’re our enemy?” Cloudy demanded.

“Is that truly the reason you took a risk to talk to me?” Rosewater sniffed and turned away to peer around the edge of the barn and sent another whisper of telekinetic threads across the landscape, letting them build a mental map of her surroundings and look for anything pony-shaped. Still nopony there. “I could capture you now and have Rosemary back by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“But you won’t.”

“You sound so sure of that.” Rosewater turned to face her, risking a little light to bring the mare’s features into view. Cloudy’s face told her the story in the dim pink light. “You aren’t, are you?” And she’d still come. “You’re either brave or stupid.”

“Or I know you better than you think,” Cloudy growled, stepping closer. “I know you could capture me right now, and you’re not wrong. Collar would, at the very least, return Rosemary for me.”

Which begged the question of why Rosewater wasn’t doing just that right then. She had no witnesses.

Rosemary loves her. Collar loves her.

“You love Rosemary,” Cloudy said more gently, touching her foreleg with a gentle hoof. “You know what it would mean to her if I was used as a bargaining chip for her return.”

“I wouldn’t betray her trust.” It would also gravely damage her hope of gaining Collar’s trust. “Where is she being held?”

“Why?”

“Personal reasons.”

Cloudy eyed her for a moment. “Second floor of the Palace. I trust I don’t have to tell you attempting to break in would be ludicrously futile?”

“You don’t.” Rosewater stepped back from her, eyes closed, and made sure her mask of emotional control was firmly in place. “Why did you come here?”

“Collar asked me to. He’s convinced you’re not a danger to us.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“And yet…” Cloudy spread her wings a touch.

“Not completely an idiot,” Rosewater amended. “What did he want to talk to me about?”

“You, I presume.” Cloudy smiled faintly. “I’m afraid Rosemary was… she had a shock delivered last night, and today it hit her heart that she wouldn’t be making a jaunt across the bridge to flirt with the guards and make her merry way home.” She touched Rosewater’s foreleg again. “She was worried about you, and how you would take it.”

A dozen responses came to mind, playing to the various masks she’d worn in the past years, all of them antagonistic toward the mare who’d come to tell her that her daughter was terrified, but still worried for her.

“I will survive,” she said at last. She took a breath. “And I have something I need to share, though I am trusting that you won’t spread it about. Roseate has forbidden me from contacting Prim Palace for any reason, on pain of exile. That includes you.”

“Why?” Cloudy demanded, stalking away and then back. “Aren’t you her guardian?”

“I am.” And more. More that would hopefully let her throw her mother’s order into the river and let her take the offense for once against her. Whether or not Cloudy and Collar would let her… “Go. Before somepony thinks to follow me.”

“I’ll be seen.” The way Cloudy said it made it a reminder rather than telling her she was being stupid.

“No, you won’t.” Rosewater split her concentration between her veil and a short-lived veil powered by a Heart’s Opening sigil. “Fly quickly north and get to ground before this wears off. You have a minute.”

“Thank you.” Cloudy leapt and dashed to the north, the draft from her launching downsweep scattering dust and bracken out from Rosewater’s silence.

A few seconds later, Rosewater marshalled the last of her flagging reserves and recalled herself to the basement, remembering to keep her posture just so.

She made it after only two tries this time.

Book 1, 22. Storm Clouds on the Horizon, Part 2

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Collar sat back in his chair after Cloudy finished her report, tapping a hoof against the arm of the chair. Rosewater was cracking, that much was clear from what Cloudy had said of the first exchange of their meeting, and she could break either for or against Collar’s interests, depending on how things played out.

She’d also given little away about what her true intentions were, aside from protecting and cherishing Rosemary. If he’d sent anypony else, they might not have returned from the meeting.

“I’m sorry, Cloudy,” he said at last. “I hadn’t thought beyond the immediate need.”

“I’m not.” Cloudy huffed. “I watched her use that perfume on herself. I saw the effect it had on her. Whether she intended to or not, she showed a side of herself I believe she meant to keep hidden from all.”

“But why there?” Collar rustled some scrolls around before finding a city map of Damme with a focus on the riverfront. “You said she stood here?” He highlighted a spot on the map.

“Yes.” Cloudy rolled her eyes. “I’ll save you the trouble of figuring it out.” She drew a line from the spot down a straight street and tapping the palace’s blocky square. “I don’t know whether Rosemary’s suite is visible from there or not, but she brought with her a ‘flag’ that could be seen miles away when she lit it up.”

She was right. Collar frowned down at the map. “Has she bottled telepathy?”

“You keep telling me telepathy isn’t possible,” Cloudy reminded him, yawning widely and blinking. “Stars above, today took a lot out of me.”

“Go to sleep, then. I’ll join you shortly.” He rubbed at his cheek again, staring at the map, certain he was missing something. It might have been exhaustion clouding his mind. “I just have some more thinking to do.”

Her lips were warm and soft against his, waking an ache and a want in him for the brief moment they shared a breath. “Don’t stay up too late.”

She didn’t bother to flirt her tail on her way out as she usually did. A sign of just how tired she was. The little catnaps that Note’s report of the day’s activities hadn’t done her much good.

They were more than he’d gotten for himself.

His day had been spent cloistered with Lace to discuss Rosemary’s sentencing and to set an appropriate and appropriately high cost for her ransom. On the table as well was the potential of making her serve out the sentence in full.

There was no provision in the Treaty to force acceptance of a herdgild in return for waiving sentencing, simply that it was the most common practice and mechanisms had been enacted at the start to facilitate that trade of flesh for coin or favor. Distasteful as he found it, it was the only way to truly put pressure on Merrie that the Reformations allowed.

Economic pressure.

Rose Crown’s return had fetched an increase of bridge taxes for the use of Damme’s ports by Merrie’s merchant class and had caused a subsequent increase in the grumbling their spies reported aimed at Roseate. Rosemary’s…

He yawned and leaned back in his chair again, thankful for the support helping him stay awake. If he’d sat on a pillow throughout the discussion, he wasn’t certain he’d have stayed awake.

Rosemary’s obvious remorse, and her fumbling attempt at an infiltration had pushed Collar to think more leniently on her sentence and forego the price, compelling her to serve time.

That would frustrate Roseate.

Collar slid from the chair and resolved to make a last check of Rosemary’s comfort before retiring to his bed with Cloudy.

The palace was quiet, empty feeling this late. Lace and Dapper had long since retired, and the night watch was circumspect in their patrols of the halls, lest they wake the staff that slept in their quarters on constant retainer. There weren’t many of them in that class, but some had elected to take the offer of housing in return for services and an increase in pay to compensate for their being always on call.

It took him a moment as he made his way up the staircase to the second level to realize that Prim Coat wasn’t on watch outside Rosemary’s cell. In his place, Sunrise Primfeather stood there, her ears splayed sideways and going flat as she caught sight of him.

“My lord,” she said, saluting.

“At ease,” Collar replied, returning the salute automatically. “Where’s Coat? I thought he’d be taking the last watch of the day.”

“Er…” Sunrise chewed her lip and glanced at the door and swallowed. “I was… he…”

“Something happened?” Collar’s sleepiness fell away. “What happened?”

“N-nothing, my lord. He called for me as I was passing by and asked me to keep watch.” Sunrise swallowed hard. “Then he went inside, and there was nothing but silence after that.”

Collar relaxed minutely, but the adrenaline response still kept him alert. “Thank you for making things seem normal. Where’s your normal duty shift at this time of day?”

“Patrol, my lord.” She saluted again. “I’m night shift patrol for another few days.”

“Get to it, please. I’ll have a word with Coat later.” Collar waited until she’d left before he thought to ask how long ago that had been. By then, it was too late. He sighed and rubbed at his muzzle before opening the door and slipping in to…

Rosemary was lying on the bed, curled up into a ball, her nose tucked between her hind legs and tail covering her ears. Her small frame shivered and shook in time with the faint whimpers drifting up from where she’d hidden herself.

Coat looked up from where he half-lay on the bed, his hoof stroking her back and not pausing even as he acknowledged Collar’s presence with a nod.

Scattered on the bed were the letter Rosewater had sent and the perfume bottle, its stopper thankfully clasped tightly shut and latched.

“What happened?” Collar whispered as he settled in across from his cousin.

“I don’t know,” Coat replied in just as soft a whisper. “Scent magic isn’t my forte. All I know is that when I came in, she was breathing in a pink and gold mist as she stared out the window, and she was calling for her mommy.”

A memory from foalhood. “Was the mist glowing?”

“Brightly.”

She’d activated and empowered the perfume and used it on herself. He couldn’t imagine how much clearer or impactful the vision of a memory past would have been with that much magic coursing through it. It’d been what Rosewater had done, and as he looked out the window, it all clicked into place.

“By the stars and the Mare,” Collar whispered, closing his eyes. “They were sharing a memory.”

Rosemary’s whimpering and sniffling grew fainter and her back stiffened.

Collar glanced at the letter, noting that the words seemed different, and in a different shade than they had before.

“Rosemary,” Collar asked in a more normal voice. “May I read the letter again?”

Her head bobbed in a nod, and her voice rose briefly. “Thank you for asking.”

The back of the letter held a small paragraph of fine script that smelled faintly of the perfume he’d tested.

Dearest Rosemary,
This gift was meant for your twenty-first birthday, to share with you the memories I had of your mother, and the love we had for you. I love you with all my heart, and your mother does, too.
At the sun’s downing, look to the river and share with me a memory of Carnation.
Love,
Rosewater

By the stars. Collar swallowed. All that pageantry. All the setup. All the work she must have put into planning and executing the delivery of a letter and a bottle of perfume.

All to share a memory of their mother. Their true mother.

Collar folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into its envelope and laid it on a pillow at the head of her bed. “I’m sorry, Rosemary.”

He should add to her sentence for willful use of scent magic in Damme’s borders. That’s what the law said he should do, and what he would have done in any other circumstance. This…

It was the opposite of everything that most Dammers believed of scent magic. It wasn’t controlling, or harmful, but uplifting and loving. For Rosewater to create it, to share it so freely with another…

He met Coat’s eyes and tipped his head to the door. “You’re supposed to be on door guard for this shift.”

Coat bristled briefly, his cousin, soft-hearted stallion that he was, rebelling against the apparent chill. “My lord,” he said, reverting to formality. “She was upset, and alone, and scared.”

“She was not. She is.” Collar tipped his head to the side as Rosemary straightened herself out. “Thank you for taking care of her, Coat, but I do need you to follow orders. Find me the next time something like this happens.”

Coat swallowed and nodded. “She is.”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

When the door clicked shut again, Collar took over maintaining the silence ward in the room, and made a mental note to ask for the funds to make the ward semi-permanent.

“I’m sorry,” Rosemary murmured, her hoof reaching out to touch the silver and glass bottle.

“I can hardly arrest you for the same crime twice, while you’re still under arrest” Collar said, more lightly than he felt. “But if it had been anypony but Coat or I who found you, it would have extended your sentence.”

“Extend it.”

Collar blinked at the mare as she twisted her head, her cheeks stained by tears. “Excuse me?”

“I broke the law again, my lord. Willfully.”

“Ah.” Collar forced himself to chuckle and plucked the perfume bottle from the bed with a spell. “Then I suppose I should get a sentence as well, considering it was I that lent you the tool to commit the crime. That’s called being an accessory.”

She smiled weakly, but it was a smile. “I’m being… overdramatic?”

“No.” Collar inspected the silverwork encasing the bottle, playing for time. “Honestly, I have a hard time sometimes understanding what it’s like to have siblings,” he said finally, setting the bottle on the nightstand. “I’m an only child, and while I grew up playing with Coat and a few other cousins, that’s all they were. At the end of the day, I went home, and so did they, leaving me with my parents and the staff of the palace for company.”

“I’m an only child, too,” Rosemary murmured, looking aside and betraying the lie.

“You were Carnation’s only child. That doesn’t mean you didn’t grow up with a sister,” Collar replied.

Something in Rosemary’s stare at him said he’d not quite gotten to the truth. Not as they saw it anyway. Still, he knew what he’d seen in her eyes, and Cloudy wasn’t far off the mark, either. She had experience with that kind of ache.

Finally, Rosemary nodded, hesitantly, but she acknowledged the point. “Carnation raised both of us.”

Not, he noted, the same as saying ‘She raised us as siblings.’

“Get some sleep, Rosemary,” he said. “I won’t stop you from remembering your mother, but please ask if you want to use scent magic in the future.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I-I…” She trailed off again, biting her lip. Still holding back. “Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can get you?” Collar asked, thinking of what flowers he could find that were supposed to be useful sleep aids, then grimaced. “Some warm milk, maybe?”

“No.” Rosemary smiled, beaming the same smile Cloudy had said Rosewater had shown. “I think I’ll sleep okay.”

When he stepped outside with Coat, he sagged to his hindquarters. “You’re more in tune with the crowd in the barracks than I am these days. Think of some Dammeguard that would be kind to her, possibly friendly. Don’t tell them who she’s related to.” Collar looked up briefly to make sure Coat had gotten his meaning.

“I’m not an idiot, sir,” Coat said with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t have guessed it myself, with how sweet she is.”

“I know. I intend to put myself in the rotation as well. For at least an hour a day.” He jerked his head up and back at the door. “That young mare… she doesn’t deserve this.”

“No.”

He sighed. “I’m starting to get the feeling that Rosewater doesn’t, either.”

Coat wasn’t that far along. He eyed Collar, then lifted his nose briefly. “If you say so, sir.”

At least he liked Rosemary. He could work with that.

The next morning, Rosemary woke alone in the luxurious bed, with only the remnants of Cloudy’s scent decorating the coverlet beside her.

With that draw of breath, she also caught another mare’s scent, that of a mature, if not elder mare. It was fresher, and the sound of shifting hooves told her she wasn’t alone.

“Peace,” Lace said softly from beside the doorway as Rosemary twisted to get a look at her. “I come bearing breakfast and an offer of companionship.”

“My lady.” Rosemary swallowed, frozen in place on the bed, uncertain what she should do in the situation. “Companionship?”

“A young stallion who’s been Collar’s protege for some years now. One of his proteges, at least.” Lace tipped her head to the side, indicating a sealed plate. “And a game. Can you guess what’s under the dome from smell alone?”

Rosemary frowned, and immediately pulled it into a neutral expression. “Why?”

“It was a game your mother and I played while she was a prisoner of war,” Lace said softly. “Some years before you were born, and in the same year Rosewater was. Guess the food, ask a question. Fail to guess, answer a question. Honestly and fully.”

“You knew my mother?” She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, that Lace knew her or that her mother had kept it from her. Did she keep it from Rosewater, too?

“Very well.” Lace’s ears dipped briefly as she gave a small, sad smile. “I take it that she did keep our accord, then.” She settled in. “I’m afraid that I still cannot break our accord, but suffice to say that before I was convinced to release her from our custody, I had an ally on the other side of the river. I was quite reluctant to do so, you understand, as the sister of the heir of Merrie was a powerful bargaining chip.”

A thin smile parted Lace’s lips at the end, showing a hint of teeth.

Rosemary swallowed past the sudden tension in her throat. “She… never said anything.” She took a breath, drawing upon her heritage more deeply than usual. “You sealed it with wax and washed the cover.”

“My dear,” Lace clucked her tongue. “I can’t make it too easy.”

Another few breaths only yielded a hint of the chef and the mare who’d delivered it. “I give up. You’ve cleaned away the scents too thoroughly.”

“Mmm. So I get to ask a question.” Lace cast a spell on the plate and dome, and with a faint pop, it came free, revealing eggs with a side of whipped roe adorning a slice of toasted bread and two crispy hashed brown patties. “If you agree to my terms.”

“What are your terms?”

“Answer honestly.” Lace smiled sweetly and floated the plate, a napkin, and a dinnerware set to rest on the foot of the bed. “That’s all.”

“If I have my own promises and secrets to keep?”

“Then say you can’t answer.” Lace bobbed her head slightly. “A fair question. And my first one is this: what was she like as a mother?”

Rosemary resisted the urge to swallow. She could ask for clarification, but that would give away the secret, or she could assume Lace meant Carnation… or she could assume that Lace knew, somehow, that Rosewater was more than she portrayed herself as.

“Carnation Rosethorn,” Rosemary said slowly, testing the way ahead with words, looking to Lace for confirmation that this was what she wanted, “was loving. She…” She swallowed, glancing at Lace, and flattened her ears. “When I partook of Mother’s Kiss, I relived a day when I was with her on a picnic outside the city. It was springtime, and she’d brought her easel and Rosewater had made some raspberry tarts for us to share while Carnation and Rosewater took turns painting one another into the landscape.”

Lace’s smile grew warm, motherly and matronly at the same time, and she settled in to listen.

“Rosewater was trying so hard to learn to paint like Carnation, but watercolors were never something she could get the hang of. She was much more comfortable with precise lines and proper, exacting shades. But she was learning to soften her touch, and look at the world more impressionistically.” As she spoke, the memory bubbled up again, and it was easy to steer clear of calling Rosewater mother and see her as a sister, from Lace’s perspective.

“I was ten years old…”

“Are you sure this is going to be okay?”

Rosemary looked up from nosing through the picnic basket to see Rosewater staring off to the north, her nose lifted to the air, a hoof on the bonnet keeping her mane in check as the wind gusted and blew down from the mountains far off in the distance.

“We’ll be fine. Nopony else is going to bother coming out here, you know.” Carnation laughed and nuzzled Rosewater’s neck, as high up as she could reach on the younger, taller mare. “Come back and sit down, Rosewater. I promise, we’ll make it home before the storm settles in.”

Her mothers, one carefree and spirited, the other worrisome and tightly constrained, were a portrait of opposites, and yet they fit together, each one making up for the others’ shortcomings. That Rosewater was sixteen years Carnation’s junior didn’t seem to matter to them, and so it didn’t matter to her.

They were her mothers. That was a fact as solid as the stones she’d spent half the morning scrounging up to weigh down the blanket.

“And the easel?” Rosewater eyed the tripod and the canvas frame, both of them attempting to fly away.

“We’ll figure something out,” Carnation said. “Come on, I’m not going to listen to you gripe about the weather, ‘Water. Today, regardless of whether I get some painting time in, is for us. The wind helps us stay private, after all. It’ll shred any listening spells.”

That was a cue for Rosemary to bound around the basket and hug her dour mommy’s foreleg. “Come on, mother, let’s have lunch! I’m starving!”

Little else could pull Rosewater away from her worrying, but that could, even if she did cast a fearful look back towards the city at Rosemary breaking the taboo against calling her mother in public.

In the end, she lost the battle against her beloved’s urging and her daughter’s pleading, and relented, though she did keep an eye on the storm brewing far north, the dark line promising a chilly gale much later.

“If either of you catches a cold,” Rosewater said indignantly as she was drawn back to sit on the blanket, keeping a small dome of calm air over the easel and canvas, “I am going to say ‘I told you so’ for a week.”

“And if we don’t,” Carnation said, grinning broadly, her eyes twinkling, “I get to choose where we go for our next four outings.”

Rosewater couldn’t hide the amusement in her eyes even as she put on a mock-severe face. “Deal. I look forward to wearing my voice hoarse.”

“And I look forward to having Seed and Rosemary braid your mane.”

“The horror,” Rosewater said, a laugh finally breaking free and the dour facade falling away to reveal the mother she was in private, delighting in Rosemary’s recounting of finding the biggest rock, a quartz and granite geode that would later grace their kitchen cabinet-top.

“Rosewater begged off painting anything but the landscape,” Rosemary said as she cut the last of the eggs with a fork and pushed a touch of the whipped roe onto them. “She’s always been better at painting wild spaces than ponies. I think it’s a part of her fascination with the Deerkin tribes that use our bridges to cross the river on their way south for the winter.”

“I would love to see some of her work.”

“She… keeps it all locked up in the estate,” Rosemary admitted, smiling faintly. “In part because Carnation often adds us to the landscapes Rosewater painted. Sometimes little figures hiding in the woods, sometimes sitting in the focus, and sometimes…”

Lace’s brows rose. “Sometimes?”

She’d almost let it out. It was too easy to think of Rosewater as her mother. She hadn’t had that problem before. Not for a few years.

“Sometimes, she liked to imagine we were a happy family.”

“It sounds to me like you made your own happiness,” Lace said more gently than she would have thought possible from the stern older mare. “That was Carnation. She made her own happiness, and if she couldn’t, then she found it and dragged everypony with her.”

“That sounds like you speak from experience.”

“I do.” Lace smiled more broadly and chuckled. “When Rosewater was just six, she pulled that poor little filly to a gala and introduced her to me, and to Collar. I doubt either of them remembers it. She was still grieving over her father, and he was a six year old Damme colt.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“No. I… don’t know what became of that filly, Rosemary, and I don’t want to make assumptions that could give my son the wrong idea.”

“She’s still a good mare.”

“I hope she is.” The smile fell away after a moment, and Lace nodded to the plate. “Finish up, dear, and I’ll take that with me.”

“What happened?”

“Roseate happened, sadly.” Lace’s smile turned thin and bitter. “You are more familiar with the story than I from there, young lady, and I won’t burden you with retelling it. I am happy to hear a touch of what my dear friend got up to after she was forced to let go of her contact with me.”

Rosemary darted a look from the plate to Lace. “After Roseline died.”

“Roseline and I never saw eye-to-eye on much, and we butted heads on more occasions that I care to think of, but she was as devoted to the well-being of her ponies as I was to mine.” Lace cocked her head to the side. “Had she lived but a few years longer, both cities would have seen the Reformations come to pass. I had hoped Roseate would at least not destroy the work we’d already put into it, but the ground was still soft, and the mourning candles still smoking when she burned the agreements.

“We lost two great ponies that year, Rosemary. Blue Star, your uncle, also passed only a few months before Roseline.”

Rosemary closed her eyes and sent the plate over to land on the desk, appetite destroyed. “I never knew him.”

“And Rosewater wouldn’t talk about him.” Lace smiled and bobbed her head. “One of the last things Carnation told me was how closed-up Rosewater was becoming about her father, as if she were hoarding every memory of him to herself.”

Unspoken, but still heard, To keep them safe from Roseate.

“I’ll be happy to share what I know of him,” Lace continued. “But it would be best if you asked your cousin. She knew him best of all of us. She rarely left his side for four long, mostly happy years.” She gathered up the plate and utensils and sealed off the rest of breakfast. “Most of who she is came from him, I believe. Both good and bad.”

“No. Carnation is there, too.” Deep down, below her armor, Rosemary knew that Rosewater tried her hardest to live up to all Carnation tried to embody.

“Oh, she is, I’m sure. But Blue Star was a determined stallion. I see more of that in her than I see your mother’s carefree nature. Those early years shaped who she would be, Rosemary.” Lace opened the door, hesitating before she let the enspelled silence drop. “Only Rosewater can tell us who that pony is.”

After the spell dropped, Rosemary worried her lip and stared at the door. “My lady?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“What… what happens next?”

“Coat will be along with lunch around the noon hour. Try to get some rest until then.”

The door closed and locked behind her, and she heard Lace’s voice issuing soft orders before silence fell again and left Rosemary to consider all over again just what her parents had been hiding from her.

The latter morning and early afternoon found her talking quietly with Prim Coat through the door, asking him questions about Damme and his family, and eventually about his husband.

It was a quiet and reflective way to spend an afternoon, thinking on family and what somepony else’s family was like. Coat’s was normal compared to hers, and he was Collar’s first cousin—a fact that left him open to politics from all sides, both pro- and anti-Reformation.

He was, she was happy to learn, pro-Reformation and despite being married and eligible for the family exclusion, had volunteered to remain in the Dammeguard, and at risk. Not only for duty, but because Collar needed a first cousin to kick some sense into him now and then.

By the time it was starting to get darker out and the afternoon shaded into early evening, a new scent joined Coat’s.

A moment of hesitation seemed to shiver against the door before Coat knocked lightly. “Visitor, Rosemary. We have new orders.”

Rosemary glanced at the book she’d been reading idly to pass the quiet time. She couldn’t talk to Coat all day, after all. She’d run out of things to talk about in just a few days and have to start making things up.

“Come in. I was just reading.”

While Coat stood only a little taller than herself, the pegasus stallion that entered with him was only another hoof or two taller still. A far cry from Collar or Rosewater, but that fit his streamlined frame, and the shape of his wings made clear he was a sprinter rather than a glider or an acrobat. His graceful appearance was belied only by the sheepish and guilty look of a clumsy foal with their muzzle caught in a cookie jar.

“Primfeather Stride, Rosemary Rosethorn,” Coat said in a formal voice, bowing briefly and ticking his ear at the younger pony. “Our new orders, from Collar and approved by Lady Lace, are that we are to be allowed an hour of each shift providing you with company. If we choose. And if you choose.”

“While I do appreciate the offer,” Rosemary sait, eying the pegasus briefly, “I’d much rather the company be mutually agreed upon rather than mandated.”

“Volunteered, m-my lady,” Stride said, swallowing and glancing aside at Coat. “I-it was something Sergeant Coat asked me personally if I would be willing to do.”

Very interesting. Rosemary cocked her head to the side briefly to study him, an act which made the pegasus flinch. Birds of prey cocked their heads, and she realized her mistake instantly.

“Sorry. I… picked up the habit of doing that from Rosie Bliss.” Rosemary smiled and perked her ears instead, a more normal unicorn sign of interest. “She’s more like a dove. But don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

“Why not?” Stride asked, brows rising.

“Because she thinks doves are pretentious,” Rosemary said with a wink. “Strutting around like they own the place.”

“I-I see…” He plainly did not, and neither did Coat, both of them looking more confused than if she hadn’t tried to make a joke.

“Nevermind.” Rosemary sighed and slipped from the bed, stretching languidly and coming to sit in front of them, hoof outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“A-and, um…” Stride raised his hoof hesitantly, glancing at Coat before he tapped his against hers. “Likewise?”

“Well then.” Coat bowed slightly, glancing at the window as he rose from it. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

“Of course.” She pursed her lips, then nodded. “Go on, Coat. Be with your mate before he heads off for the evening rush.”

“My thanks, Rosemary.”

Once he’d gone, Rosemary sat quietly and regarded Stride curiously. “Why are you afraid of me, Stride?”

“B-because…” He swallowed, closing his eyes and settling his wings closer to himself from their half ruffled state, ready to spring open at a moment’s notice. “Sorry,” he murmured, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “I have a hard time with…”

“With rose thorns?” Rosemary asked, biting the inside of her cheek briefly. “I do, too, to be honest.”

“Wait, what?” his eyes snapped open, meeting hers, then dancing away. “Why?”

“Because they’re sharp, and pointy, and if you believe the tales, they gave me these.” She turned her head to the sides, showing off the deep crimson lines along her muzzle and tipping her muzzle up so they looked like the flowing of blood from a scratch.

He stared at her for a long time. “They… gave you those?”

“Well, not me. My distant ancestor. Rosethorn the Wise. His name is on our philosophy, and he was the first of my ancestors to know the smells of the flowers to be more than pretty.” She raised the book she’d been reading from the bed. “This book doesn’t tell it the way we tell it in Merrie.”

No response from him save for a flutter of his eyelids and a glance towards the door.

“Legend has it that Rosethorn’s mother was stabbed by a twining rose bush as she tried to pull it from its trellis, and the wounds would not heal, no matter how she tried to cure herself.” She raised a hoof to trace the line. “And the trail of her blood, her heart’s blood if the story is to be believed, one day drew the attention of the Mare in the Moon while she was sitting, hurting while pregnant with her first son.

“The Mare in the Moon took pity on the young Rosecrown and came down to her. She spoke the words of the Rosethorn family. To thine own heart, be true, and to thy nose, listen. The wound healed, but where the blood had trailed from her nose to her cheeks, dripping to her breast, her coat had turned the livid crimson of fresh blood, and whenever she opened her mind to the scents of the world, they came to her, and spoke to her heart. Every Rosethorn following her has borne the marks to varying degrees.”

She touched her breast, then her cheeks and muzzle with a hoof. “The mark of the Rosethorn line.”

“Is it true?” Stride asked, his eyes flicking from her face to her breast.

“Who knows. Rosecrown lived before the Battle of Two Nights. Not much but dust and legend exists of those times.” She shook her head. “I’m not like other Rosethorns. My family, I mean, not the bush thorns. I’m sure Lord Collar said that.”

Stride’s jerky nod was her only answer for a few seconds before he cleared his throat. “I, um. That’s… an interesting bit of story.”

“I can tell you more. Merrie isn’t a scary place, Stride. Not like Damme is,” she said, laying out a tiny bit of bait.

“But Damme isn’t—” He caught himself and chewed his lip, staring at her.

“But it might be, if being in Damme is half a jail sentence with these marks,” she said. “You have a beautiful city, Stride. I only wish I’d had more time to experience it before circumstance forced my hoof.”

He sat slowly, still watching her, his body angled away to keep his privates private. Cute of him, but unnecessary.

“Maybe…” He trailed off, looking at the bookcase. “Maybe… tell me a little of what it’s like in Merrie?”

Author's Notes:

This time, I set an alarm!

So! I made an offhand comment, and talked it over a bit with my pre-readers/editors, and a few friends. And yes, there will be an interludes chapter between book one and book two featuring short vignettes from the following ponies so far:

Firelight Spark
Roselight
Roseling

Even with those, it barely comes up to two thousand words, and I'd like to round it out to ~4,000-5,000 words. These are little vignettes that round out the world a little more, introduce bits of the cities that aren't necessarily part of the story, or take a peek at ponies who don't play a large part in the story.

I'm open to suggestions for a vignette or two from another character. These will be short ~800 word vignettes.

Is there a character you'd like to see a little more of that I can put into that space, or something in the lore or backstory you'd like to see?

Let me know and I'll see if I can work it in.

Book 1, 23. Gathering Storm

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“Crying, huh?” one of the ponies in the tavern said, his face shrouded by a mug of Dammerale. “That don’t sound like the Rose Terror to me.”

“Saw it with my own two eyes,” said one of Roseate’s personal goons. It wasn’t Rosejoy, and she hadn’t felt the need to learn the rest of their names. “Just looking across the river, bawling like she’d lost her favorite stuffed animal.” He chuckled and patted the counter. “She’s not so tough as she makes herself out to be.”

You’re right and you’re wrong, my dear, Rosewater thought as she slipped a further hint of magic into the aromatic wine the stallion was sipping, the effect subtle enough that the play of her magic along the glass seemed little more than a refraction of light through the red liquid, enhancing the intoxicating aroma and flavor.

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, Plum,” the bartender, Rosy Glass said softly as she tugged at the bottle in front of Plum Rose. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“Back off Glass. I’ll say when I’ve had enough,” he said, ignorant of the shadowy pony sipping her glass of watered down wine in the corner, smiling as she touched his emotions through the fumes rising near invisibly from his glass, and urged him on. “Once we’ve won this little war, we’ll toss ‘er out on her backside.”

Oho? Do go on. Glass, at least, didn’t look her way. The dear had enough discretion not to look. But she’d always been a canny pony, and a stellar partner in bed. Six years of absence hadn’t lessened the affection Rosewater held for her, nor, apparently, what Glass had clung to.

The Rosetide amulet nestled under her sailor’s tie, which told her ship’s name, one recently returned to port. Whether or not it’d crossed paths with the ship that Rosetide had supposedly departed on didn’t matter in the short term, and the long-term ramifications of using him as a disguise were outweighed by the need to get the lay of Merrie.

Not that Rosetide had fooled Glass in the least. Either Silver Drop had spread the word to her closest friends or she simply recognized Rosewater’s voice no matter how she tried to disguise it.

Glass had certainly heard her voice in enough variations over the years they’d known each other to have a chance at it.

Plum set his glass back down and began filling another, far more than was considered couth, but enough to leverage a further seeding of his animosity towards Rosewater.

“Jus’ you wait,” he slurred. “Gotta…” He leaned forward and whispered into his glass, then tossed back half of it in a few swallows. “Roseate’s…” He frowned and shook his head, brows knitting as he frowned. “Nah. Shouldn’t.” He slammed back the last half of the glass and set it down.

Rosewater frowned, shaking her head. He was far too aware of his own state for her taste. The ponies Roseate called her personal guard were some of the more skilled scent mages and otherwise skilled or talented earth ponies and pegas, but these ponies were supposed to be the hedonists of the lot. Addicted to the pleasures and comforts that Roseate gave them for their loyalty.

He shouldn’t have been aware of her manipulations.

And maybe he isn’t. She tossed back her own watered wine and grimaced, then waved Glass over for a refill.

“You owe me a night, Tide,” Rose Glass growled as she poured undiluted wine into the glass. “And five bits.”

“Ouch,” Rosewater said in Rosetide’s lower voice, flinching. “Why so pricey?”

“Because you owe me,” Glass said, stumping away as soon as Rosewater laid the bits out without further complaint. “Because I like you, Tide. Why’d you go quiet?”

“Not now, Glass,” Rosewater whispered in a husky voice. “I can’t.”

“Obviously not now. Think about it.” Glass stumped away and snatched the bottle from Plum before he could object further. “Tavern closes in an hour. Can’t have you passed out.”

“Ornery,” Plum muttered, pulling out a spill of bits and tossing them over the counter. “Fine. See if I come back here.”

Rosewater caught the coins as soon as they disappeared out of his sight and stacked them neatly in two piles for Rose Glass to pick up more easily. She frowned and pulled up a globule of wine, atomizing it and filling the vapors with a sleeping charm that she sent after him as soon as he stepped outside.

Plum Rose made it another five steps past the door before he swayed, wobbled, and slid to the ground to snore loudly on the cobbled road.

“Somepony get that…” Glass waved a hoof at the heap of a stallion outside. “That back to the palace.”

Rose Petal stepped past the snoring guard, chuckling, and flicked a tail at the lump. “Seed, Sweet Grapes, take him back. I’ve still got business with Glass, and I’d rather not have trash obstructing the lovely view.”

“Of course, lovely. Enjoy business,” Rose Seed said, flicking his tail against Grape’s flank. “Come on, young buck. Let’s find an embarrassing place for him to find his night’s rest. Maybe upside down in the petunias.”

Rosewater lifted her nose and a brow. Merrie’s premier vintner rarely did business directly with tavernkeeps. Petal wasn’t using any enticements, but she still had the floral scent of Seed’s greenhouse about her, and a fairly recent fragrance of passionate mare and stallion. Two stallions.

“Petal,” Glass said, laughing as she came around the bar, half prancing. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting you this late.”

“Mmmhmm,” Petal hummed into a mutual embrace and cheek kiss. “If not now, then when? I’ll not disrupt your business to get what I really want, dear heart.” She backed away briefly and surveyed the rest of the crowd, eyes passing over Rosewater without pausing. “I see you’ve still got enough to keep you busy, so I’ll be brief.”

“Feh. They can care for themselves for a bit.” Glass pushed out a chair and sat in one, just a few tables away from Rosewater. “Let’s have a seat and share a glass, hmm?”

“Of course.” Petal took the offered chair, sniffed delicately, and glanced at Rosewater. “That’s a fine smelling stallion.”

“Heh.” Glass snorted and rolled her eyes at Rosewater. “Rosetide’s not too shabby. Comes in now and again when his ship’s in port. I think I might like to take him home one day.”

“Mmm. Kind, hard worker… my dear Rosetide, why are you alone?”

Rosewater shot a hard look at Glass, who only smiled wider, as if to say You owed me. “Er. Ma’am. Miss Petal. I’m a ship pony.”

“Ah, that high, sweet alto,” Petal said with a purr in her light soprano. “Why, he would be perfect for a night-time symphony.”

“S-some other time, ma’am,” Rosewater said, ducking her head and shifting a glare to Glass. “H-how much do I owe you, Miss Glass?”

“Mmm. Just a kiss, darling.” Glass raised her nose and puckered her lips for a brief moment while Petal looked on, scrutinizing her entirely too closely for Rosewater’s comfort. There was a reason she didn’t infiltrate the Rose Palace as Rosetide. He’d be found out in an instant. That was if Seed didn’t pick up on her voice, scent, or mannerisms right away.

Still, it would be good to see him, even if it was only for a little while. He was another connection to Rosemary. They’d been best friends growing up, partners in crime, and her frequent foalsitting had given her a great appreciation for the mischief and wily mind behind that laconic smile.

Rose Petal might not have been a Rosethorn, but Rosewater had visited the vineyards often enough over the years, often to babysit for Seed, that Petal might still recognize the hint of her under Tide’s musk, even despite the purity bath.

So she nursed her glass of wine carefully, drawing and atomizing wine to cover the rest of her in a haze of drunken scent.

“Well, maybe another time, Tide,” Glass said and brushed aside the last of the crumbs left behind by the ruffians and settled in. “To business?”

“Aye.” Petal shifted the glasses to the bar and examined the seat critically before sitting. “I was hoping I could offload more casks on you this time. The Rose Palace reduced their standing order again after Roseate made a ‘pass’ at Prim Collar. For just a baroness, she sure can screw up royally. Rosewater’s made her interest plain enough, and I’ve not been quiet about my unease. Mothers shouldn’t go after their daughter’s mates.” Petal waved a hoof and drew a bottle over.

Glass snorted. “You and a good chunk of the commons. They might not like Rosewater much, but they like mate-stealing less.” Glass took the bottle in hoof and twisted the cork free with a bite and jerk of her head. She spat the cork into a basket at the end of the bar and poured. “That why they’re so hard up on your lot lately?”

“Even the bottles, they’re not taking as many of. Starting last month, they’ve been cutting back, and we’re edging steadily towards breaking even instead of profit.” Petal chuckled. “Not that that stops her ponies from coming down to the vineyards for a premium tasting and chat.”

“W-why not sell across the Merrie?” Rosewater asked in Tide’s nervous tone. “Gran’s been selling more and more soaps and shampoos.”

“An idea, thank you, Tide. I’ll have to see if there’s anypony willing to represent me there.” Petal flicked an ear. “I’m afraid I’m a ‘pony of interest’ in several cases of scent magery. And Seed’s about as Rosethorn as you are.”

Rosewater closed her mouth again and sank into her wine, sipping at it while she listened to the other tables. None of them had said anything interesting all night, though, and she’d already known about the Rose Palace trying to snub the Rosewine Vineyards. The reason why was new. She would have to keep that in mind for the future.

“Do you know why they’re doing that?” Glass asked.

“Eh. Cutting costs, I think. Talk down on the docks is that Roseate’s been buying a lot of fragrance ingredients from overseas. Even had her daughter go down and ‘negotiate’ a better deal.” Petal rolled her eyes. “Surprised Cargo Manifest could see straight after rutting Rosewater, if he’s telling even half the truth.”

Glass shot a look at Rosetide that Petal didn’t miss.

“Oho?” Petal took a closer look at Rosetide. “Ah… I’d wondered why you smelled so familiar. You have been having a go at her, then?”

“No,” Rosewater said flatly. Her coat prickled as more eyes turned towards her. “E-excuse me.” She slid from the darkest end of the booth and stepped free, making sure to keep the carmine powders from scraping free.

“You know,” Rose Petal said as Rosewater sidled past, “one of our patrons said he was going to be spending the night at our humble Gardens in a couple nights. Unusual for him, he’s usually getting strung along pretty hard behind that cold Rosetail. The poor dear might need a detox.”

Rosewater hurried off as Rose Petal chuckled softly.

Touche, Rose Petal, and thank you.

“You waited.”

Rosewater, cleaned and with the brooch stowed in her slim night saddlebag, expanded her shadow and a spell of silence to cover just the two of them, becoming little more than a darker patch of shadow in the alleyway behind the Rosy Glass tavern.

“I… I had…” Rosewater cleared her throat.

“As yourself.” Glass stopped a few paces away, watching her. “I heard about Rosemary. How’re you managing?”

Half a dozen lies came to her. “Barely,” she said honestly. “I’m running on no ideas but what I’ve been running on for the past six years.”

“Isolate, isolate, and isolate?” Glass asked sourly. She sighed and took another step closer. “That’s not fair. Not to you. Do you need a place to stay tonight?”

It was so very tempting. Not for sex, but to have somepony she could wake up to, share a meal with, share a quiet evening with. Something she couldn’t do in the estate. She had things she needed to do, though, and while it would have been nice to reconnect with Glass, she couldn’t afford the distraction.

Glass must have seen it in her eyes because she nodded. “We all still love you, Rosewater. Six years isn’t going to erase us growing up together.” She came closer and kissed her lightly on the lips, the warmth nearly breaking her resolve again. “We all miss you. Can I tell the others anything? That you’re holding up? Silver’s in a state, worried about you, and Seed’s been chewing the furniture whenever he’s over.”

“Roseling?” The name came up without thought and was out of her mouth before she could think to call it back.

“She misses you, too. She still growls about how you left her, though.” Glass shook her head, smiling. “I know why you think you had to. I can’t even disagree with you, with how they treated her shop, but you should have done it more gently, ‘Water.”

“You…” Rosewater sat, suddenly exhausted, tired of the entire mess she’d dug herself into.

“We’re still here for you. Don’t push us away.”

“Roseate will target you,” Rosewater said softly, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to make her back off before she’d even finished saying it. She could push. She could, and Glass would leave her again. Would she let me come back afterward?

“She has been already,” Glass replied, offering her a small smile. “Those of us who were your friends, have already been targeted for harassment. Do you think those goons came to my tavern because I welcomed them?”

“No.”

“They don’t drive away my other customers, my regular,” Glass said softly, “because they know the score. Among those regulars are some of the Merrieguard you fought with at the Battle of Primline Park.”

“It was hardly a battle. It was a couple of my sisters and a few Merrieguard.”

Prowling the night in Damme was something Rosewater had done many nights simply to get the lay of the city, mark out points of interest and where she might go to ground if she needed to. Alone.

In a small group, spread out across the southern lawn of Primline Park, the guards from the Rosewine bridge behind them stupefied by Silk Rose’s Sweet Embrace, it was harder to keep themselves hidden. Too many shadows moving across the open field made for an easy target.

It had been Roseate’s idea, and then her order when her daughters objected. It was a stupid plan, but Roseate knew that, and so did Rosewater. This wasn’t a ploy to cause chaos so much as it was a ploy to get Rosewater captured, and blatantly so.

Then Roseate could blame the capture of so many ponies squarely on her shoulders and levy punishments to her citizens that would also be pinned squarely on Rosewater’s shoulders when she was ransomed back. If Damme agreed to it.

And nopony would be left to counter her claims that it was Rosewater’s poor planning that had led to the capture.

She checked that the Bloom of Confusion perfume was still ready, something she’d made for just this occasion. It’d been tricky to distill the essence of confusion, but it had at its base, an essence of fear and worry, two things that Rosewater had in spades.

If the Prim Palace took the anonymous warning seriously, their ambush should be found out soon enough. It had been tricky aiming the teleport of her message in a bottle into a cloud at the right moment when it would fall into the public gardens of Prim Palace, but anypony watching would assume it was a pegasus who’d delivered the note, not a unicorn who’d been working on her range.

To her right, Silk Rose glanced at her, shadowed ears twitching, and to her left, Rose Crown’s ears flattened. They smelled it, clearly as she did. Ponies of the Dammeguard in all likelihood, but only a few of them. Scouts perhaps, or merely the careless ones that did not wash themselves properly.

She saw nothing ahead of her troop, however. An ambush behind an invisibility spell, she decided, and prepared the Bloom of Confusion. One spell to leave the ambush off balance, and then the order to retreat.

Rose Crown teleported ahead, blowing their cover.

Surprising Rosewater as much as it did the ponies suddenly revealed in the middle of Primline Park as a dome of invisibility faltered and fell into a shower of silver sparks.

“Ambush!” one of Merrieguard along with them cried, darting left to put himself in front of Silk.

A roar of battle cries from the Dammeguard rose as they thundered forward, their blunted capture poles raised and ready to ensnare any leg or neck that presented itself.

Rose Crown’s voice rose in an enchanting melody for only a moment before it was cut off, a silver dome covering her and taking her out of the fight quite neatly behind a veil of silence and the charge of the Dammeguard as silver manacles bound her to the ground.

Behind her, Lord Primline Collar locked eyes with Rosewater as she dropped her veil and drew out two perfume bottles, ready to do battle. Or pretend to do battle.

Distant sounds of whistles called for reinforcements as the two forces met, magic and hoof fighting back against the poles and bludgeons.

In any other age, the battle would have been comical, with both sides trying their best to incapacitate with the least injury, which would normally have put the Roses on the better footing.

Silk Rose darted off to help a pair of beleaguered Merrieguard fending off a trio of Dammeguard.

The purpose of the raid had shifted in a moment from causing chaos to harnessing a retreat out of the debacle.

Rosewater sent a fog of sleep to cover one Dammeguard chasing after a dodging pegasus who only stayed on the ground to harass long enough for their commander to rally. For her to rally.

As the Dammeguard slumped to the ground, asleep in moments, the pegasus took off and landed behind a pair of Dammeguard harassing the small contingent Silk Rose was helping. Both of them wore scent-masks, and while that would limit their ability to fight for long, it meant that Silk was having trouble working her way with them.

Before Rosewater could tear the masks away, a silver dome snapped into being around her.

Perfect.

Slumbering Scilla went away, and Rosewater began exerting pressure on the dome, forcing Collar to focus more and more of his attention on her. She, with only two tasks to accomplish, was at an advantage against him, with so much more to worry about, and it began to show immediately as the fog of confusion and worry began roiling inside the dome.

More pressure, draining herself faster and faster, and more confusion as she drew and pressed the perfume into the miniscule space between his dome and her own.

The shimmering silence around Crown flickered and died, then the manacles, but another pony came and captured her, his greenish magic a contrast to Collar’s.

Crown didn’t deserve that.

Anger flowed into her spells, and with a final heave and raising of her head, she pierced his dome in one spot even as her pressure on it everywhere else increased.

A resounding crack silenced the battlefield for a moment as the pressurized confusion snapped into a wave of orange and white swirls, coating everything.

Silk used the momentary confusion to rip the masks off the two ponies and then teleported outside the spreading ring of magical perfume.

Spent, Rosewater staggered forward a step, her eyes locked on Collar’s shocked expression.

“Retreat!” Silk bellowed. “Back to the bridge!” Before she passed Rosewater, she gave her a glare and snarled “You hesitated.”

Silk and Crown were friends. That came to her mind in a moment of incongruity as she watched her younger sister corralling their milling, confused forces back toward the bridge.

Out of everything that Rosewater hated about what she’d had to do that night, making her younger sister hate her that much more felt the most onerous. If she hadn’t played both sides, Crown might not have been captured, or felt the need to throw herself into a trap to warn them.

Not that Silk knew that, but Rosewater had been given the lead for this expedition, against the protests of her sisters and Rosewater herself—up until Roseate had thrown in a boon of ignoring Rosemary. It was her fault, ultimately, that Crown had been captured and Silk deprived of one of her closest friends—friends they could trust were few and far between as daughters of Roseate.

Rosewater gave Collar one last look before she turned, taking two of the golden glowing experiments and popping them into her mouth.

Immediate vitality surged through her, borrowed from herself in the past couple of days.

She was gone before the raging chorus of whistles and its attendant reinforcements could reach the edge of Primline Park.

“Silk still hates me for that,” Rosewater said softly.

“She isn’t a regular. And I hear she snaps at everypony that even so much as looks crossly at her anymore.” Glass snorted and shook her head. “Look, I know that faraway look in your eye, so I’m not going to push tonight, but please, Rosewater. Please come by someday in the open. We can catch up for real, and not like… like spies in our own home.”

“I—” Rosewater coughed and shook her head free of the embers of the fight. “You’re sure?”

“Rut me silly, Rosewater, of course I am. I wouldn’t have made the offer if I hadn’t been.”

“I have… if…” Rosewater cleared her throat and recalled herself to the task she’d set herself that night. “I need to know if Roseate is making any moves. Anything you can tell me would help.”

Glass sat back and stroked her chin. “What Petal told you was pretty much all we have. She’s been playing close to the mark lately, but I’ll put some feelers out to our business contacts.” A glance aside, and a thin smile, and she nodded. “Actually, I have something. Rosie Night sold a large quantity of Citrus Circus to the palace just last week.”

There were only a few reasons that the Rose Palace would want a lot of energetic candy. “They’re not planning any orgies.” And the candies would start to lose their efficacy as the magic Rosie Night poured into the batch leaked away. “She’s making a move soon.” Sooner than she’d thought Roseate would make it. Something had scared her.

“You’re sure?” Glass frowned and reached out to tap her breast. “Please take care of yourself, ‘Water. And please. Come back to us. All of us.”

“If… if she moves soon, I’ll be… I’ll need…”

“Us.”

“You,” Rosewater agreed finally, closing her eyes and hating herself for needing to put her friends in danger. “After.”

Glass frowned, but sighed and nodded. “After the dust settles. I’ll hold you to that promise, Rosewater.”

“It’s rare you call me down here in person,” Collar said as he walked through the permanent silence erected around the most secret of rooms in Prim Palace.

“It’s rare,” Prim Priceless said, passing him a stack of papers, “that the stars align.”

Collar scanned them quickly, noting the codenames of several operatives they had in Merrie, some of them familiar, some not, almost all of them operating as merchants or carters. He recognized a name he hadn’t seen in a while.

“Foe of a Foe is active again?” Collar turned the page over, then back again, frowning. “I thought they got caught after they tipped us off to the raid four months ago.”

“Either they did, and this is a ruse, or they didn’t, and they’re only warning us about the threats they consider big enough.” Priceless clucked his tongue. “I honestly thought we had Foe of a Foe in the Gilded cage.”

“Hm.” Collar glanced at the paper again, turned it over, and sniffed at the back. Nothing.

Lord Collar,
Our mutual foe is on the move and appears to be planning a large scale raid.
Foe of a foe

“Another raid?” Collar asked, sighing. “Is she going to try to make Rosewater go on this one, too?”

“Doubtful,” Priceless said, plucking out a sheet farther down in the stack and put it in front of him, detailing Rosewater’s known haunts. “Rosewater’s been more reclusive than usual this past week. But that pony you asked us to watch out for is back.”

“Rosetide?” Collar asked, raising a brow as he came to the sheet. Rosetide’s, on the other hoof, was practically social, even if he did tend to spend most of his time on the docks or at the small warehouse where his grandmother lived. “I see he came back on a different ship.”

“Not unusual in itself, but given the reasons you’re suspicious…” Priceless tapped a quill against the page and returned it to its place behind his ear. “Given his ‘timely’ arrival back in Merrie, I’m more inclined to give it a higher probability.”

Collar shook his head. “It’s not something we can test unless he comes over to Merrie, but it is something to keep in mind.” He shuffled through a few more sheets, scanning them. “I don’t see anything here that would warrant calling me down.”

“This… is about Rosemary, Collar,” Priceless said quietly. “This isn’t an outside threat, but an inside one. That’s why I asked you here, and why I haven’t put it into writing.” He settled in more comfortably, leaning against the desk full of ordered chaos. “Primfeather Wing is making noises that he’s likely to draw a line in the sand over her being housed in Prim Palace, and Lustrous Primmane is making the same sort of noises.”

“Do you know what kind of action us crossing that line will be?” He had some ideas. They had citizen groups they were the heads of, and businesses and ship-owners they were allied with that could make life more difficult for them.

Driving up costs of goods or artificially restricting the flow of them would make the citizenry more upset, regardless of who was to blame. One option would be to reduce tariffs on goods flowing from Merrie, making it more palatable for traders from their sister city to make the crossing if there were suddenly a dearth of goods Damme wanted that Merrie had.

Which would lessen pressure on Roseate. It was rotten, no matter how he tried to cut it.

“Not as yet. A few breweries have been listening, but they’ve always been on the side of anti-Reformation. They’ve already taken a huge hit to Merrie’s wineries.” Priceless smiled faintly. “Sometimes it’s strange to use my public job for covert work.”

“I’m sure.” Collar sighed and rocked back. “Something to keep in mind. We’ll have to wait and see what the cost of continuing to house her in the palace is.” He pulled out the Foe of a Foe letter. “I’m taking this with me.”

“Think Cloudy might have an idea?”

“No. I just want to think about it for a bit.” He sighed and rose to his hooves. “Anything else?”

“That was it. Be careful how you treat that young mare, my lord.”

“I won’t let it become an issue with the Primfeathers.”

“I meant in regards to her guardian,” Priceless said softly. “Word is that the bridge guard of Merrie is to forbid entrance of Rosewater to Damme for any reason.”

Collar let the ramifications of what that meant creep through him. Not merely could she not send letters however she managed it, not and have them be clearly from her…

“Stars. I can’t think of anything more cruel Roseate might have done.”

“I’m glad that you cannot, my lord.” Priceless smiled thinly when Collar gave him a questioning look. “It speaks to your character as a kind pony. I can think of several ways she might have been more cruel.”

Collar swallowed and closed his eyes. “Mare look after her.”

Days passed with nothing interesting happening beyond the slow progression of the sun across the floor, watching ponies go about their days, and assigning personalities and names to the most frequent of them Rosemary could see from her prison window.

No change in accommodation had been made, and while she hadn’t seen Glory again in the four days since, neither had she heard anything about her disposition.

The staff that came to see to her linens changing and ensuring that her soap and shampoo for bathing weren’t running low offered her another chance at breaking the monotony of being imprisoned.

Linen Dreams, a young laundress, was especially interested in talking to her, and even after changing out her bedclothes, she’d stayed to chat with Rosemary about what it was like in Merrie. Apparently what she’d told Stride had started to spread, and not a few ponies were interested in talking to the polite Rose in a glass cage.

There were others, but her daily highlight was when Cloudy came around for breakfast or lunch to catch up over the last two years. There was, unsurprisingly, a lot that Cloudy had gotten up to in the last two years of rising through the ranks of the Dammeguard, and their chat ranged from new friends, to new lovers, to business, and to Collar.

Which gave her fuel for her daily visit with Collar a couple hours later.

She could admit to herself that she’d been lax in learning about the Lord of Damme, heir of the house of Primline, but it wouldn’t do to show that she knew so little of the tidbits of gossip that Rosie had almost certainly dropped to her over the years she’d known the social butterfly.

It was his visit that she looked forward to as well, because it was then that he brought her a little bit of information about Rosewater behind a screened door. He’d met with her once in the last two days, at night, outside of the city, he’d said, and she’d been agitated to say the least, and kept the meeting short before leaving.

She got the impression that Rosewater was trying to act cagey, and said she would try to find some way to get a letter to her.

That had been two days ago, and while it had assuaged some of her worries following being told that Rosewater couldn’t contact her directly, it hadn’t done much to settle the worry that her mother was dropping into the same kind of depression that had followed Carnation’s exile.

“I could have done more. Should have done more. I could have fought a duel then.”

“Except Carnation had begged you not to,” Rosemary murmured from her ponywatching seat. It was getting on toward late morning, and breakfast was gone, Stride had come and gone for his morning chat, and now she was left alone for a few hours with nothing but the small library adjoining the suite to occupy her time. “She begged you not to because then you’d have been mother’s very next target.”

Time passed as, below, a trio of carts came into view and began unloading goods for the kitchen and the running of the palace. Nopony she recognized was there, but a fourth cart, hauled by a stallion who was clearly a Rose, stopped in front of the palace and waited until a stallion of Dammeguard came up to him and started talking.

It was a divergence from normalcy, and it held her rapt attention for the duration, wondering what Rose would be delivering directly to the Prim Palace and how he’d made it all that way without being remarked on or called out, or his… crate of jars.

Wishing she had binoculars, Rosemary strained to see what they were labeled with, but it was too far for her to make out more than that they were obviously glazed clay, patterned after the Merrie style for shampoo and conditioner in alternating sets.

“For me?” she wondered aloud.

She studied the stallion more closely, wondering if she’d seen him or partnered with him at some point, and almost immediately she felt a sense of familiarity with him. The way he held himself, the way his ears never seemed to stop moving even when he was talking to somepony else, twitching to every new sound around him.

Nervous, understandably, but not without intention. He never looked the way his ears twitched, keeping his attention on the pony in front of him, but he was always aware of what was around him.

Just like a raider was supposed to. It was hard to hide those instincts, even if they could be masked by adopting a nervous persona.

He was a raider, but had avoided getting caught or even seen.

After the second guard left, the stallion allowed himself to look around, a dopey smile on his face as he surveyed the grounds, then turned to openly gawk at the Prim Palace, massive bastion of stone that it was, until his eyes found Rosemary’s window.

Not his eyes. Her eyes. She’d know those eyes from any distance.

Oh my stars, you… Rosemary sagged against the window, her mind whirling as thoughts slid through and past others, wondering who her mother had impersonated, wondering how she’d managed it without her being aware of it going on.

The hiding place. The place Rosewater always took those she captured, so secret and hidden that not even Roseate could find it with all her resources.

Not even hidden, but out in the open. It had to be. If he, she, was there and doing legitimate business as a carter, then he had to have a home, or at least someplace where he went and disappeared from.

You sneaky mare.

The eyes lingered on her window for far too long, and the stallion jerked them away when a guard came up, and he made a show of apology as Collar came out to greet him. Her.

Stars above, she came to see me.

She was, all of a sudden, excited for Collar’s later visit. Rosewater wouldn’t make such an obvious show and not send something. A letter. A… a something.

Some memento from home for a keepsafe charm.

She was less than surprised when, fifteen minutes after the carter had left, Collar came knocking, a sheepish smile on his lips.

“Rosetide,” Collar said by way of greeting as he made his way down the stairs, the other visitors giving the stallion a more thorough study. The stallion was standing, nervous as usual, his eyes roving over the Palace’s structure. “I hadn’t expected to see you for another few days.”

“Aye, sir,” the stallion replied with a sheepish smile. “Got a message at the last port of call that Granny wasn’t doing too good. Hopped over on the next ship out, paying and working.”

“Ah. Good stallion. How is she?”

“As well as a pony her age can be expected to,” Rosetide said, his eyes dropping to the ground. “I don’t expect I’ll be leaving port again for some time.”

Collar nodded gravely, watching the pony for any sign of duplicity, though he was as he had been, nervous and a touch fidgety. Understandable for a distant Rosethorn cousin deep in Damme. It was hard to ascribe anything to the stallion that didn’t come from his natural circumstances, and pondering over it overmuch, or even attempting to unmask him would do no good.

“Anyways,” Rosetide said with what seemed like forced cheer, “I’ve been doing more around town because, and I got word that Roseling had a shipment waiting for you. A new order?”

“Aye, and I honestly hadn’t been expecting it for another few days.” Collar glanced at the palace where he saw Rosemary watching them out of her window. She often did that. Ponywatching was one of the few things she could do that was vaguely social. “We have a new guest we’ve been trying to make as comfortable as possible.”

“Aye. I heard.” Rosetide’s voice betrayed nothing, but his eyes danced away. “There’s been talk on the docks and in the taverns. And I hear things.”

He couldn’t tell what the stallion was trying to tell him, other than that he’d heard it, but his instincts were telling him there was more that he was trying to say. “I imagine. It was quite the event here. But don’t you worry, and pass my thanks to Ms. Roseling for filling the order quickly.”

Rosetide smiled sheepishly. “She was quite happy to, she said. She, um, also chewed my ears a little. She’d have been happy to look after Granny, she said.” He looked down at his hooves, then up and into Collar’s eyes. “But I’m gonna be there. I’m the only family she has left in Merrie.”

His eyes were unwavering as he said the last, and for a moment, Collar had the feeling the younger stallion wasn’t talking about Granny. He dismissed the idea out of hoof. Tide hadn’t given him any reason to distrust him, aside from his tenuous link to Rosewater.

“You’re a good stallion, Tide,” Collar said softly. “Give Granny my well wishes, and Roseling my thanks for filling the order so quickly.”

“Of course, my lord.” Rosetide raised the crate out of the back of his cart, and this time, because he was looking for it, Collar didn’t miss the letter he slipped ever-so-neatly into his day saddlebag in the same motion. He’d have missed it, if he hadn’t been watching for it this time, contained as it was in the order slip. “Rosemary’s usual order, and topping off your and Cloudy Rose’s standing order.”

If he’d known Rosetide would be coming by, he’d have had Rosemary write something. Presumably, he’d know how to get it to Rosewater clandestinely, but as it was, all he could do was offer him the bits on the bill.

“Take care of yourself and Granny, Rosetide.”

Rosetide tipped his head briefly and gave one last look up to the window before starting off. “Will do my best, my lord.”

Collar silenced the room before she could even ask him who he’d been talking to. She hadn’t moved from her spot sitting by the window, either, and only glanced at him briefly as he came in.

“A letter came for you today,” he said softly.

She glanced at him, then at the walls before she pushed herself up and closed the curtains. As soon as she did, the chill seemed to melt away from her and she offered him a tentative smile. “I can guess who from with that look.”

What look? “I haven’t opened it, but in the manner in which it was delivered, I can guess. Your… sister.” He was still having issues reconciling that idea, but it wasn’t so far-fetched. The issue was he’d always thought of Rosewater as Roseate’s daughter, and thinking of her as the daughter of a sane and, by all accounts, kind and thoughtful mare was stressing his imagination.

She opened it neatly, holding a knife to a flame for a moment, then slipping it under the wax seal, careful not to break it, and sniffed faintly at the melted wax. “Scented,” she murmured.

That Rosewater might scent the seal of a letter seemed absolutely absurd… until he recalled that scented candles of all types were common in Merrie. Still… “Another scent-marked hidden meaning?”

“It’s peach cobbler,” Rosemary said, raising a brow.

“My favorite dinner dessert,” Collar said with a sigh. “A message to me. ‘The palace leaks.’” In more than one direction. Wing was likely to hear about the stallion delivering scented soaps to the palace within the hour, if he hadn’t already.

Rosemary read the letter quietly, her jaw tightening, then relaxing, her lower lip trembling as she kept in her response. “The… last page is for you, my lord.”

Dearest Rosemary,
I apologize for the terseness of my last note. I had written it without the foreknowledge that you would be captured, but assuming that of the ponies arrayed against you, that Lord Collar would be sympathetic to your situation, if not your actions. I wish, dearly, that things would have played out differently, but I had thought from the start that this might be the outcome, and I only wish that I had prepared you better for it.
I have asked a friend to deliver this letter to you, a friend that I trust as I would my own four hooves. However, please do not send a letter back. I cannot guarantee that he would not be searched at the border. More and more merchants and common ponies have been subjected to customs searches in the past week.
I don’t know why, or what madness Roseate hopes to accomplish, simply that my communication with you will be spotty, at best, and conditional on Lord Collar’s agreement that a guardian should not be subjected to monitoring with the potential for retribution simply because I wish to write to you.
I will reveal nothing here about what I am doing, nor about what Roseate is doing. That would break my oath as your guardian, Rosemary, and I love you too much, and have too much regard for the responsibility as your guardian to do so.
All my love,
Rosewater Rosethorn
Heiress of Merrie

He turned to the second page, not quite done digesting all that Rosewater had revealed in her admission of why she couldn’t sneak letters across more freely. He had heard from Priceless that written information from Merrie was becoming scarcer, and the number of pegasi willing to drop a parcel with no questions asked was dropping precipitously.

Soon, he’d have to risk pegasi of the Dammeguard to set up dead drop pickup locations.

Lord Collar,
Any information you have regarding the health of my charge, or any needs she may have that I can see to, please communicate them to the Treaty Office, and I will be certain to receive them. Please ask Rosemary that she not expect any letters she attempts to post via the Treaty Office to remain unread. She will know what I mean, if she does not read this anyway.
My one plea is that you not accept any offer from Roseate for her return. She will sue to remove me as guardian, and that she has not done so already worries me. She would lose the case, I believe, before Celestia’s eyes, but I do not want to risk that case.
I will delve treaty law and try to find a way to step in myself, but my resources available to pay a herdgild are paltry, and the law does not support the right of a guardian to negotiate one for a pony past her eighteenth birthday. Were Carnation here, she would be able to request that right as a parent, and I would help her.
Please, my lord, burn these letters as soon as both of you have read them. I am treading a thin line already with Roseate, and this may be one step over if she were to find out.
Regards,
Rosewater Rosethorn
Future Baroness of Merriedamme

Collar snorted. She was playing the role of his future mate to the hilt, even in private correspondence. “You read both pages?”

“Yes, my lord.” Rosemary bobbed her head and eyed him speculatively. “She’s being earnest, you know. She’s offering herself for courtship, rather than telling you she’s going to court you, whether you like it or not.”

“How can you tell? It seems like she’s being very forward.” He waved the second page at her. “This isn’t the first time she’s claimed that I would be her mate.”

“She hasn’t in that letter. She implied.”

“Small difference.”

“Maybe, but if she were truly following the way that Roseate espouses, that a mate can be taken, I doubt you would be here, now.” Rosemary shook her head slowly. “Either you would have taken her prisoner or she would have taken you. There would not be wordplay, Lord Collar.”

Collar read the page again, thoughtful to the words she used and wondering how much care had been put into the choice of them. Rosewater did like wordplay, that was true, but… he sighed. He’d have liked to give it to Priceless, but giving Rosemary a letter and letting her have a memory of her mother hardly seemed like a fair repayment for his continued freedom.

“Do you want to read them again?” Collar asked. “Is there some kind of hidden message, possibly?”

“No hidden messages beyond the scented wax. Keep that, by the way. It may be a key to a future message.” Rosemary heated the knife blade again and prized free the slender medallion of wax. “If… you don’t mind? Can I keep it?”

“Please.” Collar chuckled. “It’s not like any of us could decode a scent message anyway…” he trailed off, thinking about the Foe of a Foe message he’d still not managed to come to a solid conclusion about. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Rosemary. Be well, and keep that medallion safe.”

Rosemary snorted and raised a brow. “You could simply come again today.”

“As the peach cobbler reminds me, such an act would be remarked upon. Departure from a pattern always is.” Collar settled the pages in the fireplace and touched the candle to them. “And keep a candle burning. I’ll supply you.”

“Thank you. It’s… it’s how I let her know I’m okay. If she stalks by at night.” Rosemary smiled faintly. “I think she knows. It’s… it’s something Carnation did. Whenever Rosewater had to go out on Roseate’s orders, Carnation would leave a candle burning in the window for Rosewater to come back to, to let her know that a safe space was waiting for her.”

“You both loved her very much.”

Rosemary’s smile brightened as she glanced at the perfume bottle. “We do love her still.”

Book 1, 24. Storm Warning

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Market day was one of the few days when Rosewater made her trip to the stalls of the Merrie Market to stock up her pantry of perishables and a few fruity treats before retreating back to her sanctum. It was also still new to her to not go about veiled during the day like her sisters did. She stood out too much for her height anyway, and confounding the spies in Damme wasn’t one of her goals anymore anyway.

There was one Veiled Rose passing through the market, however, and other ponies made a point of avoiding the unknown noblemare. From the way the shadows moved, and the mist twisted, she could tell it was Rosary… likely keeping an eye on her and trying to appear nonchalant.

A mare, whose name she thought was Rosedawn or something similar, sidled up to the same stall she was browsing fruits at, picking over the latest imports from Saddle Arabia. Pineapples and star fruit featured prominently in the last shipment, it seemed.

“Are you interested in the star fruit?” she asked, flicking an ear at her.

“Might be,” Rosewater murmured, nonplussed and trying to place the mare and where she’d last seen her. “They’re quite delicious when you can get them relatively fresh, and it looks like this ship employs a unicorn with a talent for cold enchantments.”

“But the Pineapple keeps for much longer even without.”

“It does,” Rosewater said, feeling increasingly put off by the mare’s openness in talking to her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Maybe.” The mare flashed a look at her, then twitched her ears around. “Glow’s. Corner booth. Ask Glass for a pint of the rough.”

Rosewater blinked rapidly as the mare bought a star fruit and bit into it, then sauntered off down the row.

What in the name of the Mare?

If it was another scheme of Glass’s to pull her in, it wasn’t appreciated, but… she knew the mare somehow, and not as a lover. She knew all of her lovers, both mare and stallion by name, face, and voice intimately. She’d never gone in for the quick romance, which was a part of the reason she was in the situation she was in.

She didn’t want the father of her foal to be… she wanted him to be like her father.

You have issues, Rosewater.

Rosewater picked a pineapple and paid the bit and two buckles for it and resolved to forget about the mare as just another pony who was trying to pull her into someplace that would get them hurt. If they weren’t working for Roseate.

It was only as she turned away from the direction of the Rosy Glow Tavern that she recalled the face and the voice. A name came moments later.

Roselight, not Rosedawn. She was one of the ponies that had hesitated on the bridge after the failure of the raid those months ago. A pony who Glass had said was free and home because of her keeping Collar’s attention on her.

What does she want?

She hesitated, looking around and trying to find the ponies around her that were her mother’s watchers. Veiling would hide her, but also say that she had something to hide. But… going to Rosy’s tavern… in the daylight…

I have nothing to hide. That mare had something to hide. She hesitated for a moment before making her way through the market as if nothing had happened, and stopped to pick up a few more grocery items that would keep for a while before heading down to the Rosy Glow.

Since it was the afternoon, the tavern was only serving lighter beverages and a light lunch fare from the kitchen, provoking memories of Rosewater stopping by nearly every other day to have a light bite and a chat with Glass when she’d been little older than Rosemary. It’d been a ritual for her, or nearly so, to visit her while they’d been lovers and chat about the day, the goings on around the city, and ponder the future.

Stars, those days feel so far away.

She stopped in the doorway, ears flattening as the feeling of having done this so many times before rolled over her paired with the feeling that she shouldn’t be doing this.

“I see you’ve finally decided to listen to your cousin, Mare watch over her,” Glass said from behind the bar where she was engaging in the perennial occupation of bartenders everywhere: arranging the glasses and wiping the bar down. “Come in, ‘Water. It’s been too long.”

It was too late to back out. “Glass.” She swallowed and smiled. “It’s… it has been too long. I’d like to catch up with you after I have a glass of the rough.”

Glass raised a brow and didn’t quite glance at the corner booth. “Of course. It’s been a rough week for you. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you came by again.” She hesitated, then nodded towards the booth. “Afraid I don’t have any other tables clean at the moment. Rough night last night.”

She didn’t ask if Rosewater was okay with sharing. In Merrie, sharing a space to eat at a public space like a tavern was second-nature, and none of the tables or other booths had more than token partitions between them, inviting socializing between the patrons.

“Afternoon,” Rosewater said noncommittally to the pony lounging on the bench across from her.

“Afternoon,” Roselight said quietly, glancing around and then casting a spell on the middle of the table, dim letters formed of rosy light. ‘Silence.’

Rosewater copied the mare’s spell, spelling out ‘Suspicious if we go silent.’ It would also be suspicious if they went completely without sharing a single word. “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?” ‘Find a reason for the silence first.’

Roselight’s ears flattened, and her cheeks reddened as she considered the words, both written and spoken. “I-I’m not sure. I know you, of course. Everypony knows Rosewater.”

“An auspicious honor,” Rosewater said with a thin smile. “I know I’ve seen you someplace, though, but my mind has been occupied with other things lately.”

“Maybe… well… I’m a frequent visitor to the Garden, and I know you used to go there quite often. Maybe you saw me there?” Roselight spelled out, ‘Rosemary?’

“Ah. Maybe so. You’re young enough to be in Rosemary’s social circles regularly. Lover?”

“I can’t say that I was. I’m… I’m mostly into stallions, truth be told, but I’ve kissed my share of mares.” She calmed, settling into a smoother routine. “To be honest, you’ve always caught my eye, Lady Rosewater. It’s not rare that a mare can do that, but I think maybe…” Roselight rolled one shoulder elegantly. “If we got to know each other.”

“Very forward,” Rosewater said with a laugh, and glanced at Glass, who wasn’t quite seething. “I think our talk is upsetting the matron. Perhaps we should make this conversation more private?”

Roselight looked so relieved she might as well have blurted out that it was all a ruse. Not that her words were any more convincing, but getting words to mean what they sounded like on paper was harder than hearing them spoken, and the magic had yet to be invented that could capture something so ephemeral and fleeting as sound for later use.

As soon as Rosewater surrounded the booth with silence, both Glass and Roselight relaxed, the former visibly, the latter letting out a gusting sigh and running a shaking hoof over her mane.

“I wasn’t meant for this covert spy work,” Roselight muttered.

“What did you swear your oath to, Roselight?” Rosewater asked softly. “When you took up the mantle of the Merrieguard?”

“The city,” Roselight said after a long moment. “I love Merrie, my lady. It seemed more appropriate than what she asked us to consider.” Another pause, and Roselight glanced down at her hooves, then back to Rosewater. “She wanted to consider pledging to her, personally, as the protector of Merrie.”

“I’d… heard that.” It was a low point in Roseate’s rulership of Merrie, and had been whispered about for weeks afterwards, then largely forgotten when nothing came of it. Nothing had come of it for more than a year, but then the goons had started harassing citizens who spoke out against Roseate’s policies towards Damme and trade with their sister city. “You were one of the few that pledged to the city.”

“And I got relegated to bridge duty,” Roselight said sourly, then winced. “I mean, it’s necessary to collect taxes on goods, but…” She tossed her head. “That’s not why I asked you here. I could get in trouble talking to you.”

A hint of Roseate’s plan came into view, but before she could chase it down, Roselight took a breath and continued.

“Some of our ‘friends’ in the guard are lording it over us bridge guards that they’re going on an important mission soon. I think you know which ones.” Roselight’s sneer made it clear what she thought of those that had willingly pledged to Roseate personally. “Roseate’s put a clamp on gossip between the guards as a response, but…”

“But that only makes the talk move to shadowy corners of taverns,” Rosewater said wryly. “I was aware that she was getting ready to move. I wasn’t sure when. Do you know anything about that?”

“I…” Roselight glanced aside. “Can you stop her?”

Rosewater blinked, then blinked again at the direct question. “Stop her?”

“Roseate. You… you fought a duel with her in Damme for Lord Collar’s hoof, right?” Roselight flushed faintly. “I’ve seen him a few times. He’s quite handsome.”

Rosewater stared at the mare, wondering just how far the rumors had progressed in Merrie, and what they were like in Damme. “I don’t know about stop her,” Rosewater said with a sigh. “I pushed my luck confronting her and dueling her and claiming him as my future mate. I want him whole, not a vegetable.” She hated it even as she said it, and forced down the disgust at claiming him again. She’d much rather he just accept her proposal to court him, even if it was clandestine.

“I… I know, and I know what I’m asking is a lot, but I know she’s going to lead some of my friends to do things they’ll regret.” Roselight looked away from her. “I know… you Rosethorns have your ways. But they’re not mine. They’re not my friends’. I don’t want to lose—”

She couldn’t take it, being seen that way. As a pony who would take another’s will away. “They’re not my way either. Stars above, I need to act it, but I’ve… I’ve never been my mother’s golden child.”

Roselight stared at her for a long moment, then let out a breath, some of the tension seeming to leave her. “Is that true?”

Just how terrible is my reputation? Rosewater swallowed and nodded. “Ask Glass. She seems Tartarus-bent on getting me to endanger my friends again.”

“How?”

“By associating with them.”

Roselight stared at her again, the flavor of this particular incredulous look bending more towards pitying. “Some of the rumors in the barracks make sense now,” she said softly, settling down. “That you’re not… you know. The Rose Terror. That some of the upper echelon of Roseate’s personal guard have been bragging about making even the Terror quake in her home.”

“I’ve heard some of that through Rosemary,” Rosewater said quietly.

“But that’s why it’s so important that you’re standing up to her! You will, won’t you?”

“If I can without getting myself or anypony else exiled,” Rosewater replied. “I will.” She smiled faintly and bobbed her head, taking a quick look around. Nopony else was watching them, and Glass was still at the bar, alternately watching them and the door. “That includes you, Roselight. I’m afraid I might have to beg a kiss from you on the way out. To sell the story.”

Roselight’s cheeks flushed, but not from embarrassment. “I wasn’t lying. You are somewhat attractive to me, and knowing more about you…”

“You’ll make Glass jealous with talk like that.” She winked and smiled more broadly. “But… is there anything you know specifically about the action? Anything you can tell me that more than one pony knows?”

“One of your sisters was complaining about a migraine in my earshot. Said it was the way Roseate enchanted a candy?” Roselight shook her head. “It didn’t make sense to me, but I only use sweets like that on night shift. And only sparingly.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple days?” Roselight shook her head again as if trying to prize free more information. “She kept muttering about hoping not to need to use it.”

Rosewater pursed her lips. That would correspond with a day when Roseate was in little evidence anywhere else. She could have spent the day enchanting candies like Rosewater did. Her stunt after the duel was over had proven she knew the spell and likely its effects, and was trying to get the raiders used to them.

They would only hold an enchantment for five days before it started to weaken and eventually crumble under the strain. It didn’t mean she absolutely meant to make her move soon, but Roseate was loathe to waste effort. That gave her a window of a few days when she could make a point to watch the bridges more closely.

She might even be able to warn Collar in time if he’d figured out the message she’d left. If he hadn’t…

Risking a more open approach would be risking treason charges if anypony spotted her. It’d been a gamble including the hidden message in the first place. The peach cobbler was hardly a subtle scent, but it served a dual purpose, and she’d been sure to leave out anything incriminating in the marked message.

“I should be going before I’m missed outside,” Roselight said, breaking Rosewater out of her thoughts. “I… might take that kiss if you’re still willing. Maybe… more?”

Suspicion crawled up out of its hole. Roselight was a Merrieguard, one of the ponies in the direct employ of Roseate. Simply letting Rosewater act on the information given to her had given Roseate enough to potentially level treason charges if Roselight was acting out of bad faith.

“Roselight… would you consent to letting me touch your horn with mine?”

“W-why?”

“Would you? If I’m going to do anything, I need to know you’re treating with me honestly.”

Roselight gulped, her green-ringed rose eyes going wide. “You can read minds?”

“Stars no.” Rosewater chuffed. She pushed herself up and craned her neck over the table as far as she could reach. “Either trust me, and I’ll do what I can, or don’t, and I’ll go my own way.”

“Trust you.” Roselight swallowed even harder, looking into Rosewater’s eyes before she nodded and pushed herself up to meet Rosewater a little less than halfway.

As soon as their horns touched, Rosewater sent a featherlight touch of magic through the physical connection, freezing the other mare in place with a gentleness that she’d not shown Rosary or Roseate. Then, with that touch done, she pulled back and opened herself up to the feelings flowing through her horn.

Deception wasn’t an emotion, she’d discovered over the time of learning her talent, in the rare times she could get past her fear of what she could do, but ponies that were lying and confronted with her power had one of a few reactions: absolute terror at what she was doing to them, or a feeling of dread at being found out.

Rarely did she feel hope in those that were lying to her.

Roselight’s emotional presence was a wavering flame of hope, flickering and barely there, but it had all the emotional hallmarks of it. Rosemary had been hopeful a lot in her young life, as had Carnation, and it was one of the emotional tapestries that she was intimately and thankfully familiar with.

After a moment, she released her hold on the magic that held the other in place and the hold on the hidden place in her mind where her talent lay.

“I’ll decide to trust you,” Rosewater said softly. “Can you trust me?”

“I must. You’re the only one I can hope will stand up to her.” Roselight’s words came thickly, as if her tongue were trying to say more than she could express all at once. “I felt you. I felt… hope?”

“A reflection of your own feelings,” Rosewater said faintly, smiling. “I hope I can live up to it.”

The next note was something of a surprise to both Collar and Priceless, who’d assumed that Rosewater had cut off communication with them by Roseate’s order, but there it was, sitting on the table between them, a small vial of murky brown liquid next to it that smelled strongly of one of Collar’s favorite Dammerales.

Even though the message wasn’t signed, it was clearly Rosewater’s, or had been meant to look like one of hers, and it’d appeared on the doorstep of the palace overnight, only the pop of the teleport telling the guard that anything was amiss.

Lord Collar,
There are things I wish to discuss with you about Rosemary’s return and Glory’s disposition that I don’t want Roseate to find out about. In two nights’ time, I would like to meet at the duelling grounds. Bring as many Dammeguard as you wish to ensure that I am honest.
R.R.

Collar read it again, then glanced at the bottle suspiciously. In all the time she’d been opposing him, Rosewater had never used alcohol as a lure.

“It’s obviously a trap,” Collar said with a growl. “Rosewater isn’t nearly so blunt.”

“And yet, if we don’t spring the trap,” Priceless said, “she may decide to run rampant in whatever part of the city she’s actually going to.”

“It’s clever, in its way,” Collar mused, ruffling the paper. “If we ignore it, we ignore an opportunity to capture… well, at least one of Roseate’s brood if not Roseate herself. But if we don’t ignore it, that has its own risks. What if she does it to draw us out and then rampages in another part of the city. Wing would have a festival day with that, calling us feckless and impotent, and all sorts of other hurtful things.”

Priceless barked a short laugh. “That nail is well and truly pounded flat, my lord. It was my own assessment.” The merriment faded immediately as he pulled the letter back across. “There is also the possibility that Rosewater has written this as a way to throw her defiance in her mother’s face.”

Collar winced. “Stars above. Do nothing, and we pay Tartarus for whatever bill Roseate decides is worth it. Do something and maybe get ambushed again. Do something and maybe get hoodwinked and still pay Tartarus.” He sat back and stared up at the stone blocks of the domed ceiling. “I need to be there, whatever happens. I can’t let Wing claim that I’m feckless and weak.”

“You are not, my lord. Nor was your mother when she announced the Reformations.”

“Yes, but she was also an accomplished warrior at the time, and would have had ponies trembling in their armor if she showed up in her full battle rattle on the bridge one day.” Collar snorted softly. “Not that she could really have taken on the Rose Knights and won, but she’d have made them regret it.”

Priceless was silent for a time, then nodded. “In the world before your mother, battle honors and combat acumen would have counted for much, Collar. In the world you’re working to help your mother realize…” he waved a hoof. “My public position would be my only position. Your wife, wives, or wives and—”

“I’m not interested in a Merrie style marriage,” Collar blurted, his cheeks heating. “Stars, Priceless.”

“It’s something you’ll have to consider, condone, and support,” Priceless said softly. “Winning doesn’t mean Damme wins the war. Winning means Merriedamme can know peace. And that means reconciliation between the culture in both cities.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I respect their culture already, but I don’t want that for me. I want what my parents have.” The quiet abiding love they showed each other, even if that ‘quiet’ was subsumed by their play-bickering, that was what he wanted. He and Cloudy already had that.

And she’s far more Merrier than Dapper.

The thought crept in like a saboteur and left its notion to sit there, heavy and ponderous, reminding him that she had lovers besides him in the Dammeguard and Damme itself. Not many, by Merrie standards, but enough that not every night was a night spent with him.

She always offered to tell him what she’d gotten up to, sometimes grinning and obviously wanting to share some silly thing, and other times… he sighed and pushed the memories away. She was bringing him into Merrier culture by little bits. She never shared what she did with her lovers in bed, only what they did out of bed.

The bed, the bedroom, was her limit and her nod to the Dammer mores against talking about other ponies love lives.

“You’re just realizing that you’re already a part of it, aren’t you?” Priceless asked with a twinkle and a grin that was half a smirk.

“Stars damn you,” Collar growled and stood up. “I did. But…” To make her happy? In Damme, it would have been infidelity. The word still tickled his mind from time to time, but it was less often. She’d been nothing but open with him about her mores and her intentions ever since making her blatant offer almost a year and a half ago. He’d accepted it, not expecting much more than a short romance before she tired of him. “Stars above, I love her, Priceless. Merrie is a part of her, and as much as it makes me uncomfortable, if she hadn’t been born a Merrier, I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with her.”

“As it goes. I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with my wife if she wasn’t who she was.” Priceless patted his hoof. “As for what to do about this obvious trap… I think we need to spring it, too. How we spring it is going to be important. Fully mobilizing the Dammeguard would scare them off, however, but it may be a good idea. However, there will be a cost to do that, too.”

“I know. The day guard would be left listless. And Wing would accuse me of jumping at shadows if we scared them off.” Collar sighed. “We’ll have to make do with the night guard on a short trigger and a few guards in full scent-gear.”

As he said it, a plan began to form, and he outlined it to Priceless.

It was the least terrible of a basket of bad options.

There was an art to mixing emotional magic and scent magic, and far less of one of the natural sciences that the industry of perfumes was based on. Rosewater had nopony else to consult with for her art, and the only ponies that might have understood what she was trying to do were either long dead or lost with the Crystal Empire.

Thus every perfume she made was a new creation, every one different and created for a particular purpose.

For this perfume, a compilation of fear and energy, she had a variety of citrus that was all but unknown in Equestria at large and had a name she could barely pronounce in its native Saddle Arabian, but that Merriers and Dammers called Squid Lemon for its many tentacle-like parts.

It had a pungent smell, and while it had the signature sharp lemon texture to it, it lent itself well to accepting the spell as she drew up her fears and pressed them into the solution of not-quite bound ingredients. The magic would do that and twist the bright yellow into a sickly purple mixed with strains of yellow, like a bruise on the soul.

It would induce, she hoped, panic and an adrenaline response that would keep the afflicted ponies from realizing it was induced emotion.

While it didn’t need to be as precise as the perfume she’d gifted to the Baroness Highwater, she still took care in making sure that when she tested the base perfume on herself, it pushed on her the feeling she wanted to instill.

Empowered…

By the time she normally took a break for a nap, she was exhausted, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep the emotional dissonance she was drawing on from overwhelming her sense of reality. It was dangerous, and she knew it.

She also could see no other alternative.

The glyphs on flat paper, precisely metered and measured lines of power that represented the graven representation of a spell, still gleamed wetly from the ink Collar had used to fill in the fine charcoal lines on the parchment.

It was a spell he’d been working on for years now, on and off as the need for it waxed and waned, and while his mother almost certainly would have disapproved of what the symbols and sigils meant, it was something he could see little option but to develop.

The Resolute Heart spell was a natural extension of his talent for making ward and shields out of magic. This one, rather than a shield against an outside threat, shielded his heart and mind from the insidious nature of the magics he’d seen Roseate and Rosewater use.

Simpler scent-wards wouldn’t work against something like Roseate’s visual glamour spell, and would work even less well against Rosewater’s terrifying incarnation of emotional magic. He already had a counter ready against Rose Crown’s voice, and while the mare was powerful and frightening in her own way, the simple expedient of ear flaps on helmets was enough to mute her song, and if that failed, he could bubble her up in a silence spell.

But countering the other two took more drastic measures. He couldn’t not look at Roseate to fight her. That was stupid and dangerous, and allowing Rosewater close enough to lock horns with him when she could teleport in range easily also wasn’t feasibly preventable during a fight.

Rather, he had to divorce his actions from his conscious mind.

It was akin to sleepwalking, except he walled off his emotional self, the parts of his mind that could be affected by magic, from the parts of his mind that controlled his body.

Dangerous was an adjective Cloudy had used when he’d explained the principle to her, but she also compared it to a full thrall… something that had also been banned by the treaty. A full thrall was a mindless husk of a pony, and the cruelty of the last bloody years of the war before Celestia had stepped in had ended the practice and made it an automatic banishment.

It was dark magic.

Using it on himself… would be grey magic, at best. Similar, he suspected, to what Rosewater could do would be considered.

He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, just as Rosewater was so determined, and for similar reasons. If they were, either of them, the war would be all but over, and not favorably to either side.

Why can’t she and I just sit down and talk this over like rational, reasonable ponies?

The answer, of course, was Roseate.

Wing and his power bloc could impede the peace process, but so long as Roseate was against peace, there was little that Wing could do that would make things worse. In truth, he had no idea what Roseate hoped to actually accomplish, or if she was dreaming an impossible fever dream and dragging all of Merrie with her.

“Maybe this spell is an impossible fever dream,” Collar murmured and blew on the ink to dry it so he could examine it with more care.

He’d tested previous iterations of it at least a dozen times already and given himself a headache all but the last two times, but nothing more serious, and he hadn’t done more than seem to float somewhere behind his eyes. Without an opponent to test it against, there wasn’t much more he could do about it.

Either it would work, and the feeling of his consciousness floating behind his eyes and not in his head was how it was supposed to feel, or he would have a headache again. This latest iteration had felt more like he’d been floating above his body, even though he was still seeing through his eyes…

But maybe that’s how distancing himself from emotional attachment was supposed to feel.

He settled in and went about tracing the glyphs again, frowning as he put a trickle of power into the spell.

The house was clean. Down to the last speck of dust. It was how Vine coped with stress, giving herself some semblance of control over her environment that she didn’t have elsewhere.

Silk, watching her inspecting the entryway mat for the sixth time in the last hour, her tail dancing as she muttered, hoped she would calm down and settle in before the tea got cold. Not that she couldn’t heat it, but Vine needed to let her nerves go for just a little bit.

For her part, Silk did her best to stay out of her younger sister’s way and not think about what they were supposed to be doing whenever Roseate gave the order. The stallion that Rosewater had set her sights on was their target. Again. If Roseate didn’t rut the delivery of her warning.

It was very likely that Silk would end the night on the inside of an enchanted jail cell. Whether that was with Glory or alone, or with Vine…

Stars, what will she do if we’re separated?

“Love,” Silk called, wanting to spend just another few minutes with the love of her life. “Come have some tea with me.”

“This mat—”

“Is clean enough to eat straight off of. Please, it’s stressing me out seeing you stressing.”

Vine’s ears snapped flat to her mane, and her cheeks colored. “I’m sorry, but…” She didn’t need to say it. If they failed, but didn’t get captured, or did get captured, Roseate would tell the world about their attraction to each other.

They had only once indulged, and it was a mark of shame in their lives that Roseate held over them, controlled them with, and tortured them with. Exile would be the least of their problems. Anyplace they went would know they had been intimate with each other, and incest would put a black mark on their lives forever if it became public… no matter if they hadn’t engaged in it again.

“We’ll find a way out of it. We will.” Silk swallowed, looking down at her hooves. There were ponies they could go to for help. They would also trigger Roseate to tell everypony, and then they would be marked. Submitting to Roseate was the only way they could last long enough to find the help they wanted.

“We…” Vine hiccupped. She wasn’t a fighter. She tended her plants, grew them into the beautiful wreaths that decorated their home, could encourage plants to grow out of their usual pattern magically, and Roseate’s plan hinged on her enchanted root balls. “We could defect.”

“We can’t. We would have a day of freedom at best before everypony in Damme knew about us. We’d never have a chance at a normal life.” Silk wanted to stomp around, growl, shout, let her temper free. All of which would make Vine upset. So she reigned herself in.

“You could defect,” Vine whispered, her ears slick flat, her eyes haunted.

“No. I would never leave you, Vine.”

“But you could—”

“She would exile you and maybe I could lie, and ponies would believe it. But, Vine… would either of us be happy with that?” Silk wanted to go to her sister, kiss away the worry, but that would only dig them deeper. She had to settle for holding out a hoof and clasping ankles, pressing her forehead to Vine’s. “I wouldn’t be.”

Vine cried softly in her embrace, and Silk closed her eyes over the rage that wanted to explode out of her. In darkness, with only her sister’s grief to cling to, it was easier to push everything else away but that beating pulse of protective love that had thrummed through her from far in her youth.

She’d found her sister crying in the greenhouse she’d claimed over what had been a pretty wreath she’d made for Roseate, that their mother had called useless.

Vine herself had trampled it, then laid on the ring of petals and wailed until Silk found her, wanting to show her the bow she’d made.

From that moment, she knew she had to take care of her sister, her fragile, gentle Vine.

Silk had to be like her namesake. Strong. Flexible. Warm.

She could even use her silks to hide her own pain from Vine.

Crown forced herself to read the line again, squinted, and crossed it out, sighed, and crossed out the entire page and threw it at the fire.

“Love,” Crisp Corner said with a sight, levering himself up from where he lay on their bed with Gilded Page. “Stop torturing yourself. You’re not going to get any work done on your poem like that.”

“I’ve already discarded it,” Crown said, forcing herself not to put her anger into the words. Neither he nor Gilded deserved her scorn. The only pony who did held their freedom, and that of all of her friends, above Crown’s head. The only, only, reason they hadn’t been hounded into leaving the city was that she had disarmed the trap Collar had set for the rest of the raid. That alone, Roseate had told her, had proven her worth.

Roseate hated that she wasn’t a scent mage, and hadn’t seen the utility in having an aural mage daughter until Glory, bless her heart, had been captured. Then, with her only other source of secret information gone, Roseate had turned up the charm. And the threats against her lovers and her group of book lovers had gotten more dire.

Of them all, Crisp and Golden she held in the closest confidence, and told them everything. She was trusting them with her future, with the future of all of them, and that trust meant their silence outside of this carefully warded bedroom.

“Love,” Golden said through a yawn. “It’s late. She didn’t give the order, so come to bed.”

Crown flicked her ears twice. They were right. But it fell on her now that Glory was gone, and Rosewater apparently grief-stricken and insane from all she could gather from listening to and following the mare.

She needed something she could turn into the Royal Guard that would knock not only Roseate, but Rosary, Well, and Powder from their perches and hopefully into a royal prison cell for the rest of their natural lives.

All of her talent at acoustomancy meant nothing when it came to trying to listen to Roseate. The palace was too well warded against all kinds of intrusion, and even Glory had had to step lightly around the wardings against veils to get her little tidbits of secrets.

Roseate trusted nopony. She never had. The only thing she trusted was her own power and the leverage and addictions she could push to get ponies to do what she wanted.

It made finding secrets that Roseate wanted hidden damnably hard.

It meant she had to play along. If Rosewater never recovered, or if she did something that got herself exiled and disowned, something Roseate constantly harangued Crown to find, then her next best hope was that Glory would finally accept her Dammer mate’s seed and become the next heir in line after Rosary.

“Love,” Crisp crooned, raising a wing and fluttering his feathers just enough to push the blank page off the desk and to the floor, “Come to bed.”

“Stars, I want to, Crisp. I want to.”

“Then do. You’re going to drive yourself batty trying to think of a way out of this mess.”

“I can’t lose you.” Crown rose, her ears flat, and instinctively checked the wards again, pouring just a little more magic into the central nexus diamond, powering the spell for another few hours atop the hours it already held. “Stars, I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“We don’t want to lose you, either,” Gilded murmured, pushing herself up and tugging her lightly closer with a spell. “But we are. To worry, fear… you’re not wholly ours anymore, dear heart.”

Was I ever? Wasn’t it all just a dream waiting for Roseate to snap me out of it?

She allowed herself to be drawn in, understanding a part of what had driven Rosewater to break off her ties to others, to protect them from fallout.

It made her decision to warn the mare of Roseate’s prowling feel all the more right. The duel fought and won had earned them all a little more time, and a touch of hope that their eldest, strangest sister could triumph.

Not all, though. There remained the fear, hardly spoken, that Roseate would ‘abdicate’ to Rosary if it looked even halfway like Rosewater was getting close to pregnant. Rosary would be just as bad as Roseate. Their second-eldest sister hadn’t ever been like Rosewater. She was Roseate’s child, and that status had been cemented ever since they were foals.

Gilded’s lips on hers drew her back to the present, and the warm wing over her back as Crisp traded places with a kiss of his own drew her into a new moment. This, she could accept for now. They needed her as much as she needed them.

It was getting harder to find the necessary escape.

Soon, she might not be able to relax into it.

But for that night…

For the hundredth time in the last day, Rosewater checked the clasps and folds of her stalking cloak, making sure that every perfume and every tool of the trade she had ever needed was still right where she’d put it.

Years of stalking, of capturing ponies, and of honing her craft demanded that she keep everything exactly where it had always been so she could snatch a vial without thought as to what it was beyond her intent.

The new vial was an itch in her mind, a new tool she’d never used on a raid. It had always been for one pony and only for one pony. It wasn’t the same perfume she’d used on Roseate in their duel, but the core of emotional, raw fear was the same. This was a more potent, more virulent fear, and it would linger like a poison in the mind.

Roseate needed to fear her. Her sisters needed to fear her. For one night, she had to embrace the mantle of Rose Terror for the protection of the future of all of Merrie, whether they knew it or not.

She had named the perfume, as she had all of her perfumes.

The Rose Terror would be more than a name for one night.

She slipped the cloak on and made her way into the basement and her secret bolthole, warming up a teleport to a forested area just outside of Damme.

Sneaking out wasn’t an issue, normally, but since she wasn’t supposed to be crossing the bridge for any reason…

Night after night, she’d settled into the mantle, for the last three nights, and night after night, her prowling of Damme’s streets had yielded nothing more than whispered rumors from the Dammeguard, and the drunken caterwauling of those citizens who ignored the curfew to go drinking.

They would be mostly common ponies, and Roseate had yet to stoop to the level of snatching commoners. Or, more likely, she hadn’t wanted to take the risk of snatching a family pony by accident and thereby earn sanctions from the Sun Throne.

As she passed into the basement, she let herself touch and admire the painting she and Carnation had collaborated on together.

It was one of the rare times she’d allowed herself to be a mother outside of their home. Surrounded by nopony else, secreted by the howling wind preceding the stormclouds Rosewater had painted, the forest below darkening, and the mountains to the north all but swallowed up by the roiling mass…

Carnation had added the three of them, their happy, strange family, watching it roll in as they ate a picnic and six year old Rosemary frollicked and played in no less than six different places, in six different poses.

It was the reason she let herself take on the mantle of the Rose Terror, let her feel what it meant to be a terror.

That day, and too few others, she had been happy outside of their home.

She had to be terrifying so she could claim that happiness again. It was what Roseate’s actions demanded.

Two other ponies had entered the sphere of her hopeful outlook. Cloudy, who loved Rosemary seemingly as dearly as she did, and Collar, who’d been so kind and so understanding that it hurt to act cold around him.

Forgive me, Collar. Cloudy. Carnation.

She drew the hood over her mane and descended.

Book 1, 25. Stormbreak

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Fog covered the streets of Merrie and Damme both, making it hard to tell where other ponies were, and the mist carried scents far longer than open air would have, leading Rosewater down false trails as she tried to find where Collar was having his patrol go that night.

She had no doubt that he was Roseate’s target. Rosewater’s own interest in Collar said that much, and while she might have the right of free association, Roseate had nipped that off by forbidding contact with the palace.

It wasn’t her way to leave things half-done. Roseate obsessed until something was all the way done.

Which meant Roseate would take Collar. She would use him as leverage to bring Damme down and ‘win’ the war through conquest. Or try to. Rosewater suspected that Lace was made of sterner stuff than Roseate was prepared to deal with.

Still.

Rosewater sniffed the air, letting the fragrance of ponies recently passed through the mist call to her. Collar was there, as was Cloudy, and at least half a dozen other scents, most of them also exuding the astringent fragrance of their scent masks. That lay heaviest on the air, letting any Rosethorn who also followed them know what they would contend with.

Any other night, Rosewater was certain that would be deterrent enough to a raider, but her sisters were taking odd hours, just as she was. All of her sisters were, some less obviously than others.

The whispers on the street in previous days had grown nervous whenever she picked her way through unveiled, and the ones she heard as Rosetide were similarly disturbing. Roseate had been issuing threats and making deals behind the scenes, but somepony had been leaking rumor and information to the common pony.

Roseate was on the move, and as far as she could tell, not one of her sisters were going to be spared going out. A few of Roseate’s personal guards would likely be along as well, far more than Rosewater could handle on her own, but bluff and bluster would go far against siblings she was almost certain didn’t want to be there.

It took her some time to discern which way the force had gone, but she followed them until she found a swirling vortex rising like a miniature twin tornado up out of the mist.

Cloudy’s scent, and the airy, warm air smell of them, was strongest there. They must have suspected something was up ahead, and a quick orientation of her mental map told her they were approaching the open field of the duelling grounds.

It was the place Rosewater had taken Collar on that first night treating with him amicably.

Why would you go there?

The reasoning caught up a moment later.

Whatever enticement Roseate had sent was related to her somehow, perhaps even trying to trick Collar into thinking it was her, though she couldn’t know just how much of an open line to the Prim Palace Rosewater had been able to cultivate in such a short time.

He wasn’t foolish enough to believe anything sent by her was trustworthy, and if he was trying to spring a trap on her, she could only hope he’d brought enough ponies to handle all of her siblings.

That was a small comfort… though he could also be walking into a trap laid by Roseate.

It was the last thought that gave her steps speed even as she caught the telltale sound of downsweeping wings as a pegasus came in for an uncertain landing.

In the mist and fog, she would need to be cautious.

Silence descended on the mist, and Rosewater crept forward, drawing forth her fears into a scented fog that drifted with her, using the fog to bolster it. Unknown in the dark, fear and adrenaline mixed with an inability to see would be her advantage.

“Nothing,” Cloudy reported as she landed, ears ticking as she heard the other ponies around them shifting, relaxing as they heard her voice before Collar dropped a silence around them. “No stirring in the mist. It’s just flat foggy. We’ve got some of our patrols watching other areas, and the signal whistle elicited the proper call and responses.”

“Another night of nothing,” Collar muttered.

“Seems like it, but I don’t like how quiet it is. Something feels… off.” Cloudy glanced around, wishing she could see the ten or so guards arrayed around them in staggered positions. It would make her feel safer to see their shadows and know they were still there instead of the ghostly rustling of armor in the night.

Even the sound felt off, the mist drinking in the faint whisper of padding against straps, the fainter thudding of hooves against sodden grass-covered soil. Even the counter-whistle signs had sounded off when she’d made the rounds to the other patrols, tinnier and farther away than they should have been.

“Nothing feels right about tonight,” she said at last, looking up. “At least above the fog, I could see the Mare and make out the tops of buildings.”

Collar cursed under his breath. “Autumn fog be damned,” he growled at last and sighed. “You did what you could. I think—”

His lips kept moving, but no sound came out. Surprise widened his eyes a moment before the first flashes of light in the mist announced they were under attack, and he dropped his spell to call out.

No sound. Not even a whisper.

Rose hues mixed with the blues of the Dammeguard unicorns, even a few attempted strobes into the night were cut off, the flashes like lightning on the underside of a cloud.

All in silence.

Cloudy’s gorge rose as she realized what had just happened, what was still happening. An aural mage was silencing the entire area, and the piercing whistle blasts that should have come were kept quiet.

In the next instant, Collar beamed a pulse of light into the night sky, but without a cloud to target, the light would just scatter, and unless a pegasus were looking right at the duelling grounds, there’d be nopony to see the warning.

Cloudy snapped her wings into an emergency takeoff, but two of the cursed tanglevines slapped against her wings, fouling her escape before a sachet of powder exploded against her chest, the bag and powder clawing at her wakefulness immediately.

As she slumped, she saw another sachet catch Collar right in the throat and explode, wreathing his head is rosy light. He’d given them a perfect target to aim for, and in the split second before his thoughts had turned to defense, they’d gotten him.

Still, even as Cloudy slumped to the ground, her vision growing hazy with sleep, she saw him shake his head and cast it off, a small bubble of clean air surrounding his muzzle as he tried to pull the vines free of Cloudy’s wings.

They’d already taken root, and a new light glowed in the mist that forced Cloudy’s eyes toward it. Tantalizing, scintillating light surrounding a pony who glowed with vigor and beauty, who’s eyes were half-lidded, a triumphant smile crossing her lips.

Roseate.

Cloudy closed her eyes to keep from falling under the sway of her glamour… and lost to the sleeping powder filling her mind with fog.

Collar set his shield around himself and Cloudy, the fringes of sleep dulling his reflexes as he ducked another thrown powder packet before he fought to put the shield in place and forced his mind to respond. It was nothing but magic. Strong magic, but Roseate’s smile told him there were more where that came from.

The flashing lights of the fight around him grew slower and slower, more sporadic as the fight seemed to be over almost before it had begun.

All of a sudden, sound returned with a rush that thundered in his ears. Cries for help and a belated, strained whistle rose up from the fog to his right, the whistle quickly silenced as its very presence alerted the attackers where it was.

But it had gone out.

“Tch.” Roseate clucked her tongue and glanced to the side, her Rosethorn markings glowing. “Tail, darling, keep watch on the perimeter with Hip, and see what happened to Crown. I want that silence ready to go again.”

The fog of drowsiness started to part again as he realized just what had happened. Rose Crown had silenced the area. Their reports had her as an aural mage, but that would be something Note could pull off only for a minute at best before it drained him, if he could pull off the spell at all.

“I-If you’d had that four months ago,” Collar growled, “You needn’t have worried about reinforcements.”

“Strong will,” Roseate murmured, her horn glowing brighter as she stepped closer and set her hoof against his shield. “But not strong enough.”

His shield popped like a bubble as she pierced it with her horn and a stream of magic, and he staggered to the ground again, trying to fall to protect Cloudy.

“Oh, you needn’t worry about—”

Another whistle rose up out of the fog behind her.

“Powder, Well, see to it the rest of them are subdued,” Roseate snapped to her left. “Rosary, help me truss them up. We’ll need to concentrate for a mass teleport.”

“Mother, I’m not as strong as Rosewater, I can’t—”

“Shut up. I gave you the candy, use it. It will give you the strength you need for a few moments at least.” Roseate pulled out a faintly glowing amber jewel and crunched down on it, her breath becoming sunlight. “Quickly, before he can recover.”

Taken. The word resounded around his head and thoughts. He was going to be taken. And there was…

He only had the one chance. An untried spell, uncertain of its effects, could be disastrous, but right then, with sleep clawing at him again, with Rosary and Roseate preparing a teleportation spell, the second-eldest daughter’s breath also glowing with sunlight, he couldn’t see anything worse than being taken.

He stopped trying to reform the shield and closed his eyes, focusing on what he needed to do, whom he needed to protect.

Cloudy, himself, the future of Damme.

Silver light filled his mind as he formed the complicated construct, and he felt himself starting to detach from his baser self, the part that knew that the sleep, the come-hither glamour, and everything else was nothing more than a trick. What was left was a stallion that needed to protect his mate, needed not to harm his foes, and needed to keep them prisoner.

When Collar’s eyes opened again, he wasn’t looking through them, but seemingly above them as the world slowed, as action and reaction happened simultaneously.

Rosary, closer, went down first with silver bindings wrapping her from tail to muzzle, her cry rising above the din of his heart thundering in his ears.

Roseate, stronger, more aware, managed to side-step his first assault, her eyes wide with fear and confusion as spell after spell tugged at him only to be torn away. Even the vines that flew at him exploded into plant matter as he met them with counteracting force and tore them apart.

Powder packets pelted him all of a sudden, the greatest danger from them the powder clogging his throat and lungs, and then Rosary was free behind him, another mare, Rose Well, breaking his bindings with her elder sister’s help.

He took a moment to clear his vision, noting distantly that so much powder was turning to sludge in the mist and coating his muzzle in rose-colored, highly fragrant sleeping draught.

Even as deep into the spell as he was, he could feel the clawing tendrils of sleep dragging at his waking mind.

Dreading what it would mean if he lost control, and dreading even more what would happen if he fell, Collar poured more magic into Resolute Heart.

Self faded as he became his purpose.

Protect Cloudy.

If she hadn’t been close to the fighting, Rosewater never would have heard the whistle that washed through the fog, the sound seeming to drown in the mists.

There was almost no chance anypony else had been close enough to hear it, or to see the dim flashes of light that briefly, and more and more sporadically lit the darkness unless they were as close as she was.

She doubted it. Collar’s patrol had crossed several others, but they had all been moving in straight lines along Damme’s straight streets, criss-crossing in a pattern that would have found any other trouble beside what lay ahead.

The lights had first caught her attention, the silence convincing her for a brief moment that one of her sisters had been caught unawares by Collar’s silence… until the rose hues took over, soon becoming the only hue.

Rosewater drew her fog more closely about her, a deeper darkness in the mist, and crept forward, ears straining, nose working and Rosethorn marks glowing intermittently as she sought out the telltale scents of her sisters at work.

Just as she found the first of them, Rosetail by the sound of her low whisper, a silvery light crept through the mist, growing steadier even as shouts of alarm from farther into the duelling grounds rose from Roseate’s and Rosary’s throats.

She came upon Rosetail glowing in a circle of light, her ears flicking frantically from sound to sound, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at the source. She was still afraid of the dark, but was managing not to hide behind one of her elder sisters’ flanks.

“Go home, Rosetail,” Rosewater whispered. “This isn’t your fight.”

Movement to her right announced Vine throwing tanglevines at her voice, the magical constructs of plant and creeping vine encountering the shell of purple mist and falling apart before they landed with wet, messy plops at Rosewater’s hooves.

In that moment, Rosetail rushed her, eyes wide, teeth bared, and spun at the last moment to whip her braided tail at Rosewater’s muzzle.

Rather than dodge, Rosewater snagged the tail in midair and held it as Rosetail came to a stumbling stop. “Go. I don’t want to fight you, Rosetail.”

“Too bad, I want to fight you!” Rosetail snarled, edging towards her, then whimpering when her tail refused to move with her. “Let go!”

“Give it up,” Silk’s voice growled from the mist to her right. “Go home Rosetail, we’ve lost tonight. You don’t have to spend the night in jail.”

To her left, Vine cleared away the mist in an area around her, a small bubble opening that gave her an opening to Rosewater’s flank, and three bundles of tanglevine glowing faintly around her.

“My quarrel isn’t with you,” Rosewater said softly, glancing left, then right and dropping her hold over the protective shell of fear-infused mist to dart ahead.

Tanglevines whipped past her, diverted with a last-second spell to aim for where Silk’s voice had come from, only for a third voice to sound out in surprise as the bundle made contact with a pony.

“Crown!” Vine cried, darting through the shredding fear mist towards the sound, her eyes and nose closed as she traversed the contamination. “Stars, I didn’t mean to hit you.”

Rosewater stopped where she was, staring towards the sound. Rather than continue and possibly subdue her, Vine had abandoned the attack and gone to her sister.

As she did, Silk slipped through the mist, white cloth dropping and wrapping around Rosewater’s muzzle before she could react, and another two twists wrapped around her ankles. “Don’t resist,” she hissed.

Roseate’s shouting rose in the mist again, “Help me subdue him! All of you!” Panic tinged her words, and Rosewater gave Silk a meaningful look.

“This was none of my doing,” Rosewater whispered, holding her breath against the compulsion scent Silk usually doused her silk bindings in.

“But it would have been,” Silk growled.

“Nay.” Rosewater edged backwards, keeping her movements slow and deliberate as she pulled one leg free, then the other of Silk’s binding. When her sister didn’t retaliate, she removed the binding around her muzzle, loose though it was. “I court him. She attacks him because I do. I’m only here because I want my future mate safe.”

Silk’s eyes met hers, and some of the heat went out of them before she looked away towards the silver glow. “He’s strong. Mother is having difficulty handling him.”

“He is. It’s part of why I chose to court him.” Rosewater stepped towards the silver glow, ears perked. “But he’s not invincible.”

Before she could move away, Vine called out, “Silk! I need help getting Crown away.”

Rosewater hesitated, closed her eyes, and drew three enchanted candies free. Her entire stock. “Give her one of these. Are there any others?”

“Hip’s out there somewhere,” Silk said softly, taking the candies and unwrapping one to inspect it. “Mother wouldn’t trust us with these, much less how to make them.”

“She stole the idea from Carnation.” Rosewater tossed her head. “Get Hip out here, if you can find her. She’s too young to be involved in this mess.”

Silk gave her one last look, smiled faintly, and nodded before disappearing into the mist.

Rosewater drew out her fears again, touching them to the mist and gathering three dense pockets of it she infused with sickly purple light. The eldest trio of her younger sisters were still out there, and they were close followers of her mother’s.

Rosary and her scented, pressed beads of petals were less potent than most, but combined with complimentary oils from Well, they were a dangerous combination, and Well herself was no slouch with burning scented oils, most often in lanterns and oil lamps, and her twin Powder supplied dried components for her as well as used them herself.

The mists were their home, and made their aromatics far more potent and dangerous.

That Well hadn’t started burning any of her oils yet was a sign she wasn’t ready to make herself known… or it was too dangerous to do so.

Of them all, Powder was the most dangerous in the mist, her powders clinging with damp and becoming more aromatic. It was Powder she needed to take care of, and hope that she hadn’t given much of her supply to her sisters, otherwise she might be in trouble.

The silver glow pulsed slowly as she approached it, casting shadows back through the fog of the three mares who circled the source, making an odd pirouette of light and darkness, and backlighting her targets readily.

You asked for this, Rosewater thought as she waited for the nearest to come just a hair closer, to turn and present her head with the—

Movement in the fog to her right startled her into a dodge just before a powder sachet sailed through the space her head had just been, and she danced back and out of the way.

“You speak too loudly,” Rosary growled, sending two more sachets darting after her.

Rosewater hissed, not wasting words, and dissolved the bindings on the packets of mist and shoving it all in the voice’s direction, pushing more of her instant terror at being caught into the spell-woven mist and sending cracklings of purple light flashing through the air, a hideous counterpoint to the steady silver.

Rosary had time only to draw a breath before she started screaming, pitch ratcheting up as the Rose Terror enveloped her.

“Rosary!” Powder’s cried as another of the shadows peeled away from the silver light towards the purplish glow. “We have to help her!”

“You have to help me get free!”

Another shadow slipped free, a twin to Powders, both apparently in defiance of their mother. “We’ll need her help to get you free,” Rose Well growled. “That’s Rosewater out there, and unless you fancy a stay in prison…”

Even forewarned, the two were still unprepared when Rosewater decided it was time to drag the fight into the open.

With an effort of will, she wove her telekinetic spiderweb with broader bands of force and pushed it out, getting a mental map of the area and clearing the battlefield of obscuring fog. Ponies were down everywhere, some still struggling against the tanglevines, others laying complacently. The fog of fear dissipated slowly, dissolving the tanglevines and wakening those lying complacent.

That, she couldn’t help, and if they managed to get their whistles out, there’d be reinforcements coming soon.

One pony, a pegasus lying a short distance behind Rosary, stirred and then leapt, his hoarse cry sending a stab of guilt through Rosewater. She hadn't meant for it to touch anypony while it was still so potent, but she couldn’t do anything about it now.

Collar stood beside Cloudy, his horn glowing a steady silver, but it was his eyes that were pulsing with light, as if he’d enchanted himself to resist Roseate—who was bound to the ground, shackles and bindings around her legs and barrel, with only her head and neck free.

What did you do?

Collar looked around steadily, taking in the suddenly clear area and the slow-creeping fog as it began to move back in, and then settled a shield over his love and sat down, complacent as if he’d been at a dinner table.

“We came prepared,” Rosary growled as she shook her head free of the lingering effects of induced terror. “Mother will see you exiled for this.”

“Stop talking and get her!” Roseate screamed.

Powder didn’t hesitate and flung three packets of powder at her.

Rosewater spared her retort as she deflected one of the guided sachets towards Roseate, snapping Powder’s control with an effort of will. The other two she sent to smack into the ground and called mists to smother the resultant explosion of glowing dust..

Roseate, unable to dodge, screeched as she deflected it up and into the night. Collar didn’t react at all, other than to place a shield over Cloudy, perhaps sensing that there was something about to happen.

In the moment of distraction, Rosary had thrown her strings of beads, glowing rose in the night, to catch around Rosewater’s upper neck with a snap and click of beads circling just where Rosewater had knocked her with a foreleg.

Flickering light heralded the next attack from Rosewell as droplets of enchanted and scented oils pattered down around her and caught fire, igniting fragrances that began to swim Rosewater’s vision as she took them in.

“Suffer,” Rosary hissed as she sauntered up, drawing more lines of beads from her saddlebags, their surfaces oiled with more scents, her namesake and her weapon of choice. “Traitor.”

The beads around her neck tightened as Rosewater set her magic against them. She couldn’t use heat, that might ignite the oiled length, and she couldn’t set a cutting force between the beads. Powder recovered one of the sachets and approached.

There wasn’t any other choice. I’m sorry, Collar, she thought as she pulled free the vial of Rose Terror. She still had most of it, and it glowed faintly as she started to pour magic into it. She had to take in the fear of loss, so close, and let it into her heart before she could finish activating the magic.

“Fools!” Roseate cried. “Don’t—”

Roseate never got to finish her warning. Purple mist exploded from the vial as she removed the stopper and let out her fear of losing Rosemary, the fear of losing to her sisters and being dragged off to suffer the consequences of her rebellions. Of losing to Roseate.

Rosemary.

Rosewell screamed first, her eyes widening as her pupils shrank to pinpricks at the images the fragrance of fear woke in her mind, devouring rational thought in the madness of elemental terror.

Rosemary. For Rosemary.

The light flared brighter, sending flickering tremors of luminance through the cloud as it expanded to take in Powder and Rosary, who’d started back as soon as Roseate called out to them.

Rosary held her breath and tightened the noose around Rosewater’s neck, gritting her teeth as her horn flared against the counterforce Rosewater applied against the beads. “You. Will. Not—” she managed to grind out, her horn flaring brighter before the beads’ strong core snapped finally under the opposing forces, sending oiled balls of polished, calcified rose petals scattering into the night.

Powder flung her sachet at Rosewater in a last-ditch attempt to fell her, but the magic around it faded to nothing as it entered the purplish cloud and, leached of its power, it puffed against Rosewater’s shoulder and fell to the ground, leaving behind only an inert scent of honeysuckle and wine.

Rosary staggered forward, her eyes wide, her mouth foaming as she fought against the fear far more effectively than Roseate ever had. Hatred burned in her eyes, wild and berzerker.

“Don’t, Rosary,” Rosewater said sternly. “What will I tell Rose Quill when his mother doesn’t come back from tonight? What will I tell Rose Moon?”

It was a risk, stabbing into the dark and hoping Rosary had some love for her son and daughter, something she promised them before leaving. It was also cheap, but it hit home. The first spark of fear flickered through Rosary’s eyes, and she gasped and started screaming as tears came down her cheeks.

Powder’s eyes were wide, fear and confusion spreading across her features. Her own son, barely a year older than Rosary’s youngest, must have been home as well.

Now you know what I felt, Rosewater thought as she shook herself, exhaustion bordering on collapse bleeding into her thoughts.

Rosewell lay on the ground in the aftermath, her sides heaving and spittle flecked her lips. Powder breathed fast, her eyes wide as she stared at Rosewater, then at Rosary. A hidden schism had just been revealed in the family, a weakness.

The flickering flames burning fitfully cast an eerie light over the tableau, washed out by the steady silver light from Collar’s enchantments. That was new from them, the oils and oiled bindings. Dangerous as a combination, but they must have been desperate to use things they hadn’t had a chance to work together with.

Collar looked on without any interest, merely shifting to watch all of them and keep himself between them all and Cloudy.

“You will leave my future mate alone,” Rosewater said flatly as she stalked forward towards Roseate and Powder, the latter huddled a goodly distance from Roseate. “You will return to the Rose Palace, you will not retaliate. You will not do anything but adhere to the treaty bonded duel. In return, I will let you take my sisters back to safety. If not…” Rosewater looked pointedly towards the Prim Palace.

“I did not try to claim him,” Roseate spat. “This is a legitimate action, and you are a traitor if—”

“Oh, well, in that case…” Rosewater turned away from her mother. “That pegasus will bring the rest of the guard down on you, leaving me to rule.” It was a tempting idea, to let her be taken, to let them all be taken, and to take the reins by fiat. Except Roseate could cripple Merrie for her own release and continue the war, and brand Rosewater a traitor, exiling her and guaranteeing the war would continue. “I’m acting in your interest, mother. And mine, I admit.”

“What are the terms?” Roseate hissed, looking to Powder, then to Collar. The latter paid her no more attention than a stone would, and said nothing.

“Never try to take Collar again. I will entice him in my own way, and bind him to the Rose Way. If you agree, I will let you free and face his immediate wraith.” Her magical reserves should be enough to break all four bonds at once at the least, and if Collar turned his blank ire on her… then so be it.

“You surprise me, daughter,” Roseate murmured, her eyes glinting in the silver light. “Fine. It is agreed. Powder, gather your sisters.”

“And don’t think of lying to the Royal Guard,” Rosewater hissed. “I will agree to a truth-telling if I must.” A painful, invasive magical procedure that would draw the absolute truth out of a pony. Due to its bordering on dark magic, Celestia’s decree mandated it as a voluntary procedure, and that it only be performed in her presence.

Roseate flinched back. “Fine. Free me, girl. And quickly!”

A deep breath, and another, and Rosewater stepped towards Collar, her magic worming its way between Roseate’s legs and the shackles. It wasn’t easy. His magic enfolded her ankles with an elastic power, but Roseate helped her by shifting her legs minutely. His attention shifted immediately as the distance between himself and her shortened to less than that of Roseate. “Collar?”

Nothing flickered in his eyes and his ears stayed steady, one trained on Cloudy constantly. He didn’t seem to pay attention at all to the way her magic slowly conformed to Roseate’s ankle size and shape, the consistency of hairs and the warmth of body.

“Collar,” Rosewater whispered again, taking careful steps towards him, ready to bolt at the first sign of aggression. His attention on Roseate waned as she came closer and closer, and he shifted again to keep himself between her and Cloudy. “I’m not here for her. I’m here for you.”

He reacted much as a stone would to an ant crawling up to it. If a stone could look her in the eyes and see through her as if she didn’t exist. She poured more magic into the spells around Roseate’s ankles, expanding the seeming of pony flesh and forcing the bindings open. His magic adjusted with resistance, but it changed.

His eyes were gray-lit from within, a heartbeat-slow pulsing the shade of a foggy morning haze clouding his usually brilliant blue eyes, and they did not react at all as she stepped to within a pace of him.

“Collar, talk to me.” She glanced at Cloudy, her wing retracting to rest against her side, her hooves moving feebly as the sleep charm fell away as its holder’s will faltered. “Was this to protect her?”

He stared at her, then at Cloudy, then back to her. Nothing else.

“What did she let you do,” Rosewater moaned as she stepped one pace closer and pressed her cheek to his neck. Even that drew less reaction than if she’d done it to a tree. He swayed, leaning away, then stopped and held still. Nothing more than an autonomic balancing of weight. “Collar, talk to me, please!”

Roseate laughed as she stepped out of her bonds with Powder’s help, using Collar’s focus on her to find the time to do it, the smaller mare already burdened with the weight of her two sisters. She staggered away as Roseate teleported to the other end of the field, far out of Collar’s range and sight, only the lightning flash and pop of her exit giving away where she’d gone. Powder put on a poor veil and staggered after her, the labored breathing more than loud enough to give away her position even in the obscuring mists.

Rosewater dismissed them all. “Please!” she cried, louder, and raised her head to look him in the eye. “Collar, where is the stallion that traded quips with me right here? Where is he?”

Nothing.

“Where’s the stallion that risked telling me—” She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Where is the stallion that cared enough to tell me personally before…” She rose and cupped his cheeks in both hooves, balancing carefully as she lifted his head. He didn’t resist, and didn’t look away from her.

“Whatever you’ve done to yourself, please don’t let it be forever,” she whispered.

“Get away from him!” Cloudy gasped, staggering to her hooves, her eyes unfocused, her ears twitching.

Rosewater ignored her for the moment and kissed Collar on the lips softly. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d been here sooner.” She backed away when he showed her no inclination of returning it, or waking up.

Stupid fairy tales.

Ponies appeared at the edge of the mists, uncertainty written large in the way they halted at the edge of the glowing silver light, staring at him, at her, and at Cloudy recovering slowly, her breath heaving as she came to her full senses.

“I’m truly sorry, Cloudy,” Rosewater said as she pulled energy into her horn. “Keep him safe.”

“Wh-what happened? Why didn’t you step in sooner?” Cloudy demanded, staggering forward. “Did you want him like this?”

“I didn’t, Cloudy. I don’t know what happened tonight, but…” Rosewater bit her lip and backed away another step. “He’s protecting you,” Rosewater said as she drew the last power she needed. “He’s always protected you. He loves you.”

Cloudy eyed her for a long moment, then closed her eyes. “I’ll keep him safe. Go.”

Rosewater tried to teleport to her hidden space, but failed, and she staggered to the side, then stood straighter and veiled herself before dashing into the mist to try again before the organizing guard and Lace could get close enough to her to make a difference.

Shouts followed her into the mist, calls for her to stop, and above them all rose Lace’s voice.

“Let her go. We have incapacitated to take care of.”

She didn’t want to find out if that was a ruse and changed her target, hoping she had enough afterwards to open her front door. It wasn’t like Roseate wouldn’t know where she’d been.

With a pop and a flash, she reappeared on her porch, sagging against the door and sliding to her barrel as she expended the energy in a rush. Too much.

Hoofsteps sounded as she dragged her head up and stared at two veiled figures coming up to her from the street. Roseate would be coming this way soon.

“Clever,” Rosewater murmured. “Wait until I’m too weak to resist.”

Silk’s voice purred in her ear as the sounds of the night vanished, and the light dimmed as a veil and silence surrounded them all. “We won’t forget.”

Vine’s muzzle touched behind her ear. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight. Open the door. We waited for you. We wanted to talk.”

Rosewater closed her eyes. “So she can have it, too? No. I’d rather our home be sealed forever.”

“Stubborn fool,” Silk hissed and bent to touch her horn to Rosewater’s, and sent a torrent of undiluted magic into her, rivulets that crackled around the spiral at the edge of her sight. “Do it yourself and drag yourself in, then.”

“Why?” Rosewater asked as she began the process of undoing the wards on the door. She let the last ward tremble on the edge of parting, locking it in balance until she got an answer.

“Because there are some things which require repayment,” Vine said gently, her eyes going to Silk’s. “If you won’t let us care of you—”

“How would you explain it to mother?” Rosewater asked. “When you left here in the morning.”

“We’d lie our tails off about what we saw,” Silk said, a grin audible in her voice. “We snuck in, and snuck out while you were too exhausted to notice.”

“Why?” Comprehension struggled against instinctive wariness.

“We talked it over on the way here,” Vine said. “You don’t deserve what mother’s doing to you.”

“I… I can’t.” Rosewater said as she slipped the last ward and let the door swing open. “It’s been our home—our home—for too long.”

An understanding look passed between her two sisters, and both nodded.

“We understand,” Silk said softly.

“Far too well,” Vine added.

“Thank you for helping us rescue Crown. We won’t forget.”

Then they left her to finish opening the door and staggered inside, barely closing it before she collapsed into exhaustion and nightmare.

Lace was the first to reach them, her eyes fearful under the impassive outer shell she wore for her guardponies. “What happened?”

“Ambush, my lady,” Cloudy said distractedly, not letting her eyes leave Collar’s as she reared up and cupped his cheeks between her hooves, meeting him eye-to-eye even as he tried to look at the new ponies that were surrounding them.

“Why is he still…” Lace trailed off as Collar turned his head to look at her blankly. “What happened to my son? What did Roseate do?”

“I don’t think she did anything,” Cloudy murmured softly. “I think he did it to himself in response to her.”

“Then she as much as did it herself,” Lace said with a growl as her son continued to stare at her, blank eyes pulsing with the beat of a heart that wasn’t his. “Collar?”

He didn’t respond, but one ear stayed trained on Cloudy as she stayed reared up, supporting herself with a hoof to his shoulder.

“Rosewater said it was to protect me.”

“She did, did she?” Lace murmured, glancing in the direction the mare had left. “That one continues to confuse me.” After a moment, she turned back to Cloudy. “See to him, and see if your being safe will break him out of whatever spell he cast. I need to see to my ponies.”

“Send a pegasus for Stride,” Cloudy said, tipping her head toward the city proper. “Rosewater used fear again. Against her sisters this time. I… stars, it was terrifying.”

Lace smiled faintly. “Fear often is. I’ll see to it.” She raised her voice. “Captain Pink, perimeter watch around Collar and Cloudy, and get ready to escort them back to the palace. By force if necessary, if he resists.”

“Cloudy? Collar?” Pink asked, coming closer. Her voice had lost the parade ground snap and the carefully restrained rage of a drill instructor, gentler, kinder than she’d ever heard the captain speak. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Cloudy said bluntly, pressing her head against Collar’s neck again. His pulse still beat against her ear and forehead, proving he wasn’t an animate statue of unliving flesh. “He did something. He’s been working on a spell to counter Rosewater’s magic, but it wasn’t Rosewater.”

“Who then?”

“Roseate. It was a trap. That—” Cloudy pushed the thought from her mind and pushed herself back to find Collar looking down at her, the silver light in his eyes dimmer than it had been. Or it’s my imagination. “Collar? I’m safe. Come back to me.”

It wasn’t her imagination. The light dimmed perceptibly, his normal hazy purple eyes coming back slowly, the irises closing before he blinked, shook his head slowly, and slumped against her.

“Collar, don’t leave me,” she murmured, falling back under his weight as it settled against her, his fore and hind legs shaking. “You’re with me, love.”

“Cloudy,” he whispered, his voice cracking as though dry. “Cloudy Rose.”

“Yes,” she whimpered. “Yes, that’s me, Collar. You did it. You kept me safe.”

“Tired,” he said, and sagged to his barrel, then to his side. “Stay with me.”

“Always,” Cloudy said, lowering herself to rest her cheek on his, listening to his breathing as it slowed, deepened, and fell into the soothing rhythms of sleep. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Book 1, 26. Storm Debris

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Morning came for Cloudy with a pair of forelegs holding her close and loosely, warmth spreading across her back where Collar had finally laid down to rest after being roused long enough to wash him of the myriad of fragrances that the ambush had left him peppered with.

He smelled of Cloudy, now. Her wings. Her body. Her kisses.

She opened her eyes and winced at the bright daylight filtering in. A guard stood at attention inside the bedchamber, long cudgel at parade-stance. It grew straighter as the guard saw Cloudy shifting.

“Ma’am,” he said softly, clacking hoof to peytral. “Lady Lace wanted to see you as soon as you woke.”

“I’m not awake,” Cloudy grumbled, twisting her head to get a look at Collar. He was still asleep, and seemed hardly likely to wake for anything shy of a full parade march. Circles under his eyes looked almost painted on, worse than he’d looked last night. At least there was color to the insides of his ears now, and his lips were warm to the touch. “Sleep.”

Collar’s ears ticked and his eyes twitched under lids, but he didn’t move.

When she glanced back, the stallion was looking away, his ears flattened to his mane. It was clear that this wasn’t a duty that he thought was necessary. But there were questions she needed answered before the pony who knew them recovered enough to resist her questioning or fall back into her old way of denying everything.

Slowly, Cloudy eased herself away from Collar’s embrace, waiting between each shift to see if he would wake or shift in his sleep.

He did not, and by the time she slipped to the ground finally, Cloudy was certain he would sleep for another few hours at least. If nopony woke him up.

“I’m going for a walk,” Cloudy said as she approached the door. She recognized the pony up close. He was one of the palace guard, but a lower rank. Tide Watcher. “Collar won’t be able to participate until he wakes anyway.”

“But—”

“I need a walk. After last night, I can’t stand being cooped up right now. Lace will… she will understand.” Cloudy didn’t need to act as she stared around the room, feeling claustrophobic. She’d been trapped last night, unable to fly, to flee. “Please.” She ruffled her wings. “I need to see the sky again, Tide.”

It was only a moment’s hesitation before he stepped aside from the door. “I can understand that. Where are you going? I have to let the Lady Lace know if she comes before you return.”

“I just want to see the sky,” Cloudy said, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know where my hooves will carry me, but I won’t go anywhere there isn’t a guard.”

“Alright.”

As soon as she stepped out of the palace, repeating her story to the other guards and not having to feign being increasingly agitated about leaving for a walk or a short flight. And it was a short flight. Just to the riverside from the palace.

It was too short of a flight to work out most of her agitation, but it was enough to at least take the worst of the edge off and calm her nerves somewhat. She would need to be calm to confront Rosewater, even if she had to channel her anger. She couldn’t let that anger get out of control.

As luck would have it, or timing, Rosewater was just stepping free of her house when Cloudy began circling for a landing at the listening post across the river. Instead of doing so, she skipped the landing there and diverted to the farther west watch post keeping an eye on the perfumery and a minor Rose house.

“Good morning, my lady,” Prim Note said, shooting her a smirk as she bounced off the hay pile for pegasus landings and came to a rest beside him. “Sorry I missed the fighting last night.”

“You shouldn’t be,” she grumbled at him. “Still on schedule this morning,” she noted, nodding towards the tall white figure making her way through the traffic walking along the riverside. Rosewater stood out, and would have even if she had tried to veil. The others of her sisters were more average sized and could pass more or less anonymously when they veiled in shadow in the daylight.

“Little late,” Note murmured, flipping through his notes. “By about half an hour, but she’s been more erratic the past week, too. Spending the night sometimes in there, too.” He shrugged. “She took some work home with her night before last and hasn’t been back till now.”

“Guess we know why now,” Cloudy said with a sigh.

“Yes, my lady,” Note said with a snicker. “I heard the after-action gossip from here.” He flicked his ears and grinned at her, though there was a slight darkness under his eyes. He’d been out last night, too. Of course, as one of the best spooks of the city, his skills were in high demand. “I wish I’d heard something earlier.”

“You did all you could,” Cloudy said softly, glancing at him briefly and surprised to see something like guilt on his features. “Something you heard last night, lieutenant?”

“No. I mean, that should have been my clue. The Rose Palace had been silent for a few days. I should have been more suspicious.” Note’s ears drooped and he looked askance at her. “I should have emphasized that more strongly in my reports, my lady.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” She flicked an ear at him and raised her scope to watch Rosewater’s progress. She was slower than usual, her ears drooping, her eyes half-lidded. The fight that Cloudy had been knocked out for had taken its toll on Rosewater. Cloudy pursed her lips as she watched, noting the way her forelegs trembled with every fifth step or so, no real pattern to it. Unless she hurt her leg somehow. She was vulnerable.

“Because of last night. You kissed Lord Collar and woke him from a dream. Just like the fairy tale.” He chuckled. “They’re calling him the Prim Prince because of that, now.”

“Oh, please let me tell him,” Cloudy said, forcing a playful smile she didn’t feel. “I want to see the look on his face.”

“Of course. Nopony would take that from you.” She almost looked up, but Rosewater stumbled and shook her head, paused, and continued on at a more stately pace, her ears ticking erratically. It wasn’t going to be fun to ambush a mare she was almost certain had come to their rescue. But she needed answers. She had to protect Collar.

Distracted, tired, and soon alone. Cloudy twitched her wings. She had to wait until Rosewater opened her shop before swooping down, otherwise the few bystanders that wandered the streets would have more time to determine just who she was and report to Lace.

“Why are you here so early?” Note asked genially. “Not like you to be up and at-em before the sun finishes rising.”

She considered her answer for a moment while she watched Rosewater turn up the street to the perfumery. A careful survey of the area around the shop showed few ponies awake, and fewer paying any attention to Rosewater in any obvious way. The nearest Merrieguard patrol was busy at the Rosewine bridge, inspecting a cart.

There wasn’t a better time for her to tempt fate and hopefully get the answers she needed. “Unsanctioned action,” she said as she leapt from the rooftop and swooped in low across the river to land with a tap and flutter of wings just behind Rosewater.

“I was wondering when you would stop watching and come down,” Rosewater said, voice tired, weary. “Come to capture me in my weakest moment?”

What can I say? Cloudy hesitated at the question.

Rosewater turned to look at her after a moment, the weariness in her eyes even more apparent from up close. She was tired. Bone tired, and had been pushing herself far beyond what a pony could expect to do.

She must have seen some of the sympathetic pangs Cloudy felt shooting through her, because she smiled suddenly, and it washed away some of the shadows to show the beauty she had always been, but warmer instead of sharp and chiseled out of stone.

Rosewater opened the shop and walked in, pausing with the door still open. “Please, do come in. It appears we need to talk.”

The shop was as it had been when she’d taken away her perfumes she’d been preparing for the past week, most of which were now expended or stale, their volatile natures requiring them to be remade daily lest their potency drop.

At the front counter where Rosemary would handle most of the business, dust covered the glass displaying her specialty bottles and fragrances with outrageous prices attached. That was for the tourists that didn’t know or didn’t care because of time, that her perfumes could be bought from their home cities for far less from other merchants.

But ‘from the source’ held a certain appeal, and the bottles she commissioned from the city’s glass workers held up to the finest standards of beauty and elegance that her perfumes usually demanded. Those in the know bought one bottle from her direct, and refilled from local merchants.

“You charge that much?” Cloudy asked in a choked tone as she passed by the counter, her eye drawn to the unique shapes and colors of the fluted glass vials.

“Only to those desperate, stupid, or vain enough to want the designer bottle,” Rosewater replied with a smirk as she pressed open the back door, her magic flickering as she undid the complicated seals with the key-spells.

“And your custom fragrances?” Cloudy asked in a hesitant voice. “How much do you charge for those?”

“Favors,” Rosewater said simply.

Cloudy swallowed and jerked her eyes away from the counter. “Is it—”

“It’s not safe yet,” Rosewater said gently. “You have your friend outside who’s listening to us right now. That’s all at the moment, but Roseate’s spies will be arriving soon to listen. Unless they’re out of action.”

Cloudy swallowed again and followed Rosewater into the back room, letting the pegasus explore the room as much as she wanted as she gathered the magical strength to empower the charms hung about the empty space, watching as the gemstone dust sparkled and glowed to life in the patterns that represented the physical representation of the magical arcana that silenced the walls.

The effort left her drained, but Rosewater forced herself to pull out a bowl and the bag of cereal grains she’d kept for the increasingly frequent times she’d slept over in the workshop. Cloudy, to her surprise, waited patiently while Rosewater ate a few bites. Even the act of eating breakfast infused some warmth into her and drove back the ache behind her eyes.

“You put it together,” Rosewater stated, turning her head to briefly glance over Cloudy still looking around the workroom. It would be the first time a Dammer had been inside, and it felt strange to have a near-complete stranger in her private space. No less strange than the Baroness’s visit…

“We did. As soon as I was able to shake off the sleep, I figured it out. I don’t know how much Collar remembers.” Cloudy raised a hoof before the statement completely filtered through Rosewater’s mind, and waved it in a conciliatory gesture. “He’s going to be okay. You came in time.”

How do you know? Rosewater bit her lip before she could ask it and closed her eyes. “Good. Are you angry at me?”

The sound of hooves coming closer didn’t tell her anything about Cloudy’s disposition, and she braced herself for a slap.

Instead, Cloudy pressed a hoof to her cannon and stroked slowly along the bone. “I was. At first.”

Rosewater opened her eyes, and found Cloudy sitting and looking up into her eyes. “Why aren’t you now?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.” Cloudy chuffed and shook her head. “I had time to think about it all the way back to the palace, and all the way here this morning. What I don’t understand is this.”

It was fascinating to watch the way Cloudy controlled her emotions. There was still anger there, and it showed in the way she clenched her jaw, the way her ears set back, then twitched forward, quivering.

“Why did you let her escape? You were right there. All of them were right there. All of them! The war would have been over if you hadn’t let them go!” Cloudy had advanced throughout the questioning, her eyes blazing, until she was nearly chest to chest with Rosewater. “You would have been advanced to the heir, Rosewater.”

Before the last statement was over, Rosewater was already shaking her head. “No. I wouldn’t have. A captured leader is allowed to negotiate their own release. Even demand it if there’s no legal heir. There’s precedent for both Merrie and Damme.”

“You!” Cloudy spat. She reared up and set her hooves on Rosewater’s shoulders, almost nose to nose. “You would have been the heir.”

“No. I’m the presumptive heir. So long as I have children by the time Roseate steps down or dies. Or, as seems increasingly likely, gets accused of a treaty violation so heinous Celestia herself will need to step in.” Rosewater shook her head but didn’t back away or back down. “She can’t remove me as her heir, either. But once she’s removed from power, the laws of Merrie take hold and the succession branch starts counting down. Me first. If I have no heir able to carry on after me, then it falls to Rosary. She has heirs. After which… the war continues for another generation.”

Cloudy stared at her. “Then get rutting pregnant! You must have some lover willing to declare for you?”

“None. I have no male lovers at the moment.” Rosewater smirked and shook her head. “I was hoping for Collar. He’s the only one that mother can’t scare off.”

That got a different reaction. Cloudy backed off, staring at her with her mouth open. “That’s your reason?” Cloudy worked her jaw for a moment, her ears flat. “You terrified us for weeks. No, months, and it was something you could have just come out and told us?”

“Would you have listened?” Rosewater shot back. “I’m the Rose Terror! I eat babies and steal husbands and lovers!”

“Did you try?” Cloudy stamped her hooves and curled a forehoof, the shod tip grinding against the wood floor. “Did you even think to be open? To trust somepony?”

Did you trust Rosemary? The unasked question slapped her across the face. “No.” It came out as a whimper. “I didn’t trust her.”

Cloudy, mouth already open to shout again, hesitated. “Trust who?”

“Rosemary,” Rosewater whispered. “I didn’t want her to know. Not until I knew.” Rosemary couldn’t handle losing another loved one. I’m not sure I can. Keep him at a distance until she knew. That was the plan. Don’t fall in love until he fell in love.

“Why?”

“Because I’m… an idiot.” After that, the rest wanted to flow out. All of her plans and ideas. The reservations she had about acting like Roseate wanted her to act. It was always Roseate’s want when Rosewater had been young that she would follow the corrupted way of the rose. “I-I thought… if I behaved like Roseate wanted me to, even on the surface only, that she would leave me alone.”

When no answer came immediately, Rosewater shook her head. “It sounds so stupid saying it aloud. Of course she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” Cloudy drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “And after the first time she tried to capture Collar? Why not then?”

Rosewater chewed her lip. “I told myself… I told myself that would be the end of it. That I’d won.”

Cloudy’s ears flattened and she nodded. “I… thought sort of the same thing. Not that you’d won, but that at least Roseate was going to not be insane.” She shook her head slowly. “Why would she try?”

“She almost succeeded. That’s why,” Rosewater said. “If it weren’t for somepony sending me a warning—I never would have known, and I would have woken up to hear the news that Roseate had raided Damme and almost certainly won the war.”

“Or… she’d have been captured.”

“And Collar?”

Cloudy flinched, the insides of her ears blanching. “It didn’t happen.”

That gave her some idea of the aftermath of the fight. “Tell me what happened.”

“Tell me the deal you made, and I will,” Cloudy replied immediately. “What did you promise her?”

Impulse told her to forego the sharing of information, to keep her conversation with Roseate private, and what she’d done secret. She’d freed her mother, when she was on the cusp of being captured in a reversal of fortune, and all because there was uncertainty about what would happen afterwards. More than likely, Rosary would have been captured as well along with all of the other of her sisters that had children.

Likely. There was a good chance that Powder would have still escaped, and her son qualified her for the heirship. While Powder wasn’t as objectionable as Rosary, she would still continue the war with the intent of making Damme the subjugate city-state, something Collar wouldn’t allow.

That new ability of his put the weight squarely in Damme, especially if Lace made a point of persecuting the war more aggressively and put herself into the front line. The Merrieguard was ill-equipped to handle the organizational power of a Dammeguard that had had thirty years to recoup and train. And she might, despite the Reforms, if it seemed like the war was going to go on for who knew how many generations.

Here, Cloudy was offering her a chance at collusion. Information only, for now, but it was so much more than what she’d been able to do with either Collar or Cloudy before. A small hoof in the door. Maybe that was all she needed.

No. Rosewater shook her head sharply. She would have to play boldly if she meant to take advantage of the deal she’d made with Roseate and the fear of reprisal from the Sun Throne.

Cloudy was backing away, her eyes hard.

“Deal, but not right now,” Rosewater said before the mistaken assumption could go further. “And I would ask a favor in turn, but one I think you, Collar, and Lace will find intriguing and advantageous.”

“What kind of favor?” Cloudy asked, suspicion in her eyes and the set of her ears.

“The kind where you take a message to the Prim Palace, along with a gift to demonstrate my intent.” Rosewater turned away and rose to all four hooves, shaking briefly as she heaved her hindquarters off the ground. The rest and breakfast grains had helped, but not enough. She would need to have another few bowls and rest more before she could embark on the next part of playing her trump card.

The seals on her inner sanctum took far more work to undo than even the estate’s wards, and while she worked on managing the magical flows she’d managed to recover, she was aware of Cloudy watching her carefully. The other mare was a curious pony, full of contradictory impulses and surprising depths that nonetheless sat out in the open, waiting for a companion to unwind them and find her heart.

Once the last seal unlocked, Rosewater hobbled closer, then shook her head. “It’s there on the desk. The book. I have a sack you can carry it in if you need it.”

Cloudy hesitated, then took a step forward. “This isn’t a trick?”

“Would I honestly tell you if it was?” Rosewater asked with a roll of her eyes. “It’s no trick. I’m tired. And tired of hiding.”

It was apparently the right thing to say, because Cloudy snorted a laugh and moved to open the door all the way, cautious still, and stood in the doorway for a few moments looking inside without going in, then back at Rosewater. A sensible precaution, considering.

“The paintings are…”

“Carnation, Rosemary, and I. The one on the left is Rosemary at one month old. The one on the right is for her tenth birthday. We couldn’t risk any more commissions after that.” Rosewater smiled lightly, her eyes brightening as she recalled the day, almost eleven years ago now, when the painter from Canterlot, Bottle Brush, had come down to paint them in front of their estate. “She couldn’t sit still for long, despite her mother and I coaxing her. Friends came and went, watching as we sat still as stones, waiting for him to finish the outline and choose his colors.”

Apparently satisfied that it wasn’t a trick, Cloudy advanced inside and surveyed the desk. Everything was neat and orderly, scrolls tucked into their cubicles and inkwell and quills neatly arranged on the writing surface.

“Is this it? Is…” Cloudy trailed off, her hoof on the cover of the translated Principes van Vrije Liefde that Rosewater had been working on. Just beside it was the tatty original, its cover almost flaked into dust. “Stars… Is this…”

“It’s his personal journal. It’s what became the Principes in later copies, removing a lot of the personal anecdotes as it was translated and reinterpreted through the centuries.” Rosewater allowed herself a prideful smile. “But that’s neither here nor there. I need to set some things in motion today, before Roseate can move.”

Cloudy grunted, giving her a seriously skeptical look that almost shouted, ‘you look like you couldn’t set a marble in motion.’ “You want me to take the translation?”

“Yes. It’s not done yet, but Lace will understand what it means about my intent.” Rosewater let herself smirk at Cloudy. “And, I suspect, a little of that will be influenced by the fact that I suspect you’re here without orders.”

“Just give me the damn bag,” Cloudy growled, all but confirming her suspicions.

It wasn’t until Cloudy was standing on the stoop of the Rosewater Perfumery that Cloudy realized that she liked Rosewater. Without the fear of her, and a new, growing certainty that she was on their side, everything that she’d done up to that point had a new angle. She wasn’t a would-be tyrant like her mother, but a lonely fighter hoping for a better world. Maybe.

The rescues were enough, along with her friendly repartee and willingly letting Cloudy inside her inner sanctum. Less a sanctum and more of a vault than the Bank of Damme’s, the spells laden in the door had set her feathers on edge just being close to them, and it was clear why it was that way. The journal of one of the founders of the two cities was a prize far beyond priceless.

Glancing around, Cloudy tried to make it seem like she was only a satisfied customer with a custom bag from Rosewater’s Perfumery as she made her way to the bridge, the straps bouncing against her neck as the book, bound in twine, jostled against her shoulder with every step.

It would be best not to bring further danger to Rosewater, or attention from the Dammeguard, if her actions had gone unnoticed.

Nopony paid attention to her. She had the look of a Rose, the mane and the cutie mark both, and most commoners weren’t so caught up in the war that they knew who all the major players were.

The danger was the Merrieguard at the bridge. She’d been one of them for a time, before she’d turned ‘traitor’ because of Roseate’s greed and hatred.

In the end, she decided to take a turn down the street towards the docks, carefully settling her wings so her primaries obscured most of her cutie mark and settled into a purposeful trot. The bridge at the docks was always the least guarded of all the bridges on the Merrie side. A bribe or a distraction would do well enough for the guards on the Merrie side.

More than once, she considered just taking off and winging it to the palace, but being so conspicuous after leaving Rosewater’s place was sure to get the mare in trouble. As it was, she was almost certain she hadn’t been followed by any of Roseate’s goons. Most likely, they were holed up in the Palace, waiting for doom to fall on their heads after last night’s debacle.

The thought cheered her as she made her way through the early morning throngs, just one more pony looking to get across the river and set up shop in the lucrative docks market, one of the few ‘free’ trade zones that catered exclusively to foreigners. It was lucky, for her, that it was near the end of the sailing season and ponies were trying, desperately, to get their wares out and sold before the long drought of trade over the winter.

She managed to attach herself inconspicuously to a large entourage of merchants and pass by the lax guards without incident. They only gave a cursory look over the others and Cloudy, not even looking her in the eye.

Lazy gits. They probably didn’t even know what had gone on last night, though. They might just be as tired of the war as the rest of the common pony.

Once she was on the other side, she was recognized immediately by a startled Private Starburst.

“L-lieutenant?”

Several of her erstwhile companions startled away from her and hurried to their business dockside, not eager to get caught up in Dammeguard drama.

“Yes,” Cloudy said with a sigh. “Sorry to startle you, Starburst. Go back to checking the crowd. I need to get to the palace.”

“Er…” Starburst held up a hoof and turned to fish a scroll from his bag. “This arrived just a few minutes ago, ma’am.”

Stars above. Cloudy unfurled the scroll on the private’s back and read quickly, grimacing more with each word. Lace must have sent orders to each bridge detachment to get it to her. Getting back to the palace was even more important now.

Collar was awake, and Lace’s orders, while brief, promised a scathing reprimand when she got back. Even more scathing than the talk she’d gotten for hurting Glory.

She probably thinks I went to go attack Rosewater.

Without another word, she tucked the scroll into the open neck of the bag around her neck and leapt for the sky. Rosewater would have to watch over herself.

Platinum, looking haggard from last night, but still doggedly standing her watch-shift, saluted when Cloudy touched down. “Prim Lace is on a tear, Cloudy. You might want to re-defect.”

“Haha,” Cloudy grunted. “I’ll take my licks, thank you.” In fact, she hadn’t more than slipped into the open side-door to the main gate that she heard Lady Lace’s voice chiding her son over his insistence on walking with her.

“You’re more than half-dead,” Lace was saying, her voice muffled by the door that still separated them from her. “That mare has got more than a little of the Rose Spirit in her.”

“And that’s what I love about her,” Collar replied in a weak voice, so weak that Cloudy had to press her ear to the door to catch it at all. “She’s spirited, mother, and she’s not afraid to tell me an idea’s a stupid one.”

“Then I should think she’ll tell you getting out of bed in your state is a very stupid idea,” Lace muttered.

If that isn’t a perfect invitation… Cloudy smiled to herself despite the trouble she was about to get into, and pulled open the door to step out into the entryway. Collar and Lace were standing a little distance away, Collar more leaning against one of the few couches that dotted the long entryway where petitioners would sit and wait for their time to speak.

“I agree with the Lady Lace,” Cloudy announced. “It’s a stupid idea to be out and about after last night.”

Collar smiled weakly at her. “And I think it was a stupid idea to…” He trailed off as his eyes settled on the bag around her neck, the Rosewater Perfumery logo and title prominently displayed. “Oh my stars…”

Lace caught up a few seconds later. “You didn’t—”

“I talked with her, I didn’t burgle her shop,” Cloudy said with a huff and a roll of her eyes. “And there’s much I need to share, but not here,” she added with an exaggerated look around the grand hall. Servants on the ground dusted and straightened or carried burdens to and from the various storage vaults inside the old fortress, and a pegasus above watched those below with a careful eye. The watchmare’s position. It was a boring, and often disciplinary position, used for those who couldn’t follow orders.

Lace’s eyes blazed with heat, but her voice was calm as she nodded. “Very well. We shall retire to my offices. Collar, please consider returning to bed. She is safe and returned to us.”

“I will not,” Collar stated with as much vigor as he could, and tottered over to Cloudy to press his cheek against hers. “I’m so glad you’re safe. When I heard Note’s report…”

“Shh.” Cloudy gently began guiding him after Lace, openly letting him lean against her on the way up the stairs and around the corner to the wide administrative hall surrounded on all sides by the offices and machinery of the city, already in full bustle even that early in the morning.

The high windows were thrown open, letting in the breeze from the bay to fill the hall with salt chill water with an undercurrent of seaweed and fish—at least to Cloudy’s more sensitive nose. To most Dammers, it was little more than a cool, refreshing breeze that only occasionally played havoc with scrolls.

To her nose, it was more. Much more.

There, too, was another scent that prickled a familiar tingle along her spine. “Collar?” she asked, sniffing loudly. “Why do I smell Rosemary?”

“She’s inside,” Lace said coolly. “I was having a talk with her before I was informed you had gone on a foolish errand. Now. Inside.” She opened the door and ushered them inside with a glance at the guard to the side. “Nopony comes in unless I allow it specifically or there is an emergency.”

Rosemary was there, laying full out on the rug in front of a chair, her chin resting on her crossed forelegs. She only looked up briefly when Cloudy came in, then caught the look on Lace’s face, stormy with a chance of shouting. That chance increased when Lace closed the door and cast a silencing spell on the walls, igniting similar, but different glyphs than Rosewater had used in her perfumery.

The thought passed away as Lace settled down in the chair behind her desk and crossed her forelegs over the edge of the desk. “Rosemary, please sit up. I know you were up late, but this is important for you to attend as well. I expect that Cloudy, despite her frankly idiotic, not to mention insubordinate, flight this morning, has news.”

“I-I had reason, my lady,” Cloudy said, feeling nervous all over again and glancing at Collar. He sat near Rosemary, seeming to show a bit of solidarity for the other tired pony. A pang of guilt shot through her. She hadn’t even thought of what Rosemary had gone through. Lace had briefed her last night, but the pieces hadn’t stuck until just then. “How did you know to come at all?”

“A patrol caught up to Stride and managed to talk him into landing and straight into Poppy’s care. They sent word to the palace, and we roused everypony to come. I wish, now, that I’d only taken a token force, but I’d no idea what we were facing.” Lace tapped a hoof on the desk. “I will debrief him once Poppy has given him a clean bill of health. He’s resting at the moment. As the two of you should be,” she added, giving Collar and Rosemary a stiff glare that lasted only long enough for Cloudy to feel sympathy for what was coming for them.

“Now, you.” Lace turned her attention back to Cloudy. “I expect a full report. Now.”

Cloudy snapped to attention and began rattling off her report of the events that transpired, leaving nothing out and only pausing to take breaths and gauge Rosemary’s reaction to the mentions of her… sister didn’t seem right. Those paintings hadn’t been framed as sisters, side-by-side. What she was to Rosewater remained to be seen.

Once she was done, she felt drained, and the book sat on the table in front of her, the tea set having been cleared away as soon as she said what it was and how precious and rare it was.

“Mother, please. She’s…” Collar side-stepped to stand beside her. “She’s very protective.”

“As are you,” Lace said more gently. “I am upset with you, Cloudy. Though not yet in an official capacity, as I don’t know all of the details. As my son’s lover, I—”

“Mother!”

“Please, Collar. You were impudent enough to begin courting her when I advised against it, you will suffer the consequences of being involved with a follower of the Principes. That includes frank and open talk with your mother about your love life.” Lace’s cheeks colored briefly, but she did not back down. “Your lover, and I would hope future wife, must learn that there are consequences to her actions when she is known to be your lover.”

Cloudy fought to keep her smile hidden as she stepped forward. “As his lover, I am also bound to protect him from threats. As a Rose, I’m very well aware of the threat posed by so many. It’s my duty, and not just as a Dammeguard.”

“Your duty,” Lace said sharply, “is to follow the order of the liege you swore an oath to.”

“Please,” Rosemary cried, leaping from her chair. “Calm down, everypony. I know last night was hard, and terrible, but this is what Roseate would want. She would want us to be at each other’s throats. Please. My… my cousin and I have been working against her for so long. That’s how she works.”

Lace blinked. Rosewater had hitched on the same phrase. “She’s… not just your cousin, is she?” Or your sister.

Collar cleared his throat. “Sisters, right? Under Carnation.”

Rosemary looked unaccountably guilty as she glanced up at Cloudy. She was lying, too, and letting Collar lie for her because he didn’t know.

“Yes. Rosewater is… complicated.” Lace’s stern mien softened. “It’s why I wanted to talk to you first, Cloudy.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “It seems you saw her in the same way I hoped to see her after all these years. How did she seem?”

Cloudy stared at her liege lady for a long moment before Lace coughed and waved a hoof at her to continue.

“Ah… she seemed lost. Tired. Until the end. She had some plan that she made it sound was a last resort.” Cloudy smiled wanly. “And it involves coming to us under the treaty flag.”

“Mmhm.” Lace pursed her lips and turned to her son. “I think your revelation of her being a sister figure is close to the mark. That leaves what to do with you, Cloudy.”

No, not sisters. I saw those paintings. She was on the edge of the revelation, she could feel it. It was right there in the painting. “I know I made mistakes, my lady, and I’m prepared to face the consequences for them, but I also believe that I was right to face her, to get the story before she arrived. To get the news that she was arriving before she startled us all.”

Collar suppressed a grin as he nuzzled her cheek. “You’re not wrong, but you also disobeyed orders.”

“But I’m… I’m… you’re training me, Lady Lace. What do those lessons in forward thinking mean if I don’t use them?”

Lace didn’t quite smile, but there was a twinkling in her eye all the same. “Did you think far enough ahead to where your actions would lead? Much of what I tried to teach you was to temper your… well, temper.”

“I didn’t go angry,” Cloudy protested. “I was seeking the truth. She’s been cagey, but never openly hostile toward us. Her words alone could be measured as hostile, not her actions.”

“And if you’d been caught?”

“It was a risk, but she keeps the same routine every morning, Lace. What is that if not an invitation for us to make a surprise visit? Why not change her patterns after Collar confronted her a month ago?”

Lace furrowed her brow. “Collar?”

Collar coughed. “Er… yes, mother?”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are becoming much more like Cloudy than she is like you.” Lace rubbed at her temples with both hooves as she leaned back in her chair. “Like you were. You’ve changed, Collar, being with her.”

Collar bristled, his ears flicking back.

“Lord Collar, she’s teasing,” Rosemary cut in before he could say anything.

“Of course I’m teasing,” Lace said, smiling at the younger mare. “I’m proud you’ve been able to see past the prejudices that the hardliners push and act more like a Rose. More than I would have liked, if I’m being honest, but there’s a reason I fell in love with your father, Collar, and I see more of him in you every day.”

“Mother,” Collar sighed, glancing aside at Rosemary. “Just how much have you talked to our guest?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” Lace said calmly. “She’s a fascinating mare, Collar, and deeper than you might know just now. I quite approve of her as a companion for Cloudy.”

Cloudy squeaked. “What?!”

“What I said, young mare, doesn’t leave this room. I am far more progressive than my peers in the Manes and Primfeathers believe. I have to maintain a stern facade for them, or it all falls apart. At least for now.” Lace lowered her hooves to the arms of her chair and sat more regally. “For now… Rosemary, please enlighten us all to what your… sister is going to bring to us.”

“Are you sure this is necessary, my lady?” Sir Firelight Spark of the Knights of the Sun was an imposing pony and the leader of the Treaty enforcement offices of both cities. More than his clout as Princess Celestia’s personal representative “If you think it is, then I’m happy to lend my presence, but…”

“I promise I won’t be wasting your time, Sir Spark. I have been their boogeymare for nigh on six years if not longer,” Rosewater said, nodding to a contingent of Dammeguard standing rigidly, scowling at her as she walked beside him. But none of them made a move. Assaulting a Royal Guard, or a pony under the guard’s protection, was grounds for immediate exile not only from the city, but jail time in Equestria. “I have important business to attend.”

“Agreed,” he said with a sigh. “I hope you get her back. I don’t know what I’d do if my…” He trailed off at Rosewater’s glare. “Apologies.”

“Granted. Thank you for doing this. I know you didn’t have to.” She smiled at him as they passed from a side-street to the main thoroughfare towards the palace. A contingent of Dammeguard stood to the side of the way, eying Firelight and Rosewater with equal displeasure. “But…”

“I see your point.” He coughed and raised his voice. “Clear the way. You are impeding a representative of the Treaty in a bonded negotiation.”

The street cleared precipitously fast, not only of Dammeguard, but of commoners and minor nobility alike, all whispering and murmuring as she passed. The last night’s battle was on everypony’s lips, it seemed, and all of them were watching her with veiled hate and distrust.

“Will you need an escort back?”

“I hope not. Once the negotiations are concluded for the day, I can teleport back to my home from the palace steps.” She flicked an ear as a particularly loud individual denounced her, quickly echoed by others in close proximity. “I daresay even with official escort, I may find myself overwhelmed by their good cheer.”

“There was some kind of fighting in Damme?” he asked. “Do I need to take official notice?”

“Perhaps. My mother attempted to take Lord Collar. It would have gotten about my right to freely associate with him. She’s also barred me from contacting the palace. I have a letter from her for proof.” Rosewater allowed herself a cold smile. “She was not any more successful the second time.”

Spark chewed his lip for several seconds. “I can put it in my report. I’ll need the letter, of course.” He sighed and nodded. “I see I’ll need to accompany you to the palace in any regard to have a discussion with the witnesses to the attack. Her highness likes to know of any major actions.”

“Several exist in theory, but they were in various states of panic, subdued, or otherwise charmed away from being reliable. Or they were my sisters and mother.” Rosewater shrugged one shoulder. “I have no doubt they would not lie to a Royal Guard, but please keep my name out of it if you go calling on them. Family dinners are tense enough as it is.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Of course,” Rosewater said with a tired chuckle. “I’ve not had dinner with any family but my niece and her mother in near two decades.”

He sighed. “I hate family feuds.”

“As do I.”

The rest of the walk passed in near silence, aside from the murmurs and shouts that occasionally came from side-streets. Damme during the daytime in fall had hardly changed in all the years that had passed since she had walked its streets during the Harvest festival with a pregnant Carnation at her side.

Even then, Rosewater had been tall enough to pass nearly for adult despite the fact that she’d still had to fill out the rest of the way to fit her gangling legs. Any who talked with her tended to assume she was a young adult, and Carnation her elder sister. They had not been far wrong even then.

One day, I’ll walk these streets and be greeted by friends. It was a dream of Carnation’s that she held close. One she hoped to one day share with her again. Exile didn’t have to be forever.

Prim Palace in the daytime looked much the same as it had during the night, its dark gray granite outer walls glittering dully in the sun as it did in the lamplight at night.

A stronger knot of Dammeguard waited out front, these drawn up in parade formation rather than as a part of a greater rabble filling the streets. Captain Pink, she recognized, but the rest she did not. Captain Pink was hard to not recognize.

“I’ll be quite alright from here,” Rosewater told Spark. “If you wish to return to the Treaty Office, I will report to you on the morrow with the next steps I wish to take.”

He eyed the burly captain and blew out his cheeks briefly. “If you’re sure. I think I might have trouble taking her.”

“As would I. Captain Prim Pink is quite the formidable earth pony,” Rosewater agreed quietly.

The captain approached stiffly, ears erect. “State your business, Lady Rosewater Rosethorn.”

Rosewater eyed Firelight Spark and nodded, then spoke, “I have come as a bearer of the Treaty’s flag as a representative in the prisoner of war negotiation on behalf of my charge, Rosemary Rosethorn, as her legally appointed Guardian.”

Prim Pink’s eyes widened briefly, then shot to the Royal Guard. “You have the paperwork, Sir Spark?”

“I do, Captain. Sealed, signed, and witnessed. It has been on file in the Treaty Office for nine years.” He held out the courier pouch containing the guardian paperwork that would be needed to make a claim. “Lady Rosewater had this all prepared months ahead of time.”

“I also have a sealed envelope for Lady Lace’s eyes only,” Rosewater added, showing the large envelope embossed with the sunburst of Princess Celestia’s cutie mark, and a large golden glob of wax on the flap flickered and glowed in the sunlight, showing itself to be still intact and untampered with.

Captain Pink eyed the envelope, then Firelight Spark, who nodded. “Acceptable. Please follow me, my lady. Baroness Lace has been expecting you.”

Rosewater smiled. I have played my card, mother. Let us see what you have to say to that.

Book 1, 27. Family Ties

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As certain as she had been when she started out, doubt started to creep in as soon as she was seated in the uncomfortable chair in the entry hall of the Palace, the Dammeguard watching her warily, but a few at least giving her cautiously appraising looks.

Word of what she’d done last night, kissed Lord Collar in an attempt to wake him up, then fled before the Dammeguard arrived as reinforcements had surely passed through the ranks.

Whether or not the truth went with those rumors was harder to say as none of them seemed inclined to talk with her while Captain Pink went to speak with Lady Lace. She presumed it was Lady Lace, at least.

Minutes ticked by slowly, measured by the tapping of the hooves of the Dammeguard that watched her, waiting for the flag of treaty to fall, or mysteriously disappear so that she might be captured and the “Rose Terror” might be ended once and for all.

Or at least traded for some similarly huge concession as a herdgild.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Collar or Cloudy that came for her, but Lady Lace herself.

“Rosewater,” Lace said in a cool voice, her ears erect, eyes steady as she came to stand a few paces away, dismissing the guards with a look and a flick of her tail. “I find myself in the unusual position of owing you more than a small favor. Yet again.”

“My lady?” Rosewater asked, surprised.

“Through your action, I have a son still possessed of himself, and his wife-to-be still able to be herself freely.” Lace glanced at the departing guards, most of whom had ears pricked backwards. “And yet…”

Rosewater swallowed. Cloudy had told her, incidentally, what she might be worried to face. And yet… “I came to make a deal, my lady.”

“As Rosemary’s guardian? By the rules of herdgild, only family may demand to pay the price. Or the leader of the city.” Lace gestured back the way she’d come when Rosewater shook her head. “If you’ll come with me, I think we should take this discussion more private.”

“Is Collar—”

“He’ll be involved, but he is understandably exhausted. Cloudy is tending to him right now.” Lace waited for Rosewater to extricate herself from the chair, her expression impassively cool, contemplative and waiting. “You look exhausted yourself.”

Breakfast and a little more had been enough to remove the shakes, but the walk through Damme had sapped her energy again. “I am not unaccustomed to being tired, my lady. It doesn’t change what I need to do.”

As she followed Lady Lace up the corridor, the fragrance of her daughter crossed her tail, fresh and familiar, with the faint essence of the shampoo she’d chosen for Rosemary from Roseling’s wares. Collar’s was there, too, and intensified at the same rate as Lace led them to the left.

“Rosemary?” Rosewater asked, taking a deeper breath and drawing on her Rosethorn heritage.

“Was in discussion with me when this all settled in,” Lace said, her voice betraying nothing, and her expression as she glanced back telling her less. “We were discussing your shared mother.”

Rosewater’s breath caught in her throat and she stumbled as the revelation hit her harder than she thought it would. “My lady?”

“When we are in a more private place,” Lace said softly.

The interior of Prim Palace was much as she recalled from her brief visits for galas, but here and there she could see signs of change brought about by Cloudy’s involvement with Collar. Small changes only, but potentially important ones.

Flowers had been added to decorative pots that held small trees or ferns from far-off places, and more color and fragrance filled the hall—all of it subtle but noticeable to somepony who knew the Prims as relatively dour decorators compared to their Merrier neighbors.

Whether that had been done by Cloudy herself or as a concession to her…

“My husband,” Lace said after noticing Rosewater’s attention. “You knew he was a Merrier?”

She had, but whether she should… Rosewater shook her head sharply. She couldn’t live in that headspace anymore, especially considering what she was about to trust these ponies with. “I knew. I’ve studied your family as closely as I can in the past couple of years.”

Lace gave her a curiously studious look. “I see.” She held open the door, and Rosemary’s scent came through more strongly, though she could hear nothing beyond the portal, and Collar and Cloudy’s scents intermingled came through as well. “Please, Rosewater, inside, and we’ll discuss the deal in due time.”

The door closed behind Rosewater, and she moved towards the seat closest to her, also the closest to Collar. The spark was in his eyes again, shining with curiosity as he studied her, and while the tiredness that maintaining such a defense must have cost him still hung about him as a malodor might when a miscreant leaves, he seemed vital and whole again and would be right once more with time.

Cloudy sat at his side on a pillow on the ground in the Merrier fashion, and Rosemary sat at a further distance, also on a pillow. The straight, high-backed chairs Collar and Lace sat in were decorated with stained blue and purple wooden inlays bordering a comfortable cushion.

“I am pleased you are well, my lord,” Rosewater said as she hesitated in front of the chair obviously meant for her, not sure if she should take a seat yet. “I was worried when I had to leave you.”

“I don’t recall everything,” Collar said, lifting his teacup towards Cloudy. “She filled me in.” His eyes steadied on hers, as he added, “And while I appreciate you trying to kiss me awake was a spur of the moment tactic, it is the last kiss you’ll get from me.”

Cloudy’s ears twitched. She, at least, had understood the meaning of the gift. It seemed like she would either have to spell it out… or he had understood it, and this was his rejection of it.

She took a short breath and glanced at the book sitting in the center of the table. He did as well, and when his eyes rose again, she saw no understanding of what it meant, but Cloudy’s expression showed a hint of interest, poorly hidden.

“I apologize. I had not meant to discomfit you, my lord. In truth, I was terrified that… that all of us had lost you.” Rosewater pressed a hoof to her breast, not yet moving to take her seat. Dammer courtesies required her to stand until she was invited to sit and partake in the discussion. “I came here today to discuss with all of you a proposal and an alliance of formalized intent regardless of other outcomes.”

Lace’s brows rose before she glanced at Collar, her look questioning.

“Regardless of other outcomes?” Collar asked, looking to Cloudy for insight.

“Listen to her,” Cloudy said softly. “Let her present her proposal before we make any decisions.”

“Very well.” Collar nodded to the chair. “Then, please. Take a seat.”

“Before I do…” Rosewater opened her saddlebag, making every pony there flinch aside from Rosemary. When she drew out the gold-sealed envelope, the wax glob still faintly luminous, and set it on the table atop the book, they relaxed. “I have a confession to make about my relationship with Rosemary.”

“What?” Rosemary startled off her pillow, taking a half step towards her. “But—”

“You’re sisters?” Collar blurted, his ears practically leaping to attention and his attention rapt.

Rosewater smiled and turned her head, nose lifting. “What you are about to hear and see does not leave this room. Please. I will give any assurance. Roseate must not know. I fear she would try anything to take her away from me.”

“Mother,” Rosemary whimpered. “Please.”

Lace’s eyes widened, and as Rosemary’s voice creaked on the word, Collar startled. Cloudy only looked interested, as if she’d guessed.

“Please, my lady, my lord, open the envelope,” Rosewater said, her tongue feeling thick as she raised a hoof for Rosemary, and in the next instant lost her voice as Rosemary rushed to embrace her, babbling apologies and assurances that she hadn’t said a peep about their secret relationship.

It was all Rosewater could do to hold her mask in place and keep the tears from flowing even more rapidly, to keep the fears at bay, to keep the wound she kept picking at on her soul from bleeding more.

She watched, her mask in place, waiting for the rebuttal, the denial of her love for Rosemary as a mother, and the deeply ingrained protective instincts that drove her daily, that fueled the fears she used in her magics.

Lace opened the envelope, her eyes darting back to Rosewater and Rosemary as she pulled the official papers out, two simple pages of the finest paper, decorated with the gold of Celestia’s mark at the top, proclaiming Rosewater Star Rosethorn to be the lawfully recognized adoptive mother of Rosemary Carnation Rosethorn, and granted all rights and responsibilities of being her mother.

In that set of rights was the right to demand to negotiate herdgild.

Wordlessly, Rosewater watched as she passed it to Collar and Cloudy.

All the while, Rosemary held close, her horn to the side of Rosewater’s neck as she held the mare close and hid her from the possible fallout.

Collar’s brows rose as he read both pages of official documentation before he set them back down on the book at the center of the table.

“How long?” he asked.

“Since I was sixteen,” Rosewater said, her voice creaking over the words.

“Stars be merciful,” he whispered.

“You have nothing to fear here, child,” Lace said in a kinder voice than Rosewater would have expected. “We will keep your secret, and it will not even be spoken outside of a silenced room. Or written anywhere. I would, however, caution you that keeping this secret for too long.”

“I cannot tell it too broadly,” Rosewater murmured holding Rosemary closer. “She took my Carnation away from me, my lady. It was only because I fought for her that Rosemary didn’t follow.”

“I understand you’re afraid for her, but here she is safe, and if you’re here to deal with us directly, as her mother, then that will supersede any attempt to negotiate by Roseate.” Lace raised a hoof and lifted the documents. “You may even leave these here and know they would be as safe as they would be in Princess Celestia’s own treasury. We will keep her safe, Rosewater, and your secret.”

“How… did you plan to keep it secret if only parents can negotiate?” Collar asked, his expression serious, but softer than it had been a moment before.

“Only parents may demand the right,” Lace corrected him quietly. “But the wronged party may opt to treat with anypony, and Roseate’s own actions of last night would harm her reputation with us enough to want to treat with another. Her guardian, for example.”

Collar swallowed again, and closed his eyes. “Stars above. So much makes sense now.”

Rosewater didn’t answer, holding Rosemary as shock wore off and the tears started coming, then the sobs. Being able to be open even with only a few ponies…

“Shh.” Rosewater murmured in her ear, her own mask cracking and flaking away as she held her daughter close, held her and rocked her side-to-side. This, she hadn’t planned on, being so vulnerable when she hoped to…

“Mommy,” Rosemary whimpered.

Rosewater let go of the mask, holding Rosemary closer, tighter, and sitting back on her haunches to clasp her daughter with both forelegs. “I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much.”

My mother. To think it was safe and comforting. Rosemary sobbed it aloud as Rosewater held her and rocked her back and forth slowly. It terrified her. It filled a need she’d known for almost a decade of her life. To acknowledge the mare she knew as her second mother to the world. To make them see her as the kind, caring pony she was inside.

Her thoughts scattered to the wind as her mother’s tears trailed down her back as she whispered “My child, my child,” over and over into her mane. Safe. There in Rosewater’s embrace, she was safe. She always had been.

Carnation was her loving, sweet parent, whom she could always bring her problems to and work them out. When they couldn’t be worked out, or even talked about, nightmares and dreams that terrified her, she went to Rosewater to feel safe. The fierce protector who guarded her from harm.

“Mother,” she whispered as her sobs diminished into stillness again. “Why now?”

“Because,” Rosewater whispered back, “I need help. We need help. And…”

Collar cleared his throat. “We had no idea.” His voice was strained.

“She is not my birth daughter,” Rosewater said more strongly, not letting her go. “But from the moment she came into this world, I was there. I held her in my forelegs while the midmare cleaned her and Carnation recovered. I held her while she took her first look at the world and saw two faces looking back at her.” Her mother hugged her close. “From then on, I was not Carnation’s daughter. I was Rosemary’s mother. It only took me a while to realize it.

“Her first steps were from Carnation to me. Her first words were spoken in our presence. Her first laughs, her tumbles and her scrapes. Everything my mother never did for me, I did for her.” Rosewater loosened her hold and settled back more firmly on her hindquarters. “I have never stopped loving her, through all the trials and tribulations of raising a foal through her teen years.”

Rosemary lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder to look at each of the faces, all in various stages of shock, staring back at them. “I have never once thought of her as my sister,” she said, her voice hitching only slightly. “From my earliest memories, she has been there, guiding me and teaching me along with Carnation. She has always been, in my heart, ‘mother.’”

“Carnation,” Prim Lace said, her voice quiet and tremulous. “You never told me…”

“We didn’t know who to trust, my lady. After Roseline’s death,” Rosewater said, her voice firming. “A hint of it in the wrong ear with the truth behind it and Roseate would have found ways to use us against each other. What would I not do to keep her safe? What have I not done? Things I am not proud of. For her sake.”

“When I inhaled Mother’s Kiss, I didn’t see only Carnation. I saw Rosewater as well. Growing up, they taught me never to talk about our home life, but when we were at home, I saw them as my parents. Odd family that we were, I never questioned that they loved each other and me as dearly as if they had been married.”

Collar’s cheeks flushed. “Stars above… because they were aunt and niece.”

“Roseate started that rumor.” Rosemary cringed again when she thought of the first time she heard it. “It was… when I was ten, and starting to wonder why my moms were different. She must have heard my curiosity, and spread the rumor to filter back to me.”

“Carnation stopped me from dueling her,” Rosewater said, ears ticking back. “We could never prove it.”

“But…”

“But we were wives of a sort,” Rosewater went on, bobbing her head to Lace. “At home, we lived the lives of wives, preparing meals, tutoring our child, loving her, loving each other sans the intimacy.”

“My apologies,” Collar said, looking away from Rosewater to Rosemary, then Cloudy. “Is that sort of thing common?”

“Family is so very important in Merrie,” Rosemary said with a faint smile. “I’ve seen siblings parent nieces and nephews without a concession to what it looked like to Dammers, but we couldn’t even do that. All we could do was feel it in our hearts, the safety of our home, and only rarely, outside it.”

“And now here,” Lace said firmly. “I wish I could offer you a free pass as any other mother would be given to see their child, but given that you wish not to reveal it at this time, all I can do is hope that your offer entails frequent visits for her negotiation.”

Collar cleared his throat. “Speaking of which, we should move to discussion of negotiations to at least nod to the fact that you’re here under treaty to do them. But I will agree with my mother. Any time you visit, Rosewater, you may be free to see your daughter.”

He didn’t hitch over the last at all, Rosemary thought. “Wh-what happens if you come to an accord on how to release me?”

“Then you will be released, as per the requirement of negotiating with a guardian directly, to Rosewater. But I suspect that you did not come here to simply ask for her release?” Lace raised her head slightly to almost look Rosewater in the eye, missing only a few inches of height to do so. Her son was able to do so without raising his head, and would need to stoop slightly to do it proper.

“No, Lady Lace. You are correct. Rosemary committed a crime in your city, and I don’t expect you to let her off lightly,” Rosewater said with a hint of a smile playing at her lips.

Rosemary jerked back from her mother, staring at her, then smiling as she began to see the shape of the plan Rosewater had put together. “I agree,” she said after a moment, and nodded.

The ramifications of agreeing to a long imprisonment weren’t as important as something that might end the war, after all. And if Rosewater intended to use this as an opportunity to get her hoof in the door peacefully…

And, she thought as she separated from Rosewater’s embrace to settle beside her and got a better look at Cloudy, it would give her the chance to truly reconnect with a love she’d thought lost.

Collar was still adjusting to the idea that Rosewater was a mother. But the papers were staring him in the face, as was her mien around Rosemary. All the signs he’d learned of a mother were there when he looked back, obscured by the need to keep it secret. Her need to protect Rosemary, even to the mare’s detriment, even that stunt by the river, a mother letting her daughter know she wasn’t alone in the only way she knew how.

It was easy to accept that Rosewater was Rosemary’s mother, and might have even believed her to be contrite.

“Her crime was hardly heinous. It was the intent we are most anxious about. I would let her go to you for her promise to quit the war.”

“She would never allow it,” Rosemary whispered. “I’d be a traitor for ‘quitting’ while I was still unmarried and without foal.”

Collar grimaced. “That three year age gap between your majority and second majority has a more sinister purpose, it seems.”

Rosewater shook her head. “No. It’s meant to keep ponies from making mistakes they’ll regret in the full passion of youth. Roseate has corrupted it, like everything else she’s touched.” She took a breath and let it out. “And that is actually a part of my offer. Not the passion of youth, but passion nonetheless.”

Before he could react, Cloudy’s ears perked up and her eyes darted to the book, then back to Rosewater. “That’s the reason you sent the original Principes. The full diary. It was… I thought, but…”

What? Collar glanced at the book with its fresh pages and neat binding. “You said something about it being a Rosethorn journal.”

“Not a Rosethorn journal. The Rosethorn’s journal. The founder of Merrie’s personal journal. Rosewater has the original.” Cloudy tipped her head towards Rosewater.

“Yes. It was passed down by my aunt Rosefire Rosethorn, who kept it preserved as best she could.” Rosewater raised the book and glanced at Cloudy, her eyes earnest. “You know what it meant? That this was my gift?”

Slowly, Cloudy nodded and glanced at Collar. “It’s… it has meaning, Collar. She’s offering herself as a partner for you, in a formal courtship. It’s a gift to show her intent to follow the Rosethorn way as practiced by the common pony.”

“She’s already done that,” Collar said with a snort, glancing between Cloudy and Rosewater. “What… you’re not thinking seriously about it, are you, Cloudy?”

“Collar, listen to her, please,” Cloudy said, her voice earnest. “I don’t know what she has in mind, but shouldn’t we at least listen to her about what she has to offer?”

Coming from anypony else…

Collar leveled a stare at Rosewater, looking for any sign of smugness, any sign this was a ploy and not as forthright and honest as Cloudy seemed to believe.

If he was honest with himself, if it had come from anypony but Cloudy, he’d have dismissed the notion out of hoof and not bothered looking back, and sent Rosewater on her way with little more than a promise to treat fairly for the herdgild cost.

But the love of his life was asking him to consider it—to consider taking up more of her traditions, to accept her moral code of love and open his heart to the possibility of more than one love in his life.

Rosemary shifting beside her mother, a fact he was still struggling with, reminded him that in a way, he already had, albeit through a proxy kind of romance. This, what Rosewater seemed to be ready to offer…

“I’m offering exactly what Cloudy said, with one small change. You said, once, that you wouldn’t marry without romance, and love.” Rosewater took a step forward and settled in front of her chair. “I’m offering a chance for all of us, all four of us, to court each other after the Merrier fashion and find our way forward together, Collar.”

Cloudy stepped forward, but not between Collar and Rosewater, but advancing to sit closer to the other mare. “I would accept, for my part. You have been intriguing me from the day you showed just how far you could reach with a fragrance, and every time I think I’ve learned all I need to know to judge, you show a new facet. I offer my open heart to this endeavor.”

Cloudy, we haven’t… Collar closed his eyes and rubbed at his muzzle. She was making her choice, just as he would have to make his. If they aligned… But what if we don’t? What if she falls in love with Rosewater, and I don’t?

Stars, listen to me, I’m already… “No decisions will be made today.”

“Of course not,” Cloudy said with a snort. “I’m offering to be open and honest. Nothing more. It’s a far more formal kind of courtship in Merrie. I was starting down that path with Rosemary when Roseate intervened.”

“Good.” Collar relaxed minutely. “Is that the offer? The deal? Courtship for Rosemary’s freedom?”

Rosewater’s ears dipped slightly. “Not entirely. If… if the courtship fails, I may need to seek asylum in Damme. I won’t let Roseate win if I can help it. If I can—”

“We will not be taking over Merrie by force, young mare,” Lace said softly.

“I understand.” Rosewater lowered her gaze to the floor, her breathing even, her ears twitching. “Would you support my claim, in the event…”

“Collar, please,” Cloudy whispered, turning to him, her ears flattening to her skull. “At least consider the offer. What harm can a secret courtship do?”

Secret until it isn’t. Collar swallowed and considered both her and Rosewater, his mind churning over the possibility. If he… if he accepted Rosewater’s offer.

“I don’t even know you,” he said softly. “I don’t love you. I will only marry for love.”

Rosewater nodded solemnly. “As will I. Otherwise we might not be in this predicament. I’ll not have a child without an assurance that they will have a father there.” Her throat bobbed sharply as she said it, and her voice cracked over the word ‘father,’ and little wonder why. “You… you can be there. You can be safe from her.”

“Is that why?” Collar asked softly. “Me?”

“Not… only why,” Rosewater said, her eyes shifting away from his, then back. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a reason.”

Collar closed his eyes, his thoughts still swirling and uncertain. More and more over the past few weeks, he’d uncovered bits and pieces of a history that spoke to pain and suffering in Rosewater’s past that he only had the tiniest window to.

A part of him wanted to know what drove her, what made her do everything she’d done. Some of the answer was sitting beside her, biting her lip and keeping quiet as much as she could. How much she knew of the reasons Rosewater was the way she was…

“I can accept getting to know you better,” Collar said at last. “I can accept working towards a deal whereby you are recognized as the heir of Merrie, regardless of marital or motherhood status. I can even accept Cloudy courting you, if she so chooses.”

It hurt to see the hope in her eyes, the tensing of her shoulders as she waited for the final blow to sunder it.

“I…”

There was so much in the political calculus that he needed to consider, that he needed to take into account before he could…

“If you choose,” Lace said, interrupting his thoughts, “to pursue a relationship with Rosewater, Cloudy, and Rosemary in the Merrie fashion, I would not object. I would advise you to consider the pros and cons later, Collar. Deciding against it now, when you’ve barely had a chance to let the ramifications of one revelation settle in, may close off paths you’ve yet to consider.”

“I would like to go on the first date,” Cloudy said, raising her head high to look him in the eye and half-arching her wings. “I want to know more about Rosewater and who she is. Decide after that, love. We can decide together.”

“I accept, then,” Rosewater said, relaxing minutely and glancing at Rosemary, then at Cloudy. “We can discuss when and what later, and…” She smiled, the relief evident in the brightness of it, and the undiluted excitement briefly making her ears quiver upright. “Thank you. All of you. For accepting me here, and as Rosemary’s mother.”

“Will you stop your raiding?” Collar asked suddenly.

“I will. I will not take part in mother’s raids. But neither will I be able to lend aid as I did. Once I return to Merrie, I’m going to make the negotiation formalized, and I would ask that you see to recognizing that you would rather deal with me instead.”

“On that note,” Lace said with a nod, “and seeing that your proposal has been provisionally accepted… we have some questions about the events that led up to last night’s incident before we can discuss the conditions for Rosemary’s imprisonment.”

Ever since Lace had voiced her blessing, Rosewater’s stomach had felt like it’d fallen out, and her heart kept trying to crawl into her throat. Here, she had hope.

It was almost enough to crack the hold she had on herself, a hold she couldn’t let slip just yet.

“What… questions did you have, my lady?”

“One, actually.” Lace pulled a letter free of its hiding place under the journal. “It came with a bottle of dammerale-scented perfume. The initials at the bottom were meant to make it seem as though it were you sending the letter.”

That much was clear, and a hint of the perfume that had been sent with the still clung to the paper, though it took her drawing on her heritage, and making Collar and Lace stiffen as she did so, to get the truest essence possible from it.

“If you’d inhaled it,” Rosewater said after a moment, “it would have dulled your senses and your thoughts. It’s the opposite of an enticement.”

Rosemary nodded beside her. “Enticements are supposed to quicken the mind and excite certain thoughts. We use enticements in Merrie every day. Shop owners especially love to use them to excite their customers about their products. It’s not even required to be scent-based. Teasing, flirting, playful thoughts… all enticements.”

Collar glanced at Cloudy, who nodded minutely.

“It’s just a broad term for that kind of social or magical engagement meant to attract attention.”

“And this,” Rosewater said, raising the paper, “was not written by me. Nor would I ever send you a gift of perfume that would dull your senses when you think about me.” That earned her a flick of the ears.

“I’ll believe that. We thought along similar lines, but it’s good to have the confirmation that it wasn’t you. It means Roseate intended no fair dealing.” Collar glanced at Cloudy when she snorted and smiled wryly. “Which we already knew. We just needed your confirmation before we brought this to the Treaty Office. Any dealings with prisoners of war, herdgild or not, needs to be held to a certain level of honesty.”

“She’ll claim it was me. Or a sting to catch me engaged in double-dealing,” Rosewater said simply. “You’ll need more.”

“I have no doubt she’ll provide more.” Collar’s smile bordered on bitter, but a glance at Cloudy settled him down again. “I… hope you understand that this is very awkward.”

“I can take a hint,” Prim Lace said with a cough and a smile. “I will leave the three of you to discuss this, and you do have my blessing, whatever you decide, Collar.” She stood and bent to whisper in his ear as she passed, unheard by Rosewater, though she saw his brows raise. She kissed his cheek and continued to Rosewater. “I never saw it. But I am glad that Carnation was never alone.”

“You were not meant to,” Rosewater said, swallowing thickly and standing straighter. “I would talk with you privately about my daughter’s status later, if it pleases you?”

“I would hear more about Carnation from her…” Lace left the statement open to answer, her brow raised and the calm expression belying the sharp curiosity and judgment pending the particular answer she got.

“We weren’t bonded. She was my aunt, but I saw her, treated her, like we were bonded mates to a third.” In another age, more primitive and primal, there would have been little question about their status. They would have been mated and bonded. In the current age… “We were, most days, like very close sisters.”

“I see.” Lace’s eyes said she saw more than what Rosewater had revealed, but she kept it to herself, and only said, “I hope to see more of the mare that Carnation raised, and to hear more about my friend from her closest.”

Friend. Rosewater swallowed and closed her eyes. More that Carnation had hidden from her. “Would… you be able to tell me about her? And your friendship?”

Lace searched her eyes for another moment, then nodded, raising her muzzle to touch her lips to Rosewater’s cheek and whispered quietly, “If you need it, I would consider asylum under my word, with only a probationary period only for both you and Rosemary.”

“I-I…” Rosewater’s tail flicked side-to-side. Why didn’t you offer it to Carnation? “I will consider the offer, my lady. It is… generous.”

“The offer has no time limit,” Lace said as she put a hoof to the door.

Rosewater closed her eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks briefly. “Why not Carnation?”

Lace stiffened. “I did offer it to her. I did, and she declined it. Now that I have met you, I have an inkling why.” She laid her horn against the door. “I would have welcomed her as a daughter, Rosewater. I hope…” She left before she could say anything else, but Rosewater wanted to know what she would have said.

What were you keeping from me, Carnation? More than a few possibilities whispered through her mind. Secret dealings with Lace, with Damme. What did you set up? What did you leave for me to find?

Today, she had thought she’d know what she would face. More and more, she was realizing that what was in store for her by making this move was far different. Carnation hadn’t only prepared things for Rosemary.

Stars… Tears trickled down her cheeks as she stared at the door as it closed, her vision blurring.

It took Rosewater several minutes to compose herself, giving Collar time to reflect on what he actually knew about his mother’s dealing with Carnation, which wasn’t much. She’d played that fact very close to her breast for most of his life.

There was one clue, however, that made him certain that it was shared with another pony. Rosemary didn’t seem shocked or surprised at all, and only rested against Rosewater while she stared at the door, then down at the floor, her shoulders tight, her back tensing as she fought off the feelings he could see twitching her ears and her tail.

The silence in the room gave him a chance to think about what was coming, and what he had agreed to at least consider. Letting Cloudy not only be alone with Rosewater, something he’d already gambled her freedom on once, was a risk… wasn’t it?

A glance at Cloudy said it wasn’t. She looked as though she wanted to go to the mare and lean against her other side, even before she knew much more than Collar himself did.

It’s their way to be more open with their feelings for one another.

“Have…” Collar whispered, then reconsidered his words, his ear ticking as Rosewater took a breath.

“I’ve been fascinated by her for a few weeks,” Cloudy murmured back. “What she says is one thing. What she does says something else entirely. It’s important to pay attention more to actions than words. Words make rumors and gossip. Actions can be hidden behind words.”

She’s saved me twice from her own mother. Collar swallowed and glanced at Cloudy. “When will you go?”

“I don’t know.” Cloudy nodded to Rosewater as she straightened. “I want to talk to her alone, Collar. Before she leaves today.”

“In the meantime,” he said softly, then more loudly, “Lady Rosewater, Rosemary. If you please, I would like to discuss the terms and conditions of Rosemary’s confinement.”

Rosewater stiffened, then nodded and leaned lightly against Rosemary. “We’ll talk later, Rosemary, but he’s right. Business is important right now.”

“I… I agree, mother.” Rosemary took a deep breath. “Collar has been more than fair. I never expected to be housed in a suite, nor to have ponies that are kind to me and talk to me. He has also been kind enough to let Cloudy talk to me whenever she wants, even knowing that I love her, and she loves me.”

Rosewater’s brows ratcheted up as she fixed Collar with a look. “You surprise me, but perhaps…” her expression softened. “What would it cost to keep that state of affairs? In either bits or favors.”

He wanted to tell her to leave off the notion of romance, but Cloudy’s presence and her thoughtful look, and her admission that Rosewater intrigued her as a potential partner…

“That’s not something I’m prepared to take away for so long as you deal with us honestly and forthrightly, even if both must be in private negotiations.” Collar lifted his chin at her. “As for our public negotiations, I would ask that you make an effort to appear as nonthreatening as possible, and make every concession to appearing contrite for your known crimes, even if we can’t arrest you for them at this time.”

“That is incredibly fair,” Rosewater replied, nodding. “I accept and will take your word for it.” Her ear ticked faintly before she dipped her head.

“But you won’t arrest her, will you?” Rosemary asked, placing herself between Collar and Rosewater.

“That’s not for me to say,” Collar said after a moment. It wasn’t something he could do now, with her on a treaty-bonded mission, but it was something that would ease some tensions on the home-front while simultaneously building tensions in Merrie.

“Merriedamme has always been our goal.” His mother, reminding him of their purpose. He needed to think of their two cities as one. It was closer to true than it had been in decades, centuries, with trade between the cities at an all-time high, and while it was as hard to erase the cultural divide as it was to fill in the river, their citizenry was hard at work bridging it.

“I… won’t,” he said at last, closing his eyes. Cloudy relaxed next to him. “I know you’ve been pressured to do things, Rosewater, and I would ask that you not give in to that pressure anymore.”

“I have nothing left in Merrie for Roseate to pressure me over.”

“Mother,” Rosemary chided softly. “You can’t be alone.”

Something in Rosewater’s eyes flickered, and she bowed her head after a moment. “Some of my friends have been asking me the same.” She let out a breath and flattened her ears to her mane. “I still… I need to protect them, still. Even more so if I and Rosemary are out of her reach.”

“Mother, please,” Rosemary hissed.

“Not now,” Rosewater murmured. “I’ll abide, Collar. She has no leverage on me right now.”

Right now. Collar sighed. He would have to accept that… for now. “Very well. So long as you maintain neutrality, we’ll have no reason to suspend negotiations, and no reason to move Rosemary from her current holding place.”

“Then remains the one sticking point,” Collar said, hating that he had to cover it, and having already heard her reasoning through Cloudy. He needed it to be a part of the discussion, however, and he needed it to be clear between them what had happened last night. “By the account Cloudy was able to provide, Roseate was all but captured when you freed her. Why?”

Rosewater flinched, and Rosemary shot a shocked look at her mother before settling down. “Because it may have caused her abdication early. Or it may have drained Merrie’s coffers from the burden placed on her, and sent her citizens to suffer from the burdensome herdgild she would have negotiated on her own behalf.” She shook her head slowly. “Neither was an outcome I would have welcomed, and accepting any less than either on your part would have thrown your own political situation into turmoil.”

“That’s an explanation, not a reason,” Collar replied. “I can’t deny it’s an accurate explanation, but it’s not the why.”

“It is the why. Make no mistake, my lord, my goal is not to marry you for the sake of marrying you, nor to have a foal for the sake of having a foal. Despite anything I would have wanted for my child, my firstborn must, of necessity, be a political pawn in this game.” The words were said with the grave seriousness of a tomb, her bearing steady and her eyes locked on his. “This war ends with our generation, Collar. I’ll not accept any other outcome. I will love any child I have with the same intensity and devotion of any mother, but the choice to have a child is not mine alone.”

She paused to take a breath, her smile coming through again. “But at the same time… I will marry for love, and I will have a pony my child can call father. I tried time and again to form closer bonds with Merriers, but none of them are available anymore to court me, or me them. Roseate made sure of that. You, my lord, I laid my hopes upon because you can stand up to her, have stood up to her.”

“With your help twice,” Collar said after a moment with a sigh.

“Once with my help. Once on your own. Do you think she will try again knowing you can stand up so readily against her?”

“I’m not going to use that spell again,” Collar said with a shake of his head. “Unless it’s the direst of circumstances.”

“If Roseate goes after you, it will be the direst circumstance,” Rosewater said softly, her eyes steady, but a faint tremor in her jaw betraying the tension underneath. “I won’t let her win, Collar, and I won’t let her take anypony else from me.”

“If I can help it, she’s not going to get me or Cloudy,” Collar said. “And she won’t be able to reach Rosemary, either.”

More tension flowed out of her, and the tremor got worse as she relaxed her hold on everything she was holding in. “That, then, my lord, is my reason why. To ensure that when she is captured, I am in a position to inherit instead of any of my sisters.”

“Or when she’s exiled by Princess Celestia’s order,” Collar said, raising the note. “We’ll be filing an official objection with the Treaty Office and, depending on the timetables, we may need to make additional requests. Increasing security measures against your mother’s incursions have cost us time and bits we would have put towards preparing for the Gala and the harvest.”

Rosewater swallowed and nodded. “I-I understand, my lord. Then…”

“We don’t know yet. We’re still getting tallies from Dammehollow about their expected yields and how much we’ll need to front for the city’s granaries and carting costs.” Collar shook his head, smiling a touch wryly at discussing such mundanities from a pony four weeks ago he would have considered one of his worst enemies. “At any rate, that’s neither here nor there except to say that this…” he waved the letter from Roseate again. “Will not be tolerated.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Now… since you are acting as Rosemary’s mother in this, albeit covertly as far as the outside world is concerned, there are some questions we must go over to satisfy treaty requirements for the negotiation.” Collar nodded to the walls. “The rest of this meeting will be private, but it will be recorded to word for record keeping.”

Book 1, 28. Family Troubles, Part 1

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The rest of the meeting, for Rosemary, was a boredom of listening to question and response from Rosewater and Collar, and even Cloudy had fallen by the wayside as the two heirs dickered over details for the coming negotiation.

Although Collar hadn’t said ‘yes’ to courtship, and definitely not the yes that Rosemary’s heart had hoped for, they had called Lace back in and both she and Rosewater had left to have a meeting together while Collar and Cloudy commiserated on guard schedules, tossing about names that sounded halfway familiar, and some names being struck down or passed on.

When she’d asked what they were talking about, she’d been informed that it was her guard roster. To give her kindly ponies to talk with on a regular basis.

None of the names were familiar enough for her to give any meaningful input on, so she opened the book Rosewater had sent with Cloudy.

Rosewater’s elegant, if cramped, hoof made barely a mark on the first page, only giving the title, “Principles of Free Love, by Rosethorn the Wise.” A small footnote declared, “Translation note: During his lifetime, Rosethorn constantly beat back against ‘The Wise’ for himself, and throughout his journal that eventually became the Principes that we abide by, he refers to himself as simply Rosethorn where he refers to himself by name at all.”

So very specific… But also informative. Rosethorn had been a humble pony, Rosewater always said, humbled by the age he lived in and the ponies in his life.

She settled in on the couch, one ear cocked to the discussion of ponies and names, and pretended to read. If this ‘negotiation’ took as long as it had taken Rosewater to decide to court Collar and Cloudy, she would have plenty of time to read it in its entirety, and likely finish the translation. And make copies.

Somewhere along the way, she’d closed her eyes while staring at the page and had laid her head on it.

When she opened her eyes again, the book was closed and on the table, and both Cloudy and Collar were gone from the room. But she wasn’t alone. Rosewater was sitting on the floor at the base of the couch she’d fallen asleep on.

“Sorry,” Rosemary said softly. “Stars, I’m tired.”

“It’s fine, Rosemary. From what Lace told me, you had a long night of worrying.” Rosewater bent to kiss her cheek. “I just wanted to say goodbye before I went back home. Lace and I finished our first negotiation, and we came up with a schedule for when I’ll be visiting. Once a week, more often if we need to cut a negotiation short for any reason, but we have terms that we’re presenting to the Treaty Office tomorrow. After that…”

Rosemary blinked owlishly at her. “You’re actually negotiating for my release?”

“Stars, no.” Rosewater laughed. “That’s for public consumption. But Lace and I agreed that we needed to put on a show. The real negotiation is… courtship. If we—” Rosewater coughed and winked at her. “—come to terms, then you are released as soon as, erm, the terms are finalized. If not… you’re released to Damme. As a free citizen. If you wish. I’d suggest you stay, Rosemary. It won’t be safe for you in Merrie.”

“And not safe for you either!” Rosemary shot back.

“I know.” Rosewater’s eyes fell to the letter resting at her hooves. “I’ll seek asylum and fight her the only way left to me and try to make a life here, perhaps I would even find a home and happiness.”

“You won’t…”

“I won’t fall back into my old ways, Rosemary. I can’t. Carnation would have beat my head in years ago, I’m sure.” Her smile came and went quickly, just a twitch of her lips. “I expect you to do that for her, now.”

Rosemary raised a hoof as if to do just that, and tapped her on the nose instead. “No. But I will be disappointed in you.”

“Stay thy arrow, oh merciless maiden!” Rosewater gasped, then grinned and stood. It was odd to see Rosewater tease her, even if it was melodramatic. “It’s been good for me to be open today. I feel… lighter. Regardless of what happens with the negotiation, I think I will be… happier. At the least. Be a good mare, Rosemary, and don’t get into trouble.”

“And brush my teeth and scrub behind my ears…” Rosemary rolled her eyes and rose, pulling her mother in closer with a spell. “Be safe, mother.”

“I will.”

And with that, Rosewater left her, knocking on the door to admit Captain Pink, who gave Rosemary a stern, but not hateful, look and turned about without another word, escorting Rosewater away.

Lace came to get her a few minutes later and guided her to a lower level office with the sign of Damme etched into the door and painted with metallic hues.

“Have a seat, Rosemary,” Lace said as she stepped around the desk. “Cushions or chair, only make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you, Lady Lace,” Rosemary said, curtsying before Lace closed the wards on the room and sealed the door. “Did negotiations go well?”

“When I first met Carnation,” Lace said, pulling free two glasses and a flask of some orange liquor she didn’t recognize from a shelf of bottles of various shades and shapes, “I saw at once that she wasn’t a typical infiltrator. Even under Roseline’s rule, we still had them on occasion, but much rarer than the thrice-weekly incidents of today. She admitted being caught immediately, and said the reason she’d even approached me was because I looked ‘interesting’ and wanted to meet me.”

Lace poured a glass for herself, sniffed it, and passed it to Rosemary. “Tell me what you think.”

The sharp alcoholic smell was there, but too were… roses. Faint, but there. A hint of a strain that might have been carnation rose hips fermented but not distilled more than necessary to get the particulates out. It was still unfamiliar, but it wasn’t what she’d expected. The rest of it was a brandy made from a white grape wine and aged in a fired oak barrel.

“This isn’t a brandy I recognize,” Rosemary said, and took a sip. The essence of Rose burst on her tongue, spreading like wildfire. There, the scent was much more noticeable, and she gasped.

“It packs a punch,” Rosemary gasped.

“It does. Just like Carnation. This was a gift from her, given to me to celebrate Collar’s birth. From Rosewine Vineyards. It’s the last of six bottles that she gave me. I’ve been meaning to ask the Garden if they have any more in stock… clandestinely of course. I asked your mother to inquire for me, at a later date.”

“That was… the negotiation?” Rosemary asked, incredulous.

“Well, yes. We had to agree on something that would be a ‘negotiation’ type thing to do,” Lace said with a smile and a wink. She corked the bottle and set it back in its place, turning the label away from the room. By itself it looked like any old bottle of brandy, but now that she knew the smell, she could tell it had a presence in the room.

“You shared a drink with her?”

“Of course. Your mother is a fascinating mare.” Lace stared at the glass Rosemary still held in her spell, and closed her eyes briefly. “In return for refilling my stock, she asked for several concessions to be granted to you, to make your stay here more palatable and less like a prison sentence.”

Rosemary sat up straighter and took another small sip of brandy.

“The first that I granted,” Lace went on, “is that you are to be allowed access to the public gardens while escorted by a guard. This privilege is not unlimited, however, and is restricted to daylight hours and one hour a day. It’s equivalent to the yard time inmates at Prim Prison receive. This stipend of one hour will increase to two after two weeks, and three after a month. Pending good behavior of course.”

“Of course,” Rosemary agreed quickly. Anything to not be stuck in that room all day for months? Stars, if Rosewater went her usual plodding way, she might be stuck in there until well past her twenty-first.

“Further, once a week, and then twice and three times following the same schedule, albeit only with Collar or myself escorting you, you may visit my private gardens to talk with us at your leisure, or simply enjoy the work I’ve put into them. Or help me. It’s getting close to winter, and my garden needs to be made ready.” Lace raised a brow with a small smile. “I understand you’re good with plants. You can call that a ‘work detail’ if you really want to.”

Rosemary swallowed, mouth dry. “Th-that is generous of you, my lady. Housing me here is a generosity, but I hadn’t expected your private gardens on top it.” Rosemary swallowed and glanced around the office. It was where Prim Lace worked, and it showed. It wasn’t messy, but the detritus of work was everywhere. Pictures of ancestors hung on walls, all wearing some form of Lace’s collar as their symbol of office.

“Relax, child.” Lace’s smile was the same kind of motherly she’d seen from both Carnation and Rosewater. “This is a safe space, and nopony is going to judge you.”

“I… love plants. I’d consider it an honor to help you turn down your garden for the winter. It’s beyond generous.”

“By no means is it generous, Rosemary. Were I generous, and a fool, I’d let you free to wander the city with only a guard to keep you free of trouble.” Lace clucked her tongue. “Nay, it’s this mess with your status, and your mother’s ploy against hers. I can’t say that she will succeed. There are ever so many more ways for Roseate to be nasty without breaking the treaty.”

“I’m aware.”

Rosie Night and her family, the impending birth of their foal, all her friends, Cloudy’s family, Rosewater, and her childhood friends in the Garden of Love. They would all be targets for Roseate’s ire, or could be if Roseate thought to expand her net of anguish to push her mother to… do things.

Rosemary took a shaky sip of brandy, the warming liquid calming her fears somewhat. “Life was… not normal. But it was a normal for the past six years after we both settled into a new routine without Carnation. I’m used to things changing, my lady.”

“Lace, please, Rosemary. When we are here, I am Lace.” She smiled at the glass and dipped her ears. “Your mothers taught you fairly in courtly manners, despite what I hear about you being something of a free spirit.”

“I am a noblemare,” Rosemary said, catching herself just about to say Lace’s title, and awkwardly tacked on, “Lace. I do enjoy the life of a common pony most days, I do also recognize that I must one day act for my station.”

She sipped at her brandy again, warming her throat and her stomach with the fine liquor. It was a strong vintage, she found, and very well appointed in taste. She kept finding subtle undertones to each scent component in the tasting. She took another sip and held it in her mouth longer before swallowing.

“Perhaps…” Rosemary set the glass down and felt at her cheeks. Flushed already, and she didn’t feel like it had been as strong as it obviously was. “Perhaps that’s enough.”

“You’ve had a tiring day and a trying week. Please, drink the glass of brandy… or share.” Lace grinned and winked, but made no move for the glass. “The second thing is the friends your mother and Cloudy asked for, I think you may have heard Collar and Rosewater talking about finding companionship for you of a social sort. Stride, you already know.”

Rosewater hesitated, then dipped her ears. “I’m not sure it’d be right to ask for any of the ponies I met during my excursions. I feel…” Like I used them. Tricked them. Betrayed the trust they put in me. It was the cost of dealing with Roseate.

“It would be voluntary, my dear,” Lace said softly. “It won’t hurt to ask, and may even give you a chance to make it up with them by being a friend to them. Many of them have had their perceptions of Roses changed by talking with you, and I haven’t been ignorant of the effect you’ve had on them.”

“For the better?”

Lace chuckled and nodded, her eyes twinkling. “It was what gave me the hope that you were indeed Carnation’s daughter. At the time, I didn’t know whether or not your other mother was a product of her father and Carnation.”

That smile gave her the courage to name them. “Platinum, Starshine, Periwinkle.”

“Mmm. The first… I think would be open. The other two are on night shift still, and it would be rather difficult to move them without comment.” Lace wrote the names down nonetheless.

“I understand you grew on her somewhat during your open jaunts. Prim Coat has already volunteered as well, and Prim Poppy. Cloudy and Collar will also take hour turns with you, and she has asked, and been granted, night privileges with you.” Lace raised a brow at her. “Should you accept.”

Is this a test? “If it wouldn’t be against the rules, I… I have missed being with her. Talking to her. It was never just about the sex, my lady.”

Lace studied her for a long moment before nodding. “Cloudy is the same. I have watched her for some time since she took an interest in my son, and my husband has… softened my views on Merrie culture. I have long since stopped viewing the Merrie common pony culture as ‘obsessed with sex’ and see it as… complicated. Just like our culture, obsessed with monogamy, is not only about not having sex.”

“I… never thought that, my lady.”

“Noted. I’ll have you know that I was going to reprimand her, but given how Rosewater said things turned out, that corroborated her story, I think leniency is in order. She’s confined to palace duty for the duration of her ‘punishment’ for breaking my orders.” Lace smiled thinly again and patted a paper. “If there is anypony else you’ve charmed from my guard, young lady, let me know.”

Rosemary swallowed but, given the tone of the past conversation with Lace, she decided to take a risk. “And if there are? You have fascinating ponies in your Dammeguard, Lace. Quite a few, actually.”

She’d been right, and her reward for being bold was a smile and twinkle of the older mare’s eyes. “Well, if there are then I will see to them joining the rotation.”

Another sip of brandy soothed away the nerves caused by taking a risk, and brought to mind a cheerful face, a worried smile, and a delightful evening, night and morning talking, loving, and sleeping with a fresh-blues Dammeguard. She’d been the reason her interest stayed on Damme for so long.

It might be a risk, but Lace had yet to corner her with a trick. “There was one other Dammeguard I met. A while ago. Just after I turned eighteen, I met her on the bridge before these became too dark to hide in my coat.” She touched her heart mark. “I would have been a Rose unicorn to her. No names, just dinner and a night and morning. She was a pegasus, sunny blonde coat and a sky blue and white streaked mane. I think she had a sun rising above a blue feather.”

“I know her. She’s one of our reservist weather wardens. Primfeather Sunrise, Stride’s sister. Fascinating that both of them should be drawn to you the way Collar tells me Stride has been. Would you like me to have Cloudy drop a hint? I believe they were, briefly, involved.”

For a moment, the name threw her. Primfeather. Stride was a Primfeather, but seemed so far divorced from their hard-line philosophy of ‘Anything Rose is bad, and anything Rosethorn is worse.’ Sunrise had been a delight and a sweetheart, worried and anxious and just into her Dammeguard blue as a private. She had to have known she was a Rose, and possibly even a Rosethorn despite the way her darker pink coat had tended to mask her marks earlier in life.

“Please. We had… we had a good time together, but she had to run off after we had breakfast in bed.” It had been an odd request for a Dammer innkeeper to take, but since Sunrise had made the order, nopony had questioned it. “She paid for me to stay an extra night, just so she could go without comment on who her bedmate had been.”

I wonder if she got away from that without incident… I hope so. Swallowing her worries, Rosemary coughed, and asked, “Did I cause her any trouble?”

“I would have to ask Collar or Stride, but I do seem to recall a nasty rumor that I asked Pink to stamp out about a mare in the Guard who’d been wooed by a Rosethorn. Or corrupted by one.” Lace bowed her head, a frown on her lips, and her brows lowering. “I… worry about some of my guard that did cross. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Prim Prism, Primrazzle Dazzle, and Primrock Tremor.”

“They’re at the garden,” Rosemary said without hesitation. “I… don’t know them very well. Rosewater asked me to limit my time at the garden to bring less trouble to Budding and her ponies.”

“Trouble?”

“By Roseate,” Rosemary said with a sigh.

Lace chewed her lip for a moment, her eyes going to the door. “Carnation did a lot more than impress herself on Rosewater, didn’t she? Her morals are there, too. For good or ill. Carnation never wanted anything to splash back on anypony else, either. She and Rosewater…”

“They were good parents,” Rosemary said, more forcefully than she’d meant to.

“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way. That kind of moral compass is good to have—in moderation. Rosewater takes it to an extreme. I’ll have to talk to her about that.”

Once again, Lace proved herself more than flexible in mindset. Not even two days ago, Rosewater and Rosemary had been enemy combatants as far as her city was concerned.

“Dear, if I had known, if I had more than an inkling of what your mothers had to go through, I would have done more and damn the opposition. Do what you can to push her to be more open, too, if you would. I feel like it coming from you would be more impactful than coming from an old busybody like me.”

“I’ll do my best.” Rosemary took a final sip from her glass and set it back down. Lace didn’t move to refill it, but pushed a glass of water at her. “If I may ask a question of my own, what do you think of Rosewater’s proposal for your son?”

“Hopeful curiosity. We will see how things play out, but I am grateful beyond belief that Carnation didn’t raise Rosewater after Roseate’s pattern. I had feared that for a time. Psychopathy can be hereditary. We need look no farther than our own histories to know that for true.” Lace’s magic flared, highlighting a few portraits on the walls around her. “All descended from the same line. Vicious ponies before the treaty. Instigators of many eye-for-an-eye attacks and vengeances before Princess Celestia imposed her peace on our… disagreement.”

Two were pegasi, and two unicorns, and one earth pony. A diverse family line.

“Our history has as many,” Rosemary murmured, looking around the portraits. Many more were not highlighted, and had noble bearings in their paintings. Defenders or attackers, they were history, honored by their contemporaries or not. “Rosewater is not one of them. Nor was Carnation.”

Lace bowed her head. “Our twin cities have more history than most between them. I think only Canterlot has more conflict in its past than our little piece of the north.”

Conversation faltered, and the drink’s work on her tired mind proceeded apace. Lunch was too far in the past for it to do anything against the alcohol’s progression of draining her energy.

“You have a place in our city if things do not go well with your mother’s plan. So does she, with provisions, and I hope she does not follow Carnation into exile. She’s… I wish I could rescind an exile order. But once the deed is done, and she accepted asylum from Princess Celestia, I can’t override that. But I understand why she accepted the asylum. Being exiled into the wilds for a noble can be a sentence of slavery and…” Lace shook her head and shuddered.

“It’s not unwise,” Rosemary closed her eyes against the pang of loss again. “But I don’t think I could live like that. Having Carnation taken out of my life was the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Watching Rosewater descend into a kind of ‘sensible madness’ afterwards was another. I didn’t know what to do but love her as much as I could, and make her life as happy and joyous as I could.”

“If you succeed, if Rosewater succeeds in her plan, then that exile doesn’t need to be forever,” Lace said gently, raising Rosemary’s chin with a warm spell. “Collar told me of his promise to you. Mother’s Kiss, I believe was the name of the perfume. I will allow this one scent magic to be used within my palace. It was made with love, for the purpose of love.” For a long moment, a wistful, hopeful look crossed the matron’s face, then passed.

“I… can share, my lady. Rosewater makes a potent perfume, and the dosage for a memory is quite small. If you wish to remember your parents?”

“Alas,” Lace replied, smiling sadly, “I’ve come to terms with their loss long since. I’ve no wish to reawaken that heartache. My father, as much of a bastard as he was, still loved me, and my mother… dear stars. But no. No.” She let out a sharp breath and shook her head. “Maybe once this is all over, my dear. They are with the stars now, in their rest. I will let them rest until it’s nearer my time to meet them.”

It was a beautiful expression of love.

And Rosemary yawned explosively a few seconds into contemplating what it meant.

Horror rammed through her with the icy spike of ‘By the stars, that was disrespectful.’ “M-my lady,” Rosemary said around another yawn forcing its way up. “I’m tired. Not… bored.” Her cheeks felt aflame at her break of decorum and show of disrespect.

“My dear, today has been an ordeal for you. I’m surprised you’ve found any time to rest. Truly rest. It may not be much, but I’m scheduled to debrief you for another hour. We can schedule the rest for later. In the meantime, please nap. I have to think on what you’ve told me without another appointment intruding on my ruminations.”

Lace nudged her to a couch along one wall, a couch that smelled like a stallion more than anything. Dapper Air, Lace’s husband, a sincerely emotive stallion. A Merrier sixty years an expatriate. Or something like that. Maybe forty?

The thought about Dapper and his history dogged Rosemary down into a light sleep while Lace sat back in her chair and pored over a letter, her lip caught between her teeth as she read and wrote on another sheet of paper.

Book 1, 29. Family Troubles, Part 2

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The walk back through Damme was far less eventful with Captain Pink at her side than it had been with Firelight Spark, but the tension seemed higher than it had been before. Guards stood ready on corners or froze in place when she turned a corner with the captain at her side on the way back to the Primrose.

At first, she was content to let the captain remain stoic and silent, but that wore on her after a few minutes of having her wave down the hopeful looks ponies gave her, and the disappointed scowls they left in their wake.

“I realize I have a less than stellar reputation in Damme,” Rosewater said, causing Captain Pink to snort, “but it is my hope that with time and effort, I will turn that around.”

The captain didn’t dignify that with a reply immediately, except to snort again.

After the lunch hour, the streets were busier with the common pony making their way about the city. The looks the common pony gave her, tinged with fear and loathing, struck hard to her heart still vulnerable from tearing away its armor. She looked away from them all, her ears ticking back farther at each new blow, each new look.

“You’re different,” Pink said after a while. “You still look exhausted, but you don’t look as frightened.”

“I’m not. I feel better about the future.” Rosewater took a deep breath and shook her head slowly. “I have to thank…” She glanced at the captain to see if there was any knowledge of why Rosewater was there, why she’d chosen then to make a move.

“I’m aware of this morning’s events,” Pink said quietly, her ears flicking to indicate she knew they might be listened to. “I take it the intervention shook you?”

“It did,” Rosewater said. “She was—” she almost said it, almost called her my daughter’s lover. That little tidbit would reach Roseate’s ears faster than if she’d sent a letter if she spoke it aloud. The reminder from Lace that she couldn’t keep it secret for long dogged at her as well. “She’s… I can see why Rosemary likes her so much.”

Something in her tone must have given away some of the undercurrent “Rosemary,” Pink said with a grunt, bobbing her head. “So she can touch even that cold heart of yours.”

Rosewater gritted her teeth, but kept back the angry retort.

“Huh.” Pink stopped at an intersection as a large train of carts passed ahead of them. “So, I know you can’t talk about what went on during the negotiations, but something happened to you.”

“You wouldn’t trust anything I told you,” Rosewater said, lifting her head to look over the carts to the other side. “Should I bother trying?”

“You could start by telling me about you and Rosemary. A cousin doesn’t—”

“Guardian,” Rosewater broke in calmly. “I’m her guardian, captain, and I’ve raised her alone since she was fourteen.”

“Fair enough, but I do have a few cousins of my own, a fair few.” Pink eyed her sidelong for several blocks, eyes twitching between her and the road ahead. For her part, Rosewater was content to let her and take in the rest of the city in daylight as she’d rarely been able to do.

“Her mother asked me to look after her.” Rosewater smiled a thin, bitter smile at the memory of Carnation giving her the envelope, telling her what was inside, and what she expected might happen, what Rosewater had steadfastly refused to believe would happen. “I’m all she has left of the sane family after Roseate exiled Carnation.”

Pink blinked rapidly for a few paces, then turned an eye on her. “I knew her, briefly, at a Gala, when she set Rosemary on me and went to dance with Dapper. When she was six or so.”

A memory trickled back, of Rosewater at sixteen attending the same Gala, a requirement, and… and struggling with her notion of motherhood, not yet confessed to Carnation about her feelings, but on the cusp, and resenting being at the gala because she had to be near her birth mother for part of it.

She remembered, too, a glimpse of Rosemary on another pony’s back and the feeling of anxiety came back briefly, then faded. That night… stars. She’d still been trying to find her place in an adult world, and Roseate had coerced her into staying close the entire night.

What else did you keep from us, Carnation?

Firelight Spark was waiting for her when Captain Pink escorted her to the Primrose Bridge and snapped a salute at the knight commander.

“Returned unharmed and unmolested, sir.”

“Thank you, captain. She and I have some discussions to undertake… and a missive from the Rose palace.” Firelight returned the salute in the Canterlotian style and turned back to Rosewater as Captain Pink marshalled the small group of guards that had followed them at a distance, either out of duty or apprehension.

It was tiring to see the distrust and hate in their eyes as they turned away. Most likely, they’d not heard how things had gone down last night other than that she had been there. Added atop the bone-weary ache settling into her entire being, it was enough to make her want to lay down and just have a cry.

“From my mother?” Rosewater asked instead, resisting the urge to sit or rub at her temples with either spell or hoof.

“Aye. I’ve not opened it yet, as it was addressed to both of us.” Firelight pushed open the door to the office and waved her inside. “After you, my lady.”

Inside, a few ponies looked up from desks where they sat reviewing ledgers and documents, a scattering of Dammers here and there having conversations that came to a halt at the sight of Rosewater, then resumed when they saw who she was with. While the office wasn’t a business center, it was where ponies registered their trades and paid their treaty fees for trading with other cities outside of the Merrie-Damme borders.

Thus, most of the ponies there were traders or representatives of traders, and not as perturbed by her as the citizenry were.

Some of them, she might have even contracted to ship her perfumes to Canterlot and elsewhere.

Firelight’s office was to the back, and the familiar warding settings in the corners of the room were already glowing with the gold of an active spell, blocking out the sound of conversation behind her as soon as she crossed the threshold.

“Privacy here?” Rosewater asked, testing the spell with her own and receiving a gentle feedback pushing her probing back.

“One of the boons granted us by Celestia. The gems are permanently enchanted to keep this room silent when a pony with the emblem of a knight is in residence.” Firelight settled in behind his desk and proffered a letter to her, gilt edges highlighting the crimson envelope. “It arrived just after you crossed the bridge, I’m told, delivered by your youngest sister.”

“I see.” It was a short letter, written in Roseate’s precise, sharp hoof.

Formal Notice from the Rose Palace
Given your actions last night, both in aid of and against my attempts to bring this war to a conclusion and bring the treaty to its final resolution, I am left with no choice but to inform you that any further interference with the efforts towards this aim will result in exile, immediate and unconditionally.
As I have delivered this via the Treaty Office, this is also formal notice under terms of treaty that I will brook no further interference from my daughter and will consider any action she takes that is contradictory to my will to be an illegal and treasonous act.
Roseate Rosethorn
Baroness of Merrie

“I wonder,” Rosewater said as she passed the letter to Firelight to read, “whether she wrote this before I crossed or after, and whether we should expect another courier shortly informing me that I am to be exiled immediately.”

Firelight looked up at her briefly, then set the letter down on the desk and flattened it. “There are two misapprehensions she’s operating under. First, that she has unilateral right to exile anypony she wishes. She has some, which is how she exiled her sister and all we could do was watch. You, however, are protected to some extent.”

“I know. It’s why I was in the library of the Merrie office day after day for a week, making sure I knew which lines I could and couldn’t cross.” Rosewater shook her head and stood up. “I need to return home and rest. I’m exhausted.”

“If I could borrow you for at most a half hour,” Firelight said as he held aloft the emblem of his office, “I want to bring you with me to discuss certain realities with Roseate. It would be in all of our best interests if she were made aware, if she is not already, of the pitfalls she is walking into.”

“If it will mean I get a little peace, at least while I recover, then by all means.” She pushed open the door and gestured for Firelight to lead the way. “It would look best if you lead me, rather than the other way around, so it doesn’t look like I instigated.”

“Tattled, you mean,” Firelight said with a snort, but followed after her.

It was still hard to approach the Rose Palace and all it meant, but with a Royal Guard in front of her to remind her why she was there even through the tired ache between her eyes, it was easier to push the old foalhood memories back.

Even the good memories were hard to bear when she was this tired.

She passed through the meticulously kept gardens and past the ivy rose covered plinths supporting nothing more than an image of the old Equestria, before the fall, and its archaic and grandiose architecture.

The columns were supposedly older than the city itself, but had been repaired and rebuilt at least once in the past five hundred years.

“It reminds me of Canterlot sometimes,” Firelight said, catching Rosewater staring up at the crown of one, atop which stood a pegasus in Merrieguard pink and crimson, watching their entrance with a detached expression. “The columns especially. Celestia is fond of things that remind her of the world left behind, and the world our ancestors tried to recreate.”

“I’d heard something of the sort,” Rosewater said, drawing her attention back to the path. Nopony would dare accost her with Firelight leading her. She needn’t worry about confrontation from the non-nobility that haunted the grounds. “I hope one day to see Canterlot for myself.”

“‘Twould be familiar to you, I think, at least temperature-wise,” Firelight said with a small laugh. “Atop a mountain is a harsh place during winter, but Princess Celestia has made it work.”

Their idle chatter, Rosewater idly pulling bits of information about Canterlot from an amenable Firelight, continued on into the palace itself, where Rosewater began guiding, as he admitted he’d be lost trying to navigate the labyrinthine corridors.

It was for that reason alone that she ran, quite literally, into Rosetail as they rounded a corner, Silk and Vine further down the hall stopping to watch.

“You—!” Rosetail hissed, bounding backwards and lashing her braided tail. “You traitor!”

Rosewater flicked her own tail in a signal for Firelight to stop and shook her head. “I’m no traitor, Rosetail. I was protecting my own interests. I laid claim to Collar as is my prerogative as a prospective future mate, and she is trying, once again, to take him.”

“She has never—” Rosetail snapped her jaw shut and flicked a look back at Silk and Vine, then puffed herself up and advanced half a step towards Rosewater. “She has never tried to take somepony you laid claim to in the Rose Way.”

“This one,” Rosewater said softly, flattening her ears and keeping the disgust out of her voice, “can’t be claimed ‘our way.’ You didn’t see what he was able to stand against from mother, Rosary, Powder, and Well together. I have to play his game, not mine.”

“Because you’re weak,” Rosetail sneered. “Mother is stronger, smarter, and she’s more responsible for the safety of Merrie than you ever were. Why else did you run away?”

It was the oldest, sharpest weapon in her mothers’ arsenal. If you’re so strong, why didn’t you stay? When she’d looked into Vine’s eyes, into Silk’s, it’d bitten hard at her that she hadn’t stayed. Maybe she could have made a positive influence. Maybe she could have rescued her sisters from her mother’s madness and cruelty.

“I’m not going to discuss this with you today, Rosetail. I’m here on an errand.”

Firelight took that as his cue to step around the corner, brows raised, and dipped his head. “Good afternoon, Miss Rosetail,” he said, the emblem of the sun prominent on his breast, and radiating here in the darker hallway in a way it hadn’t in the bright light of the sun; a potent reminder of who his mistress was. “Lady Rosewater is correct. We are on an errand, and would thank you not to hold us up longer.”

Rosetail quailed, her ears flattening, and backed away, glancing back towards her sisters, who’d taken their cue to advance and bracket their youngest sibling between them.

“Be kind, Rosewater. She’s been forbidden the palace by mother just this afternoon because she ‘failed’ last night, according to Roseate, and failed again to catch you before you’d made your way to the Prim Palace.” Silk’s voice was rougher than usual, her ears haggard, and Vine’s foreleg was trembling as she raised it to comfort Rosetail. “She’s going to stay with us until this gets sorted out.”

“I’m sorry for what I had to do to you, Silk, Vine,” Rosewater said, lowering her head. “If I’d had more time, I would have been gentler.”

Silk stared at her for a heartbeat, then nodded, and Vine a second behind. “I understand and accept your reasoning. It’s been the talk of the market this morning, you know.”

The only surprising part of that was that Silk had already been to the market.

“And Crown? She’s recovered?”

“After cursing my name to the Mare and back for her migraine this morning, yes,” Silk said with a small smile. “Come, Rosetail, and fair day to you, Lord Knight Firelight.”

Rosetail left without much more than a hesitant glance back and a gentle nudge to the back of the head from Vine.

“Your family is…” Firelight gave a look back over his shoulder as they resumed.

“Our family is broken, Firelight. It has been since my father died.” The shiv of memories jabbed at her mind again, and she fended it off only by biting the inside of her lip and shaking her head. “For me, at least. It’s hard to see past that event.”

“Blue Star was beloved in Canterlot,” Firelight offered gently. “It was a surprise to the entire Knighthood when he announced his intentions to stay in Merrie after his tour and resigned his position.”

“I… am to understand a part of that is due to his illness already starting to wear at his ability to fulfill his duties,” Rosewater said, recalling some tidbit from Carnation.

“Aye. True enough. I was just a squire when he died, but I recall my seniors and Princess Celestia herself attending the funeral. The capital was empty save for us squires and a few junior knights.” Firelight smiled softly. “I’m told the oratory given at the gala that year was memorable.”

“I’m… I’m sure it was.” Rosewater had been six, and the pain of loss and pain of betrayal had been too… she bit the inside of her cheek again and shook her head more sharply. “I’d rather focus on the now. I hope you can understand it’s not a time of my life I want to linger on.”

“Of course. My apologies for opening old wounds.”

Roseate’s door was closed, of course, and the guard stationed outside stiffened in the presence of the Royal Guard, their eyes darting from him to each other and back, their holds on their long cudgels braced against their shoulders with one hoof quivering.

“Royal Guard Firelight Spark to see the Baroness,” Firelight announced as he stopped in front of Roseate’s office door, looking at either guard pointedly, only for them to look away and swallow. “With Rosewater Rosethorn in attendance.”

“Please, enter,” Roseate’s calm voice said as her periwinkle magic enveloped the handles of the double doors and swung them wide. “I was expecting you, daughter, but not with such distinguished company.”

“My company shouldn’t have been necessary,” Firelight said with a stern look as he came inside, ignoring the bench-seat she pushed out for him. “Your daughter Rosetail relayed the message to me when I asked. Would you care to explain?”

“Which message? I gave her several, depending on the context of the situation she arrived in.” Roseate leaned to the side to peer theatrically around Rosewater. “Where is your sister, Rosewater?”

“Hiding. Is it any wonder? I doubt she saw me return from the treaty office. I came back from my errand only this past quarter hour.” Rosewater glanced over her back as the silencing wards in the room lit up, but Firelight seemed unperturbed. It made her wonder just how strong the Royal Guard, or at least Firelight, actually was if he was so calm here. “I can’t imagine what you said to her over last night’s fiasco, or what you must have said to her when she failed to catch me.”

“Rosewater,” Roseate said genially, “what have you engaged in, my daughter?”

“I’ve offered to engage Damme directly as Rosemary’s guardian to negotiate for her return, mother,” Rosewater said, smiling and bowing her head. “They accepted. The negotiation is no longer being handled by Merrie or her sitting Baroness.”

Roseate stiffened, but a glance at Firelight told Rosewater all she needed to know about how her mother felt about her chances against him.

“To that end, I am informing you that I have filed the necessary documents with the Treaty Office to be recognized as the official negotiator.”

“Do you have the paperwork?” Roseate demanded, glancing at the Royal Guard again. “For the records. I need to make sure that any bureaucratic endeavors are cancelled.”

“I have it here,” Firelight said, drawing out not the scrollwork… but the red envelope.

As soon as she saw it, Roseate froze in place, going unnaturally still as if the force animating a statue had ceased for all of a frozen breath.

“Ah. I seem to have forgotten it… but this brings me to another concern,” Firelight said in the same genial tone. “Threats of exile against your heir in order to keep her from a Treaty-bonded negotiation are punishable by sanction not only against the city, but against your house and family. In fact, I’ve already sent a recommendation to Her Highness, Princess Celestia that we review any and all exile orders to ensure the sanctity of the process.”

“I would never—”

“What you would or would not do is not at question. What you have done is. Threatening, intimidating, or otherwise interfering with the delegates of a Treaty negotiation for the return of a prisoner of war is illegal.” Firelight slapped the letter on the desk. “The only reason I have not recommended sanctions to Her Highness is that you could not have known prior to the penning of this letter. This is your one and only warning.”

Roseate’s cheek twitched. “I see.” The fury in those eyes, hot and malignant, should have set the letter on fire. Her jaw worked for words that she couldn’t say to a representative of the highest power in Equestria, legal or magical.

“Is there anything else you wish to bring up?” Firelight asked.

“Nay. Only that in the interest of familial unity, Celestia look favorably upon my… unconditional means of negotiation. Merrie has paid enough in reparations and herdgild of late. This responsibility is mine, as her guardian.”

"Then I will include that in my report as well. Thank you, Roseate, for your time. I hope I don’t have to meet you like this again.”

“Mother,” Rosewater said, rising with him. “I’ll be retiring to my home. It has been a tiring two days.”

Roseate sat quietly behind her desk, staring between them, her cheek twitching and the tendons in her neck standing out as her jaw clenched tight over the verbal abuse that waited just below the surface.

On her way out, she saw Silk and Vine conversing quietly off to one side of the garden path, Rosetail nowhere in sight.

She was young, and had a lot of anger in her. And doubts. It hurt to see her youngest sister strung along so neatly behind her mother, but there wasn’t much she could do that Silk and Vine couldn’t also.

Take care of her, please.

“We don’t have a duty to look after her.”

Silk Rose looked up from her book to her sister. Dear, sweet Rose Vine. She was pacing back and forth in their sitting room, tail lashing with every turn, hoofsteps muffled on the carpet. She was kind, and beautiful, and thoughtful. Most of the time. And even now, as agitated as she was, she inspected their home for dirt and smudges and anything not clean, and cleaned it as she passed.

Her golden mane streaked with pink was tied back roughly into a bun at the base of her skull, stray strands slipping free further with every turn and toss of her head, her pink eyes darting to Silk and away, the unasked question about calling upon one of their lovers to share passing between them and falling away again. Neither of them had the stomach for sex.

It’s just us tonight. After dealing with Roseate blowing up following Rosetail’s fleeing, there wasn’t much room for desire. Just worry. Vine was taking it worse, conflicted over wanting to protect the youngest of them and staying out of mother’s warpath.

“We don’t,” Silk said at last, closing her book over a bookmark. “But it’s the right thing to do. Rosewater gave her fair warning.”

“And we don’t owe her—” Vine stopped and turned to look at her. “We do, don’t we?”

“For letting us go? Yes. A little. For letting us rescue Crown and Hip?” Silk snorted. “I used to think she hated all of us.”

Vine resumed her pacing, snapping her tail. “Mother wants us to think she does.”

“Rosewater hasn’t exactly helped things,” Silk reminded her. “She remembers a time before Lace started her reformations. And doesn’t she just love to regale us with stories about how the vile Dammers would love to take us over and, for us…” She touched Vine’s cheek with a spell, drawing her sister away from her worry for a moment to come to her. “We wouldn’t have each other, would we?”

“Mother lies,” Vine whispered, pushing her cheek into the touch as it warmed. “She lied about Rosewater. And Rosemary.”

“Not about everything,” Silk murmured as she rose and nuzzled Vine’s cheek. “The Primfeathers still bombard us with every storm they can get away with.”

Vine nodded into the touch, her breathing slowing as she calmed. “Where do you think she’ll be?”

“Somewhere mother won’t think to find her. But someplace she can drown her sorrows.” Silk drew away before the old desire could rise again. She and Vine had never partaken of each other directly, but she’d seen the look Vine had given her while they were with their lovers. There was no shortage of temptation on either side.

“I can think of one place where we’re not exactly welcome either,” Vine said, drawing away but meeting her eyes. The spark between them grew and faded in an instant of acknowledgment. “Rosy Glow Tavern.”

“I don’t think she’s ever banned us from the tavern. She just doesn’t like us,” Silk said as she turned and pulled down a cloak from its hook. “Best to go incognito anyway.”

Vine nodded quietly and drew hers down as well. Anypony who knew them well would recognize the matching garments, but most would only know them as daughters of Roseate and leave them alone.

Veiled, Silk watched from across the road and through a window as Rosetail sat quite in the open her head lolling from time to time in between drinks of wine. Their youngest sister, who Silk still remembered as having once been as sweet as Rosemary, had been crying. Her reddened eyes could have been from drink, but the crusty tracks down her cheeks could only be tears.

“She doesn’t look good,” Vine murmured, her pink eyes shining as she watched from their table at the Rusty Rose. It was a competitor to Rosy Glow’s, but open air and winding down its business as the last afternoon vestiges of summer warmth marched steadily south. It was more geared towards tourists anyway, and a few Canterlot accents filled the air, as did more distant Los Pegasan, and even the strange, not quite grown up burr of Cloudsdale, still not quite the dream it had started out as.

Tables were set haphazardly, but spaced so that native Merriers and tourists alike could talk or maintain an aloof air if they wished. The Rosy Glow was an exclusive Merrier establishment, and ran year-round. Its tables spaced closely, with short partitions between the bench seats so that Merriers could talk and chat and share life and love with each other without reservation.

“I’m surprised she didn’t pick this place,” Silk whispered back. “Much easier to stay alone.” As evidenced by the ponies that steadfastly ignored the veiled mares in their midst. Not that the Merriers in the Rosy Glow tried to make conversation with Rosetail. She was unveiled, openly displaying her Rosethorn heritage in a tavern not quite hostile to them. But maybe that’s what Rosetail wanted, to sink into a depression surrounded by ponies that hated her.

“We do need to watch over her,” Vine said, seeming to follow Silk’s reasoning. “Remember how she used to be?”

Years and years ago, when she and Vine had been little more than fillies, just growing out of foalhood, Rosetail had been Roseline’s favorite granddaughter aside from Rosewater herself. Even from her dotage months, Roseline had kept her hoof in family affairs until her death, when Rosetail had only barely turned one.

“We…” Had only been fillies, still overawed by Roseate. Silk shook her head. “I think there’s still that filly in her somewhere. Look at her, Vine. Tell me she’s not in there somewhere.”

“You know I can’t,” Vine said with a heavy sigh. “We should go rescue her.”

“She won’t appreciate us coming in and taking her away from her comfort,” Silk said, but couldn’t find it in herself to say no. Just one look from Roseate had done this to Rosetail. They couldn’t let Roseate find her in this state. “But…”

Vine slipped from her chair and left some bits on the table. “I’m going to go to her.”

Before Vine reached the ‘entrance’ of the Rusty Rose, Silk followed after, leaving a few more bits on the table to cover the time they’d spent not ordering anything and annoying Rose Rust, the tavernkeep. “Do we have a plan?”

Vine snorted, not quite a laugh. “Plan? I haven’t planned anything since… you know. I’m going to do what’s right, Silk.”

The street was bustling with late-afternoon traffic, ponies trying to get business done before the official close of the business day, the cacophony of calls and cries a music that Silk enjoyed to dive into on occasion. Vine liked to watch from the sidelines of the trade and bartering bustle that filled the market streets.

Today, she dove through it. Or along the edges. The shops and bazaars on either side of the tavern row tended to spill out into the street at this hour, but still let ponies get to the entrances of the edge bars and taverns.

“I’m with you,” Silk murmured as she caught up.

Rosy Glow’s walls were enspelled to keep out the worst of the bustle, and it was like walking from a waterfall into the cave behind it as the door closed behind them and they dropped their veils to announce themselves.

Rosy Glass looked up from chatting with some patrons and glowered. “One of you is enough. Find someplace else to drink yourselves stupid.”

“We’re here to make that none of us, Rosy Glass,” Silk said with a huff.

“Peace,” Vine said, quick stepping to stand between Silk and Glass. “Please, we’re here to retrieve our sister.”

That gave the tavernkeep at least pause. “Rose Vine, right? Rosewater has said nice things about you.”

Silk gaped at Glass. “Rosewater?”

“It’s you lot that painted her as the Rose Terror, you know.” Glass glowered at Silk again, ears going flat. “Those of us that knew her before… not that what we think means a hill of beans, it seems like.” She shrugged and slid from the bench she shared with a stallion trying hard not to pay attention to the confrontation. “Haven’t seen her in here for years, though. Because of you lot. Does family mean nothing to you?”

Silk looked away. How little she knew about her sister wasn’t something that got thrown in her face often. “She abandoned us,” she offered weakly.

Glass opened her mouth, ears flat, and closed it again. Tendons tightened in her neck as she clenched her jaw and relaxed again. “Get her out of here. I’ll send a bill for her last few bottles.”

Vine edged up to Rosetail, her eyes bleary and bloodshot, unfocused on anything. “Tail, honey?”

Silk stayed back, shifting her gaze between Vine and Glass, wanting to help, but not wanting to give Glass any reason to change her mind and physically throw them all out. The stout earth pony could give them a real fight that Silk didn’t want.

“You…” Rosetail whimpered and pushed a hoof at Vine. “Go ‘way.”

“Shh, shh. We’re here to take you someplace safe, little Tail,” Vine whispered. “Come with us, okay?” She settled a warming spell on Rosetail’s neck and under her cheek. “Come on, little mare.”

Glass shifted her attention from Silk to Vine and softened her look. “She’s been crying for her mommy,” she said with a touch of gruff derision. “Don’t mean that as an insult, that’s what she’s been sayin’.”

Roseate’s poisoned lies. Silk’s ears drooped as she came closer to Vine and covered Rosetail with a blanketing spell and. “Can you walk?”

“At her weight, I’m surprised she’s still conscious,” Glass said with a snort.

“And you kept filling her glass?” Silk growled the question, fixing the tavernkeep with a glare. “Why?”

“Pity, mostly,” Glass said with a thin smile. “Haul her out, will you?” She turned away, dismissing them.

Rosetail managed to walk part of the way to their home before Vine and Silk had to carry her between them. She hadn’t passed out exactly, but had lost what little coordination had let her stumble along, braced between Silk and Vine.

Neither of them wanted to risk getting vomited on by carrying her on a rolling ride on their back, but they had still managed to hoist her with magic between them, keeping her head steady until they got home.

“How is she?” Silk asked from the entrance to the toilet, peeking her head in minutely and testing the air. Vomit fumes with the undercurrent of wine filled the small, boxy room.

“Sleeping, I think,” Vine said, stroking Rosetail’s brow with a warm cloth. “She got most of it out of her system, but she’s going to be in a bad way tomorrow.”

That was a blessing. They could stay in and nurse her instead of being expected to be at the palace. “Do you think she might be safe to sleep in the guest bed?”

“Even if she’s not, we can clean the sheets, love.” Vine looked up, her ears flat. “I had no idea Rosewater thought kindly of me.”

“Nor I,” Silk said, frowning. “Or that she shared it with others. What else don’t we know about her?”

“It’d be easier to list what we do know.” Vine shook her head and pushed herself up, wobbling until Silk caught her. “Thanks. That last bit was exhausting.”

“I know. Let’s get her into bed, then we can talk and plan.” She met her sister’s eyes, finding the worry mirrored in her mind there. “We need a plan, Vine. There’s too much going on here for us to muddle our way through.”

“I know.”

Interludes 1. Life in Bits and Pieces

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Firelight Spark stepped into the golden circle in the most secure room in the Damme Treaty Office and sealed the door behind him. The fact that he had instant access to Princess Celestia’s word was a carefully kept secret, even from the other ponies in the Royal Guard, and it was his duty as a Knight of the Sun to keep the princess’s secrets.

He closed his eyes and focused on the amulet at his breast, and the store of Celestia’s power in the yellow diamond hidden in its center. Rarer than black diamond, it was said to have been formed at her ascension to immortality, a fragment of pure magic crystallized.

“Your highness,” he said softly, sending the magic out to sink into the circle.

“Sir Spark,” Princess Celestia’s voice said gently, her image appearing to him. She lay comfortably somewhere, her form etched in sunlight, gleaming and beautiful, more so than when he’d seen her in person and accepted this assignment so many of his fellow knights considered a backwater station. “I was surprised to receive your request for a commune. I take it there’s been a change in the status quo?”

“Yes, your highness. Roseate treads on thin, rotten ice.”

“Has she crossed a line?”

“Not yet. She knows which lines you have set, your highness, and she edges her hoof against them, but she has not crossed yet.” Briefly he related the contents of the missive sent to Prim Palace, and the attempted balking of a guardian’s rights. “Rosewater has pushed past the lines her mother has drawn, and Primline Lace has yet to file a formal complaint.”

“Remind Roseate who set the treaty in place, Firelight,” Celestia said in a soft, dangerous voice. “And remind her that there is no greater sanctity than that of a family, even if it is one given by law instead of by blood.”

“You wish for me to intervene, your highness?”

Celestia cocked her head slightly, sighed, and clucked her tongue. “Thank you for reminding me of the limitations I set forth. Only intervene as far as Rosewater’s rights to her daughter are concerned. Has she kept it a secret still? Or has she actually claimed her?”

“Secret, but she’s gone to Primline Lace to treat with her directly.”

“I wish that mare would be open…” Princess Celestia shook her head, her ears dipping. “But she is moving, and I suppose I can’t blame her for wanting to be cautious. As she should be.”

“Will you let her be exiled?”

Celestia hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. “If she clearly breaks the laws of her city, and not the arbitrary rules that Roseate puts in place, I will have little choice if I wish for the rule of law to be abided. But I will not tolerate Roseate putting restrictions on what she can and can’t do within the law.”

“And Roseate attempting to capture Lord Collar for the Herdgild?”

“As it’s within the law…” Celestia said with a sigh, shaking her head. “At the time, it was a way to keep them from killing each other and still getting to ‘fight.’ Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to end the war and force them.”

Firelight said nothing. There was nothing he could say. That the war had gone on for centuries was bad enough, but the continuation of the blood feud between the leading houses of each city was well-studied historically, and had been his chosen course of study as a squire. It was a part of why he’d been chosen for this mission.

“Very well. Please continue to monitor the situation, Sir Spark. And one other thing. Your diplomatic bags will be all but empty on the next ship. Make a discreet offer to send a letter to me that I can forward to Carnation when she next visits the office.” Celestia’s smile bloomed into genuine warmth. “As a reward for finally pulling her head out of the sand.”

Spark bowed slightly. “Of course, your highness.” It was technically against the treaty’s regulations to do so, but who was going to tell Princess Celestia she couldn’t push a little on the side. “Will she be able to receive a letter back in reply?”

“Unfortunately not. The time it would take for a messenger to travel to you without drawing attention would be too great before the saner ship captains decide to stop northward service from the Los Pegasus docks, and I’ll not risk sending a pegasus courier north to bend the law.”

“Understood, your highness. I’ll make that plain.”

“Thank you. Please stay safe for the upcoming winter, and please don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything I should be made aware of.”

The sunlight illusion of Princess Celestia faded away into the purple dusk of the setting sun.

Firelight Spark remained seated where he was, thinking for several minutes before he rose to continue the day.

The next few weeks would promise to be interesting, at the very least, and he needed to make sure his staff was read up on the laws of both Merrie and Damme before they got too interesting.

“I already paid the treaty tax in Damme,” the trader said, rolling his eyes and glancing back at his cart hauler. “I’m just here to sell flower pots.”

Roselight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Flower pots are still a luxury good, as common as they are in Merrie. If you paid in Damme, you should have a receipt we’ll need the bottom half of.” She eyed the loaves of bread and pastries decorating the top of the pots. She couldn’t embargo his cargo unless she had sufficiently just cause, but that was more than a lunch’s worth. “And the food?”

“Lunch.”

As she’d expected. It wasn’t the first time a pony had tried the switcheroo on either side of the bridge, hoping to avoid taxes on something else and trusting in the animosity between cities to prevent cross-checking. “Ahuh.” She shot a look at her bridge partner for the day and rolled her eyes openly.

“But I paid!”

Roselight took a deep breath and glanced at her partner for the day and flicked an ear at him. “Stay here, Corporal. I’ll go check with the Dammeguard. Your name?” she asked of the merchant.

“Prim Potter.”

“Alright. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

“Rutting Merrieguard,” the merchant muttered under his breath, low enough that Roselight could pretend not to have heard.

She sighed as soon as she was out of earshot and trotted along the sparse line of traffic crossing the Rosewine toward the Dammeguard checkpoint on the other side.

The autumn flow of the Merrie river was low that week, and the rushing gurgle against the pilings down below was a pleasant counterpoint to the murmur of indistinct chatter from the business flowing in both directions over the second-busiest bridge in either city, and the day was bright and just the right temperature for being in armor and on her hooves all day.

At least she had a quiet night with her current lovers at the Garden later to relax and unwind in the baths.

It cost a few bits extra to use the Garden baths than it did to use the public baths in Merrie, but the amenities were above and beyond those anywhere besides the palace baths. It was a pleasant daydream to use as a shield against the likely answer and the inevitable response from the merchant.

“Sergeant Roselight,” the Dammeguard sergeant said as she approached. “One of those days? This is the fourth time I’ve seen you since this morning.”

“Seems like it, Sergeant Platinum,” she said, keeping the careful formality between the Merrie and Dammeguard. “Prim Potter claims he paid on this side. Flower pots.”

“Flower pots.” Platinum snorted and turned to the ledger book. “Don’t you have enough of those?”

“You’d think. Most of the clay deposits are over here anyway.” Roselight winked at the cute stallion inspecting a cart’s undercarriage. “Corporal Shine, good to see you again.”

He flushed pink, but didn’t stop inspecting, though one of his ears ticked furiously.

“Don’t tease the dear,” Platinum called from the guardhouse.

“You couldn’t possibly have heard me.”

“No, but I know you.” Platinum emerged again with the ledger, edging closer than she needed to. “Prim Potter, you said?”

“Yep. Would have been a few minutes ago.” Roselight flicked a look at Platinum as she went through it, then went back to watching the stallion as he waved them on without a receipt. “Lot of food going back and forth between Merrie and Damme lately.”

“Mmm.” Platinum’s ears ticked back. “You should come over more often. Shine’s been talking about you more often.”

“Has he now?” Roselight’s ears perked up, but she didn’t look to the corporal.

“Mmhm. Got a bit of a crush, I think.” Platinum smiled faintly.

“Like you had on Rosemary?” Roselight purred, glancing aside at Shine finally.

“That was…” Platinum coughed. “Here he is. Prim Potter. Claimed to be selling food.”

“Well, he did have some loaves of bread in those pots.” Roselight winked at her counterpart. “I’ll let you off the hook if you let me borrow your corporal to go over the load.”

Platinum shook her head slightly. “If he agrees, sure. But I can’t order him to go.”

“Fine, fine.” Roselight clucked her tongue. “But I hate to see a pony suffer from a crush. It’d be better if he got to know me.”

Platinum’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t give Roselight any indication why. “Corporal, have a volunteer assignment for you. I think we’ve got a bait-and-switcher. Maybe something more.”

“Ma’am?” Shine looked up from his questioning of another bridge-goer, a civilian with no cart and only a look of earnest curiosity in his eyes. Probably a ship-pony, from the look of him, Roselight decided.

“Roselight needs a little insight on what he told you, so…” Platinum shrugged. “Next patrol is due by soon, so I’ll ask for a couple replacements to pick up the slack.”

“Um.” Shine looked at her again, his ears perking and showing his interest plainly before that Dammer hesitancy kicked in and he forced them back down again. “If it’s necessary, yes ma’am. I’d rather not have the Treaty office ding us for improper taxation.”

That was good enough for her. If she could get one more Dammer to open up…

“Busy day,” Shine said, his voice hitching as he laughed nervously.

But not a boring one. Roselight smiled more broadly. “Yep.”

There weren’t many ponies that liked working with raw soaps. The ingredients for them were too caustic for most Merriers to handle without seriously damaging their sense of smell. Lye, for example, was caustic and smelled horrible, not to mention dangerous to work with, especially for an earth pony.

Roseling was an expert, and she’d learned early on that her special talent helped her to work with lye safely, and turn it into the soaps and shampoos that she made, turning down the astringent smell while still keeping the cleaning power.

Not all of what she made were lye-based, but a good enough number of them were that she had to move her small manufactory outside of Merrie proper, and closer to the source of the wood ash she used as her primary source.

It was a quiet haven for her to work, and the smell of leaching wood ash meant none of the ponies that had tried to harass her over the past year tended to follow her, lest they lose their sense of smell for a week or more.

Even after you stopped seeing me, they kept coming, Rosewater, so what good did it do either of us?

Roseling sighed through her mask and poked the sludge bubbling slowly in the cauldron with the skein. She would need to skim this batch soon, once the ash settled to the bottom and the lye rose to the lipped rim and the stopper she’d placed to guide it into a catch basin.

It was something Rosewater would have been fascinated by, how Roseling made her soaps. She had been endlessly fascinated even after their naked chase through the woods to make love in a clearing by the different techniques Roseling employed to get the highest quality, least caustic lye possible.

That one night still resonated with her even a year later, and the thought of a potential lover who’d been so fascinated by her art being lost…

She tossed her head and brought her attention back to the process, touching the tip of her hoof against the black iron and pouring forth her intent and her magic into the bubbling contents.

When she channeled the magic through her hooves, the heat couldn’t reach her, but she never wore shoes while out here. It was too hard to keep the metal cool so it wouldn’t hurt after she stopped pouring her magic in.

When she was done reducing the stink of alkaline to something she could manage without a mask, once all of what could reasonably be leached from the mix of hardwood and a little bit of softer wood ash, her secret ingredient, she levered the stop out of the way and let the liquid fall into the heavy iron pail she’d use to dry it out into a crusty powder before adding the olive oil she used for the fatty base for this particular soap.

It was one of her more popular scents in Damme, and while she still had most of her business in Merrie, even her regulars were getting antsy about the way Roseate seemed to have it in for her, and her regular couriers were too scared to cross the river and risk getting their own businesses targeted.

At least the Garden was doing something about it. Sort of. Rose Petal was trying to quietly organize the other merchants and craft-guilds of Merrie to take a stand against the war and the way it was hurting business and trade, the lifeblood of any city.

She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to accept the invitation of the heiress of the Rosewine Vineyard and get herself into a deeper mess if it all came to naught.

Once the lye sludge had cooled enough for her to attach to her saddle carry harness, she locked up her storage shack and made her way back to Merrie proper, keeping her mask on both as a warning to other ponies about the stench and to keep the milder alkali stench from burning her nose.

Ponies who knew her gave her a wide berth as she made her way through the streets, and those that didn’t did so as soon as they got upwind of her. Some day, if she managed to get the permit approved and the bits built up, and maybe a partner who loved soapmaking as much as she did, she’d move her soapery out of town so she could avoid the grumbles and glowers.

The latter were a result of Roseate’s campaign of whispers against her.

“Wouldn’t it smell better if her shop went away? The neighborhood wouldn’t smell like lye all the time.”

Except the neighborhood never smelled like lye. She made sure that all of the stinky parts of the process of making soap happened outside the city, but ponies were reminded of it every time she came back with a fresh batch and the brief foray through the neighborhood and back to her shop and the well-ventilated work area.

It was her friends that kept her sane and assured her that nopony who mattered minded, and they even helped out sometimes when she made soap, taking suggestions from lovers who’d stuck with her through thick and thin, who’d known her most of her life.

Waiting at her door was a newer friend, pacing back and forth in front of the cart he used to carry her goods across the bridges to her newest customers.

“Rosetide,” Roseling said, smiling as she removed her mask. “You know my next batch isn’t ready for delivery yet.”

The stallion stopped pacing and the smile that bloomed was bright, his ears dipping as he bowed slightly. “And yet… I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you around the shop. Gran’s resting comfortably, but I get tired cooped up in the house, so…”

“Well…” Roseling winked. “Sure. If you don’t mind lye.”

“Use it onboard ship now and again,” Rosetide said with an eloquent roll of one shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me much.”

A lie, but a polite one. Those faint Rosethorn marks weren’t for nothing, and she could tell he was already having trouble, his eyes watering as he blinked rapidly.

“I promise this is not normal,” Rosetide said through a wheeze as he covered his nose.

“Sure.” Roseling rolled her eyes and fished out the key, let herself in, then held the door open. “But maybe you can help me pick out something to surprise my customers in Damme. You go there more than any of my other couriers.”

Rosetide immediately straightened and brightened, his pink and gold eyes sparkling. “It would be a delight.”

“Come in, Sergeant Platinum.”

Pushing back the tension building in her heart, Sergeant Prim Platinum pushed open the door into Captain Pink’s office in the barracks and saluted with hoof to peytral. “Ma’m, thank you for seeing me, ma’am.”

“Of course, Sergeant.” Captain Pink folded her hooves on her desk and leaned forward. “I try to make time for anypony who needs it. Your message to me was very clearly a case of need.”

“I… don’t know about that.” Platinum still stood at parade rest, hooves resting comfortably in a pose she could maintain for hours and had. It belied the tension in her shoulders and the tightness in her jaw. “Permission to speak freely.”

“As I suspect I know what this is about, granted,” the captain said, sitting back and taking off her circlet of rank. “It gets tight sometimes. Just have a seat, Platinum, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

That hadn’t been how she’d expected to ask what she needed to ask. Platinum took a breath and sidled up to the seat, grimaced, and settled into it.

“I… have a concern.” For yourself or for her? Platinum cleared her throat and looked to the captain for some sign that she would bail her out.

No such luck.

“It’s… Rosemary, ma’am.”

“I see.”

Platinum grimaced and flattened her ears to her mane. “I wanted to know what you thought of her.”

Captain Pink flicked an ear. “I think she’s an exceptionally talented young mare when it comes to her pursuits of things not related to the war.” She settled in more heavily and glanced at the pile of reports on her desk. “But I think I know what’s bothering you. That young mare befriended you, yes? When she should have been sneaking around doing war-things, she was dancing in parks and flirting with the guards that should, by all rights, hate her.”

“Should I have hated her? Captured her right away?” Platinum asked, glancing down at her hooves and not sure what answer she wanted to hear.

“Platinum.” Some tone in Pink’s voice made her look up again. “When I had that talk with you about prejudices and what we do with them, what we can choose to do with them, I wasn’t setting you up for failure. I was setting you up to see the ponies on the other side of the bridge as more than the marks on their cheeks and breast. As ponies, individuals as complex as you and Shine are.”

Platinum's cheeks heated as she nodded. Roselight wasn’t a bad sort of mare. She only had a touch of the Rosethorn bloodline, but there weren’t many in Merrie that didn't have at least a drop of it somewhere in their past.

“I think Roselight is a nice pony,” she said, feeling defensive.

“From all appearances, she is, and she’s taken Shine as much under hoof as it seems you have.” Pink shook her head slightly. “But this isn’t about Roselight, but Rosemary. Should you have captured her?”

Platinum frowned and started to nod, then half shook her head before shrugging. “I don’t know. Not based on what I knew about her at the time, I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s the right answer.” Pink touched her circlet. “When Lady Lace promoted me to captain, one of the things she said she expected of me was to be understanding of our fellows in Merrie, not to jump to conclusions until the investigation finished, and above all, to think.” She pushed the circlet halfway across the desk. “If you were in my place, what would you have done?”

“After the first few days of her playing around on the bridges… I think I might have offered to ask Lord Collar or Lady Lace to give her an escort during the day.” Platinum’s cheeks flushed as an errant hope that it might have been her assigned to the duty. Half from shame, half from desire, she looked away before Pink could see the hurt in her eyes. “After she got arrested, mostly what I’ve been thinking about is if she used me.”

“And that confusion is why I moved you to day shift so suddenly. She took a special interest in you, Platinum, and it’s completely understandable why you feel that way. But… I think you need to talk to her, learn her side of the story.”

“Ma’am?” Platinum snapped a look back at the captain.

“I can’t have my Dammeguard erring too hard on either side of the law, sergeant.” Pink settled the circlet back between her ears, the gemstones glowing faintly then fading as it settled itself into place firmly. “I’m going to cut you some orders to split your time between bridge duty opposite Roselight, with Shine, and time guarding our prisoner in the Prim Palace.”

“Ma’am?” More confusion, and a growing sense of dread filled her. How could she look Rosemary in the eye and not wonder if she’d betrayed her trust? She didn’t want to see confirmation of Rosemary’s duplicity and let her confusion turn into dislike or even hate. It might taint her working relationship with Roselight. It might lead to…

“Talking to her is voluntary, but I expect she’ll want to, once she smells you outside her door.” Pink clucked her tongue and drew out a parchment. “Your lieutenant will have your orders by the end of day.”

“And…”

“And I think there’s little else you can talk to me about. Your questions are all for Rosemary, and all I would make you do is wonder if I was right or not and question my thoughts and evaluation of her.” Captain Pink bobbed her head once towards the door. “You know where my office is if you have any concerns after talking to her.”

At least you have a reason to see her. Whether that revealed Platinum’s fears or vindicated her hopes…

Stars, I hate this war.

Glory basked in the warmth of Poppy’s lovemaking, the slow-fading pleasure as his cock still stirred inside her, the last little spurts of his come adding just a touch more feeling to the full sensation of his flared head as he settled onto her back more heavily, his lips on her neck ardent and his breath shuddering.

“Love you,” Poppy whispered as he gave one last desultory thrust, determined to give Glory one more shuddering orgasm.

“Love you,” Glory whispered back. While they had Collar’s assurance that their room had been fitted with the silence wards, Glory hadn’t gone behind her mother’s back for nigh on twenty years without being cautious. Even her lovemaking was nearly silent, and the only sign that they had used the room would be the lingering scent of their sweat and passion. “Stars, Poppy…”

Minutes passed as they cleaned up quietly, sharing kisses and nuzzling as the sunlight finally fled from the curtained windows.

“I’ve been thinking,” Glory said finally as she deposited the final towelette into the basket for him to take care of after she was escorted back to the prison by Cloudy.

“About?” He asked, pulling back to look her in the eyes.

“A lot, but… Poppy, have you given some thought to our future?”

His cheeks flushed, but he nodded. “Marriage?”

“Farther along. Or shorter. Foals, Poppy. Ours.” Glory nuzzled his cheek again at his shocked expression. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

Poppy hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “It’s been on my mind, too, but…” He laid back down and stroked her barrel lightly. “You’ve told me about your lovers in Merrie. What do Dancing and Pride have to say? What would they say?”

“That it’s my choice. They’re not my bonded partners, Poppy, and all they know about you is that I have a close acquaintance in Damme.” Glory kissed his nose and sidled closer. “They might be a bit put off, but considering our situation… Poppy, if I’m a parent, even an expectant one, I can divorce myself of the war, of the family, and start my own.”

“And your lovers?”

Glory winced and sighed, settling more heavily into bed. “Stars, I love them, too, but I can’t go to them. I can’t ask you to go, either. It would put all of you in danger.”

Poppy kissed her nose. “We’ll find a way to keep them safe.”

“And you.” Glory leaned back and looked him in the eye. “She’s not going to let you stay out of the conflict if she thinks I’ve betrayed her to stay with you.” It was her greatest fear in keeping her relationship with Poppy secret. Even the risks they’d taken making love in her cell had kept her ready to weave illusion over him in an instant. Now, at least, she could find her comfort with him in the luxury of the palace on occasion, safe from prying eyes. “She’ll take you like she tried to take Cloudy.”

“You’ve taught me a lot about resisting—”

“I am a terrible scent mage, Poppy. My talent is the weaving of light and mist into illusion and invisibility.” Glory shook her head. “What I can teach you is nothing to what even a pony like Rosemary could teach you, or Rosewater if—”

“I won’t let her get near me with scents.”

“She’s not as dangerous… well, I mean, she is… but she has morals, Poppy. Don’t look at her like she’s a monster.” Glory prodded his chest with a gentle hoof. “I know her better than anypony but Rosemary. You have nothing to fear from her. Try to engage her on her next visit, and you’ll see.”

“She’s got a schedule that the guard has posted in the barracks. I didn’t think she’d be able to get that so quickly,” Poppy admitted.

“I wish I could say that she makes moves decisively, but…” Glory shook her head.

“She seems to have always moved that way to us, you know.”

“Only because all you know of her is the rumor and gossip. I know her as a kind and thoughtful mare pushed to do things she regrets to protect what she considers most important to her.” Glory pushed his chest lightly. “She loves Rosemary more than anything else, and has kept her aunt’s request to keep her safe. That’s her guiding focus, or it has been since Carnation left.”

Poppy was silent for several moments, rubbing her ankle lightly with his nose, then crossing horns with her and resting his forehead against hers. “I trust you. I’ll try to talk to her next time I see her. But… I’ve heard a lot about her father lately. She’s half Canterlotian?”

“Blue Star. Former Lord Knight of the Knights of the Radiant Dawn. He stepped down to be a father here in Merrie after finishing his tour with the diplomatic corps.” Glory nodded. “I’ve read as much on him as I could, but most of his history would be in Canterlot. I’ve never been, but I’ve always wanted to.”

“When it’s over,” Poppy murmured, kissing her nose. “I’d love to see it, too, and take you to all the libraries.”

“Pft. Way to make Crown jealous of me,” Glory said with a smirk. “She’d be steaming when I got back if I left her out.”

“She’s… also?”

“A trapped pony. Like Rosewater and I,” Glory confirmed. “Most of us…” It would have been a dream to be free of the war, to live her life and maybe pursue a hobby of helping playwrights make their performances pop just a little more. Scenery, especially. She loved painting with illusion, and a small stage would be just the right size. “Most of us wouldn’t even be raiders, had we the choice. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take us seriously, because we will fight for what little pieces of happiness we can find.”

“I’ve found that makes ponies more dangerous. Not less.”

“Indeed.”

“What are we going to do if it works?”

Dapper looked up from his comfortable pillow to where Lace was studying the slow wilt of the flowers in her garden. Daylight was coming less and less, and this time of year was a naturally melancholic time for her. Both of her parents had passed on in the autumn, and while Collar had been born then, too, the colors of autumn and what they meant weighed on her more and more as the twilight of their years together was drawing close.

“Help them.”

Lace gave him a look, smiled, and nodded. “We will. I’m more worried about after.”

“Wing can’t do much if you put your hoof down, you know.”

“But my ponies can.” It was the relief valve of the Damme constitution and charter, that a majority of her ponies might petition to refute her rule and choose another way. It had only been used one time in the entire history of Damme, when the Primfeathers had been ousted and the Primline family had been chosen to be the new leaders of Damme.

The same kind of avenue for relief did not exist in Merrie. Popular uprising was the only way to oust Roseate, and even then it would be extremely tenuous about who would take the ultimate seat of power, and all the while their neighbor’s instability would be affecting Damme.

Dapper closed his eyes and nuzzled his wife’s neck. “It will be a lot of work.”

“It will be. But…” Lace shifted and leaned back against his nuzzle. “I saw Carnation in that mare today. Scared, tired, but I saw my friend’s hoof in her morals. Fiercer than Carnation could ever be, but…”

“But she’s had to be.”

“Has she? What if I’d reached out to her after Carnation’s exile?” Lace let out a breath and settled more heavily, drawing the coverlet over her more firmly. “So many what ifs.”

“Let them go. What’s happening now is all you need to worry about,” Dapper murmured. “And I feel like there’s enough that’s going to be happening that we’ll not have a lot of time to worry about what might have been.”

“Cloudy,” Lace said, the smile audile in her tone, “seems to be leading Collar towards at least trying to make nice with Rosewater. I think… I honestly think that she might already be falling for the mare.”

“Considering their interactions, I’m not surprised.” He nipped the back of his wife’s neck and nosed her mane. “She reminded me of you, from what you said of her.”

Lace was silent for a moment, then settled in deeper into bed, relaxing by inches. “Her preconceptions of Rosewater have been challenged left and right. The mare strikes me as the type to want to experience more of life than hide from it, and I can only hope that Rosewater is who she revealed herself to be.”

“I don’t think,” Dapper said, slipping a wing under the blanket to cover her side, “what you told me was a lie. In Merrie, there’s a saying that words lie and actions speak truth.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” Lace said with a huff. “Overly wordy Merrier philosophy.”

“Overly concise Prim sayings,” Dapper huffed right back, smiling into her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, my Rose.”

Dapper’s smile broadened and settled in more heavily, letting his eyes close as he thought of ways to reach out to Rosemary more clearly, how to help his son find his way through the tricky relationship he seemed headed for, whether he accepted Rosewater’s proposal or not.

The thin journal, bound with oilcloth and resting on a shelf, forgotten for sixteen long years, was covered with dust when Lace pulled it down from the high spot on its bookcase in her office.

She hadn’t looked at it, nor even thought about it often, since Carnation had ghosted it across the river to her for safekeeping. It was a precious thing, Carnation had said, and contained words that the mare growing up to be more than a daughter to her would need to hear.

From whom they were from, whether they were Carnation’s own or another’s, she didn’t know. For all she knew, it could be the collected ramblings of a younger Roseate.

She doubted the last, though. Carnation had spared no love for her eldest sister, though hate was far from her heart. The note attached to the outside was simple, written in a block-type scrawl that wouldn’t trace back to the author in any way. It was at the height of Carnation’s fears about being found out by her sister, before she’d started to relax into her role as a hidden agent of Damme.

If I’m caught, you’ll know who to give this to and when.

Hardly precise instruction, but the events of the last days had certainly been notable enough to make her think about Carnation again, and to pique the memory of the bound book. To whom was almost certainly Rosewater, but she needed to be certain of that.

The cloth draping it fell away as she unfastened the bindings, and a faded note inside slipped free and drifted, then stopped, surrounded by Lace’s magic.

The final testament of Blue Star, loving father.

Suddenly hesitant, Lace placed book and note on her desk and cracked it open to the first page.

To my dearest daughter, Rosewater Star Rosethorn.
These are words you will need to hear when you are older, when you can understand what they mean. I’m entrusting these to your aunt Carnation to pass on to you when the time is right. I have not long, but there are things every child needs to hear from their father. That I was brought up to believe needed to be said.
First, I love you. With all my being. Whatever else happened between your mother and I, I do not regret, nor would I undo any decision I made, so long as you were there to smile and laugh and tell me all about your day.

Lace closed the book and held a hoof to her lips, breath tight in her chest. She would need to be careful when she gave it to Rosewater.

At the wrong time, it might ruin her.

Stars above.

Book 2, 1. Chasing Scents, part 1

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Three days of being confined to the palace was more than close to torture for Cloudy’s sensibilities. Denied the sky, the wind, and taking off whenever she wanted, it was enough to drive a mare mad.

The consolation was that she got to spend time catching up with Rosemary. An hour here, a night there, talking. Nothing but talking. Sex was right out. Cloudy wasn’t sure if she could feel right if that was the first thing she defaulted to when she got back together with her longtime lover. Her one-time best friend she’d been forced to flee from.

But the time was well spent. She told Rosemary about her time in the Dammeguard, the friends she’d made, and the trials she’d faced as a Merrier donning the blue of House Primline, the stewards of Damme.

In turn, Rosemary told her of her life, both with Rosewater and about the town. It was during those talks that Cloudy learned more about her date than she had from the mare herself. The love behind closed doors, the care Rosewater took to at least appear to adhere to Roseate’s strictures, and pretend to be cowed.

To Cloudy, it seemed that the act of acting cowed wasn’t much different from the reality. Especially when the end result wasn’t that much different. The only thing different, in fact, that Cloudy could determine from talking to Rosemary about it, was the feeling that Rosewater stated she was only playing along until the right moment.

Not that I have a lot to say… I ran instead of facing her.

And now she was going to chase Rosewater in the old way. If Rosewater had been cowed, truly, it would be an easy chase and hopefully a wakeup for the mare that things were not right in her world. The chase was at the heart of Merrier romance since days before the founding of the two cities. A game of skill and chance and adapting, it wasn’t looked on with much favor in Damme, but there had been a few mares who’d been willing to try the game.

Sunrise had been one such, far away from prying eyes to the north where they could soar and dive and chase each other from cloud to cloud without needing to worry that she would be spotted by her family or those close to them.

Few unicorns took her up on it, and for good reason. A pegasus had a distinct advantage of mobility in a chase and if a unicorn was less than skilled at subterfuge and stealth, Cloudy could find them.

But I never saw her until she wanted me to see her, she reminded herself, smiling as she stood still, letting Collar inspect the harness she’d tied to her body. It was a Rosewing’s girdle, sewn with pockets and loops to hold all manner of a mistweaver’s tools of the trade. Tools she hadn’t needed in a year. More than a year.

“Are you sure this is all you need?” Collar asked her quietly as he tightened the cinch over her shoulder. A brace of pouches settled against her breast and shoulders, easy to reach with a turn of the head or a dip to pull free the contents. Satchels of flower petals, ready to crush between her teeth and release the scent they’d been soaked in. “It seems kind of light for… well… for facing Rosewater, even if it’s consensual.”

“For a Rosethorn, it would be,” Cloudy agreed with a kiss to his chin. “I’m a Rosewing. We’ve never relied overmuch on things. Our wings are our power. Our control over wind and weather. Mist especially. My mother, Windrose, is still one of our best mistweavers. Mist shuts down scent in most cases, but for us…” She grinned fiercely. “They’re our allies against the Rosethorns and Incensers.”

“It doesn’t seem to stop Rosewater…” He waved a hoof. “Her magic seems to thrive with mist.”

“Rosewater is a talented mare. And… yes.” Some of the Rosethorns, even some of the lesser cousins, knew tricks to get around mist. “Some scents are amplified by mist. I wouldn’t want to face any of the Rosethorns even with a night full of mist at my disposal. Silk, especially, if she managed to tie my muzzle shut with one of her tendrils.”

“And you’re sure about this?” he asked, the worry in his voice evident. He still didn’t approve of her going alone. “I could—”

“No. This is… this is how proper Roses court. The chase. It’s in our blood, Collar.“ She ruffled her wings and stretched out her hind legs. “And I trust her. Mostly. She came to us, Collar. And I saw her before.” She swallowed and turned to face him fully. “I saw her break down when she feared for your safety. She’s either in love with you for what you’ve done for Rosemary, or she feels she owes you for saving her baby girl.”

He grunted and tugged on her harness again. “I think you’re as tight as I can get it without restricting your movement. How late do you think you’ll be?”

“No idea. I’ve never tried to hunt her seriously one-on-one. And she’s never done the same to me.” Cloudy chuckled. “I’ll be okay. It’s still too soon after Firelight Sparks appeared at the Rose Palace to give them all a drubbing for them to try anything.”

“We don’t know that.” He pulled her chin up gently and kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Cloudy. You mean everything to me.”

She returned the kiss with a measured heat, nipping his lips before she parted. “I’ll be safe. I promise.”

She left, then, to stop by Rosemary’s room, but the empty guardpost outside told her that Platinum was either talking or making love. She wouldn’t begrudge Rosemary her lovers, either. Silently, she wished her love a good night, and listened only briefly to hear the sound of soft voices whispering.

Unable to tell what they were saying, Cloudy just tucked away how close Platinum seemed to Rosemary under things to be grateful for, and continued on her way.

The night air greeted her with a nip that touched her nose briefly before she flared her wings and called the warmth of the castle behind her to cup her feathers as she crouched and launched, surging upwards on the artificial thermal and racing towards the nearest cloud bank to begin her stalk.

Below her, the city was ending the day’s business and beginning the brief nighttime play that bounded the setting of the sun and the beginning of the safety curfew, when the day’s light still faintly prickled the horizon and made the night less frightening and more beautiful.

Dusky purple still limned the highest buildings on the wharf and reds and golds highlighted the clouds she was aiming for, bathing her in a late-day radiance that marked her out like a comet rising in the sky, an anonymous birdlike speck. She half-hoped that Rosewater was watching to see just how bright her emerald green primary feathers could shine.

Likely, she was watching. As soon as she landed on the cloud and rolled in the misty top, wrapping herself with the neutral smell of rain and wind, she crouched at the edge and raised her scope to study the Merrie side of the river. Rosewater’s house was easy to find, two storied, broad-fronted, and extending into the hill behind it with a red-washed roof and chimneys rising from rooms she hoped one day to explore, to see Rosemary’s childhood home.

Maybe even to lay with her on a cold winter night.

She let the dreams of a night in the future bubble under the surface, warming her as she watched the front door in between bouts of scanning the city below for signs of shadows moving where they shouldn’t.

Rosewater’s door opened abruptly, letting the mare herself out into the deepening night. She was wearing a scarf, her mane done in a light braid that showed off the fact she had no vials tucked into it, and to show off her long, graceful neck.

Every bit of her was grace and poise that night, assured in her power and strength of will. Even the arrogance of not bringing scents was a bit of her. Though that scarf might be a convenient foil for a slender harness like Cloudy’s. Or might, itself, be scented. She stepped down the stairs, her tail low and calm, her ears flicking briefly, and her lips parted in a half-smile that Cloudy could only barely make out.

Figures from the cart yard across the street stepped out of the cover of the roofing to approach her.

No! Cloudy adjusted the viewer to study them. They didn’t wear the livery of the Merrieguard, and their cutie marks were unknown to her. But their attitudes as they approached Rosewater made it clear they were going to make trouble.

And she could do nothing. All she could do was watch and hope Rosewater wouldn’t be delayed from their date.

A giddiness gripped Rosewater, wholly unlike the vengeful flutter that had visited her heart over the past week. I’m going on a date. The first in more than a year. The first date where she had no idea who would win. It might end up like Roseling, with her being chased instead of her being the huntress. It might end up with Cloudy under her or atop her. It might end with only a kiss, or it might end with more.

I don’t know. It was liberating. A not knowing that wasn’t for harm’s sake, but for pleasure’s sake. Something she didn’t need to know until it was over.

She’d spent the day in her workshop considering cosmetics and mane styles, perfumes that she could wear to accentuate her natural aromatic presence without being overpowering. The latter half of the day, she’d spent considering saddles and scarves, hats she could wear to accentuate her height or downplay it. Ankle wraps, too, she considered. Convenient places to store a folded cloth scented with some subtle fragrance to play about in the wind. Or simply to accentuate the definition of her ankles.

In the end, she’d reminded herself it was a first date, and not simply a fling. A first date was a subtler affair, gentler. She couldn’t thrust herself at Cloudy and hope the mare would accept her advances. She had to play the mare at a longer hunt.

A first date was when she had to show her best, natural side, not to flaunt herself.

I want her to see me as me.

She chose a scarf she’d carefully descented, making it a blank slate for her plan, and her route, one she’d followed with Collar not even a month ago, and tucked two tiny vials into its folds. One a peach-base edible scent, sweet and comforting, enticing to taste, the other a tart lemon to excite the senses and refresh the mind, also edible. Or lickable.

The thought sent a tingle through her that she hadn’t felt in some time.

Nothing else. Everything else, she could find in Damme. The baker’s slow-rising bread, the smoking applewood and mesquite smells of smoking fish by the docks if their chase went that way. Or the smells of the dried magnolia blossoms crunching underfoot.

Cloudy loved Damme. The best thing she could do to endear herself to her was show her how much she appreciated the natural scents of her chosen home. At the last minute, she chose, also, to braid her mane down the back of her neck to leave a tail to dance along her shoulder.

And then she was ready. It’s a date. You’ve been on dates before.

A decade ago had been her last courting date and not a chase for sex, when she’d courted a stallion to bring him into her home, her life, hoping to start a life, a family with him, and find solace in a simpler life. A life where she didn’t have to participate in a war she hated to appease a mother who only wanted to use her talents and didn’t care for her happiness.

A mother who’d scared him off after only three days. She’d not heard from him since, but Roseate couldn’t resist gloating over the stallion who’d stood her up, sounding placating, but she couldn’t have known about him unless she’d been watching her, had orchestrated the scaring off of her would-be lover, Hollyhock Rose, a distant, distant cousin of hers, linked to Rosethorn the wise only through a tenuous parent sometime in the past two hundred years who’d been in one of the off-branches.

He had been kind to her, and interested in what she’d proposed. He wasn’t a long-time friend, but those that she still had were… off limits for various reasons.

She shook her head free of the daydream and took a deep breath before undoing the wards on her door and stepping out into the cooling night, the sun barely holding a purpling, darkening glow over the clouds flowing and parting above both cities.

Maybe it had been for the best, after all. Now, she had an opportunity that she wouldn’t have had if Roseate hadn’t been as malicious and spiteful as she was.

It was time to step towards a beautiful future, and it was going to be a beautiful night for a date with a beautiful mare.

She chuckled at herself and stepped out.

Once she got past the ruffians that Roseate had not bothered to call off from their nightly vigil of her home. The ruffians who, even as she stepped out and adjusted the scarf against the promise of a chill wind, stepped out from the cart yard, reeking of wine.

“Rosewater, all prettied up,” Rosejoy said through a half-slurred laugh. “Where are you going tonight, pretty mare?”

“Away from your delicious wit, Rosejoy,” Rosewater said with a sniff. “It smells like Petal’s cut you off from her supply already. Canterlot White? You’re going soft.”

“Rutting bitch,” Rosejoy muttered, staggering against a bigger male with a half-staff erection. They smelled of sex and rutting. No doubt they had interrupted their play on orders rather than out of a want to harass her. Further into the shadows, she spied a mare and a stallion enjoying each other’s company still. No doubt she’d interrupted Rosejoy just before she had the male.

“Careful with that wit, you might cut butter with it someday,” Rosewater said with a thin half-smile as she veiled and pranced away from the mare towards the river. She didn’t want to cross wits with Rosejoy, as much as crossing wits with a walking, talking bottle of wine was entertaining for short spans, she had far more enjoyable pursuits that night.

She let the curses fade into the wind and susurrus of the river slowing in its wintertime yawning, and looked up to the sky, focusing on her objective and hoping that she wasn’t too late to catch Cloudy rising. If she was, she’d have a hard time catching up to the pegasus, and a far easier time becoming the prey rather than the huntress she was used to being.

One cloud sat still in the drifting sky, with a good vantage of the surrounding cityscape. Too dark to see if there was a glimmer of light flashing from a scope, but her instincts told her that was exactly where Cloudy was. The instincts of prey, of being hunted, woke in her as she studied the cloud on her way to the nearest bridge.

She didn’t bother distracting the guard, instead opting to ghost past silent and invisible even as she woke the drying flower bushes beside them to new scented life, meaning to wake the senses and make it harder for company to follow her.

The Dammers certainly didn’t trust scent magic, but they knew how to counter it in subtle, small ways. The scent masks at their sides would help further, and after that touch, they’d have them closer to hoof. The day lillies in the planter pots would give off a scent to counter lust when crushed, and the more neutral blackberry bushes provided food and a sweet counter to musk from their blooms and leaves.

It was gratifying to see the two guards stiffen at the wakening scent and look about. Alert, too, and no wonder after so recent an incursion.

She looked up in time to see a dim shadow fall from the cloud just before it began its stately journey across the sky again, broad wings parting a heart-stopping distance above the rooftops as Cloudy darted over her, too fast to do more than admire the grace and breadth of her wings.

It was the swoop and dive of a huntress, scattering her quarry, or attempting to.

I am being hunted, then. Attempting to fight that understanding and turn the tables too soon would leave her open to too many headstrong counters. Better to lure her away from her home and familiar ground. Routes through the city sprang to mind, ways she could turn the hunt about and still end up on top. Draw her through a stand of broad-limbed oaks, force her to land to continue to track her. Or take refuge under a magnolia and force her, again, to land to find her.

She had her secondary goal, too, of winding her way through the city and binding it to her scarf, weaving the place Cloudy loved into the garment she meant to leave with her by the end of the night, whether the hunt came out…

Rosewater hesitated under the broad boughs of a magnolia, its wide, heavy, waxy leaves giving her cover from the more frequent patrols above.

Hunt is wrong. Rosethorns hunt. The pegasi call it a chase. Chased and chaser. I am chased, tonight… but… She grinned and bared her teeth at the night sky. There was always room and opportunity for it to be turned around.

There was, of course, a heightened presence of Dammeguard in the city at night. It would likely last until winter called a halt to the war. Not even the best scent mage could hide their tracks in fresh-fallen snow in time to escape.

Their presence, though, was an obstacle to the date, adding a feeling and reality of danger if she were caught, where Cloudy might betray her. If she had the inclination.

Tonight would be a momentous night, no matter how it turned out.

Her eyes on the sky as much as the ground, she spotted Cloudy taking several higher passes, surveying and mapping possible routes, no doubt. Where Rosewater would duck, where she might flush her quarry to the best effect.

The game would be over when there were no more moves to make. One would corner the other. In the last moments of the game, it was the most tense, the most exciting, when everything might be turned on its head, when Rosewater might yet turn things around and find herself looking down.

Roseling had chased her from the start, blocked her escape by her swiftness and agility, her keen nose, and her wits, and caught her in a copse where Rosewater, panting, had lain and rolled to bare her throat and belly to the victor. But her huntress hadn’t taken the kiss or the lick on exposed neck or stomach, but taken a kiss from the lips, equals in a fine chase.

She let the memory slide through her as she flicked her tail to the side then covered herself again. This was no fling, even if there was no mating tonight, she would have to relieve herself of the desire on her return home. Mayhap she could capture enough of Cloudy’s scent to…

Hooves danced on the pavers behind her, and a rush of wind snapped over her as Cloudy landed ten paces away, wings still spread, a predatory smile creasing her lips as she considered the swirl of wind around Rosewater’s form, the eddies that kicked up around her ankles and body, the flutter of her scarf snapping in the wind. The clink of vials tapping together.

“Careless,” Cloudy whispered, her wings raised in a snap-launch position. “So very careless, Rosewater. Clinking. From you?”

Adrenaline surged through her as she snapped her veil into invisibility and danced aside as the pegasus launched and landed just to her side, wing brushing through the veil to touch her side.

First touch to her. Rosewater broke into a full gallop, sending the sound of her hooves clattering down another alley before she cut off the sound entirely.

Cloudy snapped up behind her, the rush of her rise chasing after Rosewater as she made a wild turn down the alley. The scarf. She’d barely noticed the way it fluttered in the wind, or considered how its disturbance of the flow of air and the sound of it rustling might give her away in her daydream.

Careless was right. She stopped abruptly at the entrance to an alleyway and let her veil slip back to a shadowy cloak. Two Dammeguard in front of her, laughing and chatting, their eyes alert and the smell of coffee hanging about them.

Wings overhead, beating on the air before hooves settled onto the roof above her.

“Hoy, Cloudy,” one of them called. “Fine night!”

Cloudy laughed, her voice breathy and light. “Ah, you have no idea how fine a night it is, Branch! The winds! They sing tonight.” Her eyes dropped to almost meet Rosewater’s.

“Hah! I heard they finally let you out. Don’t let it get to your head. There’s Roses about tonight. Midline Bridge reported scent magic not ten minutes ago.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but worry about your own steps, too. I’d hate to see you swooning.”

The guard rolled his eyes and nudged his partner, and the two of them started off at a steady pace, chattering like magpies about this and that going on about the city, and especially about Rosewater’s visit to the palace under the flag of treaty.

Neither of the guards took notice of the blended shadows clumped in the lee of a baker’s shop, just below where Cloudy was perched. Her veil was all but perfect from the ground. All Cloudy needed to do was alert them to her presence. Tell them it was her that had done the unconscionable deed.

But she didn’t. She studied Rosewater instead, silent and intent, her wings open slightly to taste the wind’s shape and texture. Cloudy was one of the finest flyers in Damme or Merrie. No doubt the wind was telling her enough. More than enough, she noted as Cloudy raised her wing, drawing a column of air up past Rosewater to let Cloudy taste the scents on it. A dangerous move against a prepared Rosethorn, but in a chase…

Cloudy’s smile grew as she drew in the scent. “You came clean,” she whispered into a breeze that flew down to Rosewater’s ear and dissipated on a subtle downstroke.

Rosewater veiled completely again and backed into the alley instead of darting out into the street, silent, subtle, unexpected.

Cloudy frowned and studied the alley and the street beyond, then snapped up into the sky again, her eyes scanning both road and alley as the wind scattered leaves and dust.

Rosewater only had to move with it to keep from disturbing the patterns, using the flowing nature of the scarf to follow them rather than try to control them, before she ducked around the building opposite Cloudy and leaned against the facing, her heart pounding. Danger and allure. Roseling hadn’t been so exciting.

But Cloudy had kept her promise. So long as Rosewater kept hers, she might still come out on top.

She was wearing a scarf. Rosewater was wearing a scarf. It was such an insane thing to wear on a chase, and yet it fit her perfectly. Absolutely. It was stylish and useful at once. Cloudy could see the advantages as soon as she considered them when against a pegasus.

Creating winds, disturbing them in odd ways to confuse the currents, giving weight to an illusion that wasn’t there and fooling the pegasi wind senses. She’d done that before, and with other opponents.

Oh, she could have disappeared entirely and not given Cloudy an inkling that she was there. The mare had proved herself more than capable of that, but that wasn’t the purpose of a chase.

One didn’t run a chase to win, and Cloudy never did. She ran to have fun, to test herself against another, to learn more about them through the way they ran. A proper chase would last only as long as it needed to, to let both participants enjoy the rush and thrill, the old instincts waking to throw life into the blood and sing with the thrills of an age long dead.

Except for this one time, this one custom that Rosethorn and Rosewing and Rosewood had preserved through the ages.

For the first time in more than a year, Cloudy felt her heart racing with the prospect of catching a pony who wasn’t Rosemary or Collar—on the one time she’d tried to teach him how to chase… which he’d ‘won’ before they even started. The cheater.

Cloudy chuckled and surveyed the alleyways all about her perch. She’d lost Rosewater in the rush of wind, probably her using the scarf to make the wind flow around her rather than buffet her. Clever. It was still anypony’s game. Cloudy would need to come down soon to look for her, or Rosewater would need to make a move. The unspoken rules on idle time demanded that the game never stall for longer than it took for the heart to calm.

Just as she was about to leap for the sky and survey the streets, a flicker of shadow near a magnolia tree caught her attention. The wind wasn’t so strong… and even as she watched, a blossom faded from view into shadow… and then was gone.

She saw nothing else, no hint of a pony moving, but it was clear. Rosewater had snagged one of the few remaining magnolia blooms so carefully tended by the earth pony wardens. And left.

Without waiting, Cloudy leapt and dove for the shadows lining the street, stopping short and sending her column of air flowing down the corner, lifting debris, dust, and… a clinking sound again.

She dashed after it, listening for the telltale clinking or the sound of hooves poorly masked, but it wasn’t either that stopped her cold. It was… bread. The smell of rising sourdough, of onion dill and rosemary thyme, nowhere near a bakery stopped her in the entrance to an alley, dark and shadowed.

The smell of magnolias bloomed in the midst of it all, intensifying until it felt like spring had come again and the ice to come was a distant worry.

Then a white bloom sailed out of the shadows and bounced off her nose.

An involuntary sneeze sent a trail of petals fluttering around her, all of them vanishing like sparks in the night as they transformed into the essence of magnolia, a symbol of Damme, that covered her from head to toe.

Blatant scent magic, but not bound to any intent. It was a tease, a way to say ‘I could have ended this now, but I want more.’ It was the mare she thought she’d seen a glimpse of several times, defiance hiding behind formalities and concerns. This was the mare, raw and uncovered.

She understood what it meant to chase. Winning wasn’t winning. Winning was the thrill.

Cloudy’s heart sang as she leapt into the air to give chase, or to flee. She wasn’t certain anymore, and that made her heart thump faster.

This was going to be fun.

Book 2, 2. Chasing Scents, part 2

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Rosewater dashed out of the alleyway as soon as the spell concluded and the essence of Damme flowed around Cloudy in an iridescent cloud of vapor and magnolia. It was a blatant breaking of the laws in Damme, but it was a time for risks by the stars, and she was going to do what she needed to make this chase the best chase she’d ever had.

Behind her, an emerald streak flashed past the eaves of the buildings and swooped low in the only direction Rosewater could have taken, wings cupping as she braked and swept the alley and the street beyond with a ferocious column of wind that tugged at Rosewater’s tail and sent debris swirling against the opposite wall of buildings and through the low shrubbery of the narrow median.

Cloudy followed it down as Rosewater bolted for a hidey hole under an awning before hooves slapped down behind her and wings swept the space she’d just been.

Sure as rain, it was enough. The wind of her passage betrayed her, and Cloudy snapped around and leapt at her.

Rosewater ducked, but found her tail caught as Cloudy snagged it in her teeth, grinning at her over the pink hairs, then winked and dashed away, prancing away like a deer with her wings sending her bounding into the air only to land again.

Tit for tat. I got you, and you got me. Message received.

It was Rosewater’s turn to laugh and bound after her, noting the path took them out of the city. Or would… it would lead close enough to some of her goal scents to pick them up along the way.

Assuming Cloudy didn’t turn the tables again.

It had been an absolute spur of the moment, catching her tail and not sealing the game with a kiss or a tackle. Just because she could end the game didn’t mean she wanted to end the game, even if Rosewater had made one little gaffe as a tease.

Cloudy laughed and watched as the shadows behind her followed, seeming to stagger from side to side as it blended with shade after shade and shape after shape. She was good, but the more Cloudy tracked her, the more she saw the flaws in the shadows she made.

A little roughness on a fine edged line, a blob that should have been a leaf shape.

All completely unnoticeable if she hadn’t been alerted to them, but all there, and all blending to form an almost outline, the finest details obscuring the finest features.

Let’s take this out of the city, Rosewater, so we can really stretch our legs. Cloudy laughed again and took off, leisurely circling the shadow below to let her know she was seen. Once they were out of the city, though, and away from the dangers posed by curious Dammeguard wondering why their lieutenant was going, medically speaking, snooker loopy.

The figure below her broke into a trot, then a gallop as she entered the main street out of town towards the verdant loess hills and distant Dammehollow.

That’s right, Rosewater… out there, we have the entire world to dance in, uncovered, unfettered. Show me how you can dance in the moonlight.

Rarely did Rosewater dare to let her veiling drop anywhere near Damme. It was habitual to never approach the city or anywhere near it. But here, in the wild wilderness outside Damme, with Cloudy circling above her, waiting for the game to enter its final phase, she dared.

She stood on a hill overlooking the city when she dropped her veil, the moonlight streaming over her anew, unfiltered by her artificial shadows and made her coat glow silver in the Mare’s gaze.

Green wings shifted high above as Rosewater started out again, her run turning to a gallop as Cloudy dropped and swooped to the edge of the hill in front of her, hooves barely making a sound in the browning grass.

Rather than turning to face her, Cloudy tucked her wings in and shot a grin over her shoulder and plunged down the side of the hill, her flashing pink tail the last thing Rosewater saw before a whoop of joy chased back up the hill.

A naked chase. No magic. No wings. Just hooves.

Just two ponies figuring each other out.

It barely registered that it might have been a trick when Rosewater plunged over the edge of the hill blindly, chasing Cloudy down the loose, silty slope. No rocks met her, only a loose tangle of grass and soil that tumbled after the galloping shape of Cloudy as she stopped just shy of plunging into the thicket and bounded around it, aiming for the next hill.

It was a risk, but Rosewater turned the other way when she hit the floor of the dale, hoping it was a ruse.

Cloudy laughed as she looked behind her. Rosewater was nowhere to be seen, but she didn’t doubt the mare would hold to tradition. This was as important, more so, to her than it was to Cloudy.

Whether she was still on the hill, hoping to catch her, or had followed her down, Cloudy didn’t know, and that was a part of the joy of a naked chase. It would be better with mist and a forest, but this was as close as they could get. Hills and vales where some mists did linger about the thickets deerkin used for their winter excursions southward, and some flowed through the passes between hills.

She considered the hill ahead, its stepped side betraying how loose the soil was, and the shrubs that dotted its surface had their roots exposed in places where the soil had slumped after a rain and yet to be covered again.

Going up the hill would be slow work, and give Rosewater time to catch her rather than letting Cloudy lay an ambush of her own.

Or she could double back and possibly meet Rosewater coming around after her, or set herself up for an ambush from above if her chase partner was being canny. It all depended on how patient of a chaser Rosewater was. And how well Cloudy judged her.

Rut it.

Cloudy turned around and broke into an instant gallop, a feeling of urgency overtaking her from behind, a feeling of exposure and danger from around the bend. It was a need to hide and escape, but a joyous note in her heart told her exactly what it was. Some small sign had told her Rosewater was there. A sound, a scent on the slight wind flowing from the north.

It could have been your imagination.

So she ran from her imaginary pursuer, tail flashing side to side as she ran past the small slide she’d started coming down.

Surprisingly, the scents of Damme met her when she crossed the line, baking bread, wood shavings, and the sea air blown in from the west. None of it should have been there, but it lead her onwards, around the copse.

Signs of Rosewater’s passing were here and there; a hoofprint in a bare patch of dirt, a pink tail hair laying like a heart-thread on a bush. Her imagination hadn’t been wrong. Rosewater had been chasing her around the opposite way.

Cloudy laughed aloud and increased her pace, flashing her tail against the same bush to leave another pink hair there, or more, and aimed for the gap between two hills, rocky bases bared by the yearly flow of water in the spring. The beds were dry now, and she found easy purchase as she climbed up the shallow incline.

The sound of laughter behind her brought a smile to her lips as she went.

Where will you go? Rosewater thought as she chased Cloudy’s scent around the copse, laughing at herself for not thinking of it. Of course she would double-back if she didn’t see pursuit right away. The dale was nearly circular, holding only the low, shrubby trees in the middle as any point of interest, so there weren’t many places to hide.

She laughed aloud as she caught Cloudy halfway up a defile of rocks and small boulders, perched on one of the latter to catch her breath and looking back down over the dale.

You sly mare. No wings, but still going for height. And you brought me down here just because of this.

“Good lu-uck!” Cloudy singsonged down at her, breaking her stance and bounding up with the sure footing of a mountain goat, skills from perching on improbable ledges giving her an advantage on the uneven ground that Rosewater didn’t have.

From higher up, Cloudy could get the drop on her before she had a chance to make a counter-plan.

That wouldn’t do, but the steep sides of the defile left her little chances to clamber up the softer soil, and she would get three steps up for every four she made. Hardly ideal. Loess was hard to climb.

She could circle back around the copse and try to find a linking hill, but this was home turf for Cloudy. She knew the terrain better than she, and would know where to look for a white-coat on dark backdrop.

Without magic to cover herself, she was at a severe disadvantage at night. It would be different if there were any snow on the ground, but of course there was not. Not even a flake for her to hide behind in vain.

Rosewater hissed under her breath and considered the landscape around her. Even if she’d taken a shortcut, it would take time for her to reach a hilltop and begin a waiting game. A stalemate chase.

That won’t do at all.

But there was one option. She set her jaw and started up the defile. Her longer legs gave her an advantage of speed, and she was no stranger to rough terrain, even if she couldn’t leap and perch on insane ledges like a pegasus.

I’m coming, Cloudy.

It had been a spur of the moment plan. Continuing around in a circle, trying to catch up to Rosewater without the mare finding out was doomed to failure. The Rosethorn nose had certainly picked up her scent long since, and that laughter told her just as much.

So she did what she usually did in tense situations: go for height. But not just straight up a hill. That would be a long, slow slog over soil that tended to crumble and slide for the first hoof before she struck actual clay.

The watershed channel was her only option, then. The way water had flowed every year for centuries had carved out a path down to the rocky base of the hills, shaping them, had left a rocky base for her to climb up if she dared. She could make good time, even. It’d been days since the last rain, and the stones were all dry, though the soil in the base of the dale was still somewhat damp.

Rosewater could make it, if she were careful. It would give Cloudy time to find a hiding spot to spring an ambush on her and claim victory.

And at the top, she stopped to watch what Rosewater would do.

Following her wasn’t the first thing she thought would happen, nor how good of time she made, despite taking the safer center-line route where the largest boulders stood out.

Damn tall mares, Cloudy thought appreciatively, watching the play of muscle and sinew as she hefted herself up steadily and readily, using the moon’s light and how it reflected off her coat to find her way. She was beautiful in the moonlight, and when her head lifted during a pause to watch Cloudy, those rose wine eyes seemed to drink in the moonlight and glow just for her.

Tonight, they really did.

It was a surprise finding Cloudy watching her intently as she scaled the rocky terrain, making sure at least one hind hoof was firmly planted before starting up again. During a pause to catch her breath, she looked up, and there was Cloudy staring down, a faint smile on her lips and an appreciative set to her ears.

If she had whistled, Rosewater might have blushed.

“Enjoying the show?” Rosewater asked through a huffing breath. “Why wait?”

To her surprise, Cloudy laid down at the edge and crossed her forelegs over the side of a boulder. “And miss the show? My dear Rosewater, you cannot reach me yet, and I do so admire a mare when she stretches so. So lean, so sleek. And the way you work your rump…” She mock shuddered and licked her lips. “So delicious.”

She did flush then, and bared her teeth in a grin. “Oh dear, how shall I ever respond?” Another surge of speed, still careful, and Rosewater stared up again. “I will catch you—” Rosewater paused again, pretending to need to catch her breath. “—Cloudy. And I will show you just how well I can work my rump.”

“Promises, promises,” Cloudy yawned, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. She didn’t move from her perch yet, but she tensed more and more every tail length Rosewater made it up.

It was only about thirty from the ground, and at such an angle that it was more of a difficult hike than a climb, and the rocks held her weight admirably.

“That’s… exactly… right.”

She didn’t need to fake the heavy breathing much by the time Cloudy rose and backed away from the ledge, grinning ear to ear, seeming certain of her victory. All she would need to do was find a bend in the waterway, find some place to hide, and spring her ambush, catching Rosewater against the side of the hill and claiming her victory kiss and the win.

But if Rosewater could just keep her preoccupied long enough…

She can’t be so out of shape, can she?

It was less an accusatory thought and more a speculative one. The victory would be all the sweeter if she could spring her trap in the middle of a fierce flight down the stream bed between hills. Timing was key. Understanding how much fight Rosewater had left in her was key.

She’d never seen the mare run, even while surveilling her, so it was easy to believe she only watched what she ate to keep that figure. But Rosewater’s private life was also largely a mystery. She didn’t know word one about what the mare did behind closed doors or the times their spotters lost track of her. For all Cloudy knew, she ran to Canterlot and back in the afternoons.

But she did seem winded… even if her pace didn’t falter much and not a lot of sweat showed on that gleaming, beautiful flank of hers. Oh, the fragrance she would be giving off, the sweet musk of a chase fresh on her, and the excitement of such a lovely mare, alone with her in the dim light, exploring each other under the Mare’s eye and with the Mare’s nearly full moon blessing.

Cloudy snapped herself out of the reverie. She would get to taste those lips soon enough, and maybe even other lips as well. If they weren’t both too winded from their chase.

She rose and backed away from the edge as Rosewater got within a couple of tails of the edge, and turned and darted towards the bend as soon as Rosewater’s head appeared over the lip of the last stone and heaved herself up to rest on the same stones Cloudy had occupied just a minute before.

And sniffed at them. Rosethorn markings glowed bright in the moonlight, accentuating Rosewater’s cheeks and highlighting the fine bone structure of a high-born noble.

She’s sampling my scent… A shudder ran through Cloudy as she thought just how aroused she’d gotten watching Rosewater climb up. She was a fine mare, finely built and took care of herself, and even a heady chase and run through the nearest fields and hills into the rougher loess hills lining the Crystal Forest hadn’t dimmed the brightness of that coat, or the showing of pink in her ears.

Her marehood would be just as pink. Just as soft. Winking.

Just like Cloudy.

She shuddered again, stamped a hind leg, turned, and dashed away. She needed to win.

The heady fragrance of an excited mare caught her attention before she was even halfway up the steep slope, tending more to her hooves placement than staring at the watching, smirking face above her.

But that musky, delicate bouquet of excitement that had been missing for far too long in her life drew her attention perhaps more than it should have.

More than once, Rosewater wished their chase had taken place in a grove, with the mists curling all about, where teasing calls and half-glimpsed tails and faces were all they had to go on. It was the old way, the first chases had been thus after the custom became more accessible, after the naked chase was born.

Not requiring her to almost be a mountain-climber in order to chase after her hopeful paramour.

Rosewater heaved herself over the ledge and lay prostrate for several seconds, watching Cloudy standing a safe distance away, the mare apparently unknowing that her tail was flagging, her lips parted in an unconscious desire to meet breath to breath.

A quick check of her scarf, that she’d tightened around her neck before starting up, and she rose, flagging her own tail in a conscious show of desire. Cloudy was more than a stranger. She’d studied the mare, watched her, knew her by her actions and her love of Rosemary. This was a mare that she could find a deeper love with, if she so chose.

She was also as safe as anypony from Roseate’s predation.

Cloudy dashed away, showing Rosewater even in the night that there was a safe lip of soil around the shallow valley to find purchase on.

Rosewater broke into a slower run after her, eyes focused on the ground, Rosethorn markings adding a faint crimson glow as she let her nose guide her.

Unerring, Rosewater followed the trail at a sedate pace.

Finding the right place to spring her ambush was harder than she’d thought it would be, and took her farther into the foothills at the base of the Crystal Forest than she’d liked, but she did find it eventually.

Sometime in the ancient past, a slab of slate carried by the unimaginable weight and force of a glacier had fallen out of the scree to lay at a slant in the loose soil, eventually slipping to one side and forming the side of a hill that jutted out oddly from the rest of the smooth-sided, round hills that made up the rest of the glacial till all around her.

It was obviously a place for an ambush, and Rosewater would see it as such… which was why Cloudy cheated, just a little, and helped herself up the side of the hill with a single sweep of her wings, while keeping her hooves mostly touching the hillside, and made her way past it and around to lay in wait on the near-side of the slab, her coat not standing out nearly as well as Rosewater’s would have against the dark stone.

And yet there was still reason to…

Rosewater stopped at the bend, studying the way ahead just as Cloudy settled in to wait. She’d been right to risk the cheat and make her way up the hill quickly. If she hadn’t, she’d still be scrambling her way up the loose stones and sand in the lee of the stone when Rosewater came within hearing distance.

Now she could slip down the side of the hill after she’d passed and catch her unawares from behind. Then that kiss would be hers first, and the win and what to do after was hers to decide.

Come on, come on. Nothing to worry about up here…

Cloudy watched as her quarry made her way towards the stone, hooves placed carefully on sturdy ledges of soil and sand, testing each one carefully now that she was so close.

Worry about what’s behind the stone, not up here.

Cloudy’s fragrance grew both stronger and weaker in different ways as Rosewater made her way down the shallow ravine. Stronger in desperation, weaker in arousal, stronger in presence. She was getting closer and closer.

Cloudy had slowed down this far into the maze of ravines and watershed channels, and now and again a hint of her strayed down one dead end and another, all of them ending in steeper defiles than the one she’d clambered up, most of them would be small waterfalls in the spring, and actual gushing ones at that. It would be a beautiful place come springtime when the grass greened again and the snowpack was gone.

A perfect place for a springtime fling with a lover.

With a tent, of course.

She soon enough came to a great gray slab piercing the heart of a hill and blocking most of the stream enough that the hill opposite had a deep overhang sprouting roots from its ceiling and sporting bushes all along the edge, half of them risking being lost in the next flooding.

But it was the deep cut on the opposite side of the stone that worried her most. It was a perfect ambush spot… or a place to seem to set up an ambush. Make her slow down enough to let Cloudy get ahead and plan a more elaborate trap later, when both of them were more tired.

What would you do here, my dear Cloudy? She hesitated on the edge of looking around the slab, sniffing carefully and drawing deeply on her heritage to take in all the scents around her.

The fragrance of her was stronger all around the stone, on both sides, but without a wind to clear away the older scents, all she could determine was that her pegasus quarry had spent an inordinate amount of time here inspecting and possibly even using, the stone as a place to set up a trick.

She risked a quick look, drawing her head back almost as soon as she’d taken the peek… then a longer one. Cloudy wasn’t there, and the slab’s shadow made it hard to tell if she’d tried to climb up the leeward side or not, but here in the shadows, it was easier to find evidence of her scent over everything. She had stopped there at least, perhaps knowing…

A rustle of shifting dirt sounded from somewhere above and to her left, then a clatter of rock on rock behind her and to the right.

For the briefest of moments, Rosewater thought she’d been caught by bandits surrounding her and worried for Cloudy. But nopony was to her left, and by the time she realized her error, that it was echoes, and turned around, Cloudy was already standing there, head raised, eyes fixed, and a sultry smile on her lips.

“Well hello, Rosewater,” Cloudy advanced closer, tail flicking side to side, her voice halfway to a throaty laugh. “So nice to catch you here.”

“Cloudy,” Rosewater murmured, dropping her head in submission. She’d been outplayed, and lingered too long investigating an anomalous scent. “You’ve caught me. The chase is yours.”

“So formal,” Cloudy said as she came up to within kissing distance. “So…” Her lips were on Rosewater’s in the next second, her teeth catching Rosewater’s lower lip and nipping lightly before letting go. It wasn’t until afterwards that she realized her tail was not only canted to the side, but raised high enough to let a stallion mount her. “Sweet. But this is our first chase. I think I shall claim a talk.” She hesitated, seeming uncertain, then glanced around and up at the sky, and nodded towards the nearby edge of the forest.

Sweet stars, am I that… horny? “I… think that may be best. I did more running and physical activity tonight… and more may see me fall asleep until morning.” She didn’t lower her tail until she saw Cloudy’s rise in response, then forced herself to make nice and Dammer modest. “I was worried, when I started, that you would… not be able to respond to me. Because of our history.”

Cloudy chewed her lip for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s talk, then, alone. We… have a lot to talk about, and away from prying eyes and ears, whether they’re there or not.” A faintly nervous smile crossed her lips, and she ducked her head. “You and I in a more intimate setting, with the, hum… formalities of the chase can wait.” Cloudy’s eyes hooded as she considered Rosewater from nose to tail, her own flagging to the side and then resting flat again. “But not for long, Rosewater. Tonight was good for me.”

Formalities. Rosewater shuddered and felt her own tail flag involuntarily to the side. It’d been so long since she’d tasted another mare, so long since real, warm lips parted hers, since a real tongue stroked and delved.

“As you say,” Rosewater purred back, catching Cloudy for a light kiss before she started off, her magic holding the mare gently. “Lead the way, victor.”

Book 2, 3. Chasing Scents, Part 3

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Cloudy had spent three days hyping herself up for tonight, trying to remind herself that Rosewater’s ‘past’ interactions with them were, for all intents and purposes, lies. Save the times she was actually helpful or kept them safe.

And now here I am, with her eyes on me, and her desire for me. Cloudy shivered and tried—and failed—to keep her tail flat, her dock between her buttocks, but she winked at Rosewater, and felt a dollop of her excitement trail down her leg.

That she was a beautiful mare was beyond a doubt a reason why Cloudy was reacting to her this way. That she was also fiercely protective of Rosemary another, and shown herself to have more depth of character, and more depth of emotion than she’d previous thought Rosewater capable of.

And she’s attracted to me. The whys of that, she hoped to find out.

The shallow, dry ravine ran more or less directly towards the Crystal Forest, itself extending for hundreds of miles up to the base of the Crystal Mountains, unbroken wilderness and wildlands that swept from forest to plains in the blinks of an eye by a pegasi’s flight, and back again just as fast.

They were home to some bandit clans who waged a never-ending conflict against the deerkin that wanted them out of their woods. It was from that conflict that tales of the forest being haunted filtered out time and again after a bandit clan found themselves waking up outside the forest and never remembering leaving it.

Yet they kept going back because patrols from Canterlot and both Merrie and Damme kept throwing them into chaos again and again without someplace to hide.

It’s not haunted. Collar’s told me about the Deerkin and their pranks. Still, growing up as a little foal, she’d heard all about the ponies that entered the Crystal Forest and never came out, and how the spirits of the vengeful, lost Crystal Empire would come for them if they didn’t behave.

She swallowed.

“Carnation and I,” Rosewater said out of the blue, startling Cloudy into a yelp.

“Stars above!”

“Sorry!” Rosewater laughed, true merriment coloring her tone.

“Don’t startle me like that!” Cloudy skipped ahead a step, wings arched, then stopped when she realized she was making a threat display at the rutting trees, and forced herself to calm. It was deerkin. That’s all it was.

“I heard the same stories growing up,” Rosewater murmured beside her, the sound of her hooves warning of her approach this time. “The kelpie mares and the incubus stallions, coming around to gather up the naughty children of the cities.”

“You did?” Cloudy asked, shaking herself free of cobwebs in her thoughts. “Stars, I thought…”

“Well, Carnation taught me otherwise.” Rosewater teased her cheek with a kiss and started on, her hooves thudding dully in the dark, taking over the beating of Cloudy’s heart. “She even took me out as a foal to gift blankets and metal-worked goods to the deerkin on their migration.

“It was something Roseline apparently did for her when she was a foal. They gifted us each time with rare herbs that are hard to cultivate outside the magical aura of the Forest. Crystalwort, shineberry, and golden-waxed pine cones, for a start. There’s so many more that I could spend an evening going over them. But those three especially are used in Mother’s Kiss. It’s the aura of the forest that lends them to love magic.”

Listening to Rosewater talk about mundane, or at least relatively mundane, things helped her to hold onto calm and follow her. “Thank you. But it wasn’t just the stories.” She cast a raised-eyebrow look at Rosewater.

“The company,” Rosewater said in an even tone, her smile faltering briefly. “It’s understandable. We’ve hardly gotten to know each other.”

“It is. I mean… you’re attractive, and I could definitely have sex with you,” Cloudy said in the matter-of-fact way she’d nearly managed to train out of herself since her forcible move to Damme, “but loving you? Falling in love with you?”

“I feel the same,” Rosewater said, her lips turning down into a frown. “It’s… a risk I have to take, Cloudy. For my sake, for the sake of my… of Rosemary.” She cast a glance at the sky. “And for the sake of my ponies. My city.”

“My parents are still in Merrie,” Cloudy said softly. “I’ve… not heard from them since I left. I worry if I do this, and openly, that Roseate—”

“She may. But I’m not without my connections and my means. If you’re worried, if you want to have them granted asylum, ask Collar. I will do all I can to spirit them across the bridge. Your mother and father, and your two sisters and brother.”

“You’ve read my family book,” Cloudy said with a grunt. She wasn’t sure yet if she should be offended or upset, or merely curious why.

“I did. Almost two months ago, after Roseate asked—” Rosewater coughed. “—ordered me to capture you. Did Collar tell you I deliberately failed at it?”

“Nope. Figured that part out for myself, thanks. The note was a big rutting clue.” Cloudy snorted and glanced aside at her. “Plus your reputation.”

“Largely fabricated,” Rosewater answered, shaking her head with a wan smile on her lips. “I’m your biggest boogiemare because I beat my own mother in a duel.”

“Not a small feat. And beat her twice more. Your reputation as a frightening mare to go up against is well earned, Rosewater.” A pang of panic and fear shot through her as soon as she said it. “I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Rosewater said, her voice softer, a quavering quality to it that may or may not have been there. “I saw it in the faces of the ponies I passed on the way to and from the Prim Palace. And… you’re right. It is well earned. But not wanted.”

Silence fell between them the rest of the way to the forest. If there had been any watchers, or listeners, they made no moves and didn’t so much as cast a shadow across the stars. There was no reason for a watcher to think Cloudy going out apparently alone, late at night and nearly anonymous in the darkness, was anything to remark. She was a nominal part of the night watch when needed, and one of the many right hooves of Captain Pink.

Any reason may have sent her out alone.

Rosewater seemed to brood the entire way, her ears limp and her stride sloppier, even though her pace never wavered, even into the Forest and along the ancient highway of broken blocks of stone, towards an ancient tree, older than the fall of the Empire, so old that the Imperial builders had made a bench just for it extending all around, now tumbled blocks of crystal-laced white stone arranged in a rough circle around the swelling trunk of the once small tree.

“Here,” Cloudy said as she led Rosewater into the shadowy depression between two roots, a place where they could hide from the world for a little while. A safe place.

Something Rosewater had said to her and Collar on the bridge the first time she’d saved them both percolated up through Cloudy’s memories.

“Have you ever considered, Lord Collar, that my reputation disturbs me? Have you? I have one place that I can be free of it.”

“You have one more place you can be free of your reputation,” Cloudy whispered into the darkness under the edge of the forest. “With me, and here. I remember, Rosewater. How hurt you looked. I apologize for not thinking before speaking.”

The look she got nearly broke her heart, it was so grateful.

“I think I might be able to fall in love with you, Cloudy,” Rosewater said at last. “Here, tonight, treat me like Rosewater.”

The night sounds of the mid-fall forest faded away as Rosewater adjusted the intensity of the screening effect, leaving her truly alone with Cloudy.

When she was done, Rosewater sat and stared up at the boughs of the tree over her. She’d been careful to keep the misting only to around them, to blend with the surroundings and leave the top open so that the Mare could watch them.

Not that she could see much through the limbs of the giant wayfarer’s tree, its broad leaves offering protection from the rain, the wind of the north.

“Do you come here often?” Rosewater asked, half a serious question and half a teasing joke. The lamest pickup line she could think of from what she’d heard about Dammer taverns.

Cloudy rolled her eyes. “I do, actually. It’s a good place to stop for a meal on a long patrol. Usually during the day, and not… you know…” She waved a hoof around her at the misty walls. “When the stories are supposed to happen. You said Carnation told you stories and took you to meet the Deerkin?”

“Long ago. Continuing on, and I still keep to Carnation’s offers of gifts to the deerkin, but the first time was before Roseline passed.” She pushed aside the memories of the first time and closed her eyes against the upwelling of tears as images of the Rose Palace and a room in the Palace tried to intrude on her, tried to make her acknowledge them. “After I got my cutie mark,” she said finally, the words coming out strangled even to her ears.

Cloudy met her eyes briefly, looking down when the contact became too intense and the understanding flowing from soul to soul reached a point where it should have been telepathy.

“H-how much do you know about my past?” How much is recorded in your files? She should have just asked.

She needn’t have bothered, because Cloudy answered, “Just what we have on record. You were just six, Rosewater. I know that much. Younger than any Rosethorn on record. What happened?”

“What else? My mother happened.” Rosewater shook her head and moved to one of the broken blocks of stone still retaining the dream image of a bench seat and dusted some of the bracken off it before settling down and drawing off her scarf. “I came to talk about you and I, Cloudy. The past… it can stay in the past as long as it needs to.”

Cloudy mulled that over for a moment as she stood at the other end of the block, running her hoof over the pitted stone before she swept a wing over the stone and settled in place opposite Rosewater.

“That’s fine. Someday, though,” Cloudy said, sidling closer, “when we get closer, you’ll need to tell us. So…” She huffed and tossed her head, leveling a glower at Rosewater. “What do you see happening for us? For you and Collar?”

At least she’s direct. She’d been half-worried shutting down the line of questioning would shut down conversation. “For you and I… more of this. Talking. Maybe thrills like more chases, maybe...” She couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever if she went down the road of trying to marry Collar. “I can’t imagine how restrained you’ve had to act among Dammers all day and all night.”

“Oh, stars. Don’t get me started. You have no idea how hard it’s been just to find a few lovers in the Dammeguard who’ll let me give a lick and a kiss without expecting a marriage proposal first.” Cloudy snorted, then relaxed and gave Rosewater a sheepish smile. “But it’s not been all bad. What they lack in openness, they make up for in passion. And… yes. I’d like more of this. Though, maybe not, hum. Not…”

“In the hills?” Rosewater asked, grinning. “It was a bit of a slog going up and down, up and down. And that last climb. Whoosh. Stars, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

“Yeah,” Cloudy said, sighing. “I keep thinking that I can just ask you out to dinner, but—” She tipped her head to the southwest.

“Roseate would explode,” Rosewater said, quirking a grin at her, or trying to.

“Well, yeah. And so would Primfeather Wing. And Whitelock Primmane. And… stars, who wouldn’t go nuts if we were seen dating? I’d probably get tossed into a hotbox to sweat out my ‘lure’ and then sent to recovery for a month. Involuntary, of course. Standard treatment for being lured.”

“Barbarism,” Rosewater hissed, shaking her head. “Stars above, please tell me you tried to tell them that doesn’t work half so well as treating with scents.”

“Tried, got stared at until I slunk out of the room to talk to Collar. He listened, but couldn’t do much. It was the family demanding it.” Cloudy let her head sink to rest on the edge of the scarf, breathing slowly, brows raising slowly. “I had to watch a friend of mine go through withdrawal, and just be there to do what I could for him…” She trailed off, her brows raising as her nostrils flared and took another breath. “Is… is that…”

Rosewater smiled and let her explore the scarf with nose and hoof, stirring up the bits and pieces of Damme she’d trapped in its cloth. There, she’d put sourdough, and that patch was onion dill. Then wood, wood oil, and the unique smell of hot metal on wood that lingered for hours after a mill was shut down.

She’d gotten the fresh smell of the sea flowing in, less any of the stink of rotten seaweed and other, less savory smells of the cove’s sandy beaches. There, too, was the faintest smell of lemon from the bottle, and another of peach, just starting to seep out past the cork seals.

“It’s… you did this for me?”

“For you,” Rosewater confirmed, smiling and bending to nuzzle Cloudy’s ear, then rest beside her on the scarf. “I wanted to show you that I understood your love of the city. I’ve been there often enough to find my own love of the mundanity of fragrance. It can be so tiring in Merrie sometimes, smelling everything all the time everywhere.”

Cloudy spent another moment exploring the scarf, her eyes closed and ears back before she looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you. I’d almost forgotten what good, benign scent magic could do. I’ve been fighting against it for a year, Rosewater. Do you know what it’s like to fight yourself?”

“Shh.” Rosewater raised her head to kiss her lightly on the nose, then the forehead. “You don’t have to when you’re with me.”

“I don’t want to, ever.” Cloudy pressed her forehead under Rosewater’s muzzle, seeking comfort. “I miss the little scents. The hearth warming fires with cinnamon and woolly betony especially right now, and the drinks of apple and spice, fragrances of home, you know?”

“I know,” Rosewater murmured, making a soft shushing noise. “It’s okay to want fragrances, Cloudy. And, you know, I can see about bringing some simple ones. Hearth warming spices and cider are getting more common now, and I’d be happy to provide a sachet or two. Provided I can sneak them into the palace.”

“You could get into trouble.”

“More than I already am?” Rosewater snorted. “They’re not ‘attack’ scents. The worst that can happen is a lecture from Firelight about respecting cultural boundaries. But I’m quite good at hiding things. And I might bribe him with some nice fragrances, too. Sitting by the river all day tends to make the place smell like mildew. I know. I have to fight it constantly at home.”

“What can I do for you in return, though?”

“Keep Rosemary happy. I didn’t have a chance to ask her if this was what she wanted, to be used as a piece in our game, and I don’t want her to feel used, or lonely. Or stuffed in.” Rosewater shook her head. “Do that for me, and we’ll be even on the scent delivery.”

“I’d do that anyway,” Cloudy said with a grunt. “That’s not equivalent. What can I do for you, Rosewater? You’re doing something for me, a kindness I’ve wished for.”

“You’ll have to hide it. It’s magic. Not inert like the shampoos Rosetide delivered.”

“So? I’ll have it, and it’s something of my culture I can share with Collar. Something I can’t get in Damme because of the prohibitions.” Cloudy sighed and sank deeper into her slump on the stone.

Rosewater tossed the edge of the cloth over Cloudy’s muzzle, and when the pegasus only blinked and stared at her, brows arched, she stuck her tongue out. “I really don’t have anything right now that I need that I can’t get.”

“And I don’t need scents. I’ve lived for a year without more than what I can get in the gardens. They’re not necessary for life.” Cloudy stayed under the scarf, though, her ears flat back. “I just…” She took a deep breath through the warm fabric. “I’ve missed this.”

The silly impulse faded. It hadn’t been silly to Cloudy, it had meant more to her to be encouraged to partake in their cultural heritage, the refinement and capturing of the fragrances of life.

She sat, watching and thinking about what it must have meant to go without indulging in anything, from the deliberately fragrant food, to the fragrant wines and meads, to even simply walking through the city and being bathed by the bouquet of life in all its multifaceted glory. Lush and pungent, musky and sweet.

Damme had its own landscape for the nose, but it was far less varied and far more practical, only being those scents that came naturally from living in a city.

Finally, she pulled the scarf down and lowered herself to Cloudy’s level, nose to nose, and kissed her gently on the lips.

“I would like these little sweets that Carnation used to buy me at the faires in Damme. They came in… paper wrappers, and it was such a struggle to open them at that age, but when I did, they were so tasty, even if they didn’t smell like much. Strawberry was my favorite.”

“Candies?” Cloudy raised a brow at her, and didn’t move away. After a moment she returned the kiss more hesitantly, then again with surety, letting it linger. “I didn’t think you couldn’t find candies in Merrie.”

“Not these. It’s more for the memory, really.” Rosewater’s cheeks flushed and she tried to duck away, but a quick, gentle hoof to the cheek kept her in place. “It’s been years since I’ve even found them in Damme, and not at all in Merrie. They were made, I think, by a specialist candy maker that made unscented candies. Nopony in Merrie would stock them.”

“I’ll ask around,” Cloudy said, and kissed her once more, a light peck, before pushing herself up, but not away. “I feel better knowing I have something I can do for you.”

Cloudy stayed still, her eyes darting across Rosewater’s body, from her eyes to the point of her hip to the slight raise of her tail telling Cloudy that if she asked, she might still be open for a night as the victor of the chase.

This mare was nothing like the tales she’d heard, or the fearsome mage she’d seen six years ago. She was gentle, but of course she would be, Rosemary was gentle and kind and loving. Where else would she get that from than one who’d raised her? She could also be fierce, of course, and she could see that side in the way the mare had chased, but also playful.

All things Cloudy had assumed existed only in the younger Rosethorn. But why does she hide them and guard them so carefully?

A hint lay in the history she knew about in the recent histories, the breakup of mother and daughter, adoption by the aunt.

“What are you staring at?” Rosewater asked after a long wait, her eyes drifting from Cloudy’s to her forelegs and up again, a faint blush tinging her cheeks.

“You. Wondering how so many incongruities and contradictions can fit into even your outsize frame.”

“Did you just call me fat?” Rosewater demanded, her eyes dancing as she pushed herself up.

“Mmm.” Cloudy bit her tongue and stifled a giggle. “Maaybe? What if I did?”

“Then I would very carefully consider whether or not to try harder next time. Maybe cheat a little.” Rosewater pushed herself up further and slipped off the bench, towering over Cloudy and forcing her to crane her neck to keep her eyes locked with Rosewater’s.

It was a myth, and a widely held belief in Damme, that every Rose had the same shade of eyes. This was a patent untruth. Even among so closely related ponies as Rosewater and Rosemary, there was a world of difference. Rosewater’s eyes had striations of gold in them, a subtler shade than the vibrant, darker shades of pink that served to lighten her eyes, whereas Rosemary had eyes accented with silver flecks, making her similarly dark shade of pink lighter still.

This close, this intimate, she could get lost in the difference.

“You have beautiful eyes,” Rosewater murmured, raising a foreleg to stroke her cheek. “I don’t believe I’ve noticed the green in them before. Little stars and specks around the iris.”

Cloudy swallowed, her throat dry, beginning to ache. “And yours… gold?”

“A gift from my father. Just as Rosemary’s were a gift from hers.” Rosewater bent to lick slowly along Cloudy’s jaw, culminating in a slow kiss that deepened, their lips parting, tongues meeting in the middle, then parting again.

But I won…

“Promise me something,” Cloudy managed.

“As the victor…” Rosewater purred, drawing the scarf up between them and wrapping it around Cloudy’s neck. A rosy glow surrounded the scarf, warming it and warming Cloudy’s heart with the fragrance of her new home, stronger than before. “Your request is my promise.”

“Don’t be alone tomorrow, Rosewater. Don’t go home and brood.” Don’t let this side of yourself fall into disquiet and disuse again. Cloudy tried to say the words, but her throat stuck closed. This was a part of Rosewater she’d never seen. Both dominant and submissive, and playful throughout.

Something seemed to drain out of her as she finished, and she almost seemed to understand what Cloudy was really asking. Don’t hide away and protect your vulnerable self just to let it wither and see the light for a few hours a week.

“Who…” Rosewater began to ask, then stopped herself with a sucked in breath. “But—”

“But you’ll go and you’ll hide and you’ll brood and miss Rosemary with every miserable minute you’re in that big estate. I’d hope you’d miss me, too now, but I don’t want you to miss me. I want you to think about me and cherish tonight until our next.”

“But—”

“Stop it.” Cloudy rose and backed off enough to rear up and cup Rosewater’s cheeks in her hooves. “I don’t care why or about buts. I won, Rosewater, and this is what I want.”

“And if I win next time?” Rosewater asked, a spark of defiance entering her voice.

“Oh?” Cloudy chuckled softly and bent to kiss her again. “Getting mighty ahead of yourself, Rosewater. Just do this for me. Please.”

For another moment, defiance stood out in the larger mare’s eyes, then faded as she turned her gaze down and sighed. “I won’t be alone. I…” She drew a breath and let it out. “Know someplace I can go that will be safe. I think.”

“Good.” Cloudy held her pose for a few seconds longer, then let go and dropped her hooves to the bench between them. “I’m glad for tonight. For you opening up to us. I think… I might be able to fall in love with you.”

It was the most open she’d been with another pony since Collar about love. Even Sergeant Sunrise, who’d begun crushing on her hard, she’d kept at a distance with ‘proper’ Dammer platitudes and vagueness.

To be able to be open again with another mare, even just another pony about how she felt, and actually feel like it wouldn’t be turned away with a flush and a stammer, was more important than she’d thought it would be.

“And I think I might feel the same,” Rosewater answered her, giving her a gentle kiss before stepping back. “I’ll keep my promise. And please, be honest about me with Lord Collar.”

“I will. Be well, Rosewater, and tell me about your days next time we meet.”

Rosewater stopped on a hill outside the city of Damme, just within sight of the walls, but far enough away that she would appear as nothing more than a dim, white shape in the gloom. Perhaps a slab of limestone, or a limestone fencepost.

Far above, Cloudy’s dark form blocked out stars in a rapid sequence, marking a line from the forest to Damme.

Her route had to be more circumspect, crossing the river farther upstream from Merrie’s chaotic, broken walls that mixed in with the cliffs and bluffs that bordered the eastern portion of the city.

She waited until Cloudy began her descent towards Prim Palace’s distant constellation of torches and braziers before she began her own journey away, waiting until the last safe moment before veiling. There might be sleepy tales of a ghost mare wandering the southernmost alluvial hills come morning, but that would be the rare farmer indeed that lived in the hills and tended to the sparse, stepped terrace fields of rice and berries.

“I won’t be alone tomorrow, Cloudy,” she whispered to the naked wind. “I promise.”

Author's Notes:

And end of chapter one. What a ride. The first Chase between the two, and hopefully not the last. It's certainly not the last of many heart-to-heart talks.

Some background:

The "Chase" is a translation and holdover from wilder days, when herds of primitive ponies roamed a wilder land where magic and spirits abounded and thrived in competition and cooperation with each other.

It's more tame version in Damme is formalities and teasings between two ponies. In Merrie lives the closest to the wild days of nomadic tribes. The Naked Chase is an evening of the playing field, an agreement between the chasers to not use their natural advantages of magic or wings and stand on the same ground as their earth pony lovers.

It's what Roseling and Rosewater had that one night more than a year ago. Earth pony and unicorn chasing each other through the loess hills and forests south of Merrie, ending their chase in a copse of mulberry trees and making love under the light and gaze of the Mare in the Moon.

Also a question:
Is breaking up these longer chapters into more digestible chunks easier for you all to read? I'm still somewhat figuring out how to do web serials, and I'm trying to make chapters as "bite size" as possible without breaking up the story into individual scenes per chapter.

Book 2, 4. Rosewine

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Don’t be alone. It was the thing that went through Rosewater’s mind as she showered and dried herself. Over and over, Cloudy’s request from her win, and a promise Rosewater had made, to not be alone repeated in different variations, always in that sweet, dulcet whisper against her lips. It drove her to think as she considered what to do, staring in her bathroom mirror.

She couldn’t cross the river to be with her daughter, she couldn’t be so blatant about the frequency of her visits or it would seem that the negotiations should be moving faster than the pace they actually were: not at all. Or, rather, not in the direction she’d hinted at to Roseate.

She couldn’t go to Rosemary’s closest friends. They were too vulnerable to Roseate’s whimsy. Rosie Night would be worrying fiercely, but going to her would have to be something that the younger stallion Rosetide would have to do, and leave a note from Rosewater. Or from Rosemary. Or…

Cloudy’s lips touched hers again and whispered, don’t be alone.

Rosy Glass. She’d promised the mare she would visit as herself. But… Rose Petal had been there as well. She and her husband had a sizeable community on the edge of the city, closer to Rosewine Hill, almost at its base in fact.

And Petal was also facing less trade from the Palace. Not that the palace would have been much of their output, but her mother and sisters did like to drink and throw parties and gift wine to those amenable to the palace’s concerns. But also less trade on ships leaving port. She’d learned that much by going over shipping manifests and trying to find her own discounts for shipping her perfumes, far less spacious commodities.

There weren’t many other places in Merrie that could weather a storm of disapproval from Roseate. Ponies would still drink and the other wineries in Merrie couldn’t satisfy all of the demand. Not with Petal and the Garden of Love controlling the most productive hill in Merrie.

And the young mare had sent her multiple invitations to join them for tastings. Arriving without a specific invitation might be surprising, but the invitations had been sent.

And Rose Seed, her mate, had invested heavily in the villa and in upgrading the greenhouses spread out around the base of the hill. There was him to consider as well. A cousin she’d been more an aunt to, whom she’d had to leave alone after…

Don’t be alone.

After the duel. After Carnation was taken, she’d had Rosemary.

Don’t be alone.

Now…

I hear you, Cloudy.

Half an hour later, well before her usual time to leave, before she’d even managed to think about breakfast, Rosewater left her house and did not head towards her perfumery. Instead, she turned left instead of walking down the waterway, confounding the efforts of both the Damme spies and the Merrie in their attempts to stay abreast of her movements.

She didn’t even veil. There was little point to it anymore. Everything she had to do, almost everything, would be out in the open.

It was strange, and strangely liberating to be acknowledged by the common ponies she passed by, even if it was to look at her with a curious fear and trepidation that she would act like one of them or pretend she would be one of them.

I wish I could be more like you, she thought as she passed by so many shops that Rosemary would visit during her forays into town during the living of her normal life. Roseling’s store was still closed that early in the morning, but it was so very tempting to visit the mare and confess everything, to try and strike up a relationship again and make her periodic fancies of being only a friend less fanciful.

It still hurt to think that all she could do to give her some comfort was play a role, but she’d heard the whispers, the rumors, the mutterings about the smells a soapmaker brought with them.

Rosie’s was open, and Rosie herself was sitting outside, sipping her morning tea, a black import from Canterlot, according to Rosemary. The mare nodded to Rosewater, but didn’t smile.

She would have to talk to Rosie as soon as she could. She would have to find a way to get a message to all of Rosemary’s closest friends as soon as she could. She would have to ask Rosemary to write letters to them all. If she wasn’t already.

After seeing Rosie, she began seeing other places, other ponies, that she’d known and been friendly with before everything changed.

They were shops, haunts, and ponies she’d grown up with and were parts of her early life, seeming a lifetime ago.

They tugged at her attention, begging her to go inside and see how things had changed. Outside the few grocers she’d continued to frequent, there were a few mane and hoof care parlors where she’d have wiled away an afternoon talking and unloading the burdens of helping raise a rambunctious, adventurous young mare.

Don’t be alone.

Don’t let Roseate hurt them.

Both were imperative, and to her mind seemed still at odds.

She passed them by, offering only a longing look through open shutters at the goods and ponies inside. And every time she thought she might be free to go take a look, she caught sight of one of her tails out of the corner of her eye, a familiar face from past details that had confronted her on her front stoop, or waited for her in the cover of the cart station; Roseate’s goons were still following her, and would report on her activities.

By the time she reached the road that lead off from Market Row towards Rosewine Hill and the Sweetwine Tributary, the tails could no longer be subtle about their tailing and instead clustered in a group behind her, following her at a slow trot.

They would know where she was going by then. There wasn’t much past the Sweetwine Bridge but bits and pieces of the vineyard and the small village that had grown up over the centuries to support it.

It was a nearly autonomous place now, growing some of its own food and even had its own school and herbalist to care for the sick. Both were run by the same mare, a learned transplant from somewhere east of Canterlot.

Storage hovels that descended into the cool earth to keep the casks of wine steeping at the right temperature year round lined the side of a hill, the rows of doors and hunched roofs all marked with signs of the year of the wines inside.

The glass works, where most of the bottles were made by unicorns skilled at using the molds and sands that made up the finest bottles, lay along a small tributary to the river, several long, low canoes drawn up to the shallow docks where the sand was offloaded. A little farther upstream, the recycling building where emptied bottles of wine were returned for a few bits apiece and cleaned thoroughly sat silent like most of the buildings this early in the morning.

Only the glass works had smoke drifting from one of its chimneys, the fires to melt and purify sand into glass difficult to stir to life from a cold hearth.

They were all part of the Rosewine Vineyard, and most of the ponies that worked the vineyard and its myriad of supporting businesses were also a part of the community. The village was an eclectic collection of building styles and decorations, most of them Merrier inspired, but a few made of red brick and gray mortar surely from the deserts to the south, and a few faux-marble column entrances told of a Canterlotian influence, the sharply domed roofs faring well during the heavy winter snows.

This had been a second home for her once. A place where she could go and be with ponies that cared about her. Whether they still trusted her, or even knew of her, after all the years she’d been gone, and the years she’d spent drifting away as her responsibilities to Rosemary and Carnation kept pulling her away, she would have to find out.

The Villa itself had changed. Grown outward from the not-so-humble beginnings she remembered. All of it had the Merrie architecture on display: sharply framed roofs that offered good roosting places for pegasi and attic space for extra living space, and kept the snow from piling up too deeply.

The newest addition’s whitewashed outer walls and naked dark timber seemed like she could touch it and get white on her hoof. It hadn’t seen a first winter yet.

They’re expanding, despite the impacts. It made her decision to come here, out of all the places she might have found a friendly face, seem like the right one to make. They, if anypony, could weather Roseate’s disapproval, and Roseate couldn’t threaten much without angering an outsized portion of her populace.

The Garden of Love was so much more than a winery. It was a place for ponies to gather and greet each other, and they hosted more parties in a year than their next three rivals combined. They had reach in the community, and Roseate knew it.

That early in the morning, traffic was light, with only a few ponies to give her a cursory, curious look, then swinging wide of the known Roseate goons.

As she came closer, she saw more ponies setting about the tasks of a vineyard take notice of her and her entourage. A few stopped what they were doing to stare, and a pegasus tending to the offloading of a cart full of bottles in slotted crates whispered something to her companion and took off towards the main house.

She could imagine what was whispered, and what would be reported.

Her tails stopped at what might be considered the edge of the property and stared after her, muttering among themselves.

So. You’re not welcome. That was good to know, and put a smile on her face and an extra spring in her step.

Nopony tried to stop her until she reached the very center of the small suburb, and Rose Seed himself stepped out of the villa, his ears in a mostly relaxed posture, though his mate, following him closely, was much more contained and tense.

“Aunt Rosewater,” Seed said with a toss of his head. “Curious time to arrive, isn’t it? We’ve not even sat down for breakfast yet.”

Petal shot him a curious look, then nodded. “I thought she was your cousin.”

“She is. In joke.” He winked at Petal then grinned at Rosewater. “Been a while since I’ve seen you around here.”

“Two years, Rosewater,” Petal said, her voice less friendly, but not openly hostile. Bordering on accusatory. “It’s been Two years since I last saw a hair of yours around here.”

“I apologize for that. I thought…” Rosewater took a deep breath and started over, “I didn’t want you to come to harm after I defeated my mother in our duel. I didn’t want harm to come to anypony.” And yet… Roseling was only the most recent victim. She closed her eyes. Was this a mistake?

“Hey, hey, no.” Seed came closer and set a hoof to her shoulder. “I understand, really. But Budding was really upset you refused her offers of a place here, ‘Water. But then she got called away to business again before she could stage a foalnapping and drag you out by your hindlegs.” He grinned and nuzzled her neck. “I think maybe I should have.”

Rosewater drew a deep breath and nodded as Petal’s ears drooped. “Any family I was close to wasn’t safe. Now… I-I’m sorry, this was a mistake.” But she couldn’t back away. She was frozen, wanting this contact again, not wanting to hurt him more. A family member she’d loved. That she wanted to love again.

She tried to lift her hind leg, back away, but this contact. Gentle and comforting from Seed…

Family that loved her. She blinked rapidly, shaking her head slowly.

“Nonsense,” Seed said with a snort. “I’m not bound by her Way.” He backed up and nuzzled his mate. “Only way I’m gettin’ exiled is by fomenting revolution. She’s good ponies, Petal.”

“That’s well and good,” Petal said, eying Rosewater with a more cautious eye. That was a good sign. He was as carefree as ever, but she remained as cautious and analytical as ever. “But why now, Rosewater? Roseate isn’t pressuring you, is she?”

Blunt. To the point, and it would be considered rude were it not for the rumors flying around that could be interpreted to mark Rosewater as being in her mother’s bag again, and this an attempt to punish the Garden.

“Pet, that’s not—”

“Petal is right, Seed,” Rosewater said, raising a hoof and breaking in. “But…” Warning given. “My being here might put you at risk of Roseate retaliation.” What form that would take, Rosewater wasn’t certain. She was keenly aware of the eyes on her from the distant gang of Roseate’s goons, likely watching them through a scope and almost certainly questioning every pony that wandered by.

Petal considered her quietly, that fire still smouldering away in her squinted eyes and hinted at by her flat ears. “I still remember how distant you were at our wedding,” she said softly. “How you tried to keep from being seen to associate with any of us while Rosemary was… well, being Rosemary.”

“I was so happy for you. I didn’t want to make a scene, or… I—” Rosewater took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to let my dour mood sour your bonding day. Rosemary and I chose the gift we gave you.”

“It’s still on the mantelpiece in our room,” Petal said with a faint smile, then glanced at Seed. “Thank you for that. And for coming. It made Seed happy to see you for longer than a passing glance, even if you didn’t stay long past the reception.” She stepped aside. “Come in, Rosewater, and be welcome as a guest of the Garden of Love.”

“Come in and be welcome, Auntie,” Seed said, repeating the greeting and stepping aside for her as well.

The entry hall beyond the door was short and spacious, consisting of little more than a mudroom and hooks for cloaks before it opened into the spacious courtyard at the center of the villa, decorated all around with roses of every variety from the trellis climbing to bushes, all of them potted or hanging from hooks and carefully trimmed to keep them out of head-height for most ponies.

Rosewater, not being most ponies, had to duck under a loop of spiny, sweet-scented vine to enter the mudroom and knock the dust off her hooves before passing the curtain of glass beads, all of them the same shade as various wine bottles the hill produced.

A table was set up for breakfast, a billowing sheet of silk riding the breeze just over it, wafting the scent of the variety of roses all about and cleaning away the scent of the ponies already seated at the table in twos and threes. Even, she saw, a Prim.

He reacted to her as she’d expected he might, making a small squeak of fright and looking to Seed and Petal with a forlorn look crossing his ears. The other ponies stopped their conversations to watch, alerted by his squeak and direction of his stare.

Petal cleared her throat. “Everypony, I know it must be a surprise, but please welcome Rosewater. She’s come here seeking comfort and to not be alone. Please, I know what rumor has said about her, but do not treat her as rumor states. Treat her as she behaves.”

“As I would expect of any of you,” Seed said, raising his voice. “We all have our reasons for being here, and for being welcome here.” He directed his attention to the lone Prim at the table. “She’s Rosemary’s cousin more than she’s Roseate’s daughter. Remember that.”

A chorus of assent went up from around the table, and eyes both rosy and blue, Prim and Rose, met hers as she looked into each of the ten residents present. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I’m not going to be alone, Cloudy.

It was not the usual breakfast he was used to. Neither the location, nor the meal, nor the company. But it was more… comfortable. If odd.

Collar dabbed his lips after finishing his oatmeal and raisins, grown in Merrie, and took a sip of his apple juice, also grown, pressed, and sold by Merriers crossing the bridges to sell their wares to his people. The usual cold cereal grains weren’t present, nor was the usual cup of tea or scone to follow it up.

Cloudy, for an oddity, was wearing a scarf indoors and sat at his right at the small portable table, patted her lips with a napkin clipped about a foreleg and checked the scarf for dribblings before she met his eyes. “Thank you for listening, Collar,” she said, tapping his ankle lightly. “Isn’t this cozy?”

“It is,” he agreed, looking across the table at the third guest at the table, Rosemary. “I hope the fare is to your liking. I was told by reliable sources this is a fairly common Merrie breakfast.”

“It is,” Rosemary said, grinning as she stuck out her tongue at him. “But I am curious as to why Cloudy would suggest breakfast here, and with a privacy shield up the entire time.” Her eyes twinkled, telling Collar she knew exactly why, and was teasing him. “Did you have a good night, Cloudy? I didn’t get to see you off.” Her eyes trailed to the scarf, and a slow inhale told Collar more about the origins of the scarf than supposition did.

A gift from Rosewater. Collar glanced at Cloudy, who looked entirely too serene. “How did it go last night? You got in after I was already asleep.”

“Rosewater was… well, it was an intense chase to start, then… I executed my plan to lure her out of the city where we could talk.” Cloudy glanced at Rosemary, took a deep breath and went over the chase in brief until she got to the end. “She lost, but it was close.” her eyes unfocused for a long moment, her hoof stroking a tassel resting against her breast. “You can still smell what she did, right, Rosemary?”

Rosemary leaned over to bury her nose in different parts of the garment, breathing deeply and pulling back after each to breath through her mouth for several seconds. “Very faintly. It’s Damme, Collar. She captured Damme’s fall essence in the scarf along with a strong hint of her.” She looked into Cloudy’s eyes, an exchange of information passing between two natives of the scented city.

Collar let his eyes drift closed as he took in a breath, but found nothing he hadn’t already been aware of. “Maybe I’m not—”

Rosemary’s magic seized the scarf and tucked it under his nose but no more.

Clean air with a hint of salt, wood shavings and pastries baking, the last vestiges of magnolias in their final bloom of the season.

“She toyed with me,” Cloudy murmured, drawing the scarf back and burying her nose in it. “Not to tease me, but for this. I wondered why she’d gone to so many places and risked discovery. I think she planned this.”

“She plans a lot,” Rosemary muttered. “Sometimes, I think she plans too much. She keeps on saying she’s going without a plan, but…”

“But her planning, her gift…” She lifted the tasseled end, decorated with a cutie mark in silver. Rosewater’s cutie mark, hidden while the scarf was tucked close around her neck. He hadn’t even seen it when she pulled it on this morning. “She was gentle. Caring. Playful and a bit teasing.”

“She can be. She hasn’t been for a while, but I remember some of her romances, her attempts to reach out to friends again. She was positively giddy after a few.” Rosemary smiled brightly. To Collar, it seemed as though it strained. There was a but that came after.

But it never came. “I’m glad you wore it this morning, Cloudy,” Collar said gently. “It’s a beautiful scarf.”

He watched Cloudy’s expression shift from thoughtful to anguished to thoughtful again before settling on determined. “I had to make her promise not to be alone today.” She met his eyes, chewing her lip. “She fought against it, Collar, but she said she would hold to her promise. She will, won’t she, Rosemary?”

“She’s never broken a promise to me,” Rosemary murmured. “Even when I made her promise to go out and have fun.” She closed her eyes, looking away from both of them. “She was always happy for a few days. Before Roseate took it away from her.” Her lips moved briefly, but no words came out.

He could imagine. ‘I stopped asking.’

What has she suffered? All while believing she was in control? That couldn’t be true. Rosewater wasn’t that deluded. She had to know she was bowing to Roseate the entire time, all to protect what little happiness she had left that Roseate couldn’t take from her while clinging to the hope of justice farther down the line.

All she had was the ability to humiliate Roseate in a duel, an ability that cost her a piece of sanity each time she did so. And likely cost Roseate a piece as well. Spells that damaged target and taxed the mind that had drawn on them.

“She’s afraid,” Rosemary said quietly. “She’s afraid you’ll get hurt, or I will. Or Collar. Or she will. She hides it well, but she confides… confided in me.” She shook her head when Collar opened his mouth. “Let her open up to you naturally. She will, but be patient with her. She’s been hurt more than anypony deserves.”

Collar nodded slowly, staring into the empty oatmeal bowl. The scattered bits of cream and oats did nothing to offer him an answer or even an insight. Rosewater’s history, the side of her she hid from everyone but her daughter, all of it was messier and more convoluted than he would have dreamed four months ago. Stars, even a week ago.

“I want to go on a date with her again,” Cloudy said into the silence. “A chase, or something more Damme-like.” She coughed and blushed faintly. “That last might take some imagination.”

Rosemary bent her head nearly to the table. “What about the forest north of Damme? Everypony thinks it’s haunted at night, right?”

“Except for the logging crews,” Collar said, tipping his head. “And they’re almost done for the season. Agreement with the deerkin to not have ponies in their woods during their migration.”

“Will they mind if a few ponies have a romp in the woods?” Cloudy asked, raising a brow.

“I doubt it,” Collar replied, glancing aside at Rosemary.

“Cloudy and Rosewater were already in the forest last night.” Rosemary said, a small smile on her lips as Collar raised a brow. Cloudy hadn’t shared exactly where their ‘date’ had ended up. “It’s all over the scarf, in between the spots she protected.”

“That nose of yours can be scary,” Collar muttered. He tried, surreptitiously, to sniff his own shoulder and make it look like he was nipping an itch, only to catch Rosemary smirking at him and mouthing ‘strawberry’. He snorted and straightened.

“Regardless,” Rosemary said, sitting up straighter and seeming to settle into the role of matchmaker easily. “Think about it. It shouldn’t be a thicket in the forest this time. You need something more romantic, someplace more comfortable. There are empty logging houses in the north, right? Or maybe you can do something on the Merrie side this time. The Garden of Love can be circumspect, and they’re no friends of Roseate.”

“That’s a bit public,” Collar grunted. “Somepony will talk.”

Cloudy stiffened, then relaxed, smiling. “I think I might like an idea like that. Our next scheduled meeting with her is… when? Two, three days from now?” She glanced at Collar, brow raised.

“Three days. She’s going to come unescorted this time. Or try to. She doesn’t want to rely on the Royal Guard, Pink said.” That had been surprising to hear. “She, I think, wants to change Damme’s opinion of her.”

“She would have to if she wants to join us in a bond,” Cloudy said with a chuckle that faded as she considered. “I can’t imagine her first foray would be a pleasant one, but the banner will keep her safe, at least.”

“From assault,” Rosemary said with a grimace. “Not from being verbally abused.” She reached over the table to tap Collar’s shoulder. “You need to think about starting to spread the truth somewhere about thebattle.”

“I don’t like using rumor,” Collar grunted. “It has too much potential to get out of hoof.”

“It’s already out of hoof. The current rumor is that Rosewater tried to take you by force, but couldn’t, after you laid the smack on her mother and sisters.” Cloudy shook her head. “And that’s in the barracks.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Collar said with a snort. “Who would believe that?”

“Common ponies who’ve only heard her referred to as The Rose Terror,” Rosemary said quietly. “I’ve tried to correct every one that I’ve heard in Merrie, and none of my friends would dare use that name around me, but… they’re not the majority of Merrie, and Rosewater wasn’t exactly a socialite before, either. She had a few very good friends that she would spend time with, a few places she would frequent as a regular, and that’s it.”

“I’ve had to correct a few ponies in the barracks already.” Cloudy tipped her head to the side and hummed. “I think I might like to take the troops out for a night of beers at the Bilge.”

Collar sighed. “Why is it that someplace like the Bilge is the premier establishment for the Dammeguard?”

“Because the booze is cheap, plentiful, and watered down. Keeps our wits going a bit longer into the night.” Cloudy shot him a smirk and raised her brows. “What do you say, Collar? Come join us in the gutter, sniping rumors?”

“Pass. You have a good time, though.”

“Sure. Should I bring those Rosemary’s had her way with?” Cloudy asked with a grin, matched and broadened by Rosemary.

Collar rubbed at his eyes. “Ponies she has talked to, yes. But leave Stride here, okay? He had a traumatic enough experience during the battle. He can keep you company tonight, okay, Rosemary?”

“Mmm.” Rosemary bobbed her head once. “I was hoping to make love to Cloudy tonight, but in the interest of helping Rosewater’s next visit be hopefully less turbulent, then I will consent. He has the cutest blush.”

She wasn’t helping. “Don’t break him.”

“Of course not.” Rosemary’s smile faded. “I know what he saw, and what he endured, Collar. Cloudy told me. I won’t push him hard. But he needs to accept what I am to accept what our bond will mean, Collar. He needs to accept Cloudy, and he’ll need to eventually accept Rosewater.”

“Be gentle.” He rocked back his chair and stepped down.

“Cloudy can tell you. I’m always gentle,” Rosemary purred, shaping her lips around the last word, letting the tip of her tongue linger against her teeth. In the next instant, she was a chaste mare again, blinking innocently at him while he stared at her.

“If, um, if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have some paperwork to do.” He left it as an open invitation for them to explore that heated look as he left, his groin warming sympathetically.

Rosemary was no slouch at the smouldering look. She could promise things with it without even trying to tell him what she might want.

He’d have to be careful around her.

The look Cloudy gave him was no less heated as he left. “Tonight?”

“Now,” she purred, following him with a slink to her step that promised he wouldn't be able to walk straight in a very short while.

He swallowed, but didn't object as she took the lead to his office, her tail swishing to flash him with a suggestive wink before falling again to cover herself.

The faint shiver that gripped Rosemary briefly drew his eye as she locked eyes with him, reminding him again that she would be his wife, too, if he went along with the compromise of Damme and Merrie mores.

Breakfast sat warm in her stomach, and the sweet grape preserves taking the place of the syrup had been a welcome and interesting addition to a fine, and talkative breakfast. And the warmth of a pony curled up against her barrel while Roselyn Dream told a story about the early days of Merrie and Damme, when the two cities were at peaceful loggerheads rather than war, was a perfect counter to the worry she’d felt on arrival.

That he was a Dammer was sweeter. Prim Dazzle was his name, the same pony who’d seemed so scared of her when she’d arrived. Now, in Merrie fashion, he was curled with her on a pile of pillows while just to her left Rose Seed was laying Petal on their broad couch.

To her right, a pegasus perhaps a few years younger than herself with the most beautiful plumage Rosewater had ever seen lay with her cheek against Rosewater’s neck and occasionally raised her muzzle to nip at her chin, then evading the kisses Rosewater tried to catch as repayment for the distraction.

She’d introduced herself as Rosie Bliss, Rosie Night’s older sister, and made herself comfortable at Rosewater’s side without much more than a how-do-you-do.

All around the table, eyes darted from Roselyn Dream’s performance where she took on every role of the play, to Rosewater. Most were curious, all of them knew exactly who she was, but none of them were angry, or anxious, though a few eyes strayed from her to Seed or Petal.

Bliss’s teasing play, it seemed, was more a foil for the onlookers, telling them without words that Rosewater was welcome. It wasn’t a serious attempt to flirt, but Rosewater had a part to play in that game as well. It was something she’d missed, licking and nipping another’s ears in play, as a payback for nips to her chin.

She was more reluctant to play the same games with Prim Dazzle, worried that he would take the wrong meaning from her toying, and he seemed content to let her rest her muzzle on his head as Roselyn reached the end of the first act of the play and came, not to any one of the onlookers that had tried to catch her attention, but to her, and sat on the edge of the stage, facing her forthrightly and showing off her dancer’s lithe body.

“What’d ya think?” she asked, crossing her legs in an almost Dammer-modest display, a sign she wasn’t interested in her that way.

“Beautiful and well told,” Rosewater said honestly, dipping her head genially and earning herself a lick from Bliss and a nip on the cheek. “You do well, Roselyn, and you dance from part to part so quickly it’s hard to notice there’s not more than one of you.”

Roselyn’s grin grew wider as she glanced at Bliss and winked. “Thank you. So… you’re Rosemary’s cousin. You’re prettier than I thought you’d be. And taller. How is she?”

She couldn’t stop the flinch, but recovered quickly. “She… seemed well when I saw her last.” It was the opportunity she’d been hoping for. “I can take a message to her, if you’d like. The next round of negotiations is in four days.” She bent to nuzzle Prim Dazzle’s ears. “That offer goes for any of her friends here. She needs to stay in touch with all of you. She misses you.” Her throat caught on the last sentence. I miss you.

Dazzle pushed himself up to kiss her muzzle. “I’ll write a letter.”

After Dazzle’s words, a wave of offers came to her from every corner of the table, heartfelt pledges to write letters, heartfelt offers to transcribe for others. It was overwhelming, the surge of support for her daughter’s plight.

Roselyn slipped from the stage and climbed the table to kiss her nose, then her cheeks. “Don’t cry, Rosewater,” she whispered, waving a hoof to call her closer for an embrace. “We all love her. And we all miss her.”

Petal rose and embraced her. “We do all love her,” she whispered.

Seed nuzzled her hindquarters and laid his cheek on her cutie mark. “And we know you miss her, too, and love her. I know how you and Carnation raised her, Rosewater. We’ll be happy to take you in, anytime. You don’t have to be alone.”

His simple offer, so close to Cloudy’s, sapped the strength holding her mask in place. She wept. Quietly at first, then more violently as more ponies came to her, nuzzling and touching her, welcoming her to a place that could be a home, was a home for so many. A place where love flowed free, and any who loved just as freely were welcome.

Six years of loss, heartache, and loneliness bled out of her as a dozen or more ponies gave her hope for the future. These were the heart of Merrie, and they offered their love even to her.

Even Dazzle kept his cheek pressed to hers, weeping with her, feeling her ache and loss and by the sharing lessening hers. It was the Principes, brought to wonderful life around her, embracing her, and letting her know how right it was.

It took her time, but she mastered herself again, sniffling and thanking each pony who touched her nose to nose with a whispered repetition of the core. Love many, live brightly.

When she managed to draw herself free of the ache, her mind clear and bright with the offered love instead of numb with it, she took a deep breath, taking in the scents of everypony present, of the moment offered and given. It was a different kind of love from Mother’s Kiss, but no less a potent one.

She locked the memory away and opened her eyes to find Roselyn still in front of her, one hoof cupped under her chin. “Thank you.”

The young mare smiled and kissed her on the lips, brief and chaste. “You’re welcome.”

It was such a gentle reminder of the Merrier idea of intimacy between friends that it hurt. This was what she’d been holding herself away from, the simple reminders that they weren’t alone, that intimacy was more than sex, more than emotion and presence, but an intertwining of interests.

She’d set aside her mask of indifference hours ago, but she could still feel the automatic response, almost a reflex, urging her to put it back on. But to hold it in place, here, seemed wrong. But it was comforting to wear, and not a little bit frightening thinking of the consequences of not wearing it in Merrie.

One day, I will smash this mask. “Friends of Rosemary,” she said, her voice rough.

Petal offered her her own glass of water from across the table. “Here, Rosewater.”

“Thank you.” She sipped and cleared her throat. “Friends of Rosemary,” she began again, “please, make any you know who are her friends aware of my offer. I extend it to any in Merrie or Damme.” The last, she said to another of the Prims across the table from her, a mare introduced to her as Prim Prism, the morning’s chef, and a Prim earth pony a few places down from her. “Any who love her, who miss her. My mailbox is open to all.”

She had planned only to tell those she could find who she knew loved Rosemary, not to have her friends at the Garden spread it to all of both cities. But they all loved her. Or were friends, at the very least. The fallout when Roseate found out would be unpredictable, but likely involve a complaint to the treaty office about a lack of progress in the negotiations and accusations of drawing them out needlessly.

“I like that,” Bliss whispered in her ear just before suckling the tip, a wing shifting to brush against her foreshoulder. “I don’t know how long you planned on staying today, but…” She craned her neck and kissed Rosewater on the lips, more than a touch of tongue caressing them.

Roselyn sat back on the stage, crossing her hooves, “If you wanted to stay today…” Her eyes darted from Bliss to Dazzle, a clear sign she was interested in something with them tonight. A something Rosewater was loathe to interrupt or get in the way of.

Dazzle licked under her muzzle and rose to suckle her other eartip. “We could see what else comes.”

It was tempting. Everything they were offering, and she returned Bliss’s kiss with a heat that surprised her, was tempting. But she touched each with a spell and shook her head slowly. “Thank you all, but I had not planned on overstaying. I have things, still, I must do today. But…”

She let herself feel the desire, let it rise up inside her and take its old place as she turned from Bliss to lick Dazzle’s lips, then kiss them as Bliss took over her ear. It was still there, and still under her control, but one day, and soon, she would be able to indulge herself. To feel the warmth of real flesh inside her, filling her as a faerie could not. To taste the come of another mare, to hear whimpering and grunts and groans as she plied the sweet sex and lips of another…

Bliss, if she was willing. Dazzle behind her, if he was.

They felt it from her, and responded, but with the restraint of Merriers knowing that pleasure could always come later, and let her go after seconds of holding her.

She ended the exploration of long-dormant lusts with another kiss from Bliss.

“Soon,” she whispered in the pegasus’s ear . “Soon, I promise.”

Some day… some day soon, maybe she could experience the same feelings with Collar.

Book 2, 5. Comfortable Truths

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The day following the first date Cloudy had gone on with Rosewater was a special time for Rosemary, filled with Cloudy asking her about her mother, asking her about what Rosewater liked, asking for help in the future with planning dates, and promising to keep her in the loop.

Seeing anypony interested in her mother was a delight and even if it was her own lover, it was a sign that things were finally changing after six years of stagnation and secretive attempted romances that always fell apart as soon as Rosewater tried to go public with her interest.

Even Collar paid more attention to the little conversations she shared with Cloudy, and while he didn’t express an interest, that tiny spark of curiosity about her was more than enough to be considered an enticement. All that would need to happen…

The smell of sex was still strong on them when they came back, and a faint glow as she took in his musky masculine scent was all she needed to do to make him flush. He didn’t back away, though, didn’t back down from the look she gave him that time.

Maybe he would bend his mores enough to let her in. Maybe he would even bend enough to let Rosewater in.

All that would need to happen was for things to go swimmingly.

Rosemary blew a breath out her nose, fogging the window and briefly obscuring the late evening view of the ponies going about the last patterns and duties of the day. Three pegasi that she was pretty sure were Primfeathers landed at the same time they usually did, always outside the perimeter of the palace courtyard that was so carefully guarded and patrolled, and stared in her direction.

They’d been doing it for two days now, landing, standing and talking amongst themselves, and then taking off again towards Merrie, but their silhouettes always broke away before they reached anywhere close to the river.

Whatever they thought they were doing, it wasn’t as intimidating as they thought it was.

As if she had any control over what prison cell she stayed in.

They couldn’t know about Poppy and Glory, either. They were always careful, and Glory was too good at staying hidden to be caught when she arrived.

Their show of pointless bravado done, it was time to see who would be keeping her company for the evening. If it was Coat, she had a book of Prim philosophical arguments she’d been working through on the nature of love that she was hoping he’d be willing to argue against.

For Sunrise, if she was part of her retinue, she had a rather staid story of romance from the Prim Palace library she’d been working through that she thought the mare might enjoy reading together. It was also between mares, a noblemare and a common-born ship-pegasus.

Quiet they might be about sex, but romance was a part of the life of Damme, and there were so many commonalities between Merrie and Damme that neither city had been allowed to see until recently. If she could…

She sighed and put the book aside. Sunrise was still skittish around her. She’d clearly recognized her when first introduced, and Rosemary had immediately known the mare even years later.

Sunrise had only gotten more beautiful with time, the faint pudge of a lifestyle of being a sedentary noble burned away by the rigors of being a Dammeguard on active patrols, and beneath the skittish outer facade burned the memory of their one night together.

“Have a good night, Rosemary,” her current guard, Poppy, said through the door, as a new scent, a mare’s scent and familiar to her, grew stronger as hooves plodded on the carpeting outside.

It was combined with freshly washed, and a faintly scented aroma, pleasant and gentle.

Rosemary’s heart caught in her throat. “Good evening, Sergeant Platinum.”

Silence punctuated by Poppy’s retreating gait hung heavy in the room, a hum of tension that seemed to permeate the room until the handle turned and the door creaked open. Her door being unguarded wasn’t that uncommon anymore. Most of her guards spent at least a few minutes inside talking with her under silence.

This, she wasn’t prepared for.

“Can we talk?” Platinum asked, not coming in, and not closing the door, only standing so that she didn’t need to talk louder than she had to.

“I-I…” The apology stalled in Rosemary’s throat. She swallowed. “O-of course.”

Silence again, the faint scuffing of a hoof against the floor.

Rosemary inched closer, laying down on the floor a few inches from the door to keep the quiet. “What do you want to talk about?”

“You know.” Platinum’s voice was stiff, uncertain. “When… you were engaging with us? Was that real?”

“Yes,” Rosemary said immediately. “Stars, yes. If I could have, I would have done nothing else.” She licked her lips, wanting to say more, but uncertain what Platinum was thinking. It was one of the rules of apologies. Don’t over-apologize. Don’t push. Don’t rationalize more than necessary. Wait.

“Why…” Platinum cleared her throat. “Why did you risk it?”

“You can come in, Plat,” Rosemary said softly. “My other guards spend some time here. I make sure that I silence the room so we can talk privately.”

“I… I need to know why, ‘Mary,” Platinum said, not moving. “I need to know why you took the risk, why you tried to befriend me after the way I treated you the first time.”

Guilt? Rosemary shook her head, dismissing it. “You didn’t seem to be angry at me so much as my family. And I don’t like ponies to think of me as ‘one of those Rosethorns.’”

Platinum snorted, the smile audible. “I never thought of you as ‘one of those Rosethorns.’” A hoof tapped on the floor. “I was curious from the start, but… you are a Rosethorn.”

Rosemary blew out a breath. “I am. I’m not ashamed of my heritage. My heritage is the same as yours. I’m not…” She almost said ‘Roseate’s daughter,’ and cast her mother into that group. And her cousins. Glory… Glory the secret almost-aunt. “It’s complicated.”

“Can you try to explain it to me? I need… Rosemary, I… I need to know if you were toying with me.”

“Never.” Rosemary inched the door open a little more with a spell. “Come in, Platinum. I promise I’m not going to try anything.”

That familiar gray coat and blue eyes came around the edge of the door, her silver mane still faintly damp from her bath. She eyed Rosemary laying on the floor and raised a brow, then shook her head silently and slipped in, closing the door behind her.

“You look like a sad puppy,” Platinum said with a faint smile.

“I am a sad puppy,” Rosemary said with a wink as she focused on her magic and the now-familiar receptacles of power in the corners of the room. The faint sound of wind outside and the distant sounds of the palace winding down for the evening faded away, then vanished. “I worried what you would think. I knew…” She shook her head.

“When you said you were changing to daytime again,” Platinum said, looking away from her to study her room. “When you said that, I was sad because… I liked you.”

“Liked?”

“I don’t know if I do.” Platinum’s ears flattened against her mane. “It hurt when I heard you’d broken the law. I wasn’t sure if I shouldn’t have arrested you on the spot when you showed up that first night.”

Rosemary kept in what she wanted to say, a self-defeating statement that she should have. “I like you, Platinum. Really. You’re fun to talk to, and… you’re open-minded. I’m sorry for what I tried to do, and if I could, I’d not do it. I’d have sought asylum instead.”

I would have told Rosewater first, but I would have run. But Rosie… Velvet. Trestle. They wouldn’t have understood. Either way, she wouldn’t be there to see their foal be born like she’d promised.

Platinum was still watching her, blue eyes sharp, considering, before she relaxed minutely. “Apology accepted. This… war does things to ponies. I think, maybe… we could try to be friends? Start over?”

“Yes to the first, no to the second. Stars, Platinum, I don’t want to pretend that all that teasing and flirting I threw your way was for nothing.” Rosemary smiled as brightly as she could, pushing back the lingering pangs of everything she’d left behind in Merrie. “But… it does seem like I’m going to be here for a while.”

The smile that earned her was more than worth the anxiety, the days worrying about the friends she’d made in Damme and betraying their trust.

“You were flirting a lot,” Platinum said, her voice low as she glanced at the nearest corner. “Was… there anything to it?”

“Of course. I, and most Merriers, don’t flirt if we don’t see something that interests us.” Rosemary raised her hoof again, but didn’t right herself just yet. “But flirting is just our way of saying, ‘I’d like to get to know you better.’”

A pause, a cock of the head, and a small smile was all that warned her, “Well… in that case, what’s a pretty mare like you doing on the floor like that?”

She couldn’t help it. Rosemary burst out laughing as Platinum’s cheeks blazed red, her indignant look only fueling the merriment and driving Rosemary into further spasms whenever she tried to regain control.

It wasn’t long before Platinum was laughing along with her.

“I raise two petals.”

Collar glanced up at his card-playing partner for the afternoon. “You sure about that, Rosemary?” The small pile of white petals in the center of the folding table between them was only a tiny portion of the petals on the table. Most of them sat in front of him, ruffling slowly in the faint breeze of the public garden.

She only winked and pushed over the two. “I have a strategy.”

Off to the side, Cloudy rolled her eyes. She’d had to fold two hooves ago and now sat between them, watching the game play out. “She has no strategy. She’s playing with you.”

“She’s losing, though.” Collar flicked an ear and stared hard at the cards floating in front of him. He had a solid set this time: a suite of Feathers. There wasn’t much that could beat it, and Rosemary only had three petals left.

“If you believe that, then go all in,” Cloudy said with a snort, her face impassive.

Rosemary only beamed at him and fanned herself with one of the remaining petals.

“But that’s…” Collar sighed and glanced over his cards again. The rules and values, even the cards, were the same as a similar game in Damme, Bardings, played with actual bits instead of petals. It was popular in taverns for a friendly game, but the rare high-stakes game existed.

None of those felt more high-stakes than this.

Petals was played for favors, not money, and Rosemary was very much on her mother’s side when it came to pushing him towards the Principes. Cloudy…

He glanced at her, and she looked back placidly, a tiny twitch of her lips that might have been a smile or a frown before it stopped and she schooled herself back to passivity.

“Fine.” Collar shuffled the twenty petals in his pot into the center along with the two stems. “Call and all in.” He placed his five cards down, face up, and got the satisfaction of seeing Rosemary’s ears snap back, upset in her eyes. “High Feather Suit.”

It lasted only a few seconds before that smile came back. That damned smile.

One-by-one, she laid her cards down, starting with the one of suns, then the two of stars, the three of moons…

Collar swallowed, watching the last two cards waver as she sniffed them.

“Smells like… victory.”

Down came the Mare and the Princess. A Celestial Flush. A low-suit flush, but the only way he’d have beaten it would be to have a higher suite. The Heart was still in the deck, and so was The Crown.

Collar stared at them for long moments, then glanced at the stakes chart laid out on the table beside them. That was the things she could buy with her petals. And three stems.

At the very top, for every single petal and stem, was a kiss.

Her eyes followed his, and she popped a petal in her mouth, chewed briefly, shivered, and swallowed. “No kiss. I’m not going to buy that from you, Collar. When you’re ready, you’ll give it to me.”

What Rosewater had told him. No taking. No trickery. His ears stopped trying to dive into his mane. Why, then, did you put it there? They’d written the ‘purchase’ list after counting out all of the petals available. If it was there to prove a point, that they wouldn’t move on him without his explicit, uncompelled consent…

The next item below that was three new books to read every week. He’d have been happy to give them to her without her needing to ‘pay’ for them, but…

After that was an hour of frank talk once a week. That almost scared him more than the kiss had.

“Hmm.” Rosemary twirled one of the stems over the scrap of paper and the five items listed there. Five prizes to be won from her column. Two other columns held his and Cloudy’s bounties.

She tapped the last item on his column. “Three questions, answered truthfully and without obfuscation.” She tapped another one from Cloudy’s list. “Three secrets shared.” Each one was worth a quarter of her petals. “And…”

“Wait, you can buy things from another pony’s list?” Collar asked, raising his brows. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Mmm. We did say that anything written down was up for grabs.” Cloudy’s facade faded away, and she smirked. “It’s your fault you thought it was only what you wrote down.”

“And this is the last one.” She tapped the middle option on her list. “I want to ask your mother what she knows about my mother.” It read, One small favor.

“Rosemary, I’d do that without you needing to—”

“Too late! I’ve already spent my petals.” Rosemary’s grin was bright, fierce, and uncompromising. Most of them. The ones she’d spent sat in one pile, but a small pile of six more sat to the side of the paper scrap. “Now, we get to make petal salad for lunch.”

He glanced at Cloudy, looking for support, but the only look she gave him in return was a shrug, a smile, and a flick of her tail. “I’ll leave you two to settle up the details. I’ve gotta head out.”

Unspoken, but plain, was Cloudy’s interest in finding what Rosewater’s movements had been after their date. Whether she’d spent the time alone or not.

Leaving him alone with Rosemary as she nibbled on the end of a stem.

“Did you cheat?”

Rosemary grinned, twitched the stem to the corner of her mouth and shuffled the spent petals back into the center of the table. “If I did?”

Collar sighed. “Is that another rule? Don’t get caught?”

The grin grew into a smile, and she winked. “There are many rules to Petals, Collar. Don’t get caught is one of them, but it doesn’t pertain only to ‘cheating’ as you so callously put it.” She glanced at the sheet again, then tipped her head back, the stem making a little circle as she pursed her lips.

“An ‘alternate’ way of playing, then,” Collar said, fighting to hide his own smile.

“Mmm. Yes. And, I have just a few petals that I can’t think of a use for.” She collected five, the minimum amount for a prize from the sheet, and settled them in front of him. The last, she popped in her mouth. “What would you like?”

“Three questions, answered honestly.” It wasn’t even something he’d needed to think about. It was the reason he’d made it the cheapest of his options. He could have bought a dozen answers. Three, though…

Rosemary grinned and nodded as if she’d expected that all along. “I’ve only been honest with you. As… much as my mother’s secrets allow me to.” She slipped the deck into its pouch and stood. “I would like to get lunch before you start grilling me. And a victorious petal salad sounds amazing right now.”

“It is about that time. Will you share?” Collar eyed the petals. They were thick and fresh, plucked from carnations that Lace had given up from her own personal garden in return for Rosemary helping her cultivate a few new bulbs.

“Of course. Sharing, Collar, is at the heart of a Merrie bonded family.” She winked and ticked her ears in a playful cant before prancing off, the petals forming a halo over her head that spun slowly in her pink magic.

Collar let the shield fall, sighed, and watched her go before standing up and reflexively brushing off his rump with a flick of his tail.

Coincidentally, he heard one of the gardeners murmur to his partner, “That is a mare who knows what she wants.”

“Who she wants, you mean,” the other gardener said, loud enough for Collar to hear, though barely.

He couldn’t keep the flush from climbing up his neck. Stars. Two weeks ago, his greatest romantic concern had been what to get Cloudy for their anniversary.

Cloudy sat on a cloud above the edge of the river, watching as the white form toured the garden with a pegasus and a unicorn, their features indistinguishable even with the finest scope she could scrounge up from the armory. But that white coat and pink mane and tail were hard to mistake for anypony other than Rosewater in the early afternoon sun.

They were meandering up the hill, stopping here and there to apparently sample the late-season grapes that would become the sweeter winter wines. All around them, work continued by earth ponies and others as they raised their heads to look towards the tourist among them.

Thank you.

It made her heart lighter knowing Rosewater had listened to her, and happier still that she wasn’t making it a one-time event. She’d gone back the next day, unbidden. Cloudy would need to ask who her friends were and try to get to know them when she got the chance, and thank them for taking care of Rosewater.

The rustle of wings announced a visitor before the cloud shifted and hooves touched down, sinking minutely into the cloudstuff before firming. She didn’t need to smell the wash to know it was Stride. The cadence of his landing was familiar from weeks and months spent training together to join the Dammeguard and plenty of patrols afterwards.

“Hey, Stride.” She didn’t break her observation, but shifted it away from Rosewater to the villa in general, noting the activity all over the place. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing rounds?”

“Done early. It’s been quiet the last week,” Stride said with a snort. She didn’t miss the sound of him licking his lips. The false bravado was comforting. He was recovering from his ordeal at least a little. A week of recovery under Cloudy’s direction had helped him. “What are you doing up here?”

“Just checking on some of our ponies of interest. It’s been too quiet.”

Stride snorted again. “I’m just glad it’s been quiet.”

“You’ll get lazy with that attitude. Can’t keep up with me if you get lazy, Stride.” She grinned and lowered her scope to let it hang around her neck. “What really brought you up here?”

He shuffled a touch, then glanced at her. “How do you deal with it?”

“With the raid?”

For a moment, Stride shook his head, then nodded, and finally shrugged. “I mean… you’re dealing with her, right?”

Fighting the urge to bristle at the mention of Rosewater as a villain was hard. She’d never been a villain, no matter how well she played the part. Now that she understood that… “She’s not evil, Stride. Did you get through the histories I assigned you?”

Part of his officer candidacy training program was reading and understanding the history of both cities as a part of Lace’s Reformation. More recently, that had moved to the history of the major players in present-day Merrie. Including every speculative bit that wasn’t damning of Rosewater.

“I… started,” he admitted, dropping his ears. “Is that relevant?”

“It is. She’s been nothing but genteel and polite in dealing with us.”

“As expected, right? She’s operating under the treaty.”

“That’s never stopped Roseate from bending the strictures into pretzels before,” Cloudy groused. “Rosewater’s different, Stride. She honestly cares for her cousin, and she’s doing everything she can to make sure the negotiations move along smoothly.”

“But she’s still making eyes at Lord Collar.”

“And?” Cloudy gave a derisive snort of her own. “She’s still hopeful, Stride, it doesn’t mean that she’s going to succeed, and it doesn’t hurt our stance that she’s hopeful.”

That triggered a frown from him. “But isn’t that dishonest? Shouldn’t you tell her he’s not interested?”

“He’s already said as much,” Cloudy said, leaving off that he wasn’t going to deny the chance to get to know her better outside the treaty meetings. “We’re not using it to deceive her, Stride. She’s her own pony, and she can decide to try and pursue him if she wants. Whether or not he reciprocates is his choice.”

“But… he has you.”

It was a risk, and Cloudy checked their altitude and airspace before adding, “And Rosemary. I’m marrying her, Stride. I decided that before I even crossed the bridge. Before I even met Collar.”

That seemed to set him back on his heels for a moment, then he recovered. “Then Lady Lace approves?”

“Not in the open.” Cloudy checked their height again, and their airspace. “It’s a part of the Reformations, Stride. And he is, by blood at least, half Merrier. It’s in his heritage as much as it is mine.”

Stride stayed still for a long moment, his gaze focused off in the distance, darting between emptiness and close to her, then away again. “Does he love her?”

“Stars, Stride, they just met a few weeks ago.” Cloudy rolled her eyes. “She likes him, but she’s not in love with him either. We don’t fall in love at the drop of a hat, but we have different kinds of love, different degrees, and…” Cloudy shrugged. “Maybe they won’t ever be sexual partners, but they can still find their love.” She desperately hoped that Rosemary would find her joy with Collar, even in sexuality, but she wouldn’t hold it against her if she only found her love in Cloudy. “But I think they can. She’s too kind and sweet for him to hate her.”

He nodded at that, frowning down at his hooves.

Cloudy flexed her wings and rolled her neck. “It’s too early to say what’s going to happen, but… I’m satisfied with the way things are proceeding.”

“Merrier romance seems messy.”

Cloudy barked a laugh. “It can be! Stars above, it can be, but we’re used to it and we wouldn’t have it any other way.” Laughter faded into a rough chuckle. “Maybe someday, you’ll get to experience just how messy and wonderful it can be.”

She could have dipped his ears in ice water and gotten less of a response.

“W-what?” He sputtered and shook his head, then stood abruptly, his cheeks flushed, and turned around. “Last one to the palace is a pigeon!”

“Hah! You—” She broke off suddenly and stared off to her right, mouth open. “Hey, Gale.”

Before Stride had finished turning to look, Cloudy dove down through the cloud, wings snapping out and catching the air, bending her dive into a sharp turn even as she called on her magic and flew into her own slipstream.

Stride’s indignant squawk behind her was followed by a sharp whistle as he followed her in the next second.

Some day… he might not fall for that.

The wind coming off the sea was clean with no beach to speak of for seaweed and detritus to catch and rot off the side of the cliff. Salt, sea foam, and the still-warm air pulled up the fragrance of the slowing operations on Rosewine Hill, and a touch of the ponies that were working all around.

The wine from the Rosewine Vineyards all came from here, the broad, domed hill that abutted the cliff that plunged down into the sea. Grapes grew all over the hill, and while some were already fully harvested and were being put to rest by their tending earth ponies for the winter, there was more than enough to do that it was hard to find a row that wasn’t being tended.

For Rosewater’s freshly reawakened need for contact with other ponies, it was a blessing and a curse. She felt awash in a world she’d left behind years ago and only gotten slapped for trying to reenter time and again. Whether Roseate had been deliberate in her actions or it was the blind fumbling of a mad tyrant, she might never know.

It was so clear to her now, and becoming clearer, just how foolish she’d been to take the road she had, and at the same time certain that the road she’d taken was still the right one.

Ahead of her, Bliss cupped a bunch of grapes with a wing, inspecting them critically before nodding and letting them settle back down gently.

Beside her, Dazzle made it a point to stay close to her, inspecting this or that grape bush long enough for Rosewater to move on to the next clump of workers.

They were ponies of all ages, all social strata, and all had the same semi-awed expression when they first saw her, like she was a mythical figure that had just climbed out of a dusty cupboard.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Dazzle commented. He pulled out a paring knife from his work saddle and nicked off a small bundle, then dabbed a bit of wax on the cut end to keep it from leaking or rotting. “Too beautiful not to share in the grapes.”

“I admit I don’t know much about making wine,” Rosewater said, leaning down to sniff the bunch, surprised when he twisted free a grape and pressed it to her lips. She accepted, mindful of the taste and fragrance as the plump fruit burst in her mouth. Tart. Sweet. And it had two tiny seeds that she maneuvered and spit into the waiting bag Dazzle offered up. “Delicious.”

“Aren’t they?” Dazzle grinned and bobbed his head, popping one into his mouth. “I talked to some of the other ponies that knew you before… well…” He flicked an ear. “They said they were happy to see you again, and hadn’t known why you didn’t come around anymore.”

“I need to see them all sometime,” Rosewater said with a small breath, not quite a sigh. “I want to see them all. But I’m glad I’m not rushing headlong into reconnecting.”

“Too much all at once?”

“I think it might be. I can deal with being alone, Dazzle. But I… I don’t want to. Not when I don’t have to.”

He sidled closer and bumped his shoulder against hers. “Then don’t. Go at your own pace.”

They plodded ahead, shoulder to shoulder, catching up slowly to Bliss checking the individual clusters of vines. What she was doing with them, Rosewater had no idea, but given that she was the Garden’s lead weather pony, it might have something to do with how well watered they were.

“Thank you.”

Dazzle nodded ahead to Bliss. “I hope the night we want to ask you for isn’t too much.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Roselyn is going to be spending the night with Prism in a few nights, and Bliss wanted to ask you to be with her. I asked if I could join, and so…” He shrugged as they came up to the beautiful mare, her dancer’s body only partially obscured by her work harness and it’s multivarious pockets and tools sticking out. “We want to invite you to dinner with us, and to stay the night with both of us.”

“The night,” Bliss said as she cupped another bunch of grapes and flirted her tail as she gave them a sniff and hefted them, her feathers shifting slowly as she rolled them back and forth. “Not just dinner and then we get to see you go home. Sleep with us.”

But I haven’t even— She cut the thought off before it finished. If Collar didn’t accept her, she needed to still cultivate a relationship somewhere.

Don’t be that cold. “Why? You both barely know me.”

“You’re kind,” Dazzle said immediately. “Generous. I’ve heard that much from Seed the past few days. Even before, he would lament that you weren’t around.”

“And you may not remember me,” Bliss said, dropping the bunch of grapes and turning to her, “but I remember you. I was all gangling and legs six years ago. Not a mare who poses for statues.” She spread her wings and struck a pose with a foreleg lifted, showing off the sleekness of her form, built for the air and the ground at once.

“Stunning,” Rosewater agreed, quickly filtering through the ponies she remembered from her lazy days at the Garden with Carnation and Rosemary. Several pegasi stood out prominently, but… Bliss’s unique plumage was hard to forget. She’d have been younger than her first majority at the time, and Rosewater barely past her second. “I maybe… remember seeing you. My focus was mainly on Rosemary and Seed and the trouble they got into.”

“That sounds like them,” Bliss said with a chirping laugh. “I remember you taking care of Seed and Rosemary and a few others. Roselyn remembers you, too, but she’s still too young. I’m twenty-four, Rosewater. I know what kind of mare I like, I know what kind of lover I enjoy. I know what kind of mare you are.”

There wasn’t much she could say to that other than reject their offer, and it had been almost a year since her last encounter with another pony. Bliss… she was kind, had been attentive and gentle with her at their breakfast yesterday. That she was beautiful was secondary, but there was an attraction to her that Rosewater couldn’t deny.

Too, the little flashes of her marehood she gave throughout the afternoon were more than incidental glimpses. It was hard to miss the smouldering, brief look or the fragrance of Dazzle’s arousal each time.

But can I? Dazzle was a stallion, and that would put him at the top of any hit list Roseate wanted to make. If she forgot to renew her infertility, or removed the spell, and he did…

Rosewater took a breath and glanced from one to the other, seeing the look of hope in both of their eyes. “It’s because I’m tall, isn’t it?”

Dazzle chuckled, then started laughing at the same time Bliss did. “Stars, yes. That’s one reason. I like a workout when I have sex.”

“It means he can be lazy afterwards,” Bliss said with a tittering laugh. “I, on the other hoof, want the chance to watch Dazzle for once. He’s good with his cock and his magic… I want to see that look of… Bliss on your face, Rosewater.”

Rosewater joined them, laughing, then kissed one and the other lightly on the lips. “You’ve convinced me, and I do want it. Name the day, and I’ll be there.”

Book 2, 6. Damaged Families, Part 1

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“’’Ey! Cloudy,” the bartender, Bridgewater, called as soon as she came in. “Thought it was gonna be a slow night for once.”

“You wish,” Cloudy shot back, holding open the door for a few more ponies to wander in. Mostly those that had cared for Rosemary or been her conversational companions over the last weeks. “We’re gonna take a corner booth. Rounds on me.”

Bridgewater eyed her for a moment, squinted, and called to the back, “Silver, honey, Cloudy’s here with company.”

Silver Tap, a mare with a smile worth as much as her name, poked her head out and clucked her tongue. “You’re late, Cloudy. Curfew’s about to begin.”

“It’s not mandatory tonight,” Cloudy said, waving a hoof at the larger corner table as she hiked her way up to the bar. “’Sides, we’re guards. Curfew doesn’t really apply to us.”

Silver gave her a longer look, then glanced at her husband and sighed. “Alright. Rounds on you, I heard.” When Cloudy nodded, she sighed again and ducked back into the back, calling over her shoulder, “Be a few. Haveta clean some glasses.”

Cloudy wandered back to where her small cadre was settling in around the table and drew in a deep breath. She knew these ponies. She’d worked with them for two years, and they liked and trusted her. Else, they wouldn’t have included her in the first bar-run to the Bilge more than a year ago. They believed her story, and looked to Collar for guidance just as she had.

Poppy pushed out a seat for her. “Come on, LT. You dragged us out here for something, right?”

“I bet she’s sweet on Rosemary,” Platinum stage-whispered, “and she’s about to tell us that.”

“As a matter of fact,” Cloudy growled mock-severely, and took the offered seat. “I am. She was my closest lover in Merrie before I had to flee. But this isn’t about that. I’ve received word from Collar that Rosewater will be entering the city, under treaty-flag and without escort, tomorrow. It’s the ‘without escort’ part I want to talk to you about.”

Wary looks met her from all corners. Poppy, it seemed, was trying to look as wary as the rest, but a subtle shift of his eyes followed by a tightening of his lips betrayed the acting. Curious, but she knew, and the rumor mill was flying, that he was involved somehow with Rose Glory, despite his official orders being treatment of an injury sustained during capture.

It had been a bruise that was already well past the time it should have been healed.

“Why?” Prim Shine asked, accompanied by several nods around the table. “That’s not going to stop rotten tomatoes from flying. I didn’t think she was stupid.”

“She’s not,” Cloudy shot back. “She’s trying to… I don’t know.” She did know, but… “What would you do if you had a terrible reputation in Merrie, and wanted to visit somepony who meant a lot to you without needing to go through a complicated process to see them?”

Again, Poppy’s eyes darted about before he settled down in discontented silence. The faces around the table weren’t exactly welcoming to the idea, as much as they all liked Rosemary and agreed she was an exception to the usual Rosethorn aggressive ‘love.’ That was a far cry from saying that Rosewater, one of the most terrifying and effective infiltrators that Merrie had ever produced, was really just a misunderstood mare trying her best in a bad situation.

Platinum coughed and raised a hoof, then pressed her lips tightly closed as Silver came out with a platter of mugs hovering over her horn.

“Top shelf ale,” Silver said as the seven mugs got passed around. “Not watered down or anything.”

Cloudy winced and started counting out bits from her pouch. “That’s, what? Seven bits?”

“Eight. Prices went up from the distillery.” Silver waited on the last mug before the last bit hit the table. “There you go, sweetie. Enjoy!”

Platinum started right back up again, “Rosemary’s tried to get me to look at her cousin in a different light when…” She swallowed. “When we had our little talks on the bridge. She told me some of the ways she fights Roseate in little ways that won’t get her exiled. And that claiming Collar as her mate… well, that was just to keep Roseate from going after him.” She shot Cloudy a look. “You’ve been doing the whole ‘I’m Collar’s mate’ thing for a while now, why haven’t you, or he, popped the question?”

Cloudy stared at her, along with everypony else at the table.

She shrugged. “It just seems like the question to ask. You get married, problem over. Roseate can’t go after you without violating the treaty. It seems like Lady Lace accepts you, too.”

“We have…” Cloudy coughed and looked aside. “There are personal considerations.” Before Rosewater, it had been Collar’s insistence on not chaining her to him by Damme law. As much as she had appreciated that at the time, it had made their relationship draw more than a few eyes.

Now, Rosewater’s gambit was making things even more complicated. Especially when it came to explaining things.

None of the Dammers around the table questioned that. It was the way of Damme to leave each others’ love lives alone. At least in polite Damme society. There were more than enough gossip-mongers to make the gap between Merrie and Damme seem less like a canyon and more like a shallow stream.

“This is about Rosewater,” Cloudy said after a long draw on her ale. It was top-shelf. The bitter and sweet notes combined on her tongue and in her nose, drawing her deeper into it. And it wasn’t even watered down a little. “I’ve been in the negotiation process because I need to learn the diplomatic side of things. I’ve talked with her, worked with her to try and get a suitable agreement in place. She’s not the monster that she seems to us. Even to me, when I lived in Merrie. She’s intelligent, and she truly loves Rosemary, and Rosemary loves her.”

Poppy nodded slowly, and Platinum joined a second later after giving the diminutive medic a curious look. The rest of them, Shine, Drop, Quill, and Note, shared looks with each other.

Note was the first to speak up, “I admit that there are some Roses across the river, even some Rosethorns, that seem to be fascinating in their lives and mores. They’re not all monsters, and not all aligned with Roseate. Not even a significant percentage of them. But… Rosewater?”

Quill coughed and glanced pointedly at Poppy, then leaned against the table. “I’m not even sure why I’m here. I mean, sure, Glory isn’t a terrible mare. I’ve talked to her often enough that I know she was caught in a bad situation against her will, but she doesn’t say much about Rosewater. The others in the Jail Corps don’t talk with her much. She scares them, I think.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Cloudy said before anypony else could say anything. “You’re not steeped in your prejudices, Quill. You’ve seen the Roses, and the Rosethorn branch especially as not a unified lot of ponies with a single purpose. They’re fractious, contentious, and they all work for their mother because of various reasons, most of them unwillingly. Rosewater is the only one who actively opposes her.”

“Why is that?” Drop asked, raising a brow and glancing around the table. “Am I missing something?”

Prim Note hesitated with his hoof half raised, looking to Cloudy for permission, then lowering it and leaning forward. “Because of the treaty. I’ve done a lot of digging into the history of Merrie and Damme and the treaty. Roseate can’t disown her or exile her unless she crosses several lines. I have a feeling that Rosewater trying to find a mate isn’t going to be a good enough reason.”

“I’ve always wondered why Celestia didn’t just force the war to end,” Shine grumbled, brows furrowed, thinking. “Where might we be if that had happened?”

“Which philosophy would come out on top?” Cloudy asked. “There’s no doubt they could have done it. The Equestrian Army at the time numbered large enough to subdue the entire region, but that has never been Princess Celestia’s preferred method of encouraging unity.”

“The army was also occupied at the time, and even more occupied now,” Note said in a low voice, grinning. “Merrie and Damme became a low simmer kind of worry once the fighting stopped. The Everfree’s growing still, and it’s a breeding ground for monsters; even back then it was a worrying, if minor threat. Dealing with our little border dispute has always been a lesser concern for her.”

Thoughtful faces nodded slowly.

Poppy raised a hoof and cleared his throat. “Is that why you’re talking to us about Rosewater, Cloudy? Because you think this might be an opportunity to… what?”

“Make a friend out of an enemy,” Cloudy said softly, leaning in close and thanking Poppy for the open invitation to get to the point. “I don’t think Rosewater is who we thought. Even I was scared of her when I lived in Merrie and did my best to stay out of her way. Ponies that got close to her got hurt was all I really knew. But, having talked to her, I think it’s more because of her mother than her own actions.”

“And why us?” Shine asked. “Why talk to us about it? What are we going to do? Of us all, only Drop is high enough of a rank to do much about it.” He nodded to Cloudy’s former commander, now a left-hoof of Pink’s and only nominally in the chain of command. Now, with Cloudy the apparent heir-consort, even that apparent dotted-line superior status was in question. “You have the most power of all of us to influence Collar, Lace, and…”

“Dapper?” Cloudy asked, raising a brow and smiling first at Shine and then winking at Drop. “I’m talking to you because… I’m trying to say that I was wrong about Rosewater. She’s not who we thought. I’m talking to you because I want your help. I think this is our best bet to actually pull off what Corsage and Ascot tried, and I don’t want rumor and supposition to be the downfall.”

Note raised a hoof, lowered it, and sighed.

“What is it, Note?”

“You realize that Ascot and Corsage were lovers, right? They weren’t involved in negotiations. They saw each other without the baggage their families carried, and they were never…” Note frowned and cocked his head to the side. “There are some accounts that say they were enemies at first. Did you go reading histories, Cloudy?”

“Yes, but not for that.” Cloudy forced her face to impassivity. “Corsage and Ascot wanted to end the war so they could be together, yes, but also so their friends and children could live without worrying about what the war would do to them on either side.”

Note studied her for a long time, taking a sip of his ale, and setting it down before he looked around the table. “I’m in. What do you want us to do?”

Startled noises came from around the table as ponies shifted their attention from her to Note.

Note, calmly, smile and raised a hoof. “My reasoning is simple. Even if Rosewater’s intent is to court Collar, and I don’t think it is, making a friend of the presumptive heir of Merrie can have only good future ramifications. If it is her intent, Collar is already spoken for by our comrade, and she’s unlikely to succeed.”

“And if she does?” Shine asked a second ahead of Drop.

“We gain nothing by making an enemy of her, and everything to gain by befriending her. If she does succeed in wooing Collar…” Note shrugged. “It would likely be for political reasons. Ending the war… it’s something all of us have dreamt of. Though, maybe not quite this way.” He grinned and took another sip of his ale. “That about the flavor of it, Cloudy?”

How much do you know, Note? How much do you listen to that you shouldn’t?

Aloud, she said, “That’s about it. I would prefer not to lose my lover, even for ending the war. I love Collar, have no doubt, and I won’t give him up without a fight.”

That settled most of the ones starting to agitate. For now, it would be safe to let them believe that it meant she would accept it only as a Damme marriage. None of them save Note seemed to think even close to lines along the reality of the situation.

“What I want you to do,” Cloudy said softly, leaning in closer and making the others lean in, “is get to know her. Don’t judge her by what you think you know. Judge her by what she does from now on. Counter any rumors you hear with what you know. And stop ponies from calling her the Rose Terror. That nonsense started in Merrie, probably by her mother, after the duel six years ago. You remember that?”

A few of the older ponies nodded, but the rest just looked confused.

“Rosewater dueled her mother in the Merrie Grounds. According to the reports, it wasn’t even a contest,” Drop said, glancing at Cloudy. “Rosewater won and walked out fifteen minutes later, uncontested. You were there, I heard, Cloudy.”

“I was. Rosewater didn’t even react to the spells Roseate threw at her.” The memory of that fight still haunted her. The screams from Roseate had started early, but still the spells from her flew in more and more inchoate patterns, wild and unpredictable and growing stronger and weaker with the rise and fall of the volume of her terror. “Rosewater… incapacitated her with a single spell.”

“You’re not exactly arguing for her favor,” Platinum noted, frowning. “That’s pretty damn scary if you ask me.”

“It’s the why,” Cloudy protested, tapping a hoof on the table. “She did it for Rosemary. I… don’t know the why yet, but she’s talked a little about it during breaks in negotiations. I think, though, that Roseate was arguing that Rosemary should go with her mother so they wouldn’t be separated. Tearing her from the city she’d known at such a young age. I think that’s why. Rosewater fought to keep her here, at Carnation’s request.”

She would have to ask Rosewater point blank, later. She didn’t know enough.

And she knew too much.

“I’m in,” Platinum said, tapping her hoof on the table. “I like Rosemary. Spunky mare. I’m glad she didn’t get exiled.”

“I’m in,” Poppy said, leaning forward and glancing between Note and Platinum. “I’ve helped the ponies that Rosewater abducted. The ones we know about. She never forced them to do anything, and let them go quickly and cleanly. Not like the other abductees. None of hers had to be hot boxed and detoxified. I think she was doing her best to keep them safe and still follow orders.”

Poppy endured the searching looks the rest of the bunch leveled at him and returned the looks with the surety of a medic who knew what he was talking about.

“Fine.” Shine drained his mug and tapped it on the table. “Count me in. Poppy’s right. I’ve seen the ones that Rosewater wasn’t responsible for. Sloppy work. The ones Rosewater was responsible for just acted like they were sleepy for a day or two and then they were fine.”

Drop sighed and shook his head. “I have to run this by the Captain. This sounds too much like unsanctioned action, Cloudy. None of you do anything until I get her okay. But… provisionally, you’ve all made good points. I’ll present it fairly to her as a clandestine internal op.”

“That’s all I can ask, Drop. That’s another reason I asked. Pink already has me on her short list, so…” Cloudy grinned as Drop rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve always been on her short list.”

“She expects a lot from you,” Drop said, shrugging. “Because Collar expected a lot from you. You haven’t let her down much.” He drained his mug and slid it to the center of the table. “Let’s call it a night. All of you get rest or go on shift.”

A chorus of assent and draining mugs sounded from around the table.

“Thank you all,” Cloudy said as she slid out of her chair and began following the rest to the door. “Don’t tell anyone else about this meeting yet. This is very much a delicate situation.”

Behind her, Bridgewater muttered something about crazy Dammeguard and called on Silver to start closing down the tavern.

The flight home, and thinking of the Palace as home was a big change, with Drop accompanying her was short but tense. She could feel her superior bursting with questions and curiosity and why she’d apparently taken the initiative when she’d been the most ferociously protective of Collar from Rosewater’s attentions not even a month ago.

Things change fast, Drop, she thought at him, hoping he would hear it and knowing he wouldn’t. She focused on keeping pace with him instead of sweeping ahead. She hoped she could talk to him briefly, and alone, once they landed in the courtyard.

Instead, he gave her a salute as soon as they passed over the outer limit of the Prim Palace courtyard area and peeled off towards the tower at the edge that served as officer’s quarters for the Dammeguard.

Cloudy sighed and returned the salute belatedly and descended towards the steps where she could see Collar waiting for her with Dapper keeping an eye on the sky with him.

“My lord.” Cloudy bowed and immediately regretted her formality.

“Nope.” Dapper nipped her ear before she could raise her head. “Dapper, young lady. You’re my son’s mate. You call me Dapper.”

She’d learned that lesson the hard way when she’d first started having regular sex with Collar. Of course he’d smelled it on both of them. Lace had been oblivious until he brought it up. Or, supposedly oblivious. No doubt she noticed the difference in the way her son behaved but, in traditional Dammer fashion, had kept her nose out of her son’s love life.

“Dapper, Collar,” Cloudy said, sticking her tongue out at the elder baron and nuzzling Collar’s cheek.

“How’d it go?” Collar asked, then winced and cast a spell to silence the area around them, and another spell opaqued the wall, both of them weaving together easily. “How was the reception?”

Cloudy sighed and glanced at Dapper. “Lace keeps you informed on what goes on in negotiations?”

“And so does Rosemary.” Dapper winked and danced ahead of her gaping stare. “Come now, dear. You and Rosemary are the only Merriers I’ve had contact with that don’t look at me like a traitor for marrying Lace. I really should have approached you before, you know.”

“Dad,” Collar groaned, rolling his eyes. “You know that would have looked suspicious. You don’t just approach a Merrier and talk to her without it looking like you’re trying to start a tradition of marrying a Merrier.”

“Turns out I didn’t need to.”

“Yes, yes.” Collar chuckled and turned his attention back to Cloudy. “How’d it go, love? Did they listen?”

“Yes. Mostly. Drop was the only holdout, and he mostly because he thought it might look like circumventing Captain Pink.” Cloudy’s ears dropped as she considered the night’s conversations, Note and Poppy looking suspicious, Platinum being… Platinum and direct. “There was a lot of discussion about why I was trying to get them to fight. Corsage and Ascot came up in the discussion.”

Collar sucked in a breath. “One of our darker moments in history. Who brought that up?”

“Note.”

“He would… he’s as much of a bookworm as he is a musical enthusiast.” Collar mulled that over while Dapper chuckled to himself as they walked ahead, Collar’s path taking them towards Rosemary’s floor. “Did they make the connection to Rosewater’s ‘courting’?”

“It took them two seconds,” Cloudy groused.

“Of course it did.” Collar sighed and rubbed at his muzzle, then started up the stairs. “I’m still not sure about this plan, Cloudy. I don’t want her. I want you. And only you.”

And I want you and Rosemary. Cloudy almost blurted it, but hung onto it and the frustration came out as a growl.

“And Rosemary,” Dapper quipped from the landing ahead. “Don’t forget Rosemary, Collar. Cloudy wants to marry her still.”

“Dapper!” Cloudy hissed, prancing ahead to nip at his ear. “Don’t push him.”

He easily evaded her and nipped her ear in return. “Somepony needs to.”

“You two realize I can hear you, right?” Collar asked dryly. “I don’t suddenly turn incorporeal when you argue with each other.”

“Why not?” Dapper asked, grinning as Collar caught up to them. “It’s not polite to listen into private arguments.”

Collar rolled his eyes and nipped Dapper’s ear, then Cloudy’s. “I have been thinking about it. You won’t let me stop thinking about it. Forgive me for being considerate of the mores of my ponies and their expectations. Now, Cloudy, tell me what happened.”

She filled them in, repeating as much as she could remember of the exact wording and order of conversation, glad that she was doing it now while it was still fresh, and they slowed as both Dapper and Collar asked questions and dragged out more details, lingering halfway down the long walkway to the guest quarters.

They stopped in front of Rosemary’s door, and Collar shifted his attention between the two of them before he nuzzled his father’s cheek. “Get to bed, dad. Lace will come looking for you soon.”

“I’ll talk to Captain Pink first and give the order to allow the operation,” Dapper said, his voice musing and his look a mix of excitement and relish. He didn’t share what he was so eager to do, and winked when Collar gave him a questioning look before dashing off.

“I have a feeling,” Collar muttered as he rubbed his muzzle and watched his father leap over the railing and snap his wings out to sail down towards the baronal quarters, “that he’s going to cause a mess that’s going to make it harder for me to avoid Rosewater.”

“Is that a bad thing? I told you about our chase. I told you about her, and my feeling about her. I want to see more of her, and if… well, I saw the reports this afternoon. She kept her promise.”

Collar closed his eyes and leaned his head against hers. “I don’t want to lose you, Cloudy. I don’t want any of this to take me on a path that takes me away from you.”

“You won’t,” she murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Before Cloudy woke, her wings loose on her sides, Collar was preparing for the day. Today he would decide when his first ‘date’ with Rosewater was. Whatever else happened today, it seemed that nothing else was more likely to cause a bit of chaos in his life.

Whatever she did, whatever he did, or said, this was completely outside his intent when he’d first started seeing Cloudy.

By then, she’d already had several flings with some of her fellow guard-ponies, but they weren’t sexual, or not that he’d heard anyway. The need to keep them quiet in Damme was more pressing than it would have been in Merrie, and yet Cloudy had been determined from the start not to become only another Dammer.

It was part of what excited him about her, the defiance of norms.

Have I always been… The idea faded away as Cloudy shifted in her sleep, close to waking he knew, and flexed her wings minutely. She was beautiful, and strong, and opinionated. She knew what she wanted from the world and pursued it relentlessly.

Is Rosewater who you want to pursue next?

Her words from last night came back to him briefly as he settled his day back about his shoulders. She could sleep off the last of the Dammerale from last night without him.

Priceless was already in his workroom, the scrolls upon scrolls of reports from various grain merchants and haulers and the more orderly stack from the Farmer’s guild of Dammehollow scattered across the central desk as he translated them into tables and figures, marking the source off after each one.

“You’re here early,” Priceless grumbled, not pausing.

Collar silenced the room against intrusion and threw the bolt on the door. “I… have some questions. About Rosewater.”

That did stop the quick scratching of quill against parchment. “Your mother has informed me of the plan she came up with.”

“That makes this easier, then.” Collar pulled out one of his own scrolls from his day bag and lay it on the table. “I made a list of questions.”

A moment’s perusal sent both of Priceless’s eyebrows almost to his whitening mane. “This is all about her father.”

“At this point, he is the most unknown part of the equation regarding who she is.”

“You realize that most of the sources I could ask will have long-forgotten about him in the past two decades.” It wasn’t a question.

“Most. But not all. What about Prim Pantry? He would have had more chance to deal with Blue Star than most.” Collar highlighted the speculation on the scroll before Priceless found it. “He was always talking with the knights when the came into town. I think he said at one point that he wished he could have been one as a foal.”

“I do recall that.”

“You were good friends with him, weren’t you?” What little he could remember of the old seneschal, Rosemary’s target, had come from reviewing his own memories and asking his mother what he was like, and why he might be a target.

“Aye. He taught me a lot about managing trade. He dabbled in everything.” Priceless sat back and rubbed at his chin with a hoof. “I don’t recall him saying much about Blue Star, other than it being a shame such a good stallion met such an end.”

“What end?”

“Illness of the bones, I think. I don’t recall much, but us old ponies worry about what might take us. He had all the signs, you know. Far too young.” The older stallion shook his head slowly, sucking at his lip. “Always a shame. Alright. I’ll see who I can shuffle up who might know something. Might need to write to Canterlot, though. I’ve got a trade factor quill pal I trade letters with who might know, or be able to get, more.”

“Anything you can gather would be wonderful. I want to know what her early life was like, with him.”

“You can always ask her,” Priceless said with a huff. “She’d know more than anypony else alive, I’d wager.”

Collar winced and rubbed at his ankle. “I know. But Rosemary’s… she’s said it’s a sensitive subject with her, and even she doesn’t know much. Carnation might, but she’s all the way… who knows where.”

“You understand this will be mostly second or third-hoof information, right?” Priceless made a tick next to one of the questions as he read it more carefully. “And more than twenty years old.”

“I know. But… anything you can get me to find out what kind of pony Blue Star was would be helpful.” Who he’d been had to have been the reason Rosewater wasn’t more aligned with her mother, the reason Rosemary loved her and had turned out so well adjusted.

He wanted to surprise her.

Book 2, 7. Damaged Families, Part 2

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You can do this, Rosewater told herself, standing just outside the Merrie treaty office with bulging saddlebags full of letters. You don’t need an escort.

The Treaty Pennant fluttered above her back, awkwardly tucked between the point of her hip and the saddlebag on her left. More than letters had been sent. Ponies had knocked on her door to give her small trinkets, books, a few cookies, and an entire pie she’d had to decline for lack of space to put it.

The response had been, and continued to be, overwhelming. The Garden’s ponies were well respected amongst the common pony, and their word had gone far in Rosemary’s name, though some ponies had also come to wonder at her wisdom of overtaking the negotiation process from Roseate, some with personal anecdotes of how Roseate had brought their sons and daughters back, ponies she had tried her best to reassure.

Even they had left letters behind, despite their trepidation over her negotiating skills. Some of those letters, including the ones from Rosie, Trestle, and Velvet, none of whom had been particularly keen on her taking over negotiations, rested in her bag. They were, thankfully, less enthused about the prospect of Roseate taking over.

She would have a chance, hopefully, to talk with them later. They were Rosemary’s closest friends.

She stopped at the edge of the bridge’s boundary into Damme, where it was still neutral territory.

The Dammeguard opposite her, always present whenever she so much as approached the middle of the Primrose Bridge, or any bridge, for that matter, gave her looks as sour as week old lemons left to rot.

She gave them a polite nod and reminded herself to smile. The mask would have to stay on for now, but there wasn’t a reason she couldn’t start to show that she was also a pony and not simply The Rose Terror. It was a pity none of them were ponies she knew.

Why does that have to stop you? The worn wide stones of the boundary marking the next step in her journey called to her, asked her to take the next step.

She caught a glimpse of Firelight Spark in the Damme Treaty office, looking out at her, surprised, but a quick shake of her head and he smiled back and relaxed.

“Good morning,” Rosewater called out as she stepped over the bridge boundary, an invisible barrier with no real meaning to her that nonetheless set her coat on edge as she passed it. “I was wondering if I might have your names, please.”

The three glanced at each other, then turned stoic looks back at her. One, with the ear band of a sergeant, stepped forward.

“You’re not welcome. Go to the palace, do your business, and leave.” He pointed to the left, along the main thoroughfare along the waterway.

“I’m trying to be courteous,” Rosewater said calmly, making a step towards the street. “Is it not courtesy to announce oneself on entry into another’s home?” She looked around and breathed in the air of Damme, refreshed from the river rushing so close. “Is this not your home?”

“It is common courtesy to not overstay an unwelcome greeting,” the sergeant shot back. “Go. I have orders not to harass you, but that doesn’t mean I have to talk to you.” He backed up and stoutly faced forward.

Neither the mare to his left, nor the stallion to his right gave her more than a hostile look.

Rosewater smiled, bowed her head, and said, “Good day to you, then.” She kept her ears pricked back, listening, and heard the sergeant muttering to his underlings, though inaudibly to her.

Ponies in the road took in her crimson-hearted breast, her streaked muzzle, and knew her immediately from that, if not from her height. But they made no move to stop her other than for some of the boldest to cast imprecations on her from a safe distance.

Rose Terror. Scent mage.

Husband stealer. Wife stealer.

The last two, she tried to find faces in the crowd for who’d shouted them, but everypony was maintaining a good ten foot pole distance away from her, as if her very presence was an offense to them. Angry stares followed her, but none of them wanted to repeat the insult when she was looking for the source.

It was an effort, but she bowed her head to the angry stares. Penitence. What can I tell you all? She continued on, her eyes closed for several seconds.

Carnation had been taken from her because she refused to steal a fiancee. She let the mask slip just enough to let the pain of that loss show. Her happiness had been stolen. How much can I say?

The answer was nothing. Not yet.

Bear it, but show it.

It was calculating but not, she hoped, cold.

Without the mask as tightly fit, she could see the individuals staring at her. A mother hiding her child, a brother stepping in front of his sister, a sister guiding her little brother away from her. She didn’t look for long, careful not to put more stress on them by her mystery and terror. She may have taken a brother, a sister, an aunt or uncle at one time. She had captured some ponies against their will, held them away from her mother, and returned them.

They had been safe, but terrified.

She would need to atone, and she would need to seek the forgiveness of those she had wronged. The orders would still be in her cupboard, the names of the ponies she’d been ordered to abduct.

That was the source of everything.

I should have resisted.

And been exiled eventually, despite the treaty strictures on exiling children in the line of succession.

Enough ‘treasonous’ acts would eventually rise to the level that even Celestia would have to side with the law in Merrie. Then she would have been taken away from Carnation and Rosemary. It had been her love, possibly forever, or a temporary fear. In a war, she had chosen what was, to her, the least of two possible evils.

They might not understand. But she had not harmed all, temporary or otherwise. And she would end the war. She would end the dozen a month at the height of the conflict that had been captured and treated like chess pieces. She would save them that terror. And she would walk among them.

In time, I will get to know you all and I will love you just as Collar does.

Time was the key. Time. It hurt to look at the fear in the faces of the ponies she passed, but time would show them changed, and one day, she would walk down these streets, and she would call to some by name and smile, and they would smile at her.

She let that thought, that hope take the place of the mask and raised her head to look up into the sky, let her smile, and the sun show her hope for a better future.

Looking up made her aware of the clouds moving in, though there was no scheduled rain for the day, even in Damme.

Cheers went up around her as the first raindrops fell only around her, but they were scattered, and not from every throat, and as many shouted at the sky as their days were interrupted by the sudden downpour.

She covered her saddlebags with her magic, but let the rain hit her, and let the cheers chase her as she walked calmly through the downpour to the castle. It wasn’t like a little rain was going to dampen the hope.

Some ponies, she noted through the intense, localized rainstorm, shook their heads at her and looked up. Those, she offered a smile to and a small bob and shake of her head.

At least it wasn’t a thunderstorm.

The storm clouds dissipated long before she got on the road to the palace, the clouds, small bursters, having run out of rain to pour on her within a few minutes, and the perpetrators left the sky clear again, letting the sun beat down on her and do a not terrible job of drying out her coat, even if her mane and tail were still soaked and dripping.

One of the guard ponies at the palace was one she knew, one of the ponies who’d been there at the battle at the end, whose name she didn’t know, but whose face was familiar. One of the Primlines.

“What happened?” The guard demanded, her blue eyes sharp as they flicked from spot to spot on her, noting the wet mane and tail, and the dry saddlebags. “And why are you here so early? I wasn’t told to expect you for another hour.” She glanced at the pennant, noting the distinct lack of escort, and pursed her lips.

“An unexpected downpour. Nothing to worry about,” Rosewater said, once again twisting her mane and leaning to the side to squeeze more of the cold water out of it. “My mail didn’t get wet, and that’s what’s important right now. Please let Lord Collar know that I am here to continue negotiations.”

“Sure.” She knocked on the guard shack’s door. “Glider, take over for me. I’m taking the Lady Rosewater up to the palace.”

“Huh?” A mare with a white shock of mane and dark blue coat stuck her head out to study Rosewater. “Plat, there’s no rain scheduled today, unless those… er...” She swallowed and shook her head. “Nevermind.”

“Being wet is something I’ve been before,” Rosewater said genially, smiling at the two mares and bobbing her head. “Please, Plat, was it?”

“Prim Platinum, my lady,” the mare said, raising a hoof to her plastron in a gesture of respect she hadn’t expected. “It’s an embarrassment to the city when an emissary of the Treaty is treated this way, regardless of our personal feelings for you.” She lowered her hoof and turned away, beckoning Rosewater to follow with a flick of her ear. “I need to let Lord Collar know.”

“I will defer to your judgment and his. I admit I feel the same about the way my mother is conducting business.” Rosewater shook her head and sped up her pace to walk abreast of Platinum. It was hardly a secret, but bandying it about so openly in Damme was certain to get back to her as ‘sympathizing with the enemy’ and make even more of a mess for her in the future. “I understand.”

Platinum studied her for a long stretch walking up the stairs to the palace’s proper entrance, then nodded as they passed the outer pair of guards. “Rosemary and Cloudy have both spoken well of you.” Her lips moved as if she wanted to say more, but she sighed and flattened her ears. “When we’ve talked.”

It’s been three days, Cloudy. Are you truly moving so quickly on my behalf?

A warm spark touched her cheeks as she considered the thought and the mare that inspired it. I should have listened to my heart and not my head before.

“What have they said about me?” Rosewater asked, leaning forward to try to meet Platinum’s eye more directly.

“Um.” Platinum coughed and flushed, turning away from the eye contact. “This way. There’s the Palace Guard bath to the right. You can dry up there, and I’ll keep an eye on your… mail.”

The daily visit from Collar was coming soon. She’d done everything shy of masturbating to clear her nerves of jitters. As nose-dead as he was, he could hardly miss the smell of a mare’s come so recently, no matter how Rosemary tried to hide it. Without breaking the promised taboo on scent magic aside from her infrequent, treasured moments with her mothers’ memories, that is. It was tempting, though, to let him walk in on her in the act.

But not so soon after getting to know him. He would be her most difficult enticement. Slow, gentle, and without using her own sex appeal and beauty to draw him in for an initial greeting. She would have to reverse her usual process.

She already knew, thanks to the night she’d shared her bed with Cloudy and he that she would enjoy his company far beyond the bed. He was attentive and adaptable, and truly did love Cloudy, even if his discomfort with Rosemary’s more overt sexuality had slowed him somewhat.

It was what Cloudy had needed, and she wasn’t about to apologize for making a few ‘crude’ jokes, as the Dammers called them, to comfort her.

She bustled about the three rooms granted to her, cleaning and tidying, adjusting her mane in the boudoir’s mirror several times, twisting it into a braid as Cloudy had said Rosewater had worn it, then letting it hang loose, then huffing and twisting it into a braid again with a fan of hair against her shoulder instead of a tight tail.

The small bookshelf full of books she’d read a dozen times already got reorganized, and she first tried setting the books all spine on the edge, then haphazard with edges against the back, then made sure the chess pieces were all polished and set just so.

When she started staring at her tail and considering what to do with it beyond the usual curling delicacy she favored, she stomped a hoof and told herself she was being not a little bit stir-crazy.

“Prim Stride,” she called, “is Lord Collar here yet?”

“No, m’lady,” he called back. “I apologize for his tardiness. It appears that there was some incident. The Rose—” He coughed. “The Lady Rosewater arrived earlier than anticipated.”

“Thank you, Stride, for not using that name,” she said with a sigh. “She’s early. She was supposed to come for lunch.” She tapped on the door. “Does that mean I get to come out? I swear, Stride, I need to get out of here.”

“Would you like to go to the public gardens? You have been there often of late.”

I want to see my mother! She calmed herself before she could shout it. A week. It’d only been a week of being a shut-in with only occasional forays outside her ‘cell.’ As nice as it was, it was still someplace she couldn’t leave without an escort. It was a place she couldn’t be free.

But that wasn’t Stride’s fault. It wasn’t Rosewater’s fault. It was hers for getting caught like the amateur she was.

“No. I would like to walk the upper floor racetrack if that would be alright.” I would like to walk and be seen and to see other ponies. Her small group of friends was growing. “I promise, I’ll stay close to you.”

“I think that would be okay.” He unlocked and opened the door, his eyes dancing away from her face and the heart on her breast. He was still uncomfortable around any Rosethorns, even after a week of on-and-off meeting with her and talking with her and spent most of his shift outside her door, despite her attempts to draw him in. “Did you sleep well?”

“You know I did. We had breakfast and discussed it together.” She huffed a sigh and flitted her tail at his shoulder. “At least tell me that my mane looks nice.”

His eyes darted to her mane, then back up to a spot above her head. “It’s very pretty.”

“Stride, I’m not going to bite if you look me in the eye. It’s polite.” She schooled her face to calm and looked at the end of his nose. “I promise.”

“I-I know, my lady.” He met her eyes briefly before his eyes fell to the marks on her muzzle, then looked away again, swallowing.

“Don’t push him too hard, Rosemary. He’s had a hard couple of weeks.” Collar said as he appeared in the doorway. “I’m afraid your… cousin will be delayed. There was an incident when she came unescorted, and she’s cleaning off now.”

“Is she okay?” Rosemary asked, turning away from Stride, to his immense relief.

“She’s fine, I promise. She was accosted by some delinquents determined to embarrass our city, but no harm came to her.” He glanced at Stride. “How is she doing?”

“I’m going stir-crazy,” Rosemary said sweetly, stepping between the two stallions. “Stride was going to take me for a walk around the upper level track so that I would be a little less stir-crazy.”

“Er, as she said, my lord,” Stride said with a flick of his ears when Rosemary looked at him. “We had breakfast together not an hour ago.”

“He was a perfect gentlestallion,” Rosemary said with a smile, backing away so she could see both of them at once again. “He didn’t even choke on his juice when I let it slip that Cloudy and I made plans to have sex tonight.”

“I was eating toast, and I most definitely choked,” Stride growled. “You can’t drop that on an unsuspecting stallion!”

Collar chuckled. “This must be what it’s like to have siblings in Merrie.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Rosemary said, ears dipping briefly. She regretted saying it immediately when Collar winced and opened his mouth to take it back. “No, no. It’s okay. I had plenty of friends with siblings. I know you didn’t have many close blood relatives either, growing up.”

“Something we have in common,” Collar said, smiling. “Shall we go for that walk, then? I believe Rosewater was going to dry herself off before we started negotiations. Dapper told me she made mention to Lace that she wanted to talk about your mother, too. Then he sent me here.” He tapped a hoof and chuckled.

Stride coughed. “About Rosemary’s mother? Carnation?”

“Yes.” Collar smiled. “Is it any wonder Rosewater would know so much about her? She and Carnation lived in the same house for… just shy of twenty years, Strides.” He cast a spell of silence around them as they started walking, making Rosemary’s heart freeze. “And Carnation and my mother were friends once.”

Rosemary resumed breathing and glared at Collar. “You scared me!”

“Sorry.”

“Why… why would that scare you?” Stride frowned at her. “Or is this another secret?”

“Roses keep secrets like rose bushes keep thorns,” Collar intoned. “Permit her some still, as there are some things we can’t risk letting out yet.”

“State secrets, aye sir.” Stride clapped a hoof to his plastron. “So, we don’t want Roseate to know that Lace and the… the Lady Rosewater have a connection? Wouldn’t she already know?”

“No. Lace and Carnation met before Rosewater was taken in by Carnation. Just before, from what I understand, and they maintained a loose connection over the years, but couldn’t talk often because of the war.” Collar constricted the silence field as a servant passed by, his eyes trailing along Rosemary’s face and neck briefly before he snapped his attention away. “She was, I think, a large part of the reason mother has been so adamant about continuing her reforms even in the face of the Manes and Feathers opposition.”

Stride looked about at the slight fuzzing field of the silence spell. “Definitely something we don’t want Roseate to know about.”

“Something we don’t want our ponies knowing about. Yet.” Collar bobbed his head. “I’m trusting you to keep this secret, Stride, but since you’re also Rosemary’s guard and… friend?” He glanced at Rosemary.

“I would like to think so,” she said, prancing ahead a few steps to look back into his eyes. “Even if he can’t look me in the eyes for more than a second at a time.” She fell back again. “He’s trying.”

“She is…” Stride pursed his lips as he looked askance at her, deliberately looking at her markings. “She is unique, Lord Collar. She is not at all what I would expect of a Rosethorn.”

“She was not brought up in the usual Rosethorn manner,” Collar said softly. “That she is different comes as no surprise.” He hesitated, then nodded to them. “I should go see how Rosewater’s doing. Keep her company, if you will, Stride, and out of trouble.”

Rosemary and Stride watched as he diverted his path back down the next staircase, the silence leaving with him and dropping as soon as he started descending.

“Trouble?” Stride asked, raising a brow.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” she replied, grinning and dipping her ears.

He huffed and twitched one ear to follow her for a few steps as they started the round at the end of the upper track, and she was able to see Collar disappear into a swinging door off to one side.

“Do you think of me as a friend, Stride?” Rosemary asked more quietly.

“Yes, Rosemary,” Stride said after only a brief pause to study her. “I think of you as a friend.” His ears ticked back sharply, then jerked quiveringly upright, but he only flushed and shook his head when she tried to meet his eyes. “You’re a good friend, I think.”

It was strange to see a Primfeather saying that about her, but he and his sister were, in so many ways, very different from their family. It might be that they were the youngest of the Primfeather’s family under Wing, but… it didn’t make his friendship any less meaningful.

“Thank you, Stride. That means a lot to me.”

Mane still damp, Rosewater shook herself and sniffed at her flank. The smell of rain was mostly still there, but the light touch of rose perfume she’d applied before setting out was also gone. It was more for Cloudy than for Collar in any case, but at least they hadn’t dropped anything smelly in the cloud.

They might not have had time to plan for anything like that. The next storm was in a few days, and the clouds were already gathering out to sea, so it hadn’t been hard to hijack one for the purpose.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” Collar’s voice from the doorway into the outer bathing area startled her into a yelp. “Easy, easy… didn’t think I could sneak up on you.”

“It’s smelly in here,” Rosewater snorted and tossed her head, keeping faced away from him for the moment while she rubbed down her mane. “Too many unwashed bodies entered here recently.”

“It’s the staff baths,” Collar said, his voice sounding amused. “I’m not surprised it smells. They cleaned the palace top to bottom just yesterday.”

“I see.” Rosewater glanced behind her to see Collar keeping his eyes locked on a point on the wall to her side. As far away from her still damp tail as he could look and still keep her in sight. “I’m not going to flirt with you, Collar. Not when I’m on official business.”

He glanced at her, eyes darting from her face to her tail and back. “It’s appreciated.”

It was so tempting to flick her tail and let him see her bared, but that would be too much, and if she was being honest with herself, was partly driven by the excitement of having a hookup tomorrow night with Dazzle and Bliss.

Instead, she smiled and dipped her ears. “If you do find the ones that gave me a shower, please go easy on them. I’d rather not have official sanctions from the Prim Palace to fight against, too, on my way to repairing my reputation.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I have an inkling on who it was. They have a habit of raining on visitors they don’t like.” The strain in his voice told her quite a lot about whom that was. Or what their involvement meant. “And even if I wanted to throw the book at them, all I can do is write them a letter.”

“Speaking of letters,” Rosewater said, turning and tossing the towels into the nearest bin already full of them. “I have two saddlebags full of the most relevant letters, along with some care packages from friends. Nothing scented, I promise. That was checked at the bridge.”

For a moment, Collar looked uncertain, then nodded. “I had heard as much, and as odd as it may sound, I do trust you not to bring contraband. I know what these negotiations mean to you.”

Spoken in the open, likely with a servant near enough to overhear them, it was a large concession to her character. It shocked her enough that she lost the thread of the conversation she wanted to go along.

He grinned at her, bobbed his head and tipped an ear towards the door. “I believe that Rosemary is done taking her mental health walk by now, and we’ll be adjourning in my study this time.”

“Not your mother’s?”

“She is otherwise preoccupied today with the Damme physician.” He said it evenly, his eyes showing his unconcern. “She’s in her sixties and she’s conscientious of her health. It’s part of why she’s handing more off to me.”

Rosewater relaxed, not realizing she’d tensed up, and followed his invitation, then waited for him to lead her to his office. “Very smart of her. I hope all is well.”

Collar chuckled. “She’s made an effort to get more fit. She and my father have been giving each other ‘laps’ for ‘lapses’ in judgement. He’s made it a point to call her out as much as she calls him out.”

Is this what a functional family looks like? “It sounds…” Wonderful. Happy. What might have been if Roseate weren’t… Roseate. “It sounds like a dream, Collar.”

He startled and gave her a sharp, searching look, then relaxed. “I have to remind myself, sometimes, that not everypony has had the same supportive family I’ve had. I am… truly sorry for what you have been through.”

“It’s not your fault, so please don’t apologize. But… it is what I tried to give Rosemary. What Carnation and I tried to give her. A chance at normalcy.” She wished, again, that she could ask Carnation if she was doing the right things. She’d always looked to the older mare for guidance, and it’d been more than a small trial finding her way in the last six years. “Thank you for not punishing her more harshly for her actions.”

“She was an unwilling participant. As,” Collar said more softly, “I understand you are.”

Rosewater didn’t say anything to that, not in the open halls. Not with ponies watching them closely, their ears perked and following them. Word would get back to Roseate before long if she did, and as happy as she was to have Firelight’s backing, that was a support she didn’t expect and couldn’t hope to lean on.

Roseate had other ways of getting back at her.

Outside the office, a pony stood at attention with Rosewater’s saddlebags at her hooves.

“Prim Shine,” Collar said, tapping his hoof to his breast. “Thank you for taking care of her saddlebags.”

“Aye, my lord.” Shine clapped a hoof to his soft vest. “My lady,” he said, dipping his ears respectfully to Rosewater.

“Thank… you,” Rosewater said, nonplused. She hefted the bags from the ground with a spell. “Are you a friend of Rosemary’s?”

“Of Cloudy’s, my lady,” the stallion said. “Will you need my services further, my lord?”

“No, Shine. Thank you.” Collar glanced at Rosewater. “My lady?”

“No. Thank you though, er…” She glanced over his uniform, identifying him quickly as a corporal. “Corporal Shine. You do your city proud for your service.”

To her surprise, Shine smiled and saluted her briefly. “My thanks, my lady.”

Inside, Cloudy and Rosemary were already waiting, the latter studying the portraits of Collar’s parents and grandparents on the wall, and Cloudy sitting with her wing around the younger mare as she narrated a quiet story about her first meeting with Dapper.

“Good afternoon,” Rosewater said softly, startling neither mare, but making both sets of ears twitch toward her. It was good to see them together like that, Cloudy obviously smitten with Rosemary and the way Rosemary leaned back showing just the same. “My lord, if you would.”

As soon as sounds of the outside faded away, Cloudy and Rosemary turned around, both pairs of eyes on her saddlebag and the straining buckles containing the letters and parcels sent by friends and lovers alike over the last three days.

“I come bearing tidings from friends,” she said, nodding to Rosemary. But one letter, written in her own study…

The knock wasn’t unexpected after a day and a half of nearly nonstop taps against her mail slot door, but the repeated knock after the mail slot closed again was. Most ponies didn’t linger long when they dropped off their letters, and it was when Rosewater was preparing tea for lunch when it came.

She waited a moment, listening, and the knocking came a third time.

The tea wouldn’t be ready for another few minutes, but she replaced the lid on the oven in any case, letting the water stay warm instead of growing hot enough to boil, and made her way through the house to the front door.

Six more letters lay in the basket she’d placed there after the deluge started.

The knocking came again as she set hoof to the peephole and saw a middle-aged mare standing outside, letter still carried between her lips and looking about as if she were scared to be there. But determined.

She didn’t even need to ask who it was, the family resemblance was so strong. Cloudy’s mother. It had to be.

“Oh!” The mare hopped back a step when Rosewater opened the door. “Oh, you’re… taller than I thought you would be.”

Rosewater laughed and stepped back, bowing her head briefly. “I hear that quite often, Windrose.”

Using her first name surprised the mare again, and she blinked, her wings and ears flicking as she glanced around. “You… know who I am?”

“Of course. Please, come in,” Rosewater said, taking another step back. “I’m surprised to see you.”

“As am I,” Windrose said, smiling apologetically as she danced inside and glanced behind her at a few ponies that were drifting along the street, some watching, most minding their own business. “Stars above, you live so close to the river. How do you manage the mildew?”

“It is a constant battle against the forces of mold, but I manage,” Rosewater said with a smile as she closed the door and pushed silence against the walls. “It helps that Rosemary is accomplished at drying things out, and I’ve learned quite a lot from her.”

“M-maybe you can help me out, then. I’ve been having a terrible time with mildew this season…” Windrose licked her lips and glanced around the entry hall, then back to the closed door.

“It’s safe,” Rosewater said softly, tipping her head to the door. “I hardly expected visitors today, much less Cloudy’s mother.”

The naming of her daughter sparked something in the matron Rosewing, and she stood straighter. “Then you know her.”

“I do. Shallowly, as of yet, but what I have seen of her, and what she has shown me, is more than enough to tell me about the caliber of her upbringing.” Rosewater gestured to the side-door that led to the sitting room. “Please, make yourself at home. I was just setting tea for lunch.”

“And from your mother,” Rosewater said, holding out the simply signed and tied scroll. “She came to visit me yesterday, and we had tea and a talk about you before she wrote the letter.”

“About me.” Cloudy’s eyes darted from the scroll to Rosewater, then back again before she accepted it gingerly and tugged at the string with her teeth. She didn’t seem to notice the tears already starting to trail down her cheeks as she unrolled it, and Rosemary helped her keep it steady.

Collar sat beside Rosewater, glancing from his love to her, and nodded briefly. “Thank you. It means a lot to hear from her family.”

“You’re welcome, Collar.”

“That brings us to the next piece of business that I wanted to discuss with you, Rosewater,” Collar said, drawing out a scroll with the golden seal of the Treaty, already broken. “This isn’t for public consumption yet, but we asked for and received leave to delay the upcoming Gala.”

From Her Highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria,
I will grant the extension in preparation time for the Autumnal gala, considering the importance of the harvest and your added expenses incurred on security operations and wages for your militia.
This will not delay the Winter Gala to be held in Merrie, as they have incurred no such costs.
From the desk of Her Highness’s Royal Scribe, signed, attested, and witnessed,
Radiant Inkwell, second of his name.

“I… I see.” Rosewater had actually managed to forget about the gala in the last few days and weeks of madness. At least I have a chance to try and find a dress now. “I, um…”

“Forgot about the Gala,” Rosemary broke in when Rosewater’s voice faltered, ducking her head and smiling faintly at Cloudy. “She does that when she’s under a lot of stress. Forget about little details like the quarterly social.”

“Yes, I did, but I would have remembered in time.” Just not in time to find or get cleaned a dress fitting for her break with the traditional Rosethorn role.

Something… more modest than most Merriers would consider wearing, but still of Merrie.

Maybe… she could ask her sister for help. Silk was one of the more prominent seamstresses in Merrie, and skilled at her work.

“Rosewater?”

“Sorry.” Rosewater offered Collar a smile and nudged his shoulder lightly. “Just wondering where I could find a dress at this late of a date.”

Book 2, 8. Old Loves and New, Part 1

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Cloudy read the letter from her mother for the fifth or sixth time, leaning against Rosemary while she sorted through the last parcels of mail her mother had left.

Cloudy,

I miss you so much. I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how much you know, we only get rumors from Rosie now and then. I hope Rosewater offers to take a letter back to us. I don’t know how she’ll get them to us without Roseate knowing, but I want to hear from you, Cloudy, and so does Cirrus. He wishes his big sister was there to teach him how to cloud bust, but your cousin Rose Breeze, you remember him, right, has agreed to help him out.

Misty Rose got over her anger at you for leaving without telling her. She wouldn’t even talk to us for a while about you. You know how teenagers are. But she still loves you. She wants you to come home. I know you can’t, and I tried to explain that to her… but she’s still angry that you had to run.

I wish you had come to us first, Cloudy. We could have helped you. And Rosewater isn’t so bad of a pony, not like the ponies on the street keep saying. She’s kind, and she let us into her sitting room. She has a beautiful home, and so many pictures, Cloudy. I had almost forgotten she and Carnation were… whatever they were.

I wish… I wish you had come to us. I really do. But I understand young love, and Rosemary… you weren’t thinking straight. We forgive you, Cloudy. Your dads and I love you, too. I’d like you to ask Rosewater to arrange something. She’s offered to sneak us out of the city to meet you and sneak us back in.

I don’t know if we’d want to risk it. We might have to run just like you. We… might need to. Roseate is only ignoring us because we keep the weather clear, your father and I and the other Rosewings and transplant pegasi, but the rest of our friends are having a hard time getting trade permits for Damme. They’re not being denied, but it’s taking weeks to renew, or sometimes they’re revoked for no reason.

Rosewater is assuring me Roseate will never see this. When you’re done reading… please lock it away or burn it or

The letter blurred before her mother’s signature.

With so much love,

Mom

When she looked up, Rosemary was looking into her eyes, her ears laid back. “I want this war to be over,” she whispered.

Rosemary answered by taking the letter and folding it carefully before placing it in the small box Lace had given her for her private things. “It will be,” she whispered, leaning in to kiss her love. “Tonight, I’ll share Mother’s Kiss with you, Cloudy, but first…”

Cloudy waited while Rosemary concentrated on the gems in the corners of the room, pouring magic into them until they glowed. Enough to keep for a half hour at best, she judged.

Enough, she hoped, that she wouldn’t discomfit the guard nor alert the staff that she was making love to Rosemary.

Rosemary’s lips were already parted when Cloudy leaned in to kiss her. Warm, soft lips parted further as Cloudy’s tongue traced her lips, met Rosemary’s, and slipped in to explore the taste of her. Wine, a taste of dessert, and a hunger that grew as Rosemary shifted the saddlebags and remaining letters to the floor.

Cloudy let her lead, guiding her to lay full out on the bed, tongues still twined as Rosemary pulled herself atop Cloudy, barrel to barrel, using her magic to settle Cloudy more comfortably against the covers before she drew back, letting her tongue stay free for a second before swallowing and looking down at her.

“You are so beautiful, Cloudy,” Rosemary murmured, tipping her head side to side to kiss the ankles rising to embrace her. “It’s been so long. I want you, Cloudy, to let me take care of you.”

Cloudy wrapped her forelegs around Rosemary’s neck and pulled her in for another kiss, her heart thumping, her breathing deepening, taking in Rosemary’s scent rising and intensifying as she raised her tail. Memories of past dates, chases, nights and days laying with Rosemary, talking to her, falling in love with her, and making love to her filled Cloudy’s mind as the kiss lingered on and on.

She saw the same memories in Rosemary’s eyes as they parted again, her breathing heavily, mouth open, Cloudy huffing and swallowing before she could make her voice work. “I love you, Rosemary.”

“I love you, too… I hope being in Damme hasn’t dampened your…” Rosemary smirked and kissed her nose. “Voice. I want you to scream for me, Cloudy. My name, more, more…” Her voice, light soprano deepened with husky promise as she pushed herself up and trailed kisses along Cloudy’s muzzle. “Can you do that?”

Cloudy whimpered and twisted her head to watch as Rosemary trailed the kisses down her neck until she rested her chin on Cloudy’s sternum, watching and waiting. “Yes!” she cried. “Rosemary, please, don’t tease me.”

“Tease?” Rosemary dragged her tongue up from Cloudy’s belly to the base of her rib cage, drawing a shiver and whine from her. “Cloudy… when have I ever not delivered every…” Her tongue stroked up the flat of Cloudy’s belly, drawing a whimper and a cry as lightning shot up her hind legs. “...little…” And along the crease between her inner thigh, making her cry out and thrust her hind legs higher, tightening the crease and drawing Rosemary to nip. “...promise?”

“Never,” Cloudy panted, writhing, her wing joints flexing as she rolled her hips back, wanting Rosemary’s tongue and muzzle between her lips. “N-never!”

Rosemary’s lips found the valley between Cloudy’s teats and nipped lightly at the sparse, soft hairs there, lapping slowly around the edges of the soft, bare rises and drawing groans and stoking the fires of Cloudy’s lusts. She winked suddenly, the erection of her clitoris stark and shivering as it pushed past the soft folds of her hood and flared her lips open briefly.

Cruel Rosemary ignored it, instead latching onto the soft nub of Cloudy’s teat and nipping, then licking and nipping again before her lips closed over the hard nub and began to suckle slow, deep, and powerfully.

“Rosemary,” Cloudy groaned, flexing her hind legs and hips, trying to coax her away from her teats and towards the ache in her nethers, growing with each deep suck and release. “Rosemary!”

With a pop, Rosemary let go of the teat, and chill immediately crept over the wet flesh. “Yes, lovely?” she purred. “I promise I haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”

“C-can you hurry? I remember your tongue, Rosemary.” That tongue, slipping into her, curling, she shuddered and flexed her legs as she winked open again, huffing as she arched her back and flexed her hind legs. Swirling around her clitoris. “Uhn, please!”

“Darling Cloudy Rose,” Rosemary purred, her lips brushing down past Cloudy’s teats to play at the very edge of her pelvic mound, so close she could feel the heat of Rosemary’s breath as it spilled against her parted lips. “You smell just as enticing as ever… I couldn’t ever resist…”

The touch, when it came hot and wet, sent a thrill of longing up Cloudy’s spine, tingling along her limbs. “Rosemary!” she cried, her tail pressing against the bed and trying to press through it, needing to open herself to her lover more.

“Sing, Cloudy,” the dastardly mare droned in a low voice, her chin resting on Cloudy’s pelvic mound and sending every erg of that voice right into her. “Sing.”

She held the last note low, humming as her horn glittered and surrounded her muzzle, intensifying the droning vibration sinking into Cloudy’s body already excited by Rosemary’s presence. Wetness began trickling along her budding pucker to pool in the cup of her dock, spreading into the hairs of her tail before long.

“That’s what I wanted,” Rosemary whispered as Cloudy’s erect clitoris slid back, her body relaxing as the humming ceased. “That sight, Cloudy, shall I describe it to you? Your petals barely parted…” Rosemary dipped and slipped her tongue between them, the heat of flesh on flesh making Cloudy’s back arch and an involuntary whimper to escape her throat. The tongue slipped deep, pressing against Cloudy’s contracting canal, urging her open just enough to let more pleasure in. Then it was gone, and the lack of her lover’s tongue woke an ache for more. “The taste of you… so intense.”

“Rosemary, rutting tease!” Cloudy moaned, trying to hook her hind hoof behind Rosemary’s head to draw her in again.

“Oh, no… I’m a tease? Whatever will I do to recover my reputation?” Rosemary laughed.

Cloudy laughed with her, shivering as the cool air of the room began chilling her flesh. “By the Mare… I love you, Rosemary. But what you do to me…” She writhed on her back, spreading her hind legs far open for Rosemary to have access to everything, to show her just how eager she was. “What you do to me…”

“Mmm…” Rosemary dipped her head down to nuzzle the expanse of Cloudy’s exposed belly. “Beautiful.” She nipped each nipple once, lapped at the shallow vale between her teats, and closed her lips over the hood of Cloudy’s clitoris, suckling slowly, more gently, and letting her tongue slip between the folds of her marehood every time her clit surged erect against the faint rasp and tug of the tongue returning.

It was fire, and Rosemary’s horn glittered as she held Cloudy’s legs open against the urge to clamp her thighs over her lover’s head.

“Ngh!” Cloudy panted, writhing, huffing, and gasping. “Rosemary!”

Her lover’s ears twitched back but she didn’t raise her head. Her eyes bored into Cloudy’s, the heat and raw desire in them belied the teasing. All of it had been to lead up to this moment. As if she hadn’t known it was coming.

She met her eyes for as long as she could, resisting the fire racing down her spine and up her neck to tingle her nose. Those beautiful rose eyes blinked slowly as Cloudy watched her lips part and close over her pelvic mound, the barest presence of teeth pressing into padded flesh further stirring her lusts, making her heart race and her breath grow shallow as lap after lap drove her farther towards that gasping cliff.

Then she could no longer keep her head lifted and threw it back against the bed, writhing and unable to close her legs over the growing tension and ache surging into a fire that lit every fiber of her being with a fire only quenchable by Rosemary’s expert, slow, firm love-making.

When her head dropped, Rosemary pulled away from her clitoris, but didn’t let the exposed nub go cold as a warming spell settled over her, gentle and inert. For now.

Cloudy felt and gasped as her lover’s tongue and cool breath mixed with hot breath as she breathed through her nose and mouth alternately, the tongue swirling through the heated part of her lips as more and more of Cloudy’s excitement pooled into her tail, not cooling as it should have, preserved by more magic. Heat upon heat built as the tongue touch her, sliding along crease and into every crevice, missing no part of Cloudy’s sex and both easing and igniting new aches deeper inside with every passing, slow breath from Rosemary.

Then her tongue was sliding into Cloudy’s body again, then pulling away as the sound of Rosemary lapping at her honey and swallowing theatrically loudly excited a cry of Rosemary’s name again, and quieter a plea to rut her, repeated over and over, barely cognizant of the words passing her lips.

The warmth over her clitoris changed, rolling around in a slow circle as a bit of telekinetic force entered the spell, and Rosemary shifted, cupping Cloudy’s hindquarters in her hooves and pushing her muzzle tight to the entrance to Cloudy’s wet depths, her tongue sliding past and curling, pulling back and tingling inside, leaving a fuzzy feeling of ecstacy behind before she pushed deeper and deeper, breathing more and more intensely through her nose as the washes of pleasure from clit and sex rose and rose.

Her voice rose with them, calling Rosemary’s name at first, needing to hear it cried, whimpered, and moaned with every draw of breath, then wordless moans and cries for more as the tension in her muscles, against the magic holding her legs apart grew stronger and stronger, building and building into a strain that let go as the force disappeared.

She rolled half to her side as she clamped her legs tightly together as the orgasm took her with a final cry of pleasure before she could only ride it out with Rosemary’s tingling tongue plunging deep, her muzzle firmly pressed to the entrance of her canal, following every toss and turn of her body.

Then she was coming back to full awareness, breathing heavily, barely able to get all the breath she needed, and Rosemary was slowly lapping at her sex, clinical and slow licks followed by quieter swallows and soft breaths.

“By the Mare in the Moon,” Cloudy moaned. “It was never like that before…”

“I learned a few tricks in the time between,” Rosemary murmured as she lifted her muzzle, Cloudy’s come spattered from nose and across the deep crimson marks of a Rosethorn. That tongue, that lovely tongue, bathed the sides of her muzzle, but wasn’t agile enough to get nearly all of it. “Rosie Night, Trestle, Garnish, Velvet… and from others… I wasn’t alone, Cloudy, as much as I wished for you, I wasn’t alone.”

That was what she’d wished for the entire time. That Rosemary wouldn’t be alone.

Cloudy raised her head higher to see that Rosemary was flagging so hard her tail was nearly a curly-queue. “Let me take care of you, Rosemary,” she whispered, pushing herself up and rolling over to start cleaning Rosemary’s muzzle. Would that Collar was there to mount Rosemary, he could see just how beautiful she was to mate with.

Halfway through the cleaning, as Rosemary was relaxing, and Cloudy had recovered enough of herself to feel like she could do herself proud, she pulled away and met Rosemary in a kiss that she used to guide Rosemary down to the bed on her side, eyes hopeful, then pleading as Cloudy broke away.

“Let me take care of you,” Cloudy whispered again, raising herself as Rosemary shifted and raised her hind leg. There was no need to tease Rosemary. She wanted Cloudy. It was in every line of her body, in every breath she took, in that still-smoldering gaze. But she didn’t demand. She wanted for Cloudy to give herself.

Rosemary’s thighs were streaked with the evidence of her arousal, musky and potent as Cloudy lapped at the streaks on her way to the source as she watched Rosemary’s belly twitch and flex as she winked, her teats and nipples puffy with the long-held lusts and twitching as she paused to lap and suckle at each, drawing whimpers from Rosemary.

“Beautiful,” Cloudy said around one, following it as her lover’s belly contracted and flexed.

“Cloudy, please,” Rosemary whined, her tail thumping against the bed as she winked open again.

“Sing for me,” Cloudy murmured as she pulled herself between Rosemary’s legs and closed her lips over the hard, quivering knob of Rosemary’s clitoris. Her reward was Rosemary’s raised voice calling her name in a wavering wail that trailed into a huffing gasp for breath.

Cloudy pressed firmly into the plush mound, teeth pressing back the hiding place so even then, Rosemary’s clit wasn’t safe from Cloudy’s flicking tongue or the slower, gasp and moan inducing lathing across it, or the slow suckle as she pulled back, her lips sealing over flesh and drawing the nub to meet her tongue.

Then, before she could overstimulate Rosemary, she was parting from the source of the sound and moving to slip her longer tongue deeper into Rosemary’s depths than any unicorn could.

Rosemary’s cries changed pitch, becoming deeper and slower as her flesh flexed and contracted against the strong pushes and curls of Cloudy’s tongue. Her taste was all around, inescapable, lovely, and stirring memories of other days, lazy sun-drenched love-making in a clearing.

She pulled Rosemary closer as strong legs closed over her shoulders, shaking as orgasm took her, drawn out only by the slowing action of Cloudy’s tongue as she slowly withdrew to lap and drink in the dribbles of come and feel the aftershocks of Rosemary’s orgasm passing through her thighs and her sex, her clitoris winking out slower and for less time… and still getting a kiss and a lick each time it came out, earning her squeaks and breathy giggles.

“Oh stars,” Rosemary whimpered. “That was wonderful.”

“Yes,” Cloudy said, working her jaw until it cracked and she could push herself up. “I’m going to have to apologize to the servants tomorrow,” she muttered, glancing at the slick sheen on the covers where she and Rosemary had both come, their scents mingling until it was hard to tell where one started and the other left off.

“You forget,” Rosemary murmured, her horn glowing as it covered the stain. “I’m a scent mage…” Slowly, the slickness retreated as a small globule of come formed in the air. Other mist-like beads joined it from places where Rosemary’s excitement had trailed over the fabric. “I learned this from my mother last year. Hiding one’s presence. I don’t think she meant it quite this way.”

“You two got closer after I left?” Cloudy mused, watching the cooling globule stop growing. There was less than she would have thought. It had felt like she’d come more.

“We did. She was trying to teach me stealth. Just in case. Also, don’t tell anypony that I did this.” She sent the mess into the bathroom and set the sink to wash it down as she filled a bowl with water and warmed it. “But I don’t want to make the servants’ jobs any harder. Sheets are hard to get come-scent out of otherwise.”

“Mm.” Cloudy kissed her and resumed washing her muzzle, paying special attention to her crimson muzzle markings. “Have I ever said how beautiful you are?” The marks accentuated the slender muzzle, drawing the eye naturally to Rosemary’s own.

“I like to hear you say it,” Rosemary said with a grin as she leaned in closer. “So I can return it, my beautiful Cloudy Rose.”

Cloudy kissed her, slow and deliberate, savoring the feel of her tongue and the faint aftertaste of mingled come, a particular taste she’d had rare enough occasion to experience in the last year. So few mares in Damme wanted to taste themselves. Rosemary not only wanted to taste herself, she wanted to take it from Cloudy’s mouth herself.

It was a part of her, the free openness of sex, not needing to worry about how far or what her partner might want or not want. She knew this mare, and knew what she wanted, how she liked it, and there was nothing hidden between them.

When they parted, the sink was off and a small pile of hoof towels waited next to a bowl of gently steaming water.

“It’s been so long,” Cloudy murmured. “Since I didn’t have to teach a lover about cleaning each other, and how relaxing it is. They don’t teach the mares here anything about sex.” She caught a towel between her lips and wrapped it deftly about her hoof before she dipped it in the bowl and set about cleaning Rosemary’s thighs more thoroughly.

“You poor darling,” Rosemary said with a laugh. “Surely they know to keep themselves clean?”

“They do. They just don’t want me to watch or help.” She sighed. “It’s embarrassing to them, I think, to let another mare, even the one who made the mess, clean it up. Like it’s an admission of weakness or something.”

“Or, perhaps, it’s a worry about the cleaning getting them aroused again?” Rosemary cocked a brow as she took a towel and cleaned Cloudy’s tail first. “It happens. Or maybe it’s a part of their stoic pride?”

“Pride, maybe. Or… I don’t know. I’ve tried to ask, but nopony seems to want to talk about it.” Cloudy grimaced and shook her head as she reached for another towel. “Collar has gotten used to it, at least, and enjoys it. Last night, he was more tender than usual cleaning my marehood.”

“Stoic about all things pertaining to sex, I think. Except for a few that get over their upbringing.” Rosemary continued with the other side of the towel, cleaning Cloudy’s folds gently. “Do you think Collar is one who can overcome it?”

“I do. He accepts my sexual appetites. And, admittedly, I’m still young enough to want to explore.” Cloudy grinned and shook her head. “You were the mare I was going to settle with as my main lover going into my late twenties. And now… it looks like it might be you, Rosewater, and Collar.”

“Are you going to have sex with her on your next date?” Rosemary asked, pausing in the cleaning of Cloudy’s belly. “I know it’s quick, especially for her, but…”

“I think I’ll leave that up to her. She’s… striking. Beautiful, yes, but there’s still a chill about her.” Cloudy shook her head at Rosemary’s frown. “She’s still walling herself off. I know… I know who she is. I think. And I understand why she can’t be who she is all the time.”

“If she’s going to the Garden tonight…” Rosemary chuckled. “Petal and Seed, especially Seed, will help her take down those walls.” She grinned. “And there’s this absolute firecracker of a mare I helped through her maiden night. You remember her? She’s not much younger than I am. Roselyn?”

“Ah.” Cloudy pursed her lips. “She seemed a little too energetic for Rosewater’s tastes. And possibly too young.”

“Hmm. That may be true. I wish I could ask her. Roselyn knows what she wants and pursues it relentlessly.” Rosemary chuckled. “She chose me as her guide into sex after one visit to the Garden.”

“And you think she might be interested in Rosewater?” Cloudy arched a brow.

“Mmm. She was always badgering me about Rosewater. I think, looking back, it might have been more about scents than anything else.” Rosemary giggled and pulled another towel to begin wiping Cloudy’s muzzle. “In either case, I hope she has fun.”

“I hope so, too.”Cloudy lay back down as Rosemary drew the gold-flecked pink vial free. “I love you, Rosemary.”

“I love you, Cloudy,” Rosemary said as she drew free two tiny droplets and atomized them before they began to glow with pink energy, the gold turning into sparks that flashed and flared as memories of her mother descended on Cloudy.

She closed her eyes, smiling, as the enchanted fragrance drew her into dreams with her love by her side.

Book 2, 9. Old Loves and New, Part 2

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“Rosewater!” Bliss cried as Rosewater dropped her veil a few feet away from the mare. “Sweet Celestia, don’t startle me like that.”

“Sorry,” Rosewater said with a chuckling laugh, hesitated, then bent to kiss the mare lightly on the lips. “I didn’t want to let anypony else know where I was going tonight.”

Bliss looked confused for only a moment, then returned the kiss lightly, delicately, and pressed her forehead to Rosewater’s chin. “I’m sorry you have to skulk about in your own city.”

“Wine tasting tonight?”

“Oh, no,” Bliss whispered, raising her head to nibble along Rosewater’s cheek to her ear. “Celebrating your mail delivery. We were all hoping you would come afterwards, but weren’t expecting you so quick after the visit to Damme.” She drew Rosewater’s ear down to suck on the whole, letting her teeth drag along flesh as she pulled away. “Roselyn, the dear, had her hopes set high, and I’m glad you’re here to settle them. She wants so much to hear back from Rosemary.”

It’d been a little more than five years ago. “Rosemary was her first.” She remembered, then, how proud Rosemary had been that she’d been asked to be a young mare’s first, how happy she was to pay forward the care and love she’d received during her first night.

“She was,” Bliss agreed, her smile wilting a touch. “They kept in contact, but Roselyn has… restraint issues. We’ve been working with her on that.” A dark cloud seemed to pass behind Bliss’s eyes for a moment, then vanished when she blinked, her smile broadening again.

“I’m glad she’s here then,” Rosewater whispered back, drawing a minute amount of magic to keep her whisper quiet, “I need to speak with Petal and Seed about arranging a date. In secret. Then we can have our date.”

Bliss drew back to peer at her, smile growing, then fading. “Of course. We do that very well here. Come. I believe Petal and Seed are in her office.”

Rosewater followed Bliss and allowed herself to admire the mare’s shapely rear, which Bliss took every opportunity to show just how fit she kept herself, and how pristinely clean she kept her marehood, with the delicate pink of her sex barely visible between the smooth, pouty outer lips. “Are you always so tempting, Bliss?”

“You can take a lick if you like,” Bliss said with a wink over her back. “But Dazzle would have my hide if I didn’t let him in on the full course meal.”

“He’s that eager?” That surprised her despite Dazzle’s insistence that he was interested. The more she learned about the ex-Dammeguard, the more intrigued she was. If it hadn’t been for her formal courtship of Collar, and their first date coming up in only a week, she might consider trying to formally court him instead. “I hadn’t thought…”

“He’s been looking forward to getting to know you better ever since the tour, my lovely mare,” Bliss said with a laugh. “He’s been listening to Seed tell tall tales about the shenaniganry he and Rosemary got up to when you were watching over them.”

Rosewater felt her cheeks heating at the memories. Those had been happier days, and Bliss’s offer, so open… she wasn’t ready to dive in so fully. Not yet. “Has… is he, um… excited?”

“Very,” Bliss said cheerily, nipping her cheek. “He’s a good friend of mine, and if… if things go well, in three years, I’ll ask him and Roselyn to bond with me and start a family. He’s been talking about you with anypony who has even a passing history with you.”

“Assuming he doesn’t spring first,” Rosewater murmured, her cheeks heated from the taste, the feel of another mare’s excitement, the taste of her, and the sight of her aroused. She’d never quite forgotten, but memories… memories didn’t live up to the reality. “Stars, I wish tonight I wasn’t here also on business.”

“Then let us conclude it quickly,” Bliss murmured, falling back to walk beside her. “This way. Seed and Petal usually take one of the smaller common rooms when they want a little time away to play.”

The night life of the Garden of Love’s villa was mostly subdued, with friends lounging in Merrie style couches, sometimes playing, other times talking or reading or simply napping after a hard day’s work. Candles and braziers with glowing coals turned the colorful painted walls and tiled floors into works of art of a different sort than during the day.

The occasional steady glow of a unicorn-light marked where the readers were, and sparks and smoke flowed safely away from everything flammable through the enchanted iron, and candles burned slowly yet brightly, filling every room with light and beautiful scents that Bliss beamingly told her were all Roselyn’s creations.

The meaning of her cutie mark, the crimson rose twined around a candle, became clearer. She was a candlemaker, not merely a fiery, bright light in the dark. “She does lovely work, then.” They were all lovely scents, and complimentary from room to room rather than clashing. She had to wonder if her visit was the reason for the extra effort, or if Roselyn put such efforts in every night.

Both paused at the doorway to hang their shoes on the pegs just inside the mudroom and dip their hooves in the small fountain underneath. It was a luxury innovation, and not one many houses in Merrie could accommodate. But, given the traffic the villa must see daily, it made sense to have it.

“She’ll be delighted to hear that from you, Rosewater,” Bliss said after she rejoined Rosewater inside the villa proper. “She put in an extra effort tonight to thank you for acting as a messenger pony. She’s a fan of your perfumes.”

“My perfumes are not this warm and inviting,” Rosewater said demurely. “Mine are precise. There’s a chill precision to what I do, Bliss. Every one I make has a purpose. These are unfocused, perhaps sloppy by my standards, but they have a heart to them, Bliss. I can tell what she was feeling from the particular emphasis she put on this or that accent.” She breathed in deeply, letting the scents flow through her nose and out her mouth.

“How is that different from what you do?” Bliss shook her head. “I’m not a perfumer. I’m the weather warden, but I do help her.” She raised a hind leg to show off her flank and the sun with a trio of rose petals drifting across it like bright sunset or sunrise clouds. “Roselyn tries to explain what she’s doing to me, but I’m afraid the distinction between this or that kind of scent is lost on me for the most part when she really gets down into the details. Though, I am getting better.”

“I can taste her emotions in what she has made. I take care to not let anything other than what I want to be in the scent get into it.” She offered a small smile. “I am an engineer. Roselyn is an artist. If that makes sense.”

“But you could, couldn’t you? Make something of yourself?” Bliss nodded around her. “Like this?”

“I have, in fact, made perfumes with bits of myself in them. But even there, it has a purpose, sharply defined.” She smiled and shook her head. “Not for anything I want, or have wanted, to do. Lures, mostly. Enticements, sometimes.”

“But…”

Rosewater smiled bitterly, looking down to meet Bliss’s eyes, spreading silence briefly around them. “But nothing. What I’ve done in the war has been to protect Rosemary and Carnation. Now they’re both taken from me, I’ve little reason to engage in the war.” She looked up and sighed. “Except to end it.”

“I look forward to it.” Bliss smiled and nodded as the silence faded.

“It will take time, but I’m sure we’ll manage.” Rosewater raised her nose as the smells of freshly spilled seed grew more intense. “I think…” She turned a corner to find Rose Seed with Petal atop him, both of them resting in post-coital bliss on a blanket set out for the occasion.

Petal gave little indication of hiding her pleasure as she rocked back and forth slowly, eyes half-closed, Seed’s breath coming in short, deep breaths, hilted to the sheath almost and dribbling he gave one last twitch and tensed for several moments, his hips pushing Petal up minutely with each.

Then they were done, and Rosewater felt the tension in the room fade as Petal took notice of them politely, tossing back her head, but not rising from her perch.

“Mmm. Hey, auntie. Nice of you to join us,” Seed said with a wink. “Was kinda hoping you’d be a little earlier.”

“Mm. I don’t think I’m up for an orgy.” She glanced at Bliss, then back to the husband and wife pair. “I apologize for—”

“Dear,” Petal broke in, slipping free of Seed’s cock to let his and her come spill out across his belly and her thighs, “if we wanted privacy we would have been in our room. We were hoping some of our loves might join us… and lo, even better has arrived.”

She’d forgotten how open the Garden was about sex. More open than most of Merrie, and since it was all private property, it wasn’t regulated by the same promiscuity ordinances that ensured that Merrie’s streets weren’t a bedlam of sex day in and day out.

Not that that had ever been a problem, but it only took a few hedonists to ruin an otherwise peaceful day in the market.

She gathered herself quickly and tried to ignore Seed’s cock as it shrank between Petal’s folds again. It was incredibly distracting, and a reminder of what she wanted to do tonight with Dazzle.

“It seems I came at the perfect time, as did you,” she said brightly, instead, grinning the same cheeky grin her distant cousin usually gave her.

“Indeed,” Seed huffed, looking at her upside-down, then at his bondmate. “I think we owe Roselyn ten bits, yes?”

“Five each,” Petal agreed as she raised herself minutely and let a fresh spill of come dribble over the shortening length of Seed’s shaft and raising an eyebrow as the ghostly pink light of a silence spell filled the small, open room. “It’s a pleasure all the same, Rosewater. What brings you here?”

Rosewater took a deep breath and glanced at Bliss, then rushed ahead. “I have a date with Cloudy Rosewing in a week. I want to set up something Merrie-side out in the country, far enough away from Roseate’s spying eyes that we can… do whatever comes.” Rosewater chewed her lip briefly, then nodded. “I’d like to pay for a dinner for two, fees for clandestine transport, and a foil story if necessary.”

Silence greeted her proclamation, and tension in the air as three sets of eyes sized her up before Petal nodded once. “I’m glad to see you finding love, Rosewater, even if it is across the river and not here.”

“I…” Rosewater swallowed. “I… started there first. I didn’t want to—”

“Rosewater,” Seed said in a softly chiding tone, “don’t. I understand why you didn’t want to come here first. Nopony blames you for worrying about our wellbeing.”

“We still want to be with you,” Bliss added, nuzzling her neck. “I, and Dazzle, aren’t so selfish that we can’t love you, and make love to you, without a commitment to us.”

“Free love,” Seed said. “It’s our way.”

“Thank you.” Rosewater felt her cheeks heating. She’d been away from this lifestyle for too long. “But… about the date.” She cleared her throat, feeling awkward. “What… would the cost be?”

“Mmm. Fifty bits for the meal and delivery, twenty bits for the wine… the rest depends on how many of my ponies I need to pull from their duties to get things set up.”

“Petal, why can’t we just give it to her?” Seed said in a sleepy voice. “Consider it a welcome to the garden gift.”

“Because business is slowing,” Petal said with a click of her teeth, and nodded to Bliss as she tipped her head to the side and nuzzled Rosewater. “And, Seed, I have workers to pay. I’ll not overcharge, but I’ll not give it away for free. And she did say pay.”

“I’m in no need of charity,” Rosewater said in agreement, returning the nuzzle and adding a soft bite to Bliss’s cheek as she sat beside her soon-to-be lover. “As appreciated as the gesture would be, I’ll also pay double your stated fees. I’ll pay triple if you can convince any others to also have a sudden desire for a nighttime rendezvous out in the country. Trusted someponies, of course.”

“Quintuple, and I’ll make it happen,” Petal said with a sharp smile. “I’ll even throw in a tent and setup. I trust you can make it near invisible?”

“I can, and it would be appreciated. I want this to be special, Petal. It’s my first time with her. Maybe my first time. I want to show her… me.” Rosewater let the mask go entirely again. “This is very important,” she said softly. “I want her to love me. I know this is… Gestures are only a part of what makes it, but I want to show—”

“You want to show that you care about her comfort and safety.” Petal glanced down at Seed, still watching Rosewater upside down. “Quintuple the price. Of course… if you want to lay out the cost of buying a parcel of land… I can let it drift around town that I’m looking to expand the vineyard with a countryside retreat.”

“I’m not sure if I can budget that on my own, but if you make me a partner in the retreat, I’ll throw in my perfume services at no charge for the future of it.” Rosewater raised her nose briefly. “That would allow me to explain why I’m making such a large withdrawal. And explain my visits, yes?”

“Mmm. I do like the way you think, Rosewater.” Petal stuck out a hoof. “Consider it a deal.”

“Can you do it in the next week?”

“Buy a parcel of land?” Petal snorted. “Please. I’ve been talking to a few farmers looking to move to the Damme side who want to sell.”

“Devious,” Rosewater said with a grin. “If they want to take an early vacation, I’ll put in a good word with Lord Collar about their merits as farmers. That should ease them getting settled.”

“That’s generous of you,” Bliss murmured. “A lot of the farmers outside Merrie usually work with the Dammehollow farmers to get crops in if they finish early, and the reverse. Merriehollow and Dammehollow even have their own united festival at the end of harvest.”

“Not that they advertise it very loudly,” Seed groused. “It would do so much good to ease tensions if the city ponies could see what our country brethren and sistren are already doing.”

“Hum.” Petal lowered her hoof to tap Seed’s nose. “What will you tell your mother if she asks why you’re investing in the garden?”

“Diversifying my interests now that I have nopony living with me. The house is lonely without Rosemary.” It was a bitter reason, but also the truth.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Seed said quietly.

“It doesn’t. But I’ve already bent my rule about letting ponies in.” She sighed. “I’m afraid doing so may put much attention on Cloudy’s family, but I can’t let my mother’s vengeance drive whom I love or show love to. I promised I’d help them flee to Damme if it came to it.”

Petal chewed her lip, then flicked her ears back. “Damn Roseate. Deal.” She stuck out her hoof again, and this time Rosewater locked ankles with her and shook firmly.

“Deal. I’ll get the bits to you tomorrow morning. How much?”

“Celestia, she doesn’t even ask before,” Petal said with a laugh. “Call it two thousand for the land and an initial investment into building the retreat. Add another five hundred for the diversions by our ponies nearby, and another hundred for the date setup services.”

Rosewater whistled and nodded. “That will be almost a year’s perfume sales, but I have it.” She had far more than that. No reason for them to know just how well off she was from her work. All of it was in case she were exiled. She would need money to wage a war against Roseate from afar. She grinned. “I look forward to this new venture, Petal.”

“May the Mare smile upon our deal,” Petal said formally, then grinned. “And spit on Roseate. Did you have a preference on a meal or wine?”

“Surprise us,” Rosewater said with a smile. “I want to try out this new thing called trust. I hear ponies do it all the time.”

Petal laughed. “Oh, yes. I know exactly what to prepare.” She waved a hoof. “Now that business is done, please, enjoy yourselves. I know Bliss and Dazzle have been looking forward to tonight with you.”

The villa was more sprawling than Rosewater had recalled, the personal quarters section being more full of new construction and expanded rooms than it had been since her last overnight visit with Rosemary and Carnation.

“Whose room are we going to?” Rosewater murmured as she passed by more than one with the door closed and the scents of sex emanating from them. It was getting closer to harvest time, and even she could feel the itch of want and need stirring in her. The autumn itch.

The traditional time to get with foal. More than tradition, it reached back thousands of years to when they had roamed the plains of a far-off continent, before even the rise of Pegasopolis or Unitopia. Long before even the birth of immortal Celestia.

“Mine, though I share it with Dazzle and Roselyn occasionally.” Bliss flicked her tail aside, shivered as if in memory of Rosewater’s tongue on her, and pranced ahead a step. “She’s with Prism, working on a new formulation for our Dammeguard ponies to enjoy.”

“Oh?” Rosewater’s ears perked up. “I’d love to sample what she’s working on if this,” she said, waving at the hallway in general, “is her usual fare.”

“Mmm. She’d be delighted to take you on a tour in the morning, I’m sure,” Bliss purred, nipping her neck. “But tonight’s not about business, dear heart. Tonight is about you relaxing into bliss.”

Rosewater rolled her eyes even as her tail rose and canted sideways. “You will not stop playing with yourself will you?”

Bliss’s laugh rolled out languidly and her tail flicked against Rosewater’s thigh, then a wing brushed against her belly and flank. “Not for anything.”

It wasn’t hard to tell which one was her room, neither by smell nor by sight. Dazzle’s signature male scent was on the other side, unaroused and calm by the standards of the ponies already making love elsewhere in the Villa. It was decorated with her and Roselyn’s cutie marks as silver bangles, with a third added below on the guest hook, Dazzle's cutie mark.

“I… don’t have a bangle. I never really got into that trend,” Rosewater said, feeling sheepish. It was a classy way of saying who lived where, or who was staying. It was common in Merrie’s apartment housings, but less so on the main streets where it was easier for thieves to lift the valuable bangles—even if they couldn’t ever sell them. “I never had the need to let others know I was somewhere.”

“Because everypony already knew?” Bliss asked.

“Partly.” She left off that she didn’t want to advertise her presence.

“We’ll get that fixed up right quick. Silver Drop would be happy to make you a simple bangle, I’m sure.” Bliss didn’t let her dwell on it further and pushed open the door, ushering her inside. “For tonight, our home is yours, and our love is your love.”

It’d been so long since she’d heard those words spoken in earnest. “My love is your love,” she murmured as she stepped into a silken dream. Pillows of every size lay scattered on the bed and the floor, the window covered by a silk treatment that fluttered gaily in the breeze and brought in the cooling air of the mid-autumn night. “Stars above.”

Dazzle was laid out in a bowl of pillows on the floor, reading from a book with a salaciously drawn cover of a two mares and a stallion engaging in lovemaking under the moon.

Her tail shivered aside as he looked up, her coat twitching as she imagined for a brief moment, what it would feel like to be mounted again. I don’t have to imagine it tonight.

“Dazzle,” Rosewater purred as he set the book aside. “Stars, you look…” He was freshly bathed, his tail still exuding a faint fragrance of bathwater and soap, his coat shining and even his hooves polished to a mirror finish. “For me?”

“First impressions are important,” Dazzle said with a wink. “Both Bliss and I spent some time in the baths primping each other. Smooth hooves for smooth touching.” He raised one and offered it to her. “And I do intend to touch tonight.”

Rosewater’s tail shivered aside, her coat twitching. Should I have waited to bathe here? She swallowed and glanced from Dazzle to Bliss, and resisted the urge to see what scents she’d picked up from her trek across town. “For me?”

“Relax,” Bliss murmured from behind her, cheek resting on her rump at first, sliding along her flank and barrel to her shoulder, a warm presence that shivered her coat the entire trip. “We’re going to take care of you tonight.”

“It’s… been a while. I haven’t had more than one partner at a time for…” At least four years. “Too long,” she said at last, smiling sheepishly as Dazzle raised a brow and pushed himself up to meet her for a light kiss.

“We thought,” Bliss murmured in her ear, gesturing to the low, sturdy table to the side of their room with a flick of her ear, “that you might want to ease into tonight. Take it slow. I can’t imagine you’ve played a hoof of Petals in quite some time.”

Rosewater laughed shakily and shook her head, sitting down abruptly. “Stars above… I was so nervous, and you’re being so thoughtful.” She turned to meet Bliss with a light kiss as she sat down. “Thank you, and… yes. I haven’t played in a long time. What are the stakes?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Dazzle replied, tugging the table into the center of the pillows and settling it beside the three of them. “We were going to wait until you got here to decide what they were.”

A slip of paper sat in the middle of the table, beside the deck of cards and the three pristine carnation roses, each one easily with twenty petals in full bloom, their stems still faintly wet from where they’d been washed and kept watered.

Dazzle lifted the quill from its pot and wrote a single word at the bottom. Cheating. “And—”

“Oh stars and moon,” Bliss groaned, unable to keep a smile from her lips. “Not penalties again…”

“Oh, like you’ve complained about them,” Dazzle shot back, winking at Rosewater. “It’s a rule I play with. Get caught cheating, suffer a penalty.”

“In petals?” Rosewater asked, raising a brow and lifting one of the flowers to study it more closely. This had the potential to be a long game. And fun.

“In acts,” Dazzle said, putting three numbers down. “In increasing severity.” He winked and flicked his tail, leaning more heavily against her chest. “Before we decide on the prices, we should decide on the ‘punishments.’”

“Kiss for first,” Bliss purred, winking. “Start out slow.”

“But from whom?” Dazzle and Rosewater asked at the same time, then glanced at each other and laughed.

“A good question,” Dazzle said, easing away from her to sit more on one side of the small table. “I think one from the pony who catches them cheating.”

“From both wronged parties,” Bliss interjected.

“I’m with Bliss,” Rosewater said, an image of both of them kissing her when she pulled one of the tricks she kept in reserve. “Both.”

Dazzle wrote that down, giving Bliss a long, meaningful look. “And the second?”

“A kiss on the other end,” Bliss purred, separating from Rosewater and taking her own place, ears canted lazily. “By both other ponies.”

“Well, you’re both welcome to kiss my ass anytime,” Dazzle shot back cheerfully, “but that’s a lot less exciting for me.” He snorted and started writing. “But I might not cheat at all.”

“Fine, fine. Shaft or sheath,” Bliss said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s always a little prudish about cheating anyway.”

“Am not.”

A glow that Rosewater hadn’t felt in far too long, perhaps because of her ordeals recently, or because… she’d not been looking for it, settled into her heart. This was friendly play that she’d missed in the years of isolation, the Garden’s carefree nature that she’d cut herself off from.

It was a part, and a distillation, of what it was to be a Merrier. Joy in company, strength in togetherness.

Dazzle hesitated in getting to the third line, his eyes on Rosewater, concern beetling his brows. “Rosewater? Is it too much?”

“N-no… I’m… happy.” Her smile didn’t need to be forced. “Please, don’t worry about me. I’m happy to be here, and overjoyed to…” She waved a hoof vaguely at the room and nodded at the table. “To be here. With you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Bliss said in a low, purring voice. “Because we’re happy to have you here. Now… the final punishment.”

“Brought to the edge of orgasm… and denied.” Dazzle’s coat shivered as he said it. “For the time being.”

“He’s trying to cheat into it,” Bliss whispered in a loud aside to Rosewater. “He likes it when he’s denied orgasm for a little while. But not too long.”

“I am not,” Dazzle said with the largest grin she’d ever seen him wear. “But… you know… if I got caught, I definitely wouldn’t be complaining if I had two lovely mares tormenting my poor mind like that.”

Bliss raised a brow and sniffed. “Of course you wouldn’t. Anyway… I think we should have the final punishment should be being forced to watch as the other two have a minute of sex.”

“Of course you would. But you can’t masturbate while you do it.”

“No fair!”

“Oh my dears,” Rosewater laughed, shaking her head. “Why don’t we have three personalized ‘punishments’? I would be more than happy to tease Dazzle to flaring but not orgasm, and I would be more than happy to let him finish in me if Bliss cheats a third time. Fair?”

Both of them paused to consider, exchanging looks, then nodding slowly.

“That’s fair,” Bliss said slowly, pursing her lips. “But it still leaves us without your punishment, dear.”

“Indeed,” Dazzle said, folding his hooves on the table, licking his lips and looking her over slowly, pausing when his gaze dipped down to her belly, then up. “What is it that you want as a punishment?”

Rosewater felt her cheeks flush as she considered what had driven her wild with Roseling, with most of her lovers, and sucked in a breath, giving Dazzle a view of her pinkish teats, stark against the thinner white coat around her loins. “I’ll submit myself to having my teats teased or sucked for a minute if you catch me a third time.”

Bliss shivered and flexed her wings. “Mmm. That sounds lovely.”

The fragrance of mare’s arousal, and of stallion’s musk grew stronger as they both watched her. A glance around the table showed Dazzle’s cock sliding free and bobbing limply in a half-erect arc. Her blatant stare, and the slow licking of her lips heightened the scent as it bobbed again, straightening and thickening as blood rushed to the head.

It didn’t take much for his erection to rise above the edge and bob slowly against the smooth wood. Beautiful, faintly mottled pink and blue skin throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and only a hint of a flush in his cheeks said he might have been embarrassed at her stare. Or aroused by it.

“You don’t have to guess how I feel about that,” Dazzle whispered huskily, flexing his belly and making his cock straighten and flex, a tiny bead of precome glistening at the tip. “I would delight in teasing you.”

“If you catch me cheating,” Rosewater purred.

“Oh, I think he’s gonna be watching hard for that,” Bliss chided, laughing and squirming where she sat. “I know I’m going to be watching you closely… especially if it means I get to administer the ‘punishment.’”

“Ooh. That’s a good one.” Rosewater tugged the quill lightly from Dazzle’s grasp and wrote it at the bottom. “Whoever catches a pony gets to administer the punishment.”

“Okay, now that’s going to get competitive,” Dazzle said, laughing and settling back. “I wonder… who’s going to cheat first, and how?”

“I think we had more fun setting up the punishments,” Rosewater murmured, passing the quill back to Dazzle. “What are we going to offer for prizes if all of us end up cheating our way into bliss?”

“I like that wording.” Bliss giggled and flirted her tail, then settled down to lounge beside the table, one foreleg stretched out as she peered at just above the level of the table at them.

A glance around the other side of the table was enough signal for Bliss to raise her tail and her hind leg to let Rosewater get a look at the faint dampness beading her soft nethers, and for a long, slow winking of her clitoris to expose the deep pink of her sex.

“Careful, lovely,” Bliss purred. “Or I might try to let you catch me cheating twice.”

At the invitation, practically explicit, Rosewater lounged in mirror to her, exposing herself to Dazzle. “I might have to try hard.” She raised one leg and flicked her tail out of the way, feeling the shiver of cool air on her clitoris as she winked in Dazzle’s direction.

“C-careful,” Dazzle said, his erection stiff as a ship’s mast for a second before he relaxed with a shiver. “I might fold early if you tease me too much.”

Instead of answering him directly, Rosewater craned her neck to nibble at Bliss’s ankle, one ear perked towards Dazzle. The mare’s tail and wings flitted briefly, but she kept her hoof stead and drew in a deep breath. That close, she could smell Bliss’s arousal more strongly, spiking as she drew on her gift to take in the subtler undertones, the variance that was unique to every pony, and the tendrils unique to mares.

She was on her contraceptive magics, the faintly acrid undertones covered over by the mare’s diet of the last few days.

“Carrots, oats, and honey,” Rosewater whispered, working a slow kiss and lick down the tendon to the pastern before she drew back. “I very much look forward to tasting you.”

“Fascinating,” Dazzle murmured from his place. “How sharp your nose is.”

Bliss, for her part, shivered and glanced over the game table, then took a breath and shook herself, lowering her leg. “Stars, Rosewater. That is some intense foreplay.”

“It’s been too long.”

Dazzle twirled the quill. “If I might suggest… keep the prizes simple. Sex. For the cost of a flower’s worth of petals plus five more. With the pony of your choice.”

“Mm. I like.” Bliss cast a languid gaze at Rosewater. “I know who I’m buying sex from.”

“Don’t make me choose! Stars, you two,” Rosewater said with a laugh. “I could hardly choose one over the other.”

“Both of us,” Dazzle said with a wink, “want you.”

That sent a shiver down Rosewater’s spine. Images, daydreams of both of them atop her, under her, around her passed through her mind in one ragged moment. “And I want both of you.”

“Two on one?” Bliss purred the question as she looked at Dazzle, her eyes drifting from his cock to his eyes. “I know you want to mount her. You came for me while I whispered the dream to you. And I want to feel her tongue. In me. On me.”

“I do.” Dazzle shivered, his cock’s head flaring before it shrank again and he established control over himself, cock limpening and letting free a slow trickle of precome down the front of his shaft. “Two on one it is.”

Rosewater shivered and picked up her flower. “One against two. It hardly seems fair… mayhap you should recruit White Rose to your side as well to stand a chance.”

“Cocky,” Dazzle laughed, stretching out his hind legs one at a time. “Very, very cocky. Almost like she wants it now, before the game.”

“Oh, no. Not at all!” Rosewater laughed softly. “I’m merely saying… let the cards fall how they may.” She picked up the deck and shuffled it, the memory of the spell coming back to her in the moment before casting. She’d played Petals so many times with Rosemary and Carnation, though not with stakes like these.

The spell triggered a sweet memory of betting chores with her happy family.

And here I am, happy again. She smiled all the broader as she dealt out cards evenly. “May the best cheater win.”

Book 2, 10. Outlooks and Observations

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After a night of lovemaking, of cards, laughs, perhaps a bit too much wine after the first hoof, the absence of anxiety felt like waking in a dream without truly being awake.

It was the warmth and weight of two bodies bracketing her instead of the chill of an empty bed that convinced her it wasn’t a dream, and the wing resting over her back, soft mane against her cheek, told her who was on her left.

“Morning,” Dazzle murmured against her other cheek.

“Early riser?” Rosewater whispered, coming awake fully in a moment, then settling back and rolling her cheek against Bliss’s, still fully asleep, or on the verge of waking. Here, the sounds of the countryside were more prominent than those of a city. Birds still sang as the sun crept over the eastern horizon, but they were sharper, clearer, closer.

Even the distant rattle of carts and the occasional morning greeting hollered from afar was crystalline compared to the muffled and dank way such sounds usually crawled into her life.

Even the glow from the morning sun wasn’t creeping into her windows and past her curtains. It didn’t need to creep through the wide open, unshuttered window bereft of dressing.

“I’ve seen where you live,” Dazzle murmured in her ear, a kiss settling in behind it as he breathed in slowly, then let it out in her mane. “I thought you might like a wide open waking for once.”

Her coat shivered once as the wind shifted and blew in through the open window, carrying with it the fragrance of breakfast cooking, and both tea and coffee brewing.

“I can close—”

“No.” Rosewater shook her head slightly. “No, it’s okay. Open windows… make me nervous. But I need to get past that.”

His look of genuine concern hurt.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, defensive.

“Except—” Bliss yawned loudly and rolled over on her side, stretching her hind and forelegs out.

“It is,” Dazzle finished for her. He nibbled her ear and ducked his head to intercept a kiss from Bliss, sharing it briefly before both of them pressed lips to either side of her muzzle.

There, caught between two warm bodies, with the achingly beautiful open day ahead of her, it was hard to deny the truth of their words. Memories of last night compounded the ache in her heart.

More than sex. More than intimacy.

She’d been open with them. Herself. A being she’d not felt since before Carnation’s last week. The laughter had been real. The joking and teasing had been in earnest, and her deep feeling of contentment as they all lay together after the final throes of intercourse ebbed into the slow-creeping exhaustion had been honest.

“You belong here, now,” Bliss murmured against her cheek. “And you’re invited to breakfast, of course.”

At that very moment, a knock and creak announced their morning concierge service.

Roselyn poked her head in, fiery mane aglow in the morning light streaming through the room. “Hey, so… breakfast is almost ready. Petal asked me to see if you were up.” Her eyes danced over them, her smile growing into a fierce, almost feral grin. “It looks and smells like you had a good reason to sleep in.”

Dazzle rolled his eyes. “Scamp. Go tell Petal we—” He glanced at Rosewater.

“We’ll be down after a quick trip to the baths,” Rosewater said evenly, smiling. “And thank you, Roselyn, for the warm candle-lit welcome last night.”

The younger mare beamed and pranced backwards, bobbing her head. “Of course! I, um…” She glanced left and right down the hallway. “I have a question for you when you’re more awake. About candles.”

“They make terrible dildos,” Dazzle offered with a sly grin.

Bliss rolled her eyes and rose to give the younger mare a kiss on the lips. “We’ll be along after a quick dip.”

“I really would like your help later,” Roselyn was saying as Rosewater chewed slowly on her last bite of Soufflish, as Prism jokingly called it. “I want to refine my approach to neutralizing scents. I set up a full sampling of my personal candle collection, and then set up my current best neutralizers in my room to keep what I let off, and what you and Dazzle both added fresh and unimpeded.”

“It was a great effect,” Rosewater said with a chuckle. “You’re talented, I’ll give you that.” The mare beamed up at her before Rosewater came in with the but. “But… there is an art to neutralizing scents. And a bit of science. Neutralizing one scent is best. It allows you to focus all the efforts in that one thing. There are powerful astringents that can neutralize all, but they’re caustic and will evaporate quickly. The best bet, with a candle, would be to choose one target for a batch of wax and build up that one thing. For example, a strong peppermint smell to fight off lust bound with a faint hint of vanilla to keep it from being too astringent.”

Roselyn pursed her lips and nodded. “And if I want to counter a specific somepony’s lust?”

“Then you have to get creative. I take it you mean a certain somepony we both know about?” Rosewater pursed her lips. “I’ve been working on that myself, but they’re also skilled at countering counters. It would never be the same scent every time, and their talent makes it hard to get around anyway.”

Roselyn sighed and leaned forward to slip her tongue under a slice of egg and fish and chewed thoughtfully. “Candles,” she said around her mouthful of food, “can be more potent than perfumes for certain warm scents. Perfumes, I think, are better for cooler scents like peppermint. I’d like your help, specifically, with some mulling wine spices, not the wine. I want to isolate the aromatics. They’re heartwarming, not lusty.”

The younger mare wasn’t wrong about perfumes being better for cooler scents. Rosewater nodded along and dabbed her lips before she nibbled thoughtfully at the edge of a tart.

“That might work. Lust is a heart-bound emotion. Warming the heart might work against the fiery lust, but it might also make a pony more susceptible unless…” She suckled the tip of the ear. “You need to activate the scents before they’re added to the wax.”

Roselyn grunted and flicked her ear. “That was my thinking, too. But that really limits their shelf life. Like, down to a week.”

“I can look into stabilizing spells. They’re hard for perfumes because they dissipate so rapidly, but for a candle, having the matrix of the wax… and maybe…” Rosewater would have to talk to a smith about making silver and gold inlaid candlestick embrasures. They could be reused, and used to lay down an enchantment to hold the scent ready to be activated with heat. “Silver Drop might be able to make some silver candlestick holders that can hold a charm. But she’s one pony.”

Several ponies shot her curious looks, apparently unaware that she knew Silver Drop.

Petal nodded and met the eyes of several ponies who looked to her for confirmation. “If you can get me a design, I can see about having the Garden finance the creation. We can’t be unprotected if we’re infiltrated.”

Silence descended over the room for several moments.

“It won’t come to that, will it?” White Rose asked, her mane and coat both a pure white, her eyes more darkly pink than most, the Rosethorn marks on her muzzle and cheeks darker by contrast than they would have been elsewise as a fairly distant relation. “We’re a community of families, not partisans.”

“It won’t,” Seed said, leaning against Petal before she could answer into the worried quiet that settled in. “We’re taking no action, and no side but our own, as it has always been. Rosewine Hill stands tall and proud.”

Petal’s uncertain glance at Rosewater didn’t do much to allay her fears that she was bringing undue attention to the community of vintners and craftsponies.

“I—”

“We will also brook no interference in the way we’ve run our home for nearly two centuries,” Petal said firmly over Rosewater, jaw firming and ears straight. “Friends and family will always be welcome in the Garden of Love.”

“I’ll chip in,” Dazzle said, leaning over to nuzzle Rosewater’s cheek, and drew back too slowly to avoid a kiss on the cheek. “Imp. If Petal can let me work more on the vats, we can start bottling more wine. I can help out in the furnaces, too, if we have a need of extra magic to handle the glass. The Gala’s in just two weeks. If we make out well there…”

Rosewater cast a silence spell to cover the entire breakfast area, getting everypony’s attention. “It’s actually a month and a half out, now,” she said, and told them about the missive she’d seen.

Petal closed her eyes. “We rely on the contacts we make at the galas. Now, more than ever,” she said with a groan. “I hope Roseate sits on a hot poker.”

“It gives us more time,” Seed said laconically. That seemed to be his default mode most of the time, as odd in her memory as he’d been one of the chiefest of troublemakers when she’d been a too-serious teenager trying to live up to Budding’s example.

But there was a glint of eagerness in his eyes that belied that notion. “I’ve been wanting to try some new strains of carnations. I’ve got enough rosehips from them now to make a unique additive to our wines.”

“I’d love to taste it when you have it ready,” Rosewater said, then looked around. “Does anypony have any questions?” When none came, she added, “I don’t need to say this is privileged information. I was not asked to keep it secret, because it will be coming out soon, but until then, don’t let anyone outside this room know that you knew it was coming.”

That did get her a few questioning looks, especially from the Prims, but a few of the Roses, too.

“Let me put it this way: my showing favor to anypony, or especially a group of ponies, would draw her ire. I don’t want to draw any more—”

“Let us worry about Roseate’s reaction,” Petal said firmly, standing up and raising her head high. “We accepted you. You’re one of us, now, Rosewater, and that means we take care of you, and you take care of us. Telling us about the delay will let us plan around it.” She tapped a hoof on the table. “You’re taking care of us.”

Seed smiled and nuzzled his mate. “Yep! Now I can play around with Petal… and have more sex, too.” He chuckled and stuck his tongue out.

“He hasn’t gotten any less predictable with his jokes, has he?” Rosewater asked, grinning.

“Oh no.” Petal licked his tongue, then kissed him. “And I hope he doesn’t. It’s charming.”

“Auntie,” Seed rolled his eyes and laughed when several ponies perked up and stared at him, then Rosewater. “Oops! That’s a secret, too. Sorta. If you’re blind. Of course ponies know you and Carnation looked after me. Stop worrying so much, Aunt Rosewater.”

Easy for you to say, Rosewater thought as she dropped the aural shield and nuzzled Bliss between the ears. “I’d like to visit again soon, and help with fragrances and talk shop.”

“Among other things,” Dazzle whispered, leaning over to nibble at the base of her jaw. “I hope.”

“I don’t want to monopolize you, lovely stallion,” Rosewater murmured, kissing his cheek. “You’re still courting Bliss and Roselyn, right?”

That earned her a small blush and glance at the two mares. “I mean, yes, but—”

“But I’m also courting another.” Another light kiss to the cheek, and a lighter one to his lips. “We both are courting others, Dazzle.” And one of them is a Dammer.

“I… I know.” Dazzle’s ears fell briefly. He sighed after a moment and smiled sadly. “I know you’ve been pursuing him, it’s the talk of the market when it’s not Roseate. He’s a good pony, but steadfastly a Dammer, as much as he accepts Merrier ways as valid.”

“I know. That’s…” It wasn’t shame, exactly, that stopped her from saying more, but a knowledge of what constituted Dammer mores. Accepting Dazzle’s invitation, and Bliss’s, was verboten to a Dammer courtship. And yet, in Merrie, and from Cloudy, she would expect no less than to be encouraged to find companionship if her lover weren’t able to be there for her. Denial of sexual drives was… foreign to most Merriers, even if they managed them well enough.

“You’re a Merrier,” he reminded her gently. “He knows that, and if he ever does turn to you, he’ll know that.”

“It will make it harder for him to accept.” Rosewater smiled all the same and nuzzled his cheek. “Still, I wouldn’t give up the fun we had last night. Any of it.”

Dazzle smiled and bobbed his head. “Likewise. I understand your reluctance, but will it really be love if he doesn’t accept you for all of you?”

Rosewater sighed and let the matter drop with a twitch of her ears. “Maybe not.”

Collar found Prim Coat a goodly distance from the door he was supposed to be guarding when he arrived for his morning visit, trailed by a servant carrying breakfast while he chivyed the mornings’ reports into his day pouch. “Coat, shouldn’t you be closer to the door?”

His guard gave him a long side eye, then sidestepped three steps towards the door. “Of course, my lord, you are correct.” He eyed the servant and levitated the breakfast tray free. “I’ll take over that.”

The servant took his cue and backed away with a bow before turning and making a hasty retreat back down the stairs.

“Coat, it couldn’t have been that bad last night.” He glanced at the door. “Could it? She’s been so well behaved.”

“Yes. Well.” Coat coughed. “Around you, yes.” He cleared his throat and looked around, then sidled up closer. “I had to cast a sound damping spell on the door after the first ten minutes. They were… energetic. For about an hour. Then they settled in to talk.”

“Cloudy has a good deal of stamina,” Collar said with a weak smile. “It seems Rosemary has the same?”

Coat eyed him quietly, his ears slowly folding back. “This doesn’t bother you?”

“No. I know everypony she’s had as a lover before. We can still look each other in the eye.” He made a point of looking into Coat’s eyes steadily for the space of a few breaths before setting his hoof to the door. “Its been almost a year and a half for me, Coat. I’ve had time to accept who she is and what the Principes means to her.”

“Come in, Lord Collar, Prim Coat,” Rosemary called through the door.

Collar raised a brow at Coat and opened the door, steeling himself to find Rosemary and Cloudy locked in a quiet carnal embrace. Thus, he was moderately surprised to find Rosemary combing Cloudy’s mane into something resembling orderly, the usual messy bob already resembling something more noble. “Good morning,” he said, cocking his head to the side at Cloudy.

“She insisted,” his lover said. “She said my mane got rather mussed last night.”

“Well, that will happen when you make love on your back,” Rosemary murmured loudly enough to make Coat look away with his cheeks coloring as he settled the table into the open space by the door. “It’s better if it doesn’t tangle. Plus, this looks more sleek.” She tugged Cloudy’s chin up and pressed her cheek in close as they both looked at him. “Doesn’t she just look lovely?”

“Doesn’t she?” Cloudy asked, her lips impishly perked as she tipped her head and flicked her ear against Rosemary’s.

He coughed instead of answering, hiding his flush at being effectively propositioned by his lover to accept her lover.

“Yes. But I wished to talk to you about volume control. I know this is the first time you’ve had sex,” he said, inducing a coughing fit in Coat, “in a long while with each other, but this is Prim Palace. I would rather you didn’t traumatize the staff.”

Rosemary had the sense to look abashed as she looked down, but that may have had more to do with her status as a prisoner than it did with any kind of embarrassment. “I did put a ward in the room… but the magic ran out before we were done.” Her ears flushed as she glanced at Cloudy. “I was too far gone to think about checking it until after.”

He sighed, glancing at Cloudy and spending a moment studying her. Her eyes were clearer, her smile steady and her ears perked forward under his regard. The faint melancholy that he’d felt about her since Rosemary’s capture seemed to be in abeyance. At least for the time being. Something he hadn’t been able to do for her.

“Thank you, Rosemary, for taking care of her.” He said, repeating the Rose phrase of one lover to another, and glanced back at Coat. “But please keep in mind that this is a place where propriety is important. I would appreciate it very much if you kept the volume down.”

Cloudy dropped her eyes to the floor and nodded. “I’m sorry, Coat. I was excited to be with my love again.” Her eyes met Collar’s, steady and with the plea that she loved him too still there. “I… I don’t think I could have had it be spontaneous. I needed to schedule it. I needed time, Collar, Rosemary, to settle my worries.”

“The Tussen Twee?” Rosemary asked quietly.

“In part. More…” She met Collar’s eyes again. “I was worried about you.”

“Why? Cloudy, I’ve told you over and over—”

“You’ve told me, but you haven’t shown me that it wouldn’t hurt you.” Cloudy looked up, ears folding back. “I needed to tell you I was going to make love to her, like I make love to you. I needed to look you in the eyes when I told you and see that it didn’t hurt you.”

He took his time thinking and examining his emotions. Rosemary and Cloudy were in love. In Damme, they would easily be looking at marriage. Just as he had been looking at with Cloudy. But a year and a half of dating, of making love to her, and a two of being her friend had acclimated him to her ways.

When it came to love, sex, and romance, she was direct and to the point, as most Merriers were he was finding out, in social settings. She had been his window into the wider Rose world, a personal guide to the ways of the city across the river, and his initiation into love.

It just wasn’t something he could talk to his father about, as much as he would have been happy to talk to Collar, and likely at length. Philosophical study of the difference between Merrie and Damme was one of his past-times, and application of his learning yet another.

But Cloudy was asking if he could still love her when she loved someone else, too.

Looking into her eyes, he saw the same determination he had when she’d professed her interest with her caveat. She was the same mare. “It doesn’t,” Collar said, stepping over to her and licking her chin, then her lips, and drawing her into a shallow kiss. “I love you the same, Cloudy. And I thank you, Rosemary, for taking care of her.”

It was the Merrier way. Lovers took care of each other, and thanking a lover’s lover was polite. That much, he’d learned from his parents in their diplomatic training for dealing with Merriers.

He’d never said it before, except in his head when she came back from a night with another guard. When he said it this time, aloud, his heart hitched, and he smiled at both of them. Something that had been missing in Cloudy’s life was back, and it showed in the way she glowed this morning.

He hadn’t lost anything by her loving Rosemary save a night in her embrace. One of tens of dozens he’d already shared with her, and if he accepted this, one of hundreds yet to come.

Coat, behind him, coughed. “If you’re quite done making up with your lover… or is it lovers now?” He laughed when Collar jerked around and stared at him. “Breakfast is served, Collar.”

“Lover,” Collar said firmly as he sat and poured himself a glass of juice. “Cloudy is my only lover, and I love her.” He raised a brow as Rosemary settled in across from him instead of Cloudy while Cloudy and Coat took up opposite positions. “But that doesn’t mean I am closed to the idea of adopting the Principes van Vrije for myself. If I find the right ponies.”

“And you don’t know me well enough,” Rosemary said before she took a bite of oatmeal and berries, and she glanced at Cloudy, sipping from her mug of coffee.

“I wouldn’t ask you to bond her without knowing her, just as I wouldn’t want to without knowing Rosewater better.” Cloudy grinned as she bent to take a bite from her toast.

Coat choked on his coffee and covered his mouth with a napkin until he got his coughing under control. “Cloudy, you can’t just make jokes like that!”

Cloudy chewed slowly, brow raised as she studied Coat, then swallowed and shook her head. “It’s not a joke,” she said, smiling. “She’s not who you think she is. Get to know her, Coat. Trust me, she’s… she’s much more open than you might think. Let her talk to you in a silence spell, and I promise she’ll want to get to know you.”

Coat chewed his lip before he took a bite of oatmeal and considered his bowl quietly for several more bites before he nodded and glanced at Rosemary, then back to his bowl.

It was better, Collar thought, for the request to come from her rather than him. From him, it could too easily be an order, and something to be followed without fully accepting what the request meant. He would think about it more, and if he decided to, it would be something he walked into with the actual intent.

Rosemary leaned over and kissed Cloudy on the cheek, whispering quietly in her ear after. Her eyes met Collar’s briefly, a curious look he couldn’t quite decipher passed behind her eyes, then went to her oatmeal, plain white stained pink by her strawberries, a private little smile curling her lips as she stirred in a dollop of white, thick heavy whipping cream.

He sighed and tried not to think about the little tidbits he’d heard from Rosemary and Cloudy when she’d come back. The two mares talked about sex like a Dammer might talk about the day’s bread. Frank, unapologetic, and uncompromising.

That he’d been in earshot seemed to be the point rather than accidental.

Still, it made him happy to see that Cloudy was barely restraining a giggle as she whispered in Rosemary’s ear.

“Yes, dear mares, I know what that looks like,” he said, rolling his eyes and fighting back against the feeling of his cheeks flushing.

“Oatmeal and cream?” Rosemary asked, innocent smile back in place on her lips. “It’s quite tasty. Especially with fresh strawberries. The last for a while.”

Collar held back a sigh and poured a dollop of cream into his oatmeal. It did look refreshingly rich and tasty, now that she said it, and far be it from him to pass up a chance to play down the overt flirtatiousness.

The last time Rosewater had found occasion to visit the countryside outside of Merrie during the day had been before Carnation had been taken, when she’d been seriously considering a stallion a year or two older than her for a mate.

Pine Rosewood, the second son of House Rosewood and the manager of their timber operations, had been, and to all accounts still was, a kind stallion with a heart of gold. He’d been able to look past her mother’s increasingly vitriolic positions on everything in the wake of Roseline’s passage and had gone on several very public dates with her.

He’d taken her on one date, less public, out to his family’s small home in the woods. Not far from where the land she’d helped Petal pay for was, in fact.

She might catch sight of him, if he was out with his family.

A wife, a husband, and two sons now, both under six years of age. It hurt to think that might have been her, with a child each from two loving husbands.

But it hadn’t been in their cards. Pine, in the end, had been too different of a personality. Too focused on the minutiae of day-to-day life, while she’d always been a larger picture pony.

If only she’d been more focused on the daily life, she might not have planned so far out as to alienate her friends, making her plans years in advance.

“You seem distracted,” Rose Petal said quietly. “We can always do this later. The land will be here tomorrow.”

“Thinking,” Rosewater said with a sigh. “I’ve rarely had reason to come out to the countryside during the day. It’s…” She looked around, making herself focus on the present instead of the past. The stubble of wheat stalks and bundles of hay lay everywhere. They would be gone in the next few days as the farm ponies who still lived in the small farmhouse moved across the river.

Birds pecked and scratched at the bare dirt fields, seeking the carelessly dropped seeds before they would need to migrate south for the winter, singing and squawking in little shifting clusters. She could identify some of them, the corvids especially were distinctive black spots that fed on everything, and the sparrows and starlings that avoided the clusters of crows and blackbirds.

Here and there, a rabbit or a slender ferret would appear, look around, and hop or scurry off in search of their food. They were barely audible as a rustle among the stalks.

The wind added its song to the mix, rising and falling through the forested hills to the south and carrying with them the smell of impending rain, a distant, cool smell that had a million different variations with it. It wouldn’t be a thunderstorm, and it wouldn’t come in from the sea.

It was going to rain during her and Cloudy’s date. Possibly into the morning. She pursed her lips and considered trying to get a message to her to call it off, then shook her head.

“It’s beautiful. Idyllic.” And the river flowed not a hundred yards to the north, low at this time of year, running rapid and rough over the rocky bottom. Its sound was more background noise than music. She lived not a hundred paces from its stone-bound banks. “I can see why you want a retreat here. Someplace for ponies to get away from the bustle. The river is going to rise soon, though.”

“It will. But the plot we’ve chosen is fertile, a good place for a garden once we’ve built up our own levee. With your investment, we can start on that.” A cover conversation for the Rose listeners surely among the traffic wandering the road along the river. She couldn’t risk silence, and she couldn’t not have a reason for being out in the countryside on the night of her next date. “Today, they should be laying out the basic foundation. Tomorrow, the levee foundation and drainage.”

“And the weather? I can smell it on the air. Storm front, it smells like, and a big one, from the intensity.” Rosewater glanced at her host, noting the nod as she raised her nose to the air. “We’ll need wind baffles to keep the rain out of the pavillion and common area, if it sticks around.”

“Seed knows how to make ponies comfortable, and he’ll have smelled it, too.” Petal leaned over and nipped Rosewater’s shoulder. “You worry too much. It’s still hours and hours away. They’ll have the foundation well settled by the time Seed gets here with the canvas material.” She took a deeper breath through her nose, lips slightly parted as she tasted the wind as well. “I can only smell it because you pointed it out.”

“I… trust is…” Rosewater shook her head. “I trust him to do a good job.” She didn’t, quite, but she would need to learn to trust again. If she wanted to court Cloudy and Collar, she had to trust they were giving her a fair chance to enter their hearts.

“It’s important to me this goes right. I’m putting my neck out, and so are you, by doing all this.” She waved a hoof at the spot already being tilled over by farm workers. “I need to trust they trampled enough earth and then pile more atop so that our campsite is above the surround. I need to trust that the food will be just right, the wine will be perfect, and the tents will all be waterprooofed and ready.”

“That’s a lot of trust,” Petal said genially, smiling up at her. “But I trust Seed. I trust Roselyn, and I trust Prism, and Dazzle, and Tremor. I trust all of our little family.” She pranced a step closer and pressed her cheek to Rosewater’s neck. “You’re a part of that family now, Rosewater. I trust you.”

So quick. “Why?”

“Because Seed knows you better than I ever did, but I still remember you, even if it’s a little more hazy. Because it’s more than just Seed. Budding loved you, trusted you. Because…” Petal looked to the ground. She shook her head, grimacing. “Because of things I can’t discuss out here in the open.”

There were too many of those to guess at. Rosewater chuckled. “You’re saying I have to trust that you have good reason.”

“And good reason to invite you out to dinner tomorrow with us.” Petal raised an eyebrow and grinned. “We’re going to Rosy Glow.”

Rosewater stiffened for a split second, then relaxed. Of course Petal had known. “I apologize for giving you the cold shoulder last time. I was still under quite a lot of misapprehensions.”

“Will you accept the invite? We’d love to have you.” Petal stopped at the edge of the square of dirt being trampled down with hoof and wooden bars. “I’d like to show Merrie that you’re not the Rose Terror,” she continued more quietly.

“I was wondering how I might start to approach that,” Rosewater admitted. “It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to be sociable.”

“Then you accept?” Petal nudged her ankle. “I can’t start planning Rosewater’s Return without the main star’s acceptance.”

“Fine, fine, I accept,” Rosewater laughed and bent to nuzzle Petal’s cheek. “By the Mare, I wish I’d come back sooner. Maybe—” Maybe things wouldn’t have had to happen the way they had. “Maybe I should pay attention.”

“Maybe you should. You might hear quite a lot you didn’t expect,” Petal said, looking at the group of workers taking a break while the rolling team flattened the eventual… it was too small to be a foundation for a building the size of the retreat would need to be. “Try smiling.”

She did, and even waved at the group of four earth ponies resting by a pile of dirt. They responded perhaps predictably, whispering among themselves and casting glances at her.

“Let’s go talk to them,” Petal said with an impish grin. “You need to get to know the common pony, Rosewater. You can’t hide at the garden forever, and you most definitely can’t hide in your house or business like you have.”

Let go of fear. Petal didn’t say it, didn’t know she might need to. It was something Collar or Cloudy would say to her. Something Rosemary would say to her. She needed to let go of the fear she used against Roseate. As much as it terrified her to lose such an important weapon, holding it hurt her more than it would ever hurt Roseate.

Rosewater hesitated for only a moment before she straightened and nodded. Roseate had been free to do as she wished for the past six years largely because Rosewater had been afraid of her retaliation against other ponies she showed a favor to, and especially against Rosemary.

She’s safe until Spring.

That was time to work. But it was much less time to work with than she’d have preferred.

To have a chance at her alternate plan working, she’d have to have the support of the ponies. She had one piece of that plan ready, thanks to Lace’s generosity, a kindness she would not let remain unpaid in kind.

“Good afternoon,” Rosewater said before Petal could introduce her. “I apologize for breaking into your breaktime, but I had a few questions about the project I hope you fine ponies could answer.” She hesitated, then bowed her head slightly. “I ask as a courtesy, not as an order.”

The four ponies, a mare and three stallions, all exchanged a look before the mare bobbed her head and rose, shaking herself briefly to clear the dirt from her belly. “Of course, m’lady Rosethorn. What did you want to know?”

“Rosewater, please. I’d prefer not to be so formal. I’m here with Petal, not as a Rosethorn.” She raised a hoof to cover the heart mark on her breast.

The mare’s ears flattened briefly as she looked to Petal, then back to Rosewater. “O-of course, Rosewater.” She tried a smile. “Ask away.”

“It’s going to rain, and possibly into the week,” she said briskly, then forced herself to slow, ears ticking an apology. “I was hoping you could set my mind at ease on how you’ll mitigate drainage issues. I’d rather not have the foundation float away.”

“Too,” Petal added, “we’d both rather not wake up with any wetness besides that which we bring with us.” She flirted her tail to emphasize the point.

The mare laughed, and the stallions behind her chuckled. “Oh, oh, of course. They’ve not arrived yet, but we ordered some wood planks from the Damme shipyard to lay across the ground after we get a few more layers built up, and a few foundation posts to sink into the ground. I expect we’ll get those later today.” She glanced at Rosewater, a sly look crossing her features. “I don’t suppose you could use that, hum, connection to ease their passage across?”

They knew. Rumors had traveled about her meetings with the leadership of Damme. About the way they trusted her enough to walk unescorted through the city. No doubt that was on more lips than not. It was an event that had rarely happened in the history of the conflict.

“I wish I could. Sadly, I wish not to cause my mother any reason to question my taking over of the negotiation for Rosemary’s return.” Rosewater looked to the west, and the palace tower looming above the city. “I want her back safely. I miss her.”

“Forget I asked,” the mare said, and glanced down at her dirt-covered foreleg. “I’m Rosebay Heart. I’d offer you a hoof, but…”

Rosewater offered hers. “But nothing, Rosebay. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Would you introduce me to your…” She bobbed her head at the three stallions as Rosebay took the offered hoof gingerly.

“Husbands. We’re the Hearts, of Heartstone Construction.” She stepped back to introduce her husbands. “They’re Gypsum, Granite, and Quarry. From Canterlot and Los Pegasus for the first two, Quarry was a Rosaria, but he liked Quarry Heart better.”

“Lady Rosewater,” they murmured in near unison, and she offered her hoof to each, putting out of mind the dirt on theirs. She was used to getting her hooves dirty in a metaphorical sense. Getting them dirty literally seemed cleaner.

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. I hope I can get to know you better as this project continues.” Rosewater touched her hoof to her breast and bowed her head. “Thank you for accepting the project on Petal’s behalf.”

“Sure thing. Work’s slow this time of year,” Quarry said, taking a place beside his wife. “And… just between us...” He looked around and lowered his voice from a rumble to a whisper. “None of us liked what Roseate tried to do. I dunno the full story, but thanks for stoppin’ her, whatever yer reasoning. Mate, or because of something else…” he glanced at his wife. “Lord Collar seems a right kind of folk, and he’s matin’ with a Rose, so he can’t be all bad, right?”

“No. No he’s not all bad.” Rosewater shook her head and glanced at Petal. “Neither he, nor his mother, want to stop us from having our loves, Quarry. I’ve spoken to both of them, I’ve studied him. The Prims are not our enemies anymore, and they don’t want to make us like them.”

Rosebay and her husbands studied her for a long moment before she nodded. “I’ll take your word for it.” She pursed her lips. “But down to business. By tonight, we’ll have a frame up for the eventual entryway. We’ll brace it with ropes and stakes.” She pointed a hoof and drew a line down from a point Rosewater thought must have been ten feet off the ground. “That’ll be sturdy enough to make a weatherproof tent frame for you, and big enough to have a few rooms if you want.”

From the pile of dirt and gravel they were leaning against and the square almost done being flattened and smoothed, it would be twenty feet to a side. She’d been expecting, before she entered the deal with Petal, a tent no more than six feet high and maybe five feet square. A camping tent, not a campaign pavilion.

“You didn’t think we’d let this first night out be in anything less than luxury, did you?” Rose Petal asked, giggling as she followed Rosewater’s gaze. “We’ve had the plans ready to go for months now, with only a little seed money not tied up in the vineyards to get started. Thank you for that, by the way, Rosewater.”

That got Rosebay’s attention more firmly. “You’re the reason Petal finally stopped nibbling around the shrub. Huh. I suppose you’re kinda our boss now, huh?”

“She is a half-boss,” Petal said with a snicker. “I’m the other half. But you should still thank me for arranging everything.”

“Wouldn’t think otherwise, Petal,” Rosebay said with a laugh, then glanced up at the sun. “Alright sweets. I think breaktime is over unless the bosses have anything else?”

“Not from me. I’m satisfied, Rosebay,” Rosewater said. “Thank you for your hard work.”

“Nor me. We’ll keep out of the way. I want to give Rosewater the grand tour now that she’s actually out here.” She reared up to put a foreleg across Rosewater’s shoulders and nibbled at her ear, whispering so low she almost didn’t catch it, “We wouldn’t want your first date to be anything less than perfect.”

Rosewater glanced back at the ponies talking around one of the heavy wooden rollers. Rosebay was looking at her intermittently while talking to the other workers. Fear spiked through her.

Those words would reach Roseate. The words she’d said directly contradicting her mother’s propaganda campaigns would spread, and there would be little doubt about who had spoken them first.

Reason settled back in as Petal tugged her along, showing her the wheat-stubble strewn ground where the baths would be, drawing lines in the air with her magic to show heights and walls.

There was nothing else Roseate could take from her that Rosewater wouldn’t defend. There would be no more concessions to Roseate. No more ‘If I do this, then she’ll leave my friends, my daughter, my family alone.’

“It never worked, did it?” Rosewater asked Petal, earning a confused look from the Heiress on the Hill. “Appeasement.”

“Ah. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t.” Petal rolled one shoulder loosely. “It depends on your mother’s mood at the time the appeasement happens. It never lasts, however. There’s always another condition, another line.”

The urge to justify her actions rose… and then fell again. She couldn’t justify abandoning her friends. Instead, she said, “It was hard to see that when it was I and my friends she was encroaching on.”

“It was. And is. The merchants I deal with daily keep thinking the way you did. That if only they roll over this once, it will be the last time.” Petal’s voice took on a mocking tone, “But if we only accept this extra tax on cilantro… If only we let Roseling founder. If only.” The mare gave her a serious look out of the corner of her eye.

“Roseling… I… I only had one night with her.” It had been a night of passions, hardly unusual in Merrie, but unusual for her. She was usually more under control.

“Remember the good time you had.” Petal flicked an ear.

Rosewater shook her head slowly. “I was… lost with her. Either the wine, or the company, something about her… it captured my attention that night. Roseate must have seen me with her.”

“She did, but I’m glad you didn’t notice.” Petal nipped her shoulder “You needed to have fun. It made me worry for Roseling in the short term when Roseate turned loose the goons, but… she’s recovered. Mostly. She still complains about you when we have lunch.” Petal grinned suddenly. “It’s part of why I was so reluctant to let you in at first. I didn’t want you to run away again.”

“I’m not running.”

“Good. I’d hate to have Seed beat down your door and drag you back.” Petal showed her teeth in a predatory smile. “And now… you’re one of us. You won’t leave. I know that much about you.”

Rosewater snorted and tossed her head. “I’m not leaving. Not after having the error of my ways shoved in my nose. But… it could get hard, Petal.” She paused briefly to point at the rising spire of the Rose Palace. “She’ll make changes to processes, order the bureaucracy to slow down paperwork, or simply let some things sit on her desk. And those are the legal things she can do.”

Petal was silent for a time as the city grew closer and traffic to and from the closest farmhouses and barns swelled.

“That may be, but whatever legal or illegal things she may have planned, we’re not backing off from one of ours, and we expect the same from you.” Petal sidestepped and bumped against her shoulder. “Dazzle wouldn’t let you, anyway.”

A flush crept up Rosewater’s neck. “He’s a sweet stallion, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

“He’s embraced the Principes like few others. He knows what it means to have loves and lovers.” Petal’s side-eyed look suggested she’d somehow forgotten.

That settled slowly in her mind, warring with the need to also keep open the avenue for Collar, for Cloudy, whom she didn’t know hadn’t adopted much of the Tussen Twee in the meantime. Their one date almost a week ago was… vivid still, and she found herself drifting off and daydreaming of the chase in her workshop from time to time.

Maybe it was time to start reconnecting with others she’d left behind.

“Can I ask you to set up a smaller party at the Villa for tomorrow night, after Rosy Glow’s?” she asked after they’d passed the gate that marked the old entrance to Merrie proper. “I want to invite a few old friends.”

Petal smiled. “I think I can do that. Free of charge.”

Book 2, 11. Reunion

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Reports swam through Collar’s vision more and more in the wake of Rosewater’s crossing the river peacefully. Spies watching her had to be more active, and they reported nearly all of her movements.

That she’d taken Cloudy’s promise and advice was clear, what it meant to his ‘date’ with her in a week’s time was still cloudier than yesterday had been, with its rain and storm and more promised sometime in the coming days, when Cloudy had said she and Rosewater had a second date.

The autumn rains had come, and with them the promise of a snowier than usual winter. It was already making the harvest more difficult, too, and his mother’s decision to ask to postpone the gala seem prescient.

If he hadn’t already known that the weather corps was on reduced staffing to help keep the fields at least clear and extend the anti-banditry patrols out beyond the borders of Dammehollow.

The various tribes of ponies and others that eked out an existence in the hinterlands tended more often than not to prey on the ‘fat’ and ‘weak’ city ponies and their crop-growing for the increasingly sparse grazing and foraging opportunities.

They, along with the deerkin that both welcomed and denigrated them for their envy of the city pony, would be moving south soon to warmer pastures and the greater risk of being captured by the royal patrols that marked the greatest benefit thus far of joining the growing expanse of the Equestrian state.

That still seemed like a far off time, when either Merrie or Damme could count on the Royal Guard to do more than a cursory patrol here or there.

“You’re getting report-faced again,” Cloudy said as she slipped into his office quietly and closed the door behind her.

“Shut up.” He glowered at her half-heartedly as she set a tray of scones and tea on the desk. “This is half your fault we have so many reports lately.”

Cloudy flicked her tail, and he dutifully silenced the walls. “I won’t let her wallow. She’s… not even close to who we thought she was, Collar. She’s not as strong as she thinks, emotionally. Six years has drained her.”

That much coming from her was a surprise on its own. “You sound almost like—”

“I’m not in love with her. But I owe her at least the courtesy of being honest. I like her. I could fall in love with her, I think.”

Collar blinked owlishly and focused on the tray of snacks instead of trying to feel out what he was worried about. Light snacks. Little more than half a scone and a cup of steaming tea with a tiny pot of honey to sweeten it.

“It’s not a bribe, Collar, stars. You’re not going to lose me to her, even if I fall in love with her.”

“It’s not…” He started, then stopped when her jaw firmed and she fixed him with a stare. It isn’t, exactly, that. “Okay, it’s partly that, and I do wonder how you’re going to manage everything.”

“Rosemary. She’s been my dating secretary before.” Cloudy snorted and shook her head. “She can be yours too, if you want. She’d be happy to do it. It’s something for her to do while she’s cooped up.”

“I don’t need a dating secretary,” Collar grumbled.

“That’s you missing your morning tea talking.” Cloudy sat beside him and took a bite from her half of the scone. “It’s not even dawn yet and you’re already awake.”

“I was busy getting report-faced,” Collar grumbled, scooping all of the honey into the tea and mixing it up. “Rosewater’s spent more time at the Garden than she has at home during the day. Some of the spies her mother set on her are getting antsier about her visiting, and even confronted her on her way home last night.” He pushed the report at her.

“Goons,” Cloudy said after a moment, her voice almost a growl. “I recognize the descriptions. They chased me across the river.” She read on, jaw tightening more and more as she did so before setting it down. “She doesn’t deserve that.”

“No.” He gave the report another read, making a note on the report about Cloudy’s comments before signing it with ‘no further action’ ticked. It was odd, reading about her encounter, they shouting and cajoling loud enough that their aural mage on station had hardly needed a spell to overhear, and she staring blankly at them, unanswering until their drunken tirade leveled off.

She was stronger than Cloudy seemed to think she was. Unless… what Cloudy was asking her to do was a different kind of stress, and she wasn’t ready to face that. Collar scrubbed at his cheek and sighed, flipping the page over again. Too many unknowns.

“I did see where they’re setting up a campsite outside of Merrie,” Cloudy said quietly. “They’ve been at it for a couple of days now. It’s looking very posh and comfortable.”

“Where you’re going with her next?” Collar asked, trying not to think about the fact that Cloudy said she expected it to be a sexual meeting. “It’s large enough for a few families.”

Cloudy ducked her head briefly. “She let me know the details yesterday before she departed. Some of the Gardeners are coming, trusted close friends she said.” Her eyes met his briefly. “It’s a welcoming party for Rosewater as much as it is for me. It’s been so long, Collar, since I’ve been to something like this.”

“Like an orgy,” Collar said, hating the harsh note in his voice, not wanting to think that she might find another stallion she liked there.

“Stars, yes. It’s so much more than sex, Collar. That’s the focus, but it’s the letting down of walls, the reveling in friendship and companionship, not needing to hide what I want for a single night. Even from my lovers.” She tapped his shoulder. “You’re the only one I’ve shared so much with here, but outside of our bedroom, or here, I have to clam up and be a good little Prim.”

She said it cooly, but there was an undertone of frustration there that he’d not seen often in her before.

“What I want…” She sighed and settled in against him. “I want a night where I can let go for a little while, be… free.”

What I want. Collar swallowed and stared down at his hooves perched on the edge of his chair. “Is that missing here?”

“Yes!” Cloudy hugged herself and folded her wings about herself. “Stars, Collar, I don’t mean that I don’t love you, but I miss what I learned was normal and natural. I miss being able to talk frankly about normal things in mixed company. I miss being able to let my guard down around other ponies. I was able to let go with Rosewater on our first date, and not worry that she would think less or differently of me the next day.”

After a moment, Collar raised a hoof, stopped, and stepped to the floor, pushing his chair away. He pulled Cloudy in close and rested his chin between her ears. “I love you, Cloudy.”

She hiccuped in his embrace, her wings opening and closing again around him, her forelegs crossed against his chest. “I love you, too.”

“What can I do? How can I make you more comfortable here?”

“Hold me,” she whispered, pressing in closer, tucking her head under his jaw, her ears flat. “Talk to Rosemary, listen to Rosewater. She’s…”

He felt her jaw work slowly as words tried to come out.

“Made some poor decisions,” Collar said softly, shifting and adjusting his hold on her to be more comfortable. “But is this the right decision?”

“Allowing her to court us?” Cloudy asked.

“Yes. Is that right?”

She didn’t answer him immediately, and didn’t try to, simply letting her warmth and his pervade the blanket her feathers made around them.

“I want to try, Collar. I want to try to see where this goes.”

It wasn’t an answer for the two of them, but that was the way of Merrie. Romance was a personal choice, and sharing love was free. He had his own ‘date’ with Rosewater two days after Cloudy’s next date. It still amazed him that she could move from casual knowledge to friendship to sex so quickly.

But, to her and most Merriers, sex was simply another activity friends could engage in. There was also an added feeling of urgency in not only Cloudy’s dealings with the mare, but in Rosewater’s pushing.

It was something he and Cloudy had only briefly touched on, and awkwardly for both of them, during their relationship.

Children. Rosewater’s ultimate goal, and her want, was a child to confirm her heirship. It was hard for him to accept that as a legitimate goal for wanting children, but one he understood as necessary.

Why did she have to focus on me? He might as well ask himself why he’d accepted the mad scheme she’d dropped on them all. Or blame Rosemary for falling back into Cloudy’s life. Or blame Cloudy for being a Merrier.

He couldn’t do that. No more than he could blame Rosewater for wanting somepony safe to even talk to. He could also hope that Cloudy pushing her back into public life would help her find somepony other than him.

“I accept that,” Collar said finally. “I accept your wants and desires, Cloudy, and accept you. And I still love you. I’m still in love with you.”

Her look as they broke apart said the unspoken part, ‘But you’re not sure you can accept it for yourself.’

No. I don’t know that I can.

He didn’t know if he could say it, not with her looking so hopeful right then.

“Just how many ponies did you invite?” Rosewater hissed to Petal as she stared from the entrance to Rosy Glow’s tavern.

Business was booming, it seemed, and while not all of the faces that turned to look at her were familiar, or the whispers that reached out to her ears friendly, the majority of them were.

And yet, Rosy Glow wasn’t at the bar, and two unfamiliar ponies in tavernwear were plying the tables while the scent of lunch drifted out of the kitchen.

The owner of the tavern was sitting in conversation at a double-wide table with other friends Rosewater had had to distance herself from to protect them.

“Mm. Word of mouth,” Petal said with a wink and sauntered in, a laugh in the set of her ears and a taunt on her lips. “I only gave the word to Rosy, and I guess a few ponies got wind of your leaving the cloister.”

“My home is not a cloister,” Rosewater growled, lashing her tail and making Seed laugh and jump as it flicked against his shoulder. “It’s my home. And I thought you were going to get maybe five or six of our group together, not the whole bunch.”

There was her first time lover, too, sitting in a booth with her husband and wife and their two children enjoying a lunch together. She shared a nod with the mare, whom she’d been distant with for years even before isolating herself.

Others gave her smiles or nods or waves, bent to whisper to foalish ears that were pricked forward attentively, a question on almost all of their lips.

It was a stark reminder of just how far she was behind most of the friends that had been in her age group. Some of the foals were almost out of foalhood and well on their way to their early teens.

The realization hurt, that she had opportunity after opportunity after her twenty-first to find somepony, but she’d lazed away the days raising Rosemary and believing that she had all the time she needed to find another pony, so long as it didn’t disrupt her family life.

Petal bit her ear lightly to drag her back to the present. “No moping. Come. Silver Drop and—”

“Is Roseling here?” Rosewater asked immediately, looking around, then taking a hesitant step towards the table with some of her oldest and dearest friends. “Stars, I-I don’t…” She would know she was Rosetide after so short a time since her last excursion. I’m not ready to face her as me.

“Welcome,” Rosy said, kicking out a pillow. “Sit your butt down.”

Petal pulled one out from beside her and sat down. “I told you I’d get her out, by hook or crook.”

“Somehow I doubt it was entirely your doing,” Silver Drop said, reaching out to touch Rosewater’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you finally out and about.”

“I was… encouraged,” Rosewater said, dipping her ears. “Rosemary pushed me. And what happened to Rosemary. I needed to get out and do more instead of…”

“Wallow,” Rosy muttered into her wineglass. “What?” She asked, glowering at Petal. “It’s what she does. It’s what she did even before Carnation, but she at least came out once in a while.”

“Be that as it may,” Dreaming Rose said diplomatically, a friend of Rosewater’s from when she was learning under a master perfumier. “Rosewater is out now, and we should be welcoming so we don’t send her back. I always thought she took her mother’s threats too seriously. I mean, what could Roseate do to all of her friends united?”

Exile you all. She kept the thought bottled up, though. It was still a risk, but Dreaming had a point as well. So many would draw into the light what Roseate was doing. Exile was such an extreme punishment that a spate of them would certainly draw Princess Celestia’s eye—and quite possibly her ire.

“Hear, hear,” Rosy cried. “She can’t exile us all!”

“You know me too well,” Rosewater grumbled, tugging the wineglass out of the other mare’s grip and draining the rest. “Tax on reading minds.”

“Pfft.” Rosy’s smile was brighter than ever as she folded her forelegs on the edge of the table. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you smile.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” Dreaming muttered, then smiled and reached across the table. “But it’s still good to see you. It’s been less interesting at the Perfumier’s Guild without you. Especially lately, with the topic of autumnal fragrances on the agenda more often than not.”

“Did they ever resolve the dispute over whether cinnamon or cloves were the warmer fragrance?” Rosewater asked.

“Stars, no. Rose Clove and Cinnamon Twist are still, amicably, arguing which is better.” Dreaming’s smile grew broader. “Their son, Cinnamon Clove, seems to have settled the overall argument, however.”

Rosewater laughed and settled more easily onto her seat, trying to keep away the lingering feeling that she’d done all this before and tried to relax into her old habits before she, or her friends, got burnt for her indiscretion.

Petal leaned against her. “Rosewater helped us expand our holdings outside the city. We’re now the proud owners of a plot of farmland two miles outside Merrie along the road to Merriehollow. We’re hoping that we can attract some business from carters in the hamlet to stop by, and maybe even set up some supporting services and even housing later on.”

Rosy raised her brows and accepted the now empty glass from Rosewater. “You don’t say. I may have to look into setting up a tavern along the way in that case. Any thoughts on pulling another Rosewine bridge?”

“Psh. We’ll see. It’d be nice to steal some of the traffic away from Damme from Dammehollow, that’s for sure, but…” Petal shrugged. “The ground isn’t as stable as it is in the cities near the river, even with the dam controlling flow.”

“And—”

“And we’re saving the story for Rosewater’s first night at the foundation party,” Petal said, raising a brow and smiling. “Bliss asked for the honor of telling it.”

“Oho?” A stallion behind them said, leaning over. He was young and familiar, even if his name didn’t immediately jump to mind. Maybe one of the young colts she’d helped Budding and White Rose look over. “Roselyn didn’t demand it?”

“Mm.” Petal rolled a shoulder. “She would have, but Bliss actually put in an effort to convince her.”

“Are you going to bring that up at the next Merchant’s Guild meeting?”

“I am. I don’t expect setting up shop outside of Merrie’s boundaries is going to make the Roseate loyalists happy, but maybe it will win over some others.” Petal glanced at Rosewater, still trying to place the young stallion. “Pardon my manners, talking about business at a social gathering. This is Rosewine Goblet, all grown up. The last time you saw him—”

Rosewater put it together quickly. “Stars above, you grew up fast.” She winced and shook her head slowly. “The last time I saw you was at your sister’s wedding.” Then, he’d barely been a gangling teenager, and now… looking over him, she wasn’t surprised his glass and metalworking had filled him out rather well. Muscular in places, lean in others, he had the build of a blacksmith’s bellows worker.

Goblet dipped his ears apologetically. “I forget you haven’t seen me in years. It’s good to see you again, Rosie Water.”

Rosewater chuckled, her throat tight. It’d been his foalish way of saying her name when she’d had occasion to look after him. “Stars, I’ve missed looking after all of you.” Those years were gone.

“We’ve missed you, too,” Seed said softly on the other side of Petal. “All of us.”

Rosy Glass bobbed her head. “Miss the games of petals, the chatter, and arguing tipsy philosophy.” She gave Rosewater a lopsided grin. “Among other things. Your laugh, for one. I hope I can hear it more in coming days.”

The shape of Cloudy’s intention in urging her to not be alone was getting clearer and clearer, and the want to thank her grew stronger.

Two nights. Just two nights to go.

For now… for today and tonight, she could sink into the warm company of friends that, for now, were simply happy to draw her out of hiding.

But there was one missing face she was half-relieved and half-disappointed wasn’t there.

Roseling.

It was Roseate’s favorite place to give secret orders, the place where Roseate kept the trophies of her conquests. The ripped and torn banner of the Rose Knights hanging from one wall served as the backdrop to the ‘mementos’ of the fathers of all of her children, reminders that nopony was irreplaceable.

A dusty silver circlet, the oldest of the items there, was a reminder that even her firstborn was replaceable.

Silk Rose kept her eyes locked at a point just above Roseate’s horn, waiting for her mother to stop writing out the last of her report. Under disguise, she’d infiltrated the construction area Rosewater had been visiting openly for the last week. As one of a dozen of unicorns hired to hang the tenting, it’d been easy to listen to the gossip of the day and whittle down the reasons Rosewater had been there, and why she’d taken such an interest in it.

The Garden of Love, perennial thorn in the side of every Rosethorn ruler since the twin Rosethorns Rosewine and Rosary the first, was expanding its reach with services it was going to offer outside the borders of the city. It was risky, with bandit activity on the rise ahead of winter as the scattered feral clans tried to scramble for every bit of food they could ahead of what was promising to be a harsh, wet winter.

Especially with the expansion of Equestrian patrols outside the area claimed by Merrie and Damme. Migration was riskier than ever for those outlaws. Which made it all the more strange that, outside of the guard patrols of both Merrie and Merriehollow, the Garden was setting up what looked like the start of another villa. And just before winter.

It was strange, or even beyond strange, for the timing.

Though, if they wanted to wait until after the harvest was pulled in… They were more considerate than Roseate would ever be, if that were the case. If she hadn’t made love to Vine all those years ago, she might be freer to partake in such consideration. Instead, she’d had to take leave of her better sense and comfort her sister when she needed it, had let comfort slip to pleasure as both of them responded to their desires.

I should have been stronger. She didn’t regret the love she had for Vine. She regretted what it had pushed her to do.

“What was the name of the construction family?” Roseate asked after a longer pause than usual.

“I didn’t catch it. They were off to the side most of the time, directing our efforts. They didn’t introduce themselves,” Silk lied. “If I’d gone to the market when the hiring call went out originally, I might have caught it, but since I went last-minute…”

Roseate fixed her with a dangerous look, entirely at odds with the usual genial and kind public persona. “You were careless.”

“I was careful, mother. If I’d asked who had hired us, it would have looked suspicious, and they might have started asking questions about how I’d been hired,” Silk said in a tired voice. Roseate had asked it three different ways already, trying to prize out a lie. The joke was on her. A lifetime of learning to lie to her had trained her to stick to the story. I learned from the best. It was, at least, the most useful skill Roseate had taught her, however unintentionally it’d been taught.

“Ah. Yes. You did say that.” Roseate’s eyes glinted, and she returned to the parchment. “Rosejoy has been singularly ineffective at penetrating the Garden’s inner sanctum.”

“If you’re telling me that I should try, you’ll need to wait until, and if, I get an invitation to one of their tastings. Unless you want me to lose a full week and start spouting off like Simmer did.” Silk raised a brow, and Roseate’s ears flattened, jaw tightening as the memory of Simmer Stem’s verbal incontinence spewing the details of a few… embarrassing secrets Roseate had had to release counter-rumors to stamp out. “She does still send me an invitation every once in a blue moon.”

“Why?”

“Because I am a seamstress. I’ve done more than one dress for Petal, and I’ve used Bliss as a model for some of my older creations.” Silk raised a brow, and asked, “Or is it bad that I’ve tried to cultivate alternate routes into the Garden’s good graces?”

Teeth came out then as Roseate snarled wordlessly at her. This was unvarnished Roseate, the anger and rage at the world not bending to her will flowing just beneath the surface came bubbling up. It was the most dangerous time to be flippant… but it was also the only time Roseate was malleable. Like an ingot with imperfections. If she carefully hammered out the iron, she might make something useful.

If she wasn’t careful, it would blow up in her face.

“If I’m allowed to seem to bend away from your will, mother, I can gain an invitation sooner, rather than later. Petal and Seed are ever forgiving of transgressions so long as the effort seems genuine.” Silk put on a sly smile as Roseate’s eyes flashed dangerously. “All we have to do is put that weakness to our own use. Allow me some leeway, mother, and I will keep up my reports.”

“Crown will watch and listen,” Roseate growled. “You’re too flippant, daughter.” But the glow of dangerously hot temper was already fading. Roseate did enjoy using ponies’ kindness to dark gains. “If I hear anything that sounds like treason, you know what will happen to you.”

Silk lowered her gaze. “Yes, mother. By your will, I obey.”

“You heard.”

It wasn’t a question, and Crown didn’t take it as such. “Yes, mother.”

“Are you able to pierce Rosewater’s wards?”

“If they’re not active, I can, given time.” She had, many times before, but she’d always given herself away somehow she’d never been able to determine. Some semi-active countermeasure, or a gossamer-web spell that triggered a warning if it were disturbed. Rosewater had always been good at the fine detail magics, and she was supposed to be able to sense the ripples in the ether that all magic spells gave off, like the ripples on a pond as it rained.

Just how finely tuned her senses were, or if she even had them, was rumor spoken only among her sisters that had to fight her.

In the interest of downplaying her mother’s expectations, she added, “She may still detect my presence, and I needn’t say that if that happens she may, in fact, give disinformation.” Or she might counter it with a screeching whistle amplified by magic. Her ears still rang when she thought about the last time Rosewater had caught her listening. “It’s best if I assume if she’s warded, then anything I hear was deliberately given.”

Roseate pursed her lips. It was, after all, what the matron of Rosethorn would do in her daughter’s position.

“And Silk’s?”

“Again, only if she uses a passive ward against sound, but she’s less likely to notice me then.” Crown bowed her head. “I presume, as you did with Glory, that you want every word?”

“Yes. Every word, Crown.” Roseate flicked an ear at the door. “Go. I want to know where she goes next.”

With a perfunctory bow, Crown departed the room by the same means she’d entered, the secret passage that led to the antechamber on the floor below. It was how rulers in centuries past had spied on their supporters, rooted out dissent, and generally stabbed their rivals in the back. In ages long past, the latter had been quite literal.

The danger of losing her loved ones was no less real, coupled with the loss of lifestyle, of home...

Still, Silk was more vulnerable than most of her sisters. Their mother already had the blackmail she needed for her and Vine to keep them both in line. Whether Well, Powder, and Rosary knew about it was another matter, but even they were vulnerable. The Mare only knew what Roseate held over them, aside from their futures and the potential for ruling over one of the most populous cities in the north.

Or the potential to be the largest city in the north, with the best deep-water port north of the growing Los Pegasus.

There was more than merely control on the line, but history as well.

Book 2, 12. Cloudy Night

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The skies were already threatening rain again by the time Cloudy took off on a routine patrol of the lands west of the city, flying high in her Dammeguard padded armor and rain slicker. She might need the latter, but the former mostly served to hide the rose petal sunrise of her cutie mark.

It would be a cooler night, on the border of winter and fall, and farther north, there might be sleet later on, but the rains coming up from Canterlot-way would bring a touch of warmth, even if it was only fleeting as the cooler air descending from the north met it. It would be a roaring rainstorm with possibly some thunder.

Her flight took her on a long curve around the northern edge of the city, away from any possible patrol patterns for other pegasi before she dropped to almost treetop level and skimmed west quickly, her hooves occasionally tapping the tops of the tallest conifers as she passed over their spiky boughs, already bulking up for the winter ahead.

Then she turned south, dropping almost to hilltop level and skimming above the flat, broad floodplain that kept both Merrie and Damme fed without much, or any, help from imports most years.

The farmhouses were mostly dark, with only the few that were going to tend winter wheat this year showing the light of fires flickering in fireplaces through windows. It was a hearty pony that stayed while the crops were planted and their initial phases tended to, for the winter snows would be descending before the crops were ready to let hibernate.

Across the river, the bright pavilion was set up, lanterns set up on the exterior flickering the shadows of ropes holding the tent structure upright and braced, and before she’d even landed a goodly distance away, the sounds of laughter and stringed instruments rose up to greet her.

Her hooves touching ground brought a pony from the shadows of the tent, tall and lean, shrouded in a veil. Cloudy’s heart stopped for a second before the veil faded away into Rosewater’s form, glowing in the sparse moonlight scattering pools along the fields around them.

The sounds of laughter quieted, the instruments stilled as if in anticipation, and whispers permeated the air. They’d been expecting her, and the wash of her wings against the tent walls was the sign they’d been waiting for.

“Is this okay? I hadn’t expected such a show, but the cover is a decent tale of investment, diversification, and a celebration of groundbreaking.” Rosewater chuckled and swept a hoof around her. “Welcome to the new Rosewine Day Spa and Retreat. Or the beginnings.”

Cloudy considered her for a long moment, then turned a slow circle to survey the bared dirt circle around them, the ditches dug to keep the water flowing rather than pooling, and lined with hay and stones. It was plausibly a construction site, and Merriers, and the Garden especially, did love to throw parties for momentous occasions.

And Rosewater herself was happy, freer and more relaxed.

Cloudy let out a sigh and stepped forward to butt her head against Rosewater’s chest. “You didn’t have to do all this for me. I’d have been happy with a tent and a candle.”

“That’s a yes?” Rosewater asked against her ear, lips and breath warm and gentle against her coat.

In answer, Cloudy pulled back and met those soft lips in a kiss, letting it linger for long moments while the sound of ponies inside the tent grew louder, laughter and welcoming conversation growing, as if they’d all been waiting for the answer. “Yes,” she whispered as the kiss broke.

Rosewater backed up half a step to bow her head and usher Cloudy inside. “I wanted our first real date to remind you of home. Of Merrie. You said…”

‘Bring a piece of Merrie with you next time.’ Cloudy swallowed and butted her head against Rosewater’s cheek and passed her into the tent, her tail flicking to curl around her foreleg and drag her inside.

Inside, the light was almost as bright as it would be on a cloudy noon day. Glass-sided brass lanterns hung from lines strung from beam to beam, the candles inside exuding a soft fragrance that calmed her mind and soothed the few remaining worries she had about being out so openly on the Merrie side of the river.

“They’re Roselyn’s,” Rosewater whispered before taking her ear tip between her teeth and nipping lightly. “She is skilled with the fragrancing candles, and I helped her choose some of the scents for tonight.”

A brief impression of a young, red-maned mare flitted through Cloudy’s mind. “I think I remember her,” she whispered back as two mares came up to them. A Prim and one of the most stunningly proportioned and lined pegasi she had ever seen. Memories of fantasies about the latter drifted up. “No introductions needed, Bliss, and you must be Prism?”

Both chuckled and nodded, but Bliss took another step and nipped Cloudy’s muzzle. “You treat this mare right, Cloudy,” she whispered. “She’s special.”

“Bliss,” Rosewater said with a soft snort. “I can take care of myself.”

“You’ve done too much of that, if you ask me,” Bliss retorted. “I’m glad you were able to enjoy yourself, but you need more than one night to let your heart open.”

“It’s fine, Rosewater,” Cloudy murmured, raising a hoof to her foreleg. “I do intend to take care of her. Did she tell you I chased her not four nights ago? And won. I intend to make good on my win and show her what I want.”

“She neglected to mention that part,” Bliss murmured, lashes fluttering briefly at Cloudy. “You must be quite the chaser.”

“She is,” Rosewater murmured, nipping Cloudy’s ear again and shifting to look around the interior. “It was quite a fun chase, full of twists and turns.”

Cloudy followed her gaze, flicking her ear away from Rosewater’s mouth. Rosewine Petal and Rosethorn Seed were lounging together with a younger red-maned earth pony, the latter surrounded by a pink magic field about her barrel, hind legs straining as she tried to rise, laughing at Petal and Seed as they nipped her flanks.

Roselyn, she guessed from the look. Four or five other ponies she vaguely recognized from her times with Rosemary at the garden also watched her, and another Prim, a stallion, rose unsteadily to his hooves and came over to nuzzle Rosewater’s neck.

“Primrazzle Dazzle,” Rosewater said, bending to kiss him briefly. “This is Cloudy Rose. I don’t know if you knew her before you departed Damme.”

“Briefly,” Cloudy murmured, glancing from him to Rosewater, then to Roselyn. “You left a lot of questions behind, Dazzle. But… I think I see the answers. You’re happy here?”

Dazzle’s ears flattened and the smile faded from his lips. “I didn’t mean for it to be like that. But… they wouldn’t have understood my… wants. Needs, maybe?” He glanced to his lovers, then to Rosewater and finally back to Cloudy. “Whatever they were, I found the answers I wanted here, Cloudy. Maybe you would have understood, but I hardly knew you.”

“I would have.” Cloudy nuzzled his cheek. “Thank you for taking care of Rosewater. She’s… becoming special to me.”

“It was, and is, my pleasure, Cloudy. Thank you for sending her to us. She’s been hard to draw out of her shell, but once we have, she has a beautiful spirit.” Dazzle tipped his head briefly to the side, questioning whether Cloudy would join him later.

“I appreciate it, but it’s mostly been mares that fascinate me. Collar is an exception among stallions.” Cloudy nipped his cheek to show there wasn’t any animosity behind the statement.

“He is.” Dazzle laughed and nipped her cheek in return, tension gone again. “Were he not the only heir, and expected to produce offspring, I might have tried my hoof at his heart.”

And then he sidled off, his tail flagging briefly before he settled down between Bliss and Roselyn, the source of his unsteadiness revealed when Roselyn, released from her bindings, captured him in a fierce kiss just before Bliss stole it and played off a three way kiss with both of them.

“The air is… thick,” Cloudy whispered to Rosewater. “Has the party been going on long?”

“Not long, but Dazzle’s already mounted both Roselyn and Bliss and helped them take each other over the edge of bliss with magic, lips, and tongue.” Rosewater’s eyes were heated as she watched the trio, her tail flagging side to side as the passion built again between the trio. “I’ve watched, and prepared the tent and the surround, waiting for you.”

Cloudy stretched, feeling her muscles relaxing and tensing, the anticipation of an orgy and the flood of sex filling the confined space feeding a hunger she’d not felt for two long years. A hunger she’d not let herself feel for fear of what she might start, and what she might destroy.

But this… sharing passions, opening herself to a lover and others, joining the cries and the revelry, reveling in the freedom of expression that sex let her bestow upon her chosen partners. It was as much a part of Merrie as the open bazaar and the spice and scent vendors vying for air space.

“It’s been a long time,” Cloudy said, letting the interior spill through her senses on every level. The scent of sex musky on the air, but kept in check by the candles that burned in their lanterns and the potpourri pots that sat here and there, warmed by coals to release their counter-fragrances. “I’ve missed…”

She swept a hoof around, taking in the free use of scent and scent magics, the acknowledgment of her upbringing and the casualness of it all.

“This?” Rosewater asked, her lips warm on Cloudy’s, a teasing flick of the tongue urging her to open up and let her lover-to-be deepen the kiss.

This. Cloudy let it happen, let herself be drawn into the kiss and deeper into the unthinking moment. She didn’t have to worry that her lover would back away, afraid of what might happen if they were caught, or suddenly get upset that Cloudy was teasing her towards ecstasy out of the blue with feathers and hoof while she kissed them.

Dammers were so clinical about sex.So many of them believed that oral and hoof stimulation were the only ways to get off. Rosewater…

Cloudy pulled back from the kiss before she could dive too deeply, before the orgy officially started. She wanted to be able to dive in unabashedly, use everything she’d learned from Rosemary and her other lovers over the years.

That was dangerous. She could get lost in that desire, the addiction, as so many had over the years. It was the danger of a Rose’s life: letting hedonism reign. It was the balance that made life spicy, the resistance to urges that made the relative rarity of orgies so… freeing.

Rosewater held her close with a warm spell on her other cheek and forelegs twined, “Easy,” she whispered. “Easy, Cloudy.”

“I’ve missed this,” Cloudy half-whimpered. “Being free. But…”

“Restraint,” Rosewater whispered, understanding warming her tone. “Rest easy, Cloudy. There will be a time soon to let it go. But… let me introduce you to everypony first. I trust them. Every one.”

Trust.

Rosewater did more than introduce her, the ponies that she talked to opened up with Cloudy, letting her know why Rosewater was trusted. Seed even opened up about her being his unofficial aunt, and the three Prims vouched for all present as well, their words those of Dammers, their actions somewhere between Rose and Prim.

They’ve come from the opposite side. It was a realization that in them she saw many of the mannerisms she’d adopted to live as a Rose among Prims, while they had adopted the mirrored mannerisms. They were more restrained but for tonight…

Tonight, they would let go of their past and live in the now.

Lightning flashed outside and the curtains drew closed as the first drops of rain spattered down on the canvas roof. A fierce mid-autumn storm, cold and warmth, dryness and damp meeting in a flurry of wind and rain and dancing lightning.

And they, safe inside a tent, settled in to enjoy a feast.

Dinner was a repast of meals prepared earlier that day in the Garden and carted out in sealed containers to be a ‘self serve’ buffet style meal of baked tubers and rice with a gravy made of squash and flour with a sweet thickener and spices that added a rich bouquet to the scents floating about the pavilion’s interior.

It was hardly a feast by almost any standard by the amount or quality of food, but Rosewater watched in dumbfounded silence as Cloudy tucked into her plate with a gusto that quickly turned into delight as she slowed down and savored every mouthful of fragrant, spiced food. Taste and scent melded for perfection.

Even that small comfort had been denied her. Meals with taste, but only the barest of nods to the aromatic bouquet.

Their neighbors on either side, Dazzle and Bliss, looked on with relish as she complimented the cook and the preparation with almost tears in her eyes.

The look of gratitude she turned on Rosewater shouldn’t have hurt her so much, but every other bite, Cloudy kissed her cheek. It was the simplest things that ponies missed from home, not the grand things like an orgy, a parade, or a festival. The small things made up day to day life. Things, in Merrie, like a dish spiced for both taste and fragrance.

Every kiss was a reminder of what Cloudy had given up.

“You’re welcome,” was all Rosewater could say to each one, followed by a lean against her shoulder and another bite of her own dish.

Talk began to spring up around the table as the food in the pots disappeared, the eight ponies gathered around the table-cum-stage relaxed and discussed the news of the day. There wasn’t much new that Rosewater hadn’t already heard, but Cloudy asked about this and that pony, her family, and about the state of things in Merrie.

Rosewater answered where she could, but Petal had a much better feel of the pulse of the city than she after so long hiding under the covers from the big bad monster.

The Rosewings were doing well, as Rosewater had already relayed, but they had been quiet in the social circles they once frequented for some time, only appearing at festivals and the closely guarded private parties that the Garden occasionally threw. Her sister was in her first majority now, and had eyes for a stallion guard at the Rosewine bridge, so they saw more of her than the rest of her family. Her little brother was starting to go on supervised solo flights with his parents watching more and more, and reveling in the freedom of the air.

The last hit her the hardest, but she smiled despite it and thanked Petal and leaned more heavily against Rosewater as the designated ‘kitchen’ assistants cleared away plates and began setting the stage for the night’s entertainment.

Dazzle and Prism made short work of the task and before long Bliss rose and stepped onto the stage.

“Tonight,” Bliss called to the small gathering, her voice as sweet as ever as she adopted a pose with her wings arched to show off her physique as she turned and stepped to catch every eye and stall the few whispered conversations and foreplay. “Tonight is a special night, a Welcoming Night. We welcome two new ponies, both having once been visitors to our community, both newly returned to us under difficult circumstances, but with hope for the future.”

A small cheer rose from the six other throats in the tent, rising against the steady shushing of rain.

Cloudy leaned against her and whispered, “What’s going on?” Thankfully, rather than panic, there was a note of amusement.

Rosewater whispered back, “I don’t know either. I did tell Petal to surprise me for dinner. I thought the food would be it, not a full Welcoming.” She winked, trying to convey that she’d suspected.

Bliss turned to them, her smile broadening as she flipped her tail side-to-side and settled right between them, forelegs crossed over the edge of the stage. “Tonight,” she said in a more conversational tone, “we invite you to be our centerpiece as we tell a story of the two sides of the river reaching out. An…” She cocked her head to the side, her eyes dancing as she glanced at Petal. “What did you call it?”

“Interpretive storytelling,” Petal huffed in mock exasperation. “Bliss, we’ve been over this, you silly dove.”

Laughter bubbled up around the table at the byplay between friends and lovers, and even Cloudy chuckled and leaned more into Rosewater, nibbling at her cheek before settling a wing over her back.

Bliss fluttered her dancer’s wings, made more for aerobatics than speed, and bent in to lick each of their cheeks. “What do you say, my darlings? Would you care to join me on stage while I tell the tale of the Rosewine bridge and you two act it out?” Her smile deepened into a vulpine grin. “Intimately.”

Cloudy returned the vulpine smile with one of her own, “With Rosewater, hum?” She leaned to the side to ham up studying Rosewater’s figure, her wing raising briefly to flick primaries against her tail, against her side, and gently push her over to roll against Dazzle, happy to support her as Rosewater raised her hind leg and presented her belly for Cloudy’s examination. “You know…”

Feathers stroked from the mound of Rosewater’s pelvis to her teats, pausing the flick against them before trailing up the soft flesh and to her ribcage.

“I think I do want to act with her. I think I can see…” Cloudy’s hind hoof, carefully curled back so only the ankle brushed against Rosewater’s nethers, stroked back and forth against the suddenly surging swell of her clitoris as she winked open and let out a moan to accompany the touch. “Opportunities. So long as she plays the rushing water.” She winked slowly at Rosewater and hiked her tail. “Squirming and never staying still while a pony lays the foundations to bring her to rest.”

Bliss shivered, her wings rising higher with her tail as she turned her attention to Rosewater. “Would that I could partake of you tonight as well—”

“I can share,” Cloudy said quickly, her cheeks blazing.

“—but I’m already spoken for by Dazzle,” Bliss finished, leaning over and licking Cloudy’s lips, then kissing her. “Another time, Cloudy. The three of us can make such sweet music later.”

Rosewater laughed softly, “Roselyn won’t get upset?” She raised her head to look over the table and met the younger mare’s eyes.

“I won’t!” Roselyn piped up from across the table, nestled in between Seed and Petal. Her tail was already curled into a q-shape, her cheeks and inner ears flushed with desire. “I’m learning restraint.”

“But for tonight,” Bliss intoned as she stood and turned to face away from them, her tail raised to show her winking marehood and the dampness just touching the edges of her lips, “we have our guests to act as our actors! And you’ve heard their roles, Rosewater the River, and Cloudy the builder, surveyor, and tamer of the white-water rapids!”

Laughter and cheers sprang up as Cloudy rose to the stage and bent to help Rosewater right herself and join them.

“For those of you who’ve never heard the story,” Bliss continued while Rosewater settled into her position on the long table, friends and lovers offering her pillows for strategic places to stay comfortable, “the raising of the Rosewine bridge is a tale of us sneaky Roses in the new Garden tricking the—”

The Prims booed and hissed good naturedly, laughing.

All the while Cloudy prowled around her, helping her adjust and … looking, and bending her head now and again to lay a lick or a kiss against Rosewater’s ribcage, her hip, or her ankle. Her eyes lingered on Rosewater’s vulva as she passed behind and stepped over her tail, straddling it for long seconds as her own tail shivered and jumped before the crowd quieted.

“Worked with,” Bliss went on, laughter in her voice and her eyes as she swept the room with a look and turned back around to stand with her hind-legs straddling Rosewater’s head, “the noble and very fine ponies of Damme to erect a bridge neither city’s rulers wanted to fund.”

Rosewater stared up at the sight, Bliss just as excited as she was, the mare’s folds flushed and a beading of moisture on the edges that flowed as her clitoris winked and her hind legs shivered. She caught Cloudy staring, too, one hind leg shaking before she stamped lightly and turned her attention back to Rosewater, coming around to bend down and nuzzle her cheek, incidentally close to Bliss’s backside for a moment before the other pegasus made another circuit of the stage.

“You okay down there? Need any pillows?” Cloudy whispered in her ear.

“I’m fine.” Rosewater shifted her hips and shoulders, testing the play of the padding under both and giving Prism and Tremor a winking showcase that had both flushing and kissing each other, Prism’s horn glowing as she worked a spell around her partner for the night’s sheath and scrotum. “Really enjoying being the center of attention again. It’s been too long since it’s been friendly attention.”

Cloudy chuckled and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Settle in, lover, and let’s give them a show.”

“Long ago,” Bliss intoned, inspiring a fit of giggles, “Rosewine Rosethorn founded our little community, tired of the conflict with Damme and tired of the infighting amongst her brothers, sisters, and cousins, and drew to her a small band of like-minded ponies to focus on their passion.”

A ragged cheer rose up as wine glasses were raised in recognition, Cloudy even taking a glass and spilling a few drops across Rosewater’s belly.

She shivered, the chill liquid running down along the crease where her inner thigh met her belly, and arched her back as it tickled and caressed the short hairs that were the only cover there. Cloudy’s tongue followed the tracks, sending heat and sparks shooting up her body and shooting pure pleasure through her, sending her into a spasm when Cloudy hit that one spot just shy of her pelvic mound.

“Mmm.” Cloudy straddled Rosewater’s barrel, tail raised to expose herself to Rosewater and Bliss as the orator went on.

“Casks rolled out of the stave-works in the new village, and workers filled them, making more than enough within a few years to slake the thirst of any Merrier willing to risk their lord’s ire,” Bliss said, her voice rising and falling in the cadence of a storyteller.

Cloudy spilled a little more wine, higher this time, and corralled it to run between Rosewater’s teats, nosing and lapping along the path to make it easier, and set the glass aside.

“What are you doing?” Rosewater hissed.

Ignoring her, Cloudy crouched, lowering her marehood to within inches of Rosewater’s lips, the fragrant musk of her desire mixing with wine and warmth and the varied desires of the watchers. Tremor had raised himself up to show his erection off while Prism lapped slowly at its head, Seed was laying back and letting Roselyn and Petal tease him and each other while all three kept an eye on Rosewater.

And Dazzle stroked himself slowly, his attention alternating between the display Bliss was putting on and the two players performing on stage.

It had been so long, and Cloudy’s cool breath on her wet, bare skin drove little shivers across her belly and up her legs. No warmth touched her save the bit of wine that flowed down and around the rise of her swelling clitoris, aching for attention, trickling along the sides of her lips to pool against her dock and seep into her tail hairs.

“Before long, Rosewine and her ponies were able to make so much wine—” Bliss waved a hoof at Cloudy, and Rosewater’s partner took up the wineglass again and splashed even more across her belly, haphazardly scattering droplets all the way up to her thighs. “—that they began to sell across the river. Much to the displeasure of the Lady of Damme, who wanted her ponies only to drink the Dammerale her breweries produced.”

“You realize,” Rosewater hissed to Bliss, “that I’m going to be a sticky mess after this?”

Bliss winked at her, eye and vulva, and glanced at Cloudy. “I think I should silence the ‘river’ for a little bit, yes?”

Cloudy laughed and drank the last of the wine in her glass before passing it off to Dazzle. “You won’t mind, will you, Dazz?”

Her answer came as Dazzle arched his back and thrust his hips up, a little bead of pre-come appearing at the tip of his cock. “Ung… no.”

“What about—”

Rosewater never got to finish as Bliss squatted over her muzzle, presenting herself and spreading her lips as she spread her hind legs, pressing her sex to Rosewater’s lips in a kiss that made her take in the fragrant perfume of a lover she wished to explore more, that she’d tasted before.

“And so Damme forbade the sale of wine across the river,” Bliss intoned, a smirk to her voice as it sank an octave.

Out of the corner of her eye, around the barrier of Bliss’s leg, she saw Dazzle beginning to stroke his cock with more vigor, a spell entering the mix as he fondled his balls and writhed, leaning against Prism’s flank as the mare ducked her head and took Tremor’s head into her mouth.

Enjoy this, Rosewater told herself. Don’t worry about the future.

She started her enjoyment by raising her forelegs to clasp Bliss’s hindquarters and hold her steady and slipping her tongue shallowly into Bliss’s warm, inviting depths, her lips working slowly against Bliss’s pliant folds, not yet ready to resort to magic, nor to delve too deeply.

Bliss’s voice quavered as she spoke again, her hindquarters shaking against Rosewater’s forelegs, “And s-so casks waited, aging, and the Rosewine mares and stallions drank d-deeply of—”

Cloudy’s hot tongue against her cooling belly sent a shock through Rosewater, and she arched her back and pulled Bliss more tightly against her muzzle, gasping as she turned her head to the side, then recovered and plunged her tongue deeply again, her breathing more erratic, blowing through her nose and against Bliss’s surging clitoris.

Then the shock was gone, and Cloudy’s slow lapping became comforting, teasing around the soft mounds of her teats, barely grazing her nipples.

“O-o-h stars,” Bliss moaned. “D-drank deeply of the wine they stockpiled.”

Cloudy lapped up the wine cupped between her teats, the small puddle trapped by the shallow rise, and drained it quickly to leave a cool spot again on her bare flesh. Warmth enfolded one of her erect nipples, tongue lashing the tip as lips sealed and Cloudy inhaled and drew deeply on Rosewater’s sensitive flesh.

Rosewater had to draw back from Bliss to catch her breath as a flush rose up her neck slowly as Cloudy’s ministrations pulled the heat from the intimate kiss deeper and deeper, and one hind leg pushed out, ankle flexing as a numb tingling spread along the limb.

“Frustrated by their inability to sell their wine across any of the major bridges, and unable to lure any ships to dock at the rocky Merrie pier,” Bliss intoned, sounding halfway towards breathless and her hind legs quaking as her marehood, soft pink lips parted to reveal flushed pink flesh between, and a winking, parting entrance that slowly let free a streamer of nectar to drip down to Rosewater’s neck. “Th-the ponies of the newly founded Rosewine Hill Winery began to plan.”

When Rosewater found her breath again, and inspired by Cloudy’s continuing ministrations, switched to the other teat and leaving the previous to tingle and cool, she inched forward on her shoulders and hips to lap between Bliss’s teats, drawing a wet line from distended clit to belly.

Bliss gasped and arched her back, tail snapping left and right. “R-Rosewater!”

“I’m a river… I make things wet,” Rosewater said in a dry tone.

Laughter rose up around her, some more breathy or grunting than the rest, and a quick look around told her that a pair and another trio had formed out of the spectators.

Dazzle and Prism had come to an agreement and he was laying on his side, thrusting slowly into her, his shaft damp and glistening to his medial ring while she had shifted farther from Tremor and was lapping at his scrotum while Seed had parted from Petal and Roselyn to straddle Tremor’s barrel and had lowered himself to press his pucker to the larger stallion’s tip.

Rosewater shuddered and pushed her other leg high into the air, giving a show to Petal and Roselyn behind her while Cloudy helpfully pulled her lips farther apart with gentle hooves and finally lapped from clit to canal.

Fire surged along every nerve, her back straining as her shoulders pressed against the stage floor and her back arched. “Stars! Cloudy!”

Then the warmth, the pressure, and the rush were gone, leaving Rosewater to pant and glower between Bliss’s legs at her lover.

“Hey,” Cloudy snorted, laughing, “Story’s not over yet. And rivers don’t talk.” She wasn’t unaffected, either, watching Roselyn and Petal masturbate slowly together, each mare’s hooves between the other’s hind legs, their lips and tongues locked together and their heavy breathing rising and falling with the pace of their partner’s stroking.

A steady, thin streamer of come connected Rosewater’s chest to Cloudy’s sex, her partner’s labia seeming to stay open on their own as her clitoris visibly pulsed, her flushed flesh glistening in the candle-light as she shifted from hoof to hoof.

Bliss adjusted her position and pressed her vulva to Rosewater’s nose again, then her lips, and continued in a halting voice, “The plan, to offer to buy staves—” At the word, Seed grunted, and Tremor’s voice rose an octave as a faint, wet sound announced that Seed had slipped onto Tremor’s stave. “—direct from Damme, without going through the more expensively taxed bridges.”

Rosewater shuddered and turned her focus back on her partners of the moment. Now was all that mattered. She didn’t need to worry about who was watching her, didn’t need to worry that this pleasure would turn against her. She grasped Bliss’s hindquarters again, more lightly this time, and let the pegasus rub herself over her chin.

“Stars…” Bliss huffed and rocked her hips just as Cloudy backed against her rear, their tails twined. “T-the… builders began by dredging the waters where they wanted the bridge.”

Heat flashed against Rosewater’s bared lips, and her hind legs strove to press against ground that didn’t exist above her. Cloudy lapped heavily along the cleft of Rosewater’s labia, parting her and leaving heat, then cold where her tongue passed. Time and again, heavier each time, until it was all Rosewater could do to keep from crying out.

Her breath steamed Bliss’s belly as the smaller pegasus slipped back, then straightened again.

“For days, they dredged the channel, going deeper each day,” Bliss whimpered aloud.

Rosewater called to the mists with her magic, drawing on the fragrances of the stallions in rut around her, and infused the mist with it, gave it form and substance, and slipped it into Bliss.

It faltered in the next second as Cloudy followed the story, her hooves pulling at Rosewater’s buttocks, opening her to the air and to the delving of her long, supple tongue, the tip and the muscular width of it sending spasms of pleasure through her belly and up her spine.

For Bliss… she needed to focus. The cock reformed, still inside her, and slid out with the rhythm of Cloudy’s tongue, slow, sensuous, not limited by the flesh, and for a long moment, there was nothing but the sounds of ponies finding their own pleasures. Heavy breathing, soft wet sounds, the sliding of coat on coat, flesh on flesh, and the cries of delight, muffled for the moment, filled the tent.

“The…” Bliss gasped and bent, adopting a rutting posture while Rosewater formed the forelegs of a pony and grasped her about the middle. “The work… continued,” she breathed out, her wings arching off her back as the phantom partial pony pulled her into a rut, the spell and its tiny reservoir of power taking over just before Rosewater lost control, her breathing catching as she stared at Cloudy’s winking lips, the drizzle and trail of excitement trailing down her legs glistening in the lantern-light.

The story was over, and everypony knew it.

All around, the heady, musky aroma of sex, unleavened by anything but moaning and gasping, grew stronger and stronger.

And she was the center, crying out and grasping at Cloudy’s flanks, her cheek taking up more and more damp dew as, with a flourish and sudden heat and pressure, her lover began sliding her tongue over her clit, drawing the heat deeper and deeper until Rosewater’s back arched and fire spread through her, laced with lightning.

Too soon, and it was already passing, Cloudy turning around to face her, nose, lips, and chin streaked with come, working her jaw and cracking it once. “You can repay me next time.”

Breathing hard, Rosewater reached up to pull Bliss down beside her, calling the spell to end as the other pegasus joined them, panting and shaking from the rut, her eyes bright. “Lovers,” she whispered, nosing first Cloudy, then Bliss. “Stars… you mares…”

“Mm. That sounded like you enjoyed it.” Bliss murmured blearily into Rosewater’s neck. “I… I’ve never felt a spell like that. Like… like Seed rutting me.”

Seed, hearing his name spoken, looked up from where he lay with his head cradled against Tremor’s shoulder. “Oh… was it?” His hindquarters trembled and he groaned as Tremor slipped free, limp and trailing a drizzle of seed.

Cloudy worked her jaw for another moment and settled in more comfortably against Rosewater’s side. “You taste great,” she whispered in Rosewater’s ear.

“Does she?” Bliss asked innocently, craning her neck over Rosewater’s to sniff, then lick at Cloudy’s nose. “Mm. Not fresh fresh, but… yes.”

“I agree,” Cloudy said, grinning. “Her skin gives a special flavor you can’t get from her come alone. And oh… suckling her clit… that’s a special kind of heat and taste.”

Rosewater laughed and nipped both of her lovers on the cheek. “You flatter me. Especially you, Bliss. You tasted exquisite tonight. Sweeter. Eating your oats?”

Bliss grinned wolfishly. “On the regular!”

Cloudy licked Rosewater’s muzzle experimentally. “Needs more salt…”

“Oh yeah?” Rosewater heaved herself up, displacing Bliss, and straddled Cloudy, looking down into her lover’s startled eyes as surprise turned to mischievous delight. “Well, Miss ‘Needs more salt’ let’s see how you taste.”

“Yeah!” Bliss crowed dozily, grinning and slowly rubbing herself with a hoof as she looked on, her legs splayed and her belly heaving as she stretched and reached to press the crook of her ankle against her clitoris. “Y-you show her!”

“So? Whatcha gonna do about it, Miss Muzzle Isn’t… er…” Cloudy grinned and laughed. “Stars, it’s your muzzle and her come.”

“Mmm. Didn’t even come when she was lickin’ me,” Bliss said in a husky voice. “Now tongue-rut her already and let me watch.”

“You heard the mare,” Cloudy said through a cocky grin wide enough to rut with. “Come on. Teach me just how salty you like it.”

Rosewater turned and flitted her tail over her back, giving both of them a view. “Now… as tempting as I know it is… let me give Cloudy her just desserts.” She settled in and spent a moment reveling in the freedom she had to take her time, to watch the other ponies gearing up for a second round. Tremor rolling to present to Seed. Petal and Roselyn joined Dazzle and Prism, the four of them settling in to watch the rest, seeming content to be idle.

Cloudy was already sopping, her thin coat around her vulva frothed from her tail lashing back and forth, hair sticking in the mess until Rosewater licked them free, careful not to draw too close just yet.

A touch of magic cleaned the surface, leaving a clean canvas for her to paint a masterpiece with her tongue, hooves, nose and chin. It was the only magic she was going to use on Cloudy this first time.

She started with gentle nips and licks along Cloudy’s buttocks, making her stretch her hind legs to the sky and drawing tremors down her stomach. Then farther away, licking slowly along the crease between inner thigh and belly, tasting the sweat and pleasure, the skin and thin coat, drawing in the musk of mare not quite in season.

Cloudy was in that perpetual pre-season that every mare that used a contraceptive was, not quite ready to mate, but oh, there was so much difference between preseason and out of season.

She reveled in it. Uniquely Cloudy, wholly mare. Her first time taking her lover.

Teeth grazed Cloudy’s teats one after the other, then suckled briefly on them once the nipples hardened, lathing her tongue across the captured tip, then her lips drawing up the soft rise of flesh, drawing a rising moan and shudder from her lover underneath.

“Tease,” Cloudy groaned, cycling her left leg in the air and twisting her hips as if scratching an itch.

Down the vale between teats she went, grazing on the light tuft of hairs just past before she got to Cloudy’s straining, bobbing clitoris, and blew slowly, cooler air to shock the heated flesh, and then ignored it, moving on past to nose at the flushed folds, the pink insides flashing at her as Cloudy winked and cursed under her breath, then settled down again, breathing harder.

More musk flowed, exciting and richly textured in her nose, a mare ready to come, on the cusp, the heat flowing through her body flavoring the fragrance rising from it.

With her hooves, Rosewater prized open Cloudy’s vulva, holding her open against the cooler air for just a second before she plunged in and pressed lips to lips, tongue flashing across heated flesh and then slipping inside. Her lover gasped and locked her hind legs around Rosewater’s neck, locking her in place—as if there was someplace else she’d rather be right that instant.

She moved her jaw slowly, letting her chin brush the surging clit, worked slowly deeper with each lap, pushing against the pressure of Cloudy’s rising excitement and the heat of her body clenching and contracting around her long, lithe tongue.

“Ah…” Cloudy grunted rocking upwards to grasp futilely at Rosewater’s hind legs. “Rosewater!”

“Finish her!” Bliss called, her voice rising as the sound of her foreleg against her sopping sex grew more urgent and her breathing heavier. “Stars, finish her and let me taste!”

“Yes!” Cloudy cried.

As you command, Rosewater thought, pulling her tongue free, her chin and nose coated with musk to the point she couldn’t smell anything but Cloudy’s need.

Cloudy’s clitoris pulsed against her lips, throbbing with excitement that only got stiffer when she started suckling slowly on the hard nub. At first, her tongue only flicked against the tip lightly, drawing gasps and whimpers and heavier gasps for air.

Slowly, achingly, Rosewater pressed her tongue flat, and began to lap at it, suckling and lapping as if she expected to draw milk, as if she already was drinking from it.

“Ahh!” Cloudy cried, her whole body going rigid, her back arching to press her stomach and barrel against Rosewater’s, her hind legs stretching out and releasing her at last, though she didn’t let go until… the moment. She could always feel it, the moment when tension fled, when an orgasm had spent itself, leaving nerves raw and muscles trembling.

Bliss cried out shortly after it came and went for Cloudy, her hoof working furiously, her hind legs spasming and her wings twitching against the tabletop. Then they were done. Both of them.

Rosewater let go her prize and began cleaning slowly, the mess she’d made of Cloudy’s sex.

It was beautiful to watch the aftershocks pass through her, feel them against her tongue as small dollops of creamy translucent come pulsed from her canal and slid to gather in her tail.

“Fresh from the source,” Rosewater purred as she lapped up a small bit, savoring the faint salt and sultry after-fragrance filling her nose.

Bliss, panting, joined her, and began lapping away, quickly, then slower as Cloudy waggled a hind leg in protest.

“Stars,” Cloudy gasped at last, once her nethers were nearly towel clean. “Stars…”

“Mm. Seeing some right now?” Rosewater asked, heaving herself up and working her own jaw. She was so out of practice. She would need to get some, or she’d get lockjaw one of these days, and she hoped Cloudy would be a willing partner more often.

“Yeah.” Cloudy groaned and rolled over to heave herself up, wobbling until Rosewater steadied her with a spell. “More…”

“Careful. You had a lot of blood going to your head,” Rosewater murmured in her ear. “Wouldn’t want you to faint.”

Bliss joined them, pressing against Cloudy’s other side. “No, we wouldn’t want that. Thank you for letting me share, Cloudy.”

“Of course… stars, mare.” Cloudy leaned more heavily against her, nuzzling her cheek. “You really like to watch?”

“Yup!” Bliss grinned and chuckled. “But… mostly for other ponies. For Roselyn…” She glanced at her younger lover, already dozing quietly against Petal’s shoulder. “For Roselyn… I like to have her myself.”

“Bliss has a way with her wings,” Rosewater whispered loudly enough for Roselyn to hear if she was faking.

“And…” Bliss took a step towards the slumbering mare, hesitated, and ruffled her feathers. “She’s sweet, and kind, and we get along. We… just fit together. You know?”

Cloudy nodded. “Rosemary and I…”

“I remember. You two were… peas in a pod almost.” Bliss sighed and rolled her shoulders. “I’m going to go be with her. You two… you enjoy the rest of your night, hear?”

“We will,” Rosewater promised, nuzzling Cloudy’s ear. “Now… you, we just about cleaned. Me…” Rosewater flicked her tail, already starting to stick to her rump.

Cloudy laughed and kissed her neck. “I’ll get us a few towels. I want to make sure I get extra clean. I can’t smell like rutting in the morning.”

Hours later, cleaned with towels wetted and warmed over a brazier, after the slow turn of quiet whispering with old friends huddled around a fire, catching up, musing, and quiet laughter with long-missing acquaintances had long since died down, and the rain had shifted into the long, low roar of a steady downpour, Rosewater lay awake with her newest lover, and the latest pony she’d dared to let into her heart.

The fire in the brazier had long since dwindled to glowing embers that occasionally hissed and popped, throwing sparks against the metal screen keeping safe the tent.

In this darkest part of night, Rosewater found herself faced with what she’d just done. By laying with Cloudy, loving her, and letting her into her heart, despite knowing what Roseate would try to do to her if she found out, she was… moving forward. She was in an unknown place.

Going back wasn’t an option. She couldn’t go back. She’d already given away too much, revealed her closest held secret to ponies she hoped could help her.

And this mare… Cloudy. Stars, she was… she’d missed the openness of Merrie just as much as Rosewater had, but with more reason to avoid it.

I could love you. I could fall in love with you. She wanted to say it, wake her up and tell her, kiss her and beg her to hold onto her with every ounce of strength she had, and to return it.

Are you that starved for affection? A darker part of her whispered, the fears she’d held onto, the fears that gave her the strength to keep going.

No, she decided. No more than Cloudy had been.

“I could love you,” Rosewater whispered, her voice barely a breath on the air. “I could fall in love with you.”

Cloudy’s ears twitched, but her breathing didn’t stop or change.

She relaxed minutely, shifting herself to lay more against her, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, and let her mind wander.

The future loomed large for her, the uncertainty of it like a cliff she would have to scale in parts, or a mountain, cresting one rise to see a little more of the way forward. This was one rise she’d gotten over, and so easily compared to the last six years of stagnation.

“And now?” she whispered, looking up at the ceiling of the tent as if the oiled cloth could tell her the next step, show her the next rise she would have to cross. Collar was there, somewhere in the distance, staring down at her, no doubt disapproving of what Cloudy was doing tonight. “Please… accept this at least.”

“Mm?” Cloudy shifted a wing against her shoulder, her voice fuzzy from sleep. “Rosewater?”

Rosewater banished the thoughts and melancholy with practiced ease, putting on a faint, sleepy smile instead. “Sorry. Having trouble sleeping.” She laid her head lightly atop Cloudy’s, pressing her lightly back to the pillow. “Go back to sleep, lovely.”

“Too late,” Cloudy murmured and slipped her head free to nip Rosewater’s cheek. “I know you well enough, I think,” she said through a yawn, cracking her jaw, and continuing as if she’d never paused, “to know when you’re doubting.” She hesitated for a second, then nipped her cheek again. “And I was only half asleep. I heard.”

Of course you did. She let the turmoil back in and dropped the mask again. For this mare, she didn’t need to, nor did Cloudy want her to.

For long moments, Rosewater contented her turmoiled thoughts with gently cleaning Cloudy’s ears, though they were already pristine, and her licking them was only making them wet and smelling like the faint aftertaste of wine.

“What next?” she asked at last, trying to keep her voice down and calm.

“I think you know,” Cloudy whispered into her ear. “I get to tell Collar what a Merrie Mare you are, tell him just how well you treated me, how much you opened up to me.” Her teeth caught the tip of her ear briefly. “And not just how deeply my tongue delved.”

It was hard not to smile at that. “And after that? What then?”

“And here, I thought Rosemary said you planned everything out. To ruin, sometimes.” The playful tone faded at the last, and Cloudy nosed her cheek. “You’re not doing that, are you?”

“The opposite, it seems.” Rosewater sighed and lowered her voice again. “I haven’t had a plan since walking out of Lace’s office. That was the end of my planning, and a slapdash one at that. Negotiate for love. What was I thinking?”

“Like a desperate mother, and an heiress hopeful to bring peace to her ponies,” Cloudy murmured against her cheek, her teeth grazing coat in a not-quite nip. “You’re not an idiot, Rosewater. You knew it was a gambit, but… did you have another choice? Some magical wonder from ages past that would save your hide?”

“Did I? Have another choice, I mean. Was there—”

Cloudy bit her ear.

“I guess not.” Rosewater smiled, sheepish, and tried to settle back in.

Silence punctuated only by distant rumblings of thunder and the constant background hiss of rain all around and the louder rumbling on the tent-fabric permeated the air between them for a time, and Rosewater luxuriated in the rare feeling of having somepony close at night.

It wasn’t until Cloudy pulled down a corner of the fabric and wiped at her cheeks that she realized she was crying.

“Hey…” Cloudy shifted around, grunting softly, and finally rolled over to her other side, facing Rosewater with her legs tucked in close. The piled blankets under them barely moved, but the one over them did. “Come here, ‘Water,” she murmured, pulling her down to lay with her back to Cloudy’s front.

It took a little shifting and muffled grunting before they were both settled comfortably again, Cloudy’s forelegs wrapped around her shoulders, chin resting against the base of her horn.

Being held by another pony at night…

“I missed…” Rosewater choked, drew in a gasping breath through an aching throat straining not to break down. “This,” she finished in a croak.

“Shh,” Cloudy breathed against her ear, holding her briefly tighter. “I know. I know.”

That was all Cloudy did for minutes, hold her and whisper to her, reassuring her that she was there while Rosewater strained to comprehend how much time she’d wasted on uselessly clinging to stupid ideas of what she had to do.

By the time Rosewater had wrestled herself back into order, the thunderstorm had moved on, its booming echoes barely more than distant rumbles rolling back and forth through the hills.

“What happens next?” Rosewater asked, her throat raw, her voice hoarse. “I’m lost, Cloudy.”

“What’s next,” Cloudy said at last, “is more of this. Following the ‘slapdash’ plan you came up with.” She nipped Rosewater’s ear before she could even think to object. “Really, if it works, it’s not a bad plan.”

“You’re bitey tonight.”

“Mm. I chew Collar’s ear now and again, too.” She grinned against the offended ear. “But… make slow progress on your negotiations. And other little things to show ponies who you really are. What you did, walk through the city unescorted, ponies are still talking about that Rosewater, and not all of it is bad.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe.” As soon as she said it, she knew it wasn’t. She’d seen ponies looking on with something akin to pity as she walked alone down the center of the street, rain cascading down her. She could have shielded against the rain, but that was hardly the point. It would have meant she’d seen the rain as a threat… when all it was was a petty insult.

And still ponies had looked on without malice.

“I… suppose not that hard,” she admitted while Cloudy held her ear between gentle teeth.

“Yes. I mean, they weren’t open about it, but I could tell.” Cloudy grinned again and licked the already wet tip of Rosewater’s ear. “You know, by the way they said it was a shame you had to endure that. A lot of them were Canterlotters or others, sure, but… not all of them.”

Rosewater twisted her neck to look at Cloudy, the dim light of the dying brazier casting her face in a ruddy glow, her grass green coat glowing, and her pink eyes, darkened to a deep burgundy in the shifting firelight of the embers, danced as they darted between Rosewater’s. Beautiful.

She couldn’t count how many times she’d fallen asleep with Carnation and Rosemary like this so long ago. The fire dying, the two lights in her life drifting off to sleep, eyes drifting slowly closed, her own heavy.

She blinked away the memory. Now, Rosewater. Focus on her. And Cloudy was beautiful, with so much promise in her eyes, and so much that she knew Rosemary had seen, had shown her in small ways over the years they had been lovers. “Maybe enough to actually talk to some of them?” Rosewater asked, raising a brow.

“That’s not all you’re thinking about,” Cloudy whispered, leaning back to let more of the light splash onto Rosewater’s face, turning her coat ember-orange instead of gray. “But yes. Maybe. Listen to your heart on who to talk to, Rosewater.”

Her heart. When did I stop listening to it? She blew out a breath. It wasn’t that simple. It had never been so simple. Sometimes she did listen to her heart, like now, tonight. Other times, when she pushed her heart into the back of her mind and focused on maintaining her composure…

“How—”

Cloudy nipped her chin. “Stop thinking. Listen.”

But she couldn’t. It wasn’t how her mind worked. She couldn’t just stop.

But neither, tonight, could she focus.

Her scattered thoughts drifted on stray winds that tugged her this way and that. Collar. Rosemary. Roseate. Cloudy. Always back to Cloudy after the rounds of poking at other parts of her mind. She didn’t want to stop thinking about Cloudy. Not while the mare and all her brash kindness was right there.

And still her thoughts wandered away from her even as her eyes did to follow the sound of the wind battering at the tent walls, the rain drumming harder and softer in no pattern, washing the fabric of the tent and stealing away the warmth of the air.

Still, Cloudy watched her and occasionally licked her chin, her own thoughts inscrutably dancing behind her eyes.

The night. Unique to her experience, had to be distracting her. She’d never slept out of doors during a rainstorm that she could recall. Not that her memory of years past was much better. Her dad may have taken her to sleep out of doors before she could properly start spelling her words. Before…

Rosewater squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the memories. She didn’t want to remember. Not right now!

“Stop thinking,” Cloudy whispered again, more insistent, nose to nose, staring intently into Rosewater’s eyes.

“I can’t. There’s too much—” Too much. Too much. She sucked in a breath, then another.

A sharp stinging in her ear snapped her away from the last memories she had of her father, and with Cloudy’s help, and whispered gentle words, Rosewater put them to rest again. Cloudy didn’t need to know to help her.

Cloudy shifted again, pulling away and then getting her hooves underneath her, rising and dragging the blanket with her. “Come with me.”

There wasn’t much she could do otherwise but follow. The pile of blankets under her were just enough to insulate from the cold ground and the cold planks, but the air was cold enough to fog her breath, and wet enough to sink into bone.

And she didn’t want to be alone.

Out in the main part of the tent, the table sat, cleaned of come and the musk fragrance of sex, but a lingering memory of it hung still in the air, clinging to pillows and the few blankets over strewn hay that had been used to insulate the floor here.

The braziers here were asleep, their coals drenched by wine or water, their ashes sodden messes that gavean aroma of char mixed with the last essence of whatever tree had been used to make the charcoals.

Dim light spilled inside from the single candle burning at the entrance, making a thin line where the flap was held mostly closed by hooks. On the other side, open to the outside, Prism lay under a warm pile of blankets, keeping watch—though in this weather, not much watch was needed. Even pegasi wouldn’t want to be out in this cold downpour.

“Go sleep, Prism,” Cloudy whispered in her ear. “Rosewater and I have some not talking to do.”

Rosewater stared outside for a moment while Prism yawned and stretched, eyes adjusting to the brighter light of the candle nearby. It was still a torrent outside, the strewn hay the workers had laid down to keep from tracking mud inside all but gone, carried away by the slow currents and battering of droplets. For a moment, her thoughts went away with them as she watched one of the few survivors haltingly float down a narrow channel. The workers had done a wonderful job packing down the dirt, idly noting the few actual cuts in the packed earth that had them raised above the general muck around them.

When the straw had passed into darkness, Rosewater drifted back to reality and cogent thought again.“Not talking to do?”

“That’s right,” Cloudy said firmly. “Now come settle in.” She tapped a hoof on the thick pile of blankets separating bare boards from the watch stander’s warmth.

“Alright,” Prism said with a yawn from the flap partly closing off the tent from the entranceway. “Petal has the next watch. Wake her when you go to sleep again.”

“We will,” Cloudy promised as Rosewater, ears flat, shook her head and followed orders, settling on her barrel and tucking her forehooves underneath her. “That’s a good mare.”

Prism tittered as she wandered away. “Don’t stay up too late, you two.”

“We won’t,” Cloudy said with a yawn. “I hope,” she murmured through the tail end of it.

“You need to get going before the sun rises,” Rosewater said as she drew the blanket and a spare one over and around them. “Regardless—”

Lightning flashed and thunder followed like a whip crack barely a second later, the booming roll of its beat coming back again and again, rumbling a little less each time.

“Or…” Rosewater muttered, “we’ll be up all night.”

“I’ve always loved thunderstorms,” Cloudy said as she leaned in closer, tipping her head up to lick the point of Rosewater’s jaw. “They make me feel safer inside, and they always have. I don’t know why. I fly in them all the time. But it’s… a…” She grunted and shook her head.

“It feels like you can love the bones of your house a little more for keeping you safe while outside the world rages for a time,” Rosewater said, recalling so many thunderstorms sitting at the bay windows in her estate with Carnation and, later, Rosemary. They would huddle closer, and the warmth and love that came from it made her feel safer. “Or… maybe it’s the ponies you share a thunderstorm with.”

“Could be.” Cloudy chuckled and leaned against her, ear ticking slowly against her neck. “Could very well be.”

Book 2, 13. Aftermath

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Lace’s private garden was smaller than the garden that had been a sally field for pegasi during the hotter days of the war. It was not a small garden by any means, taking up one of the open spaces on the upper floor that used to be an observatory before the mechanical roof collapsed during a particularly heavy snow some hundred years ago.

Now, it was a place where Collar could go to relax, to take his mind away from the overriding concerns of the day, and have a peaceful, uninterrupted chat with Rosemary. And only Rosemary. Cloudy was still sleeping off the effects of her long flight patrol.

At least, that was the official line.

She’d come in late in the morning, looking at once hang-dog tired and ecstatic, her wings drooping almost to the floor as she dragged herself into the bathroom for a long soak while she told him about her night. Thankfully not in excruciating, explicit detail, but she’d told him enough that he got the gist.

And now she was sleeping, and he was having tea with her other lover.

Whose eyes were sparkling with unasked questions and an almost need to ask them.

But she kept herself constrained and sipped at her tea while she idly weeded with a spell and invigorated drying leaves with spells that he was certain Lace would demand to learn. There was so much Merrie could offer in the way of magic that Damme closed itself off from because it was vaguely related to scent-magic.

Collar took another sip of his tea.

“Thank you for playing cards again with me last night,” Rosemary offered after another moment. “It was very enjoyable. Even if Cut had to duck out early.”

“He has a gambling problem,” Collar said softly. “Not serious, but he likes to play games with his bets.” He raised a brow at her. “I don’t need to tell you how that may have gone awry playing Petals.”

“No.” Rosemary sighed and set her teacup down, the dregs settling darkly in the bottom as she stared into them. “Are you… okay? With last night? You’ve not said anything.”

“I’m not sure what to say,” Collar admitted after a moment. “She was happy. That much I can admit I’m happy for. But… who it’s with?” Collar set his own teacup down next to hers on the tray. “I don’t know anything about your mother, Rosemary. Only the little bit she’s shown us.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that didn’t seem to upset Rosemary. “She’s always been this monolithic figure in my life. The indomitable will to Carnation’s light heart. She’s always been that way. Even when I was a little filly and she little more than one herself. It… makes me happy when I see that she can recover some of that lost childhood through Cloudy, or through Petal and Dazzle and the rest of the Garden. Maybe she needed this before you tried to get to know her.”

He thought about that while he swirled a sesame-crusted bread stick through the wine sauce Rosemary had made last night. She’d complained at him the entire time that they didn’t have anything more fragrant because wine sauces, apparently, were supposed to be a feast for the nose as well. It still tasted delicious, and both stored and heated well even on a small flame.

It was tart, yes, but it added a bit of bitterness to an otherwise sweet bread that evened it out.

“What do you think she’ll be like when I see her?” he asked at last, remembering Cloudy’s final recounting of how Rosewater had seemed to almost drown in overthinking before being hauled out of it. It would be easier on him if she were that morose again. It would be easier to comfort her from a distance then, encourage her to push on with one of the ponies in the garden.

“I don’t know, Collar. I hope, at least, she’ll be herself. The real her. The one I saw every day behind closed doors.” She dipped her own stick in the dark sauce, the gooey drizzle coming off it drawing a smirk from her lips before she stuck it in her mouth, but didn’t immediately bite down.

“If she’s anything on teasing like you…” Collar grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“I really doubt it,” Rosemary said with a laugh. “She’s more… settled.” She waved a hoof vaguely. “It’s something all of us go through eventually. We settle down, have a small group of regular lovers rather than seeking out more. She’s a bit young yet for that stage, but…” With a small shrug and shake of her head she sighed. “I’m… already sort of feeling that way. Finding Cloudy again helped remind me why I was happy to have a smaller inner circle of friends.”

It was something his father had said about himself and his mother as well. That finding her had opened his eyes and told him that she was the one he could settle his wandering heart for. “And… she’s finding her circle later in life.”

“If what I’m hearing from her is right, partly. Some of her older friends are settled already, and some of them just want her back in their lives as friends, whether there’s sex or not.” Rosemary dipped her ears and looked up to the thinning canopy of branches full of leaves changing color. “Fall has always been a season of change for us. It’s when we get with foal, when we form new bonds, when the Mare is rising and looks down upon us longer and longer each night. Mare’s Night is coming up, too. A month before the Winter Gala.”

“It is.” It was a special night in Damme as well, the midpoint day between equinox and solstice, when fall officially became winter. This far north, they’d already have the first snows that would stay until spring and the lashings of the Merrie made the walls of the canal slick with ice and the Rosewine tributary started icing over. It was when the final tally of grain stocks was due and when fresh only came from those with enough money to buy from greenhouses like the ones in Merrie.

“I have a feeling that this fall will bring more change to both cities than either is ready for,” Collar murmured dolefully. “And here it is… just past equinox and already there’s been enough to account for an entire year’s worth of surprises.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that you sat in a hut in the middle of a rainstorm, heard nothing, saw nothing, and have nothing to report.”

Crown ducked her head. “It was a bad storm, mother, and my magic doesn’t work well in the rain. I need an uninterrupted path for sound to flow, and the—”

“I don’t need a lecture on how a simple auditory spell works, daughter,” Roseate growled. “I am asking why you didn’t try to infiltrate the tent after the rainstorm let up.”

“They kept a watch, mother,” Crown repeated for the fourth time that interrogation. “I couldn’t get close enough to more than verify that Rose Petal was there. They kept the inner tent flap closed, and all I could confirm afterwards was that Rosewater had been among the partygoers, as—”

“As we already knew.” Roseate rubbed a hoof against her cheek, growling down at the plainly written report. There was little that Crown had been able to glean that wasn’t on that report. The Garden knew what kind of dangers there were to go against Roseate’s wrath, and yet they’d taken Rosewater in anyway.

Just what Roseate could do without angering a large part of the populace was… debatable. Exiling ponies simply because they associated with Rosewater was almost certainly going to get a mandatory review process instituted along with a review of any exiles that led up to the review being instituted.

Roseate had to know that. She knew what the spirit of the law was, else she wouldn’t be able to flout it so readily and frequently.

But when it came to disrupting the lives of ponies, Princess Celestia was said to have a low patience threshold.

“What about this Dazzle stallion she’s been seen with on Rosewine territory?” Roseate asked softly, her voice musing. “Has she struck up a formal bond with him?”

“To my knowledge, no. They have had sex at least once. I know that much, but whether she declared for him or registered him, I have no idea. She’s been to both the Damme and Merrie treaty offices more than once.” Crown flattened her ears before Roseate could ask, and added, “I can’t listen into their offices. They’re warded with rebounding spells. The last pony to try had tinnitus for a month.”

“If I tell you to listen in, you will find a way, Crown. There is no compromise when I give an order.”

“Yes, mother,” Crown murmured, dipping her head and wondering what kind of excuse she could come up with to get inside the office at the same time. There had to be something she could use. “Ah. The patrol that Cloudy came back from far to the east,” Crown said at last, reaching out to tap the paper where she’d made a note of the high-flying green figure coming in long after Rosewater and her companions had woken up.

“That is curious…” Roseate frowned at the paper, leaning back. “What are your thoughts?”

“We could use that. I would need some time to make the trek, but there are some wilder ponies and even some clans of bandits out that way that may be attempting to encroach on the Hollows.”

Her mother winced and gave a frown. “And those lazy sacks of minotaur droppings aren’t doing anything to try and halt the predation on our own ponies in Merriehollow.”

Yet another reason Roseate hated the Royal Guard. All the small contingent of them in Merrie and Damme did was enforce trade regulations. The only ponies that Crown would give any chance in a real fight were Firelight and his counterpart in Merrie, Wandering Star.

Both were formidable unicorns with a great deal of magical power and training at their disposal. Enough, on their own, to face down either Rosewater or Roseate alone. With the blessings and warded items that Celestia had surely granted them, either one would likely be able to stand up to both long enough to deal a crippling blow.

Celestia’s magic tended to end fights before they had a chance to get dangerous, and she’d had more than six hundred years to perfect her magical craft.

“We’re due to send a patrol out to Merriehollow and beyond soon,” Crown said softly. “Attach me to one at a lieutenant’s rank, mother. I’ll see if I can listen in on any bandit camps we come across before they know we’re there. We may be able to end our threat early, and maybe even entice some from Dammehollow to switch sides.”

“That does have some merit,” Roseate murmured, eyes gleaming at the prospect of making Dammers defect from their homes. “Let me give it some thought, but prepare yourself, Crown, because I do believe that after I refine the idea, I’ll send you out.”

It was a play to ego, but the fact that Roseate thought it was possible…

She held in her shiver until she was well on her way home.

It would be days yet before Roseate thought enough time had passed to claim the idea as her own and order either her, Silk, or Vine to do it. If she was feeling particularly cruel, she’d send sensitive, gentle Vine out.

While the love her sisters had for each other was… disturbing, it was also hard to deny that they cared for and complimented each other. If they hadn’t been born to the same cruel mother, they might not have had any problems finding love.

By the stars, if I hadn’t been born to her, I might have already picked up and moved to Canterlot. The libraries there…

But it would leave her friends, and her actually innocent family members to suffer. Vine, Rosehip, and even Rosetail were hardly evil, even if the latter suffered more from a sense of blind devotion to Roseate than even Rosary.

And she couldn’t talk to Silk or Vine, even if she desperately wanted to.

But…

She hesitated in the middle of the street, maintaining her shadowed veil more out of habit than anything, and turned down an alleyway towards Rosehip’s Greenhouse Gardens.

Her second youngest sister was almost as sweet as Vine was, and because her efforts at creating year-round grape harvests, however small, were starting to yield results, Roseate largely left her alone and only threatened her with taking away the passion of her life on the rare occasion when she needed the bookish mare to do something outside of her beloved greenhouses.

Maybe spending a little time helping her plan out the next year’s attempts at cultivating a year-round grape would clear her mind and give her an idea on how to do the impossible.

Rosehip would certainly enjoy the company, and maybe she could add a little to her library of knowledge before she had to actually start thinking about the impossible.

Who knew. Maybe Rosehip would actually give her an idea.

It was a risk. A huge risk. But, if what Rosewater had seen after the raid was true, she both needed answers, and a dress. She might be able to get both by visiting her sister’s clothier’s shop.

One alternative, since she was supposedly trying to court Collar, was to try and finagle a meeting with a seamstress in Damme—though how she would do that without getting arrested, even with the treaty on her side and even if she somehow convinced somepony that Rosetide was looking for a dress for a pony his size…

Unveiled, she made her way to the quarter where Silk Rose worked four days out of the week catering to a clientele that tended towards the rich. It was a lucrative trade for her, since she could sell her designs and her ready-made dresses under aliases in Damme and abroad without incurring bans or restrictions.

Not that many in Damme even knew any of the half dozen aliases Silk used when shipping them, or cared. There were more than enough rivals in the sister city to drive away competition across the river.

The area where Silk Rose had set up shop was one of the older, more established districts of the chaotic and winding streets of Merrie. Buildings that had been there in one form or another since the founding told their age with the perennial ivy that covered the flat river stone fronts, the irregularly shaped vertical ‘cobble’ giving all of the buildings an air of great age—even if their facades had had to be redone multiple times in the past centuries.

Silk’s shop, Silk and Scarlet Rose Boutique, was supposedly partially funded by an old dame, Scarlet, who’d invested in a much younger Silk Rosethorn’s skills at needle, thread, and cloth, and even after the mare had died, Silk had kept the name attached as an homage to a pony who’d shown interest in her work.

It was also slower than Rosewater had expected, with only a few patrons wandering the wide floor and inspecting dresses with one of Silk’s helpers taking notes for them.

Silk herself was nowhere in evidence, but a young filly not more than eight trotted up to her.

“Welcome to the Silk and Scarlet Rose Boutique, my lady,” she said in a polite voice, bowing briefly to her, her diction and performance speaking of training. “If you’ll have a seat please, I’ll let Mistress Silk know you’re here.”

“Thank you, young mare. May I have your name?” she asked as she was led to a sitting area where another pony looked up sharply at her entrance.

“Rose Moon, my lady. I’m your niece.”

A strange feeling prickled at Rosewater’s neck. Moon was Rosary’s eldest. And she’d threatened her mother with what would happen to her… Stars, you throw me the strangest tests of character.

“Moon? Stars above, you’ve grown up since I saw you last. When did you start working for your aunt?”

“This summer last, my lady,” she said in the same formal tones, though an edging of excitement at being acknowledged entered her tone. “Mother said it would be good for me to understand working.”

A far sight more than your grandmother. It raised her estimation of Rosary out of the sewer, at least, even if it was still sitting on the hedge above the grate. “A very good lesson to learn.”

She flashed Rosewater a smile and dashed back to the counter and into the backroom.

It wasn’t even a minute later that Silk Rose came out with her niece trailing at her hocks.

“Dear sister,” Silk said without preamble, her voice chilly enough to send sweet little Moon scurrying back to the counter to hide. That she was so well versed with arguments was disheartening to see. “I didn’t see your name on my appointment book today.”

“I came to set up an appointment that worked for you,” Rosewater said softly, glancing pointedly at the counter. “I know this has to be the busy season for you, with the gala coming up.”

“It is. And it isn’t.” Silk bit her lip for a moment, flicking an ear rapidly, then glanced at the other customer waiting. “Mrs. Marble, would you mind terribly if I delayed your fitting for a quarter of an hour? I would like to get my sister’s measurements quickly.”

“That’s fine, my lady,” the mare said, glancing over Rosewater. “She’s your sister, is she not?” She waved a hoof. “Go about it, dear. Family matters.”

Silk gave Rosewater a glance that lingered a little too long to be merely ‘Are you sure?’ before she nodded and tipped her head to the backroom. “Come along. It’ll be quick, Rosewater, and then you can be about your day.”

“But—”

“Sister, dear,” Silk said in a more forceful tone, her grin almost a rictus. “Don’t question how I work.”

Rosewater almost missed the minute glance towards Moon, apparently drawing on a piece of paper with her magic.

Rosary’s daughter. Rosary’s spy. Whether she intended or not, Rosethorn Moon would report everything back to her mother. The filly might be as sweet as pie, but she still acted like she had a strict disciplinarian for a mother. Any filly Rosewater had known from the Garden would have been courteous, yes, but would have been much freer of expression and emotion.

Rosewater closed her mouth and followed Silk into the back, past the dress horses covered in half-completed projects and orders, past the piles of silks and linens and wools, and into a smaller showroom filled with mirrors and measuring tapes of all size as well as hangars holding already completed dresses ready for their final fittings.

“You do a brisk business,” Rosewater murmured as Silk pulled the door closed and, to her surprise, silenced the room. Rosewater added her own spell to the work, interweaving it into Silk’s spell and reinforcing it. As she did, a faint pressure against the spellwork faded. “Somepony was listening to us.”

“Crown,” Silk said, sitting heavily. “Why did you have to come here? She’s been shadowing me for days now.”

“I… need a dress. For the gala.” Rosewater coughed into her hoof and sat onto one of the cushions scattered around for guests of the fittings. “I came to you first because, as much as it might surprise you, I would like to try and repair what I can of our family.”

Silk stared at her, eyes wide, horn flaring as the silence grew taut around them. “You what? After decades of pretending you weren’t a part of the family, now is when you want to try and… what? Take over mother’s spot?”

“Am I then mistaken in believing that you don’t thrive under her rule?” Rosewater asked cooly. “Or are the whispers I hear about you and Vine merely that? I know what I saw that night, Silk, and I don’t hate you for it. Stars above, if I hadn’t had my own confusion about Carnation…”

“You and she?” Silk’s hoof traveled half the distance to her mouth, then froze and started towards Rosewater. “You didn’t? Did you?”

“We never… she would never have let me. Even when my blood was at its hottest.” Rosewater turned aside. “But you understand that I’m placing trust in you to say that I did feel that towards her once in a great occasion. I loved her, Silk. Just as I saw your love for Vine.”

“So you give me blackmail material so that I feel… on even ground with you?” Silk snorted and shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. And Roseate already has enough to more than exile both Vine and I.”

Pieces snapped into place. “She caught you together.”

“She did more than that,” Silk snapped and sat suddenly, running shaking hoof over her mane. “She has our written confessions. To be released at her whim or her death. Is it any wonder she trusts us?”

“No.” Rosewater sighed and held out a hoof anyway. “I could—”

“Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it. Let me measure you for your dress and have you schedule an appointment. I don’t want this to last long enough that Crown has suspicions.” She pulled down a tape measure from the rack, her magic sputtering as it held both shield and tape, then firmed as she gritted her teeth.

“Can we talk more later?”

Silk said nothing, focusing on her work as she guided Rosewater wordlessly through motions and postures, using the tape measure to mark down a list of guides that went onto a rough sketch of her body.

It was beyond strange being silent in what should have been a happy social moment. Other clothiers Rosewater had been to over the years had chatted up a storm while they took her measure. More, she suspected, to keep her mind off where the tape had to go on occasion than figuring out their client’s mood and wants.

“This is so you can impress Primline Collar, isn’t it?” Silk asked after a moment’s consideration of the results. “That’s why you came to me?”

“I came to you because I know what I saw, Silk. I can protect you.”

“You can barely protect yourself, Rosewater,” her sister muttered in a tired voice. “Stars, mare, how long did it take you to recover from your fight with her this time? Have you even recovered at all?”

“I’m doing better than you are. I’m in a safer place than you are, too.” Rosewater hesitated, sighed, and edged closer to settle a hoof lightly over the heart mark on her sister’s breast. “I’m here, Silk. I can be here. Or elsewhere. Outside the city, even. Wherever you feel safe to talk.”

When Silk didn’t reply, Rosewater shook her head slowly and released the hold on her part of the shield.

“When do you think you can fit me into your schedule, Silk? I’d like to make the final fitting at least a week before the gala.”

A moment later, Silk released her part of the shield, and the sound of the shop, the city, and the world slid back in. “I have an opening next week, day after Harvest’s End.”

“Do you think you’ll have my colors ready by then?” Rosewater asked, her lips quirking into a smile.

For the longest pause, Silk stared at her, eyes blank and disbelieving before she nodded. “I have most of them in stock already. I need to visit my usual dyer and ask for a custom job for the body and foreleg wrappings. That might take longer.”

‘Foreleg wrappings?’ Rosewater mouthed, brows rising.

Silk merely shrugged, smiled, and wrote, ‘You wanted to impress him’ in glittering green magic below the crude outline of herself. It faded away, leaving not even a mark on the page.

“If you could get them done as soon as possible, I’ll pay extra to ensure I’m not only half-dressed for the gala.”

“Of course, dear sister,” Silk said in a calm, cool tone. “I’ll see you in a week.”

Unlike her older sister, Glory, Crown was easier to spot on her way out, now that she knew to look for her.

Rosewater didn’t acknowledge her as she passed by the mare with the book open and quill scratching out a line of text, but the way Crown held herself when she was truly lost in a work hadn’t changed in years. That faint cant to her entire body to the side, entirely unconscious, gave away her identity despite the well done disguise.

Whatever she was writing, she didn’t look up or adjust her posture. Which told her it was a hidden message all on its own.

It didn’t take her long to find a few too-familiar faces in the crowd of the old market row.

This is who watches the watcher. They were worse at it than Crown, whom at least seemed to be failing at her disguise in a way that only family would know. But they didn’t need to hide from her, or from anypony. They were a reminder that Roseate had eyes everywhere and trusted nopony.

She closed her eyes and pushed back the familiar rising fear.

She had a date to prepare for tomorrow… and she still had to carry over the necessities that night, undetected.

Her basement safe-teleport zone was going to get a lot of work.

Cloudy sipped her tea as calmly as she could while Collar and Lace hammered out the fine details of who would and who wouldn’t be attending the Gala. It was still two months away, but with the need for increased security, it was causing something of a dustup among the usual guests among the guard.

Captain Pink was already out, as she was going to be handling the security of the city to ensure that the Rosethorns didn’t have something planned during the Gala, as were several of her higher ranked lieutenants.

It didn’t matter that any such endeavor would be shut down almost immediately. What mattered was that if anything did happen, it would shake the faith in the Royal Guard to continue keeping their promises. Or if they pulled anything after the Gala was over and the responsibilities of the Royal Guard as co-hosts waned again.

“That leaves…” Collar hummed and turned an eye on Cloudy, worrying his lip. “Rosemary. What do we do with her?”

“What do you mean ‘What do we do with her?’” Lace asked with a sigh. “You know very well we can’t invite her. Besides the metaphorical bucket of slops the Primfeathers would throw over everything if she were a part of the Gala on our side, it would be a slap in Roseate’s face. We don’t need that right now. Not with Rosewater making so much progress in her negotiations.”

“Progress,” Collar said with a huff and a shake of his head. “I… stars above, I don’t know what to think of her.”

“You’ll know better tomorrow,” Cloudy said, tipping her head to the side. “I agree with Lace. It would be… stressful for her to be both a target of the Primfeathers and her own ponies. I hate not having her there by our side, Collar, but…”

“You were also a target of Roseate’s,” Lace said.

“I was, but I’m also not…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Not honestly. The Primfeathers had been kicking up more dust than usual about the rumors that Rosemary was not only a guest rather than a prisoner at the palace, but also that she had a small cadre of lovers and friends that spent time with her on the regular. Which they were more incensed about, Cloudy wasn’t sure. But if they ever got wind of Cloudy also being one of her lovers, even if it was irregularly, they would start kicking up more than dust in Collar’s direction. “Maybe… I should sit this one out.”

“But—” Collar gritted his teeth, breathed in and out once, half a sigh and half a frustrated grunt. “Cloudy is my mate, and I’ve all but proposed marriage to her.”

“Save for the complication of Rosemary and Rosewater,” Cloudy pointed out.

“She has a point,” Lace said after a small pause. “Not only would she be a target of Roseate’s sniping, she might even use our own disaffected groups against us. The stars above know nopony hates Roseate nearly as much as Wing, but I could see him metaphorically getting in bed with her if it meant gaining power and influence that we can ill afford to lose.”

“And disinviting you will only cause more speculation,” Collar said with a grunt.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It all depends on how we present your absence.” Lace waved a hoof vaguely at Cloudy. “We could use the fact that Rosewater has been attempting, very openly, to court your favor as a reason to keep her secluded. Rosewater has already accepted her invitation, but we haven’t made an announcement to her being there.”

“Her shopping for a dress from her sister would probably announce that for us, given time.” Collar grimaced and shook his head. “I’m not sure that will look good to our ponies.”

Cloudy grunted and sat back on her pillow, a concession to her that she’d insisted on after the first diplomatic planning meeting had left her with an aching back trying to sit in a chair. “So… the question is: how do I present my absence?”

“Or,” Lace said with a faint smile, “how we present Rosewater’s appearance. If, for example, we want to make the centerpiece of the Gala how the heirs of both cities are growing closer…” She glanced at Collar.

He sighed and rubbed at his face with both hooves and leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling. “It… has a certain appeal from the diplomatic side of the equation. It will make both Wing and Roseate focus on us rather than your absence in the short-term.” As he sat more normally, hooves tapping on the edge of the chair, he shook his head. “But in the longer term, it will look worse than if Cloudy and Rosemary had both been there. Like I was snubbing my mate for Rosewater’s sake.”

“To Wing,” Cloudy said with a snort. “To Roseate, it will look like she’s actually gaining traction with you.”

“It will give us time to come up with a more plausible reason why you weren’t there, as well,” Lace said, nodding to her. “They’ll be so focused on Rosewater and Collar being the centerpiece—”

“I haven’t agreed to spend that much time with her at the Gala,” Collar said, breaking in with a stamp of his hoof. “Stars, what if it turns out that we don’t get along? It will just look awkward and forced.”

“And if you do get along…” Cloudy murmured, smiling and trying to hide it with her teacup.

“If we get along,” Collar conceded, grimacing and running a hoof over his mane. “Then I admit… it would drive focus on us for quite some time. But I barely know her. I have the pony that I want to marry already.”

“I understand, Collar,” Cloudy replied and rose to sit in front of him. “I love you, too. All I’m asking is that you don’t push her away. Try to befriend her at the very least. Be open to her. Please.” She almost added, I like her, but kept it to herself and kept her eyes fixed on his.

“There is more merit as well in a friendship,” Lace said softly, “than in a distant semi-antagonistic relationship guided by the negotiation of mother for daughter against our laws. We lose nothing. You lose nothing by making a friend out of her.”

“But will she see it that way?” Collar asked softly. “I won’t play with her heart for politics. I admit, she’s not the pony we thought, but I don’t want to make her an enemy either by toying with her emotions.”

“I would never ask that of you, Collar,” Lace said firmly. “Never would I use my son as a bargaining chip in a game. Follow your heart, Collar. If she behaves counter to what she’s shown us thus far, I will be greatly surprised.”

“Try to be friends, first,” Cloudy murmured as she rose up to press her nose to his gently. It’s how any romance starts.

“I can try.” Collar kissed her lightly on the lips and settled his forehead against hers. “Stars know the negotiations don’t give much time to just talk with her one-on-one. But… couldn’t we arrange that within the time-frame of the treaty…”

He shook his head slowly before adding, “No. I suppose not. We’re already twisting the treaty enough as it is. Okay… I’ll accept the necessity. I’m sorry, Cloudy.”

“It was my idea,” Cloudy said with a snort and a smile. “Besides. Who do you think will be keeping Rosemary company?”

“Um.” His eyes blanked for a long moment. “I hadn’t… thought of that.”

“Me,” Cloudy said flatly. “It’s me. We’re going to have our own private Gala. And I’m dragging Coat in, too, and see if I can’t relieve him of some bits.”

“You are not,” Collar growled, unable to keep the laughter from his voice. “I will drag Thistle into this if you drag him into your betting shenanigans.”

“Oh… but my dear Collar,” Cloudy purred, slinking around his chair and back to her pillow. “I didn’t even tell you what I would wager over.” She sat with a plop. “And that, you’ll have to wait to find out.”

Book 2, 14. Heirs Together

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“This is a bad idea,” Collar said for what felt like the fiftieth time that evening. “I’m with you, Cloudy.”

That earned him less than a roll of the eye, more like a twitch of Cloudy’s eyelids as she threatened to roll her eyes at him again. “And I’m formally dating her, too. Not just a fling, Collar. I’m romantically involved with her. Now stand still. You have to at least look like you’re going on patrol.”

“Can’t, um, you marry her, or bond with her? And I’ll just bond with you?” That the idea held a bit of sense to him was a mark of just how far along Cloudy had forcibly dragged him. Two months ago, when this mess had all started… or was that a year ago? He shook his head. The point was, he was so much farther down this rabbit hole than he’d ever thought he would be six months ago.

“Bonding doesn’t work that way. A bonded family unit is married to each other. All partners are paired with each other.” Cloudy paused to bite a cinch and pull it taut, then tested the give on his armor. “Comfortable?”

“With this? No. With the armor, yes.” Collar snorted and stamped a hoof. “I just want to learn more about her. That’s all. Without anyone interfering.”

“Oh, I think you’ll have plenty of opportunity to talk.” Cloudy chuckled and backed away, ruffling her feathers. “Rosemary? What do you think?”

The blonde mare on the bed, idly pretending to read a book on the differences between the Tussen Twee and the Principes, looked up and tossed her head. She was entirely too fetching, and her lips parting in a salacious grin weren’t helping the image of the Rose she was so casually adopting.

She’d gotten more comfortable with herself in the last few days since Cloudy had come back and, presumably, spilled everything about her date. Probably including Rosewater’s tongue—

He coughed and drove the image of Rosewater and Cloudy from his mind with another stamp of his hoof.

“He looks good enough to eat,” Rosemary purred, licking her delicate lips. “Or swallow.”

“Rosemary,” Cloudy said with a snicker, “he’ll be half-staff if you keep it up.”

“I will not. I have more control over myself than that.” Not that Rosemary hadn’t been more than a little teasing in the past few days, even accidentally showing herself to him once or twice so she could claim it as an accident, though nothing that mare did with her tail was accidental. “I want to get to know her better. That’s all this is about.”

“No.” Cloudy stamped a hoof and rose up to cup his cheek. “Don’t think that. Be open Collar. You told her you would consider her.”

“I know what I said,” Collar said, using a brief spell to caress Cloudy’s cheek. “But what if I have all I want right here?”

“What if you don’t try? What might you see in her if you let yourself?” Cloudy brought up her other hoof and drew his face down to nuzzle his nose. “I saw a loving pony, Collar. A worried mother, and a gracious, tender lover. Let yourself be open.”

“I’m not looking for another lover!”

“To me she was a lover, Collar.”

Rosemary cleared her throat. “She won’t be like that towards you, Collar. She’ll be too worried she’ll say something wrong to try and be flirtatious. But do try to get her to open up. She can carry a conversation for hours on the flimsiest things that catch her interest. She’ll even run to our library to look something up just to talk more. Not lately, but… I honestly miss the vigor she had before Carnation was taken.”

“We’ll help her, Rosemary. We will,” Cloudy murmured against her neck before turning back to Collar. “Listen to her.” She nodded towards Rosemary. “Talk to her, try to draw her out.”

“Listen to her.” Collar nodded slowly and turned his head to kiss the love of his life. “I can listen,” he said as he pulled back after a brief parting of lips.

“And talk.”

Collar held back a sigh. There wasn’t much he could think of to talk to her about. Not on a date. “I’ll do my best.

“Good.” She patted his cheek once with a hoof and dropped back. “Go on. Get going, or you’ll be late for your patrol.”

“Alright.” Collar drew himself up and pulled his cowl low over his ears. “Cloudy, as planned, right?”

“Yes, yes. You’re going out to check on Rose Glory, and have a long talk with her.” Cloudy rolled her eyes.

“And… the hills?” Rosemary asked. “North of Damme. There wasn’t a better place? Someplace neutral?”

“It was her idea, Rosemary, and besides, I can’t think of a better place, either. It’s as neutral as can get with Roseate on the other side braying for my head on a platter. Probably.” Collar chuckled and shook his head. “Besides, it’s a little late to change plans now. She’ll already be waiting, if I know her.” He turned a questioning look on Rosemary. “Right?”

“By the stars, yes. Go! You’ve been primping like a Primfeather.” Rosemary snapped her tail. “She’ll come get you if you wait longer, and that might just set some tongues to wagging.”

“Alright, alright.” He rose, shook himself, half to get rid of the growing nerves, and half to settle the cape more loosely about him. “I’ll be back… probably after midnight.”

“You don’t have a curfew,” Rosemary said with a roll of her eyes. “If you two kids want to have fun, don’t let us old fogeys keep you from it.”

Collar dropped the silencing spell over the room and shook his head. “Behave,” he said as he opened the door to find Strides standing outside. “Ah! Strides, I forgot. Yes. Um.”

Stride gave him a look over and glanced past him at Rosemary and Cloudy. “Sir?”

“He’s going to talk to Rose Glory,” Cloudy said, louder than necessary. She winked at him. Thankfully only with her eye. “He wants to talk to her about Rosewater and events this week.”

“Um. Okay.” Prim Stride met his eye and looked away, a flush tinging his cheeks. “And you want me to stand guard?”

“Inside, Strides. Rosemary has been reading a treatise on the differences between the Tussen Twee and the Principes, and she wants a debate partner.” He shot Rosemary a triumphant smile. “Right?”

“Absolutely! I need all the practice I can get before I debate you, my lord.” Rosemary’s return smile was equally pleased.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, earning himself a sultry wink and a blown kiss.

Rosemary chuckled as the door closed behind Collar, leaving Strides behind, a blush already changing his dapples to sunset touched clouds across his cheeks. He was absolutely precious, and delicate, and was a sweetheart in the making.

“Stride,” she said, closing the book with a curled strand of her tail, shed a few days before, for a bookmark, “how have you been?”

“It’s been…” His eyes flicked from hers to the book. “Well, it’s been interesting. What book is that?”

He never wanted to talk about how he was doing. She clucked her tongue and glanced at the cover, then the spine. “Arguments Against Principes Van Vrije. Honestly, I’m less interested in that than talking to you. You’re always a delight.”

He swallowed, the glow of his dapples increasing until they almost seemed to give off a bit of light for truth. “Um. And…” He swallowed gain, his ears ticking back as he glanced at Cloudy. “And you are, too.”

Rosemary beamed at him, determined to get a little spark to settle more deeply in his coat. “Thank you. Any news from the city?”

He blinked rapidly, his ears twitching. “News… from the city?”

“From Merrie, obviously. I hear about Damme all day.” Rosemary slid from her bed to the ground, tail swishing as she nuzzled up against Cloudy, flitting her tail to twine with her lover’s. “Anything the guards hear that they might not like Cloudy hearing?”

“Er…” His eyes flicked from Rosemary to Cloudy, not a far distance to travel, but it seemed like his eyes almost wanted to stay glued to Rosemary’s. “Well, no, not really. I mean, we don’t talk to the Merrieguard much, except for the bridge guards. Just for things like serious crimes. Major thefts and the like.”

“That’s boring,” Rosemary said with a dismissive toss of her head. “You need to talk to the Merrieguard more, the lot of you. Some of my best friends were guard ponies. They’re not all bad. Not even close to all.”

“I can’t,” Cloudy said, turning to nip her cheek. “Without getting somepony in trouble.”

That left her staring at Stride again, who shuffled his hooves rather uncomfortably, then startled. “Wait, where was Lord Collar going?”

“To see Rose Glory,” Cloudy said. “Honestly, Stride.”

“No, no, I mean… this late at night?” Stride narrowed his eyes as he stared at the floor. “It doesn’t make sense, does it?” he asked as he raised his eyes to Cloudy, the lapse into embarrassment fading as he focused on his job.

“It does if we got information that needs discussion immediately,” Cloudy said with a harumph. “Honestly, Stride, you’ve worked as a courier long enough to know that some information is time-critical. It’s why they’ve got the fastest pegasi rotating around courier duty.”

Stride flicked his tail, sighed, and nodded. “Fine. Want to educate me about what might be happening? Or what imbalance your cousin is causing that might be so time-critical?”

“I can speculate,” Rosemary mused. “But I can’t really say anything. But I can teach you about politics in Merrie.”

Cloudy groaned loudly enough for it to almost sound like she was going to be sick.

Collar wandered the clearing where he was supposed to meet Rosewater, peering down the myriad trails to see if anypony else was coming, and wondering just why he’d chosen the one clearing where every single logging trail in the forest intersected.

Broad tracts of straight sight lines leading almost all the way to various parts of Damme greeted him at every turn.

He knew why he’d picked it, more as a safe place where he could feel like he had avenues of escape, but now, after having had several talks with Cloudy that very nearly threatened to go far into intimate territory, he wasn’t sure he wanted the possibility of being seen with her. And if she were unveiled, she would be seen. There was no hiding her pristine white coat and pink mane. Especially when she would light up like a star even in the moonlight.

Because you were afraid of what it meant, a little part of him said, to be attracted to her, and hear that she could be attractive in ways other than physical.

Because I’m a coward.

He paced in a circle, increasingly sure she wouldn’t show, that she’d decided…

What? This was her idea.

Seconds of pacing turned into minutes as the moon grew brighter in the sky, the light scattering of clouds that had dogged its trail passing east at last and letting the Mare shed more light in the little clearing.

Just as he was about to make another pass, the last, he stopped at the sound of hoofsteps that didn’t match his own.

He stopped, but the hoof falls didn’t, coming from the north.

There, coming down the trail like a ghost from a memory, was Rosewater. Fog seemed to cling to her for a second before her horn doused and the spell she’d been holding, ready to veil herself, vanished.

The breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding burned in his lungs before he recalled to breathe.

She was beautiful, striking, as tall as he and… tonight she looked as regal as a princess. A silvery scarf around her neck glittered and winked in the moonlight as the silver threads woven through it caught the moonlight and glowed star-white for an instant. Her mane, always loose before, was caught in a braid that ran the length of her mane, the tip trailing down to rest on her shoulder, a scarlet ribbon wrapping the last few inches with the color of the Rosethorn marks on her cheeks.

Other than that, she was bare of ornamentation, and the scarf hid the heart mark on her breast. One less reminder of whom she was, and no less a lovely figure.

If only she didn’t scare him with her beauty. For a Rosethorn, that was as much a weapon as their guile.

“Lord Collar,” she said in a soft voice, taking a hesitant step towards him, then stopping, her smile growing and fading by turns, then steadying as some barrier shifted and blocked her uncertainty from his eyes, the tiny signs stilling. “I apologize for my tardiness. I was preparing a surprise at the end of our walk.”

“A… surprise?” He hedged away from her slightly, then stopped. She would hardly go through all this just to attack him when she could have done so by taking Cloudy from him. And much more easily. “What kind of surprise?”

“It’s nothing to worry about, I promise!” She held up a hoof, lowered it and backed away. “I… got here early, and I was thinking too much, and came to the conclusion that only a walk was… not enough. For me. If—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes cast aside.

By the stars. Cloudy was right. She’s… rattled. Collar coughed and changed the subject with all the finesse of a boulder, “You dressed well tonight, if a bit light for the chill.”

“I… was prepared, but, um, I left my warmer things at the surprise. I thought, maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to show up in an overcoat that could be hiding anything.” She laughed nervously, flipping the end of her scarf against her shoulder. “Nothing hiding in here.”

And it hides your heart mark. “So I see,” Collar murmured, and flipped up the bottom of the scarf briefly to show her. “Almost nothing.”

Her cheeks colored darker, a shade of scarlet in the dim light. “I-I—” She took a deep breath. “A tease. Right.” She pranced a small circle and waved towards the path she’d just come down. “Shall we go before I attempt to swallow both of my hooves, my lord?”

“You’re not yourself, Rosewater,” Collar said softly as he stepped up beside her. “Have you been worrying for three days?”

“Three days?” Rosewater glanced at him, a hint of humor dancing in her eyes briefly. “No, my lord. Not three days. Unless you count the time I was briefly not worrying three days ago.”

“When you were on your date with Cloudy.” The image of her entwined with his lover flared up again, white and green and pink.

She must have seen it in his eyes, because she shook her head.“Not… just the sex, my lord.”

“Stop calling me that. You’ve called me Collar dozens of times already. Why is today diff—” Because of the date. Because he was the heir and so was she. “Did… you expect I would want this to be formal, Rosewater?”

She wouldn’t look at him, and instead started up the trail, her tail twitching as if wanting to lash, but also staying modest. “I… had no idea what you would expect,” she said, stopping and staring up at the sky. “I didn’t know if it was going to rain again, thunder and lightning, or if it would be like tonight.” She breathed out a heavy breath, fogging the air in front of her and catching it in a spell, fixing the fog in place as she raised it up to catch the light, a miniature swirling moon. “Perfect.”

For a moment, he expected her to do something else with the spell-captured breath, but when she did nothing but stare at it, her ears ticking back and forth, he moved to stand with her.

“And then I go and ruin it by…” She let the spell go and let the by-then chilled breath float down and disperse on the ground. “By worrying too much.”

“You wanted tonight to be perfect.”

“I wanted to… I don’t know, not mess everything up. Then I got out here, and the sky, the trees… the temperature.” Her cheeks were still flushed, and she wouldn’t look at him even when he stopped at her side. “It was going to be a perfect night, and then…”

“You started to worry.”

She snorted and took another step forward. “Yes. Cloudy told me not to.” Another step. “She doesn’t know me that well.”

“I think she knows you. She told me you were going to worry anyway.” He took two steps and touched her ankle with a hoof. “I didn’t believe her. Walk with me, Rosewater, and I suppose show me this surprise.”

“You still want to go on this date with me?” She didn’t move.

“Want…” Collar sighed and glanced aside at her. She jerked her gaze away. “Rosewater, calm down. This isn’t like you.”

A stoic calm settled over her, washing away the nerves, pushing back everything but the stillness of an emotionless mask. “Is this more like me?” Her look shifted again, smirking at him, ears canted playfully. “Or is this? Or maybe it was the one that called you an idiot. Tell me, please, because I’m lost!”

“How am I supposed to tell you when I barely know you myself!” He snorted and stomped up the path a few paces, turned and stared back at her. “What about the mare you showed Cloudy? She’s falling in love with that mare and I don’t know if I’m going to lose her to you.”

“You won’t.”

“Why? Because the mask you showed her isn’t real either?” Collar gritted his teeth, his tail lashing on its own. “Which is it? Did she see the real you, Rosewater?”

He saw the war in her eyes, the masks finally falling away as her jaw worked but nothing came out. Her ears flattened to her mane, but she stood steady, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to calm herself. Trying, he realized, to do what Cloudy had said she’d told her to do. Stay calm.

“Take it easy… I’m sorry. I… I worry about Cloudy. And I worry about losing her.” Collar looked away, then back. He couldn’t hide from her, not if he wanted her to be open.

“I’m worried to lose her, too,” Rosewater murmured, taking another step closer, then another, and finally walking past him. “I showed her… unfiltered me. When we had sex, I didn’t try to be anything but… in the moment. After, I didn’t try to be… well, I did, but she nipped my ears until I stopped hiding.”

Heat rose up his neck. He’d managed to forget for a moment just how cavalier Merriers were about sex. “She does that.” He followed her, behind at first to hide his blush from her, though she could probably smell it. “You showed her the real you, didn’t you?”

“I think so. I worry…”

“Surprise there.” He snorted.

“Hush. I worry that… that also wasn’t me.”

“Let me tell you a secret, Rosewater,” Collar said, flitting his tail against her flank as he caught up. “None of us are who we really are at any given moment. Who we are is revealed over time, otherwise romance would be so much easier. ‘Oh, look at her, she’s mean right now. That means she’s mean all the time!’”

“Fine. Point made. And I should’ve remembered it. It’s one of Rosethorn’s major points after all.” Rosewater’s ears flattened to her skull for a few paces, then shook her head. “I’m not used to wearing a braid. I should’ve just come plainly.”

“It’s one of Primline’s, too, you know. The saying.” Collar studied her briefly out of the corner of his eye, then more directly, and risked saying, “It looks good on you.”

Rosewater flashed him a curious look, half pleased and half uncertain, then nodded. “Thank you.”

Silence passed between them for a time, their hooves and the soft rustling of wind in the trees taking up the work of conversing together and forming their own odd conversation. She tried to say something several times, opening her mouth and hesitating before closing it again and hanging her head.

It was odd to see her confidence in herself so low.

Is it perhaps a lingering effect of the spells she used? He didn’t know anything about her talent other than… it was powerful and potentially terrifying. And it dealt with her own emotions as much as another’s. Might being nervous and fearful be amplified?

“Do you come out here often?” Collar asked finally, feeling like the cheesiest pickup artist in the Bridgewater Bilge, hitting on a single Dammeguard mare.

“I do, actually,” Rosewater said, surprising him into a start. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. Your Dammeguard could hardly see me if I weren’t in a hurry, and on occasion, I’m not. Sometimes… it’s nice to wander the hills unveiled where nopony would even think to look for me.”

He stared at her, nearly stumbled over a ridge in the dirt, and forced himself to pay attention. This wasn’t a level Damme street, but a forest path used by loggers. Of course there were going to be divots and ridges, no matter how hard-packed it was.

At least she’d recovered some of her composure.

“Why?”

“Because I love the view.” She gave him a small smile and nodded forward where a fork in the path led to a logging camp and a smaller trail led… somewhere else. “The path less traveled.”

“But why here? Isn’t the Rosewine hill just as scenic?” He waved vaguely southwards. “And they would almost certainly beg to have you stay, from what I’ve heard.”

“Perhaps. But…” Rosewater flicked her ears and shook her head. “It doesn’t really matter why not. I love this view, and I have since the first time Carnation snuck out here with me.”

“Just when was that?”

“Nine years or so ago. Maybe ten or eleven. After a gala and we were supposed to be going home.” She grinned, raising her head. “We slipped our escort, went around the long way, and she showed me a place she said she’d found while ‘exploring.’ She loved to do that. Cross the river just to explore and experience Damme. Roseate hated that she could get away with it.”

Vaguely, he recalled some of that. Grumblings from the Primfeathers and the Manes some years ago about letting mainline Rosethorns wander free, and his mother shutting them down with, ‘Has she done anything against our laws?’ It must have been when he was only eleven or twelve.

Strange how the oddest things bring back old memories.

“I can see why. I remember, sort of. I was finishing my schooling, I think, and just about to start learning the diplomatic ropes.” He glanced aside at her and dropped his gaze to the ground when he saw she was still off in a haze of memory, her eyes darting everywhere but seeming to take in none of it. “When did you stop coming to Damme? Mother said you used to follow along with her?”

“When I was eleven or twelve. Just as I was starting to enter puberty. I recall that much. Rosemary was a babe, and I think Carnation got away with crossing because of that.” Rosewater huffed and glanced aside at him. “But then Roseate put in new restrictions on youngsters passing into Damme. I think she was afraid of us seeing we could find love on the other side of the river, too. Or at least me.”

It made a sick sort of sense. What might things have been like if she’d been allowed to socialize at an age when her future was starting to run under her own decisions rather than her aunt’s or mother’s.

He might have even befriended her then.

“I hate your mother.”

“One thing we can agree on at least.”

Another thing he couldn’t imagine. Hating your own parent. “But she left you alone most of the time?’

“If, by ‘left alone’ you mean she tried to ruin every relationship I ever formed with a stallion,” she said with a snort. “And she was mostly successful.”

“Mostly?” Curious, he stepped a little closer to her. Maybe there was another stallion he could point her at to fall in love with.

“You really want to know?” Rosewater eyed him, suspicion in the set of her brow. “You know that’s not going to work.”

“Have to try. And yes, in fact, I am curious.”

“Fine. So…” She blew a breath out her nose. “His name was Silverstar. From Canterlot, of course, with a name like that. Stars, we got to know each other so well, and my mother didn’t even say a word. This was, ten years or so ago. We dated a few times, kissed once or twice… but he was like you lot. Not ready for sex yet. And… all that time, my mother was laughing her ass off.”

“Why?”

“Because he was my father’s nephew. He’d come to Merrie to see what his uncle had gone to, where he’d lived the last days of his life, where he’d found love… though he only found out after that Roseate was a monster.” Rosewater fell silent for a moment, her teeth catching at her lip and letting go, biting but not hard. “He still loved me.”

“He… was an interesting stallion, I’m told. Blue Star.”

“Yep. And the name should have given it away, but by the stars—” She snorted a laugh. “—I never connected the two. My father was always just dad, or father, or silly to me. I never thought of him as Blue Star.”

“That’s fair.”

“But that was why he stayed. And that was why Silverstar came. I only found out when I asked if he would stay and start a family with me when my second majority came. He’d been talking about going home for weeks, but always delaying because I would kiss him and take him on another date… I loved him, Collar. I was falling in love with him.”

“And… you still keep in touch?”

“Occasionally. I haven’t written to him in a year. He started a family back in Canterlot. So… I have a cousin. A first cousin. And little niblings.”

It wasn’t going to work, then. Just as she’d said. Has your life been nothing but your mother screwing with it? “Alright. I accept that I can’t get you to hare off after him.”

“Gracious of you to concede.” She smiled then, and a bit of her mask seemed to flake away, showing a genuine quality to it that hadn’t been there before. Teasing seemed to be a part of who she was. “And you? Any mares besides Cloudy I need to worry about?”

“A tease? My my, she has recovered.” He winced as soon as he said it.

“It… started out badly,” Rosewater admitted, smiling a little. “I let my worries and fears get a hold of me.” She flicked her ears and tail, glancing aside at him. “Thank you for not leaving. I was so afraid that you would, I ended up trying to get you to.”

I was right. It was a part of the spell’s effects. “Not intentionally,” Collar said, sighing. “I was about to, you know. But… then I remembered what Cloudy told me. You’re a scared mother, terrified for her daughter, and a beleaguered heiress doing the best you know how for her ponies.”

“That’s what she said?”

“That’s what she said she told you. For what it’s worth, I think this is the right move for you. Not… dating me. But working more closely with us.” Collar glanced aside, then ahead at the path as it narrowed. “This is a deer track.”

“Deerkin, yes.” She grinned and stepped ahead. “Follow me and keep your head down.”

The forest changed as soon as he passed a certain point.

From the thin and stumpy pines of the logging path, still not recovered from their previous generations’ clearing, the trees became wilder, older, and not as evenly spaced. Bracken littered the trail, forcing them both to slow and navigate over or around the larger pieces, and branches just overhead, denuded of needles, spoke of decades of growth not cleared out.

It was old growth, in a place he’d not thought to find it.

“Do you wander these woods much?” Rosewater asked from ahead as she lifted a branch gingerly out of the way for him. It seemed ready to break off, the way it creaked, but she didn’t do that, merely held it with a spell until he ducked under it.

“No. I’m surprised you do. You seem as much a city pony as I am.”

“I can be. I don’t stay out here at night, but I do wander.” She continued on before he had to stop, stepping over a half-rotted treetop, dead brown needles scattered like ash across the trail. “Watch your step, there’s still some water hiding out around here.”

“And you came all this way… before I got here… just to set up a surprise for me?” That was… no wonder she was worried. She was putting in a lot more effort than he was into the ‘date.’ “Is this a date?”

She stumbled, catching herself before he could react, and snapped a quick look at him before continuing on. “I thought it was.”

Collar fell silent as they picked their way along the trail, idly wondering how she’d gotten through without getting any mud or dirt or damp bits of bark or needles on her ankles or in her scarf.

“I thought it was,” she said again as she stopped at the top of a long incline. “I began to doubt after I set this up, but I made myself leave before I could take it apart again.” She waved a hoof as he joined her in the widening throat of the trail. “Welcome to our first date, Collar.”

A blanket sat next to a picnic basket, and a parasol next to that, neatly strapped and folded, its wooden strakes oiled and shining in what little light the moon gave off, as if there was going to be sun this late at night. Or rain, you daft pony.

He made himself stop and take it in again, noting the finer details of her setup. There were two blankets of the same weave one overlapping the other and giving them plenty of room to stay apart if he decided he wanted to, but also giving him the chance to sidle closer if he wanted to share the warmth with her.

Sticking out of the basket was the neck of an overcoat wrapped around a bottle of wine and a stick of bread tucked in close. Either too long to fit, or she’d arranged it carefully to show him what she intended.

“It’s a peaceful looking first date,” he offered, stepping closer, farther up the shallow incline towards the patch of ground she’d chosen, and stopped just before sitting.

The view. She had said she loved the view…

Spread out below them was Damme and Merrie, the twinkling of torchlight and steadier glow of fay unicorn light highlighting and outlining buildings and sucked his breath clean out. He’d never seen either city as a pegasus might, spread out in stark lines, shadows, and light like a painting.

There was Prim Palace, studded with the candle-like pinpricks of distant torches, some moving as guards took their rounds, others staying still and casting shadows off the silent, watching walls into the grassy greens below.

And in the distance, the lovely marble spire of the Rose Palace, aglow with faerie lights and lanterns, no less alive with its own patrols.

“Is it okay?” Rosewater asked, a note of triumphant joy in her voice, knowing the answer before he could even speak it.

“It’s lovely,” Collar replied, sparing her a lingering look, stark white in the bare moonlight, scarf casting flickering pinpricks of starlight as she moved to take a seat beside the basket. “A-and so are you.”

She halted, hoof quivering with the basket’s lid half-open. “Thank you.” She continued the motion, revealing more than just bread and wine, but a few cookies, neatly wrapped in baker’s cloth, and two slices of pie. “I thought you would have already had dinner by now.”

“I had. During which Cloudy fussed at me about not eating too much.” Collar chuckled. “Now I know why. What kind of cookies are those?”

“Peanut butter,” she said with a sly smile, the momentary hesitation gone again. “Your favorite, if I recall.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask… just how do you know so much about me when I know so little about you?” He picked up the wrapped cookies, finding only two, and sighed theatrically. “Stars, the things I consider for peace.”

“What things?”

He passed her one of the cookies and nibbled on the edge of his. To his shock and horror, it tasted just like the recipe Prim Praline used in the palace kitchens. “These, for one. Stars, they’re just like I remember when I was a colt.”

“Mmm. Well… Carnation said she got the recipe from somewhere… I think it was your mother. I used the same peanut butter she used to order from the Damme marketplace. Prim Nut and Buttersquash’s nut butter.” She nibbled hers, feigned a swoon, and pressed a hoof to his shoulder. “By the stars, I see why, now.”

“And how do you get into the Damme marketplace?” Collar arched a brow at her. “You rather stand out.”

“I do. But, see, my lord,” she said in a low whisper as she leaned closer. “Sometimes I like to moonlight as a stallion.”

He nearly choked on his bite of peanut butter decadence. “A stallion?” Suspicion long subdued started to come up again.

“Didn’t I just say that?” She grinned, and it was interesting to see the effect it had on her Rosethorn markings. Dimples turned them into sharply dipped lines, as if a painter had gotten a case of the giggles in the middle of drawing a smooth arc. “I have a well-kept disguise. A young, lanky stallion not yet grown into his strength, but as tall as I and russet red.”

It’s him. Still, he played along, smiling and half-certain she knew he knew. “Oh? Does this stallion have a name?”

“So you can have him watched?” Her brow arch matched his own.

“I’m merely curious. I already trust you enough to wander Damme under flag of treaty… and to… to not worry overmuch when Cloudy disappears for a night or most of one.” He coughed and tapped his chest, started to take another bite, and added, “I promise, I won’t try to seek you out as this… stallion. Whomever your alter-ego is.”

“Rosetide,” she said after a long pause. “And sometimes also as Granny Galleon, but she is ailing and spends most of her time now in seclusion. Together myself and I sell shampoos, buy treats, and chatter with the locals about you. Granny does so love the young stallions. Like you.”

He sputtered again, staring at her. “Please tell me they don’t say much.”

“You’d be surprised. Your townsponies are surprisingly talky when making a deal… that, and Granny gives discounts for good gossip.” She grinned toothily and offered him a chunk of her cookie. “For the bit you spit out.”

“Gracious.” He popped the piece in and chewed slowly, savoring it as he considered what she’d said. If anything, it meant the common ponies of Damme and Merrie were more alike than either of their nobility had any clue.

He’d known there was some parity between the two, and sometimes common ponies moved across the river on whimsy and sometimes for little more reason than because they could get cheaper common goods on the other side, or to be with friends.

Or, he knew, some moved for love. More to Damme than Merrie, he’d thought, but he was no longer certain of that. Especially if his townsponies were so willing to spill what most of Damme’s nobility considered private information and not to be gossiped about.

Not that it ever stopped them. The nobility was simply more cagey about it.

“I see,” he said at last. “It seems I owe Cloudy a few bits.”

“For Rosetide?” Her eyes twinkled as she took another bite. “Now you know how to find me.”

“For the source of the cookies. I could have sworn it was a cook. I never would have guessed it was my own mother.” Collar chuckled, savoring another creamy, crunchy bite. “It’s just like her recipe.”

“I have more. Not all of them come from your mother. Some of them, I got by honest crookery.” She winked at him again and finished off her cookie.

“You said it leaked like a sieve. I never figured your, erm… your aunt was so close to my mother.” He sighed and took a larger bite, saying around the piece, “But I suppose I won’t hold it against her. It’s not like she made the recipe a state secret. As much as dad has argued for it.”

Rosewater choked. “Your father?”

“Of course. He has a sweet-tooth like you wouldn’t believe, and mother constantly nags at him about it.” Collar laughed and swallowed. “You… I think you’ll like him as he grows on you. He’s a Merrier born, but not of straight Merrier stock. Half Canterlotian.”

“He and I have a lot in common then.” Her eyes darted to his and then away. “I knew that… but I didn’t expect him to be so…” Rosewater waved a hoof at the cities, then raised it up, indicating the farther bank. “Merrier-like.”

“My… parents are an odd dichotomy. Lace, you have seen can be kind, but she can also be strict. Especially when it comes to appearances.” Collar opened his mouth to say more, about the days a month ago when he’d just started openly courting Cloudy, and closed it again. “I’m sure Cloudy’s told you already what it was like to be in a relationship with me, with her as a mother.”

“No.” She rose halfway to a crouch and sat back down again, facing him. “It may not be believable where you’re coming from, but we don’t openly pry at each other’s secrets, Collar. We all have our own private lives, and boundaries to those lives. If she didn’t tell me, it’s because she wanted that decision to be yours.”

Indignant, Collar snorted and shook his head. “Please. I know that. I… just how quickly you and Cloudy came together. I thought…” What did I think? Did I actually assume that? “Maybe I did.” He turned away from her curiously intense gaze, pursed his lips and shook his head. “This is all new to me. And—” He held up a hoof before she could say anything else. “What do you want to get out of this? Tonight, I mean?”

“Get out of it?” Rosewater asked. “You mean other than getting to know you one-on-one on peaceful terms?”

“You know that’s what I meant,” he said with another snort and toss of his head.

“What I want…” For a long moment she stared down at the cities, her ears twitching, her lips moving as if she were practicing what she wanted to say. “Tonight… Collar, I want only that tonight.”

More word games. “Never mind, then.”

She took a breath, short and sharp, and spoke in a rush, “What I wished for was to receive freely what I stole from you without you knowing. Almost. I wished for that, but… I can’t have that. Not yet.”

It took him a moment to remember what it was. The kiss he couldn’t remember, that Cloudy had only mentioned in passing.

“You… don’t remember.”

“I don’t. Not truly. That night is all a haze.” Collar sighed and shook his head. “I kiss those I love, Rosewater. I don’t love you.” Blunt, but it was the best way to say it. Unambiguous, wholly honest. “I can’t.”

“I know.” Rosewater put on a mask again, smiling as she pulled out the wine and two glasses. It was getting easier to tell when she did it, when she put her feelings behind a facade of cheer, or a blank wall. This time, it was as blatant as if she’d stitched the smile in place on a literal mask right in front of him and put it on. “Wine? It’s a vintage from Rosewine Hill Wineries.”

“Wine, cookies, and a baguette,” Collar mused as he accepted the glass she offered. “Just what were you hoping for?”

“Well, there’s olive oil, pepper, and garlic flakes in there, too. It’s very good and pairs nicely with wine.” She produced a knife and a single shallow dish. “I can serve some up if you’d like.”

“There’s only one dish?” He leaned over to look in the basket. Other than her overcoat protecting the bread, there was only a small glass vial with flakes of herbs and spices in it that reached even his nose. More Merrie-centric things. “The cookies are Damme, but everything else is Merrie,” he pointed out.

“Well, yes. I asked you on this date, Collar. I’m not going to showcase food and beverages you already know and love.” Rosewater sniffed and set down the dish without asking any further. “I thought it wouldn’t be too inappropriate if we shared, Collar. Next time you can bring things you would like to share with me.”

“And what were you hoping for?”

Rosewater paused before she sprinkled the spices into the dipping bowl. “Hoping for? Or planning for. You know what I hoped for, Collar, but that’s not happening.” She dropped the flakes and powder in then the olive oil, and began cutting up the bread before she continued. “I was hoping we could find common ground. These are things I like. I wanted to share them and see if you liked them.”

“Fair enough.” Collar settled in and accepted a piece of bread and watched as she dipped a piece of her own in and scraped the bottom to get some spice, too. “I don’t think I’ve seen or heard dad eat or talk about anything like this,” he said, following her lead.

“It’s relatively new. From Prance, about ten or so years ago it got popular, and now olive oil is a common enough import.” She shrugged and popped the entire slice in her mouth at once.

“I see.” Collar tried to nibble at his bread, but the oil just dripped down his chin. Irritated, he popped it in his mouth and rolled his eyes. “Messy.”

“It’s not something you can nibble,” Rosewater said with a grin around her mouthful. “There’s a reason you just eat it all at once.”

He was tempted to glower at her, but the bread, spices and oil mixed well together. Just a bit of bite from the spice, a little bitter blandness from the oil, and the sweet flavor and still crusty crunch of the bread made a not altogether unpleasant experience. She even brought out a cloth napkin after a moment and offered it to him.

At least she didn’t try to lick it off. Cloudy would have.

A light breeze picked up off the slope, stirring Rosewater’s braided mane faintly as she stared off over the city, towards the harbor with the fog rolling in over ships with their mooring lights lit. Even with the nagging feeling that he shouldn’t be there, that this wasn’t for him, a part of him wanted to come up here again at night and watch the city. Cloudy would like it.

He snorted. Cloudy had likely already found it. She loved to find new perches to look at the cities from, though usually closer to Merrie where she could maybe catch a glimpse of her family going about their day.

“I can get lost up here,” Rosewater murmured as she dipped another piece of bread and let it drip free. “When I find the chance to sneak up here. Time means less.”

He nodded wordlessly and borrowed the piece from her, grinning at her indignant huff before she cut herself another slice. Time did mean less up here. It seemed that if he let himself ignore her, ignore everything, he could sit there for hours and not feel like a minute had passed.

He froze before he ate the piece of sopping, oil-soaked bread, and stared at it. That was the kind of thing he did to Cloudy. Tease her and steal a morsel, because he knew she’d get him back in kind and likely three-fold.

Without even realizing it, he’d started to relax around Rosewater.

If she’d stayed nervous the entire night, or not teased him, or retaliated to his quips with her own, he doubted he’d feel as calm as he did right then.

“This place relaxes you,” Collar murmured, glancing aside at her and holding the bread over the dipping bowl. “Doesn’t it? Is that why you chose it?”

“It does.” She was silent while she dipped and dripped her piece of bread for a few seconds, putting entirely too much attention into the effort. “I’ve been meaning to come up here since the battle. It’s… where I helped myself come down from my first duel with my mother. A place where I could be with Carnation in spirit, if not in person.”

“Not at home?”

“Home is closed. Enclosed.” Rosewater shook her head and bit off half the bread, chewing and swallowing quickly. “It’s a place for me to huddle, not a place for me to… let go. Does that make sense? I can’t feel… at peace walled up. Not when I want to rage and cry and scream.”

“I haven’t been helping you be calm tonight, have I?” He ate his piece of bread, chewing slowly, thoughtfully.

“More than you realize, actually.” She dipped her bread again, smirking as she double dipped, and ate the last half of her bread. “I mean, other than my initial worries, and a brief attempt up here to will away the nerves… which only made things worse, trying to hasten it. Stars, I felt like a teenage filly on my way to my first date with a lover. Mane done right, perfume just right, not too much… I didn’t wear any tonight.” She flushed, her cheeks darkening in the moonlight. “In case you were wondering.”

Collar laughed, shaking his head at her and taking the knife and stick of bread to cut himself another piece. “That doesn’t sound calm to me. Maybe I should take over the cutting responsibility.”

“It’s… a different kind of nerves. Giddy. Happy.” She laughed and popped her piece of bread in. “Stars above, Collar. All my planning to try and talk to you… and here I am rambling like a teenager.”

“And eating like one. Stars, mare. Chew and swallow. Then talk.”

She laughed harder, fought, and finally controlled herself for long enough to chew, swallow, and not choke. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“You’re very welcome.” Collar was just about to take a bite out of his bread before he lowered it, a thought worming its way through his mind. “Whatever else happens,” he said, working the worm out slowly and carefully, “I’m glad that you’re… more open with me. Laughing, even. Stars, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before, Rosewater.”

“I haven’t…” Rosewater shook her head sharply. “I… want to laugh more. It feels good. It felt good with Cloudy, it feels good to laugh when you mock-bicker with me.”

“Mock?” Collar grinned and conceded the point with a wave of his bread. But the reason she was there, he was there, wasn’t for friendship. She was looking for love, and he was… what? Just playing along? “I… Rosewater…” He swallowed and lowered the crusty bread back into the bowl, not sure if he could in good conscience continue.

She noticed, her smile fading. “What? What is it? Something I said?”

“No. No. I… I don’t want you to think this might lead to love, Rosewater. I… um.” Collar stood and paced to the mouth of the trail, trying to work the words out with motion, then back to the blankets and sat facing her. “I think I’d be happy to be friends with you. Stars, if everything before Rosemary was a mask, and this is the real you, we could be good friends, but love… stars, I don’t want to play with anypony’s heart like that.”

“You’re not.” He saw the hurt in her, but she smiled through it, not hiding it, and reached out to touch his breast with a gentle hoof. “You’re not, Collar. I’m playing with my own heart, and I say it’s okay. This is a chance for me to get to know you, too. Not just because I might be deluding myself. I’ve… deluded myself already, thinking I could get to know you by snooping on your favorite things, your history, your friends. This is better, isn’t it?”

“Of course, but—” But you’re trying to fall in love with me and I’m not!

She seemed to read it in his eyes, even if he’d kept it, barely from reaching his lips. “I know. I know, Collar. And that’s okay, too. Maybe there will be somepony else I can find. Maybe I can trust somepony else enough to…”

Have a child with.

The words hung between them, just like his aborted statement.

“Maybe there will be somepony,” he said gently, raising a hoof to cross with hers. “For now, maybe we just let ourselves be friends and leave the falling in love to you and Cloudy.”

That got him a sharp bark of a laugh. “Alright. Deal. Just become friends. I can do that. And… who knows…”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “I won’t close myself to the possibility. As I promised. But I’m not reaching for it, Rosewater.”

“To friendship, then?” Rosewater pulled the glasses out again, waggling them in the air. “That seems like a toast worthy of a Rosewine vintage.”

He took one of the glasses. “Who could argue that?”

She poured smoothly, a half glass of opaque red each, the bouquet reaching even his dead nose. Blackberry currant. Rich, tart, just the right compliment to the tart red wine fragrance he could smell.

“To friendship,” Collar proclaimed, raising his glass high.

“To friendship,” she affirmed, clinking.

Together, they drank.

Book 2, 15. Pages of the Past

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It wasn’t strange anymore to stand alone on the bridge and stare across the final few feet into Damme, but it was still tiring to see the distrustful faces standing across from her, their blue and purple regalia prim and proper.

At least Rosewater had come to know their names over the past weeks.

“Good morning, Sunflower,” she said affably to the stallion bearing his namesake on his flank. He would have been a gardener, she was certain, had events gone differently over the course of the war, and while he had not opened up—yet—his demeanor seemed ill-suited for the job of a guard. “It looks like it’s going to be a busy trading day today.”

He eyed her curiously, his expression betraying his wariness, then nodded after a long moment. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow again. Ponies like to get their shopping done before the rains come.”

“And they have to wait in line to have their goods checked,” the pegasus next to him muttered. She didn’t look familiar, but the guards on bridge duty rotated frequently, with only the commanders of detachments staying for more than a few days. It kept the underground black and gray marketeers in both cities on their toes when trying to avoid taxes.

“Speaking of,” Rosewater said in a light tone “I have another batch of letters for Rosemary, as well as a gift for Lace to be inspected.”

“A gift for Lace?” Sunflower asked, his brows raising as Rosewater pulled out a caddy with four bottles settled into the wooden cradle. “Wine?”

“Brandy, actually.” It was the last four bottles of the thirty year old vintage that Carnation had gifted to Lace. After this, there would be no more. “To thank her for accepting my plea to negotiate directly for Rosemary’s herdgild instead of involving my mother.”

That earned her a curious look from the other ponies.

“You’re going to pay the herdgild directly?” One of the others asked. “Isn’t that, like… tens of thousands of bits? Normally?”

“It’s usually paid by taxation or reduction of taxation,” Rosewater said, nodding. “But the cost of buying a sentence is not insubstantial. To be honest, I lack the bits on hoof to directly pay the price, but… I am negotiating. With all that I have available to me.” That much was true, and that little tidbit would get back to her mother in any number of roundabout ways.

Not that she hadn’t already admitted as much in the mandated reporting to her, always submitted so far via letter rather than personally. The less she had to visit the Rose Palace, the better.

Sunflower inspected the bottles critically, then waved them aside and glanced over the mail, periodically checking the gemstone anklet for active warding magic or other things that would hint at a concealed nature or spell. “Are any of the items scented, contain components for scent-magery, or would be considered contraband to a prisoner of war?”

“No. They’re letters from her friends who miss her, and a family of her lovers that are expecting a child soon.” The Nights had sent one each week, keeping her apprised of Velvet’s condition and progress, including a picture postcard from an artist friend of the three of them in various poses, always with Velvet in the center. “They miss her greatly.”

The guards all gave her skeptical looks, but Sunflower grunted and nodded, writing down a few notes on a writ of declaration before tucking away his writing utensils in his shoulder saddle pouch and tore it off.

“Thank you, Sunflower.”

“It’s my duty,” he said gruffly, stepping back to stand with his fellows. “Be on your way, Lady Rosewater.”

At least they were treating her like a normal visitor now, albeit a high ranking one and a suspicious one, rather than an invader. Maybe she could avoid a rain shower this time and try to enjoy her walk to the palace.

Ponies eyed her warily, glanced at the treaty flag stuck in its holster at her shoulder, and ignored her. Word had apparently gotten around by now that she had a schedule to attend talks at the palace, and there weren’t too many ponies that were surprised or shocked by her appearance, though some did approach the ubiquitous Dammeguard, only to get a shaken head and a short, disapproving glance thrown her way.

None of them were happy to see her there, but they were becoming used to her after four visits to the palace.

She knew, also, to keep an eye on the sky.

So it was a fairly quiet, if disconcerting at times trek through Damme in the bright light of day, traversing streets again that she’d only trodden before as a young filly or in the dead of night and unable to appreciate the liveliness.

Now, without rain to dampen the spirits, it was easier to see the activity in the markets blooming, just like it did in Merrie.

Vendors cried the day’s sales, cajoled passers by with attempts to buy one more batch of bread, a vase that would go perfectly beside a door, flower petals ripe for a salad.

Carnation set her hoof to Rosewater’s shoulder, stopping her before she could dash to their favorite sweets vendor. “Just a few, ‘Water. Remember, we have dinner at the Garden tonight, and I don’t want you ruining your appetite.”

“Yes, aunt Carnation,” Rosewater murmured, fishing out her bits, checking the sign indicating the prices, and counting out three buckles for three pieces of candy. “Thank you, Miss Candymaker.”

“Have another, sweetling,” the older mare said, smiling and passing her another strawberry. “Don’t tell your mother.”

“She’s my aunt,” Rosewater said seriously, meeting the shopkeeper’s eyes. “Thank you, Miss Candymaker.”

Something passed behind the mare’s eyes that a younger Rosewater didn’t understand, and an older Rosewater couldn’t be sure she wasn’t projecting into the memory.

The strawberry wrapped ones would stain her tongue brighter pink, but if she had a lemon, it would mute the color. She took two of the strawberry and a lemon. The other, she passed to Carnation. “Thank you for taking me here.”

The look Carnation gave her was subtly sad, the same kind of sadness that she’d seen too often since her father had died. The same kind that she’d felt for months and months after. Wondering if the world would be right again. But slowly… ever so slowly, with Carnation’s care and the help of the Garden ponies, she’d come to see brightness in the world again.

But those looks…

Stars, how old was I? She had to have been only seven or eight. Still mourning her father. Still not a filly like the ones in the garden, so happy and full of life. While she read, practiced her magic, and occasionally got dragged out to play.

Maybe... if she’d not been as cloistered then, she might have been more like Rosemary—as normal and happy a filly could be with only two ‘parents.’

Maybe she could have found the guile and guts to actually reach out across the river if she’d not been terrified of losing Carnation if she did so. Maybe she could have found her love in a colt not a few months older than she.

A colt she barely knew, who barely knew her even now.

But… she had hope. After last night…

She smiled and hastened her pace.

Collar was waiting for her at the palace entrance with a guard she didn’t recognize, a pony with a medical talent apparently who was talking with him in low tones behind a privacy field. As she approached, both of them noticed her, and the muffled conversation ended quickly, with the medic giving a hasty salute and dashing past her… leaving in his wake a whiff of…

Glory.

Familiar and foreign at once, a sibling scent.

“My lady,” Collar said in genial tones, his smile seeming a touch more sincere than it had before. “I trust your journey was unaccosted by rain or storm?”

“It was a fresh, crisp fall day, and while it was hard to mistake the animosity, it reminded me somewhat of younger days when I and Carnation were free to wander the city under Roseline and your mother’s protection.”

Surprise colored his expression for only a moment before he stepped back and invited her in. “Her loss was truly heartbreaking for my mother. We were so close to an agreement, she said.” At her inquisitive look, Collar smiled and bobbed his head. “We’ve been talking some about the history of the city and how such things came to be.”

Something in his expression told more, a slight twitching of his lips into a semblance of a smile.

“What?”

He spread silence over them and backed up a step, asking her to follow him inside. “You smelled her on him, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. If he were in Merrie, it would be known across the city inside the hour.” Rosewater sniffed and shook her head. “And not a pony would give a hoot.”

His expression soured briefly, and he nodded, smile returning after a second’s hesitation. “I know.” The silence became real aside from their hooves on the carpet until the doors closed behind them and the closer air of the palace settled in around them, the dimmer light from the stained glass windows high above giving the place an evening feeling. “They’ve been seeing each other for months, I think. Secret lovers.”

“Glory has always been more mellow than my other sisters. Roseate never had as much hold over her because even when she was a teen, she could simply literally disappear from mother’s sight.” Rosewater shook her head and glanced at him. “You were going to say… something about the history of the war?”

“Actually, Lace wanted to talk to you about the history.” Collar’s tail swished and nearly touched her own.

A sign of familiarity, friendship even perhaps. It was an effort to resist the urge to meet swish with swish. But that might be overstepping her bounds with him. Last night had been companionable, friendly once she’d gotten past her nerves… but that much familiarity might be too much. In Damme, it was a sign of good friends, or more. The guards watching would certainly have something on their lips in the next minutes after they passed, and if she returned it…

“You seem distracted,” Collar murmured, nudging her shoulder lightly and pushing her to the left, towards Lace’s office. “Last night—”

“Was perfect,” Rosewater said hastily. “I know I was asking for a lot, expecting too much, maybe, but… it was enjoyable. To simply talk and let the war and romance slide away. I do want to get to know you, Collar. Whatever else happens, I know we’ll be working closely together.”

He gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. Almost it was approval, but…

“I was glad to get to know you better, too,” Collar said after a moment, and stopped in front of Lace’s office door. “I want to go… on another date with you again, Rosewater.” His cheeks flushed even as he said it, and his ears flattened almost to his mane. “I mean, a get-to-know-you date. Soon. I want to share some of my favorite things with you, too.”

Her heart flopped and rose into her throat. “Of course. I would love to. When? And where?”

His hoof on the floor tapped once, twice, and he worried his lip. “It’s a little risky for you, but I know how to mitigate it, I think. It’s a place near where Rosetide would go, but you might need to ‘send him on a journey’ again. On the beach, there’s a place where you can watch the ships come into port and watch the bay. You can even see the far side and Rosewine hill from there.”

“I can do that,” Rosewater said immediately, already formulating the planned departure of Rosetide to match the day. “It’s close to the end of sailing season, though. I might not be able to use him clandestinely again until the spring. And I might have to send ‘Granny’ away to relatives.”

“You don’t have to. I know you can sneak around better than you let on.” Collar settled back and sat, a hoof to her ankle lightly telling her to calm down. “I know having a disguise makes you feel safer. You don’t have to dispose of it.”

Having Rosetide to fall back on did make her feel safer. She couldn’t go about town as him very much, or ponies would start to understand his patterns, and that she wasn’t around whenever he was. It was also harder to disappear for long periods of time during the day. Helping Petal and Seed plan out the future of the expansion outside the city was taking more time, and helping them plan for the Commoner’s Gala in Roseline park.

“No, no. It’s okay. I’ve been too busy lately to make judicious use of him. Getting out of the villa to the garden. I have to…” She waved a hoof vaguely towards the other wing of the palace where his chambers were. “Well, the place Cloudy and I had our last date isn’t just a tent. It’s going to be an offshoot of the Garden out in the countryside. I bought the land it’s on… or helped Petal buy the land. So…”

His ears flickered back and forth briefly at that. “I see. Well.” He coughed and looked aside. “I’m glad to hear you’re getting out more. How does four days from now sound? Is that enough time to arrange things?”

“It should be, yes.” Rosewater took a steadying breath. “Should I bring anything?”

“Just yourself. You brought everything last time, so it’s my turn this time.” Collar smiled more broadly, checked down the hall on either side, sighed and rose, dropping the sound shield at the same time. “I’ll be in my office when you’re done discussing the terms of the herdgild with my mother. As agreed, Rosemary will be there so you can talk with her about the evolving terms.”

“Thank you, Lord Collar,” Rosewater said cooly, slipping the mask of propriety back into place. Serving staff had come up the stairway and were eying the two of them standing so close. Whispers would come from that. Servants talked so much more than the guards did. “You have been most gracious with your time and attention.”

One ear flicked, but he held back the smile that twitched at his lips. “It helps that you have been attentive to your duties as negotiator, my lady.”

Rosemary stared at the door, her coat itching at the unfamiliarity of the office. She’d never thought being confined in a different room would cause her so much consternation, but without Cloudy there, and the possibility of a servant or guard opening the door and finding her, a prisoner, alone and unattended in the Lord Heir’s personal study.

But there she was, fretting that she’d get her few privileges taken away because she’d agreed to wait here. With letters just sitting on his desk. Their text facing upwards. Tempting her to know what they said.

It wasn’t even that she was normally inclined to snoop on friends’ mail, but having it there, and knowing she shouldn’t, and resolving not to only made the temptation to know what reports and letters he’d gotten had said. About her mother. About the situation in Merrie. About the Garden.

Whether any of that was actually there, she would never know. Because she wasn’t going to look.

She stared at the walls instead. At the paintings and portraits of ancestors and relatives, his parents prominent above the desk and more distantly related family arrayed out from there in a pattern she couldn’t quite follow the logic of.

They weren’t in order of relation, her lessons with Rosewater and Carnation about the lineage of the Primlines made that clear enough. Two second-removed older relatives were closer than his grandparents—who, to be fair, had been tyrants in their own time, though not so pervasively terrible as Roseate.

Tracing the order they were placed in in her mind only occupied her for a few minutes. Collar had said only that he was going to escort Rosewater from the palace front gate to Lace’s office. The reason she was meeting with Lace alone was… unknown. Even Collar had seemed baffled at the request from his mother to meet with her so. Not that she had anything to fear from Rosewater in such close quarters.

Lace had been a terror on the field of skirmish in her youth, her talent to negate magic in a small area powerful enough to inspire whispers she could have resisted Celestia herself. Save for the fact that pegasi could fly and drop rocks and other things on her and earth ponies magic was born into them and innate, unable to be suppressed by her talent.

She paced the office again, studiously avoiding the desk and its temptations of knowledge of the outside world that wasn’t filtered through Cloudy or Collar.

What could she want to discuss with Rosewater that couldn’t be discussed with me, too?

Another circuit, and this time she raised her head to get a low-angled look at the top papers. A report about Rosewater’s movements, it seemed like. She saw the words ‘garden’ and ‘daily’ before she ripped her eyes away and sat steadfastly in front of the small, barred window looking out over the north side of the rooftop.

The hills to the north dominated the view otherwise, the tall evergreens and deciduous trees blocking out all of the view to the north.

Cloudy had told her once that she could see clear to the peaks of the Crystal mountains from the clouds above, more than two hundred miles north of Damme, and could even make out the river of stone and crystal that had once been the great Imperial Way that led out of the north, now overgrown by trees, that passed not twenty miles east of Damme and angled sharply away, following the flow of the Merrie for some tens of miles before breaking and surging south across the shallowest ford.

What she wouldn’t give to have been born a pegasus and given free reign of the sky.

When the door creaked open some minutes later, Rosemary’s thoughts still caught up in dreams of diving and soaring with Cloudy on thermals free and away from the troubles of the ground-bound, she startled and realized nearly a quarter span of an hour had passed, the shadows on the rooftop tilted just enough to be noticeable.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Collar admitted as he closed the door. “I find myself staring north more and more as winter approaches.”

“Worried about the snowfall?” Rosemary asked, pulling her gaze away from the trees and the hills.

“That, and wondering how the Empire carved out such a grand nation out of the snowy north. I’ve seen the histories that survived the Fall. It was a place of surpassing beauty, and the Crystalwood groves there were more than oak and ash with crystal veins. They were their own species of tree, and their furniture a sight to behold.”

“It sounds like it was a lovely place to visit,” Rosemary offered uncertainly as she stepped away from the window and glanced pointedly at the desk. “I didn’t look.”

“I know. You’re a good mare, Rosemary.” Collar gave her a small smile and settled at his desk… then offered her the top page. “It’s not classified. It’s your mother’s movements over the last few days.”

“Since her date with Cloudy?” Rosemary asked softly, her ears twitching. Cloudy hadn’t told her much other than that they’d made love. In a way, it was strange to share a lover with her mother, but… not terribly so. Cloudy was halfway between them in age, or nearly so.

“She’s been spending a lot of time at the Garden,” Rosemary mused as she read it. “And not much time at home.”

“She’s even spent some nights there,” Collar said with a flick of one ear. “You’re familiar with the Garden’s residents, aren’t you?”

“Not as well as you might expect. I mean, yes, but… the last few years have been hard on my relationship with them.” Even with the pony she could call a brother. She’d seen Rosethorn Seed on and off over the past few months before her failed raid, but always shorter, afraid to get him and his business interests caught up in whatever happened to her—on either side of the river. “I still kept in touch with some of them, though.”

“Did you ever meet the Prim guards that migrated over the years?”

“I vaguely recall meeting Prism, but she was an early migrant. She still wanders back and forth to visit her parents, as I recall.”

“She does?” Collar tugged lightly on the paper and set it on the desk, making a notation that she read easily. “I’ll have to follow up on that.”

“They’re all there willingly,” Rosemary protested.

“I know that. You know that.” Collar shook his head and folded the paper, signed the outside and dribbled a little wax on it before sealing it and dropping it into a basket beside his desk. “But there are ponies here who think any Prim who wanders across the river to start up a life had to be taken.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“We have enough to keep track of without tracking down ex-members of the guard at every opportunity,” Collar said with a grunt as he settled into his chair and leaned against the back of it, one hind hoof down and resting on the floor, one foreleg curled over the back. A very casual and… open stance to take. It was hard to ignore the fullness of his sheath and the way his scrotum rested half-off the edge of the seat.

But she tried. It was like the letters. He wasn’t doing it to let her look but because it was comfortable. It was one of the only comfortable ways to sit in a chair like that, from her experience.

She’d even eaten Cloudy out while she sat just like that. Not to full orgasm, but a little light play before they’d settled in for an evening when Collar was working on reports and he might walk in at any moment.

Still… she was going to have a hard time not thinking about his display the next time she masturbated.

He didn’t seem to even notice as he went on, saying, “There’s some things that I want to discuss with your mother when she gets here. More freedoms for you. You, and Glory, have been model prisoners. I want to talk to both of you about having her moved to the palace under guard in the same manner as you.”

“Will I get to talk to her?”

“You will. You won’t be sharing rooms, of course, but as Glory has been languishing in prison for longer than is the norm for nobility under herdgild, we want to treat her more kindly than we have.” Collar waved a hoof and shifted his hind leg, drawing her attention back down automatically. Then he noticed and followed her gaze. “Stars above,” he squawked, and slid from the chair to a sitting position on the floor, his tail snapping around to give himself modesty.

“It’s alright,” Rosemary said lightly. “It was quite a lovely display.” She tried to smile to take some of the awkwardness out of the room.

He stared at her, ears flat to his mane for a long moment.

“What is it?” Rosemary asked. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, I assure you.” Except it’s his, a small voice told her, and you and Cloudy both have made your intentions clear that you’re going to marry. Which meant that she would be his wife, too, if they followed Merrie tradition.

Which meant that, given time, she might be expected to bear his children, too.

“I’ve been thinking about Frosty’s Law,” Rosemary said after a longer silence with him staring at her as if he’d just committed the worst faux pas ever. “Frosty wasn’t married to any of the stallions she called her lovers, and the law requires that the—”

Collar shook his head sharply, his ears rising briefly, then falling… and finally rising to give his attention to her. “It’s not that. Or not fully that. I know…” He shuffled and turned, keeping his hind legs close and his tail firmly wrapped around his hips. “There are more freedoms we’ll be giving you. Besides being able to visit with Glory more often, we’ll be granting you leave to visit the public garden more often with a guard who isn’t myself or Cloudy.”

“Two times a day? More?”

“Two times a day, for up to an hour at a time.” Collar’s tension gradually eased out him as he fished out another paper and passed it to her without looking at her. “And you’ll have the ability to write back to your friends. In the open, now, rather than having your mother sneak them out.”

“You knew about that?”

“Of course I knew about that. She told me, and I approved of it, so long as she didn’t bandy it about. The Treaty and our laws allow for prisoners to communicate with the outside world, Rosemary. We’re not monsters and we’re not going to keep you caged like a bird.” He glanced at her over his shoulder and smiled lopsidedly. “Cloudy would skin me if we tried, and then break you out herself.”

“She loves you dearly.”

“I know she does. And she loves you.” Collar’s lips moved more, but the words didn’t come, and he looked away from her again.

“She doesn’t love me more than you, Collar. That’s not how a relationship guided by the Principes works.” She raised a hoof and tugged on his ear with a spell. “Love is shared, not compared.”

“I know.” Collar’s ear twitched in the grasp of her weak spell and pulled free when he shook his head. “But I know the Principes backwards and forwards, Rosemary, and that’s not a quote from them.”

“It’s a quote from Rosethorn’s journal,” Rosemary replied with a broad, smug smile.

His ears twitched again, this time more in interest. “I wonder why such a salient quote never made it into the current version.”

“Because the current version is twisted by hundreds of years of bitter war, Collar.” Rosemary shook her head and resisted rolling her eyes. “Honestly. Did you know that Rosethorn writes about his friendship and his debates with Primline often in his journal? Primline’s wife was Rosethorn’s first cousin, you know.”

“I did know that, interestingly enough.” Collar’s wry tone and halfway halted roll of his eyes clearly said ‘I know my own family’s history, thank you.’

“And she died soon after giving birth to his son and heir. An infection, I think, according to what little I’ve been able to translate. Rosethorn goes on at length about it. It was a tragic event for both young villages.”

“But instead of draw them together, it drove them apart,” Collar finished for her. “The history of my family said that Rosethorn blamed Primline for her death.”

“He did. And he came to regret that later in life. But too late to tell Primline.” Rosemary took a breath and rose, coming a few steps closer and sitting again. “The entire war stems from that feud in larger and smaller ways. Two charismatic leaders hating each other into their twilight years. Rosethorn was so wise in some ways, but his journal clearly lays out his faults. He wasn’t perfect, Collar. And neither was Primline.”

“Though you have to admit, Rosethorn acted worse.”

“I do. Primline was grieving, and needed his friend, but in his grief Rosethorn rejected his friend for the loss of his cousin.” Rosemary edged closer still. “And that’s what kept the feud going. Year after year, both sides refusing to back away from grief. Grief that spilled into other venues and other families, into trade, morality… it’s so easy to see looking back.”

“Hindsight is the gift of the stars,” Collar said, quoting the Tussen Twee at her.

“Hindsight is the gift of the survivors,” Rosemary corrected him, replying with the same words from the Principes. “Don’t you see? We have a chance to end the bitterness. All of us. It’s happening even now. The common pony could care less about the nobility’s pride.”

“I know.” Collar let out a breath. “And I know… and I accept that you’re Cloudy’s lover. That you’re both in love. But… it’s hard, Rosemary, to accept it when all my life I’ve been expecting and looking for only one. I don’t know if I can love you like I love Cloudy. I don’t know if I can love Rosewater like that.”

“But you like us. We’re friends, right?”

“Stars, yes. I like talking with you. It’s refreshing to talk to you.” Collar rubbed his ankles together and leaned against his desk, still carefully keeping his tail in place. “But I don’t know if that will ever extend to passion, to romance, to love.”

“It doesn’t have to be immediately,” Rosemary murmured as she came closer. “But I think, Collar, that I could love you.”

“Cloudy said the same thing about your mother.” Collar didn’t move away, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

“I know.” Rosemary rested her cheek against his neck, not romantic but… “It’s a saying. Love is never certain, Collar. Could. Maybe.” She let out a breath and leaned into him. “If you need to talk, you know I am always willing to listen.”

“I know.” He tucked his head over her neck and held her close for a moment, then drew back. “Thank you.”

“Just the right amount of sweet and heat.”

Rosewater agreed as she set her glass down, feeling the brandy burning down her throat, the sweet flavor of it combining with the burning feeling mingling on her tongue and in her nose. “I’ve never known the Rosewine brand to produce an ill vintage, my lady.”

“That they haven’t,” Lace said with a laugh as she settled her glass down again, then hesitated and glanced at the door. “My husband was going to join us later, but…” The cheer fled her voice and smile. “I wanted a moment with you alone, Rosewater.”

Tension settled about Rosewater like a heavy fog, chills prickling her skin. “Why, my lady?”

“Use my name, please. You’ve proven yourself trustworthy and kind-hearted enough to earn that from me. At least here in private.” The older mare paused once again and then opened a drawer on her desk, drawing out a bound book, the edges she could see of the paper rumpled and worn from use and age. She kept her hoof over the cover. “Your… aunt gave this to me nearly eight years ago and asked that I keep it safe until the time was right and not to open it. I have kept the latter promise up until a week ago.”

What did you want to hide, Carnation? Why couldn’t you give it to me? Rosewater swallowed back the instant questions, her throat thick with a sudden ache. “W-why would… she give it to you?”

“She was an agent of mine,” Lace said cooly, as if the revelation wasn’t earth-shaking. “For many years. Your mother suspected, of course, and I suspect that’s the reason she was eventually exiled, even if she couldn’t find concrete proof of her duplicity.”

Pieces started clicking into place, missing nights when she’d had to care for Rosemary alone while Carnation was on ‘missions’ for Roseate. They couldn’t all be Carnation running interference, though. Not nearly all.

Her eyes fixed on the book again. “Is that her ledger?” She had a similar book, containing all of the orders Roseate had ever given her. A proof against accusations of treason, and perhaps even a way out if she were ever captured.

“It is not.” Lace raised her hoof with a small smile, revealing Blue Star’s cutie mark on the cover. “I… had forgotten about it, and only you coming to us reminded me of it again.”

Rosewater’s heart stopped beating as she stared at the book that her aunt had kept from her, that her father had given to her instead of to his own daughter. “Did… I…” Words slipped out of her grasp as she slid from the chair to the carpet, eyes locked on the book. The worn pages called to her, told her he’d written in it with his own hoof.

She had so few pages of his writing left. Most of them had been destroyed by Roseate when she’d left the palace to live with Carnation. But a few. A precious few.

One hoof settled shakily on the edge of the desk. “Why?” She swallowed and tried to stand, to get a closer look, but her hind legs trembled as the pain in her throat from trying to keep from sobbing rose to new intensity. She could see him, writing a note for her and going out for an errand, leaving her to puzzle out the letters and then the words, his hoof so neat and careful, like the lines of a Royal Guard parade.

Lace swallowed heavily and came around the desk to sit against her. “When she gave it to me, she didn’t say who it was from, and I didn’t look at her urging. She only said I would know when.”

“Wasn’t… I… didn’t she…” Rosewater struggled against the weight of memories of her father, the kindest, most loving stallion she’d ever known… and the idea that he’d kept something so precious from her. “Didn’t he… trust me?”

“He loved you more than anything,” Lace murmured in her ear, her closeness helping ease some of the rushing, raging tempest of questions, thoughts, and emotions swirling through her.

Her magic sputtered for a moment, then caught, and she pulled the book towards her, unable to muster enough focus to do more than lift it an inch above the table. Lace helped her steady it as she opened it to the first page, eager and terrified to learn what had been hidden from her.

To my dearest daughter, Rosewater Star Rosethorn.
These are words you will need to hear when you are older, when you can understand what they mean. I’m entrusting these to your aunt Carnation to pass on to you when the time is right. I have not long, but there are things every child needs to hear from their father. That I was brought up to believe needed to be said.
First, I love you. With all my being. Whatever else happened between your mother and I, I do not regret, nor would I undo any decision I made, so long as you were there to smile and laugh and tell me all about your day.
Second, I will always be with you, watching over you from the stars above. Look up to find me, my darling child, and I will be there.

The page shimmered, and the rest faded into a watershed of tears as she slumped against the desk, the pain of his loss crashing into her all over again. The moment, the most important moment of her life smashing into her once more.

“Daddy?” Rosewater sat on the floor at the side of her father’s bed, listening to his labored breathing. It was late, and the sun had already gone down. The doctors had already gone home for the night, and it was just her and her father in their suite in the palace.

“I’m here sweetie,” he rasped, his voice crackling, and the sound of his breathing crackling as he took a deeper breath. It was one of the symptoms the doctors were trying to treat, she knew. She’d followed along as best she could, hoping that she could find some way to help.

His golden eyes shone as he shifted, coming closer to her, one leaden hoof resting on her back. He’d said she was going to be taller than him when she grew up, and he already didn’t have to reach down from the bed to hold her.

“I brought you a chrysanthemum,” she said softly, bringing the bright pink flower with its hundreds of petals to rest on the bed. “Your favorite.”

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, raising his head long enough to look down at it, then laying back on the pillow. “Just like you are.” He pushed himself up then, the effort taking all of his strength, and cleared a space for her. “Come up here and let me hold you for a little while, dearest heart.”

The doctors said he shouldn’t get up. She knew that. But she couldn’t resist the offer, couldn’t tell him to lay down. They were all talking about how many days left. But… they had to be wrong. There had to be some magic that could help, if only she could find it. But not tonight. Tonight, she could sleep in her daddy’s embrace. Tomorrow she could find the magic.

“You’re getting so big,” her father murmured as he laid his chin on her head, just beside her horn. “You’ll be taller than me, taller than your grandpa.”

He coughed, then, raising his head away from her and descending into the wracking coughs that left him limp and listless for hours, unable to recover his once vital energy.

“Daddy?” She asked as the coughing went on. Harsh, rattling coughs, as if his ribs were clacking together. He was so thin. Not like he had been. Strong, indomitable. Daddy.

Minutes passed, and the force of the coughs lessened until he finally lay his head on the pillow, his entire body trembling, but he drew her in close, holding her as tightly as he could.

He didn’t answer her as he lay there, still trembling, his grip loosening as his breathing grew shallower and shallower.

“Daddy!” She screamed, pulling away just enough to gain her hooves and pressing her forehead to his. “Somepony help!” She cried again after a moment of listening.

“Love…” he whispered, his voice almost too quiet for her to hear.

Magic. She had magic. The power of life, he’d always said. Everypony had it, but for unicorns…

She pressed her forehead to his again and crossed horns with him and drew on everything she had. All the magical might her young body could contain, she took and pushed it at him through her horn.

Bright pink light flared, soon matched by his golden glow, a flicker of his eyes told her it was working. He was waking a little. Just a little. But maybe she could hold him until…

“Love,” he whispered more strongly.

Something inside her broke open, and more magic than she’d ever been able to hold before flooded into her, surging across her flanks and then to her horn again, and she felt love. His love for her, blazing like the golden sun in her mind.

Too quickly it began to dwindle again, a candle burning so bright it would have rivaled the sun at noonday… and gone more quickly than a thought.

“I love you,” he said weakly. “Forever.”

The light fled her horn, and a wave of weariness like she’d never felt broke over her like the waves during a storm.

With it, the light in his eyes faded and the hoof against her ankle slid to the bed.

His breath didn’t rattle anymore. His chest didn’t rise.

Rosewater screamed.

“Shhh.” Lace’s voice in the now didn’t do anything to ease the ache in her heart. She’d thought she’d put that memory away and locked it up tight.

But… the light of his love. She could feel it again like the summer sun on her coat, suffusing her again as it had for an all-too-brief second twenty-four years ago.

“I loved…” she stopped herself and shook her head, sitting up straighter and gathering herself together again. “I love him. So much. It’s been too long since I’ve thought…” About the day he died.

Nopony knew that she’d been there to see his final moments. Not a soul. Not even Carnation, whom she’d found at last and begged her to get the doctors. They all thought she’d found him that way… and her fillyish babbling had helped obscure the truth until…

Until Roseate had told her to grow up and stop whining.

“Rosewater,” Lace said in a softly firm tone. “You needn’t hide yourself here.”

She nodded, and closed the book. Simply reading that much had thrown her into a spiral of despairing thoughts and memories. She couldn’t risk falling into a spiral in the estate. She might not find her way back out for days. Days in which disaster might strike.

“Can… I ask you to keep it. For a little while longer.”

“But—” Lace sat up straighter and stared hard at her. She took a breath, let it out, and nodded. “It will be safe here. My solemn oath upon that.”

“Thank you, Lace.”

“My dear, if you want to talk, to tell me what had you in such distress…”

The open-ended suggestion tempted her more than she expected. Lace was… kinder. As kind as Blue Star had been in her own way. “Not today. Someday,” she said, dipping her ears apologetically. Already she could feel the icy walls of mental fortitude rebuilding around the pained core, the ache fading as she walled it away from herself.

But still… that warm light of love beat at her, at the wall.

She yearned to let it out.

Control, Rosewater. Keep it together.

“You haven’t had a mother, have you?” Lace asked her as she pulled back.

“No.”

“It’s perhaps too late to do more than offer, but there are still things that I can do for you that a mother would. Listen to you. Give you advice. See to it that you’re taking care of yourself.” Lace’s smile brightened briefly. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to offer to take you under my wing, as it were. Whatever else happens with Collar, I would like to see you settled into a safer place in your mind.”

“You… would offer that to me?” Rosewater asked, a dazed pallor to her thoughts. “I-I don’t even know what to think… let alone say.”

“Hardly surprising, given the shock you’ve received just today, my dear.” She raised a brow, then. “Do you not have any writings of your fathers’?”

“No. Roseate burned them all. All that she could get her hooves on.” Her bitter tone surprised even her, and the hatred for her ‘mother’ burned all the hotter until her eyes fell on the book again. The precious book with her father’s thoughts and memories in it. “But… he knew that might happen, didn’t he? And so did Carnation.”

Lace, if she was shocked to hear the revelation, didn’t show it. It wouldn’t have surprised Rosewater if Lace had suspected it of her. “I suspect both did.”

Rosewater was about to answer when the door opened, and Dapper Air walked in, his characteristic smile fading as he took in the scene, his eyes darting to the book, then to Rosewater, lingering on her eyes that must have been bloodshot from crying.

“I’m glad she decided to give it to you,” Dapper said in a softly somber tone. “I knew Blue Star quite well in my day, and I even met his father once, when I visited Canterlot decades ago. You do resemble them more than your mother’s side, you know.”

“I know.” A sudden urge to know all that she could about her Canterlot family took hold of her, but she tamped it down before the first question could reach her lips.

“That was an offer, young lady. To tell you about them,” Dapper said, as if he’d seen the inner workings of her thoughts written across her breast.

“What… was he like? Before… before… he settled down.”

Dapper pulled Lace’s brandy glass from the desk and settled into the chair Rosewater had occupied, swirling the dark amber liquid about before taking a sip. “Well… like all of the Knights of the Sun, he was courageous and brave beyond doubt, wise and learned…”

Rosewater settled in to listen, feeling like a filly again as the warmth of a summer sun melted a hole in her icy redoubt.

Book 2, 16. Seeds of the Past

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“What’s taking her so long?” Collar mused, glancing from Rosemary to Cloudy and back again, the latter having arrived in the last half an hour to spend the time whispering to Rosemary and giggling while he worked over the reports of harvests. A delightfully mundane task that didn’t involve any clandestine musings.

Tally the bushels, compare them to last year’s yields for the same farmsteads, and then add the totals up to compare to the same day last year. Simple, rote math.

And utterly boring. At least listening to the two mares whisper and giggle about the goings on of their younger years together, and Rosemary caught her up to the past two years of news and gossip from Merrie and their friend groups.

It, too, was delightfully mundane.

It made the reason why Lace and Dapper were cloistered with Rosewater all the more suspicious. They’d been in his mother’s office for over an hour, according to Cloudy, and the guard at the door had steadfastly refused her entry at Lace’s command.

Are they actually negotiating? It wouldn’t be beyond the scope of their agreement for that to happen if Rosewater felt like things weren’t going well.

Except, from her perspective…

He frowned down at the figures, sighed, and blotted away the ink of a mistake with a wet cloth, leaving behind a faint black smear that he wrote the correct value for the sum from the Sickle farmstead.

Just as he was about to continue on with the tally from the Hornblower farmstead, the door opened and admitted Rosewater and Dapper, the latter leaning against the former’s shoulder more companionably than he’d have thought possible not ten seconds ago. And yet, there was his father offering comfort for the mare, his attention all on her until they were inside the office.

She looked… rough. Not in her appearance, which was impeccable, but around her eyes and cheeks. Almost gaunt and that after she’d looked hale and hearty when he’d met her. Like she’d gotten news that sompony had died.

Did she? Did Lace hear something, and that’s why she wanted to talk to Rosewater alone?

It would be one explanation, and a dozen more raced through his thoughts before Rosemary interrupted them with a gasp and launched herself across the room to wrap her forelegs around Rosewater’s neck.

Cloudy took a steadier approach and stopped at Collar’s side. “Do you know what happened?” she asked softly.

“No.” He glanced to his father for an explanation, and Dapper did come closer, but was already shaking his head. “What happened? Was there news?”

That earned him a sharp look, then another small shake of the head. “News more than two decades late, I’m afraid, if you could call it that.” Dapper glanced back at the mare seeming to try and keep from breaking into tears and dropped what else he’d been about to say, visibly changing course. “I think she’s had enough blows today. If she’s up to it, she can tell you what was said.”

The unspoken, ‘but don’t push too hard,’ flowed through his tone.

Cloudy leaned harder against Collar’s shoulder for a moment more, then slipped past Dapper with a kiss to the cheek and a nuzzle along his neck to offer her silent support to Rosewater while Rosemary obviously tried to prize free details of what had happened.

Collar dropped a small silence around himself and his father. “What happened?”

“Son,” Dapper said with a strained smile, “that’s not for me to tell. That wasn’t just for her ears. Suffice to say she’s been hurt, but I’ve done what I could. Let her deal with it first.”

“Something did happen, then. Was it Carnation?” Dread filled Collar’s belly at the thought. The mare was as close to a mother as Rosewater had ever had. If she lost that link…

“Not directly, no. Stop digging, Collar. You won’t get anything out of me today.” Dapper’s voice, harder than his customary light cheer, warned as much as the words. “It’s truly a private matter. Even by Merrie standards.”

Collar dropped the shield, watching the tableau as Rosemary listened to something Rosewater whispered to her, inaudible to him even though she didn’t silence herself.

“I’ve delivered you, my dear,” Dapper said with a cheer in his voice. “Please do see me again before you head home, won’t you?”

Rosewater raised her head, a modicum of the dazedness falling away as she smiled and nodded. “Of course, Dapper. And… thank you again.” Her eyes flicked to Collar and away again. “For everything.”

Doesn’t that just mean almost anything.

“Of course, my dear. If there’s anything else you want to know, you know where to find me. Might be there’s some tidbit I forgot that I’ll remember by your next visit.” Dapper bowed once, wings extending as if to a noble of equal or higher status, and departed.

Rosewater watched the door for another long moment, Rosemary settled in beside her. Finally, she spoke, “I’m afraid I may have to beg off any in depth discussions today, my lord.” Her voice was solemn, steady, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “My…”

Rosemary shook her head slowly and leaned more heavily against her. “What happened? What did they say?”

What I’d like to know, Collar thought, but didn’t press just yet.

“It’s…” Rosewater did glance at him this time, a question in her eyes, almost a demand, before they fell away again. “Later, Rosemary. Lord Collar and I have some things to discuss.”

“But…” Rosemary looked into her mother’s eyes for a long moment, almost nose to nose with her as some communication Collar couldn’t even begin to grasp passed between them. “Take care of yourself, mother. It was good to—”

“I’ll see you with Lord Dapper before I leave, my dear heart,” Rosewater broke in with a tired smile. “I promise I won’t leave before I tell you a-at least a little. You deserve that much. And more… for all the support you’ve given me.” Something in her seemed to crumble, and tears came to her eyes. “I hope I’ve been a good mother to you, Rosemary.”

“Stars above, you have!” Rosemary sat and clasped her mother’s cheeks between her hooves and brought her down, nose-to-nose. “You always made time for me, never thought I was being silly when I asked you a question. You love me. You’re not your mother, and you never will be.”

Rosewater’s eyes lifted briefly to Collar’s, a pleading there, a need to be told she wasn’t Roseate.

He thought he could understand her fear, the thoughts that must have been going through her mind. All the ponies she’d captured on her mother’s behalf. All for a purpose that had been ultimately futile.

“You are not her,” Collar said. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Roseate. Given the focus again, Collar stood and nuzzled Cloudy, nipping her ear. “I’ll see you soon. Go plan… whatever it is you’re planning.”

“It’s a secret,” Cloudy said with a wink. “But don’t worry. I’ve already checked your calendar. And booked the secret out as ‘Secret Plan’ so you’re not surprised.”

“That’s not how secrets work,” Collar replied, unable to keep a smile from his lips. “What’s stopping me from checking my calendar?”

“Mmm. Well, like many things in Merrie, the joy is not in the surprise, but in the execution.” Cloudy nipped his nose and hopped back a step, her expression turning again as she caught sight of Rosewater’s uncertain smile, and winked.

What that meant, he had no idea, but perhaps he didn’t need to pursue it. Knowing Rosemary, if she’d had any part in the planning it would be written in as “Secret” on his calendar and his only expectation would be that something would happen, even if he wasn’t sure what.

When they left, leaving Rosewater sitting there staring at the door, Collar retook his seat, careful not to get comfortable, and left the reports still in place on his desk. They were all about her, and if she had any questions about where she’d been…

“I… apologize,” Rosewater said at last, her eyes sweeping over his desk in a second and not pausing until they found a point somewhere to the left of his head. “I’m not…” She took a deep breath and seemed to marshall herself to meet his eyes. “I’m not myself today. ”

“What… did my mother want to discuss with you?” Collar asked gently.

She shook her head. “I… wanted to talk to you about our outing, Collar. I want to think about what’s going to happen soon, not—”

Not what happened in the past? He almost asked it, stopped himself, and stepped down from his chair to sit in front of her. They were nearly the same height. Whatever strange quirk of lineage had lent them both tall parents had seen that those parents had given their children complimentary genes. Dapper was of a height with Roseate, and Lace was… or had been of a height with Blue Star. At least, that’s what he’d been able to glean.

“I was planning on bringing a brace of Dammerale. Two each of four different brews. Light, dark, bitter, and raw.” He twitched an ear when she didn’t give much of a response. “Some cheeses to go with them, and… I wasn’t sure what else to bring.”

Her ears perked suddenly, as if she’d just realized they were trying to have a conversation. “Stew? Maybe? With some rolls? I think that’s common fare to go with ale and cheese, isn’t it?” Some life came back to her as she considered the possibilities. “What’s your favorite meal to go with something like that?”

“Whoa now, meal?” Collar grinned and shook his head. “I may be able to find my way around a kitchen alright, but around a campsite?”

“It’s not so hard, you know. Make it here, or have it made here, and take the pot and enough firewood with you.” Her ears ticked slightly and she smiled. “Or driftwood. I’m told the salt-saturated wood gives off an interesting scent when used as fuel.”

Collar wrinkled his nose. “Define interesting.”

Rosewater laughed, the darkness that had seemed to swallow her disappearing for an instant and setting an unexpected glow into his own heart. “Interesting in that I’ve only heard conjecture, Collar. I’ve not been brave enough to try it myself.”

“And you’re willing to risk that on our date?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Date, Collar?”

He considered the word again, then the mare he’d gotten to know over the past two weeks. The mare that Cloudy had said she could love. Could love. Not did.

“What are we doing, Rosewater? With these… outings. Dates.” He didn’t want to upset her further, but keeping her focused on the now seemed better than asking her about… whatever his mother had said to her. Did that conversation have anything to do with our ‘courtship?’ He almost asked her if what had been said had anything to do with their dance.

If it had, would she have come here at all, looking so haggard and dazed?

She seemed similarly lost in thought, and for a moment, she seemed to almost fall inward before she straightened, stood, and took another step closer before sitting again. She was inside the reach of her long, graceful neck to reach him, but she merely arched it to look at him more closely.

“Whatever we want to do with them, Collar. I want to get to know you better. I… know now that I had chances. I had opportunities to get to know you when I was only a filly. I didn’t take them, and I didn’t reach out.” She took a deep breath, tears in her eyes again as she squeezed them tight shut. “I didn’t. I should have, but…” When she opened her eyes again, her pink and gold eyes shimmered. “I am now.”

There was more there, hidden underneath the signs of emotional trauma. Quietly, Collar asked, “Is that what you talked with my mother about?”

She flinched, shook her head, nodded, then shook her head again, her ears flat. “No.” Her throat hitched as she took in a deep breath, let it out, and added, “We… talked.” She seemed about to say more, but her eyes darted to the door, then to the floor. “I like seafood stews,” she said after a moment’s more consideration of the rug. “But if that doesn’t go with any of the ales, cheeses, and breads, I’m really open for anything, Collar. I want to know what you like, I want to learn more about you, all I can that you’ll let me know.”

The velocity of the words picked up until they were almost a rush at the end, as if fleeing the prior topic.

“As it so happens,” he said in a genial tone he didn’t completely feel, “I quite like seafood stews, and while the stews that go well with my favorite ales are on the salty and savory side, I think you’ll enjoy them.”

“Should I bring anything?”

“Just yourself,” Collar said, then hesitated before leaning forward and bumping his nose against her neck. “Are you okay? Do you want to talk about what… whatever my parents told you?”

She leaned into the touch, brief as it was, and almost reached out to return it, stopping herself halfway there and hesitating before returning to her sitting position. “What…” She stopped, chewing her lip and staring into his eyes, studying him for what, he didn’t know. When she didn’t seem to find it, she shook her head. “You were too young, just as I was, to understand what it was the older ponies in our lives were up to.”

“It’s okay to open up, Rosewater,” Collar replied, raising a hoof and setting it lightly against her breast. “You’ve opened up to us already. We know about your relationship with Rosemary, we know you have a heart that you keep secret for what you believe are good reasons.”

Her eyes flashed as she stiffened, her jaw clenching, setting, then relaxing as she looked away. “They are good reasons,” she murmured. But she leaned into the hoof against her breast. Minutely, but enough to put pressure on his foreleg. “But I need to think, Collar. It…” She swallowed and bent her neck to rest her cheek against the side of his leg.

He let her, holding his hoof steady as the warmth of her soft cheek suffused his limb. He also didn’t interrupt her thinking.

“It changed much of what I knew when I was a filly,” Rosewater said at last, her voice buzzing against his coat. “I… I need time to think. And contextualize what happened.” When she raised her head, her eyes were clearer, her intent more steady, and she settled her foreleg over his, holding his hoof close for a second longer, then pushing down and capturing it in the crook of her ankle. “But thank you for the offer.”

“It’s an open-ended offer,” he replied softly, catching her foreleg before she could lower it all the way to the floor and squeezing lightly, ankle to ankle. “I don’t want a friend of mine to suffer needlessly if I can help her. Even if it’s only to lend an ear.”

“Friend of yours…” Her smile came back, bright and hopeful, then moderated, but still lingered in the way her lips pressed together, hardly suppressed at all. “Thank you, Collar.”

She left after that, leaving Collar to sit and wonder just what kind of surprise his parents had sprung on her that had hurt her so much, yet made her contemplative.

He made a mental note to ask them later.

By the time Rosewater appeared with Dapper at her side, she was already back behind the walls that she had erected over the decades that Rosemary had known her. Brick-by-brick, they’d gone up, never intended to keep Rosemary out, but no less effective at that. Even so, it was easy to recognize the self-protective nature of the emotional bulwark.

“Mother,” Rosemary murmured after checking the gemstones holding the silence in the room still had enough charge. “Did you have a good talk with Collar?”

Rosewater nodded and glanced aside to Cloudy, lounging on Rosemary’s bed with a half-lidded gaze speaking to the guarded reaction she’d had to Rosewater’s earlier traumatized mien. She had been more for pushing Rosewater out of her comfort zone, and it had taken all of Rosemary’s persuasive skills to convince her to let it lie for now. Rosewater needed a chance to adjust. She was strong when it came to dealing with things unchanging, but she needed time and encouragement to adjust when things took sharp turns.

They clearly had, even if Rosemary had no idea what might have thrown her for such a loop.

“I did,” Rosewater said after a moment of searching her face and Cloudy’s for the mood of the room. “Collar was very generous, and we managed to hammer out some more details for our… our date.”

Rosemary felt her brows climbing up her brow and she glanced back at Cloudy to catch the other mare’s reaction—a pleased, self-satisfied smile and more attentive look. What did you two talk about? “He called it a date?”

“He… was ambivalent about calling it a date, but we did decide on dinner.” Rosewater’s smile was brighter, less fragile now. There was still a haunted look in her eyes that Rosemary was certain neither Cloudy nor Dapper could recognize. It was the same look Rosewater had had in the days and months after Carnation had been taken from them, the facade of strength for Rosemary’s sake hiding vulnerability and fear for her. “It’s on the beach west of town, just south of the cliffs.”

Dapper chuckled and nuzzled Rosewater’s shoulder. “That’s a good spot. We took him there as a colt to watch the ships sail out of port in the spring and summer. It’s a special spot for him, and well enough away from the city to avoid most attention.” He bobbed his head and turned away. “I’ll leave the mares courting him alone to plot and plan.”

Rosemary laughed and danced forward to nip the elder pegasi’s ear… or tried to. She found her own ear nipped as the more agile pony danced out of the way and fuzzled her mane before dancing to the door.

“You mares have some planning to do that I’m not supposed to be privy to.” He winked and slipped out before Rosemary could do more than stare at him incredulously. The ‘date’ Cloudy had asked for her help with had hardly been a thought before that afternoon.

“How did he know?” Cloudy asked, voicing Rosemary’s unspoken thoughts. “Stars above, I only asked you yesterday.”

Rosewater glanced at both of them, some of the ache in her eyes washing away for a moment as she smiled. “The ways of Dapper are many and varied.”

“They are,” Rosemary murmured, glancing at Rosewater again and wondering if her mother knew anything about what they were planning. It was supposed to be a surprise to her, too, a way to get her hoof more in the door. “Now…” She sat herself down by Cloudy. “We have some things to plan for Cloudy’s date with Collar.”

“With Collar?” Rosewater’s voice rose, surprised, into a laugh. “Oh my. Is he really that far along?”

Cloudy cleared her throat. “He’s not. I wanted…” She scuffed a hoof against the carpet. “I wanted to show him what it would be like to have others cheering on his romance. To have his other ‘lovers’ show their support for our relationship.” A hoof tapped against her breast and she glanced in the direction Collar’s office was. “Just like I would hope he would support yours and mine, Rosemary. And yours with me, Rosewater.”

Rosewater’s eyes lidded for a moment as she took a deep breath, a sign to Rosemary that she was putting whatever had hurt her so badly back into a box. When she opened her eyes, it was almost a relief to see the clearness of thought in her mother’s gold and pink eyes.

“What do you need from me?”

Rosemary chuckled and made a note to pry more firmly the next time. “Well…” She settled in and laid out the list of things she wanted from Merrie, hopeful that Rosewater would be able to make them ‘find’ their way into Damme.

Days passed after Rosewater’s visit to Damme for her formal treaty negotiation. Dazed, not a little bit confused, Rosewater avoided discussing what happened at the palace with a vehemence that had some of her friends in the Garden questioning behind her back what was going on, and whether or not they should try to intervene.

It was heartening to hear, as much as it should have annoyed her that they were trying to interfere in her plans, but she pushed the concerns aside and pushed ahead to show them that she really was okay.

She spent more time writing in her journal in her perfumery, not writing to Carnation, though she ought to at least pen a letter—even if she couldn’t send anymore. Firelight had been explicit in that. Only one letter.

She understood the need for discretion. More, even a small fraction of the dozens of letters she’d written and never sent would have drawn suspicion somewhere. But one… just one letter tucked in among the diplomatic reports and other mail that had to go back to Canterlot wouldn’t be noticed.

The letters were a sign of her intent and her devotion to Carnation’s memory, keeping her informed, keeping in touch with the closest pony she’d ever had to a mother. That feeling, too, was changing. She could feel it day-by-day as the weight of what Lace had offered her settled in to weigh on her soul and seep into the cracks in her bastion of calm, cool reason.

The book called to her, too, and her longing in the night to know what it said proved to her the wisdom of leaving it behind. For now. It’d been safe for years unknown to her, and Lace had kept her agents’ confidence and promise. She would measure herself out. Keep herself from descending into the devouring need to know what her father had wanted to tell her.

She could all too easily see where that would lead if she let herself wallow in the grief of knowing that they were words that he would never say in his strong, father’s voice.

Before she went back and faced her father’s words again, she needed…

Carnation’s letter called to her again, the letter she wanted to beg Firelight to send… once she figured out how to ask her why she’d kept her father’s words from her. Why her father had wanted to keep them from her. So many why’s. Too many to voice. Too many accusations that she wasn’t sure were fair, that she couldn’t know the truth of until Carnation could ask her.

If she could even convince Firelight to get the letter to her, she would have to get herself exiled at the very least to get a swift answer. Or she would need to win the barony for herself and claim the power of pardon for herself.

“Now you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Rosewater murmured to the silent workshop.

Tomorrow, she was supposed to go on a date with Collar again, remarkably quick, but… it would give her a chance to also smuggle at least a few of the things she’d had a chance to create for Cloudy’s date with Collar. The rest, she’d need some help with. She could have had it all done before today, but she’d tried to even avoid going to the Garden. More to avoid the inevitable questions from Bliss and Dazzle, two ponies who’d become so very dear to her heart.

Seed, Petal, and Roselyn would have their own questions about her mood, and Seed especially would worry about her backsliding. She knew it.

As it was, she was going to face questions and a more strident pull from all of them to come live at the Garden full time, be a Gardener as the Merrie parlance would name her. Not be alone in the great drafty estate Rosefire had gifted Carnation so many years ago.

She still did the housekeeping chores that needed doing, made sure that the wards didn’t waver, that the gemstones that fueled them remained filled, but her pantry was getting bare. Rosemary usually did the shopping for groceries, dictating more than Rosewater what they were going to eat that week. She wasn’t going to starve by any means, but…

Too many things were crowding in on her that she couldn’t handle at the estate. Memories of visiting Carnation with her father, little snatches of not-quite words that she heard in memories too faint for her to even be sure they were memories and not hallucinations or dream fragments.

They came to her at night, when it was quiet, when the wind started to sing against the tiles on the roof and hiss past the windows.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Rosewater murmured. She still had to finish the petals Cloudy wanted, and she needed to push herself to visit the garden for the candles Rosemary wanted. And I need to think of something to contribute myself.

Something to eat or drink, perhaps. Her and Collar’s relationship seemed, so far, to be revolving around the foods of each city, a logical enough place to start a relationship. Food was something everypony had in common. Food… was also something he would recognize as her contribution.

Or wine. Wine. From Rosewine Vineyard. Something… special.

It would have to be something that he wanted, that stood out when it came time to share drinks. Before the petals came into play.

Maybe she could steer their conversation towards favorite flavours and wines tomorrow. It would be fresh enough in his mind that he would know whom it had come from. That was at least as important as the fact that she’d helped.

Purpose also helped her push aside the grief. She needed to plan, both her route to the beach and how she would bring up wine.

It was going to be another late night, but…

She wouldn’t be spending the night at the Rosefire estate. She would go home, where the last of the family that she loved lived, because Seed was family. Distant family, but he didn’t insist on calling her auntie for no reason.

Book 2, 17. Beachside Reminiscing

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“Another shipping off?”

Rosetide chuckled softly and shook his head. “Not this time, mate.” He stamped a hind hoof, making the jars clink inside. “I’m just sending some goodies along with a few friends who are shipping off. Personal requests, you understand.”

The guard eyed the saddlebags with a more wary eye at that. “Nothing scented?”

“They are, but they’re meant for shipboard. You understand how smelly even the best taken care of hull gets on a long voyage, yeah?” Rosetide nodded towards the waiting docks, just a few hundred yards down the main riverside way from the Dockbridge. “They call it a bilge for a reason.” He mimed vomiting. “Sixty ponies, unable to do more than take saltwater baths for a month at a time? Trust me, with a nose like mine, rank isn’t close to what that smells like.”

“Fair enough,” the guard said, looking a little green about the gills. “My sister’s a first mate. Never really believed her when she complained about it.” He looked left and right, considering, then sighed and said aloud, “Go on. And safe sailing for your friend, Rosetide.”

“Thanks, Corporal Shine,” Rosetide winked and flicked his tail as he danced past. “Hush hush,” he whispered as he did.

“Thanks,” Shine whispered back, then raised his voice. “Next.”

Most ponies ignored him on his way to the docks. It wasn’t unusual in these days to see a nautical cutie mark with a rose theme making its way through the crowd, after all, and that was what Rosewater counted on for the first part of her trek through a part of Damme that was almost open to all.

Dock row itself was a confused mishmash of architectural styles from the many distant nationalities that called it at the very least home, though a good portion of those frontages were only that: frontages to the staid and true Dammer stone and mortar construction that pervaded the rest of the town.

Accents from across the nations of ponies came at her from all sides, and fragrances from all over the world came to her. Spices from Saddle Arabia with their dry heat that prickled at her nostrils, some mixed into sauces by the vendors trying to capture the attention of the passers by hoping to remake the dishes at home.

With their spices of course.

She ignored them all. They were a paltry companion to the spice market in Merrie, where the experts of scent and food could entice the senses from a street away. Still, it could be overbearing at times.

Time slipped away too slowly as she meandered through the Dock Row mercantile wonders, her eye half on the tide and half on the progress of the sun towards the horizon. She picked up a bauble here or there just to keep the eyes of the Dammeguard that patrolled the row as unwary of her mission as possible.

It wasn’t uncommon, she’d found, for sailors to wander just as she was, though more of them seemed to make their way to Merrie and family or lovers they left there, family that wouldn’t resent too much their wanderlust and frequent long stays away. In many ways, a Merrie family was perfectly suited to a sailor’s life.

Some, though, were Dammers through and through.

Collar would be arriving at the campsite soon, and starting to set up. To all watchers, it would be a date with Cloudy, and none would be crass enough to crash the date, even if they never saw Cloudy ever arrive. That was one of the good things she could count on from Dammers. They were so outwardly insular that even the appearance of taking an interest in another’s sex life was frowned on.

But if she were to take another walk through the same market tomorrow, the whispers would be on every lip, and arguments over whether or not their lord heir was making the right choice by continuing to court a Rosewing would be heated by the end of the week before some new bright bauble caught their attention and the scandalmongers and gossipers turned their efforts to spreading and conjecturing on the next thing.

Now, the whispers she heard in passing were bits and baubles about herself and the apparent lackadaisical attitude she was adopting in her trips into Damme to negotiate for the release of her cousin.

Only the occasional whisper said it was a ploy on her part to get closer to Collar, and that Rosemary was in on it as well.

They weren’t wrong, but it had never started out that way.

Her initial plan, to wile her way into his good graces slowly, had fallen apart the moment Roseate had dragged Rosemary into her scheming. From that moment on, had she known it or not, all of her grand scheming had fallen apart.

Still, it did seem to be working, even if it wasn’t on her terms entirely.

But, more and more, she was feeling uncertain about her ultimate future. Lace’s unveiling of the book had thrown that into even more fractured thoughts. It had taken her days to work her mind around the implications, to put down the depression it had thrown over her life again.

She’d thought avoiding the Rose Palace had been enough.

Her thoughts began spiraling as her path took her back around and towards the docks to where the ship her ‘friend’ was supposed to be disembarking with the rising tide. She had a chance, of course, to buy herself passage out of Merrie, out of Damme, and—

She cut the thought short and gathered up the meaningless little gifts, common comforts for sailors on their way out to sea, and sent them up to the quarterdeck beside the helm. She had no note prepared, and no idea what the captain would think of them, but the fact that she did it in the open, as a sailor-marked pony, earned her a few gracious nods from other sailors tending to the ship bearing the name Mare’s Prowess.

They would assume Rosetide had a friend on the ship.

By then, it was time to make her way down the beach to watch the ships leaving with this tide make sail before the final setting of the sun.

The fragrance of stewing ale with grains and vegetables reached her nose long before she rounded the sand dune protecting Collar’s makeshift campsite from view. She could identify the spices in the stew, too, most of them low-key, salt-mixed or derived spices. The rich fragrance of the ale, and its very richness was an indicator that it was one of the higher quality labels, was the main fragrant component.

As she got closer, cheese and bread and butter came to her nose as well, the latter with rich undertones that had been hidden behind the ale, and the bread smelled of a richness that was pleasant and surprising at the same time, with hints of onion, dill, and a touch of butter.

With her hiding still under the veil of Rosetide, she strode around the dune rather than over it, lest the tracks lead a pony directly to the site.

He was sitting there, a page of a cookbook resting anchored by three rocks on a blanket clear of sand. Backing him was a tarp held up by what looked like campaign tentpoles, the ropes stretched taut and held in place by largish rocks holding them in place against the loose sand.

His attention was largely on the food, but his ear twitched as the sound of her hooves on the sand, the not-quite crunch of shifting grains, the not-quite wet squelch as inches or feet below her, water soaked the sand despite the apparent dryness above.

“I didn’t expect you to—” He broke off as he canted his head slightly towards her, still in the Rosetide illusion. She could practically see the gears whirring as his eyes darted from the cutie-mark to the ships in the distance, their shouts muffled beyond coherence by the waves, the sight of them already partially hidden by the rising evening mists.

Far distant, the lighthouse of the Rosethorns glowed with the light of the unicorns’ magic that powered the enchanted jewel at its heart, playing counterpoint to the sun nearly to the waves.

She could read it all in his expression as he tensed before his eyes met hers… and realization and recognition came.

“Your eyes,” Collar said gruffly. “I should have seen it before.” He shook his head slowly and let out a breath. “You gave me a fright, Rosewater.”

“I didn’t want to suddenly turn into a ghost in the eyes of so many of my ‘shipmates,’” Rosewater replied with a smile as she cast a spell on the mist around them. It was a simple spell, and wouldn’t seem all that different from a distance, but the mist around them would rise higher and stand thicker over the course of the spell’s running. “Once that obscures us, I’ll be simply Rosewater again, Collar.”

He eyed her for a long moment, then glanced past her through the slow-gathering mist at the ship making way slowly with the aid of half a dozen pegasi acting as wind guides. “You care about the myths of seafarers?”

“I do,” she said in an even tone. “I care a great deal about the beliefs of other ponies. Seeing a ghost in the mist is one of the greater harbingers of doom for sailors, and it has ever been since long before our distant ancestors set first hoof on these shores.”

Collar’s eyes followed the passage of the ship for almost a minute before he jerked his attention back to the stewpot and gave it a desultory stir, raising the fragrance of ale and… a new scent she’d not tasted in the air before.

“Cheese?” She came closer, onto the blanket laid out, and scrapped the sand from her hooves before she shuffled the grains back to the beach and leaned in closer. “It’s not a very fragrant cheese. The ale masks it.”

“It’s a local product, and while it’s not like your Merrier stink cheese, it’s still very flavorful.” Collar gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s a flavor of emmental. It goes very well with stew, and on bread.” He tipped his head to the side, where a wheel of cheese with bubbly holes in it sat, wrapped in cheesecloth on a large silver platter along with two bowls, spoons, and other accoutrements of stew enjoyment.

There was also a large loaf of crusty white bread that made up the smell she’d found out, sitting on another, shorter tripod near the fire, fitted with clips that made it clear it was meant to clip to the inner legs of the larger.

“How did you manage to sneak an entire camp cooking set out here?” She lifted the silver platter and sniffed more delicately at the cheese. Closer, she could smell the faint dairy smell of it, and it woke in her a desire to learn more about dairy processing. Another thing to distract her from…

He chuckled, either unaware or ignoring her momentary lapse. “That was quite the trick, actually. I had to get a line on the beach from a window and teleport the heavy stuff here earlier today. I’m afraid I scared a few seagulls.”

Rosewater laughed and settled the plate down between them, but not before carving off a small slice of cheese. “That is a tactic I’d not thought of.” She considered the distance from the castle to the beach, ear ticking. “I’d not thought you had the range, either.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Collar said with a sly grin. He looked at her again while she was inspecting the dark yellow cheese, the rind seemingly burnt, and simply considered her for long moments.

“Am I so fascinating?” she asked at last, setting the cheese on the platter, closer to her.

“You seem much more yourself today,” he answered with a small pull of his lips into almost a smile. “I was worried about you when you left, Rosewater. And our reports on your movements were…”

“I was following a routine,” Rosewater said when he trailed off, his eyes rising to hers, then dropping again as if the admission that he was still keeping tabs on her movements was somehow taboo, that simply by their clandestine apparatus of ‘dating’ she stopped being an enemy agent. “I… had…” She cleared her throat and looked away from the intense curiosity burgeoning on worry in his eyes. “A revelation, Collar. About…”

She swallowed thickly, the memory butting up against the walls and threatening to spill out. The weight of all of it, the revelation, the need to know what he’d left her…

“Don’t.” Collar’s hoof against her shoulder was a warm presence, a reminder that she wasn’t alone anymore, not now, and she didn’t need to be alone. “Not until you’re ready.” His lips parted, moved, and stopped. “I want to earn your trust, Rosewater.”

She leaned against his hoof. “I trust you already more than you have any reason to trust me.”

“What you said,” he went on slowly, his hoof not leaving her shoulder. “About getting to know one another better, about missed opportunities.” The faint pressure left, then, and the platter lifted to settle beside the flames on the hot sand around the fire. Then, his shoulder replaced his hoof and his warmth spread across her side to her flank. “I think I’d like to take up some of the slack you’ve left me and do my part to make up for some of those missed opportunities.”

For a long moment, she sat frozen stiff, staring at their hooves side-by-side, the warmth of his body against hers buffer against the chill both within and without.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said into the silence left by her surprise. “And I, unlike you, didn’t think to bring another blanket.”

Thought caught finally, and she raised her head to look at him side-eyed. “Aside from—”

“I didn’t bring another blanket,” he insisted, his eyes twinkling briefly before he turned away and brought out two bowls and two smaller platters from underneath the other blanket. “That is a kitchen pantry towel.”

Rosewater eyed the ‘towel,’ noting how it was neatly folded, thick, and woolen, and felt his gaze on her as she considered whether or not to call him out on his attempt to get closer to her.

This is what you wanted.

“So it is,” she said, turning from the towel at last and giving him a lopsided smile. “My mistake in thinking it otherwise.” She wiggled on the blanket underneath them and leaned against him. “Thank you.”

“You’re my friend, Rosewater,” he said without the teasing tone as he ladled stew into the bowls, the lumps of potato she’d not even known had been there already falling apart. It looked, in a word, delicious. “It hurts to see you like you were. I tried to push, but my dad told me not to. I’m glad I listened to him.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Would I have told him? Rosemary deserved to hear it from her first. Stars above, Blue Star was as much her grandfather as anypony else she knew of. There were… things she needed to do before she told anypony else. She needed to tell Rosemary. She needed to tell Seed and…

And she was on a date with Collar right now, and he was sitting beside her, and she was worrying about who to tell first.

“It must have been something traumatic,” he whispered softly as he worked arranging the plates with bread and cheese to match the bowl of steaming, rich stew floating with rice, potatoes, carrots, peas, and long, thin strips of onions.

You can tell him that much.

“I…” She took a deep breath. “Your mother was keepsafing my father’s journal from my mother’s hearth.”

“From your mothers—” His teeth clicked shut. “I see.” He sighed and glanced at her, his eyes lingering on hers, their green depths mercifully not pitying, but compassionate. He ladled another measure of stew into her bowl. “This is a recipe that’s been in the family for generations. There’s no fish in it, but it’s based on a Dammerale that’s been around for hundreds of years. My great-great-great grandfather was supposed to have helped to found the brewery himself, and drunk himself into an early grave.”

Rosewater snorted, smiling briefly. “I can think of quite a few reasons why he might have drunk himself to an early grave. As I recall, he’d caught the attention of my great-great-grandmother before, and she never let go of her fascination with him. Hostile though it was.”

Collar spared her a glance with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s not like mine,” Rosewater said softly, leaning against him briefly. “I hope it isn’t. She was… truly a horrible pony. That kind of megalomania seems to run in the family.”

He was silent for long moments while he focused on the plates, rearranging bread and cheese until both had made a full circuit of the bowl before he seemed to realize he was obviously stalling.

“I don’t think it is,” he said at last, passing her the plate with the carefully arranged food, a smile coming with it. “My ancestors are hardly any better than yours, albeit differently awful.” He sighed and leaned against her briefly. “I don’t want to talk about the past, Rosewater. I hear enough about that when Primfeather Wing pesters me about Cloudy. Tradition this, tradition that. Forgetting, conveniently, that Lace married a Merrier.”

“Half merrier. And I doubt her father was any more pleased about that than Wing is.” Rosewater picked up and dipped her end of bread in the stew, then jabbed it at him. “And that’s the last I’ll say about that.”

“Good. I’d have to put cheese in my ears if you went on.” Collar watched her quietly while she bit into the bread, his ears perked, his expression bordering on anxious. “How is it?”

She considered the question and the bite of sopping bread, inhaling slightly and letting the lingering fragrance of the mixed bread and stew flow into her nose. Salt, counter to the use of potatoes and tubers, did not dominate, but it was a strong contender. Rather, the understated use of broth was the stronger taste. A mixture of ale with its slightly astringent hops and mellower malt flavors combining with the rest of the brew’s spices to add a body to the taste she’d not expected for something not made with some sort of sea produce.

Vegetables and flowers could be tasty on their own, and the Mare knew onions were a powerful flavor… but the ale brought its own delight to her tongue.

She swallowed and dipped her bread again, taking more time to savor the next bite with a little bit of the cheese as well, which added an only deeper undertone to the ale, rather than a complimentary one.

“It’s… delicious.” Rosewater dipped her ears briefly. “I was worried, I admit, when you said it would be an ale base. But especially with the cheese, it works very well. I think your ancestor found a very good use indeed for some of the Dammerale.”

“But that’s not all!” Collar said, winking at her. “I also brought some of the selfsame Dammerale, and a special treat for dessert.” He raised and lowered the ‘towel’ to show her two large brown bottles and a small cheesecloth wrapped package. “Cloudy suggested the wrapping to keep it secret from your nose.”

“She did, did she?” Rosewater murmured, looking but not lifting or touching. Cloudy had put her hoof in this date, and it would be Collar’s surprise to her that she had. “No hints? Not even a sniff?”

“Not until dessert,” he said, taking a bite of his own soup-soaked bread, then nodding out towards the bay. “This is still one of my favorite places to go when the weather behaves. To see the ships arriving and sails appearing on the horizon, wondering what might be over the horizon.”

She almost made a witty remark about what actually lay in that direction, but kept it to herself and settled in more firmly against him. It was comfortable, companionable even, to sit there without the expectation that they would—or even could—take their relationship further. Not yet. In Merrie, such a date would have her wondering where she might wake up the next morning, by choice, or what lies she would have to spin to keep her paramour safe.

Absent that anxiety, she was able to relax and enjoy the taste of the stew, bite after bite, until she had whittled down the liquid enough to almost eat it right from the bowl. It was the proper way to eat stew.

“This is absolutely delicious,” Rosewater murmured again when she finished off the last of the bread he’d given her and picked up the spoon. She paused, spoon halfway to the bowl, and glanced at him. “I’m not a very good conversational partner tonight.”

“To be fair, neither have I been. But we have been eating.” He raised a hoof and touched her ankle. “The night doesn’t need to be filled with words, you know. Just knowing you can be comfortable to sit against is a great balm to my mind. It’s hard to act comfortable with silence.”

“That’s…” Rosewater trailed off, nodded, and took another bite of stew, chewing slowly through the onion and carrot pieces as she considered. Since she’d started eating, just eating and not talking, a peace had settled over her that she’d not felt in a long time. Dinner at the Garden was always noisy with the latest news and gossip and discussion of both flying across the table like raindrops tossed by a cyclone.

The closest she could come to it was dinner with Rosemary, and earlier, with her and Carnation. Sometimes with others of her lovers. Even Silver Star and she had shared some quiet dinners, albeit out in the town.

“This is very comfortable,” she said at last.

He nodded slowly, chewing as deliberately, and swallowed. “It is.”

Rosewater allowed herself a trickle of hope, that maybe, just maybe, she might have found somepony safe from her mother’s wrath. Whether or not he would open up to her…

She hesitated around the last mouthful of stew, her chewing coming to a halt as she considered that. What custom would ask her to say, to make clear that her feelings for him were growing, that she was… maybe, starting to find the threads of love that she might, one day, weave into a comfortable blanket.

“Collar,” she said after she swallowed.

He looked up from cutting off more bread, brow raised. “That tone sounds… ominous.”

“I don’t know if it is or not,” she admitted, dipping her ears and accepting the first slice of bread and holding her tongue while she focused on cleaning the bowl. “But, I need to say something. Something customary in Merrie, and I want you to know that it’s honest, and truthful.” There were ways she could help him see her heart, but… that was too much. She didn’t know she could keep the hurt from flowing to him as well. “I want you to trust me.”

His ears flattened to his mane, but he nodded. “I do trust you, Rosewater. Much to my surprise, I find that to be a truth I can’t avoid.”

“Then… Collar, I think I could love you. Not only as a friend, but…” Her tail twitched before she could control it. “I could love you,” she finished, simply stating it before she tried to temporize it or constrain it.

He watched her, but didn’t break from her or change his stance. This close, he could have kissed her before she could react. She could have. She wouldn’t, and she made herself not lick her lips even though they itched.

“What am I to say to that?” He asked at last. “I honestly don’t know what to say when… I don’t have the same feelings.”

“Nothing,” Rosewater said softly, and risked leaning against him more heavily. “It’s… me clearing the water. Putting my cards on the table, so to speak, and telling you that it’s more than a scheme, as it started out. I think of you as a friend so easily now, and now I’m afraid of pushing too hard, or too soon, but I need you to know where my heart is leading me.”

He didn’t move away, and in fact leaned into her. “I already knew you were courting me, Rosewater. How does this change anything?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you.” Rosewater risked touching her cheek to his, the closest she would allow herself to come to a kiss without his consent. When he didn’t move away, she continued. “I respected you before, I even liked you, and I thought we could be a good couple, if we could get past our differences. I wanted to see if we could.”

“And…” Collar nudged her cheek gently with his nose. Not quite a kiss. “Why now? Why tonight?”

“Because I needed to be safe tonight, Collar. I needed to feel safe and comfortable, even if I didn’t know it when I got here.” She leaned away from him to look directly into his eyes. “I needed what you gave me tonight. Peace. Comfort. Quiet. Even from my own thoughts.”

In his eyes, she saw compassion, understanding, and… not quite affection. Or is it, and I’m guarding my heart? Only he could tell her, and she could only hope that he understood the traditions of Merrie enough to know what the admission of her growing feelings meant to her. It was an opening up, a vulnerability that she’d not allowed herself for too long.

It felt freeing to get the words out, to feel them on her lips and not just on her tongue and know they were the true way she felt.

“Thank you for being honest,” Collar said in a quiet, somber voice. “I do appreciate you being open with me.”

The but held shivering in the air for a moment between them, then passed as he looked away, the refutation unsaid.

“I need time to think,” he said instead. “I was incredibly rude on our last date, and Cloudy made it plenty clear what she thought about my forthrightness.”

“You weren’t. I appreciated the honesty, Collar.” Rosewater urged him on with a lean against him. “You won’t hurt me by repeating it.”

He glanced at her, then away towards the ocean. “I think it’s dark enough out now you can drop the misting veil,” he said instead. “Nopony will be out this far, and the sun is about to set below the waves. It’s something special to see from almost the level of the sea.”

She let the spell holding the mist up expire, rather than pushing it away, and the thick layer of it spread out slowly, ghosting towards the fire and evaporating.

Being so open in Damme made her nervous, even if the mist elsewhere would make it hard for anypony to see to their level. It would take a more powerful spyglass than a pegasus could drag up to cloud level to see where they were with any kind of clarity. Still, she found herself looking up and around more often as she cleaned her bowl, expecting to need to bolt or disappear at a moment’s notice.

“Nopony can see us here,” Collar whispered to her. “It’s safe for tonight to come out a little and take a look.” He rose, plucking the ales and the cheesecloth package from their hiding place and stepped to the edge of the firelight. “I promise, Rosewater. Nopony will know you’re here.”

“How do you know?” she asked, following him with only a passing glance back at the shelter with her saddlebags still there with the ‘contraband’ Rosemary and Cloudy had asked her for.

“You’re not the only one who can vanish,” he said with a wink as he walked into a dome she’d not noticed in the fading mist, his tail flicking an invitation just before it disappeared.

With one final glance at her pack, Rosewater shook her head once and joined him under the dome of his magic, finding him watching her, his expression relieved. “Just like old times,” she said lightly.

“Like old times,” he agreed with a snort. “Just down the beach, there’s a rocky overlook that’s safe from the waves where we can watch the sun setting.”

Taking a risk, Rosewater stepped closer to him than she had the first time they’d walked together under his veil of invisibility, walking almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him with his warmth close enough to feel. “I’ve never risked coming down here, out in the open.”

“But the forest is easier to hide in? With all those loggers tromping around and sticking their noses into every nook and cranny searching for promising wood?” Collar’s tone was light and teasing, but the question was a serious one.

“It is. Woods are easy to veil in. All it takes is breaking up your shadow in such a way that light and darkness might at best be a trick of the eye, not a pony hiding.” She chuckled and flicked her tail. “Besides which, who would expect me to be in the seat of Damme’s own woods?”

“A fair point, that,” Collar conceded, letting the sound of the waves and their hooves crunching on sand fill the space left by conversation.

Even with the sun halfway past the horizon, she could feel the meager warmth of the day still clinging now the mists were gone. The sea did much to alleviate the chill, though only when the wind drew in the warmth from the waves onto shore, and often then only to immediately dust the world with snow.

“When was it that you realized you saw yourself as Rosemary’s mother?” Collar asked, his voice cautious and gentle, curiosity blended into it.

“That’s quite the subject change,” Rosewater murmured, glancing at him, then over her shoulder towards the east and the palace barely visible past the town’s roofs.

“It’s something that I’ve been curious about since you told us, but I’ve never felt comfortable enough to ask. There has to be a story there, something… deeply personal, I know, but…” He waved a hoof vaguely and skipped a bit to keep up. “We’re dating. Deeply personal is the territory, isn’t it?”

“We’re dating, you say?”

“Platonic dating, at least,” he said, his ears flattening briefly. “I know… I know you said you see a path to being in love, for your part. But I can’t see that.” His lips moved as if he was about to add more, but shook his head instead. “But… some of those missed opportunities. Talking about what’s important to both of us. There doesn’t seem to be anypony more important in your life than Rosemary. It seemed the best place to start.”

“I suppose that’s a fair point.” Where to even start, though. “It’s not something easy to explain, you know. It wasn’t a single moment that made me think. It was a slow revelation and moment by moment…” Rosewater waved a hoof and paused at the rise of the rock. It was damp, but rough and pitted where eons of spattering rain and waves had eaten unevenly at it. “It was a long, slow process of learning just how much I cared for her, and that care morphed slowly into…”

“Something else?”

“Pride, I suppose. I was proud of everything she did, every accomplishment and joy she had, I shared with her. With Carnation.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “I didn’t know what that was. I was too young in so many ways to understand what it was. I didn’t know, until my own mind told me.” She laughed then and nudged his shoulder lightly. “I suppose there is a moment where that all solidified. When understanding came at me so hard it took me days to grasp what it was, and there’s quite a story attached to that.”

“I’d love to hear it. If nothing else than to hold a bit of foalhood teasing over her head next time she tries to tease me.” His smile was genial and the flick of his ears conspiratorial.

“She’s been teasing you?” Rosewater asked, surprised. “She’s not said anything about that to me.”

“I’m not surprised. I doubt either of you would consider it flirting, to be honest.” Collar chuckled and waved one of the ales at her. “Besides,” he added, “I’d like to get to know her mother better.”

“Alright then. Give me a moment,” Rosewater said, smiling and sidestepping to rub her shoulder against his. “It was a long time ago. Sixteen years ago. I think. She was… no. Fourteen. She was six, and we were staying at the Garden for the weekend, Carnation and I taking our turn to teach lessons to the younger foals Rosemary’s age.”

“And you? Did you get involved in learning at that age?”

“I was. Budding and Carnation were my teachers, but this day, I was teaching Rosemary and Seed together while Budding and Carnation took Petal aside to begin her lessons as a noble. I was teaching the two foals in trouble about the history of ponies and deerkin in Merrie, preparing for the migration to come, and I was going to teach them how to make the flower crowns the foals make to gift to the bucks who traverse the Garden lands on their way north and east through the Unicorn foothills.”

Collar merely nodded, guiding their steps with more surety as the dune they were rising up the backside of shifted and turned crunchy underhoof as they crested the rise to find a broad cap of stone jutting out into the bay like an thrusting spear, the sand on either side of the crest building up to a rounded escarpment while waves beat at the roots, some hundred paces to either side of the broad feature.

To the east and south, she could make out the city through the rising mists, the lanterns just coming on as the last rays of daylight fled.

“The day was normal, or as normal as it could be for those two,” Rosewater continued after a moment, finding her footing on the ridge. “It was a good day, filled with joy and pranks and blame-throwing, and a little scolding, but it was in good fun, and the lessons were done before lunch. For the first time in my life, I was invited to sit with the adults and discuss the matters of the day, the important things that mattered to the running of the vineyard, and of politics, and the burgeoning wrongness that was Roseate’s policies as she wore down or subverted her opponents in everyplace that she could.”

“It was about that age that my parents started including me in discussions, not merely teaching me, but asking my opinion as well,” Collar mused softly, glancing at her and raising a brow. “We already know Carnation was more closely connected with my mother. How much did she tell her about you? How much did Lace try to mirror our upbringings?”

“I doubt that. Too much conspiracy, and too much speculation. And not enough pushing from either side.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “I think it was coincidence at the very least, or taking cues at the most. Your mother was more experienced than Carnation, and I don’t doubt that she would have sought advice if it were offered.”

Collar snorted. “Pushing, you say?”

“Us. If they’d meant for us to be mirrors, they’d have pushed us together more. Tried to forge a bond between us.” Rosewater shook her head again. “I think they hoped we would, but they’re not my mother. They won’t throw us together to try and get us to like each other. That,” she said, pausing to tap his shoulder with her nose, “is up to us.”

He was silent again as they made their way down the ‘shaft’ of the spear towards the broad head jutting out into the sea, the sand on either side of it sopping wet, but the stone itself seeming dry from a distance.

“That will take some thought,” he said after reaching the base of the head. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I believe you were talking about your part of the day?”

“Ah.” Rosewater smiled and flicked her ears. “Yes. We retired to the villa while the foals and their caretaker for the day played in the courtyard and surrounding gardens, practicing what they’d learned in the morning, making each other flower crowns and anklets.” She chuckled softly. “Rosemary came in with Seed and gave me one, their faces the picture of innocence before they darted off again, giggling.”

“It was a distraction, wasn’t it?” Collar asked, the smile on his lips reaching his eyes and ears.

“It was. We never did find out what it was that they’d done, but we were all suspicious… until a few hours later when the foals were supposed to come in for dinner. Seed came in, looking guilty as a foal with his muzzle in the cookie jar, but no Rosemary. All the other foals swore up and down she was still there, but she wasn’t, and Seed knew better.

“‘She made me promise!’ Seed said after a few minutes of grilling. ‘She wanted it to be a surprise when she came back.’

“‘Came back from where?’ Carnation asked in that way she had of being demanding without shouting. ‘You’re already in so much trouble I doubt Budding will let you sit still for a month.’

“‘Too right,’ Budding told him. ‘Out with it. What mischief have you two gotten up to this time?’”

“In halting bits and pieces, he told us that Rosemary wanted to give her crowns to the deerkin directly. Not just leave them hanging from trees and bushes for them to accept.” Rosewater raised her nose briefly. “They’re very skittish around ponies, but they’re also a rich part of our heritage. In the days of yore, before the founding of Merrie or Damme but after the sundering of the sky during the Battle of two Nights, Rosethorn and his mother wandered the broken world with a band of deerkin, living off the land and using their talents at scenting to help the deerkin survive off the severely shocked vegetation.”

“I’m sure they remember. There’s a similar account from our histories about the deerkin helping us found Merrie and Damme, and set up a wayplace for them on their wanderings as they tried to heal the wilder places.” Collar flicked his ears. “But no mention of him befriending the deerkin.”

“It was something special about our relation to the Mare in the Moon.” Rosewater stamped a hoof on the sandy stone and glanced around the broad head of the promontory. “The wind is fiercer here.”

“I squirreled away some blankets and enough firewood for a small fire if we need it up ahead. There’s a hillock that will hide us from casual observance if we sit on the seaward side.”

If the light were brighter… Is he blushing? “You put a lot of thought and effort into setting up this date, Collar. Thank you.”

“Cloudy insisted on helping with this bit,” Collar replied, sounding almost defensive. “She brought the blankets and the firewood and told me about it later.”

Rosewater’s eyebrows climbed of their own accord almost to her forelock. “You don’t say.”

“I do say.” He coughed as he led her around the shrub-covered hill of sand and earth, clinging on despite salty conditions and frequent storms trying to brush it off. “But you were just getting close to the good part. Or the scary part.”

“Scary part, for me and Carnation and the rest of the garden.” Rosewater sighed and shook her head. “We split up into two pony teams, with most of the Garden staying behind to keep the foals safe and in one place, while six teams went out to search the Rosewine Wood. I was with Carnation, and we screamed ourselves hoarse calling for her. We took the middle of the wood, pegasi taking the western edge of the cliff.” She swallowed as she remembered the sallow feeling of ash in her stomach at the thought of losing Rosemary, and the look in Carnation’s eyes that told her she wasn’t alone.

“We could hear the other search parties faintly in the distance, calling for her as well, advancing deeper into the forest, each of us aiming for a known or at least previously used thicket.” Rosewater stopped as she rounded the hillock and found a basket, a blanket, and a small pile of firewood already set up for lighting with a ring of stones around it. “She went all out, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Collar agreed and set the ale bottles firmly in the sand before lifting the blanket and shaking it clean, then settling it back down again. “After you, Rosewater.”

“Thank you, Collar,” she said demurely, taking a seat carefully and looking out over the sea where the last sliver of sun was descending, wider than it should have been, sending streaks of gold and maroon and distant purple through the clouds on the horizon, fading to dusky midnight above them. “What is it I’m to see from here?”

“Since you’re so well versed with nautical ways, I thought you would know,” Collar murmured. “But I’ll leave that as a surprise. Just a minute or two, but never stop watching, or you might miss it. An eyeblink, and you might miss it. If it happens. But Cloudy assured me today would be just right.”

More of Cloudy’s hoof in the date. Considering what Rosemary and Cloudy had cooked up for Collar and Cloudy’s date, it was only fair, and welcome, that she would provide unknown support. “Not even a hint as to what I’m looking for?”

“You’ll know it when—”

As if on cue, the shade of the sliver of sun shifted suddenly from orange-gold to brilliant, emerald green, flashing briefly as the last bit of it slipped underneath the waves, leaving only gold and maroon behind in the distance as the night sky overhead started dimming rapidly.

Leaving Rosewater with a feeling of trepidatious awe at having witnessed something she’d only heard sailors speak about in hushed tones. It was a sign of good fortune to see one, and an omen of a fair voyage.

Even a voyage of the heart? Rosewater risked looking away from the horizon to find Collar watching her, an undefinable, unreadable emotional in his eyes and the set of his ears.

She looked away before she could let her heart rise to the hope that what she saw was more than what he’d already told her these dates were. Platonic. Friendly. Even his closeness tonight was a sign of friendship and support for a friend going through a hard time, and until he pushed over that line, she wasn’t going to push him towards it.

“Thank you,” she said finally, her voice rough from the effort of keeping in what she wanted to say, to ask. “It was beautiful, and I’ll remember it always.”

He didn’t reply immediately, instead sitting next to her and resuming the close position he’d held at the prior campsite, shoulders and hips together, and pulled out a small bronze box with a heated smell to it from under one of the stones around the fire pit.

In moments, smoke and flame curled from the kindling and tinder, providing warmth and light to see by.

The flickering light, growing brighter and steadier by the moment, revealed his features more clearly as he stared into the flames for another moment before turning to her with a smile. “You’re welcome, Rosewater. Share an ale and finish the tale?”

“Of course.” She waited a beat, recovering the thread of the story. “The forest was quiet save our calls and the sounds of our hooves, but Carnation and I soon found a faint trail of her scent on the bark of a tree she must have brushed against, and again on the leaves of a bush. Old, faint, and fading. Leading us deeper into the woods. Snatches here and there as the sun began to settle to the horizon kept us close on the trail.”

“Weren’t there others nearby?”

“We tried calling, of course, but the way we’d set out, like scattered sunrays, we quickly outdistanced each other’s voices, and those woods, deeper in, eat voices like foals eat pastry. Nary a crumb left beyond sight.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “It’s hard to hear yourself think sometimes when the wind rushes up from the south during the springtime storms, but other times, your heart thunders in your ears for how silent it is.”

“No wonder the forests are a place of myth and superstition,” Collar muttered, glancing to the northeast and the dark, almost black outline of the forested hills north of his palace home. Stars were coming out in greater number, and the sliver of the moon rising behind them began casting everything close in muted shades of silver and shadow.

All else beyond was inky darkness.

“We began to worry that we wouldn’t find her before dark, that she’d gone too deeply in along too twisty a path to ever find her way out. For us, we worried as much about the state of our trail and whether we could find it again. But before darkness fell, before the last of the light faded from the upper boughs of the tallest trees, we heard her voice, and more. Laughter and giggling of children. Not our children. Before we’d left, we’d made a count of all the foals, and accounted for all but Rosemary.

“We called for her, and heard a stop to the laughter, and before we’d even breached the thicket’s walls, deerkin emerged, new antlered bucks followed by the sleeker forms of the does.

“Carnation spoke first, bowing her head to the leader, a doe she called Forest Mother, older than the rest, her coat graying and her muzzle silvered where it wasn’t white.” Rosewater took a deeper breath and imitated Carnations lighter voice and steady cadance of words, “‘We came to find my daughter, Forest Mother. We do not intend to intrude on your sacred migration.’”

“‘Your daughter has been welcomed to our thicket, young mothers.’ Forest Mother spoke in our tongue, accented thickly from disuse, and spoke quickly to the other deerkin forming the wall of thorns they used to defend their temporary homes. ‘So, too, are you welcome, as her parents. She has spoken well of both of you.’”

“It was an idea that had been growing in the back of my mind. Something that I shouldn’t have felt because I was too young, and there, a mother of dozens of deerkin had just called me a mother. A parent. To Rosemary.” Rosewater shook her head slowly, and forged on. “We found her sitting in a circle of fauns, just as they had been taught to do if danger or something unknown approached, with a strong older buck and his mate standing close by. The next generation of leaders. When she saw us, she leapt up and dashed to us, stopped halfway, and glanced back at the older deerkin watching over them. They had been keeping her safe, by the stars, and teaching her how to behave in danger as a deerkin should.

“Carnation was watching me as much as her, and approached the future leaders, bowing again as the other bucks and does reformed the line behind us, watching for others. ‘I thank you, Dashing Leaf and Seven Tines, for watching over Rosemary for us. I hope she has not caused you much trouble during your migration.’

“‘For you, honored Carnation,’ Seven Tines’ accent was worse than Forest Mother’s, but well understandable, ‘We are pleased to meet the youngest of your family.’ His eyes came to me. ‘And your mate.’

“‘I’m not her mate!’ I protested, ‘I am her niece.’ But this only seemed to confuse Seven Tines as he looked to Rosemary for an answer. Either he didn’t know the words for other relations besides parentage, or… Rosemary had told them she had two mothers.” Rosewater glanced at Collar. “You can probably guess.”

“A little of both, would be my guess.”

“A little of both is correct. Forest Mother knew enough to understand, and we had talks about it later, when she made the migration south again the next winter, her last, as it turned out. But…” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “That’s all there is to me finding out. It was a revelation by another, by Rosemary’s on words. She saw me as much of a mother as Carnation, and she was too young to understand that I wasn’t her mother, or her sister, or… whatever else we might have been in less unusual circumstances.”

“She chose you to be her mother?”

“In part. She knew that I had chosen not to view Roseate as my mother, even if she didn’t know why yet. The mind of a foal is simple, unbounded by consequence and history, custom, tradition. If somepony can choose not to have a mother, then why not the opposite?” Rosewater let the revelation settle over her again, her smile coming back, pushing back the darkness of the last few days. “In part… I had been growing towards that, but my mind, burdened by all of the things a foal’s is not, needed a push."

Collar nodded slowly, sitting back and pulling out the ales again as the fire began to settle down into a merry blaze, the kindling and tinder spent, the flames licking at the split wood. “Sometimes, we all need a little push, don’t we?” He passed her one ale, corked with a wire-bound stopper, and opened his. “To all the things we need to be pushed to understanding. Friendship, motherhood, and a brighter future.”

Rosewater clinked the body of her bottle with his. “To friendship and understanding,” Rosewater echoed. “And a brighter future.”

Together, they drank, and Rosewater pushed aside the nagging feeling that she should have pushed more.

“When I was that age,” Collar said after a long pull, “I was starting to train to join the Dammeguard.”

“I’d love to hear about it, if you’re willing to tell.”

“There’s not much to tell, to be honest.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you’re wrong. What was it like on your first day? What was training like? How did you meet Coat, and Dazzle, and… well… they’re your friends from your Dammeguard days, right?”

It was a push, and she could see it working as Collar took another swig, his eyes focused far off over the fire. He leaned against her and leaned closer. “It was boring, honestly. After the first day. But that first day, the first week, was the most terrifying, hardest, and strangest week I’ve ever had.”

Rosewater chuckled and leaned in closer, half-supporting him with her weight. “Oh, do tell.”

“It was raining…”

Book 2, 18. Night's End and Seeking Advice

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Collar leaned against Rosewater as the fire’s final embers started fading into the muted red glow that said their ‘date’ was over. The fears that she would have been too distraught to participate in the date had long before faded. Her strength and resilience continued to amaze him, and the fact that she’d traded stories with him all night until the flames died to flickers…

He’d learned more about her tonight than he had in the months before, trying to suss out bits and pieces from histories and speculations. Stories about growing up in the garden, growing up with Carnation before Rosemary, and after, things that had shaped the mare she had become.

A defender.

A fighter.

And falsely maligned by her own mother for doing what she had grown up to do.

She also wanted desperately to be loved, and though she didn’t know she’d let it free, she was deadly scared of losing more of the family she’d grown to love with a fervor that Collar could well understand.

“This has been…” Rosewater murmured before a yawn broke in over her. “Stars above. It’s well past midnight.”

“It is.” Collar drew in a deep breath and shook his head slightly. He pulled the cheesecloth-wrapped package out, a collection of candies, mostly strawberry, that Cloudy had insisted he help her look for. They were another part of the story of Rosewater he hadn’t known before just a few days ago.

The vendor, one Spun Sugar, had still remembered Carnation and the gangling white filly with the silver pond cutie mark.

“When Cloudy and I found these,” Collar said softly, setting the bundle on the blanket between them, “Spun Sugar was happy to hear that you still remembered her candies, even though you were only six or seven at the time. She even remembered the exact flavor you liked, even the ones you claimed not to.”

“Th-that was her name?” Rosewater’s eyes darted from him to the bundle and back again. “You went with Cloudy to find them?”

“She asked me to, and when she told me why, I wanted to.” He untied the loose knot of waxy cloth and spread it open, showing the wax paper wrapped hard candies, a lump of gray and white in the moonlight. “She said Carnation would chat with her about Canterlot—where she was born—while you sniffed out your favorites. ‘Always a shy child, too rigid, too hidden,’ she said. ‘The weight of too much responsibility on shoulders too young.’”

For a moment, he could see that filly in the way she tried to hide the ache the memory of the shop must have brought her. “I’m… surprised she remembered that far back. It was more than twenty years ago.” Delicately, she used a spell to pull up one candy, the center glowing pink in the highlight of her magical aura. “She still wraps them the same way. Three twists left, two twists right. So…”

She bit down on the thicker twist, closed her eyes, and pulled away an empty wrapper, the double-twisted side open and crinkled. Tears escaped and trickled down her muzzle as her jaw moved.

“What is it?” Collar whispered to her, leaning closer, almost pressing his cheek to hers.

Rather than answering right away, she shook her head. Her jaw moved and she raised her head to look up into the night sky, clear and starry. “Memories of Carnation. When I was her daughter alone. When it was… when…” She swallowed. “Life was almost simple, then. It feels awful to say, but before Rosemary, I could almost see her as my mother. She’d always been there in my life, helping my father raise me when Roseate couldn’t be bothered.”

“I’m glad she was there for you,” Collar said softly.

“As her pregnancy grew, and I grew, I began to detach. Not much. But I knew, in my young heart, that everything was about to change again. It scared me, Collar. I didn’t know what would happen when the foal was born, but I was too scared to try and run away.” Rosewater’s smile grew bitter as she glanced at him. “I was afraid of change before she was born.”

A feeling unknown to him. He drew in a breath and rubbed his foreleg against hers, supportive, listening.

“Then… she was born. She was born, and I was there.” Rosewater’s voice quavered as she went on, her jaw moving as she continued to suckle on the candy. “I saw this life emerge from Carnation, start crying, and something in me changed. ‘That was me. That was me, and she needs love. She will need all the love in the world.’ All the love Carnation and my father had given to me, I had to give to her, so she wouldn’t grow up in a world where half of her parents didn’t care.”

“And you’ve given it to her,” Collar murmured. “I’ve seen it between you. You succeeded. Roseate did not win.”

“Thank you.” She lifted the wrapper and untwisted it to lay flat. “These were the only part of my childhood I allowed myself after she was born. I studied, trained, and found new duties to take up around the house to make sure that Rosemary would be comfortable, and Carnation could take care of her in the ways I could not. But these…”

“They’re your childhood.” Collar turned to select one of the candies from the packet. “Can I share that with you?”

“Of course.” Rosewater sniffled and smiled at him, then down at the wrapper. “I realize now that my… obstinance was a child’s stubbornness. A surety of how things would happen that didn’t come true. I still worry, too, that if I’d done things differently, if…” Her eyes raised to his. “If I’d reached out sooner, if I’d not listened to my fears that you would reject me out of hoof, if I’d made the effort…”

Then we might not need to go through this pageantry. Collar swallowed and met her eyes briefly before the intensity of her hope became too much. “Look to the future,” he said to her worries. “Friendship. Allies.”

“Yes,” Rosewater said, looking aside, the hope not quite fading from her eyes, but withdrawing to be like the embers of the fading fire. She took a deep breath and some of the fire seemed to come back to her. “Our next ‘date?’”

“When is your next with Cloudy?”

“I’m seeing her three days hence. You have a date with her four days later, yes?”

“I do. Our first planned one that appeared on both of our social calendars. It’s the next step in our courtship and formalizing our bonding in the eyes of our ponies.”

Rather than the expected reaction of uncertainty, she looked excited. “I do hope that day goes well for you. Shall we plan for afterwards, then? Or before?”

“Before, I think,” Collar said, frowning down at his hooves for a moment, thinking through the reasoning. “I want to remember you for all the help you’ve given her in whatever she’s planning. She’s been positively giddy these last three days, looking forward to our date in a way she hasn’t before.”

“After my date with her, then?” Rosewater asked softly. “Unless… does my being intimate with her bother you, Collar? Honestly?”

“Honestly?” Collar tried to find the upset he should have as a Dammer, but any sense of outrage that his future wife was lying with Rosewater on a regular basis, even if they didn’t always have what he would consider sex, didn’t take hold. Cloudy was a Merrier, and though it’d taken him a while to get used to her desires, her free spirit, the fact that she was willing, if not happy, to give that up for him…

Rosewater was watching him calmly, seeming to expect the answer he’d already arrived at. At first, he had wrestled with the idea that a mother and daughter could share a love for the same pony, but their family was already an oddity. But now, he could see them as distinct ponies, each capable of arriving at love from different directions and for different reasons.

“No.” Collar shook his head deliberately. “I won’t shackle her, nor expect her to be shackled. So long as she obeys the letter of Frosty’s Law, I don’t foresee any issues, and I don’t expect her to give up her heritage any more than she has already been forced to.”

A tension that had been in her vanished, only noticeable to him now for its absence. “The day after my date with her, then?”

“Your turn to bring dinner?”

“My turn,” she agreed, and bent her head to study the small pile of candies, selected two, and searched out two more of the same shade, then picked out two different ones. “These two are for Rosemary,” she said of the last. “These four are for you and Cloudy to share. Rosemary can tell you the significance of the flavors. They’re little stories in themselves.”

“Thank you.” Collar held them as he rose. “We’d better get your saddlebags and get you on your way home. And I had better make a stop by the prison to make good on my promise to visit Glory again.”

“Thank you for looking after her. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have quarters in the palace.” Rosewater followed him up and doused the fire before letting him lead the way back around the hillock towards their first campsite.

“She’s been a model prisoner,” Collar said casually, trying not to think about how often and much time he spent with Poppy. That she wasn’t with foal was a testament to her own spells controlling her fertility. He shook his head faintly and glanced at her. She was paying more attention to the spine underhoof, watching her step as he should have been, but her ear flicked an acknowledgement. “We’re moving her, during the day, tomorrow. It’s going to cause a ruckus, but less of one than if a Rosethorn raid broke her free while she was being transferred.”

Rosewater nodded faintly, stepping more lightly as they descended from the ridge of stone and sand to the broader beach, the setup of their camp hardly disturbed in the near distance under the moonlight and thin veils of fog that drifted across the sandy shore. “Will I be allowed to see her? Or would that be too much of an affront to my stated purpose?”

“We’ll see. Primfeather Wing is going to bring enough of a stink about housing two Rosethorns in the ancestral seat of Prim power, even if the Primfeathers haven’t held it for more than three hundred years.”

Collar shook his head, sighing, and started breaking down the camp. What he would do with it, he wasn’t sure just yet. Dragging it to the prison would make it extremely obvious where he’d been. He hadn’t exactly hidden, but advertising where he’d been wasn’t a great idea.

“Let me take it,” Rosewater said as he sat staring at the thing. “I’ll bring it on our next date and use it to set up for our next dinner. It’s a very handy set, I admit.”

“And the pot of stew?” There wasn’t much left after they’d both had seconds, but there was enough to fill a bowl.

“Give it to Glory. She’ll enjoy it, and unless I’m misremembering, she has a small kitchen hearth there for reheating her own food, yes?”

“She does. She won’t when she moves to the palace. She will have a hearth and wood, but not the kitchen station.” He glanced at her to see if she’d known that as well, but she merely nodded. “I can see about getting something for her. I should for Rosemary as well, I suppose, but she’s never been barred from asking for things from the kitchen.”

“I just hope this is over soon and neither of them needs to endure much more,” Rosewater said, sounding tired. She checked the saddlebags, chuckled, and showed him empty pouches. “Cloudy came by, it seems. I was wondering how she was going to handle the pickup… but it seems like she planned for that with the second site, huh?”

He stared at her for a long moment, then at the bags. “You mean… it was all a setup?”

Rosewater winked, smiling. “I didn’t know how she was going to do it. I just knew that she was going to do something to get the ‘contraband’ I ‘smuggled’ over the bridge. I even have a writ for it.”

He nodded, sighed, and hefted the pot. “Let’s do that. I hope it’s nothing really illegal.”

“Nothing for lures or subverting wills. It’s something she asked for, and I trust that she’d know what’s ‘truly’ illegal.” She winked again. “She said it was for something special she and Rosemary were going to do together.”

A return to cultural sexual mores, then. He sighed, nodded, and watched while Rosewater considered the contraption, pranced around it, finally sighed and wriggled under the arms of the secondary tripod and took the weight on her back. “This is going to be a tight fit…”

“Take care of yourself. Don’t be alone, Rosewater.”

“I won’t be,” Rosewater said, drawing power into her horn and disappearing a moment later in a pop and flash.

“Evening, sir,” Quill said, bowing briefly as Collar entered the Prim Prison. He eyed the pot for a moment, then pulled out the log book. “We have only one other prisoner at the moment, but I presume you’re here to visit the Rosethorn?”

“You presume correctly. I had some extra stew and wanted to share it with her as a sign of good will and behavior.” Collar raised the pot briefly in his spell and with another signed his name to the line. “She has no visitors?”

“None sir, save Lace earlier today, explaining what happens tomorrow.”

“What’s the other prisoner here for?” Collar asked as he set quill back to pot.

“Drunk and disorderly conduct, sir. We’re letting him stew until morning, and we’ll slap him with a fine and let him go.” Quill shrugged. “Nothing unusual.”

Collar nodded and made his way up, finding the cells dark, as any sane pony would be this late at night. Still, he had promised to talk to her ‘soon’ and ‘before she was transferred.’ Since she was being transferred tomorrow…

And he wanted to know if Glory had any insights into Rosewater. He deactivated the wards and pushed open the door, closing it behind him.

Almost immediately, a candle lit in the bedchamber part of the cell and a muzzy looking Glory glided out to stare at him. “My lord? Do you know what time it is?”

“Actually, I do.” Collar came a bit closer and hefted the pot. “It’s well past midnight, and I wanted to bring you some food I made myself.”

Glory stared at him as if he’d gone insane, then sighed, shrugged and brought the candle out to light the hearth. When there was faintly crackling fire going on the embers, she added another log and took a lounging seat on the sedan chair. “Very well, set the pot on the hook. I may as well…” She sniffed, frowned, and slid halfway from her seat to sniff him. “By the stars, you were with her tonight.”

“I was.”

“Openly?” Glory shook her head before he could answer. “No. Not so close and for so long.” She watched him for another moment as he fiddled with the iron arm and position of the pot. “How is my sister?”

“She seems to be doing…” Collar thought for a moment before sighing. “She’s become a friend. I worry for her. I worry that she’s going to get herself hurt.”

“If she’s your friend now, then she’s doing better than she was.” Glory waved a hoof at him, either a dismissive gesture or a request to sit down and pushed herself back up on the long chair. “She’s stubborn, but I’m glad she’s starting to break out of her shell. How many times have you seen her in the dark of night when nopony else was meant to see you?”

“Twice, now. And a third time in four days.” Collar hesitated, glanced at her, then the pot. “I truly believe her to be a friend.”

“That makes my heart glad.” Glory yawned and rolled on the couch. “I hope you don’t expect me to eat dinner with you. It’s very late and I’ve already eaten. I’m barely awake as it is.”

“The stew will keep, but it should be kept warm. I…” Collar cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about Rosewater.”

Her eyes flickered briefly, surprise or annoyance, he couldn’t be sure. “I won’t break any confidences.”

“I don’t expect you to. I’m… concerned.” He finished fiddling with the pot and sat beside the hearth, letting the flames warm his back and side. “How do I get her to open up?”

“My lord, it is far too late for me to engage in the supposition that would require.” Glory flopped her head into the pillows at the foot of the couch and flipped her tail. “Please ask me again tomorrow, when I am not three hours past sleep and exhausted.”

“That’s… fair. I promised her I would visit you.”

“And you have.” Glory gave him a sleepy smile. “Now hush and let me get back to sleep. I’ll give this stew of yours a taste in the morning before the move.” She waved a hoof at him and let it flop. “Have a good night, my lord, and dream sweet dreams of the mares in your life.”

He gave her a half-hearted glower before rising and opening the door. “Sleep well, my lady. I hope your accommodations are more satisfactory tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’m sure they will be.”

“It’s a lovely city,” Glory said for the third or fourth time since they’d pulled her out and handled the official paperwork releasing her from the custody of the prison to Collar’s.

Collar smiled and glanced to the side at her. Cloudy flanked her other side, and Note, Platinum, and Poppy formed the bulwark of the escort formation, and two corporals bringing up the rear. It was an entirely too large and complicated procession for moving a prisoner who’d been more than cooperative, but it wouldn’t do to seem like they were taking the possibility of her attempting an escape lightly.

“I would like, within our lifetime, to let you walk it freely, Glory,” Collar said genially. “When the war is over and the cities united.”

“And Damme victorious,” Glory said with a frown. “I don’t like that part.”

“And neither do I like the idea of Merrie being victorious,” Collar said, playing his part in the play she had decided to put on. “But until we are able to amicably meet at the negotiating table, it will be war.”

More and more, the idea of the ‘war’ seemed like a farce to him. A play put on by ponies playing their parts with varying degrees of sincerity, with only few true believers making the entire thing more earnest and giving it the punch it needed to keep the audience and other actors engaged.

Take away Roseate, for example, and it was unlikely the play would go on for much longer. Not even Rosary was supposed to be as bad as her mother, and might be coerced into seeing reason.

“But I will be able to see so much more of it from my window than I was from the stone walls of my cell.” Glory slowed briefly, then caught up, her nose in the air. “And the smells! Ah, so good to smell clear, clean air unburdened by walls and barred roof. So many cooks in so many kitchens. It’s wonderful!”

That much, he was certain, wasn’t a ruse or a play, and he let himself smile at the simple joy she was exuding at being able to smell more than the jail and the regular, infrequent visits to the prison yard with its latticework of wooden bars overhead, wide enough to let in sunlight and fresh air, but not so wide as to let a pegasus attempt an escape.

Collar spared a look at the ponies going about their daily lives to his right, and the whispers that were surely already starting regarding the transfer of so high-profile a prisoner from Prison to Palace. They’d made the transfer a secret for as long as they could to prevent any attempt at organizing a protest in the streets, or any sort of confrontation that would have left too much up to chance for how it would play out.

If the Primfeathers had gotten word, or the Manes, or their allies, the would surely be following along on either side, disrupting daily life even further and shouting their displeasure at the very least, if not attempting to actively attack the mare, or incite somepony to throw something.

The trip from prison to palace was a relatively short one, and Glory offered a tourist’s commentary on the few streets they passed before they arrived on the palace grounds and Collar allowed himself to relax more. From there, the grounds and the palace itself were in his and his parents’ control, and wholly protected by the Dammeguard.

“You were expecting trouble,” Cloudy said from the other side of Glory.

“I was.” Collar let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for the last few seconds. “Stars know the Manes and the Primfeathers are busy enough with the harvest and wrangling the weather as much as they can over the farms, but I wouldn’t have put it past them to organize an impromptu demonstration against treating Glory like a pony.”

“For that matter, you’ve been busy with overseeing and tallying the harvest and gala preparations,” Cloudy said, not a little hint of disgruntlement in her voice.

“So have you.”

“Yeah, but my tasks take me out of the palace on hopping flights hither and thither. Yours see you locked up in your office for hours on end.” Cloudy snorted and gave him a little smile. “You could delegate quite a lot to your staff, you know, and only review the end results. It would give you more time to act like a noble stallion.”

Collar snorted derisively. “Please. I have seen what road that goes down in the past. I don’t want to be the idle noble, Cloudy. I wish I could be more like you. Running hither and thither as you said. I wish I could see the world more.”

“Then do that,” Cloudy said, glancing at him and ducking her head briefly, a small smile on her lips. “Delegate and get out. Be seen more. Interact with your ponies. Be a leader who’s seen helping.”

“I agree with Cloudy,” Glory said, sounding half-surprised. “Why do I agree with her?”

“Because she’s not always a hothead,” Collar said softly. “She thinks, she’s smart, she can work around a problem, and that combined with her passion… it’s the reason I first fell for her.”

Cloudy’s ears flicked back, and she smiled more brightly. “I can think with my brain and my feathers.”

Glory chuckled. “And when a certain pony hasn’t startled you half to death, I’m sure.”

“Yes, well… fighting an invisible foe is… terrifying.” Cloudy coughed and flicked her tail against Glory’s flank. “Anyway, I think that apology is well worn. On both sides.”

Glory pretended, obviously, to hem and haw, before she giggled and nodded. “Agreed.”

The giggle drew a fleeting look from Poppy ahead of them, his cheeks coloring and providing a little glimpse into what he saw in the mare. She could tease. Collar knew that, but it was interesting to see it play out in an echo of what their private play must be like.

At the gate, half their company peeled off, with Note heading deeper into the palace to report to Priceless, and the two corporals saluting and returning to their duties of the day.

Collar, Cloudy, Poppy, and Glory made their way to the second floor of the palace’s Heir’s wing, Collar in the lead now, with Glory and Poppy bracketing Glory between them as the guard on duty, Sunrise, came to attention in front of Rosemary’s door, her cheeks flushed pink as she darted a look from Cloudy to Collar and then straight forward.

Cloudy and Sunrise were lovers. Maybe they still were, in secret. As pegasi, finding a secluded place would be as easy as flying. A moment’s consideration of last night, of Rosewater’s question, settled the momentary discomfort.

He glanced aside at her and nodded briefly. “At ease, Sergeant Sunrise,” he said softly. “Thank you for keeping Rosemary company this morning.”

“Y-yes, my lord,” she said in an equally soft voice, lowering her eyes. She knew he knew, it seemed. He would need to talk to her soon, and let her know he wasn’t upset. Another thing that was complicating his life. Rosewater, Rosemary, Sunrise… maybe even Platinum. The latter, at least, seemed to not give a whit if he knew, but Platinum was as blunt as a brick when she had a mind to be.

The three room suite two doors down already stood open, Prim Coat standing there with a servant at his side, discussing the disposition of the room and the cleaning and food schedule.

“This is already more comfortable than my previous residence,” Glory murmured softly. “I can hear the world around me. I won't be in a silent box almost the entire day.”

“I apologize again,” Collar told her, stopping in front of the room and waving her inside. “It was never my intent to keep you there for a month. I never thought your mother would prevaricate and delay and even just ignore you for so long.”

“Nor did I,” Glory said, bobbing her head in greeting to Coat and the servant, a stallion in the uniform of a staff person. “Thank you both for this lovely suite. I promise I will take care to not cause you too much grief during my imprisonment here.”

Coat raised his brows and gave Collar a questioning look, as if to say, ‘Are all the daughters this polite?’

Collar shook his head briefly. “I have your word that you’ll behave?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Good.” Collar glanced at Cloudy. “Cloudy, stay. The rest of you are dismissed to your regular duties. There are some conditions that I have to discuss with Glory before I meet with my mother to formalize the transfer.”

Glory’s brows rose as she glanced from Cloudy to Collar and back.

The door closed, and Collar spread a silence throughout the room.

“I take it, my lord, since you briefed me before we ever left the prison, that this is more about what you asked me last night and not anything to do with the formal movement of my place of residence?”

“Very perceptive,” Collar said genially, and adopted a more relaxed posture. “Last night was… different. And I need advice on how to proceed from there. I worry that Rosewater may view my actions as more than merely supportive.”

“But they weren’t ‘merely’ supportive, were they, Collar?” Cloudy asked from beside him.

“Why don’t you tell me as much as you can, my lord, and I will do my best to aid you in romancing my sister.” Glory winked at him when he startled and sputtered a protest. “Oh, protest all you want, but nopony comes straight from a date to talk to their date’s sister when the first words off their lips are How do I get her to open up?’”

“Those were not the first words from my lips.”

“They were the first interesting words from your lips,” Glory countered with a smile, and glanced behind herself at the bed. “Ah. Freshly laundered and not trekked halfway across the city and halfway through the dirt to get to me.” She scuffed her hooves dutifully on the scratchy rug before the hearth and leapt up to flop unceremoniously on the bed, her shorter, stockier frame still reminiscent of Rosewater’s, though it was hard for Collar to imagine her laying so lazily. “Tell me how your dates have gone thus far.”

Collar glanced at Cloudy for confirmation. She’d spent more time with the mare than he had.

At her desultury nod, Collar resigned himself to partaking in yet another Merrier tradition. The sharing of one’s dating life with confidants. At least here, Glory couldn’t spread gossip like a crowing rooster or a clucking hen.

Not that they do so in Merrie, anyway.

“Our first date was… tense to start.”

Book 2, 19. Fitting Home, Long Patrol

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Stowing the cooking set had proven to be more than a pain in Rosewater’s rear. She’d been stuck in the pantry with the legs wedged uncomfortably against her sides and the top barely shy of the ceiling, so that when she tried to back out, the top and legs pinched into her ribs and kept her in place.

Getting out had been a simple case of dropping to her belly while holding the confounded contraption up and carefully wriggling backwards out of the pantry. But she’d done it. She’d disappeared from her home earlier the day before with nopony the wiser, and reappeared at home with nopony the wiser.

Her second date had gone off… well. Maybe well. She hadn’t been expecting the memories of the past to be so close to the surface, nor for Collar to be the one to give her the candies now sitting on her office desk.

They were sitting in a crystal dish that Carnation had used for the same purpose, and it was full once more.

Things are moving back to normal, it seemed to say. This will all be over soon.

It was a remarkably calming thought for so simple a display. It was a promise that spoke to her heart every time she saw it.

The sight also let her write the latest letter to Carnation, telling her that she’d decided what they were. Mother and daughter who shared a daughter of the heart. It didn’t change her relationship to Rosemary, or the way she saw the very real connection she had in her strange connection to Carnation’s daughter.

Even in Merrie circles, it was a strange family dynamic.

She folded the letter carefully, slipped it into an envelope, and addressed it to Carnation Rosethorn by way of Celestia. If she ever got to send those letters, they would arrive. She slipped it not into a hidden place to be taken to her perfumery and stowed in the vault in her lab, but into a cubby for outgoing mail. There, it would sit until she was in power or she had to flee.

“Plan for the worst,” she murmured as she tidied up her work area, “and hope for the best. But also plan for the best.” Lest the best happening and bite you in the rear.

Rosewater was just starting to prepare to go to the garden for lunch after another bath to remove the last of the black soot stains that had ground themselves into her coat when a knock at the door alerted her to a visitor.

“Who is it?” Rosewater asked politely, checking the mail slot to see if anypony had dropped a letter in.

“Your dear sister,” Silk said politely, if not a little acerbically. “I’m here for a fitting.”

“So soon?” Rosewater hesitated pulling open the last ward, letting the magic hang in the balance for a bare few seconds before giving a mental shrug and pulling it open. She’d already moved all of the familial pictures from her sitting room into her office or bedroom and left Carnation’s watercolor landscapes behind as well as her own poorer attempts. She opened the door to find not only Silk, but Vine as well standing on her stoop, the latter looking skittish. “I’d not expected word from you for another week at least.”

“With the amount of money you’re paying me, dear sister, the least I can do is be accommodating, and it’s so dreadfully hard to catch you at home these days.” Silk sniffed delicately and glanced at Vine. “Vine, actually, was the one to tell me you hadn’t been seen leaving your home for a day and a half at least.”

Vine licked her lips as she followed at Rosewater’s behest, paused to thoroughly scuff her hooves clean, and said softly, “We’ve been worried about you. After all the time you’ve spent at the garden, we worried maybe something had happened.”

Silk gave her younger sister an annoyed glance and rolled her eyes as she sauntered past Rosewater with a covered dress form floating behind her. She at least held her tongue until she saw Rosewater re-engage the wards and power the charms bringing silence to the forward half of the estate.

“Vine lacks the guile to be a good infiltrator,” Silk said with a sigh. “She’s too open and honest with her emotions.” Her expression softened when Vine gave her a hurt look. “It’s part of why I love her.”

“‘Tis a rare trait in our family,” Rosewater agreed. “Please, make yourselves comfortable in the sitting room, and we can get the fitting started.”

“Your relationship with the garden—”

“Is mine,” Rosewater said more harshly than she’d meant to, breaking in over Silk’s question. “I appreciate your concern, but you must understand that who you hold allegiance to, for whatever reason, makes you necessarily suspect. I can’t hold you in my confidence even if I wanted to.”

Both of her sisters flinched, but after a moment Silk nodded, drew in a breath, and let it out. “I understand. I apologize for prying.”

“In truth,” Vine said after a hesitant moment of worrying her lip. “Mother did ask us to attempt to infiltrate your home under your nose. We had to agree to try.”

“And you’ve succeeded.” Rosewater flicked her tail and tossed her head. “Behold the sanctum she’s spent more than a decade trying to infiltrate, and spent the loyalty of a good mare to achieve.”

“You mean that turncoat? Cloudy Rosewing?” Silk raised a brow. “How did you find out about that?”

“From my niece, of course. Her former lover.” Rosewater took a seat on one of the long couches and gestured to the opposite side of the sitting room. “Please, sit, and tell me what you plan to tell my mother you saw here.”

“There’s nothing much to see. She was half-convinced you had pictures of yourself and Carnation in carnal poses.” Silk raised a hoof before either Vine or Rosewater could object. “Her words to us, not my words or thoughts. She believes her own lies half the time these days.”

“Your home is very nice,” Vine said, tapping a hoof on the quilted duvet covering the short couch. “Very clean.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Rosewater said politely, bowing her head briefly to the younger mare. “I have little to do here at home besides cook and clean anymore.”

Silk was studying the watercolor landscapes dotting the walls and most likely noting the faded spots where paintings had hung before, but if she did, she made no comment until her eyes drifted to the side of the room dedicated to Rosewater’s works, the side Carnation had usually sat facing when they’d had tea and entertained guests.

“Two different styles of paintings. I recognize some as Carnation’s. I’ve seen them signed often enough in taverns around town to know the style.” She gave Rosewater an appraising look. “I never knew you painted.”

“She taught me, hoping I would find another artistic outlet beyond my perfumes.” Rosewater shrugged and pulled one of hers down, a painting of the distant Crystal Mountains with their blue and purple haze at the top, bounded by the rushing white of a springtime flood along the Merrie at the bottom, and the mottled colors of green, brown and white of new springtime growth and melting snow in between. It was far more an impression of all of those things than anything concrete.

“Carnation tried to teach me to leave enough space to fill in the shapes of things later,” Rosewater said softly, holding the painting at an oblique angle to show her sisters. “Hers have the whispiness of watercolor and the sharpness of pencil and charcoal all at once.”

“I can still tell what time of the year it was,” Silk said with a wry smile.

“That’s better than you can get out of me,” Vine added with a grin. “I try to fit it all in at once. Or did. I gave up and settled on poetry and horticulture long ago.”

Rosewater hesitated, waiting for a sign from Silk about the real purpose of her visit, and glanced at the dress form hanging from the arched doorway to the sitting room.

“In case you were wondering, yes. I did bring a prototype of your dress with me,” Silk said when she noticed Rosewater’s glance. “I didn’t lie about that part. I do need to get your measurements in the dress and see if I need to adjust anything when you move around.”

“And get her approval,” Vine said, sniffing. “Honestly, just because she told you to surprise her doesn’t mean she’ll agree with your idea for what will suit her.”

“Think of it like a trust exercise,” Silk said more seriously, glancing between Vine and Rosewater. “This isn’t something either of us is doing altruistically. We both need something from each other.”

“I know what I need from you,” Rosewater said. “What do you need from me?”

“Do you know what you need from us?” Silk jabbed a hoof at her. “Do you know what we can offer?”

Rosewater took a moment to study her sister, really look into her eyes and attempt to divine how far she was willing to go, and how far she thought she could trust Rosewater. “I trust you to make the best dress you can, and I trust that your description of my sitting room will be detailed and accurate.”

“There’s nothing to see, though,” Vine protested.

“There’s plenty to see,” Silk corrected quietly. “What there is isn’t what mother wanted to see. A fine distinction, I know, but we can’t pretend like we know what Roseate wants to see. She told us to get a description of anything in Rosewater’s home. That she meant ‘incriminating’ anythings isn’t something we can read into her orders.”

“But…”

“She can hardly punish us for doing exactly as she asked by the letter,” Silk replied quietly and pressed a hoof to Vine’s shoulder. “I know what she said, and I know what she meant when she said it was our necks on the line. But if we’re to succeed at doing exactly what she asked, she can’t fault us for not finding what she really wanted. Not if she wants her other agents to get the right message.”

Vine sighed and nodded. “I know, I know, but I love it here in Merrie. I don’t want to face the rest of our lives running from one mistake in our past, love.” She scrubbed at her cheeks and drew in a shuddering breath. “I… don’t mean to sound like I want to betray your trust, Rosewater, but… that’s what we need from you. Support.”

“Gladly given. How much support remains for debate.” Rosewater flicked her ears and descended from her couch. “My public support may be a poisoned pill for the two of you.”

“Undoubtedly,” Silk said with a sigh and followed her down to the floor. “Where do you want to do the fitting? Your sitting room is a little small for what I need you to do.”

Rosewater hummed softly, glancing around the admittedly cramped room. It was big enough to seat four comfortably, but the very furniture that made it possible also made it impossible to do much more than sit or stand placidly. There were quite a few rooms in the estate that would be large enough for the purpose, but all of them contained what Roseate would probably deem ‘incriminating evidence.’ Even if it didn’t stand up to the Treaty’s scrutiny, it would still cause unnecessary headaches until the matter was cleared.

Rosemary’s room had too many paintings by Carnation of the three of them as a family, and likewise Rosewater’s master bedroom had the same. Her office had a few of the more peaceful ones that she liked to look at while she thought over things.

The basement was right out. Vine would probably fret a storm to even think about setting foot in the cobwebs and grime that ‘basement’ usually meant. It was true, there was more dust down there than the rest of the house, but that was because of disuse and the fact that the basement was for storage, not for casual use. Rosewater prided herself in keeping the wards that kept mildew, rodents, insects, and other vermin out of the basement.

She also couldn’t let them divine the purpose of the single closet that didn’t have dust on the floor leading up to it.

But… the office would be the least incriminating. Either that or she could model her dress out on the front stoop of the house.

She snorted. “What is it you need from me? What kind of support?”

“We want to save what we can of the family,” Vine whispered. “From Roseate. In whatever way we can. You’re her eldest. You watched all of us grow up. From afar, maybe, but we were still playmates on occasion when you were growing up. When our fathers could drag us away from her attention for a little while.”

“We want to be a family again,” Silk said thickly, moving to lean against Vine and rest her chin on her sister’s head. “Not a collection of strangers who sometimes remember we’re sisters.”

“There’s no ‘again.’” Rosewater’s voice was no less thick with emotion, her throat straining. “I was never part of the family. Not after my father passed away. Sometimes, I think, not even before that.” She let the statement hang as she gathered her thoughts and memories of a time before then, and after, when four different stallions had approached Carnation to introduce her sisters.

Nine sisters by five stallions. The last being Rosetail, and he’d never even been on the scene for more than a month before he’d been scared off. Rosewater couldn’t even remember his name.

“But I would like to try to save what I can. There is good in you. And in Crown, I’m almost certain, and Glory.” She took another breath and started down the hallway, mind made up. “And I would like to know how it feels to have sisters I can trust.”

Silk opened her mouth as if to say something, stopped, and nodded. “There are others, but those two are good ponies. Crown and her book club do their best to stay out of mother’s way, but only succeed half the time.”

“And less of late now that Glory’s failed her.”

Failed. Rosewater snorted and gave a short nod. “My office, then. And I’ll let you ‘steal’ a letter from my desk.”

Silk’s eyes popped open. “Steal?”

“Well, Vine will steal it, while I’m distracted with the dress fitting. I have a few letters of little import that are old and sealed. Orders for goods from overseas that I haven’t sent yet, and won’t until the next year.” Rosewater shrugged.

“And when she finds out it’s useless?” Vine asked softly, trailing behind on soft hooves.

“You could hardly open it in my presence without me hearing the crackle of wax breaking.” Rosewater glanced behind her to see her sisters wide-eyed and staring at her. “Or cast a spell that I wouldn’t detect.”

As soon as she entered, the letter she’d written to Carnation she slipped into a cubby hidden behind a leaning small painting of Rosemary, professionally done. At the same time, she rifled through the letters she’d written placing orders for various ingredients from far off Saddle Arabia that would have to go out at the earliest spring tide.

She chose one she’d already decided she wasn’t going to send due to a change in her planned lineup and showed it to her sisters. “In case you have any hangups still, I wasn’t even going to send this one.” The addressing on the envelope hadn’t even been filled in yet, and the wax on the back was sealed with the gold ribbon of confidential correspondence.

“Why was it… secret?” Vine asked as she turned the letter over in a spell and stared at it as if it would reveal its secrets on its own.

“Because I changed my mind on what I was going to plan as a secret new lineup for my summer perfumes.” Rosewater shrugged and moved a few potted plants to a small corner of the office, clearing a large space in the middle of the space for her to move about freely, even to perform a few dance moves. “Is this large enough?”

Silk jerked her attention away from studying some of the more familial-themed paintings to nod quickly. “It… it will.” She waved a hoof at the wall. “This is what mother wants. Isn’t it?”

“I suspect so. I’m trusting you. Not with anything that will get me exiled, but with my relationship to Rosemary.” Rosewater fixed her sister with a look, and made it explicit. “She is, and has always been, the daughter of my heart.”

Vine’s head jerked up, eyes wide. “Stars above.”

“I’m also her legally adoptive mother.”

“How did you even keep that secret?” Silk asked, a low hush of awe in her voice. “That should be public record.”

“It was accorded to the treaty and sealed to the sun. If it ever came up, I would have produced the papers. It was my last card that mother couldn’t have anticipated.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “It was, and still is, a secret to her. All she knows is that I am her guardian, but I have full parental authority to deal with her disposition under the treaty.”

“So that’s why Firelight keeps rebuffing her, and why she’s been spitting mad every time you cross the river.” Silk chuckled, then laughed and shook her head. “Stars above, she’s claimed it was because you raised your tail for him.”

Rosewater raised an eyebrow.

“Nopony believes her. Not even Rosary. But she still rails about it.”

“So… now you know a part of the truth. Whether you give that to mother or not…” She shrugged. “It’s not enough to destroy me. Not even close. Firelight would laugh her out of his office if she tried to file an exile order for being a mother.”

“But it would complicate your plans if she knew?”

“Undoubtedly. The only ponies who know besides you are the leadership of Damme.” Rosewater jerked her head at the dress form. “Shall we get to the real reason you’re here?”

“It’s safe with us,” Vine said softly, blinked, and chuckled. “Stars, you as a mother.”

Silk was less amused, glancing again at one of the paintings. “I can believe you took every duty seriously. Too much so, probably.”

“Maybe. But I love her dearly. I wanted to give her, freely, everything mother denied us as foals, Silk.” Rosewater flicked her tail. “If we dally too long, she will wonder what we were up to. Now. Surprise me.”

The privations of a long patrol, the long periods of loping trotting, the campfires and tents they had to set up at every evening stop, and the infrequent, often tense encounters with bandits and wild pony clans had long since stopped being an inspiration for Crown’s next poem and become the state of her life instead. An inspiration all its own, she was certain, but she would be damned if she could see it out in the lands far beyond Merriehollow.

The trees grew taller, wilder, and the monsters that lurked in the woods eyed their campfires with fearful, greedy eyes.

Not all of those eyes were the simple red gleam of reflected light in unintelligent eyes, but the jealous, fearful eyes of bandits looking over their weapons and armor.

Those times, they kept a double watch, and the party of fifteen well-trained Merrieguard kept weapons close to hoof.

It rained. It snowed. It did both at once, and the farther they went along the foothills of the Crystal Mountains, the colder it got. Slow days trotting in rain or snow ate up the distance between them and their unknown objective, and put more and more distance between them and the increasingly warm-sounding Merriehollow tavern despite the only accommodations for the hamlet being in the barn.

Four days in, and a goodly hundred miles from Merrie, they came upon a tiny hamlet that barely deserved the name. Three homes and a few desultory fields that had already been harvested.

The ten ponies that came out to greet them with scythes and pitchforks were hardly welcoming, but they were hardy folk, unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony all together. A well mixed group for living out in the wilder lands.

“Hallo,” Crown called in the brusque voice of Lieutenant Rosewire. “We’re not bandits, nor wildling raiders.”

“We can see tha’,” the leader of the small group growled, brandishing a pitchfork under his raised foreleg. “We can handle matters jus’ fine.”

“We’re on a long patrol from Merrie,” Crown continued, taking a step forward. “We’re wondering if you’ve seen any of the Dammeguard flying overhead recently.”

“Hain’t got no care what you peddlers of flesh do in that city o’ yours. Best be goin’ if ya know what’s good for yer health.” He jabbed the pitchfork at her, a desultory gesture, as he was still a good twenty paces short of her.

Crown glanced back at her second in command, sighed, and waved for their party to reverse back down the dirt track leading to the trio of houses. “Our apologies, good sir. We’re merely concerned that bandits may be massing for winter.”

“Bah.” One of the other ones shook his scythe in the air, making several of his fellows wince and back away. “Her ladyship, the sun princess, she done sent patrols this way a’ready not a week past. You useless gits.”

Crown’s blood froze. Could Cloudy have been meeting with an Equestrian scouting party? She shook her head and recovered her wits enough to send her guards back the way they’d come and back onto the open plain south of the woods. She waited, watching the settlers warily, then nodded politely and followed after when she was sure they weren’t going to rush them when their backs were turned.

Bandits could just as well pose as settlers, after all.

She found her guard gossiping about the Equestrian Army patrol when she joined back up with them, breaking any hope she’d had of keeping that little tidbit secret, as small as that nebulous feeling had been.

“Lieutenant,” her second said, giving her a wary look.

“Yes, Longrose?”

“Why’s there an Equestrian patrol out this far? Isn’t this still outside their territory?”

“It’s not ours, either,” Crown reminded him softly, glancing south as if she could spot the smoke from a fire likely more than a hundred miles distant already. “I doubt they’ve been out here long. Takes northerners like us to stand the cold.”

“They seemed to be doin’ alright,” Longrose said, jerking his head back up the trail. “Didn’t look much the worse for wear, and those houses are less than a year old or I’m a Prim.”

“Time will tell if they get much older.” Crown frowned down at the ground, then to the east. It was possible they’d headed that direction, too. If there was one settlement, sparse as it was, there could be more. She glanced at the company’s scout, Seafoam, and nodded to her. The mare was a Canterlot descendant, and wholly a Merrier, even if her family hadn’t married into any Roses yet. “How far can a pegasus fly in a day if they keep a steady pace?”

She thought for a moment, glanced up at the sky, then to the north, and raise a wing to test the air. “In wind like this? Two, three hundred miles if they keep it up for a whole day.”

Cloudy wasn’t an endurance flyer, though. She could make the air crack when she went full out, but she couldn’t do that for more than a few seconds. She was made for speed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t pace herself if it were important.

Crown frowned into the east. There was no saying she hadn’t turned north or south either somewhere along her apparent straight line. The Imperial Highway was now fifty miles south, and it would ease their passage back to Merrie if they went south. But no matter what, she was making a gamble on what Cloudy might have been doing out this far.

“We have enough food to make it back and another day besides,” their quartermaster stand-in said quietly into the silence around her thinking. “We can stretch it if we graze, but the grazing around here is…” The stallion made a disgusted face.

“We are not eating plains grass if we can help it,” Crown said after a moment’s consideration. “We will if we have to, but I’m not going to subject you all to that indignity.” She waved a hoof south. “We’ll make better time on the old highway anyway. We go South and see if we can intercept the Equestrian patrol and get any news of bandits in the area. If we don’t see them by the time we reach the highway, we go back.”

“What about that Dammeguard scout?” another one of her soldiers asked.

“Forget about her.” Crown shook her head slightly. “She could have gone anywhere in a six hundred mile diameter circle from the city and circled back to make us think she’d come this way. We’re switching to our secondary goal. Bandit patrol.”

Hearty agreement met her statement. None of them had been particularly happy at the prospect of freezing their asses off in the middle of the great plains for Roseate’s whimsy, but bandits affected almost everypony. Most of them knew a friend or relative who’d been hurt, robbed, or even—in the rarest of cases—killed by bandits.

The latter cases had seen entire clans of them arrested and sent on prison ships south to meet their justice in Canterlot along with all evidence of crimes from their camps.

“By this time four days hence,” Crown went on, “your lovers will welcome you home to warm fires, hearty meals, and good sex.”

They made another fifteen miles that day, totalling nearly thirty. It would have been a record if not for the wild squall from the northeast that had forced them to bed down early.

Book 2, 20. Past and Future Plans

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“We have some of it,” Rosemary whispered, checking over the bag Cloudy had dropped on her bed. “Where’s the rest of it? Where’s the…” she glanced at the half-open door and Coat standing there pretending not to pay attention. Cloudy wasn’t supposed to be there right now. “You know.”

“I’ll find out tomorrow. She might have it then,” Cloudy whispered back. More loudly, “What do you think of the wine?”

“If Petal recommended it, I’d trust it. I’m not a connoisseur like Rosewater.” Rosemary sniffed and shifted the contraband items back into the oiled cloth sack. Petals, some fragrant oils, but no candles. It took time to make candles. She knew that much from helping Roselyn with her work, and it took knowledge to scent different kinds of waxes. What she’d asked for…

“She’ll come through.”

“She will.” She trusted Rosewater explicitly in that. Even if she never told Roselyn who they were for, it would be a good opportunity for her mother to work with one of her friends. “Are you ready? This is big. Everypony is going to know where and when you’ll be going.”

Cloudy shrugged faux-nonchlantly. “Sure. It’s not like we haven’t been on dates before, you know.”

“Surprise dates. To a tea shop, a patisserie, a quick lunch after Dammeguard business. You haven’t had a romantic date that the two of you planned. With a walk on the beach and everything!”

“Please. We’re not going to be like Lace and Dapper.” Cloudy shook her head. “I don’t want to surprise the entire city with a marriage with no outward sign.”

“And that’s probably a good thing,” Dapper said, poking his head in, nodding to Coat, and closing the door behind him. “Good morning, ladies.”

Rosemary focused her magic on the charms in the corners of the ceiling, then stopped when Dapper shook his head. “Not a private meeting?”

“Not today.” Dapper fixed his attention on Cloudy. “This is a brave thing you’re doing, Cloudy. I got away with romancing Lace because I was one of the refugees from Roseline’s father’s purges, and she visited all of us quite often, talked to all of us, and let us know we were welcome.”

Cloudy glanced at Rosemary and settled down. “I don’t think Rosemary’s ever heard how you and Lace got together.”

“Not much to it. Much straighter forward than your relationship, even if it hinges on the same start.” Dapper smiled and settled in anyway, shuffling his wings as he settled on his haunches. “Day by day, she would visit us, and she always came to me last, so she could spend the most time with me. I was the ringleader anyway, so it made sense.”

“The ringleader of what?” Cloudy asked. “There’s nothing taught about the purges in Merrie.”

“Hardly surprising. It wasn’t a proud time. Seems like insanity skips a generation in the Rosethorn line, time to time. Anyway… crack downs, jailings for minor offenses, it got to be that we wanted to overthrow him. But before I could organize more than a few ponies, he sent the guard after us, tried to exile us post-defection, and got slapped down, and he died a few years later, by all reports raving insane and barely cognizant of the world around him.”

Dapper let his gaze linger on the far wall, his eyes seeing things Rosemary could only imagine. His eyes drifted to Rosemary and his smile came back. “But… back to happier things. Yes, I was the leader of our little group of exiles, and she put off our long talks as ‘gleaning what she could’ and ‘encouraging cooperation’ with ponies that knew much of Merrie’s internal politics. What we really talked about was… everything else. Our dreams as foals, what drew me to revolt and seek freedom. And… we meshed.

“Our dreams were so similar. A city united. Peace for all of us. Open friendships and even families across the river. All of her other suitors were either hardline against Merrie and the Roses or boorish to the point of making me fall asleep when she described them.” He grinned and cocked his head. “She actually thwapped me for fake snoring in the middle of describing one of them. She was… uncertain about who she would choose.”

Rosemary listened, rapt, glancing only occasionally at Cloudy to see she’d not heard some of this either. “So…”

“I’m gettin’ there. Let an old man prevaricate, young miss.” Dapper waved a hoof at her, chuckling. “She was barely out of fillyhood then. Just nineteen, fiery of heart and mind, ready already to take on the world with the power the stars had gifted her. I tried my best to counsel her as I settled into my new life as an exiled weather warden, but she would always come to me if one of her suitors upset her and vent, then let me calm her down and make her laugh.

“It was that, her laugh, beautiful and as rare as a rose blooming in Damme during winter, that made me dare.” He arched his wings. “By the stars, I was so sure of myself when she came to me like clockwork after the latest of her suitors had pissed her off royally, and before she’d even finished venting, I kissed her. I asked her to marry me, not them. I, with no house behind me, no prospects to bolster the family, nothing but the love I had in my heart for her.

“She stared at me, her eyes going wider and wider, starting protestations and never finishing them, before she said, ‘Now. It has to be now. Marry me today.’”

Dapper took a breath, his smile beatific. “And we did. She knew a clerk at the middle court who could convince a magistrate to do the deed, sign the legal documents, and we filed our union with the Treaty Office before anypony even knew anything odd was happening. By then, it was far too late for her father, for any of her suitors, to say or do anything. We’d been sealed to the sun. For life. And we’ve been together through thick and thin, raising a child, and ruling half of a nation, in wedded bliss ever since.”

Rosemary giggled. “I never would have expected her to be so impetuous.”

“She shows it on rare occasions, but she can be. I hadn’t expected it, either.” Dapper leaned to the side. “But all that said, I do think you’re doing it right. I don’t think the Primline dynasty can survive another shock like the one we put on it. Her father tried to disown me… and when that didn’t work, he tried, and failed, to disown her. He stepped down and cursed them for destroying his city, and welcomed them to the war. Putting a teenager in charge of Damme nearly saw the city rise up again and overthrow us.”

“Like they did to overthrow the Primfeathers,” Cloudy said softly. “Why isn’t that in the histories?”

“It’s not history yet, young lady. Everyone involved is still alive. If you want to read about it, I can show you philosophers and prevaricators that are still discussing it, but it’s hardly the talk of the day anymore.” Dapper waved a hoof and shook his head. “I’m talking about you four. Be as open as you can be. When you can be. Don’t just throw things at the city and expect it to work. It almost didn’t for us.”

“What about when it comes to Cloudy and I?” Rosemary asks. “Or Cloudy and…” She glanced at the door.

“Fine, fine…” Dapper extended a wing towards the charms. “Go ahead.”

After Rosemary had empowered the gems and felt the outside world mute into silence, she finished. “Or Cloudy and Rosewater. Or, if things go well, Collar and Rosewater.”

“Stars, you do ask the hard questions.” Dapper rubbed his chin and stared past her again. “I guess, maybe sometimes you do have to throw a surprise kick to the chin.” He lowered the hoof after a moment, shrugged, and added, “But getting the city used to Collar marrying a full-blooded Rosewing will help. Most of the city doesn’t even think of me as a Rose anymore. They’re half right, but they need a reminder, I think.”

“At the gala?” Rosemary asked softly. “That would be a good time, wouldn’t it? When Roses and Prims gather together amicably?”

Dapper snorted a laugh. “You have been to a gala before, Rosemary. What’s amicable about standing on opposite sides of a very large room and glaring at each other?”

“Then make the difference. This year. This gala. Invite Rosewater personally. Formally.”

“She’s already expected to attend, though,” Cloudy said.

Dapper, however, was watching her with a small approving smile, and nodded, then tipped his head to Cloudy. “You are right. But we do have the ability to invite ponies as our special guests. Whether or not they’re expected to attend already hardly matters. The public announcement will shock everypony. Most of all the Primfeathers, Manes, and Coifs, but… and this is where we have to play it carefully how we word it. It will also infuriate Roseate.”

“In that case,” Cloudy said, glancing between them, “if their next dates go the way I think they will, have Collar write the invitation. Have it be him that invites her.”

“Oh, that is devious. Lace can disclaim foreknowledge, and it will look like she’s actually winning him over as a friend if not an ally.” Dapper leaned forward and raised a hoof to cover his muzzle, “Or even romantically.” He gasped and fell back to laugh on his haunches. “Stars, seeing my boy get rolled up in a Merrier romance is exciting to see.”

Rosemary glanced aside at Cloudy, swallowed, and pulled herself forward. “And what about me? I want to have the same chance to love him that Cloudy and Rosewater have, but I’m a prisoner. I can’t… responsibly… ethically try to court him. Can I? I don’t want him to feel like he’s taking advantage of me, or that I’m trying to make my place here easier.”

“That,” Dapper said more solemnly, “is something you will need to address with him. I know he cares for you a great deal, he worries that you’re enduring hardship you don’t need to.”

“This is hardly hardship,” Rosemary huffed, leaning against Cloudy and flicking her tail against the bed.

“Will you think that in another month?” Dapper shook his head. “You are a prisoner. A respected and well treated prisoner, but a prisoner.”

“You could defect,” Cloudy murmured in her mane. “You know Lace would give you a light sentence to cover the remainder of your ‘crime.’ Community service. Something outside if you wanted.”

“I could,” Rosemary admitted, tasting the idea of freedom, of being able to wander Damme as she wished, to sample the things she’d only smelled the after-effects of on her playing. “I could, but then Rosewater would have no reason to visit, and all of her old warrants would come into effect. She couldn’t visit without being arrested and tried by Lace, who would be required by law to give her a harsh sentence. Nor would Rosewater deny the charges for the ponies she did abduct as an agent of Roseate.”

Dapper looked pained, but slowly nodded and sighed. “And the only way to invalidate the prisoner of war protocols for arrests would be to end the war. Which, if she were arrested, and we wanted to vacate those charges, would mean either we go on the offensive again, or we surrender. Neither is something Lace wants to do. Conquest leads to instability down the road, and our ponies would never accept surrender. She will let the war go on and hope Collar’s children will see an end to it.”

“Then I am stuck. I won’t sacrifice my mother for my comfort. Nor will I do so if being uncomfortable for a while will end the war.” Rosemary nodded, took a deep breath and straightened herself. “But nor will I be a third wheel in my own marriage. I’ll talk to him.”

Collar tapped lightly on Priceless’s office door, and only had to wait a few seconds before the door opened to the usual scene of controlled chaos. Scrolls and scroll cases stacked in neat piles on every available surface save the central desk. Anypony looking in would think it the usual office of a trade advisor for a busy port city.

“You wanted to see me?”

Priceless glanced up, nodded, and flared his magic to silence the room. “Internal threat again.”

“Again.” Collar sighed, glanced at the chair beside the table, and pulled the cushion off it and sat on it instead. “What is it this time?”

Priceless gave the chair a meaningful glance, brow raised, and shrugged. “In part, it’s that. Your comfortability with Merrier ways, and the gossip about how easily you talk with Rosewater and Rosemary. It’s agitating some feathers.”

“Prim feathers?” Collar asked with a wry grin. “They don’t like that Rosewater and I get along during our public discussions.”

“It’s worse because it’s coming from gossip,” the spymaster said with a doleful sigh. He searched his desk for a moment, pulled out a triplet of scrolls, and passed them to him. “The birds I have listening in taverns and on the streets say she’s making headway in her publicly accepted goal of wooing you as a mate.”

“She’s not, if it’s any consolation.” Collar’s automatic rejection sent a twinge of conscience through him. “We’re becoming friends, though. We understand each other better than we used to, and if she gets to rise to power in Merrie, I truly believe the war will be over, no matter if she does succeed at romancing me.”

Priceless gave him a long, sobering look. “Friendship is the first step, my lord. Are you sure she’s not finding her way into your kinder regard?”

“My heart, you mean.” Collar dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, the dark stone of the former dungeon cell a reminder of just what this basement had been used for. “I can’t say that she isn’t absolutely. I care for her well being, and I worry that she’s more fragile than the rest of the world thinks. She is strong, yes, but strong like cold-forged steel. Strike at the wrong angle, and she’ll shatter.”

“You’re not wrong. I do wish that Lace would let me look at that little book she offered her. The one that caused her so much upset.”

“I don’t. It’s private, Priceless.” Collar hesitated when the older stallion gave him an incredulous look. “It’s between father and daughter,” he added reluctantly. “It shouldn’t be part of the discussion of her unless she decides to bring it up.”

Priceless’s regard changed briefly, studying him more intently before he nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll stop pressuring Lace to let me look. But. To the matter that I called you for. It wasn’t the gossip on that rag. It was the more worrying reports of Wing shopping around an idea to the middle court magistrates most often amenable to his causes. One that’s caused one of them to sit up and take notice enough to warrant a little sparrow to send a missive my way.”

“Do tell.”

“It has to do with prisoners of war now being housed in relative luxury in the Prim Palace. Word’s spread like wildfire that Glory is here, and some ponies are not happy about her being treated like the precious intelligence commodity that she is.” Priceless gave him a measured look. “I had a talk with her myself. Something I couldn’t have done if she was still in prison. It was enlightening.”

“Oh?”

“She didn’t reveal anything intelligence-related, but she did say you asked her for advice on how to get Rosewater to open up. And what advice she gave.”

“I see.” Collar sighed and nodded. “I did ask her. Because I care about Rosewater and her struggle. I want to see her succeed.”

“Even at romancing you?”

Collar winced.

“I see.” Priceless tatted a scroll on the table and rolled it towards him. “He’s not getting much of a positive response from the magistrate at large. Most of them view the disposition of prisoners of war a matter for the high court, as they should, since that’s how it’s been written into our constitution from the first days of the treaty.”

Collar studied the scroll and it’s limited information. There were names, but they were long-serving magistrates in heavily residential areas of the city, the areas that were most likely to view family as a sanctity of two ponies. But they were also generally more hardline anti-Merrier in general than the economic center of the city or the ponies that worked in trade-related sectors.

High justice, and the high court, was the realm of the rulers of Damme, and involved the prosecution of the war, detainment of prisoners of war, and their treatment. It was the same in both cities, a provision guided by the treaty, but not enforced by it, that the low, middle, and high courts be established after the Equestrian standard.

Low justice was typically handled by the Dammeguard itself, regarding citations and minor fines that didn’t need to go before a magistrate unless the pony wanted to dispute the case.

The middle court was the purview of crimes against the laws of the city, not of the war, and usually only involved citizens of Damme. Agents and citizens of Merrie who committed crimes were often relegated to Lace’s justice—or the justice of prior rulers, all of whom had been less forgiving of the crimes of commoners.

In Damme, the power of middle justice was held jointly by the commoners and lords and ladies of the city, with four justices appointed from the Lords, and four elected from the common pony. Wing, nor any of his direct family, were justices thank the stars, but there was a Mane and a Coif in the court system, and a Planter who leaned heavily towards traditionalism.

The common side of the court was heavily weighted towards Lace, with progressive ponies almost to a one being elected that supported the Lace Reformation, largely because of her overseeing the largest economic boom in generations had greatly endeered the common pony to her, so she held a fiat majority there, albeit a slim one.

It was in the middle court that the Reformations had faced challenges, all of which had died on the upwelling of support for them by a populace tired of the endless conflict.

Which may work against them in this case. If the war was to end, ponies who broke the law in Damme had to be held to the same standards, regardless of the city they came from.

“Support for the Lace Reformations is still holding steady?” Collar asked.

“It is. As long as trade continues to boom, and money flows through the city, I think most ponies are starting to accept that as just the way things ought to be done.” Priceless shrugged and leaned back in his chair, resting his hooves on the foreleg rests and staring up at the ceiling as he went on. “The support for your mother’s gambit is more or less ingrained in your generation, but older ponies are still wondering why we’re not pushing our advantage in numbers, our discipline advantage, and the current infighting between Roseate and her heir.”

“Especially with Rosewater effectively sidelined as long as the negotiations are going on.”

“That too.”

“Truth be told,” Collar admitted, “I enjoy her company. I regret that when Rosemary is returned to Merrie, we’ll have to see each other as enemies again.”

“Must you?”

“I doubt her mother is going to give her a choice. Either that, or she’ll defect.”

“Unless she has a child,” Priceless said softly.

Collar grunted and nodded. The idea of her having children… touched a nerve in him somewhere. He couldn’t picture what they would look like or the kind of pony she would marry. The idea of what she would need to do to have children… he closed his eyes and pushed away the faintly disturbing feeling rising through his gut.

Cloudy’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, her lips moving, a smile burgeoning as the meaning of her silent encouragement. She, of course, would encourage him to view Rosewater as more than a friend. So would Rosemary. His mother and father…

“She’s been seen more often with Dazzle around Merrie,” Priceless said into the silence. “He often accompanies her on lunches to a tavern her file says is owned by an old friend and lover.”

“Primrazzle Dazzle?” Collar asked, the twinge in his gut coming back stronger.

“Maybe you should encourage that relationship. He’s a Dammer with a family lineage back to before the treaty. The pedigree of their child would be what’s needed to truly start to unite the—”

“I don’t think they’re in love,” Collar said, breaking in before Priceless could finish. “Both of them follow the Principes. I’m sure they’re good friends, but when she’s talked about him, I haven’t gotten the feeling that their emotions run very deep for each other beyond that.” The twinge started to fade, and he relaxed minutely as it did. “I don’t want to put pressure on our friendship, either, by encouraging her to…”

He trailed off, wondering just where his thoughts had taken him, and why he couldn’t say what he wanted, needed to say. It was logical for him to encourage the relationship. It was the best way forward for Rosewater to become the heir in actuality rather than only apparently.

“I can’t,” he said at last. “I can’t push her away. I don’t want to damage our friendship by bringing romance into the mix and then pushing her at another pony. Stars above, can you imagine how a Dammer would react if I tried that? How Cloudy would react if I pushed her away and towards Rosemary?”

“She’d probably beat some sense into you,” Priceless said wryly.

“She would.” Collar let out a brusque sigh and scrubbed at his cheek with one hoof. “Why does friendship with her have to be so complicated?”

“Politics.”

“Well, rut politics.” Collar snorted. “I need an ale. Fancy stepping out for a few hours in your role as our trade minister to celebrate the record crop yields?”

“And to blunt the confusion?”

“That too.”

Priceless tapped a hoof against the chair for a moment, then nodded. “I could use one, too. Just promise me you won’t suddenly blurt that you’re in love with Rosewater, okay?”

“I can promise that.” The twinge came back only briefly this time.

Rosewater sat in the garden villa with a glass of wine swirling slowly in a spell, letting the dark red liquid slosh up almost to the rim in a cyclone of fragrance. It was a rich bouquet, but not too rich, and when she tasted it finally, swishing it around her mouth and over her tongue, the richness and tartness of it, hidden beneath the sweet, dry accompaniment of fermented grape was pleasantly biting.

She swallowed the mouthful and glanced at the bottle. Pomegranate Parade. Alliteration was ever one of Petal’s joys when naming vintages. “And this one goes well with sharp cheese?”

Petal nodded and glanced at the deep clay pot, the glazed interior squeaky clean, sitting next to her. “It’s perfect for fondue. But,” she added with a raised hoof, “that’s also contingent on what kind of bread or treats you bring along. Smoked salmon is popular.”

“No fish. I’ve already got fish cakes for the dinner portion.”

“Breads, then.” Petal glanced aside at her husband lounging on the sedan, watching both of them with his lazy smirk ever in place. Unchanged from when he was a foal watching Rosemary try and talk her way out of whatever trouble he’d ‘helped’ get them into. “It’ll go with a lot of breads except dark rye, so unless you’ve already bought some, I would recommend not getting any.”

“The restaurateur said dark rye was best with honey anyway,” Rosewater said. “I do already have some breads, and some he imported from Damme that are favorites with his sharper cheeses.”

“Then I think,” Petal said, hefting the bottle. “Give me some time to think. This will do, but I think maybe I have something better.”

“Oh?” Rosewater’s ears perked. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Only if you tell us who this outing is with.” Petal waited for a few seconds and waggled the bottle, sloshing the wine. “Very well. We’ll serve this bottle for dinner, and Seed and I will wrap you a surprise for your… outing.”

Date. Petal may as well have blurted it out. Rosewater swallowed.

“And you won’t tell us who it’s with?” Seed asked in a lazy purring voice.

“It could be by myself, you know,” Rosewater shot back. “I could just want a night out watching the stars in the cold and remember how Carnation and I used to watch for shooting stars while Rosemary chased fireflies.”

“I don’t recall you and Carnation ever sharing fondue,” Petal muttered. “Or wanting to pair it with wine. Or,” she went on, one brow arched, “after visiting a chocolatier and making Rosejoy and her crowd even more agitated.”

“And she still won’t share what she bought there,” Seed whined, rolling over on his side and swatting towards her with a hoof. “Come on, auntie. Give us something or we’ll start making up romances for you.”

“I bet it’s Collar,” Petal purred. “The whole town is talking about how well the two of you get along in Damme.”

“Gossip,” Rosewater said with a huff. “We talk about what I can do to pay an exorbitant herdgild.” She glanced at Seed. “Did you know that the more prominent the family is, the higher the price?”

“Only makes sense,” Seed said. “My lazy hide would only get maybe a couple buckles.”

“And Rosemary is the niece of the ruler of Merrie,” Petal said, nodding and sighing. “Alright, fine. So maybe it’s not Collar and you’re playing nice because it’s the only way not to have to pay a princess’s ransom for her return.” Her tone said she didn’t believe it, and the way she gave Rosewater a hard stare said she as much as guessed that it was Collar. “But I’ve also seen you when you come back from your negotiations. You’re lighter on your hooves. You’re happier.”

“Because I get to see Rosemary again. However brief.”

“Stop hiding, auntie,” Seed said uncharacteristically forcefully. “It’s not only that, else you’d return to depression after a few days. You’re planning something.”

“I don’t see any reason to deny that.” Rosewater chuckled and clucked her tongue. “When am I not planning something, nephew?”

Petal grunted. “She has a point, love.”

“She does, and I do, too.”

“Have you given a thought that maybe I’m planning a getaway with Dazzle?”

Her friends exchanged a long glance, communicating more by silence than most could by paragraphs before Petal shrugged and Seed grinned.

“That could be.” Petal flicked an ear and looked over the wine bottle again. “But if that were the case, you’d have asked what his favorite wine was, not what wine would go best with a soft, sharp cheese.” She hefted the bottle. “It’s not this, by the way.”

“Okay, so what is Dazzle’s favorite wine?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Petal said, a touch snippily. “He’s not given up which is his true favorite, though he samples enough.”

As if called, or because it was almost lunch, Dazzle poked his head into the room. “My ears are burning. I take it Petal’s complaining that I’m not a good wine taster again?”

“Ah. There you are.” Seed popped up to his belly and flicked his tail. “Are you and Rosewater planning an outing?”

“Brat,” Rosewater growled.

“We weren’t, no.” Dazzle glanced her way, his smile brightening as she met his eyes. “But I wouldn’t say no to a night away from the city with her.”

That look in his eyes, hopeful and happy to see her, willing and wanting her to open up more to him… it hurt. Yet she couldn’t lead him on in the same way Collar said he didn’t want to lead her on. She turned her attention to Seed and flicked an ear at Dazzle.

Her impertinent nephew’s smile dropped, and he nodded. “Come on, Pet.” He pushed himself up with only a glance between his wife and Dazzle, then slipped out of the room.

“Dinner’s in an hour, you two,” Petal said lightly, her eyes on Rosewater’s telling her not to hurt him.

I won’t.

As soon as they left, Dazzle stepped closer, concern in his eyes and his stance tense. “Rosewater?”

She took a deep breath, silenced the room, and sat facing him. “You know I like you,” she said softly. “Quite a lot. I’m incredibly grateful for all the time I’ve been spending with you.”

“I do.” Dazzle’s smile faded into a faint frown as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. She didn’t back away from it, welcoming the gentle caress of lips. “And I like you. I like you especially when you’re letting yourself be you.”

Not love. Rosewater let herself relax a little. “You know who I’m seeing, right? Who I hope to court for marriage?”

Dazzle’s ears flickered briefly. “Ah. I suspect.” He turned, back up half a step, and sat beside her to lean his shoulder against hers and rest his cheek just below hers. “I could love you. I could. But I have a feeling you have your eyes set on the other side of the river. Collar?”

Rosewater froze for a second, then nodded. “Collar. And Cloudy.”

“He’s a good stallion,” Dazzle said softly. “I trust him explicitly. But I also know, from what I’ve heard, that he’s very much in love with Cloudy. And very much a devotee of the Tussen Twee. By requirement if nothing else.”

“I know.” Rosewater leaned back against him, dipping her head to rub her cheek against his. “I’m worried about hurting you.”

“Don’t be. I’m a free-floater, Rosewater. I could love you. I could love Bliss and Roselyn and Petal. But I don’t know.” He nipped her neck lightly. “If you weren’t pursuing Collar so openly, I think I might have put my horseshoe in front of you and asked you to walk with me.”

“Openly?” Rosewater cocked her head to the side and glanced at him. “I’ve not been open with my affection toward him.”

“You’re happier after you see him, and you’re excited as the day you’re meant to go back to Damme to negotiate gets closer.” Dazzle leaned away and glanced at her. “You’re falling in love. And ponies notice. They put together the signs and do the addition.”

“He just wants to be a friend,” Rosewater protested without much conviction. She wanted to be more than friends. She wanted to see his eyes light up when he saw her. She wanted to feel the warmth of his embrace in the open air and not care if anypony saw, or what anypony said. “I want… I want to love him, Dazzle.”

If Dazzle was hurt by that, he didn’t show it. Why should he? He’s a follower of the Principes now. He loves many, and hasn’t admitted his love for me.

“I feel,” Rosewater said softly, “like sometimes I’m…” The words stayed frustratingly out of reach for her, almost there. “Like I’m… playing. At love. I have honest feelings for him, and I could love him. And he’s been kind, supportive, gentle with me. We talked long into the night last time, sharing stories about growing up and growing into—” Rosewater broke off, her lips wrapping around the word ‘motherhood’ before she’d even had half a chance to think about it.

“Into?” Dazzle leaned to the side and studied her frozen expression for a moment before kissing her cheek. “It must be another one of those secrets Petal keeps complaining about.”

Rosewater closed her mouth, nodded, and looked at him. There was understanding in his eyes, and a hesitation she’d not seen the first night they’d made love. She kissed his lips lightly, ducked her head and pressed her cheek to his. “Thank you for being so understanding, Dazzle.”

“You’re more distant,” he whispered in her ear. “Because Collar doesn’t embrace the Principes like I do.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “I worry that he’ll be… distant. If…” She swallowed. “If we have sex. Again.”

He leaned away from her, stood, turned, and sat again facing her. “I don’t need sex, Rosewater. I need you to be here with us. I need you to let go of worrying about what it looks like and be open and free.” He smiled and raised his hooves to cup her cheeks. “Besides, how long does it take you to let go of those worries before a date? Do they still cling to you even while he’s sitting across from you or walking with you?”

Rosewater nodded. “Sometimes. Stars, our first date was almost a disaster because I worried myself into… a pointless tizzy.”

“Then let go of them. Be yourself. Everywhere.” He kissed her lips lightly. “Let go of worry.”

Rosewater leaned forward to cross horns with Dazzle, resting her forehead against his. “Then… come with me. I have something I need to tell Seed and Petal, too. And you and Bliss.”

They deserved to know about her true relationship with Rosemary, and the reason she was negotiating for her release. They were as good as her family, and they didn’t deserve to be treated like suspects who might spill the information to Roseate.

It wasn’t a long explanation, nor did any of the four ponies present interrupt her as she haltingly explained what she’d told Collar on their last date. With him, he hadn’t had the years of knowing her, of built up ideas of her to tear down and rebuild, and, in the end, it didn’t matter. None of them challenged her motherhood. Seed actually beamed at her and bobbed his head almost the entire time, like he’d known, even if the legal reality was new.

And he probably had. He definitely had known.

Petal started to ask her questions a few times, but stopped herself with a glance at the grinning Seed, and settled back. Bliss covered her muzzle and stared at her, then at Dazzle, who seemed equally as surprised.

But it didn’t matter when she finished with, “She’s my daughter. Legally and in my heart. The only reason I haven’t told any of you is… it’s become a habit to keep it secret. But it will come out. Sooner before later, I would imagine. And you, all of you, deserve to hear it from my lips and not from gossip.”

Silence hung about the small room, warded against sound with only their breathing and the shifting of cushions under rumps.

“Because you’re family to me,” she continued. “This garden is family, and this is my home. Even if I tried to hide from you all for too long.”

Seed was the first to stand and embrace her, his forelegs crushingly tight around her neck. “Welcome home, aunt Rosewater.”

It was the first of the floodwaters as Petal rose and joined him, less punishing in her embrace, then Dazzle, and Bliss, surrounding her in a warm cocoon of love and acceptance.

I’m home. The tears came then and they held her while she cried.

Book 2, 21. Forest Walk, Palace Visit

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Rosewater seemed different when Cloudy landed on the outskirts of the Crystal Forest. She stood open, her pink mane loose and fluttering in the wind of her descent. She wasn’t veiled, for one, and she stood more easily, her smile brighter as she watched Cloudy come in.

“Good evening, my dear,” Rosewater murmured as she met Cloudy in a brief embrace.

“Good evening yourself,” Cloudy murmured into her neck. “You’re beautiful tonight. And standing in the open.” She gave the mare a light kiss on the lips and pulled away, wingtips fluttering as she looked around the hilltop. “You could have been seen.”

She nodded briefly, her smile slipping a little. “If it wasn’t you.”

Cloudy drew in a breath and let it out, pushing back the irritation at her risking herself. “If it wasn’t me,” she agreed. “What changed? You wouldn’t have done this before? You didn’t the last time we were out this way.”

“I found my peace,” Rosewater said simply, her gaze turning southward towards Merrie. “In the garden, Cloudy. I found a home again. And that can’t ever be taken away from me.” Her voice was stronger, her look surer as she took a deep breath and let it out, her smile growing. “They’re my family.”

She’s changed. Just in the few days since she’d last seen Rosewater, she had changed for the better. Cloudy relaxed and kissed her chin, then her lips when Rosewater startled and looked at her. “I’m glad you found them again.”

Rosewater nodded and tipped her head to the side. “A dark, spooky forest awaits us tonight, my lady Rosewing.”

Laughing, Cloudy pranced ahead a few steps and swept a wing towards the gap in the woods where the imperial highway’s massive stone blocks showed through. “After you, my lady Rosethorn.”

Forests usually gave Cloudy jitters when walking under canopies that she couldn’t rise out of with a snap launch, and this one was no different. The massive trees that grew wilder because of the old magics that had bled into the ground around the old highway were taller, broader-trunked, and housed stranger creatures than anything short of the rumors about the Everfree hundreds of miles to the southeast.

Walking side-by-side with Rosewater as they picked their way over massive roots and buckled stones, Cloudy felt safer. Out in the open, she was a match for the unicorn at least, but here in the forest, where unicorns were supposed to have been born and grown in the days long since relegated to legends more vague than the founding of the Crystal Empire, Rosewater was mistress.

She bent mists away from their path, shone light on the rough terrain, and talked about her days since their last meeting, her side of the date with Collar Cloudy had already teased and tugged out of him.

The way she was opening up to her was refreshing. She didn’t need to tug—not as much, anyway—to get little details out of her. Mostly, it was a little comment and the rest would come spilling out with a chuckle or a frown, and she would look to Cloudy after and smile a little sheepishly, as if realizing her own earlier reluctance.

“You’ve changed a lot,” Cloudy said softly when their conversation about past days petered out into silence as they walked along the highway. This deep into the forest, with the canopy so thick, the trees nearest the highway were too far away for their roots to have broken up the thick stone blocks while their magic still held strong, and the way was easier than ever. “You’re more confident, you’re more open, happier, too. I’m glad you found your family again, Rosewater. You need them.”

“I am, too.” Her ears ticked faintly, then flattened. “But I worry that I’m hurting one of them. Primrazzle Dazzle. He’s the one who pushed me to come to them and open myself. I like him dearly, love him as a close friend already.” She swallowed, her voice lowering. “But I worry that he’s falling in love with me, and I… if I accept, if I let myself love him, too, what will that do to Collar?”

Cloudy flicked an ear and nodded. “I think you’re right to worry about Collar. After your last date, something changed, Rosewater. I won’t break his confidence, but…” She closed her mouth before she could actually break that confidence. He expected her to say something to Rosewater, but to tell her? To give her a possible false confidence? I can’t do that to either of them.

“You’ve changed, too,” Rosewater said softly after another dozen steps, sidestepping to bump her shoulder and walk closer, every third step letting their hips rub together. “You’re less impulsive.”

“I have to be less,” Cloudy grunted. “Stars, if I was still as impulsive as I was when we first met, I would have strangled Wing weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“He keeps pushing Collar away from me. With rhetoric, of course, but he keeps trying, and trying to drive wedges between us.” Cloudy cleared her throat and adopted a nasal whine, deepening her voice almost to Wing’s, “Me, a Rosewing, not only living in the Prim Palace, sacred hall of everything Prim and Dammer, bastion of monogamy! Why it rankles the feathers and makes Primline the Bold turn in his grave!”

Rosewater giggled, ducking her head and tossing her mane. “Stars above. Is he really that bad?”

“Close enough,” Cloudy grunted. “He’d recognize the act if I did it in front of him. Which I won’t.”

“Whyever not? Sometimes a little reflection is good for the soul, you know.”

“Because I’m not outside politics anymore,” Cloudy growled, half arching her wings, one pressing against Rosewater’s side. She let that one stay when she forced herself to calm down. “I am the politics.” The warmth of another mare at her side bleeding in through her wing was immensely calming to her. That it was a mare whom she was falling for… “How do you do it, Rosewater? How do you handle being in the spotlight all the time?”

“Sheesh. Put a mare on the spot.” Rosewater smiled softly and leaned down a little to nip her ears. “A part of it, a large part of it, is finding the bright spot in it all and holding onto it. Reminding yourself that, at the end of the day, you can go back to that bright spot and let go once you’re out of sight again. Don’t try to bottle it up. I tried that for too long, and nearly broke myself.”

“A bright spot. And how do you hold onto that spot? Just take a breath or something and think?” She vaguely recalled Rosewater doing that now and again when they’d still been enemies meeting in public or in private. “Or something else?”

“That’s one way. I know Damme doesn’t like scents, but something that helped me was bringing a little scent memento with me when I had to go out and do something I didn’t want to. Perfumes that Carnation and I perfected, a sprig of dried herbs Rosemary had finished processing, or… when I was still visiting the Garden, a sliver of a cork with the fragrance of my favorite wine. Just tucked away in my mane where it’d be unnoticed, but where I could smell it if I called to it.”

“I…” Cloudy thought about her two bright spots. And a third she couldn’t reach. “My… my mother. She used to bake… or maybe she still does. These wonderful cinnamon doodles, with the fragrance of the cinnamon amplified so I could taste it and smell it with my whole being. I never found them anywhere else in Merrie, just at home.”

“Secret family recipe?”

“Yeah. She said it was passed down from parent to child for generations, all the way to the Treaty. Maybe further.” Cloudy lowered her wing, the warmth lingering, and stopped in the middle of the path. “Could you get one for me? That would help. Knowing my family is still safe, that things are still normal there.”

“I will. They’ve asked me for news, and I’ve given what little I can, but they’re afraid of writing another letter. I’ve asked, but they always…” Rosewater shrugged. “They’re afraid of Roseate. That communicating with a pony she’s labeled a traitor will get them exiled.”

“Good. I don’t need them to write me. I don’t want them to lose what little they have left. They love Merrie, Rosewater, with all their souls.” Cloudy gritted her teeth and fought off the bristling rage that came whenever she thought about what Roseate had threatened them with. “It’s their home. And I hate Roseate for what she’s done to it. To them.”

“To you.”

Something in Cloudy broke open, like a wound that needed lancing, and she nodded, tears suddenly in her eyes. “Yes,” she croaked. “To me.”

Rosewater sat and pulled her in close, wrapping forelegs around her shoulders and tucking her head in tight under her muzzle. “Shh. We’re going to win, Cloudy, and all of this will be smoke behind us.”

“T-too damn right we are,” Cloudy grunted, and buried her muzzle deeper into Rosewater’s coat, taking in her scent more strongly than she had outside sex. Musky mare, warm from the walk, and the faint scents of the forest in her coat, and the city she loved so much. “We’re going to win,” she murmured more strongly.

She pulled away, pulling the tatters of the emotional wound closed, and sniffled once, staring up at the dark canopy overhead, the stars winking in and out as the leaves drifted in a light nighttime breeze. “Douse the light,” she whispered.

Without a word, Rosewater let go of the small ball of light, leaving them in almost absolute darkness on the Imperial Highway.

The stars brightened slowly as she stared up still, as Rosewater sat with her, a foreleg still laid over her shoulder, a lighter shade of dark. Slowly, the world around them changed from pitch to muted shades of midnight as the little starlight and moonlight that did filter down through the canopy let her see dim shapes and impressions of shapes in the night.

“It’s peaceful here,” Rosewater said after long minutes staring with her at their transformed surroundings.

Cloudy made a noise of acknowledgement and leaned against her lover, a mare she could love, was falling love with, and started speaking.

“When I was a little filly, my mother told me about the forest and the deerkin that liked to haunt the woods and play tricks on ponies who stayed in the woods overnight. The ponies that would wander and wander, never aging a day until they left and found the whole world changed while a hundred years passed.”

Rosewater’s head bobbed, only noticeable as a shift of shadow.

“Then I grew cocky. Fourteen, just learned about sex, and I wanted to impress a mare I’d just met and get her something from the forest east of the city.” She grinned as she remembered the look on the mare’s face as she’d made the bold claim. “Dancing Star was her name, a pretty russet unicorn with eyes like crystal. Stars, I was so smitten with her. Just… young lust.”

Rosewater chuckled and nipped her cheek, but stayed quiet, still holding her loosely in her forelegs.

“So I did, y’know. Hormones and too much Rosewing pride in my system, my mom said. There was supposed to be a glowing flower that grew in the forest, but it only bloomed during the full moon, with the eye of the Mare in full light, on the first day of Spring. A rare conjunction. But I thought it was close enough, and went into the forest, on hoof.”

“The forest there isn’t as mystical as this one,” Rosewater said finally. “This is…”

“Old magic,” Cloudy said with a nod. “But I went. Darker than Tartarus, with only the moon and the stars to guide me. It was darker than this, y’know. More branches lower. Here…” She shrugged, but didn’t try to break out of the embrace and rested her cheek on Rosewater’s throat, relaxing more. “Here, I could almost fly along the old road. The nearest trunks are far from my full spread.

“But then… I had to walk. I had to trust that the flower would lead me to it in the dark.”

“There was no flower.”

“There was no flower,” Cloudy agreed with a wry smile. “And I got lost. I avoided the bogs by smell alone, but then… I wandered into a dead end track surrounded by bog. And whichever way I went, the smell got stronger. How I’d gotten there, I couldn’t find. I thought I’d have to wait until morning, wait for the sun, and it was cold, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it.”

“You obviously made it out.”

“Obviously.” Cloudy snorted. “But… I got out that night. The mare went to my house, thinking she’d surprise me with a sugar flower she’d bought. Clear crystal sugar. It was so sweet of her. And my parents thought I was with her. They all panicked and she told them the story, and they called out the guard to look for me. Torches, unicorns, pegasi dropping enchanted lights into the forest.

“It was raining stars in the middle of the night, and by chance, one of them landed on the edge of the bog I was stuck in the middle of. There was a broad bridge that I could cross and get out. I grabbed the light in my mouth before it could sink and dashed towards the thickest lights.”

“Good. I’m glad you saw the light.”

Cloudy bit her jaw lightly. “Awful. But… yeah. I never went into the woods again. I was scared of them, of the dark like this.” She licked the spot she’d nipped. “But here? Now. I feel safe, Rosewater. I know I’m getting out, and I know the darkness won’t last.”

Instead of replying, Rosewater pulled away from her, hooves settling on her shoulders, and groped in the dark with her muzzle until she bumped noses with Cloudy. After a moment of awkwardness, their lips met, the kiss deepened, and Cloudy unfurled her wings to wrap them around her lover.

When they parted, Rosewater called forth a dim light, little more than a sliver of a glowing sphere, casting a soft, pink-tinged light around them.

“Thank you. For the candles. For the wonderful night.” She kissed the mare she was falling in love with one more time, slower, less passionately and more intimate.

They shared the warmth of the kiss for almost a minute, their lips enmeshed, before Rosewater pulled back slowly, nuzzled her chin, and kissed her cheek. “Walk with me tomorrow, Cloudy.”

Cloudy startled, then pulled back to look at Rosewater’s face. The light grew brighter, showing her an earnest expression, a longing desire to not be alone.

“I don’t want to walk alone anymore. It was… a point of pride. Too much stubborn Rosethorn pride. ‘I can do this,’ and ‘it doesn’t affect me.’”

“But it does.”

“It does. It hurts to hear the taunts, and to look at the accusing stares. I thought I was doing the right thing, letting them see me alone and vulnerable. But… I don’t know if I can take it much longer, and it’s going too slowly.”

“I’ll be there. As a friend.” Cloudy chuckled. “You know, Dapper told Rosemary and I we needed to get the ponies used to the idea of Collar and me and Rosemary. But… this is a great way to get them used to just you and me, too.”

“Stars above, I could kiss that stallion.” Rosewater chuckled and leaned back to scrub her cheeks. Dry of tears, but flushed all the same. “He’s been so good and kind to me.”

“To all of us. He’s one of the best stallions I know.”

“You stink.”

Not ‘Thank you for coming back straightaway.’ Not ‘Thank you for enduring hardship and cold for a week and a day.’ Not even ‘you look tired.’

Crown stuffed the irritation into the back of her mind. She was too tired from the forced march through the night from Merriehollow to prevaricate with her mother. “My apologies, mother. I thought you might want to know what we discovered straight away, and not from some report out of Canterlot.”

That got Roseate’s attention immediately. “Canterlot is reaching so far?”

“The Princess appears to be sending patrols heavy enough to rebuff bandits as far north as Crystal Cut gorge. We also found Equestrian settlers in the woods just south of the cut, and a few scattered about the plains south to the Imperial highway.”

Roseate sat back in her chair, her look thoughtful. “If they’re this far north…”

“That was my thought. They must be everywhere. Nopony in their right mind would settle so far north with so little.” Crown gave her mother a grim smile. “We may see either refugees before the end of winter or find frozen corpses come the first spring thaw.” We also made sure they knew not to try and weather the winter if they couldn’t. For those that didn’t try to stick us with pitchforks.

Roseate didn’t need to know that, though.

“As if. We have enough mouths to feed and barely enough grain.”

Barely? The fields she’d seen coming back had still been a quarter full, and the silos in Merriehollow close to bursting from the grain in them. That was more than they’d had in a decade and a half.

“Celestia’s spread herself too thin,” Roseate mused softly. “She can’t reinforce the garrison here.”

Crown blinked at her mother. The garrison massed a full forty ponies, most of whom were clerks and accountants, not warriors. They weren’t an occupation force and never had been. “She can’t?”

“Oh, she can. But she’ll have to uncover other parts of Equestria to do it.” Roseate waved a hoof. “I’m not proposing we overthrow a demigoddess. I’m merely saying that what we can do has been expanded.”

She’s… insane. It was an effort not to stare at her mother and keep her mouth closed. “What… can we do? Firelight has already set firm lines.”

“Firm?” Roseate glanced at her, then back at the map of Merrie. “Oh, regarding my traitor daughter, yes. I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about the ones sheltering her. The ones conspiring with a traitor to give her succor and comfort.” She raised a letter opener and stabbed it into the corner of Merrie that the Garden occupied.

“The Garden?” Crown couldn’t believe her ears. “Mother, there are special laws regarding the Garden. We don’t even have direct control over their land.”

“A mistake Rosary the First made,” Roseate snorted. “She was a weak leader and gave into her sister’s demands too easily. And for what? A threat of civil war? A competent leader doesn’t let such threats sway them, and I will not be so weak.” She stared pointedly at Crown. “If you doubt me ask your sisters how I reward failure.”

Crown swallowed. Her mother had to mean Silk and Vine. What little she’d been able to capture of their conversation had been damning, and hadn’t made it to Roseate’s ear through her. “W-what did...?” She couldn’t finish the question. There was no way to finish it without sounding disrespectful.

“If they’re going about their punishment, they should smell even worse than you do right now.”

Not caught, then, but failed to do what she meant. A sense of relief washed over her. She and her two older sisters didn’t exactly get along, but they were among the kinder of her siblings, and had never begrudged her her interest in books and song like their mother did. Crown knew, of course, what their secret was. They could hardly hide their affection for each other when they thought themselves secret.

Nor did she blame them. She knew the story as if she’d penned it herself, of how Silk had comforted a crying Vine, how that one comfort had turned into love over the course of their lives. They were simply finding what affection they could under the cruel eyes of their mother. Just as Crown herself did. Just as Rosewater did. Just… as all of them tried to do.

Crown nodded dutifully after a suitably long pause, as if to show she was seriously considering the threat. If she failed to hold up to at least the letter of the order, she would no doubt face the same. Or worse. Possibly another long patrol. In winter. Without necessary supplies. And even worse if she returned early, against orders.

Roseate would take away her lovers, her friends, her book club, and exile her to only Celestia knew where. Crown closed her eyes and bowed her head. “What would you have me do, mother?”

“We have to do this just so. Too quick, and they’ll run crying to the treaty office or the public. Gather as much as you can about the Garden. Who comes, who goes, see if you can infiltrate the garden and get information on their actual trade values. I want to know if they haven’t paid a buckle they should have.”

Then hire an accountant! Tired as she was, Crown almost shouted it. Her jaw actually quivered, her teeth gritting over the words as a final defense against losing whatever favor was keeping her lovers safe. “Of course, mother.” She hesitated, then turned her body half towards the door. “That was all I had to report.”

“Then go get cleaned up. You smell like a rutting bog.”

Crown didn’t even flinch at the harsh tone. She backed out, bowed, and made her way outside to find her second waiting for her on the palace lawn.

“Always knew, y’know,” he said, rising to all four hooves. “You tried to hide it, and I guess most of the platoon didn’t notice, but I always knew you were one of hers.”

Crown watched him steadily, brow raised. “What gave me away?”

“They way you talk. You don’t just blurt shit out. You think, consider, and then give orders.” Longrose chuckled and waved down the path towards the barracks. “Come on. Got a hot bath and meal at the barracks.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Oh, I was for a bit when I figured it out. Which one are you?”

“Crown.”

He flicked an ear, not seeming surprised. “Always thought you were a pansy bookworm. Turns out you can take the heat and slog through the mud with the rest of us.” He chuckled. “Come introduce yourself. The platoon is still talking about the long march and the crazy lieutenant who egged us on.”

“They don’t hate me, then.” The last stretch to make it back and rest in warm beds with a hot, hearty meal had seen a lot of grumbling, but they’d all persevered. “I thought…”

“You’re not a soldier, my lady. We appreciate it when our leaders push themselves just as hard, take the same hardships, and stand with us in the line against bandits and monsters.” He glanced aside at her. “They’d march with you again, if you asked. If you lead them.”

An unfamiliar prickling started between her shoulders, a feeling of portents and fate that shivered her to the bone. This was important. “I’m not really an officer, and I don’t have command authority. That was given to me temporarily by my mother.”

“Think that matters? We took an oath to protect our homes, the city. You do that, and they’ll follow.” Longrose glanced aside at her again as they descended to street level and she followed his lead towards the barracks. “Why were we out there? For real? It wasn’t just to try and find some elusive contact only a pegasus like Cloudy could reach, was it?”

It was to get away from my mother. “No. But the scouting we did on the bandit numbers will be important.”

“You mean the lack of bandits?”

“Yeah. And the refugees we might see.”

Longrose was silent for a long time as they made their way down the road, and they were almost to the barracks before he spoke again, “That was good of you, my lady. Offering them shelter.”

“We’ll see if they listen.”

“Can’t shout at rocks to make them move.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.”

Rosewater stood on the stoop of her house. It was late, later than she’d been out except for raiding, but she stood open and unveiled, watching the clouds scuttle across the sky, illuminated by the moon and the Mare staring down at her.

As was her custom on nights she went on dates with Collar or Cloudy, she’d made a point of not leaving the house to go someplace, lest those watching her on either side of the river twig onto the idea that she was up to something clandestine when she veiled and disappeared.

Tonight, when she’d come home, appearing in the basement with its myriad of smells, the chill air frosting her breath, the estate silent above her, she’d decided that spending the night alone wasn’t something she wanted to do.

So she had decided to step out and make her way to the garden.

The usual watchers, familiar with her routine by now, had long since found their own beds, and only the vigilant Dammeguard across the river shifted as she descended the steps. No doubt waiting for her to veil, and presumably ready to send a runner to the bridges to be extra vigilant.

Instead, she turned to walk along the river to the west, still unveiled, and started off towards the Rosewine tributary.

Merrieguard startled at her approach as she reached each of the bridges, but gave her courteous nods and returned to their watches. They were good ponies, by and large, devoted to keeping their city safe, and keeping the ponies in it safe from invaders that would never come.

Most of them knew that, but Roseate still manned the bridges because ‘it was just a ruse’ to make Merrie complacent. It disgusted her, and she should have backed away from her mother’s orders earlier, should have refused them.

Except she had Rosemary to care for, and she had thought she had ample example of what would happen if she refused. But it had turned out that Carnation had been an agent of Damme the entire time, and likely been caught doing something blatantly treasonous.

How much of what I’d done could have been avoided? It was a question that continued to dog her nightmares, the ponies terrified as they succumbed to sleep, only to wake up the Mare only knew where with food, water, and a privy pot. Sometimes to stay there for days without seeing another pony until their ransom was negotiated.

It made her sick to think she’d participated in furthering the war in such a way.

And it always came back around to: But I thought I was protecting her.

She stopped in the middle of the main bridge that crossed the Rosewine and stared down at the slow-gurgling, deeply cut stream. The hills on either side had corralled the tributary for so long that the streambed was a good twenty paces down, despite the relatively narrow path it took between the main part of Merrie and the land ceded to Rosewine Rosethorn more than two centuries past.

Twenty paces wide and twenty deep, it still ran as smooth as glass most days, when the eddy currents didn’t surface. It was calming to listen to those quietly here at night, with no other hoof traffic to disrupt her meditation. She wanted to be calm when she arrived at the garden, not panicked or distraught as her thoughts were leading her.

How long she stared at the rippling reflection of the moon, she didn’t know, until hooves on the stone pavers of the bridge brought her back.

“You found my favorite spot,” Dazzle said from a few paces away.

Rosewater glanced at him, unhurried now, and smiled, bobbing her head. “It’s peaceful, this late at night, to listen to the stream.”

“Yes.” He sidled closer, then dropped pretense and leaned against her as he joined her in peering over the solid stone railing. “It’s better to watch with sompony, though. Even if it’s in silence.”

“It’s cold tonight, yes,” she said softly and edged closer, pressing her shoulder to his, and sliding a hind hoof closer so she could rest a little against him. “What brings you out here?”

He didn’t answer for a while, his attention distant, and even his ears pricked forward, focused on the sound of rushing water. “Thinking about what I want to do with my future. Who I want to spend it with.”

He’s not talking about me. She was almost certain of that. Almost. He was a good and attentive friend, a gentle and playful lover. “You must have somepony you’re looking at.”

He glanced at her, then away, down to the river and Damme beyond. After a second, he focused, grunted, and a silence shield surrounded them. It wasn’t as efficient as hers or Collar’s, or Seed’s, for that matter, but it worked.

“You.”

She flicked a look at him, found his attention still on the stream down below, and… couldn’t think what to say.

“I know what I said,” Dazzle went on, sighing. “I know that. But, stars, just saying it got me to thinking more about it. Us.” He didn’t move, but it felt like his presence diminished as he went on, “But I know you’re courting Collar. And I know you worry about hurting his feelings if you’re seen romancing me as well.”

“That worries me,” Rosewater admitted, letting out the breath she’d held in. “But I’m worried, more, what would happen to you if Roseate discovered you and I were romantically involved.”

“She can hardly touch me,” he said with a snort. “I’m still a Dammer. The worst she can do is tell me to get my ass back across the river and ban me from the city. Only Lady Lace can send me down the coast to Canterlot.”

They fell silent again, sharing the companionable silence, and took over the silence spell, reworking it to be more efficient, but not letting it drop. She extended the field to the surface of the river, ensuring that they could still hear what made their minds at ease.

“I’m worried that romancing you would hurt Collar, too,” Dazzle said softly. “It’s clear he’s come to regard you as a friend. I wonder how much of him wishes that he were a Merrier, and he could throw away pretense and just say ‘let’s court, shall we?’”

“Did you know him?”

“Not well. We’re… he’s a couple years older than me, but we still served in the same Dammeguard platoon. He was the junior lieutenant, and I was a private.” Dazzle glanced at her again, nudged her with his shoulder. “He is a good stallion, and I do wish you the best at courting him. But a part of me wishes it was me you were courting.”

“Dazzle…” Throat tight, Rosewater leaned against him. “Stars above, I know we’re good friends, and… I do love you as a friend. I could even find my way to falling in love with you.”

“I know. I could see it in your eyes, Rosewater. It’s what made me hope. But when you’re crossing the river in the opposite direction for romance…” He nodded towards Damme. “I understand you have to play by different rules.”

Rosewater nodded slowly. “I do. I’ll try not to—”

“Stop that.” He nipped her neck. “I don’t want to distance myself from you, Rosewater. I’m just whining at the way politics works around this tartarus-damned war. I understand if we can’t be lovers again, but that hardly matters. You’re a good and kind pony, and I like being around you. You’ve got a dry wit like none other when you’re relaxed, and it makes me giggle like a foal again.”

“I’ll do my best.” Rosewater smiled to him and leaned against him more heavily. “Thank you for telling me.”

“It’s our way. Open. Honest. Communication is so important, Rosewater. Talking things out. I couldn’t just let my feelings for you fester in my chest. Even if it took me a while to gather the courage to tell you.” He nipped her cheek, then kissed it. “We can still be friends.”

“We can.” Rosewater nodded slowly and nudged his head gently away from the stream. “Let’s get to the villa. It’s late, and I have to go to Prim Palace tomorrow for negotiations.”

Dazzle glanced at her. “Would you like me to take you to the bridge? Or even to Prim Palace? I know—” He coughed. “I know you’re trying to let the ponies of Damme see you as you are.”

“Cloudy’s walking with me, actually.” She glanced aside at him. “We had a lovely date tonight. Walking through the forest Northeast of Damme.”

He gave her another oblique look. “How are the two of you doing? I haven’t heard much since the welcoming party.”

“Falling for each other. We’ve exchanged ‘I coulds’ already. I don’t know if you knew that already.”

“I don’t think either of you mentioned it, but the way both of you were close just before she had to leave said enough. That wasn’t just lust, Rosewater. I saw more there.” He nuzzled her cheek lightly as they stepped off the bridge and began the familiar trek up the gentle slope towards the base of Rosewine Hill. “And me…”

Rosewater leaned against him lightly for a few paces, resting her chin beside his horn.

“I think… I’ll keep being a free love advocate for now until I’m mature enough to settle down.” He tossed his head lightly, dislodging her. “And I’ll keep teasing you. And… I think I’d like to keep up the ruse, at least, of romancing you. It amuses me to think that Roseate would whine about not being able to do anything to me.”

“Be careful, Dazzle. Don’t let yourself get hurt.”

“Rosewater,” Dazzle said mock seriously, “I’ve only confessed that I could fall in love with you. But we’ve talked it over, and we’ve agreed not at this time.” He snorted. “Honestly. I’m a stallion, not a lovesick colt.”

“I meant Roseate. Legal action isn’t the only thing she can do.”

Dazzle grunted, but didn’t dispute the claim.

An uneasy fear began to gurgle in her stomach. What if I’ve already put him in too much danger?

“I was a Dammeguard for seven years, Rosewater,” he said when they finally reached the villa. “I’m not a pushover, and I know how to fight off basic scents. And I have a few surprises I can unleash. Please don’t worry over me.”

“Do you even know me?”

He laughed and nudged her inside. “Stars, alright, that was pointless. But…” He waited until she turned and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I am serious. I can take care of myself.”

Book 2, 22. Grandfather

View Online

It was amusing to see Rosejoy galloping down the road towards her, then skid to a stop a good hundred paces away, stare at her, stare behind her at Dazzle, following a few paces behind over the bridge. Traffic was already flowing, albeit slowly, over the hoof-bridges across the Rosewine.

The mare, and her entire entourage of thugs, ducked down a side-street, presumably to retake the tailing once they’d passed. Not that it mattered.

“I see the goon squad got emergency orders,” Dazzle murmured.

Rosewater laughed. “They apparently didn’t get the memo that I’d decided to stay the night at the Garden.” She glanced down the street they’d ducked into as she passed it and found them just waiting there like particularly inept spies not thinking their cunning plan through.

Rather than look sheepish, Rosejoy puffed out her chest and advanced out of the shadows to stand in Rosewater’s path. “What were you doing?”

“Exercising my right to spend the night wherever I want.” Rosewater stepped around Rosejoy, not intending to engage the mare at all more than she had to. “Good day, Rosejoy.”

The mare huffed and followed her just as Dazzle came up on Rosewater’s right, looking mildly concerned.

“I am a representative of Roseate Rosethorn, Baroness of Merrie, and I demand—”

Rosewater stopped and stared at the mare. The words that would have come after died on Rosejoy’s tongue as her mouth clicked shut. “It’s good to get some exercise, so please go run to my mother and tell her that I’ll be following the schedule set forth by my agreement with Prim Palace regarding my negotiations for the return of my charge. If you need her name, it’s Rosemary Rosethorn, daughter of—”

“I rutting know who she is!” Rosejoy shouted. The stink of stale wine on her breath made Rosewater wish she’d been less close. She’d clearly just woken up and run after her. “I demand—”

“Nothing, because I am on my way to discharge treaty-authorized business. If you interfere with me, I will report you to Firelight Spark and let him deal with your idiocy.” Rosewater spun on her hind legs and continued on, her steps firmer and her jaw aching.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Dazzle murmured beside her, leaning into her. Not seeming to care that Rosejoy would report the closeness to Roseate. “Let’s get you to the Primrose and the treaty office, okay?”

Rosejoy did not, for a wonder, follow them. It was a longer walk to the Primrose Bridge than she normally had to take, but it was calm, and several Merriers seemed startled to see her, or at least see her with another pony. A few that she vaguely recalled as having met before, though names remained elusive, actually told her good morning, but didn’t stop to chat.

“Everypony in the city must know my schedule by now,” Rosewater murmured after the fourth such occurrence.

“Sometimes, I can walk across the rumors flying in the market about what you’re actually negotiating for.” Dazzle chuckled and nodded to another stallion trotting past with a cart full of sacks of grain, heading for the granaries in the hills. “Ponies are seeing you cross the river, treaty flag or no, and have hope that this insanity will end soon.”

“That must be riling up mother something awful,” Rosewater grumbled.

“Take heart. They’re rooting for you.”

Rosewater nodded, feeling uneasy about so many ponies speaking their feelings, maybe not against Roseate, but against her apparent plans. That was as good as rebellion to her mother. Or, at least she thought so.

“I hear you’re working the glass forges lately,” Rosewater said, changing the subject with all the subtlety of throwing a boulder.

He glanced at her, flicked his ears in acknowledgement of her discomfort, and nodded. “I am. Rose Temper ‘recruited’ me after she heard I’m used to working with hot things with my magic. Too few know how to craft a telekinesis spell to handle near-molten things, and either squeeze too hard, and send sparks and globs everywhere, or too loosely, and it turns into a puddle in their spell.”

“I’d never thought of it that way,” Rosewater said. “I usually just shape the spell to grab whatever object I need. It’s second nature and I don’t even need to think about it.”

“That’s the problem,” Dazzle said, grinning. “You don’t need to think about so simple a spell.”

They walked on, chatting back and forth about the benefits of this or that approach to telekinesis spells, amiably whiling away the paces to the Primrose. It was relaxing, peaceful, and the birds chirping in the trees along the riverwalk seemed to be singing in the wrong season. Squirrels and chipmunks chattered at them and each other, and cats chased both, all of them getting ready for the coming winter.

Things she hadn’t noticed as much before except peripherally.

She took it as a sign that her mental state was improving, that she could pay attention to the outside world, and not just the ponies in it, more then as an automatic process.

Before long, they were at the bridge, and rather than stopping there, Dazzle followed her across, giving a nod to the Merrieguard, then grinning and trotting ahead to greet the Dammeguard on the other side, a familiar face.

“Hey, Private Platinum,” he called out.

The mare startled and stared at him, then broke into a grin. “That’s Sergeant Platinum to you, Lieutenant.”

“Bah. I gave that up a year ago. Glad to see you making your way up.” Dazzle glanced behind him to Rosewater and waved her forward. “Have you met Rosewater?”

Some of the joy of reunion faded as Rosewater came up and stopped. “I have.” She glanced from Dazzle to Rosewater. “Are you two together?”

Dazzle glanced back at her, rolled a shoulder, and tipped his head to the side. “It’s complicated.”

“Most Merrier relationships seem to be,” Platinum grumbled. “So you are, but you aren’t?”

“We’re good friends,” Rosewater said calmly, nuzzling Dazzle’s cheek. “Thank you for the escort. I’m going to slip into the office and wait for Cloudy.”

“She’s already in the office,” Platinum said, sounding mildly surprised. “She came by earlier with some business. I didn’t know the two of you were meeting.”

“We arranged it the last time we met,” Rosewater said nonchalantly. “She wanted to talk to me, pony to pony, without the trappings of business mangling the conversation.”

Platinum eyed her, raising a brow, then waved her past. “Go on, my lady. This scoundrel and I have some catching up to do.”

“Scoundrel?” Dazzle laughed and nodded Rosewater on. “Is that what they’re calling me in the barracks these days?”

Rosewater ducked into the office, leaving the former and current Dammeguard to catch up. Inside, she found Cloudy leaned against the counter, chatting with the clerk, a younger stallion with a neatly trimmed goatee while he prepared some paperwork for her.

She turned around when Rosewater cleared her throat, smiled and tipped her head to the side. “Hey there. Getting you a waiver so you don’t need anything you bring in examined and searched. It’s a sign of trust from us to you. Signed to the treaty.”

“Has Collar signed off on it?” Rosewater asked softly, hardly daring to believe. “What about the ramifications? What—”

“Shh.” Cloudy stepped away from the counter and bumped against her, nipping her cheek in a way that drew the clerk’s eyebrows up almost to the line of his forelock. “Lace herself signed off on it. I was the delivery mare.”

“I was filling out Her Highness’s standard authorization,” the clerk said with a nod. “I just need your signature at the bottom, and we’ll provide you with a folio to carry the writ with you.”

“And if somepony steals it?”

“It’s sealed to your signature, my lady. Anypony else that shows it won’t have the seal of authenticity shown. It will be recognized as stolen or an attempted forgery.” He raised the document, a thick sheet of paper with the golden border and sun seal at the top gleaming with hidden magic. In the center was a simple writ.

By the power vested in me as the Baroness of Damme, and recognizing the good faith negotiation and efforts of one Rosewater Star Rosethorn, I hereby grant her immunity from normal bridge duty checks.
This writ does not cover articles of trade, merely personal possessions. Nor does this writ cover passage before dawn or after dusk. It is only effective between dawn and dusk.
Signed,
Baroness Primline Lace

It was both more and less restrictive than she would have thought, but was grateful for the kindness all the same. “I don’t have any letters today. They’re at my home, and I came straight from the Garden.”

“Understandable, and I’m glad. With this, you could rent a cart to bring the letters if you wished.”

“They’re largely dying down, now,” Rosewater said, shaking her head. “A few close friends still write to her on the regular and don’t trust Roseate to not intercept them.”

“A wise precaution, I’m sure.”

Rosewater signed with a steady spell and set the edge of her hoof to the paper below the line, feeling the warmth of Celestia’s solar magic flow through her briefly. The clerk signed on a third line and set his hoof in the same place.

“That’s it, my lady,” he said, slipping the thick sheet into a thin wooden case that folded into a narrow wooden slat with two sets of hinges.

Opening the case would expose the document, and the hinges were thick enough that they wouldn’t overly crease the page. It was less useful than a scroll case, she mused, but still ingenious for flat paper storage. She folded and unfolded it a couple of times before slipping it into her day bag. “Thank you.”

Outside, Dazzle raised a brow at her and glanced at Cloudy, his conversation with Platinum stopping momentarily. “You take care of her, Cloudy. She’s special.”

“I know. Don’t worry, Dazzle, I’ll take extra special care of her.” Cloudy winked at the stallion, and Platinum gave the other mare a sharp, inquisitive look. “Rosemary’s waiting for you, and Collar is looking forward to resuming talks.”

That sent Platinum’s eyebrows rising almost to her forelock.

Rosewater’s cheek tried to pull into a nervous tick, but she gave the guard a small smile and a bob of her head before turning quickly away and down the familiar path to the palace.

“Sorry,” Cloudy whispered from her side, her ears flat. “Platinum’s good ponies. She’ll understand. She’s usually one of Rosemary’s guards, but she’s on a rotation of guards at the Primrose now on the days you’re to arrive. Familiar faces, kind faces. Collar and Lace asked Captain Pink to make the changes.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to thank them.” Rosewater took a deep breath. As she let it out, she glanced around her at the ponies watching them make their way through Damme. With Cloudy at her side, she felt comfortable enough to actually look around more. The ponies that weren’t vigorously engaged in bartering for the day’s goods or chatting with neighbors watched them, and even the busy ones spared a look or two. “Thank you, again, for walking with me. I feel…”

She reached for the right words. Calm wasn’t exactly it, though there was an element of peace in her mind that hadn’t been there before, replacing the tension that was just waiting for the first tomato, the first stone, the next rainstorm. She was also free to watch the ponies around her without waiting, letting her see the colt and filly who watched her pass, curious about the tall white mare.

“Daddy, mama,” the filly called out, clear as a bell. “Is that Pincess Cestia?”

Rosewater chuckled and called back, “I am no princess, little filly, but I do appreciate the compliment.”

The filly beamed back at her and wrapped her forelegs around her stunned father’s forelegs. “Daddy, Pincess Cestia talked to me!”

Cloudy chuckled and bumped against her. “It would be interesting to see the two of you in the same room, I admit. I’ve heard she’s got facial features that don’t appear anymore in ponies, she’s so old.”

“By the stars, don’t let her hear you say that. She may be immortal, but I doubt she likes ponies pointing out her age.” Rosewater laughed and nudged back. “I feel happier,” she said, finishing the thought. “With a friend at my side.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Cloudy said, loudly enough that in their wake, a few not-so-hushed whispers started up.

‘Did she really say that?’

‘Friends?’

‘Stars above, really?’

‘What did you expect? She’s a Merrier.’

‘Yeah, but Lord Collar loves her.’

Then they passed beyond the too-loud whisperers and their disbelief over Cloudy calling her a friend, and some of the strain in her ears passed as they faded into the general background murmur.

Cloudy grinned at her and pranced ahead a few steps, hear ears flicking. She’d heard it, too. “So… tell me what you’ve been up to. Any special orders come in lately? Any customer stories? I really liked the one about that mare that couldn’t decide which fragrance of peach she wanted.”

Rosewater chuckled. “Alright, let me see what I have in my trove of tourists looking for the latest Rosewater scent. And not understanding that I don’t use rosewater in everything.”

Cloudy barked a laugh.

Collar stopped his pacing on the steps of the palace as soon as he heard Coat murmur, “They’re here.”

Cloudy and Rosewater were indeed there, both laughing while Rosewater obviously tried to contain herself telling a story of some sort, pausing to tap her hoof to make a point, and then prancing to catch up as Cloudy half-turned to watch her.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile so brightly, or laugh so heartily since he’d met her, and her smile when she turned and saw him on the steps only brightened further as the two mares continued their half-trotting pace up to join him.

“I think,” he said when both stopped, “the plan was to show you were friends, not best friends.”

Cloudy snorted and shook her head. “It was a story about a customer of hers.”

“She wanted a rosewater tincture to drop in her bathwater that would make her smell like actual roses. And when I tried to explain to her that rosewater only had a passing semblance to the fragrance of a rose, and I would need to send her candied rose petals to dissolve in the bath with enough pollen of rose mixed into the batch to give the smell.”

Cloudy gasped and slapped a hoof on the ground. “This is the best part.”

“‘I don’t want to make soup! I want to smell like a rose!’ and I said, ‘Ma’am, any rose soup with you as an ingredient should be tossed out with the toilet water.’ I was quite fed up with arguing with her over the matter, thinking she knew how to make scents work better than I.” Rosewater sniffed and smiled.

“You left out the best part!”

“Okay,” Collar said, a smile tugging at his lips. “What is the best part?”

“She came back later and asked if I could make a rose soup so her breath would smell like roses. I kicked her out of the shop and told her to go to the marketplace and ask for a chef.”

“Rosewater,” Cloudy whined. “That’s not how you said it.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Rosewater giggled. “I told her I could make her breath smell like roses, but she wouldn’t like it.”

Collar chuckled. “Okay, what did you do?”

“I gave her a bottle of rose perfume and told her to drink it.” She paused for a beat, grinning, and Cloudy started gasp-laughing and leaning against him. “And she did. Right there in the shop. She gagged on it, ran out of the shop, and everypony in a hundred meters of her started gagging. I couldn’t stop laughing for half a day at the look on her face of absolute horror when she just upended the flask in her mouth. I even told her it would taste terrible, and warned her what it would do to her digestive system.”

Cloudy gasped, “Rose farts!”

Collar barked a sharp laugh and shook his head. “Dear stars, some ponies.” Collar gave Rosewater a more appreciative look, and stopped. Her cheeks were glowing pink, either from embarrassment or joy, and her eyes sparkled with laugh tears. He hadn’t ever seen her looking so beautiful in the light of day. Not ethereal and otherworldly as she often was at night, but real and solidly beautiful in the full mid-morning sun.

“I-I’m glad your walk was so entertaining,” he said, clearing his throat and giving Cloudy a light kiss on the lips. “Rosemary’s waiting, love. Tell her Rosewater’s arrived.”

When she’d gone and he turned back to Rosewater, much of the glow had faded, but the faint smile remained as she advanced up the steps one at a time. “I’m glad she came to escort me, Collar. Thank you for sending her.”

“Of course.” Collar turned and invited her in, falling into step beside her. “I never thought working as a shop owner could be so amusing.”

“It wasn’t at the time, merely frustrating to deal with her demands and insistence that she was right, and she was the customer, so she had to be treated with pampered hooves.” Rosewater rolled her eyes, ears flat back. “Thankfully a rarity. Most tourists are courteous and listen to the advice they themselves sought out from an expert. But every now and then… usually Canterlot nobility or other minor hedge nobles.”

“And then you gave her what she wanted.”

“Stars, yes.” Rosewater chuckled. “Most perfumes are best used with a single droplet used for an entire day. A little misted drop goes a very long way. But the number of ponies that come back year-after-year to refill bottles that should have lasted two…”

“I wouldn’t think you’d sell bottles so large.”

“The tourist bottles. Since they can only come infrequently. I sell much smaller bottles overseas to resell in local boutiques and parlors.” Rosewater glanced aside at him, flicked an ear. “And how are you today?”

“Fine. Harvest is about three quarters done, and most of what’s left is out past Dammehollow where the valley spreads out into wider and wider fields. The lack of bandits this year has really helped us to bring in a bumper crop.” He glanced at her. “But that’s boring compared to the world of sales.”

“Not at all. I wish I could dig into what Carnation and Budding raised and taught me to do. I wish I could delegate and watch the city bustle and prosper, and walk among the ponies as they bring in golden grain and sweet oats.” She sighed. “But that will have to wait, it seems, and all I can do is follow the publicly available grain harvest status. That, and practice at it by running a small shop.”

“Hardly small. I saw our spymaster’s valuation of the business you do. Your overseas exports alone net enough to buy a few small farms.” He chuckled and flicked an ear at her. “As I understand you’ve done.”

Rosewater turned down the hallway to Lace’s office before he could gesture her there. “I have. I’m diversifying a little with the Garden’s help. We’re going to turn it into a retreat from the city and offer parlor services there. Mane-does and hooficures. Steam baths in the future if we can manage to buy the neighboring farm.”

“That does sound luxurious, if a bit out of the way.”

“It’s an investment for the future, in part. Merrie is so disorganized, street-wise, and that’s largely because of the hills, that we’re starting to overcrowd what housing we have. We’ll start to need to grant building permits outside the walls, towards the flatter fields and farmland.” She shrugged and set hoof to Lace’s office door, knocking twice. “It will push the farmers either across the river or farther towards Merriehollow and beyond, but where go the farmers, the Merrieguard follows.”

“Come in, Collar.”

Rosewater grinned at Collar, winked, and opened the door, sliding in before he could say anything. “Lady Lace,” she said demurely.

“Oh my goodness.” Lace laughed and pressed a hoof to her chest. “You’re looking very well today, Rosewater.” She glanced past her to Collar, bobbed her head once. “Thank you, Collar.”

Before he could leave, Rosewater shook her head. “I would like, actually, to take a look at the journal first, and share it with Rosemary.” She glanced at Collar and flattened her ears.

He took his cue and silenced the room, then stepped fully inside, shutting the door behind him.

“It’s my father’s journal, Collar. Your mother has kept it safe after Carnation gave it to her as, I presume, a means of keeping it safe should she herself be caught before she could give it to me herself.”

“That is the short of it,” Lace said softly, glancing at Collar. “Carnation was one of our agents, Collar. She is the reason why our Dammeguard were so prepared for many of Roseate’s earlier probing attacks and why she eventually withdrew to doing single-target night raids for so many years. Her work, and her sacrifice, is something that I can never truly repay. She has now lost six years of being in her daughters’ lives, and did not see her youngest grow up into the fine mare she is today. Who knows if she will ever see Rosemary married.”

“She will,” Rosewater all but growled.

“We hope she will,” Lace temporized, bowing her head briefly, then pulling out a box from the center of the desk. When she opened it, Rosewater gasped. “I asked the Treaty office to look for any paintings of your father from when he was stationed here as a factor. They had two. I asked for both, and commissioned this box from a master carpenter and painter to shrink the paintings down to fit in the cover. It is, Rosewater, the least I can do to thank your mother, your real mother, for what she did for us.”

The stallion in both pictures, one a bust, and the other in full dress uniform of the Royal Guard, in full, vivid color, showed a stallion with a snowy white coat, strikingly golden eyes, and a regal face that spoke of the kind of nobility that had earned the title. His cutie mark separated both pictures, picked out in felt and embroidered with golden thread, and the plush interior was a pink so deep it was almost red, rather like Rosewater’s eyes, while the lid was a rich blue.

Not unlike the Prim blue that decorated half a dozen flags and paintings in Lace’s large office.

She’s… giving her blessing. Collar realized it at the same moment that Rosewater gasped.

“That’s him. Stars above, that’s him. That’s my father. How…” She looked into Lace’s eyes. “How did you convince them? I asked so many times, and they said all of his official possessions had been sent to Canterlot at his family’s request.”

“I don’t know how they got a hold of them, but they did. Perhaps Celestia herself intervened. We may never know, Rosewater. What the Princess does is often hidden behind veils even we cannot pierce.”

He saw her tremble as she sat in front of the desk and accepted the box, staring into the eyes of the bust on the left, then the full figure on the right. Solemnly, she closed the box and set it on the desk. “Lace,” she said, her voice thick but controlled. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me see the stallion I loved more than anything. This.” She set a hoof lightly to the front edge of the box. “This is beyond valuable to me.”

“It is yours. Whenever you deem it safe to take it home with you.”

“I came, and I wanted to share what I found with my daughter, to introduce her to her grandfather.” She swallowed, clearly uncertain, then sat straighter. “It would be an honor to share—”

“Let his daughter and granddaughter hear it first,” Lace said gently, breaking in over Rosewater. With a spell, she raised Rosewater’s chin gently to look her in the eye. “Take the rest of the morning with your daughter, and share his words with family first.” She nodded to Collar. “When you’ve delivered her. Come back here. We have history to discuss.”

“Yes, mother.” Collar glanced at Rosewater, tears glistening in her eyes, but unshed, and nuzzled her cheek lightly. “Come on. And thank you for trusting me.”

“And that’s how you get rose farts,” Rosemary said, laughing. “Stars, I remember that story. Rosewater was giggling all day, and Carnation had trouble focusing on making dinner after she told it.”

“It was that long ago?” Cloudy’s ears perked up. “Stars above, I thought that was recent.”

“She’s owned her perfumery for almost a decade. That was one of the earlier ones, before she started to kind of… grow numb to the idiocy of outsiders.” Rosemary chuckled. “Still. It was amusing to hear from my friends who told stories about this mare with horrible indigestion and farting roses all over town, looking for a cure.”

“Stars, I think I do remember that.” Cloudy cocked her head, shook it, and shrugged. “Vaguely. Maybe just gossip.”

“Maybe.” Rosemary glanced at the door, restless. “She was happy today?”

“Beyond. Stars, the way Collar stared at her while she was still all aglow… you’d think he’d never seen her before. I’m telling you, he’s changing his views of her in ways he’s not accepted yet.” Cloudy raised her nose at the same time the scent came to her. Collar’s scent, and Rosewater’s less obvious one mingled with it. “Come in, Collar.”

She heard a grunt from the other side, and a laugh from Rosewater before the door opened.

“I swear, I am going to, one day, trick your nose.”

“You can try,” Rosemary teased, slipping from the bed and prancing towards Rosewater, then stopping when she saw what she set on the bedside table. It was a box, ornately carved, with a simple latch on the front.

Almost immediately, Rosewater silenced the room and nodded to her. “Cloudy, I’m sorry, but can I ask you to go with Collar for now?”

“It’s for a good cause,” Collar said softly, sitting next to her and nuzzling her ears. “Lace can explain some of it.”

Cloudy nodded solemnly. “Family is always important.” She glanced at Collar and nodded to the door. “Let’s leave them be.”

After they left, Rosewater slid onto the bed, her ears flat. “I… don’t know what’s in here,” she said softly, drawing the box to her as Rosemary joined her. “Your grandfather, my father, was a remarkable pony, Rosemary. I know I haven’t been as forthcoming about him as I should have. But I need to make up that lapse.”

Grandfather. Rosemary felt a shiver down her spine. Blue Star was the name Rosewater would never talk about, and the word ‘daddy’ was there in the darkest of her nightmares, when she cried out in the middle of the night when the fears had taken her the worst after Carnation had been taken.

“To explain some, your mother… my mother,” Rosewater cleared her throat when she glanced at Rosemary. “She was my mother, too, I realize now, even as both of us were your mothers.”

Rosemary nodded, ears flat. “I’m glad you’re realizing that now.”

“She was an agent. Lace’s agent. She spied on her sister and gave what she could to Lace, to keep Roseate’s vicious brand of fighting from taking the Dammeguard too much by surprise.”

The tingle along her spine turned numb, and cold crept into her limbs as the world seemed to spin. “Sh-she what?”

Rosewater didn’t repeat the statement, instead resting against her lightly.

She was a spy? She’d kept it so well from her, and apparently from Rosewater. And Rosewater helped. She had been a mother to keep Rosemary safe so she could do the difficult task of checking Roseate’s growing power and viciousness. It made too much sense. Why her mother hadn’t fought the exile, why the Treaty Office hadn’t raised any objections, why Roseate had been able to just take her mother away.

“Why?”

“To keep Roseate from winning.”

Rosemary nodded. The loss of her mother to exile was so old by then that the wound was well calloused, and only the occasional tear against it brought back the old pain. Rosewater had been her wall to lean against, her pillow to cry in, her confidant, her mother ever since. She had helped her grow that callous, though it had tormented her. She closed her eyes and prodded at the ache, thinking about Carnation again, at what had taken her away.

It still hurt, but… knowing Carnation had done everything she could to fight against Roseate, just as Rosewater and Rosemary had tried to do in the limited ways they could…

“And this…” Rosewater said, opening the box to a pair of pictures with the same stallion in two styles. “This is your grandfather from my side of the family. Solar Knight Captain Blue Star, former factor assigned to Damme.”

He was a strongly featured stallion, and much of the features he had held sway on Rosewater’s own. Her height and the noble arch of her muzzle, the thickness of shoulder was missing, but his eyes, she could see a part of in Rosewater’s.

“And the book?” Rosemary asked, surprised at her own calm tone of voice. “And… mother? Can I ask Lace about her later?”

“I will ask that you can, but I cannot see her denying you that comfort. It was a side of her neither of us knew.” Rosewater nuzzled her ears, resting her chin behind her horn as Rosemary leaned in closer, then gave up the struggle and laid against her, legs curled up close. It was like being a foal again, safe and comfortable against her mother’s flank.

“I miss her.”

“I do, too. Sometimes I wish I could ask her for advice.” After a moment, Rosewater pulled out the journal and set the box back on the bedside table. “I think you can ask Lace for advice. And Dapper. Both of them care for you, Rosemary.”

“I know.” Rosemary shifted about again, draping her neck over Rosewater’s back like she used to do, and peeking around the larger mare’s neck, the sight of the journal obscured by a curtain of pink mane. “Read to me, please, mother.”

“Of course.”

Rosemary saw there was a foreword, just a few sentences that Rosewater hesitated over, then turned the page to the first page of full text.

“I apologize. The first page was from him to me. I’m not sure I can read it aloud without breaking down.”

“It’s fine.”

Rosewater cleared her throat.

“I want you to know, Rosewater, why I married your mother. Why I had a foal, you, with her. It wasn’t because I thought I could change her ways, because in those early days, she was a better actress than I thought anypony could be. I come from Canterlotian stock, and we’re a bluff herd. We don’t act, prevaricate, or stand aside. For the most part, what we say is what we mean, and who we are is always on our sleeve. It’s because that’s how Princess Celestia has shown us how to be.

“She could have been a tyrant. She could have been deceptive. Every day, however, she tells us exactly what she wants to do, and then she sets about doing it. If it takes her a hundred years, she’ll do what needs to be done. Patience is something that every Canterlotian is well familiar with, and I urge you patience as you read this, as there is much I want and need to say, and I fear I don’t have much time to say it. Every night after you fall asleep, I will spend time writing in this journal, not thinking about what to write.

“I fear that if I sat down to think, I would not, in the end, get a tenth of what you need to hear into writing.”

Rosewater shifted the book slightly, bringing the opposite page into view and shifted her mane out of the way. “Comfortable?”

“Very much.”

“Tonight is the first night since I found out that the dragon’s smoke will be my doom. Six years ago, southern Equestria was in danger from a dragon that was burning crops and stealing away our four-hooved brothers and sisters, the bovid kin, for food. I, along with a strong contingent of troops, led by Celestia herself in her full battle raiment, went south to stop the predation.

“The details of the battle are not important. Our task was not to fight the dragon, but to protect Celestia while she focused on offense. We diverted fire blasts, we stopped claw strikes, and we kept the smoke away from her. All the while, she slowly brought the dragon to submission through strikes and spells that would have sundered small mountains.

“In the end, we succeeded. But during the course of the battle, I and some of the guard accompanying her highness were caught up in a burst of smoke from an aborted fire blast. We kept it away from her highness, but for a long, agonizing minute, all of us breathed in the hot, cinder-filled smoke.

“That is what caused my weakness.

Rosewater turned the page, and if Rosemary hadn’t been laying against her, she wouldn’t have felt the tremor passing through her mother’s body.

“Mom?”

“It’s alright. Memories.” Rosewater’s voice was hoarse, but she cleared it with a cough, and continued. “I retired to Merrie and Damme, intending at first to settle down and live to the last of my days in the city I had represented for half a decade of my life. I wanted to be where the beauty of the northern lights came down without needing a telescope, where no dragon would dare come, for the cold of the north is anathema to those creatures of fire and molten rock.

“But it was her sister that called to me more when I landed in port. A festival day was in full swing, and I found myself swept up in the fervor as I stepped across the Rosewine and into a world I’d barely glimpsed from the other side of the river. Light and color and scents all so savory they caught my heart immediately. I had never fallen in love so quickly nor so completely as I did with Merrie that day.

“I accepted the masque they gave me, and explained to me what to expect. It wasn’t, quite, an orgy. It was the Masque of Spring festival, and drinking and wine were expected and drunk in vast quantities. I met your mother there, and while I didn’t fall in love with her as quickly as I did with the city, she intrigued me with her mysterious air and aloof coyness.

“She was charming, playful, and took the time to explain the custom of the masques. It was a night to celebrate fertility, to drink in the atmosphere and be merry. Other mares, and even some stallions passed through our circle, but she seemed to know who I was, and whispered of some of my deeds.”

Rosewater shifted the book again, her breathing more rapid, almost panicked.

“Mom, it’s okay. I know this is hard to hear.”

“I need to know,” her mother insisted, her voice quavering. “I need to know what she did to him.”

“Then let me read to you. Listen to my voice instead,” Rosemary crooned soothingly in her mother’s ear even as she tugged lightly at the journal. It came away surprisingly easily, and Rosewater nodded numbly. Her breathing started to even out. She cleared her throat and began where Rosewater had left off.

“I was intrigued and excited by the difference between the two cities, and with a few glasses of the best wine I’ve ever had clouding my better judgement, I listened to her when she asked me to take her to bed.

“Eleven months later… you were born. You were beautiful, hale and healthy, and clearly took after me, though your eyes were half your mother’s. By then, I’d gotten to know Roseate better, learned her name, but my duty would not let me leave her. I had willingly mated with your mother, knowing what the consequences could be.

“I never thought that you, my darling child, could be a consequence, and it made all the doubting, all the worrying, all of the fighting your mother and I went through over the long year before you came to me… it was all worth it to hear your voice cry out, ‘Here I am. Love me.’

“And I did. I fell in love with you faster than I did with Merrie. I promised myself then that you would grow up loved and beloved, that you would never want for any support. I had also come to know Roseate’s sister, Carnation, and together, we worked to keep you apart from your mother as much as we could.”

Rosemary turned the page, coming breathless herself at the rapidity of what must have been a hectic few months and years after the birth.

“She promised me she would look after you even after I was gone. Even then, I knew the dragon’s smoke was slowly killing me. But I had to do this. For you, for your future. And Carnation helped me. I loved her more than I ever did your mother, and I would have married her if”

The text trailed off into a scrawl and began again on the next line.

“I don’t regret what happened. I don’t regret anything, and I would do it all again if it meant I got to hold you again even for a few precious moments.”

“They planned it all along,” Rosewater murmured, her voice soft, wondering. “My father and your mother… they planned keeping me safe from her.”

“And he won,” Rosemary whispered in her ear, taking one of her bookmarks from another book and slipping it into the journal before placing it back in the box. “They won. You’re here, now, safe from her, and you grew up believing in the rightness of your morals.”

Rosewater drew in a deep breath, her body steadying against Rosemary’s, the tremors fading as she held, then released it in a long exhalation. “They did. Now, I have to finish what they started. That is my duty.”

“More, you need to love yourself, and find love for yourself. They didn’t raise you to be an engine of vengeance, Rosewater, but a mare who deserves love for its own sake and for her own self.” She kissed her mother’s neck lightly and pressed her forehead against the back of her neck. “You need to be yourself. If that means loving Collar, then love him. If that means loving Cloudy, love her. Find your own love, Rosewater, not what you think you need to win.”

“I do love both of them.” Rosewater took a shorter breath. “And I grow more certain of that every day. Every time I’m with either of them, I grow more certain that they’re the ponies I want in my life forever.”

“As do I,” Rosemary murmured. “And… I think Collar may come around. Politics alone, I think, are making things complicated for him.”

Rosewater made a noise that could have been agreement or resignation and rolled over to lay on her side, leaving Rosemary to rest her cheek on her mother’s shoulder.

“It’s almost lunchtime.”

“I know.” Rosewater heaved a sigh, but didn’t move. “Let them come get us. I need this moment with you.”

“Of course, mom.” It was simple, then, to close her eyes and curl up in the space between Rosewater’s fore and hind legs, and pretend she was a filly again.

An hour later, when Collar creaked open the door, he found mother and daughter curled up together, Rosewater assuming the protective role with her head covering Rosemary’s neck.

It was clear to him then, as it hadn’t been before, that they were truly mother and daughter.

Collar closed the door again and shook his head at his mother’s questioning look. “Another half hour,” he whispered.

Lace nodded quietly and padded back down the corridor.

He stopped at the top of the stairs, glancing back.

She would make a great mother.

The thought stuck with him all the way back to Lace’s office, and kept coming back even as the day advanced, and the usual ‘public’ talks began and ended with Rosewater not betraying how vulnerable, how strong, and how motherly she’d looked in that stolen glimpse of her at her most relaxed.

It made him long to see more of her, to find all the ways in which she could be.

That might take a lifetime, a small voice in the back of his mind said.

Author's Notes:

Another important moment of Rosewater's past unveiled. I know the timing is a little vague, but that's intentionally done. This isn't a historical memoir. It's an emotional confession to his daughter. Things he thinks she needs to hear.

The actual timeline is more:

Fight with the dragon
2-3 years later: retirement when it becomes clear the lung damage is hindering his ability to do his duties.
11 months later: Rosewater born
Carnation and Blue Star undertake raising Rosewater free of Roseate's influence.
2-3 years later, Blue Star finds out that he only has, at best, a few years left and starts writing this journal. He writes in it nightly for the two years he had the strength to push himself while his daughter slept nearby.
Carnation makes an impassioned plea to raise Rosewater as her own to a magistrate court. Roseate, already tired of being a mother to a rebellious young Rosewater, doesn't contest it, and focuses instead on her next four daughters.
The rest is history.

Another two chapter week. Next chapter is Collar and Rosewater's next date. See you on Friday!

Book 2, 23. Overcast

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Collar sat tapping his stylus on his desk and glancing at the clock sitting in the corner of his private office. Three hours.

It was three hours until he had to leave and meet Rosewater.

He jerked his attention away from the slow swing of the pendulum and tried to block out the steady tock-tock-tock it made as it counted down time. Slower than a second, faster than a minute, it was three seconds to a swing, twelve tocks to a minute.

How many had he counted since he’d started trying to write the orders he needed to for Stride?

Sixty tocks? Five minutes?

It felt like hours.

He slammed his chair back and stood, pacing in time with every third tock, trying to clear his mind of tonight.

On the third repetition, he shoved the chair into the corner and commandeered Cloudy’s usual observer’s pillow. He tried to sit still and stare at the paper, but the tock-tock-tock drove him backup and pacing again.

Tonight would come soon enough, tonight would come on its own time, but he needed to give Stride the orders for keeping him on an open-sky set regime. It’s what Rosemary recommended since neither he nor Lace could countenance scent magic in the palace itself.

What’s wrong with me?

He stared at the orders he was supposed to be crafting, that he’d actually half-written already. All he needed to do was finish the orders, set his schedule and his daily tasks. That was easy. He did it for half a dozen of the Dammeguard that were assigned to palace security. He could pass it off to Captain Pink, but… Stride was his responsibility, and he’d accepted the responsibility of handling the scheduling of palace security.

And for him personally, admit it. Stride was something of a side-project for Collar. Trying to wipe away the upbringing of Primfeather prejudice against Merriers, especially after the incident with him and his older brothers that had left a family, an innocent group of Merriers with their children, fleeing terrified back across the bridge.

A harmless prank, they’d said, setting off a thunderburst right over top of them.

Of the lot, only Stride had been stallion enough to stand and receive the dressing down Collar had tried to give the lot of them. That a younger Collar himself had been dressed down by Lord Primfeather for attempting to shout some morals into his son had been beside the point.

But he’d also dared the young colt to prove that he was better than that.

And stars if he hadn’t stepped up and met the dare headon.

He owed it to the young stallion to take care of his mental well-being after Roseate’s attack had left him flying and screaming for his life. That it had been a fringe of Rosewater’s fear fog that had touched him made no difference. It was Roseate who’d started the fight and Rosewater who’d ended it.

And you, though you don’t recall it.

He sighed and focused down on the document, detailing Stride’s work days in two hour blocks, having him outside flying from station to station and gathering reports from watchers, then inside where Rosemary could talk to him and pull him back and away from the dark place he seemed to be drifting towards. Or for himself to sit down and discuss things with him. Nothing secret or sensitive, but involving him in something other than flight and guard duty.

When that was done, he was dismayed to see that only twenty minutes had passed, and he still had the better part of the latter afternoon to wile away before he needed to slip away from the palace.

He needed to set up someplace where he could teleport away, as Rosewater seemed to have, but the only dead spots in the anti-teleportation wards in Prim Palace were barely the size of an arrow slit or a window, and not large enough for even a small pony to appear in.

No, he had to be sneaky to get out of the palace.

He hated being sneaky.

But if he wanted to see her tonight, and again the next time, he would need to be sneaky.

He stood up from the pillow and cracked his neck. It was hard getting used to the different angle, but the seat was so much more forgiving. Merriers might have a point about not using chairs.

His office was empty for the time being. Cloudy was taking her time with being a courier for Priceless, Coat was on patrol in the city with a small squad for civil patrol, Poppy was doing his stint in the palace infirmary treating some of the palace staff for a cold that was going around.

Platinum and Sunrise were on guard in the wing on Rosemary’s and Glory’s doors.

Leaving him with few he could trust to keep confidence when what he really wanted to do was decompress and ask if he was still doing the right thing. He was growing to want to be in Rosewater’s presence more and more, and yesterday’s talks, and the clandestine look at her being a mother had only intensified that desire.

There was more depth there than he could have imagined, that she still kept hidden.

He was half-certain she didn’t mean to hide it from him intentionally, but the chance to let parts of herself come out just didn’t exist. It was as she’d said on their first date. There were masks she put on, some more intentional than others, and they were all her. Chill, aloof Rosewater was just as valid and a part of her as the warm-hearted pony who curled up so protectively around her child.

He started pacing his office again, more slowly, more intentionally, and only stopped to glance at his desk and make sure all he needed to do that night was already done.

That was one of his masks. The official Collar.

Another was when he was alone with Cloudy. A lover. Another was when he was alone with Rosewater. A friend? More?

That they were growing closer was incontrovertible. He worried about her, cared for her, and wanted her to be happy.

He glanced at the clock again, disappointed to see only five minutes had passed.

“Rut it.” Collar grunted and doused the candles on his desk, pondered taking a scarf or a coat, and stopped. He wanted to sit close to her again and feel that warmth all along his side from his shoulder to his hip.

“Rut me.”

He left the office without taking either coat or scarf and told the guard at the gate he was going for a walk. Then vanished before any of them could say anything about sending guards with him.

Rosewater considered the location she’d picked for their third date, then glanced up at the overcast sky and the chill crowning the moon with a frost halo high up, and hoped it wouldn’t get colder. The snap had started just last night with the usual katabatic winds rolling off the Crystal Mountains to the north, funneled down the river valley and kicking up fog everywhere it touched.

She still had a couple of hours before Collar arrived to plan things, and this small clearing was perfectly shielded from the winds coming from the north. Soon, but hopefully not tonight, it would start to rain a cold, hard rain.

Even that, she’d prepared for, though it would take time to set up, and the all-weather camp tent had been harder to procure quietly than finding a way to get the cooking set out of the basement.

It had taken three teleportation runs to outside of town to get everything she needed out of the basement, but she’d managed it, and the trek, veiled, across the river had been even more harrowing. It was the light of day, and while her coat made daytime veiling easier, carrying an unwieldy bundle on her back was harder to hide.

Whether or not she’d completely escaped detection remained to be seen, but once she’d made it to the woods, it’d become so much easier to find her way up the hill and to this place.

The firewood she’d stashed before her date with Cloudy was there, damp from an early morning rain that had thankfully departed before she’d needed to make her way out here.

“Cheese wheel,” she murmured, then stopped and fanned the flames stoking underneath the cooking set and checked the clay pot on the stand next to the fire. The first chunks were already melting, albeit slowly. She would need to let that melt fully before she added more, and possibly move the pot closer.

“Bread,” she murmured, inspecting the covered, rougher clay pot full of cubes and strips of breads she’d either procured herself or had procured from Damme. The cheesecloth covering wouldn’t survive close to the fire, but she didn’t need it to be too warm, just enough so that the bread was pleasantly ‘fresh’ feeling.

“A date?” a voice at the edge of the clearing asked.

Rosewater startled, briefly activating the jewel at her breast before she let it go. “Stars above! Collar!”

He chuckled and slipped free of the invisibility. “So your nose can be fooled.”

“In my defense,” she said a touch testily, “this cheese is very fragrant, and the breads are, as well.”

To her surprise, he grinned and nuzzled her neck, then sat a little way away from her, giving her room to work. “It smells good, honestly. But it has a strong smell.”

“Hello to you, too,” she grumbled, sniffing gently at his shoulder. “You took a good bath, didn’t you?”

“Hours ago,” he said with a grin. “Cloudy insisted.”

“And no doubt she checked you herself for stray scents.” Rosewater relaxed minutely and grinned. “So she’s taken a hoof in preparing you to prank me. But you’re not supposed to be here for another few hours. I’ve barely started preparing our dinner tonight.”

“What is for dinner tonight?” Collar asked, leaning closer to the pot and sniffing. “Something cheese based?”

“The cheese is part of the appetizer.” Rosewater raised the pot of bread. “This is the rest. I have hearty fish cakes, too.” She fished around in her saddlebags and brought out the cloth-wrapped bottle of wine. “And wine that Petal promised me would go well with the dish.”

“Why is it wrapped?”

“She made me promise not to look,” Rosewater replied, chuckling. “I think she planned something to surprise me.”

“Very suspicious,” he said, his lips curving into a teasing smile.

“So why are you out here so early?” Rosewater asked, some of her nerves dying back down to a more normal nervous hum. “I wasn’t expecting you to pop out like that and scare me.”

He hesitated, his eyes darting from her to linger on the fire still dying down to a more peaceful, cheery crackle and pop. “I wanted to see you again.”

Rosewater nodded, hesitated herself, then pulled up the cheese wheel and dull cheese knife, and began cutting cubes out of the rind and adding them to the pot. She didn’t trust herself yet to say anything, to push him more towards the Principes and towards what he seemed to be suggesting.

“I saw you yesterday,” he began again, suddenly, and sidled closer to her until she could almost feel the heat of his body in the small gap between them. “When you were taking a nap with your… with Rosemary.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about that more than I thought I would.”

“I see.” Rosewater cleared her throat, too. “I… I needed time with her, like I used to do when she was small. Protecting her was something I could do. I missed being there for her, and reading about how my father helped to protect me, how Carnation protected me before I even knew they were doing it…”

Collar nodded solemnly and gently took the wheel and knife from her magic. “Let me help.”

She let him, and turned to tending the fire, prodding at the wood so it would fall into a neat pile when it finally collapsed. For long moments, he carved chunks of cheese out and fed them into the pot slowly, bringing it up to examine it every other cube, and in silence, they together prepared their meal for the night.

After the eighth cube, he set the wheel aside. “Did you bring anything else?”

“Not much besides the fish cakes. Made with potato, celery, and cubed, diced fish. I brought a pan, too, to fry them up in. In case the fondue isn’t hearty enough.” Rosewater chuckled. “They’re my own recipe, and maybe I’ll tell you the story behind them someday.”

Collar grinned and sidled closer, until he was sitting hip-to-hip with her. “It sounds tasty, and I will hold you to telling me about them later.” He glanced to the sky as the wind shifted, bringing a chill down through the branches with the smell of rain, albeit distant. “Cloudy said it might rain tonight if the winds keep up like they are.”

“Bliss said the same thing, and I have a tent, albeit a small one, made with a smoke hole for the fire.” She shifted the thick bundle of poles and sail-quality canvas. “I had to borrow it from the Garden.”

“You did a lot of work for tonight,” he murmured, glancing back at the tent, then at her. Something undefinable in his eyes caught at Rosewater’s heart. “You’ve always put a lot of care into preparing for our dates.”

“As did you,” Rosewater murmured.

Tension crackled in the air, and she felt certain he was about to do something when the fire crackled, popped, and the thin sticks making up the kindling collapsed and sent up sparks as the split firewood folded into an unstable tripod, slid, and slumped slowly into the flat self-supporting triangle.

The tension faded.

Rosewater let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Collar felt the tension fading, felt the prickle of want fade from his coat as the fire settled down into a cheerier blaze. What were you about to do?

Rosewater’s cheeks were pink, and the warmth of her against him was more than it had been. She felt it, too. But she didn’t push it, didn’t try to bring it up. Instead, she shifted the logs about and added another crosswise across them as if she hadn’t felt it.

“So.” Collar cleared his throat. “Is this some kind of cheese soup?”

She relaxed visibly and he could feel the change in her as he dragged their mutual attention past the awkward moment.

“Mmm. Close. Cloudy and Rosemary recommended it.” Her cheeks pinked, more clearly in the firelight than they had by moonlight. “It’s fondue.” She held up two tiny, long-handled forks. “For dipping.”

It was a weird little fork, only two tines, but long, blunted and slightly serrated along the inner edges. “For dipping bread?” He tested it out on one of the cubes. The serration held the bread in place, no matter how he tapped the handle against the side of the pot. “Clever design.”

“Well… Rosemary said she usually likes to do vegetables like cooked bits of potato, some breads of different kinds, sometimes carrots and broccoli.” Rosewater flushed a little. “It can be a full meal. Even some use fish or fish cakes or something of the sort. The restaurateur said that he makes a brisk business on fondue alone.”

“Fascinating,” Collar murmured, using his speared piece of bread to shift around the bread in the pot, seeking out the aforementioned bits. “I’m not seeing any of that here.”

She nodded, her cheeks coloring more deeply. “I have yet to cook the fish cakes, and I suppose we can dip them, but…” She shuffled around in her saddlebags for a moment and brought out a plate covered with a serving dome, tied down by a bit of kerchief wrapped around both. “If we’re still hungry after finishing the bread.”

“I will be. I ducked out of the palace before early dinner service,” Collar said, grinning, tempted to open the plate and see what she’d brought, but left it closed and set it beside the pot of bread. “You brought a pan?”

“And frying oil, yes.” Rosewater chuckled. “I was planning on having them well cooked by the time you arrived, and taste-tested the fondue, too.”

“Ahh, well, sometimes life comes at you fast, and you need to adapt.”

She nipped his cheek suddenly, winked, and set about preparing the pan and the secondary piece of the cook set for frying, her tongue firmly between her teeth as her shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“What was that for?”

“Life comes at you fast, and—”

“If you finish that, I swear to the stars I will—” He stopped himself mid-tease, having no backup that wouldn’t sound like flirtation. “Um.”

She laughed more heartily, throwing her head back before descending into more fillyish giggles as he tweaked her ear with a spell. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You’d better be,” he mock-growled before succumbing to a chuckle. “Stars, I do enjoy these nights with you, Rosewater. Even more when they stray outside your plans.”

Her laughter faded into the most beatific smile he’d ever seen grace her lips. “I do, too, Collar. Thank you for breaking me out of my shell.”

“I’m only helping, Rosewater, but it is refreshing to see you come out of it more and more easily.” He leaned against her briefly and turned to her saddlebags. “And I’d like to help you cook, too, if I can.”

She pulled a blanket over them before he could flip up the top. “There’s… a surprise in there. For dessert.” Her cheeks were flushed, and she wouldn’t look him directly in the eye as she quietly pulled out the bottle of oil and the pan from the other side of the bags, both of them heavy-duty panniers more suited to a long overland trip than a day trip. A spatula came next. “They’re easy to cook.”

“What’s the surprise?” he asked as he accepted the items, his eyebrows rising.

“Something that will surely be making Roseate pull her mane out as soon as gossip gets to her.” Her ears lay flat, and her eyes finally came up to meet his. “And your spymaster will hear about it possibly at the same time.”

Collar’s eyebrows rose, and felt the question burbling up in his mind, almost on his lips, and shook his head. “It’s a surprise, then. A big one.”

She nodded, not a little bit sheepishly. “Thank you for helping cook.”

“You made them, Rosewater, I’m just trying not to burn them.”

They settled into a slow, awkward routine around the campfire, with Rosewater wandering over to check the fish cakes occasionally, and moving the pot of cheese farther and farther away from the fire before finally setting a wooden lid on top and nodding to him briefly.

She didn’t set up the tent, but she did unroll it and start setting poles around at predetermined points around the clearing.

“I used to go camping with Carnation and Rosemary,” Rosewater said as she laid out one of the poles, rolling it back and forth with a hoof once it was down. “With a tent like this. Sometimes, Budding Rosethorn would come with us and bring Seed, and we would make it a learning adventure. Identifying plants and fungi, tubers and leaves. All the things that we could and couldn’t eat, all the things that were fragrant or used in fragrances.”

Collar nodded faintly, waiting for her to go on, and checking the patty with the spatula. Goldening up nicely.

“We’d be gone for three days at most, travelling almost to Merriehollow on a long and circuitous path through the woods and out into the fields. Hashed browns smothered with cheese and gravy, oatmeal with crusty bits from where it stuck to the pot. Oat and honey bars. This reminds me of those times.”

“I’m glad,” Collar said at last. “You need those memories.”

“And I want more memories like it, Collar. I don’t want this to be the only time we get out of the cities and… just be. Us. Whatever we decide to do.” Rosewater’s throat bobbed as she swallowed thickly. “Even if it’s not because we’re in love, or married, I don’t want to lose this friendship with you.”

“You won’t,” he assured her, reaching out with a spell to brush back her forelock and cup her cheek with a warming spell. “I’ve grown fond of these times away from prying eyes and ears with you.” He almost said it, the words that would move him down the path towards the Principes, but he stopped himself just shy of them.

He needed to be sure. He needed to know for certain that what he was feeling was real and not just because he was having fun being with her. Telling her and then rescinding them would hurt her worse than if he never said them.

So he kept silent as she continued about the campsite, slowly laying out what would become the tent and occasionally raising her nose to sniff at the wind that grew chillier and chillier as the sun crept below the short rise to the west.

“It’s going to rain soon,” Rosewater said softly as she finally unfolded the tent material. “We have maybe half an hour before it hits.”

“You can smell it?”

“I can. Help me get this up.”

They had the tent up in less than ten minutes, and when they were done and tested the tension of the ropes and stakes, Rosewater pulled everything under the roof of the tent, careful to set her saddlebags against one of the poles. Even if it got a little wet, that was better than its precious cargo melting in the heat of the fire.

“You planned well,” Collar said softly as he took a seat against her again. Unlike their last date, he pulled one of the blankets free of the bundle of them she’d brought and draped it over their backs. “If it’s going to rain, it’s going to get cold.”

“It is. We might just see our first snow soon.”

“Stars, I hope not. We still have a quarter of our crop to harvest. A freeze will make it that much harder to dry the grain.” He shook his head, sighed, and leaned against her, then glanced down at the blanket. “Does this have… grommets in the corners?”

“They’re a contingency. In case the wind gets bad enough to drive the rain into the tent.” Rosewater conjured a ball of light and sent it drifting up to loose rope ties hanging from each corner of the tent.

“Or…” Collar untied one of the stays on the leeward side of the tent and looped it through two of the grommets, tying it loosely about them. “A clasp for a cloak for two.”

“Clever.” Rosewater raised a hoof to brush the tie, lowered it, and leaned against him. “It’s very cozy.”

He coughed, nodded, and turned his attention back to the food that’d been set aside and covered while they’d worked on the tent. “So. Fish cakes first or fondue first?”

“Well…” Rosewater cursed herself for making the remark and straightened. “If we leave the fish cakes on the pan and stand next to the fire, that’ll keep them hot without burning them, I think.” The pot of cheese, she pulled closer and pulled off the wooden topper. “Now. We have a choice. We can go with the cheese by itself, or we can add some herbs to make it more fragrant and more flavorful.”

Collar glanced at her, brow raised. “More fragrant?”

“I misspoke. Differently fragrant.” She wagged the little box in front of him. “Sage, rosemary, and dill. Some of your favorites, if I recall.”

“Mmm. Dill, yes.” Collar chuckled and nipped at her cheek. “Alright, mix it in. I’ll trust your judgement on flavor and fragrance.”

Startled, Rosewater almost dropped the box of herbs and glanced at him sharply, only to find even in the firelight that his cheeks were coloring, visible as a darkening of his copper coat.

“Sorry.” Collar coughed and flattened his ears to his mane. “I didn’t…” He trailed off, looking to the side.

“You did mean to,” Rosewater said quietly, turning her attention back to the pot of cheese and finishing preparing it for their appetizer. “It is something friends do, even in Damme, Collar. Tease each other, I mean, and even nip and play bite.” She eyed him in her peripheral vision, waiting for him to move just an inch…

When he did, she struck, nipping his cheek and giggling when he yelped.

“You meant to do that!”

“I did! Seriously, it doesn’t have to mean anything, Collar.”

“Okay, okay. Point taken.” He chuckled, keeping an exaggerated watch over her, and bent to smell the pot. “It is better smelling. Less sharp, more… refined?”

“That is the point. Now.” She twirled a fork in the air and jabbed it blindly into the pot of bread. “Shall we play a game?”

“Game?” Collar leaned forward, and she pulled him back away from the bread pot.

“Ah-ah! A game like this has to be adhered to. It’s something the restaurateur said was popular. Guess the food.” Rosewater veiled the fork and dunked it into the cheese pot, then swirled it around twice before pulling it up and letting the excess cheese drip off. “You like bread, right?”

“Love it. But I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert.” Collar squinted at the cube, glanced aside at her. “And how do I know you won’t cheat and use your nose?”

“Collar, Collar.” Rosewater clucked her tongue. “I am not a seer. I can smell them all together, but they’ve been heating up in that pot so much that any one bit of bread smells like every other bit of bread.” She held up the current contestant. “Are you in?”

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward, blowing on it, then taking the bite. After a few slow chews, he made an appreciative noise and swallowed. “Okay, so how do I figure it out? I don’t exactly have a list of…” His voice trailed off as Rosewater unfolded a slip of paper.

“He said it was part of the game. So.” She glanced at the ten different breads listed and held it out to him. “What did you think?”

“Delicious, and…”

Rosewater waited and watched, her stomach turning over as he mused. It was working. He wasn’t morose anymore, he wasn’t worried that he was leading her on.

“Blue-cheese infused onion dill.”

“That’s…” Rosewater laughed and threw her head back, tossing her mane and stamping a hoof. “Stars above, I forgot to check what kind it was before I dunked!”

“Then I win this round.” He grinned cheekily at her and hesitated, then took her fork, leaving his resting on the plate. “Okay. To play this right, close your eyes and hold your breath.”

“Hold my—” Rosewater chuckled and nipped his shoulder. “Then you had better choose and dunk fast.”

Collar chuckled in return and nipped her neck. “I promise. No more than a minute to decide. Now, close your eyes.”

What are you doing, Collar? He asked himself as she closed her eyes and took an exaggeratedly deep breath. What are you playing at?

There was a game to play, however, and a game that he was sure wasn’t what it seemed to be.

The next piece of bread was a marbled crust with dark striations in it, and the meat of it was just as striped. The list suggested it was marbled rye and sourdough.

“Hurry,” Rosewater gasped breathlessly.

“Sorry.” He plunged the piece into the cheese. “You can open your eyes now.”

“Breathe?” she wheezed.

Collar laughed and nudged her with his shoulder. “And breathe.” He let the piece soak for a while, and asked, “So this is what Merriers do on romantic dates?”

“It can be,” she admitted, her cheeks heating. “Petal, Seed, and Rosemary suggested that I should try it. It’s… new to Merrie. I think it’s from the east and across the sea, maybe.”

He let out a low whistle. “That’s a long way for a custom to travel. It certainly is tasty, I will give it that.” Following her example, he took the morsel out of the cheese and twirled it once, then twice, and held it out. “Enjoy.”

She ate as he had, slowly, cocking her head side to side, but hummed softly as she thought before swallowing, and glanced at the sheet, lips pursed. “That was a tough one. Did you look first?”

“I did not. I only looked after I speared it. You saw me.” He stuck his tongue out. “Give up?”

“Not yet.” She smacked her lips, then looked up at the tent as a faint, distant rumble sounded. “Thunder.”

“Or wind,” he said. “We sometimes hear a thunderous roar in the palace when the wind first comes off the rise, but it fades fast as it spreads out.”

A few seconds later, a dim flash settled the matter, and a low rumble came again.

“At least there’s not going to be snow, I don’t think. Not if it’s this warm,” Collar grumbled, and looked around them. “I sure hope nothing hits any of the trees.”

“It’s unlikely,” Rosewater murmured softly, snuggling closer as a touch of cooler wind reached down from the trees and set the blanket and the flames to stirring. The ropes and wooden rods held, and the fabric of the roof barely rippled in the passing. “There are higher ridges all around us.”

The rain came on the heels of the wind, pattering at first in disparate drops, then a more steady deluge as the front swept over them, the temperature dropping precipitously.

More thunder rumbled, but distant, and Rosewater turned her head to the west, towards the sea. “I think it’s thundering mostly over the sea. I imagine there, it gets more chance to rush and tumble than it does over trees and hills.”

“I hope it stays, then,” Collar mumbed, and tried not to think about how good she felt against him, how right his mind said it, and how closely their heights fit. “You still haven’t picked an answer.”

“Darn!” She giggled. “I have no idea. I thought I tasted sourdough, but there are two sourdough types in the list. I’d have to guess Sourdough dill.”

“My lady,” he said solemnly. “I’m afraid that I must disappoint you, because that is incorrect. It was Marbled Sourdough Rye.” When she gave him a raspberry and a bright smile, he laughed and nudged her foreleg with a gentle hoof. “My lady! That is hardly, er, a ladylike way to admit defeat.”

“Well!” She huffed and prized the fork away from him and jabbed it into the pot. “Close your eyes and hold your breath!”

“But I don’t—”

“Ah-ah. I didn’t make the rule, my lord. You must at least follow your own rules, yes?” She waggled the handle back and forth as if fishing for another piece. “Go on.”

He rolled his eyes and did as he was asked, pretending to sulk as he did.

Ten minutes later, Collar sat with a solid lead of five over her four wins, but that didn’t seem to bother Rosewater at that moment as they sat, staring into the pot together, cheeks pressed so each could look at the same time.

“I think that one is a salted blue,” he said, tapping one of the pieces with the tines of the fork. “See, it has the blue crumblies all over it.”

“But it doesn’t have the salted crust. I think that’s a sour blue.”

“The salt could have been shaken off while you were stirring the pot,” Collar grumped, pressing her head away from the opening and fishing around some more.

“Says Mr. I’m stirring the pot right now.”

“That is not my name. It’s Mr. Pot Stirrer, madam fork wiggler.”

“So dignified.” Rosewater laughed and raised her head from trying to jockey back into position and checked the fish cakes, pulling the pan over to show him. One side nice and golden brown, the other getting there. “Another log? I think this rain is just going to stick around for a while.”

“I think so.” Collar picked up the improvised trenching tool—a particularly sharply cut piece of firewood and started digging the trench around their campsite a little deeper, and worked on extending the excess flow trough towards the little gully that was already streaming downhill. “Good idea on the moat, too, though it won’t keep out much more than an ant.”

“Using a moat to keep out the water in the moat. Simple.” She grinned at him and set the pan back in place, then pulled out one of the dry pieces of firewood and set it in place. “How long do you want to stay out here, waiting for the rain to stop?”

“Let’s give it until…” He trailed off, his mind whirling over the possibilities come morning, the crews that were still allowed to log for another month. The dozens of ponies that would be tramping up and down the trail not a hundred paces and a hill away. She’d be caught, and he’d be caught with her, and there would be no escaping the repercussions of their secret romance. “You can’t be around here in the morning. If a lumber crew comes by and smells the fire…”

“Then you’ll have been alone before they get within sight of us.” Rosewater leaned against him more. “But I doubt they will be. Rolling logs in mud is dangerous business, I hear. Slippery.”

He didn’t reply except to grunt and nod.

“There’s the mud, too, to consider,” she said softly. “Two sets of hoofprints drying, the same stride length, one feminine and the other masculine…” She set her hoof beside his, her more delicate and sharp hoof contrasting with his thicker and more rounded hoof.

“I’m not sure that’s feminine so much as it is mountain-stock unicorn,” Collar murmured, raising her hoof with the back of his ankle to study it.

“I meant the size,” Rosewater murmured, but didn’t pull away, leaning against him as he studied her hoof.

He’d never really paid attention to them before, but they were delicate, and more sharply angled than his own. There was a hint of cleave in the middle, just a dimple hinting at farther back pure mountain stock. Far more than Cloudy’s or Dapper’s or even Lace’s. And beautiful. And unique to her. “I think you have your father’s hooves, Rosewater.”

He would have to check, though. It wasn’t like he’d memorized his parents’ or his lover’s hoof shapes. It was barely something he paid attention to for himself.

She didn’t pull away, but he felt her grow more distant as soon as he mentioned him. He began cursing himself when she came back, smiling brightly, and nodded. “They are. I’m sure of it.”

His foreleg stayed steady under the weight and warmth of hers, the delicate, sturdy bones of her ankle flexing minutely as she shifted the hoof left and right before she glanced at him, then lowered it to the ground again.

An opportunity that he’d barely even grasped sprung up in his mind too late to take hold of and act on. He could have given her the barest bit of what he was half-certain was growing inside him and kissed her ankle.

But that would be an insult. That’s something distant courtesans do, not…

He gave himself a mental shake and leaned closer to the again brightening fire to sniff at the fish cakes. “There’s more than potatoes, celery, and fish in there, isn’t there?”

“He does have a nose after all! Yes. Onion, dried and ground into a powder, and the same of garlic. They bind well with the little bit of flour, water, and mashed potatoes used to make the cakes solid and not mushy lumps of ick.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience.”

She laughed, a bark of sharp, surprised humor. “You could say that. But that, I will save as a story for another day. Else you might not have the courage to try these.”

Collar chuckled and held out his plate. “Are they ready, oh worthy and experienced chef?”

“Mmm.” Rosewater leaned forward to inspect the cakes, giving him the opportunity to admire the curve of her neck and the fineness of her features from a new angle. “Almost. The bottoms aren’t the right shade yet.”

It was an effort not to lean too much into her as she sat back. “Are we done with fondue?”

“I think so,” Collar said even as he poked the fork back into the pot and dipped the piece of bread in cheese. “Just one more.”

Rosewater chuckled. “Sure. Just one more.” She glanced at him, smirked, and closed her eyes, mouth open.

Rolling his eyes, Collar fed her the piece.

“Salted blue,” she said after only a second then chewed and swallowed. “Very good.”

“And now we’re even.” Collar didn’t even bother checking the sheet as he fished around for one for himself.

Rosewater leaned against Collar as he finished the last of his fish cake. The last of hers sat on her plate by the fire, keeping warm until she wanted to finish it off. With a bit of wine. Maybe just before dessert.

Tonight had been… perfect. She’d not even thought about what she was doing half the time and let herself just be in the moment, having fun with Collar and playing games, engaging in little quips and counters. Even without a romantic element, it felt good. It felt like they fit together in ways that she hadn’t with others.

Even Dazzle, whom she was more intimate with, didn’t fit with her the same way.

It might have had something to do with the similar responsibility and tension she and Collar both faced in their everyday lives. She as a mother, the future heir of a city whose ruler was all but openly hostile to her. He was the heir of a city that faced infiltration and possibly even invasion daily.

Their lives, she had discovered, had followed parallels, each of them coming to realizations and following paths in mirror to each other.

That commonality… what might have been.

She sighed and took another small bite of her fish cake, savoring the crunch and salt flavor of it, the spices heightening the smaller flavors and accentuating the fish, a species of salmon with a particularly meaty flesh. Usually not her taste, as she preferred lighter varieties, but in the cake it was complemented by the softness of the potato and crunch of the celery.

“Very good,” Collar murmured around the last mouthful of his. “I think you said something about dessert?”

“I did.” Rosewater craned her neck to glance at her saddlebags, one side spattered with specks of mud and water, the other side clean and cool. “The wine should be first, I think. It will go well with the cheese and fish cakes.”

“Save that for a toast.” He nudged her ankle with a hoof. “An end to tonight.”

Rosewater hesitated, then nodded and brought out the bottle. “Okay, but I need to see what she sent. I don’t want any more surprises from her.” She opened the side facing the rain and pulled out the cloth-wrapped bottle, and two sturdy tumblers. Both were clean, thankfully, if chilled. “Let’s see what she decided would be best for us.”

As soon as the cloth fell away, the string hanging loose in the light breeze, Rosewater wanted to strangle her nephew and his wife.

On the bottle’s paper label, written with a careful hoof, was ‘Pomegranate Kiss. Kissed with love.’ It was right underneath the actual label, ‘Pomegranate Paradise’ that was crossed out.

“He is in so much trouble,” Rosewater growled. “And so is she, as soon as I get a spell on each of their ears, I’m going to make them wish…” She trailed off as Collar tugged the bottle away from her, studying both the label and the glass.

“They’re looking out for you,” Collar said in a quiet voice. “They don’t know it’s me, do they?”

“They suspect. Strongly. They know it’s not Cloudy.”

“And the only other pony it could be is… Dazzle?” A strange hitch in his voice drew her attention to his eyes immediately. “You’re his lover?”

“Once. Before you and I started dating,” Rosewater said just as quietly. “I haven’t seen another’s bed since I started seriously dating both you and Cloudy. Nor has another seen mine.”

He nodded slowly, settling the bottle at their hooves, and took a deep breath. “I don’t mind it when Cloudy has her nights with other mares. She, too, has been ‘settling down’ as she calls it. But I have never asked her to abandon her culture, to abandon the freedom of love that she grew up with.” He glanced at her, his eyes serious. “I accept that she is deeply and madly in love with Rosemary, and I can even understand why. Getting to know her, I can see why anypony would fall in love with her.”

“I—”

“You,” he said, stopping her with a light touch of his nose to her cheek. “You were born and raised in the same culture. I admit. When I heard you were seen often with him, I was… jealous. I can admit that now. I was jealous that he got to see you like I’ve seen you tonight. Free of worry, free of constraint. I believe, tonight, that you’ve shown me what your heart would be should it be free to love, free of the fear of Roseate’s wrath. I don’t want you to lose that, Rosewater. I want you to feel free, so I can share in your happiness when you are free.” He started to say more, she could tell, but his eyes fell to the bottle again, and she studied it with him.

“Collar…”

Something in his eyes told her not to say what was on the tip of her tongue.

“Rosewater,” he said gently. “Your relationship with Dazzle, with Bliss, is yours. Not mine. What you do with it, with them, is not my business, no more than Cloudy’s lovers are my business. It would be hypocritical of me if I tried to claim otherwise.”

While Rosewater was still processing that idea, that he knew, that he wanted her to be free as Cloudy was, he surprised her again. His lips on her cheek, warm and strong, briefly kissing her.

“For a pomegranate kiss,” he said, smiling lopsidedly. “Thank you for a wonderful date tonight, Rosewater.”

She wanted to return it, to kiss him on the lips. Except she couldn’t. Not until he asked her to or did it first. Instead, she nodded slowly. “It’s been more than I could have hoped for. More fun. More… relaxing. More…” She raised the impromptu cloak and let it settle around them again. “Close. Thank you, Collar.”

“Any other surprises for tonight?”

“Dessert.” She didn’t waste any time bringing out the flimsy wooden boxes that rattled as she set them down. One was smaller, with heart decorations all over the top and sides, clearly painted on with a stencil. “They’re filled chocolates, a variety in each. My idea, not Petal’s or Seed’s. The small box is for us, tonight. The other is for you and Cloudy to share. And to share with Rosemary if you wish.”

Collar’s brows raised, and he glanced at her again. “Very romantic. It’s not even close to Hearth’s Home day.”

“It is.” Rosewater felt her cheeks heating as she hurriedly opened the small box to reveal four small, oblong chocolates with a little pink frosting decorating the tops of each. A little mussed from their journey, but still recognizably a heart. “But they’re… um. They were an impulse buy. I saw them, and thought of you. And I thought of Cloudy. And Rosemary.”

Rather than answering with words, Collar bent to inspect the chocolates more closely. “What kind are they?”

Smiling, Rosewater bent down, cheek to cheek again, and said. “I think we need to find out.”

Collar swept a look all around the woods outside, at the rain still falling, albeit more of a desultory drizzle intermittently peppered by briefly more powerful downpours. It was cold beyond the reach of the fire, with another quarter log on top of it added just a few minutes ago. The edge of mud was creeping farther inwards as the simple act of soaking the ground threatened their cleanliness.

Rosewater was leaning against him, studying the gooey, dark red center of a chocolate she’d just bitten half of. “If I didn’t know better,” she murmured around the bite, “I’d think that Petal knew and she conspired with the chocolatier to only stock pomegranate filled ones.”

It was so very tempting to kiss her cheek again and feel the warm vitality spreading as her blush grew. But he couldn’t lead her on any further. Politics made sure that they couldn’t work together. Even Cloudy’s marriage to Rosemary, and by proxy to him, was on very shaky legal ground.

He wasn’t ready to tell them that. He needed to. His studies of Frosty’s law and its history over the last week had shown him that his conceptions about it, like it was for most Dammers, he was sure, were tied up in the story of its inception, not in the legal battles that came after.

Getting rid of it was also the only way the cities would ever truly unite. A settled peace would only leave them as two cities with separate rulership, inviting the turmoil to reawaken in a generation or more.

Action was needed.

Rosewater brought him back to the present by offering him the other half. “This one does have nuts in it. So that’s different. Pecans.”

He made himself take half of the rest, which any Damme-born pony would see as some sort of kiss, but any Merrier would just see as another thing friends did. “Mmm. Very good. Like the last pomegranate one.” He chewed slowly, and finally found a nut. Or part of one. It was small. “Are you sure the nut wasn’t there by accident?”

Rosewater laughed, and even that sound was beautiful to his ears. “You might be right.”

“What is it about pomegranates that are so romantic?” He asked after swallowing. “They’re kinda… they’ve got a bite to them.”

“A story I can tell you at a later time,” Rosewater replied, her cheeks coloring again as he glanced at her inquisitively. “It comes from before the Day of Two Nights, supposedly. It’s very…” She coughed delicately and tapped the side of the wine bottle with a hoof. “Shall we?”

“Changing the subject, are we?” Collar asked, grinning and resisting the urge to nip her cheek. “I will hold you to that. But yes, I think some wine to end the night would be lovely.” He took the bottle before she could. “Allow me, Rosewater. You’ve done so much already tonight, and been excellent company.”

She sat back and leaned against him, sending a thrill through his entire body as she laid her cheek, the cheek he’d kissed, against his neck. “As you wish, my lord,” she said in a low, teasing voice.

He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to tell her the words she’d already told him.

Sometime in the night, he’d passed beyond friendship, even close friendship, and begun to see her as somepony he could love. How and when the transition in his feelings had happened, he had no idea. It was like the moment with Cloudy.

One moment, he’d been her friend, and in the next, without seeming to have transitioned from one state to another, his thoughts had clicked. Looking back, he could see the ramping up of his feelings for her, and if he spent the time, he could with Rosewater as well, he was sure of it.

But that moment, the instant of change…

Collar twisted the corkscrew tighter, ears flat as he forced himself to focus on the task.

“Rather tightly fit,” Rosewater observed quietly, her voice hesitant, as if she’d realized the reason for his sudden fumbling, and was waiting for him to tell her. Stars, he wanted to.

“It’s not,” he grunted, careful not to shatter the bottle in his spell’s grip. It was actually a perfectly fit cork. Most corks made with a cork-press were. It was his emotional state that was causing his focus to slip.

What’s wrong with you? He pulled the cork out with a twist, and a roiling fog of mist came with the pop, spilling over the rim and enchanting his nose with the smell of tart and sweet.

As much as he wanted to taste it, to drown himself in the bottle and blunt the raging worries, doubts and fears filling his mind as he contemplated a future with her in the spare moments between the cusp of a moment when he’d fallen off it and into her eyes, and filling her glass.

“Is everything okay, Collar?” Her voice was even gentler, and her lean against him set his heart to thudding so hard she must have felt it.

“It is,” he managed to say, then leaned against her. “A chill I think.” To get closer to her, for her to shift just that much closer to him so there was no space between them on the ground blanket.

A moment spent readjusting the draping blanket let him shiver for real as the cold air kissed his warm back before it resettled around them with not even a gap. He was as close to her as he could be in the moment.

“It smells wonderful,” Rosewater said after a moment, apparently buying his reason. “Trust Petal to find a vintage better than the one she had me taste.” Her smile warmed him more as she leaned against him, sliding a little to the side on the blanket so he took up more of her weight. It left more of his side uncovered, but her weight on his shoulder was… it was… remarkably soothing to have her there, a comforting presence.

When he finished pouring his own, he half-corked the bottle and raised his tumbler. “What do we toast to?”

Rosewater didn’t look at him as she raised her glass, but he could feel her cheek warming against his neck. “To…” She hesitated, lowering the glass. “I know what I want to hope for. I don’t want to toast it, though, if you don’t.”

He knew, and he hated that he couldn’t give her that hope. He wanted to give it to her, but he couldn’t. He needed time. To review the law. To see if there was an out for them besides running away.

What he could give her, though… an inkling of what he wanted to do. It was all he could give and live with his conscience if all of his efforts failed.

“To the Principes Van Vrije Liefde. May love be available to all.”

She startled upright, almost pulling apart the fastener on their shared ‘cloak,’ and stared at him, her mouth open and working to make sound.

“I mean it,” he said softly. “The Principes is a beautiful philosophy, Rosewater. But I can’t hold it for myself.” But not because of a lack of want. He wanted to tell her, to kiss her and tell her they would find a way. But that was the province of poets and novelists, not of politics.

As she gazed into his eyes, she calmed, and her mouth closed. Her eyes closed, and she nodded, as if she’d seen past his words to his reasoning. “I understand, Collar. May love be available to all.” After a moment, before she touched her glass to his, she added, “Even for you and I. If we wish it.”

He hesitated. That hadn’t been part of the plan. But his lips moved for him as his heart swelled. “Even for you and I.”

Collar didn’t add the last part as he clinked glasses with her and downed his Pomegranate kiss, and tried not to think about the fact that it might be the only kiss he could share with her.

He wished for it. He wished at that moment he could open himself up to her as she had over the past month and more.

He couldn’t break her heart if he failed to do what needed to be done.

Author's Notes:

This date went through four different revisions before I was happy with how it went. Including three whole rewrites as the story evolved. I'm much happier with it now. It fits more neatly into the progression of their romance.

Frosty's law was a hard thing to quantify, to imagine how it was conceived and how it would be changed over the years to be more restrictive against the encroachment of Merrie mores among the populace and nobility as the war settled into more of an enforced cold war.

More of that is coming next week, explaining how that works, and how it's been portrayed popularly in propaganda (even among the ones who wrote it) and how misunderstandings grew.

So... as per usual, I'm practically hopping up and down excited to get this one out. So here it is. Thursday night instead of Friday. Sadly, I won't have enough chapters to make a two chapter week next week. Recent events have drastically slowed my writing tempo and I need what I have left to catch up again.

Book 2, 24. Lovesick

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“How’d it go?” Cloudy whispered softly as Collar stepped into their room in the palace. His legs up to his cannons were caked with mud and black soot-marks marred his coat in three precise spots. It was nearly morning, and the drizzle that had permeated the night had only just quit a few hours ago. “You two were up there most of the night?”

“Let me get cleaned up first,” Collar muttered, his coat shivering as he checked his path behind for mud spots and headed for their bathing room. “Stars above, thank you for puddles in the cobbles.”

“The cisterns should be full,” Cloudy said helpfully as she followed him in, sniffing him lightly but finding not much more than rain and mud smells. Maybe a hint of Rosewater under it all, but not enough of it to tell for sure, and she didn’t have a Rosethorn’s ability to enhance her sense of smell at will. “But the water will be cold. It will take time to warm up a tub, and the servants are going to ask some questions”

“That’s fine. I need a cold bath.” Collar sounded… tired. More tired than if he’d been on patrol all night. The rumble of water in the pipes came as he twisted the knob, and a whoosh of air exploded from the faucet a second before cold, clear water thundered into the tub. His mane was caked to his face with water, and he shivered still.

Cloudy hesitated, then sat beside him. “At least warm up the water with a spell, Collar. That has to be near freezing. You’ll catch a cold.”

He startled, glanced at her, and reached a hoof into the tub. “Okay. Point taken.” He offered her a small smile as his horn flickered, and a tube of light appeared around the stream of water, brightened, and began to steam wherever water droplets passed through it.

Before too long, the bathtub itself began to steam, and he loosened his hold on the spell until the steam subsided to a gentle trickle over the edge. When he let it go, he swayed back and forth for a second.

“Stars, you’re tired.” Cloudy twisted the knob closed and nudged him into the tub with her nose. “Get in there, you mudball. And tell me what happened.”

Gingerly, he stepped in, winced, his coat twitching the entire time, and sank into the water until he was able to rest his chin on the side of the tub. For a moment, it looked like he’d fallen asleep, then a smile spread across his lips and he opened his eyes.

“It was perfect. Almost perfect.” The smile slipped briefly, came back, then faded altogether. “Frosty’s Law is going to be a problem. For you and me, and you and Rosemary.”

“But it just prevents a mare from sleeping—”

“It specifies a marriage as two ponies. Only. Any children born outside of the marriage are illegitimate. Any lovers outside of the marriage are… problematic.” Collar didn’t elaborate immediately, his eyes downcast as he continued to scrubb at his legs under the water. “They don’t get any inheritance rights. If I marry you, I can’t marry her, and her children won’t be legitimate in Damme if they’re mine.”

Cloudy raised a hoof, stopped, and sat back, forcing herself to think instead of speak or act right away. “Then we should register our marriage in Merrie.”

“Won’t work. There’s not even a provision to recognize a polyamorous marriage in Damme. Every one that’s come over has been a single couple with multiple ‘affairs’ and illegitimate children. They never stay long. It’s… an injustice.”

“Then overturn the rutting law,” Cloudy growled. “If it’s an injustice, then get rid of it!”

Collar glanced at her, then down again at the water that was quickly turning murky. “It’s not that simple. There’s political ramifications to consider, too. If we challenged it in the middle court out of the blue—”

“Then encourage any ponies still in the city from Merrie to challenge it! Stars, is this so hard?”

“I won’t use common ponies as pawns, Cloudy. It’s not fair to them.”

“And it’s not fair to them to see their marriage ignored in a city they chose to move to.” Cloudy rose and paced to the end of the tub, then to the linen closet, pulled out a folded towel and threw it on the floor next to the tub. The simple action delaying her enough to think, to calm down and not think about how her family might flee and suddenly find their family ‘invalid…’

She shifted the towel about, delaying herself further and pushing down the anger at his obtuseness. “Collar, I understand you don’t want to play pawns like Roseate does. But this isn’t a case of that. Not exactly. Find a family that’s migrated to Damme with a registered marriage in Merrie and quietly encourage them to challenge the law.”

Collar nodded slowly, sighed, and glanced at her, his ears lowered apologetically. “Sorry. I was… feeling sorry for myself.”

Cloudy kissed his cheek lightly. “But you are right that there will be political ramifications, and they won’t deserve that if, say, the Primfeathers find out that you encouraged them to challenge the law.”

“Mother’s lessons have really sunk in,” Collar replied with a half-smirk.

“They have. She’s brilliant, Collar, and I’m only just beginning to realize how much she cares. About me. Rosewater. Rosemary.” She tapped her hoof for each one. “She has to keep herself at such a distance because she loves deeply, and it hurts her when danger knocks at her loved-ones doors. It showed in the story Dapper told us about how they got married.”

Collar was quiet for a time, still in the water as mud and particulates drifted down towards the bottom of the basin and it began to clear again. “I know it hurt her to know that I would be her only child. She tries so hard to not stifle me and keep me safe from everything, let me make my own mistakes and learn from them.”

“When did you find out about Frosty’s law’s limitations?” Cloudy asked softly.

“A week or so ago. After my last date with Rosewater. I wanted to know what challenges we could face.” Collar came to his hooves and pulled the plug before stepping out of the tub. His coat was still not clean, but it would do. “I still have more research to do, but the law itself is straightforward and uncompromising. It was crafted, and modified, to prevent exactly this sort of marriage from happening.”

“Marriage.”

Collar startled and glanced at her. “I mean…” He trailed off, looking down at his hooves. “I need to think. I need to see her again before I’m sure, Cloudy. Even then, I might not be able to say the words I wanted to last night. I won’t break her heart by giving them, then taking them away.”

“What can I do to help?” One thing, she did right away, and pulled out a towel for him. “I want to help, Collar.”

“I know, and I don’t know yet.” He accepted the towel and was halfway through wrapping his tail when he stopped and nodded. “Can you talk to my mother about the law? She knows more about the law than I do, I’m sure. I need to dry off and get some sleep.”

“Just how late were the two of you up?” Cloudy asked while inspecting his tail and tugging the towel lightly to make it tighter.

“Neither of us slept. We talked. All night and into the morning.” A hint of a real smile came back to his lips. “Stars above, other than you, I don’t think I’ve ever been that comfortable talking to another Merrier.”

“Except your dad.”

Collar chuckled. “Except my dad.”

“Alright. Dry up. Get some sleep.” Cloudy kissed him lightly on the lips. “Love you, Collar. I’ll come back when you’ve had a rest.” With that, she slipped out of their room and barely managed to contain a jubilant laugh as she trotted down the corridor towards Lace’s office.

It’d been a long month for him, but it looks like his innate respect for the Principes had finally given way to acceptance.

Her step slowed as the implications of the rest sank in. He hadn’t told her.

Rosewater likely guessed, she’s too perceptive to miss it, but she’s too stubborn to push him.

“Stars help both of them,” Cloudy muttered under her breath.

Rosewater stumbled across the Rosewine tributary bridge sometime a little after the sun was starting to peek out in the east, her mane wet, her legs and belly spattered with mud, and a basket of Fall Lilies, their frost-white flowers rarely seen in the forests except for a week after the first freeze of the year.

It just so happened that the first freeze was the date that Collar had all but confessed that he could fall in love with her. She’d seen it in his eyes with that toast, and felt it in him whenever silence interrupted their conversation, and whenever they put another log on the fire.

The tent, she’d left behind. That would be incriminating enough by itself, but it was a common enough design, and Collar had taken the fondue pot and bread with him, as well as the full camping set.

All she had, then, was the pannier she’d set in one saddlebag to give it shape and keep it from crushing the delicate balsa boxes of chocolates.

“Wait! Stop!” Rosejoy’s voice rose from behind her as the mare, for the second time in two days, rushed to catch up with her and accost her with the sharp-as-an-egg wit she prided herself on. “I demand—”

“That you stop harassing me when I am going about my own business!” Rosewater yelled at her before she could get more than those two words out. “By the stars, mare. Must you chase me every second of every day?”

Rosejoy stared at her, mouth agape.

“Do you want to know where I was?” Rosewater pulled out one of the less impressive specimens of Frost Lily and threw it at her. “There. That’s where I was. Up early gathering frost lilies before the stampede for them made the forest bare of them. Now rut off and let me get some sleep.”

Without waiting for an answer, Rosewater turned and stamped the rest of the way across the bridge, huffing indignantly for Rosejoy’s benefit as the persistently annoying mare stared after her.

It wasn’t hard to feign the annoyance or the indignation, but it did dampen the high spirits she’d had during the trek through the forest to where the frost lilies grew thickest, avoiding by long practice the bogs and mud holes that made travel through them in the dark most difficult.

She’d had to restrain herself from humming or singing her joy lest she attract the attention of somepony else also engaging in the first frost ritual of gathering the fragrant blooms.

This early, there was still traffic across the Rosewine coming from the docks as ingots of iron or already made nails in barrels were delivered to the forges for iron bands for barrels and other things needed to maintain and expand the winery and supporting village.

It was remarkable, truly, that a village whole and separate from Merrie had sprung up over the past two hundred years here. Even the plots of land that she could see were being plowed under were a part of that. They couldn’t produce enough to support the village, but they could plant and harvest some of the more exotic and rare produce that the farmers to the east did not or could not.

Strawberries, blueberries, all manner of fruit that took careful and daily management to keep the insects away from them and ensure that they got the right amount of water in environs so far from what they were used to where they grew wild and plentiful to the south.

That was the bounty of the Garden, and the mist-shrouded hill, with streamers of fog slipping away under the assault of the sun’s warming rays as the top glowed as if becrowned by gold was a sign of welcoming.

I’m home.

Ponies only glanced at her briefly as she passed by, nodding their good mornings. In return, Rosewater amplified the fragrance of the frost lilies, a sweet and invigorating scent that was used in perfumes and candles. Sadly, the process of turning them into a scent left little else, but Frost Lily tea was also popular, but rare.

I’ll save half of my haul for tea.

It would mean less than usual for her, but… maybe she could work with Roselyn to dilute it into a batch of candles that would last longer than a perfume.

The possibilities of what she might do with her haul were only the surface. Below that, she was afraid of touching the certainty that Collar had wanted to tell her something more, that he had been about to admit that the Principes, and her, were open to him.

She could very well guess what had stopped him. Collar believed in the laws and institutions of Damme and society, and he was tasked, or would be, with upholding them. Frosty’s law, again, was causing problems with a potential unification of the cities. In the past, neither city had seen it as much of a problem, dismissing the one set of lovers that had tried it as idealistic.

They’d exiled themselves to live someplace else when it became clear that their love for each wouldn't be accepted by either side. For all she knew, their descendants were still out there, spreading word of the Principes and its message of love for all to wherever they’d settled.

That wouldn’t be their fate.

And yet…

Rosewater hesitated on the cusp of entering the villa grounds and glanced back at her flat sides. In order to win, she needed to have a child. It was not something she wanted to do for politics, but for love, and the reason she hadn’t already won. Silver Star had almost been the stallion, but the others she’d visited her hopes briefly on hadn’t ever been more than a quicksilver fancy for either side.

In part because of Roseate.

In part because, in her heart, she’d known that the only way to truly win would be to unite the cities in the body of one child.

A purely Merrier child might be enough for her to negotiate an end to the hostilities, but they would still be two separate cities, always vaguely distrustful of the other, no matter how long the peace lasted.

And she hated herself for thinking of her future child as a political piece on a board. A child should be born for love.

And if Collar loves you…

Rosewater allowed herself to savor the moment again, when she’d been all but certain that he was falling in love with her. Those soft, five words.

“Even for you and I.”

Her heart had skipped a beat, certain he was going to follow up with the words she’d been hoping he would say, that she’d been working towards, but words that, in the past weeks, she’d stopped actively scheming for.

He had to come to her naturally, without her pushing, for there to be a chance of true love blooming. The past weeks of opening herself up, of being afraid that she was opening up too much, had shown her the fallacy of her earlier plans, and last night had closed the lid on any justification she’d had for ‘finagling’ a courtship out of him.

He is. He is coming to you. Give him time to accept his feelings.

And yet, she kept being torn between the political need to have a child and the natural desire to have a child with a pony she was falling in love with.

And what will Cloudy want? Rosemary? Questions she would need to ask them if Collar accepted her offered courtship.

“Rosewater?” The voice from behind nearly startled her into a teleportation.

The magical energy faded back into her horn and herself as she let it go. “Stars above, Petal,” she said, rather sheepishly. “You startled me.”

“I can see that. You’re jumpier than a june bug.” Petal nipped her cheek and swept past her, a matching panier of frost lilies dangling from her flank. “I see you went for the bog forest lilies.”

“They’re more numerous, and it was less likely that I’d run into another soul this early,” Rosewater said easily, stuffing her nerves into a box with the ease of long practice. “And the bog forest is closer to my house.”

“It’s not.” Petal gave her a sniff and flicked her tail. “Your house is here.”

“You know what I meant,” Rosewater said with a roll of her eyes. “Rosefire estate.”

“I know what you meant, and I’m telling you that’s not your home anymore. Ponies make a home, Rosewater. Plural. You can’t make a home by yourself.”

“I can,” Rosewater replied. “It’s just… lonely sometimes.” More than lonely. Memories haunted her in every corner of the estate when she was tired or her mood was low. Worse than lonely. “Fine. But I can’t stay away forever, Petal. Aunt Rosefire gave that estate to us, and I need to take care of it.”

Petal cocked her head to the side. “Okay, but you’re not going home alone. Invite someone over when you need to. Me, Seed, Roselyn, Bliss…” She looked past Rosewater and nodded to somepony. “Even Dazzle.”

Rosewater turned to find the stallion watching her curiously, his eyes bright, a smile on his lips, and she recalled what Collar had told her. Not to suppress her heritage. Not to distance herself from those that wanted to be close from her. Not for his or anypony’s sake.

The kiss she gave him surprised him into a laughing yelp. “Well, good morning to you, too, lovely.” He glanced at Petal, then focused, forming an imperfect silence around them. Better than his last attempt. “I take it last night went well?”

“Very.” Again, she took over the spell gently, letting him feel as she corrected the form of the spell before expanding the dome of silence to include Petal. “My… outing went very well indeed.”

“And you stinking like a bog so we can’t tell who it is?” Petal snorted but smiled and winked. “No need to tell us, I know secrets run for you like currents in the ocean.”

“The bog was more for my mother than for you, Petal. I needed a reason to come back to town on the break of dawn. Frost petals with last night’s storm and frost were it.”

“It was barely a frost,” Petal grumbled. “We didn’t get as many as I would have liked this year. Hopefully those that didn’t bloom last night will bloom the next time the mountains send a cold front our way.”

“It was colder farther from the ocean,” Rosewater replied. “Where I went wasn’t far from it, but the bog is a good three miles inland. Far enough to escape the ocean’s moderating influence.”

Rather than entering the villa, Rosewater skirted around the brick walls of her home away from home. The vines that climbed the walls were already starting to turn their leaves loose despite the warmth leaking out from the well-warmed interior. By winter, only the vines along the chimneys would remain green, although their leaves would have fallen.

“You must have had a good night,” Dazzle whispered to her. “I take it, um…” He glanced back at Petal.

“Pah.” Petal rolled her eyes and lifted the pannier off Rosewater’s back. “You two go have a talk. It’s clear you’re conspiring together.” She tossed her mane and nipped Rosewater’s flank. “But if you don’t tell us soon, I’m going to get Seed and we’re going to sit on you until you tell us.”

Leaving her alone with Dazzle and a shrunken silence spell.

“Collar… I think is falling in love with me,” Rosewater said softly, the words sending a thrill through her. Words she hadn’t dared speaking aloud before. As she led Dazzle to the bath, and throughout it, she told him about her date.

At the end of the bath, he stood to leave, his expression thoughtful.

She stopped him with a spell against his flank. “He wants me to be free. Free to be me, Dazzle. To be who I grew up as, to see love and sex as two separate things.”

“He loves you, then,” Dazzle said softly. “Even if he hasn’t said the words. Are you sure? He might have told you, but he’s still, at his heart, a follower of the Tussen Twee.”

Rosewater nodded slowly, and sat on the top step of the bath. “I… Dazzle, if he never comes to my side. If he decides that we can’t be together, and you’ve offered yourself to me so freely, without restraints or conditions. I will hate myself for keeping you from me. Because I do want to spend time with you, in every way that we can. While we can.” And I may come to love you if he turns aside my heart. “It’s the Rose way.”

He seemed to hear her unspoken words, and nodded. Newcomer he might be, but he understood the realities of the dynamics of polyamorous marriage in Merrie, that sometimes for the sake of the larger harmony, some loves needed to be accepted, and others put aside lest they disturb the peace.

Some ponies just did not get along, and that was never going to change, no matter if they were followers of the Principes or the Tussen Twee… or neither.

And some loves… for the sake of politics, needed to be let go.

“Nor do I want the spark we struck together to evaporate. I love both of you in different ways, but no less love for those differences.”

Dazzle’s eyes sparkled as he came back, smiling, and he met her with a kiss, pushed her back, deeper into the water, towards the far side, near the drainage spout, where sloping ramps had been purpose built for sex, for making love, and for the mare to be atop the stallion.

It was slow, and as he thrust up into her, filling her with pleasure, pressure, and a slow release as she rode him to his orgasm and, later, as he used his magic to stimulate her, hers, she felt a mending in her heart and mind. More heat suffused her as she panted atop him, his cock still in her, his come dripping down her thighs to the water and washing away in the slow current that ran from source to drain.

Their heavy breathing and the slow gurgle and trickle of water was the only sound in the warm bathhouse. Something inside her she hadn’t let out since her first time with Dazzle came back, warming her.

This was the Principes. Love available to all. Without limit.

It was release, and it was hope for a better future, and after she cleaned herself again, she allowed herself to dream of she and Collar laying together in the same way.

“You were right. You need love,” Dazzle murmured as they lay down to dry slowly, and she to nap. “You need a connection to other ponies, Rosewater. And you want it. You want sex, Rosewater, and pleasure, and you’ve denied yourself for so long. Stars, I felt that in you just now. You’re a being of desires, just like I am, and denying them is counter to everything we believe in.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she murmured.

“You won’t. I like you, Rosewater. You’re a good friend, and I will admit to loving having sex with you. But I know your heart is drifting across the river.” He kissed her cheek gently and rolled over beside her. “I know you’re falling in love with him, but I do hope that won’t keep us apart forever.”

“It won’t,” Rosewater replied softly, her eyes closed as she enspelled the stones and gems below the floor to emanate a low heat and put in enough magic to power the enchantment for an hour or so.

As it rose, she drifted farther from wakefulness.

At some point, Dazzle kissed her cheek and stood, leaving to go about his day while she napped herself back to some semblance of energy.

Firelight Spark’s tea steamed away merrily on the edge of his desk. The morning’s rays had seen a ship from Los Pegasus arrive, mostly full of passengers from Canterlot, or Merrier and Dammer traders returning home for the coming winter.

Two of those passengers sat across the broad surface of his desk with its silver, gold, and bronze inlay of Celestia’s cutie mark. Two mares wearing the bangles of a married couple. Judging by the way they fidgeted with them and flushed when they noticed they were doing it, they were newlywed.

Or, he reminded himself, it’s a cover.

He sipped his tea and let them sit for a while longer. It was too early to receive spies he’d thought would have been arriving a week later. Though, calling them spies was, perhaps, over-generous as he reviewed their order packets and the dossiers they’d given him on sitting down.

One was an economist, and the other was a political theorist. An oddly well-paired couple.

Another sip, and he set the tea back down on its saucer. “So. I wasn’t expecting the two of you for another week, nor was I expecting a married couple.” He glanced over the dossiers again, set them down, and fixed his attention on Fervent Wish, noted as being the more sociable of the two. “I have your orders here, but what’s your execution plan? Have you had a chance to read over the current situation in both cities?”

“A little,” Fervent said, ducking her head. “Her highness gave us your last report, and we were able to read it on the carriage ride and voyage here. I do have some questions.”

Golden Glow, the quieter, almost mousey looking mare with a golden coat, pulled free a thick scroll case and tugged free familiar papers. In his own hoof, and started unrolling them one-by-one on his desk.

“We wanted to know,” Golden said, cleared her throat, and spoke more loudly. “We wanted to know what the situation is currently between Rosewater and Collar. I’m afraid the report we had is almost a month old, but you did say that she had opened negotiations with the Primlines for the return of her cousin?”

Firelight nodded shallowly and sipped his tea again, debating whether or not he could trust them to be discreet. He’d deliberately not included the relationship in his report. Princess Celestia knew, and that was all that truly mattered.

But her spies didn’t know.

“She has,” he said finally. “She and Lord Collar are negotiating faithfully, and I’ve been pleased with the progress that both parties are reporting in their negotiations. They’re consistent and, more importantly, substantive. Rosewater is trading half on her eventual rulership of Merrie, and half on her own not-inconsiderable wealth and means.”

Golden nodded and Fervent made a note in a fanciful, wire-rimmed notebook with a flexible cover. The kind of papercraft he’d never see this far from the growing industrial heart of Equestria.

“What’s the designated herdgild,” Golden asked next, checking over her partner’s notes. “How likely is Rosewater to succeed on her own?”

“One hundred thousand bits, or equivalent,” Firelight said flatly. “And not very.”

Fervent whistled. “They take their prisoners of war trade seriously here, don’t they?”

“It’s usually paid in the equivalent of trade tariffs and is usually covered within a few months.”

Golden was nodding enthusiastically before Fervent could comment. “Yes, yes. The trade across the bridges is picking up quite a lot in the past decades. It used to be years, love. Years before that kind of herdgild was paid off.”

“But her crime was so minor. Why not just treat her as a common criminal, get her to pay a fine, and ban her from the city?”

“She was acting under orders. That makes her an enemy combatant. And one of high birth. The law is very clear. Any hostile act, success or failure, must be treated as an act of war.” Firelight tapped a hoof on the table. “You’re not… usually involved in spy work, are you?”

“Spy work?” Fervent laughed and nudged the pony he was now certain was actually her wife. “Great mare, no. We are exactly what our dossiers say. Her highness didn’t send us to spy, sir knight. She sent us to evaluate and get a ‘pony on the ground’ idea of what things were like. And to go on our honeymoon.”

“That would… explain a few things.” Firelight scrubbed at his face, suddenly glad he hadn’t spilled about Rosewater and Rosemary’s actual relationship. “Very well. Can you at least tell me what your report-in schedule will be like?”

“Whenever we can,” Fervent said, leaning over to nudge her wife. “We’ve got an itinerary and everything! We even stopped by a cafe after we heard a rumor that Lord Collar was going to take his future wife there. I’m so excited! We’ll get to see him and her and everything!”

Golden flushed. “She’s… very excited about the political situation here. It’s been her focus of study for the past two years.”

Firelight rubbed at one cheek and fought not to sigh. Sometimes, the plots her highness started in his area of responsibility truly baffled him. “So you’re actually here to celebrate your honeymoon.”

“Of course.” Fervent gave him a look like he was a touch slow.

It’s too early, of course I’m slow. “And you’re also her agents?”

“Yes…”

Golden nudged her wife and spoke up. “She told us to enjoy ourselves, but asked us to look out for anything out of the ordinary going on. And to report the common pony’s opinion.”

“And that’s why you’re trying to get close to Collar.”

“Oh, I’ve just heard that he’s a kind stallion.” Fervent waved a hoof. “Given Damme’s history and tendency to produce tyrannical-minded rulers, it’s going to be fascinating to see the only son of its first truly benevolent ruler. Maybe even talk to him.”

“He is that,” Firelight said. “Rosewater as well, for her part. She’s been caught up in a poor situation, but she’s working her way out of it. Don’t judge her too harshly for what she’s done.”

Fervent nodded slowly, Golden more quickly.

“Do… you have any suggestions?” Golden asked, setting a hoof over her wife’s raised foreleg. “You’re the expert on the local situation, Sir Firelight. Any advice you can give us would be appreciated.”

“If you get a chance, visit the Garden of Love. It’s a premier destination for honeymooning couples during the tourist season anyway, and the Lady Rosewater has been staying there more often.”

Fervent winced, lowering her hoof. “We’ve already made accommodations in Damme for a week. It’d look awful suspicious if we cancelled them to go to Merrie.”

“We’ll keep it in mind,” Golden said, nudging her wife gently away from the desk. “We’ve taken up enough of your morning. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.”

“Emissaries from her majesty are always welcome. Just be aware that both cities run on… a little later schedule. Morning doesn’t start for another two hours after it does in Canterlot.”

He sipped his tea quietly as the two mares filed out of his office and closed the door behind him.

Almost the instant it did, an unobtrusive golden gem flashed in the corner of his vision. He’d suspected it would go off as soon as the two left. He could almost feel the pressure of the Princess’s projection waiting behind the complicated enchantments woven finer than hairs over the surface and throughout it.

He touched it, locking the door and sliding back the panel that hid the astral room.

“Your highness,” he said, bowing his head. Taking a risk, he took a deep breath, “it’s barely past the dawning hour here.”

Princess Celestia’s laugh echoed in the small chamber. “My dear captain, reminding me that work doesn’t start for another half an hour. Thank you. But this is somewhat urgent. The Baroness Highwater will be arriving within Canterlot inside two weeks, and I understand she had some dealing with Roseate. Is there anything you can give to me that I can use to delay her return to Highwater Ridge?”

“Two weeks.” Firelight sighed and turned to pull out the slim file he had on the baroness. “I’ve sent you everything I know for certain, your highness. I can possibly drum up some more details from Rosewater herself. But she may ask a boon in return.”

“Permit her one more letter, if she asks. Her adopted mother broke down in tears from the last, and she’s nearly feverish for any detail I can give, though she is controlled enough to keep it to herself.” The princess paused, hoof to her chin, and nodded. “Every time the subject of Merrie or Damme and their situation comes up in council, she quivers for details. She has done remarkably well the last month, and I see no reason to torment her.”

Firelight opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

“Even if it does bend the law rather substantially.”

“I was going to say that not letting her mother reply has driven Rosewater nearly to madness as well. If you’re going to bend the law, I mean.” Firelight waved a hoof lightly. “She’s doing better since she accepted her place back at the Garden of Love, but it was a close thing.”

“Your informant?”

“My informant has been unable to sequester themselves into any of the meetings. More, it’s putting things together. Lace, when referring to Rosewater in her reports of Rosewater’s negotiation progress is talking about her like a daughter or granddaughter. You’ll see them yourself in the next batch of reports.”

Celestia’s eyes seemed to glitter with interest. “Now that is an interesting development.” She waved a hoof and rose from her laying position, and the image shrunk her to fit still within the transmission field. “I think it’s getting close to the end, captain. I will take your advisement and allow Carnation to write a letter. It won’t be coming by your normal route, so please keep an eye on the transmission jewel. I will need you to transcribe it while I read it to you.”

“How should I tell her it arrived?”

Celestia winked. “You’ll come up with something. Now, I must be off to my daily duties, captain. Fare well, and good luck.”

Firelight saluted and held his wince until the golden-hued image of Celestia winked out.

“I do wish, sometimes, that your instructions were more precise, your highness.”

Her laughter, distant, came back to him and sent a shiver up his spine.

Book 2, 25. The Chandler, the Soaper, and the Matchmaker

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Rosewater tapped the valve on the end of the condenser spigot and peered down into the curving tube surrounded with chilled water. The frost lily extract gave off an almost peppermint smell, sharp and cool, but with a warming after scent as she covered the flask and swirled it once to make sure there wasn’t any water left in the final oil extract.

It wouldn’t do to help Roselyn with her candlemaking and leave water in her contribution. Exploding candles were typically frowned upon, after all.

It’d taken almost two days to prepare the flowers for the reduction process, and it had taken almost her entire pannier full of them in order to get the small flask barely a quarter full of the fragrant oils from the petals. The hair-thin stamen could be used as a part of a less fragrant tea, but Petal had already said she was going to dry her haul for teas in their entirety, and that would make for nearly as fragrant a tea as the candles would be.

Hopefully, with a good mixing, she could help Roselyn make more candles than Rosewater could make bottles of perfume after so small a haul.

Two days since her date with Collar. Two days since she had been so certain he was in love with her, or falling into it. How two days made her doubt her instincts, to second-guess what she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes, and in his voice and their farewell: an embrace that had lingered longer than she thought friends would in Damme.

Yet he’d given her the metric of his love. A kiss. He didn’t kiss those he didn’t love. He hadn’t kissed her, and so doubt had been sown and even throwing herself back into her life in the Garden with the same gusto she’d once held six years ago hadn’t let her hide from those little niggling fears.

Work had let her escape them for a time, letting the flowers dry, working on orders for her resellers overseas for the spring rush, and finalizing an order that would go out on the next ship. She’d already called for a carter to carry it to the ship, and the bill of lading was nailed firmly to the crate packed with straw and cotton wadding to protect the delicate vials of perfume.

But when she ran out of work for a given day and crossed off the tasks she’d allotted for that time from her work board, they came back.

Tomorrow, Collar would be on his date with Cloudy, and tomorrow, he would know that she had placed her hoof into his love life without his permission. That Cloudy had not only given permission but asked her to help didn’t matter. He was a Dammer, and no matter how much he respected the Principes, even to not be bothered by Cloudy continuing to follow her heritage, he might not accept that for himself.

Then an agonizing two day wait for the next time she saw him again. Two days in which anything might happen.

Get a hold of yourself. She tucked the flask in her day pack and took a deep breath.

Before she’d even made it to the door, the front door bell chimed as it opened, and again when it closed.

There’s a ‘closed’ sign. Rosewater sighed and pushed open the door to the smaller parlor to find… Roselyn. She was perusing the bottles in the glass case at the front of the showroom area, and ticked her ears once as she heard Rosewater close the door.

“Your tourist pricing is too low,” Roselyn said. “You could charge double and they’d still buy.”

“Maybe. But most of my money comes from outside Merrie. There’s too much competition here, and if I raised my prices, I’d not get half the local sales.” Rosewater sat behind the display case and opened the lockbox. Just a few bits and buckles she kept for making change. “I’ve been closed most of the time while I’m engaged with negotiations.”

Roselyn made a small noise, almost a grunt, and nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. It’s just a distraction, isn’t it?”

“It can be. I still need to keep up my overseas contacts, and tourist season is dying down anyway.”

“But not dead. A new ship full of southern Equestrians came up to watch the turning of seasons.” Roselyn made a face and rolled her eyes. “They’re all staying in Damme, of course.”

“A shame. They could buy some of your candles if they came here.” Rosewater smiled and slid open the case’s back to pull out one of the silver-filigreed green bottles and set it on the counter. “Or one of my generics.”

Roselyn reached up a hoof to tentatively tap the applicator, squirting a drop of perfume on the edge of her hoof. She sniffed it, hummed for a second, and shrugged. “Pardon for me saying, but it’s…” She hesitated, laughed, and shook her head. “Generic.”

Rosewater laughed with her and set the bottle back in place. “So, what brings you here? I just finished reducing the frost lily petals and was about to head over. Very nice batch, if I do say so myself.”

“Well…” Roselyn grinned, that devilish, firebrand ‘I’ve done something’ smile that Bliss said always presaged one of her unexpected schemes. “You know candlemaking and soapmaking share a lot of final steps of production. And there happens to be a soapmaker that the Garden uses almost exclusively for our private and public baths… and I help her out. And we have fun because our names are really similar.’

“Roseling?” Rosewater asked, her heart leaping into her throat. She glanced to the door, expecting it to open and usher the mare herself in.

“She’s not here, silly, but I’m having lunch with her today, and mentioned that you seemed to be doing better. Less scared, more… healthy.” Roselyn cocked her head to the side. “She misses you still, and she’d like to see you. As long as you’re not going to run away.”

“I’m done with running away.” Rosewater rubbed at her cheek and pulled the flask out of her day pack, considered it, and sent it back to her work table and locked the door. “I wasn’t sure if she would want to see me.”

Roselyn nodded solemnly. “She hedged for a bit, but she accepted if I could get you to come. And made you promise not to avoid her anymore.”

“I won’t. I can’t imagine our paths will cross that often unless we want to strike up a relationship, but… I won’t avoid her.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

She was already there, of course, sitting in a corner booth with her eyes on the door, and giving Rosewater no time to assess her mood before that look of surprise, and a touch of… something else. Annoyance. Frustration. Maybe happiness.

Then it shifted as Rosewater came closer, mechanically returning Glass’s greeting and made her way to the seat, eyes locked on Roseling and trying to read her mood, her emotions, trying to understand whether Roseling hated her or…

“Rosewater?” Roseling’s voice wasn’t as steady as it was when she was there with Rosetide, and it was an effort not to adopt the gruff, rough voice she used for Rosetide.

“Stars…” Rosewater whispered, stopping shy of sliding into the seat. “I… I thought…”

Roselyn nosed her way past Rosewater to slide in next to her sometime business partner. “She promised,” she said, giving the other earth pony a nuzzle.

Roseling nodded her head lightly, the smile still there, the amber shade of her eyes clear and sharp. “I… wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I have my friends, after all, and they helped pick me up after… well…” Roseling waved a hoof at her. “I had no real expectations that the heiress of Merrie would take an interest in me… or for her to hold that interest.”

“But I should have…” Rosewater fished for words as she slid onto the bench across from the other two. “That night meant so much to me, Roseling. You didn’t act like I was… anypony special. You didn’t seem to care who I was. That was worth more than you know.”

“Then why, for the Mare’s sake, did you let go?” Roseling demanded, then calmed herself with a pushing out of her hooves just before Roselyn nosed her. “I know why… intellectually. It’s not as easy for me to accept that your mother was the reason why. That’s not our way, Rosewater.”

“I know it’s not.” Rosewater crossed her forelegs on the table. “But… you made me happy for that week, Roseling. Happier than I’ve been in a long time. I knew it couldn’t last, and I didn’t want you to get hurt. I tried—”

“You told me,” Roseling said with a sigh and flicked an ear at the crowd apparently listening in. “Can you… do your magic silence thing? I want this to be just us. Talking this out like adults. Not for the town gossip.”

Before Roseling was done asking, Rosewater had the spell woven and around their booth, shimmering faintly with the air-fuzzing properties of sound-damping in open air. Immediately, a weight rose from Rosewater’s shoulders. She wouldn’t have to worry that Roseling would blurt out that she was Rosetide. This soon after her last visit, she was almost certain to know.

If she took it as well as Rosewater’s year-long absence after a week of almost romance…

“I know it’s you, Rosewater. It took me a while to figure it out, but one thing I learned from some of my friends is that you can’t cover a pony’s eyes with an illusion, else they can’t see.” Roseling met her eyes steadily. “I know you’ve been visiting me to help and keep up with me, and Roselyn helped me to understand why you felt like you had to keep away.”

“I—” She knows already? Rosewater felt her jaw go slack, but wasn’t able to do anything about it. It wouldn’t respond.

“Stars, she can be surprised,” Roselyn said with a laugh. “And here, I thought the most surprising thing would be Roseling’s reaction to you being Rosetide.”

Roseling chuckled, a trifle forced. “You, of all ponies, should know that secrets can’t ever be kept in this city.”

“You’re…” Rosewater studied the mare for long moments before continuing on, some more of the tension she’d felt at this first reunion happening fading away again. “Upset.”

“Of course I am. But—” Roseling raised a hoof and tapped it down in the center of the table. “I have had time to think about things since Roselyn and I sussed out who Rosetide actually was.” She shook her head slowly back and forth and leaned back in her chair. “I…”

Glass tapped a hoof on the inner side of the barrier, then stepped through. “Rosewater, nice to see you again.”

“Did you know she was masquerading as a stallion?” Roseling asked in a low voice.

“Sort of. It’s hard to mistake that voice or those eyes,” Glass said amicably. “I only knew knew she was Rosetide a couple weeks ago. Just before that mess Roseate got herself into in Damme.”

“I’d heard about that,” Roseling murmured, giving Rosewater a more appraising look. “And that you’re going after their heir for… what?”

“Courtship,” Rosewater said in as steady a voice as she could manage. “Honestly, it’s hardly a secret anymore. He’s not been reciprocating, either, which is also hardly a secret.” It hurt to say aloud, but Roselyn didn’t know. Petal didn’t know. “But we have become friends after a fashion.”

Roseling glanced at Glass, then said, softly. “My usual, please. On her tab.”

“Accepted,” Rosewater said with a smile. “And I’ll have my old usual if you still have it on the menu. And Roselyn’s usual.”

“She doesn't have one,” Glass said with an arched brow. “She orders somethin’ different every time.”

“I like to experiment,” Roselyn replied with a salacious wink. “I’ll have the day’s special.”

“Heartbreak special for you, then,” Glass told Rosewater. “Not too popular these days, but I think Gingersnap can whip one up for you.”

“You really had to call it that?”

“Nopony but you orders the charred salmon filet with artichoke hearts.”

Rosewater sighed and resisted the urge to hide her face behind her hooves. “Am I that predictable?”

“You like fish,” Roselyn said drily. “It’s your favorite dish, almost.”

“It is not. Besides. I need a lot of protein. I can’t get that from the usual fare and not overeat.” Rosewater sniffed. “Honestly, being a tall mare has problems all its own.”

“I’ve missed you,” Roseling said, smiling. “It’s good to hear your voice again, and I want you to visit my shop more often. Even if it does make your eyes water.” She cleared her throat and glanced at the rest of the tavern. “I hear you’re living at the garden now?”

“Mostly, Roseling, mostly.” Rosewater bobbed her head, took a breath and plunged ahead. “I’ve been in a better place mentally than I have been in a long time. I feel… I feel like I’m finally free of a choking miasma.”

“And you worried about me.”

“You were the last pony I felt a connection to, Roseling. The way I ended things… it wasn’t fair to you.” Rosewater reached a hoof across the table, cup up, and hoped. “I wanted, at least, to apologize.”

“I could have loved you,” Roseling said softly, touching her hoof to Rosewater’s. “I could have, Rosewater.”

“But time moves on.”

Roseling nodded unhappily. “Time moves on, and while I thank you for the apology, and meeting me face-to-face, I fell out of love long ago.” She tapped Rosewater’s hoof and reached further, capturing her foreleg with a strong ankle grip. “Maybe we could have rebuilt, but you’re already trying to reach for Collar, Rosewater. I won’t interfere with that, nor would I like to be a second fiddle.”

“I know.” Rosewater squeezed lightly in return. “Have you been seeing anypony?”

“A few ponies,” Roseling replied, squeezing once in return and withdrawing. “Another soaper, and I got involved with one of the salons that buys my soaps. Both of them are wonderful, and I would absolutely recommend them if you need a manecut.”

“I may need one soon. I plan on making a splash at the gala.”

Roseling’s and Roselyn’s eyes lit up, and they glanced at each other. “You’re going to the Commoner’s gala?”

“Well, that too, but I meant… the Gala gala. The one held in Damme.” Rosewater coughed delicately and sat back once more. “I was planning on laying low in the Garden’s exclusive area so as not to scare off any Dammers that wish to come visit and partake in the festivities.”

“Pah!” Roselyn slapped the table. “You have to be there. You’re one of us, and I won’t let you hide. You need to be seen as one of us, proudly, and we want to let others know that you belong.”

Roseling chuckled. “I agree with the firebrick, blunt as she is. Don’t let your reputation hold you back. I know it’s bunk. The Garden knows it’s bunk. The more you’re seen out in the open, having fun, the more it will do to help other ponies see you for who you are.”

Rosewater settled back to think, trying to think of objections to raise while the two mares watched her expectantly. On the one hoof, it might scare off some Dammers who knew her only by her reputation. On the other hoof… it would be more of her walking through Damme with Cloudy. She wouldn’t be alone or feel like she was restricting herself.

“I’ll try. I admit, being sociable is… it feels new again.”

“Because you’ve been hiding for six years,” Roselyn harrumphed.

“Point made,” Rosewater said with a wince. “Yes, I was hiding, and running. And I did promise I wouldn’t do that anymore, didn’t I?”

“Darn right.” Roselyn slapped her hoof on the table again. “I’ll drag you around and introduce you to ponies.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be busy,” Roseling added, dipping her ears. “The Commoner’s gala is one of my best single sales events, but if you stop by, I’d love to see you.”

It was the final weight on the scale that tipped her decision. “Okay. You both win. Stars, I’ll try to be more social. It’s… hard.” Rosewater hesitated, glanced between her two friends, one she’d just made up with, maybe. “You deserve to know… what I can tell of the truth. Some of it’s secret enough that I can’t even tell Dazzle.”

Roseling’s ears pricked forward. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Neither do I.” Rosewater paused as Glass came back with their food and drinks, and she paid for both out of her day pouch. She hummed softly as the fragrance reached her nostrils. Just the right amount of sauce drizzled over the salmon and artichoke hearts, with just the right amount of richness as only a Merrier could appreciate.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Roseling said, and nudged Roselyn when she appeared about to protest. “Really. I understand you’re privy to more secret information than us, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to know if it makes you look like that.”

“Very well. I… don’t want you to think I’m keeping secrets from you unjustifiably.”

“Eat. We can talk later on the way to my shop,” Roseling said, nodding to her. “I heard from Roselyn that you have an already reduced batch of frost lily oil, and I’d like to talk to the both of you about splitting the haul and either trading or paying for it.”

“I’ll gladly take a trade in soap,” Rosewater said, nodding. “And candles.”

“Settled,” Roselyn said after a bite of creamy, spicy-scented tomato soup with onions, split peppers, and celery making up the body. “I can make more with less in candles, they’ll just be less potent.”

“Ah, but you use the whole oil, and mine is only part of the formula,” Roseling countered.

Rosewater listened to the mares dicker over who would get how much of Rosewater’s reduction and felt a glow settle into her heart. This was having friends again, and in the open. Not lovers, not business partners or customers. Friends who shared her interests in making beautifully scented things.

It was like she was six years younger again.

“Everything’s ready,” Rosemary whispered, glancing up to see Collar’s ears twitching where he sat at the window.

Cloudy bobbed her head lightly and relaxed minutely. “Who’s helping?”

“Plat. She’s going to give me a cover story. Already arranged.”

Collar’s ears twitched more violently, and one actually flipped back, then forward as he sighed and kept watching outside. “I can only pretend not to hear you two for so long.”

“Oh, hush,” Cloudy said aloud. “You wanted to be here.”

Rosemary could almost see Collar rolling his eyes. “I can, um, silence the room, or here.”

“No need, we’re only discussing a vague plan of action that Collar doesn’t have any idea about.”

“That also,” Collar added in a low growl, and silenced the room before continuing, “involves Rosewater smuggling contraband across the river?”

“Scented candles,” Rosemary said with a huff. “They’re not for me, either. They’re a gift to someone special to me here in the palace who wanted them.”

“And scented petals,” Cloudy added.

Collar grunted. “You realize that you’ve technically broken the law.”

“Add another few buckles to my sentence, then,” Rosemary said with a dismissive sniff. “This is important to me, and it was important enough that Rosewater risked it as well. It’s not only for me.”

Collar turned from the window and leaned against the wall. “Will it interfere with tomorrow?” He nodded to Cloudy.

“I’m only focusing on us tomorrow, Collar. Not Rosemary. Not Rosewater. Not anything but you and me. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to take a whole day together and do nothing else.”

“We’re not going to do anything to interfere with your date, Collar,” Rosemary said softly, hedging around the truth. “Tomorrow is all about the two of you, as Cloudy said.”

Collar’s lips pursed, as if he was considering the truth of her words. It was true. She wasn’t going to interfere, but only do as Cloudy had asked. “Alright. I won’t report it. I don’t want you getting in trouble, Rosemary, or you, Cloudy, so please let me know if you’re going to do anything like it in the future.”

“Promise,” Rosemary said solemnly with a hoof over her breast.

He relaxed, let out a breath and shook his head. “You worry me, sometimes, Rosemary. You’re… more Merrier than any pony I’ve ever met. More free with yourself to everypony. I wish…”

“I wish we could both be at the gala,” Cloudy said softly. “But that night should be a show of Merrier and Dammer solidarity. Your friendship—”

Rosemary noted the flinch in Collar’s gaze, a sudden, sharp look away from Cloudy.

“—should be on display that night. You need to make a show that there’s a commitment to ending the war on good terms.”

Rosemary nodded vehemently. “If either of us is there, it will take away from that show. If I’m there, especially, it will raise talk of allowing me too much freedom for a prisoner of war.”

“And if I’m there,” Cloudy said softly, “and you spend too much time with Rosewater, talking to her and making that show, they’ll talk about your swaying interest.”

Collar nodded. “You’ve both been talking with Lace.”

“We have. I’ve been talking about my grandfather with her.”

“I’ve been pushing my lessons with her,” Cloudy added. “It’s become even more apparent that I’ve been too lax in trying to catch up to the title I’ll eventually hold. I need to be a lady in more than name, Collar. I need to be able to survive on my own at your level, at Rosewater’s and Rosemary’s level.”

Collar took a deep breath, nodded, and let it out. “I can’t disagree with you on anything you’ve said, as much as I want to. I am looking forward to tomorrow, Cloudy. But… there’s some things I need to talk to Rosemary about. About your mother. That’s why I wanted to join you. I didn’t think you’d scheme right in front of me.”

Cloudy laughed and bounced off the bed to give him a nip and a long, slow kiss. “Tell her, Collar.”

“She won’t tell Rosewater?” His eyes flicked to Rosemary, his cheeks heating.

“Collar,” Rosemary said, pushing indignity into her tone, “I hold confidences with the highest integrity. It is a tenet of Merrier relationships to hold them, and to encourage the one controlling the confidence to be open.”

“She does. She’ll never break a promise, but she will push you to be open. It’s our way, Collar. Being open.” Cloudy gave him a meaningful look Rosemary tried to decipher, but couldn’t. “I’m pushing you to be open with her.”

Then she slipped out, leaving Rosemary alone with Collar.

The silence in the room, magnified by Collar’s spell, seemed to intensify as he stared out of her window. In the reflection, faint though it was, his eyes were trained on distant Merrie, on the hill visible over the roofs and chimneys of Damme.

It was a hill she found herself watching, hoping to see a glimpse of white among the dark green and growing brown.

“I’m falling in love with her,” Collar said at last, closing his eyes and resting the tip of his horn against the glass. “I know it in my heart that it’s… how you call it ‘I could fall in love with her.’ Except… more. I should have said the words on our second.”

A thrill of excitement rippled down Rosemary’s spine at his words, but she suppressed it and made herself sound calm. “I thought that might be, Collar. Cloudy would only say she saw a change in you, in your attitude towards her after the last time you saw her. With me.”

Again, he was silent for a long time before he pulled away from the window and sat by her bed, laying his cheek down on the coverlet. “It was really the first time I saw her as a mother. I knew it, intellectually, and I know she loves you like her own, but seeing her hold you like a mother and her filly finally put the pieces together in my mind.”

Rosemary nodded and brushed a hoof over his cheek and under his chin. “And what did that lead to?”

“She would be a great mother.” Collar swallowed. “Of my children.”

“Our children,” Rosemary corrected gently.

He glanced at her, his ear ticking irritably. “Mine, Rosemary. Stars, at least let me admit that I have feelings for more than one mare before dragging me deeper.”

“Sorry.” Rosemary stroked under his chin gently until the ear stopped moving. “I… I want you to be happy, Collar. If what makes you happy is changing, explore it.”

“I’m worried about the laws and the opinion of my ponies, Rosemary.” He hesitated, his ears flattening. “I know what the right course of action is, to start. Next time she visits, I’m going with Cloudy to escort her to the palace. It’s only… three weeks and a bit to the gala. I want her to be able to… be social. Without others being afraid of her. She doesn’t… well. I don’t think she deserves the hatred and fear.”

“She deserves some of it. The fear at least. As any good soldier gets a share of fear from their foes. But you want to make ponies not see her as a foe, but a mare. A pony, just like them.” Rosemary pushed herself up to look down at Collar, to meet his eyes. “Somepony worthy of trust, love. And you.”

“She’s already worthy.”

“You and I know that.” Rosemary hesitated, then bent closer to him, her lips near to his ear. It was tempting to kiss it, to tease him. She whispered, instead, “You want everypony to know.”

Collar shivered, his ear flicking. “I do. I want to kiss her, Rosemary. That was the bar I set for her, for whom I loved. But…”

“But you want her to know the journey you’ve been on?” Rosemary pulled herself closer still, slipping a hoof, then ankle and foreleg under his cheek and muzzle, resting his chin against her breast. “You want her to know it’s real.”

He stared up at her with one eye, slightly wild before he closed it and buried his nose against the softer, warmer coat of her crimson heart mark.

Did I go too far? She’d wanted to remind him, as gently as she could, that she was also interested in him. Except he stayed put, his breath coming and washing through her coat slowly and evenly.

Hesitantly, she bent down to brush her teeth against the base of his ear. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Did I push too far?”

“No.” Collar drew in a deep breath and pulled away, sitting up straight to look her levelly in the eyes. “No,” he repeated, and leaned forward, hesitated, and brushed his muzzle against her cheek. “I know you well enough by now to know you like closeness, contact. It’s how you comfort ponies.”

Rosemary felt her coat shiver, the warmth of the desire sending her neck into an arch as the shiver coursed over her. “It’s how I show my love,” she said honestly. “I’ve been falling in love with you, Collar. All the time you’ve been showing your character to me, to her, to Cloudy, I’ve been falling in love.”

“I know.” It was better than Rosewater’s attempt. “I know, Rosemary. I’m not there yet. I trust you. I like you, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve put up with and done for us.” He hesitated, his lip caught between his teeth as he looked between Rosemary’s eyes before lowering them again. “I can’t say the words. Not until I’ve told her.”

That means you will say them? Rosemary nodded and laid back down. “I can wait, Collar.” She laughed and pressed a hoof to his breast. “I have time.”

Collar’s smile was a touch wan, but he nodded. “I’m going to walk with her the next time, but…” He closed his eyes. “I… I want it to be special, Rosemary. I don’t want to just blurt it out to her in…” He was silent for a long moment again. “I want it between us, and I want to have time to… to give her time. To give me time. Stars above, I’ll need time.”

“Tell her at your next date, Collar,” Rosemary said. “She’ll understand why you waited.” She pulled herself closer again and pushed her nose into his breast. “Make it special for both of you.”

To her surprise, he bent down to nip her shoulder, then laid his cheek against her back. “I might need your help. I’m new to this, Rosemary.”

“Do you know where it’s going to be yet?”

“Yes. And no. She wanted to go back to the overlook. And so do I. It’s where I first knew, Rosemary.” He shook his head, grimacing. “But... is there someplace better? Someplace special to her? Stars above, I need to talk to my mother, too, and we need to figure out how we can overturn Frosty’s law.”

“You’ll find a way, Collar.” Rosemary slipped from the bed, using a spell to lightly press him down, keeping him sitting while she reared up and leaned against his strong back, resting her chin beside his horn. “We’ll find a way, and I think you’ll find that a Merrier family, a Merrier marriage, is very rewarding.”

They stayed that way until her nose told her somepony was coming.

Then she slipped back to the floor and pulled over the book she’d been reading before Cloudy and Collar had interrupted her and leapt back into bed.

“Who is it?” Collar asked.

“Coat and Cloudy. Here, I presume, to talk about the itinerary you two have for tomorrow’s romantic seaside date.”

Book 2, 26. Date, Interrupted

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How long had it been since they’d gone on a real date. It was less a question in Collar’s mind and more a wonderment. The answer was that they’d never really gone on a formal date before. It had always been informal, friends just hanging out, and later hanging out and having sex afterwards. And, lately, largely only sleeping with each other. Sometimes having sex, other times too tired to do anything but fall asleep holding each other.

Isn’t that what lovers do, though? It was hard to tell, sometimes. Nopony in Damme liked to talk about their sex lives, and avoided it if they could. Or until they got drunk enough to drop the inhibition. It was the way his ponies were.

But the last month of whirlwind dates with Rosewater, of finishing the harvest, which would be officially done at the end of the week, and the revelation of his growing love for her, had made him want more. Rosemary, he could talk to, and Cloudy, but beyond those two and Rosewater, the friends he could turn to like Coat, to some extent Stride, and even Poppy and Note wouldn’t understand exactly.

Poppy might.

It was getting harder to remember that she was still seen as an enemy when he saw her in public, when she strode through the halls of the Palace from meeting to meeting and to meet her daughter. He’d grown more and more comfortable with seeing her as a pony to be admired, even loved.

She had grown more comfortable with him as well, and those moments when she was more affectionate in public were starting to cause gossip in and around the palace and likely beyond. There had been awkward moments, sure, but he’d had those with Cloudy at first, too, and still did now and again when Dammer upbringing clashed with Merrier. Rosewater was more reserved, more like a Dammer in so many ways, but lacking the inhibitions about sex and intimacy.

But she was breaking down the mask more and more as Roseate continued to make noise but not do anything beyond sending her daughters out on missions for unknown purposes. They’d just gotten confirmation a day ago that the pony sent with the fifteen-strong platoon out into the wildlands and come back was, in fact, Rosethorn Crown.

Since she’d come back, Roseate had been more and more active with Rosejoy’s harassment of Rosewater, as if they’d found something the mare had been hiding out where she’d never actually been. To his knowledge. Maybe she had a secret farm of rare ingredients out that far.

That our aerial scouts have not seen mane nor tail of in more than six months of anti-bandit patrols.

“Buckle for your thoughts?” Cloudy asked, bumping against him and drawing him back to his surroundings, to her.

“Sure. Just thinking about…” He cocked his head to the side and flicked an ear to show half of it was private. “How odd our relationship is,” He finished at last and nipped her cheek. “In a good way. Sometimes it feels like we jumped a few steps on the relationship ladder.”

It was a mostly sunny day, warm in the sunlight with a cooling breeze flowing in from the sea, carrying with it the smell of seaweed rotting slowly and fish rising from the trawlers bringing in the late autumn bounty of migrating fish. He took a deep breath of it all, lamenting that he couldn’t smell it as richly even as Cloudy. His own city, and they could experience it in ways that he could only imagine.

They were just entering Damme proper, the palace grounds familiar enough to have passed him by without noticing anything amiss. Now, he noticed the stares and whispers. He was without guard, unless one counted Cloudy, and she was out of uniform. Her Rose cutie mark made it clear what her second name was. If anypony didn’t know who his chosen consort was, they would know after today.

She was a Rosewing.

She smiled at him, ignoring the looks of the other ponies. “Maybe Damme relationship steps. It feels perfectly natural to me.” She kissed his cheek and nipped at the base of his ear, prancing for a few steps, laughing. “You still blush like a colt when I kiss you.”

“Stars, Cloudy Rosewing, I do love you,” Collar said with a laugh, nipping her ears, or attempting to and missing as she ducked out of the way and darted ahead to walk backwards for a few paces, tongue out. A few ponies looked askance at him as he said her full name, reminding him why he’d been circumspect in the first place. There were plenty of ponies who thought he should marry a respectable Prim.

“I love you, and I know…” Mutters distracted him. They shouldn’t have, but they did.

Cloudy chuckled, looking around herself before turning and hopping back into place beside him. “None of this matters right now, Collar. It’s just you, me, and a date at the Primline Streetside Cafe. It won’t be long before our next dates will have to be indoors. You and me, Collar. Together, like when we started out. Maybe a few walks in the winter. The ice festival.” Her eyes glittered. “Mare’s night.”

“That would be nice. Relaxing. Peaceful. Maybe going out now and then? I really do enjoy walking among my ponies, and… they need to know I’m courting you. Once we’re done with desperate, confusing events.” Collar cleared his throat. “Of course. It’s been a while since we’ve really done anything that wasn’t fueled by desperation or confusion. Even preparations are frantic anymore. It feels like this has been the first time we’ve been able to relax, right?”

“It does,” she agreed, grinning and nipping his cheek again. “But enough about work. I’ve had enough of customs inspections and paperwork to last a lifetime.” A cloud scudded by overhead, bringing back the faint chill that seemed to cling to every shady moment. “I’m looking forward to winter.”

Collar rolled his eyes and shivered theatrically. “You are looking forward to winter. You’re almost immune to it.”

“Almost.” Cloudy sidled closer and shifted a wing against his side. “Doesn’t mean that I won’t enjoy your warmth under the sheets. Or that I won’t enjoy tucking my wing over you.” She raised her wing to rest against his side as they turned the corner. “If only you were as short as Rosemary…”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head and turning his head to nip her wing. “Not in public, Cloudy.”

“I will kiss you,” she said with a laugh, prancing and rearing up on her hind legs, one foreleg draped around his neck as she kissed his cheek. “Right now.”

He was aware of ponies around him glancing his way, a mother pushing her son away from the sight of what was about to happen. A Primfeather glowering at him, his feathers standing out in a half-threatening display.

Her breath was warm against his lips as he turned to kiss her. It was warm and sweet, gentle and more chaste than any kiss he’d thought Cloudy capable of. It lasted moments, and she backed away to drop back to all four hooves, her eyes bright and cheery. “That was a surprise, my lord.”

“It won’t be the last,” he murmured, bending to nuzzle her cheek as he heard an indignant huff behind him. He didn’t look. It would be the Primfeather, one of that prolific clan’s offspring. Relatively prolific, anyway. “I like kissing you, Cloudy. Why shouldn’t I let my ponies know that I favor you so well.”

Her eyes held a question about the other mares in her life. About Rosewater. Rosemary.

He hesitated, then bobbed his head once.

She smiled brightly, “And I love kissing you, Collar. Among other ponies, you are my favorite.” A none-too-subtle reminder to everypony listening in that she was still, at her heart, a Rose, a follower of the Principes, and she saw no reason to restrict herself to kissing only one pony. “I love you.”

Behind him, the beat of wings said the Primfeather had taken off. Likely to go tell Primfeather Wing directly about the public kiss and lodge a formal complaint with his mother.

Cloudy flicked a look behind him, her ears briefly going flat. “Don’t worry about them,” she whispered, craning her neck to kiss him again. “Us, Collar. This is about us. Not them.”

“Who was it?” he asked. “I promise. I’ll let it go once I know.”

“Gust,” Cloudy said with a sigh, glancing over her shoulder. “He’s his father’s son, that’s for sure.”

“Okay.” He looked up, shaking his head and shivered his coat to rid himself of the feel of Gust staring daggers at him. All around him, life went on in Damme. The common pony could care less that he cavorted with a Rose—mostly—though the sidelong looks he got from many of them said they wished it were a little less openly heated. “Is this okay? They’re going to be talking about us.”

“They will talk,” Cloudy whispered, grinning broadly and snapping her tail at his hind leg. “At least now I don’t have to act. I’m a terrible actress.”

“Don’t sell yourself so short.” Rosewater hadn’t been big on details, and she’d needed a few glasses of wine to spill some of the details, laughing and blushing as she did, but it had been something about acting as the bridge builders who’d proposed and built the Rosewine Bridge. He kissed her cheek again and started off again for the cafe, just a few streets away. “I heard you did pretty well.”

Cloudy stared at him for several steps, then laughed and shook her head. “Stars, Collar, you do surprise me.”

Clouds scudded by overhead again in a staggered line, heading out to sea. A few weather wardens darted back and forth, herding the tempestuous piles of white, gray and black out to sea. Not merely clouds, but storm clouds heavy with rain and unruly by the looks of it, barely held in check by the herding pegasi.

They would form a storm in a few days, and come sweeping back in after they had joined with more of their wilder brethren from the ocean.

“It’s going to be a good rain in a few days,” Cloudy murmured. “The river is going to ride high.”

“Will that be a problem for you? I know you had some plans in a few days.”

“Not for me. I think about some of my friends in Merrie. It’s almost time for their mid-autumn festival, but I heard they’re hosting the Commoner’s Gala when ours should have been. I almost wish I could go, you know.” She nipped his shoulder as they turned the corner into the wide lane that was bordered by cafes on one side and the beautifully tended Primline Park on the other.

This late in the year, the flowers had all been tended into their winter repose, and the paths and patches of grass were browning while the leaves of the trees made a golden and red carpet underneath, brilliant in the early afternoon sun.

“We can watch. I know it’s not the same, but… they hold it just across the Rosewine Bridge, don’t they? I’ve heard rumors about the tastings. Usually couched in terms of debauchery, but considering…” Collar raised his eyes to the skyline bordering the river. “We could go to that lookout post and have ourselves a date there. Participation by proxy.”

“It’s a date, then?” Cloudy pranced ahead and turned, her wings half-spread to clear a space around her politely. “Three days?”

“It’s a date, my love,” he said, loud enough to turn the heads of several ponies in the cafe.

“Table for two,” Cloudy said as she turned around to greet the host, a dapper stallion in white collar and bowtie. “Lord Prim Collar and Cloudy Rose. We have a reservation for lunch.”

Without even checking the list, the maître d'—at least that’s what he thought they were called in the far-eastern city of Prance—smiled and stepped back from his station.

“We’ve been expecting you, my lord, and we have a table ready for you,” the stallion said, bowing his head briefly and floating two menus over to a corner table with a good view of the park. An umbrella spread out over it, giving them some shade and protection from any rain that happened to fall from the passing clouds. “Pardon the precaution, my lord and lady, but the weather wardens are redirecting some rogue stormclouds from greater Equestria.”

“It’s no trouble, really,” Collar said. “It’s a lovely, romantic look.” He nuzzled Cloudy as he caught up to walk with her through the scattered tables, smiling at ponies that met his gaze. “What’s good on the menu today?”

“For romance, my lord, I would recommend the Carrot, Onion, and Oat stew. It’s especially tasty with the Autumn Catch of the Day adding a fresh bite to it.” The host turned and flashed a smile. “I must say, it’s great to see you out and about, my lord in an unofficial capacity, with your lady love.”

“It’s good to be out, um…” He raised a hoof to ask for his name.

“Highwater Primline, sir. Fifth branch down from the seat.” He smiled. “I go by Highwater Line most days.”

“It’s good to see you, cousin,” he said with a smile.

“And I you.” Highwater chuckled and pulled out a chair for Cloudy. “My lady Rose, it’s a pleasure to see you finally doing the courting properly.”

Cloudy giggled not a little delightedly. “Is that what this is?”

Collar rolled his eyes and pushed the chair back in. “It is, Cloudy. I’m glad you decided to ask me out on a date. It’s been refreshing already.”

“Of course, my love,” she turned and stole a kiss on his cheek before he made it into his chair across from her.

Collar accepted Highwater’s help scooting his chair in. “Thank you, Highwater.”

“You’re welcome. Anything to start you off? We have a delicious appetizer today, twice-baked cheese bread. It’s extra crunchy.”

“We’ll have that,” Cloudy said, shifting her wings briefly and dropping her voice to a low purr. “Thank you, Highwater, for being a good host.”

He flushed and bowed. “Thank you, Lady Rose.”

“I’m not a lady,” Cloudy said with a warm smile. “Yet.”

Highwater’s eyes glittered with the possibility of gossip. “Then let me indulge, my lady, and I’ll have your wait order soon.” He gave them one more bow and went to take the bill of another couple just finishing up their lunch.

Collar sat for a moment, perusing the menu of autumn themed items, full of cinnamon laden dishes and drinks, and warming stews that would fill the stomach and warm the heart even as the shade of the umbrella kept the air cool and on the crisp side. It was a northern mid-autumn day, with only the nearby coastal waters keeping the city above freezing at night, and then only barely.

The menus of Merrie and Damme would shift accordingly to fit the moods the weather brought on.

“All of these choices make me want to take it home and wrap up in a blanket and enjoy in front of a fire,” Collar said, licking his lips. “They’re so warm sounding.”

“Sizzling Salmon Steak,” Cloudy purred, her voice dripping with more than warmth. “Heartwarming Stew,” she read, “a cabbage, potato and carrot stew with red and chili pepper accents. Warm is certainly a word for that.”

“I think I’ll go with today’s special and ask for a warming packet of spices.” He turned the menu around and showed her the spicing options for all of the stews. “Warm the tongue and the belly, but not too much.”

“Hum.” Cloudy leaned over and peered at it. “I would normally go for the Dragon’s Breath, but…” she licked her lips. “I don’t want to hurt you tonight.”

He peered at her for a long moment, then rolled his eyes. “Cloudy… behave.” He mouthed, ‘For now.’

She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, Collar, how you’ve changed. Of course I’ll behave.” With a wink and a bob of her ears, she mouthed ‘for now’ right back at him. “I think I’ll have the Potato Crusted Salmon in a carrot stew. And an aged Amber Dammerale.”

“Good choice,” Collar murmured. “I think I’ll go with the special today, and a glass of Red Petal.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Cloudy said, flipping her menu over and checking the wine list. “That’s a good vintage. Rose Petal’s parents named it after her when she was born. It’s been aged for twenty-four years.”

“Hum. Interesting.” He pondered the choice and the short blurb about it being a choice wine imported from Merrie’s Rosewine Hill. Where Rosewater had gone after her first date with Cloudy.

It was a famous place across both cities, the Garden of Love. As reputable for its lovemaking, a poor reputation in Damme, as it was for its wines, the chiefest acceptable export from the city, and the source of a fair chunk of Merrie’s tax income. He also knew more about its primary inhabitants than most ponies in Merrie likely would, thanks to the dossiers he’d been reading about where Rosewater had been visiting so often.

“They also have a few greenhouses and take good care of the roses in their care.” Cloudy’s raised brow left little room for him to guess it was something else. “I would like to take you there someday, Collar, when the war is over.”

“You’ve been there, then?” He paused in perusing the dessert menu to look up at her.

“A few times. They host tastings frequently with a five bit surcharge and two buckle per hour fee. It’s quite reasonable for the entertainments and wines they offer for tasting.” Cloudy’s smirk told him the wording had been deliberate, that the entertainments were also for tasting. “I’ve mostly been with Rosemary, because otherwise their dinner prices were a bit out of my league.”

His cheeks heated as he considered what that meant. “And the entertainment is to your liking?”

“Oh yes.” She chuckled. “But my tastes have changed. I find most of what I want here, these days.” She winked again, smiling broadly enough at him that he got the point. “Though there are still a few things that I do miss from Merrie that I wish I could share with you more often.”

He chuckled, a little forcibly, and switched back to something else she’d said. “Then the war is going to end in our lifetimes?”

“It’s going to end before our first foal is born,” Cloudy said softly. “Our foal will be born in a city united, Collar.”

“Foals,” he whispered. “Our foals. So you’ve decided?”

“I have.” The way Cloudy looked at him told him that wasn’t the entire story, but she didn’t want to bring it out here. “Have you?” Cloudy raised a brow. “Our children will be our decision together.” Again, the way she stressed our…

“Not now, Cloudy. I can’t…” It was more complicated than that now. Two weeks ago, a month ago, it would have been so much simpler. Yes. And then Rosemary had entered the equation as a third bondmate.

Rosewater had entered the equation as Cloudy’s lover and his… he didn’t know yet. Friend, yes. More. Stars, he was in love with her. Their last date had been… sublimely enjoyable, even with the weight of his worries on his shoulders. He wanted more.

He and Cloudy, sharing with Rosemary, had made a sizable dent in the box of chocolates she’d gotten for them all, but every time Collar ate one, he felt her cheek against his again.

That feeling, something he’d never thought would be for him, even as much as he respected it, was making everything more complicated. He was starting to see Rosewater, too, in the same way he’d seen Cloudy. A love to be cherished.

“I want foals with you, but now? What about…” He couldn’t talk about either one of them in public.

“No, not now. I want you to think about it like I have.” Together, she meant. As a four way bond. A three way bond was as foreign to him as living a life in the southern badlands or the Swamps of Ahuizotl. That he was considering a move from where he had been to this new idea of bonding, of loving more than one pony… She had already considered it. “I have a future with you, Collar.”

He coughed and cleared his throat. “And…” he flicked an ear towards Merrie.

“I need to have a talk with them about it.” Her eyes stayed fixed on her menu, all but unblinking. “I-I want to talk to my parents, too, and my friends. I need…” She swallowed, her ears slicking back. “I need somepony to help show me the way. Somepony who will be there for me when I need it.”

“I will be,” he said, but even as the words left his mouth he knew that wasn’t what she meant.

She fixed him with a stare, letting the menu drop. “A mare, Collar. I need to know… there are things I’ve always been afraid of. I need to know it’s going to be okay, and I need her to be there.”

I love her, too. She could have shouted it and made it less clear. I need her to be there while I’m pregnant. “I… I need to talk to some ponies, too. My mother. My dad. And…” He sighed. “I need to make sure that everything is settled, Cloudy. I need to make sure that the war won’t interfere.”

Cloudy studied her menu silently for long moments, her ears ticking spastically. “I know,” she said at last, looking up. “I know that’s important. I can wait. However long it takes.”

He nodded slowly. “This is more than I thought we would talk about today at lunch.”

“It’s more than what I thought, too,” she said with a small, sheepish smile and dip of her ears, a rare sight on her. “I just wanted to talk to you about the future, the past…”

“And the present?”

“We could.” Cloudy pursed her lips and looked around at the ponies watching and listening to them without really paying attention to them. “But we can’t. Not without drawing more attention to us.”

He chuckled as several ears perked in their direction at that. Juicy gossip drew ears and eyes like flies to rotting fruit. “And how have your walks with Rosewater gone lately?”

Cloudy raised a brow and opened her mouth, surprise evident, then a smile creased the corners of her mouth briefly. “I think it was the best move, and I’ve come to know her better through those walks and open talks, Collar. I’m actually looking forward to our next walk. Tomorrow, I think?”

“She’s been to Prim Palace for her cousin’s negotiations… what, eight times? Twice a week?” Collar tipped his head to the side. “That’s hardly enough time for ponies to get comfortable with her.”

“Mmm. Have you given a thought to walking with her?” Cloudy raised a brow. “You’re both the heirs apparent of our sister cities. It might bring our cities closer together, and bring about a closer end to the war if you were seen in public being, well, maybe friendly is a bit much to expect, but cordial?”

Collar snorted. You’re really going this route, little miss actress? “You’re expecting me to be cordial? After what we’ve been through?”

Cloudy smirked. “Well. I mean, she’s negotiating in good faith, right? Maybe cordiality is the least you can expect. She did save both of our rears. Maybe for less than altruistic reasons, but…” She shrugged eloquently.

And you said you were a bad actress. The thought was followed immediately by, Is she acting, or is she wordplaying in the Rose style? Nothing she’d said was a lie, just misleading. Or maybe she’d been teasing him about being a bad actress. Or maybe she hated lying. Or her lessons with mother are paying off in spades. “Maybe you’re right. And we do have the Gala coming up next month.”

“We do. I’ve been spending more time helping Captain Pink organize security, enough that I might have to take leave from the gala to coordinate .” Cloudy smiled and tipped her ears, acknowledging the deft subject change. “But enough about work. How have you been, Collar? I feel like we barely talk at night anymore.”

It was true enough. They talked some, but it was mostly shop talk before they fell asleep or when they didn’t, they talked for a few minutes. Sometimes he needed her, or she needed him, and they would mate and then talk briefly while they cleaned each other before they fell asleep.

“I’ve been… busy. The rush to finish—”

Cloudy frowned and shook her head. “No work. Just you. How have you been feeling?”

“Honestly? Confused. Lost more often than not. So much has happened. What can I feel about it when I haven’t had a chance to think about any of it other than react to it?” He shook his head slowly. “Ever since I captured Rose Glory, and then Rosemary, everything has moved so quickly, Cloudy. It feels like the land itself is shifting under my hooves and I have to scramble just to stay upright.”

“And you need a break,” Cloudy let out a breath. “I’ve felt much the same, you know. But I think I’m more equipped to deal with it, and less is demanded of me. Let me take some of it.”

“I can…” Collar shook his head. “I can talk to Pink about lessening some duties so you can help me out. I can call it… transitioning to becoming my consort.” She wasn’t his fiance. Not yet. He decided, then, to find an earring for her, and ask her. Soon. He raised his nose briefly as the host, apparently also their waiter, came by with their bread. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Have you decided on drinks?” Highwater brought out a pad.

“And on lunch,” Cloudy said, smiling.

Lunch arrived along with a pair of guests from Canterlot by their accents and warmer garb. Both mares wore warm winter caps despite the temperature being firmly in the not freezing range. One was quiet and demure enough to almost be a Dammer, the other chatty enough to be a Merrier, but that they were in love was clear in the looks they shot each other.

It set a warmer mood for Cloudy, surrounded by love as if she were in Merrie again, sharing lunch with one of her loves and wishing the others were with her. It was still a warm atmosphere to share a lunch with Collar, even if it was mostly silent on their parts while they ate and listened to the couple beside them talk about the menu and the weather and the politics of the day.

They were both unicorns, one a bright brass coat and reddish mane, and the other a darker blue, almost midnight, with a white mane, and the midnight blue mare kept on talking about the rumors of the Lord and Lady Prim, and about the Lady Rosewater, always a popular topic of discussion on the docks and in the streets.

Cloudy shared knowing looks with Collar, and secret smiles whenever their names or Rosewater’s, or her moniker of The Rose Terror, came up. That the midnight blue seemed insistent on calling her Rosewater was heartening.

Halfway through finishing off her salmon steak and stew, Cloudy felt the downdraft of pegasi flying low overhead, a subtle stirring of the air that was distinct to one used to listening to the winds. Collar seemed to have forgotten that Gust had seen them not only together in public, but kissing in abeyance of all normal Prim mores.

She hadn’t, and the draft had a distinct flavor to it that reminded her too much of Primfeather. To his credit, Collar was much more attentive to her than he was to the air and put down his spoon almost as soon as her expression shifted.

“What is it?” he asked quietly, ears perking and twitching as he looked around just in time to see Primfeather Wing landing in a clear space on the opposite sidewalk. “Oh. I’d almost thought they would leave it for later.”

Cloudy snorted and took another bite of her steak, then patted her chin dry as she chewed, her eyes on the Primfeather patriarch. At least Down wasn’t with him. Though whether that was better or worse, she hadn’t decided yet. Without her there, the gossip she spread would get an automatic boost in embellishment when he made Cloudy out to be some kind of strumpet.

“My Lord Primline Collar,” Wing said as he came within conversational distance. “I would have words with you. My son brought me some distressing news.” He tipped his head to the side to indicate Gust, standing far enough back to almost not be included in the conversation.

“Please keep your words for now, Primfeather Wing,” Collar said as cordially, nodding at Cloudy, “as you’ve come at an inopportune time. I am on a lunch date with my love and anything shy of the city being on fire, it can wait.” He paused for a beat, glancing at the sky. “And, unless I’ve missed the smoke, yelling, and screaming, it’s not. I would appreciate you taking whatever words you would have with me up with me at a later time. With an appointment.”

Wing ignored the first half as if he’d whispered them into a gale-force wind. “I would have words with you later in an appointment as well, but if you will come away, my lord, I would wish our words private.” Wing glanced around at the other patrons, most of whom were doing their level best to not seem interested in the showdown between the leader of the opposition to the Lace Reformation and its heir. Except for the two Canterlotians, both of whom had stopped their conversation to pay obvious attention. Obvious even to Wing, who was glancing at them nervously.

That was good enough for her. A chink in his armor. Cloudy swallowed her bite of steak. “We are on a date, Primfeather Wing. Please leave your grievance with who he is dating for later.”

Collar nodded and reached across the table to touch Cloudy’s shoulder gently. “Please, Primfeather Wing, I know we’ve had our disagreements in the past about my lack of romantic interests. Please be happy that I’ve settled down and leave it at that.”

“My lord Collar,” Wing said, dropping the honorific addition of his family name and settling into a stern ‘I’m your senior’ stance, “Surely you realize that taking this private would be for the betterment of your position in the city. What I want to discuss is… private.”

“Me,” Cloudy said, turning her attention from Wing since he seemed determined to ignore her. “He wants to discuss me, and our intimate relations, Collar. As if a public kiss were intimate.”

As if in answer, the Canterlot mares shared a small kiss before going back to their food, apparently realizing who it was arguing and not wanting to get involved. Good for them.

“Of course it’s intimate!” Wing snapped, “It’s—”

“Wing, I’ve read your missives. Each and every one. Rest assured that I am wholly and truly in love with her and will not be changing my mind. Or are you saying that Cloudy Rosewing, the mare I’ve grown to love, isn’t worth my love?”

“Collar,” Cloudy hissed, taking his shaking hoof, shaking with rage, and kissing his ankle, “Not tonight. Any other night. Let’s have a quiet dinner.”

“I-I said nothing of the sort! I’m merely concerned that you are stirring Rose sympathies in the populace, my lord, by showing affection to—”

“Stop. Wing.” Cloudy hopped from her chair and turned, glad there was a fence between them, as meaningless as it was to pegasi. “Collar has already said how to redress the situation. Leave. It. Be,” she ground out, punctuating each word with a stamp of her hoof. “I, and Collar, are only interested in finishing our dinner.”

Collar joined her, resting his chin on her head, a more open display of affection, and calming to her, feeling the thrum of his pulse against her ear, the rumble of his voice, “Shh. Cloudy, we’ll return to our meal now. Wing, go. You’re disturbing the other patrons here.”

“And you openly show her such affection?” Wing sounded as though they’d slapped his dearly departed mother. “In public? With a Rosewing?”

“Such affection,” Cloudy mocked in a singsong. “Stars, Wing, you think this is affectionate? I feel sorry for your wife and children.”

“You will leave my family out of this!”

“But you will happily involve mine?” Cloudy snarled back, her tail snapping, feathers plumping unconsciously. “What little there is left of it?”

“Shh. Cloudy, not so personal,” Collar whispered in her ear. “Wing, please go. I’ve asked you thrice now and still you persist in displaying your hypocritical manner of deciding that this is not acceptable, but gossip is.”

“Hypocrisy!” Wing snarled. “I am not the hypocrite! You, harlot, are the hypocrite.” He jabbed a hoof at Cloudy. If he started frothing at the mouth, Cloudy wouldn’t be surprised. He seemed nearly beyond reason.

“Please, point out one thing I’ve had two faces about,” Cloudy purred, her ears going flat as she stared hard at the patriarch of a family that had made enemies of her family for generations. “I have been nothing but open about who I am.”

“You claim to love Lord Collar, and lay about with mares like a common—”

“Primfeather Wing, that is enough,” Collar growled, his voice low and dangerous. “My future wife’s love life is not your concern. Nor is it mine. It is hers alone. Do not make the mistake of thinking me amenable to your cause of eradicating all polyamorous relationships. I do not. Not even where Cloudy is concerned.”

“You admit it!”

Cloudy’s temper flared immediately, and her wings arched as she bent her neck to glare at him. It was Collar’s steady weight against her head that stopped her and the faint tension she felt building as he clenched his jaw. He was just as angry as she at the intrusion, and was using her presence to keep himself from getting angrier. This date wasn’t about Primfeather Wing or his bigoted, narrow views of love. Today was supposed to be a celebration.

“Please, Wing. Go,” Cloudy murmured, backing up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Collar and forcing calm upon her wings and tail. “I… want to eat a peaceful meal with the stallion I’m going to marry. I want to go on a walk with him. I want to go home with him, and then make love to him.”

She was nothing but frank, nothing but calm in her tone, and rather than shush her, Collar laughed and nipped her ear, leaning against her and spending more than a moment kissing her cheek, just beyond what Damme would have considered chaste and proper in public.

“I love you, Cloudy.” He turned back to Primfeather Wing, his ears dropping to an aggressive, if polite, set. “We have spent a lot of time planning for today, Wing, and I won’t have it ruined by you. We have our political differences, and I’m happy to engage you when they happen in the appropriate setting, but this—” He nudged Cloudy with his shoulder. “—isn’t political. It’s personal, and should be private, and we would have kept it private had you not interfered.”

“M-my lord, she is a… she is—” Wing swallowed and looked around at the other patrons, all of them having abandoned the pretense of minding their own business and paying attention to the showdown between the patriarch of a family opposed to Lace and Collar, the soon-to-be leader of Damme. She could see the words as well as Collar could. As well as any of the watchers could. Voicing them would change only Collar’s ‘acceptable’ response to them.

“Please, Primfeather Wing, finish your thought.” Collar said coldly, “or leave. I would prefer the latter, and that you not disturb the other fine patrons of this cafe. I will not hesitate to have the guard called and a citation written for disturbing the peace if you continue.”

For a long, long moment, it looked as if Wing would test Collar’s patience further. Cloudy knew him well enough to know it wasn’t a bluff—as much political fallout would come from having a citation written for his rival, he would still do it.

“I apologize, my lord,” Wing said stiffly at last, abandoning the pleasantries of first name even. “I did not realize this was a planned affair. I will leave you and your… date alone. When would be a good time to talk to you in private?”

“Speak with the palace events secretary. He knows my schedule better than I do.” Collar turned away from him and back to his seat, dismissing Wing rudely.

Cloudy fought to keep a smile from her lips as Wing stood there, his mouth open to ask for a date he’d been expecting to respond to.

His eyes snapped from Collar’s eyes to Cloudy’s, fury evident in the set of his ears. Behind him, Gust puffed up his wings and thrust out his chest, following his father’s mood.

Cloudy smiled politely and ducked her head in farewell, dismissing him more politely, but dismissing him all the same.

He wasted no time waiting for space to take off and launched himself in the air, ruffling the umbrellas of several tables and sending napkins scattering in the scant instant before Collar flared his magic and caught every napkin and umbrella before anything more embarrassing could happen.

“I apologize, fellow patrons,” Collar said in his sonorous public speaking voice. “I did not intend to disrupt your meal with melodrama.” Every napkin resumed its place and every umbrella settled to a straight lean again. “Or an unexpected downdraft.”

A few of the patrons smiled at him, but otherwise minded their own business as was the proper Prim way. The table closest to them, the Canterlotian couple, shared a look and turned as one to face them.

“It was no trouble, my lord. We’re sorry your date was interrupted.” The mare on the left said, flitting an appraising look over Cloudy. “Goldie and I have been interested in the politics in Damme.”

Goldie, Cloudy presumed, was just as quick in her appraisal, and smiled approvingly before turning to Collar. “I’m Golden Glow, and this chatterbox is Fervent Wish. We’re from Canterlot on an extended, hum, vacation. We thought we’d visit Damme first because it’s so similar to Canterlot.”

Collar adopted a tourist-friendly face, the blank mask replaced by smiles and a merry cant to his ears. “Of course! You’re very welcome. Married? Honeymoon?”

“Honeymoon,” Fervent Wish said, grinning. “Goldie is a little shy about our marriage. Her mom didn’t approve, you see.”

“Fervent!” Goldie stared aghast at her wife. “Oh, my stars. You just cannot keep quiet about that!”

“Because you need to look past it, love.” Fervent smiled sweetly and nuzzled her across the table, drawing more disapproving looks from the locals. “It’s okay. We have each other. We can contract with a stallion if we want foals.”

Goldie buried her face in her hooves. “He’s the lord of Damme, Fervent. He doesn’t need to know about our private life.” She peeked out just long enough to smile tremulously. “I’m sorry, my lord. She talks to everypony at length. Even in Canterlot.”

Cloudy shot a look at Collar, watching the tiny spat with a bemused, half-interested smile, and cleared her throat. “Gentlemares, please. If I might make a recommendation… go to Merrie tomorrow. Inquire about the Garden of Love, and ask if you might take lodging there. Tell them Cloudy Rose sent you.”

“Oh? It sounds like… er…” Goldie glanced at Fervent, who looked as if she was ready to teleport to the doorstep right then. “Well. What kind of place is it?”

“It’s a vineyard,” Cloudy said with a smile and wink at Collar. “I know a few mares and stallions there. Talk to Rose Seed and Rose Petal if they can. They charge reasonable rates, last I heard, and welcome honeymooners.”

Goldie calmed somewhat, breathing less rapidly as Fervent wrote down the instructions. “Thank you, Cloudy Rose. I… take it you’re from Merrie?”

“I am. Oh, and if you can, talk to… shoot I forgot her name. She recently rejoined the garden, I hear, though, and she’s very nice. If she’s not busy, she can show you around Merrie. Provided she has time free, of course.” She glanced at Collar, raising a brow. “Do you remember her name, Collar?”

He glowered at her and sighed, but she still saw that hint of longing there that seemed to come up whenever she mentioned Rosewater. “I’ve never been, Cloudy. How would I know who comes and goes?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Fervent said with a giggle. “Newest member… mystery mare. This is exciting, Goldie, isn’t this exciting?”

“It is, Fervent.” For a moment, Goldie glowed like her name, her coat of burnished brass seeming to deepen in color and gain a new, richer tone. “You want to go today, don’t you?”

“I do. Right after lunch. We can return for our things from the room if we decide we want to stay, and hang the deposit.”

“But—”

“We came to have fun, my love. And, as much as I love being reminded of Canterlot, the point was to get away from home.”

Golden flicked her ears and nodded. “You make a point.

Fervent twitched her ears and sat up more regally, proud of making her point apparently. “Thank you, both of you. I’m sorry for being so excitable, but I hadn’t even realized we were sitting next to the future Lord of Damme and his wife. You must think I'm the worst kind of chatterbox.”

“Not at all. It’s been comforting, and it reminded me of the openness Merrie. But we aren’t married yet,” Cloudy said quietly, reaching across the table to join hooves with Collar. “We’ve been talking about it.”

“You make a lovely couple,” Goldie said, raising a hoof and patting Fervent on the shoulder. “We’ll let you get back to your meal and finish ours.”

Book 2, 27. Unexpected Visitors

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Rosewater tapped the tip of her quill against the inkwell and set it on the tray behind the letter and sat back to go over the ingredient list. Except her mind didn’t want to focus. Collar and Cloudy were having their date. In fact, they’d soon, if they hadn’t already, be moving onto the beach, and Rosemary and Platinum would be setting up the third and final act for them to enjoy.

It would be the moment that Collar knew she’d more than put her hoof in the date. Cloudy’s request would be the clearest indication of her own hoof in it. Few perfumists could make Longest Lust, and fewer still infuse it into rose petals.

He would be able to name her as one once Cloudy told him, if she didn’t tell him she made it herself. It was entirely illegal in Damme, even though it didn’t actually do anything except subdue sexual pleasure to prolong the experience.

“Focus, Rosewater,” she growled at herself, not bothering with a silence spell. “Stars above, mare you need to get this off to your suppliers or it won’t arrive in the spring.”

It was addressed to Saddle Shipping in Saddle Arabia’s largest port city of Saddlesea, and it would take a month for the ship to reach there by taking the safe coastal route. They would take time haggling with the writ of payment she’d send along for what she needed.

Which was why she’d had to prioritize the list, and now needed to make sure that she’d accurately ordered them so she’d get all she needed, and everything she could get in order of what she couldn’t substitute.

“Okay. Okay… so…” Rosewater pushed the date as far from her mind as she could and stared at her planned lineup. The ingredients she would need for each flowed through her thoughts, jumbling with the date occasionally when she thought Cloudy might like the scent of the raw ingredient.

Stars, mare.

Almost an hour later, she felt confident that, aside from a few where she honestly hadn’t been certain of the costs and availability, the order was as best as she could manage it.

Which left her to contemplate the next item on today’s ‘Distract Rosewater’ list, a modification of Mother’s Kiss with an eye to lovers. It would take more of her talent to create, but instead of memories that hurt… she could use memories that made her heart soar. The chase with Cloudy that still made her wake up with her heart pounding when she found herself winning or losing, her sheets in a mess and the scent of sex and come in the air.

It would be expensive to make. Copper would make a better base than gold, for the warmth it held. Silver was also an option, but it wouldn’t be as good. Silver wasn’t as warm and wouldn’t hold her lustful emotions as well. Silver was better for concentration, for things that required calm.

She wanted, when this perfume was used, to remember the dreams that faded in the morning, the memories that were harder to remember as time went on. She wanted to give her lovers the same, and for Rosemary to experience the same with Cloudy, and hopefully Collar.

The look in Cloudy’s eyes as she came, as Rosewater let herself come soon after. The glow as they held each other afterwards, surrounded by friends and lovers past, present, and future as they came to bliss or basked in it. It was the heart of being a Rose.

Togetherness.

Capturing that would be as difficult as capturing the feeling of family had been. She could bridge some of the gap between scent and memory with her magic, but relying too much on her magic would shorten the life of the perfume just as much as if she put it in an unenchanted, ungilded bottle with a cork stopper.

Passion needed to be a part of it as well, but not too much. She had a vial of Tuberose extract that she’d only tempered at playing with, but she’d need to subdue the animal lustiness of the oil somehow. Something lighter like one of the lavender oils she had, or… perhaps one of Seed’s exotic flowers would do.

She’d have to tour his greenhouses and haggle with him to get a decent price on some of his rarer delicacies, but some of the frost lily oil she’d decanted would help, if she could convince Roselyn and Roseling… or…

Rosewater hummed softly and sat back to think, casting her mind through the glossary of scents she carried with her, mixing and matching mentally and considering which would blend best, and which she could impress upon with her magic to bend it to her will most easily.

She began to write down ideas on her experiment slate board, testing mentally which combinations would work best for what she needed, discarding some outright and—

“Rosewater,” a voice called from the front of the store. “It’s Rosie Bliss.”

Or it can wait. It would take her days, if not weeks, of experimentation to find the right amount of the rest of her ingredient list to make a prototype, and another few days, provided she had enough ingredients left, to fill a bottle at any rate. “Come on back, Bliss. Nothing is on fire.”

Bliss nosed past the door, sniffing delicately at the air. “No perfumes today?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. I forgot to order ingredients.” Rosewater nodded to the board already half full of ideas, some more or less erased already. She’d need to attack it with water to clean it fully. “And I was just about to start on a personal project, but…” Rosewater smiled and stepped away from the table. “I always have time, sweetling.”

“Flirt,” Bliss said with a laugh. “I’m looking forward to our next night together.”

“I can check my calendar and see what I have open,” Rosewater said as she sauntered closer, flirting her tail. “I would say tonight, but if I recall, you and Roselyn are celebrating an anniversary?” And I want to be free while Cloudy and Collar are making love.

“We are. Half a year together. We’re chasing tonight, so we won’t be long at dinner.” Bliss ruffled her wings and met Rosewater halfway across the floor, lips parting briefly before they slid their muzzles side by side. “I almost want to ask you to join the chase, but…”

“I don’t want to interfere, tonight, Bliss. Tonight should be for you and Roselyn,” Rosewater murmured. “But… if you’re free in…” Four days until the Commoner’s Gala, and a fitting before that. Two days to her next visit to Damme, and just three until her next date with Collar. Stars, along with her regular daily tasks, her calendar was getting full, and she had more social events than she’d had in years.

It was, honestly, a little exhausting. But exhilarating at the same time.

“A week and a few days?”

“I’ll clear my calendar.” Bliss ruffled her wings and nipped Rosewater’s cheek. “I look forward to it, whatever may happen. But that’s not why I stopped by today.” She shook herself and transformed into all business in moments. Rosie Bliss flattened her ears and looked around.

Rosewater hung her silence spell from the charms on the wall. “It’s safe now.”

“A honeymooning couple from Canterlot came by and asked for you by reference, though not by name.” Bliss took a breath. “They said Cloudy Rose sent them.”

“By reference, hum?” Rosewater raised an eyebrow. “That’s a curious game. Cloudy should be on a date with Collar right now.” She leaned to the side to look past Bliss and creaked open the door to check the shadows on the street outside. “Or she should be heading back from it soon. Stars, I didn’t realize it was so late.” It’s up to you Rosemary.

“Oh?” Bliss raised a brow. “You know so much about their love life?”

“It’s more that Rosemary is involved, and I through her and Cloudy.”

“More lovers’ plans, then.” Bliss grinned and gave her a side-eyed look. “I like where this is going. But if you’d like to come to the garden early, I can introduce you to Golden Glow and Fervent Wish.”

“Of course. I’m curious to see what Cloudy had in mind with this pair. What’re they like?” Rosewater flicked her ears back and dropped the spell. “Tell me on the way.”

Rosemary stopped her pacing, staring at the clock. She was usually early. Where was she?

Platinum! Where are you? She had barely an hour before Cloudy and Collar were due back from their beach-side walk. Maybe a little longer if the weather was warmer. The pack of candles from Roselyn sat by the door, waiting for her to set them up in Collar’s chambers. The fragrant petals in the wax-sealed pot atop it. They were red rose petals steeped in a perfume of Rosewater’s making, not a lure, and not suggestive, but something to relax the mind and body and ease the stresses of the day, whatever they might be, and let the lovemaking last.

It was a fragrance for romance, lovemaking, and relaxing.

A scent wafted in under the door as she paced by it, stormclouds and rain. “Come in, Stride,” she said before he could announce himself, and forced herself to calm. It wasn’t easy. “I’m just a little antsy.”

“M-my apologies,” he said as he opened the door. “I know Lord Collar is on a date with, er, with—” Stride stared at her, ears splayed as he closed the door behind him with a back hoof.

“My lover, Cloudy Rose,” Rosemary said as gently as she could. “I know. I helped her plan it. Often right under his nose.” She raised a brow that dared him to comment. “Really, Stride, I love Cloudy, but I would never ask her to be mine exclusively.”

“Th-that’s why I came, actually,” Stride said, looking at the pile of things for the latter half of the date curiously for a moment. More, she knew, to keep from looking her in the eye while he gathered his thoughts. “I wanted to apologize, Rosemary.”

“For what?” Briefly, she ran back through their last conversation, trying to find any place he might have misplaced his belief that he had insulted her or Cloudy. “I can’t think of anything you could apologize for. You’ve always been polite, Stride, even when you didn’t really understand me.”

“For…” Primfeather Stride rustled his wings and raised his head, looking her in the eye for a few seconds. “For assuming things about you. And Cloudy. I respect both of you, and I know your culture is so very different from mine. I’ve never made an attempt to understand it.”

Because of your family. Rosemary kept her mouth closed over the thought, and said instead, “You’ve made remarkable progress. I wouldn’t expect you to just accept that Cloudy and I are in love, and that she is also in love with Collar.” Or that I want to see if I can be. “What is there to apologize for?”

Stride acted like she’d spoken aloud the thought, flinching away and dropping his gaze. “I shouldn’t judge ponies from another culture. I don’t want to see Lord Collar hurt. And I was worried that…” His eyes found her face again and flinched away at some imagined glare.

“That Cloudy being in love with me hurt him,” Rosemary finished for him, gentle. She touched his chin with a spell and tipped her head to the side to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to see him hurt, either, Stride.” And you don’t know the half of what he’s up to. “Is that it? You were angry at me for…” She raised a hoof.

At first, he shook his head, though the lie was given away in the set of his ears, and he seemed to realize it, and dropped his head again, breaking free of her gentle hold. “Yes. Please don’t tell him!”

“Stride, it’s okay. This is all new to you, okay?” She stepped closer, hesitant, and nuzzled his cheek, just under his ear, and whispered. “And I won’t tell him. I promise. Just promise me you’ll work through it. I can help.”

He froze for a long moment, tendons in his neck straining as if she were holding a brand to his cheek instead of her nose and lips. Then he relaxed and pulled away. “I-I need some time. To think. I-I’m sorry, Rosemary.”

Just as she took in another breath, she smelled Platinum outside, the distinct scent of freshly laundered padded armor and a faint undertone of sweat and mare accentuated by a lightly fragrant perfume that was neither too much, nor so little that she missed it. “Platinum’s here,” she whispered.

Stride jerked as if she’d slapped him with a hoof. “I-I didn’t—”

“It’s okay, Stride. She’s a friend of mine, too. Just like you.” Rosemary backed away and raised her head. “Come on in, Platinum. Stride is here with me.”

“You’re both decent, right?” Platinum called back. “I won’t ever forget walking in on you and—”

“Platinum!” Stride squeaked. “Stars, I would never—” His dapples turned to embers as he stared at Rosemary, his mouth open, moving, but no sound coming out. “I-I-I would not!”

“We’re decent, Platinum. Stride came to talk.” Rosemary patted Stride on the shoulder lightly with a hoof and gently pushed him aside.

The look he gave her was half horror and half grateful adoration, and he turned as the door opened. “M-my apologies, Platinum,” he said as the mare came in. “I-I didn’t know you were scheduled right now.”

Platinum gave him a curious look, then shifted to Rosemary. “He in the know?”

“Yep.”

“Good. I’m not. Coat’s gonna play foil while I sneak Rosemary over to Collar and Cloudy’s rooms and set up for tonight.” Platinum grinned and tossed her mane. “By my stars, I never thought I’d be involved in something like—” She caught Stride’s horrified look. “Oh, no, no! Not like that. I mean, look. The pots and candles. We’re going to set up the room so it’s romantic when they get back.” She jabbed a hoof at the pile Rosemary had already set up.

“I-I think I should go…” Stride finished his journey to the door at a dash and slipped through.

Coat peeked his head in, brow raised. “So… that went well.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes. “I’ll need to be gentler with him, I think. He’s still recovering.” Rosemary closed up the sack and passed it to Platinum. “Remember, Coat, I’m having sex with Platinum, not off causing trouble in Collar’s quarters.”

Platinum flinched minutely, her ears tingeing pink before she recovered and offered Rosemary a tremulous smile. “So that means I’m stuck in your room tonight?”

“It’s okay, Platinum. Really. We can talk, if that’s all you want. I’m happy to be your friend if that’s everything you want.” Rosemary winked at her. “But I’m also still waiting to hear back about that offer I made after cards.”

Platinum rolled her eyes, but the color on her cheeks said the offer was still under consideration. “We’re burning daylight, Rosemary.” She hefted the pot of petals and sent the bag of candles, oil, and small candle cups to her. “Come on. We have a gap in guard patrols.”

It wasn’t hard to spot the newly arrived Canterlot natives sitting around the fire pit behind the villa. For one, they were dressed far more warmly than any Dammer or Merrier would consider for the time of year. For another, they were staring openly as Roslyn kissed a blushing Dazzle, seeming all too aware of the attention the two mares were giving the open display of affection.

“That’s them?” Rosewater asked softly from the corner of the villa, trying to discern the game Cloudy was playing before she committed to it. “They make a cute couple. It’s always interesting to see how outsiders react to our openness.”

“They’re from Canterlot.” Bliss raised a brow. “At least Dammers expect this of us. I doubt they’ve seen two ponies kiss except in a play.”

Rosewater studied them as she made her way around the small hedge surrounding the firepit and its rolling benches and couches, the blankets laid out holding ponies who wanted to lay together and be more intimate than the couches allowed for.

They were like birds, darting looks back and forth, keyed up for any hint of danger and ready to bolt at the first sign.

“They’ve seen more,” Rosewater said softly, bending to nip at Bliss’s ears before she rounded the archway of vines turning slowly brown. They hadn’t had any more freezing nights since her last date with Collar, but one was all the plants needed to know winter was coming at last. “They came at an odd time, certainly. If they plan to stay long, they may need to winter here.”

“It’s an oddity for sure,” Bliss agreed.

The other ponies around the fire pit looked up as Rosewater rounded the corner. Prism and Tremor lay together, and Seed looked up from resting his cheek on Petal’s barrel. Petal was dozing quietly, or pretending to.

“Golden Glow, Fervent Wish,” Bliss said as she joined the circle and sat beside Roselyn, surreptitiously giving the younger mare a thwack with her wing. “It’s my pleasure to introduce you to one of the oldest, and most trusted members of our Garden. Rosewater, would you like to—”

“Oh… oh my goodness!” The dark blue one with the white mane sat up, her ears perking so hard her cap fell off. “Rosewater? Lady Rosewater Rosethorn?”

What did you tell them, Cloudy? “I prefer not to use titles at the Garden. Here, I am simply Rosewater.” She shot Bliss an accusatory look. You could have warned me she was jumpy. “You must be Fervent Wish, with an emphasis on Fervent, it seems.”

To her credit, the mare had the presence of mind to at least look abashed. “Y-yes, my lady. I apologize.”

Rosewater relaxed her posture, suddenly aware of how tight the mask was fitting over her features. “I apologize, too. It’s not my wish to be stern, here among friends.” She stepped across the circle and around the fire to offer her hoof to Fervent. “Welcome to the Garden of Love, Fervent Wish. I understand you two are here on a honeymoon?”

“We are,” the other, Golden Glow, said as Fervent clasped ankles with Rosewater. “I think my mother has one of your perfumes. A subtly sweet smell, almost like apple blossoms in summer. Very understated but I remember it well.”

“Apple Sunrise,” Rosewater said with a smile as she offered her hoof to Golden. “It was popular years ago in Canterlot. For gentle romantic feelings.” She’d made it before Carnation had been exiled. She hadn’t made it again since. Was that the game? But no, it couldn’t be. Cloudy didn’t know her old perfume catalog any more than Collar did. “If I may ask, I’m afraid I’m rather at a loss as to why you asked for me.”

“Well,” Fervent still looked abashed as she looked down at her hooves, then across at Golden. “She, um, Cloudy only told us to ask for a recently returned member of the garden.”

Rosewater tipped her head to the side and glanced across at Petal. “I suppose that matches me, and probably me alone.”

“I wouldn’t say that you left, per se. Seed clearly thought of you as family still.” Petal opened one eye and grinned at her. “That makes you as good as family.”

Seed coughed. “Auntie Rosewater never left. She was forcibly encouraged to stay home.”

“Mixed company, darling. The cousinships and family trees are rather complicated for outsiders to understand.” Petal raised herself up and nipped at one of his ears. “Cousin is used to refer to anypony with a drop of visible Rosethorn blood.”

“Much like it is in Canterlot,” Golden said in a small voice. “Anypony with any rumored descendancy is a ‘niece’ or ‘nephew’ of the Princess.”

“So I guess I match the description you were given.” How much can I tell them? “Cloudy is… I am acquainted with her through some diplomatic negotiations I am involved in at the Prim Palace. Did she say anything else?”

“That you could show us around Merrie,” Golden said in a more confident tone. “I apologize. We had no idea she would try to snipe at you through us.”

“You misunderstand,” Rosewater said smoothly, ears ticking back as she bowed her head. “Cloudy and I are friends of a sort. She is kind to my only first cousin. I’m afraid the political situation is a little much to go over on a honeymoon, but suffice to say that we’re on at least good terms.” That little tidbit would reach Roseate before too long. But with the Gala coming up, there wouldn’t be much she could do. Not without rocking the boat while the eyes of Canterlot were focused firmly on both cities.

A snap realization hit her. They were from Canterlot. “Why did you come here, out of everyplace you could have gone for your honeymoon?”

“Well, you’re going to think this is silly,” Fervent said, recovering some of her bounciness when Rosewater didn’t bite her head off. Again. “But Goldie and I are both interested in the political situation here. I’m a diplomat, well, o-of sorts. I’m currently working with the Saddle Arabian embassy in Canterlot, but I’ve always been fascinated by the situation in Merrie and Damme. A war that’s gone on for centuries without bloodshed. Without Celestia putting her hoof down. It’s been fascinating to read the treatises and public diplomatic messages.”

“I’m an economist,” Golden said, laying a foreleg across Fervent’s. “I met Fervent while I was trying to track down some information on tariffs in and out of Damme for the Trade Office. That was four years ago, and we always thought it would be nice to visit the place that brought us together. When we got married, Celestia gave us both some extra time off to make it a sort of working honeymoon.”

Celestia works a deeper game than you two realize, I think. “That sounds like a story,” Rosewater said as she slid onto a bench kitty-corner to them and folded her forelegs over the edge. “You know what they call our fair city, yes?”

“The City of Love,” Golden whispered, stars in her eyes as she looked up at the deepening afternoon sky. Dark blue with just a hint of the sun hanging behind a steady stream of clouds heading out to sea. “I-I didn’t think it was meant so carnally.” She shot a look at Bliss and Dazzle.

“It can mean many things to many ponies, and for us, it is a city of many loves.” Rosewater dipped her ears. “For those who come to our streets unaware, it can be surprising to say the least, to see whispers and kisses traded where in Canterlot, I hear such things are done behind fans, walls, and doors.”

“And sometimes all three,” Fervent muttered. “For some reason, the nobility has thought, for the past decade or two, for it to be terribly coy and fanciful to be stoic in all places public, to the point they started trying to outdo one-another, and now I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to mate in ten petticoats and four shifts.”

“Fervent!”

“You complained about it on the way, love.”

“Yes, but…” Golden Glow’s cheeks turned a buttery shade of copper. “We wanted to, um… visit Merrie. Just so we could be more open. Maybe for a day. Maybe a night or two.”

“I’d rather stay here,” Fervent grunted. “It’s much more amenable to being in love.” Her cheeks colored, and Golden seemed to realize what she was about to do a second too late. “I want to kiss you, Goldie, and make love to you under the stars.”

Golden sputtered a wordless protest, her cheeks and inner ears now ablaze.

Rosewater glanced at Petal, doing her best to hold back laughter, and asked, “Do you have any honeymooner cabins available? I do seem to recall you expanded your capacity some three years aback.”

“And two years, and last year, as a matter of fact,” Petal replied, and shot a look at one of the younger ponies gathered at a smaller pit a good dozen yards away, tended by White Rose and, a few teenagers doing their work-detail by watching the foals, and attended by several of the parents from the village and their children. “Zephirine, could you please fetch the keys to the Moonlit Chalice cabin?”

“Oh, no, we couldn’t,” Golden protested. “We don’t have—”

“On my treat,” Rosewater said, breaking in over the protest. “One of my interests is with Canterlot,” she added, carefully not saying why or whom she was interested in, “and I would consider it well worth the while to hear the news and gossip of the city and palace fresher than the cryers’ decrees.”

“And without their biases,” Petal grumbled. “I’ll front the other half, my dears, if you’ll promise to grace our dinner table frequently enough to let us get to know you.”

Just then Zephirine pranced up, her wings fluttering as she dropped the pair of thick bronze keys onto the table in front of the mares and, despite not even being past her first majority, plopped down next to her brother, Seed, and yawned.

“Zephie,” Seed whined.

“Seedie,” she whined right back, in the exact same tone of voice.

“There’s your keys, my dears. There’s a cistern for water, and a stove in the bathroom for hot baths, if you fancy them, and I would suggest them as often as you may. It gets quite cold, but it’s a well insulated cabin.” Petal bobbed her head to Fervent. “And it has an enclosed garden with a small open hearth. Bedding for outdoors is in the closet if you wish to make good on your desires.”

Fervent’s cheeks reddened as she accepted her key. “I-I—”

Golden accepted hers meekly.

“And who, I say,” Seed proclaimed into the silence, “is going to give these fine mares a tour of our fair city? It should be somepony who needs the practice, somepony that needs an excuse to get out and about in the city and be seen by her ponies.”

Rosewater covered her muzzle with a foreleg. “Stars, Seed, just tell them I’ll do it.”

“No, we couldn’t impose. You’re the lady heir of Merrie!”

“Not if you ask her mother,” Roselyn growled.

“H’okay,” Zephirine said, bouncing to her hooves. “That’s the start of depressing talk.”

“Sit down, Zephirine,” Rosewater said gently, and gave Roselyn a tiny shake of her head. “We’re all friends here, and politics is not what’s on the table before us tonight. We have two guests among us, and I would be happy to give you a tour of the city, my dears. As it so happens, I need to do some shopping soon, and there’s little better chance for me to stretch my legs a little farther than if I’m also showing two guests where to find the things they’ll need for their stay, however long it may be.”

“Well…” Golden bent around and pulled from her bag what looked like an itinerary from one of Canterlot’s larger travel aid houses. “Our ship—”

Fervent folded it back up before Golden could finish. “I’d like to get a look around and a feel for the place before we decide which ship we leave on.”

“But there’s only two—”

“We’ll decide when the time comes, love,” Fervent said more firmly. “We agreed to be flexible if… well,” she glanced around the ponies lounging around the fire pit. “If we found someplace that caught at our hearts. It’s certainly caught at mine.”

Golden nodded hesitantly, her eyes flitting to Rosewater and back to her wife. “Okay. But we need to make a decision before the end of next week.”

Now, that is cutting it close. That was the last ship to get anything going south before the winter winds and storms from the northern polar regions made the sea choppy and unpredictable as an avalanche. And overland was no picnic either. It’d start snowing inland earlier than it did so close to the sea, and the passes and trails, even the highway, would be all but impassable inside three weeks.

Provided they weren’t icy mud bogs already.

“Once the winter settles in,” Rosewater said gently, “the only way to get south would be by sled and snow-shoe overland. You may want to decide earlier if you wish to return home before then.”

Golden, for once, was the first to speak, and set her hoof over Fervent’s. “We know. We’re ready to stay for the long haul if we have to. We made plans before we left, just in case.”

Rosewater stared at her for a moment, then nodded. Golden, it seemed, responded best to gentleness, and Fervent to directness. “Settle in, then. I’m busy tomorrow, but I’d like you to be my guests at the Commoner’s Gala happening just a few days from now. It’s a perfect starting place to get a feel for Merrier culture without diving nose-first into the middle of the lake.”

“I’m not sure this is enough.”

Rosemary looked up from her art project of scattering the petals in a heart pattern with ‘C C’ in the middle on the bed. “Candles? There should be four.”

“There are,” Platinum said, looking doubtfully at the thick, short candles. They were meant to be put in a basin so they would start acting like oil lamps once the heat melted the wax into a puddle with the wick sticking out of the pool. They would last longer than they looked. “But they don’t smell like much.”

“Now,” Rosemary said with a broadening grin. “Trust me, when you light one of Roselyn’s candles you will feel it. They aren’t fragrant like you’re used to. And especially not these.” They were made with more exotic ingredients than Roselyn’s floral candles, and were meant to evoke calm and warm feelings. “You’ll get a nose full before we leave.”

Platinum frowned at them again. “They’re scent magic?”

“Sanctioned, I promise. We have Cloudy’s permission.” Rosemary winked and reared up to look down at her creation, nodding to herself before laying out a spell to hold them in place. “This is all a surprise for Collar.”

“I know that, I’m just worried…” Platinum sniffed at the candle she was settling into its deep basin. “After, well, Roseate…”

“Roselyn wouldn’t do that. She’s the sweetest pony I know. Even if she can play dirty with her games.” It would be like her to play more with Cloudy, but Rosewater would have stopped that in its tracks. Tonight was special for all of them, but they couldn’t tell Platinum. Not yet. “She won’t have done anything they won’t enjoy.”

“I’m going to trust you,” Platinum said as she set the candle and its basin back down. “How long will they burn?”

“We can set them now. They should burn long into the night.” Rosemary checked her petals again and set a spell on them to bind them in place on the covers until Collar moved them. Leaving them in place to be crushed beneath their bodies would release the perfume more strongly and mingle with their own desire. “I think we’re ready now, Plat.”

Her assistant nodded, still looking apprehensive as she pulled out the tinder stick and set it to a coal in the fireplace. “Here goes… my first willing use of scent magic.” Her ears flicked back briefly as she held the smoldering twig in her magic and glanced at Rosemary. “But…”

“It’s okay, Platinum,” Rosemary murmured as she joined the mare by the first basin. “Let’s do it together.”

“I thought you Roses watched your words,” Platinum muttered, her cheeks heating.

“I was,” Rosemary whispered, pressing a kiss to Platinum’s cheek, just below the ear. “We don’t have to let it just be Coat saying we had sex, you know.”

Platinum shivered and almost dropped the stick before Rosemary steadied the hold with her own magic. “I like you…” She set burning end to wick and waited while it caught. “I-is it really okay, though? You’re our prisoner.”

“I’m a guest, Platinum,” Rosemary whispered. Platinum wanted this. She knew it. Platinum knew it. “Collar doesn’t treat me as a prisoner, and I’ve never felt it.” It was true enough. She could tell her mother she was tired of the charade and defect. It would throw all of their plans into disarray, but it was her choice to stay. “The rest is up to you.”

“I-I have time to decide, right?” Platinum’s tail twitched as she set the next candle to light with Rosemary at her side every step. She was leaning into the touch, her nose to the air as she picked up the growing fragrance from the candles and the subtler one from the petals.

“It doesn’t even need to be tonight,” Rosemary murmured, nuzzling her at the third candle. “But I can tell you are interested.”

Platinum didn’t give her an answer by the fourth, or by the time they reached the door, but her ears were ticking back and forth as her thoughts raced from acceptance to not. They walked back to Rosemary’s room, not worried about being spotted now. They could claim to have been walking from elsewhere.

Coat, when he spotted them, perked his ears. “Success?”

“Success,” Rosemary said, careful not to disturb Platinum’s concentration. She wanted to nip her friend’s ear.

Except she didn’t need to. Platinum looked up at last, her ears flat, her cheeks flushed under her gray coat. “Yes, and…” She swallowed and ducked her head to nuzzle under Rosemary’s muzzle. “I accepted.”

Coat kissed her on the forehead and tapped Rosemary on the shoulder with a hoof. “You ladies enjoy yourselves. And thank you, both of you, for what you did for Lord Collar.”

Platinum flushed more darkly, but nodded as she slipped into Rosemary’s room, darting a look left and right.

Rosemary held back when Coat didn’t lower his hoof. “Be gentle with her. She’s like a little sister to me.”

“Coat,” Rosemary said as she raised a hoof to touch his, “I have never been rough with my lovers. She’s in my heart. She has been for some time, and I’m glad I get to show her how I feel.”

“I have no idea how you are so different, Rosemary,” Coat murmured. “You’re like no Rose I’ve ever known.”

“You haven’t really met my mother,” Rosemary said, rising up to nip Coat’s chin. “Maybe you will someday.”

She slipped in after Platinum before Coat could say anything to that, a thrill of excitement dancing through her as she found Platinum waiting for her on the bed, her ears flat, nervous, needing reassurance that she had made the right choice.

Silence first, and a descending light this time to let her know when time was up and she needed to pause and renew it. It also gave her a moment to let Platinum relax, knowing that her first escapade wouldn’t be bandied about the palace.

“I have hoped that you would accept, sweet mare,” Rosemary whispered as she slid half onto the bed, making Platinum tense and the flush in her cheeks rise hotter. “Relax, Platinum. Will you let me make love to you?”

The answer she got wasn’t what she expected, but Platinum’s lips on hers, a needful moan passing from mouth to mouth, said yes as loudly as if she’d shouted it.

Book 2, 28. Date's End

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“I’m having a hard time,” Collar admitted as he sat on a rock overlooking the sea. It wasn’t far from where he’d had his second date with Rosewater, and the wind was stronger than it had been then, coming in from the open sea, bringing the smell of clean saltwater and open air unburdened by land, forest, and grass. “Thinking of ‘us’ in terms of more than you and me, I mean.”

Cloudy nuzzled the back of his neck gently. “It takes time. And patience. And an understanding between all of us.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Ever since Cloudy had sent the honeymooning couple after Rosewater, she had been more cheerful, playful even, and understanding.

Their course had taken them from the cafe and down into the docks, shoulder to shoulder, their tails twined together as they surveyed the ships being unloaded and the cargo being loaded back on.

Commerce, life, and the blood of Damme flowing through her heart. Once, that had been his blood. Trade and the exotic ponies and other races that came to visit the prosperous city of Damme, one of the last of the great city-states of a bygone age, and her sister city, Merrie.

It was, for him, heartening to see nearly every slip occupied, and the songs of the worker ponies as they kept up a rhythm. Watching them move to the cadence of the song had been mesmerizing for the few minutes they’d watched while a nervous dockmaster hovered at their side.

During Roseline’s rule, when he could walk without fear of an ambush, when he knew the ruler of the other city by name and face and had been invited to…

“I met her once, you know. Rosewater, before Roseate took power. After she must have moved in with Carnation. I think she was six or seven, as was I.” He could only remember bits and pieces of the meeting now, even after the memory had been triggered by who knew what. “She was intense, focused. I remember that. I remember being impressed she’d already gotten her cutie mark. But that’s it. No words. Just her. I remembered it after our last date. In a dream.”

It was hard to admit that he was dreaming of her. Just how much farther that dreaming had been taking him of late, he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit it to himself, either.

“You were both the heirs apparent of your cities. I’m not surprised you met,” Cloudy murmured. “I imagine it was at a Gala?”

“Maybe. Even when, I can’t remember anymore. It could have been a private meeting, but if it was, I’m sure she’d remember. She seems to remember more of her childhood than I at any rate.” He sighed and pushed away the tatters of his childhood memories. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose. Not anymore. What might have been…”

“Is happening now, isn’t it?” Cloudy finished for him, her nose just under his ear, her hooves wrapped around his stomach. “You’re dating her. You’re on a date with me. Rose and Prim, coming together. Our way, and yours.”

My way. How quaint that seemed now, looking back over the past four months. “My way,” he said aloud, almost scoffing at the idea. “Cloudy, a little more than a month ago, I was ready to send Rosewater away and be done with it, and have only you.”

“And Rosemary?” Cloudy asked, raising a brow. “She would have been your bonded mate, your wife, as much as I, were we bonded in Merrie. You never begrudged me my culture, Collar. Would it be so very strange…” She shrugged and settled in closer over his back, rubbing her cheek against his neck. “We would have found a way around Frosty’s law. Somehow. We still will.”

Change came. He knew that. It could come slowly, like the waves smoothing the rocks on the shore, reshaping the shoreline over years, decades, centuries. The jutting spear they sat on now, not a few feet from the place he’d sat for so long with Rosewater, staring out at sea, staring up to the sky. He had to fight the want to have her there, too, to have two mares that he was in love, or falling in love, with there to share the sunset. It was a rare one, hues of purple, pink, and blazing fire on the horizon.

The undersides of the clouds flashed and sparked intermittently as bolts and spreading branches of lightning that were briefly visible as blue-white streaks. It was too far away for it to carry, even to pony ears, but would soon, possibly even tonight, bring rain and thunderstorms.

In the moment…

Cloudy’s shifting weight against his back was the perfect counter to the feeling of awe, grounding him back in reality and pulling his attention away from the horizon.

“We’ll find a way,” Collar said. “We have to. I… Cloudy, I’m not sure… stars. I’m on a date with you and my thoughts keep going back to her.”

“You’re falling in love,” Cloudy whispered. “It’s hard not to pay attention to the fall, either real or metaphorical.”

“That’s true. But, I feel like—”

“Collar, I’m falling in love with her, too. More lately than I was at the start, as she opens up and stops trying to hide from us. Stars, I’ve thought now and again, ‘it would be nice to have her here.’ And maybe one day, it can be all four of us on a date like this. Enjoying each other’s company with no restrictions.”

Rosewater, Rosemary, and Cloudy, all bound together in marriage, all of them resting against each other and him. He could see it, almost, see Rosewater laying on a blanket beside him while Cloudy and Rosemary walked the dunes, picking up seashells and driftwood along the shoreline, and came back when he and Rosewater started cooking.

“I can see it,” he said softly. “Stars, Cloudy, I want that. I want that future for all of us.”

“I can, too,” Cloudy whispered. “I can see it, too, Collar, and I want it. I want that. I want tonight, too, for us. The Principes isn’t only about togetherness, Collar. I want tonight for us. Just you and I. And so do Rosemary and Rosewater. Tonight is special for us.”

He didn’t say it automatically, but felt for it first, finding Cloudy’s pink eyes in a green coat staring back at him when he thought the words. “I love you,” he said after a long, meditational breath. “So much.”

He let go of the sound damping shield and leaned back against Cloudy, feeling her adjust just as simply. The return of sound from the world around him lulled the turmoil in him back to rest.

As he did, Cloudy pushed slid to sit beside him, her wings folding back to her sides, one resting lightly against his flank. “You’re relaxed again.”

“I am. I just…” He sighed. “There’s so much going on right now.”

She kissed his cheek, then his lips when he turned to face her, startled. He let the kiss linger, parting his lips and brushing hers with his tongue, brow raising when she didn’t reciprocate.

“Cloudy?”

“I think we should go back,” she said, licking his chin and grinning. “It’s getting late anyway. And I have a surprise.” She pushed away and stretched her wings and shoulders, flicking her tail up to the trees, then pressing her chest forward and stretching her hind legs.

“A surprise, hum? He chuckled, rolling his shoulders as he rose and stretching one leg at a time instead of all at once. Not that he minded watching the chance to see her lithe form stretched out, every line of her beautiful in the fading light. “Will you tell me what it is if I ask? What have the three of you been planning?”

“You can ask,” Cloudy said with a laugh, starting back down the promontory. “But you know what my answer is already.”

Collar sighed and rolled his eyes, falling back into step beside her. “You know I could have you put in the dungeon.”

Cloudy’s sharp bark of laughter followed by giggles gave him his answer even as she loped away from his lunging leap. “You could. But you’ll have to find out.”

He caught her then, rearing up to wrap his forelegs around her neck and lean on her back to nip her ears. She laughed again, staggered briefly, and pushed her head up against his muzzle.

“If it’s from you, I’ll love it,” he assured her and nuzzled under her ear, pausing for just a moment to inhale the scent of her. His nose was nowhere near even Cloudy’s, but she smelled different than he recalled, or seemed to. “Are you wearing a perfume?”

“Just under my ears,” Cloudy said softly. “It’s a part of the surprise. Rosemary helped me apply it this morning.” She paused for a beat, glancing back at him. “Do you like it?”

Collar took the offer and kissed her ear, then pressed his nose against the velvet cup, taking in the fragrance more deeply. This close, he could almost see the rows upon rows of roses that must fill the greenhouses of Merrie’s year-round growers. “Rose blooms? It smells like a garden of roses.”

Cloudy smiled and bobbed her head, keeping unaccountably quiet as she resumed her slow walk back up the beach, her ears perked and her wings settled only lightly to her sides. Every line of her radiated contentment.

When he caught up to her, she smiled at him and bumped her head under his chin. “Thank you, Collar, for the lovely day. Even with the rocky start, it was beautiful. Just to spend time with you, unencumbered by worry, you know?”

“I do. Even if it’s only for part of an afternoon and evening.”

“That’s enough for now, isn’t it?” Cloudy asked. “We have a lifetime ahead of us, Collar. Together.” She seemed almost to say more, but stopped herself and bobbed her head.

Together with our other loves, too.

Collar settled into an easy rhythm, matching Cloudy’s pace on every third step, their tails twined and his thoughts drifting through the perfume that seemed to cling to his nose, and then away. It was an easy thought, just then, to contemplate a walk like this with Rosewater, or with Rosemary. The fall day, and the cool wind coming down from the hills helped settle the feeling of nostalgia for a future he wanted to have, free of worry, war, and politicking.

One day, his children would take over Damme, maybe even Merriedamme, and he wanted to be able to watch them thrive while he took his rest as an advisor.

That day, he had to remind himself, was a long way off.

It was the scent, he decided, that made him long for things he hadn’t had yet, and had little reason to long for just then. A tickle in the mind combined with the crispness of the air.

“Scents are a part of romance in Merrie,” he said with a sidelong look at her. “Simple and complex, magical and not. I… lost myself thinking about the future.”

“Longing for the future?”

“Nostalgic for a future I want to have,” he said after a moment. “Is that longing?”

“Dreaming, maybe.” Cloudy sidestepped closer and let her shoulder rub against his. “I’ve been dreaming all day of what might be, what might come.” The cadence of their hooves changed pitch as the sand gave way to loose earth, then to grass turning brown. “It’s been soothing to set aside everything else happening in the world, even just for an afternoon”

“It has been,” Collar whispered in her ear, dipping his nose to take in the fragrance again and cement it further in his mind. “And I love this fragrance, Cloudy. I… it’s soothing.”

“It was meant to be,” Cloudy said with a laugh, tossing her head and darting a look at him from under her forelock. “You were meant to sniff under my ear earlier. You do love to nuzzle my ears after all. I should have put it on my neck, it seems.”

“I’ll make a note to nuzzle your ears more often,” he said, teasing her ear tip with a nip. “Where did you get it? I didn’t think that any shop in Damme would sell something so… expressive.”

“Rosewater.” Cloudy glanced at him sharply, her shoulders tensing for a second before relaxing. “I… asked her for something suitable for our date. She… said she made it new. Just for us.”

Collar nodded slowly and took another sniff. “She does good work. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to appreciate just how good she is at…” He flicked his tail and an ear. “Stars, her job. Her business.”

“She’s very good.” Cloudy was silent for only a heartbeat before adding, “And thoughtful, Collar. I only asked for something for our date. If it hadn’t been… if… I mean, I’ve been very calm today. This evening.”

“I have, too,” Collar admitted.

Just before he set hoof on the trail, he hesitated and looked up to the ridge where he and Rosewater had shared their first night together, talking quietly into the night and keeping each other warm with laughter and thoughtful explorations of each others’ pasts.

She wasn’t there. She wouldn’t have been. Not if she had run into the honeymooners. Not if she was who he knew she was. She’d take care of her guests.

He swallowed and stared up at the cliff for another long moment before letting out a breath and following Cloudy back to the palace.

Did I want her to be there?

“She is,” Collar whispered as he caught up again.

Cloudy leaned into him as their hooves met the more stable ground leading back to the city’s streets, the pitch changing again, plodding and certain. He leaned back, resting his chin lightly between her ears, drinking in the calming fragrance.

I need to thank her.

Coat was at his post at Rosemary’s door, when Collar and Cloudy climbed the stairs and smiled at them, then glanced at the door.

“How was your date?”

“Perfect,” Collar said, bobbing his head briefly. “Thank you. Rosemary’s been happy today, I hope?” He glanced past Coat to the too-silent door. A sure sign that something more… energetic was going on.

Cloudy was obviously hiding a smile, and Coat glowered at her before returning his attention to him.

“More than happy,” Coat muttered. “They’ve been in there for at least two hours, and aside from pausing to talk, I think…” He flushed, his ears flattening. “It’s been too quiet… stars above, Collar. I never thought…”

Cloudy coughed and held out a hoof and rolled her eyes.

Coat huffed. “After my shift. You know I don’t carry my purse when I’m on duty.”

“Cloudy, who did you bet on?” Collar sighed and nuzzled under her ear again. It was still as strong as ever, though subtle and so very real smelling that he could almost see the garden the roses had come from.

“If they decide to tell us, that’s their business,” Cloudy said, nipping his cheek. “I know you Prims like to keep your privacies and I’m not going to break a friend’s.”

“Ah.” Collar flicked his ears back. “I see.” He coughed and glanced at Coat. “And you?”

“I, uh…” Coat coughed. “You know I have a bit of a gambling issue… Thistle complains to me about it quite often.” He glanced at the door again. “You two enjoy the rest of your night. I’m going to fantasize about Thistle calling me an idiot for the next few hours. At least she’s conscientious about keeping the ward powered.”

“We will,” Cloudy said with a smirking grin at Collar. “And you will not ask her how her night was.”

“I won’t.”

He let himself be tugged along, ears flat, past Rosemary’s door and down the hall to his own at the end of the long hall.

“We have plans still, Collar,” Cloudy whispered in his ear as she stopped in front of his door, her ears flat and nostrils flared. “I-I…” She took a breath through her nose and relaxed visibly. “I hope you enjoy what I, what we, planned next.”

“All of you have put a lot of work into surprising me,” Collar murmured, lipping her ear briefly and breathing in again the subtle rose fragrance. “Surprise me, love.”

“Gladly,” Cloudy said, her eyes shining as pushed open the door.

Understanding began to dawn as she opened the door, and a drifting cloud of fragrance washed over him. Smoky and warm, reminiscent of the first time he had lain with Cloudy in her apartment eight months ago, but with more there too. She’d always kept her home fastidiously clean, always cooked meals that made her neighbors complain about the fragrance, but were always well within the fragrance ordinances.

That wasn’t there tonight, but something in the air made him think of that first time, he nervous, she eager but trepidatious. What was there was almost like music to his nose and tugged at his memories. He could feel her first kiss again, feel the hesitance, then the eagerness as he reciprocated.

All of that was there, but subtly undercut by a faint smell of roses that were almost familiar and brought to mind Rosewater, with Rosemary a close second. And Cloudy, most of all.

When he followed her in, the source became apparent. Candles sat in small tin basins, their wicks just above pools of wax that flickered in the dancing candlelight. And on the bed, red rose petals arranged in a heart and two letters spelling out his and Cloudy’s first initials.

“All of this?” he asked after the door closed behind him, Cloudy leaning against it.

“All of this,” she said in a soft, hopeful voice. “The perfume was made by Rosewater, the petals gathered from the garden by Rosemary, and sanctioned by Lace. The candles—” She nodded towards the closest one. “—were made by Rosewater and Roselyn, with my consultation, and Rosewater’s first visit, or second, to my old apartment. And the petals…”

“Rosemary set all of this up?” His mind whirled as the revelation of so much coordination between Cloudy and her lovers. For him. For them.

“Rosemary,” Cloudy confirmed. “And… her current lover. She needed a reason and an escort to be out of her room.” Cloudy pushed away from the door, ears flat. “Is this okay, Collar? I wanted today, tonight to be perfect. To show you what it means to love a Rose.”

Is this okay? He looked around the room slowly, taking it all in, and drew a deep breath. The candles dominated, drawing his mind to a calm place, drawing away his tension without dulling his mind, leaving the facts bare and stark before him without worrying about what they meant right then. He knew what they meant, what they implied.

Before he dared to give voice to his thoughts, to say what he knew in his heart was true, he silenced the room. Doing so felt like a betrayal of what it meant to Cloudy and her lovers, to be open with their love, but here… here, he needed to be especially careful about saying what he wanted to say.

“They want us to be happy,” he whispered. “You and I.”

“Yes!” Cloudy ducked her head and stepped closer yet, waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t, she took another step. “Rosewater wants you to love me, Collar. Rosemary wants you to love me. They don’t want that to change. All they want is…” Cloudy swallowed and looked away. “All I want is for you to accept me, accept that I love them, too.”

“I do accept it.” He shook his head quickly. “I do. I—” The last words, love them, froze on his tongue. Them. Rosemary and Rosewater. Daughter and mother. “I love them for… for all they’ve done.”

Cloudy’s eyes shone with tears, her smile beaming as she captured him in an embrace around the neck. “This…” she murmured. “This is my way, Collar. Of courting you in my way, with the help of our… my loves. This is what it means to love a Rose. Her lovers, her friends, want you to love her. Love me. And they want to help make every moment special. All they ask… is that I do the same. Love, Collar, is for sharing.”

Sharing love. “I can do that. I can share my love of you with them.”

“And when they share their love of you?”

When… He met her eyes, swallowed, and nodded. “When. When that time comes…” What do I say? What can I say?

Cloudy pressed her nose to his. “When it comes, Collar, I’ll be there with you. I’m not going to let you face this change alone.”

Collar kissed her then, softly at first, but with growing vigor as she rose into it, raising her forelegs to wrap around behind his neck. He rose with her press to his hind legs, drawing her with him until they were balanced together.

“Tonight,” Cloudy whispered into his lips. “Dance with me. Tonight is our gala dance. Just you and I. No Primfeathers. No Manes. No Coifs. No politics.”

“And then?” Collar breathed, finding his balance with her easily despite their height differences. Swaying to the side, she spun them around in a circle, her hind hooves swift and sure. It took him only a moment to follow her. “You’ve been practicing your waltz.”

“For tonight. Dapper is a wonderful teacher. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“And then, Primline Collar, we make love, we sleep, and you and I both get to thank Rosemary for setting all of this up.”

“You really did plan all this out right under my nose,” Collar murmured, taking her through a slow spin, matching her suggestions and taking the lead for a short while. “Stars, Cloudy… I—yes. Stars, I love tonight so much. I love you.”

There was no music other than the hopeful beat of Cloudy’s heart in her ears and the shuffle of hooves across the pile of Collar’s carpet, and the almost too-subtle to hear hiss and gutter of the flames of the candles burning and stuttering as her wings stirred the air around her, mingling the rising scents from the petals still stuck to the bed with the candles.

Collar kept his cheek pressed to hers through the slow Dance of Hearts, a slow down from the Nettle Waltz they had started with, already a slow dance to begin with. The Dance of Hearts was more ‘hugging while upright and shuffling,’ as Dapper called it when he’d introduced it.

It was also, Cloudy was finding out, the best way to stay close to Collar.

Their conversation had faded out through the night as they shifted from dance to dance, as the candles worked their calming magic on both of them. Her nerves about his facing beneficent scent magic had long since faded, and his tension at facing the idea that her other lovers wanted him to enjoy Cloudy’s company.

They came to a stop as Collar raised his head.

“I love you, Cloudy,” he whispered against her forehead. “Tonight has been perfect. In ways I’m not sure I know how to express. I…”

“You don’t need to voice it,” Cloudy whispered back, raising her muzzle up to rest against his, meeting eye to eye before she closed hers. “That’s the beauty of our way, Collar. The heart holds meaning no words can express. It’s why doing things like this is so important to us. Action.”

His muzzle moved against hers in a slow nod. “Action.” He pulled away, only to press his lips to hers and tilt his head, tongue pressing in.

She met him, accepted him, and guided him towards the bed where the petals still lay despite the vigor of their second dance and her wings shifting about every other bit of paper or cloth not weighed down.

They came free finally as she fell onto the bed, her forelegs rising to hold Collar’s waist, and fluttered away from her, releasing their fragrance as they dissolved into dust.

Collar stopped and stared at them, his ears going flat. “What was that?”

“This is the last thing I had planned, Collar,” Cloudy said, raising her forehooves to the air and curling them against her breast. “Can you smell it? Can you feel what we both want?”

“Th-this,” he huffed, his nostrils flaring as he took another, deeper breath. Almost instantly, the smell of hot flesh and stallion musk reached her. “This is scent magic, too? Stars, Cloudy, it’s like I can feel what you want.”

“It’s a part. I asked Rosewater to capture a moment, to make it last. She whispered to me what tonight would be like, held me while she told me what to expect, teased me while she described this very moment. With you.” She took in the scent of Longest Lust. Her lust. Her want and need for sex and physical passion. She crunched her stomach and set her hind legs against his shoulders, letting him see what she wanted.

“Stars,” Collar whispered, his eyes wide, the intensity of the stallion-scent coming off him growing. He bent his neck, his lips brushing over her inner thighs down to her teats. “Stars, Cloudy, even your nipples are hard.”

“I’ve wanted to do this with you for…” Cloudy trailed off into a moan, heat rushing from where Collar’s teeth and tongue left a cooling trail between the soft, small mounds. “So long.”

“The scent?” He asked in a low, lusty voice. His hooves on the bed shifted, pulling back as he looked down along her vulva. “As a Merrier coming to her lover.”

“Yes,” Cloudy said, straining again as another wave of desire rose through her, as cool air kissed her nethers again, only to be replaced by the hot, firm touch of his tongue sliding from her canal to her clit and lingering as she strained open further, more, needing his touch. “Stars, Collar, I’ve wanted to use scents with you for so long, but I couldn’t.”

“Why?” Collar whispered.

“I was afraid, Collar,” Cloudy whispered, moaning again as Collar lapped along her slit again. “That you might not enjoy it.”

“No,” Collar replied, pushing her further onto the bed, shifting his hooves and pressing his breast against her rear. “Cloudy, I want to explore this with you. This is a part of who you are, and…” His neck arched as the sound of his cock slapping against his belly was accompanied by a rush of stallion scent. “By the stars, Cloudy, how did she capture you at your lustiest? I want you, stars, I don’t think I’ve wanted to feel you around me more than I do now.”

“Magic. And her talent.” Cloudy pushed herself back, wriggling until her hind legs splayed and she fell back fully onto the bed, letting her look over herself to see the turgid erection bobbing just above the horizon of her mound. “It enhances pleasure, too.”

“I can well believe it,” Collar grunted. He closed his eyes and focused, sheathing his cock in a silvery wrapping.

“There’s no need, Collar. I want you bare. I want your seed in me.”

“But—”

Cloudy shook her head. “I’m on a contraceptive, love. We decide when. Not chance.”

The silvery sheath vanished, leaving his ruddy cock bare, his head pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Stars, she wanted to tease him more, but tonight… tonight wasn’t about teasing. Tonight was about passion, eagerness inborn and remembered, and an artificial heightening of both of their senses.

“I’ve wanted to feel you bare again,” Collar whispered, edging forward, letting the heat from his head briefly brush against the back of one hind leg, then pressing against her. “Another gift?”

“From Rosewater. Rosie Night’s contraceptive candies.” She’d been able to smell the difference when she made water, the surety that it was working. Her body had stopped its cycle. “I have a good supply, this time.”

He slid into her, easily pressing her open as she sucked in a breath, her head rolling back as the thickness of his head pushed at her, dragging her along on a feeling of ecstatic pleasure.

“I missed this,” Collar groaned, edging forward, thrusting deeper, then bending down to kiss her ribs, then her forehooves when she reached for his face. “Stars, Cloudy, I love you so much.”

“Breathe in,” Cloudy hissed, wriggling and extending her wings, waving them briefly towards him, bringing the fragrance of her lust into a cloud around them. “Breathe in what I want, Collar.”

He did. She held his face gently as she watched the desire in his eyes turn into an smouldering fire. “Slow,” he whispered. “Slow and…” He breathed in again, and slowed his pace, stopping when he hilted inside her. His lips found hers, parted, and he nuzzled her cheek. “Loving. Stars, how did she do it, Cloudy? How did she capture that in a fragrance?”

She was about to answer when his hips pulled back, almost drawing out of her, then pressing in again, slow and achingly pleasurable, making her writhe with pleasure just as she had in her daydream. It was the dream, a prophecy of pleasure and love, coming true.

It didn’t matter right then. Not truly. What mattered was them, in this moment, joined in a slow lovemaking that set her heart fluttering, and cold tingles up her legs.

She shook her head slowly and pulled Collar closer, kissing him quickly and briefly as he came to rest again inside her before laying back to look up at him, studying his face, a mask of concentration and bewilderment. “What is it?”

“I usually come by now when it feels this intense,” he said, his voice quavering, his cock twitching inside her, his scrotum dancing against her dock. “Stars, I can feel so much more of you, Cloudy. Heat and wet, the ripple of—”

Cloudy flexed her stomach and spread her legs wider, cutting off his words and sending him into a quick retreat and thrust, his forehooves on the bed straining. A moan escaped his lips, and a grunt.

“That?” Cloudy asked breathlessly.

“That,” Collar agreed, panting and leaning down to nip at the base of her throat. “Stars, mare, how can you do that?”

“I know my body, Collar. I know how to make myself feel better during sex. I know how to make you feel everything I want you to feel.” She felt her cheeks heat as she glanced away. “Though… it’s taken me a while to learn how for stallions. For a stallion. I like it slow, Collar. I like to feel your entire cock in me. I like how close it lets me feel to you.”

“I like to feel me inside you, too,” Collar whispered, dancing closer on his hind legs and settling no deeper, but settling more firmly atop her, and began a slow, shallow thrusting. Not the deep, long thrusts that usually characterized their lovemaking, but slow, heavy, sensuous strokes that pulled against her on every jog backwards, the flaring head of him pulsing in time with the twitching as his erection stiffened and loosened, a preview of coming.

Her breathing grew more erratic as the pace quickened minutely, and the motion of them on the bed stirred Longest Lust to greater heights, but fading as quickly as it spent itself on its one purpose. Heat built in her loins as she fought to keep her hind legs open, until the moment she couldn’t resist any longer and arched her back as she closed them about his waist, hooves extending into the air as his thrusting stoked it.

“Collar,” Cloudy moaned, her forehooves reaching for his cheeks, flushed with exertion and pleasure, his ears flat to his skull as he grunted with each new thrust deeper. “Stars, Collar!”

He pulled back, his hind hooves on the carpet shuffling, and lengthened the stroking, halfway pulling out and sliding back in an increasingly furious tempo, his breath coming wilder, and a grunt coming every time he hilted himself in her and stayed for a few breaths, cock twitching, head flaring, but not coming. Not yet.

His eyes grew wilder as he tried harder, and his grunts turned into open-mouthed gasps as the first of his orgasms washed over him. All without final release.

Not yet.

Stars, it felt so good to have sex with him like that, to be rutted and feel every moment of it like a new orgasm without the ache and pain that such frequent coming would have given her. So intense.

Collar groaned with the last thrust, hilting himself, dragging himself more onto the bed, pushing her forward with his hips as the final wave of pleasure broke over him visibly, his ears suddenly erect, his eyes glazing over, mouth dropping open into a wordless, breathless exultation.

And he came. Thick spurts of semen jetting into her and around his cock as they filled her with more heat, then a thin streamer coming out to tickle her dock and spill over to the bedding.

Her own pleasurable end came with the same rush, the heat and fullness she’d been wanting again, with the clarity of Longest Lust making every pulse of his ejaculate felt, every streamer of it filling her with a want for more.

It was quieter, more akin to a tidal wave than an explosion, rising in her with the numbing pleasure that sank from her upraised hooves into her legs, leaving behind bliss incarnate, and a weakness that left her panting on the bed, her eyes closed as the wave swept through her, clearing away everything but the bonding of her and her lover.

And all too short. It was always too short with scents. But so intense.

“Stars,” Collar panted moments later, his length softening and withdrawing from her slowly. “I can see why you missed it so much.”

“And I wanted to share it with you, my love, my lovely stallion.” Cloudy pulled herself more onto the bed, more onto the towel that had been her original target before ardor and passion had taken over, and got her hindquarters situated before too much of their lovemaking made it onto their bedding. “It’s… a part of me. I want it to be a part of us, too.”

Collar glanced down between his forelegs at his cock, still dangling and dripping with their combined mess. “Can… can we talk after we clean up? It’s very cold feeling right now.”

Cloudy laughed and nodded. “Stars, yes. I made sure our linen pantry was stocked with towels before we left this morning. And there should be a warm basin in the bathroom if Rosemary and—” Cloudy caught herself.

“I do know who was on her door guard, you know,” Collar said softly, but turned away and pulled out three towels and checked the bathroom. “And yes, Platinum did leave a basin in here. It looks like there’s a ruby chip enchanted for heat in it.”

“Rosewater’s addition. She’s good with enchantments on gems.”

“She is. Surprisingly good, I’d say, considering she doesn’t seem to have a talent for it.” Collar brought three more hoof towels with him, dangling out of the basin and soaking slowly. “She… has surprising depths.”

Cloudy couldn’t resist flicking her tail and raising her eyebrow.

Collar rolled his eyes, but she didn’t miss the heating of his cheeks either, or the way his eyes flicked briefly to the south-facing window, curtained and tied. “Yes, yes. She’s a big, tall, strong pony.”

“She’s a big, tall pony just your size.”

Rather than return with a repartee as she’d expected, he offered her one of the half-sopping hoof towels and set about cleaning himself with another. “I… talked about her and Primrazzle Dazzle. The stallion in Merrie she’s been spending time with. I asked her not to hold herself back because of her hope for me. Her love for me.”

Almost, Cloudy thanked him for being so open. It was the Merrie way, and he’d responded to her tonight like a Merrie-born stallion, and seemed to be growing into, accepting more than just the surface Merrier customs like cushions on the floor instead of chairs.

“It was hard for you to do that, wasn’t it?”

Collar nodded, his expression a neutral mask for only a few breaths as he finished cleaning his shaft and set the cloth back in the basin. “I don’t like it, Cloudy. I don’t like thinking that she might think I was pushing her away towards him. That I was dismissing her feelings for me. I want to love her, Cloudy. Stars, I want to be open about it. But…”

Understanding dawned as she watched him, his eyes flicking from the basin and the faint glow coming from the jewel chip in the bottom to the bed where red petal dust, and the fading scent of Longest Lust, speckled everything.

“But you don’t want her to lose her heritage, either, or what makes her happy. Even if what makes her happy is sometimes having sex with another stallion.”

Collar winced. “Yes. Stars, it’s so frustrating being torn between what I was taught growing up, that I would need to have one mate, and only one mate, and my father and mother telling me it was okay for other ponies across the river to have more than one. When I was a teenager, that seemed so unfair, and in private, I told my dad.”

“And he told you it was.”

“Yes. But he also told me… that I might have to make a choice some day. Between following what I was being taught by our society, or following what he and my mother had taught me was also right and fair and equally valid.” Collar did look to the window openly this time, and strode to it, casting aside the drapes to look out at the scattered moon, fire, and fey light spreading across the landscape, with only a small break before it started again on the other side of the river.

Cloudy joined him, leaning against him and watching the city as it wound down the day’s business. “We can do it, Collar. We can change the way Damme looks at her sister city. We can get our ponies here to accept that my way—”

“Stars, Cloudy, you might as well just call it our way.” Collar chuckled and nuzzled her cheek. “Respect for your tradition turned into acceptance of it, and that turned into following it. I need to tell her, Cloudy. I want to tell her tomorrow when she comes to negotiate, but I don’t know if it would be the right time. Stars, I want it to be all night. I want to talk to her about what to do, too, and I… I need time. I need time to…”

His eyes in the reflection in the window darted from near to far, seeking to the west, to the dark lump that rose above the river.

“Accept it. I need time to accept the reality, Cloudy. With her.”

“Then plan your next date tomorrow. It’s your turn, so you can choose where to go. Where is special to her? Where can you take her, Collar, that she would know as soon as she got there, that you had accepted her courtship?”

Collar lay awake late into the night. He and Cloudy had spent an hour or more, he wasn’t sure how long exactly, where he could set their date, how he could set it up for them.

In the end, they hadn’t made a decision… Collar’s mind poked and prodded at the decision, trying to turn it this way and that. It was a place that she would know was special. But will she know it’s my choice? There were a dozen other places he could think of that were important to him, but none of them he could take her to. Places in the city, in public. Places that meant love to him, that were peaceful to him or held special meaning.

But there were places, too, that were important to her. He’d learned of some of them in talking with her, and some when talking with Rosemary.

There was an idea.

He glanced to the side, where Cloudy was laying, her ears limp, breathing slow.

Quietly, he whispered, “I’ll be back soon.”

“Talk to her,” Cloudy murmured, waking and stretching. Faking then, waiting for him to either sleep or decide. “Rosemary will know.”

“You knew?”

“I knew you wouldn’t stop trying to make a decision. You want someplace special to her.” Cloudy rolled over, reaching out with one hoof to brush his chest. “I love you.”

He brought her hoof up to his lips and kissed it lightly. “I love you, too. I’ll be back soon.”

With that, he slipped out of their room and closed the door behind him… and stopped. What am I doing? There were still guards roaming the halls, ponies that did their best to keep their tongues from wagging, but ale and mead had a way of moving the most immobile and modest of tongues.

Visiting Rosemary on the same night that he’d very publicly planned on making love to Cloudy… was not a good look.

“Rut it.” They’d know soon enough anyway, and… his heart told him that getting his confession to Rosewater was more important than rumors floating around. Cloudy wanted him to, even as his Dammer upbringing warred with his respect for her Merrier ways. He’d dealt with it for long enough, pushing down the Dammer voice was second-nature.

The halls were almost quiet, with only the muffled thumps of hooves on the floor below marking the passage of the night guard.

Down the balcony way, laying at her post with her head poked through the door, was Sunrise Primfeather, a shimmering field of magical silence surrounding her head and extending to her shoulders.

As he approached, he saw her obviously laugh, her head thrown back at something Rosemary said, and for a moment, he thought she would see him out of the corner of her eye, but she shook her head and leaned in again, her ears pricked and her tail swishing against the carpet in a clear sign of a happy pony.

She’s still in love with Rosemary, isn’t she?

Almost, he stopped himself and went back to Cloudy to let them have this private moment. But one thing stopped him. The station in front of Glory’s room, closer to his suite than Rosemary’s room, was manned by Poppy, and he eyed him, then glanced at the pony lounging with her head all the way in Rosemary’s room.

He cleared his throat. Loudy. Then rolled his eyes when it had no effect.

“They’ve been talking for two hours,” Poppy whispered as Collar padded up to him. “She only returned to her post when a maid bustled by with a sloshing basin of water.”

“Rosemary warned her.”

“Guessing so. That nose of hers is uncanny.”

“Rosewater’s is more impressive,” Collar said absently. The silence that came after his remark called the words back to his mind, and he winced. “She’s made a point of… of demonstrating it.”

“My lord,” Poppy said in a wry tone, and erected his own silence around them. “Do not forget that I am in love with her younger sister. She has not been idle in trying to get me to see the goodness in her, despite her reputation, and her acts. I know what it’s like to love a Rosethorn.”

Collar glanced at him, then back at Sunrise still leaned into the room. “I never said I was in love with her.”

“Of course, my lord,” Poppy said in a tone that said he believed it as far as he could throw a boulder. “I haven’t just heard the rumors, sir. I’ve seen the two of you together. She’s clearly in love with you.”

Collar nodded. “Can you keep secrets, Poppy?”

In answer, Poppy flattened his ears and glanced at the door behind him.

“Stupid question. But… this isn’t only my secret, Poppy.” He sat, glancing down the hallway again to make sure Sunrise was still distracted. “She’s in love with me. I know, because she’s told me.”

Poppy’s ears came back up. “You’ve been gone from the palace at odd times over the past several weeks, and nopony could account for it. Rumor says you’re scouting Merrie weaknesses.”

“In a way, they’re not wrong. I’ve been seeing her at nights. She called them dates. I didn’t.” Collar glanced down the hall again, an itch starting at the base of his spine like Cloudy was glaring at him to get on with it. “I… love her. She hides her heart because it’s been stomped on and gored so often, Poppy, but it’s still strong, still good, and Rosemary is at its core.”

For a long while, Poppy considered him, his left ear twitching spastically before it stilled, and he nodded, glancing down the hallway himself, then back towards Collar’s suite. “I thought it might be something like that. She’s let it out for you, then.”

“Some. She’s like a deerkin, Poppy. Skittish and wily about it. Easily spooked. But… she’s made an effort to be open. I want to see more of it, and I want to see her feel safe to bear it in the open.” Collar forced himself not to glance at the tapestry to his left, to the south. It was an effort. “You understand?”

“I do. Glory was a lot more brazen, but… she didn’t have the same familial turmoil. Her father still keeps in touch with her through letters, even though he left for Canterlot years ago. I understand he keeps in touch with both of his daughters.”

Collar’s brows rose. “Both?”

“Her and Silk. They’re of an age, almost, born three years apart. He loves them both dearly.” Poppy glanced at him, then back at the door behind him. “He couldn’t stay. Because of her, of course, and he begged them to follow him, but Roseate overrode him… and they stayed because they were more afraid of her than they loved him.”

“That’s… awful.” Every new thing he learned about how Roseate had dominated and controlled her family through fear and threats made his opinion of her drop even lower, and every time he thought his opinion had reached a new bottom, he found a new low.

“Glory regrets it now. Sometimes. She’d have been cut off from everything she knew, but she wouldn’t have had to live through all she has.” Poppy glanced back again, settled against the door, and sat. “And we wouldn’t have met. She doesn’t regret it long, just a ‘what might have been.’”

“There’s a lot of that happening lately,” Collar said with a sigh. “What might have been had I reached out to a grieving filly when I was not much more than a foal myself.”

“I suspect you’re finding out, sir.”

“I suspect so.” Collar patted Poppy lightly on the shoulder with a hoof. “If anypony asks—”

“You’re friends.”

“We are.”

Poppy dropped the silence and nodded to him quietly, not resuming his regulation pose as a guard, and a faint shiver of the door told him Glory had settled in against the other side. The most they could share while Poppy was on duty.

He wanted to tell him to go be with her, but the servants would notice the absence and whisper.

It was a good reminder that the ponies that looked to him for leadership had to make sacrifices for their lives and loves as well. He gave Poppy another pat on the shoulder, nodded, and started towards Rosemary’s room, expecting the mare to give Sunrise a warning.

She did not. Sunrise stayed leaned into Rosemary’s room, talking, smiling, and laughing until he stuck his head in to find Rosemary laying not a tail’s length away, well within kissing reach of Sunrise if they stretched.

Rosemary’s eyes tracked up to meet his, and she winked. “My lord.”

You little minx.

Sunrise squeaked and leapt to her hooves, almost crashing into Collar, but managing to avoid him by the barest margin, leaping back so her rear almost hit the railing. “M-m-my lord!”

“Calm, Sunrise,” Collar said steadily. “I didn’t mean to startle you at your post.” He glanced to Rosemary, looking at least a little chagrined by then. “But I thought of something and needed to confirm its validity before it left my mind.”

Rosemary’s eyebrows rose almost to her forelock as she glanced between him and Sunrise, still quiet, still behaving like her door was closed, he realized.

“Go keep Poppy company for a bit, Sunrise,” he said more loudly, glancing down the hall at the stallion staring at him and barely holding in laughter. “I need to talk to Rosemary.”

Sunrise swallowed and glanced at Rosemary, then at Collar, the panic in her eyes fading somewhat.

To assuage her further, Collar dampened the sound around the three of them. “I encouraged you to reconnect with her when I assigned you to this rotation, Sunrise. I’m glad to see that you’re doing so. It’s healthy for both of you.”

Sunrise didn’t look so certain, but she nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

When she’d left to join Poppy, Collar shrunk the sound dampening aura and followed Rosemary into her room, surprised to see that she’d rearranged things. The bed was now farther from the windows, almost blocking the bathing room door, but leaving a large open space piled high with pillows in front of the fireplace. A small fire was going, the spark grill in place, and a few books scattered around the nest.

It was, he realized after a moment, more akin to a Merrier’s preferred mode of sleeping.

“Is the bed not big enough to recreate what you have at home?”

“The footboard and headboard aren’t tall enough,” Rosemary said with a sniff. “The pillows fall off if I try to push it flush against the wall. This was the best compromise I could get.” She separated two pillows and settled them down in the shrunken ‘sitting room’ area. “You came here for a reason, my lord. So late, and on your date night with Cloudy.”

“Thank you,” he said. “For tonight. I know… by law, I should report it. But I won’t. Please don’t worry about that. You let me see what it was like making love with Cloudy the way she wanted, and let her relive a part of her past I’m sure she thought she’d never get to experience again.”

Some of the stiffness bled out of her, and she sagged minutely before nodding. “I… was worried. I knew it was a risk. But she’s my lover, too, and Rosewater’s. Both of us want her to be happy in all of her relationships.” When she adjusted her position on her pillow, she seemed much more relaxed. “But I doubt you came here to tell me that.”

“No… but your directness…” Collar waved a hoof. “It spoke to your fears. I came… because I’m in love with your mother, Rosemary. Or falling in love. Or could fall in love. I’m not sure where I am, to be honest, but I’ve stepped past ‘friends’ and I don’t know where this will take me, or how it will play out.” A steadying breath to calm his nerves, and he went on. “I want to make… confession? Is that the right word? Right with her.”

“I mean, you could just—”

“No.” Collar shook his head. “I want her to know before I say the words, Rosemary. I want the place I tell her be her first hint. I want when I tell her to be as easy, as gentle, as I can. For me, too. I don’t want her to think I’m leading her on.”

The last thing he’d expected was for Rosemary to sniffle and glance away, tears shining in her eyes. Though she recovered herself, her voice was raw. “I’ve wanted to hear you say that for a long time, Collar. She deserves a love that’s gentle and sure. Thank you for wanting it for her, too.”

“And…” Collar nodded, settling back. “Yes. Do you know anyplace that would tell her that I want to tell her?”

Rosemary rocked back, raising her gaze to the ceiling and exposing her throat and all of her mark to him. It was so comparatively fainter on her than it was on Rosewater, but it was still almost the same crimson of fresh blood. She had some of her mother’s look in her, but that was likely from Carnation being Roseate’s sister than anything else.

She lacked the Canterlotian look, and a glance at her hooves told him she lacked the mountain unicorn heritage. Still rather feminine in size and shape, but smooth all around.

“I think I know a place,” she said at last. “It’s someplace she, Carnation, and I would go for retreat from the vagaries of city life for a while when I was younger. A camping trip, Carnation called it, and we took tents and all the supplies we would need for a few days to a place east of the city. It’s hard to find, but there’s a trail used by not much more than deerkin, rabbits, and foxes. It goes south between two hills following the upstream flow of a creek to a clearing. We’d spend days there, Rosewater and Carnation teaching me about all the plants that grew nearby, letting me frolick in the stream while they worked on… whatever it was they worked on when I was playing.”

“That sounds…” Collar almost said ‘complicated,’ but he’d have no issues with infiltrating the countryside, even if he dragged a cart with him to the edge of the woods and spent a few days making it nice by himself. “Is it going to be okay this close to winter?”

“It should be. Sunny was just telling me that the next few days look like a warm front is pushing up from the south. With rains, of course, but the camping spot doesn’t flood easily.” Rosemary cocked her head to the side and studied him. “It was one of the places where she could be herself in the open, and love me like a daughter with Carnation. It felt like we were a family there.”

“It sounds perfect,” Collar said. “And I have time before our next date to set up.”

“Be certain, Collar,” Rosemary said earnestly, reaching out to touch his foreleg. “If you take her there, you’re telling her you want her to be a part of your family. Not just that you love her. I can think of another place, if you want. It might take a little while, though. There’s a lot of places… but not many of them are easy for you to get to.”

“Because they’re in Merrie,” he surmised, not even needing her small nod to know it was the truth. Am I that certain? “You’re sure it’ll be the next best thing to a marriage proposal to her?”

Rosemary blinked, then nodded. “Well, a ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’ proposal at least. There are more than marriages in Merrie, Collar. Carnation and Rosewater never married, nor could they, but they were as close to partners as two ponies could get without.”

“Can you draw me a map?”

“I will.” Rosemary hesitated, then nodded and pulled out her journal and a quill. “I’m going to lend this to you, Collar. Please bring it back undamaged.”

“On my love for your mother.”

Book 2, 29. Errands

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“Lord Collar,” Rosewater said, feigning surprise at seeing both him and Cloudy waiting for her at the office. “It’s a pleasure to see you before formalities take over.”

Collar chuckled and extended a hoof to tap. “I felt it best to at least try to get to know you aside from as a negotiator. Besides, I feel we’ve been incredibly unfair of late with the terms we’ve required.”

“By law,” Rosewater said with a sigh, tapping the hoof and then offering the same to Cloudy. “And it’s good to see you again. Sadly, I have no more stories about…” She glanced at the guards and the few traders who’d stopped to stare and listen without even bothering to be subtle about it. “Well, indelicate events.”

That earned her a snort and a giggle from the mare, who glanced at the traders as well. “Ah well. Perhaps a story about what you’ve been up to since we saw you last?”

Rosewater’s ears flicked, a nervous tick. You’re being too open, Cloudy. “I spent time at the Garden of Love. More than I spent at home. In truth, it’s becoming as a home to me.” She edged towards the treaty office. “I need my treaty flag. Pardon me for just a moment.”

“No need today,” Collar said, bobbing his head. “Today is still treaty business, but I’m hoping we can be a little less formal about it all. It’s clear that our task will take longer than it usually does for a herdgild, even so complicated a one as this.”

“And so,” Cloudy added in an apparently planned followup, “we requested from the Treaty Office that as long as we accompany you, that you are considered to be treaty-bound. On our voucher. I’d love for us to find a way towards Friendship, to be honest.”

“And…” Rosewater glanced at the everpresent guards familiar with her visits who weren’t ponies she thought she could call friendly. “My warrants?”

“Treaty business,” Collar reminded her. “This isn’t a trick, Rosewater. Firelight would hang my hide on his door if I tried to arrest you after claiming to speak for the office. As he would do for any pony who did so against my orders,” he added with a glance at the bridge guards, then at the patrol that had stopped to watch.

All five ponies turned back to their duties with an alacrity that resembled whiplash.

Tension faded from her shoulders and hindquarters as the urge to fight or flee subsided. “Thank you, Collar. I take it, then, that one or both of you will accompany me to and from the bridge each time?”

“Indeed, and it need not be the Primrose bridge since you’ve changed your residence.”

“By action rather than intent,” Rosewater agreed. “I’ve even been given a room in the villa itself.”

“I’m glad,” Cloudy said softly, sidling up beside her, too close to be merely friendly by Damme standards. “I’ve been worried that you spend too much time alone, Rosewater. You need and deserve company that loves and accepts you.”

Rosewater glanced at Collar to see his reaction to the move, but the only thing he did was smile and give a dismissive flick of his ear. What he was dismissing, she didn’t know yet, but she followed when he stepped back into the row and started on towards the palace.

What truly set her mood off was when he drifted almost as close as Cloudy was, without seeming to realize it himself.

Until she caught a small smile out of the corner of her eye when he bumped into her on a sharp turn to avoid a cart that stopped suddenly ahead of them.

After that, she relaxed. He was behaving oddly compared to their last visit, but considering how comfortably they’d sat flank-to-flank and shoulder-to-shoulder on their last date… it was comforting to feel Cloudy occasionally bump into her on one side, and Collar on the other.

Even the whispers that rose up around them as they wove through the early morning traffic stopped bothering her after a while of traveling with and against the flow of hoof traffic to and from busier and quieter parts of the waking city.

A walk that had always seen her with a broad corridor of loneliness on either side didn’t seem to happen this time. Rather, ponies seemed to want to gather close to listen to whatever gossip might come from the unflagged Rosewater and the two future rulers of Damme flanking her.

Whatever snippets of talk the three of them shared, mostly about the weather and the recent reports from ships that a new town had been founded in Mt. Canter’s shadow, on the borders of the Everfree, a wilderness famously wild and dangerous, and home to wild magic older than pony civilization.

“I wish them well,” Collar said with a sigh and a glance towards the forest north of the cities. “Stars know we’ve had our experiences in the past with wild magic in forests.”

“I hear it’s more of a jungle,” Cloudy said, shivering all over. “Stars, I can’t imagine trying to take care of wings in a place that muggy.”

“That’s because you’re a northern pony,” Rosewater said, teasing her with a nip to the ear. “You think it gets muggy if it’s warm and foggy.”

“Because it does,” Cloudy grumbled.

As relaxed as she let herself look, Rosewater was intensely aware of the sharp looks several ponies gave her and Cloudy, or, when Collar nipped her ear and drew a yelp from her, the even more pointed looks and whispers that started up around them.

“Relax,” Collar whispered before he drew away. “It’s good to see the two of you getting along so well. I’ve been glad to see your heart lighter around friends, Rosewater.”

“You included, Collar?”

“Myself included. I’d like to think this ordeal has brought more than our common interests together. A friendship with you will be vital, going forward. It’s part of why we wanted to leave off the trappings of the treaty today.” He glanced to the side to where a particularly loud gossiper was talking with his friends. “You’re here not as a negotiator today, but as a future head of state.”

Mother will find out, she thought, her stomach turning at the idea. She’ll hear all of this.

A moment later, Collar bumped against her, and sent the fear right out of her. But what can she do? I’m not acting against her directly. I’m not spying for Lace. She found herself standing straighter. She was going to be the next Baroness of Merrie. She would, if nothing else, negotiate an end to the war and a joining of the cities.

She glanced at Collar, dipping her ears and offering him a slight smile. “Thank you. I’ve wanted to be less formal with you. It’s… calming, Collar, to think that today I might not have to think about how many years of debt I’m consigning myself to.”

It was her cover story, but it still made Collar wince.

“Rosemary has been a model prisoner,” Collar replied softly. “And considering your circumstances, it only makes sense to have a quiet day amid the tension of dealing in future favors and debts.”

Rosewater bowed her head and nodded.

Today was going to be different.

It was hard to keep the joyous laughter in.

Why are you trying to?

She laughed softly at first, drawing eyes to her, not least of all Collar and Cloudy, looking at her in alarm, then both of them smiling as if they knew why she was laughing.

“Today’s going to be different!” Rosewater cried, laughing and startling several ponies around her. “Stars,” she whispered. “Stars, that felt good.”

Cloudy worked hard to keep her throat from tightening any further as she stared at the sheaf of paper on the counter, the ingredients that had been mysterious to her as a filly, the steps to take that were all but arcane to make the Cinnamon Delights that had been a family secret for generations.

Beside her, Rosewater hummed softly just like her mother did while she made them, the entire cadence of the recipe made to song. She could imagine her mother humming it as she wrote it down.

“It’s amazing,” Collar said a little further down, tending to the mixing of the dry ingredients and topping, “that your family passed this down orally for so long, Cloudy.”

“It really is,” Rosewater murmured as she folded the dough again, borrowing a scoopful of the pre-prepared filling and basting it over the bare dough the fold had exposed.

Already, Cloudy could smell the cinnamon and sweetness that would be filling the palace with memories of her childhood soon. “They’re… stars, the way you’re making them is just how my family makes them.” She glanced from Rosewater to Collar, her smile faltering as the image of her parents standing in the kitchen, handling three stations in the process of making the treats.

The counters had been so high it was all she could do to rear up and stare at the process as a filly, her mouth watering. A few years later, she’d been promoted from watcher to oven-watcher, then from oven-watcher to dry-ingredients mixer. All while her senior mother hummed and directed the process. What Cloudy was doing now, directing the process.

It was for the best. Tears came and went as the process moved from one step to the next.

“I should hope so,” Rosewater murmured as she finished basting and folded again, beginning the basting again, mindful of not pressing too much of the filling out from between the layers. When they baked, the flaky crusts would do that and coat the ends and settle into a bubbling bath for the bottoms, infusing cinnamon into the base of the treat. “I helped her make two batches day before yesterday. I made them at the Garden last night, just to make sure I had it right. At your mother’s urging.”

“You… stars above, I still can’t believe they risked—”

“I’m not spying, Cloudy. They’re not spying.” Rosewater glanced at Collar and bobbed her head.

Instantly, sound from outside blanked out.

“I also told them that I would help them flee if they needed.” Rosewater’s throat hitched as she delivered the news, but she gave Cloudy a look that said she would help no matter what.

It was up to Cloudy to accept that. “My… my sister? Brother?”

“Both fine, and overjoyed to hear news from their big sister. I wish they would leave to be with you, but they have… history. Their home.”

“The last ancestral home of the family,” Cloudy murmured. “It’s been in our family for ten generations, and now it’s all we have.” She fixed Rosewater with a look, let her gaze drop when she saw understanding, and nodded. “They’ll flee. If they must. But the family home is an anchor for them. My mother’s parents, her father’s parents, his father’s parents…”

“Family.” Rosewater nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“They’ll be safe here, if they need to be,” Collar murmured softly. “They’d be refugees. Mother is already preparing for it if we need to accept more. She, and Dapper, are more than aware of what might happen if Roseate gets wind of any kind of ‘rebellious’ actions being taken, regardless of how rebellious they are.”

Cloudy felt a pang of hope that they would join her, that she could see her family again as more than figures leaving the house from a distance. Hold them. Hear them.

At the same time, the want to not have them have to face what she had warred against her own selfish desires.

“What happens,” Rosewater murmured in her ear, “happens. Your family will be safe regardless.”

Collar, on the other side of her, nodded. “If we get word, Cloudy, that something is happening at your family’s house, we’ll be ready to escort them across the nearest bridge if we need to.”

If. Cloudy drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you.” Cloudy settled in to watch both of them work. The powder and cream Collar was working with, refilling Rosewater’s bowl as she worked, continued to smell delicious and richly fragrant. “There was something Collar wanted to tell you, too,” she said.

He didn’t even flinch. He was ready, then. The calming atmosphere of the small kitchen, the familial atmosphere, it was all working towards his vision of ‘this is what the future could be.’ With her, with Rosewater… all that was missing was Rosemary crowded in somewhere to help. Cloudy focused on that, and pushed away the worry of what might happen to her family. She couldn’t do anything but make it worse.

“I’ve been thinking about where our next outing will be,” Collar said softly, glancing at Cloudy, then meeting Rosewater’s gaze. “I… spoke to Rosemary. And discussed places. That were special to you.”

“The overlook is special to me,” Rosewater replied, meeting his gaze, then glancing at Cloudy. “What… changed?”

“Every date we’ve had, Rosewater, has been in Damme. Or on territory controlled by Damme, at least.” Collar steadied himself and looked past her again to meet Cloudy’s sure gaze, and got a small nod in return. “I want our next to be, if not in Merrie, then on your side of the river. I want to come to you.”

“To me?” Rosewater’s neck arched faintly, and he could well imagine the shiver that went down her spine. “Collar, it’s not safe for you in Merrie.”

“I know. That’s true for now, at least. The place I had in mind, Rosemary said was outside the city, and that it was special to you, too.” Collar turned from his slow mixing and pulled free Rosemary’s journal from under one of the cookbooks. “East of the city, past the bog forest, and to a shallow stream that fed the bog and the Merrie. A place rich with a diversity of plantlife, I understand.”

Rosewater’s eyes danced from him to the journal page with the map. “It… was to help her grow her talent. Her interest in plants of all kinds, not just fragrant and pretty ones. Carnation and I… we spent days at a time away from the bustle of the city with her, teaching her, learning ourselves as we encountered plants that had to be identified back home. Stars, those little projects of hers, nose in book after book, staring at drawings until she found the right one.”

Her smile was more beautiful as she recounted the small tale than any he’d seen her putting on. It was a mother’s pride, plain and simple, and if he thought back, he could see the same smile on his own mother’s face, and his father’s.

“We wandered the woods all the time we were out there, and sometimes Rosemary would try to drag us out there to look for some herb or lichen she’d heard about that hid in specific places. And, often, we would go.” Her chuckle was rich and hearty, and Collar’s heart skipped a beat hearing it. Her laughter was rare, and it was something he’d come to cherish about her. They weren’t ever false laughs, but real, and heartfelt. “We spoiled her rotten, and she gave us all the love she had for taking her.”

“You both love her dearly.”

“Yes,” Rosewater said, glancing down at the pastry she had been basting, and resumed, folding over one of the last folds and continuing on. “It’s a good place to camp, Collar. Filled with good memories for me.” She dipped her brush again, paused, and looked him in the eye. “What changed, Collar. On our last date…”

I nearly told her I loved her. Collar nodded instead of telling her. “Our toast, Rosewater.”

It was curious to see realization roll over her, from the way she stared at him, to the moment her spell fizzled, dropping the brush into the bottom of the cast iron pan, to the wide-eyed-realization of what that toast had meant to him.

‘Even for you and I.’

“Collar…”

He wanted to say the words. He wanted to kiss her, give her the sign he’d told her was his marker of love. It hurt not to, and see that desire in her eyes. But… he… they needed time. Here, they wouldn’t have it.

“I know,” Collar answered her unspoken need with a touch of his nose to her shoulder, and a pointed look at the closed, silenced door to the rest of the palace.

She understood, without him needing to say more, and nodded, drawing a deep breath. “And,” she added, glancing at Cloudy, “we have a pastry to finish and share with Rosemary, Dapper, and Lace, don’t we?”

“And Glory,” Cloudy said. “And the guards on duty. This is more than mom used to make. Mom shared it with you, Rosewater. She would want us to share it here. The time for secrets is coming to an end.”

A shiver of anticipation shot through Collar at her words. The time for secrets was coming to an end. Soon enough, whether at the gala or after, the world would know he was in love with both Cloudy and Rosewater. And… Rosemary.

Stars, she’d been such a good support for him. It was hard to think of the young mare as a love interest, but he did love her for all she did for not only him, for Cloudy, but for her mother. She was a bright spot in the palace of late, and even her frequent visits to the public garden had tended to draw more and more ponies who just wanted to see her and talk to her to learn about the strange, brilliant light in their midst.

She was a flower in a field of grass, bright and strange, and attractive in so many ways more than her obvious physical beauty.

More and more, ponies in the palace were seeing her for those other qualities. Her kindness and inquisitive mind, her genuine interest in ponies and what made them tick. She was social where her mother struggled.

“I think,” Collar said, swallowing back the urge to tell them that his heart had seemed to expand, and he’d only just realized it. “I think we should invite Rosemary on our sharing expedition.”

Both Rosewater and Cloudy looked at him, then shared a smile and a giggle.

“Stars, you mares, can you at least let me explore my burgeoning heart at my own pace.” Collar waggled the spatula he’d been using to stir up the cream at them, flicking a glob onto Rosewater’s nose.

Immediately, he wanted to lick it off, but he hesitated. He didn’t know where that one act would take him.

After a moment, Cloudy rolled her eyes and drew Rosewater closer to her, licked the glob off… and then kissed her lightly on the lips. Then more firmly, then parted and glanced at him, brows raised.

It was an effort to keep himself from reacting to that simple show of love and affection, of intimacy. But he wanted to join in. Stars, he wanted to join them both.

“I think,” Rosewater murmured softly, “that we should finish cooking before Collar shows any more of his arousal.”

Cloudy’s nostrils flared, and her wicked grin did nothing to help Collar’s mood.

“Please,” Collar blurted before she could say anything. “Please, Cloudy. I… need time. And space. And to understand myself.”

The grin faded, and she nodded, her expression thoughtful. Then, she kissed Rosewater one more time, lighter, and some of the worry in Rosewater’s eyes faded after his outburst.

“I’m sorry, Collar,” Cloudy murmured as she ducked her head under Rosewater’s, drawing a squawk from the taller mare as she danced back to let her by.

Uncertain, Collar reached out to touch her chin lightly with a hoof, and drew in, thinking he knew what her game was, only for her to kiss his nose instead of his lips.

Her eyes seemed to tell him that was all she could do. You need to do the rest.

“Forgiven.”

East called to her even as Rosewater supervised the raising of the massive tent and testing the tensions against the weights it would likely face, and even a little beyond. Her eyes kept drawing in that direction, and her thoughts kept meandering to the note she’d left for Collar along with some extra, dry firewood at the campsite that had so many beautiful memories for her.

Memories that, in truth, had started to fade into the background of the daily isolation she’d practiced, that he’d reawoken with his offer.

For that alone she could have kissed him without his consent. It wouldn’t have been the romantic kiss she craved, but a grateful one. She’d needed the push to revisit sites that had been a large part of Rosemary’s growing up, too.

She’d even recovered all of Rosemary’s jars and boxes of herbs and things from her workroom and brought them to the Garden. Openly, too, and given them over to White Rose and her husbands for their use in caring for the foals of the Garden. Or the other ponies of the garden.

Rosemary wouldn’t want them to molder away, not after she’d spent so much time refining and drying them to be of a medicinal grade.

“Are you okay?” Petal asked from just under Rosewater’s nose.

“Stars!” Rosewater danced back, looking around her, tail lashing, and wondered just how long she’d spent staring east. “Sorry, Pet.”

“It’s fine, dear, but you’ve been testing the tension on that line for a full minute. I think it’s going to stand up to a little storm.”

“A big storm. From the south,” Rosewater murmured, raising her nose to test the air again. “The warm front is pushing a lot of unfamiliar pollen north.”

“No wonder little Dancer is sneezing his head off lately. Swear that little colt must have some Rosethorn blood in him somewhere.” Petal shook her head and drew Rosewater off to the side, away from the ponies finishing tying down the lines with long iron spikes with auger tips. “What is it, Rosewater? It’s not the storm.”

“It is, and it isn’t,” Rosewater replied, forcing herself not to glance to the north and give away the real reason. If the storm hit before Collar finished his setup, his cart tracks would be clearly visible to any pegasus flying low enough to survey the damage. “If it tracks the way the pegasi say it will, it’s going to dump a lot of rain in the river valley. The river will be running high and rapid.”

Petal pursed her lips and glanced north to the Merrie, currently at a relative low, the waters barely visible over the rocky embankment keeping the shore safe from erosion. “Flooding?”

“Maybe,” Rosewater murmured, then guided Petal’s gaze to the Rosewine Bridge across it, and the middle island built up into a fortress against the pounding of hundreds of years of river-water surging against it. It would have shifted and left the Rosewine Hill district of the city isolated from Damme if it hadn’t been so fortified. “I’m more worried about the bridge, honestly. It’s still got wooden pilings.”

“Thick, sturdy wooden pilings that were replaced just forty years ago. With treated, spelled lumber. My grandmother paid enough for the refurbishment. It should last another thirty.” Petal sniffed and shook her head. “But we’ll keep an eye on it. It’s always a risk in the worst flows.”

Rosewater knew that much. She’d inspected the wardings on the bridge pilings herself the first time Rosemary had wanted to cross it. They were sturdy spells, and woven into the very life of the wood by the best of Damme’s shipbuilders. They’d withstand a hundred years of saltwater. A little river water shouldn’t even make it flinch.

“I know.” More, she was worried about how rapidly the waters would rise, and whether they’d rise high enough for her to be grateful Rosefire estate’s front stoop had been built so high just because the water could rise that far, and had in the past. Though not since the Dammers had rebuilt the Dam far to the east a hundred and fifty years ago, providing better control over the headwaters and diverting much of the overflow down the Merrie’s sister river curving much farther south.

A good enough storm could still overwhelm it if it hit in the wrong place or brought too much rain. The superstorms that were more common down south would have been a disaster, but none of the warmth-loving things ever ventured so far north with any of their vigor left.

“Then stop worrying. There are ponies whose job it is to watch the river, and the bridge. Yours is to be you, and help me supervise the layout we agreed on for the vendor tents.” Petal nipped her cheek.

“You’re right.” Rosewater stole one last glance to the east and sent a hopeful prayer to the Mare in the Moon.

Keep him safe and keep him hidden.

She startled when Petal whispered in her ear, “He’s going to be fine.”

Collar leaned against the cart, panting. It was just past midnight, and he’d spent the entire past hour wrestling the cart by magical strength over roots low-hanging branches along the trail Rosemary had drawn on a map for him.

He’d had to scout it yesterday night, just to make sure it was the right trail, and he only had a few days until their date. Just after the Commoner’s Gala and all the stress that entailed for Rosewater. She’d gone into depth about what had to happen before then, and while he didn’t want to add to her stress, it was something she was looking forward to, she’d said. He wanted to make this a chance to relax for her.

When he’d told her where…

Collar pushed himself back all the way upright and slid under the harness again, buckling it around his barrel and across his breast before straining against it again, up the broader path of the stream. One wheel was perpetually in it, but it was shallow, smooth, and rocky enough that the relatively light weight of the bulky tent and camping gear didn’t dig into the bed very much.

Further up, the trail widened even further as the canopy’s stretch settled the trees that survived farther apart, and the going got easier, as he’d known it would, until the trail opened up into the clearing, almost a glade save for the flat slate shelf that made up a large part of it, covered here and there by piles of earth that looked as if it had drifted like sand up onto it.

It rose at an odd, shallow angle until it mated with the hill it had been birthed from, hinting it had once been quite the cliff until the local stream had undercut it enough to collapse it. The farther up he went, the more grass and earth there was, something he surmised was a slow process that had culminated in a flatter hilltop with little in the way of fully grown trees and quite a lot of scrub brush, grasses, and rocky earth.

Not far from the top, a greater strain on his hind legs to drag the cart, protesting all the way in the looser soil, up the hill, he found the remnants of past camp sites on little shelves of rocks that were large enough to house a tent and a fire pit.

Broken tent stakes lay half-buried in the soil, their wood almost rotten to dust but still recognizable. He even found a wooden mallet with a cracked head at the final rise to the faintly rounded top of the hill.

And there, right in the center, was a ring of stones, a pile of fresh firewood, and a fluttering piece of paper trapped between two of the logs.

This is the place. Here, I spent my late teens and early twenties teaching a young filly to identify all the plants that grow about here and to get away from the city, and enjoy nature.

“I guess… this is the place.” Collar laughed and glanced behind him at the smaller pile of firewood strapped to one of the braces. “Maybe we can have a bigger fire this time.”

She must have decided to answer his offer with her own acceptance even before. Her eagerness. Yesterday, she had barely been acting after all. He’d seen more of her real face in public then he'd thought to so soon.

Book 2, 30. The Commoner's Gala, Opening

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The rains did come, as did warmer temperatures brought from the south in their wake, though they wouldn’t last long.

Rosewater’s fears about the dam being overwhelmed, or the river valley itself flooding proved groundless. The banks of the Merrie did overtop briefly, and a little detritus made its way onto the riverwalk in Merrie during the height of the storm that blew through, but both cities fared well, and Damme with its higher embankment didn’t even see the river crest the top of its stonework half of the bank, though the docks and dock district did see some localized flooding.

She knew all of that from listening to the reports Petal received from the traders and common ponies that kept an eye for her on how things were going in their sister city.

Collar, she knew, had returned to the palace long before under cover of night again. She’d not dared to venture to the campsite before it was time, but stars it was hard to keep her mind off what might, could, happen there… in just a few days.

So much had happened, so much to confirm her dreams and allay her fears, that she could almost feel them blooming around her. She was so close now, to the dream she now knew her father and mother, her real mother, had worked to prepare her for. Blue Star’s journal had gone from that turbulent night to talking about how Carnation was already in talks with the young rulers of Damme, to bring her daughter together with their son.

And so much had gone wrong. Her father’s illness had meant Carnation had missed days of talking in secret to care for him, lest he pass away while Rosewater was alone with him. They hadn’t wanted her to see his final moments, terrified that it would scar her for life.

In the end…

Rosewater shook her head slowly and pushed away the melancholy that settled in over her every time she thought about her father. It came more often in the wake of storms, when the scent on the air reminded her so much of the day her father had been buried.

Today was the Commoner’s Gala, and she would be one of the hostesses making sure the event ran smoothly. It was a huge step up from the antisocial behavior she’d forced herself into, and she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she was more than a little nervous about the spotlight she would find herself in.

But… it also excited her. It would be the first time in six years that she’d participated in a major social event as more than a wary sideline watcher, and the Commoner’s Gala was usually only something she heard about from Rosemary after returning from the main event. It would be her first time actually participating in her memory.

Not that it was an old tradition. It had only really started years after it became clear that the Lace Reformations were standing up to the test of suits and time, when it was more feasible to hold a multi-city festival for the common pony on ground that Roseate had no direct control over.

It was also, for a lot of Merriers and Dammers, the only time that the normal inhibitions about visiting the other city fell away, and the merchant class and even a good portion of the common class ventured across the Rosewine.

“Today’s the day,” Dazzle announced as he strode in without even a knock, then stopped, staring at her. “Stars. I love the braid, Rosewater, but…” he stepped closer and lifted one of the loose ribbons she’d woven into her mane at even intervals. “Dammer blue?”

“I want the war to end, Dazzle. Pink and blue in my mane, I hope, will show my interest in all things Damme.” She flicked her tail, showing the same work she’d done. “It’s also practice for what I want to have a stylist do with my mane for the gala.”

Dazzle swallowed and nodded. “It says that much, at least. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. My mother will hear about it, yes, but showing interest in Damme isn’t treason, Dazzle. It would be treason only if I started working for them against her. And I’m not. I’m working for myself, for the end of the war, and for unity between ponies. That has always been something the treaty has always promoted.”

It took him a moment, but he tipped his head to the side and nodded. “You’ve been following in the spirit of the treaty for a few weeks, haven’t you? Trying to embody what it was hoped to accomplish.”

“It didn’t start out that way,” Rosewater admitted, her ears flattening as she did, and stood up from her vanity to give him a quick kiss and nuzzle. “But as I got to know Cloudy and Collar better, and Lace and Dapper, I realized that they were already living what the treaty wanted. They’re both mixed-city couples born and come together in times of turmoil in Merrie. Dapper and Lace from the time that the last Rosethorn the Red purged political dissidents, and Lace’s father not much better. And…”

“And Roseate,” Dazzle finished for her, sighing. “They’re good ponies, all of them, and I don’t think I’d have felt as safe making the decision to try out the Merrier life if Lace hadn’t been in power, honestly. It would have been a complete severing of ties under her father’s reign, and… I can’t do that. I still love my family, even if they don’t approve of my choice of life and love.”

“Do they know about us?” Rosewater didn’t wait for him to answer before she opened her door and glanced down the hallway towards the kitchens. Breakfast had been an hour ago, but she was still feeling peckish.

“Are you kidding? They’d stage a rescue mission if they had more than inklings that I was sleeping with you.” Dazzle’s chuckle was darker, and he nipped her neck. “Besides. They don’t understand how… transient Merrier relationships can be.”

“Is ours transient?” Rosewater asked, stopping halfway down the hallway. “Do we want it to be transient?”

Dazzle concentrated, silencing the hallway and grinning at her at how easily he’d managed it this time. “I mean, it would have to be if you marry Collar, right?”

“We… talked about that. Frosty’s Law would need to be torn down first. That would open the way for us, with my spouses’ blessing of course, to continue.” Rosewater nipped his ear when he started to protest. “Even if they don’t, I’m still free to have the friends I wish. But he did give his blessing, Dazzle.”

Dazzle dropped the silence and followed her out to the main chamber of the villa, where Petal was already organizing her workers into the pre-arranged details and giving out last-minute reminders. She caught sight of Rosewater, continued talking for half a breath, and stopped to stare at her.

“Rosewater?” she asked in an incredulous voice.

“Yes?” Rosewater replied, standing tall and proudly letting the blue in her mane and tail stand out. Ponies turned to stare at her, some of them missing the importance right away, but enough whispering answers to their soft questions that all knew it before long. “I made my choice, Petal. With intent. I know what I’m doing.”

She didn’t quite grimace, but she nodded. “Then, small change of plans, everypony. There’s not a Dammer who visits who won’t miss the meaning of that color.” She pointed at White Rose. “I know you wanted the foal area anyway, so you’ll get that instead of concessions.” Another point at Roselyn and Bliss. “You two, you’ll be heading concessions with Dazzle, and no—”

“Excuse me,” Dazzle said, clearing his throat before she could go on. “Before you set that in stone, I’d like to stay with Rosewater. I presume you’re putting her on ambassadorial duties?”

Petal, already with her hoof pointing elsewhere, grimaced and looked over the rest of the ponies gathered. “Very well. That will work better, I admit. Prism, concessions with Bliss and Roselyn. Tremor, you’ll be taking over main tent co-hosting with me.”

“And me?” Seed asked from the back.

“Dear, you’re our salespony for wine and flowers. Do us well.” She flashed her husband a brilliant smile.

Seed yawned at her, theatrically and very obviously fake.

“That’s it everypony. You all know where you’re supposed to be now. Let’s work on making this the best Commoner’s Gala we’ve ever hosted.” She tapped her hooves on the table in a rapid staccato. “Hurrah!”

A rumbling answer came from every throat, even Rosewater’s, before she left with Dazzle, Petal following close behind.

“That was not very nice,” Petal grumbled to her. “Not warning me about what you were going to wear.”

“It was meant to be a surprise to everypony,” Rosewater murmured under her breath. “You have no idea how hard it was to source this color without drawing attention.”

“You’re just lucky I didn’t stick you in the tent anyway.”

“I wasn’t, honestly, expecting you to take me out of it.”

“My dear.” Petal crossed her path and stopped, looking up at her. “You’re openly declaring that your interests are aligned with Damme’s. Are you sure you’ve thought through what this will mean to you? From… certain ponies.”

“I have. She will focus even more on me. Not you, Petal. She can’t ignore me flaunting the romance I’m trying to foment across the river.”

Petal laughed harshly and nipped her chin. “Stars, mare. I’m not worried about us. We can handle us. I’m worried about you. Stars, you doing this will show that you’re more interested in fostering relationships with Damme, and that, regardless of how you think your reputation is tarnished, is going to change hearts, and not just in Damme. By the Mare, some of my best customer relations are from ponies who wish there was better commerce travel between our cities.”

Rosewater stared at the mare, her mouth working to form whatever sentences her brain was trying to send it, but… nothing came.

“Calm down,” Dazzle murmured in her ear. “She’s worried you’re going to get hurt and leave again. Or get exiled.”

“Damn right.”

“I’m not.” Rosewater straightened and stared down at the smaller pony. “I am not going to leave again, Petal. I’ve set my course, and I will stay on it come ruination or the Mare in the Moon coming down to bless my choice herself.”

“Good.” Petal snorted. “You have no idea what Seed went through when both of his favorite aunts left him at the same time. Stars, he was barely out of colthood, Rosewater, and he as good as lost two second mothers.”

“I know.” Rosewater ducked her head. “I know, and I realized my mistake in my grief only after I was free of it. I’m not doing that to anypony again.”

Petal kept her eyes locked on Rosewater’s for a long breath, then let it out in a low sigh. “I know. I’m sorry. For hitting you like that. It… made me think you were setting yourself up to have what happened to Carnation happen to you.”

“No. I’m not setting that up.” Rosewater bent to nuzzle her ear lightly. “I’m going to keep fighting until I’ve won, Petal, in every way I can without breaking the law.”

“Then we’ll be right there with you. You’re family, Rosewater, and what you’re doing, and setting up, is the best chance we’ve had in centuries to finally see the end of endless conflict.” Petal’s jaw trembled, clenched, and she swallowed. “I want to see Carnation back, Rosewater. I want to see Seed’s eyes light up again, just like they did when you appeared on our doorstep. I want that for him, and for me.”

Dazzle nudged Rosewater’s cheek. “Let’s make this the most memorable Commoner’s Gala yet. In a good way. Let’s not have any exploding pies this time.”

Petal laughed, sniffled, and thwapped him lightly with a hoof. “That was your fault, you know, and why I was going to pair you with Bliss.”

“I presumed that was why you didn’t assign me to concessions alone this time.” He grinned at her, winked, and nudged her on. “There’s ponies who’re going to be looking for you, Pet. Best get going. We’ll head to the entrance tables to start greeting the first arrivals.”

“Good luck, and the mare watch over you,” Petal murmured.

“And you,” Rosewater replied, and headed off towards the gathering crowd waiting for the barricades to come down and let the festivities start.

Crown held her breath as Rosewater stepped onto the stage overlooking the entrance to the Commoner’s gala, and knew that something big was happening, and she’d had no idea that it had been. This moment was Rosewater all but announcing to the world that she considered herself of two cities.

What that meant for Crown depended on what she said, and she edged through the crowd of mostly Merriers to get close enough to hear without her spells. She wasn’t in disguise today, but she was also the least striking of Roseate’s daughters. She could pass for a common pony at the drop of a hat.

She had her father to thank for that, a common-born pony long-since migrated to Damme to get away from Roseate’s constant pestering. It made her a pony of two cities, too, however superficially, and Roseate often forgot that fact. Her full sister, Vine, had the same look as her, albeit stockier and not as tall.

“Good morning! Merriers, Dammers, foals, colts, fillies, mares, and stallions.” Rosewater’s voice was clear, without the husky quality it usually had when she wasn’t raising her voice. Today, she sounded like a regent. A duchess, even. “Today, we of the Garden of Love, welcome you to our humble slice of land between the Rosewine and the sea in openness, with the blessing of Her Highness Celestia of the Dawning Sun, Ruler of Equestria, and her treaty that allows us all to come together today without fear of reprisal, without fear of animosity, and with the hope that our two cities will be one.”

Stars, mare, leave a little outrage for later. Crown couldn’t help but check around her and make sure Roseate wasn’t close to her in the crowd. She might pop, even if the words were nothing but the truth.

“In that spirit, Budding Rosethorn started the Commoner’s Gala to coincide with the Treaty Galas that happen at the turning of each season, to bring us closer together, to foster understanding, togetherness, and even love between our two beautiful cities. And in that spirit, I, Rosewater Rosethorn, welcome you all to participate in the thirteenth annual Fall Commoner’s Gala. Come, celebrate with us. Warm food, hot beverages, and hearty fires wait for those needing them. We have a place to watch over foals towards the main tent, and plenty of delicacies from across both cities ready to sample in our concessions area, and guides will be everywhere, ready to help you find where you want to go. And so will I.”

An unfamiliar sense of sisterly pride welled up in her at listening to Rosewater. She was putting herself into a position she had to know meant trouble, but she was doing it willingly, and doing it for, as far as Crown could tell, exactly what she’d said. For the fostering of unity, understanding, and, most tellingly, love.

She was telling the world, or at least foreshadowing it, if she didn’t know it herself yet, that she was in love with Damme. Or a part of it. Maybe even a very small part of it. Stallion-sized small.

I wouldn’t hedge a bet against her that she doesn’t already know.

Then the rope barricades were untied, the poles holding them suspended moved, and Rosewater stepped down from what would be a dancing stage later in the night to greet the first arrivals.

I would be remiss if I didn’t greet her… Roseate would throw a fit if she didn’t get close enough to hear the first ponies that’d come to greet her and, as far as she could tell from a distance, compliment her choice of hair decoration from the way Rosewater showed off the intricate braid.

She laughed as another thought came to her.

At least I won’t have to play at being an accountant.

Surprising her, more than two dozen ponies waited in line to talk to her where she stood with Dazzle beside the raised platform, and not all of them Merriers, and not even many of them she knew. Some were business ponies whom she knew peripherally from her association with the guild of shop owners that she supposed she still was a member of, even if she never attended their monthly meetings.

Others, the Dammers, were regular folk, and she thought she saw a face that she’d come across on her passage through Damme more than once.

“Good morning, Lady Rosethorn,” the first one of the Dammers said, his smile little more than a queasy imitation. “I must say, it was surprising to see you giving the speech Petal usually gives.”

“I gave it once before with Budding Rose and Carnation, some seven years ago, Mr…”

“Wright. Prim Wright. My company supplies much of the wood Petal uses in her casks, and we supply the Prim Dockyards with a good portion of their decorative wood needs as well.” He gave Rosewater a closer look, obviously lingering on the ribbons in her mane, then stuck out his hoof. “I don’t suppose a perfumier has much use for wood, do you?”

Rosewater laughed and took the hoof. “Stars bless me, I do, actually. For some of my most decorative gifts. Wooden boxes for the bottles to fit in with hinges so they can be presented like a wedding gift.”

“Ahah!” His moustache bristled with his smile. “Well, do let yourself wander on down to my office sometime and we can dicker about details. My cousin is a carpenter, you know, if you need somepony to design.”

“I will see if I can, good sir,” Rosewater replied, still chuckling, and shook his hoof once more. “But please, enjoy yourself, I know Petal will look forward to meeting you today.”

When he left, the next pony seemed less ambivalent, sharper, and actually presented her hoof first. “Prim Seam. Seamstress and cloth supplier.”

“I do believe I have one of your shawls, Mrs. Seam,” Rosewater replied, taking the offered hoof. “And I recall that Petal bought quite a bit of cloth from you for tenting material. It was very luxurious, and I haven’t had the chance to properly thank you for supplying it to us on such short notice.”

“You do not seem to follow your reputation, Lady Rosethorn,” the gray-maned seamstress said with a critical eye on her before withdrawing her hoof. “And I do believe…” Her eyes widened, and Rosewater had to cover her own lips with a hoof and winked at her. “Ah.”

“I protect those who source for me, Mrs. Seam. I would ask that you not give their name away.”

“But of course. You wear the color well. We keep a large stock on hoof for occasions the palace needs it. It was quite surprising to have a Merrier buy so much.” She gave a sharp nod. “A pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

“The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Seam.”

The next, surprise and not a surprise, was Crown Rosethorn, her second youngest sister.

“Dear Crown,” Rosewater said with as much warmth as she could muster. “I didn’t know you attended the commoner’s gala.”

“I normally have no occasion to, just as you do not,” Crown said in a clipped tone. “You and I are usually at the treaty Galas.”

“That we are,” Rosewater murmured with a sigh. “But… this is so much more open, wouldn’t you agree?” She offered a hoof to the younger mare. “It’s so rare that I get to see you without some disguise hiding your heritage, Crown. You really ought to let yourself be seen more.”

Crown stiffened at the words.

Yes, I know you’re mother’s spy. Rosewater bobbed her head to the side. “Wait for me, and we can have a talk after I’ve had a chance to greet the rest of our guests.”

Her sister started to mouth an objection, flattened her ears, then let them fall limp, and nodded. “Very well. Don’t be too long about it, I wanted to see if there were any booksellers from Damme here.”

“There are,” Dazzle said, stepping up beside Rosewater from his own greeting line and offering his hoof to Crown. “A pleasure to meet more of dear Rosewater’s family, Crown.”

The look Crown gave him, in an unguarded bit of panicked wonderment, said as clear as day, ‘do you even know our family?’ “A… pleasure. Primrazzle Dazzle, isn’t it? Son of Primrazzle Bolt.”

“Ah! I see you’ve heard of my father.”

“His exploits,” Crown all but growled.

“Mmm. Well.” Dazzle shrugged. “That’s behind me, my lady. I don’t follow my father’s hatred of Merrie or your ways of love.” At the last, he bumped against Rosewater and winked. “In fact… I’m rather enamoured of both.”

“Dear ones,” Rosewater murmured, nipping Dazzle’s cheek and leaning forward to bump noses with Crown. “Please, this is a festival of peace and unity. Dazzle is my lover, and I do love him dearly. Just as I love you, Crown.”

“Not in the same way,” Dazzle quipped, winking.

Crown rolled her eyes at him and huffed. “You’re not your father. I can accept that, and I’ll be genteel.” She fixed Rosewater with a look. “Fifteen minutes, and I wander, and you’ll need to find me. Books are more on my mind right now.”

Rosewater glanced over the small, dispersing line, with only two or three left who might be said to be in line to meet her, the rest having lost interest once it became clear the line would be long… and the smells of food and sound of instruments being tuned called them all deeper into the festival grounds.

“It won’t be three, my dear.”

While Crown leaned against the platform, studying the remaining two ponies, the third having been waiting for a friend, Dazzle leaned against Rosewater. “My line was quick. Just hello, how are you, welcome to the gala. You got all the interesting ones.”

The next mare, with a filly in a cradle on her back, clearly asleep, or half asleep, was more hesitant, and it took only a moment for the face to register in her memory.

“Welcome to the commoner’s gala,” Rosewater said softly, tipping her head to the side to look pointedly at the younger pony. “I’m surprised to see you, and I’m afraid that Cloudy and I never did stop to get you or your daughter’s name.”

“I-I know,” the mare said, sidling forward and glancing at Dazzle. “She wouldn’t stop talking for days about Princess Celestia. I… didn’t know what to think when I saw you first, my lady, but when you spoke just now…” She glanced at Dazzle again.

“I meant every word,” Rosewater said softly. “I wish to see an end to this war of secrets and intrigue, so your daughter, and you, don’t have to worry what might happen tomorrow to change your fates.”

“A-and you? I remember you, Sir Dazzle.”

“Just Lieutenant, ma’am. I was never a knight.”

“I remember when you crossed over the bridge, and all the gossip said you’d been stolen away. But… that’s not true, is it? You, and her…” She raised her nose to Rosewater. “You’re together, and you’re joking with each other.”

“I’m here of my own will, ma’am. I assure you. I want to be here, and I want to be at her side.” He leaned up and kissed Rosewater on the cheek. “What they say about her, not all of it’s true. Not the worst of it. She’s a soldier, like me, and were our positions reversed, were Merrie the proponent of peace… I would be in her hooves right now. She’s kind, ma’am.”

“Paint. Prim Paint. I’m a decorator.” She glanced behind her at her daughter, still asleep on her back. “I come every year because my daughter has friends in Merrie, and I want to learn, so I can help her if she…” Her attention turned to Dazzle again, and she nodded. “Chooses. Like you did.”

“Mrs. Paint.”

“Just Paint.” The mare gave Rosewater a wan smile. “I’m half a pariah, my lady. Brush was born out of wedlock. My family still supports me, but…”

“You’d be welcomed in Merrie, Paint,” Dazzle said softly.

“Except her other friends in Damme…”

“I understand.” Dazzle gave Rosewater a pained look, but nodded. “Welcome to the gala, Paint. I know Petal’s been looking to repaint some of our honeymoon suites if you’re needing work.”

“That’s… how it starts, isn’t it?” Paint murmured. “It’s not like they say. You don’t coerce. You open your homes to us.”

“It’s exactly like that, ma’am,” Dazzle replied. “Exactly. That’s all it needs. Petal should be in the main tent, but there’s a concession area if either of you are hungry, and if you get lost, look for a pony with the wine bottle and rose tabard. They’re our guides.”

“Thank you. So much, again, both of you.”

Crown still lounged against the platform, but no longer affecting a bored look, but a curious, hungry glint in her eyes. Rosewater and Dazzle had dangled knowledge in front of a poet, author, and spy. Nothing could be more interesting to either of her younger sister’s three professions.

“That was quite the show,” Crown said as she pushed off, affecting nonchalance again despite the eager tension in her shoulder and the way her tail twitched. “Was it true?”

“Every word,” Rosewater replied immediately. “I’m not acting today, Crown. I haven’t been for weeks, or haven’t you been paying attention.”

That struck a blow, and Crown flinched. “I have. I still don’t believe you.”

“Then watch. Listen, and learn.” Rosewater swept a hoof over the crowd spreading throughout the tents, then back at the trickle of ponies still arriving, and who would be arriving throughout the event, and leaving. “You’re here for knowledge, aren’t you, not books. I’m offering you a ring-side seat, Crown. Watch what I do. Tell mother, or don’t. But I implore you to believe that I’m not acting. Neither is Dazzle. Today, I wanted to be free of lies.”

Crown studied her, eyes flicking from eyes to mane to tail, then to Dazzle and back, her expression a careful mask. The same kind of mask Rosewater often had to wear in the Rose Palace. A flickering light surrounded Crown’s horn, and the sounds of the world around them distorted oddly, but didn’t cut off. Words lost their meaning and became gibberish.

It was as sophisticated an aural shield as Rosewater had ever seen, and she doubted she could even come close to duplicating it. Privacy without silence. It was a reminder why Crown’s cutie mark was a sideways alto clef done in gold, with roses laying at its base. She was a master at sound manipulation.

“Suppose I believe you. Suppose I don’t run to mother and tell her everything that she’ll hear anyway.” The realization seemed to hit her at the same moment she said it, and her mouth fell open, and her voice came soft and weak. “Stars. You really do mean it, don’t you?”

“I do. She can’t hurt me anymore, Crown. I won’t let her, and neither will I give her the leverage to strike at me legally.” Rosewater raised a hoof, hesitated as Crown flinched away from it, and reached out to touch her sister. “Silk and Vine told me you were a kind pony, Crown. That you’re doing only what you needed to. Just as I did. Just as they are. It doesn’t have to be that way, my sister. We don’t have to be strangers.”

“I-it…” Crown’s voice cracked, and she sucked in a breath. “It has to be that way.”

“Not forever.”

Crown raised a hoof as if to brush Rosewater’s off her shoulder, but settled it over top of her ankle for a second before she did. “Maybe not. But I can’t be your friend right now. I can’t be seen to be friendly to you. Or to them. I’m a spy, sister, and you’re my target.”

“I know. You were the logical replacement to Glory.”

Crown pulled away to leave, stopped, and asked the air, “How is she?”

“Bored.”

“And her lover?” Crown looked back, a small smile on her lips. “The lover I knew about and never told mother of.”

“They’re… together more,” Rosewater murmured, sharing a look with Dazzle, and he looked even more perplexed, but she wasn’t sure what the source of the confusion came from. “How much do you know?”

“He’s a Dammeguard. I know that much. He’s not much of a sneak, or very good at chasing or fighting off scents.” Crown turned away again, stopped again. “I know it’s Poppy, Rosewater. Glory told me. But you can’t trust me, Rosewater. Glory was nothing compared to you in mother’s eyes. You are what’s standing in her way. She’ll stop at nothing.”

“I know.”

“Nothing.” Crown rounded on her. “Don’t you get it? She’s rutting evil! She’ll destroy me, you, the city. If she can’t have it—”

“She can’t have it, Crown. I’m not letting her win.” Rosewater closed Crown’s mouth gently as she wound up to shout more. “I was where you were, Crown. I know the depths she’ll sink to. She’d take my daughter from me. She tried to. She’s still trying to. I know how horrible she is, and I don’t need to be reminded just how far she will go. I have seen it, Crown. I’ve been the subject of it. You were too young to see me fight her and defeat her in the arena. You have seen the depths to which I will sink to stop her. What you haven’t seen the allies I have. The friends who will make sure I don’t have to go that far down a path I swore to my daughter I would never take again.”

Crown was silent, and the sounds of the crowd faded even further as she stared at Rosewater. “Y-you’re not a mother. Stars, if you were, you wouldn’t need to posture and prevaricate.” Something clicked behind her eyes, visibly shifting as she glanced to Dazzle, shook her head, and focused on Rosewater again. “Adopted? Rosemary?”

“Yes.”

“Stars above.” Crown licked her lips. “You realize what you’ve given me, don’t you?”

“A playing card.” Rosewater sniffed. “A playing card some of my allies have told me I can’t keep close to my breast for much longer. Telling her won’t do anything to harm me except force me to move up certain plans. But if telling her will save you, Crown, use it. I gave it to Silk and Vine, too. Don’t hold onto it for my sake, but use it for yours.”

“Why?”

“Because, Crown. Silk and Vine… they want, and I want…” She stopped and met Crown’s eyes. “We’d like to find sisters again, not strangers, when we meet like this, and for us to remember that we’re family again.” Rosewater edged closer and risked resting her chin on her younger sister’s forehead. “Because I remember looking after you when your dad managed to drag you away from the palace to the garden. I remember how you would read all the picture books in the nursery room, then stand in the library and try to read the big pony books. I remember helping you learn to read.”

“Wasn’t that… my dad?” She looked and sounded incredulous, but more confused. She squinted at Rosewater. “I remember him making sure I had access to the palace library when I was older.”

“He did that, and he was there sometimes, when he wasn’t working the gardens at the palace.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “Rose Farrow. I asked about him when I first knew you were Glory’s replacement. He owns a farmhouse outside of Damme now, and he has a wife, a filly, and a colt.”

“I have… siblings? More siblings? Here?” The idea seemed to stun her, though she must have known he’d resettled in Damme.

She didn’t want to know. It would have tempted her to leave. Rosewater could see it in her eyes, the temptation to shout ‘Rut it all!’ and run away to the parent she knew had loved her unequivocally. A temptation that she quickly shoved back into its box.

She, like Rosewater, like Vine and Silk, like Hip, had too much in Merrie holding them back, and too much that could go wrong if they tried to flee their mother’s wrath.

“Most of you do, though not so conveniently close, for some. Hip’s father left for Saddle Arabia, and Rosetail’s…”

“Nopony even knows who he is,” Crown finished for her.

“But you know who your father is,” Rosewater replied in as gentle a voice as she could. “I can get a letter to him, if you like. I’ve already smuggled one for Vine, and he sent back a cutting from a flower bush he and his filly have been tending to.”

“I’ll have one for you in a day,” Crown promised, her voice eager again, then breaking, and sinking into distrust again. “How will you get it to him?”

“The same way I got Vine’s to him. I gave it to him when Collar invited him to the palace for tea and to discuss the harvest.” Rosewater winked. “That it happened to be a day that I was also visiting my daughter for negotiations was a happy accident.”

“Tomorrow.” Crown fixed her with an intense stare for another beat, closed her eyes, and nodded. “We should go. We look suspicious.”

“I’ll be ready.” Rosewater turned to Dazzle and nuzzled his ears. “Thank you for your patience, love. Now. Let’s get to our duties.”

Behind them, Crown hesitated, then slunk off in another direction as the silence faded.

Book 2, 31. Commoner's Gala, Ambassador

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“Are you sure this was the best time to send the invitation?” Cloudy whispered, watching as the courier, Sunrise, made her way over the Rosewine bridge in the blue and purple tabard of the Damme Palace rather than the blue-on-blue of the Dammeguard. “And her?”

“She wanted to,” Collar murmured. “It was the least she could do for Rosemary and all the help she’s given to reconstitute her emotional state, she said. Her words, not mine.”

“That mare is too formal at the strangest of times,” Cloudy grumbled, remembering times far less formal when Sunrise’s voice had been raised in ecstasy, crying out to the sky around them far north of Damme, where nopony could hear, and nopony would care. She could also remember the few times that Sunrise and Cloudy had stood in review while Collar and the other nobility walked between them for state occasions.

Sunrise, in greeting her father, had been overly courteous, formal to the point of emotionless, and stiff as a board when she took her place opposite her brother at her parents’ sides.

All while Primfeather glared ahead at Cloudy for standing opposite Coat on Collar’s right side. The side traditionally relegated to spouses or an engaged pony when they weren’t family.

“She’s… like Stride in some ways. Not in so many others.” Collar sighed and leaned against the banner pole on the rooftop. “But this is the right time, Cloudy. To give it to her when she’s so clearly setting her hooves on either side of the river.”

“I know. And I’m glad you agreed to invite her yourself.”

“Stars, mare, how could I not invite her?” Collar paused for a moment, the aura around his horn flaring as the aural shield pulsed. “We have some attempted listeners. At least one, maybe two. Not very good.”

“Because you’re in love with her,” Cloudy said, ignoring his attempt to push the admission off for a second longer.

“Yes.” No explanations or temporizing. “I’m in love with her. And… she is with me. She’s told me. And I can see it in her eyes. This isn’t the mare that I fenced with… was it really only a month and a half ago?”

“It was. And she was. But she was playing games then, Collar. Trying to get under your skin and get you to do… I don’t even know what. She’s tried to explain her plan to me, but she keeps stumbling as if she was only planning a step or two ahead. ‘Get his attention… then, um, get his attention some more. And then some more.’” Cloudy coughed at the end of imitating Rosewater’s deeper voice. “She has some resonance, doesn’t she?”

Collar laughed. “She does. I love her voice. It can be so rich when she whispers, Cloudy, and that speech…”

“She has training,” Cloudy agreed. “Carnation and Budding taught her well to be who she is. When that connection was broken…”

“She told me her mother wrecked her plans. But… I think it was a cry for help, Cloudy. She didn’t know what to do, and she was so used to tackling everything by herself by then. Scared, alone, and trying to protect the one thing that she could protect.” Collar sighed again and shifted away from the banner pole. “But she’s getting better. Today, I think, is going to be another turning point for her. And for us.”

“All of us,” Cloudy agreed, and raised the spyglass to her eye again to follow Sunrise’s progress across the bridge and through the outer edges of the celebration. The treaty banner flapping above her flank in the light breeze kept most ponies away from her, but a few bobbed their heads in greeting and called out to her.

“She’s over by the concession area with those two mares we met,” Collar said softly. “Dazzle’s with her.”

Cloudy tensed for a moment before he let out a sigh.

“I’m glad. She’s more relaxed on days when she’s with him. It lets me see her as she really is, Cloudy.” He lowered his glass and glanced at her, grinning lopsidedly. “I still feel jealous that he can do that for her.”

“Don’t be. Stars, you told me about your last date. That was you and her, Collar. But she can’t be with you all the time, and neither can Dazzle. It’s a joint effort between you to make her feel like the stallions in her life won’t be taken away.”

“What?”

“You’re not going away.” Cloudy stared at him and the dawning look of horrified comprehension in his eyes. “Collar, every stallion she’s ever loved has been taken from her. Her father, Silver Star, Rosewood Bark, Rose Filigree. They all left her, some for good reasons, others because her mother drove them away. You and Dazzle are the first stallions she’s been able to feel safe around.”

“I knew… some…”

“She didn’t want you to feel like you were measuring up against her past experiences, Collar. She knows you were born a Dammer.” Cloudy leaned against his shoulder. “She’s in love with you. She loves Dazzle, and she’s worried so much about what that would do to you, so she’s tried to distance herself from him.”

“I told her not to,” Collar admitted, his voice creaking on the edges. “I wanted her heart to be safe if…” He swallowed and raised the spyglass to his eye again.

Cloudy followed the direction and raised hers as well just in time to see Rosewater glance in their direction just as Sunrise was walking down the avenue between tables and tents towards her.

The murmur of surprise reached Rosewater before the sight of Sunrise Primfeather, a treaty flag attached to a harness settled on her flank, marched around the corner.

Marched had to be the right word for it. Stiff, precise, her eyes landing on Rosewater and widening slightly as her eyes darted from her face to mane, then to tail, and lingered on her tail… or her flank for a split second before darting back to her face.

“What do you suppose this is about?” Dazzle asked, raising a hoof to shade his eyes in the noonday sun.

“Whatever it is,” Golden said from beside him, crowding closer to Fervent in an attempt to head off her wife’s obvious interest, “we should probably not interfere, don’t you think, love?”

“But—”

“But it’s Damme politics,” Golden replied, giggling, and pushed her towards a table farther down. “Look, they have pastries like they do in Canterlot over here.”

“But—”

Rosewater laughed softly after they’d gotten out of range. “Stars, I like them.”

Dazzle grinned and nipped her cheek. “I do, too. They’re so innocent of Merrie, and it reminds me of my first ventures across the bridge to watch them.”

“Lady Rosewater Rosethorn?” Sunrise asked in a stiffly formal tone. “Sergeant Sunrise Primfeather, acting ambassadorial agent from Lord Primline Collar here with a message for you.”

From Collar? Rosewater’s attention jerked from the mare in front of her to the pair of ponies watching the goings on below before she could control herself. What are you about?

“Love,” Dazzle murmured in her ear. “Back to Merrie, please.”

“Right. My apologies, Sergeant Sunrise. I didn’t mean to dismiss you, I’m surprised is all.” Rosewater stood straighter and shook out her braid so it hung against her neck. “Is the message verbal or written?”

“Both, my lady,” Sunrise said, an edge of wariness in her voice as she couldn’t stop herself from looking around at the ponies not-so-unobtrusively listening in. “Lord Primline Collar, heir of Damme, wishes to invite you, personally, to the Fall Treaty Gala as his honored guest in recognition of your determination, candor, and patience during the herdgild negotiations for Rosemary Rosethorn.”

“A personal invite,” Dazzle said with a whistle. “That’s a bold move.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I accept, and please tell him that I accept gladly and with my whole heart.” She bowed her head to Sunrise. “You have delivered the verbal portion of your missive. The written?”

With mechanical precision, Sunrise ducked her head under her wing and brought out a scroll case, sealed with twin emerald chips on either end that glowed with protective force.

Dazzle whistled even louder and sat back. “I’ve never seen a scroll case like that before, ‘Water.”

“Thank you, Sunrise,” Rosewater whispered, forgetting the formalities for a moment as she cupped the case in her magic, wondering what the keyword would be to open it and not daring to try one she hoped it was in public. “I have received the written portion of your missive and release you from your bonds as courier, but I would appreciate it if you told him anyway what I said.”

Sunrise blinked owlishly at her. “My lady? I wasn’t supposed to be released until…” She swallowed.

Rosewater glanced to the rooftop perch Collar and Cloudy were still occupying, far too distant for her to get an aural message. But maybe…

She mouthed, ‘Let her enjoy herself’ as obviously as she could, forming the word shapes with her lips even as the spyglasses glinted in place of their heads.

“If you feel uncomfortable, please return to Collar with my blessing, but this is a celebration of what our two cities can do together, Sunrise, not simply a sales event for merchants of both cities.”

“Even if Petal’s making a killing today,” Dazzle muttered sotto voce.

“My lady,” Sunrise said in the same formal tones. “I’m afraid this was not my only duty today, and I cannot shirk them.” She gave the Damme salute of a hoof to the base of her neck, and Rosewater returned it with the Merrier hoof to her breast.

“You’re welcome to come back after you’ve discharged your other duties, Sunrise.”

“My thanks, my lady,” Sunrise replied before bowing and turning in the same militarily precision.

Rosewater studied the scroll case for another moment, then tucked it into her day pouch, the weight and size of it making a comfortable heft against her shoulder. “Well. That was unexpectedly pleasant.”

She didn’t miss Crown’s uneasy look from behind a tent flap before she ducked back inside. It was another thing that Crown would have to tell Roseate before the crowds’ rumors reached Rosejoy, whether she was sauced enough to understand them or not would hardly matter.

“I’ll have to nip Collar’s ears for that one, though,” Dazzle grumbled. “I’m gonna have to try hard to one-up him and make him work harder.”

Rosewater laughed softly and nudged him to his feet with her shoulder. “Come on. We don’t want to just sit around all day. We’re ambassadors, too, Dazzle.”

The mares were practically beaming when Rosewater made her way back to where they’d stopped, well within earshot if they strained and didn’t have any listening spells, and Fervent actually reared up to catch Rosewater in a neck-creaking hug.

“I’m so happy for you!”

“Fervent,” Golden whined, grabbing her tail with a spell and tugging her back. “You can’t just hug ponies like that.”

“She can,” Dazzle replied, laughing and rearing up to lean against Rosewater’s flank. “She absolutely can if she wants to. Provided Rosewater doesn’t mind.”

“Breathe!” Rosewater gasped.

“And,” Dazzle added in a low aside to Fervent, who squeaked and let her go, ears flat. “Provided she can breathe to give her consent, you understand.”

“Oh my gosh!” Fervent huddled against Golden. “I was so happy to hear that he was taking an interest in you, my lady, I didn’t even think!”

“You have… a strong hug,” Rosewater said with a rasp. “I do appreciate your… fervent congratulations, however.”

Golden burst into laughter and leaned into her wife until a grumpy Fervent stepped aside, rolling her eyes and blushing at the same time, and let the laughing mare fall over.

“My lady has an indelicate sense of humor,” Fervent grumbled. “Was I really choking you? Or was it all a setup?”

“Mmm. Which will get me back into your good graces?” Rosewater danced forward and nipped Fervent’s ear, much as she would a friend. “I tease a little, but that was a strong embrace.”

Fervent flushed, giggled, and glanced at Golden. “Either, I suppose. It was a little… fervent of me to do that. But, stars, if you succeed, and he does, you can negotiate an end to this war. I’ve read all about its history, and seeing its effects…” She waved down the pathway between tents and tables. Most of the Dammers and Merriers were separated by the width of the path.

Rosewater, Petal, Seed, and Bliss, who could freely wander over to Damme and have conversations with the sellers, had been careful only to pair up sellers that were comfortable with each other. That amounted to a paltry few out of the dozens of sellers set up in the commerce and concession area.

“It will end,” Rosewater assured her. “Whether in my generation or the next, Lace has planted the seeds of the end of the war. She’s shown both cities what life could be like without the constant threat. That’s why I’m hopeful, and grateful for Collar’s personal invitation. It gives me a chance to do what I believe is part of my purpose in life. To bring peace and unity.”

Dazzle bobbed his head beside her and nuzzled her shoulder, then sat beside her. “It’s why I love her. She’s a good pony, and she cares deeply about her city and her family. Those that don’t hate her, at least.”

Golden winced and nodded. “I understand. We’ve, um… I think, spent enough time monopolizing your time, my lady. You’ve been so kind to us, but I think we can manage without getting lost.”

Fervent seemed about to protest, but glanced around and nodded. “There are other ponies here that seem like they want to talk to you. You’re not just our ambassador, or guide, or… whatever, my lady. You’re representing the Garden.”

“I am. And thank you, Fervent. We’re taking a break to have an early dinner just before the dancing starts with the rest of the Garden, and we’d like you to join us.” Rosewater perked one ear and looked up to the sky, then tasted the wind and snorted. Already, the smell of warm air was starting to wane, even though the sun kept it from biting. “It’ll be the last day we have warm weather for, well, possibly until Spring unless we get a lucky warm front again soon.”

“We’d love to,” Fervent said before Golden could object. “That will give us some time to try out some local cuisine, love. For lunch and snacking. There’s so much to see here.”

“Alright, alright,” Golden said with a lopsided grin. “We’ve been having fun.”

They left, laughing and talking about what they wanted to try next, pointing out signs and raising their noses to follow smells for a while.

“They’re going to stay,” Dazzle murmured. “I can tell.”

“They’re from Canterlot,” Rosewater replied, hoping he was right, but not willing to trust. “They have an itinerary, and ships don’t wait.”

“That’s true. But look at them, Rosewater. Look at how happy they are here.”

Like my father. A wave of want for Dazzle to be right washed over her. Rather than hold it in, she nodded. “I hope they do.”

“My lady?” A voice asked from behind them, small and almost foalish, but definitely a colt.

Rosewater turned to find a young Damme-born colt standing, looking nervous. “Yes, young stallion?”

Dazzle nuzzled her neck and leaned against her.

“My lady, I can’t find my friends.” His voice was small, and seemed almost afraid. “They were right there, but I stopped to look at a stand, and when I turned around, they were gone.”

And not a bottle and rose tabard in sight. “I think we can find them. What were you doing before?”

“Sniffing the candles. They were so pretty, and they smelled so lovely, and the nice mare at the stand gave me one. For free.” He ducked his head to pull out the bag from his small saddlebag. “Dis un.”

One of Roselyn’s. A fragrant one that may have stuck to the other young ponies if they’d brushed against it. Rosewater leaned forward to sniff at the bag, drawing on her heritage to pull in all the other scents on it, and was able to separate out at least one other young pony that had brushed against the bag. A young filly with a distinctly un-Dammer fragrance to her. “We will definitely be able to find them. What are their names?”

He took a moment to tuck the bag away. “Trigger, Spots, and, um… Valley.” His cheeks colored and his ears dipped. “She’s my fillyfriend.” He leaned in closer. “The others don’t know. Please don’t tell them.”

“I won’t,” Rosewater promised him solemnly, and gave Dazzle, grinning like an idiot, a meaningful look. “And neither will my coltfriend tell them.”

“Stallion’s promise,” Dazzle proclaimed, touching a hoof to his breast in the Merrie fashion. “She’s not from Damme, is she?”

“N-no, sir.” He suddenly seemed afraid, and glanced at Rosewater of all ponies for reassurance. “I-I didn’t do anything wrong. Mom said it was okay if I liked her, but dad…”

“You did nothing wrong,” Rosewater reassured him. “Rose Valley? I know a Rose Valley from here in the garden. I know her mother, too.”

Trepidation settled into the set of his ears at first, then he nodded. “Yes, my lady. She… said I could trust you. I trust her.”

“You love her,” Rosewater murmured, and nodded when his cheeks flushed darker. “Let us see if we can find your friends, um…”

“Tuck. Prim Tuck.” His tail swished, and he glanced around him. “My mom and dad do a lot of laundry for the Garden village, and I help. It’s how I met her.”

“Oho.” Dazzle laughed and stamped a hoof. “Let’s go find his friends, and I’d like to meet his parents. That’s a rare Dammer family.”

“And this is Dazzle,” Rosewater muttered, giving him a light nip. “He is very excitable, as you can see.”

Tuck laughed and nodded. “Do… you need to sniff me?”

“No. I think, probably, your fillyfriend has already realized you were missing. But I can find her.” A quick sampling of the air for her scent mingled with the candle brought her in the opposite direction he’d come from. It was faint and fading fast in the traffic, but it was a starting direction. “Just in case, what does she look like?”

The description was more or less what Rosewater had expected from a young love. The most beautiful eyes, lips that shone, ears that perked upright whenever he said anything. It was less helpful than what she’d hoped, but the little bits that did come through confirmed her guess. Rosewood Valley, youngest daughter of Apple Rosewood and her first husband. A gangling tall earth pony filly who might grow up to rival Rosewater for height, judging from her hoof size already.

“You know who it is,” Dazzle whispered to her.

“I do,” she whispered back as Tuck continued on describing how she was so graceful despite being so tall and thin. A figure she would grow into, as Rosewater knew well from her days of gangling un-grace. She’d also be easier to spot from her tall vantage point if her scent, already waning to the point where she had to draw on her full heritage—and all the stinks and nauseatingly unbecoming smells that came with it—just to get a whiff through the crowd.

It was one downside of tracking a pony in Merrie. There were too many other competing scents that they merged and mingled into a morass of incomprehensibility before too long.

But they would find her, and maybe Tuck’s friends with her.

Somehow, she doubted that Valley would stick with them if a pony she cared for wasn’t. Especially if, like her big brother, she tended to care deeply about newly met and befriended ponies.

“We’ll find her, Tuck,” Rosewater murmured to him when he fell into a nervous silence.

“Yes, my lady,” he said, uncertainty already in his voice.

The immediacy of youth. She smiled and continued on in the same direction the scent seemed to lead.

“Lost pony duty,” Collar murmured, lowering his spyglass and stepping away from the edge of the roof and towards the stairway leading to the ground. “I think we should probably take a break, Cloudy. It would look awful odd if you and I were both up here for the entire event.” Watching her, watching the event, was making him want to defy the recommendation from Priceless and go anyway, regardless of the risk to himself or Cloudy.

It was a treaty-sanctioned event, after all, but she could easily be caught and arrested, or her presence might trigger a hunt and detain by the Merrieguard ordered by Roseate.

It could all be over even before word got to the Treaty office. Even if it was shoved right back down Roseate’s throat, even if it meant Roseate would get roasted over an open firepit. Whatever they did to Cloudy in the meantime would still happen, and he’d have to fight openly to keep it from happening.

And who knew what kind of fecal hurricane that would cause.

“A good plan. Riverside cafe? They should be fairly empty.” Cloudy glanced once more at the festival in full swing just on the other side of the river. “Or not. I imagine there’s going to be quite the spillover for the lunch hour. There’s not enough seats for all of them in that little space.”

Collar chewed his lip.

“Or,” Cloudy went on, “we could take advantage of the fact that it’s a treaty-sanctioned event, even if it’s not treaty-mandated, and visit for a short time. Try some of the food, speak to some of the vendors, even some of our own citizens that decided to visit.”

“But—”

“Treaty sanctioned,” Cloudy reminded him. “It’s an event meant to promote unity. It means that for the duration, the ground the festival is on is treated like Canterlot itself. Neutral ground. No arrests. No fighting. And harsh penalties if anypony tries either.”

They’d spent all morning surveilling the event, too, and knew where all the Merrieguard were - on the outside of the event, not inside, and the corridor from bridge to grounds was treated the same. Treaty-blessed ground.

“Let’s do it,” he said before he could talk himself out of it for another reason. Priceless’s warning of what it would do to the rumors of his relationship with Rosewater be damned. They’d all know soon enough anyway if he had anything to say about it. “For lunch. Stars, those funnel cakes with rose jam drizzle were making my mouth water.”

The guard at the Rosewine bridge seemed more than startled as he and Cloudy approached, both of them bare of official markings. Even the choker he was supposed to wear at official functions, he’d left behind, not expecting to do anything official.

And it’s not, is it? You’re not going from an invitation given to you personally. It was open to all, and the criers had been shouting it from street corners in both Merrie and Damme, albeit with some extra local flavor in certain parts of Damme.

One, an older stallion perhaps a decade older than Collar, saluted sharply. “Sir, do you need an escort?” It took him a moment to pull the stallion’s name from memory.

“No. Thank you. I trust to the treaty and the good sense of the Merriers running the festival,” he replied. “There must be a lot of Dammeguard over there anyway if they’re pulling you out of an office, Papiere.”

The stallion chuckled. “Naw. Just wanted to get some fresh air. Besides Captain Pink makes all us bureaucratic types take a walk around the city now and again anyway, and if she has to make us…”

“True, true.” Collar chuckled and started past, then stopped. “We’re going over for lunch, Papier. If anypony wants to know where we are, that’s where.”

“Yes, sir. Stars, could you bring me something? I’ve been standing here since morning smelling all that food, and it’s torture.” On cue, his stomach growled. “My wife might kill me for not eating her lunch, but it just smells so good.”

“I can think of something,” Cloudy added, grinning. “Maybe something to go with your wife’s stew instead of replacing it.”

“Ah! Yes, please. Some kind of bread?”

Collar felt a flush rising up his neck, and nodded. “They do make some amazing breads. If I remember, your wife makes a salty seafood soup?”

“Kelp and shrimp,” Papier agreed.

“Dark rye dill,” Collar said immediately. “I’ve had it before, and I think it would go wonderfully. I’ll get you a loaf if they have some.”

“Thank you, sir.”

At the middle point of the bridge where there was a pair of Gardeners in the wine bottle and rose tabards they’d been seeing all day, Cloudy whispered, “You do realize there might not be the same baker here today?”

“I know. We’ll improvise. You’re good at that.”

“And you’re not,” Cloudy huffed.

“Then teach me. We’re improvising right now, so fertile ground for lessons, yes?” Collar chuckled at her growl and stepped forward to greet the awed youngsters. “I’d like to buy a contributor band, please. For me and my fiance.”

“M-my lord?” The colt on the left asked, the small basket of bands that he’d seen all too few ponies buy into was still almost full.

“I want to support this endeavor, young stallion. It’s important to both of our cities in a way the galas are not.” Collar spotted a pricing board leaning against one of the bridge supports, read quickly, and nodded. “Make that two bands each, please. Fourteen bits?”

He glanced at his partner, also with a basket of cloth bands, these a white color and marked with a simply stitched ‘Thank you!’ and a tiny stamped painting of a rose and vine on one side and a grape cluster on the other. His pricing board said two bits for a band.

“Y-yes my lord,” the first stallion said, and pulled out four of the cloth bands. These, Collar saw, were decorated with a more intricate design of twining rose and grape vines, each one slightly different, and stitched out with, ‘I support the Garden.’ “A-are you certain, my lord?”

“Absolutely. My only question would be whether I can take at least one home with me at the end of the day.”

“They’re yours, my lord,” the other colt said, not as overawed as his companion. “We don’t ask for them back.” His counterpart nodded rapidly and pulled out four bands.

“If you buy four each,” Cloudy murmured soto voce, “you can tie them together into a ‘collar,’ Collar.”

“See? This is why I need you to help me improvise, Cloudy, I’m just no good at it.” Collar pulled out five solid gold ten-bit stamped coins and six smaller, gold-rimmed bits and passed them to the youngster. It was practically his entire self-imposed allowance for the day, but he still had enough to buy lunch and a loaf of bread for Papier. “Thank you, young stallions.”

They stared at him as he passed, tying four into a lanyard for Cloudy and draping them around her neck, and then tying four together rather more loosely to make a collar for himself, a bit snug, but not choking as long as he kept it up high.

“It looks good on you,” Cloudy said in as dignified a manner as she could, barely holding back snickers. “If you stitched them together, it’d look better.”

“Maybe there’s a seamstress who can do it quick…” Collar stopped at the entrance to read the board full of wood-carved names and professions that had been stuck up as each arrived. “That looks promising. Silk and Scarlet Boutique. Very… seamstressey.”

“That’s not a word,” Cloudy grumbled at him, her lips trembling to tell him what he already knew. That the ‘Silk’ in Silk and Scarlet was Silk Rose.

“Still. Let’s have a wander, and if we run into the place, we can see about getting a quick fix. It does have a tendency to work its way down.” It was also hard to ignore the looks of Merriers and Dammers alike as all traffic seemed to stop for a few moments as he passed, and the whispers that started up made him start to regret the firestorm he was likely to have descend upon Rosewater and the Gardens’ head for being so reckless.

On the other hoof, gossip spread faster than a pegasus, and it didn’t take long for Rosewater to come see what the commotion was about, flanked by two tabarded ponies, a filly likely near her first majority, and a stallion likely already past his, though barely.

The impulse to brush past them all and embrace her rose up in him suddenly, and he shooed it away just as quickly, to savor later, when he could do so at will.

“Imagine my surprise,” Rosewater said in a dry voice, “when I found out I would need to take my role as Garden Ambassador rather more seriously than I thought I would have to this morning. Welcome, my lord, my lady. I trust there have been no incidents? We’ve heard quite a number of tall tales from all manner of mouths just in the past few minutes.”

“All untrue, I assure you, my lady,” Collar said graciously, bowing briefly. “I merely came to appreciate the mingling of ponies from both of our cities. I’d not expected you to be here, or to intercept us so quickly.”

“My lord underestimates the importance Petal puts on the safety of all of the guests here.” Rosewater gave his ‘collar’ a curious look, then Cloudy’s lanyard. “We do have actual neck bands to buy, if you wish. In a variety of different sizes, in the memorabilia sections.”

“But do they support the gala itself?” Collar asked earnestly, touching the bands. “These go to the organization of the next gala, don’t they?”

Rosewater’s expression softened, and she nodded. “They do. Thank you, my lord, for giving support towards next quarter’s gala. It will mean less out of the Garden’s coffers.” Some more tension bled away from her, and it was a relief to see her smile more brightly. “You must have come here for some purpose, though.”

To see you. The words were almost off his lips before he changed them, “To see how the garden was doing. We saw the young Dammer who got lost.”

“Ah! Yes. Prim Tuck, child of Trim and Tidy of a laundry of the same name. Lovely ponies, and stars, his fillyfriend was so relieved.” She laughed brightly. “In fact, we were just about to bid them fare well and a good festival when these two came running.” She nodded to the tabarded ponies to either side of her. “Zephirine and Rainwater.”

The mare stood slack jawed staring at him, her ears limp and eyes wide until she seemed to realize he was looking right at her. “M-my lord!”

“Relax Zephirine,” Collar said gently, touching a hoof to her shoulder. “I’m here as a guest. Nothing more.”

Rainwater was almost the same, but he recovered in the time she was still stammering, and bowed, his wings extending briefly in a court-ready bow. “My lord, my lady.”

“My lady,” Zephirine said with a little more control of herself, and even shot a glower at Rainwater that he returned with a smirk and a wink.

“Relax, both of you,” Cloudy said, standing as tall as her slighter stature let her.

“And back to your duties. There are more ponies out there that will need guidance and help. I’ll handle things here.”

“Yes, my lady,” Zephirine said in a calm, steady voice, though she ruined the effect by sticking her tongue out at Rainwater just before both of them dashed off together.

“They’re being themselves,” Rosewater said, laughing. “And this, my lord and lady, is Primrazzle Dazzle, of the Garden.”

“Formerly of Damme,” Dazzle added, touching his hoof to the base of his neck after the Dammer style. “It’s a pleasure to see you thriving, my lord, without my gallantry and bravery.”

Cloudy stuck her tongue out at Dazzle while Collar was still dealing with meeting, face to face, the stallion who shared Rosewater’s bed. The expected jealousy was there, but not as strongly as he’d expected it to be. Indeed, as she nipped Dazzle’s ear and hissed at him to behave, a laugh hiding behind her words in the tone of her voice, he felt gratitude towards him. He was helping Rosewater be herself.

That, he realized, was more important than who filled her nights. It was like a day replacing night, and all the lessons Dapper had given him about the ways of his ponies, and Cloudy had impressed upon him, had suddenly jumped into clarity.

It wasn’t ever about her physical love. It was about the state of her mind, that she could be free to give her love freely to whomever she wished.

“I want to thank you, Dazzle,” Collar found himself saying, the thoughts catching up to the words he needed to say after they’d already left the tip of his tongue. “For giving Rosewater the support and love she needs. I’ve heard much about you from—” His thoughts caught up to the leaking of words finally and strangled the rest of that sentence before it could be voiced.

The panic in Rosewater’s eyes warned him about speaking too candidly, too soon in the open. This was a secret that her and his opponents in their cities would pay a princess’s ransom for at this stage of their courtship.

“Cloudy,” he finished with only a hitch. “She served with you for a year, and I’m glad to see the upstanding stallion she told me about is as fine as Rosewater deserves.”

The nervous fear faded from Rosewater’s eyes, but her attention shifted to Dazzle, and he realized just how much extra interest he’d have generated in him once the rumors and gossip finished filtering through to Roseate. Stars, even to Wing, and to Dazzle’s family.

Stars, you put your hoof in it this time.

“It’s been my pleasure, my lord. She makes it so easy to love her, that I’m glad to pull her back down to the ground when her fears start to accumulate.”

“Dazzle,” Rosewater grumbled. “Stars, I’m not that bad.”

“Anymore, no.”

It hurt to think that he hadn’t been the one to help her… but he hadn’t even been in a place to begin to offer her that comfort when he’d started giving it. Cloudy had been in that mindspace, and recognized what she needed.

The strength of Merrier relationships. It was friendship, but deeper. He was seeing that now between Dazzle and Rosewater.

“We were looking for something for lunch,” Cloudy said, flicking her tail against Collar’s hind leg, reminding him not to stare. “And something for a guard friend to add to his lunch. Know anything good, or any bakers that are selling today? A loaf, maybe?”

“At the gala? We have a few bakers, but not loaf sellers. It’s all samples and sandwiches. It’s easier to spread out their interest farther,” Rosewater said, glancing at Dazzle and raising a brow. “You were involved more with setting up the concession area. Any suggestions come to mind?”

“Rosy Glass has a couple tables set up to sample her lunches. She’s really ramping up for dinner, but she should have some warm stew ready.” Dazzle glanced at Cloudy and Collar, grinned, and nipped Rosewater’s cheek. “She also promised me a free glass of wine if I managed to drag you over. She might give me three if I bring all three of you.”

Rosewater gave Collar a look that he interpreted as, Look at what I put up with.

He laughed and flung a foreleg over Dazzle’s shoulders. “I think maybe I can help you out there. As long as Cloudy and I get one of the free glasses.”

“But—”

Rosewater chuckled and fell in beside Cloudy behind them. “It’s good to see them get along so quickly.”

“Get along?!” Dazzle squeaked. “He’s robbing me of two glasses of wine!”

“That you wouldn’t have without us,” Collar reminded him. “Come on, which way. We have wine to taste, and lunch to have.”

“Ah, that reminds me,” Rosewater said, glancing at Cloudy. “After the actual gala, we’re planning another commerce event on the Primrose bridge to kind of be the more traditional ‘Commoner’s Gala.’ The delay Lace negotiated for gave us the opportunity to really go all out with this one. I think, if it’s successful, we might permanently change the day our Gala is held.”

“And you’d like us to come to that one, too?” Cloudy asked.

“I would, yes, and so would Dazzle.”

“If he buys me two glasses of wine!”

“Baby,” Rosewater shot back, laughing. “Buy your own wine.”

“But it tastes sweeter when it’s free!”

Collar found himself laughing despite the tension he still felt between himself and the stallion. Maybe a tension Dazzle himself was unaware of… except he was making an extra effort to be a goof, something he’d only seen happened rarely in his Dammeguard files, and it had usually been to help unit cohesion. One reason he’d risen so fast in the Dammeguard was his instinctive ability to connect with the ponies around him.

He’d definitely shown that with Rosewater.

Perhaps she’d fallen in with exactly the ponies she’d need to in order to heal. “Two glasses of wine, provided you tell me which is the best.”

“Why?”

“So I can buy another for myself.” Collar grinned. “I’m new to the flavors of the Garden, Dazzle. I need a guide.” And I need help understanding this very different part of Merrie. “Help me out?”

Something in his voice drew Dazzle’s gaze more sharply, and one of his ears flicked backwards, held in place and righted itself. “With more than the wine?”

“With everything. Stars, stallion, I’ve barely even had a chance to experience Merrie during the galas, and that’s so constrained that it’s hard to get a feeling for the city and its ponies.” He fixed Dazzle with a more meaningful look, which let him glance back to Rosewater, watching both of them with a fixed smile on her lips. Worried again. “So help a stallion negotiate the tricky streets, huh?”

“Hey, sure. I mean, I suppose technically, if you really stretch the definition, I’m still a citizen of Damme, and you’re still my lord.” He hummed and tipped his head left and right, as if wrestling with the concept. “Maybe I can see to helping you understand how things work here. Provided you help me out.”

“With?”

“Ah-ah! A favor at a later date.” Dazzle grinned. “That’s lesson one. Favors for later are currency around here.”

“And in Damme,” Collar muttered.

“I promise it won’t be onerous.”

“Deal,” Collar replied, stopping at a corner to offer the younger stallion a hoof. “When do lessons start?”

“Dazz,” Rosewater called. “Don’t forget we have cleanup tonight. Don’t try to wheedle your way out of it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dazzle called back, grinning through gritted teeth. “Dang.”

Collar laughed again. “How about a week from now? Come to Prim Palace, and I’d love to talk to you.” And introduce you to Rosemary.

Rosewater’s eyebrows had risen to her forelock when he glanced back at the two mares, and Cloudy’s expression was no less shocked.

Too far?

“Sure. Just, uh, try not to shove me back into uniform, okay?”

“Deal.”

Crown had spent the entire Gala shadowing Rosewater however she thought she might inconspicuously. Having Lord Rutting Collar drop in out of rutting nowhere had thrown a massive stone in the still pond that had been her medium for blending in. Ponies stopped to talk about the heirs of both cities apparently chatting amiably and apparently going on a date together with their respective romantic interests.

Stars, Rosewater, did you want to give Roseate a heart attack? It was one of the only things that could maybe do it anymore. A rage-induced attack. Rosewater apparently having a stallion that she was so enamoured of that she’d apparently given up her interest in Collar was a big thing. That he was also a citizen of Damme was going to make it even more rage-inducing.

Crown approved of Dazzle. He was a good foil to Rosewater’s tendency to be too serious, but little bits of that came out in the way Collar interacted with Dazzle, too.

It was… difficult to tell which one of them would be a more complimentary influence, and which one Crown wanted to root for in ultimately winning Rosewater’s heart, and hoof. And the co-rulership of Merrie.

One thing she was certain of was that Rosewater was not yet pregnant. She’d gotten enough of a whiff of the mare in private during their chat, and none of the scent markers were there. She had plenty of experience with recognizing them at the Rose Palace. The midwives there were free to all, and they handled more pregnancies throughout the city than Crown had ever thought were possible in a city even of Merrie’s promiscuity.

It was one of the unalloyed good things that Roseate had let stay after Roseline passed away. One of very few things.

However, if she wasn’t trying to get that way, Crown would eat a page out of one of her books. One she disliked, maybe. Maybe one of that prat Primline the Romantic’s and his doddering about things he only had stumbling knowledge of. Maybe even the page where he, in his magnanimous self-importance, had declared himself the most knowledgeable expert on the subject of romance in the entirety of the world.

That book alone had likely extended the war by another decade or two. It wasn’t helped by the fact that he’d died alone and unloved, mocked and derided while living in his own fantasy world where everypony loved him.

She kept a copy for when she needed a good laugh.

Or maybe he was another victim. She’d never really thought of that before, and the need to examine it and formulate a response to it so she could debate Crisp and Gilded later that night almost sent her home to write it and examine the book and his other works for evidence of her newborn theory.

There was no more good intelligence she would get today. Rosewater had already given her the choicest bit, and unless Collar misstepped so severely that he asked Rosewater to marry him in the middle of the Commoner’s Gala, she’d have nothing more to report but the few rumors that might reach her before Roseate called her in to give a report.

That incident with the sweaty, muddy mess, had made Roseate at least order her not to report until she was called upon.

Another minor victory.

And yet, if she disappeared from an event that Silk Rose was also attending, handing out samples of cloth and showing off some of her own designs, the disparity between their reports might be enough to have Roseate punish her. Perhaps with cesspit mucking like she’d afflicted on her two older sisters.

Or worse. Taking a turn at the composting heap where the farmers all got their fertilizer from. Magically treated, turned, and enriched, it was an innovation that meant the city could have a sewer that didn’t empty into the river and muck up its mostly pristine waters with filth and disease.

It was an innovation she’d heard had caught on in Canterlot and Los Pegasus to the south.

Watching other ponies eat and talk about nothing in particular was boring. They were discussing the news the criers were shouting, each one on a different corner having a different tidbit to share for a small donation from the passers by or a patron.

Lately, it seemed that some Merrier farmers were trying to get their marriages recognized and their new farmland, bought with the same money the Garden had paid them for their original land, registered as inheritable by any of their children, regardless of which mother-father pairing it was.

Some had already given up and moved back to the Merrie side of the river, grumbling about Roseate being right, but a couple were staying to fight, apparently supported by their neighbors and a not inconsiderable upswelling of support from some of the granary owners they would be selling to in the future.

It would be a long fight, seemed to be the consensus, because Frosty’s law had grown from its original retributive intent keeping Frosty and her children from forming the same kind of alliances that Merriers often did in those hot days of the war. Now, from listening to them, it had grown to encompass nearly all of Dammer marriage law, including inheritance.

“…little bit of nastiness came when Frosty’s firstborn, illegitimate, child tried to force her secondborn from the throne by right of firstborn rule,” Collar was saying, his voice exasperated. “It nearly fomented a civil war, because the firstborn, Frosthoof Primfeather, was more properly a Tussen Twee follower, while her first legitimate child was borderline Principes.”

“And the hardline wanted him instead of Glory Primfeather.”

“Indeed. And Merrie was waiting for it to happen,” Rosewater added. “As soon as it did, they’d arrive at the aid of Glory and drive Frosthoof’s forces from the field… then turn around and take Damme from Glory and win. Nopony was certain if Glory would just surrender at that point, but after some talking, she eventually settled with Frosthoof, and the civil war was averted, and if she died childless, his children would take the throne.”

“Which is exactly what happened,” Collar said with a grunt. “It’s pointless to try and prove now, but the common consensus is that Frosthoof had her poisoned to infertility. Or caused every child of hers to be a miscarriage. But there is a reason why Frosthoof was the last Primfeather ruler, and why the treaty was instituted at the end of his reign. Frosthoof the Red is a dark stain on our past.”

“We all have stains,” Cloudy said softly, leaning against him. “The Rosewings in my ancestral line had more than one ‘The Red.’”

“And so did we.” Collar scrubbed at his face.

“Let’s, um, not linger so much on past history,” Dazzle said, trying to sound chipper and failing badly even to the tinny quality his voice had through the listening spell. “What about happier things? Like this? Us. And you. Two heirs of cities historically at each others’ throats, having a glass of wine, enjoying stew and bread and cheese. Laughing with each other. That’s historic.”

It really is, Crown wondered, suddenly glad she hadn’t hared off to formulate a speech about an inconsequential ‘philosopher.’ What she was witness to was possibly the birth of the future, one without war, where her loves and their children could live without fear.

It was what she wanted. So badly. If she could pack up and move to live with her father, she would in the next instant, but that would leave too many of her friends and occasional lovers in Roseate’s sights. And she, unable to even see them again.

Crown settled in, listening with renewed interest, and felt something almost like hope flicker to life in a heart that had believed in too much of the tragic classics.

The feeling was one she’d never thought she’d experience for herself.

And she hoped it wouldn’t lead her to greater tragedy.

Book 2, 32. Commoner's Gala, Disaster

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“On your mark,” Rosewater called, resisting giggling along with the foals that held their boats still in the calm, fenced in shallows set up for just the purpose they were setting it to. “Get set…”

“Go!” Dazzle cried beside her, and fell over giggling when she had to swallow the same command and coughed.

“Brat,” Rosewater said with a laugh. Her heart was lighter than it had been even that morning. Lunch with Collar and Cloudy had both been tense and enjoyable. What would come from that, she still didn’t know, but she was more glad that she had taken the chance opportunity the stars or the Mare had thrown her way.

“Look, look!” one of the foals called out. “I’m winning!”

“Nuh-uh. My boat is gonna catch up. Just you watch!”

Someday, she might be doing this for her own foals. Or she might be one of the parents standing beside their child, shouting encouragements at the swirling, dipping boats as the meager current caught them and pushed them towards the goal, a floating rope anchored to one of the stakes holding the fence steady and on the bank.

The foals and parents grew more and more fervent as the race lengthened without a clear winner.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Golden Glow murmured on her other side.

“I didn’t. I wanted to, though,” she whispered back.

“It’s very good of you,” Fervent added, her ears limpening as she watched the foals dancing and slapping their hooves in the muddy grass. “I want children, Goldy.”

“I do, too.”

Rosewater’s heart swelled with their sentiments. She wanted this, too, for her future. More than ever.

“No place better to raise foals in Merrie than in the Garden,” Dazzle answered both of them, winking and rolling back to his hooves. “If you wanted to stay, I mean. I don’t think we have an economist yet.”

“Mr. Primrazzle,” Golden said with a laugh. “Are you trying to entice us to stay?”

“Entice? Perish the thought. Convince, though… that’s a much better description.” He grinned at her and winked.

Rosewater edged closer to the water as the foals crowded down the shore towards the finish line, and then she was among them, their attention only being diverted briefly to grin up at her while they followed half a step behind. Even so close, there was no clear winner, and four of them had clumped up into a barge that swirled and turned as eddy after eddy caught them and spun them. Another boat joined the clump just before the end, leaving only one bumbling along the shore far back from the pack.

“Come on! Come on!” The two foals that had built that boat with their parents huffed and puffed it away from the shore again and again, the only thing they could do according to the rules.

“Down to the wire,” Rosewater called out to the watchers. “Who’s gonna win? Who’s gonna get the basket of candy?”

Renewed cries rose from the gaggle of foals as they crowded around her forelegs and strained to hoof and puff from too far away to do anything to the gaggle that had, by then, bumped against the fence and spun faster, increasing the chaos as foals cried out in joy and frustration as their boat, then another took the lead.

No doubt some of the glue had gotten wet and caused them all to stick together.

“What do you think?” Dazzle whispered at her side, having to step over foals carefully to bring his lips close to her ears. “Split the prize?”

“I think so. It would hurt a lot of feelings for chance to gum that up.”

“Poor Dancer and Flit, though,” Dazzle murmured, the pair that was huffing and puffing still a pace down from the gaggle of ten swarming around them.

“I don’t doubt they’ll get a share from their friends,” Rosewater murmured. “But that’s going to need some parental tending.”

“Mmm. They’re a full four-way marriage, and he’s their only foal for now. I understand Silver is planning for their next already.”

“She told me. She’s going to declare for Rumble next week.”

Dazzles brows went up. “First I’m hearing of that. They’ve kept it quiet.”

“They have.” After Raindrop had had issues with Dancer’s birth, they’d all been scared to try again. But they’d taken Rosewater’s return as a good omen, and Silver had put her hoof forward. The discussion hadn’t even been a thing for who would be the father. Rumble and Silver had joined the marriage as a pair, and while their sex lives were intermingled completely, they’d never really left the idea behind that Silver’s first would be Rumble’s. “They’re planning on making it public when they declare for each other.”

She was so focused on the gossip that she almost missed it when the boats all passed the rope, with at least two prows passing at the same time.

A hush fell over the little crowd as Rosewater froze the boat clump in place with a spell and stepped forward to examine it, her hooves squelching into the mud of the bank, supported barely by the thick grasses

“I think,” Rosewater announced, keeping her voice carefully neutral, “That we have a tie. A five way tie. It’s just too hard to tell which boat crossed first.”

“A tie?”

Groans rose up from the ponies around her. “Now, now… we could race again, but I think all of your boats decided to gather together and win the race together. Look.”

Carefully, Rosewater lifted the paper boats from the water, their bottoms dripping and soggy, and not a little bit of water in the bottoms, but they were still seaworthy. Also, she’d been right. The glue had melted and flowed together along the sides.

She set the boat on the grass and nudged it lightly. “All together.”

A moment later, Dancer and Flit came back up with their dryer boat, the bottom glazed with some kind of paint. Things started to make sense. It’d floated too high and been too coerced by surface currents rather than the deeper, steadier current that had pulled the other boats along even as they started to sink slowly.

“We lost,” Flit cried.

“This time,” Dancer said seriously. “We’ll win next time, Flit.”

“What’s a tie mean?” one of the other fillies asked Rosewater, prodding at the boat mass and trying to pry away her and her partner’s boat. It moved all of them, and she gave up, looking like she was about to cry.

“It means everyone gets some candy, and you all get to make new boats and race again.”

“Will you judge it again, Miss ‘Water?” another one of the foals asked.

“Sadly, I can’t, but I think Mrs. Glow and Mrs. Wish would be happy to stay and help with everything.”

Fervent spluttered for just a moment, and Golden laughed softly before she nodded vigorously. “We’d love to. Come on everypony, let’s go enjoy candy and make boats!”

Cheers, even from Flit and Dancer, rose up and followed the pair as they headed back towards dryer ground.

“Good of you,” Dazzle murmured. “That will tie them closer to the garden with a dozen tiny hooks.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Rosewater murmured, grinning as she watched the parents and organizers of the next boat race make a parade of it with the glued boat as a sort of talisman for victory. “But I would be happy if they chose to stay. They’re good ponies.”

Dazzle leaned against her for a time, watching them retreat and the general hubbub of the fringes of the festival as the day advanced towards evening. Not far away, the band that would sing and play the night away for dancers that wanted to stay, was warming up and discussing the bill of songs they would play.

“More Dammers this year than any other,” Dazzle murmured, then pushed her gently. “You and I need to go wash our hooves. You, especially, Miss Mudmucker, need to wash up to your cannons.”

“Mudmucker?” She squeaked as Dazzle bolted away, laughing, and dashed after him. “You’ll pay for that!”

“I wish we could have stayed.”

Cloudy glanced at Collar, again at his watch post, his spyglass on Rosewater and Dazzle so close to the river that they could have called out to them.

“That pair of Merrieguard looking for us afterward is the reason we were right to leave.”

“I know. But stars, look at how happy she is.”

“Collar, maybe we should go home,” Cloudy nipped his chin. “You moping about watching her and pining after her isn’t doing your mood any good.”

“Maybe.” His glass stayed fixed on Rosewater until they disappeared into the village’s public bath. They’d be in there for just a few minutes cleaning off the mud, but they’d probably also share a kiss or two, and likely Collar was imagining that. “I want to be able to be open with her. With everypony.”

“Stick to the plan,” Cloudy murmured. “Dapper and Lace are right. We can’t just spring this on ponies. We have to show we’re all friends first. We have to show them that Rosewater isn’t a monster, and she deserves love. Otherwise, Wing and all of his bloc will cry that you’ve been enchanted.”

“I have been.” Collar chuckled. “Stars, those bad romances of yours come in useful at the strangest times.”

“Hey! I love those books.” Cloudy pouted up at him, huffed, and nipped his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. And I know. That doesn’t make the waiting easier.” He sighed and turned his attention to the east. “Stride should be coming by soon.”

“Sure, change the subject,” Cloudy grumbled. It was like him to make a step forward, then need to stop and think about it before accepting it and moving on. He was getting better at following his instincts instead of hedging before he accepted that what he wanted was what he wanted.

“He starts east, right?”

“He does. Like clockwork on his runs.” Collar chuckled. “If he were a slow flyer, I might chide him about predictability, but…”

“He’s not beaten me yet.”

“Oh? I do believe he’d disclaim that claim.”

“He could try to disclaim the claim, my lord, but he would lose again.” Cloudy huffed and glanced east past Collar’s shoulder. “There he is.”

Rosewater was still drying off when the cry came, spread like wildfire, and echoed around the bathhouse like the tolling of doom.

“A foal fell in the river!”

Rosewater teleported before she knew where she was going to go, her heart hammering in her chest, and failed. The riverside was blocked. Farther away, then. She tried again even as she started running for the door, and failed again. Something was blocking the space where she was trying to teleport.

Further away. She aimed for the dancing platform, a good hundred meters from the river, but still far closer than she was right then, and landed on all fours with a startled band raising the cry as well.

She arrived just in time to see a pegasus in Dammeguard blues drop like a thrown stone towards the river, hear the hue and cry of cheers, and saw the reason why she couldn’t go anywhere. The entire festival had surged at the the news, and ponies were running through every available space to get closer, to do something. Dammers and Merriers standing shoulder to shoulder, calling back the play-by-play as Rosewater closed the distance and began shoving her way through the crowd, Dazzle on her tail, though dazed and wobbling.

Another teleport ripped at time and space as two figures disappeared from the bridge in a single flash.

Before she could even get close enough to hear anything, the same pegasus leapt skyward, caught a wind, and stopped briefly on the same rooftop Collar and Cloudy were departing. He dropped something off at their hooves with barely a pause, and cracked the air on his way back towards the heart of Damme.

In the next instant, Cloudy had taken off, and the cracking sound of her reaching the same speed as the savior’s reached them only a second later.

“Get back!” Seed’s roaring voice came up over the murmuring shouting crowd. “Give him some room, he’s breathing! Give him air!”

The surging crush of bodies paused, then began to disperse in clumps of fours and fives, all of them talking and wondering just who the pony who’d dived for the foal was.

Rosewater’s heart settled back to a swift gallop instead of a panicked and hasty sprint, and she raised her own voice. “Thank you for the swift response, everypony. Those with medical talents, please stay. You may be needed.”

“Good thought,” Dazzle murmured to her, and raised his own voice. “Did anypony see who saved the foal?”

Hardly important right now, Rosewater almost hissed, but shook it from her head and finally breached the wall of ponies slowly moving back from a circle of force Seed was maintaining around the choking, coughing form of … Raindrop Dancer.

Silver Drop was there, too, laid out in the mud with her son’s head resting on one of her forelegs while he coughed, breathed, coughed more, and settled in to breath more easily, though he kept his eyes closed.

Seed met her eyes as she stepped into the invisible circle ponies had made, and made the circle more tangible with a misting spell. It’d be easier to see, and harder to see inside. Silver needed a little bit of privacy with her child.

“Keep an eye out for any ponies with medical talents,” Rosewater told Dazzle. “Pass them through, but keep others out aside from Dancer’s family.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said crisply, the Dammeguard training coming back. He leapt back across just as Seed met her a few paces from the foal and mother.

Before Seed could even open his mouth, a matronly mare with a foal in swaddling for a cutie mark ducked inside, glanced briefly at Rosewater and Seed, then promptly ignored them to make her hurried way to Dancer’s side.

“What happened?” Rosewater asked, glancing over Seed’s shoulder as Petal came up, a Dammeguard helm held to her breast.

“He fell,” Seed said softly, and glanced up towards the obscured bridge. “He was trying to race his boat better, I think. He wanted to win.” He closed his eyes, looking tired. “I tried to reach him from the bridge, but he was too far by the time I teleported and reoriented.”

“You did all you could. Do you know who it was that saved him?” Rosewater nodded her head to the helmet Petal still held. “That’s his?”

“It is,” Petal said, clutching it tighter with her spell, then relaxing. “Can you get a scent from it?”

She could smell it from where she stood. A musky stallion scent, full of sweat and toil, and a touch of fear. Faint, presumably before the helmet strap had broken. No doubt it was his regular helmet.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rosewater murmured, and glanced past them to the midwife just as a taller mare with a doctor’s bag cutie mark, and accompanying doctor’s bag and festival helper tabard bustled in. “Good, thank you for responding so quickly, Roseheath.”

“Of course, m’lady,” she responded without breaking stride and opening her bag on the way.

Roselyn slipped in just after, leading the rest of Dancer’s family, her face flushed and her breath coming in pants. “I found them all. They were getting ready for the dance.”

She didn’t have to direct them to the site, but Silver rose to stop them, and nodded to the two ponies working on Dancer.

“I think we’ve done all we can,” Rosewater murmured, shaking her head as she shrunk the misting barrier to just large enough to cover the family. Just as she did, and Dazzle rejoined her, the sound of jangling straps and buckles sounded the distinctive cadence of the Merrieguard at a quick trot. “Stars, what next.”

“My lady Rosewater,” Kiss said, glancing over at the misted bubble, then back to Rosewater. “We received an official offer of aid from Damme if any is needed. Lord Collar and Cloudy Rosewing saw the entire event from their vantage.”

And she without any momentum. She must be beating herself up for not leaping first. “Everything appears to be handled, but I should go meet with him and explain that the situation is in control now.”

“I’ll go with you, auntie,” Seed said, his voice more subdued. “I should thank him for his swift offer. And offer our thanks to Dancer’s savior.”

“Of course.” Rosewater nudged her nephew lightly with her shoulder and glanced behind. “Petal, can you handle events here if anything happens?”

“I’ll stay to help, too,” Dazzle said, glancing at the bridge, then back to Petal. “I have some first aid training. It won’t do much good, but I can at least assist Roseheath.”

She was still wearing the ribbons in her mane, though her hooves up to her cannon were streaked with mud still, though diluted. She looked… tired, too. Far more than he’d ever seen her aside from the first time he’d met her without the veil of animosity between them. She’d been nearly dead on her feet then.

Now… it was the adrenaline fading tiredness that he recognized all-too-well. Seed, beside her, seemed less the sleepy layabout he always pretended to be, and more actually tired, his eyes haunted by what might have been.

Prim Platinum, at his side, seemed to misunderstand his mood and set a hoof to his leg. “It’ll be okay, my lord. Cloudy can calm him down.”

“I hope so.” Collar swallowed the next question. It would have to wait. This wasn’t Platinum’s duty station today. She was supposed to be on patrol duty. But she and a few other Dammeguard had seen Strides and Cloudy streaking away and surmised there was trouble.

“I heard you had lunch with her,” Platinum whispered to him in an aside.

So quickly? He’d thought he’d have at least a whole day before someone asked him. “I did. She’s a good mare, Platinum. Misunderstood, perhaps, and an efficient soldier, but good at heart.”

Streak, at his other side, didn’t quite scoff. He wouldn’t do that while Collar was in earshot, but he did shoot Platinum a glower. “I hope her mother doesn’t show up.”

“Stars, me too,” Collar said with a grunt. “I don’t doubt she’s been informed, but I hope she views it as a lesser emergency for now.”

“Is she wearing…” Streak’s voice came out incredulously as he stared at Rosewater, still beautiful with her braided pink mane and Damme-blue ribbons woven throughout. “Stars, she is. What in Tartarus?”

“Today’s festival in Merrie was meant to be a celebration of both cities,” Collar reminded him gently. “She takes her duties seriously, even that of representing her home when it’s fostering unity.”

Streak stared at him, incredulity plain in his eyes, but he glanced at Rosewater and her… nephew, as he understood their relationship, as they stopped to talk with the Merrieguard guarding the center span of the bridge.

“My lord, far be it from me to question your changing views on matters, but she’s the Rose Terror,” he hissed, drawing a sharper look from Platinum. The name had been forbidden from the halls of the palace, and had been spreading through the ranks with rather less enthusiasm. “She tried to capture you twice!”

“She didn’t. Rumors to the contrary are lies, Lance Corporal Streak,” Collar said rather more harshly than he’d intended. “What she did was protect me from her mother’s advances.”

Streak seemed about to continue, but a shake of the head from Platinum, and a firm frown promising a dressing down later settled him back on his haunches, unhappy, but at least quiet. It seemed that he’d have to talk to Captain Pink about Rosewater’s image, despite the meager amount of work they’d been able to put into repairing it thus far.

“Please trust me, Streak, when I say that I’ve had the mare’s measure for some time now. She’s a soldier. You and Platinum didn’t have to raid Damme, so you don’t know what it’s like to have to capture ponies and hold them against their will for ransom, but she does, and she regrets every one of them. But… she was a soldier, following orders. Nothing more.”

“She should have refused,” Streak grumbled.

“A sentiment I can assure you she shares.”

Whatever the jam had been cleared a few tense moments later, and one of the Merrieguard, a pegasus, took off and swung towards the Rose Palace, presumably to tell Roseate that all was handled.

“Will you give his name?” Platinum asked suddenly.

“I—” Collar hesitated, glancing at both of his guards and knowing they would expect Stride to be targeted if he gave the name. He might, if the wrong ears were listening, and the blame would fall on Rosewater. “I won’t.”

Streak nodded, but his hurt pride would be a problem, and he would likely bring his grievance to Wing. Yet another burr in the elder Primfeather’s butt when they met.

“Thank you, my lord,” Platinum said, offering him a smile. “I know they aren’t all Rosethorns. Even the Rosethorns aren’t… well, they’re not all like Roseate and…” Her voice trailed off as she studied the mare making her way up the shallow curve of the bridge to the center span. “Like Roseate,” she said finally.

“Not all Rosethorns are as bad as the matriarch,” he said softly. “You’re right about that, Platinum.”

“My lord Primline Collar,” Rosewater’s voice rose above the rush of the river below. “We would have a treaty peace to talk. I, and my community have thanks to give.”

The sound of her voice, sonorous and rich, sent a thrill through his heart. So soon after the realization of love, hearing her after being parted for even two days made him want to hold her, to kiss her. In her eyes, he saw the same ache, hidden behind layers and only visible in the way her eyes lingered overlong on his before they swept over his entourage.

Soon. Just another few days of waiting. Then he could tell her, make that ache go away, and reassure her that he wouldn’t leave her.

“I saw the aftermath,” he said in as soothing a voice as he could. “Please, tell me the foal is unharmed.”

“He is, to all appearances. Our village doctor is looking him over,” Rosewater said with a small smile. “Thanks in large part to your courier’s efforts, though he did not stay around to let his family properly show their gratitude. I think he was scared off by the crowd.”

The stallion at her side coughed, a faint flush and a sheepish grin making him seem all the more familiar to Collar, but no name came despite the nagging insistence that he knew this pony. “Rose Seed, my lord. I, er, apologize for my people’s enthusiasm. We’re a close-knit community and, well, when somepony does such a great deed, they tend to think about little things like comfort last.”

“Rose Seed.” Collar blinked as the name triggered more memories. “Last year’s Autumn Gala in Merrie. You showed me around some of the sweets and pastry vendors. And, as I recall… rather a goodly few vintners as well. And your own”

“Ah, aheh, yes.” Seed’s ears flattened further and he coughed into his foreleg. “I recall I got rather… sauced.”

“Maybe so, yes, but I had a good time all the same. It was a refreshing taste of something different.” Collar smiled, bowed his head, and turned his attention back to Rosewater, who was also looking rather sheepish, though she banished it with the skill of nobility. She, he recalled now, had spent the night mostly in the company of a pretty earth pony and disappeared early. “My lady, I would be happy to convey any thanks to the courier, should he be able to be found. He took off at quite a clip.”

Rosewater narrowed her eyes briefly at him, then relaxed and nodded. “I barely caught a glimpse of him myself, my lord, I was hoping you would know his name. The family is grateful. More than grateful. He’s a hero, Lord Collar, and he would be well looked after for the day, the week, if he chose to visit.” She paused, her eyes meeting his firmly as she added, “I would personally ensure his well being.”

Streak snorted, drawing Rosewater’s attention and Collar’s instant ire, but he seemed to recognize that almost instantly and backed away to loiter behind one of the larger earth pony guards.

“My apologies and thanks at once,” Collar said, forcing himself to keep a serene calm about him. “For my subordinate’s disdain, and for the offer. We were, of course, happy to save the foal, and no thanks is necessary. This conflict between us has nothing to do with the youngest of both of our cities, and it’s my wish that the young foal… what is his name?”

“Raindrop Dancer,” Seed said, offering an upturned hoof. “He’s a wonderful little colt, and he really does live up to his name. Every rainstorm, he’s outside, dancing to his heart’s content.” He chuckled, his eyes crinkling as he smiled broadly. “Little guy really brings up the vineyard’s spirits.”

“All the more reason I would wish for him, and his entire family,” he said, fixing Seed with a look that he hoped conveyed he knew the four parents would be welcome, “be free of the conflict that so drives our cities apart. Please give them my thanks, and I wish I could do more, but we’re busy with preparations for the gala, but our city is open to them should they wish it.”

“My thanks, my lord. And speaking of the gala, we’ll be there, my Petal and I,” Seed said laconically, a lazy smile gracing his lips.

“Of course, of course,” Collar chuckled, flicking a look at Rosewater that she didn’t miss, and she gave him a minute twitch of the lips in return. Message received. “I would give you prime pick of real estate to set up, Rose Seed. If you would visit the palace oh, say in five days time, at around two in the afternoon? I have some free time.”

Rosewater gave him a curious look, but nodded and smiled at the end. “Do not forget, my lord, we have our negotiations that morning as well.”

I didn’t forget, and neither did Primfeather Wing. “I have not forgotten, my lady. Your cousin has been a delight, as many of my guard can attest to, some more personally than others.” He bowed his head as Platinum’s ears went rigidly straight and her coat shivered. Yes, I know about you and Rosemary, and I approve. “Would that the rest of your family were so courteous.”

“I try to set an example,” Rosewater said with a sigh, then rolled her gaze to Seed. “He is as good as his word, Seed. Should he find the pegasus and the pegasus be willing, you will have your name and I will do all I can to facilitate a meeting between family and saviour. I doubt he knows that he would be lauded and loved.”

Seed gave her a long, searching look, then nodded briefly. “Of course, my lady. He, er, also left his helmet behind. The, aheh, the family said they wanted to hold onto it until they could give it to him personally. Not as a ransom, I assure you.”

Collar chuckled. “A padded helm makes a poor hostage in any case.”

“That it does, but they kept it because they want to show him how grateful they are. He would be a guest of honor at our table, and theirs, and his safety assured.”

“Doubly,” Rosewater added, fixing Collar with a firm look.

“Point well taken,” Collar said, raising a hoof and smiling placatingly. “I will do my utmost to ensure that he is found and that he knows just how much his actions are appreciated.” He tapped his hoof lightly on the ground before either cousin could start in on him again. “Now, I believe that we ought return to our cities and continue our businesses.”

Rosewater’s eyes flinched up to meet his, then away, and licked her lips before she regained control of herself. “Of course, my lord. I have no doubt that little Dancer will want to dance, once he’s had a chance to warm up and take a nap. And we still have our dance tonight.”

It was an invitation, and he knew it was. She was all but making it explicit. Rather than let it linger in obscurity, he addressed it directly, “As much as I would love to join you for a dance, my lady, I’m afraid that this night I have other duties.”

She stared at him, her jaw dropping open for a moment before it clicked shut.

He feigned obliviousness for a moment before Platinum coughed at his side. “Oh! Stars, Rosewater. I do apologize. I meant one of the group dances your city is known for.” And he immediately kicked himself when the instant of hope vanished, the hurt look subsumed almost faster than it had come upon her features by one of her masks. “Though, if the opportunity presented itself, it would serve the promise of unity well if we were to share one of the energetic partner dances.”

“Then… you’ll come?”

“Sadly, I saw enough Merrieguard sweeping the festival that I would not feel safe, my lady.”

“Your safety would be guaranteed by the treaty, my lord, and myself personally, as I’ve done twice before.” She wanted it so badly, he could see, and he wanted to give it to her, but…

“I’ll accompany you, my lord, as added protection, if you truly wish to show our ponies that unity and cooperation is possible,” Platinum said from his side, her eyes locked on Rosewater. “I admit to being intrigued by the event.”

“Then, let this be my formal statement of intent. I’ll be there for the dance tonight. I must arrange a few things with my parents and Cloudy first.” He wouldn’t risk her presence potentially interrupting the dance by having Merrieguard attempt to arrest her. He, at least, didn’t have an arrest warrant in Merrie that he was aware of. “But I’ll be there before the festivities begin.”

Book 2, 33. Commoner's Gala, Firsts

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“This is going to cause a backlash, Collar.”

His mother, not telling him no, not denying that it would do what he said he wanted it to do, foster togetherness amongst the common and merchant class, was reminding him of the other Lords and Ladies of Damme and their likely reaction. Even some of those on his side would look askance at dancing with Rosewater. Or even simply sharing in the same dance floor with her.

“They’ll have to face it sooner or later, mother,” Collar said at last, glancing to Dapper, beaming with pride at him beside Lace’s hopeful skepticism. “This is easing them into it more than it is doing what my heart says is right.”

“And your heart says?” Dapper asked.

“Confess my love to everypony,” Collar grumbled. “I love her. I love Cloudy, and… I could love Rosemary. Given time, and a measure more freedom for her so it doesn’t feel wrong.”

“Commendable,” Lace agreed, “but the circumstances don’t exist to give her more play. You could join her more often in the garden when she goes. I know you only join her now and again.”

“Those are the times she gets to talk to others of her friends and lovers without walls closing her in,” Collar said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to intrude more on that, and especially not to try and start getting to know her more… romantically. Not in the presence of others yet.”

Lace’s lips twisted into a moue of displeasure, but she nodded. “Stars, I wish sometimes you would have had it as relatively easy as your father and I.” Lace slipped from her chair and pulled out a snifter of brandy and poured two tumblers half full. “Collar?”

“I have to not be tipsy, mother, and that brandy of yours gives me quite a kick.”

“And you had best be on your way then,” Lace said, smiling. “And your father and I will toast your love. And, Collar,” she added, raising her glass. “In case it wasn’t clear, I approve. This is one of the few paths I can see where we don’t end up with a tense negotiation to the end of hostilities. I’m glad it’s not a political marriage alone.”

“Thank you, mother.”

“Woo her, son,” Dapper said with a wink. “And don’t forget. Sometimes things happen in the heat of the dance. Don’t fight it if your heart calls you to it. You’ll regret it later.”

Lace gave her husband a suspicious look, flattened her ears, and glanced briefly at Collar. “As much trouble as it might cause… he’s right. I’m not telling you to sweep her up and kiss her, mind. But if your heart and the heat of the moment call…” She waggled the glass. “Are you sure you don’t want a glass before you go? You can blame it on being a mite tipsy.”

Collar glowered at it, then at her, and sighed. “Fine. Just a sip. I don’t want to seem like I drank after checking on Stride.”

“How is he, by the way?”

“Not a clue. Cloudy went chasing after him and I have no idea where either of them are. I… hope they’re back before night settles in, otherwise I might have to answer some uncomfortable questions about where they are and what happened with ‘I don’t know.’” That, in itself, was enough to down half the glass. “I hope they just went off barhopping with him or to the Prim Tap and Lager to calm down. Someplace comfortable and safe.”

Collar stared at the glass still in his magic, sighed, and downed the rest, giving him a warm glow as it went down to start a low glowing heat in his belly. “Someplace I wish I was.” With her. He flinched as the thought shocked through him. Seeing her today, eating lunch with her in public, joking and teasing her along with Cloudy, had been…

It hurt. He wanted more, and more, and more. Those public moments. Private moments. Comfortable moments.

You can have those. But you need to reach for them.

Cloudy and Rosemary were right. She wasn’t going to reach for them until he was ready. She was patient, but that patience wasn’t infinite. If he waited too long, she would choose Dazzle. If he didn’t go to her tonight, she would dance with him instead of Collar.

“Jealousy,” Collar said softly, closing his eyes, “is hard to master.”

“You mean that young buck Dazzle?” Dapper asked. “It can be. Rosemary told me you told her not to deny herself what’s a part of her life.”

“I did. I was trying to keep from feeling jealous. To give her an out if…”

“I’ve already got a brief ready to file with the middle court, Collar, in support of anypony who wishes to have their Merrie marriage recognized here,” Lace said after a moment of waiting for him to finish the painful thought. “It was something I’ve had ready for some years since we started accepting immigrants from Merrie, but nopony seems to want to try and challenge the fairness of the law in court.”

“Now go. This is an important moment in your life, Collar, whether you recognize it for what it is or not. The first dance you have with her is special.” Dapper raised an eyebrow, grinned, and went on, “Do you really want it to be in front of the cold jackanapes at the quarterly Gala?”

“How do I look?” Rosewater asked, then stopped herself, turned a circle, and glanced in the mirror again.

“The same way you did five minutes ago,” Seed said lazily. “Stunning, auntie. Just like you did this afternoon and this morning. Relax. Well, as much as you can.”

“But…” Rosewater took a breath and pulled her attention away from the mirror and her critical examination of the redone braid and the blue ribbons, freshly laundered and cleaned with too many spells and help from both Seed and Petal. They glowed almost, their satin glory shining in her pink braid. She really did look like she was trying to bridge the gap between cities. “Alright. I… don’t want to seem like I put too much effort into how I look.”

“Dear,” Petal said from the other side of the room, running a brush through her own mane, “you’re courting him. It’s no secret to anypony. Today was the first hint that you’ve made any progress.”

“Unless you count them laughing and frollicking from the Primrose to the Palace,” Seed cut in slyly, giving Rosewater an arch-browed look. “That was more than friendly rumors I heard coming back from Damme over the past few days.”

The familiar fluttering of butterflies in her stomach almost made her stop and check her image again. “I never meant for it to be private. It was supposed to be a foil, and his continued chill towards me…” She swallowed. “It was supposed to be…”

“A part of a plan.” Petal’s level voice held a note of gentle reproach. “You always tried to plan everything out. I remember that. Lesson plans. Meal plans. Day trip plans. I also remember that Carnation tried to nip your ears whenever you got too focused on carrying out those plans and not enjoying what you’d planned for.”

“I know. And she did.” Rosewater took a breath and let it out. They’re right. “I look fine? Do you think he’ll like it?”

“Absolutely,” Petal said. “He could barely keep his eyes off you during lunch, if my little birds spoke truly, and was completely enraptured.” She rose from her sitting position and nuzzled Rosewater’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you.”

“Me too, auntie. It’s good to see you actually reaching out for romance.” Seed made a show of rolling to his hooves and nuzzled her other shoulder. “We should get back out to the festivities. Our guests will wonder what the three of us are cooking up if we stay back here too long.”

“What you’re cooking up, you mean,” Petal said with a snort. “But he’s not wrong. The dance starts soon, and that’s what he said he’d be there for.”

Collar gave Platinum another sidelong look as they came up to the Rosewine bridge. “Something wrong with how I look?”

“That’s not your usual collar, my lord.”

“It’s my dress collar,” he said with a small huff. “Honestly, we’re trying to show them solidarity. It wouldn’t do if I came in one of my work collars, or bare of any sign of office.”

Platinum returned his sidelong look with interest. “Of course, my lord. Which is why we’re going to the dance and not the closing ceremony.”

“We’re staying until the closing ceremony. They’ll be celebrating the saving of a foal and the cross-city cooperation in doing it. We want to encourage that, Platinum, and we don’t want them to be afraid to come to us if something like that happens again. Or for our ponies to be afraid of them if the same happens to one of ours.”

It was all purely logical, and reasonable, but his heart beat faster at the thought of sharing even a group dance with Rosewater, nevermind one of the more intimate slow dances that Merrie’s latter-night dance gatherings were famous for.

He would be staying that late. He’d made the promise to himself that he’d see the closing ceremony and even speak there if the prevailing winds asked him to do so. He hoped Rosewater would speak as well.

Stars, that would be a coup-d'etat as far as opinion towards her was concerned.

It would also, he reminded himself, paint a target on her that would almost certainly splash onto him, at least from his own side. It would also make their ‘debut’ at the gala, even if it wasn’t to proclaim their official relationship, even more important and make it clear to all that they intended to continue their working relationship.

He was not surprised when they crossed the bridge to find Rosewater waiting for him with Petal and Seed by her side, she still beautiful, and perhaps even more so…

Stars, is she wearing rouge? She hardly needed it with her muzzle and cheek marks, but the subtle shade made them stand out more, not less, and accentuated the softness rather than the sharpness of her features.

“Is that… is she wearing…?” Platinum muttered beside him, then shut up, her ears flat to her skull for a moment before she advanced to place herself between the greeting party and him. “Good evening. I am here as an official government escort of Lord Primline Collar, heir to Damme’s rulership. I demand the promise of safety, and the bond of the treaty upon it.”

“Given, and freely,” Seed said, stepping forward and proferring a small scroll. “Our copy of the treaty sanctioned charter for this gathering, including all rights and requirements we, as hosts, provide to our guests. Guest rights we extend to you, my lord, as both the lord of these lands and as—”

“As the gathering organizer,” Petal finished for him, stepping up to greet Platinum formally as well. “It is a joint effort between us as both husband and wife, and as lord of the land, and lady of the winery that organized it.”

“I give my word, as heiress of Merrie that these rights will be upheld, and will speak so to a representative of the treaty. Collar will be well taken care of, and I will see to that personally.” Her attention, for the last sentence wasn’t on Platinum, but on Collar, and the resonant warmth in it made his heart flutter anew. “You have my word. I won’t leave his side.”

Platinum stared at her for a long moment, then cleared her throat. “My lord, is that—”

“It’s acceptable, and I accept, my lady, your offer of escort.” He’d rushed saying it, nearly stumbling over the words. Already he could hear the instruments, heavy on folk string instruments and woodwinds, even a drum of some sort that was beating a slow tempo in the distance. “Shall we get to it? It sounds like things are about to start.”

“And me?” Platinum squeaked. “What do I do, my lord?”

“My dear Platinum,” Petal murmured, “I think Prim Prism and Prim Tremor would like to do some catching up as well. They’ve been abuzz since Dazzle came back from your impromptu meeting.”

Leaving me with Rosewater alone for an escort. Collar glanced between the leaders of the Garden, his appraisal of them shifting subtly as he realized they’d cooked it up between themselves and Rosewater. “Well, my lady. It appears that my escort’s time is spoken for, and I am in need of a new one, so I accept, and place my trust in your hooves.”

Rosewater’s heart raced as she strode up the ramp to the dance platform, easily large enough to fit a dozen dancers at once, and more straw had been strewn around the grass around it to give good hoof purchase for another three dozen, should that many actually want to dance to the sound of the band.

Empty now, save them, Rosewater, and Collar, she strode to the center front of the stage where ponies were gathered in a close semi-circle, waiting for the opening speech of the dance to begin.

“Good evening, everypony,” Rosewater called out to them, and went on before more than a small smattering of calls back filled the air, “tonight we’re here to celebrate more than the hoped for unity and peace we can achieve together, Merrier and Dammer, young and old. Tonight, we also celebrate a disaster averted. To all of you worrying, Raindrop Dancer is fine, if exhausted from his ordeal, and resting at home with his family. The doctor said she expects a full recovery and no ill side effects from his accident.”

A small cheer rose from the crowd at her words.

“While his rescuer is not here, Lord Collar has made it clear that he will convey any thanks wished upon the mystery pegasus to them, if you wish to make them to him, officially or not. But, he didn’t come here only to sit at a table and be bored. He came to join us also in celebration of that unity we hope to achieve, that this festival is a celebration of. Tonight, he will join us in dance and song—”

“Singing?!” Collar cried out theatrically, holding a hoof to his breast. “My dear mare, dare you suggest that I attack my hostess’s ears with my singing voice?”

Rosewater laughed and danced aside to shoulder him lightly as the crowd laughed, and raised her voice over it, “The singing will be optional!” She leaned in closer and stage-whispered to him, “But the dancing isn’t.”

Collar surprised her by laughing aloud. “I should hope not! I was looking forward to showing off my four left hooves. I’m told they’re quite impressive.”

“I hope that some of you will join us in dancing across city lines, and stay for our closing remarks. That’s it for now, everypony.”

“Refreshments are available still, at reduced price for tonight,” Petal added, stepping up beside her. “All of our vendors that stayed agreed that their remaining stock would be sold at half price. Wine, some Dammerale, plenty of nonalcoholic beverages, and light snacks are left, and fresh, cold water on demand.”

More cheers went up, with the added effect of a good chunk of the crowd peeling off to head towards the repositioned concession area.

“For the rest of you wanting to dance,” Seed called out, stamping out the start to the first song they’d decided on that night, “let’s start it high-stepping, with the Garden Square dance! Grab a partner, square up, and let’s have a hoof-stamping good time!”

Rosewater was delighted and shocked when Collar bumped into her and pushed her into the center of the stage as the first beats of the dance started up. “I thought you had four left hooves!”

“I guess we’ll find out, and if you can bear to talk to me, or walk, after this dance is over.”

Rosewater laughed and rose to her hind legs, forehooves forward as he met her hoof-to-hoof.

“You take the lead,” he whispered as they touched cheeks briefly. “I’ve never danced the Garden Square before.”

“Then watch my hooves, follow me and listen to the beat.”

Years of ballroom training didn’t prepare Collar for how fast Rosewater moved. This was no stately dance, full of pauses and bows, this was a romping, stomping, spinning dervish of a dance that saw them coming close to other pairs of ponies, briefly sharing partners, and then back to each other.

The first exchange nearly sent him tumbling, but Rosewater and both other ponies slowed down to guide him through it, and the next saw him laughing as he exchanged places with Petal to briefly dance with Seed, while Rosewater spun through a spin with Petal.

Then he was back with her, laughing, his heart thundering with the excitement and exertion, and the song slowed as more ponies joined them on the stage, both Merrier and Dammer by their look, and even a few that appeared to be mixed couples.

“You’re having fun,” Rosewater murmured, resting her cheek against his, her breathing coming hard and hot against his neck. “You’re glowing.”

“I feel like I am,” he replied through his own heavy breathing. “I’ve never danced anything this energetic before. Even with Cloudy. She’s been practicing ballroom dances.”

“I’m glad.” She took a deeper breath and leaned against him more heavily. “I’m glad you’re here. It means a lot to me.”

He wanted to tell her, to say the words right there in front of everypony. Then the music picked up again and even more stomping hooves drowned out the wants and desires of the moment, replaced by the thrill of movement, the warmth of the cups of her hooves against his, and the occasional guiding nudge of her neck against his, getting them out of the way of less experienced dancers as Merriers taught their Damme counterparts how to dance the Garden Square.

They were still the center of attention, and he saw it in every turn, every spin and stamp of hind hooves, and curious looks from his exchange partners, Merrier and Dammer alike. Wanting to know, no doubt, why he was so friendly with Rosewater.

The dance only lasted for ten minutes, with breaks and pauses for breath and to let ponies off the dance stage, and both he and Rosewater stayed on the stage for the entire ten minutes before the band needed to take a short break.

A panting Seed trotted up to them and spoke to them briefly, his ears splayed in what looked like a devilish parody of humor.

“What’s he up to?” Rosewater asked nopony in particular at Collar’s side. “I hope he’s not trying to ‘help.’”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Rosewater chortled and bumped against him. “If you get Seed’s help when his ears are like that, look for the pie before you sit down.”

“After that hoof-stamping, partner-swapping dance, let’s go a bit slower,” Seed called after turning away from the band. “This is the Merrie Two-step”

Rosewater groaned, glanced at him, and opened her mouth.

He cut her off before she could say anything. It was his chance. “I want to dance it with you. Whatever it is.”

“It’s a slow dance,” she answered. “One of the few Merrie dances that doesn’t involve switching partners at some point.”

“That’s why it’s called the two-step?” Collar asked, glancing around to see other Merriers talking to Dammers, and a few Merrier couples, thruples, and qouples talking amongst themselves and glancing their way. Even down on the larger dance area strewn with now-dirty hay, ponies were checking to see what they’d do.

“It’s called the two-step because we cross forelegs and step in time with each other. It’s an embodiment and demonstration of the togetherness and cooperation in Merrie.” She leaned in closer. “It’s very intimate. If you—”

It was only through an effort of will that he only bumped her cheek with his instead of nipping it. Or kissing it. “I do. I’m not going to learn anything about the culture of the Garden if I step away from anything that looks inconvenient.” He winked at her and tapped a forehoof. This was his chance to show her how comfortable he wanted to be with her. “Now, my teacher, show me how to dance the two-step.”

Cheek to cheek again. But staying, and not breathing hard and barely able to think about how close she was. Rosewater was intensely aware of just how close they were, and just how intimately close they were, with forelegs intertwined and crossed, swaying back and forth breast-to-breast with Collar.

All she would need to do if she wanted to kiss him was pull back, wait for him to look up for why she’d pulled away.

But she’d promised herself. Not until he made the first move.

And yet… dancing with him, or swaying around the platform, feeling his blush fade and come back, was torturous. She knew he wanted to say the words, but he was holding back. For what reason, she had no idea.

She wanted to ask him so many questions. Why he’d chosen where he had for their next date. Why he’d not spoken the words yet. Why he’d not yet kissed her when both of them knew he wanted to. His toast on their last date, their making food for Prim Palace as… ponies in love?

“Collar?” She asked at last, only a few minutes into the slow dance.

“I’ve been thinking tonight,” he replied quietly, the tone of his voice startling her into pulling back to look into his eyes. They were as needful as hers must have been. With the falling night, they looked soulful, and he glanced off to the side. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Regarding Rosemary.”

The way he said it, as an afterthought added hastily, told her it was nothing of the sort. “We can go for a walk. The Rosewine hill isn’t open to the rest of the festival. It’ll be private if you want to keep it sealed to privacy.”

The relief in his eyes and the brief flattening of his ears told her all she needed to know. “That would be best. It’s something Lace wanted me to ask you, but the time to ask was never right.” He broke away first and started making his way through the more crowded platform and down to the less populous surrounding dance area.

Walking through the once-bustling festival grounds was a touch painful. It was her first. She’d always been at the noble’s gala, and the camaraderie and joy of the Commoner’s Gala was… soothing. A balm. It was the way things were supposed to be.

With it almost empty, it was a reminder that it was a single day. The only ponies left were the tabarded workers cleaning up the bits of detritus and packing down the festival-provided stalls and tents. A few of them looked up from their work to nod at Rosewater and eye Collar with a little more pointed curiosity, but didn’t ask questions.

That was a little strange, but not overly so. The more work they did tonight, the less they’d have to do tomorrow, pay or not, and could have fun and relax and spread gossip no doubt including her and Collar’s tryst, whether it turned into anything or not.

Once they were past the tents, the garden village was all but empty, with only the foal caretakers in the roped off area having a small dance of their own, far more chaotic and less coordinated than even the inexperienced Damme adults, but heartening to see the forty or so children and ten caretakers laughing in the bright light spilling from lanterns strung all around the perimeter.

Barely visible, there was a warding spell around the ropes, a faint reddish tinge matched by the glowing horn of a resting unicorn apparently tired, but maintaining the alert in case any foal tried to leave the supervised area.

“They’re not taking any chances,” Collar observed, startling her.

“No. Not after what happened to Dancer. They wouldn’t normally be so vigilant in the safety of the garden, and so far from the river.” Rosewater pulled her attention away from them. “Everypony’s still on edge.”

“Understandable.” Collar nodded to the unicorn maintaining the spell as she glanced at them, and hurried on. “Is there anypony likely to be around?”

“No, but it’s best not to assume.”

Collar’s expression calmed, and he nodded. “This will be familiar, then.”

The world outside shimmered briefly, then dimmed as he shrouded them both with invisibility. Rosewater added a silence just inside the shell of his shroud. “I remember when we first walked like this on my side of the river. When you and I were still fencing with word and action.”

“That seems so long ago,” Rosewater admitted, smiling at him and hoping the reason for the needed guile was what she hoped. “We’ve both come a long way.”

“Me, more than you, it seems,” Collar replied in a somber tone. “It’s been harder and harder to hide what I feel for you, Rosewater. It’s not friendship. Not merely that.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she hesitated, waiting for him to say more for several steps before she added, “I’ve seen it. Cloudy’s told me some, and Rosemary a little more. They’ve held your confidence, though I could tell they had more they wanted to share.”

“They’re both good, honorable ponies. More than I, because I’d have had the courage to tell you long since, if I were.” Collar’s voice was pained, but he didn’t go on. Not immediately, as their path took them up the long, sloping path around the northern slope, rather than the southern, towards an area made for dates.

It was a choice she made, to reach at least this much for what she wanted before he offered it to her, and she held her tongue for long minutes as she guided them along the branching paths that led further onto the terraced hill and higher towards a rocky area that was ill-suited for grapes.

“What to say,” Collar said at last, “has been bothering me all day. All week. How to say it. When to say it. Where. The best place, time, mood, and… everything just right in order to tell you.” Still, he didn’t say it, and it was all she could do not to bite his ear and get him to admit it. “Stars, it was never this hard with Cloudy.”

“Just say it, then. Sometimes there is no perfect place, time, or mood, Collar. Sometimes the best thing is to just say it, and let the saying set all three.” She did nip his ear then, teasing and playful, and let her lips linger briefly before pulling away.

He stopped, and she with him, barely halfway to the bench and rocky area, and turned to her.

And there, on a dirt path, surrounded by grape vines settling down for winter, with Damme visible in the distance nearly indistinguishable from Merrie by their angle, he kissed her.

The chill of night fled at the first touch of his lips to hers, and it lingered far beyond a simple peck or anything that could be construed as an accident. Her lips parted after a bare second, and his followed as she hungrily took what he was offering, and reared up, him a heartbeat behind, taking his forelegs and twining them with hers as they had been for the dance.

He met her breast, to breast, and his ardent kiss deepened until she felt the flick of tongue against hers, exploratory and voluntary, inviting her to deepen it as well.

She did not, but pulled back to take a breath, leaving him standing staring at her, bewilderment, then wry amusement in his eyes and the set of his ears.

“And I attack you like a teenager who just learned what a kiss meant,” Collar said with a chortle and a nip against her chin. “Instead of telling you I love you. I have been in love with you for… weeks now, though I hadn’t the wits or guts to see it or admit it.”

“And I, Collar, have loved you since I said I could fall for you,” Rosewater said softly. “I wanted to tell you, and so many times before, but I didn’t want to scare you.”

“Probably wise,” Collar said wryly, grinning and nipping her cheek. “You were leading us someplace before I…” His grin faded, and he glanced at her. “I didn’t ask.”

“I give permission, retroactively, for you to kiss me,” Rosewater replied in an equally wry tone. “I gave it when I told you what I wanted. I’ve merely been waiting for you to accept that my permission meant… you could say and do what you have. I love you, Collar, and I…”

“I love you,” he finished for her. “And I wished all day today that I could say it. Dancing with you, like that… so close that I could, if I wanted to, kiss you without even needing to break our embrace… it was too much.”

“Seed knows how to push ponies to the edge,” Rosewater said and offered him a small smile and leaned against him. “He’s always known how, for good and ill purposes.”

“I need to thank him. I was planning to do it on our next date, you know.”

“I know. The place told me as much.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Did you find my note?”

“I did. I set our camping supplies back in a nearby overhang, so they should stay dry as long as needed, and weighted them down with wood.” Collar ticked his ears, glanced at her, and shook his head.

“What is it?”

“Not sure yet. Just… a nagging worry.” Collar shook his head again, his expression troubled, then clearing. “We’ll just need to bring food.”

For a moment, Rosewater tried to think of whatever it might be that he was worried about, but the touch of his lips, the new freedom she had to express herself to him… it got in the way of her worries. For now. She shook her head, too, and bumped her shoulder to his. “You didn’t take any food?” Of course not. Rosewater chuckled. “Oh, thank the stars.”

Collar raised a brow.

“Bears. And wolves. And even rabbits, mice, and rats would have raided the stores minutes after you left.” She chuckled and leaned more heavily against him. “I do appreciate the thought you’ve put into our next date, and the effort. But…”

Rosewater fell silent, smiling to herself as she led Collar further up the hill towards the bare stony ground.

“But?” Collar asked after they’d made half a turning around the hill, leaving both Merrie and Damme behind the last curve. “I can’t see much of anything up here.”

“Just wait,” she said, nudging him lightly. “I think… we can risk dropping the invisibility if you take the silence and I manage a misting veil. The view shouldn’t be dimmed to appreciate it. Not on a night like this.”

She felt him taking over the silence spell, his magic meshing with hers in an odd way that she hadn’t felt as he tried to impose how his silence spell worked on top of hers. It was a more brute force approach than her spell, telling her just how much power it took for him to maintain it, but he didn’t complain as she wove her misting weaving into his invisibility shell, feeling it fade as they traded responsibilities, and felt the meshing of magics again.

It was utterly unlike Glory’s spell, but no less effective for that.

Rather than taking the invisibility away immediately, Rosewater bled it into her misting spell, until from the outside of it, he and Rosewater would be no more remarkable than the bench they sat on side-by-side.

Slowly, the view brightened, the moonlight above and the Mare gazing down on them turning the shades of gray and shadow into a more colorful tapestry of trails and grapes overlooking the ocean and the cliff some hundred meters down a gentle slope, bounded by the sturdy wall of stone that kept ponies, and too curious foals, from getting too close to the dangerous edge.

“What was the but that needed to wait?” Collar asked gently, nosing her cheek, then hesitating and kissing it. “Stars, I can kiss you and not worry about you…”

“Me?”

His ears flattened to his skull, and he glanced out at the ocean just as the lighthouse some ten miles south began lighting off its gigantic crystalline beam. It focused far out to sea at first, visible for the cone of light it made in the fog rolling in some miles out to sea yet.

“You getting the wrong idea, or raising your hopes when I had no right. Not when everything was still so up in the air.” Collar blew out a breath and shook his head. “Cloudy rightly berated me for not telling you on our last date, but she listened when I told her I wanted to get this right. To tell you exactly at the right moment. To give us a chance to…” he waved a hoof.

“Work it out. What it means?”

“For the future. For our ponies.” Collar’s voice tightened, and he spared her a brief look. “What it would mean to us. To you, me, Cloudy, Rosemary. What we’re getting into, Rosewater. Without even knowing each other for more than a couple of months, and half that time as enemies.”

“I know. I should have approached you much sooner. Before Carnation was exiled, even. Before Roseline died. Before—”

“Stop. Don’t second-guess yourself, Rosewater. You had no idea any of those things would ever happen, and certainly not in the way they did. Only with hindsight can our plans seem so foolish.” He nipped her cheek again and leaned his forehead against it, his horn resting just ahead of her ear, almost touching hers. Almost close enough that she could…

No. He’s not ready. I’m not sure I am. To share herself on such an intimate level… to open her heart and push it at another through her talent was…

“I know,” she said at last. Minutely, she relaxed and rested her cheek against his forehead, grateful for what it meant. “I wish we’d had more time together before…” Vaguely, she waved a hoof at the waves far below, barely white lines in the darkness of the ocean from so far, and only the faintest sound of their crashing against the cliff’s talus beach reached them.

“I wish we had, too. But the time we do have, I don’t intend to be idle. Call it making up for lost time.” Collar chortled and raised his head to kiss her cheek, then her muzzle, then the markings, making her shiver and raise her head. “Ticklish?”

“Sensitive, stars,” Rosewater laughed, working her jaw and shaking her head. “The marks and the coat are softer and finer, and more sensitive to touch than the rest of us. It helps us find the wind, and captures scents close when we focus.” She drew in a deep breath, focusing on her heritage with an intentionality that she hadn’t had much occasion to do since she was a foal just learning what it meant. “Cloudy kissed you before she left, and the lingering scent of your lovemaking from last night… she plied her mouth?”

Collar’s ears went flat. “You can tell all that? Just from a sniff?”

“Some. I had to guess how she made you come, but I’m glad she enjoys your taste.” Rosewater winked and nudge him with a hind hoof. “Relax. I don’t sniff and tell, Collar.”

He glowered at her, the twinkle in his eye turning his severe expression into a mockery. “But do you kiss and tell? That’s a high crime and misdemeanor in Damme, I’ll have you know.”

“And misdemeanor? Which is it? Is it a high—” She never finished her question, as he kissed her lightly on the lips, then drew back and pushed in more strongly when her eyes widened.

She lost herself to the kiss for moments, leaning back against the bench as he slid from it to half-stand in front of her, forehooves braced against the bench on either side. It was no bed, but it didn’t need to be. They wouldn’t have sex out here, not yet, and not so soon. She knew him too well to worry about that…

But she could dream.

And she could smell the same on him. The act of kissing was more intimately tied to him than it was for her, and the more he shifted and plied his tongue against hers, her lips, and her teeth, the more she could smell the arousal on him. No wonder, then, that the act of giving a kiss was more tied up in emotional bonds for him.

She’d thought, since he was with Cloudy, that he’d understand that kisses could be not much more intimate than a hello.

Not so for Collar, with his Dammer upbringing and the mores of all the ponies around him.

His kissing her was more than ‘I love you.’ It was a declaration of his attraction to her as a pony, and his desire to be with her, carnally. It was, she supposed, close to what a Merrier would consider a declaration. An intent to have children.

He wasn’t only telling her he loved her, then, but that he intended… to marry her. To start a family with her. It was very Dammish, bundling all things love and marriage into a single act, and she should have considered that sooner.

“You’re tense,” Collar murmured, pulling back after a few moments of resting nose-to-nose. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Not…” Rosewater sniffed lightly and nosed his chin. “I misunderstood too much about what you were telling me, Collar. A kiss, to you, isn’t merely ‘I love you,’ is it? Not the way a Merrier would say it.”

Collar sat on the path, his forehooves still on the bench, and nuzzled her breast, then rested his cheek against her shoulder. “It is… and it isn’t. Working through my feelings for you, Rosewater, and working through what I wanted to say, how to say it… it made me realize that kissing you had become more than what it usually means to me. It was a symbol of a commitment to you. To see this through to whatever end it may have.”

“Then kiss me again, Collar.”

They talked, kissed, and teased each other for another half hour, their ears attuned to the distant music when their talk lapsed into silence and let the faint susurrus of wind and wave reach them. Collar learned more and more about what her kisses could be like. Small kisses, kisses that made him wish they were truly alone and could explore, comforting kisses… it was the reason he’d wanted to save it for their next date.

But having done it, told her, and spoken with her about what was going to change—not much at first—he wouldn’t take a moment of it back, even if Roseate herself interrupted them right then.

The time let him solidify the vague worries he’d happened upon and put a name to them, and consequences for what would happen if they were found together by any number of their opponents or the ponies leading them.

“We’re going to have a hard time getting to our next date, never mind enjoying it in peace and solitude,” Collar murmured. “Our movements are going to be watched now.”

“Now?” Rosewater laughed. “Stars, Collar. We’ve always been watched. You and I more than most. My own ponies had gotten out of the habit of it for a while, but they’ve remembered how to do it.”

“What are we going to do?” Thoughts and plans swirled for a moment, unformed and vague ideas about what they could do, things they could do together with their magic and their talents. “We could hide, I suppose. Move farther back into the forest and away from the clearing.”

“Hide? Our campsite is visible from the air, and if anypony has been running patrols over the woods, they’ll have spotted the firewood. Not unusual in itself, as we have a number of herbalists that camp out to gather plants. But they’ll keep watching it.”

Collar made a noise and half-turned to lean against the bench and kissed her neck. “They will, won’t they, especially if they know it’s someplace you went when you were younger. Maybe…” There would be caves around and in the hills. Hardly romantic and not at all what he’d envisioned his date with her to be like.

“We could move it, but we won’t be able to hide the smoke from a fire, and it’s getting too cold to go without one at night. Even if we found a suitable hiding spot, like a cave or an overhang. We’d still need to hide it somehow.” Rosewater dashed his half-formed idea.

“What about the overlook again? Or the Wayfarer tree? Or farther in?” Places for her previous dates flitted through his mind, grasping for any idea they could use to be together. “I want to spend the whole day with you, Rosewater, not merely a few hours after dark. Someplace safe and warm, and out of the sight of others who wouldn’t understand.”

“My estate,” Rosewater said softly. “My home. I live alone, Collar. I’m a well-known homebody, even as much as I live at the Garden these days. I have… a secret space I can teleport to and from in the basement. Nopony knows about it, and when it’s not ready for me to return, I make sure the ward is recharged and back in place.”

“I had wondered how you got the camping set back to Merrie without getting caught.” He paused a moment. “Is it big enough for me?”

“It should be. It fit me and a camping set.” Rosewater nipped his chin and kissed him again, her eyes shining. “My home, Collar. I’m inviting you into my home.”

“Not your only home,” he whispered. “Stars, I wish I could come to the Garden whenever I wanted to tease you and talk to you, have lunch with you and simply… be. The little bit I saw today spoke to my heart, Rosewater. It’s beautiful here, and the ponies are so open and accepting.”

“Most of Merrie is like that, Collar. Your heart is here, in part.”

“Cloudy’s heart is still here.” A moment later, he shook his head. “And in Damme. She’s set roots down, ‘Water. She’s of both cities now, for good or ill.”

Rosewater hummed softly and leaned forward to rest her chin beside his horn, letting him rest his nose against the warm, thrumming expanse of her throat. She smelled… musky, part from sweat, he thought, but… it stirred wants in him that he hadn’t thought of.

“We’re all going to be of both cities,” she murmured after a moment, her voice thrumming against his nose.

“Rosemary was starting to fall in love with the city,” Collar said, his lips brushing her coat with every syllable, and kissed her neck, then the base of her jaw and pulled back to kiss her lips again. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of it, even if it’s only your home.”

“Only?”

“Especially. Please excuse my poor wording,” Collar said with a laugh, flattening his ears. “Rosemary would nip my ears for it.”

Rosewater chuckled. “She probably would. But… we should get back, and think about what we ‘really’ spoke of. The schedule for tonight only had an hour for dancing, and we should get one more in to show nothing has changed.”

But everything changed. He closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ve been meaning to ask you how… things will work with you and Rosemary. If we married. Before tonight, it was only an if, understand.”

“When?”

“Yes. When.” He sighed, waved a hoof, and stood up. “I don’t suppose you can take away the smell of you on my coat? Your ponies, at least will—”

“Collar,” Rosewater said with a laugh, pushing herself from the bench and into his embrace again, kissing him lightly. “We’ve been dancing together tonight. If I took that away, that would tell them something was going on. Seed, at least, suspects.”

“Stars, mare, everypony suspects after tonight. They’d have to be blind if they didn’t.” Collar laughed and kissed her again, reveling for the brief moment in the warmth of her, the weight of her as she leaned into him. “And they’d be right.”

“But rumors are like grapes around here, Collar. It’s not something you need to worry overmuch about. The only thing remarkable about our rumors is that it’s between us.” Rosewater nudged him away with her nose and stood on all four hooves, shaking herself and glancing back at her tail. A few of the blue ribbons were out of place, and she fixed them quietly. “How does my mane look?”

“Gorgeous. But…” Collar leaned in rather than using magic, and nosed one of the ones that was skewed and almost falling out. He hadn’t realized how much he’d stroked her mane, her neck, how often he’d nipped and nuzzled her neck. It only felt like a few minutes, but more than twenty must have passed. “Can I have this one? Cloudy’s going to want proof.”

“Liar.” Rosewater laughed and tugged the ribbon free. “But yes. You can have it. How are you going to hide it?”

“Hide it? I was going to say you gave it to me to give to Rosemary.”

“Oh? What did we talk about?”

“Your invitation to the gala. My invitation to you, personally, Rosewater. As a recognition of how closely we’ve been working together, and how much you’ve done to repair Lace’s trust in your future leadership.” Collar frowned down at the ribbon, then flicked his ears. “Can you tie it to my mane? Just a simple tail. I don’t have any pockets, and my day bag is at the palace.”

“For shame.” Rosewater clucked her tongue and did as he asked. “Let’s get back. This will cause enough of a tiff among your ponies as it is. How are you going to tell them that’s what we talked about?”

“By telling them. In my closing statement.” Collar winked and started back down the path. “Hide the secret in plain sight, and nopony will question it.”

When he didn’t hear her hoofsteps behind him, he stopped and checked on her.

Worry suffused her expression, fears that he felt he could recognize without them being spoken; Roseate would hear, of course, and do what she could to retaliate.

“Whatever she does, Rosewater,” Collar said softly, “I’m not leaving you. I made that promise to myself, to Rosemary, and to Cloudy. Whatever happens, we’re all in this together.”

Her coat shivered and she stamped a hoof. “Please don’t read my mind, Collar, it’s unnerving.” She smiled, chuckled, and shook her head. “I suppose I have become somewhat predictable in my worries.”

“I think that’s always been your worry,” Collar told her gently, and waved down the path. “Shall we go in the open, now that our talking is done?”

“My lord, if that’s what you call talking, shall I make assumptions about what you consider debate?” She pranced ahead to join him, her tail flirting, the worries of earlier apparently dismissed. Or at least buried. He was learning, and quickly, that she never really stopped worrying, she simply pushed it underneath the facade of normalcy and let herself experience happiness.

Pointing that out… it wouldn’t help. It would make her defensive. The best way, in his mind, was to protect these moments where normalcy, happiness, was normal. He’d wanted to do that on their dates, it had been how he’d wanted to see her.

Like this. Like she had been nearly the entire time he’d been with her today. Smiling, a spring in her step. Comfortable being affectionate. With him, especially, but with everypony in general.

The dancing was still going on when they came back to the festival grounds, though the tents and the rest of the infrastructure for the event was looking far sparser, and was being packed into carts by the industrious young ponies in the Garden tabards.

A few of them stopped to stare at Collar’s queue, tied with what was obviously one of Rosewater’s hair ribbons, and the spot where it had been seemed glaring in the way broken patterns seemed to draw the eye.

Rosewater didn’t even seem to notice on the surface, though her ears tracked the whispers that sparked up behind them.

“Relax,” Collar murmured to her. “Remember, it’s for Rosemary. A memento for your participation that she couldn’t be there to witness.”

“I know.” Her smile grew, and she bumped against him. “Thank you for taking it to her. She’ll know what it means when she smells it.”

Collar’s brows raised, then reminded himself Rosemary would be able to smell both of them on it, and know what it meant. Cloudy likely would, too. “Thank you for letting me pose the question to you.”

The dancing area was crowded still, and while the crowd on the edges wasn’t aware of them immediately, that didn’t last long. The heirs of the two cities having gone off, alone, to talk over some diplomatic matter was subject for gossip by itself. Collar coming back with one of her ribbons pulling his mane into a queue was subject for more gossip, and no doubt whispers that would spread and grow until…

He couldn’t remember if she’d worn anything on her lips, and no mirror, but she would have told him, and worried…

Thank the stars she worries so much. He caught the thought and let it go, resisting the urge to shake his head.

They didn’t need to explain to everypony where they’d gone, and stopping to explain it would only cause more comment than if they simply made their way to the stage where the dancing was still going on, albeit toned down and slow again for the last set of the night.

Seed and Petal broke away from the dancers to meet them at the edge of the wooden platform.

“You had a good discussion, I trust?” Petal asked, one brow raised as her eyes alighted on Collar’s mane.

“We did,” Rosewater answered before Collar could think up a response. “He has something to announce ahead of it becoming official through the treaty office. And he agreed to bring Rosemary a memento of tonight, and tell her everything that happened.”

Seed’s brows went up at that, and he chuckled. “Good. Rosemary, I think, would have loved to be here tonight. She loved coming when she didn’t make it to the main gala.”

“She loved making trouble with you,” Petal grumbled. “So, what is it you have to announce? Nothing earth-shattering, I hope.”

“Not at all,” Collar said with a laugh. “It’s something my parents and I were discussing as a thanks for Rosewater being so cooperative with negotiations, despite how long they’re taking.”

“And it should be announced tonight?” Petal asked, glancing at Rosewater. “To the public first?”

“Yes. Collar told me it would be made official tomorrow, but in the interest of further fostering the idea of unity…” Rosewater glanced behind her where groups of Merriers and Dammers were talking together, the music forgotten.

Collar followed her gaze, picking out his ponies easily by how they were asking the nearest Merrier what was really going on with Rosewater. They, largely Garden ponies, seemed to be explaining with head shaking and denials that she wasn’t who they thought. “Closing remarks are soon, right?”

“After this song,” Seed said, stepping back from the edge and giving Collar a more appraising look, the goofiness that Rosewater had warned him of vanished. The faintest of glows from his Rosethorn markings spoke enough to Collar about what he knew when Seed smirked, glanced at Rosewater, and winked. “Glad you two had a good—”

Petal knocked his ankle with a hoof and cut in, “Talk. It’s clear that it’s settled some concerns, so I’m grateful to you for taking the time to settle them, my lord. Rosewater has a tendency to over-worry on settled matters.”

“I do,” Rosewater admitted. “I know you were going to give the closing remarks, Petal, but I would like to have a few words along with Collar on the spirit of friendship and unity.”

“I think, rather than my speech, which I can give any time, I’d rather have both of you speak. You’re the future of our cities, my lord, both you and Rosewater. To hear you both speak of friendship would do more than my little part of Merrie stating it.” Petal glanced at Seed, nodded briefly, and turned away to talk to the band.

“Especially,” Seed said, grinning at apparently having been given permission to be mischievous, “after that beautiful show of friendship today.”

It was a reminder of what Collar had already realized. They’d be watched. Rosewater’s previous ‘secret’ haunts would be scouted on the regular. Whenever she disappeared for any time without explanation would be questioned, dissected, and compared with his movements.

He couldn’t take back today, nor did he want to. Today, and especially that night, had been so much of what he’d wanted for the last week that he’d have sooner given away one of his legs. It was something they would adjust to. They would need to be more careful… or be more brazen.

“It’s something we intended,” Rosewater said calmly. “It’s a sign to everypony watching that Collar and I are of one mind on friendship between our two cities. It’s what Celestia has been pushing for, throwing us together for our galas.”

“Save it for the remarks,” Collar murmured, nudging her shoulder with his. “I have some idea of what I want to say.”

“Good evening everypony!”

“Good night!” Somepony called from the crowd.

Rosewater chuckled, and even Collar let out a sharp back of a laugh.

“Hey, hey,” Petal called back, “We’re not saying goodbye yet. Thus, good evening!”

“But it is night, Petal,” Rosewater reminded her loudly.

“Good after noon,” Petal called back with a huff. “Since it is, undeniably, after noon. But!” She stomped both forehooves, and Dazzle sent a spark of light flashing above them. “Tonight, we celebrated the saving of a precious life, the unity of purpose we had in coming together, and the camaraderie we all share as ponies, as friends, new and old.” Petal stepped back to stand between Collar and Rosewater. “Also tonight, we celebrate what we hope will be a new symbol of our shared friendship, and two ponies who have a few words to share. Lord Primline Collar and Lady Rosewater Rosethorn, heir and heiress of our two great cities.”

Collar caught her eyes first, nodded, and stepped forward. “Good night everypony,” he called out, then shifted as if to turn away to laughter and a growl from Petal. “Stars, you make me feel welcome here. All of you. Merrier, Dammer, mare, stallion, filly and colt. That should also be your sign that I did not prepare a speech ahead of time. All I wanted to say is that I have felt incredibly welcomed here, and most especially by Rosewater. She has been a wonderful ambassador today, and for that, and her role in negotiating for the herdgild for her cousin, my mother Lace and I have decided to offer her a personal invitation to the Autumn Gala as our guest of honor.”

Instant murmuring rose from in front of them and from the few still on the platform behind them, and Collar turned to face the garden residents gathered there behind him. “I understand that all of you would rather have Rosemary back and among you, but our laws must be followed, and Rosewater has been understanding and patient with us as we work out compromises and deals that will meet the letter and spirit of the law.”

Rosewater took the uncertain looks of her garden ponies as her cue to move to stand beside Collar. “I know many of you question my decision. I know a lot of you think it would be easier to sacrifice a little in hardship to get her back sooner, as she is and has been a bright spark in the garden, but I am doing this, and she has agreed to it, to avoid that hardship. Our ponies have faced enough over the centuries of this war. First in blood, then in time, bits, and ransoms.

“Understand me that I’m in favor of ending this war on favorable terms to both of our cities, not with one side or the other having a clear victory. We’ve been through enough eye-for-an-eye vengeance to know that’s impossible. What I want is what we see here tonight. Friendship between our ponies, understanding of each others’ lives, and beyond the surface, our lives aren’t so very different than yours.

“Collar and I have come to know each other better over these months of negotiations, and where there were once misunderstandings and confusion, now we actively work to avoid those mistakes and work so that every day can be like today. I don’t want to fear him, or fear meeting him as a soldier. I want to welcome him to our fair city, just as I want, someday, to be welcomed to Damme.”

Collar set his hoof against her shoulder gently. “This is our welcome to you, Lady Rosewater. Be our guest at the Autumn Gala.”

“I accept, Lord Collar.”

Stars, I want to kiss you again. In his eyes, she could see the same desire.

Our date, she thought. Then, they could spend all day together, would spend it together. And she could use the furor about today to hide her intentions. Quite neatly, in fact.

Book 2, 34. Preparations

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“Traitorous.”

Rosewater stood silently in her mother’s study two days after the Commoner’s Gala, her expression neutral, her emotions boiling. Tomorrow, she was supposed to invite Collar into her home, and here she was today enduring her mother’s glare and tirade. “I fail to see it as such. I did nothing but adhere to the spirit of the treaty, mother. I did not invite rebellion, did not—”

“Shut up.”

Rosewater didn’t, and went on. “I invited the common pony that came across the river to celebrate the Garden’s hopeful festival of friendship to view myself as no more terrifying than their own lord. How is that traitorous? Explain it to me, please.”

Roseate glowered at her, then at the door behind her, as if she could feel the presence of Knight Captain Firelight Spark behind it. He was not there, nor had Rosewater thought she would need to involve him, knowing what was coming. If Roseate wanted to take the rope Rosewater was offering her, that was her own fault.

“If you cannot—”

“You weakened our position on the war! You’re—”

“Not a participant at the moment, by treaty stricture. I cannot engage in hostile action while I’m involved in negotiations.”

“You can,” Roseate hissed. “But you won’t.”

“Because I won’t jeopardize the progress I’ve made in reaching an agreement to release Rosemary. The law is clear. I don’t have to while I’m otherwise engaged in treaty business, and it’s not considered traitorous to negotiate and foster good will that will ease negotiations.”

“What did you discuss when you went off alone?”

“That is his and my business, and none of yours.” It shouldn’t have surprised her that the gossip had already spread so far, so accurately, so quickly, but she found herself surprised. Perhaps Crown had reported that much. She hadn’t seen her sister in the crowd since the near-disaster with Dancer, but that hadn’t meant she hadn’t been there. “If anything comes of it in negotiations, it will be duly reported to the treaty office and made public record in due time.”

“And if nothing comes of it? What accountability do you offer for your actions? I, as your sovereign, am due certain obeisances from my subjects. How am I to know you didn’t discuss defecting like your traitorous aunt?”

She was fishing. Looking for any sign that Rosewater was complicit with Carnation’s plans. “I don’t know what my aunt did. All I know is that she was exiled and you tried to take Rosemary from my care, despite Carnation’s wishes. Nevertheless, what I say and do in private remains none of your business. I have rights, even as your subject, mother, and especially as your heir.”

“Apparent,” Roseate spat.

“Is there anything else?” Rosewater replied coldly. “Or am I free to go?”

“You will report—”

“I will report everything I must to either you or the treaty office. You will not get one word more or less out of me, mother. That is all I owe you. That is all I feel is owed to you. You are my sovereign, and I will honor the laws to the letter as regards my duties to you.” Rosewater stood and pushed open the door abruptly to find Crown waiting outside, a look of surprise on her face. “As my mother,” Rosewater said behind her, “the only law binding us together is the succession.”

“Dismissed,” Roseate spat back as Rosewater was already striding from the room.

“She’s in a bad mood,” Rosewater told Crown icily and loud enough to be heard clearly. “Step lightly.”

Rosewater descended through the Rose Palace, guarding her heart against the pain that leapt out at her every time she passed the room where her father had died. It was the largest reason she hated this place.

The other was roaring two stories up, her voice echoing down the chamber after her in inchoate rage.

Dazzle was still waiting for her on the ground floor, his eyes wide and his ears flat as he stared up the hallway Rosewater had just come from. “Was that wise?”

“Was what wise?” Rosewater snapped, tail flicking. “Sorry.” She glanced at the Rose Guard standing at parade rest beside the entrance to the palace, his armor resplendent. One of Roseate’s personal guard. Loyal to her, and no doubt rutting her every chance he was given. “She… can get to me too easily sometimes.”

Dazzle only nodded and followed her, his ears flat for several strides, until they were almost to the spiralling streets surrounding the palace. “What are you going to do?”

“Follow the law,” Rosewater said shortly. “And… try to mitigate the splashback on the Garden.”

“You’re not going to leave again, Rosewater, you promised you wouldn’t hide.”

“I’m not leaving, Dazzle. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to Seed and Petal again. But I do need to spend some time at the Rosefire estate. Just a few days. Until some other new, shiny reason to be angry works its way into her line of sight.”

Dazzle nipped her cheek, sighed, and leaned against her. “What can I do to help?”

“I need to do a little shopping. Would you like to help with that?”

“For food?” Dazzle’s ears perked up. “Maybe you and I can have dinner tonight at your estate?”

“I would like that.” It would give her a chance to tell him that she hadn’t had in the last two days. They’d been too busy, and she had been called away more than once to meet with a pony with Petal to discuss some small bit of business. “Shall we?”

Collar leaned against the wall in Rosemary’s room, looking out over the city of his birth, his attention towards the eastern end, towards the river, where he thought he could barely make out Rosewater’s estate. Or one of its chimneys, trailing a thin thread of smoke.

He knew about her movements, even though he didn’t want to. He had to. It was part of his duty to always know where his ‘enemies’ were and what they were doing. She was having dinner with Dazzle that night after a visit with her mother.

“I should be there to comfort her,” Collar said softly.

“You will be,” Rosemary replied beside him. She wasn’t close enough to touch him casually, but she flicked her tail to cross his. “Just another day, Collar. And thank you again. For telling me.”

When he glanced at her, she was looking out the window, too, the ribbon already worked into her mane, her blond locks captured into a wavy tail, the blue bow tied loosely so the loops rested against her ears when they perked up. It was fetching, beautiful, and yet another sign she wanted to be a part of his life, his city.

She turned to face him, her ears dipping as she smiled. “And for the ribbon.”

“It looks very nice—” Collar coughed, closed his eyes, and sidled a little closer. “Stars, Rosemary, you look beautiful. The ribbon and bow accentuate your ears and your eyes.”

Her cheeks seemed to glow as she leaned up to place a light kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. It looked good in your mane, too, you know.” She closed the distance between them with a slide sideways. “I’m glad you told her. She needs the stability, Collar. She needs to know that there’s a future beyond my freedom to fight for. A family. Love.”

“I only wish that I could go to her freely and in the open and tell her that I love her before everypony.” Collar looked down to see Rosemary looking outside again. She wasn’t small, but she was slighter of frame than Cloudy. Wispy almost. And her coat against his was warm. “I worry, sometimes,” he said, returning his attention outside, “that I should also be worrying about you and I. What we’re going to do, Rosemary. I know Rosewater is concerned about it, and Cloudy’s been pushing me gently towards you.”

“I know.” Rosemary’s warmth increased as she leaned into him, resting her cheek at the middle of his neck. “I want to share the same things with you, Collar, because I do love you. I want to kiss you. I want to hug you. I want to have a night with you where we do… whatever we want to. Anything we want.”

“Play a game of Petals?” Collar asked, blank-faced.

Rosemary laughed and nipped at his jaw. “That’s one idea. If I get to choose the prizes.”

“Next week,” Collar said gently, turning to look at her, offering her a smile. “But do please keep it… gentle. I’ve only just admitted that I love more than one mare, and accept that. I still need to make the leap to…” He flicked an ear at her, then glanced out the window. “To sex.”

He wanted to have sex with Rosewater. Cloudy had helped him with that realization last night. Coming against the bed while she told him how Rosewater would feel while he masturbated to the sound of her voice, the mental image she built for him, was eye-opening. He hadn’t even intended it, but he’d let her talk him into it.

“Collar,” Rosemary murmured. “I know sex, for you, is different than it is for us. It’s important to you in ways different from our view.” She hesitated, grumbled under her breath and tapped her cheek against his neck a few times. “Stars, I never thought I’d be so bad at trying to talk about sex.”

“Just say it, Rosemary. Don’t dance around it.”

“If… if you feel like you want to make love to Rosewater when you’re at the estate, don’t hold it in. Ask her.”

“I do want to make love to her. I just—”

“Collar,” Rosemary stood and reared up, planting her forehooves on the window sill to meet his eyes levelly. “You’ve already told me how much you regret not telling her sooner. Don’t let this be another regret. You love her. You want to be with her. Be with her.”

It wasn’t that easy, he wanted to say, to tell her that it wasn’t so cut and dried. But when he tried to anticipate her question of why it wasn’t so easy or so cut-and-dried… nothing but ‘because it’s how things work in Damme.’ He wasn’t dating her only in Damme anymore. He was going to Merrie. He was going to her.

And tradition? He’d already shredded and flushed every measure of ‘traditional’ romance in Damme down into the river. He was in love with her. Had shared kisses with her, and his only other lover had made him come from whispering to him about what it would be like to be with Rosewater; what it would feel like mounting a mare his height.

What she could do with her tongue. What she looked like when aroused. What she smelled like.

Rosemary’s eyes widened briefly as she sniffed at the air, and glanced down. “You want to. Don’t deny it, Collar. Don’t—”

He kissed her. Briefly, but on the lips. A little peck to get her to stop talking. He could have used a spell, could have tapped her forehooves with his own, turned away.

Why did I do that?

Rosemary answered him by pulling the curtain closed calmly, her ears nearly quiveringly erect. “Collar.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You kissed me. I wanted you to kiss me, but…” Her eyes flicked down again, and he didn’t need to look to feel the cool air on the tip of his cock. Didn’t need to look to feel his erection stiffen and grow as she looked, as he felt her regard like a caress.

“I was thinking about Rosewater. What Cloudy told me about her. About the times they’ve had sex, played with each other, what she looked like, smelled like.” The words came out in a rush, his private thoughts no longer so. “Stars, Rosemary, I want to have sex with her.”

“That’s natural, Collar,” Rosemary said softly, dragging his eyes up to his, the flush in her cheeks no longer subtle, and the cant of her tail no longer a hint. “And I want to have sex with you.”

He’d forgotten, somehow, how forward she could be in private, and her frank admission only added to the fuel. “I know. Let me work through this, Rosemary. I find you attractive. Beautiful. But I need time. I’m still reeling from Rosewater.”

“I know. I’m making my interest plain, so there’s no misunderstandings between us, and I would like… um.” Her eyes flicked down again. “I would like your permission to use your image when I masturbate. I’ve never seen your penis before. I want to feel it, Collar, and I promise it won’t be you, but a mist faerie. It’s like a dream when—”

He kissed her again, both to quiet her, to calm his libido’s desire to have her, to make love to her, and to feel her lips against his again. Slower. Warmer.

She broke away first with a sigh. “I understand, Collar. May I?”

“Yes. You may use my image.”

“Thank you, Collar. I know it’s strange, but…” Rosemary rolled one shoulder and cast a cooling spell over his erection. “I don’t like to masturbate with no emotional connection. I always like to come to a dream of another pony that I love. It feels better to me.”

“I can absolutely appreciate that,” Collar said with a smile and a nod. “I… apologize for—”

“Nothing, please. Collar, you have a beautiful erection.” For a moment, her cooling spell took on a physical aspect and stroked his flesh briefly before fading back to only a sensation of faint chill. “Thank you for not trying to hide it from me, and for feeling comfortable enough around me to tell me why. I hope your night with Rosewater goes beautifully, and I hope you’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me how it went. Perhaps even over a game of Petals. With Cloudy and I.”

He wanted, in that moment, to let her do more than help his arousal subside. She was a beautiful soul, and gentle with his emotions, loving, and… he wanted her. As his wife. As his lover.

He closed his eyes briefly, telling himself that he needed to work on one emotional conundrum at a time. “I will promise to tell you both, though you may need to sacrifice some salacious bets for truth-tellings.” He winked, forced down the last of his arousal, and stood, collecting the small bead of precome that trailed down from his limpening head, and hesitated with it hanging in air.

Rosemary answered what to do with it by sniffing, then licking it away and swallowing.

It was an effort to force his libido back down again.

Cloudy lounged on a cloud high above Damme, her spyglass dangling from her neck half-forgotten as she watched the ponies below going about their daily lives as if nothing had happened recently.

From so high up, it was easy to imagine that nothing had disturbed the even flow of traffic from one side of the river to the other, but Cloudy knew better than most just how much gossip was passing back and forth, and how many lips carried the names of two of her lovers.

She was supposed to be up here watching Rosewater, but her lover had been cloistered in her home, with smoke curling from the kitchen chimney for nearly an hour by then, with Primrazzle Dazzle. They’d spent the afternoon following Rosewater’s visit to the Rose Palace shopping for enough food to feed four ponies for a week and making it look like she was getting ready to cloister up and ride out whatever storm of hornets she’d kicked up.

And a storm it had been, for almost a half hour after Rosewater left, ponies had been seen running to and from the Rose palace both under veil and not, and caught the entire watching corps off guard for just how many runners there were.

To every one of Rosewater’s sisters’ homes, to the homes of known and prominent members of the squad of goons Roseate employed to harass troublemakers like Rosewater and the Gardener ponies.

So many that even those not connected to the intelligence apparatus in Damme had felt the tremors in the web of spies as informants and gossipmongers were questioned, bits paid for bribes, and soldiers given marching orders.

The watch on every bridge save the Rosewine had been doubled in the hours since Rosewater’s visit, and while they didn’t harass the merchant traffic, many of those that joined the regular bridge guard weren’t the familiar and friendly faces they were used to, the ponies that sometimes looked the other way for a misplaced or missing permit.

It was, to Cloudy’s eye, a reflex action. A twitching of authoritarian muscle in reaction to being poked in the ass by a nettle.

She turned over and stared at the sky above, at the high level cold currents of air turning the moisture into frost banding. Still too warm at sea level for snow, but higher up, it would start out that way and transition to sleet where she was in a few days. Maybe even down to almost street level.

Ponies might need to break out their ice shoes soon.

Bored. Cloudy puffed out a breath and rolled over again, watching the traffic once more. She wished, so much, that Collar and Rosewater could be open, so she could be, and so could Rosemary.

But she had her duties and expectations to hold to, just as he did. Just as Rosemary and Rosewater did.

I hate acting.

And the worst thing… her shift watching wasn’t half over yet. And, down below, a single figure approached Rosewater’s house, and a quick look through the spyglass told her who it was.

“Rut me.”

I don’t want to do this. Silk steeled herself on the step of Rosewater’s estate, glanced at the covered dress form at her side, and wished that Vine hadn’t been sent off on her own mission at Roseate’s practically frothing command.

Crown had gotten the worst of it, being closest to the ignition point of their mother’s legendary temper.

But, she had a job to do, and one that Roseate had determined she was the only one with a reasonable chance of success because she was making Rosewater’s rutting dress.

Two knocks. Silk waited, trying to present herself to the outside world as a businessmare visiting a client and not the spy she was being forced to be.

‘Find anything you can about Collar tempting Rosewater to betray us.’

Rut you, mother. She’s not an idiot. She tapped her hoof on the stoop, waiting, and raised her hoof to knock again, hesitated, and put it down again. It wouldn’t do to seem impatient, or her guest would be suspicious. If he wasn’t already. All she knew about Dazzle was that he was canny enough and good enough to rise through the Dammeguard ranks, and highly enough placed that they could get decent concessions from him if they captured him.

His moving to the Garden had neatly derailed that line of Roseate’s planning. It wouldn’t look good, and would raise all kinds of hate, if she started abducting ponies that moved to Merrie voluntarily.

“Silk?” Rosewater’s voice behind the door. “What are you doing here?”

No click or whisper of spells being released or wards being reset. Rosewater was being cautious. Intelligent, after her visit with Mother that morning. “I wanted to show you the final dress after the adjustments I made and the changes you requested.”

“Today?” Finally came the subtle pressure of the doors’ wards as they flexed and withdrew, then the door cracked open and Rosewater peered out, then past her and to either side before she opened it the rest of the way and the pressure vanished. “No arrest squad?”

“What?” Silk startled and glanced around herself, then shook herself and her head vehemently. “No. I’m not here to do that, Rosewater. I have your dress. I’m here on business.”

Rosewater met her eyes, sighed, and backed away from the door. “Maybe I’m just jumping at shadows. I let my temper get the better of me after meeting with mother today.” She ushered Silk into the sitting room, still just as warm and inviting as her last visit, still without the familial portraits. And with another pony.

“Oh. Hello. I wasn’t expecting—”

“You knew I was here,” Dazzle said simply. “You didn’t startle when you saw me.”

“Excuse me?” Silk growled, her own hackles getting up as she met the eyes of Rosewater’s current lover.

“Silk,” Rosewater said, silencing the room. “You can drop the act. I know you’re here only because mother wants you to spy on me again. And I’m sorry, but I’m not, and neither is Dazzle, in the mood to play games today. Not after this morning. What does she want?”

“Can I trust him?”

Dazzle’s eyebrows shot up.

“You haven’t told him, then.” Silk felt something settle and click into place in her mind. A new certainty that she had only just become aware of. “You didn’t tell anypony?”

“I told Crown at the Gala that you knew about Rosemary and I.”

“And he knows?”

“Stars, sister, he’s my lover. I don’t keep secrets, many, from my lovers. It feels wrong.” Rosewater settled back on the couch with Dazzle and floated in another teacup set from down the hall. “I was half-expecting one of the three of you. You made the most sense, but I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

“You really stirred it up, Rosewater.” Silk hooked the dress form to a hat rack and took the couch seat opposite. “She’s angry.”

“I know.”

“Wait, wait,” Dazzle sat up straighter and tapped a hoof on the center table. “You’re both in cahoots?”

“What a curious word to use,” Silk murmured. “No. We’re not in cahoots. We’re…” Vine’s words crawled up from the back of her mind, past the scheming and plans. Rosewater trusted Dazzle, and Vine wanted to be family again. “We’re family, Dazzle. Trying to be family. I… Vine and I, are trying to find the common bonds of love and trust between sisters again.”

“Neatly said,” Rosewater agreed, and nodded to her companion. “She speaks the truth. Small moments of trust, Dazzle, building up to a more unified and stronger whole.”

He was a fine stallion, too. Sturdy, strong. Coppery coat not unlike Collar’s, and bronze mane and tail, and eyes that stood out almost as much as the rest of him in the green and blue decorated sitting room, deep blue with flecks of what looked like sunset orange.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Primrazzle. I’ve heard much about you,” Silk said politely, reaching across to offer her hoof. “And in case you were wondering, I am serious about my commitment to reuniting what of our family can be reunited.”

“And you’re here to spy on her.”

“With my permission,” Rosewater replied, winking. “I already decided what I’d let slip. But in due time. How are you, Silk?”

“Frazzled.” She let out a breath. “Do you want to see the dress? I want to go and check on Vine. Mother has her trying to dig up what she can from a few garden ponies. She intends to fail and take the punishment.”

Dazzle opened his mouth, glanced at Rosewater, then at Silk. “What’s the punishment?”

“Renewing the charms on the sewer decomposing gems.” Silk winced. “She’s… I know you don’t know her, Mr. Primrazzle, but trust me when I say going down to the sewers is one of the worst punishments short of exile that mother can come up with for her.”

“She’s a clean pony,” Rosewater explained gently. “And one of the gentlest souls of all my sisters. All she wants to do is tend to her plants, be with her loves, and live a quiet life. She never wanted the war, or her place in it, or the talent that Roseate finds so useful.”

“Nor do I,” Silk admitted, glancing to the dress still shrouded. “I want to make dresses. Hats. Scarves.”

“Collars?” Dazzle raised a brow.

“If he asked me to make one, I would do my best. It’s my passion, Mr. Primrazzle. Working with silk especially is something that I enjoy more than almost anything else in the world.” Some of the longing she felt for such a simple life bled into her voice, and for a moment she wanted to take it back. “It’s more than my talent. It’s my soul.”

“An artist,” Dazzle said. “I can understand that. Please, call me Dazzle. Rosewater seems to trust you.”

“A mistake, I assure you,” Silk said with a wry smile. “Between her and Vine, I would choose Vine. It’s the leverage my mother has over me.”

“I understand that, as well, and I am careful with what I give you, Silk.”

“Vine,” Silk went on with a sigh, “would rather take the punishments and be exiled with me than let another pony be harmed by her action. I’m selfish.”

For a moment, Dazzle seemed to consider that, then nodded and glanced at Rosewater. “I’m in love with Rosewater. If I had my choice, I would offer her my hoof in marriage. Give that to her. It won’t hurt me or Rosewater, but it will be a tidbit your mother wants.”

“You surprise me, Mr—” Silk halted, coughed, and finished, “Dazzle. You know that will put you in my mother’s attention in the worst way. She’s done her best to make sure Rosewater remains childless, and you are a wrinkle in that plan.”

“It bothers me not one bit. She can't exile me. She has no jurisdiction over my life and how I live it. I am free to visit Rosewater, and I am free, if she decides to banish me from Merrie, to petition the Treaty Office to grant her a chance to visit me for the purpose of sex.”

Silk felt her brows rising to her forelock. “You planned this out?”

“Stars, no. I’ve been thinking about how I could help her, how I could keep showing her how much I do love her.”

“Dazz…” Rosewater’s voice was pained, and the look she gave him told her more than either of them was saying.

“I want to, Rosewater. This is my war, too. If my helping a mare you say is one of the kindest, gentlest souls you know will help end it sooner, then I will suffer the indignity.” Dazzle leaned against her and reached up to nip her cheek. “I do love you. Whatever else happens.”

“And I do love you. If things were different…”

“I know.” He kissed her cheek, then glanced at Silk. “That should tell you enough to get your sister out of trouble.”

“And me. Stars. You really are in love with her, aren’t you?” Silk could hardly believe herself.

“I am. She keeps me from falling too far. She still hopes Collar will return her advances and offerings.”

“Then he hasn’t.”

Rosewater met her eyes, nodded, then shook her head, and said. “He hasn’t.”

A lie. But what was the truth? Are both of them lying? If so, about what? “Thank you. I trust you know that Roseate will direct her attention against you when I tell her that you are more than ‘merely’ friends?” You don’t have to give them a second chance.

“Are you sure, Dazzle?” Rosewater asked.

“I am. I would like to meet your sister some time, Silk. She sounds…” He cocked his head, eyes locked on Silk’s. “You’re very protective of her. She must be somepony very special. Especially, and forgive me for saying it, for your family.”

“No forgiveness needed. We’ve been close since we were foals.” Silk glanced at Rosewater and tipped her head at her sister. “She can tell you more. I trust her to tell it right. But I daren’t tarry here too long, else Roseate will get suspicious of why I had tea and biscuits and spoke for an hour.”

“And I trust you to know my tastes for the dress,” Rosewater replied. “I do trust you, Silk, and I hope you consider my offer if something does loom over Vine.”

“I have considered it, dear sister, and I can’t see how it can work. But I thank you all the same.”

“It doesn’t expire. If you need it, you know how to ask.”

Dazzle, Silk was amused to see, was bewildered by their circumspect talk, and he was handsome even then. If he weren’t so attached to Rosewater, he might be a treat to pursue, and he had shown some interest in her and Vine. At least on the surface.

“I should go, then,” Silk said after a moment’s open consideration of Dazzle and his frank return look. Even more intriguing that he wasn’t bothered by her regard. “I’ll go with what we discussed, but I have to warn you that the dye may not be exactly the right shade. Getting that color here raises the wrong sort of eyebrows.”

“Be well, Silk.”

“And you, dear sister.” Silk hesitated as she stood and cast one last look at Dazzle. “And you, Dazzle. I hope our paths cross again. You seem a most intriguing stallion.”

“And you, Lady Silk.” He glanced at Rosewater, then back to Silk. “Perhaps it would help if I came to you to ask for such a color as her dress in the form of a scarf?” He held up a hoof before Silk could reply. “How could it be strange for a Dammer to ask for Damme blue?”

“It may.” Silk flicked her tail as she pulled down the dress form. “May I take that as a sign that I’ll see you soon?”

“You may.”

“Then I shall look forward to it. Until then, Dazzle, and until next time, Rosewater.”

“Are you sure?”

“They said it would be okay, love,” Silk murmured. They were in the small space between two buildings, not far from where Vine had been sitting at a small cafe that the Garden ponies tended to congregate, veiled and silenced. “I trust her.”

“But…” Vine’s voice quavered. “Stars, Silk, she’s putting herself in more danger for us. And what can we do?”

“It’s for us, love. So we can keep looking for an opportunity to… make a clean break, or… I don’t know.” Silk sighed and rested her head against her slighter sister’s. “It’s a chance to give us more time. And I know how much more chances we’ll get. You heard Crown’s report. Rosewater isn’t playing quiet anymore, and she’s making moves to endear herself to the treaty office.”

“I know, I know.” Vine ran a shaking hoof over her mane. “I’m glad for her, truly. And I hope Dazzle has more of a chance than you think he has. He sounds like a nice pony.”

“She’s pursuing Collar.” Silk hesitated, then added, “I think she’s succeeding. You heard how comfortable they seemed together, and then at the dance, and how they disappeared for nearly an hour.”

“I know.” Vine smiled wanly. “I think Dazzle seems so nice. He gave you that without even knowing either of us, and I don’t know Lord Collar nearly as well.”

“She does.”

“But must she turn aside Dazzle?” Vine asked, her voice plaintive. “She is, from what you’ve said, in favor of Lord Collar?”

“My dear, you’ve only just heard of him from me and you’ve already fallen in love with him and our sister?” Silk laughed and risked nipping her cheek. “I love that romantic heart of yours.”

“Silk!” Vine laughed and kissed her neck, then flushed and pulled away. “Sorry. Yes, I have. I’ve heard how they spend time together, but not a whit about how she and Collar spend their time together. How can I form my ‘romantic fantasies’ without that?”

“Then you’d best ask her.” Silk gave in, briefly, to temptation and kissed Vine’s neck in return and rested her nose over the spot, using a spell to wipe away the scent until she couldn’t detect the mingling. “She’s becoming what I think she was always meant to be. A bridge of her own, between Merrie and Damme.”

“No.” Vine pulled away and nipped her nose. “She’s becoming her own mare. She’s breaking away from mother’s influence. She chose to be a bridge, but she was not always meant to be one.”

Silk mulled that over, then nodded. “Then… what are we choosing to be, love?”

“I want to be free. I want to be with you.” Vine sighed and leaned against the wall opposite her. “But… I would choose to be my own mare, and I would hope you choose to follow me.”

“Anywhere. I choose to be with you. I have always chosen that, Vine. You’re my best friend.” Silk swallowed the other word that she sometimes still wanted to be true, the word that brought shame at her perverse desires. “I want to be free with you. I want to find a pony that we can both love, Vine, and that will love us, despite what we are.”

“Are you sure you have the spot right?”

Collar nodded, closing his eyes and feeling at the ethereal anchor of his teleport spell. It was a new way of trying to teleport. Usually, he thought of his exit point, pushed it into the spell matrix, and then let the spell loose. This way, he had to search for the location, feel the magical matrix in that location, a spell effect that anypony with any kind of sensitivity to it would be able to feel and find his location.

It was hardly a stealthy spell, but he wasn’t trying to be stealthy.

“I can feel the pressure of her wards all around, but there’s one space clear of it, with sharp edges. I feel the magic of the earth all around, too. It’s underground.”

Cloudy nuzzled his cheek. “I wish I could go with you.”

“I wish, too, but it’s only big enough for me.”

“You also do need this time with her alone,” Cloudy said musingly, one ear flicking as she stared off into the distant hills. Collar could barely see Rosewater’s estate from here, and they were deliberately not facing it, acting more like he was scouting something in the forests to the north than like he was planning to drop in on Rosewater. “This isn’t a normal Merrie romance.”

“It’s not. It certainly is not a normal Dammer romance.” The joke fell flat before it even left his lips. He sighed. “As much as I want it to be something normal. Either Merrie or Damme.”

“It will be. In time. Remember what Rosemary said.”

Don’t let not asking her to make love be another regret. “I remember.”

“And don’t worry about staying overnight. You’re patrolling the north woods with me. It may take some time, and I’m not going to be back until afternoon after next.”

“Are you going to be okay? It’ll get cold.”

“I have a space. It’s where Sunrise and I make love, when we do. A nice little pigeonhole of a nest in the boughs of a spreading oak.” Cloudy winked. “I didn’t tell you, of course.”

“Of course.” Collar sighed and kissed her cheek. “See you in a… day? Two?”

“See you in two days.”

In a twinkling and yanking of his whole being, Collar vanished in a pop and flash, and was suddenly in a cold, dank underground cell lit by candle light and pleasantly aromatic instead of musty or mildewy. It was no prison cell, and the remnants of shelves and the shadowy marks where items had lain for decades untold against the wall told him it had only recently been cleaned out.

It was the only place that had matched Rosewater’s description, and even as he reoriented himself, the jangle of a chain sounded just above and behind him, and a faint magical aura washed over the space he occupied, erasing his teleportation signature and making it impossible for him to even form a local locus.

“Good evening, Collar,” Rosewater’s voice sounded behind him, warm, inviting. “I wasn’t expecting you until morning. But… given our last date, I thought it might be worth the risk of opening the way for you early.”

He turned to find her standing there in the welcoming light of a candelabra, her smile just as much as he wanted to see. “I… wasn’t going to. But I was trying to get an idea of where I’d need to go, and set up my alibi…” He shrugged and stepped free of the little cupboard and turned slowly to study the basement. “It’s nicer than our dungeons used to be.”

“It should be. Rosemary fought dust and mildew like they were the legions of Tartarus so she could store some of her herbs down here. I’ve let it go a little, but…” She sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and shook her head. “Dazzle is still here. He… wanted to talk to you, if you came tonight.”

“About what?” He thought he knew. It’s what he’d have wanted to talk about if their positions were reversed. He, in love with her, she in love with another. No. That can’t be right. That’s Tussen Twee thinking. “I… should ask.”

Rosewater smiled a touch nervously, nodded, and gestured with the candelabra. “The stairs are this way. I was preparing dinner for myself when I felt your spell below. It’s not exactly subtle, you know.”

“I know. I figured if you were home, it would be like knocking.” The joking was a distraction from his fear of the private conversation that needed to happen. He needed to talk to Dazzle, face the stallion that had been there when he couldn’t, who’d made love to his love. Who, in a different position, might have been the father to—

Stars, get ahold of yourself.

Rosewater didn’t seem to notice as she led him up the stone stairway into the main house, but she did pause at the intersection of four hallways, a roundabout around a pillar of stone decorated with four small portraits of what were, presumably, the previous owners of the Rosefire estate.

“My great aunt Rosefire and her brothers and sister. She was the last of her line, and had no children… except Carnation, she always said.” Rosewater smiled sadly and continued on towards the front of the house. “The Rosefires were never the largest family.”

“My condolences for her passing.”

“Thank you. It was more than a decade ago, and I hardly knew her before she went to Canterlot for retirement. We got word by letter that she’d passed, and her ashes were scattered over the Merrie.” Her voice softened, quietly mournful. “Carnation spoke of her often, and I have her journals still to keep me company sometimes.”

She was avoiding talking about Dazzle, too, Collar realized. It wasn’t her talk. It was about her, but it was something he and Dazzle needed to face together. “She sounds like she was an amazing mare.”

“She was. She was like Lace, in her writings.” Rosewater continued on, taking a deep breath and betraying her nerves as clearly as if she’d shouted her nervousness at him, telling him just how important this talk was going to be. Maybe not for him, but for her, her relationship with Dazzle.

Maybe for him.

Insane scenarios of him claiming Rosewater for hers and denying Dazzle had any right to talk to her flashed through his head, swiftly quashed and leaving a horrified sense of unreality behind.

You’re not a monster, Collar. You’re in love with her.

“Dazzle?” Rosewater asked, a tremor in her voice that wasn’t normal. “Collar is here. I need to finish making dinner… and you wanted to talk to him before you left. Right?”

Collar brushed passed Rosewater gently to face the stallion sitting tensely on one of the couches in the sitting room, his coppery-coated form smaller, more varied, with some dappling along his forelegs that Collar didn’t have. Somewhere in their family’s pasts, they may have shared an ancestor. His eyes, though, a deep, clear blue of the sky in late evening flecked with sunset orange were none of Collar’s coloring.

Dazzle, he saw, was just as nervous as he was, shifting as soon as Collar and his eyes met, and swallowed.

“Erm. Collar?” Dazzle asked. “Stars, I don’t even know if I should call you ‘my lord’ or not.”

“How did you talk to me at the Gala, at lunch, Dazzle? You spoke to me as an equal. Please do so. We’re not here because I’m your lord.” Collar coughed, glanced at Rosewater, and stepped past her to take a seat opposite Dazzle. “We’re here because we’re both in love with Rosewater, and we need to talk.”

“You’re doing better than I am,” Dazzle muttered. “Stars, my hooves are shaking. I don’t even know why.”

Rosewater ducked her head and stepped in to kiss Dazzle on the cheek gently, then Collar. “Remember that I love both of you, and I won’t compare that love.” She seemed about to say more, her ears flat, her lower lip caught between her teeth, then she smiled, ducked out, and left them alone.

Both of them waited until the sound of her hooves stopped. It was inane, the estate wasn’t so large that she wouldn’t be able to hear them at least in a muffled way, but Collar felt himself relax after the reminder of her presence faded.

“I wasn’t brought up with the Principes,” Dazzle said abruptly, “but I thought I had accepted it in my heart, wholly. Yet…” He tossed his head. “Stars. I thought jealousy was a monster I’d defeated months ago.”

Collar nodded. “I know what you mean. I thought I had, too, knowing that Cloudy still made love with some of her friends in the Dammeguard and elsewhere in the city. She would always let me know well ahead of time, and remind me on the day. But she was always there. I didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t see her tomorrow.”

“I… think I can understand.” Dazzle rubbed a foreleg with his other hoof. “For me… I’ve never before wanted to settle down. I couldn’t see myself settling down with anypony. Then… this mare comes into my life, and I learn about her, and I see how she handles herself, and then I learn she’s a mother already. Stars. It’s like it flipped a switch in my head. Like… ‘She’s the one. I could see myself settling down with her.’”

“That, I can understand. I saw her once, curled up with Rosemary after a hard emotional day. She’s a mother. Stars, I could see her in the role again.” Collar swallowed, looked into Dazzle’s eyes, too intently focused on his, and made himself meet the gaze. “I want her to be a mother of my children, Dazzle.”

“I… I know.” Dazzle held his gaze for another moment, swallowed, and looked away. “I keep waffling. It’s her choice. I want to ask her, but I know her heart is set on… solving the war. Ending it. Her best chance to do that…”

“She’ll not have a child without love, Dazzle. You know that.”

“I know. But—” Dazzle swallowed more thickly. “I’m not you. She’s had her attention on you for longer than I’ve known her.” He raised a hoof and waved it as Collar opened his mouth and sighed. “I know. I know. Sharing, not comparing.”

“How do we resolve this?”

“We?” Dazzle chuckled. “We don’t resolve anything. Rosewater decides. We’re here to make sure we understand each other. I love her. You love her. I, at least, am still waffling on my desire to settle down. Petal and Seed have hinted that they might offer me a marriage contract together. Contingent on me working out my own feelings.”

“How has it been? Living in the Garden?”

“Wondrous. And confusing, truth be told. Working out my desires for ponies, working out what that meant in terms of relationships beyond the sex.” Dazzle shook his head. “It’s… hard, sometimes, to separate the two when you weren’t born in a culture that views sex without stigma or ties. They… we love sex, Collar. But it’s not everything, and it took me a few days, and a talk with some of my lovers, to understand that there was far more intimacy available than the merely physical. It’s intoxicating.”

“It is.” Collar sighed softly. “Rosemary and Cloudy both told me not to hold back if I felt the want to make love to her. To ask her, not hold it in until a ‘better’ time.”

“Wise. Merrie culture isn’t about needless restraint, Collar. Moments lost to hesitation, to indecision, are mourned. They’re moments that could have been beautiful.” Dazzle huffed, chuckled and tapped his chest. “I lost several moments with Rosewater, because I knew she was courting you. Everypony knew she was. And I knew that you, a follower of the Tussen Twee, would want… would expect… and I was wrong.”

“It was hard to tell her to follow her heart. To not let those moments pass her by if she wanted them. I hope they were beautiful moments, Dazzle.”

“They were. Relaxing. Peaceful.” Dazzle glanced at him again, then away. “Passionate. I’ll cherish the time I spend with her, Collar.”

“Good.”

Dazzle startled and met his eyes. “Good?”

“I love her, Dazzle. And I thank you for letting her be herself, be the emotional, carnal, passionate mare that she is when I was too indecisive to tell her that I loved her.” Collar made a decision, then, and reached across the table, hoof cupped upwards. “Dazzle, I want to make a promise to you, and I want you to promise me. Take care of her when she’s with you. She’s so fragile in so many ways. She needs all the support we can give her while she does what nopony else can do.”

Dazzle took the offered hoof without hesitation. “Take care of her, Collar, when she’s with you.” He reached farther, clasping Collar’s ankle in his. “And, I think, in the end, it will be best for the future if she married you, and I think she knows that. She’s… been sad with me sometimes, after the passion fades, thinking she’s lied to me with her heart, and I don’t know how to tell her she hasn’t, other than, ‘I love you.’”

“I think she knows,” Collar murmured. “She… is always aware of her position. What it means. And what the future holds for her.”

“She is. Which is why I think she’ll choose you. For the sake of both our cities. I’m glad she loves you, Collar. It makes trying to distance myself from her a little easier.”

“Don’t you dare, Dazzle.”

“I’ll have to, Collar. For when she declares for you. Her intent to have your child. She can’t be with other stallions unaccompanied when she does. It’s tradition to ensure that the lineage is true and right when recorded. And, for her, the law. The pedigree of her heir must be known to ensure that the lineage of rulership in Merrie is free of even accidental incest.”

“Really? Stars, I hadn’t even given it much thought.” It made sense. In a city as promiscuous as Merrie, knowing one’s genealogy would be paramount to ensure that children weren’t impaired or deformed. He knew it’d happened in the past, even a short two-generation-long dynasty shortly after Rosethorn had passed of siblings marrying. “I should have known. I know that incest is a major taboo in Merrie, even more so than it is in Damme.”

“It is. That’s why the laws are so strict and the family library is open to all, regardless of nationality or standing. As for declaration, there’s a ceremonial aspect to it that you need to know.” Dazzle released Collar’s ankle and sat back, his gaze clearer, his purpose apparently clarified. “Ask Cloudy and Rosemary about it. Or Rosewater. You need to know our traditions and our laws, Collar.” Dazzle chuckled and winked at Collar. “It’s also traditional for the stallion to go through the same hardship. To not be with another lover until she is confirmed to be pregnant. Though, obviously, that isn’t a requirement of the law.”

“And you? Stars, Dazzle, you’re telling me how to… ask her to bear my children.”

“There are other loves in my life, Collar. I will always love her, and I hope we aren’t apart forever, but… I want her to be happy, and I will find my own happiness.” He chuckled. “I always knew, Collar, that she wouldn’t be mine alone, but I suppose I’m not fully done with my Dammer sensibilities.”

“Nor am I.” Collar met his eyes, nodded, and leaned back against the back of the couch. “Stars, Dazzle. I still feel jealous when I think about how when I leave here, she’ll be with you. But I don’t blame you or her. It’s my failing.”

“Is it a failing? Merriers deal with jealousy, too, Collar.” Dazzle glanced at the entryway as the sound of plates clattering together came from farther down the hall, reminding them both that Rosewater was still there. “They deal with it by talking it out. It’s why I stayed, hoping you would come early. I needed to talk it out with you, to get to know you as more than my former liege lord, my leader in the Dammeguard.”

“As a pony.”

“Yeah. I needed to know more than your position, Collar. And I like what I see.” Dazzle stood, stretched his hind legs one at a time, and called out, “You can stop pretending you can’t hear us, Rosewater. I think we’ve said all we can tonight.”

“Have we?” Collar asked, rising with him.

“For now. I don’t want this to be the last time we meet and compare notes.” Dazzle glanced down the hallway, smiled, and stepped out. “I find that I like you, and I’d like to know you as more than simply Lord Collar of Damme.”

“And I would like to get to know you better. Because you’re right,” Collar said, glancing down the hallway to find Rosewater standing a few paces away, a hoof to her breast, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “She does need our help, Dazzle, and our love, without the two of us duking it out over her hoof.”

He watched as she took another step closer, then another, until she was standing close enough for him to touch with his nose.

“I was worried,” Rosewater admitted, brushing away the tears in her eyes and smiling more brilliantly than Collar had seen before. “I love both of you, and I’m so glad that…” She let out a breath. “I did hear a lot of what you both said. The house carries sound. Dazzle—”

“Rosewater,” Dazzle broke in, moving to her and kissing her lightly on the cheek, then cupping her chin with a hoof and kissing her on the lips. “Don’t. It’s better that I knew I still struggled with my upbringing than believing I was wholly of the Principes. This is a chance for me to reach out again to lovers and loves.”

“Dazz,” Rosewater murmured, her eyes flicking from him to Collar. “Thank you. I know it was difficult, but thank you.”

“It would have been more difficult to lose you, Rosewater.” He kissed her one more time, then turned to Collar. “Take care of her, Collar, and enjoy yourself. Don’t let what we talked about hold you back or make you think ‘there can be a better time.’ There won’t be, I promise you.”

“There’s no time like the present,” Collar murmured the old aphorism, and chuckled. “Thank you, Dazzle.”

“Now back into the sitting room, Collar. You can’t be seen here while I say goodbye to him. But you can listen.” Rosewater flicked her tail against Collar’s shoulder.

Collar was barely done settling in when Rosewater opened the front door, and the cool air of the night washed in. She didn’t close it immediately.

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright for a few days?” Dazzle asked quietly, but not so quietly that anypony with the right magic couldn’t hear.

“I will be. Thanks to you, I have enough food for a week. I’m not sure if I’ll stay here that long, but I need to lay low. I don’t want the Garden catching flak for my temper today.”

Dazzle sighed. “I know you don’t. But I’m not sure Seed and Petal will agree with your reasoning. Expect one or both of them to knock down your door tomorrow.”

“They can try,” Rosewater replied, “but I’m setting wards tonight and not lifting them until at least a day. I don’t want Rosejoy or her mob to disturb what little rest I’ll be able to get. Tell them I promise I’m alright. I just need time to calm down. She really got to me.”

“They’re not going to buy it, you know,” Dazzle said. Collar almost felt him shrug from so far away. “But I’ll tell them.”

“That’s all I can ask. Thank you.” Silence fell for a time, so Collar was certain they were sharing a kiss, then she spoke again. “I love you. I won’t disappear, Dazzle, I promise. Never again.”

“I know you won’t. Goodnight, Rosewater.”

Then the door was closing again, and silence reigned for another minute while the faint prickling of magic washed over his horn, growing stronger as she did as she had promised and laid wards on her door.

When she didn’t come back after the magic stopped flowing over the door and throughout other wards he could feel sparkling elsewhere, thrumming against the walls of the house, Collar stepped out into the hallway to find her with her horn resting lightly on the door.

“How much did you hear?”

“Most of it,” she said, and turned to face him, her eyes clear, her smile soft. “Thank you, Collar. I hope the two of you can become friends. I want my loves not to fight over me, or feel like my love for them is lessened for loving another.”

“I know.” Collar came to her and kissed her lightly on the nose. “I love you, Rosewater, and I hope Dazzle and I can see each other more. We do, after all, have a lot of planning to do together.”

Rosewater’s brows rose. “You do?”

“We do.” Collar kissed her lips lightly, then more firmly as she pushed into the kiss, and everything he thought to tease her with disappeared into the pleasure and wonder of kissing one of the loves of his life.

She was there in his heart with Cloudy, with Rosemary poking her nose in and warming herself to his regard.

I love you. All of you. It was so strange that ‘you’ had changed from singular to plural with barely a fuss in his thoughts when his head had been so troubled for so long over the thoughts and feelings that were growing inside him for Rosewater, for Rosemary.

“I love you,” Collar whispered, voicing his thoughts. “All of you.”

Book 2, 35. Together

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It was refreshing to sit in Rosewater’s kitchen, the floor warmed by the recently doused stove, the embers inside its iron belly still glowing, though the air vents and lid tops were covered and stoppered. The estate’s kitchen was larger than it needed to be, as the home had once been far more bustling, replete with a serving staff that would have worked it morning and noon, preparing meals for the once sizeable Rosefire family.

Now, the cupboards and cabinets were clean but mostly filled with unused and unneeded bowls or mementos, and fully a half of the kitchen had been transformed some time ago into a breakfast nook, complete with bay windows that overlooked the eastern side of the home, welcoming the sun. It was homier now than it must have been when it’d first been built, and the pillows and curtains that lined the bench along the bay window spoke of afternoons and evenings spent reading quietly.

There was even a small set of shelves built into the bench’s bottom filled with books.

His heart longed to spend more than a single day here with her.

Were they not who they were, he could easily see himself spending a quiet lifetime in this house, with children underhoof, filling every nook and cranny with laughter and delight.

Yet… they were who they were, and both of their political opponents demanded that they be enemies. History said they should be. But all he wanted at that moment was for he, Cloudy, Rosemary, and Rosewater to live this quiet life at the edge of Merrie with not one more care in the world beyond where the bits to sustain themselves came from.

Drying dishes in her kitchen was a step closer to that dream, even if it might never be fully realized.

“This one’s clean,” Rosewater said softly, passing Collar another mixing bowl, one that they’d used to make dessert from some of the ingredients she’d bought. A flan that had turned out not all that bad, despite her claiming to only have attempted making it a few times before. “Not that I needed to clean it very much. You did well enough to lick the caramel clean.”

“Hey, hey,” Collar said with a chuckle. “It’s not my fault you chose one of my few hidden weaknesses to make. It was delicious, as was dinner.”

“You should taste… taste my mother’s cooking. Carnation taught me how to cook after learning how I tried to cook a dinner for Rosemary that left the poor filly gagging after a taste.” Rosewater bumped against his shoulder. “That was the fish cakes I served you for dinner on our last date.”

“How did… I thought your nose would help you avoid kitchen atrocities.” Collar leaned over and nipped her cheek, then kissed the mark on her muzzle, sending a quiver down her neck. He loved kissing her there, seeing her react with surprise and delight each time.

“That’s a myth. I made sure it smelled great. But not everything that smells great tastes great. Cinnamon, for example, smells great. But you should not use it to season salmon.” Rosewater stuck her tongue out. “I later learned that cayenne, in small moderation, gives it the same color, and much better taste, even if its scent profile is much… harsher.”

“I see. So I should definitely invest in some cinnamon scented things. Maybe soaps?”

“Mmm. I’ll need to ask Roseling about that, but now that you know… and since Rosetide isn’t known…” Rosewater chuckled and put away the stiff-bristled brush. “I have a wonderful selection of fragrant wines, if you want to settle down with one and talk more. Or I have brandy, or...” She raised a hoof.

“You’re offering to let me explore your wine cellar?” Collar teased, leaning forward to nuzzle her cheek. “I admit… I could use a glass or two. But no more. I want tonight to be warm, Rosewater. I want to settle in with you tonight and…” He waved a hoof. “Do whatever comes to us. Talk. Hold each other. Both at once, of course,” he added when her lips curved into a grin that he kissed just after.

She tasted better with each kiss, the warmth lingering for a little longer on his lips, and the desire to kiss her again growing stronger.

“And after?” Rosewater asked in a breathless whisper. “Will you share my bed, Collar? With or without intimacy, it would be nice to wake up with you holding me, or I you, and know that this evening wasn’t a dream.”

“Yes. Stars yes, Rosewater.” Collar hesitated, then raised a hoof to set against the heart mark on her breast, covering it almost entirely. She took a deeper, tremulous breath as he did, her cheeks flushing. “I’ll hold you tonight. I want to hold you right now.”

“But…” Rosewater smiled and crossed a foreleg over his, gently pushing it down. “We really ought to finish cleaning up the kitchen or we’ll regret it for breakfast tomorrow.” Her eyes widened. “Stars, we get to have breakfast together.”

“Yes, and lunch, and dinner again, and… maybe one more breakfast before this ‘date’ is over.” Collar raised her foreleg and kissed it lightly, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “My love.”

“And…”

Collar followed Rosewater into what was clearly an office. Warmly appointed, with paintings of a family that he’d never known existed. Two mothers caring for a foal, a filly, a young mare. It was painfully obvious that after Carnation had been taken, Rosewater had stopped painting, or Carnation had painted all of them. There were no paintings of the mare she had grown into.

Unless they were somewhere else.

He resolved, then, to commission a painting for Rosewater of Rosemary as she was now so she could at least have a recent memory stored.

“This is my office,” Rosewater said, sitting down on the pillow in front of her desk. “Here, months ago, I tried to figure out how I would entice you to let me talk to you more, to intrigue you into getting to know me. That I might have a chance at opening your heart.” She chuckled. “Stars, the months before then that I spent trying to figure out how to get your attention, just to look at me with interest. I didn’t know… all I had to do was ask kindly.”

“That is, perhaps,” Collar said, sitting beside her and continuing to look around, “an oversimplification of matters. It was you being open and honest with us, Rosewater, being the you that I see now every time we’re together. That was intriguing. That you had so much hidden about you that I had no idea of. And… as you showed me more, as you opened up, as I pushed you to open up, to let your guard down, it only drew me closer to you.”

“I never planned it, Collar. Only the moment. The date. What happened—”

“I know.” Collar kissed her neck lightly, then her cheek, her muzzle, and her lips. “I didn’t plan, either. Just the next date, the next day. The next step.”

He bent to kiss her breast, letting his lips linger on the surprisingly soft heart-shaped mark. The tremor that ran through her seemed to pass to him. There was nothing left for her to show him but… her bedroom. They’d peeked into Rosemary’s room once, and he’d been unsurprised by the number of postcard portraits on her wall, the variety of other decorations had surprised him however.

“And next,” Rosewater murmured, a curious tremor in her voice that wasn’t the nervous tone he’d come to know, but… a hoof stroked down his mane gently, down his neck, and drifted under his chin to raise his attention to her eyes. She kissed him lightly. “I would show you my bedroom, Collar. Our first night together, sleeping instead of talking.”

“Rosewater,” Collar murmured, nipping her chin. “I think those two glasses of wine are affecting you a little bit.”

“Mayhap,” she admitted, grinning with a touch of sheepish delight setting her ears to the side. “But… I’m floating, Collar. It’s like a dream I don’t want to wake up from. The plan we had for our date was wonderful, yes, but this is you, my love in my home.” Some of the happiness faded, then. “Only, we can’t leave. Or open the curtains. Or let in the sound of the night wind bringing in warmth and fog from the sea.”

“When you stay in the Prim Palace,” Collar promised her, not sure he could promise such a thing, “you will have all of those things.” He would make it happen. Somehow. Someday, and soon, he would give her what she dreamed of.

And how do you know the wine isn’t affecting you? Those were full glasses.

“I would like that, Collar,” Rosewater murmured, her eyes shining bright and wide, her irises expanded so the gold flecks crowded together to make a golden ring around the dark pools of her pupils. He could get lost in those eyes, studying them, finding all the little things that made them hers. “And… perhaps the wine is affecting me. I want to fall asleep in your embrace.”

Collar blinked rapidly, shook his head, and leaned forward to touch noses with her. “I think, perhaps that would be a good idea. You said the wine wasn’t watered down?”

“Stars, no.” Rosewater laughed and leaned into his shoulder. “Petal would string me up by my ankles if I diluted her wine. And she’d string you up alongside if you’d been the one to ask.”

“Mental note, don’t suggest diluting Petal’s wines. Got it.” Collar nudged her lightly. “I know it’s not the date we planned for, but… is this okay, Rosewater?”

“Okay? This is better, Collar. You’re here. In my home. One of my homes. The one I grew up in.” She ran down as she spoke, her voice and her eyes drifting towards the east. “I want to go there again, Collar. With you, if I can. I want… stars, I want so much, Collar.”

“Go with Dazzle, and the mare? Bliss? Take them both there. I don’t think we’re going to be able to do anything in the open for a while.” Except that would also focus Roseate’s ire on Dazzle, a pony that was in easy reach of her machinations. And the Garden ponies. Her own citizens, ponies that her oath of office should have meant she had as much responsibility to protect and govern as they had to uphold her regime. “Stars, I hate your mother.”

“Tonight isn’t about her. It’s about us. The future, Collar. Together, we can end the war in a way that nopony thought would ever be possible. Through love. Through… marriage.” Her eyes flicked to his and then away. “Would you—”

“Yes. Though I find myself without a gift to make it official,” Collar said with a lightly teasing nip to her nose. “Nor would we be able to make it official. Not yet. In Merrie, you would have no issue, but…”

“Frosty’s Law, and its legacy. Do you have a plan?”

“I do. Or my mother does. She’s been hoping a case would come up where she could challenge it in the middle courts and get enough reason to strike it down in the high that it wouldn’t cause a fuss. We don’t want to seem like we’re pushing ponies to do it, though, otherwise it will look like we’re doing exactly what we are doing.”

“Mmm. Deception.” Rosewater stood, stretched out her hind legs, and brushed past him. “I’m glad you have a plan, because I was lost. I know some of what you can do legally to get it banned, but I have no idea what kind of backlash that would cause among your reactionary factions.” She stopped in the door of the office to wait for him. “And I did hear about Wing and his son haranguing you during your date. Gossip travels easily when it’s that ‘juicy.’”

“You didn’t hear it from the mares?” Collar’s eyes tracked down her tail, loose instead of braided, and snapped his eyes back up to her eyes to find her grinning. “How are they, by the way?”

“Staying in one of the honeymooner cabins. They’re still deciding if they want to winter there or go home on the next ship to Canterlot.”

“They’d better decide soon. The last ship south leaves port in three days. Going west is a little better, and we have another week before the last ship leaves for Saddle Arabia.” Collar chuckled and dared to nip at her rear, then laid his chin over her backbone.

She flicked her tail, brushing against his ankles. “Let’s get to bed, or we’ll stay up all night with alcohol fuzzing our thoughts and talking about everything that comes to mind, important, pleasant, or neither.”

“But… that’s my ideal night. Talk about nothings until the early hours.”

Rosewater glanced back at him, chuckled, and flicked an ear. “Why, that sounds just like one of our dates. We could do that again, if you want to spend half of tomorrow asleep.”

“Mmm. Maybe.” Collar nipped the flicking ear. “It would certainly be a relaxing way to spend half a day. Laying in your bed, warm together, lazy, talking, kissing, wondering about the future…” He kissed the ear lightly, then her cheek.

“And when we have to go to the privy?” She was smiling all the same when she returned the nip.

“Why must you make sense?” Collar said with a groan.

“Because I want… tomorrow to be unplanned, Collar. Whatever we want to do, we do. Make love when we wake up? Make breakfast first?” Her voice got quieter before she flicked her tail, snorted, and sighed. “I wish we could risk opening the breakfast nook curtains. The view when the morning sun breaks over the hills is breathtaking.”

“Why can’t we? Your nearest neighbor is a good ten meters below you, and I didn’t notice any windows on the westward facing side of the house.” Collar nuzzled her cheek lighty and cast a light spell over her lips when she opened her mouth. “And any pegasi hanging out on the rooftop would be noticeable immediately. Any flying by would only catch a glimpse, and we could close the window before they saw much more than a pony with a similar coat color to Dazzle sitting with you.”

“I…” Rosewater stopped in the hallway, staring down the way towards the kitchen, then shook her head. “I don’t want to risk it, Collar. Not when this is so new to me. I’m not sure I can take so much risk and be calm about it.” She turned down a side hallway with one door at the end on the left, and another curtained window on the wall beside it. “This… is my bedroom.”

She ushered him into the room as she cast light into the sconces on either side of the bed, too large to be a single pony’s bed, the four posts around it held drapes that would hold in the warmth on even the coldest of nights. They were all deep pink to the point of almost being a light reddish hue, and embroidered with roses in wreaths and singly with red.

It seemed, to his Damme-raised experiences, purpose-built for passionate encounters rather than a good night’s sleep, but the myriad of pillows arranged into a bowl on the bed’s farthest side, combined with the high headboard and kickboard, spoke of a comfort he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.

Cloudy had admitted that the stiffness of the Dammer pillows that were so common in his stoic society lacked the softness for her wings, and thus she’d spent the night tossing and turning, and even once smacked him in the face with her wing when she couldn’t get comfortable in the improvised nest.

Afterwards, they’d settled for a more plush mattress topper rather than pillows, though it had cost some forty bits to a tailor to make the necessary adjustment.

But with Rosewater, he didn’t need to worry about his foreleg falling asleep under her if the main part of her weight wasn’t on it, but on the pillows. He needn’t even worry about his neck getting a crick from trying to avoid breathing in or chewing her mane if they could have their own heights at which their heads rested, or their own troughs to lay in.

There was more to her room than the bed, and her brushing past him to explore the room with him reminded him to look elsewhere.

There were some missing paintings here, of Rosewater and Rosemary out in the wilderness, mostly watercolor, ink and pencil. Fall colors predominated, beautiful and golden, and sad at the same time. A mark of a belief of the ending of things.

Or the hope for a new beginning. Rosewater had been planning for he didn’t know how long to bring her mother’s reign to an end, and had even courted ponies during that time, all failed. And now…

“These were all done during the same time of year,” Rosewater murmured, following his attention. “When Rosemary and I would make our pilgrimage one of the Deerkin thickets. I’d always bring my easel and paints, just in case the deerkin would sit still for long enough for me to paint them.”

“From all I’ve heard, they’re famously skittish about sitting still for any length of time.” Collar leaned in to study the detail on one without much inkwork at all, a painting of the river valley itself, with Rosemary sitting on a rock overlooking it. “You have a beautiful eye for color.”

“Thank you.” Rosewater leaned in closer to rest her cheek against his. “I painted that one last year, right before the Gala, when she said she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to run into Cloudy and… make things awkward. So I took her out to wander the hills above the river, visited a few deerkin sites, and had lunch on an outcropping.”

The tapestry of farms was clear, and only the buildings were done with any kind of inking, to pick them out from the background, more impressions of shapes than full renderings.

“You’re not in this one.”

“She wasn’t feeling up to it. Her heart works best in the arts when she can feel it. So I spent extra time filling in the valley while she laid at my side. It was a peaceful afternoon.” Rosewater nuzzled his neck, then his shoulder. “I put them in here so I could have them around me when I went to sleep, to remind me that she was still here, even if she couldn’t be here.”

“It’s a good thought,” Collar murmured and nibbled along the back of her neck to the base of her ear. “I’m glad you continued painting her even after…” He waved a hoof, not wanting to speak of the event. “I’m glad you kept your hoof in your painting. You’ve improved, too.”

“I practice when I find time. It’s not something I do all the time, but I do try to keep from getting on too much of a rut.” Gently, she nudged Collar away from the painting and towards the bed with its canopy open. “Have you ever slept in a pillow nest?”

“I… have tried. When Cloudy first told me. We agreed, by mutual discomfort, that the pillows we had weren’t the right kind.” Collar chuckled and brushed his hooves on the stiffly bristled carpet around the base of the bed. “The clean hooves mat is the same.”

Rosewater pulled back the covers and climbed in before he did, crawling on her belly to her chosen space, a single, larger, plush pillow where her head would lay, and wrapped her forelegs around a long, round pillow. “I like to hold something when I sleep,” Rosewater murmured, and shifted to pull a similar, longer pillow between her hind legs so it ran up almost to the base of her ribcage.

“I do, too,” Collar murmured as he slid in behind her, running his foreleg over her form as he did, and drawing shivers from her that turned into soft exultations of pleasure when he got to her shoulders and nipped, then kneaded her muscles with his foreleg. “You’re tense, ‘Water.”

“Excited,” Rosewater replied shortly, clutching her pillows tighter and twisting her neck to watch him with one eye. “And… thank you for being slow about it, and gentle.”

“My dear, every part of you is beautiful, and I’ve rarely had the chance to admire your body so closely.” Collar traced his lips over the curve of her shoulder’s musculature, drawing a soft, almost inaudible moan from her. One he hoped she would repeat.

Up her neck, he laid gentle kisses and brushed her mane aside to run his lips over the smooth, soft coat and feel the thrumming of her heartbeat just under the surface, near to racing, though the trembling of her hindquarters against his thigh hinted at more carnal expressions of her feelings.

Not tonight.

Yet, when he shifted level with her, marveling at how close they were of size and length, her tail strained upwards against his loins for a bare second before it left, and he felt his scrotum tighten, felt the start of the swelling heat below that would…

“Let it happen,” Rosewater murmured softly, her head still raised to watch him. “Don’t fight your arousal, Collar. I’m… trying to fight mine, but… the smell of you, the feel of you so close…” She lowered her head to the pillow and closed her eyes, just as beautiful even in repose.

“Don’t fight it,” Collar murmured, relaxing his mental grip and releasing the clenched muscles keeping his cock uncomfortably sheathed. It was a familiar sensation, feeling his length grow and harden, the tip prickling against the hairs of her coat, and felt her responding, her tail rising again to lay cupped against his groin, the hard curling portion of it meeting and matching the curvature of his belly just above his still-tightening sack.

Collar tucked his hind leg over hers, stretching out his lower leg, and pressed himself tighter against her back.

“Can feel you,” Rosewater murmured. “Thank you, Collar.” Her tail twitched, making him spasm, then relaxed, not leaving where it had nestled between his balls and his inner thigh, but remaining as a heated reminder that she was there.

“Are you falling asleep?”

“I’m trying to quiet the fantasies I’m having right now so I can,” was her quiet reply.

He almost asked her to tell him about them, then nuzzled the top of her head and rested his on the pillow just behind, one foreleg curling loosely over her barrel. “Dream them tonight.”

“Will you, too?”

“I can hardly not dream about all the fantasies running through my head right now,” Collar whispered, resisting the urge to do more than let his erection lay between them. Even as he closed his eyes, the urgency began to fade from the pressure in his loins, but the vivid thoughts and daydreams didn’t.

A moment later, the two lights she’d ignited in their gemmed sconces flickered and faded, leaving only the dim light from the curtained window and the moon high above the only light illuminating the bedroom of his love. His lover.

Or soon enough to be that it made no nevermind.

Even the scent of her as he breathed in the air above her ears and mane was a mild enticement, and the rising waft of their combined arousal enough for even his relatively dead nose. Even under the sheets.

“Goodnight, Collar,” Rosewater’s muzzily soft voice came.

“Godnight, Rosewater.”

Dreams of laying in the Garden baths with all of her lovers past, present, and future, eating grapes, sharing wine, and living a life imagined only in myths of the old world misted into inconstant fragments of imaginary words spoken in imaginary ears with no more meaning than the morning mists.

One lover drifted to the fore as dawn crept closer, certainty brought by a feeling more than by sight that the sun was rising.

Rosewater yawned as the image of Collar in one of the myriad dreams mounted her in front of those lovers drifted into brief clarity, they all cheering her and each other on as a great welcoming orgy played out around them. The feel of him on her back, the weight of his barrel pressing down on her, the heat of his cock…

His foreleg over her barrel tightened in the waking world, and a heat and pressure she’d thought a part of the dream shifted in ways too real, too immediate for it to be a part.

“Un…” Collar’s low moan, muzzled with sleep, brought her to full wakefulness, but she kept still, listening, feeling as he slowly rutted the space between her flank and the bed, the heat and enjoyment at inspiring such enjoyment, even in a dream, leaving her smiling.

“Rose…” his voice deepened, roughened, a low grunt of need, and he swallowed, licking his lips just above her ear. “Stars…”

The forelimb tightened again, and the hind leg over her flank cycled under the covers, looking for purchase… that she gave him a moment later with a spell, providing his hoof a platform as he bucked against her back. Her tail, caught still between his legs, raised of its own accord and pressed against the heat and dampness of his loins, memories and flickers of other dreams just like this flying through her mind as sleep descended halfway onto her again.

Then, with a grunt, and a tightening of his sack, he came.

In that moment, of fresh wetness and heat against her back, she realized it was not the first time, as a cool spot warmed again with the ejaculation.

Shifting her own hind legs revealed she had similarly been affected by such dreams as a cloying wetness, and the rising smell of freshly disturbed come rose through the shroud of the comforter and let her know anew that she’d come to orgasm at least once in the night, if not more.

He shriveled quickly, and his muzzle rubbed between her ears, either asleep or half-so.

“Good morning,” Rosewater murmured, turning her head and unable to resist stretching out her hind legs as a shiver of waking energy washed over her.

“Mmmrhm.” Collar’s muzzy voice wasn’t close to anything resembling a word, but his shifting foreleg and hind leg betrayed more deliberate intent.

“Sleep well, love?” Rosewater purred, using a spell to pull the cover back slightly, letting the chill-kissed air in the bedroom reach them.

Collar groaned more loudly. “Too col…” His voice trailed off into quiet breathing before she felt, and heard, his jaw crack open into a loud yawn. “Stars, it’s cold,” he said more clearly, and more definitively awake.

“It is,” Rosewater replied, and felt his entire body stiffen, then relax.

“It… Rosewater, stars. I was just… dreaming…” He trailed off, rolled partly away from her, then back. “I, um…”

“I know. I held your hind hoof when you came so you had purchase, Collar.” Rosewater tossed back the covers fully and released the wafting air of their combined orgasms into the chill bedroom air. “It’s normal, and expected for new lovers to dream of each other.”

“I did… with Cloudy,” Collar admitted. “The first night after we made love, and I fell asleep in her apartment, she woke up with come on her tail.”

“I doubt it was all yours,” Rosewater said with a laugh. “She is as sexually active and excitable as Rosemary.” She rolled to her belly, looking at him for the first time that morning. His mane was mussed and tousled, giving her a good idea of what he looked like before all the grooming he went through in the morning, even above what Cloudy had likely pushed him into doing for her more sensitive nose.

He was still her handsome stallion, bleary eyed and blinking at her with a dumbstruck look of mingled awe and trepidation as his eyes went from her face to what she could feel was a sizeable streak of come on her back and flank.

“I, um…” Collar coughed. “It looks like I did, er…”

“Come.”

“Come several times… or at least more than once.” He raised his hind leg to look, and Collar followed his gaze to the ruddy limpening erection sliding back into his sheath. That started to thicken again and grow even as she watched. “I, um…”

“Am very virile, and have a beautiful penis, and fragrant, musky ejacualate,” Rosewater finished for him, her voice soft, smooth, but hardly that of a temptress, even as much as she wanted to play the part right then. There were customs to follow for removing stains from a bed’s top, and a bath to have before the stink set into their coats. “But, since it’s likely been sitting overnight, stewing in our heat, it will start to smell soon.”

“And the coverlet?” Collar hesitated, then half-stood, his flagging cock still trailing a streamer of semen that he caught, his cheeks flushed, and wiped against his stomach. It was, Rosewater mused, endearing, alluring, and made her wish she’d caught it herself. “I—um.”

“Do not apologize, Collar,” Rosewater said more firmly, and formed a spell over the stain in the middle of the bed. “Merrie is home to many housekeeping spells meant for just this purpose.” A small bead of seed formed over the sheet, growing slowly as she used a spell used more for cleaning up her perfumery to draw liquid out of stone and crevices. “We learned, some time ago, that laundry is expensive if we have to do it every time we come on the bed.”

Collar considered the peach sized ball of mixed mare and stallion come. “It always feels like there’s more than there actually is…” He met her eyes, looked away, then met them again, his jaw firmer. “It was a good dream, Rosewater. I… want that to be…” He coughed.

“Real.” Rosewater grinned and pranced to the door, raising her tail and flicking it aside to let him see how excited she’d been in her dreams… and how excited she was now. “I want it to be real, too, Collar, but we really should take a bath.”

He surprised her by catching her hind legs with a spell.

“Let me,” Collar murmured, his heart beating faster and harder at her blatant display. “I dreamt about how you would taste all night, ‘Water. That much, I can remember. It’s something that’s been dogging my thoughts since Cloudy teased me to orgasm with what it was like making love to you.”

“Oh?” Rosewater’s tail hiked higher, exposing her bare pink expanse more and sending a shiver over her coat that seemed to transfer to him. Even the underside of her tail was a pale flesh-pink, and her puckered hole, her lips, her skin underneath were all the same pale shade of pink, lighter than her mane and tail, urging him to taste, to touch, and feel. “She didn’t say she’d do that.”

Her voice, a low purling thing full of pleasure and want, sent another thrill through him. It was a side of her he’d never heard, never imagined could be so alluring.

“She did,” Collar breathed, advancing slowly, his spell on her ankles gentle and warming against the chill seeming to radiate from the floor. “She told me what it was like your first time, how open you were for her, how…” He touched his nose to her buttock, taking in the scent of her there, musky with lust both old and fresh, wholly mare.

“I want this,” Rosewater murmured in that same low voice, a shiver running over her coat as she winked open, her clit glistening with even fresher wetness. Her back arched as his breath washed over her nethers, and she let out a low huff, her hind legs sliding farther apart, breaking his spell briefly. “I want you, Collar. Stars, I’ve wanted you to want me.”

“I do.” He kissed the side of her buttock, then the crease between buttock and vulva, trailing his nose through her arousal, his tongue following after only a moment, taking in the musky, salty, rich flavor of her. More, she was silky smooth, and her heated flesh gave under even the touch of his tongue, and the act drew a gasp that transitioned into a shivering groan that set her tail completely to the side, the silky hairs flowing over his ears like a benediction. “Stars…”

“B-better than a dream?” Rosewater asked, her voice shaky with want, need.

“Much.” Some part of Collar’s mind was surprised at his boldness, at how quickly he was moving… but this was what he’d dreamt of more than once. He’d come on her back not five minutes ago. And yet, as he woke further and further, Damme-born mores tried to insert themselves into his thoughts. “Rosewater, is this… stars. I just admitted I love you two days ago.”

“I want this, Collar. You want this. Cloudy wants you to want this.” Rosewater’s tail hiked again, then fell, still curled to the side. “What’s wrong with us making love?”

What is wrong with it? He wanted to mount her, and his cock agreed, stiffening again underneath him, the pressure a roiling reminder of his own lustful wants. “I… nothing? I love you, Rosewater.”

She seemed to hear more than he was saying, more than he would admit to himself even, and shook her hind legs briefly, flexing her ankles, and started down the hall. “Let’s take a bath, Collar. I think the musk of sex is clouding both of our minds.”

I want to mount her. The thought passed over him with a shivering of his coat and a twitch of his half-firm erection. “I think you’re right. I want a clear mind when I make love to you, Rosewater. I want—”

What?

She glanced back at him, her tail hiking again, then lowering. He wanted that, yes, but he wanted his mind unclouded by lust or sleep. He wanted to make the decision himself, not blindly following his lust to the warmest, sweetest…

He shook his head and tore his eyes away from her backside. He could still see her marehood, the pink depths winking open, as involuntary a response as his cock firming at the sight.

“I want our first time to be special, Rosewater. Our choice. Not because we dreamt it and woke up in a cloud of sex and lust.” Collar briefly caught at her foreleg with a spell and walked up beside her, leaning against her. “I love you. I want that love to be the reason we make it.”

Rosewater’s eyes shimmered, and she blinked a few tears to trail down her cheeks, but her smile gave the truth of them. “Thank you, Collar. I want that, too. I… sometimes, I want things too much to think that…” She cleared her throat and bumped her shoulder against his. “It’s a danger of the Principes and our lifestyle. It’s something we teach all foals to guard against when they come of age, and something we teach our new ponies from Damme or elsewhere to be wary of. Pleasure just because we want it, without moderation.”

“Hedonism,” Collar murmured, feeling his arousal soften and fade as he considered. It was what Roseate had tempted him with both times. Rut her for the pleasure of it. “I don’t want to fall into that with you, Rosewater. I want every time…” Every time? What if he just wanted to have sex with her for the pleasure of it, some future day, some future where such a thing wouldn’t be a long, dark road.

She seemed to understand his thought. “I know. And… some hedonistic pleasure, in moderation, can be incredibly relaxing, Collar. It eases the mind away from worry, away from the fears of the day, and into a warm cocoon of self-indulgence.”

“And there lies the danger.” He could see it getting away from a pony easily. He could see it getting away from him easily.

“We don’t use scents every time we make love, Collar,” Rosewater added gently. “The night with you and Cloudy that we set up, that I want to hear about, by the way, from your lips, not hers, was special. I want a night like that with you, someday, but not so soon after your night with her.”

“Because…” Collar shook his head when she started to answer and tried to work through it himself, pushing away the lusty thoughts of what she’d tasted like, the aftertaste of her on his tongue. “Because if I get used to it, if it pervades every time I have sex, it could… be used against me.”

“Or you couldn’t get aroused without it.”

His tail twitched at that. “That sounds awful.”

“From the outside? Yes. But if you’re given that scent every time somepony wants to have sex with you, you’ll want it, you’ll beg for it.” Rosewater’s coat shivered, her face a mask of disgust. “You’d be a prisoner of your own lusts… unless you have the will to resist it.”

“Well.” Collar snorted. “I think that cured my lust for now.”

Rather than looking amused, Rosewater looked horrified. “Stars, Collar, I didn’t… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a stick in the mud. I… was trying to be educational, and got…” She waved a hoof, her ears flat. “Dark.”

“You’re fine, love,” Collar said with a laugh. “It’s nothing I didn’t suspect before, but I’m glad to have confirmation. But I feel less of an… urgent need to make love to you now.”

“Part of that may be because you’re not staring at my marehood as my traitor tail tries to entice you to mount me,” Rosewater grumbled, her smile coming back a little. “I… still want to make love before you leave. I want to show you what it means for me to make love to you, Collar. Not just…” Her ears dipped again, lower, and her cheeks colored. “I want to be in your dreams. And I want you to tell Cloudy what it was like. But don’t be surprised if she starts masturbating to the retelling.”

“She does that plenty on her own,” Collar replied with a sharp laugh.

“Good. She did it when I told her about how Bliss, Dazzle, and I ended up after playing Petals. And I helped her when I was done telling it.” Rosewater nipped his cheek lightly, and he felt her tail flip aside and against his flank. “Would you mind if I told her my perspective, later?”

She wants to. She’s open about wanting to. But she would be. She had no moral hangups about making love to a friend, let alone somepony she’d fallen in love with. So what is your hangup? He was already neck deep in the Principes, but still felt like he was floundering for his stroke, and Rosewater, Cloudy, and Rosemary were all swimming slowly just in his range of reach, encouraging him to try it, to find his way, and join them in a greater pool of love.

This would be when he finally kicked off the shallow ledge that his hind hooves were still on and tried to swim with them.

“I wouldn’t mind, Rosewater. I want you to share it with Rosemary, too. She’s already asked permission to use my image to masturbate to. And she’s seen my erection.”

Rosewater’s brows rose. “She has? Stars, what were you doing?”

“Thinking about how Cloudy teased me with what it was like with you.”

“You know she’s probably letting an image of you mount her right now. It’s how she masturbates. She needs love there to feel it, Collar. And she feels best when she can dream that it’s real in the moment.” Rosewater nuzzled his neck gently. “She’ll never present you in her daydreams as other than you are. Caring, gentle, strong.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine the vivacious young mare with him atop her, or beneath her… behind her. She, too, was different from Cloudy and Rosewater. Gentle and curious where Cloudy was often direct and obstinate, and Rosewater was subdued, strong, and uncertain at times.

“She’s a beautiful spirit,” Collar said softly, trying to keep the image of Rosemary with her tail raised, with her darker pink marehood winking and damp from having his image rut her, gently or firmly, it didn’t matter. He stopped at the door to the bathroom and raised a hind leg to check whether or not he’d decided arousal was done.

His cock, flaccid, still hung below his sheath as he’d known it would be, and a trailer of precome dripped from his tip even as he looked.

“I guess,” Collar murmured, “the idea of her masturbating to me is… flattering.”

“She would never have asked if she thought it would be an insult, Collar.” Rosewater ducked her head to look as well, and he felt her regard send a thrill of delight through him, sending a surge along his length. “I don’t think you’ve retracted since you woke up. Are… do you need to masturbate, Collar? To get… well…” Rosewater waved a hoof and opened the bathroom door.

He’d seen it during the tour last night, of course, but now… with her asking if he needed to masturbate, he found himself looking for comfortable places where he could lay down and do just that. Places, his mind insisted, where he gave her a full show, despite his lingering Dammer mores telling him that…

“Rut it,” Collar grunted, and slipped past her into the bathroom, hitching his tail up to show her his ruddy, tight scrotum, the flaccid erection dangling between his and shifting with every hoofstep.

He was surprised a moment later when he felt her nose against his sack, then her tongue, hot, wet, and strong curling under a testicle, lifting it minutely, then releasing as she pushed her muzzle between his legs and let both rest on her muzzle, the tip of her horn angled away with the twist of her neck and the base of it resting against the back of his thigh.

“Rosewater!” Collar pranced ahead, almost to the bathtub, his eyes widening as he turned to watch her, a look of carnal want naked in her expression, the mask of cordiality gone.

“J-just as you have your lusts,” she replied, pulling back and stamping a hind hoof. “I have mine. I want you, Collar, and I want to help you if you’ll let me. Not mounting, but…” She licked her lips, her eyes darting from his eyes to his cock. “If you want help. I want to help.”

Stars, it was tempting, and his rapidly stiffening erection told him it was more than tempting. Cloudy had given him oral more than once, and it was… an experience unlike anything else, not quite so pleasurable as mounting her, and she was fumbling with her tongue still, but…

He shuddered, his coat quivering as he thought about the last time she’d taken him that way, how it’d felt when she’d curled her long tongue around below the head of his shaft…

“B-bath?” Collar croaked. “L-let me think about it while the tub fills up and heats.”

Rosewater nodded and turned the nob, letting the chilly cistern water pour into the basin big enough for two, and began filling the rubies around the outer base of it with magical heat. “I don’t want to push you, Collar—”

“I want you to, stars, mare. If it was only I doing the courtship, and not Rosemary and Cloudy encouraging me to try, and you being… you, we’d still be virtual strangers.”

Collar, all too aware of how stiff his cock was, how it hung at a steep curve under his belly, waiting for him to tense before it became fully erect, came closer to her, watching her eyes trail from his to beneath him. Her coat shivered, and even his nose picked up the scent of her want as it trickled down her hind leg. He wanted to lick her again, to delve his tongue into her, to suckle on her clit as it came erect and pushed her open, hear her cry out. He wanted to suckle her teats, tease her like he did with Cloudy, to look into her eyes as he slid into her, as he made love to her.

“I want you to push me, Rosewater. I don’t want you to feel like you have to wait for me to get it through my skull that I want something before I ask for it. I want to mount you right now, right here. I want you to take me in your mouth. I want you to straddle me and control how quickly we mate. I want so much, Rosewater, but I’m afraid of asking for it because of what it means.”

“What does it mean?” she asked softly, her tail hiking higher with every one of his wants until it curled over her back, spilling pink hairs down either side of her flanks. “What does making love to me mean to you?”

“It means I’m committed to you. For life, Rosewater. It means that I’m abandoning what I was brought up to believe was my way of life, it means…” What did it mean, beyond that? So small a thing, and yet so large. His way of life was… larger than he was, it was what his ponies believed in. “I’m… It feels like telling my ponies that our way of life isn’t for me. That your way of life, the Merrier way of life, has captured my heart and soul.”

Rather than scoff at him, she nodded. “The same has been happening with me and Damme. I love the filly that called me Princess Celestia. I love the honesty in her eyes, and I love what that honesty can grow into. You’ve shown me the dedication of the Tussen Twee, you and your parents. No, this won’t be as simple as one lifestyle of our ponies winning out over the other. It was your dedication to Cloudy that opened your heart to the Principes, and because of that I’ve learned that the Tussen Twee is another kind of love. And love is for sharing, not comparing. I want to see where this path she’s guided you on leads us all.”

Her tail drifted down slowly as she approached him, one ear directed at the tub.

“I love Lace and Dapper as if they were my own parents, Collar, I don’t think they need to accept more love into their life. It’s clear to me that they have all the love they ever needed just in each other, and in you.” She stopped just shy of him, her nose almost touching his, her breath heated still with the wants that he could see in her eyes, tempered by her will and her concern for him. “Just as, when I look in your eyes, I see your want to love all three of us.”

“I need…” Collar started, then kissed her lightly. “I need your love, Rosewater. Yours, and Cloudy’s and Rosemary’s. It’s not a want anymore. Not for me. I can admit that now. I need all of you in my life. But…”

“It’s hard to let go.”

He kissed her in return, bit her upper lip gently, and smiled a touch lopsidedly. “I need you to push me to let go of that notion that I’ll be letting my ponies down.”

“Because you aren’t,” Rosewater agreed with a brief nod. “You’re living your life. We’ll be showing them that love… is love, Collar. Whether it springs, like your parents, from an intense bond between two, or for us. All of us. And love… is a good thing to share.”

“Sharing, and showing that it can be shared,” Collar murmured, leaning in to kiss her more deeply, letting his tongue brush her lips briefly, then just rested with his lips pressed to hers, their breaths mingling while the pitch of water filling the bathtub changed.

“I love you,” he murmured against her lips.

“And I love you,” she replied, touching her nose to his. “And… we don’t need to make love today, Collar. That was a want of mine.”

“I want to, Rosewater. Stars, I’ve not wanted much more than to let you know that I am committed to you.” What that meant briefly flashed through his mind, pushing aside his worries and doubts with the intensity of lust and love mingled, and he felt his cock stiffen again. “And…”

“I know.” Rosewater turned away to inspect the bathtub, her tail swishing slowly behind her again, a sign, he knew, of contentment. She shut off the spout, the hammered copper pipes groaning as she did, then quieting, leaving only the quiet tick-tick-tick as the copper lining of the wrought iron tub heated. She glanced over her shoulder at him and deliberately flicked her tail aside, one brow raised. “We don’t have to make love now, Collar.”

And yet, he wanted to. He advanced on her, his hooves on the stone floor tapping like drops of water, and ducked his head to nuzzle her buttock. She winked open, shivering, and raised her tail higher.

I want.

He lapped slowly along the outside of her sex, drawing a groan from her, the tip of his tongue briefly flicking up to touch the underside of her dock and nudged it the rest of the way over her back, then to the side, exposing her fully to him.

I want this.

He kissed her clit when it pulsed erect, throbbing under his lips, then lapped under it, catching it briefly with a suckle, drawing it between his lips to bath it slowly, drawing more moaning whimpers from her as she leaned forward, her hooves tapping farther apart as she settled in.

She wants this.

With a firm lick, he parted her folds open and delved deeper with his tongue, tasting her arousal and need directly from the source, feeling her heartbeat and her muscles throbbing around his efforts to push deeper still, to taste the source of her desires and set her to panting and moaning.

His erection stood stiffly against his belly, the head throbbing with the desire, the need for release, and the sight of her, tail curled over her back, tail hairs swaying as she arched her back and scraped her forehooves against the bare stone, drove his want for her higher into a groaning, guttural, “I want to mount you, I want…”

The feeling was primal, a recognition of an ancient sign of wanting to mate, a ritual as old as time. A stallion and a mare, enamoured of each other, needing more, wanting it. But still, his will resisted, waiting… wanting to hear her tell him to do it, to make it between lovers.

“Do it,” Rosewater panted back, her voice higher, needful. “I want you to, Collar. I want you to mount me. Make love to me.”

He reared up, a nicker coming from his throat unbidden, his forelegs clutching at her hips, pulling her back and himself forward. Cock bobbing, he thrust towards her, pressing into the flesh beside her marehood, shuddering at the sudden shock of heat from flesh-on-flesh contact, and pulled back, adjusted, and thrust again, and found her.

Wet heat surrounded his flesh, drowning his senses in an instant wash of pleasure he’d only tasted with Cloudy before, and he groaned as he sank into her easily, his hind legs trembling as he took a step forward, then another, thrusting up into her as he’d never done from standing with Cloudy. He couldn’t thrust all the way in, couldn’t quite…

Rosewater shifted under him, setting her hooves against the edge of the tub and allowing him to grasp around her barrel as he thrust more fully into her.

“Stars, mare,” Collar grunted, hilting himself at last, panting, and trying to keep from exploding from the excitement. His cock wanted to let go, his balls tightened, but he held back. “Contraceptive?”

“Safe,” Rosewater grunted, glancing over her shoulder at him. “I-I want your ch-children, Collar.” The statement made him stiffen further, let his control slip a little more. “But w-when we decide.” She huffed and leaned forward, her hips pulling away from him, forcing him to thrust into her again or slip free, his hooves dancing just behind hers, his forelegs holding her tight to him.

“Taller mares,” Collar grunted, thrusting shallowly up into her and drawing a squeak of surprise. “Stars, taller mares are different.”

“C-careful,” Rosewater panted, throwing a smile over her shoulder. “You might want to try more.”

“I want Rosemary,” Collar groaned, pressing his chin into her shoulder, thrusting up and trying to call an image of the younger mare to mind… but all that did was the mare he was mounting.

“She wants you,” Rosewater answered in a soft pant.

“I want Cloudy.” She came easier to his mind, an image of her from his dream writhing under Rosewater’s attentions while he mounted her, both of them his wives, both of them together with him.

“I want her.” Rosewater’s voice was higher, reedier, and a soft patter of sound underneath them announced her first orgasm, a soft one, a ripple of feeling along his erection that trailed down his shaft, his sheath, and trickled from his balls to plop with soft, wet sounds beneath them. “A-a-and…” Her breath came in a gasping cry as a harder orgasm, or the same one building up, rippled through her.

And over him. He pulled back and thrust up into her, reveling in the drops and drabs of wetness that slid down his cock each time, some his, some hers, and tickled his scrotum. Again, he pulled back, thrust, his hind hooves tapping as he hilted himself deeper, his sheath pressing against her dock, and let go of his control.

His body hummed with energy, pleasure, as the first streamer of come jetted from his cock before he’d even flared fully, and thrust again, barely moving, pushing his hips against her buttocks as she whimpered her pleasure and he felt his loins tighten again as another, smaller spurt trickled into her.

Pleasure like crawling fires over his coat spread over him, and a lassitude that entered his thighs first, then his hind legs, as he backed away, slipping free of her and letting free a small trickle of their combined pleasure to trail down her inner thighs.

The sight stirred him again, and he lapped at her nethers as a muzzy contentedness flowed over his thoughts, the taste barely registering as musky and needy.

Rosewater stood there longer, panting with her head held low, her tail still curled to the side, letting him clean her with tongue and lips, as shudders ran through her body before she slipped one hoof from the edge of the tub, then the other.

“Stars,” she murmured, looking over her back at him. “Tall stallions…”

Collar laughed and pranced to stand even with her, letting his cock flop and drip all over the stone and not caring a bit. He’d made love with his lover. One of his lovers. “Tall mares and tall stallions. Stars, Rosewater… I didn’t last long.”

“Neither did I, silly, and it’s not a race,” Rosewater retorted. “I almost came when you first thrust into me. Stars, when you missed the first time, I almost came. I was riding the edge of pleasure the whole time.”

Collar leaned against her as the lassitude sank deeper, barely reacted when she started licking his muzzle and chin, then startled, smiled, and stopped her with a kiss. “Let it stay until we take a bath.”

Rosewater chuckled. “Another few minutes, then, until the water warms enough to not be chilly.” Still, she licked his chin one more time. “I’m… glad we made love, Collar. Now, rather than later. I didn’t want to let it interfere with our day, feeling the sexual tension rising higher and higher. Now…”

“Today can be relaxing. Even if we do have sex again.”

“More slowly,” Rosewater agreed with a small yawn. “More… intimate. Maybe… we can talk while we have sex.”

“I think you underestimate the allure of your vaginal call,” Collar murmured back, leaning against her and licking his lips. “But… maybe we can talk about… children? I’ve had a short talk with Cloudy, but Rosemary not at all yet.”

“A talk we can all have together,” Rosewater murmured, resting her cheek against his and raising a hoof to test the water again. “All I want right now… is a good soak with you resting against me, letting me hold you while we relax.”

“Together, then, and later,” Collar agreed quietly, and settled in, leaning lighty against her while the tub ticked away and tiny streamers of steam began to rise from the edges of the tub.

It was, all in all, a nearly perfect way to wake up.

Author's Notes:

First making love with Collar and wet dreams. Passion pervades this chapter, but also a soulful talk with dreams of what comes next, and what might.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about D&D and another original work based around a homebrewed Dungeon and Dragons world following a young aasimar woman who finds herself the target of her family's old foe, a cult following a devil. She gets rescued by an old barbarian and decides to follow his path in life and become a barbarian herself (The class, not the cultural type). She'll be an Ancestral Guardian Aasimar Barbarian who has a literal angel of vengeance in her ancestral line. At least in terms of D&D. In the story it'll be referenced with in-world language rather than player's manual lingo. Really enjoying it so far.

My other original work that I've been working on is a pseudo LitRPG based on a future post-post-apocalyptic Earth and follows a young woman who is, unknowingly, the soul-child of a goddess from another world. Reincarnation and past lives figure prominently throughout the story. She's working on a game that, as it shapes itself under an increasingly mysterious influence, becomes more and more familiar.

Book 2, 36. It's in the Cards

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Her hindquarters were getting numb, and Rosewater was certain the cups of her hooves would be wrinkled beyond recognition, both fore and hind, by the time they got out. But Collar was nestled in her embrace, his cheek resting at the base of her neck while most of him was underwater.

Moving wasn’t something she wanted to do right then, not after they’d soaked for the last hour since their frenetic lovemaking had drained both of them. Thoughts of breakfast fizzled and drifted away. He’d fallen asleep at some point during a slow, meandering conversation about where they would have their next outing, when, and whether or not it would be safe to invite Cloudy along.

The conclusion was that inviting Cloudy along would be safer. It would give Collar a reason to be away from the Palace, not alone, but romancing his love out where nopony like Wing or any of his obstinate children or relatives could get to them.

From there, it had meandered around and around what to bring, what dinner would be like, speculation about the weather, and just how big of a tent they would need anyway to house three full-grown ponies who might or might not want to engage in carnal acts.

They’d even toyed with the idea of somehow getting Rosewater to stay overnight at the palace, but the timing would need to be just right, and they would likely need to wait until blizzard season came until they risked such a bold move.

Then, Collar had started to drift after a long fight against post-coital and morning drowsiness, and she had almost joined him in slumber, but her mind kept revolving around the fact that she was in her own home, with her secret lover, holding him to her breast and not wanting to let him go.

Dreams of nights together with all of her loves drifted in and out of her thoughts, thoughts of he and Dazzle, and her between them, having sex for the pleasure of it, and relaxing afterwards into a slower, more intimate and loving round of lovemaking. Dreams of Bliss enticing Collar, and Rosewater and Cloudy urging him on, encouraging him to drink deeply of the love the Garden shared.

Transitory thoughts, wishes for days and nights that might never come, carnal nights that he might not want. But dreams all the same of sharing in the pool of love that she’d rediscovered.

Too, her thoughts wandered farther afield and further into the future, to when Merriedamme was real, when she and her loves sat on the throne and taught ponies to love and respect each other, to be friends above all else.

Her children, their children would grow up in a city without the constant strife and wondering if the next ruler, the next week would see their parents having to fight to keep them and their friends and family safe from ransoms, without having to wonder if their friends’ parents would be captured in a failed raid.

Trying to imagine what they would be like, the fillies and colts that would fill her and her loves’ lives with joy, brought up fuzzy images of Rosemary as a young filly, and Seed beside her causing mischief for her and Carnation.

They would be the same, but without that cloud that had seemed to hover of Carnation in the quiet moments in the night when they lay together in bed, talking with a line of pillows between them—parents without the intimacy, wondering how their daughter would fare in the coming years.

In those pauses in the dark, Rosewater now imagined that Carnation had wanted to tell her, to bring her in on the grand conspiracy to bring down Roseate held in secret between her and Lace. Likely a fancy, but maybe not.

She wouldn’t know, and couldn’t know, until she did end Roseate’s reign and rescinded the orders of exile formally.

That meant having a child of her own to formally claim her heirship as inviolable and concrete as the pilings of the Primrose Bridge.

Collar would be the father, and her precious child would be a bridge of their own, a symbol of unity between two cities, and the two ruling families.

“Stars, I wish you weren’t so,” Rosewater murmured, stroking her hoof down Collar’s side. “I wish, so much, that you could be only you…”

His ear twitched at her voice, and a moment later he stretched his hind legs out, pushing against her, rising up out of the water and lowering the level to below her shoulders.

“I was only half asleep,” Collar murmured when he settled back down, his eyes half-lidded, his hooves braced against the side of the tub to look up at her. “Who do you wish could be themselves?”

Almost, she denied her worries to him, not wanting to break up the perfect morning, but his look, trusting her, loving her, pushed aside the impulse.

“Our child. Our firstborn. They’ll be more than our child, Collar. He or she will be a bridge between our families and our cities.” Rosewater swallowed and looked up at the rafters, resting the back of her head against the tub’s raised lip. “I wish our child didn’t have to be a symbol, Collar. I wish they could be only themselves, free to love and laugh and be a foal, a young adult, an adult, without everypony reading into what their relationships meant, without reading into what each action, whisper, and embrace meant.”

“I know,” Collar murmured. “It was… a part of my reluctance to date you, you know, that it would be for politics. That you needed a child to secure your heirship.” He raised a hoof to touch her chin and stop her from replying. “I know that’s what you need, but I was afraid, when you proposed the path of our ‘negotiations’ that you weren’t doing it for love. I know better, now. I know that if we hadn’t meshed, if we hadn’t, that…”

Rosewater wanted to say it for him, saw the name on the tip of his tongue. She didn’t, barely, waiting for him to work past the conflict in his heart as his gaze darted to her, drifted, and darted back.

“You might have ended up with Dazzle,” he finished softly.

“I might have. He’s a dear friend and lover, and…” Rosewater stroked a hoof over his shoulder.

“You want him to be happy.”

“I do. I worry for him, that he fell in love with me so quickly. I think he’s been waiting to find somepony to settle down with, somepony…”

“Like you. A pony yearning for love and affection, something he had ample to give.” Collar’s voice wasn’t accusatory or judgmental, but musing. “And…”

“He’ll find somepony, or ponies,” Rosewater replied gently. “We four are already a full marriage contract. I want… I still want to be with him when I can, Collar.”

“I want you to.” Collar pushed himself up and nipped her jaw, then rolled away and sat up, facing her, sending a slosh of water over the edge and down the drain. “I’ve been thinking, Rosewater, not just napping.”

“Not napping?” She asked, half-teasing, though it faded after a moment.

“A little napping,” he admitted, touching her foreleg with a gentle hoof, then glancing down at the water, swirled his hoof about in the water, and sighed. “I tried to make my peace with him last night. I’m not sure… that I did. Not all the way. He loves you, Rosewater. Is in love with you, and he’s still struggling, just as I am, with… jealousy. Of his time with you, of the freedom he has to be with you any time he wants.”

“We can be together any night we want, Collar. If we take risks. If… if I took a risk. I won’t risk you here in the open or outside a warded home.” Rosewater crossed her foreleg over his. “Not like we are now. Not without the treaty as a shield for our being together.”

He thought that over, his ears ticking slowly he snake back against the side of the tub to mirror her pose, his hind legs mingling with hers under the sudsy water. “And… the war would go on.”

“It would. Maybe. It depends on what we managed.” Rosewater pushed her crossed hoof ahead to touch his shoulder. “But we would be together. We could fight her together. We could keep Damme safe for our children… and hope Rosary is kinder than mother.”

A slim hope. She uses her own daughter as a spy.

Collar sighed. “Happier things. This is our date, Rosewater. We can talk strategy and the grim future of failure some other day. I want to be happy today. That I’m in love with you. That we’re lovers. That… we’ll someday have children.”

My child. Rosewater swallowed the fresh stab of panic at having her child be in Rosemary’s position, a pawn in a game between mother and daughter. She won’t be. She’ll be a bridge, but she won’t be a pawn.

In the instant after, her thoughts jumbled to a stop. She? Stars, she was already certain what gender her child would be. “I’m… getting lost in thoughts and worries. We… should do something. Play cards? There’s a deck of them I would like you to take to Damme. They’re a family heirloom. After, we can talk about…”

“Growing up?” Collar asked her, smiling and nudging her under the water. “I would like to hear what it was like growing up in the Garden.”

“And I, what it was like growing up with Lace and Dapper for parents.”

“Mmm. Participating in cookie raids with dad was fun. Lace sat us both down and scolded us like children. And I the only child.” Collar laughed softly at her expression. “He hasn’t changed much from how you know him. He’s always been a little wilder. I think…”

Rosewater watched his smile fade. “I think he was afraid that growing up without a sibling would hurt me somehow. And… wanted to make up the difference as much as he could. He never said as such, but some of the things he’s told me lately after one of his talks with Rosemary hinted at it.” The smile came back more. “She and I share that, at least. Only children.”

Rosewater wanted to correct him, but… thinking back, they weren’t at the Garden every day. Only most days. And on frequent occasions, nights. But Carnation wanted to be back home on most nights, and fretted when she wasn’t, and more as Rosewater grew older with Rosemary. More still when Rosewater took more parental duties and let Carnation settle into a role as co-mother, no longer stretching herself so thin.

“Thinking back,” Rosewater murmured. “I think… she really was, in many ways. I think it made her want to reach out more. Something to talk to her about. I don’t know if she ever felt that way. Or knew how to express it. Until I turned into a recluse.”

Collar coughed and nipped her cheek. “She calls Seed a brother. That’s family.”

“She does. And she has other semi-siblings in the Garden, too. Other ponies the same age as her that she grew up with.” Maybe… she wasn’t as alone as I worried. Her thoughts started to drift away towards her father, wondering if… No. Stop. Rosewater shook her head and snapped her attention back to Collar. “We need to do something.”

Collar’s worried look didn’t help. “Rosewater, if…” he reached out, gathering up her other forehoof and bringing it to his lips. “If there’s anything I can do to help. Please, I want to.”

Share it. Tell him. She opened her mouth to do just that, stopped herself, and drew the pain and the anguish back into its box. It was too personal. She’d not even told Dazzle. Not Seed, nor Petal, nor Rosemary. Not even Carnation. His death… how…

It was easy to put the lid back on the box and tuck it back away into the farthest reaches of her psyche. She had enough practice, and more lately. Even if the box spilled over more often of late. She could keep it up.

“Rosewater?” Collar’s eyes searched hers, his ears nearly flat. “Stars, mare… I’ve never seen you look so sad. What…” His ears flicked, and a dawning look of comprehension flashed across his expression. “Your—”

“Don’t. Please.” Rosewater stopped him before he could open the box again. “Please, let me keep… keep this…” She drew a shuddering breath and slammed shut that part of her mind. “It’s a long story,” she said more evenly, steadily. “Best saved for a rainy day.”

He clutched her foreleg more tightly to his chin, watching her for long breaths, then nodded and let go. “I will hold you to that, Rosewater. Cloudy, and Rosemary, have told me about sharing. Not love alone, but support. It’s a… core part of even a Dammer relationship. Relying on each other. It’s even more central for your culture.”

“I… I know.” It was something she’d pushed aside for so long. “But not today. Please. I want today to be happy, Collar. We can make pancakes for breakfast, and play Petals together, and…” Go for a walk. Stare at the clouds and be lazy. “Stars, I want to just be outside with you, Collar. I want to be unrestrained. I want… all of us. I’ll… I’ll share when we’re all together. When we all have an afternoon together.”

Collar fixed her with a firm look, nodded, and nipped her ankle. “I will hold you to that, Rosewater. You need to let go of whatever is causing you so much anguish, and we can help.”

“I… I know, Collar. But this morning,” she tapped his chest. “This morning is for us. This afternoon, and evening, too,” she went on when he started to object. “Collar, day after tomorrow, I’ll be at the palace for negotiations. I’ll share then.”

A scrabbling, fearful part of her brain tried to tell her they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand why she’d kept it secret for so long, or why it hurt so much.

He studied her for another moment, nodded, and leaned forward to kiss her, whispering as his lips touched hers, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered back. It was enough to push back the fears. Love meant something. It had weight and meaning in her mind. Solidity that she needed.

She wrapped herself around it, bracing herself against the fears that wanted to invade, even on a day like today. They loved her. They would understand.

“I didn’t think a pony’s frog could wrinkle quite so much,” Collar murmured nearly an hour later, mostly dry and laying out on a couch in a room Rosewater had introduced as the music room, an upstairs, sprawling portion of the attic that was clean, well-ordered… and had no musical instruments visible. Only the breadth of the floor hinted that maybe this had been a dance floor.

Though, an upstairs dance made him nervous, regardless of how well-braced the floor was, and it felt extremely solid, as if it’d been laid out directly on stone.

She was… calmer, more collected than she had been before they’d set about cleaning each other in earnest. Whatever it was she was hiding, she’d kept it hidden for almost three decades. Perhaps from everypony.

Does Rosemary know? Does Seed? Did Carnation?

But she seemed bound and determined to keep it secret for at least two more days, and focus on finding a deck of playing cards she insisted needed to be protected and made safe in Prim Palace. “How long were we in the bath?”

“At least two hours,” Rosewater said, shifting about a trunk with a spell, then flipping the lid up. “Where are you…”

“Why this deck of playing cards?” Collar heaved himself up, tested the play of his hoof, found the floor feeling odd, with the strangely textured floor covering tickling a part of him he usually barely paid attention to. “I saw a deck of paper cards on the sitting room table.”

“These are great aunt Rosefire’s deck of Petals cards. They were… for private parties, and they’ve been in her family for generations.” The grin she gave him told him just what kind of private parties they were for. “I want to give them to you so we can play them with Cloudy and Rosemary later.”

“Why not us together?” Collar asked, his ears perking up. “We can play a hoof today. Or two. Or three.” Anything to fill the time and talk. Something safe to do. More and more, he wished they’d had the freedom to go someplace else without the risk of discovery. Or at least more time to plan. But…

Today was important. They’d already consummated their relationship, and… with that… existed the future of their marriage. Children. Her ascension to the seat of Merrie. No matter how hard he tried to avoid the latter, it was a real consequence and boon to their union. Or would be.

“They’re… hm. One moment. They came with a warning not to play with less than three ponies. But the ruleset isn’t the one common to the Garden and its Petal Nights. It’s an old variant of the game from Rosewine Rosethorn’s time.”

“And we’re looking up here, because…?” Collar feigned a sneeze. “It’s dusty.”

Rosewater paused in her rummaging to stare at him over her shoulder. “Dusty. Collar, there isn’t a speck of dust up here. I cleaned yesterday.”

“Attics are dusty. This is a well known fact, and this is an attic, regardless of whether you call it the music room.” He stuck his tongue out at her. “I win. By definition.”

“I won’t concede.” Rosewater chuckled and pulled out a lute, a violin case, a horn, and two small drums from the trunk, hefting each one up and showing him, then setting it down deliberately. “It is the music room because, when this was a house filled with family, music was played up here.” She went back to rummaging in the trunk, briefly lifting up other instruments or what he thought were instruments, and either setting them aside or placing them back in the box. “And it was also the card parlor.”

“Because it’s the biggest room in the mansion?”

“Because of that, yes. It used to be an aerie for the pegasi that lived here, but Aunt Rosefire’s mother had it remodeled to be more comfortable for friends and family when they visited.”

A stack of books, then another, and another came out and, curious, Collar called one over to him. Lover’s Cove by Terrace Roseby. A simple title for a thick book. He flipped through a few pages while Rosewater continued to mutter and grumble, and even more stacks of books joined the first three.

It was the story of how a Canterlot bound ship, full of Merriers and Dammers alike going to pay a visit to the capitol, had gotten shipwrecked, and the survivors, four Merriers, and four Dammers, had to survive on a deserted island. The first few pages were little more than a summary of what had happened in the prior book. They’d set up a miniature replica of the cities, with the Merriers on one side, with a goodly supply of fresh water, and the Dammers on the other side, with an even better supply of wild, edible plants.

“Was this very popular in Merrie?” Collar asked, floating the book over to her. “I’ve never heard of it. Or the author.”

Rosewater paused in her search to look, brows rising. “Stars, I haven’t read this since I was fourteen.” She flipped to the back, frowned, and dug around in the piles of books until she found two more. “Here. It’s a trilogy. Lovers’ Voyage, Lovers’ Cove, and Lovers’ Rescue. I think you might like them. It’s set almost a hundred years ago, so… no Reformations.”

“And we were raiding just as often as you were,” Collar said with a sigh. “It’s curious, then, that such a book would be written. Let alone published and, apparently… typeset?”

“It was written when your mother enacted the Reformations, and published out of Canterlot. It’s a series about hope, Collar. For the future and what it meant. While Roseline and my father were still alive.” Rosewater ducked her head back into the trunk with an alacrity that alarmed him. “It gave me hope, as a teenager.”

Collar set all three at his side. “I’ll give them a read, then. I’ve been looking for something to surprise Cloudy with. I don’t know if she’s read these. She’s never mentioned them at least.”

Rosewater let out a squeak and hopped back, a thick deck of thin, hoof-lacquered, copper cards, the case they’d come in settled on the top of the trunk as she closed it. “Ah! Here they are!”

“Stars, copper cards, Rosewater? What in the world?”

“Well, these are… enchanted cards. Of a sort. The enchantment is passive, but… subtle.” She pulled one free and tapped it against her hoof, making it sing briefly, sending a shiver across Collar’s skin. Magic hummed in the sound, but not the magic that was at its core.

“They’re… they enhance desire,” Rosewater explained, hesitant again. “Activated by either body heat or spell, they… encourage what a pony is feeling. What they want.”

“An enticement spell?” Collar asked, watching her from a short distance away, his instinctual distrust of enticement and lure spells running into the trust he’d built up for her intentions. He’d come to know her well enough by now— By now? Stars, you’re in love with her. You know she wouldn’t do that to you. Not when she only had to ask, and he’d be eager for her.

He heaved himself up and tucked his reservations away and came down to sit by her, leaning into her shoulder and studying the back of the card. Shiny lacquer covered etchings in the copper, some of the lines filled in with gemstone dusted paint of some sort in a pattern pleasing to the eye… and a faint radiance that didn’t seem to be coming from any of the few streamers of sunlight breaking through the curtains to light the music room.

“They’re… I…” Rosewater cleared her throat. “They’re safe for occasional use, but, like many things in Merrie, overuse might lead to reliance. They’re active right now, but since we’re not… looking at the paintings on them, our desires are…”

“To be with you, right now,” Collar murmured, nuzzling her cheek. “Show me.”

She flipped over the top card, and Collar found himself looking at an intricately detailed painting, a green-coated stallion lounging on four cushions shaped like hearts with an erection, and a dappled one at that, laying across one of smaller pillows, a thin tracery of pearl inlay trailed from the tip down to pool on the ‘floor’ of bare copper. Behind it, the same traceries of etchings in the metal betrayed their permanent spell. Weak with so little gemstone.

“Well.” The stirring in Collar’s sheath surprised him. No doubt the earth pony stallion was well-built, and his penis was exceptionally fine, even if it was an artist’s rendition of a statuesque pony. What about you… He blinked, chuckled, and kissed her cheek.

She stirred next to him at the movement, a heat spreading from her shoulder to his. “Do you feel anything?”

For a moment, Collar paused with his mouth open to deny it, then shook his head. “No, not particularly.” Something about the open way the stallion lay, inviting all eyes to stare, did wake something. That could be me. “The style of painting. Neoclassical realism?”

Rosewater gave him a sharp look, chuckled, and nodded. “They were, I understand, commissioned by Aunt Rosefire’s great-great-great grandmother to celebrate the founding of the Garden of Love. And, well, the ending of the threat of civil war. Which, I imagine, is the reason she gave for ordering them made.”

“It was meant for orgies.” For a moment, Collar’s mind descended to the level of ponies rutting with no rhyme or reason before a more recent orgy surfaced. A measured affair, planned and coordinated, not a riot of sex and rutting, but a time for making love between friends and spouses. “Like the one you and Cloudy attended. Dinner, a story, and sex.”

“Orderly, yes. Games played and enjoyed with friends, lovers, and spouses.” Rosewater flipped to another card, this one of a mare on her back, her two hind hooves supporting a string of six roses, with a seventh painted in where her anus would be. Her forehooves were clutched over her hips, opening herself to the viewer, inviting a closer look.

This card did stir him more, and he shifted as his sack tightened and he felt a rising tension growing in his sheath that he kept a lid on for the moment.

It was… more than he was used to seeing in a painted piece. He licked his lips. “They weren’t… shy about painting sexual scenes on these cards.” He could have kicked himself for saying something so obvious, but she only giggled and leaned against him.

“They’re meant to be fascinating. You can find these in card parlors around the city, but they’ll charge a hoof and a hindquarter to play with them. A single replacement card costs forty bits.” She tapped the edge of the card lightly against her horn, making the metal sing briefly again, higher pitched. “These…”

Collar whistled, staring at these antiques and tried not to think about how much such an artifact from almost two hundred years ago would be valued. They were priceless, in point of fact, he knew. Memories of a time long past. Even new ones needed the expertise in metalworking to make flat cards, nearly of a mirrored surface, and the know-how to etch a spell into copper.

He imagined whatever guild owned the patent on the process guarded the secret jealously. He turned over the next card more gingerly than he probably would have in any other situation, and nearly dropped it. After a moment, he started laughing. “Celestia’s teats, what a card.”

Rosewater chuckled. “That they are.” Princess Celestia lay regally on golden cushions… her hind leg raised to show off pink teats and the hint of a pink marehood. Her expression was amused, her ears perked, and her ethereal mane that he’d never actually seen up close, almost leapt out of the drawing.

“They really did that? Painted the Princess?” He waggled the card back and forth, his brows rising as the mane shifted and sparkled. “Did… they paint her mane with gemstones?”

“The family legend, as Carnation related to me when I found the deck… and found me masturbating to this very card, is that Celestia herself posed for the card, and that she found such a thing amusing rather than scandalous.” Rosewater’s eyes darted to his, then back to the card. “I… had more than one fantasy of laying with her after.”

“I suppose, having lived for most of recorded history, something like a salacious painting would be a welcome diversion from the humdrum of running a country.” Collar returned the card to the back of the deck, a thrill of the forbidden running up his spine. “Did she lay with any of the Garden ponies?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Rosewater said with a shrug. “She has had children in the past. My father…” Rosewater held up her hoof, tilting it so the creased cleft in the fore of it was more prominent. “Might have been one of her descendants. If you look close…” She drew the card back out, humming to herself as she tilted it this way and that. “There, look.”

“Are you sure that’s not…” But it was too close to Rosewater’s hoof, even at the relatively tiny scale of the painting. A deeper, darker cleft, but in the same place as it was on Rosewater’s hoof. “Or from the same stock she came from?”

Rosewater shrugged. “I have nothing but speculation, and have had no chance to ask her.” She replaced the card. “I’m not sure if I would if I did.”

“Well, already I’m learning more about your family…” Collar settled in against her and nodded at the case they cards had come from. “What’s the last piece there?”

In a separate slot in the wooden case, a larger, thicker plate of copper stood out, the edge high enough for teeth to catch it if needed.

“The rules of this variant of Petals,” Rosewater murmured, her cheeks flushed. “They’re… explicit.”

“Big surprise,” Collar snorted, turning over another card and finding a mare and a stallion engaged in oral together, his cock far enough into her mouth to almost be in her throat, and his tongue deep into her vagina. “What’s this?” He couldn’t keep his arousal lidded anymore, and let it slip free, dangling limp almost to the floor yet, but stars… the detail on the cards was incredible. He doubted any parlor card could match the artistry of these.

He could almost hear and smell the sexual…

Ours. The cards were enhancing their desires. They… they were gently pushing both of them to what the paintings inspired in them. Collar swallowed. He’d known, and accepted, and even wanted to be pushed, but the subtlety of it, combined with imagery that would already make him dream of laying with even Princess Celestia…

“I… can see why you gave me a warning preamble before showing them to me,” Collar murmured, his belly flexing as more want washed over him. Entirely his own this time, he was certain. He wanted to see more, to be pushed more. He wanted to make love to Rosewater again, try out the position on the card. “Stars… I can’t tell what’s mine and what’s the card.”

“It’s all yours. Simply… pushed. Like the Longest Lust scent I made for Cloudy.”

“That’s… stars…” He didn’t want to turn away from his own desires. He swallowed again, glanced at the worry in her eyes, and kissed her cheek. The worry, the instinctive push against enticements, he pushed aside. He was with a pony for whom enticements were… a part of how she made love. Enhanced it. It was, for her… flirting. Another Merrier would likely recognize it for what it was immediately. “What card is that?”

“The Lovers. They’re a wildcard in the suit on the card. They can be anything from Lord or Lady to a two.” Rosewater kissed his cheek, raising a hoof and dipping it between his legs to stroke his belly just above his sheath. “The rules say if a pony draws two of them, they can give the other to another and re-enact the display.”

Swelling in his sheath, his cock and balls told him to draw another card and see if it would come to be. “Have you ever drawn two?”

“I have.” Rosewater’s hoof paused on his belly, then drifted lower, trailing over the rim of his sheath, barely brushing against his stiffening flesh. “Do you want to hear the story?”

Do I want to hear how you’ve made love with other ponies? The question wasn’t simply a question, but asking him if he was comfortable with that aspect of sharing in Merrie. “Cloudy told me how you, um… toyed with Rosie Bliss. How you tasted. How… how…” he shuddered as his shaft slipped free and touched her hoof, the cool, smooth rim of the cup planted over his head. “She made love to Rosemary.”

Collar flipped over the next card. It took him a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, nearly all of his attention farther down, where a warm band of magic had wrapped around his shaft, cupped his scrotum, and was rolling his testes back and forth slowly.

On the card was a mare crouched with her hindquarters in the air, her forelegs straight in front of her, looking back at him while a spell pulled her outer lips apart. In her puckered anus, a jewel rested, shaped like a star.

“The ace of stars,” Rosewater murmured, rubbing her cheek along his neck while her spells continued toying with him. “Trading it for a stallion with an erection… the giver can request anal sex. Or…” Rosewater’s spell left him and swirled in front of him to form an appreciable copy of his own cock. “A mare with a mist fae spell on the card.”

Collar’s cock twitched, and his anus puckered at the thought of her using a spell to penetrate him. “I’ve… never asked Cloudy if she would like anal. I’ve… all the Dammeguards banter stories about anal, both giving and receiving. Barracks bragging and passing ‘stories’ Merrieguards have teased them with. I’ve heard enough stories, myself.”

“Ponies will be ponies,” Rosewater said, leaning against him and letting the cock disappear. Her spell didn’t return to his shaft, but her hoof kept rolling slow, gentle circles over his belly, her ankle brushing his erection now and again. “The game… it’s best played with at fewest three ponies, and at most six. But it can be played with two. If you don’t mind the game descending into sex before too long.”

“Maybe later?” Collar replied, arching his back into a stretch, groaning, and standing to walk a short circle around the carpet, watching her watch him, her eyes straying along his body and the coat on her hindquarters twitching whenever her eyes danced across his backside or dangling shaft. “I love being intimate with you, but…”

“But…” Rosewater stood, her tail flicking aside, and sighed. “Stars, I wish I’d had more time to plan. All the board games and… and even most of the books I have left here are either dry dissertations on philosophy or…”

“They’re also sexual in nature?” Collar guessed, grinning.

“They can be,” she shot back, her ears flattening defensively, then she laughed. “Stars. They’re from when I was a far more sexually active young mare. Most of Rosemary’s have migrated to her rooms in Prim Palace. Some of them are nothing but collections of sex scenes masquerading as instructional guides for how to make love in this position or that position.”

Collar’s interest flared, and he glanced at the cards, felt their magic again tickling his fancy. Or is it the cards? I want to make love to her again. What he was interpreting as the cards may have only been his natural want.

“I do have a regular pack of Petals cards,” she said, following his gaze. “If you want to play. But I wanted you to take these back to Prim Palace to give to Rosemary for safekeeping.” She slipped the cards back into the wooden case and tapped the cover back in place, the cork seal around its lip fitting snugly. “For the four of us to play later.”

Collar’s eyes lingered on the case, feeling his arousal linger and grow at the thought of all four of them playing with cards that aroused their desires. What would one game today hurt?

“You don’t want to take them to the garden?” Collar pulled his eyes away with an effort, stretched his hind legs, then his fore, and watched Rosewater’s attention follow the sway of his erection. “I thought… I mean, Dazzle would like to play with you, I’m sure.”

To his surprise, Rosewater’s cheeks flushed darker and her tail lashed, then arched and fell to cover herself again. “We… I mean… yes, the garden has a deck already. A special deck. It’s repainted every generation with the members of the garden. I haven’t played on it yet, but I have played Petals with him. And Bliss.” Rosewater raised the deck of cards and pushed them gently at him. “I’d rather Roseate never even know of these. They’re… an heirloom.”

Collar’s ears perked. “I understand that, then.” He licked his lips and glanced at the deck agan, then back to her. “There’s… cards with you? With you posed on them?”

“Not me,” Rosewater murmured, glancing away. “But Petal… Or Seed. I’m sure they’re going to ask me to, now that I’m returned.”

A sudden desire rose up in Collar, and his cock rose to slap his belly, swell, and bob stiffly. The Lovers. He could pose with Rosewater, could feel her mouth over his cock, he could be painted in that pose while he was tongue deep, or deeper, in her. Or… if there were other poses, he could mount her, or lay under her, or…

Positions and angles, ideas and images of him playing Cards with her image staring back at him while she winked at him in the real, maybe… with a card of him with his cock erect. Upside down, with a trail of precome to his chest, or on his side, exposing himself with one leg up.

A shiver went down his spine at having that be public, or as public as it ever would be, and know that other ponies were playing and using his image to trade or cheat for sexual favors. Even the idea of mounting Rosewater while Rosemary and Cloudy watched sent a shiver across his coat, down his hind legs and back up.

“That’s some fantasy,” Rosewater murmured, ducking her head to plant a kiss to the side of his erection. “Thinking about playing cards, with our own images staring back at us?”

Collar startled, his shaft stiffening more, the head flaring as precome beaded at the tip, dripped… only to be caught by her tongue, followed by her lips sealing over the flattened tip, her tongue teasing the rim of his cock “Stars. Yes… and more…” His hips bucked, but he managed to restrain himself long enough for her to pull back to kiss the side of his cock instead. “Rosemary. Cloudy. Us.” He could almost feel their kisses on his flesh, encouraging him to mount her, wanting him to mount her.

“More?” Rosewater purred, her voice humming against his flesh where her lips touched. “Must I guess, Collar?” When he didn’t answer immediately, lost in the feeling for a moment, she went on. “Perhaps… I as the Ace of Stars, and I trading myself to you for…” her lips and tongue caressed his flesh again, and his hind legs buckled as he tried to sit down and let her, decided to lay down on his side instead.

“Rosewater…” Collar panted. His upper hind leg rose of its own accord, exposing his belly and his cock, his tight scrotum, the flared head, taut medial ring, and for a moment it wasn’t him looking at himself, but from another’s perspective, a room with a crowd of friends all wanting to engage with him, with her, to touch and taste both of them. He rolled to his back, letting his hind legs fall open before the phantom crowd. “Stars.”

“Hmmm.” Rosewater followed him down, kissing his barrel and laying her cheek and ear against his ribcage. “Not the ace. An orgy.” Her eyes lit as she rose again and stepped over him, straddling his body so all he had to do was look down to see the pinkish expanse of her belly, the two ruddy teats standing out against the sparse white hairs covering the supple flesh between her thighs. “With ponies all around us.”

Mist swirled slowly into vague forms of ponies, faces and forms slowly taking shape as she worked her mist faerie spells into the moisture of the air. Cloudy sat by his head, her expression delighted, and wickedly so. Rosemary sat beside her, nibbling at her lover’s cheek.

She stopped there, her eyes troubled, her ears flattening and her coat shivering, and the rest of the mist dissipated as she arched her neck and shivered. “Stars… their pull…”

The cards? Her? Rosemary and Cloudy?

“Is this okay, Collar?” Rosewater asked more softly, gently. “Please tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable.”

Confused for a moment at the sudden shift in tone, Collar drifted back to the present and nodded. As he did, some of the fog of desire left him, leaving him calmer, more rational, and a heat that had suffused his coat and skin… faded. He shivered. “I… got caught in a fantasy.”

“Easy to do, with those cards,” Rosewater murmured, nuzzling his cheek. She still stood over him, her tail arched over her back, and a slow drip-drip-drip of mare’s precome pattered onto his sheath. More stained her inner thighs. “Tell me what you want.”

With Rosewater, his love, whispering in his ear, it was hard to suggest that they had such an effect on him when she was so incredibly more potent an encouragement, standing as she was, and laying as he was. But… rational thought crept back in, and cues and suggestions came to him again, reminding him of the moment they’d started.

Holding each of the cards. The lovers’ card especially, had excited an urge in him to explore more, and he had. Every moment after, he realized that he’d been drawn further and further down a path that he wanted to go, and so had she.

When he didn’t speak for a long moment, staring at the sealed deck, she shifted, moving away from standing over him, her expression more troubled still, and her ears almost invisibly flat to her skull.

“Wait,” Collar raised a hind leg to catch her flank and guide her back to over him. “Wait, please. It may have been the cards to start, my love, but you were right. It did only enhance what I wanted. I want to love you, Rosewater, and to make love to you.”

“Now?” Rosewater asked, her tail hiking briefly, then lowering.

“Now,” Collar replied gently. “You warned me. I accepted the risk, Rosewater, because I wanted to experience… I want to experience this with you. I want to have fun with you with cards, and Petals, and foreplay.” He raised a hoof to press against her breast, stroking slowly over the sensitive heart mark and sending shivers through her. “If I could… I think I’d like to wake up every day like this.”

Rosewater laughed softly. “They’re not for day-to-day play, because they can be addictive to use,” Rosewater added, her tail hitching up again, her smile coming back, then fading, and coming back again as she warred with herself over wanting what she’d guided them to. What he’d accepted her guidance to. “I want to make love to you, too, but I don’t want that to be our entire first day together.”

“Nor do I, and I’m finding that most things in Merrie society can be addictive, if consumed in too great a quantity. But the occasional indulgence, especially when something is so new, isn’t a bad thing, is it?” Collar reached up with his forehooves and a spell and gently coerced her to settle down atop him. Not inside her, but crouched over his belly, her heat close to his sheath, her tail hairs brushing slowly over his dock, over his sensitive scrotal skin. His cock rose to press against her marehood, then relaxed.

“No, no it… it can be good. Great,” Rosewater breathed, her breath shuddering as she closed her eyes, reaction thrumming through her and into him. Warm wetness spread slowly as her clit winked and strained and relaxed, her body shivering. “But too much of a good thing… stars, I want this, Collar. Too much?”

“No.” Collar slid his hoof up her neck slowly, feeling her pulse under its cup, to her cheek, drawing her eyes to his. “Not too much. This is new and wondrous to me, Rosewater. Loving you. Making love to you. I want to indulge myself with you.”

“I… I want this, Collar. Not… rushed and frantic like our first. I want…” She shivered and slid backward, her marehood parting around his cock, over his sheath, and trailing over the bare skin at its base, her clit dragging along his flesh and drawing a shiver from her that sank into him and set fires along his limbs, numbing them and spreading need further. Then forward, drawing more shivers, more want from him, and coating his shaft to the head with her own silken desire. “I want to make this slow, Collar. I want to… experience love with you without the frenetic lust.”

“I want that,” Collar murmured, raising his other hoof up to cup her cheeks and guide her down for a slow kiss, encouraging her to lean forward, to give him that opening as his cock stiffened and pressed against the mound of her sex. Collar shifted his hips, pulling back until his head was under her opening, a shudder running through him with every agonizingly pleasurable moment of parting her soft, supple lips.

Their lips met, the kiss deepened… and he slipped into her without any fuss. A groan of pleasure escaped his lips and her breath caught briefly as they parted, a shiver running over her and sank in slowly, savoring the slow fire crawling along his loins, savoring the way her neck arched, her mouth opened, and her forelegs quivered.

He shuddered as his sensitive medial ring passed her lips, and feeling her response all around him as her back arched, her head lowered, and her forehooves danced backwards as she lowered herself all the way onto him, taking him to the base of his sheath.

There, she stayed for long, heavy breaths, their world frozen in a moment of passion and heat. Beside him, the image of Cloudy bent to brush his mane aside, then kissed his forehead. And vanished.

Rosemary remained a moment longer, her eyes locked on his, her lips parting and her tongue running along her lips as if the image wanted to kiss him, but couldn’t.

A moment later, the magic Rosewater had infused into her vanished as well, leaving him and her alone in an attic, joined for the second time that day in carnal bliss.

They made love there on the floor, slow and passionate, her voice and his rising and falling in softer waves as she controlled the pace, showed him how much she enjoyed the supple rise, the slow fall.

And he tried to show her how much he enjoyed it, rising with her as she came up, slower, and controlling his descent, almost slipping free, his flaring head pulling at her outer lips, cool air kissing his flesh before she descended again and drew a new groan from him. It was an exercise in restraint, but the reward…

When she came, it wasn’t explosive or sudden, but a tide rising in minutely tighter and tighter contractions around his entire shaft announced with a sudden wetness around him that spurred him to thrust up into her once, again, then hold as his whole body clenched, and for the second time that morning, he came.

Less forcefully, and with less seed, but it was no less a blissful end than their first, frenetic mating, if more peaceful, with more pauses to share kisses and nuzzles, to whisper about where Rosemary or Cloudy would be in this position, exciting them to laughter and brief spasms of pleasure.

After, they lay together, murmuring about dreams for the future and what they would do for the rest of the day.

Throughout it all, the cards that had spurred the encounter lay a hoof’s length away from both of them, the gilded carving in its face seeming to glint contentedly, its purpose spent for the moment.

He understood it, then, or thought he did. The glow of post-coital bliss fogged his thoughts, but… it wasn’t evil. His instinctual distrust of such magic felt… diminished. Not gone, but more discerning. They were no more than the scents that told him Cloudy wanted him to make love to her slow and passionately.

It was a tool, and while Rosewater had underestimated how potent it was, it was a tool that they could use to enhance their experience with sex. So long as they used it carefully.

He wanted this. He wanted to make love to the ponies that made his life brighter for their being in it. He wanted to hear them cry out, feel them shiver at the pleasure he could give them, and bask in the glow of the pleasure they gave in return.

And, as the glow subdued his thoughts, dreams of more, of family and days stretching out into the future flitted through his mine. Vague warm days of sun and grass and trees, snow and warm fires, warm, mulled wine and chilled, tart Dammerale.

Children that pranced and played and called out ‘Watch me, daddy! Mommies! Watch!’

Children that didn’t need to worry what would happen to their parents tomorrow night.

Children with wings and horns. Children that looked like him and Cloudy and Rosewater and Rosemary. Children that would see peace in a city of love, where love was free to be whatever it wanted to be. Tussen Twee, or Principes, or something else. Something new and exciting. A place where love could be explored in all its facets and rainbows of color.

It was, he decided, a dream worthy of making real, and one he would work for every day of his life.

“I love you,” Collar whispered yet again, reaching up to brush her forelock away from her eyes. Golden and pink, lidded and shaded until they were almost purple and orange, her eyes met his.

“I love you.”

She settled down beside him, her cheek across the broad side of his neck, and closed her eyes. Cleaning, it seemed, could wait for a short nap.

It was, Collar decided, a good morning, and he covered Rosewater’s shoulder with a hoof and held her close while he dreamt his beautiful dream.

Book 2, 37. Glimpses of the Past

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“I’m starving,” Rosewater muttered. They’d cleaned up again, not with a full bath, and the scent of sex pervaded the house. For the first time in nearly two months, another’s beside her own solo masturbations greeted her with every breath. She could have eliminated the odor easily, but… it filled the space with more than emptiness and made it feel more…

Full.

The house was full of life again. Hers and Collar’s, and lunch, since breakfast had been skipped, was breakfast. Or what had been planned for breakfast. Strips of carrot seared in the olive oil, pancakes piled higher than she’d had in nearly a decade, and a rich maple syrup that she’d had to buy from a trader who’d claimed the bottle came all the way from the eastern edge of the continent near a place called Horseton.

Collar was preparing something he called ‘Eggs benedict’, a new word for her and a new look to what she usually passed over for breakfast, smelled heavenly. A surprise for something originating from Damme. Supposedly.

“Just another minute. The sauce is almost ready.” He flashed a grin at her over his shoulder, his expression clearer than it had been that morning, when they’d first made love. She’d been worried that they’d made the jump too soon, and the second time just a few hours later was…

It was beautiful. Even with her brief panic attack that the Cards were pushing Collar to do something he wouldn’t normally, and maybe wouldn’t want… making love to him so slow and passionately had filled her heart and mind with dreams of what might be. Their quartet of loves, their children, their ponies living in harmony with each other.

It can be that. It was what she’d hoped for when she’d first made her foolish, foalish plans for attracting his attention, as if she’d forgotten all about social niceties in her six years of near solitude. They were coming back to her. What it meant to love, to have a lover. What it meant to have hope for a future she dreamt of.

“I… I want to talk about…” Rosewater cleared her throat and prodded at the pile of fluffy pancakes, and renewed the spell on the plates keeping them warm. “Children. Ours. The future.”

Collar glanced over his shoulder at her, an ear cocked, and nodded. “I do, too. But we can’t talk much about that without Cloudy and Rosemary also here. It’s a group decision.”

“It is.” She was already half-certain that Cloudy wanted her to go first. Little hints in their conversation. Her worry about being a good mother. Her worry about being a mother when, as she’d known most of her life she liked mares, she’d decided she likely wouldn’t be one. But… it wasn’t Rosewater’s place to speak for her. “We can talk about the gala.”

Collar paused, then turned around and finished whisking the light golden sauce. “We can talk about the gala. That… worries me more than the Commoner’s Gala. It won’t be gossip Wing and Roseate are hearing. It will be right before their eyes.”

He tapped the whisk and poured gold on top of the white, fluffy eggs, sprinkled parsley on it, and sat two plates on the table. A full course brunch. “Enjoy, Rosewater. This is… mother said it came from a Saddle Arabian ally some sixty years ago. This is a pancake variant.”

“And the carrots you had me sear?” Rosewater asked, lifting up the edge of the fluffy white egg. She cut into it with a knife, sniffed it so her muzzle marks glowed, and chuckled. “That’s where the cayenne went.”

“It adds a bit of bite to the crunch, otherwise the carrot can be bland. It’s very good.” He winked and sat down beside her. “Your fluffy pancakes gave me the idea, and it’s been quite a long while since I’ve had them. And never so flavorful to nose and tongue.”

“We… like to liven our spices.” She took a bite, crunched through the thin, crispy carrot, the light, fluffy sweet pancake, and let the sauce flow over her tongue, interrupted only by the light fluffiness of the egg white. “Stars…” she murmured around the mouthful. “It’s so… is that…” she knew all the ingredients, she’d smelled them all, but together, they brought out an entirely different flavor profile. Lemon juice and cayenne wasn’t something she’d have thought would go well. They were so at odds with each other scent-wise. And the light mustard powder…

She hadn’t even known she had any left, but in its cork-stoppered glass bottle, it had kept well for at least the year she’d had it hidden away.

“The egg yolk helps bind it all together. Or so I’m told. I’m just following the recipe mother has in the kitchens.” Collar tucked into his breakfast and practically melted as he chewed the first bite. “But… the spices from Merrie…”

“I can send you home with what’s let in my kitchen,” Rosewater said around her second bite. “There’s not much left, to be honest.”

“That was the last of the cayenne, and the last of the pepper is on the carrots.” Collar gave her an apologetic smile.

For a few minutes, the clatter of fork and knife filled the kitchen while Rosewater catalogued what was left in her mind, checking the cupboards with spells between bites while Collar watched her and ate.

“Other than what Dazzle and I bought, there’s nothing perishable left.”

“Rosewater, just eat,” Collar said gently, closing the latest cupboard. “Relax and worry about your cupboards later. We have time to decide what to do with the spices.” He grinned as he speared the next chunk of pancake. “But Cloudy and Rosemary would likely jump at the chance for Merrie spices. It’s subtle, but there is a difference in the scent profile at least.”

Rosewater pushed her thoughts away from planning again, sighed, and settled back in to eat.

“I want to kiss you at the Gala,” Collar said after another few bites and a fresh drizzle of syrup on his remaining pancake.

Panic froze her thoughts for long seconds. Roseate would see. She would see and she would… She can’t take him. Chills like a summer frost ran over her skin, hot and cold, too intense to keep from showing.

“I know.” Collar scooted closer and leaned into her, sharing his warmth through the contact, his solidity, and the surety that he was not going to be taken from her. He took another bite, slower, and stared at the breakfast nook window and the sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains. “It’s a risk, Rosewater, but we’re going to need to take risks, and I’ve been thinking about it since… our second date, if I’m being honest, even if I didn’t know what I was really considering.”

“I want to kiss you, too. I want them to know.” Rosewater pushed back the fear in her heart, pushed it back into the box with her father and the reaching claws of the monster that told her she couldn’t have anything worth loving; the monster that wore her mothers’ face. “Let’s do it, Collar. It will be the next big step, but Lace said we would need to show our ponies a progression. The Gala is in three weeks. What do we need to do to make it to that point? Where wondering about our relationship is the gossip of both cities? What…”

It would be provoking her mother. Stars, it would be jabbing an ursa major with a sharpened stick and daring it not to react. And she would. Maybe not in the open, but she had loyal daughters, and enough leverage, to…

“You’re going to be okay,” Collar murmured, setting his hoof to her shoulder and rocking her gently side-to-side, breaking her out of her spiral. “I promise you. You have ponies who will stand with you, Rosewater, if you stand with them.”

Briefly, annoyance flared, then fell, and she sighed. “I know. I’m going to stand, Collar. I won’t let her be the monster under my bed any longer. I… I just don’t know what she’s going to do.” She might try to take you again. Horror rose up in her at the idea of him falling like her father, her taking away that bit of…

“She’s not taking you,” Rosewater growled. “She’s never touching you again, Collar. I won’t let her.”

Collar flinched, nodded, and sidled closer, wrapping a foreleg over the back of her neck and pulling her into his chest. “She’s not. I’m not leaving you, Rosewater.”

Fears roiled through her mind, various fates delivered by invisible hooves, death from a dragon’s breath, long in coming. Poison in a cup, masked by wine so her nose could only find it too late. She pushed each aside as it tried to encroach on her. The latter, she reminded herself, hadn’t been common since the bloody days of the war, and the former… He was doing his duty.

One by one, she pushed them back into the dark corner of her mind where they seemed to be breeding with each other, fostering more, and set up walls as strong as she could make them in her thoughts. She could address them later, rationally, and put each to rest or at the top of her watch list.

Murder was not something she would put past her mother, however risky and dangerous enacting such a plan would be for her long term survival.

“Better?” Collar asked after several minutes of holding her close.

“Better,” Rosewater said with more control in her voice than she thought she had left. Everything was going perfectly. Something her experience said could never be. There was always a disaster just over the horizon. Stop it. Today is special. Think about the future, not the past. “What… else can we do? To make your ponies see me as… not a monster? My ponies, I think, won’t care about the polyamorous part, but yours will.”

“They’ve had five centuries to get used to the idea that polyamory is not only valid, but can be stable,” Collar said with a sigh. “Not that that’s stopped them, and me, admittedly, from thinking it wouldn’t work out. Or… honestly, thinking that there wasn’t room in my heart for all of you.”

“The heart’s room is as big as it needs to be for each pony,” Rosewater said gently, reciting a bit of philosophy from Rosencart, “from just big enough for two, to an entire village. Rosencart Rosedown said that. He was… progressive during a time when the war was still going on with hot blood being spilled. It’s been argued whether or not he accepted that the Tussen Twee could be valid, but didn’t openly say it, or if he thought two was a transient number that was open for discussion later.”

“I’ve read some of his work, and I agree with his sentiment, but I don’t like his views on marriage being an unnecessary yoke.”

“Not many generally do. Marriage, to most, and to me, is… a statement. I love you, and I want to bring life into this world made of both of us. And… it is to a lot of ponies. And not just for taxes.”

Collar chuckled and pulled her briefly more tightly against him, then let go of his embrace and settled in to finish his last piece of pancake. Before he took a bite, he paused, seemed to briefly consider what to say, and sighed. He chewed slowly, his eyes flicking back and forth, and swallowed.

This is what I want. It was then, at least. Discussing philosophy with her lover, the only downside to all of it being that it was a singular lover. And they couldn’t leave. Couldn’t go anyplace else, and she couldn’t leave without a full bath and de-scenting, or she’d be found out when she crossed paths with any one of her sisters. A stallion’s scent on her, the musk of the rut, of seed spilled so recently and still lingering on her thighs despite the cleaning.

They might not know whom it belonged to, but the fact that she had been supposed to be alone with her fears… and they knew where Dazzle had been. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out whom had been in her home, and for what purpose.

Knowing that she was not only courting, but actively in bed with Collar wouldn’t necessarily be traitorous, but it didn’t need to be for it to be a potential disaster at this stage of their courtship. All Roseate would need to do would be to whisper in the right ears to get the word to Wing, and the moralizing, monogamy promoting traditionalists would come out in earnest to protest against Collar’s ‘affair’ with Rosewater. No matter if Cloudy thought of it as cheating or not.

“Can… you ask Cloudy to find someplace along the old highway in the forest for our next date? Someplace far to the north that we can still get to in a day if we follow it.” They didn’t need curious or suspicious Primfeathers venturing northward to scout out where they were camping to ruin their next date. “Someplace back in the trees, where it’d be hard for a pegasus to get a downlook.”

Collar’s ears ticked and he drained the last of his glass of grape juice before answering. “I can. Going too far north runs the risk of running into the Crystal Range foothills, though.”

“They’re not haunted, Collar.”

Collar’s ears twitched. “I wasn’t suggesting they were. But the Deerkin do run the foothills, and they’re not…” He licked his lips and glanced at her. “Known for their gentleness in playing pranks on ponies that wander into territory they claim as theirs.”

“They don’t claim territory, Collar. That’s not in their culture. They use it. And as long as they use it, they’ll consider it theirs. Trails, grazing grounds, thickets. If we do run into any that haven’t already started the migration south, I can talk to them. If they have an Equestrian speaker in their group, it will be easier. I can only speak their tongue poorly. But enough to manage, most times.”

“How did you even manage to learn that much?” Collar asked, brows going up. “I didn’t think they even liked interacting with ponies.”

“Well…” Rosewater started gathering up the plates and dishes from brunch and sent them off to the wash basin. “That’s a story about when I was growing up. When Great Aunt Rosefire was still alive, albeit retired and scandalizing ponies in Canterlot.”

“She sounds interesting. I’m sure Princess Celestia was happy for her company in court.” Collar chuckled and followed her to the basin, bumping his flank against hers. “So… tell me how you learned… what’s their language called?”

“It… doesn’t have a name. Unless it’s ‘Voice’. When they speak, it’s in their Voice.” She shook her head and started filling the basin with cold, barely sun-warmed water from the cistern. “When I was a filly, and learning Dammerlandic from Carnation, I… liked to wander while I was speaking to myself in the old tongue, practicing the syllabic intonations and trying to get my hooves to follow the cadence of the sentences I was trying to say.

“Somewhere along the way, my hooves gained an echo, a softer thud from behind me every time I touched the ground…”

It sounded again, the faint echo, off-cadence from her four-part harmony, but glancing behind her said nothing was there, only the dappled light of the noonday summer sun breaking through the canopy above as the wind tossed the higher branches about.

It was hard to hear much beyond the wind sighing above. Not that her ears weren’t sharp, but that there wasn’t much more to hear. The birds, of course, and the occasional rustling of a woodland creature in the sparse undergrowth, but no voices, no sound of hooves on the path behind her.

For an eight year old filly, it should have been frightening. She knew that it should have been because her other friends her age, Moonrose and Emberose didn’t like to walk the paths beneath the cliff bordering the Rosewine territory, nor the forests that spread from the cliff’s edge to the west, east all the way to the territory’s namesake tributary, and north in a scraggly line that made it almost all the way to the garden paths that her friends liked to walk.

They were spooky her friends said, and even the older ponies that came by, Rosy Glass being the eldest of her friends at almost thirteen, wouldn’t go with her.

Or they would, but they’d scare themselves into a panic and run back to the Villa, their tails flagged high alert.

But Rosewater would stay until Carnation inevitably came looking for her.

The woods were quiet, and peaceful, and not full of ponies asking her if she was okay even two years later. Only Carnation seemed to understand, and Budding, Tempest, and Blue seemed to be coming around to understand, that she was going to be okay. They didn’t need to ask her every Moon-starved day if she was yet.

So, after lessons on every third day, days when daddy would take her out to the countryside half her own age ago, she would walk the woods and practice whatever it was she’d learned that day. Language. Mathematics. History. Repeating figures, words, and dates in a cadence with her step.

Today… she wasn’t alone.

“Moonrose?” Rosewater called out.

When no answer came, she called out the boldest of her friends, “Glass?”

Still no answer came, and her eyes darting from shadow to shadow in the forest did her no good.

Not until a small piece of the forest… moved. What she’d thought was dappling and sunlight on the bare brown of the earth… wasn’t.

A… creature, not unlike herself, four-hooved, but with two hooves to each hoof, stepped out of the shadows on the side of the path she’d been walking, seeming to detach from the surrounding like a patch of loamy forest floor.

“Deerkin,” Rosewater breathed as she recognized the dappling on the fawn’s flanks and back, trailing all the way up their neck and even to their face. Not much older than she was, or younger even. Carnation had taught her of her and her mother’s tradition of leaving out offerings for the kin, and even taken her along on the latest trip east of Merrie.

But she’d never seen one, let alone met one.

“Hello,” Rosewater called out. And tried again in Dammerlandic, thinking maybe the language lesson had called them. “Hallo?” She’d thought she got the stressing right.

Instead of replying the fawn glanced behind them, just as another deerkin, taller than Rosewater, taller even than her father had been, it seemed, stepped out of the woods, his antlers swaying as he maneuvered them free of the trees, and placed himself between the fawn and Rosewater.

He glanced behind him, and another deerkin followed, this one a doe, smaller and more delicately built than the buck standing between them.

“Hallo?” Rosewater tried again. “Hallo mijn naam is Rozenwater,” she tried, introducing herself formally and with a foreleg stretched bow that fillies and colts used.

The doe nudged aside the buck gently and spoke to him in a softly liquid tongue that Rosewater didn’t recognize, instructions that seemed to mean ‘Take the child home,’ because in the next moment, fawn and buck vanished into the wood, and only the sound of hooves on the loam even betrayed their presence aside from moving shadows.

When even the sound had passed beyond Rosewater’s hearing, the doe seemed to relax. Rosewater, daring not even break her observation of the doe for a second, lest she vanish, too, wanted so much to… ask her questions that she likely wouldn’t understand.

“You…” The doe hesitated, staring.

“Wander?” Rosewater asked.

The doe startled, considered, and nodded. “You wander trails moons number—numbered three,” the doe said in heavily and strangely accented Equestrian, missing words . “Loud. Fawn stalk. Learn being loud.” She took a step closer, her head bobbing, ears perked. “Why… wander lands? Fear you being...” Her hoof raised, then lowered, scratching the trail lightly. “Help word.”

“Lost?” Rosewater asked, and after a pause and the shake of the other’s head, she went on, “Taken? Tricked? Hurt?”

At the last, the doe stamped her hoof and nodded. “Fear… you being hurt?”

“Because… I’m not scared. I want to know things. I want to learn. I practice learning here.” Rosewater took a hesitant step forward, her ears flat to her skull. “May I continue? I like it here, Lady Doe.”

One of the doe’s ears flicked, and she gave Rosewater a more considering look, as if deciphering what she’d said. “Continue wander. For learning. Why learn… this place?”

It seemed a challenge, so Rosewater drew in a breath and stood her ground. “My daddy took me to the forests east of Merrie. He taught me the sounds, and what to be afraid of, and what not. He was a good pony.”

Both of the doe’s ears flicked back, and she cocked her head to one side, and then the other, and seemed to take a closer look at Rosewater, her bright purple eyes darting from point to point, and settling at last on her hooves, and tapped her own hoof in front of her. “Come.”

Hesitant, Rosewater came forward, staring down at her hooves for long moments, at the shallow cleft in her otherwise pristine hoof that her father had also had. That he said was special to their family, then at the doe’s hooves. Hers were split entirely, so it seemed she had two hooves, each rounded at the tip, but flatter, and the fur on her fore and hind leg ran further down and closer to the ground.

Rosewater sat down in front of her and raised a forehoof, surprising the doe again, who nonetheless gently raised the proffered limb with the back of hers. Her coat was softer and thicker than Rosewater’s, warmer, and she could only imagine how hot it must be during the height of summer.

But she was also smaller than most adult ponies.

“Hoof is…” The doe let Rosewater’s drop and raised her own.

“Cleft?”

“What is… cleft?”

“Split. Like yours.” Rosewater raised both of her hooves up and waggled them like they were separate parts of a whole… and to her surprise, the doe did the same. With one hoof. They were split. Two hooves?

“Not cleft.” The doe again raised one of Rosewater’s limbs, but this time sat and traced her other hoof over the dimple. “No cleft. Almost cleft. Who… no who. Where father? From. Was. Grief?”

Not here. Rosewater flinched from the thought that even here she wouldn’t be able to escape the question. ‘Are you okay?’ All she could say was no and be truthful, and they would coddle her and ask her what was wrong, and she could never answer all the way. She didn’t even know. But she didn’t want to lie. Not to her new family.

“Loss,” the doe said gently, and raised a hoof to stroke Rosewater’s mane and ears lightly. “Hard loss. Time heals. Mean not… meet. Mean. Where from.” The doe sidled around to sit beside Rosewater, one foreleg holding her lightly against the larger’s barrel. Not trapping, but comforting. “We.” She leaned briefly on Rosewater and drew out a sketch of the triangular portion of land. Then she drew a snaking line in the dirt that looked like the Merrie and leaned far forward to tap at the dirt with the tips of her hoof. “Kin of we.”

Comprehension dawned. “Canterlot. Daddy… was from Canterlot. Princess Celestia?”

The doe nodded sagely and spoke something in her tongue, sidled away from the drawing and drew Rosewater gently with her. She tapped out a trail from the Rosewine to the east, then south, then tapped many times.

“Ponies.” She spoke another word, then said. “Ponies.”

The word she’d spoken in her own language was ‘Ponies.’

Then… She spoke the name she’d heard the doe speak at first, then “Princess Celestia.”

“Yes! Yes. Dawn Rising Bright Pony. Meaning. Name.” The doe touched her breast with her free hoof and spoke another word.

“Your name is…” Rosewater repeated it. “My name is Rosewater. The flower. Rose. And water. Rose Water.”

“And… that’s how I started learning. I learned my own name. She taught me hers, and… that was all for that first day.”

Throughout her tale, Collar had barely paid attention to the words and let his mind form the imagery, form what it must have been like for a young Rosewater to meet a near-mythical race, to talk to them and not feel intimidated. Even he’d heard the stories when he was a foal, told to him by the young colts and fillies in the classes that he attended, mostly noble, though also a number of merchant-class ponies. His mother had been quick to tell him the truth of their sources when he’d brought them home to her.

His first lessons in everything not being as it seemed.

After a moment’s more silence, he took a deep breath, straightened, and let it out. “I remember stories… my… classmates told them to me. Haunted woods. Ponies that disappeared for generations and came back unaged, unaware of the passage of time. Ponies that never came back, lost as spirits wandering a wood that led them in circles forever.”

Rosewater chuckled. “So did, I, honestly. I just didn’t think… they had any sway over me. That it might be nice to wander away and come back a century later.” Her eyes still held that humorous glint despite her darker meaning. “But those were on my dark days following…”

Following your father’s death. “I understand. And… you got used to it. Realized the stories were just that?”

“That, and when I asked Carnation if they were real after my first… angry walk through the woods, looking for something to shout at that wanted to take me away… she told me they weren’t real.”

Collar could well imagine that had been immediately after. But… Anger? He almost asked her, but her eyes were distant, lost in thoughts he wanted to hear if she wished to tell them. He swallowed the question and hoped he’d get an answer when she shared what was bothering her so much. “Why did you keep going when they didn’t show up?”

“I was a filly, Collar. And curious. I… also had a hard time learning with distractions. It was easier for me to practice when fillies and colts my own age weren’t constantly asking me to play. And adults checking in on me constantly.” Rosewater shrugged. “So… I practiced my lessons as I walked the trails. After I met her, over the years that I taught Leaf Dancer, I learned bits and pieces of history of her tribe.”

Collar nuzzled her neck gently. “That reminds me of dad teaching me little bits and pieces of Merrie to distract me from mom struggling against the political forces of the city. I was always interested in helping her, but… in those days, I was a reminder that the bloodline of Damme’s leadership had been ‘tainted’ again. I… didn’t understand, and they didn’t want me to understand. Not yet.”

“They loved you very much,” Rosewater murmured. “They protected you from intolerance.”

“They did. Dad…”

The raised voices reached Collar even in his study room, even despite the baffle of the door.

“...marriage prospects are limited for his pedigree!” The voice was familiar. Collar thought it sounded like it was Primfeather Whirlwind, Matron of the Primfeather’s main clan.

“He is not a bargaining piece on a chess board! I will not…” His mother’s voice dropped below the level it could be heard through the door.

“Collar,” his father said, tapping his hoof in front of the book he was supposed to be studying.

“Who’s mom talking to?” Collar asked, knowing the answer already.

Dapper opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the voices rose again.

Whirlwind’s voice was closer, and moving, “It’s important for him to get to know his future wife for that reason. Love can bloom as long as they get to know each other at an early age!”

“He’s eight!” His mother’s voice roared down the hallway. “Out! Get out of my office. Get out of my palace. I’ll not listen to more of your attempting to sell your granddaughter’s future! Nor my—!” His mother’s voice cut off abruptly, followed shortly after by the loud woosh and crack

They’re talking about me. He knew it even as Dapper’s face twisted into a rictus of pain, as if the words were hurting him.

“Merrie’s first Rosethorn ruler was Silver Rosethorn,” Collar said quietly, reading from the page in front of him even as the argument moved down the corridor. “She was considered strong for her generation, but the Rosethorns were new to their civil power. Their first regime was fractured, and Silver married her closest rivals in order to consolidate power. Their first child, Lapis Rosethorn, inherited a Merrie that was more orderly, saw new prosperity from the overland routes to newly founded Canterlot.”

“Very good.” Dapper’s ears were flat, but popped up at every sound from outside, every murmur. He wanted to be with mom while… she was talking with the Primfeathers’ matron.

“Do you think they won’t try to pair that tainted filly with him? They’re the same age. They already pushed her at him last year!”

“And they barely talked! Stars, not everything that little filly does is suspicious. She was grieving. They were trying to get her to see that the world was bigger than her grief.” His mother’s voice was strained, softer, almost too quiet to hear. She didn’t want him to hear.

He thought, for a moment, that he remembered the filly. At a busy event, standing along in a room with a filly, his parents and a young mare not too much older than they were standing with them. She already had her cutie mark, but she didn’t seem interested in talking. She had, instead, stared at her hooves, her ears flat almost the entire time. Not quite pouting, but neither responding to the young mare’s encouragements.

The words were mush in his memory already, even her name was lost. She was a Rosethorn. He knew that much, but… she hadn’t been with Roseate.

What that had to do with anything, though, he didn’t understand. He liked Sunrise well enough, but she was four, and his interests were much more mature than hers. And he barely remembered the filly a year later. She did have her cutie mark, and his parents seemed interested in talking with her mother. Or the pony he thought was her mother.

“Think on my offer. Wing is amenable, so long as they become playmates soon. He has other prospects for alliances.” It was the last thing he heard before their hoofsteps passed.

Seconds later, the front gate of the palace opened, then closed.

“Keep going, son,” Dapper said.

“In those first days, when the Primlines regained control in Damme, and the Rosethorns were getting their hooves under them, tensions ran high, but further bloodshed was stopped by the occupying force of Royal Knights until tempers cooled enough.” Collar looked up to his father. “What… why did they hate each other so much?”

“That, dear boy, is hard to say. Two hundred years is a long time for hate to twist and convolute into nonsense. Long enough that it might take that long again to untwist.” His father’s ears twitched to the door as the sound of hooves came up to it, paused, and started down the hall again. “Lace?”

The hoofsteps stopped, returned to the door, and this time it opened, and his mother came in, her cream white coat and charcoal dapples on her shoulders still flushed with her disagreement over him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d overheard a conversation he likely hadn’t been meant to hear.

“Love?” Dapper asked, rising.

“She didn’t consent to the silence spell,” Lace murmured. “She wants witnesses.”

“Don’t ask next time,” Dapper suggested just as quietly.

“Not now, Dap,” Lace replied, resting her chin on her husband’s head. The red flush faded from her coat. “We can discuss why later.” Her eyes turned to Collar, trying his hardest to pay attention to the book in front of him. “How are history lessons, going, Collar?”

“I learned about the treaty and how it was started,” Collar said cautiously, glancing between his mother and father. “Why would I marry Sunrise? I like her, but… she’s…” He tried to mime playing hoofscotch with only one hoof. “Young,” he said lamely, realizing it looked like he was moving pieces around a chessboard.

“She is,” Lace said gently, glancing at Dapper, dipping her ears in apology. “I’m sorry you heard that, Collar. It wasn’t meant for your ears. You can be friends with her, if you want, but who you love…” His mother’s eyes slipped from him to his father. “Who you love is who you choose. I chose your father. Who you choose… will never be somepony I tell you to. Your heart, my child, is known only to you, and never let anypony tell you otherwise.”

She said it in the solemnly grave tone she used when she wanted to make sure that he understood a lesson. Something vital to his upbringing.

“It is a lesson,” Dapper added in the same kind of quietly grave tone, “that has no age limit on it. Nopony should be forced to try and love somepony they don’t.”

“Who I love…” Collar repeated softly. “Is… who I choose.” For his eight year old mind, that seemed a wholly simple equation. “I love you,” he told his parents.

“And we love you,” Lace replied, her voice tight. “One day, this lesson will mean more to you. But for now, that is all you need worry about. We love you.”

“A good lesson,” Rosewater whispered into his ear. They’d finished cleaning up after brunch and moved to settle into the sitting room, a fresh pot of hot tea filling the room with aromatic delicacy. “Thank you for sharing it.”

“I… spent years gnawing on the idea,” Collar said, staring down into his milky tea as he stirred it, as if the pattern of swirls in the honey spinning off the spoon could give some insight. “I had suitors. Mares my age who were pushed at me by parents hoping either their children or themselves would get a hoof at influencing Damme. I liked them, some of them, but… there wasn’t that click. The snap of…” He raised the spoon, letting the golden honey drip tea into it, then inserted it again, the tip tapping the bottom of the cup. “Connection.”

“You were worried I was another suitor.”

“You were another suitor,” Collar said, his ears flattening. “When I’d already made my choice.” He grimaced and started stirring again. “When I thought my heart had made its choice. In Cloudy. We connected. We snapped together in all the thousand little moments when we were both off-duty. I’m convinced now that everypony must have seen it except for me. She wasn’t trying to get into my kindly regard. She just did, and it was so natural that…”

Rosewater watched as he continued stirring, felt his shoulders tensing and relaxing, and leaned lightly against him, quiet and letting him work out his memories.

“That I didn’t realize that I was falling in love with her until she asked me to come home with her. She wanted to ask me something.” Collar’s shoulders tensed again, then relaxed as he leaned against her. “It was a moment of instant realization. Like… it wasn’t with you.” He didn’t look at her as he went on. “With you, I knew you were trying to court me. And that… made me resist. Because I knew my heart had settled on Cloudy. But… as we had dates, as you actually courted me… that lesson kept coming back to me. Not consciously. But…”

“But it was there. You decide.”

“My heart decided before my head did,” Collar said with a little laugh. “The rest of me…”

“I have a confession,” Rosewater murmured. “I didn’t love you at first. I respected you. I liked you for what you and your mother stood for. But love… I was nervous, Collar.”

“You don’t say.” He laughed, and laughed louder when she nipped his neck. “That… I think was the first chink. Seeing you nervous, Rosewater, it told me you didn’t have a plan, and weren’t playing a game.”

“I could have been playing nervous,” Rosewater said, all-to-aware that she had almost decided to wear a mask before she’d thrown it away.

“No. Rosewater, I’ve seen ponies play at being nervous. It’s different. No matter how good of an actress you might be, there are always signs.” Collar nuzzled her cheek, sending a bloom of warmth under her coat. “I knew the moment I saw you that you were trying to be calm.”

“Poorly.”

“But you managed it. I saw you trying to be calm. That’s how I knew I was seeing you try to find yourself, Rosewater. Trying to reach out to me. To us, and to Damme. To respect us and still find a way to…” He waved a hoof, seeming to gesture at their current situation.

Rosewater raised her hoof to join his in the air, raising it so she could kiss the back of his ankle. “Love.”

“Love,” Collar agreed with a soft murmur. “I admit, finding my way has been hard. Stars, I should have told you so many times before. I had every opportunity, but…” He paused to take a sip of tea, his eyes distant.

“You wanted to take this time,” Rosewater murmured. “You wanted time to adjust to the idea, and to…” There was more, but she wasn’t sure. She’d been so certain so many times that he was going to tell her, so many times she could see it in his eyes that he wanted to, but every time, there was a hesitation, a need to take time to explore.

“I wanted to recapture the feeling I had with Cloudy. The feeling of clicking. I… I had no experience. I had no idea that it was different for each pony.” Collar’s eyes found hers, and he slipped his ankle under hers, raising it to brush against his cheek. “I didn’t know that falling in love with another pony could be different.”

“I worried that…” Rosewater trailed off, searching for the words to say what she wanted to. “I worried… that you might not realize that. It’s always different. Every pony finds love in their own way, and every love I’ve ever had has been different even for me. You were different. Stars, falling in love with you was… I was terrified that you’d see my courtship as… political.”

“It wasn’t ever that?” Collar asked softly.

“It… started that way. I started to act like my mother. I started to plan how I would seduce you. It was wrong. Talking with Rosemary about her loves, and the latest of her interests, and her day, and how everything for her was so very ordinary and free of machinations… and doubt settled in. And worry.” Those days, after the battle that had seen Crown taken and paid for with the city’s taxes, had been tense for her, but Rosemary had been largely unaware of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, seemed so far away. “Before she was taken, even, I felt my plans falling apart even as I tried to think of them, but… I’ve always planned, Collar. It’s how I do things. It’s how I know that everything is going well.”

“I know.” Collar sipped his tea again and settled more heavily onto the couch, leaning more against her. “I’m the same, most of the time. I like plans. They help me know what else I need to do.”

“I’m trying to learn how to handle not having a plan, but I feel lost when I don’t. I don’t know what to do next when I don’t have one. Cloudy is helping me. She’s always been impulsive and leaps for every decision…” His voice trailed off and his eyes unfocused as he stared of into the past. “Even deciding to ask me to her home. I don’t think she planned it. I certainly didn’t plan anything, but thought she had one.”

“She didn’t?” That didn’t sound quite like Cloudy. She usually had some idea of what she was going to do, even if she hadn’t broken it up into steps.

“She did. Sort of. She explained it to me later as, ‘Have dinner, confess my feelings… and see what happens.’”

“That does sound like her. Rosemary is like that. It’s what attracted them to each other at first, Rosemary said. Leaping at each other, not really knowing what would happen, but coming down together.”

Collar flicked an ear. “Didn’t the two of you meet when they became lovers?”

“We did. Briefly. She was… twenty at the time. Three years ago?” Rosewater tried to dredge up the memory. “We met… here.” She waved a hoof at the couch opposite her. “Rosemary did most of the talking, telling me how they met, what they’d been doing since, and that she wanted to let Cloudy be one of her lovers. She had a few lovers in those days, most she’d maintained connections with from before Carnation…”

Collar watched the grief wash over her, the memories plainly crawling through her on what must have been a terrible day. “It’s okay.”

“After I started being called The Terror,” Rosewater went on doggedly, “she was more careful with choosing lovers. She didn’t choose ponies that called me that. She chose ponies that… were kinder. More understanding. Cloudy was scared, but she sat there across from me and answered my questions. It was maybe ten minutes. I don’t remember everything. I was… in a fugue for most of the last six years, with only Rosemary being what I remembered.”

Six years? The fear from her duel had lasted so long… Of course it did, it was fresh and she magnified it. Or did she? Collar didn’t actually know much about how her talent worked. He knew she could project emotion, even distill it and refine it with the right reagents and components.

Even now, as she watched him, waiting for a reaction, her eyes liquid pools of need for him to understand, he could see the traces of it. She was afraid he wouldn’t understand any of her fears, and wouldn’t accept them.

How can I tell her that I do?

Hesitating no more, Collar turned on his seat and cupped her cheeks with his forehooves. “I love you, Rosewater. All of you. Whatever you’re afraid of, we can all face it together. You, Rosemary, Cloudy, and I. And even more than us, love. You aren’t alone, and your friends, your lovers, your loves aren’t going to leave you.”

“I didn’t remember her,” Rosewater said, going on, her eyes brimming with tears. “I didn’t remember her when I saw her, Collar. What else did I lose by locking myself away? What don’t I remember? What else is there?” She raised a hoof to her lips, her jaw trembling. “What if she got hurt and I didn’t know it? What if somepony I allowed her to take as a lover hurt her? What if I failed her as a mother?”

That was the heart, he saw. The core of her fears.

“You would have remembered,” Collar told her with a surety that came from knowing her. Rosemary was everything to her, and had been more than that for six years. “You are not your mother, Rosewater. You love her with every part of your heart.” He held her cheeks still as she tried to look away, the guilt in her eyes spilling free as tears. “Let go of fear, Rosewater. Let go of what you used to fight your mother. You’re not going to lose her, and she’s not going to hate you.”

It was a stab in the dark, guessing that Rosemary had been the heart of the fear she’d clung to, that she’d instilled in everything she’d used.

Rosewater nodded weakly. “I have…” She trailed off, her eyes darting away from his, then back. The tears were still there. “I’ve tried to.”

“What can I do to help, Rosewater?”

He could see the words ‘you can’t’ forming on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed them and pushed his hooves to the sides with a shake of her head… then leaned into him. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Just hold me, Collar.”

It was more and less than he’d hoped for. Less, because she was admitting she was still unable to let go of her fears. More… because she was letting him help her. Even if all she could accept was him holding her, it was enough.

Collar let his forelegs fold around her back and guided her to rest her cheek just below his jaw so he could hold her with more of himself, let her feel his presence there comforting her and pushing back against the fears that threatened to swallow her every day, that she fought against, and had been fighting against, for… most of her life.

Plans let her define her world. It was how she kept those fears at bay, by defining the world on her terms. She had planned to wear blue ribbons. She had planned to defy her mother’s wishes for the sake of Merrie. She had not planned this date. She hadn’t planned making love to him, hadn’t planned spending the day cooped up in her house with him.

So much of this was unplanned for her. Untrod ground. Undefined world.

It scared her to move forward without a plan.

“I’m here,” he whispered as the realization seeped through him. This… right now, was terrifying for her. Not knowing what to do next.

I can help more. I can help her plan. If she let him help. She was… stubborn at times. Secretive at others. Skittish with her feelings.

But… later. For now, he held her close and let her know he was there. She needed calm right then.

Reach out to me, love, or I can’t reach you.

Book 2, 38. Planning for the Future

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Rosewater knew it wasn’t right for her to want to keep everything bottled up. She knew that on an intellectual level, that her very own culture railed against the idea of keeping personal pain to oneself.

But not all personal pain is meant to be shared. Some pains…

“Tomorrow,” Collar said quietly, “you’re going to return to the garden?”

They were sitting in her office, the paintings of Rosemary and Carnation watching her, telling her, shouting at her with their still, silent gazes, to share everything. With him. With Rosemary and Cloudy. With Budding and Seed and Petal.

But she could still hear her own voice whimpering in her empty bedroom, telling her to keep it in. To hide it so it wouldn’t hurt anymore. A six year old filly’s voice.

“I am,” Rosewater said quietly. “And I’m going to relax with Petal and help her go over the garden’s plans for the Winter Commoner’s gala, and their plans for the Autumn Gala. And my plans for…” For declaring for you. Rosewater swallowed, her eyes darting to his. There were still hurdles to cross before then, before their courtship was done. Or done in the Dammer sense.

Their version of sharing was more formal, but deeper than it was in Merrie. It was rare that ponies married somepony they hadn’t known their entire lives, and hadn’t shared secrets that whole time. It was a part of the furor surrounding Collar’s courting of Cloudy, and him adding her and Rosemary to the mix would only complicate things even further.

They didn’t know everything about each other. Cloudy and Collar came closer, but even there, he’d only known her for two years.

Part of their dates had been trying to foster that understanding and acceptance of each other that they lacked. Now…

Collar touched her hoof lightly. “Your plans for us. It’s okay to say it, Rosewater. We need to plan for that. We need to plan for… almost too much.” He sighed. “And in such a short time.”

Rosewater ruffled the paper in front of them and dipped her quill into the ink, then hesitated before the nib rose above the rim of the pot. “Our first step should be—”

Collar took the quill gently. “Sharing.” He wrote it down slowly, giving her every chance to interrupt him… and take back her word. It terrified her, sharing those oldest childhood fears. They weren’t rational fears. They weren’t… they shouldn’t have been fears she held onto. “It will be okay, Rosewater. Whatever it is, we can work through it as long as you let us help.”

I want to. She did. But it scared her to let them in. Rosewater took the quill back and added a line underneath. ‘Death of my father.’

Collar leaned into her. “We’ll help.”

“After that,” Rosewater said brusquely, her control over the cellar in her mind wavering. “We need to talk, the four of us, about—”

“After that, you’re relaxing. You and mother and father can talk about the treaty, but you’re not going to push yourself. You can’t know how letting that out will hurt you, Rosewater. You can’t.”

The quill quivered, then settled tip-first against the paper and began to move. ‘Negotiations.’ “Because I’ve never let it out.” It was a fight within herself she was used to and pushed back the wall. “We should still hold to the agreement. I don’t want my reports to the Office, or yours, to look like negotiations are stagnating. We must always be seen to be moving forward.”

“In more than one way,” Collar added, his voice a low whisper in her ear that sent a thrill of delight down her back. “I want to show you little affections, Rosewater. In public.”

“So romantic,” Rosewater whispered back, ducking to the side to avoid his nipping teeth and laughing. “Affections,” she said as she wrote the word. Already, the feeling of weighty oppression was fading, and she felt the tension fading from her shoulders. This was what she wanted. This lighter feeling, even if it was a facade.

“Rosewater?”

“I want this to be real,” Rosewater murmured. “I want all of this to be real.”

Collar nuzzled her cheek. “It is real. This isn’t a dream, Rosewater.”

“I know it’s real. I know.” Rosewater drew in a sharp breath. “I said that wrong. I want this to be our reality, Collar, that everypony sees. Not something we act out as a play for others and go backstage to have our real life.”

“I want that.” Collar nipped her ear and took the tip between his lips, teeth barely grazing the edge. He wrote, ‘Shows of affection in public.’ “We can have that. Grow into it.”

While she couldn’t deny the growth of natural affection would help grow their romance in the eyes of the common pony, she wanted it for herself now. “It… will help your ponies not see me as a monster,” Rosewater murmured. “I can be patient, Collar. It will be easier when I don’t have this opportunity to kiss you whenever I want to do that.”

She flicked her ear away from the gentle abuse he was lavishing on it and turned to meet him in a kiss, briefly brushing her tongue against his before they parted again.

“I can be patient, too,” Collar murmured, resting his muzzle against hers. “We’re playing for a greater prize.”

“Marriage,” Rosewater said softly.

“Uncontested approval,” Collar corrected her gently. “Of a marriage. We already have love. Marriage is the formality, ‘Water. But an important formality.”

“I know.” Rosewater took a deep breath. “And… a child.”

Collar stilled, then nodded, and wrote down, one letter at a time, ‘Declaring for Rosewater.’

A moment of surprise washed over her before the conversation from the night before flashed through her mind. Dazzle had told him some of the details of what declaring meant. She wanted to ask when. It was something that only ever surprised the ponies outside a social circle, not to the ones declaring for each other. Normally, it was something planned for months.

Months she felt she didn’t have. It would be nearly spring for a normal declaration to take its course. By then, she’d have only a month to ensure that a child was growing in her womb before she could announce it before Rosemary would be out of her guardianship.

Even if the facade of guardianship held and her adoption of Rosemary wasn’t made public, it would pass the responsibility of negotiation from her to the city. If she hadn’t completed negotiations by then, if she didn’t have a solid reason not to participate in the war, Rosewater might be coerced into resuming hostilities against Damme.

Erasing any progress she’d made in winning over the city’s populace. That Roseate would brag about the captures she made and attach her name to them was doubtless, and she would be back to being The Terror.

What coercions she might use, Rosewater couldn’t imagine. They would be horrible. Roseate had a unique imagination for cruel punishments—she lacked imagination at all otherwise, as if she wrote her poetry in watching her daughters squirm as the heart of their worlds fell under attack.

Rosewater took the quill and wrote a one-word question underneath. ‘When?’

Collar, who’d been watching her, his ears ticking, nodded. “A good question. When…”

“Cloudy was your first love,” Rosewater said softly. “It would be unfair to her—” Rosewater swallowed the rest. Custom often said the first pair in a marriage between stallion and mare would have the first child. It wasn’t always the case, but it was more normal. A single stallion marrying three mares was also somewhat rare, but not as rare as all stallions or all mares.

“She is also scared of being pregnant,” Collar replied just as softly. “She never thought she would.”

“Then… we need to have a talk.” Rosewater wrote ‘Talk with Cloudy.’

“And Rosemary,” Collar added, writing her name at the end of the sentence. “We all need to talk about how this will work, Rosewater. The three of you might have an idea of what will happen, but I need a crash course in Merrier marriages.”

‘Merrier relationships.’

“Rosemary and Cloudy can teach you a lot,” Rosewater said, pausing before she wrote in ‘Lessons’ indented under the last line. “I can give you a more formal explanation of the customs and history of how our society grew into what it is today, but they, and especially Rosemary, can teach you what that means in more practical means.”

Collar’s ears ticked for a moment before he took the quill back. “You… have seemed rather more Dammish to me, if I’m being honest. Even were it not for… other things. You’ve never spoken of, nor has Rosemary…” His voice trailed off as he dipped the tip into the inkwell again. “Have you had as many relationships in your youth as she has hinted at?”

“No.” Rosewater eyed him briefly, then sighed. “I’ve never been able to form the same kind of loosely intimate connections that she’s been able to. I took more after Carnation, I believe. And my father. I… did partake in my lusts, but it often felt… not quite right.” She couldn’t ever put a thought to the exact reason why simple intimacy, the spice of friendships in Merrie, hadn’t attracted her. More, she desired the deeper relationships, the ones that formed long and held strong.

She loved sex. That much was true, and she hadn’t ever denied herself the pleasure when coincidence and desire came her way. Or delved into it on her own. She wouldn’t ever call Rosemary’s sexual partnerships shallow, but it was harder for Rosewater to form those partnerships, to find the depth that she needed so easily as Rosemary.

“I’m not sure I’d call that Dammish, though. I still see sex as separate from committment. Sex is fun, intimate, connecting, pleasurable, and loving. All at once. But it’s not something I share with only one.”

“I’ve always thought of sex somewhat the same,” Collar said, his ears ticking as he thought. “That’s not something I’ve thought very much about. But I can feel that from Rosemary. She encourages me to open up, and I can’t help but feel like by not opening up, I’ll disappoint her. She is… I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“She’s attractive,” Rosewater replied, pushing gently back against his shoulder. “In more ways than the obvious. She attracts ponies to her, and she leads by example to show them what she wants from them.”

Collar nodded. He wrote, ‘Talk with Rosemary more.’ “I can see her more each day. It will cause more talk, but… I doubt it will raise above the level of the Commoner’s Gala, or the coming Quarterly Gala.” He wrote down ‘Gala.’ Then, to her surprise, he wrote down, ‘Kiss.’

“It’s going to be busy for you coming up,” Rosewater replied quietly. “Will we have time for all of this before the Gala?”

“No.” Collar sighed and started ticking off items on the page. “These are the most important to me. The most important, I think, to us.”

Shows of affection in public.
Declaring for Rosewater.
Talk with Rosemary more.
Merrier relationships lessons.

And the one that made her stomach flutter because of what it meant. More than their private kisses, their private lovemaking, it would be a step to making everything she had wanted a reality. The end of the war. The end of fear.

Kiss.

A simple word that meant so much.

It was strange for Rosemary to sit in Lace’s office. She hadn’t been there since that first day when Rosewater had told the pony sitting across the desk from her that she was Rosemary’s mother.

A shallow tumbler of golden brandy sat in front of her, and a taller one sat in front of Lace while she perused reports that looked like economic summaries. Columns of figures and products marched down the page in orderly rows. Arrows marked whether they were up or down over previous years. It was the kind of thing that Rosewater pored over for her business. A standard accounting practice that she was starting to use for her own burgeoning apothecary business.

A business that had withered on the vine in the last two months.

Cautiously, Rosemary sniffed the brandy. It came from grapes, but what kind she couldn’t tell. A brief draw on her heritage answered the question. Two types of grape had been distilled into the brandy. A sweet and a tart, though the exact strain wasn’t something she could determine. It’d been too distilled, but that nature told her the vintage.

“This is from the Rosewine Vineyard,” Rosemary murmured. “But it’s not the same you shared with me the first time. Brightfire Brandy?”

“Close. It’s the same process, as I understand, but from the prior year. The char hadn’t settled into the barrel staves quite as deeply.” Lace chuckled. “I had a good conversation a few years ago with Budding Rose about the process. They fire the barrels after every batch to deepen the caramelization layer. It deepens the color a little more every year. She was quite excited to have it reach its fourth layer the next year.”

Throughout it all, Lace didn’t raise her eyes from the figures in front of her, quill darting here and there to mark figures for further review or approving them for final recording. How Lace decided which was which, she couldn’t figure out yet. Experience seemed the likeliest explanation. She’d been the ruler of Damme for longer than Rosemary had been alive, and surely knew more about the ponies that lived and worked in her city than Rosemary did of her own.

There would be patterns of behavior that she could follow and understand, know to question.

Ponies, after all, didn’t change much over the course of their lives.

Your mother is changing, a small voice in her head said. She’s been changing. Ponies could change, she decided, sighing. And Collar had changed. And Lace.

Dapper, though remained much as he always had been, from all she’d heard from Collar.

Maybe there’s something to that. Dapper was where he wanted to be. Who he wanted to be. Collar… had been shown another way, and another side of her mother. Rosewater had been forced to confront the fact that her plans weren’t going to work as she’d thought and learned to improvise more than she usually did.

And me? Rosemary sipped the brandy, the beverage burning a thin line down her throat as she swallowed, the aftertaste of the vintage doing more than warming her tongue. How am I changing? Am I changing?

More, she wondered idly if the change was conscious or if it was happening while she wasn’t aware and every step forward was a change to her that she would have to sit and examine before she found it. It would take time to find it.

Time she didn’t have. Every step forward came in its own time, sometimes before she was ready for them, and stopping time to examine what was happening wasn’t something she could do.

Even with as much time as she had as a prisoner, so much of it was spent reading, thinking about other things. She might go insane if she spent all that time in self-reflection.

She took another sip and nearly coughed when the door behind her slapped open with a woosh. She hadn’t smelled Dapper’s approach with her nose so close to the brandy. It effervesced slowly, its fragrance filling the air around her with a near-intoxicating scent of alcohol blended with the richness of the caramelized, distilled flavor.

“Ah!” Dapper drew in a deep breath through his nose. “That’s some good brandy. Have a glass, love?”

Wordlessly, Lace flicked a look at him, then slid her glass across the desk to him. “You’re late, Dapper. We were supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

“Ah, well, I had to check on something before I got here.” Dapper ruffled his wings, bringing the scent of clean air and a hint of chill air. “That lady still hasn’t left her house.”

Which means Collar is still there. Rosemary glanced at the shadows on the north-facing window in the office. It was nearing evening. They’d spent most of the day together and all night last night. She only knew when Cloudy would come back. Tomorrow afternoon. Whether Collar would leave before then or not, she didn’t know.

This was unplanned for both him and Rosewater.

Lace gave the sheet one more look, set it aside and put a ruler and a paperweight down to mark her place. She silenced the room after a moment, and a spell shimmered on the door. “The situation is complicated.”

Dapper snorted through his nose, not taking his lips from the glass.

“Is there any news?” Rosemary asked, glancing between them.

“There is, somewhat. A family of farmers displaced by selling their land to the Garden is seeking to have their three-way marriage recognized in Damme. They don’t have anything to go back to, even if the Garden might take them in.” Lace leaned to the side, glancing into a cabinet drawer and pulling out a thick folio. She drew a pair of sheets of paper from it dense with writing, though it had a sidebar with some cramped notes on the side. “They only recently pooled the resources to hire a solicitor with the reputation and lack of prejudice to help them file their petition.”

“You left out the best part,” Dapper said, grinning.

Lace rolled her eyes. “The resource pool was the community they settled in with. From what I understand, they helped doggedly to bring in the harvest, and the community even brought it all in early with their help. The community,” she said, pausing to glance at the paper, “Dammeridge. They’re all chipping in a few bits for the solicitor fund, but they’re having trouble finding a solicitor. Every one that normally handles Low Court cases has turned them down, and Middle Court solicitors are quoting prices far above what they can afford, even together.”

“Can we… or I help? I don’t have access to my money-keeper from here, but if I could get them a message, I have a hundred bits or so I can lend. It can be made anonymously.”

“Not anonymously enough,” Lace said with a sigh. “We’ve already filed our amicus brief with the court supporting their right to have their marriage recognized. We might appeal to the treaty on the grounds that families shouldn’t be broken up, but that’s fragile ground. Canterlot is majority monogamous. They might view polyamorous marriages as… wrong.”

“Wouldn’t Princess Celestia stand in judgement?”

Lace considered for a moment, tapping the feathered end of her quill against her chin. “For something so small, I doubt it. She’d send an adjudicator to settle the matter. It would also take until Spring at least, given the overland is closing soon, if not already. We’re expecting Merrie to see its last overland caravan in the next few weeks, but they may have turned around already.”

“Bandits?”

“Rains. Even the old imperial road isn’t so well cared for that it can support a caravan of carts this far north. Where it exists above the ground at all.” Lace twirled her quill. “Firelight has let me know that he has had reports of Equestrian anti-banditry patrols this far north. They’ve already retreated to the south, but it should have been enough for the bandit clans in the hills to the southeast to settle in or find greener pastures.”

Rosemary sat back to process that, taking another sip of her brandy and letting it sit in her mouth, swishing back and forth, building heat upon heat on her tongue before she swallowed it. “Then we have no worries about bandits raiding Dammehollow and Merriehollow?”

“Nor the granaries there,” Lace agreed.

“Enough of business,” Dapper said. “What’s our boy up to right now, do you think?”

Lace winced. “I’d… rather not think about that. I hope they’re having a pleasant day together, whatever that may involve, and whatever he may have been encouraged to do.” She rubbed at her cheek. “It’s still hard for me to accept that he’s courting three mares, even as much as I accept that it’s valid. It was never the future I envisioned for him, even if I’d been successful in reaching out to Rosewater.”

“When she was young?” Rosemary waited for the mare to nod and nodded in turn. “I think… this will be better. It’s a blending of both. Rosewater isn’t likely to have many lovers outside the bond, and neither is Cloudy. Collar isn’t, from what I understand of him.”

Dapper was nodding throughout her speculation, then glanced at Lace and spoke up. “I think you’re right. It’s a blending of traditions. I think, if it would be possible, that once the betrothal is formalized, it would be a good idea to keep any outside lovers more secretive.”

Lace quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not very Dammish.”

“It’s very Dammish,” Dapper replied evenly, his eyes twinkling. “Affairs happen even in Damme. The only difference is that there is shame attached to them, and they stay quiet for the most part, except when divorces happen.”

“In Canterlot, affairs are often major scandals that result in the downing of one or more houses,” Lace said drily.

“We have a temperance across the river. So our ponies can always say ‘We’re not that bad.’” Dapper chuckled at Lace’s clucking tongue, though Rosemary could see the amusement in her eyes. “So they brush the affair under the rug, make promises, and pretend like it never happened at all.”

“I can be very secretive,” Rosemary said with a wink. “I’ve been making love to two of your guards for the past month, for example, and—”

“Cloudy doesn’t count,” Dapper said with a laugh, holding out a hoof.

“And thus I didn’t count her,” Rosemary answered, winking once more and savored the surprise in usually unflappable Dapper’s eyes. “I’ve recently accepted an offer from another who was quite nervous, but agreed to my gentle pushing. I don’t know how long she will stay a lover, as I suspect she’s interested but not looking for something longer term.”

Lace raised a brow. “Sunrise certainly has pushed past her concerns quickly.”

“She has. We… we had a good time together, talking, sharing. It was my 18th birthday celebration. I… fell in love with her as we talked over Dammerale.” Rosemary sniffed at the little bit of brandy left. “We didn’t share names. She, a Dammer in a private’s uniform, me a Merrier with barely a hint of my marks showing over the deep pink of my coat. It wasn’t something we consciously decided on. And when she took a room, and I followed, we still didn’t share names. Only words. And love.”

“That her parents haven’t raised a furor is a sign that you can keep it secret,” Lace said, nodding. “I understand that Rosewater is with Primrazzle Dazzle for the time being. I have been hesitant to ask my son how he has taken that, despite his obvious infatuation with Rosewater.”

“I,” Dapper said, raising his nose in the air and pressing a hoof to his breast, “have no such compunctions. He is conflicted, but accepts that Rosewater’s relationship with him is an important part of her recovery. They, the entire garden, and Dazzle in particular, seem to be helping her find her balance. He’s jealous, yes, but until today, he couldn’t be there for her when she needed the support. Friendship, love… and sex, yes. Passion.”

Lace’s cheeks had grown heated during the explanation, to the point that she tossed back half of her remaining brandy. “Stars.”

“As if we didn’t have our own passions, love,” Dapper said more gently. “She has different passions and views them as less connected to commitment than you and I do.”

“Yet Collar…” Lace rubbed at her cheek. “He does have our views, doesn’t he?”

Rosemary took another sip of her brandy and set down the tumbler with a soft thump, drawing both of their attentions back to her. “His views are shifting. As are hers. She loves sex, yes, but she’s not so bound to it that she can’t constrain herself. But he encouraged her to pursue her passions.”

Lace drew in a breath as if to refute that, then sighed and nodded. “I won’t question my son’s reasoning for asking her to do that. In so many ways, he’s already becoming more Merrier than I thought was possible for him, given his upbringing.”

“Cloudy started it,” Rosemary said gently. “She was torn from her home and made no apologies for her own preferences or cultural upbringing. She’s been changing hearts since she arrived here, albeit only a few, and Collar’s was one of those. He’s never begrudged her the lovers she gathered to her, though she has started to settle down with Collar, Rosewater, and I instead.”

Lace nodded slowly, though her cheeks still glowed. Whether all of that was from her discomfiture talking about her son’s sex life or from the brandy, Rosemary wasn’t certain. “That will help the perception that she is settling down into a hybrid relationship. Dammer in style, Merrier in scope. It will help settle our ponies minds, and remind Merrie that she has not lost her heritage. Nor,” she added with a smile, “that we intend to erase their heritage, as Roseate is so blatantly claiming.”

“The Commoner’s Gala will likely put lie to that.”

“We can hope. Roseate has not been happy. She’s probed at our defenses in three different incursions, but we’ve either scared them off or they were scouting parties. It’s getting difficult to adjust patrol patterns to keep coverage the same without staying predictable, and Captain Pink is starting to complain about shift rotations.”

“Would it help if my guards were returned to the rotation?”

“Sadly not.”

“Then… what can I do?”

Lace chuckled. “Much, and little.”

Silk and Vine waited outside their mother’s office, waiting for their turn to get lashed by the whip-like tongue and given their orders. The days after Rosewater’s blatant display of cooperation with the Primlines over the terms of the treaty had not been kind to any of them, and even the most favored sisters tread softly when Roseate scowled.

Her plans seemed to be falling apart, and Rosewater was in an actual relationship with Collar. There could be no other explanation for them going off alone in the middle of an intimate dance. The only thing that kept Roseate from actually frothing was that there was no sign that a declaration had been made of Rosewater’s intent to carry a stallion’s child.

Not that she needed to make it public. But neither were there the signs that a private agreement had been made and signed. Rosewater still appeared alone with Dazzle, and had even gone to dinner with him alone, without a witness to attest they were alone.

Small comfort that it was, it still prickled at Silk’s nerves. They couldn’t be far from making such an agreement, and what Roseate would do when the signs came about, always with a mare in attendance, never with a stallion alone aside from her chosen.

The door across from the waiting room opened, and Rosary stepped out, her ears flat, her eyes haunted. But only for a moment. Too fast for Silk to be certain it wasn’t a figment of her imagination. She filed it away for later.

Anything that bothered Rosary would be… dangerous. And not only for Rosewater. Things that upset Rosary would also upset the keepers of the Treaty, and might draw Celestia’s attention and ire.

Ire, for Celestia, was often followed by fire. At least in the stories about her from the past. She was more subdued now, more even-keeled, or else she would have long ago given up the game of the treaty and simply incorporated both cities into her growing nation.

“Vine,” Roseate’s voice snapped out. “Come.”

Silk rose with her sister and started forward.

Roseate’s growling voice caught her before she’d made another step. “Not you, Silk. I have a different task for you.”

Almost, she made the step across the invisible boundary of her mother’s will. Except there was her signed confession of incest. It would be not only her that bore the impact of Roseate’s rage. It would be Vine, and her sister wasn’t so strong that she could withstand the impact of all of their friends turning on them in disgust. Their lovers abandoning them.

They would need to exile themselves to find solace, and that would break Vine. Her home was her life.

Silk slunk back to her seat in the waiting room and tried not to fret.

Her mother did it to torment her. Leaving stained dishware, stained mugs and a crystal goblet with a dried crust of wine around the midline, dark red against the blue-tinted crystal.

Vine swallowed the revulsion at the filth in Roseate’s office. She knew, from talking to Silk that Roseate normally kept it as clean as she herself would. But tempting her to clean, to do a small extra service for her mother, was another cruel barb.

She wasn’t even sure the stains and dishes were real. They could have been cast in mist and magic for her alone.

This isn’t your home. Vine pushed away the urges, the need to clean, and sat down in front of Roseate’s desk as her mother empowered the silence spell etched into the ceiling, a far more visible show of opulence and power than the neatly hidden gems she and Silk employed in their home.

“Your task, Vine,” Roseate began without preamble, “is to get in close with Rose Seed. Use your horticultural talents to tempt him, and talk to him about plants. Stay close, and remember everything you hear.”

“A-and…” Vine swallowed, her eyes darting from her mother to the plates unbidden. “He doesn’t trust me. Why not Hip? She and he have a rivalry, and it would be easier for her to get in with him. They share as much of a talent as is possible.”

Roseate tipped her head to the side, as if considering, then shook her head. “No. Hip, I have on another task. She is too young.”

And I’m not!? Hip was barely two years younger than she was. It wasn’t the age, of course, but the leverage. Roseate only had Hip’s gardens and the stipend she drew on to keep them up year-round. Without that, the chill would have been sending her plants into hibernation already. Heat enchantments, especially in winter, were expensive to upkeep, and the demand high. Those that could do them were rare, and those that could do them well could demand nearly any price they wanted. And get it.

Hip’s roses would regrow the next year.

Vine and Silk’s reputation would be torn apart. They lived together. The word on the street would be that they had been sleeping together every night since. They wouldn’t be able to leave their home without being glared at. It was one of the most taboo of offenses in Merrie culture.

“I know it will not be easy,” Roseate said in a gentler tone than she’d ever heard her mother speak, but rather than being put at ease, it set off warning bells. “That’s why I’ve given you two months to accomplish this task. That will put us well into winter, and it will be harder to keep you at tail’s length if you are in his confidence. Do not attempt to force your way into anywhere, or I will be most displeased.”

Two months? That was… it was well past Mare’s Night.

It wouldn’t be close to ships arriving in harbor again, but it would give her the chance to earn more coin. They would need as much as they could before she was claimed to be a failure, their secret ousted, and they were exiled.

Two months was a lot of time, especially if she could work out an arrangement with Seed to use his greenhouses to make wreaths or other ornaments for sale. It wouldn’t be much compared to what Silk made, but the galas coming up would let them scrimp and save and add to their savings when the inevitable happened.

“I’m…” Vine cleared her throat, her eyes darting to the plates and goblet again, then back to her mother. “I… can do it.”

“Dismissed.”

Crown sat on her balcony overlooking the river later that night, staring east along the slow-twisting curve of the river. From here, she could just make out the roost of the place where Prim Note usually made his nest for the night, listening for the signs of her sisters or their minions.

Normally, they sparred with song and silence, poetry and prose, each attempting to find a new height to the game they’d been spending months playing and perfecting, discovering the rules as it went on.

It had started before their first meeting, with him appearing faceless and voiceless in her place of business, sitting silent in the crowd listening, and only tapping his hooves once in appreciation. For her reading.

The next time, she noticed him, the same faceless face, now given a name and a voice, different from the one that she sparred with. He toyed with her at night, playing events from her night-time readings, her afternoon gatherings helping writers and poets tease out their plots and wording.

She’d only put events together after weeks of teasing, after she’d put name and voice together with the events and cut through the game to find who he really was. Then had begun her game, though her game had lasted only a week before he’d overtaken her and made it their game. As deft as her with poetry, with sound and its manipulation.

The times they’d met face to face, the game melted away. The first time they’d met as more than friends was months gone now. Then he’d met her lovers without his masking, nervous as a robin mother dancing on a branch. Friends only.

When he’d come to see her in prison after her capture during the failed raid on Damme, he’d been contrite, and read to her her own poetry, collected over the months prior when they’d only been faceless voices on the wind, sparring and sharing their writings in duels of poetic philosophy.

And they had fallen into discussing not only the philosophical differences of their cities, but of authors they had both read and quoted at each other through the spring and summer nights leading up to her capture. It was as if they’d known each other half their lives instead of only as friends for barely two months, arguing both sides of the same argument that drove their cities to opposition in different ways.

For three nights, he came to her in prison, then a pause, then another four. Seven nights before her release they had spent with the only barrier between them the bars of the Gilded Cage, and that only a formality.

She had had her first kiss with him through the bars, confessed that she’d been falling in love with her mysterious philosopher dueling partner for months, and found that he had felt the same.

Then, barely a week past her release, she had met him again, and kisses had turned to more under the open summer night east of the city. They had to be careful, lest they be discovered, and time their moments for when they weren’t expected to be where they were. More and more, he had taken to a disguise and met her at a poetry and prose reading she’d hosted at the bookshop she’d built up into a partial cafe and gathering place for those that loved books. That, too, became a game. If she could pick him out of the crowd, it would earn her a kiss. If he remained undiscovered, it earned him a promise or a question.

It was her anchor in Merrie, and the hammer her mother held over her. Revocation of licensure was possible, but rare, and she would have to close the shop, sell her books, or face fines, jail time, or other inconveniences for not following the laws of the land she was expected to uphold.

It was also the only place that Note could come safely in disguise without drawing attention to himself. It was a place where common folk from Damme came sometimes to shop, to discuss books, and to spend time in the late evening listening to other up-and-coming poets, authors, and musicians test out their latest creations.

There were few places in Merrie or Damme where all of those existed in the same place, and Crown had worked hard to keep her reputation clean. Her capture in Damme had even served a purpose. She had served her time, and the costs of her crimes had been covered. While, technically, she was still an enemy combatant, she had no open warrants that were not covered by the herdgild payment agreement.

Now, she waited for his opening act tonight, only so she could know when he was alone and she could break in and… talk. She needed to talk to him, to get his reassurance that she would be okay. That he would be okay whatever came to be.

She had her orders, after all.

Capture their aural mage. Her lover.

Book 2, 39: The Opposition

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“Good morning,” Rosewater said to the ponies waiting for her on the bridgehead. The sun was still rising slowly to the east, the shadows cast by the trees and walls of Damme not quite fully retreated, and the cool feeling of darkness carried more of a chill with it than normal.

Cloudy waited for her with a small contingent of familiar ponies. Platinum was there, with a surprisingly pink ribbon adorning her left foreleg, a memento from the Commoner’s Gala. It looked like it had already been washed at least once. So was Poppy, the stallion looking more at ease than usual.

“Good morning,” Cloudy replied, looking her over. “No more ribbons?”

“I thought it best not to draw my mother’s ire further. My return to the garden last night would have been enough of a firepoker to the side.” Rosewater chuckled and ducked into the office, where the secretary was waiting already for her with the flag and attachment. “Thank you.”

“Of course, my lady. When you have a chance, Sir Firelight would like to have a chat with you, but he’s out at the moment.”

Rosewater nodded, then raised a brow.

“He has a… former engagement at the docks, my lady. The last ship south leaves today, and the passes south are already mud-soaked.”

“My thanks,” Rosewater said, nodding. “Tell him I’ll stop by this afternoon on my way back.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Cloudy gave her a curious look when she was back outside, glancing to the treaty flag and back to her face, the question obvious.

Rosewater borrowed briefly from Crown’s repertoire, the spell buzzing against her horn like an angry gnat as the sound around them distorted, but didn’t cut out. “I know I don’t need it today, Cloudy, but I can’t completely abandon pretense and be a guest whenever I want. For one, my mother would be complaining inside two minutes to the treaty office, and she wouldn’t be completely wrong. Guest right needs to be rare.” Especially since you formally invited me to the gala. “Not flaunted.”

She let the spell go as the buzzing descended to her skull and made her ears ring, shook her head, and wobbled, her balance affected by trying to manipulate sound the way she’d felt Crown doing it.

She’d known it wouldn’t have been as easy as Crown made it seem, but…

“You okay?” Cloudy asked.

“I am. Let’s be off.” She shook her head again, flicked her ears, and followed Cloudy.

Winter wasn’t quite yet in the air, but their first freeze was already gone, and it felt to Rosewater like remnants of it clung to the shadows this early in the morning, chasing up her legs with each touch of hoof to cold stone, and the lit crossways with growing light only slightly less chilly to the feel.

She would need to move more of her wardrobe to the Garden if she truly meant to weather the coming winter there. It would, no doubt, make Seed happy to see her making good on her promise, but it would also take away the fiction that she had anything left to keep her in the estate. It would become her bastion of last resort.

It meant no more dates with Collar in her house unless she wanted more opposition.

The waiting gang of ponies in the carter’s mill across from her house the morning after, that had followed her making jibes and drunken sallies at her bravery for hiding for the better part of two days hadn’t helped except to drive home the fact that her every action would be scrutinized, watched, questioned, and possibly retaliated against.

They had followed her all the way to the edge of the Rosewine Vineyard’s outskirts, earning glowers from the villagers that they returned with equal animosity until it was clear Rosewater was heading for the villa.

As a unit, they had turned and trotted back out of the village and over the bridge while Rosewater watched from the villa’s front gate.

“You’re not okay,” Cloudy said as they passed from an open market square back into a crowded street, breaking Rosewater out of worrying over just how far they might push things. “You’ve been quiet since we left the bridge. What happened?”

“Nothing I can talk about,” Rosewater said softly. She didn’t add ‘not in the open.’ “I’m just worrying, probably over nothing.”

Cloudy harrumphed and rolled her eyes, but didn’t try to dig further. Instead, she started talking about her ‘patrol’ to the north with Collar, how they’d spent the nights in frigid tents while Collar took samples and checked various trails, checking for the signs of how bad the upcoming winter would be.

It was a foil, and Rosewater made comments about what Bliss and the other pegasi in the garden were saying about the coming season, generally agreeing that it seemed like the coming winter would start out wet and end dry until the first thaws, with Platinum and Poppy offering commentary and worries about what they would need to do to help bolster the Guard during the wet spell.

Rosewater offered her own suggestions, couched in terms of what she should be doing to help the Rosewine bridge guards weather the cold and storms, things that Cloudy, Poppy, and Platinum added to. Despite it starting out as a play at making conversation, she started taking it more and more seriously as it became clear that the ponies walking with were being honest in their suggestions, and honestly cared about what happened to their counterparts across the river.

From Poppy, she was only mildly surprised to hear him worry about a few guards by name, but from Platinum… she knew only a little about the mare, and her first impression hadn’t been the best of her, but…

“We’ll be okay from here,” Cloudy said as they crossed the invisible line from the city proper to the courtyard of the palace. “Thank you, Platinum, Poppy.”

“It looks like we weren’t needed,” Poppy said with a tip of his head to the side.

“Yes, well,” Cloudy gave Rosewater a sour look, then sighed. “I suppose I was expecting you to take more advantage of our offered hospitality.”

“I would never take advantage,” Rosewater said, pushing a touch more exasperation into her voice than she felt. “Stars, you’ve invited me personally to the upcoming Gala.” She stepped across the invisible line, eager to see Collar again, to be with him and Cloudy and Rosemary… at last all together.

Cloudy followed her after a moment, her wings twitching, her step lighter as they began the walk to the front gate and stairway.

Collar had only two minutes of peace and tranquility with his two lovers and one future lover before a pressure against the barrier he’d set in front of the door to his office told him someone was knocking.

“I’m sorry, loves,” he said, his lips still tingling from three kisses of varying intensity. “Somepony batters at the gates.” He nodded Rosemary back to her corner, but not before she laid the flower she’d picked out from Lace’s gardens on his desk.

Rosewater followed her, taking a few papers from Collar’s desk, and covering the flower in the process, to hold rather than anything practical, looking like she was discussing something with Rosemary.

Satisfied that the scene looked suitably business-like, Collar dropped the barrier and the sound shield, opening it to let in Coat.

“Sir,” Coat said, saluting hoof to breast, his ear twitching spastically. “Er,” he glanced past Collar to the two mares in the corner of his office. “This is going to be awkward at—”

“I will not be put aside further! I have been sidelined for weeks without my concerns being heard!”

Collar sighed. “Let him up. He will shout all the louder if I keep him, and it’s best he see that Lady Rosewater is behaving and engaged in her negotiations with a heart towards completing them fairly.”

At that, Rosewater looked up, her ears nearly flat and lips pressed into a thin line. She whispered to Rosemary, then stood and placed herself between the young mare and the door, resuming her perusal of nothing, but one ear focused on the door.

Wing strutted in, his feathers bristled already, and only growing more duster-like as he opened his mouth to demand entry, when his eyes darted to Rosewater and Rosemary in the corner.

“Wing,” Collar said before his indignant guest could blurt anything unfortunate. “I’m afraid that I must have lost track of the time, and our meeting time must have snuck up on me.” He glanced at the clock in the corner opposite Rosewater’s, then at his appointment schedule for the day laying on the corner of his desk. “Oh. No, it appears that we still have an hour until our meeting, my lord.”

Wing dragged his attention from mother and daughter and stared at Collar, his ears ticking, seeming to try and decide just how much bluster he could get away with. Rosewater, after all, still wore the harness that would hold the treaty flag, and the flag itself rested against the wall, the fabric gold and white hanging limp from the whitewood pole.

Little more than a small pennant, it nonetheless stood out against the gray stone wall, and Wing could hardly have missed it.

“My…” Wing swallowed back what seemed like enough gravel to pave a street. “My apologies, my lord. But the matter I must discuss with you is of the utmost urgency.”

I’m sure it is. Collar slid the appointment schedule for the day closer to Wing. “As are most of the things on my schedule for today, my lord. Anything that reaches me, and is not handled by my subordinates is generally considered urgent.” He tipped his head towards Rosewater. “The settlement of disposition of prisoners of war is one of the utmost.”

Wing lowered his voice to a harsh whisper, “My lord,” he hissed. “Being alone with the Rose Terror—”

“I will stop you right there, Wing,” Collar said harshly. “I am not alone, not unprotected, and not going to tolerate your slighting of a guest of the Primline house by using a moniker that is an insult to the integrity she has shown this house.”

Wing stiffened and only grew stiffer as Collar went on, and his ears betrayed the anger he didn’t allow himself to show directly. “Then the rumors are true,” he hissed, his eyes sliding away from Collar to Rosewater. “You danced with her, went off alone with her. And she enchanted you.”

Collar laughed, deep and heartily. “Is that what they’re saying in the streets? That my mind is no longer my own?” He chuckled and shook his head, wiping away his mirth with an effort. “I am my own stallion still, but I have come to respect Rosewater both for her skill as a soldier and her integrity as a pony. She has dealt fairly, and not brought the burden of her cousin’s herdgild to her ponies, but chosen to shoulder it entirely herself.”

Wing scowled, half at him, and half at Rosewater, no longer pretending to read a page that had only the reports of her own movements. “If your mind were your own,” he growled, “she would be in a prison, banner or not, for her crimes against Damme and its citizens.”

“She is a soldier, Wing, and she follows her sovereign’s orders, as much as she personally finds them distasteful.”

Rosewater nodded sharply, but gave him an even more urgent look, her ears flattening for a moment only, asking him to leave off on how much she hated her mother’s orders.

He hesitated for only a moment, rewording what he had been about to say. Speaking for her with such familiarity and surety was sure to draw more questions… and he might already have given away much that Wing might not have known or suspected.

“As a soldier under her sovereign’s command, she is bound by the treaty just as I am, not to bring harm to mind or body, and not to break the treaty strictures on punishment, detention, and abuse.” Collar recited the strictures easily. He’d spent long enough poring over them, looking for loopholes to forgive Rosewater for her actions in the war. “Princess Celestia would look unkindly on our city if we were to break the bonds so blatantly.”

Rosewater, silent to this point, spoke up, adding, “And it would endanger my cousin further yet. I assure you, if any guards attempted to arrest me during my treaty-charged duties, I would argue for the harshest penalties upon those that attempted it.” She raised the flag on its whitewood pole and waved it briefly, showing the sunburst emblem of Princess Celestia. “And I would also argue for the annulment of the herdgild against my cousin. Your city would lose the boons Collar has already negotiated out of me.”

Wing, startled at her quietly strong words, stared at her.

“I would also make sure that all and sundry knew exactly whom was responsible.”

Collar tried to hide a wince, but didn’t even come close to hiding it from either Rosewater or Wing.

Rosewater only gave him a frosty look and stood, her voice crisp and cold, “If this is the treatment I can expect, my lords, then I will move to my next appointment with the Lady Lace and Lord Dapper to discuss the annuities on the debts I am incurring.” She gave Collar a chill look that he felt in his soul even though it wasn’t real. “I trust our next appointment won’t be interrupted?”

Collar rubbed at his muzzle and glowered at Wing. “It won’t be. Will you report this to the treaty office?”

“I must. It’s my duty and on my honor, I promised Sir Spark that I would report every step along the way, including any stumbles along the way.” Rosewater gave Wing a chillier look still. “If you will step aside, my lord, my cousin and I will leave you alone.”

Wing, to Collar’s surprise, stepped aside, though he didn’t look the least bit cowed by her calm, cold demeanor. Likely, she could have startled him into flight if she’d shouted or raged at him. Instead, she was as Collar would have expected her to act…

As any Dammer would have expected her to act.

He sighed as she left with Rosemary scooting along behind her, every line of her confused and upset, and he wanted to calm her, tell her it was going to be okay.

Cloudy, on the other hoof, looked like a stormcloud bursting with lightning and only waiting the faintest provocation to explode. That she hadn’t already was a testament to her iron will reigning in her temper.

“Cloudy?” Collar asked in a tired voice.

“Collar,” she said, short and sharp, seeming to already know what he was going to ask, and ready to take that as her provocation.

“Can you please convey my sincerest apologies to the Lady Rosewater and let her know I will be taking measure to ensure such an interruption doesn’t happen again?”

He didn’t look at Wing, or even act like he was in the room, but he saw the reaction, saw the calculation taking place as Wing finally considered what his actions might have cost himself and his cause. The bristling feathers flattened, and his ears slicked back, then perked again, back to a poised and stately figure of a pegasus in a second.

“Yes.” Cloudy snapped her tail and trotted out, her wings arching as soon as she was in the hallway, then snapping back to her sides.

Collar closed the door quietly, but didn’t silence it. “You have my attention, at great cost to my patience and potentially our position, my lord. Speak your piece.”

Wing swallowed and glanced at the door, then back to Collar. “I was concerned for your safety, my lord. Alone with three Roses and—” He held up a hoof when Collar’s anger nearly boiled over. “I accept that you love Cloudy Rose. But I am concerned by how friendly she is with the… the Lady Rosewater and her cousin. I worry, my lord, that she has been subtle in her wiles and her spellcasting. Ponies whisper about her powers, my lord.”

Collar settled back, forcing back his anger. This is a blessing. Take it for what it is. Intelligence. “Pray tell. What do they say about her talents, Wing? Keep in mind that I and Cloudy have witnessed her prowess more than once, and in close proximity. I am well acquainted with the depths of her talents.”

“She’s a witch, my lord,” Wing went on more quietly. “My sources tell me she dances with the Deerkin, and has taken their talent at trickery for herself. She can whisper words to keep ponies from seeing her, use a flower to trick a mind, and a petal to blind.” He glanced pointedly at the lump under a sheet of paper.

Collar had almost forgotten the flower Rosemary had chosen and enchanted for preservation. A simple spell, and one every florist and, apparently, every apothecary knew and used daily. He drew it out now and laid it bare on the desk.

“It’s from mother’s garden, Wing. I assure you it has no uses, but even I can blind with petals.” Regretting it, he plucked two petals and placed them over his eyes. “See?”

“You mock my concern, my lord,” Wing growled. “I worry for the continuity of our great city, and this is the concern you show my worries?”

“I mock your concern because there is nothing to be concerned about.” Collar pointed at the corner where Rosewater had left the flag in her haste to depart. “That is my protection, my lord. It’s a constant reminder that any wrong hoof set, any hostile action taken, will at best set her back months, and at worst see her exiled for breaking the treaty’s strictures.”

Wing seemed to consider the flag and pole, and for a moment Collar wondered if he would try and break it or steal it and try to hide it.

Instead, he nodded, sighed and ruffled his wings, resettling a few feathers that had gotten stuck at odd angles from his earlier bristle. “My concerns, my lord, are the signs you’ve given that her attempts to court your hoof are succeeding. Dancing, going off alone with her, walking…” he seemed to realize the last wouldn’t give him what he wanted.

“The dance, I can understand,” Collar said after a moment of awkward silence. “However, it was a token I was willing to give up to keep one of our own’s names secret. A distraction. You know what happened immediately before?”

Wing hesitated, then nodded. “A relief indeed that the foal… um. Dancing Rain?”

“Raindrop Dancer,” Collar corrected, mildly surprised that he cared enough to even get that much right. “And yes, a great relief. They wished to thank our Dammeguard, but considering that they left the scene rather quickly, I deemed it a safe bet that they would want to remain anonymous.” Collar shook his head, gathered up the flower, sniffed at it, and laid it back carefully atop the papers it’d been hidden under. The preservation spell kept it from smelling much, slowing the death of the fresh cut stem.

“And your dancing with, er… her was you sacrificing yourself for the safety of a Dammeguard?”

Collar laughed. “Stars, no. It was a distraction, as I said, and the Lady Rosewater, as it turns out, is quite the accomplished dancer. I won’t deny that I enjoyed our dances together, but that’s all it was.”

Once again, Wing studied him, the elderly noble watching him and turning his words over and over. “Forgive me for saying, but I’m not sure I believe you. I have information from… a close source that you went off alone with her in the middle of an intimate dance and thereafter disappeared for most of the dance.”

“To discuss the disposition of her cousin,” Collar replied in an even tone even as he wanted to shout it in Wing’s face. “Surely you noticed the ribbon she wore in her mane?”

A flick of Wing’s ear said he had. “And yet you were gone for near an hour. My lord, I only ask out of concern for your well being. An hour alone with her is more than enough to enchant your mind away from the ways of Damme and its best interests.”

More than enough and not nearly enough, Collar thought, frowning, and sighed. “Is there a point you’re trying to make, my lord? Have I suddenly fallen in and started romancing every mare I come across? Have I made to abandon my commitment to Cloudy Rosewing? Have I made any indication that I am enchanted against my will?”

“Two months ago—”

“Something changed,” Collar broke in before Wing could finish along the same line. “Her patterns changed. Her actions began to make less and less sense if she was trying to court me, Wing. And then her cousin was taken captive. I’ve no doubt that Roseate began to pressure her to push her.” Collar leaned against the desk, suddenly tired of the games. “You know why she’s running the negotiations. She’s Rosemary’s guardian, and she is an honorable mare. Rosemary’s care is her responsibility.

“She made a downpayment on the herdgild in order to gain Rosemary some measure more comfort. A partial bail, if you will.” Collar tapped the flower. “Rosewater cares for that young mare more than she cares for her own safety. Did you know that she could love so deeply? I didn’t, Wing, until she showed me how deeply her hurt ran.”

Before Wing could reply, Collar opened the door. “If that’s all you came to see me about, rest assured that I am aware that she can be subtle in her spellwork, and if you’ll excuse me, I need to see if I can repair the damage your rudeness has done.”

With that, Collar picked up the pennant flag and opened his door.

“There is one more thing, my lord,” Wing said as he ducked out of the office. “I urge you to reconsider Sablelock Mane’s offer. She is a Dammeguard as well, and she is—”

“Sablelock may be a Dammeguard, but she has a fiance already, I hear,” Collar said with a snort. “And I’ve made my choice. Cloudy is my choice, even if we have not made the future marriage formal.” He followed Wing out and locked the door with a snick. “I’ve not forgotten your attempt to push Sunrise at me when we were younger, either. Please stop. You’re starting to sound like a Merrier.”

Cloudy stalked the garden pathways, trying to understand how Rosewater could be so calm when she wanted to stomp and stamp and yell. And yet… she sat beside Lace, the two of them talking quietly while they moved spot-by-spot around the central part of the atrium, tending to the plants that needed to be cared for properly before winter.

Rosemary hummed softly to herself as she inspected another one that had a tiny little sign poked into the dirt next to it, marking it as a Frost Rose, and below that, Rosewater’s name.

Cloudy stopped her pacing, sighed, and sat next to Rosemary, extending a wing over her lovers’ back. “When is it going to bloom?”

Rosemary smiled, glanced behind her, and kissed Cloudy’s cheek. “When it’s freezing all day long and all night, the stem starts to warm up. It survives the winter through magic and the unique magic in the air that winter brings.”

Cloudy cocked her head and glanced up at the sloped roof all around that gave the atrium-like room a good slice of late morning to early evening light to the tallest plants. It would be like a forest most of the day, and the plants in the private garden were just that. Lace had made herself a forest retreat in the middle of the palace, and Dapper…

“Dapper helps bring the air down during the winter?”

“That I do,” Dapper called out from the other side of the room. “Would appreciate it if you helped this winter. The cold is harder on my bones every year.”

“Of course,” Cloudy said without hesitation. “I’d love to help, Dapper.”

“Call me Dadder, please.”

“Dapper, no,” Lace said with a sigh. “Not yet.” She turned her attention back to her quiet conversation with Rosewater while the mare laughed softly.

“Thank you,” Rosemary murmured.

“Is this new?” Cloudy asked quietly. “I haven’t been to the garden as much as I would like. Just the public gardens with you.”

“Rosewater gifted it to Lace after last week’s freeze. Or was it the week before last?” Rosemary stared up at the orange tree in the center, her ears ticking. “I lose track of time, sometimes, and it’s getting harder to keep track of it.”

“Soon,” Cloudy whispered, nuzzling her lover’s cheek and wishing she could do more.

“That’s still time,” Rosemary said with a chiding laugh. “Soon is now, and then it’s gone, and…” Her teeth clicked shut over the rest of the words Cloudy could see in her frustrated stance. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t take out my frustration on you.”

“But I am keeping you captive,” Cloudy murmured. “I’m a Dammeguard, and we’re all—”

“I’m keeping myself captive.”

Across the Garden, Rosewater’s ears were flat, but she hadn’t stopped her quiet talk with Lace. Cloudy could read in that look, I’m moving too slow. This is my fault.

Well. From what Collar had told her… That’s something I can help with.

She’d thought about it all night, the next day, and through breakfast before she’d decided she needed to bring it up if neither Rosewater nor Collar brought it up. She’d been about to just before Wing interrupted, but…

“I’m sorry Wing interrupted our morning,” Cloudy said softly, then raised her voice. “Lady Lace?”

“Lace, dear, I’ve told you.” But the older mare smiled at her and bobbed her head. “What is it?”

“May I ask you to silence our conversation?”

Lace’s ears perked up, and so did Rosewater’s. “Of course. Rosewater, if you could assist me, please, I’m afraid my magic isn’t as spry as it once was.”

“Of course.”

After a few moments, the shimmering field Cloudy knew was a sound deadening field had covered the central part of the atrium, surrounding Cloudy and Rosemary, Rosewater, Lace, and Dapper, but not extending to the entryway.

“I know,” Cloudy started, her voice creaking. She cleared her throat. “Stars, this is going to be…” Just out with it. “We need to talk about children. Our children. With Collar.”

Lace’s eyes jerked to her, then to Rosewater. “I’m not sure I should be here for this discussion. This should be between the three of you and Collar, not his parents.”

Damnit! Cloudy rubbed at her muzzle. “Stars, that came out in the wrong order. We need to talk about marriage first.”

Lace chuckled and relaxed. “Then, proceed.”

“We,” Rosewater said softly, dipping her head at Rosemary and Cloudy, “would like your blessings, Lace, Dapper. It’s traditional, isn’t it? For Dammers to ask the parents of the pony they’re proposing to for their blessing?”

Lace hesitated, her ears ticking, before she dipped her head, ears flat. “It is. It’s a formality anymore, but yes. Then you are going to ask him to marry you? All of you?”

“We are,” Cloudy said, echoed by Rosemary and Rosewater. “Some of the preparations for the formalizing of our marriage will have to be done later or in secret. The gifts…”

Rosewater nodded, her expression distant. “It’s… traditional to offer a family heirloom gift, isn’t it? To tie families together.”

“Not many still follow that tradition, my dear, but it had been a custom to share their ancestral bonding rings. I understand Merrie has nothing of the sort, yes?”

“I have… or my parents have a bangle from an ancestor of mine. A Rosewing marriage bangle, but I obviously can’t get to it.”

“I have, as well,” Rosewater added, a sour look curdling her expression. “But I know you all already know my issues with getting such a thing. I’ve not even my circlet of office, let alone Roseline’s marriage pendant.”

“If I might make a suggestion,” Dapper said from beside his wife. “You’re starting a new era of both of our cities. Lace and I have talked about what we hope you will accomplish, and… dear?”

“We were hoping you would break with tradition,” she said, her voice strengthening. “I, and Collar, will appreciate your thought to respect our traditions, but what you’re doing is breaking all traditions and opening pathways for citizens of both of our cities. I ask that you consider forging a new tradition. Especially in light of how difficult it will be for you to follow any of the traditions of either city.”

Rosewater lifted her nose briefly, nodded, and glanced at Lace. “I had had the same thought, spending time with Collar. I would still like your blessing to be a part of it, if that would be agreeable? We don’t want to throw everything out and start over, I think,” she said, glancing at her two future wives. “Right?”

Cloudy shook her head at the same time Rosemary did. “No. I’ve grown fond of some of the traditions that make Damme unique. What is here works for the ponies here. It could use some polishing here and there, and be less restrictive, but we shouldn’t let what we’re becoming feel like we’re forcing Damme or Merrie to follow us.”

“Exactly the right mindset,” Lace said, straightening. “You have my blessing, but before you spring what you want your vows to take the form of on an old mare, let me know what you want to do first.”

“To that end, I think including you in the formulation of them will help, Lace,” Rosewater said, glancing at Cloudy, then Rosemary. “I would like for us to blend the cities into a new tradition and set an example and a show that neither side is ‘winning,’ but that the cities should be one. A new entity without the chains tying us to old hatreds, old traditions, and old ways of doing things.”

“You have it. Shall we consider that a part of our negotiations, then?”

Rosewater considered for a long moment, seemed about to shake her head, then firmed her lips and nodded. “Yes. I’ve nearly exhausted my imagination on the debts I can reasonably incur to reach the price of the herdgild. Having a new avenue of negotiation would satisfy the need for the process not to stall.”

“How will that affect what you need to report to Roseate?” Cloudy asked. As much as she hated the question, it had to be asked.

And Rosewater’s grimace told her why it had to be. “I was hoping, honestly, that I could delay telling her until the cusp of the announcement. But… that’s not reasonable. Not when we don’t know when the announcement can be made without having the Primfeathers, Manes, and Coifs descend upon it like a pack of rabid squirrels.”

“They will descend upon it like rabid squirrels regardless,” Dapper said in a grave tone, despite the amused light in his eyes. “The question is how soon we can remove their chompers.”

An idea settled into Cloudy’s mind. An insane idea, and quite probably stupid, but…

“Rosetide,” Cloudy said, startling Rosewater. “Use Rosetide. Can’t he have a connection to the families that moved over to Damme’s side of the river? Encourage them? Tell them he’s heard of support from…” She rolled a shoulder. “Except that kind of shows our hoof, too, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Lace said slowly, tipping her head to the side. “But there may be a seed of an idea there. Their main issue is raising the money to hire a solicitor familiar with the marriage laws in Damme to argue their case. I know there are ponies that would donate a small amount of coin if they knew of the issue. Especially those that live across the river.”

“Merriers donating…” Rosewater murmured. “It could work. I know Seed and Petal would, themselves, donate the entire fund needed since they’re only in this issue because they bought the land the family used to live on.”

“That also carries its own dangers, but from Roseate.”

“I doubt they would care,” Rosemary said with a huff. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Which…” Rosewater sighed. “It is. And I’m not sure I can keep it from them. I’m not sure I have the right to do so.”

“You don’t!” Rosemary blurted.

“I know.” Rosewater nodded, her ears flattening, her eyes unfocused. “I wish I could protect them from the consequences is all. I didn’t think…”

“You can’t plan for every contingency,” Dapper said gently, “even though you want to.”

“I know the right thing to do,” Rosewater murmured, eyes closed. “I wish I knew what will happen.”

Cloudy pulled Rosemary closer with a tug of her wing. “What will happen, my love,” she said, “is we’ll come a step closer to our goal. What else happens, we’ll deal with together.”

Book 2, 40. Mother's Words

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When Collar stepped into his mother’s Garden, he was greeted by stares, the tension of which pushed his coat to prickling. Rosewater sat next to Lace, apparently having been in the middle of a discussion of the flowering bush Rosewater had been prodding with a hoof. Dapper lounged behind them on a stone bench with ivy climbing up the legs, a book spread out under his hoof’s light touch.

Rosemary and Cloudy, most worryingly, had disappeared under a secondary silence bubble and continued discussing whatever it was they had been before he’d so rudely interrupted them by arriving. Cloudy, in between brief answers to Rosemary, watched Collar and bit her lip, her eyes soulful, worry plain in the set of her ears and the droop of her wings.

“What’s going on? Is this all about Wing?” Collar floated the pennant flag over to Rosewater.

“It’s… about Wing in a very circumspect means,” Rosewater said, her eyes uncertain as they darted from him to the door before she startled and glanced back to see Dapper winking, his tail just fluttering back to the ground.

Collar rolled his eyes and moved to meet Rosewater as she jerked to her hooves and took a hesitant step towards him, her eyes darting to Lace before she jerked her attention forward again. “I think,” he said as he met her, sitting and raising a hoof to brush her breast and the heart mark, delighting in the way her body shivered subtly, “we were interrupted.”

“We were. Lace?” Rosewater glanced back at Collar’s mother, her ears flattening. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Dear, I may as well get used to the sight,” Lace said in a low voice, her cheeks heating. “I will see you kiss at your wedding, after all.”

Collar didn’t let her decide to save his mother’s sensibilities and cupped her cheeks with a spell, then leaned in to kiss her, lips parting only minutely, and matched by hers without a trace of tongue.

“You’ve been talking about our wedding?” he asked when they parted and crossed horns with her, or tried to, as she shied away from the direct contact and settled for resting forehead to forehead.

“A-among other things,” Rosewater said, her voice uncharacteristically subdued as her eyes flashed to Rosemary and Cloudy, still under their silence bubble, which vanished a moment later, with Rosemary pushing Cloudy out towards them.

“And that is my cue to leave,” Lace said, her cheeks heating before she glanced at Dapper. “And you as well, dear husband. This is between future spouses, and for them alone to decide.”

“Thank you, Lace,” Cloudy said, her voice uncharacteristically subdued, her ears still almost flattened to her skull. She waited only until the door closed before she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and hunched her shoulders. “I want Rosewater to be the first mother.”

Collar stared at her for long moments before he glanced at Rosewater. “I…” He hadn’t thought that the moment would be so soon. Talking about it with Rosewater during their ‘vacation’ had given it a far off feeling. Something that wouldn't happen until after the Gala at least. “Does this mean you want me to declare for her?”

Cloudy cocked her head, lips pursed. “Now?”

“I mean,” Collar tipped his head to Rosewater. “We talked about it.”

“She told us everything,” Rosemary said, rising for a moment to settle again next to Cloudy, leaning against her lover’s shoulder. “We—” She nudged Cloudy’s hoof with hers. “—think you need to declare for her soon. If you intend to. It will take time for her to show, and—”

“And it’s very, very strange to hear her daughter talk about her mother getting pregnant,” Collar said, struggling not to wheeze out a nervous laugh.

“Then let me,” Rosewater said softly, rising and moving to sit next to the other two mares, all three sets of eyes fixing him with looks of varying intensity. “It will take time for me to show, Collar. I can only hope it’s long enough that we’ll be able to push the changes to the law through. I’m afraid that my own city may know before I start to show, but there are scents I can wear to disguise my pregnancy. For a time at least. A mother’s body goes through changes to scent that are hard to keep from the nose of a talented scent mage.”

Collar stared at her, his eyes flicking to her belly, still toned and flat, her coat starting to thicken with the coming winter chill, but he could still make out the pink, pert nipples of her teats under the growing white.

“Those will be one of the last changes,” Rosewater said with a perling laugh, raising a leg to look where his eyes were directed. “I promise you, I won’t be growing my teats until two or three months before I’m due.”

His eyes snapped back to her face, darted across the varyingly amused looks of his future wives, and dragged a foreleg down his muzzle. “Stars help me. This is actually happening.”

“And it needn’t happen today,” Rosewater said, making Cloudy’s ears flatten to her skull. “It needn’t, Cloudy. Give him time to work through his feelings, however ready you are to leap.”

“Hate waiting,” Cloudy grunted. “I’d rather know that she’ll be able to guide me, Collar. Being a mother is… it scares me. The more I think about how much my mothers did for me, all the thousand and one things I took for granted. I… I need a guide.”

“You’ll be a wonderful mother,” Rosewater murmured, bending to lip her ear. “I promise. And of course I will be there for you, for every step of the way.”

“Stars…” Collar raised a hoof. He’d thought he’d have more than a day, but a glance at Rosewater told him she had expected that, too. “When?”

“Not today, love,” Rosewater said with a smile, and ignored Cloudy’s huff. “I don’t have a mare waiting for me to complete the requirement in Merrie, and it will take a little more time to bring the agreement together. Further, this should be witnessed by Firelight Spark. I want this sealed, Collar. I want no doubt who the father of my firstborn is.”

Rosemary was already nodding. “Roseate will fight it regardless.”

“Of course she rutting will,” Cloudy grunted.

“Of course she will,” Collar said with a sigh. “I need to know what I need to do. You need to be escorted by a mare at all times, and not alone with any stallion without a mare’s presence until you’re able to… uh…”

“Know that I’m pregnant, and be able to prove it to a magistrate. Or an official of higher authority. Such as Firelight Spark.” Rosewater’s ears flicked. “This all hinges on being official, Collar. We need to plan this, even as much as Cloudy would like to rush out and get him now, there are things we need to do to make sure it doesn’t look like what it is.”

“Like we’re planning what Roseate will consider a coup,” Collar said with a nod. “Or that it looks like, so soon after Wing raised his concerns, that we’re trying to go around him to Celestia and knock him and a significant portion of our nobility out of the decision to culminate the treaty.”

Cloudy snorted. “He’s an ass.”

“An ass with influence.”

“Doesn’t change the facts, Collar.”

Rosewater chuckled and leaned against her future wife. “We’ll get there, love. I promise.”

“We will,” Collar said, and rose to give each of them a kiss. “But… I need to visit with Seed and Petal soon. Do you want me to tell them anything?”

Rosewater considered for a moment, then shook her head. “No. They deserve to hear it from my lips, Collar. They’ve been in the dark for too long, but they still accept that some of the things that I do are necessary, and even accept that I think they’re necessarily secret.” She took a breath and went on. “And I need to tell them. Just as I promised to tell you, Collar, Cloudy, Rosemary. All of you. You need to know… you deserve to know…”

“We need to know,” Cloudy said softly. “To help you, ‘Water.”

“And I promised.”

“If you’re ready,” Rosemary said softly.

“Stars, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready,” Rosewater said, her ears still flat, her tail lashing. For long moments, she sat still, her eyes darting, slowly bringing herself under control. “Which is why I need to tell you, because I’ll never be ready to tell anyone.”

Collar leaned close and nuzzled her cheek. “Go to Lace. I promise this meeting won’t take long. Give yourself a little time to prepare, Rosewater.”

Rosemary paced back and forth in Lace’s office, her tail lashing between checking on Rosewater, until her mother asked her to plant her butt and sit.

“You don’t have to do this today.”

“I do. If I push this off, love, I won’t be able to face it as I should have. I know I need to share, Rosemary.”

“But today? We’ve just agreed you’re to be the first mother. That’s a happy day!” Rosemary lashed her tail and did not sit, her ears flattening. “We should be celebrating.”

Rosewater’s pained look made her want to take the words back. “I know. I know, Rosemary. I wish I could shout it to both cities and be open with Collar’s, our, choice. But we can’t. And this,” she said, gesturing at herself, “is something that I need to face. I can’t go into being a mother with… with my father’s death eating away at me.”

“What—”

“I can’t say it more than once. I’m not strong enough to face what…” Rosewater closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not strong enough, Rosemary. I can’t tell you until Collar is here. I promised him I would tell him. And you deserve to know why I’ve been so broken, Rosemary.”

“You’re not broken!” Rosemary snapped, her tail lashing harder, threatening her tumbler on the edge of the desk, half-full of a brandy she’d not even touched yet. “You’re my mother, and you have been the best mother you can be.”

“It makes my heart glow to hear that, Rosemary.”

“There isn’t a but,” Rosemary insisted, sitting down in front of her mother and nipping at her neck. “That’s not a but.”

“It doesn’t change my view of myself, Rosemary, or that I’m carrying too much on my shoulders.”

“Your mother is right and wrong at once,” Lace said softly, swirling her own glass slowly. “She is broken in her own view of herself, but she has also been the best mother she could be, even with all the doubts and fears she’s carried throughout her life. The product of her and Carnation and all of your community sits with us and argues that she takes too much on herself.”

Rosewater stiffened, but she didn’t try and refute what was patently obvious to anyone who knew her true self for more than a couple days. Rosemary still stared at her and tried to convey the idea that she didn’t need to do this now.

“I still need to do this now,” Rosewater said in that softly stubborn voice she had that meant she wasn’t budging at all. It was the quiet insistence that she’d used when arguing against Carnation. Not shouting, not argumentative, simply stating how things were going to be.

I wish I knew how mother made her see reason. Carnation had a knack for it. Rosewater would declare something, then they would talk quietly for a little while, and Rosewater would compromise.

“I’m serious, Rosemary,” Rosewater said, as if she could read her thoughts. “I need to do this. I need to keep my promise and… and I need help. I need all of you to help me see the right way to do things. And you need to know why this… this—” Rosewater swept a hoof through the air and held it to her breast, the touch of it against her breast a sign she was taking her mind off something. “—this scares me so much.”

“I rather agree with her,” Cloudy said, unexpectedly taking Rosewater’s side. “I want to see her get past the darkness in her, Rosemary. You might not be able to see it so clearly—”

“I can see it plenty fine!” Rosemary shot back. “I want her to be free of it, but after facing Wing, and the stars only know what Roseate said to her before she and Collar had their date, she doesn’t need the extra stress!”

Lace sighed. “Once again, you both make good arguments, but it is ultimately your mother’s choice, Rosemary. It is better today, now, than when preparations pick up next week for the gala. I’m afraid we will have to cut back on our visitations, as the final preparations come together and our attentions are pulled thinner and thinner, and interruptions grow more and more frequent.”

Rosewater bit her lip and nodded. “I still need to come.”

“Of course you do, and I will push Collar to be there for you every day. Dapper and I will take up more of the slack that would have been his as we move towards retirement.” Lace gave Rosewater a sly, sideways look. “Already, I’ve taken some of the things that would have gone to him off his plate so you and he could spend more time talking, and you as well Rosemary.”

Rosewater only nodded.

“But you do so much already,” Rosemary said, her ears dipping. “Is… there anything I can do? Choice of drinks, decorations? I promise I’ll be as Dammish as I can in my choices.”

Dapper laughed softly and nudged his wife before she rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Aw, come on, Lace. I could help her. Then—”

“Dapper, you’re already in charge of refreshments in the ballroom.”

“And you’ve given me such a short—” He cut off as the door opened and a tired-looking Collar strode in, magic massaging his temples before he closed the door, nodded to her, Rosewater, and Cloudy before plopping down on a pillow.

“Stars. They’re so earnest. I wanted to tell them so much more than I could.”

“Seed is a good pony,” Rosewater said softly. “He’s kept us secret even though he knows almost everything, or has guessed.”

“He didn’t even give me a hint that he knew.”

“He wouldn’t,” Rosemary said, hesitating, then rising and moving to sit next to him, leaning against his side. “He can keep secrets, and so can Petal, Collar. You can trust them.”

Rosewater nodded more slowly and glanced at Cloudy, then stood and moved to sit on his other side. “I… want to tell them next. I need to. I need to tell them what happened, and what’s happening, Collar. They need to know what we’re doing, and to declare for me, I need to tell them why, and they need to be witnesses.”

Before Rosemary could push the narrative further and get Rosewater away from her determination to tell everyone, to try and convince her that waiting even a week would be enough, Rosewater stepped away from her.

“The thing I have to tell you,” Rosewater said softly, glancing at Rosemary, as if she knew what she’d been trying to do, “is something you deserve to know. I have kept it from you because I have been afraid of what I did, and so fear became the only thing I ever used my talent for. But… the first thing I ever used my talent to accomplish was an act of love and fear combined.”

The bottom of Rosemary’s stomach fell away into a freefall. This wasn't the direction she’d expected her mother’s story to take and, as Rosewater told the story of her father’s final night haltingly and broken up by silence as she struggled to contain her emotions and continue with the tale, she realized many things.

This was a foundational moment for her mother. This one night, the gaining of her talent in a moment of love and horror and grief had defined her for most of her life. She had been able to sense her father’s love for her on a fundamental level that nopony else she knew of, or had ever known, could ever feel.

A talent that she had only ever used afterwards to defend her family.

“Why?” Rosemary’s mouth blurted before she could reign in the question or the impulse to ask it. But once the question was out, she couldn’t very well take it back. “Why not share your gift, mother?”

For long moments, the room was silent, and Rosemary was about to take back the question, or try to, when Rosewater nodded.

“I… have asked myself, and wrestled with it, Rosemary. But understand that what you smell in my perfumes is… bland. It’s not the same level of raw feeling, and I fear that my own intervention sped my father—”

“Rubbish,” Lace said, breaking in and recovering from some of her own shock. “That’s rubbish, Rosewater. Your intervention gave a dying stallion peace and comfort in the last moments of his life. That it was his own daughter is the only tragedy here.”

Dapper, his eyes wide and horrified throughout most of the retelling, closed them and nodded. “It would be my greatest wish to let my son know, every day, that I love him more than I can ever convey with words, Rosewater. You gave your father peace in his last, terrifying moments, and let him know he wasn’t alone. He rests easier, I’m sure, knowing that he gave you the greatest gift a parent can give: love.”

“When you needed it most,” Lace said, her voice softening to that of a grieving parent. “His love was there, Rosewater. I can see it in what you do. Your choices afterwards, choosing love over…”

“Over Roseate,” Rosemary said when Lace hesitated. “You chose us. Carnation, and me.”

“I can imagine Roseate’s reaction,” Cloudy said, her ears flat to her skull.

“You really can’t,” Rosewater said, her voice edging on bitter laughter. “Carnation found me first after he… he passed. I wasn’t coherent, I didn’t know what I’d done, and I didn’t even know I’d gotten my cutie mark. All I knew was that he was gone. She held me all night, made sure I never felt alone, and thought that my babbling was… I don’t know.”

Rosemary thought she did. Carnation had always been a compassionate mare, warm where Rosewater could sometimes be, not cold, but uncertain and hesitant, as if she’d needed help understanding what she was supposed to do for a daughter. When she was younger, at least. As she grew older and Rosewater and Carnation’s lives grew ever more intertwined, they had become more like each other in the best ways.

“The next day, Roseate ate breakfast, listened to the news of my father’s death, and had an aide schedule the funeral. To me, when I ran to her and sobbed out my pain… she said ‘Grow up. You have a cutie mark now, and you need to act like an adult.’”

Collar, quiet up to that point, burst out, “You were six!”

Rosemary felt the same, but the ache in her heart kept her from saying anything. When she was six…

“You made sure I knew you loved me,” Rosemary said quietly, stilling the rumblings from the others in the room. “When I was six, you were already as much my mother as Carnation, though neither of you knew it. You have always been there for me, mother. You’ve never told me I needed to grow up, even when I might have needed to hear it.” Her eyes stung as she met her mother’s pink and gold eyes. “You never made me feel unwelcome, even when I was a pest, even when I knew I was being a pest.”

“We tried our best to make sure you never felt like your mothers didn’t love you,” Rosewater replied, her voice tight. “She knew about Roseate dismissing my grief, Rosemary. She was there. They fought. Roseline broke them up. Two days later, I was in the Rosefire estate with Carnation as my legal guardian. It was to prevent another Rosewine schism between sisters. Taking me away from my mother was the one condition she wanted.”

“I never knew,” Rosemary said softly. How am I supposed to react to this? The story her mother had woven had gone from Rosewater struggling to get to the next word to this. Cool and collected. Calm.

Hiding what she was feeling.

“You weren’t meant to. It was portrayed as a family squabble, and I’m sure your own records of the attempt are similarly distorted. Roseline didn’t want to give you an opening to distort, Lace, but she didn’t want the schism to grow. I only found out the details after Carnation was taken and her journals became mine.”

“I would never have moved on Merrie,” Lace said, rubbing at her cheeks. “And, stars, that’s not what’s important, Rosewater. Not right now. Stars, mare…”

“Mother,” Rosemary said softly, leaving her side and wincing when the mask cracked a little until she turned around. “Don’t hide behind the diplomatics. Don’t cover this up again. Don’t push this back where you push everything that hurts you. Your father died, Rosewater. And you were there to feel his last moment. Stars, have you ever let anyone in?”

The cracks started to show again even as Cloudy and Collar gaped at her, even as tears ran down her own cheeks. It hurt to tell her. It hurt to pry open the hidden places her mother hid and bring her into the open.

“Let us in, mother. Please.” Rosemary edged forward, pressing a hoof to her mother’s breast, to the side of her heart mark so she couldn’t even escape into the sensation. “Don’t hide from us.”

“We love you,” Collar said softly, taking Rosemary’s place at Rosewater’s side and pressed his nose to her cheek. “Let it out, Rosewater. Please. It’s okay to let it out.”

Rosemary felt a touch of admiration swelling up in her. He’d seen through her facade, too, seen her trying to escape into formality and facts. “Listen to him. Listen to me. Please.”

“It’s hard…” Rosewater’s voice strained. “It’s so hard.”

Cloudy leaned against her other side. “Let go.”

The first sob tore free of Rosewater’s throat, straining still against her restraint, her teeth gritted, eyes tight closed. The second came more easily, raw and pained, and Rosemary leaned into her breast, forelegs around her neck. “Hold me, mother. I love you.”

She did, and she cried.

“You wanted to see me before I went home?” Rosewater asked, settling into place in front of Firelight’s desk. The pennant was already gone, stowed back in the cabinet that held them waiting for her next visit. “Have I made a mistake?”

“No. Far from it. Princess Celestia has been very pleased that you’ve made progress in reaching out to the other side of the river.” Firelight said, his smile growing as he produced a letter with the Sun seal on it. It was unaddressed, unadorned other than that. “I’m afraid the original got water-logged, and I had to re-transcribe it, but that is the price one pays for sending letters secretly.”

Rosewater saw the lie for what it was, and his expectance that she would accept the lie for exactly that. One truth, however, was that the letter was meant to be secret. “Who is it from?”

“That, you’ll need to find out. And, I’m afraid, the letter can never leave this office. You are welcome to come by at any time to read it at your leisure.” Firelight set a letter opener on the desk and stood. “I’ll be waiting outside, Rosewater.”

When he was gone, she broke the wax seal and pulled out two sheets of fine paper, far finer than most of that available in either Merrie or Damme, and started to read, her heart hammering as the familiar opening of every note Carnation had ever left for her caught her eye.

Rosie Water,
I don’t know how even to start this letter. I had no time to prepare my thoughts, to think of what to tell you that won’t be kept from you when the Princess reads my letter and asks me to make edits.
I am safe. Know that, my dearest love. I received your letter, and my heart… my heart broke to know what you have been through alone, but I thank you so much for keeping our daughter safe. You must already know this by now, but you can trust Lady Lace to be a good and kind mare, and her husband Dapper has been one of my greatest confidants when I needed to talk to someone about things I couldn’t share with anyone else. Not even you.
You must know, now, why I was exiled. It wasn’t for petty revenge, as I’m sure she let you believe, hoping to get you to act out in ways I can only imagine you did not. I was Lace’s spy, Rosewater. Her inside source of information, and I knew when I was caught the moment it happened. I tried, in those last days waiting for my sister to let the sword drop, to give both of you as much love as I could.
I am so sorry that I could not be there these past six years to see you grow up into the fine mare I know you could become. Her Highness does not tell me much, but your letter, stars, your letter helped me so much. Simply to know that you are safe, that Rosemary is safe, even if she is in Lace’s custody. In truth, she is safer there than in Merrie.

Rosewater blinked rapidly, clearing the tears from her eyes. Even if it wasn’t in Carnation’s hoof, it was clear enough that she had written it. It lacked the little ticks and meanderings that Carnation usually left in her notes, indicating it had been either spoken or, as Firelight had said, re-transcribed from a damaged original.

She turned the page over, finding the back blank, and moved to the next page.

I heard about your duel with Roseate. I am… appalled. Both that she would try to take the guardianship from you, and that you fought so ferociously. You were always a gentle mare, Rosewater, even if you had trouble expressing yourself. But you were our protector, too, weren’t you? And here, I thought I was protecting you.
I am saddened that you had to use your talent in such a way, but I understand the fear that drove you to it. I cannot blame you, and I am grateful that you were able to keep our daughter safe despite Roseate’s best attempt to stop you. To us, you will never be the Rose Terror. To us, you will always be the heart of our home, the strength of our bond and our love.
Sometimes, I wish we were not related, my beloved Rosewater. I wish I could make you the offer that should have come with raising a child together. I should have asked you to marry me, but even now I am at a loss of how to describe, how to even think, of our relationship. Wives? Partners? Co-parents? Only one of the three feels right, but carries with it the stigma that kept us apart.
I hope that you can find love, Rosewater. I hope that my sister does not try to sabotage it, as she did my hopes that you would find the colt across the river intriguing enough to get to know better. I do not know if you have gotten to know him, but he is as fine a pony as his mother, and has the same dedication to seeing peace. If you get the chance, please… try to get to know him.
And do not worry for my heart, dearest love. I have friends aplenty here, and live with a couple that has accepted me as a third in their marriage, albeit informally. We have two children together, a colt and a filly. The colt is mine, and I hope, some day, to introduce you to your nephew, Shining Rose, and his sister, Star Shine.
I will always love you, my beloved Rosie Water, and I hope your heart’s room is full.
You will always have a place in mine.
Your not-quite-wife,
Carnation Rosethorn

Rosewater closed her eyes, set the papers on the desk, and wept.

Far away, Princess Celestia glanced at the amber jewel in her private study, the one that linked her office to Firelight’s. It pulsed in time with sounds from that distant place, nearly five hundred miles to the north. It was tempting, as always, to listen in to the comings and goings of that place, and Firelight’s grumblings and meetings, but doing so now would not be a good idea.

“Your highness?” Carnation Rosethorn sat across from her at the desk, a pile of folios labeled with prior years of tax collection from the pseudo-provinces of Merrie and Damme. “Should we wrap this up another time?”

“No, Carnation. This is the time I have allotted to reviewing the years’ income. Please, continue with this year’s yields.”

“Of course, Highness,” she said, her eyes flicking to the amber jewel, still flashing and winking with the unknown sounds. Other jewels in the room had the same purpose, but it was that one that Princess Celestia was expecting an update from shortly. “Perfume, perfumed articles, and wine exports from Merrie has increased this year, all on the same scale and all in the last few months.”

“Tourist season is over, yes?”

“It is,” Carnation said with a brief dip of her head. “But this is over even last year’s post-season rise. I believe it indicates an easier time accessing the docks in Damme for perfumers. Tariffs at the border checkpoints are also up.”

“Truly? That’s unexpected.”

“The ledgers sent via courier indicate they are in sales of perfumed or scented shampoos and soaps, and an increase in candies and other confectionery.” Carnation tapped one of the summary lines. “The very latest, delivered only yesterday, indicate a spike that I’m not sure will be maintained. But it was also the date for the Commoner’s Gala. Or so I’m told.”

“So you’re told?” Celestia asked. “I don’t recall mandating that the common pony engage in the same peacemaking that I did for the nobility.”

“Hints from travelers and merchants, and the odd spike four times a year. If it was started, I believe I know who would be behind it. Should Budding Rose ever make it this far inland on her trade delegations, you should ask her.”

Firelight, are you hiding things from me? She would have to look into it. True, he sent her every Treaty-sanctioned event that he signed off on, but sometimes their wording was not the clearest.

She trusted him, but as many surprises as she’d sprung on him, she wouldn’t put it past him to try and pull one over on her.

“There wasn’t a Commoner’s Gala when you were there?”

“Nay. There was an informal gathering of the commoners in Merrie at the Garden of Love, but it wasn’t ever something that was cross-city.”

“Are you satisfied the numbers are accurate, despite the increase?”

If she was discomfited by the sudden change in direction of the conversation, Carnation didn’t show it. “I am.” She started to gather her things, this being their traditional ending. “Thank you for your trust, your highness.”

“You do good work, my dear. I trust the numbers are accurate, and I have more that I must take care of today.”

“And… my letter?”

“I have been assured that it will arrive. You understand, however, that you cannot speak of any of this to anypony outside these chambers?”

“Y-yes, your highness. I… I wish I could see her. Know she’s doing well. Hold her.”

“If your…” Celestia rolled a hoof, looking for the right term. She knew, from reading the letter aloud, what Carnation wished for. But to let her know would give away just how badly Celestia had twisted the Treaty. “Partner? If she’s not doing well, Firelight would tell me.”

“I wish she were my wife, your highness. I wish I could call her that and not be seen as tainted. I wish we were not related, so that I could.”

“If you were not,” Celestia said softly, “would you have known her as you do?”

“No.” The single word came out in a ragged gasp. “No. And that is the cruelest part of my wish.”

“It is not cruel to wish to love somepony.” Briefly, Celestia cast her mind back to when she had been young, when she and her sister had ruled together, night and day. She had never partaken of the practice, but she had seen many tribes ruled by sister-wives and brother-husbands, their children coming about by outside pairings. Rare was the sister-brother pairing, and always the lines failed before three generations if such a thing happened. “In ancient times, it was not so odd to have sister-wives. Unable to have children, but bound by blood and love. Often dying together, bringing down dynasties in blood and ruin.”

“Times change, your highness. And the end of dynasties is the reason why Merrie bans relationships between relatives closer than three steps. And why Merrie requires the succession be secured before heirship is confirmed.”

“I understand, and I am saying that I understand the impulse, Carnation. If you wish to be known as her wife in my hearing only, then I will try to think of her as such.”

“No.” Carnation shook her head, though her eyes shone with desire. “No, your highness. It would be cruel to my heart, and unfair to hers. In many ways, she is as much my daughter as Rosemary, but in so many others, she is not, and she is also Rosemary’s mother. That, I hold beyond doubt.”

Celestia glanced at the clock on the wall, a glowing marker telling the time before her next meeting, magically grafted from her seneschal's logbook. With a spell, she shifted the mark ahead by a quarter of an hour. Ledgermane could wait to tell her that the treasury was essentially unchanged.

“Tell me more about her. If it would not be too difficult for you.”

“Your highness?” Carnation glanced at the clock, her brow furrowed. “I would be happy to, but…”

“I have time before my next meeting, and I would hear of her from one who loves her dearly.”

Outside the chamber, Ravenwing sighed as one of the times on her ledger shifted, followed shortly after by the rest as the times updated themselves in the enspelled book.

Book 2, 41. Opening Up

View Online

“It’s near closing, can you—”

Rosewater smiled as Silk came out of the back in answer to the jingle of her door bell. “Dear sister. I apologize, but my appointment with the Primlines was lengthened by the interruption of a Primfeather, and I wanted to stop by and see what progress was made since last I saw the dress.”

The shop was empty save them, even Rosary’s daughter was gone for the day, the spying little filly not able to report that she was there.

“I wish you would schedule an appointment like a sane pony,” Silk said with a sigh, but waved her in and flipped both the sign in the window and the lock on the door. “But since you’re here, I might as well show you.”

Rosewater didn’t cast silence around them until they were in the back, where rows upon rows of dresses hung from half-forms in various stages of completion. Colors from across the spectrum glowed in the light of fey sconces, their lights steadier than candles or even oil, even if the gems needed to keep the light were more expensive and wore out over the years.

“Why’d you come?” Silk asked, her voice tired as she cast a silence spell over them. “Vine and I are exhausted, and I just want to get home and hold her.”

“I understand. But I truly do want to see the dress. And I wanted to make sure that you knew I still support you.” Rosewater set a hoof to her sister’s flank. “I do love you, Silk, and I hope that we can be truly a family by the time this is all over.”

Silk trembled at the touch or the words, or both. “She wants Vine to spy on you. On the garden.”

“You know I’m going to tell Seed?”

“She said she was going to tell him herself. She’s not a soldier, Rosewater, not like you or me. She’s not meant for this stupid war. She’s meant to love, and make her beautiful, living sculptures.” Silk’s voice strained for a moment longer, the beginnings of a sob on her breath. “And I? I’m meant to spy on you. Failure isn’t cleaning the sewers or renewing the composting spells. It’s revealing what we did.”

“That—”

“What you’re about to say we’ve both said more than once. Save it. What can you do for us, Rosewater? What can you do to save us when we fail?” Silk hesitated at the end of one row of dresses, pulled one down, and moved towards the end of the storage area, where a full form sat, waiting for her to set a dress to it. “She’s hoping to goad you into doing something stupid.”

“She’s not going to succeed. I have allies, Silk. I’m not alone anymore.”

“I know, and I think she knows or at least suspects which allies you have. Stars, even I can only guess at who you can trust.” Silk snorted as she set about arranging the dress under its cover before she unfastened the ties and pulled the linen cover off. “What do you think? I had to improvise with the blue, since I figured you would have your mane done at the Garden and put the ribbons in there.”

For a moment, Rosewater paused, adjusting to the shift of the conversation. “I will, yes.” Rosewater walked around the form, admiring her sister’s work more than taking in the colors. She couldn’t wait to show it to Collar, to the world, and let it be known that she was courting him. “It’s beautiful. Are you nearly done?”

“I am done, save any changes you wish to make as the customer. I’ll charge you extra for anything that changes in the size requirements.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Silk gave her a look that said she expected it soon. “I’m merely mentioning it if you want to get more than one use out of your dress. I know your budget is tight, and there’s another gala not far along the way.”

Rosewater snorted. “My winter coat won’t make me that thick, sister dearest.”

“Fine.” Silk snorted. “Has he declared for you yet? Since I can’t get an answer out of you by beating around the bush.”

“No. He hasn’t.”

“Vine’s gonna be upset,” Silk said with a small smile. “She really wants you and Dazzle to have a good, happy life together.”

“Truly?”

“She’s a soft heart, Rosewater,” Silk said quietly, then began covering the dress again. “No changes?”

“Not one. It’s beautiful, Silk.” She stroked the foreleg of the dress form. “There was an ulterior motive, though, for me coming here. You were… what? Sixteen?”

Silk narrowed her eyes, as if to say ‘I dropped this topic for a reason.’ “I was. She was fourteen.”

“You know how that’s normally handled? When siblings have sex?”

“Separated and taught. I know that now,” Silk said, bitterness in her voice. “Stars, I didn’t know it then. It almost never happens, Rosewater.”

“Because other parents pay attention to their children and see the signs earlier, and take steps to prevent it. Our mother didn’t pay us any more attention than she had to. She told me to grow up when my father passed away, when I was there to feel his death with my talent, Silk. Carnation, I think, suspected what happened. Roseate never cared.”

Before Silk could say anything, Rosewater forged on, “I’m saying you were never given the chance that other fillies your age would have been given. You were hobbled from the start, and never given the opportunity to recant your feelings and put them behind you as a childish mistake. Go to Lace, surrender to them and seek asylum.”

“I won’t! This is my home, Rosewater, and Vine and I both have our own lovers and loves here. And… and our family. I won’t abandon Crown, Hip, and Rosetail. Especially not Rosetail. She’d be homeless without us, ‘Water. After Roseate kicked her out after the raid? For running like a sensible pony.”

“What?” Homeless?

“You hadn’t heard?” Silk snorted. “She didn’t make it well known, I guess, and she avoids you like the plague. She’s living with us.”

“But she… she has friends? Doesn’t she? You’re both already on her list.”

“Who else would risk angering Roseate? Vine wouldn’t hear of her trying to eke it on her own. She can cut manes, but she has no studio, and nopony will take on somepony who could jeopardize their clientele.”

“She… stars. Stars and fire, what is Roseate doing? She’s barely past her first majority.”

“I know. It’s part of why we took her in, Rosewater. She needs a steady head in her life.”

“How… is she?”

“She’s been…” Silk made a rolling motion with her hoof. “Depressed. She wants nothing more than to earn mother’s love.”

Rosewater closed her eyes. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Now? Nothing. Tomorrow or next week?” Silk shook her head. “I don’t know. Let… let Vine work on her a bit, okay? She needs a loving touch.” She hesitated, biting her lip before she came up to Rosewater and touched noses with her, a close, sisterly nuzzle. “Thank you for offering. It means a lot to me to know you care about us all.”

“I do. Stars, you’re all my flesh and blood, Silk.”

“And Rosary? Well? Powder?”

Rosewater hesitated, her mouth open.

“Don’t. They’re too far gone into mother’s means. Whatever she was born with, she passed it on fully to them.” Silk brushed past her, letting her shoulder linger against Rosewater’s. “And watch out for them. Whatever orders mother gave them, they’re bound to be nasty and vindictive. I wouldn’t go out after dark alone, either. Or even in a small group.”

“Then I had best make my way to the Garden.”

“Do. Be careful, Rosewater. All of our fates ride on your shoulders.”

Collar glanced aside at the clerk waiting with him at the Damme side of the Rosewine bridge, the wind coming off the bay tossing his mane and bringing the scent of salt and seaweed even to his nose. “You don’t have to wait with me.”

“I’m afraid I do,” Vellum Inkfeather, a tawny, small-statured female pegasus said, the tips of her feathers and mane the same ink-dipped color so black it was almost blue. It truly looked like she’d dipped them all in fresh ink. “The strictures are clear, and she must sign for the treaty flag.”

“I could escort her without one.”

“My lord, she specifically requested this at her last visit to the office.” Vellum shook her head, short manecut bobbing. “And Sir Spark is busy on other matters this morning.”

“What other matters? There’s not much to do but batten down the hatches for winter, right? We got our first snow last night.”

Vellum gave him a look that he couldn’t decipher and fell silent, something that only made him question what else the Treaty offices in Merrie and Damme did during the time when communication with Canterlot was limited to what a long-haul pegasus could handle. Perhaps there was an order stretching back to the old days to prepare for a siege.

Whatever it was, Vellum didn’t seem to be bothered by it, so perhaps not. Maybe it was simply settling their ponies into place and securing food and lodging for the next year, or their own preparations for the gala.

They had to have an ear to the whispers in the cities saying something was up. It was all over his own reports these days, mostly rumors about his involvement with Rosewater and just how deeply they went. Some of them even got close to the truth, though the details were distorted. Such as the idea that they had already been married in secret, that she already carried his child, or that he had used some kind of Primline magic to subdue her, or the opposite.

A few of them were more hopeful, that they were actually falling in love, that she was courting him in secret and had won his heart, and her joy on her walks through the city was genuine and open, a sign of her being out from under her mother’s oppressive hoof.

It made him wish he could encourage some of the rumors by more than acting as if he were only warming to her and not actually in love with her. The problem with manipulating rumors was that they were unpredictable.

Then he saw her, briefly, as she came up the rise of the farthest span of the Rosewine, her white coat and pink mane unmistakable. The blue ribbons were back, with a larger one tied into a bow capturing her mane in and keeping it from flying everywhere in the strong breeze coming from the bay, and the rest of her mane was captured in a blanket against her neck, the ribbons all tied into bows capturing overlapping layers.

“Beautiful,” he whispered as she disappeared again, the bridge ahead of him hiding her from view as she descended to the small island in the middle of the river. “Stars.”

Vellum glanced at him again, her expression curious. “Are the rumors true?”

Collar startled, not realizing he’d spoken the thoughts aloud. “Which?”

Vellum flushed.

“If you mean the ones that say I’m falling in love with her… no. I fell in love with her long ago, Vellum. It took me a while to figure it out.” He chuckled at her flustered look. “Surely you’ve been around Merriers enough to know this isn’t even close to what they consider ‘normal’ conversation. And ponies will know soon enough.”

“How soon?”

“A few weeks.” Collar’s smile ached as Rosewater came up the rise again, her mane fluttering more strongly in the breeze, the bows’ loops seeming like they wanted to come free as she stood tall and beautiful on the top of the arch, her eyes searching for only a moment before they found him.

Her smile bloomed like the sunrise when her eyes found him, when they met.

“Maybe sooner,” Vellum murmured beside him.

“Why do you say that?”

“Stars, I’m from Canterlot and I can tell you’re besotted.” Vellum ruffled her wings and pulled out a logbook and a stoppered inkpot and quill, setting both on the ground in front of her. “I wish you would stop by the office instead. It’s easier.”

“But she lives at the Garden now, most of the time. It’s more convenient for her to arrive here.”

“Good morning, Collar,” Rosewater said, her voice languid and warm, speaking of a warm breakfast and a good night. “Vellum. Stars, I forgot I asked. I should have sent word that you didn’t need to come all this way. I was looking forward to a long riverside walk with Collar to the office.”

Vellum snorted and shot a look at Collar. “Next time, perhaps. It’s no issue, my lady.” No doubt she would be reporting it to Firelight.

“Still,” she said, stepping up closer and brushing her cheek against his. It was a shockingly intimate greeting in Damme between ponies not related, and especially for enemies. “Thank you for coming to meet me.”

Collar wished, at that moment, that he’d had the courage to divert her course into a kiss. Instead, he returned her cheek brush and leaned into it. “You’re welcome.”

Across the river, Crown frowned into her morning tea, pondering Collar’s unguarded words to the Treaty Office secretary. They could change what she needed to do, and change her possible paths to victory. Note hadn’t been able to offer her assurances that she would be welcomed in Damme, not after she’d been captured in the middle of a raid, been seen at another, and…

So much else had raised barriers to her entry into Damme. She may have served her time, commuted with the payment of the herdgild, but she already had another arrest warrant on her docket.

But this… Collar and a more friendly Rosewater opened up new pathways.

It was clear to her that Rosewater was in love with him as well, and the silence of Rosewater’s home, so much more complete than it usually was, for almost two whole days, was suspicious, but not enough on its own for even Roseate to order Rosewater arrested for consorting with the enemy.

A laughable charge.

How can I use this? How can I keep it from Roseate for a little longer?

The bridgehead had been fairly deserted this early in the morning, as few heavy haul ponies used the Rosewine Bridge aside from the vineyard itself. The relatively narrow bridge—as compared to the Dock Bridge or the Primrose—could only accommodate a single cart at a time crossing one span, though the island in the middle could be used to interchange, and it was large enough, and the foundation stones thick enough and high enough from the river, to support a few waiting carts going in either direction and keep a lane free in the middle.

But there was already enough traffic passing by on the riverwalk behind to maybe have heard his utterance, and definitely to see them sharing a more-than-friendly greeting.

And I’m supposed to be watching her when I’m not planning to capture Note.

She had little doubt that Rosewater suspected as much. Her only concern was that one of her three elder sisters, the Triumvirate in Roseate’s confidence, was also listening. Rosewell wasn’t nearly as talented as Crown, but she could manage a passable Far-Listening spell.

Would she think to listen to Collar?

It was a gamble. Perhaps she could pass it off as interference from the wind and splitting her attention between Rosewater and Collar.

She made a few scratches in her notebook, more to seem as if she was doing something, but in truth scratching only the dry nib against the paper. Later, she would put her account in. For now, she merely needed to appear as if she was taking notes, or making an outline for her next poem.

The Rosewine Blossom wasn’t her favorite place to spend her mornings as it was more of an afternoon and evening service, but its place on a hill near the Rosewine bridge, barely a quarter mile from the far bank, meant she had to reach only half of her maximum range, aided by the wind carrying their words farther inland.

“Would you like another scone, miss?”

“No. Thank you though, Honeysuckle.” Crown gave the young mare a courteous smile. “How is your coltfriend?”

“Well,” the mare said, glancing back towards the open door to the kitchens and the interior seating before leaning in closer. “I got permission from his parents to have sex with him, so we’re planning an evening date tomorrow here, then at his house I’m going to talk to his parents about what this means to us. I’m nervous, but I’ve been practicing what I want to say. His mother said she would provide the spell just before, so I’m excited!”

“Wonderful. I’m glad to hear that,” Crown said with a gracious smile. “I hope it goes well.” She pulled an extra full bit from her purse and laid it on the table. “For your date. I won’t hear otherwise, just pay it forward when you have the chance, lovely.”

“I will Miss Crown. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome. Now get before your mother comes and scolds you for dallying with a customer.” Crown chuckled as the mare flushed and tucked the bit into her tip pouch and pranced back to the restaurant.

Maybe this is a good morning place. It was quiet, at least, and being one of only three other customers there…

I wish you could be here, Note.

She lounged for a while, staring at the river and the docks, the cities bustling down below, and lamented that the namesake blossoms had long ago fallen and been swept away, and even the leaves on the trees were long-gone.

But spring comes again.

There was an idea for a song or a poem there. She could spend a few more minutes or an hour trying to suss it out before she would have to leave and let the table be cleaned before the lunch rush.

Collar grimaced when Rosewater raised her nose and sniffed delicately at the air. It meant an end to their meeting. An end to the slow kisses and nuzzles, the holding of each other. Cloudy and Rosemary were in the public gardens with Stride and Sunrise, helping him overcome some of his anxieties following the ambush at the old dueling grounds.

Leaving him and the mare who was to be the first mother of his children to discuss arrangements for what their declaration would mean, who to trust with the revelation that Rosewater’s heir would be his child.

“It’s Coat,” she said softly, glancing at the clock standing in the corner. “The time passed too quickly, Collar,” she whispered before lowering her gaze to the scroll holding the latest result of their negotiations, the false front to their courtship. A lien on her Rosefire Estate that she would be allowed to pay down over ten years. It would never be placed, but it was a part of what she was offering. It made up a substantial amount of the final amount of the herdgild, depending on appraisal.

Her face settled into an impassive mask that he wanted to brush away with a touch, but she smiled at him from under it and tucked the scroll into her saddlebags.

Instead, he rose with her and adopted his own mask and pulled open the door just as Coat raised his hoof to knock. “Coat, thank you for being punctual.”

Coat shot a look at Rosewater and swallowed. “O-of course, my lord. Both Primfeather Wing and Down are here to see you for your afternoon appointment.”

He felt, more than saw, Rosewater stiffen. “Thank you, Coat. I’ll walk the Lady Rosewater to the door. I take it both are in the entry hall?”

Coat winced. “My lord, if you would consider, I would walk Lady Rosewater to the door. It would be less…”

“No. I’ll walk with the two of you, but I won’t insult Rosewater by foisting my responsibilities as a host off on you, Coat.” His old friend gave him a searching look, then nodded, and Collar continued, “The one concession I will make is allow you to escort her to the Treaty office, and then to the Rosewine bridge.”

“My lord?”

“I wish to return to my home by the most direct means, Lieutenant Coat,” Rosewater said. “I’d rather not be beset by my mothers partisans on my way to a peaceful dinner and gentle night.”

Collar tried to remain impassive, but when she’d told him what Silk had told her, it had been all he could do not to demand she stay in Damme for her own safety. He had asked her to consider it, at least, but he’d known before the words had even left his mouth that it wasn’t something they could do. Not yet, and especially not with Wing making a formal appointment to talk to him regarding the harvest and his faction’s concerns.

“I see.” Coat’s attention shifted. “I have authority to resist ponies attempting to arrest her?”

Collar snapped himself back to the present, but not without the heat of the thoughts skirling in his mind. “Coat, if anypony attempts to arrest her, I will have their hides on my wall before the sun goes down,” Collar growled. “I trust you can convey that to any of our overzealous junior officers?”

Coat swallowed and nodded. “Coll, what’s…” He glanced over his shoulder, ears flattening. “Stars, what’s gotten into you?”

“Speak freely,” Collar said, spreading silence over the room and closing the door. “I suppose it’s probably time I let you in, anyway. I need to get Sunrise and Platinum on board soon, too.”

“On board with what?” Coat asked, suspicion in his eyes. “You haven’t told me anything, not that I expect it, but you’ve always come to me to talk about matters of…”

“The heart. This… matter of the heart, Coat, I couldn’t. It is as good as a state secret.”

“State secret? What’s gotten into you? This isn’t like you.” Coat flicked a glance at Rosewater, then back to him. “What’s going on? There’s rumors that Thistle repeats when he comes home from his teahouse. You’re in love with her, she’s in love with you, she’s pregnant, you’re pregnant…”

Rosewater snorted a laugh. “Really now. That would be quite the trick.”

Coat pointed a hoof at her. “Are you? In love with her. Coll, I’ve been worried sick with—”

“Yes.”

Coat stuttered to a stop, and even Rosewater stared at him, her ears flattening briefly before she nodded slowly.

“Cloudy knows?”

“Of course. She was a proponent of it before I was. Coat,” Collar said, reaching out to his friend. “I know I’ve been distant lately. I’ve been unsure how to let you into a big change in my life. Please believe me when I say she’s not who you think she is. She’s a mare worthy of love, Coat.”

“But the Tussen Twee…” Coat stared at him, his eyes flicking to Rosewater. “Why? Stars, why, Collar? You know what this will do to our ponies.”

“It will let them see that our brothers and sisters across the river aren’t promiscuous miscreants, too debauched to see their folly. They’re ponies, Coat, and their love, their way, is no more or less valid than ours.” Collar sidled closer to Rosewater and leaned against her. “She’s more than you’ve heard. She’s strong, Coat, but not unkind, not unloving. She loves her adopted daughter more than you can know, and she’s been through so much to get here.”

“And none of that explains why you’re in love with her,” Coat said, glancing at her again and studying her more intently. “Rosemary?”

“She’s my adopted daughter, yes. And no, none of that does explain why love blooms, Coat. It can explain why love has a chance, but love is personal, and translating that is too much like comparing it to other loves.” Rosewater’s voice fell into that of a teacher’s, a parent’s, patiently explaining a difficult concept. “We don’t compare our loves, Coat. It’s rude to say ‘My love for Rosemary is greater than my love for Collar.’ They are not. I am her parent, and my love for her is different from my love for him, but no more or less real or potent.”

“Love is love,” Collar said, nodding. “It doesn’t need to be compared.”

Coat considered that for a long moment, then held out a hoof to her. “Can you promise me you mean him no harm, my lady? Look me in the eye and say that without reservation?”

“I promise you, Coat. I mean neither Collar nor Cloudy, nor even Lace and Dapper any harm. On the contrary. I find myself seeing the Baroness and Baron as more parental than my own mother towards me.” Rosewater set her hoof on Coat’s, her eyes never leaving his. “I would defend them from all, and have, even from my own mother.”

Coat studied her face for another long moment, then nodded. “I have heard much of you of late, my lady. But we had best not tarry much longer or Wing will burst in and accuse me of being caught in your web.” His smile held a hint of wry humor before he glanced at Collar. “If you would permit it, my lord, I would take her on a longer walk than usual through the city. I feel I should take the time to get to know one of the loves of my lord’s life.”

That should be me.

“And through the city as well? Back to the Rosewine bridge?” Rosewater still hadn’t lost sight of her ultimate objective, even if he had, briefly, succumbed to the fear that she would be taken from him with their love so new.

“Aye, my lady. I believe the riverwalk would be a good place to be seen.” Coat glanced at Collar. “That is the reason you’ve been accompanying her? You and Cloudy? To get our ponies used to seeing her in companionable company?”

“It is.”

“Then I’ll gladly be a part of this conspiracy, but you will owe me, and Thistle will grill me greatly tonight on just what she’s like in person.” He cocked his head. “How much can I tell him?”

Rosewater glanced at Collar, brow raised.

My call. Collar closed his eyes. I either trust my friend and his husband… “Everything, Coat. Thistle knows how to keep quiet. And Coat?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

The afternoon was cooler than it had been when Rosewater had entered, and the smell of snow lingered on the air, far away still, but close enough to chill her heart. A part of her yearned for the winters spent in her private exile, holed away in her estate with her daughter beside her in warmth and comfort, but this year was going to be different. Had to be different. The northern snows this year threatened to smother what had been kindled.

“Stay safe,” Collar whispered, his muzzle too close to her lips to be merely friendly. “Please. I can’t lose you.”

It was risky to say that in the open, but they were moving on. They were, and Rosewater needed to let go of her fear of what might happen next. They were planning, and had plans. This was happening, and the gala was coming when she would all but tell the world she was in love.

“You won’t. I’m telling Seed and Petal everything I’ve told you. We’re going to be making the same plans.”

“Good.” Collar backed up and glanced over his shoulder to where Wing and his wife, Down, looked on with disapproving stares, far enough away that they couldn’t hear their conversation. “It looks like you’ll have more fun than I will. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Collar gave Coat a nod and backed away. “Take care of her, Coat. I’m placing her care in your hooves, and trust you know the trouble we’ll be in if there’s an incident while she’s on her way home.”

The gate closed behind them, and Coat started down the way, then stopped at the base of the stairs, watching her as she made her way down, her eyes scanning the city, each step careful and deliberate. This might be her morning view some day, and most of the time, she’d been in a hurry to leave, but the view from here, close to the start of the foothills of the Crystal Mountains, she could look over almost the entire city.

Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys, carried away to the southeast by the breeze that had changed while she’d been inside. By tonight, it would be the first real snow that might have a chance to stick around for more than half a day. Then, if the pattern held, they’d have a few warm weeks, enough to cover the Gala and beyond.

Coat waited patiently for her peaceful musings, a wavering smile waiting for her. “Are you ready, my lady?”

“I am.” She let the silence hang for a few steps, then cleared her throat, and added, “I understand you’re a regular guard for my cousin.”

“I-I am,” Coat said, clearing his throat. “She’s… not like you at all.” He winced. “Not… she’s warm and personable. From all I’ve seen of you, you’re more distant.”

“Out of necessity. I want to stop that, Coat. I want to be open and honest with everyone, but I don’t know how to start with your ponies. I’ve tried to be… me. I’m sure your husband could tell you all the rumors of how I’m happy when I’m with Collar and Cloudy on our walks.”

“He could, and has. He gathers gossip like a dragon gathers gold. Most of what I’ve heard of you is disjointed, but the way Collar acts around you tells me more than rumors ever could, and the way Rosemary talks about you…”

“She talks about me?” Rosewater asked, brow raised.

“Of course. It’s clear she loves you like a mother.” Coat flicked his ears. “What you say is one thing. What she says…”

Silence came over them again as they made their way into the streets, following the early-afternoon flow roughly towards the Primrose Bridge. At least until he took a side-street with only a few ponies arranging crates into a cart alongside one of the businesses.

“Where are we going?” Rosewater asked, her familiarity with the city at night giving her less insight as to where she actually was than she would have thought. Most of these little streets were where she hid, but she’d only rarely been here to see what little shops and places were here and there. “The bridge is that way.”

“Of course,” Coat said, his smile growing. “It takes courage to walk these streets as you have, Rosewater. I can respect that, though I don’t understand it. Enlighten me and I’ll show you around a little. A sanctioned tour, as it were.”

The ears of the ponies around them seemed to perk up. “That seems a poor payment for a guided tour. Zephyrine charges a silver buckle for a tour of Merrie of our tourists.”

“Ah, but knowledge is priceless.” He chewed his lip for a moment. “I hear a lot of stories about you, but all stories have two sides. You don’t seem to be such an awful pony as the stories say. I want to hear your side. It’s one of the reasons why Thistle never shares gossip. He likes to listen, to gather it all to him until he knows the truth. Then he tells that.”

“Wise of him,” Rosewater mused, glancing aside at him. “And wise of you to listen to him. You have some of the Primline in you, do you not?”

“Primline Gown, yes. The tallest of her generation.” Coat chuckled and rolled a shoulder. “My grandmother married short, my mother shorter still, and my Thistle is shorter than I by at least two hooves, though he doesn’t complain.”

“I’m sure not,” Rosewater said with a chuckle. “And this is the reason I walk the streets, Coat. I want to talk with ponies, not have them shy away from me, not… be terrifying anymore. It’s not me. It never was.”

Coat, as if understanding the role he had chosen, nodded solemnly. “Then… what was?”

“A sister to that brilliant young mare you’re guarding,” Rosewater said, giving Coat a wink, “the daughter of one of the kindest ponies I know, the heart of our home. Not Roseate. I stopped thinking of her as my mother as soon as she told me to ‘grow up’ and act like an adult. The very morning after my father had died in front of me.”

That seemed to genuinely shock Coat for the first time since just a few minutes ago. “What? Stars, what?”

“It’s the truth. Before a few days ago, I saw it as my shame, Coat. That if I had been… more. I could have saved him, could have done something. But there was nothing.” It felt… freeing to share it. The pain wasn’t gone, but she could hold it and the events apart from each other. She didn’t need to succumb to them both at once. “I feel like… I was that filly for too long, Coat. Scared, afraid of what my mother, my birth mother, would do to me if I didn’t obey. But… I found happiness with my family.”

Silence punctuated by murmurs around them, along with the occasional muttering of Rose Terror, filled the next few blocks. Coat watched her, and the road, and the ponies around them, his ears flicking to follow threads of drifting conversations.

“I hid myself away after I fought for that little sliver of happiness, my cousin, and the life we had forged together as friends. As… as a small bit of family.” She glanced aside to see Coat’s incredulous look had turned somber. “And now… I finally see that I was going about it wrong. Capitulating, obeying, wasn’t ever going to make her leave me alone. Being my own pony is the way to go. So… here I am. Trying to be me.”

“You lost a lot, didn’t you?” He eyed her for a long moment, then smiled when she nodded. “I see.” He lifted five bits from his guard’s hauberk. “I’ll bet you five bits I can get somepony to talk to you before we reach the bridge.”

“Oh?” She looked around, ponies looking everywhere but at her as her gaze passed over them, then focusing exclusively on her as soon as they thought she wasn’t looking anymore. “You’re on.”

Collar rubbed at his temples and leaned back in his chair. The talk with Wing and Down had stayed mostly on topic to this point, their worries about those that followed their lead having to do more with the harvest, both of crops and of lumber, and the taxes paid to the Crown in Canterlot for the portions of their goods that travelled across Equestrian borders.

Down, the financial mind of the family, had brought a list of discrepancies that she was certain were errors in recording of the goods, that he was almost certain were before and after Lace’s concession from the Treaty office to lower tariffs on both sides. Still, he’d have to pass it by the Trade office, and Priceless, to validate the values.

It was probably a waste of time. But nothing would upset his ponies more than a story of careless waste and overpayment. They wouldn’t care about who was who.

“I’ll let you know as soon as Priceless and his office have had a chance to look over the figures,” he said, tucking the papers back into the folio Down had helpfully provided. “Thank you for providing dates and bills of lading, as well, that will help me get away from the meeting without my ears ringing.”

Down gave him a thin smile. “I’m certain you will look after our best interests.”

“All of our best interests. The entire city. We’re worried about the rumors we’re hearing about your most recent trysts with Rosewater through the city.”

Collar stared at him, uncertain if he’d heard the stallion properly. “You brought this to my attention already, and I addressed your concerns then. We’re friends, Wing. She’s a remarkable mare.”

“And that is why we’re concerned,” Down said. “You’re acting like she’s not the enemy that has—”

“She was a soldier, Down. Your son would understand what that means. You do the difficult things because your sovereign ordered you to. Your son stood with us when we faced down Roseate’s ambush, and Rosewater couldn’t stand by anymore.” Collar shook his head. “Even if she said she was doing it because she had decided to court me, and was protecting her interest, the end result was the same. I’m free of mind because of her.”

“So she has—”

“Of course she rutting has,” Collar snapped when Wing started to go over the same pavement again. “She’s made no secret of it. But behind that is a mare who is coming to know who she is and what she is worth. She’s interesting, Wing, and we’ve found a stable friendship in our negotiations.” Collar stood up from his desk and straightened the stack of folios. “We’re done, unless you have business to discuss, and not nattering about relationships.”

Down’s pale coat, said to be a throwback to Frosty Rosewing, flushed across her cheeks. “You are playing with a fire you can’t possibly know.”

“I can, because it has happened before. Frosty, your ancestor—”

Wing slammed a hoof on the floor. “You will not bring that—”

“Shut up! Both of you!” Down shouted, her cheeks flushed, her wings half-arched. “Frosty Rosewing was a mare in the wrong life. She came to the Tussen Twee, she expunged her shame after a time. I am not ashamed to count one of the rulers of Damme among my ancestors. And you, Lord Collar, will not presume to lecture me about my own ancestors.”

Collar, having Frosty’s own accounting if he wished to ask his mother for it, was certain that he could lecture her, but he kept his tongue. “I apologize, Down. The Rosewing family is a right and honorable family, however small it has grown. I am glad to see it continue in some way in you and your children. And I am glad to eventually contribute to its continuance.”

Both of them glowered at him, and Collar just barely managed not to gloat over the minor victory Down had just given him on a gilded platter.

“I believe that’s all for our business today,” Collar said softly after a few breaths.

Down jerked her head in a nod. “I expect results by the end of the week, my lord. Our ponies are looking to us to ensure that they receive every bit and buckle they’re due.”

“And I assure you that they will get all they’re due, down to every copper buckle. But understand that Priceless and the factors will follow the law and the Treaty.”

When they were gone, with more mutterings about bits and buckles, Collar withdrew his own flask of brandy, borrowed from his mother, and a clean tumbler from a drawer.

“Now I know why you have such a variety, mother,” Collar murmured as he sipped and sent his thoughts after Rosewater, hoping that she was safe.

The street Coat took her to was worryingly familiar to her as Rosetide. It was lined with mane salons, hooficure stalls set up along the row advertising winter hoof treatments with magic and potion soaks to harden them against the chill. Ponies sat and chatted, the conversations stalling and petering out or switching track as Rosewater and Coat strode by.

It was just before lunchtime, so the street was packed with ponies taking a break from jobs or taking a day off to handle their beautification. It usually was whenever she’d made her trips as Rosetide as well, it being easier to escape suspicion in a crowd as a pair of ponies rather than one tall pony alone, even with her illusions.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Mmm. You know I love your manecut, and those ribbons are even better. Some of those looks aren’t only because you’re who you are, but that and what you’re wearing.” Coat fairly pranced ahead, forcing Rosewater to increase her pace to a slow trot after him. “Come, come.”

“You’re rigging the bet, aren’t you?” Rosewater hissed as she caught up to him.

“Rigging the bet?” Coat laughed loud and deeply. “Stars, no. I’m merely tipping the odds in my favor.”

You want this. She did want to talk to somepony in Damme besides her new family without them scared out of their coats. “Fine. Let’s see just how much you tip the odds. I’ll choose to trust you.”

He led her to one of the mane salons towards the middle of the row, Prim Cut and Shine Mane Salon. It was one of her regular stops as Rosetide, and she could recite the regular order the two ponies who ran the shop normally made. From Roseling, a crate of coconut cream coat scrub, a half crate of sandalwood solid mane shampoo bars, and two jars of a cream and orange shampoo; mostly simple, low-profile scents that the scent-averse ponies of Damme used to at least cover up their body odor.

They still bought the scents of ponies in Merrie, and pretended they were locally sourced as natural alternatives to letting their natural musks take over. It was something every civilized pony did, however much they had to dance around the idea of using ‘scent magic.’

There were a few local scenters that didn’t use magic, but they tended to make lower quality, if naturally sourced, scents. It was something that Merriers had started, of course, ponies that knew a little about scent creation, and wanted to try out the practice as a hobby and within the confines of Merrie’s laws.

Inside, half a dozen ponies sat at mirrors while pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies plied their skills on manes, coats, and tails with specially designed scissors, brushes, and combs for ponies without the use of telekinetic magic.

It was a normal salon, and not the type of place that Rosewater regularly visited. Rosewater had managed her own mane for the last six years, for the most part, and had only visited a salon twice in that time, both times before an event in the hopes of finding somepony to ease the loneliness.

Stepping into one across the river brought back some of those memories.

The lively conversations slowed to a stop as whispers replaced them before Coat stepped out in front of her.

“Cut!” He yelled, “Little brother!”

“Stars!” came a call from the back, “can’t you make an appointment like a normal—” Cut, one of Rosewater’s customers, stepped into view and stopped. With both of them to compare, it was easy to see the family resemblance. “Coat, what in the stars?”

“I brought you a new customer, Cut,” Coat said, winking at Rosewater. “A high profile customer.”

“You could say that,” Cut said in a droll voice, then glanced around his salon. “Not to worry, friends. She’s treaty-bonded, as you can see.”

“I am,” Rosewater said in her best gentle voice. “I wanted to have Coat give me a tour of the city. And, well, the gala is coming up, and I thought… how better to show that I love Damme than to have my mane styled by my tour guide’s own brother?”

“I-indeed!” Coat proclaimed loudly, laughing. “The gala.”

Cut peered at his brother, his ears flattening as the whispers started again around them. “And how, pray tell, did… she know that you have a brother who styles manes, who just happened to be working today?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell her. She figured it out. Familial resemblance and all.”

“Or,” Rosewater said, chancing a show of friendship and sidestepping to bump shoulders with Coat, “when you called him ‘little brother.’”

Cut narrowed his eyes, but not at Rosewater. “You made a bet, didn’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you. Because I know if, given the opportunity to make a bet, you will make that bet. What was it?”

“Cut, come on. I just brought you a customer. Please… please don’t make this awkward for her. She’s already had a rough day.”

For a moment, Cut considered Rosewater, his expression softening, but he turned his glower back on his older brother before he said a word to her. “Tell me, or I’ll tell Thistle before you can make it back home.”

“It was—” Rosewater started.

“My lady, please. This is between me and my brother.”

Wordlessly, Rosewater pulled out five golden bits and passed them to Coat, barely able to hold back a smile.

“Rosewater!” Coat hissed, not taking the coins.

“Bet paid in full, Coat. I keep my promises.”

Cut glanced at her, then back at his brother, and dissolved into giggles and snickers, leaning against his brother and hooking a foreleg around his neck.

Sullenly, Coat took the bits and stowed them, looking as though he’d lost the bet. “I was wrong. You are sinister.”

“N-no she isn’t,” Cut got out through straining laughter, choking the words out between fits. “Stars, the l-look on your face!”

A few more moments laughing at his brother’s expense, and Cut straightened, snickering, and held out a hoof. “Thank you, my lady. It’s not often I get to see that sour look when he wins. What was the bet?”

“He would get somepony to talk to me before I left for the day,” Rosewater said, the bet suddenly sounding like a pathetic attempt to be social. “I apologize, Cut. I didn’t mean to have your business disrupted by my presence.”

Cut glanced around, the customers all watching the exchange, but his staff were going about their business with the same efficiency they had before. They had jobs to do, and a little thing like the visiting enemy heiress shouldn’t disrupt that—not when she was peace-bonded.

“My lady, the only thing that will happen is a little more gossip will spread out from here. Let me at least make up for my brother’s callous use of your time. Unless you have someplace you need to be?”

Need to be? Rosewater shook her head slightly, and said, “Nowhere I need to be, no. The rest of my day was going to be spent getting ready for the Gala. Making sure that…” She shook out her mane. “My mane was ready, and my tail, and my dress.”

Cut gave Coat a look, then returned his attention to Rosewater and gestured for her to follow him. “Then there is one thing I can help you with. How long has it been since you’ve seen a professional stylist?”

Rosewater blinked. “Long enough. Why?”

“Well, all style gossip comes through here eventually, even that from Merrie by one means or another.” Cut cast a spell on a space in front of a full body mirror and cleaned away a few stray clippings from the neighboring styling stall. “And I’ve not heard much about you save that beautiful blue in your mane from the Commoner’s Gala last week.”

“At least a year,” Rosewater said softly, wincing. “I’ve managed it myself, and with the help of my, um… my niece. Sister. Charge. Rosemary.” She felt her cheeks heating. Why don’t I just start calling her my daughter everywhere? The answer, of course, was simple. Because none of the three sisters she’d given the secret to as an out had told her they’d used it, nor had Roseate tried to come down on her like a shipload of bricks for lying about their relationship for so long. “She’s made sure I don’t look like a spinster.”

“She’s done a passable job,” Cut said, untying the big ribbon, “and you seem to have a handle on basic styling. Very nice looking, but I think we can do more with it.”

“Cut,” Coat protested, stepping up close. “I’m supposed to take her directly to the treaty office!”

“Nonsense.” Cut clucked his tongue and began undoing the rest of the ribbons. “These are truly beautiful fabric, Rosewater, may I call you that?”

“It would be my pleasure if you did, Cut. And thank you. I had them sourced from a fabric supplier in Damme. I’ve been assured it’s the only place I can get true Damme blue.” Rosewater held one of the ribbons in a spell, idly tying it into a loose bow around an imaginary lock of mane.

“True enough, true enough. You must have gotten it from True Blue Fabrics. They’re the official supplier for Prim Palace.”

“I… can’t recall if that was the place my supplier mentioned, but if that’s the only place, then… that’s the only place.”

After he was done untying them, Cut fluffed out her mane and leaned in to get a sniff, then clucked his tongue. “You came without any scents at all? That’s mighty unusual.”

“I didn’t want to seem disrespectful.”

A whisper came to her ears, then, straining already to overhear conversations while Coat grumbled to himself in the corner.

“Is that really the Rose Terror? She doesn’t sound anything like the rumors.”

“It can’t be her. Her twin sister?”

“She doesn’t have a twin sister, dolt. It has to be her.”

Cut smiled at her in the mirror, flicking an ear. “You do well to respect our culture, Rosewater, but even we like to scent our manes a little bit, otherwise we end up smelling a little too… au naturale. Come with me. We’ll get you a proper mane and coat wash, then we’ll see what we can do to your mane and tail. Oh! And you’ll have to tell me about your dress.”

“Stars… I am so getting demoted for this,” Coat grumbled as he followed along.

“Bet you won’t,” Rosewater shot back over her shoulder.

He only glowered at her, a twinkle in his eyes as Cut broke into another fit of laughter.

Book 2, 42. Passing the Time

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The day passed in a slow torpor leading up to the first real blow that could even halfway be called a blizzard, the winds picking up with a real bite of winter from the north. The snow the night before had been a gentle, barely there thing of wet flakes that had already started melting as soon as they’d fallen.

She sat on a north-facing balcony on the second story of the villa, ready to retreat into the warmth and security of Petal’s favorite weather-viewing room with two big bay windows on either side of the door, with pillows on each, waiting for ponies to come and watch the winter pass.

Both of them sat with her, and Dazzle on her other side, the stallion leaning into her and she leaning back as they all kept each other warm.

“The foals are going to be disappointed.”

Rosewater sipped her warm tea, watching the roiling bank of gray still far north of Damme as it rolled down the foothills, eating away at the brown and gray with a blanket of darkness. She tried not to equate it to their current situation.

“They got to catch the first snowflakes of the year on their tongues already,” Rosewater said with a smile that didn’t feel the least bit forced. Remembering the young foals, and even some of the teenagers, running around the open field between the villa and the village proper, catching as many snowflakes as they could, and making a mess of their legs and underbellies as they trampled through the cold mud from the day’s earlier rain. It had taken the entire rest of the night to get them all through the public bathhouse on the village grounds. “I think the parents won’t be disappointed.”

Seed laughed and Dazzle nibbled at her jaw, chuckling.

“That… I need to talk to all of you.” Rosewater spread a silence over the balcony, anchoring it and spreading it over the floor as well. “About escorts for when Collar and I declare for each other.”

Dazzle didn’t even stiffen as he leaned against her. “I wish I could be a witness.”

“You can! In fact, I want you to be there to witness the initial declaration, Dazzle. Stars, you’ve been such a help to me.” Rosewater’s heart fell a moment later. “I… understand why you might not—”

“Don’t.” Dazzle bit her neck lightly. “Stars, I love you, but I know you loved… I know…” He grunted and hunched his shoulders.

“It’s hard,” Seed said into the awkward silence. “You’ve been working through your jealousy, Dazzle, in a healthy way. Express it to her. Let her respond to it.”

Rosewater swallowed.

“I want to be a father of your children, Rosewater. But I know… from what you’ve told us of your vows, that won’t happen.” His ears flattened to his skull. “I know that. It’s hard for me to love you, and for as short a time as I have, and not hope for more.”

Petal reached out with a spell to cup his chin. “You’ve spoken as much to me, love. I wish, too, that the political machinations that have Rosewater trapped did not require her to sacrifice so much of her upbringing. But this may not always be the way things are. The future holds many mysteries.”

“You have heard his concerns, Rosewater,” Seed said. “I know you can’t assuage them as you would like, but what do you say?”

“I love you, Dazzle,” Rosewater said softly, meeting his eyes and leaning in to kiss him lightly. “I love everything you’ve done for me, helped me rediscover myself, steadied me in my times of fear and need, and I feel like I’ve been leading you along, knowing what I must do for my ponies, for our ponies.”

“No, no,” Dazzle said, leaning into her, nuzzling her cheek and neck. “No, never think that. I knew, and I let myself hope anyway. You have never lied to me about what you wanted to do, Rosewater, what you needed to do.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Petal said, speaking up before Rosewater could find the words and the will to keep herself from breaking into a sob. “This is none of your faults. You love each other, and that must be enough for hearts in your positions.”

Rosewater had known this would be hard. She knew it would be a difficult talk to have, and she’d put it off. “I love you, Dazzle.” She took a breath. “And I need to ask you, all of you, and the garden, to help me.”

She’d thought about how to word what she needed to tell them, what her ultimate purpose was. Victory over Roseate, victory over circumstances, ending the war… none of them were quite right. They weren’t her reasons for wanting to be with Collar. They were reasons why she had to do things a certain way, why she had to abandon such a large part of her heritage.

Not abandon my history. Embrace a new way. ‘Dammer in style, Merrier in scope.’ She loved Collar and Cloudy and Rosemary. She could find her life-long love there and in the children they would have. She loved Dazzle, too, and perhaps they wouldn’t have to be apart forever.

Or you’ll grow apart, just as you and Roseling did.

That hurt. She’d let so many friends grow apart, so many lovers slip away because she’d given in to Roseate’s pressure.

I’m not going to let that happen again.

“I want to be your friend still,” Rosewater told him, kissing his cheek. “But after tonight, I’m not sure we can be lovers again.”

“I don’t care about being lovers,” Dazzle said, leaning against her. “I just want you in my life. We all want you in our lives, Rosewater, for the joy you bring all of us.” He paused a beat, smiled, and nuzzled her neck. “I’ll miss it, yes, but I understand why you have to. Dammer in style.”

“Merrier in scope,” Seed finished, frowning. “It’s not at all Merrier.”

“And it’s not at all Dammer,” Petal added. “But they won’t be without love, won’t be constrained socially, only constrained sexually.” Petal bobbed her head. “We’ll always be here, even if we can’t have any more Rose Nights or game nights…”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rosewater said softly, chuckling. “I would only have to make sure that my spouses are there with me. And enough witnesses to say we didn’t partake of other lovers.”

“Maybe,” Dazzle said, chuckling, his eyes not bright, but not grieving either. “The important thing is you’re staying, Rosewater. You’re not leaving.”

“I’m not. Not ever again. And I need your help to make sure that I can make sure Roseate doesn’t have the power to force me to.” Rosewater straightened, meeting each of her friends’ gazes in turn. “This is for love, not for politics. Not solely for politics. I love Collar, and I wish him to be the father of my first child. He has agreed, and when I go to the Treaty office next, I need two of you to go with me.”

“I’ll go,” Dazzle said before Petal or Seed could say anything. “It would be a pleasure to be the witness for your first declaration.”

“I’ll go,” Petal said. “I have… some things I need to ask the office anyway about trade and tariffs. It will stand as a good foil for all of us going there.”

Rosewater cocked her head, thinking. “Sending money to the legal fund for those farmers? There were problems with sending it directly?”

“Just so. It seems that constitutes too much of a problem simply gifting the money to them, tax-wise.” Petal shrugged one shoulder. “I need to ask about setting up a legal trust that can provide funds for their defense.”

“I’m sorry it’s such a mess. I should have thought about what would happen to those farmers.”

“It was my decision to buy the land, not yours.” Petal relaxed more, leaning against Seed. “Thank you for telling us, Rosewater. We will make it right. Nopony should have their marriage questioned just because they moved across the river.”

“Who has Collar chosen for his witnesses?” Dazzle asked after another moment, watching the snow as it began to cross the Merrie, not a hundred yards away. “Should we move inside?”

Rosewater added a physical barrier to the sound barrier, feeling the drain immediately. The wind was picking up, and the warmth was being sucked away even through the magical field.

She pursed her lips. Collar could hold off the blizzard and let them watch it from its heart. Maybe one day they could do just that.

“We should. I can’t hold it at bay for more than a few minutes.” Rosewater turned her eyes to the palace hidden in the distance. She should be there. Instead, she was here, with a new mane style she hoped to surprise Collar with on the night of the Gala, even if he might guess at it since her mane and tail both were a few inches shorter.

“Soon, love,” Dazzle said softly, his voice achingly compassionate. “I know.”

“I know. Come in.” She followed Petal and Seed inside, and waited for Dazzle, then kissed him on the lips firmly.

It lingered, warming her heart and soul, sparking a fire in her belly that she didn’t quash immediately. This, she could still do. This was safe and allowed in the strictures of what she was about to undergo. She wasn’t going to be cut off from her loves, only from partaking of the pleasures that were considered normal in Merrie for friends.

“Thank you for everything,” she whispered when they broke apart.

The blizzard, full of fat, wet flakes rather than the dry, whipping powder that would come around once the chill settled in. They were wet enough that it could be considered ‘rain’ by the time most of the flakes hit the still-warm paving stones outside the bay window in the largely unused sitting room in Collar’s private quarters.

Beside him, Cloudy sat, watching the snow fall with the same kind of distant expression he imagined was on his face.

On his other side, Rosemary shivered and glanced over her shoulder. Expecting, he didn’t doubt, that her guard would come looking for her. Or somepony would.

“I want you here,” Collar said softly, “because things are going to change, and you’re going to be central to many of those changes.”

Rosemary nodded slowly, her jaw set. “I know. Thank you for taking me out of my cell. It’s good to see another room.” Her tail flicked back and forth. “Can I stay here tonight?”

Collar mulled that over, then nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t be averse to it, so long as we wake up early and get you back. It should be quiet with the storm tonight.”

It would be interesting sleeping arrangements, since his bed was designed for only two adult-sized ponies, but they could fit. Rosemary was on the small side for a pony, and Cloudy wasn’t too much taller or larger than she was. The bed frame had been his grandparents’, and they had been both as tall as Lace and Collar.

“It will be nice to have another of the ponies I love close,” Collar said, his eyes scanning the storm as the night grew closer, white flakes shading gray, gray sky shading black. “I can hardly wait until they’re all here.”

“Soon,” Rosemary murmured, leaning up to kiss his cheek, then dropping back as he followed her kiss to meet her lips. Kissing her was… delightful. Different from kissing either Cloudy or Rosewater, each of whom had their own delights in store when lips met. Rosemary’s lips always seemed to be moist, and he’d had ample opportunity since he had made the leap to knowing he loved her to explore that feeling.

But never further. Not yet.

Even the thought of what was to come in their relationship made him ache to let go of his restraint, to stop resisting the heat in his loins.

He parted from the kiss and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly to cross his horn with hers, forehead to forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you.”

Cloudy’s lips on his neck drew him to the other side, and his lips found hers without a pause, reveling in the difference, her more expert use of tongue and lip drawing him in quickly and driving up his arder. Rosemary leaned against him, her teeth drawing electricity down his neck and he gave up trying to resist the feeling in his loins.

“Excited,” Cloudy murmured as she broke away, her eyes falling to look down at his cock swelling even against the cold radiating off the outer stone wall and window. “I want to make love to you, Collar.”

Rosemary, to his surprise, nodded. “Make love to her.” She sat up straighter and set a hoof on the sill. “And if I may… may I help?” Her coat shivered, her ears flattening as she said it, the fire in her eyes unmistakable. She wanted to make love to him, too, he saw.

“Not you?”

Rosemary's back arched as if he was already mounting her, thrusting into her. “Stars, I want it, but not yet. I want my first time to be with all of you. Also… I don’t have enough time to make a contraceptive active.”

Fertile. Collar’s cock jumped again, straining as the idea hit him and his attention tried to fly across the river to Rosewater. Will she be fertile now? Will she smell different?

“Soon, Collar,” Cloudy murmured, standing and dancing away from the window, her tail flirting as she drew his gaze away from Rosemary. “Soon, she will be fertile, soon, she’ll have your child growing in her, and soon…”

Rosemary shuddered to her hooves, her tail lashing side to side, almost curling over her back. Even Collar could smell her arousal, the warm wetness of the scent making him desire her even more.

“When she is, when she’s laying with us with the scent of her pregnancy thick in this room,” Rosemary whispered, her nuzzling his hindquarters and ducking her head to lick his balls and cup them with her tongue briefly. “Then I want you.”

Collar squeaked and raised a hind leg, his cock fully erect now and only slightly drooping as she turned and planted kisses along it, her breath heated as she left cold patches behind where her wet tongue lathed his bare skin. “S-stars, Rosemary.”

“Too much?” She asked, rising to kiss him.

Before he could answer, Cloudy slipped along his other side, nipping his neck and rearing up to rest her forelegs and barrel against the bed, her tail flagged to the side in a curl, exposing the dark flesh between her buttocks, winking open to reveal flushed pink shining in the dim light.

“No, but two…” He reared up to clutch Cloudy’s flanks with his forelegs. This was familiar. They’d made love like this more times than he could count, made love on the bed both laying down, slow and passionate, quick and urgent just before a bath, and they’d more than once taken tastes of each other in a quickie before starting their day with an extra kick in their step.

Rosemary ducked her head underneath him, her shoulder rubbing against his erection as she plied her tongue against Cloudy’s lips, drawing groans and murmuring pleadings for more.

But this. Two mares teasing him and each other. Stars.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Rosemary whispered in his ear as she came up. “I’m going to use your image to masturbate.”

“S-stars,” Collar grunted, surging forward and wincing as his erection thumped against her left buttock, making her giggle and shift, guiding him. “Really?”

In answer, she sucked in a deep breath and breathed out, drawing the mist out of the air and into a copy of him behind her, mirroring his posture over Cloudy, his duplicate’s cock erect, dripping. The only difference with the drips of his duplicate was that they returned to the form of the illusion as they fell. He thrust forward, and his duplicate followed him.

Rosemary’s eyes gleamed with lust as she watched him, and raised a hind leg to rest on the bed, pulling herself open and letting him see a little more as his own cock filled her, spreading her open further. “Rut us both, Collar,” she whispered. “And watch.”

Cloudy made a low noise in her throat, almost a growl. “Rut me, Collar.”

He slipped deeper into Cloudy, heat surrounding him, his hind legs numbing as pleasure coursed through him, his eyes locked onto the stallion and mare beside him as their movements were copied, almost perfectly, as Rosemary’s spell followed her direction, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth parted slightly as her breathing grew more heated.

It was fascinating watching himself make love to another mare, even if it wasn’t really him, but… Stars. He adjusted his stance, watching his double do the same, watching Rosemary’s eyebrows rise… just before he slipped all the way into Cloudy, dipping his hips to thrust up into his shorter mate more directly.

Rosemary let out a cry echoed by Cloudy as the mirror image copied his motion and thrust into her, his sheath almost resting against her lips. He leaned over to nip her side and get a closer look, daring as much as he did to feel her in the throes of passion. She met his ears with a nibble, kissing his cheek while he watched.

“You have a lovely cock,” Rosemary purred in his ear. She twitched as his cock did and his balls tightened further. “It’s beautiful to watch, isn’t it?”

Cloudy’s hoarse laugh trilled. “He’s flaring, Rosemary.”

The mare shivered. “Show me,” she breathed into Collar’s ear. “Show me how beautiful you are, Collar.”

Only a bit of his flesh left out in the open, his sack swaying forward, tightening. The feeling of surreality was replaced by a matching tightness as his cock flared, dragging at Cloudy’s insides as he drew out of her entirely. It would be more difficult to enter her, but he was curious, too.

He edged back, and his duplicate copied him while Rosemary settled her chin on his neck, watching as he slipped out of Cloudy.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, shivering.

The flat head of his cock greeted him briefly until the image updated itself to match the flared, thick head of his cock, the ridges perfect to what he knew he looked like. Precum drooled out from his tip, pattering to the floor and more dripping from Cloudy’s entrance.

“Get back in me, Collar,” Cloudy growled. “Finish in me. S’cold.”

“Collar…” Rosemary laughed softly, her voice deeper, more languid, excited. Warm magic surrounded his head, compressing his head until he was able to slip inside again without coming right away. Then the spell left…

And Cloudy’s heat exploded around him.

He gasped, thrusting again, dipping his hips and making Cloudy cry out, his forelegs feeling numb as the blood rushed and pleasure flooded his mind, electric crackles along his spine as he felt his cock thicken again.

His mirror’s balls scrunched up, and he watched with a fascinated desire as his seed visibly thickened the bottom of his erection, pulsing in time with his slow thrusting into Cloudy.

Rosemary and Cloudy met on the bed, kissing and nuzzling each other as both Collars came.

Rather than slipping free of Rosemary, the other Collar nibbled her neck… then dissolved into white mist, leaving Rosemary’s coat speckled with droplets like sweat.

Collar did slip out of Cloudy, the patter of come on the bare stone at the base of their bed audible in the silence broken only by their labored, joined breathing. It was then that he realized the pattering wasn’t only his come and Cloudy’s, but Rosemary’s dripping out of her with more liquidity. The cock had vanished while inside of her, and she was continuing to pleasure herself with a spell, massaging her clitories and biting the bed, tail lashing.

“Help her, Collar,” Cloudy murmured, her hind legs shifting as she pushed herself around to watch. “Use…”

Collar dropped, his cock dripping along the edge of rug and stone, and nuzzled Rosemary’s flank. “Let me, love,” he whispered.

The spell left wordlessly, and he ducked his head to lap slowly at her sex, closing his eyes to savor the salty-sweet taste of her, then slipping inside her, his tongue curling against the roof of her vaginal canal, sliding deeper until he was kissing her slowly, passionately, his chin rubbing against the winking nub of her clitoris.

“More,” Rosemary whimpered, pressing a hind leg against his shoulder, then sliding it over and opening herself more, as if she expected him to dive into her. “More, Collar, more.”

Her voice was rising as he rubbed his chin against her, flexing his tongue into her.

When she came, he felt it, heard it, and tasted it.

“Collar!” Rosemary’s voice rose in a cry that ascended to a wordless groan as Cloudy made another moaning sound, her voice suspiciously close. Her nose touched his cheek, and he raised his head to find Rosemary had dipped her head to lap slowly at Cloudy’s sex.

He felt the stirrings of desire rising again, to rut it all and mount Rosemary as well, but he pushed it back down and watched as both of his lovers relaxed, rolling to their sides and leaving a space for him between them.

“Stars.” He joined them. Cleaning up could wait.

Rosemary slid a foreleg under his neck and pulled him close against her barrel, her lips pulling at his ear. “Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you,” he whispered back, his mind replaying through the moments of passionate decision that he’d had little conscious thought in doing. This was… love. Sex. Passion. He was still unused to it being so intense and so open.

“I wish Rosewater had been here,” Cloudy murmured as she turned around in his hooves, facing him and folding her lower wing behind her. “I wish…” she yawned and snuggled her head under his chin.

“I wish she was here, too,” Rosemary murmured, surprising him only mildly. It was something he’d only vaguely thought about.

“Are… you okay with that? With seeing her…”

“Collar, I’ve been to two Rose Nights since I turned eighteen with Rosewater.” Rosemary’s voice was husky in his ear. “Not with her, but I’ve seen ponies mount her, and she’s seen ponies mount me. We’ve helped each other with choosing for game nights. Usually after she got a little more wine in her.”

Cloudy let out a purling chuckle. “Stars, I wish I’d been there. Who did she get with?”

Rosemary made a noise and nibbled at Collar’s ear before laying her cheek on his. She was warm, and her breath smelled musky, like his come. He shivered. She’d already cleaned up Cloudy.

Collar flicked his ears. “Sorry… I… I know it’s not strange to you. It is to me.”

“We’ll help you through the strangeness,” Rosemary whispered in his ear, pulling him closer. “I love her, and I love it when I see her happy, when she’s being passionate, in the afterglow of lovemaking. But I’ve never wanted to make love to her. Does that make sense?”

“Does… she feel the same?”

“I’m sure she does, but that’s a talk I’ll need to have with her,” Rosemary murmured, her voice growing muzzier, sleepier. “She vetted my lovers for four years before my first majority, Collar. She’s walked in on me making love more than once at the Garden and didn’t bat an eye.” Her forelegs tightened again, then loosened.

He tried to think that making love to the same pony would be strange, but Cloudy and Rosewater had made love together quite a few times since that first time, always secretive, always while she was ‘on patrol.’

As if she could hear the direction of his thoughts, Cloudy added, “I can’t wait until I can make love to her here. I’m tired of tents and caves with blankets.”

“Soon. It would have been perfect today, aside from the timing of the blizzard,” Rosemary murmured, stretching languidly. “I want to watch you slip into her… help you into her.”

“Um.”

“It’s normal,” Rosemary said, raising her head and looking down into his eyes, her expression serious, “for lovers to help. I’m not making love to her. I would never. But sharing is expected between spouses. And I want to help her feel as good as I can, in every way that I can.”

Cloudy chuckled. “That’s going a bit far, even for Merrie.”

“Maybe it is. But it’s my way.” Rosemary fixed the other mare with a look. “We won’t be able to make love, either of us, but… I want to participate, still. I don’t want to sit idle and just watch.”

Collar, caught rather literally between them, let out a breath. “It’s Rosemary and Rosewater’s choice, but… Rosemary, I know you. Sitting idle isn’t your way, is it?”

“No. I don’t like to be left out. I don’t like to only watch, Collar. But I respect the very limits of the boundaries.” Rosemary shivered, her ears flattening. “I don’t want to be passive in my own marriage. I don’t want to do nothing while Rosewater and Cloudy make love to you, Collar. I want to help both of you. I want—”

Her words cut off, her cheeks flushed.

“I want her to help me, too,” she said softly. “I… I want our marriage to be as close to true between all of us as we can.”

It was, Collar realized, a rebellion of sorts against the Dammer style of their proposed marriage. She and Rosewater were hobbled in their part of the marriage, and couldn’t make love to each other without violating laws and taboos older than the Treaty. Nor, he thought, did either of them want to. Rosemary, for her part was being completely honest, putting her heart out there, wanting to participate in all parts of their marriage that she could.

“I understand,” Cloudy murmured softly. “I won’t judge you, or her if she reciprocates.”

“We’ll have to keep that secret,” Collar said. “Nopony outside our marriage would understand.”

“Nopony outside our marriage will participate,” Rosemary said, her voice earnest. “It’s ours, Collar. Ours alone.” He heard something that sounded almost like wonder in her voice, mixed with a measure of pain for severing herself so completely from her ideal of freedom of sex. “Our marriage. Our love. Two traditions bound in one.”

“Then… I accept. I won’t judge you, Rosemary. You do deserve to be a full partner in our marriage, but that’s between you and… and Rosewater.” He had to resist calling her ‘your mother.’ That was another thing he would have to unlearn. Especially if Rosewater agreed, which he wasn’t sure she would. He wasn’t even sure Rosemary had thought it all the way through. One thing he had learned about her was that she was given to being impulsive. He could only imagine the afterglow of sex amplifying that trait in her.

Rosewater wasn't. She could be impulsive, incredibly so, but this was something he imagined she would put her hoof down on. But, he also had to admit that he didn't know the first thing about how open a Merrie family could be when it came to sex. Orgies happened, and he had to imagine there was a disconnect between 'family' and sex somewhere that both let them be a family and see their family have sex with other ponies.

For him, for any Dammer, being witness to another pony's sexual exploits, let alone his parents' was odd.

Now isn’t the time to bring that up. You just watched her having sex with you. How would I even ask?

“Thank you.” Rosemary settled back down and nuzzled his ears, relaxing into the bed finally.

“Thank you,” Cloudy murmured, kissing his muzzle lightly and snuggling closer.

“It’s our marriage,” Collar murmured, laying his head down and closing his eyes. “And you deserve to be happy in it.”

It was strange to have warmth on both sides of him as he drifted off to sleep, the scent of sex in his nose, and the taste of a new lover on his tongue.

One more. He closed his eyes, his thoughts flying across the river. Be well, my love.

Down the hallway, Glory lay reading quietly, a treatise on the manner of Merrier relationships. Poppy still fed her the latest rumors from the guards, so it was amusing to her to think just how wrong they were about the status of Collar’s relationship with Rosewater. That they’d had sex was clear to her, that they were preparing to declare also seemed obvious from the steps Poppy had reported to her.

She’d even given him some choice tidbits to spread around about Rosewater’s upbringing and youth, things that would imbue her rumor stream with more sympathy than fear. They were soldiers, and they would understand following orders. There were even enough old-timers still in the bureaucratic wing of the Dammeguard that remembered the raids Lace’s father had carried out that the youngsters could understand what it was like.

But the scent drifting down the hallway, encouraged by the barest spell at the base of the door to draw in the outside air told her that there was even more going on that Poppy’s rumor-gathering hadn’t been able to glean.

Two mares, Lord Collar himself, all raised in the throes of passion, all musky. One of them was a scent she even recognized from a time long ago, when she had chanced upon Rosemary and one of her paramours at the Garden.

So… even you, Rosemary? She’d thought it might happen, but to have it happen so soon spoke to a deepening of the relationship that she’d not been able to witness when she was allowed to visit Rosemary. She’d been cordial towards Collar, and while his eyes had been drawn to her when he thought nopony was watching, that was no more than natural. Rosemary had inherited her mother’s natural beauty and lithe body, and had taken care of her gift well.

Collar wasn’t one to be drawn to beauty alone. She’d known that, and yet she’d missed the regularity of the glances he shot her, and apparently missed the subtle nuance of the looks.

And if she hadn’t seen it, there was no reason to believe that anypony else had. Glory’s talent meant she had had plenty of time to observe, unseen, the interactions between ponies, and even the hidden looks that they sent each other.

Roseate wouldn’t see this coming.

Platinum sat in front of an empty room, pretending to guard it, pretending that nothing was unusual about the silence in the room, or the silence of Collar’s room far down the hallway. Collar had made her an offer for a secret mission, both her and Sunrise, just that afternoon.

He’d made the offer with both Rosemary and Cloudy there, and it had been then that Platinum had figured out that Sunrise had also been one of Cloudy’s on-again-off-again lovers. She’d already known that she and Sunrise were both Rosemary’s lovers, though only very, very occasionally, and only when the mood had struck just so.

There weren’t any stallions to her knowledge, but Stride… had shown interest, even if Rosemary was only polite and nice to him. She had never actually told Sunrise that she was sleeping with her other guards. Off duty, they’d gotten to talking, and little details had revealed the truth, and more.

She’d found Sunrise had a distinct type, specifically mares, and that she’d always been too shy to try and pursue a relationship with anypony. That changed when Platinum had taken a risk and kissed her after a few ales at Prim Tap and Lager. After that, things had seemed to move inevitably forward, into discussion of what it meant to be lovers, friends, whether that meant they could take that for themselves.

They had both been subjected to debating with the mare over the merits of this or that aspect of both of their founding philosophies, and it had apparently had more of an effect on her than she’d anticipated. She’d found herself wondering at the strictures of her own upbringing when there was an example of the openness not only working, but flourishing just across the river.

That same openness had led her to asking Sunrise out on a date, then back to Platinum’s apartment for a night of exploring what the Principes meant to them. She had been hesitant at first, just as Platinum had been, but their common link to Rosemary, their experience with making love to a mare who considered sex just another aspect of friendship, had lowered their barriers and let them be more open.

Rosemary had sussed out the relationship within minutes of seeing them together and, in typical Rosemary fashion, had been compassionate and understanding, asking them if they’d wanted to end their sexual relationship out of deference to their Dammer lifestyle.

In the end, it had been a surprise when she had broken off the relationship… and offered an explanation along with a secret mission, with Collar and Lace’s approval, to help them follow a Merrier requirement for Rosewater to become the actual heir.

The breaking off of their relationship was unexpected, but understandable after Rosemary had explained it.

Rosewater and Collar…

She didn’t know the mare half as well as she ought to to undertake something like that. To be a witness to ensure she didn’t run off to some back alley while she was fertile and get screwed by some stallion…

That didn’t suit what she knew of the mare. At all. But… laws were laws. Just like the stupid one currently working its way out in court over an established marriage not being recognized in Damme.

“Every city has its dumb laws, I guess,” Platinum muttered under her breath.

Down the hall, Sunrise glanced at her, then at her door and down the hall.

It was empty. Even the other guards weren’t patrolling as much. Just enough to watch the front gate and the ballroom, the only other place with windows big enough for more than a foal to slip through.

She was guarding an empty room while Rosemary spent the night with Collar and Cloudy in their chambers.

“Screw it.” She made her way over and plopped herself down next to Sunrise. “I can watch her door from here.”

Sunrise chuckled and nuzzled her cheek. “Thanks.” After an awkward silence between them, Sunrise extended a wing and covered Platinum’s back. “It’s cold tonight. It only makes sense to have the guards huddle up, right?”

Platinum chuckled and tried to spark a sound shield big enough to cover both of them. It flared, wobbled, and fell apart with a pop. Her talents went towards light spells and metalworking, but her temperament wasn’t right for the careful working of hot metals. Nor did she have the capital necessary to start her own shop.

“Sorry. We’ll just have to keep real quiet.”

Sunrise nipped her cheek and leaned closer, stretching the wing so her primaries brushed against Platinum’s cheek. “I can help. Thinking about the mission?”

“Yeah. I want to do it. But I don’t know her. Rosemary said it was partly a character exercise. But I don’t know her. I know Collar trusts her, but…”

“I trust her. Nopony who raises a mare like Rosemary can be that bad. And… she’s let things slip. Little things. Looks at Collar and Cloudy, her tone of voice when she talks about them. I’ve even escorted her a few times, and she talks to me about what her day was like yesterday.” Sunrise fairly glowed as she spoke about the enigmatic Rosewater. “But… there’s always a wall around her. Or there was. Did you see her today? When she left?”

“I heard the scuttlebut.”

“She was… stars, she was close to Collar, and it looked like they both wanted to kiss.”

A voice from behind them startled Platinum. “They’ve done far more than kiss,” Glory’s voice murmured under the edge of the door. “My sister…”

“What about your sister?” Platinum asked, glancing at Sunrise, her brows raising in a silent question.

The door lever rattled. “Come in. I can make a silence web for a while. You two, if you’re going to do this, need to know who my sister really is, and not the lies our mother has spread about her.”

“Can we trust her?”

Sunrise firmed her lips and nodded. “Poppy loves her. I think we can trust her.”

Platinum pulled the key off the wall beside the door and unlocked the room. “I trust you,” she said softly, and met Sunrise in a brief kiss. Little more than a melding of lips before parting and opening the door, Sunrise’s wing still over her back.

Glory studied them for a moment, head cocked, as the door closed. “All the better. The best witnesses are bonded mares.”

Platinum glanced at Sunrise and the mare’s heating cheeks. “Why? We’re not formally bonded. We’re just dating.”

“Because, for this, you need to trust each other, and trust the logs that you keep.”

“I trust… I do trust Platinum.”

“Good.” Magic sparkled across the door. “There’s a lot you need to know about the law that requires Rosewater’s firstborn be registered with a known father. There are steps and customs for the hand-off that you’ll need to practice and make inconspicuous. And… you need to know and trust my sister.”

Platinum swallowed, glanced at Sunrise, and nodded. “We’re listening.”

Glory’s smile looked victorious.

Book 2, 43: Final Scheming

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Rosewater sat in uncomfortable silence on the far side of Lace’s desk from the door, the baroness to her right, and Collar seated on his mother’s other side. This was the day they told everypony what their plan was, after almost a week of hammering out details in chunks and bits, doing more actual negotiating than she’d done in the past two months to try and get as much as she could out of the arrangement for Cloudy and Rosemary in the interim.

It was a plan with almost too many moving parts, like a clock they were repairing as it was trying to count time, and only the fact that they were determined to get it right, and had most of the pieces already in place gave them any chance of getting it right without anypony else seeing what they were doing.

As long as the arrow pointing the time moved as it was supposed to, nopony would be interested in seeing how it worked as long as it continued to work.

On either side of the desk, Rosemary and Cloudy sat on cushions, their ears in various states of upset as they surveyed the four ponies on the other side. Sunrise and Platinum, Poppy and Coat with Dapper hanging out with them just to be his silly self even though he already knew the plan.

“Thank you all for being here,” Rosewater said, not even looking to Lace for permission. They’d discussed that, as well, how to proceed with telling them. They were trusted, vouched for by ponies they trusted or proven discreet, even if Rosewater wasn’t entirely certain herself, she needed to take some risks. “I know this is an unusual meeting, but each of you is a trusted confidant of Rosemary’s, and I first wanted to thank all of you for making her stay here as pleasant as is possible under the circumstances.”

“First?” Sunrise asked, her cheeks flushing as she glanced from Platinum to Rosemary, and finally to Rosewater. “D-do you…”

“I know,” Rosewater said softly. “My daughter didn’t tell me, but she did let little clues slip out. I thank you, Sunrise, for being a stable presence for her, for letting her reconnect with a pony she thought she’d never see again.” To Platinum, she nodded and added, “And for being a friend and confidant when she needed one.”

To Poppy, she bowed her head more deeply. “I thank you, Poppy, for being open-minded and not arresting my dear sister when you had every right and chance to, for opening up to her and letting her find love safe from my mother’s predation.”

“I love her. That’s enough for me,” Poppy said, glancing aside at the other three ponies. “I’ve been seeing her in secret for almost six months now. I’m in love with her. Deeply.”

Of the three, only Coat seemed mildly surprised by that development, but he nodded, his ears slicked back. “Your love is your love, Poppy, and I have no say in where you give it.” He grinned, smile twisting wryly. “It seems I should talk to her more, too.”

“And you, Coat. Thank you so much for being willing to look past my reputation and actions to who I believe I truly am. And thank you, too, for introducing me to your brother. I wish he could make it to the Garden to help me prepare for the Gala. It would help me feel better if I had another friendly face from Damme that I could count on.”

“He just may, if you offer him an incentive,” Coat said with an even more crooked grin. “Like humiliating me on another bet.”

“I wouldn’t want to try, Coat.” Rosewater closed her eyes and glanced aside to Lace, then to Collar. “Thank you, too, for your blessing, my lady. It means more than you may realize, and it gives me hope that we can come out of this, if not unscathed, then stronger than when we went into it.”

“It is my pleasure to give my blessing, Rosewater. You have proven yourself to be a kind mare with a good head for what is right and wrong.” Lace scanned the ponies in front of her desk and rolled her eyes when she reached Dapper, though she smiled. “Understand that what Rosewater and Collar are going to tell you has my support. I would wish, however, that it could have been done more smoothly, and in the open.”

“Unfortunately, as has been made especially clear to me very recently,” Collar said, setting a hoof on the desk, “we cannot make our intent public until the time is right. We also, however, cannot do what we intend without causing ourselves future problems.”

Sunrise raised a hoof, her ears quivering. “Glory told us a little of what… declaring for her means. She spent most of the time telling us about you.” She leaned against Platinum, and the other mare’s coat shivered. “I… had no idea. Can I trust her?”

Collar was the one to answer. “Yes. Glory, could I do it without inflaming the populace, would be released tomorrow for time served. She has more than made up for her mistakes in the time she’s been held here in intelligence granted and assistance provided. I would also, Poppy, give my blessing on your marriage to her.”

“Thank you, my lord. Given what I believe you called us here to announce, it’s kind of you.” He smiled, a little sly twist to his ears. “I suppose, too, you’d like me to make my interest public? It will give you a smoke screen to hide what you’re doing.”

“Have you already figured out what we’re planning?” Rosewater asked, finding herself surprised and then kicking herself for it. Of course he’d have had to learn fast to keep up with Glory. Sweetness could only take a pony so far with her and the games that Roses loved to play.

“I have an inkling. I may be wrong, but I’ve considered what Glory and I will need to do to have a child. It’s not only making sure that she had the declaration under hoof, but also ensuring that our child won’t be shunned in Damme as a bastard.”

Sunrise drew in a sharp breath, her eyes widening as they darted from Cloudy to Collar and finally settled on Rosewater. “Stars.”

“None of us like it,” Cloudy said in a low voice, meeting Sunrise’s gaze, then glanced over her shoulder at Collar. “But I think it’s the only way to get things moving now instead of waiting for the court case to roll through the courts. Stars only know how long that’s going to take. Roseate isn’t going to wait. Neither is Wing.”

“Not now that both are aware that something more than friendship is going on. Or will soon be aware,” Lace said, nodding. “It is why we have been forced to move ahead.”

“And that’s why we’ve called you here. We’ll need you to act as witnesses. The Gala is the best place to do this ‘in the open’ and have nopony know what’s going on. We need a distraction so Rosewater and I can break away from the Gala ballroom along with Firelight Spark. Poppy, a proposal to Glory, a surprise visit from her to the ballroom would draw nearly every eye.”

“Her… friends, though.” Poppy shook his head, his complexion souring as he seemed to fold in on himself. “Stars, I want to propose to her, but doing so… it will hurt her friends.”

“I know.” Rosewater bit her lip. “Lace, can you arrange for asylum? I know which ponies Poppy is talking about. It would take time to convince them. Roseate would target them for harassment as soon as she was able to get back to Merrie.”

Poppy grimaced. “I know. It’s why we haven’t been public.”

The Treaty Office wouldn’t interfere, either, in the running of the city unless one of the strictures of the Treaty were violated, such as physical harm to a non-combatant, or unnecessary or grievous harm to a combatant, or torture through magical means. Unless one of Roseate’s goons got serious in harassing Violet Rain or Sandy Rosewood, there would be no repercussions for Roseate.

“I… don’t know,” Lace said softly. “If it was too obvious, Roseate might complain that I’m poaching her citizens. Not that she’d get anywhere with a claim like that, but it would cause a headache for them and for you while the situation was sorted out, and draw more attention to you.”

Poppy nodded. “This is a rutting mess.” He glanced at Rosewater, then to Collar. “I’m afraid I have to take more than myself into account. I… I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Please, feel no compulsion to act for us,” Rosewater said.

“Your life is your own, Poppy. I apologize for asking.” Collar bowed his head. “Then we will have to find another distraction.”

“Our dance will be plenty distracting,” Rosewater said with an arched brow. “If we make it distracting enough it may cause the distraction we want with our two families starting a row in the middle of the ballroom.”

“How would…” Collar asked with an arched brow. “Or should I do more?”

“Kiss her,” Rosemary said, craning her neck and turning to look right at Rosewater, then flicked a glance at Collar, her smile deepening. “You should kiss her, Collar. I can’t think of anything else that would draw the eye of every pony on the dance floor.”

“Make one linger,” Poppy said. “Just long enough to get every eye on the floor. Roseate will explode, Lace, you explode at her, Wing gets drawn in, pretty soon, it requires a Treaty representative to get involved and rushes you out of the ballroom until things settle down.”

“Neat,” Lace said, frowning. “It’s too neat. Something will go wrong.” She sighed and rubbed at her cheek with one hoof. “At the start, I had resolved myself to staying out of your planning and only offering advice and insight where it warranted. But, let me offer a suggestion. Keep it simple. Don’t rely on the reactions of other ponies to create an opening for you to suddenly be able to disappear. That will make ponies talk even more. Wait until the end of the gala, dance, drink, and be merry, and then make your move, once nearly everypony else has gone home.”

“Will Firelight stay that long?” Collar asked, glancing at Rosewater and seeming to want to listen to Rosemary’s advice anyway. “He’s often griped at me for disturbing him on Canterlot Time instead of Damme time. I know he’ll be exhausted by the end of the night, even if he doesn’t have to stage any interventions like he did during the Spring gala.”

Rosewater winced. She’d been at the gala, of course, and Dazzle had made an appearance, even. Though his appearance had sparked an argument between Damme and Merrie factions that wanted him to choose for himself or abduct him back to Damme forcibly.

Firelight had stepped in to ask Dazzle’s opinion and, of course, he’d chosen to stay… though he’d left the gala soon after.

From Rosewater’s perspective, it had been a shouting match far away from where she was trying to drown her loneliness in bad wine.

“We can pose it to him as checking in on the prisoners,” Poppy said. “It’s not unusual for the Treaty Office to want to see the quarters where a prisoner of war is housed, but it’s not been an issue since Glory was moved to the palace. It could be an opportunity for him to inspect their quarters. And… do whatever else it is you’re planning.”

Collar was already nodding by the time Poppy reached the end of his suggestion, and Lace smiled, then settled back and poured herself a glass of brandy.

“I like that idea. It’s simple, it waits until the very last moments of the gala…”

“And I can claim wanting to make sure Rosemary isn’t distressed by missing out. She’d have loved to attend this gala.”

“She’d have loved to?” Rosemary asked, flattening her ears and staring back at Rosewater. “I’d love to attend the entire thing, to dance with Cloudy and Collar and you. I’d love to tweak Primfeather tails by getting a pass to visit even for a few minutes. And… I’d get to see Seed and Petal again. However briefly.”

“I’ll see what can be done,” Collar said gently. “Perhaps Sir Spark can escort you himself. I doubt there will be many ponies left, and even most of the vendors will have packed up and gone by then.”

“Anything you can do. Even if it’s dancing with the three of you in an empty ballroom with Dapper and Lace for our only audience. It would mean…” Rosemary’s jaw tightened, and her next words came out hoarse. “It would mean a lot to dance with my future wives and husband at least once on the day…”

Her voice broke, and she backed up to lean against Rosewater’s breast.

“I know,” Rosewater cooed. “I know. We can do at least that, Rosemary, even if it means staying up until every last guard and guest has left.”

“Love,” Collar started.

“We can do that, Collar. We will do at least that. She deserves that much for putting up with our scheming for so long. Please, let our future wife have the first dance of a new era.”

Collar bowed his head to Rosemary. “That, we will do.”

The discussion continued for another hour, going over details, order of when things had to happen in order to make sure that everything was not only legal in Damme, but also legal in Merrie, a task that wasn’t insurmountable, but had required that much time to arrange schedules, ensure that nothing looked too suspicious with the changes to the guard schedule, and then a grudging agreement that Captain Pink needed to be brought in sooner than later.

Which was why Rosewater was sitting calmly in Collar’s office, trying not to think about what the guard captain would say about not only the plan, but Rosewater’s rather prominent place in it, and waiting for her to arrive after Sunrise had been sent to fetch her.

Rosewater made another turn around the office, frowning at the empty space where Rosemary and Cloudy should have sat. Now, they were off helping Stride with his therapy, talking out his fears and trying to bring them to the surface. Because she’d been careless with her fear spell.

“Calm down. She’s seen you not be a threat for two months now, love, and she’s been listening to the same reports Pr—our spymaster has.”

“I know it’s Priceless,” Rosewater said softly. “I’ve known for years. I don’t doubt Roseate has figured it out, too.”

Collar grunted, but didn’t reply. No doubt he knew Roseate knew, but leveling an accusation of being a spymaster would do her no good. It would only make Lace choose another one. Knowing that she knew, and knowing what assets she had let them play a game of “who knows what?”

“I just know…” There were other fears, and they’d become more and more pronounced as she’d caught glimpses of Stride in the halls, watching her, then darting his gaze away. She couldn’t know he was the one she’d tagged with her spell accidentally, but he was a pegasus, and he was a fast and capable flier. Even terrified, the pegasus in the night raid had been able to manage a snap takeoff.

She shook her head. “Maybe it’s nothing. But I worry about the way Stride looks at me. Rosemary tells me he’s the sweetest, kindest pony, but she says that about everypony she likes. Cloudy won’t tell me much. And I’m worried that…”

“Stride doesn’t hate you.”

“I’m… more worried that Captain Pink will blame me for tagging one of her pegasi with a spell, even accidentally. And I suspect it’s Stride I got.”

“It doesn’t matter if you did or not. You saved every single pony on that field from a worse fate. If you think Roseate would have been satisfied with only me, you’re mistaken. She’d have taken our entire forward force after I burnt out my magic.” Collar sat in front of her, blocking her next pacing round, and cupped her cheeks with magic, then his hooves. “You saved us. All of us.”

Before Rosewater could respond, Collar turned his head and lowered the silence spell. “Who is it?”

She sniffed slowly, cocking her head, filtering the scent of the mare through her memories. It was the captain, though cleaner than when she recalled her last. A less strenuous day, perhaps.

“Captain Pink, my lord,” the visitor said, and Rosewater started to pull away before Collar pulled her back and opened the door, gently holding her as he looked into her eyes. “I came as soon as—”

The door closed in the silence that followed, and Collar’s horn lit with a spark as the silence in the room sprung back into being.

“My… lord?” Pink asked, and sat a short distance away, taking off the circlet of office and setting it on his desk. “What’s… going on?”

“I have waited far too long to bring my captain of the guard into my confidence,” Collar said gently, kissing Rosewater’s cheek lightly, then letting her go to face the captain. “How much do you know about her?”

Pink’s eyes flicked from Rosewater, her ears flat, back to Collar. “I know she’s dangerous. I know she’s cunning and intelligent. I also know that, for whatever reason, that mare in the residential wing loves her. I don’t know what she could have done to deserve that love, but Rosemary believes that she does deserve it.”

“She does,” Collar said and slipped a foreleg between Rosewater’s forehooves and leaned against her. “Believe me when I say that her reputation is both deserved and not at all warranted.”

Rosewater swallowed. “I never wanted my reputation, Captain Pink. My intentions have never been to cause more harm in carrying out my orders than was strictly necessary. And they were orders. Given the choice, I would have rebelled long ago and moved to Damme with all that remained of my family, before it was torn apart. But, in the end, I would have done no better than Frosty.”

“And I would have never… I never…” Collar frowned down at his hooves. “I may have met her. But would I have decided I wanted to marry her? I… don’t know, captain. All I have for this moment is to follow my heart and do both what I feel I must to make my heart shine, and do what I must to make my ponies prosper.” His lips brushed against Rosewater’s cheek again. “At this moment, those two purposes are aligned.”

“My… lord.” Pink’s hoof settled on the simple iron circlet on the counter, and frowned down at it. “I admit that I have some knowledge of the growing affection between you, and have both seen it with my own eyes from afar and heard it from the sparse reports that the spymaster deigns to send my way regarding movements and predictions. Seeing it… scares me, my lord. How can I know that she has not coerced you with some spell?”

Rosewater blanched. “Captain, I would never… I would never subvert a pony’s will. Ask any of the ponies that I took on orders. I put them to sleep, captain. I did not try to coerce them, urge them to act against their own will or bend to mine. The most I have ever done is fear. Because it is deeply engrained in my heart. I have been terrified since I was six, captain. Of so many things. Disappointing Carnation, Rosemary, my father’s memory, the charges I looked after at the Garden. I have been scared of what my mother would take from me next, and I know too well how she works. I would never do that to another.”

“And yet you followed her orders.”

“I followed them because I believed I had no choice. I didn’t know why Carnation had been taken from me, only to learn that she was a spy for Lace, for your city. And yet I hold no grudge. I laud her for doing what she needed to ensure that her sister didn’t win.” Rosewater paused, took a breath, and returned to her line of reasoning. “I didn’t know. The only reason I had was that my mother had a petty revenge fantasy against her, and she tried to take my daughter. Adopted, but no less mine for that. I was there for her birth, captain. I was there for every moment she was alive until she was taken from me, too.

“And instead of retaliating… I came to Collar and Lace and Dapper and begged for help. I told them about my true bond with her, my true reasons for fighting. I brought the papers that showed I was her mother by right and law. I proved my claim. I—” Rosewater sucked in a breath and forced herself to calm. “I did what a mother had to do to keep her child safe. What… came next was improvisation.”

“I was resistant at first to what she suggested, negotiating a bond between our houses. I had Cloudy, and I needed no other, but… I hadn’t known that Lace had tried to get us together before, that she had plans for us that fell apart because of Roseate despite all Carnation tried to do,” Collar said softly. “My mother had sought the same bond we’re now discussing… entering into. Not exactly as she’d envisioned it, but…”

“That is news,” Pink said, eyebrows raising. “You’ll pardon me if I will want to confirm that with Lace, but…” She trailed off, her eyes falling to the circlet. “What do you need me to do? You wouldn’t have told me this just to tell me. An intrigue like this needs fewer mouths that can speak it, not more.”

“I need you because we must cover spots in the schedule pulling Rosewater’s Mares in Waiting from will create. Sunrise, Platinum, and Cloudy, to be specific.”

Pink nodded slowly. “I can see how that would be a problem. Pulling Platinum at odd hours will create kinks in the bridge duty schedule, and the same with Sunrise, but to a lesser extent.” She chewed her lip for a moment, seeming glad to be done with intrigue and sinking her teeth into something more concrete. “Your spymaster is going to have my hide for pulling her from their pool of couriers.”

“We’ll make it work somehow.”

“Why those three?”

“Because they’ve already been briefed and accepted the assignment,” Collar said. “We’re having to move fast because our window is closing, captain. Our plan starts on the night of the gala, and we can have no interruptions until she’s pregnant.”

“Then—” Captain Pink startled, stared at him, then at her. “Till she’s pregnant,” she said in a flat tone. “Collar, I believe you’ve jumped several stages of the requirements for Damme. Where’s her courtship? Her—”

“It’s going to be handled,” Collar said calmly, breaking into her tirade with a raised hoof and a smile. “Trust me.”

“I’m going to have to trust you, aren’t I? Both of you.”

“Yes,” Collar said softly. “I’d like you to escort her to the Treaty Office today, captain. And thence to the Rosewine bridge after turning in her pennant. Talk with her. Get to know her at least a little.”

“You’re asking a lot, Collar. Just this morning I was worried about what would happen when Rosemary got freed and Rosewater was freed to resume her operations and follow her orders.” She glanced at the mare. “Word on the street is you’re getting close to an ending. You have to be. This is the longest a negotiation has gone on in the history of the herdgilds.”

“I know. I have been honestly negotiating, I promise, but my means are much less than that of a city. It has… the advantage of having naturally stretched the length. I am, at present, facing a decade of monthly payments on liens on various properties I own around Merrie.” Rosewater gave a small, wan smile. “Assuming I’m not exiled for my insubordination. When I refuse her orders.”

“Refuse?” Pink’s mouth dropped open, then clicked shut. “You can do that?”

“I don’t know. I mean, yes, I can, but whether or not it will have repercussions I can’t avoid, I don’t know. But I’ll not make war on this city again, captain. Two ponies that I love dearly live here, and two ponies that I’ve come to see as parental figures also live here. I’d sooner accept my exile than disappoint the trust I’ve managed to grow here.”

Collar bit her ear, not lightly, but not hard, and nudged her cheek. “Rosewater, we talked about this.”

“I know. I’m being… I’m being fatalistic. I’d seek refuge here, first, of course and plead my case for asylum.” Rosewater huffed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, captain, that we had to drag you in so quickly. We had not thought that far ahead, and now we’re causing more disruptions in more pony’s schedules.”

To her surprise, Captain Pink came up to her and raised a hoof to her breast. “My lady, if you’re being honest, and I’m more and more inclined to believe you are, then believe me when I say that is the least I’m willing to do in order to make sure you succeed. I have seen this war, as a child, tear apart families. I may not look it, but I am forty-five years old. I was there when Lace held the bridge against a surprise night attack that was only a diversion while her father led a counter-attack into Merrie and captured three whole families and took them back to hold hostage. I saw the petitioners crying at the Treaty Office, begging for their loved ones back with the pittance they had. I remember, still, asking my mother why they were there, and I will never forget her response.

“Because war is terrible, Pink. No matter how bloodless. War is terrible.”

“It is. I’m sorry, captain, that you had to see that.”

“I’m not. When Lace married Dapper, when she enacted her reformations, I was there. I threw in my support while other ponies threw down their arms in disgust or tried to stage a coup. It failed, in part because there were others like me who were sick of the war, who wanted to find a better way forward.”

Rosewater bowed her head. She had never been a part of that stage of the war. She’d been born mere months after Lace enacted them, when the raids from Damme stopped, and the ones from Merrie slowed to a trickle as each side tried to figure out what to do next.

Six years of almost peace…

“I’ll do my best, captain.”

“Pink, my lady. You have earned that much of my trust.” She glanced at Collar, and nodded. “I will see her to the office and the bridge safely, my lord. You have my word.”

“Thank you.”

Silver Drop was still in her forge when Rosewater returned to the village after her walk and talk with Captain Pink. They hadn’t quite struck up a friendship, but they had seemed to come to an understanding of each other.

“Stay back from the forge,” Silver said automatically as the door chime rang Rosewater’s entrance. “Its…” Her eyes flitted to the door. “Rosewater?”

“Silver, it’s good to see you again.”

Silver glanced at the forge, cursed, and drew out the crucible. “Stars, mare, you’re going to cost me ten minutes.”

“Am I worth it?” Rosewater asked more cheekily than she felt as she sat back and welcomed the nuzzle and brief embrace.

Silver’s only response was a grunt and a nibble at the base of her neck. “You know where my home is. I know you do. Why did you come here?”

“I need to come have dinner with you all for a week for what I’m about to ask, Silver. And bring desserts and sweets for Dancer.”

Silver chuckled and sat back. “You’re making me want to not do whatever it is with those last two. That colt truly gets into a hyperdrive mode with any amount of sweets.”

Rosewater laughed softly, then fell silent. “I need a rush job. I need a diadem, Silver. Made of silver, and pink amethyst, deep blue sapphire, and white diamond.”

Her friend the silversmith, who’d made an enchanted broach for her that she still needed to find more uses for, stared at her for only a moment before she went to a locked chest in the corner of her forge and pulled out three bags of gemstones, already cut, that she spent her down-time cutting.

“I thought you might, at some time, ask me for what your mother stole from you.” Silver smiled slyly. “But the blue is new. I’m afraid I’m not sure what you have in mind for the central ornamentation.”

Rosewater took a breath, closed her eyes, and blew out a breath as wet as she could make it. In the moisture, she pulled together a design she’d been thinking about for weeks, wondering if it would ever become a reality, or if something like this…

She opened her eyes to a glittering silver diadem, the central ornament a wing of deep sapphire blue with simple slivers of gemstone for the feathers. A rose on the opposite side was made of flaked pink amethyst, and the central spire of the unicorn horn between them was silver and diamond in rippled ridges, each one a single sliver of gemstone.

“You’re really into slivers, aren’t you?” Silver said, frowning at the image as it slowly evaporated in the heat of the forge. She made a few notes on a pad laying on her workbench. “Do you know how hard it is to make exactly shaped shard of gemstone?”

“Um.” Rosewater gave a shrug of one shoulder. “Difficult?”

Silver sighed and pulled out five slivers shaped the right size for the horn. “I had these saved for another project, but I can repurpose them. For the rest…” She pulled out eight petals of pink amethyst and glanced at Rosewater. “I thought you’d want a Merrie crown.”

Rosewater smiled, silenced the forge for a moment, and shook her head. “Merriedamme.”

Silver drew in a deep breath. “Stars. Truly?”

“Can you make it before the Gala?”

Silver pursed her lips, nodded, and pulled out two sapphires. “I’ll get started tonight.” She shook her hammer and gem cutting chisel at her. “You owe me. And more than bits, Rosewater.”

“An explanation, then.” Rosewater nodded slowly. “When the time is right. All… all I can tell you right now is that I mean to make the city a reality.”

That didn’t seem to make Silver happy, but after a moment, the mare grimaced, nodded, and tightened one of the sapphires into a padded vice. “After the gala. I want to know why I’m making this, and why you think it will work.”

“Of course. I owe you that much at least even before the work. I owe the entire village an explanation.”

“In that case…” Silver leaned in close and dropped a jeweler’s glass in front of her eye. “I want the whole story, not just what you tell the village. You owe me that, at least.”

“I do. And you’ll have it.”

“Your last report was… disappointing. A quarter mile should be nothing to you.”

Crown closed her eyes and flattened her ears. “It was the wind, mother, it kept tearing apart my spell. I only caught a few words, and mostly wind noise.”

“Unacceptable. I’ve heard reports from my agents in Damme that say very different things from the words you reported.”

“Rumors and supposition from dock workers.”

“By passersby that heard that pup and the clerk speaking. I need to hear from you that they were lies, that that rutting colt isn’t actually romancing my daughter!”

Crown hid a wince. Her report had been vague, but had contained no mention of that. That she’d heard the conversation in near perfect clarity because of the wind made little difference. Confirming Roseate’s suspicions, and they had to be just that for now, would only make Rosewater’s situation more difficult.

“Gossip,” Crown said, keeping her tone even. “I’ve heard the same rumors, and so has most of the city, but none of them have any weight, mother. Stars, some of the ones I’ve heard have said Collar is pregnant.”

Roseate snorted.

“What I have heard, that I haven’t included in my reports yet, is something that I did pick up from a conversation between Rosewater and Seed just this afternoon.”

“When he crossed the bridge with her? With that Pink mare escorting her?”

“Yes. Seed asked about Rosewater’s daughter. Then Rosewater silenced the area and I got no more, but it… shouldn’t take much to guess who he meant, considering where she went.”

“Rosemary,” Roseate growled, snarling and standing to stomp to the window. “No wonder Firelight turned down my every inquiry. And he let it slip? Seed?”

“Yes, mother. She has been… careful. I’ve never picked up anything about her from Rosemary that she didn’t want me, or others, to hear.” Crown let herself relax minutely. The bait had worked. “If there was love mentioned on the bridge between Collar and the clerk, maybe it was that. He can’t be ignorant of the relationship, and nor can she. But considering who they were waiting for, the rumors would have blown up, all out of proportion without context of who they were talking about.”

That Roseate let her speak for so long was a testament to how much even that relatively minor tidbit had disrupted her chain of thoughts. Speaking more would only give Roseate a hint that she was hiding much more. She might have already said too much, and the longer Roseate stared out the ivy-bordered window, the more Crown started to wonder if she should try to add more, just to get an idea of where her mother’s thoughts were taking her.

“There’s more to this,” Roseate said at last. “Dismissed.”

Crown almost protested, needing to know what Roseate was going to do, but afraid to ask.

“Yes, mother,” she said instead, rose, and left without another word.

Rather than go home, she went to Silk and Vine’s house to warn them that the secret wouldn’t be viable anymore, that she’d needed to use it to point her mother in a different direction

She wouldn’t let her sisters walk blindly into a trap with no way out.

Please make a move quickly, Rosewater. I don’t think she’ll remain diverted for long.

Collar frowned, glanced at his basket of incoming reports, order confirmations, and stood from his desk that evening to look out the window at the spreading spray of lights as ponies started their evening patterns.

He wouldn’t see Rosewater again until the gala, and that hurt, but it meant that he could spend his time with Rosemary and Cloudy without worrying about what he needed to log in his little book of secret lovemaking. Rosemary had been adamant that she wouldn’t until Rosewater was done with her period of waiting, and Cloudy had stood with her.

That wasn’t going to do his libido any good. He’d gotten used to having sex regularly, and now… now all he could do was an hour or so, at best, when he was in his office or the private garden with her alone, or with Cloudy watching or on guard.

It would be like his time before Cloudy, he told himself, masturbating on the regular, keeping himself to himself and privately longing for this or that mare that he didn’t want to try and ask on dates for a variety of reasons. Too junior, too eager to please him, too anti-Merrier—something that even then had been a turn-off.

He sighed and thought again of his time with Rosewater, making love to her the second time in a day, her warmth atop him, around him, her eyes worried that she was pushing too far, too hard, as if his mounting her in the bathroom hadn’t been sign enough of his intent.

For a time, he reveled in the memory, letting it take him, using magic to stroke his erection until he felt the flare, felt the tightening, then the rush and tingle of coming as his emission spattered the bare wall and drizzled to the floor. He hadn’t even thought to catch his seed.

The image of Rosewater, her face beatific in the glow after coming a minute before he had, still rising and falling, her breathing hot and heavy until the moment he’d come in her.

There would be few chances for that level of intimacy. Mounting, rutting, coming. Hoping.

He wanted to take her to his bed, show her how romantic he could be when she was there in a place where he didn’t have to hide, where she didn’t have to hide nearly so much.

With a sigh, he used a spell Rosemary had demonstrated to him when he and Cloudy had made a mess on his bedroom floor, gathered his seed, and dropped it out the window to water the plants below.

What he needed was an escape. Something to take Rosewater on and spend a week just making love, trying their best to get Rosewater pregnant. He’d need to bring Cloudy, for her witnessing, but where they could go was a question he knew the answer to. Anywhere on the Merrie side of the river was out. They’d have to hide, and Collar didn’t want to do that with both of his loves there.

It’d have to be in the wilderness. Even in the palace, he’d have to hide Rosewater away as if he was ashamed of her, and he absolutely wasn’t going to subject her to that.

He’d have to send Cloudy away on scouting missions to find a place within a day’s travel, someplace that she could drop supplies in discreetly and set up a shelter without too much help. One of the popup tents in the armory for the long patrols, perhaps. They were campaign tents, meant to house half a dozen ponies in the worst weather the north could throw, enchanted to erect themselves in moments, all they would need was for Cloudy to pound stakes into the ground.

He grimaced, then, sighed, and scratched the tent idea. They were heavy and usually carried by an earth pony. A smaller pup tent, perhaps. Or material she and Rosewater could use to construct a shelter.

A knock on his door snapped him back out of his meandering thoughts. He hadn’t even touched the pile of scrolls.

“Come in.”

Cloudy stepped in, sniffed, and glanced at him, then closed the door. “You know you don’t have to avoid me until you actually declare for her.”

“I know. It came on me. Thinking about my first times with her.”

Cloudy’s coat shivered and her tail flicked. “I suppose I can forgive you. You owe me tonight.” Her smirk promised him further arousal, planned, and his tail flicked across the floor. “I can bring Rosemary in and prepare the way for you.”

Collar’s cock twitched in its sheath. “I… don’t want either of us to face that temptation yet, Cloudy. Stars, I wanted to mount her that first time.”

Cloudy’s smirk faded, and she nodded. “She told me, later, that she wanted you to. And hang the consequences.” She let out a sigh and sat beside him. “I’m not looking forward to losing our nights together. Even if it’s temporary. I love the closeness, Collar. The matching passions.”

“I know.” He took a breath and told her what he was thinking.

Book 2, 44: Gala, Opening Notes

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Rosewater followed Cut’s directions as she turned her head to the side, breaking her view in the mirror of the coiffure he was working ribbons and some kind of near-scentless pomade into, setting the natural wave of her mane into more of a curl against her cheek.

“That’s it, just hold…” Cut’s voice, in the near silence of the Garden Villa’s bath house, echoed slightly over the water in the bath, not cold but not steaming either. He swept a comb through a lock and twisted it, then applied a brush not quite dripping with the stuff he was using to lock her curls into place. He repeated the process over and over, clipping her mane into place here and there, then removing the clips at seemingly inane intervals, slowly building up her mane into something that would be bound together with Dammer blue ribbons.

Somewhere in the middle of the treatment, somepony had knocked on the door, then slipped inside behind her, blocked from view by Cut as he bustled about and turned her mirror this way and that, letting her catch a glimpse of who she thought was Silver Drop as the mare settled in to watch and wait for a moment when she wouldn’t be interrupting an artist at his work.

Eventually, Cut found a place where he had to stop playing with her mane and stepped back to the pile of ribbons.

“You are going to owe me so much, Rosewater. Thank you, at least, for stopping by to get a ring fit for your horn.”

“You’re welcome.”

Cut’s brows rose as he turned back to Rosewater. “Ring?”

“For the diadem,” Rosewater said even as Silver pulled out an assemblage of four chains attached to a ring set forward of center, hovering in the center of the chain linkage. “It’s specifically made for unicorns who don’t want to have the thing squeezing their skull.”

“And you didn’t tell me you had a diadem because…?” Cut’s voice was accusatory, but his eyes were locked on the central ornamentation, pink, blue, and white. Rose, wing, horn. Merrie, Damme, and peace. Earth pony, pegasus, unicorn. Symbols on symbols on symbols. It was, she thought, a fitting diadem for unifying a city. “It will work,” Cut said without more comment, and stepped back to let Silver fit the ring over her horn.

For Rosewater, it felt like a crowning, as if she was finally taking up the station she had been born into. Tonight, she wouldn’t be Rosewater. Not wholly. Tonight, she would be Lady Rosethorn, heiress apparent to Merrie. The crown would be the sign to others that she wasn’t acting only for herself. She was taking up the reigns of power that her mother didn’t want her to.

By the end of the night…

She took a deep breath as Silver made a few adjustments, unclipped the chains from the ring and adjusted the link lengths with a few twists of a simple tool, and tightened the chains until the simple silver ornament almost hovered over her ears, then a slight twist of the ring settled it so the ring of metal rested on her head, cushioned by her mane, and the hoops that the chains clipped to rested into the ridge at the base of her horn, needing only to be turned to release.

“Perfect,” Silver said, admiring her work and nodding. “They’re all breakaway chains, so just in case she tries to rip it off, the chains will break easily.”

Cut stared at her. “Would she… Roseate? Do that?”

“Were we alone?” Rosewater asked, cocking her head side-to-side and studying both the play of the chains—it barely moved at all—and the way the diadem rested on her head between her ears felt… right. It didn’t bounce and bob as she’d expected, but neither did it shift about. “She absolutely would.”

Cut swallowed.

“I need to be ready for tonight, Cut,” Rosewater said softly, and surrounded the ornament on her diadem. “This is my sword, and how I’m dressed, how my mane is done and in what colors, are my armor. Tonight, I go to do polite battle with my mother and make good on a scheme I’ve been working on since the last, not at all polite, battle I had with her.”

Cut glanced at her eyes in the mirror, then relaxed.

Rosewater felt calm. Nothing was going to rattle her before tonight. “I apologize for springing the last minute decoration change on you, but I had no idea until just this moment that it would be ready.”

“It’s fine, my lady,” he said, resuming his steady pace. “I’m almost done making sure the waves in your mane are more pronounced. Then we can work the ribbons in. And your… tail?”

“Please. I promise, I won’t wink at you, Cut. I am not in that kind of mood tonight.” Not yet. Once she was in the throes of dancing with Collar, that might change. It all depended on the dances and the music, and she already knew that most of the night was set to be a sedate, stately affair, save for one or two lively surprises from Merrie’s repertoire. “I almost wish you could go. You’re far more personable than most of your peers that will be attending, and it would be nice to see if you would be up to luring away one of the lower house’s mares or stallions away to dance.”

“Mares, my lady. We may be twins, but as we joke, my brother got my mother’s inclination towards stallions, and I got my father’s towards mares.” Cut’s smile seemed a touch on the shy side despite the open admission of preference. Even that, half the time, was too much of a flirtation. “It’s… a private joke among family.”

“I understand.” Rosewater glanced at Silver and bobbed her head. “I’ll keep to my promise, Silver. Thank you so much. Can you check and see if Silk’s arrived with my dress yet?”

Silver hesitated, glancing between her and the door. “I didn’t see Silk, but Vine is here with a dress bag. She was waiting very nervously in the sitting room. I suppose she’s here for you?”

“Unless Petal also ordered a dress from Silk, I imagine so. Vine is staying behind this Gala.” Rosewater glanced at Cut. “When you leave, can you send her in? I have some things I need to talk to her about in private.”

“Of course.” Cut settled in and continued to tease and order her mane.

Rosewater settled in, feeling again like she was girding herself for battle.

Vine swallowed for what felt like the tenth time, and wished she’d thought to ask for a glass of water when the mare, she thought her name had been Roselyn, had asked her if she needed anything in a chill tone.

It had been easier to say no than to face the mare again. She was supposed to be spying on them, and she hadn’t even shown up to try the first thing. She’d made it to the top of the rise that led down to the Villa before she’d lost her nerve and rushed back home.

This was her first time actually making it to the Villa itself, and now that she was here…

She felt calmer. She’d made the trip once. Hip would cut her off tomorrow, giving her just enough time to move her latest horticulture to someplace safe where it wouldn’t die on the vine. Her bedroom, the kitchen sill, the front patio, and even the desk she’d moved in front of the east-facing window were covered with her projects. They would survive for a while without more light, but she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to work up the nerve to ask Seed, to tell him what her plan was.

The dress sitting on the lounging couch across from her invited her to talk to it, but she didn’t know what to say, and the possibility of ears listening even if she managed to figure out what she needed to do.

She could talk to Silk, but she had her own concerns with shadowing Rosewater directly, trying to sweet-talk her way into her confidences.

Both of their tasks were almost automatic failures. But they had to make an appearance of trying, or Roseate would retaliate immediately.

“Miss Rosethorn,” a soft male voice said. A Dammer. One of the Damme residents? Tremor, maybe? “Lady Rosewater will see you now.”

“Did she say anything?”

He shook his head. “Just that she expected her dress.” He tipped his head to her and left. Not even to escort her to the room.

She stared after the stallion, wondering if he would realize his mistake and come back, but as soon as the large front door to the villa clicked closed, the sound of pounding hooves announced he’d broken into a gallop.

Not Tremor, then. From his cutie mark, a mane and tail stylist.

“I suppose,” Vine told the mute dress, “that she must be down that hallway.”

The halls seemed to speak accusations to her as they moaned in the soft wind coming up from the cliffs. The villa was all but empty, it sounded like, for the Gala’s ancillary celebrations all over both cities, and only a few muted conversations behind closed doors told her that anyone was even in residence.

Not that she could root around in desks looking for evidence. Not that she wanted to. She wanted…

She had told Silk what she wanted often enough that a simple look was enough to make her sister sigh and nip her ear, then reassure her that wherever they ended up, they would end up there together.

She found Rosewater by following the mane stylist’s scent, strongest behind a door with a silver bangle with three ruby petals in the same pattern as Rosewater’s cutie mark. No other bangle dangled with it, though she knew the custom and knew that Rosewater had been making love with Dazzle semi-regularly from the rumors spilling out of the Villa from uncareful mouths.

“Come in, Vine,” Rosewater said as the door opened. “No need to tarry and worry.”

Rosewater, inside, sat with her back to the door, her eyes on Vine in the mirror, and an open canister of blush sitting on the counter, the light powder on the brush paler than Rosewater’s mane glittered as she shifted it back and forth. “Before I dress, I’d like your opinion. I’m intending to wear only a touch of makeup. Is this color suitable, do you think?”

Vine’s tongue clove to the top of her mouth, and she forced herself to step inside and settled the dress on Rosewater’s neat bed. Everything was neat. Organized. Tidy. Just like Vine liked it, even if there was a smidge of some sort on the window-sill and the pane just above it, as if somepony had backed against it and left a touch of oiled tail, or closed the window with their mouth.

Does she have an earth pony lover we don’t know about?

“Vine?” Rosewater followed her gaze, snorted, and sent a cloth to clean off the smudges. “Stars, dear, you truly are nervous tonight. Silk will be fine, I assure you. Mother wants her to get close to me at the gala, while I have other ideas. I’m sure I can distract mother from her plans long enough for Silk to effect an escape and get out of her notice.”

“Yes.” Vine’s mind finally caught up to the first question and was chewing through the rest of the words directed at her before she realized what Rosewater had said. “I-I know, she told me you… she…”

“You’ll be fine, too, Vine. Please, talk to Seed after the Gala. He can help.” Rosewater leaned forward, her eyes darting from her own face in the mirror to meet Vine’s eyes, then back again as she applied the lightest dusting she could manage on her cheeks. The glittering mica powder in the blush lightened it even further and gave the hairs on her cheeks a special glow. “Is this too much?”

“A touch,” Vine said, swallowing her nerves and stepping closer to Rosewater, studying the back of her neck and the spill of hair and ribbons that curled like pink and blue rapids down the length, not quite spilling down to bounce, but held in place as if in a stiff breeze. “You may want to shield against the wind or bring an umbrella to do that. It is somewhat gusty.”

“Of course it is,” Rosewater said with a sigh and a flick of her ear. “Thank you.”

“O-of course.” Spy. The accusation whispered in her ear as both imprecation and command. “I-I noticed Dazzle didn’t have a bangle on your door.”

“He does not. While we had fun, I’m afraid that our lives are moving in two different directions, Vine. We had a talk, well, we still need to finish that talk, but we’re moving on from each other.” She gave Vine a soft smile and bobbed her head. “Thank you for asking. Silk told me you had wished for us to have a romantic life together.”

“But he’s—”

“Kind, gentle, loving, he’s got quite the wit, and we get along well. Yes, I know, Vine. But…” Rosewater put the brush down on the vanity and screwed on the lid of the blush. It felt like she was making a statement with the motion, deliberate, slow, as if every turning of the lid tightened down further on her heart. “I’ll need to return this to Petal tomorrow and apologize for borrowing it. Would you help me get dressed, dear sister?”

“But you loved him!” Vine blurted. Why are you giving him up? Are you giving up to mother again? If Rosewater couldn’t stand up to Roseate, she might as well give in now. “Didn’t you?”

“More than I can express. But,” Rosewater said as silence spread across the room, the creeping pink light suffusing into the walls and over the window seeming to block out more than sound. “When one makes romance across the river, when that romance is so complicated that compromises must be made… I assure you, I did not break off our romance because of mother. I broke it off because I have been courting Collar in secret.”

“But… mother?” Vine asked, her jaw slack.

“By the time you would be able to whisper it to her, I’ll have shouted it at her, Vine. This is no more secret after tonight.” Rosewater bent and kissed her lightly on either cheek. “You are dear to me, Vine, and your heart is big enough for two cities. Please, when you do come here, talk to Dazzle. He will help you find your courage to do what must be done.”

Defy mother. It was what Rosewater was doing so blatantly tonight.

Vine swallowed back her fear and unbuttoned the dress cover. “I’ll try.”

The wind spilling off the sea brought warmth to the city, urging ponies to put away their scarves and winter blankets for another week, two, or three depending on how restless the winter was to come visit Merrie and Damme with its chill.

Only a few guests had arrived thus far. Older ponies from prominent families both Rose and Prim who wanted to settle in and find the best places to sit and watch the theatrics. Old enemies now united in… not quite common purpose.

Among them were the ponies that had participated in raids more than thirty years ago that sneered at Collar’s mother for her ‘soft’ stance on Merrie and letting Roseate ‘walk all over her.’ The same ones that hadn’t been able to bring a conclusion to the war despite their boasting now that their part in it was relegated to trying to guide the city’s youth along the same, tired ruts that they’d gone over and over and over for centuries without change.

Their fighting days were over, and they were content to glare at their opposites and swap horror and war stories that would sound more like swashbuckling tales of adventure than what they had actually been: abduction for ransom, espionage for blackmail. Spies rather than adventurers, raiders rather than a rallying army.

This gala, more than most, it was frustrating to listen to their stories as he greeted them at the door and sent one of his small cadre of guards off to guide them to the ballroom—more to ensure they didn’t try to break into one of the wings than to show them where it was.

But all of them paid deference to him, at least for tonight. After tonight, after what he hoped he had the nerve to do, he doubted very much that any one of them would consider him a ‘true’ Dammer. If they ever did before. They’d know, tonight, where his heart lay.

Off in the distance, he could make out the clots of ponies coming through the carefully prepared route, dotted with guards here and there to ensure that every Rose followed that route, and pegasi flying patrols overhead to ensure that the route was adhered to. Increased security against Rose treachery, even if treachery now meant rather more than a stern letter from Celestia.

Next to arrive were the carefully curated tradesponies there to offer a taste of Merrie to the guests of the Gala, many of them reviewed by Rosewater herself for duplicity. One name he noted was missing from the list was Rosie Night and family, though Rosewater had told him they were busy lately with a new foal, and Rosie Night, formerly Rosie Sweets, was busy helping her wife and husband care for their new foal.

Rose Petal and Rose Seed were among the first to arrive after the old battlewagons ready to set up for a fight that would never come.

“Seed, Petal,” Collar said, stepping away from the contingent of guards to offer a hoof personally to the vintner and florist. There were proprieties to follow, even if he could stretch them a little. “I’m glad you accepted our offer. I apologize that it’s a paltry exchange for the thanks you wish to give, but there are things holding my hoof back.”

“My dear friend Rosewater explained much of what you were tied down by, my lord,” Petal said, bowing her head and glancing over her shoulder at the crates of bottles of wine and the trio of wine casks and a folding tasting table along with all the other accoutrements of their trade. “Will… he be here tonight?”

He winked at them, only briefly, and smiled. “It was our wish to honor him as well, Rose Petal. He is here tonight, but whether he chooses to let himself be known is his choice. I invited him as a guest, rather than a guard.”

“Perfect,” Petal said, bowing her head. “Thank you, my lord. He deserves that honor. If you’ll excuse us…”

“Of course.” He waved at one of the guards in their best Dammeguard finery, blues and purples shining so even the cloth seemed to sparkle like chain mail, though none wore such heavy armor tonight. “Primmane Gilder will show you where we’d like you to set up.”

The guard eyed him warily, but only for a split second before he tapped a hoof to his peytral. “If you’ll follow me,” he said, turning and walking past.

He was going to pay for that. Primmane Braid, the current matron of the branch, and ornery widow, would likely accost him at some point tonight for setting her grandson to lead Roses instead of Prims of high station, but he hoped it wouldn’t bother Seed and Petal. He only had a limited contingent for escorts and the Dammers all knew where to go anyway. Only the Roses would truly need escort.

And the more troublesome Dammers.

Prim merchants followed, ready to set up in the side-rooms in the hall leading to the largely unused ballroom on the second floor in the north wing. Normally, it would be a place of parties, and often was in less busier seasons, but this past season had been especially busy and full of changes that Collar had needed to divert his attention to.

There would be no jockeying for position this year. Merchants from Merrie and Damme would be sharing space, and the few food vendors in the actual ballroom had been vetted and required to sign agreements on the amount and type of food they would bring to further reduce the infighting and increase the variety of food available.

For one night, Merriedamme would be a reality even if it was enforced and they were smiling uneasily at each other. They would be neighbors for one night only. He knew it would cause resentment on both sides for being forced to comingle, but they needed to, and he considered it, now, a shortsighted decision not to do this earlier.

He could only imagine the absolute travesty that would be the Winter Gala when Roseate made the entire process a mockery. Vendors in the middle of the courtyard, Prims forced to set up in tents out in the cold. She would take every opportunity to turn it into an insult to his city.

More of his door contingent peeled off and returned after guiding their Rose or Prim vendors to their assigned spaces, explaining that yes, they really meant it when they said places were assigned.

And in the meantime, greeting more of the sporadic clusters of Roses from minor Rosethorn and Roseroot branch families, and their Prim equivalents. Some he chatted with amiably enough, while waiting for a guard to return to escort them, even among the Roses, but for most, and most especially the Prims aligned against him, they ignored him until somepony came back.

Of the main Rosethorn line, he’d seen nothing, and his heart ached to see Rosewater before the gala started. To see her dress, and how she’d done her mane, and the look in her eyes when she saw the look in his. He was tempted to kiss her in front of whomever was there, but that might give away the ruse and give too much away.

It wasn’t for another ten minutes of small talk and quiet before he saw the party of three with a single Merrieguard escort—her right as the ruler of Merrie— accompanied by two Dammeguard from the bridge contingent at the Primrose. He recognized the shades of their coats and their gear as belonging to the ponies he’d assigned there specifically to escort Roseate.

Behind them a generous thirty yards, was Rosewater, an umbrella held in the direction the wind was blowing and holding her tail against her side with a magical latticework he could see from the steps.

Duty first. Then pleasure. He turned his attention back to the ponies Roseate had brought with her, mares both, and both daughters he recognized from previous galas. And two prior raids. Silk had been at the large one led by Rosewater half a year ago—Stars, has it only been half a year?—but escaped, and then again, hanging back and providing support during the even larger one two months ago. And escaped again.

Rose Crown, her glasses perched on her muzzle, blinked owlishly at him, then smiled. She’d been instrumental in the initial success of the second raid and had been the only reason that Rosewater and Silk had escaped the first.

“Fetch Note,” he whispered to his only remaining guard. “And Coat. I’ll need both shortly.”

The stallion swallowed, nodded, and dashed inside, his wings half open as he bounded down the hall.

“Roseate,” Collar said in a formal tone, leaving off her title or honorific. He was under no obligation to treat her with courtesy. “Welcome. I would show you in myself, but I am greeting everypony to arrive tonight.”

“Collar,” Roseate said, bowing her head, a little smirk at the corner of her mouth. Insult for insult. “You look well. I would like to introduce my daughters, Rose Crown and Silk Rose.”

“I’m aware of who they are,” Collar said stiffly. “I could hardly forget their presence at the battle that pushed the Gala so far out of course.” He wanted to ask her what had possessed her to pretend to want to double-deal with him, masquerading as Rosewater, but he kept it in, barely. “Crown, you are looking much better than the last time I saw you. It’s a pleasure to see you once more.”

Crown looked down, her ears flattening, but her lips stayed firmly pressed closed. After a moment, she raised her head, her smile coming into the glow of the steady unicorn lights decorating the front entrance as he heard steps behind him. “Thank you, my lord. I’m glad our meeting is not moderated by the bars of a cell this time. You were kind to me.”

“Gallantry and bravery in the face of the enemy is an honorable and admirable trait, Crown. I was glad to give you the kindness of the Gilded Cage instead of the cells and to visit you on occasion.” Collar let his gaze skitter to Roseate briefly. “The treatment of prisoners is paramount to the strictures of the treaty, and I have made sure that Glory’s treatment is no less comfortable than yours.”

Roseate made no flicker of emotion as she gazed back. “I thank you for taking care of her. I’m afraid that our latest endeavors have rather cost us much, and we have no free capital with which to negotiate her release at this time.”

Collar forced himself to smile. “I understand.” Collar extended a hoof to Silk even as Note pounded to a halt beside him, Coat there in the next breath. “We’ll make sure she’s well cared for and has no cause to complain to Firelight during his inspections. And… Silk. That is a lovely dress. I hear tell through the whispering birds that you made your sister’s as well?”

Silk raised her head to meet his eyes, but he also noted that she darted a look to her mother just before her defiant glower softened almost to contrition. Odd.

“I did. Is she here already? I really would like to see how the final fit came out.”

Roseate stiffened before Collar shook his head.

“She is not. I believe that’s her just behind you, crossing the courtyard.” Collar lifted his head to look over them. “Coat, Note, could you please accompany these lovely mares to the ballroom? I’m afraid I can’t leave my post until later.” Until Coat comes back at least.

Roseate’s lip curled into a sneer as she glanced over her shoulder. She’d only worn a simple gown of near crimson that floated above the steps in a cloud of her own magic. “Of course, my lord. Duty first.”

Sunrise swallowed and stared after the Roses. “Is Note going to be okay? We’re guarded against scents, not sound.”

“Note knows her skills,” Collar said with a confidence he didn’t feel. Crown might not want to fight in the war, but she was more than capable, and with a rare talent for her family line. For any pony, in truth. He wasn’t sure how she’d stand up to Note as, to his knowledge, they had never clashed openly. “He’s nearly a match for her,” he added confidently.

Sunrise watched Rosewater’s progress. “Is that Platinum behind her?”

“Aye.” Collar frowned and glanced beyond them, cocking his head. “Who has she brought with her? I don’t recall her saying that she’d have guests.” Not that I didn’t forbid it. “I asked her to wait at the Rosewine bridge to provide a proper escort. I would have sent you, and perhaps should have, but I need a courier here just in case.”

Just behind the unknown pair of mares, he made out Firelight Spark, resplendent in his golden and silver coat of arms, the sun crest bright on breast and shoulder declaring him a Knight of the Sun. Beside him, he recognized the rather plain looking Vellum in a surprisingly light gown. He hadn’t thought the mousey clerk would have had one. It wasn’t anything special like Rosewater’s appeared to be, but it both fit and complimented her coat and wing pattern.

On her other side, the white-coated Wandering Star with the purple nebula around her horn pranced a few steps ahead, laughed, and fell back to walk beside the mare. He hadn’t seen much of the Merrie Knight, but she wasn’t the one that normally dealt with Rosewater or with the Prim Palace. Her area of responsibility was normally Roseate, but she was also not the leader of the Treaty Expeditionary Force. Firelight Spark was.

Rosewater heard the laughter, paused in her advance and set a quarter-dome shield up against the wind, the surface of it wavering and keeping him from seeing her gown in its entirety. He had an impression of pink and blue, both diaphanous and almost transparent, transforming them into a seeming cloud as the wind still skirled around the edges of her barrier.

Come, please, my love. This is torture, waiting.

She waited for the two mares, who stayed with her while she expanded the dome, while Firelight caught up to them and said something that made her throw her head back and laugh.

The group continued on, and it made his heart glad to see that she had an extra bounce in her step. She had friends, and even seemed to count Firelight as one. Which wasn’t terribly surprising to him, all things considered. She’d been doing what Celestia had intended for the treaty to be for two months, and now… tonight, they would take the first steps towards bringing that treaty to a close.

“Oh… oh, stars,” Sunrise whispered, her voice rising as she glanced over to Collar. “Stars, sir. She dressed up like that for you?”

“For us. For all of us,” he said softly. He glanced aside at Primmane Glider, recently arrived from escorting his parents and grandparents to the ballroom. “Glider, I’ll be assigning you to the mystery pair of mares. Sunrise, please escort the Knights.”

“Aye, sir,” they chorused.

“And… the Lady Rosewater?” Glider asked.

“As my opposite, it’s my duty to escort her to the ballroom. I’ll be leaving Coat in charge in the meantime. When he gets back.” Collar glanced behind him and tried to will his friend to ditch Roseate and Silk and get back here. No sign of him came, of course. Roseate would monopolize his time as much as possible and try to make a mess of things.

She seemed incapable of leaving anything be. Except when it suited her.

“Lord Collar,” Firelight said, reaching the top of the stairs first. “It’s a delight to see you, and in your Dammeguard finest. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you quite so well dressed, even at other Galas.”

“Indeed, one might almost think he was getting married,” Wandering Star said, laughing and stepping forward to offer her hoof. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, my lord. It feels like it’s been most of a year.”

Collar forced his smile to stay in place and glanced at Firelight, who only smiled all the broader and winked.

“I thought it was appropriate dress for the occasion,” Collar said, waving off the implication. “Rosewater is our special guest for this Gala.”

On cue, she stepped up beside the two knights and offered her hoof.

He stopped mid acceptance to stare. She’d come in behind the two knights and ahead of the scribe and mares, familiar looking mares now that he could make out their faces.

But she… Rosewater was radiant. Her dress was a blended blue and radiant pink silk, transparent in areas and fading to opaque in waves along body, never fully, but enough so that as she moved, the shades of pink and blue blended together and rippled like a pond being blown about by winds in the early morning light, her white coat accentuating the brightness of the fabric and fading into a braided pink and blue ribbon around her neck that ended in a bow fashioned like a rose made of silk over her heart mark, hiding it, inviting him to sniff and see if it smelled as beautiful as it looked.

But as stunning as her dress was, the crown was moreso. He’d caught it only as a sparkle in the distance but up close, it was clear it wasn’t the crown that was her right as heiress of Merrie, the simple golden circlet with the Rose of the city in ruby or the larger, gaudy one Roseate had worn.

“Rosewater,” Collar breathed. “Stars.” He took a step forward before he knew his body was acting, stopped himself, and took her hoof, then bent to kiss her lightly on each cheek. “Welcome, my lady. You look radiant.”

“As do you.” Her eyes flicked up to his crownless head. “Though you seem to be missing a piece.”

“I’m afraid it fell when I was preparing and a sapphire popped out of the setting, and one of our craftsmares is working on it,” he said, the lie smooth on his tongue. It was with Cloudy, the ring just as hers was, having been replaced already. “It should be ready by the end of the night.”

The laughter in her eyes was a relief to see. “Then I shall hope it’s not before the end of the night. I may have to give mine to safe keeping if we’re to be equals, my lord.”

He would have been happy to stand there all night talking with her, but Glider’s restless shuffling to the side told him he needed to move things along. “Once Coat returns, I’ll escort you myself my lady. He’s currently escorting your mother.”

Her wince spoke for him as well.

“Sunrise, please see the knights and their scribe to the ballroom.”

“Yes, my lord,” Sunrise said, bowing her head and stepping to the side as Rosewater made way for them, the shuffling of hooves the only sound above the wind for several seconds before they disappeared.

“My lord,” Rosewater said, bowing. “It’s my pleasure to reintroduce you to Golden Glow and Fervent Wish. They have been our guests at the Garden for these last several weeks, and have been learning both the culture and deciding, it seems, whether or not they’d like to make a permanent home here.”

“My lord,” they said in unison, bowing to him. “I hope it’s not an issue. Lady Rosewater invited us as her guests as the Heiress.”

Rosewater’s eyes, when he turned back to her, shone with amusement. “They’ve been very observant and mindful of our ways and I wished to repay some of the attention by inviting them to an event they likely have only heard about.”

“We’re both happy to be her guests and overjoyed to be here,” Fervent said in a rushing voice, prancing up to offer her hoof to Collar. “We’ve been watching Merrie and Damme from afar, so it’s exciting to be able to attend the pivotal event that the entire treaty centers around.”

Collar raised her hoof and kissed the back. “And it’s a pleasure to have you here. Primfeather Glider will see you to the ballroom. Please. Make yourselves comfortable and acquainted with the foods of both of our cities.”

“Aye, sir. Ladies, please follow me,” Glider said, bowing to them and stepping back through the gate to the gala, guiding them along.

That left Collar alone with Rosewater, save for Platinum, who pulled out a familiar looking diary and made two entries in it.

“To your hooves, my lord,” Platinum said. “I must be back to my post.”

“Thank you, Platinum. Very much,” Rosewater said, turning to give the mare a light touch on her shoulder. “I wish you and Sunrise the best in the coming days.”

“I—” Platinum’s cheeks turned crimson briefly, then she bowed. “Thank you, my lady. Enjoy the night.” She put away her declaration journal, smiled, and bobbed her head. “Stars willing, I won’t be late for the closing event.”

“Stars willing,” Rosewater said, patting her on the shoulder briefly. “You’ll be there.”

Leaving Collar alone on the front gate, and only the guests already in the palace to witness them as Collar moved down a step, and she moved up one.

“You’re making a show of where you’re leaning,” Collar murmured, brushing his lips against her cheek more slowly and intimately than a Merrie-style greeting dictated. “Did anypony give you any fuss?”

Her lips on his cheeks, returning the greeting before she answered, were softer, lingered longer, and left an ache in his heart when she backed down one step. “No. Looks, but no fuss. That won’t last once ponies get a good look at the ornamentation.”

“And the ring?”

“Replaceable,” Rosewater said with a smile and a wink. “Did you have any trouble on your end?”

“None. I… hope you like…” He glanced past her to see another group of Merrie nobility, none of whom he recognized, arriving with Dammeguard bridge escorts. “Stars, where is Coat?”

“I am pleased to wait,” Rosewater murmured, glancing around before leaning forward to nip his chin. “I tried to arrive later for a reason, rather than first, and it wasn’t to avoid Roseate’s ire. It was to spend more time with you while you weren’t distracted by everypony else.”

“In public.” The idea of spending the time standing and talking to her, dressed as if they were already a couple, greeting the stragglers coming up the way, the latecomers and irate ponies roped into the Gala by dint of their status or protesting the lateness of the Autumnal Gala. “Come up here with me, love,” he said softly, stepping to the side and glancing down the long hall towards the ballroom. Still no sign of Coat.

“Who did you send him with?”

“Roseate.”

“Then he’ll be gone until she’s done pestering him or she gets bored of pestering him.” Rosewater gave him a small, apologetic smile. “I’ll need to apologize to him later.”

“He understands she’s not you.”

“I know, but…”

“You’re not responsible for her actions, either. Now stand there and help me look pretty to these ponies.”

“Help you look pretty?” Rosewater said with a laugh, then glanced up, sighed, and muttered. “Oh, this timing was deliberate.”

Collar followed her gaze to a flight of three pegasi, two in formal civilian garb, and the latter in Dammegaurd finery. Even from the ground, they were clearly Primfeathers, and swooped in for a smooth landing in a somewhat ragged formation, their wings tucking in gracefully, but not with the same kind of precision he expected on drills from his Dammeguard.

“It was,” Collar said softly, standing straighter. “Just follow my lead.”

He took a step forward, mouth open for a greeting, and the matron and patron Primfeather swept past without a word and only a glower for the familiar place Rosewater had at his side.

“I’m sorry for them, Lord Collar,” Stride said as he paused to straighten his neckwear, then flushed as Collar quickly redid the bowtie. “Thank you, sir. I’ve always found them fiddly.” He gave Rosewater a sidelong look. “My lady.”

Rosewater bowed her head gravely as though she were receiving a benediction. “Sir Dammeguad,” she said softly. “Thank you for the greeting.”

“Go on, young buck. And mind the Roses.” Collar smiled at him, tipping his head to Rosewater. “They are friendly tonight, understand, so do try to make acquaintances with some of them. This war won’t last forever.”

When he was gone, his wings fluttering nervously, Rosewater nipped his neck. “Follow your lead,” she said, her tone light, her eyes dancing. “I can absolutely stand here.”

“Shush. I should have guessed they’d ignore me.” He laughed and nipped her neck right back. “You look beautiful tonight, and your mane… stars. I thought the ribbons in your mane were stunning on you. What did you do?”

Rosewater’s cheeks actually flushed, and she ducked her head briefly, smiling more brightly than ever. “I had some help from a new friend. The twin of the pony you’re waiting to escort me into the gala.”

“Oh.” Collar’s mind flashed to Cut, summarizing what he did in an instant of thought, connected the two items, and blinked. “Oh! Stars, he did your mane today?”

“And a week ago. He actually did the initial trim then.” She tapped a hoof against his. “I’m sure it was somewhere in your reports on my movements. And probably in the rumor mill stirrings.”

“You overestimate the speed at which rumors grow into intelligence,” Collar said with a huff, fighting to hide the smile. “I did hear about it from Coat, though. And no, I didn’t demote him. I’m glad he took the chance, honestly, even if I wouldn’t have.”

“You wouldn’t have—” Rosewater straightened and glanced over his back into the hall. “Coat approaches. He got free.”

“I wouldn’t have, because my goal would have been to keep you safe. That would have been the wrong goal, too. Keeping you ‘safe’ is putting you in a room like Rosemary.” Collar glanced down the hall, then at the almost empty courtyard, and kissed her lightly on the muzzle. It felt good to show affection, even if nopony else was there to see it. “I want more than that for you. Stars. I need more for you.”

“I understand the impulse,” Rosewater said gently, her cheeks flushed, her eyes somber. “I do. And thank you for understanding that you must rein in the want to protect.”

Coat announced himself with a cough before Collar could reply. “I hope, my lord and lady, that I am not interrupting anything?”

“Nay, but you are just in time to take over my post until the gate closes,” Collar said, giving his cousin a smile. “Thence to ‘off duty’ with your husband.”

“Whom is currently likely trying to decide whether to strangle me or kiss me. Depending on Rosemary’s mood.” Coat smiled and bobbed his head. “‘Tis only a few more minutes before the gate closes and the gala begins, and thus I will have plenty of time to devise a plan to avoid the noose.”

Collar stepped into the gateway and offered a hoof to her. “My lady, the gala awaits.”

Book 2, 45: Gala, Jarring Discordance

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Eyes.

They followed her as she walked down the long hall she’d walked so many times before, but never before as an openly invited guest, never before with so many strangers watching her, and only recently with Collar at her side. Before this moment, she wouldn’t have imagined how very light it felt to openly display her interest in Collar.

“If we kissed right here, how many do you think would faint outright?” Rosewater whispered.

Collar barked a laugh and nudged her shoulder. “Most of them? Stars. I’m tempted to try it just to get a count.”

Except tonight was about pageantry, showing that they worked together, that they enjoyed each other’s company to more ponies than the few that watched them. It was about telling both cities in unequivocal terms that they were in love and weaving a narrative that supported it rather than shocking ponies.

There was a side to the argument saying that kissing, shocking ponies, then laughing and prancing up to the ballroom would tell the same thing in a far more playful way. Or it’d be taken as a joke, and discounted, weakening the play they were making.

“Let’s not,” Rosewater said softly, nudging his shoulder back. “I want tonight to be… natural. Feel natural.”

“Feeling natural…” Collar sighed and glanced over the watching merchants and nobility sniffing the wares but truly watching them in the minutes before the gala started officially. “I know this is a rushed plan, but telling ponies here feels as natural a place to do it as possible.”

Rosewater pursed her lips and nodded, raising her head to look up as she started the climb up to the ballroom and the guard waiting for them. “Announce us together?” Rosewater asked, a flutter in her stomach rising and falling as she asked and considered the suggestion.

“Yes,” Collar said more firmly, offering her a sidelong smile. “Together. A hint of what’s to come.”

Over the last few steps, the butterflies disappeared as the guards on the doors in their finest uniforms watched them, studied them without any seeming to judge her or look on her with either hatred or suspicion. A few were familiar to her, bridge ponies that she’d seen every few days for two months, or ponies that guarded Rosemary’s door. Some of them were unknown, but still held no hatred in their eyes they could see.

“Sergeant,” Rosewater said to one of the ponies she’d seen over and over at the bridges, whose eyes had turned from distrust to, not quite trust, but familiarity. “It’s good to see you again.”

“My lady,” he said, bowing his head, and looking to Collar. “My lord.”

“Announce us both, please,” Collar said, touching his hoof to Rosewater’s. “Tonight, by agreement and accord, we are partners in promoting unity.”

His eyes, and those of at least half of the others that Rosewater could see, opened wide, then settled into a rainbow of expressions from shocked to angry to confused. The rest, either having been closer, or taking some other meaning in his words, merely nodded gravely.

“Of course, my lord, my lady,” he said, bowing, then starting towards the door, asked Collar, “How should I announce you?”

Collar glanced at Rosewater. “My lady?”

She could see the looks in their eyes, the look that said, ‘what can you do in one night?’

“Please, announce us as the Lord and Lady Heirs, Primline Collar and Rosewater Rosethorn,” Rosewater said, standing up straighter and raising her head. “We’re together tonight, as he said, in promoting unity between our cities as an example of what we can accomplish together.”

The stallion stood, eyes wide, and glanced at Collar, swallowing. “My lord?”

“As Lady Rosewater said,” Collar replied, smiling. “Unless there’s anything else?”

Rosewater smiled more brightly and glanced at Collar’s crownless head. He had one, but he never actually wore it. “Actually… one more thing.”

Despite the enforced mixing of the few vendors dressed in their finery with food presented as prettily as if it were about to grace the table of Princess Celestia herself, the traditional sides still formed, the blue carpet covering the center of the ballroom the point across which none of her fellow Merrie nobles nor the Dammer nobles crossed. Even when they’d come in, the few that followed her and her mother, every noble and guest had split around the blue ‘rock’ in the center like a divided stream and settled into a metastable mass either against the bare stone wall or against the bank of windows.

Silk stood uneasily at the center of the floodwaters of pink and red and all manner of carmine and colors in between, waiting for the difference to come and either remove the barrier or make such a splash that neither side could avoid mixing. Roseate didn’t know what manner of dress she’d made for Rosewater, didn’t know how much of a splash the dress would make, or what they would do.

All she knew was that Rosewater was making a play. What she wanted to do with what Silk had made for her, she had no idea, but she was proud of her work nonetheless and excited to see it as more than a glimpse behind her in the distance. Even Roseate had glimpsed it but deigned not to slow down to let her catch up.

Not that either Crown or Silk had thought to make the suggestion. She’d announced her intention as if they had.

“She’s not behaving like she’s a part of the family anymore, so let her be alone.”

Crown was still missing from the crowd, but she’d made some small excuse about trying to find a book she’d started but not finished when last kept captive. She and the nervous audiomancer Note had disappeared into the lower levels of the east wing, and Roseate’s smile had grown cruel and victorious for only a few moments before it’d wiped itself away into the same cold, stoic visage she wore.

It gave Silk great satisfaction to know that Crown was almost as gentle as Vine in her own way. If there was something between her and Note, it wasn’t malicious, and it would not serve Roseate’s ends, no matter what it looked like to her.

The Knights of the Sun arrived after only a few minutes, both of them looking radiant and, to some extent, more there than they had been before, though why that would be escaped her for the moment. Then came two mares looking nervous and following the knights, announced as Fervent Wish and Golden Glow, obviously married, but also just as obviously not Merriers or Dammers.

They didn’t follow the same pattern and dart to one side or another, but stuck close to the knights, who made their way to the head of what had once been the throne of Damme, and now served as music stand and speaking dais where Baroness Lace and Baron Dapper held court with a few Dammers seeming nervous to even be so close.

Not even the Primfeathers had made that journey.

Then came a nervous looking stallion with the Primfeather markings that stopped, his wings rustling, and seemed to try and decide which direction he wanted to dart. Handsome, but… it was inevitable. He followed what must have been his parents to the Prim side of the room.

“We should have kept that stallion longer,” Roseate muttered under her breath, glancing at where the stallion was still speaking with Dapper and Lace. “He could tell us who that is.”

“I sent him away because he was starting to pester me,” Silk said with a sigh. “That last comment about my dress was below the pale.”

“You are too sensitive about your appearance.” Roseate nudged her lightly with a spell. “Go fetch us some wine. And see if you can find out who that is. He’s entirely too nervous for my taste.”

For an instant, Silk considered refusing, then glanced at where Coat was speaking still to Lace and Dapper. It would be easier than listening to her mother gripe about everything and point out targets for potential ‘acquisition.’

“Of course, mother.”

As she crossed the ballroom, making her way to the sole wine stand, managed by two familiar faces closer to the centerline of the front of the ballroom than most others. They were easy to reach for both sides with only a little crossing of lines. Their counterparts on the other side of the entryway, selling Dammerale by tiny quantities in the same way the wine was being sold, shared the responsibility of keeping the ballroom’s tongues wet and encouraged them to wag.

As tempting as it would be to bring her mother a dark Dammerale and keep the wine to herself, or to get herself an ale just to tweak her mother’s nose, it would probably backfire and leave her with more of a headache than if she’d just followed her mother’s instructions. It was how Roseate got her way most of the time.

“Cousin,” Silk said, bowing her head sliding up to the cloth-covered counter looking not unlike any bar in Merrie.

“Silk,” Seed said cooly.

Stars. We’re supposed to… Silk glanced away, trying to hide the hurt. She had no animosity towards him, and was actually grateful that he’d managed to draw Rosewater back out, even if most of what he’d done had seemed to be supporting her rather than actively dragging her out of her home. Roseate had been the impetus of her own downfall.

To her surprise, Seed coughed and offreed, “You’ve outdone yourself again.” He glanced towards the doors, then back to her. “I believe Crown was coming, no?”

“She wanted to make an impression on somepony,” Silk said in a low voice, offering a tidbit in return for the laurel, then went one step further. “I can only hope she has.”

“She mentioned something similar before,” Seed said, raising a glass lazily with a dark red wine with a sweet, heady bouquet. “Tending to a love she hoped would bloom, I believe.” His eyes glittered as a panic shot through Silk’s heart. If Roseate heard, she’d… no. He couldn’t know. Not truly. “Happy gardening, no?”

He didn’t know. Or he did and he’d offered it as a laurel to let her know he could be trusted. Petal was tending to trying to entice a pegasus over to sample a vintage, barely paying attention to them.

“Happy gardening indeed,” Silk said, shaking her head and nodding to the glass. “That vintage has a lovely fragrance.” She risked a closer look at Petal, who still wasn’t paying her any attention. “May I? Two glasses, please.”

That neither seemed to know who the pegasus was that Petal was cajoling, she pushed that back down. She wouldn’t find out his name or anything about him from Seed, even if he didn’t figure out who she was asking for.

Still, he caught her look. “Oh, we’ll leave her to tempt another palate, I think.” Seed poured two glasses for her with a wink. “If I can sleep while standing, I’m sure I can manage to pour wine.”

He hadn’t figured out the meaning of her look. Still, it hurt to think he’d thought she’d been demeaning his ability to pour wine. She winced to play to the implied insult, and was surprised when it actually hurt to have him think she’d belittled him. She took a breath to push it away.

“Silk, I’m—”

“It’s fine, Seed,” she said, playing to the mask that was all-too easy to put on. “Past wounds do sneak out in humor sometimes, no?”

Silk sipped quietly at her wine and watched as the sluggishly moving banks of the invisible river in the middle of the room shrank a little, then grew as the pegasus came a little closer, then back as a few other ponies that were eying the wine stand made an almost move towards them.

“Enjoy, cousin,” Seed said with a small smile. “We look forward to seeing you again this winter.”

She gave him a bright smile and bobbed her head. “I, as well. My compliments to your wife and her vineyard.” With another glance towards the pegasus she was supposed to get information on, she shook her head, sighed, and smiled again, hoping he would understand. “And all under her employ.”

He didn’t seem to in the brief instant she held his gaze before she lifted the other glass from the counter and returned to her mother’s side.

She gave him a wan smile and saluted with one of the two glasses before heading back to her mother’s side.

“Anything?” Roseate demanded.

“None. They’ve no idea who he is aside from a stallion who doesn’t hate Roses with an unreasonable passion.” Silk rolled a shoulder and sipped from her wine, watching as the young pegasus approached the counter. “I don’t recognize him either, from up closer.”

“Pity.” Roseate glanced at the door again, frowning at the activity there as a guard spoke with the majordomo. “Rosewater was just behind us, wasn’t she?”

“I thought so. She must have stopped and let the knights go ahead.” Silk shrugged and sipped her wine and tried not to think about her mother’s reaction to the dress she’d made. That would be its own can of worms. Her only hope was that when she made the splash, it would draw attention away from her role in it.

“Announcing the Lord and Lady heirs, Primline Collar and Rosewater Rosethorn.”

Roseate stiffened.

Silk’s heart sank and flew as the doors opened wider and together Rosewater and Collar stepped out into the view of everypony. He, in his Dammeguard finery, complete with a circlet he had not worn for the greetings, golden and simple, with only a little ornamentation behind his ears for the wings of Damme etched out with either blue enamel or small sapphire chips.

He stood on the Merrie side, and half-blocked their view of Rosewater, but not the silver crown on her head, nor the glittering tricolor ornament declaring her interest in Damme, nor the style of her mane, a surprise to even Silk; blue and pink bound together against white, the colors of Merrie and Damme united.

It was similarly hard to miss the throbbing vein on Roseate’s brow, or the way her ears had all but disappeared into her mane, and if it hadn’t been for the spell keeping her crown of rulership in place, it would have slipped to hang loose on her horn.

“That… traitor,” Roseate hissed between clenched teeth.

Where did she get that crown? Was all Silk could think as Lace made her way down from the dais to greet them halfway on the central circle of thick carpet, as Roseate stalked forward, leaving Silk to her own devices. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the explosion that was sure to come.

The Knights approaching as well at least promised that, whatever did happen, it would be kept mostly civil.

“Good luck, dear sister,” Silk whispered, and ducked back into the crowd of Merriers inching forward to get a closer look at what looked like it was going to be the main attraction for the night.

The weight of the crown felt strange on Collar’s head, the spells woven into the metal keeping it centered on his horn as ancient as the keep around him, before it had become a palace. It had other spells woven into it, for durability and preservation, unlike Rosewater’s entirely unenchanted diadem.

He truly hoped nothing would happen to it. It was beautiful, and he could only imagine how many favors she’d had to call in to have it made in time for tonight. She hadn’t even mentioned it to him before, unless she’d wanted it as a surprise for him. Having it unenchanted was clever, though, if it was intentional.

It was also drawing the eye of Roseate as she stalked across the floor towards them, her eyes blazing and no doubt promising retribution as soon as she got within range of her daughter.

“I’ll handle her,” Collar said, turning his head to almost kiss her ear. “You handle greeting Wing and Down.”

“Agreed. I’m sorry,” she whispered back, nosing his cheek before turning away to start towards the Primfeathers.

They hadn’t planned it, aside from putting Collar between her and her mother to keep her from simply attacking her directly and needing, by the propriety of the gala and social custom, to greet him first. It would also, subtly, push them into each other’s roles.

As they split, so did his parents and the two Knights. Firelight and Lace’s paths joined his as he set his path to intercept Roseate, and he saw the hatred in her eyes as she realized the trap he’d suckered her into.

Far more polite than your traps, but in this setting, no less effective.

She didn’t abandon her approach, nor did she try and avoid him. Instead, she gave him the chilliest smile he’d ever seen another pony give him and marched right up to him.

“My lady,” Collar said, dipping his head in a brief bow and flicking a look at the wineglass held in her magic. “I trust that you’re finding the accommodations and concessions to your liking?”

“The bouquet is passable, but nothing like what we have served in the Rose Palace,” Roseate said in the most demeaning ‘pleasant’ voice he’d ever heard. “It tastes like common tavern wine.”

“Pity. I’m told that the suppliers recently were the chiefest supplier of the Rose Palace, and they provided me with samples of their vintages they would be bringing.” Collar shrugged. The samples had arrived two days ago, single small bottles of wine he imagined they used for carrying samples around, and he’d taken them to enjoy with Rosemary and Cloudy in a calm night of talking and planning. He’d sent back an ‘all approved’ message the very next morning. “I found not a one that I didn’t like.”

“Perhaps the lord’s palate isn’t as refined as mine. Dammerale has an effect on the taste.”

“Mayhap,” Collar agreed genially. “I do enjoy a good Dammerale, but tonight I promised myself I’d enjoy only the product of Merrie.”

“Including my daughter?”

“Excuse me?” Collar asked, feigning ignorance.

Roseate glowered at him and shot a glance towards Lace and Firelight. “If you’re leading my daughter on with this… display, I will have my retribution.”

Collar laughed, short and sharp, he couldn’t help it, and continued in a low, harsh whisper, “My lady, whether or not I break her heart tonight is none of your business, nor do I believe that you have anything but hope that I will break it.” As his mother came closer, he lowered a glowing shield around him and the ruler of Merrie, blocking out sound to have a private word. “I know you. Everything in our files about you and more. Do you think Cloudy kept secret how you tried to use her? Do you think our spies haven’t heard enough of your cruelty towards your own children?”

Roseate glanced past him, and Collar followed her gaze briefly to see Lace and Firelight waiting a polite distance away. The faux concern faded into a mask of flat stone. She considered him for a long moment as if weighing his worth or testing his mettle with her silence. “What price would you demand to put her aside?”

Collar considered her for as long as it took to control his disgust and rage, to make sure that, when he spoke, it wasn’t a shout. That was her game. Goading him to do something rash. When he’d mastered his emotions, hopeful that he hadn’t shown them to her, he shrugged and said, “Give me the moon, the sun, and the stars, then we’ll talk. Oh, and Celestia’s throne, too. That will be quite the wedding gift for Cloudy.”

Roseate snorted. “It wasn’t an offer made in jest, boy.”

“Then give me some indication of how valuable it is to you. You have all night to think it over.” Collar shrugged and stepped away. “I’m not bargaining for ephemeral goods without a bottom line. Think on it, Roseate.”

He let the barrier fall before she could answer and let the sound of the crowd back in. Rosewater seemed to be doing well on her own with Dapper behind their own sound barrier with the Primfeathers.

“I trust you were civil, Roseate,” Lace said as she joined the conversational circle. “I’ll not tolerate uncivil behavior at the gala.”

“Perfectly,” Collar answered for her before she could more than open her mouth. “We were discussing a potential business arrangement for Dammerale. It seems the Rosewine has gone sour to her taste.”

“Oh?” Lace lifted her head to glance at the Rosewine table. “I have heard that sampling the same vintage over and over can leave one’s tongue bland to it. Not that I’ve experienced that myself, understand.”

“I’ve a few bottles of Rosewine Cabernet at the office,” Firelight said. “Along with a standing order for a Dammerale every third night at the ‘Tap. It’s good to mix and match throughout the week.”

“Wine does keep better, longer,” Collar said with a roll of a shoulder. “Without going bad. I did very much enjoy the wine samplers they sent, and I’m eager to get Rosewater’s opinion of them and share my favorites.”

Roseate all but vibrated where she stood.

“Didn’t Rosemary give you some suggestions?” Lace asked, raising a brow. “I did stipulate that aiding you would reduce her herdgild.”

“By a pittance,” Collar said with a sigh. “She did agree with me on my favorites, but she didn’t assist me with choosing which to choose.” The taste of some of the sweeter vintages had been especially sweet on her lips.

“Lower her herdgild?” Roseate demanded, fixating on what Lace had offered. “How can you lower her herdgild. They are set by law. Sir Firelight, I object to—”

“You misunderstand,” Lace said, breaking in smoothly with a sharply tapped hoof. “Lowering by earning a wage towards the base amount. And Collar is quite correct. We pay our serving staff five bits a day. She worked for… an hour? Two?”

“Two,” Collar agreed. “And was paid five silver buckles in recompense. The treaty is quite exacting on what labor can be expected of a prisoner after that… unfortunate incident a century and a half ago.”

“They are quite correct,” Firelight said, bobbing his head. “They are required to pay their prisoners for any actual, useful work that they do. Even turning rocks into smaller rocks is useful for the making of cement. I will not hear your objections, Lady Rosethorn, as they are baseless.”

“And if my daughter is offering herself or her services for payment of the herdgild? How does that comply with the terms of the treaty?”

Collar seethed and wanted nothing more than to eject her from the gala—something he couldn’t do even if he wanted to. Only Firelight could kick her out.

“What services, Lady Rosethorn, are you hinting at?” Firelight asked, his brow raised. “Are you accusing her of spying? That’s considered an act of war, and isn’t allowed while negotiating as an act of bad faith.”

For a moment Roseate seemed about to do just that.

“Trust me,” Collar said drily just before she seemed ready to pop. “The last thing we want to talk about is you and your actions, Roseate. It’s your actions and orders that put her cousin—”

There, Roseate smirked, a motion of her lips so quick and so quickly smoothed over, he almost missed it.

“—in this situation. Getting her out of it doesn’t involve you at all. It involves bits, commerce, and negotiation.”

“And she’s so devoted to showing her cousin support that she comes here, in that dress, in that crown, all but declaring she’s going to court you, and you ask me to believe that your negotiations are for bits?”

“I can assure you—” Firelight started.

“I don’t care,” Roseate snapped. “It’s clear the law means little to any of you. I’ll be filing a petition with Princess Celestia.” She turned and stalked away before Collar could even think of a rebuttal to the baseless accusation.

Firelight sighed. “We know the details, my lord. As does the Princess. It’s a standing order of hers to have any high ranking nobility negotiations reported to her. Glory and Crown got the same treatment.”

“Very understandable and prudent,” Lace agreed. “I remember you mentioning something to that order when you were first stationed here, and your predecessor mentioned the same.”

To keep us honest? Or hoping for a breakthrough? Collar nodded. “It’s a wise policy. Though, I am curious, if we had captured Rosewater or Roseate, would we have been able to negotiate Merrie’s surrender?”

“Doubtful. Especially with her.” Firelight shot a look after Roseate, then blanked his expression. “The rulers of a city are allowed to negotiate for their own return. Primline Cravat was his own negotiator one hundred and seventy-five years ago. Though I do believe that only one other capture of a ruler was accomplished, but during the bloody years.”

“Darling Rosewing,” Collar said somberly. “Yes. It was… it was a dark day for Damme when we executed her.” He closed his eyes. “The only good thing that came out of her death was the end of the bloodshed, two weeks later.”

Firelight grunted. “She told me about the end before she sent me here. Blood for blood. Retribution unending. Your ancestors were going to leave nothing but ruins.” He swallowed lowered, lowered his voice, and leaned forward to whisper, “Collar, please make this work. End the pettiness. Bring your two peoples together.”

Collar worked his jaw, surprised at the open, frank plea from the Knight, and glanced from him to Rosewater standing with four other ponies, regal and tall, standing up to both of the Primfeathers.

“Love will end the hate, Sir Spark. It has already doused it in my own heart. You have my word.” He bobbed his head and made to move between his mother and the knight to go to Rosewater’s rescue. “If you’ll forgive me, I want to be there in case things go south.”

Rosewater steeled herself for the greeting as she moved to intercept the Primfeathers, her smile bright and hopeful for a new hoofhold in a soil she wanted to bring together. Diplomacy, not snark; elegance instead of defensiveness. She was here as a personal guest, as Collar’s personal guest.

“Lord and Lady Primfeather,” Rosewater said demurely, dipping her head towards them in a polite gesture between equals. “It’s a pleasure to see you both here. I hope, sincerely, that our last meeting doesn’t tinge tonight.”

Down glanced at her husband before answering, her face a carefully schooled mask of dispassionate coolness. “Lady Rosewater. Never did I think to see you gowned, even partially, in the colors of Damme. Is this some play of yours to get closer to Collar?”

It was an effort not to react other than to smile. “It’s a sign of solidarity with Damme. We want to be one city, one society. We can’t do that if we’re always at each others’ throats, can we? And somepony needs to take that first step.”

“And you are that pony, then?” Wing asked, his droll tone mocking in its dryness. “The Rose Terror, greatest raider in a hundred years, even despite Lady Lace’s disastrous insistence on defense. You?”

“Me,” Rosewater said more stiffly. “I never wanted the war, Wing. I was born to it, just as you were. Just as your children were. To my great chagrin, I have been misled about many things, and while I did my duty as a citizen of Merrie, I will not lean on that as a crutch.” Rosewater took a deep breath, steeled herself, and spoke what her mother would consider treason. “Instead, I would rather treat with you as equals and work to repair the damage I have done. It is the purpose of the treaty, is it not? To make the past the past and stop bringing it to the fore to hurt each other again and again.”

Wing and Down exchanged another look, then glanced at Dapper, standing a short distance away.

“If we may speak frankly,” Wing said after a long silence, “I don’t trust your intentions. Nor do we trust your stated motives in dressing like this.”

“Indeed not,” Down said with a sniff. “It’s clear this is another ploy to get closer to Collar and twist him away from his engagement with Cloudy Rosewing.”

Very much the opposite. Rosewater let her confidence show in her smile as she dipped her head to them. “Then we agree to disagree. My intentions will be made plain through my actions tonight and, I hope, Collar’s through his. We have spent long hours working through what I can offer to pay down my… my cousin’s debt to your society. It’s lesser than mine is, but hers is a formal debt that I can attack directly with bits and promises and liens. Mine, I must approach more subtly, as I’ve no doubt that my crimes, and my station, would beggar Merrie were I to offer herdgild for my payment.”

“Then you admit to crimes against Damme?” Wing asked, sounding incredulous.

“I admit to having been accused of crimes,” Rosewater replied with a slight twist to her lips. “Whether the courts would find me guilty of all that I am accused of… well, I am accused of much that I have not done, nor have the power to do. Spoiled milk and burnt bread are well outside my range of talents.”

Seeming despite himself, Wing smiled wryly. “I don’t doubt that you are capable of burning bread, just as the rest of us are, but ascribing to the supernatural… perhaps you have a point.”

“Wing!”

“We can hardly accuse her of raising the tides early to spite us,” Wing said more calmly, “as I have heard some captains who slept through the dawn claim over an ale. I will even go so far as to admit that your reputation has grown outside the bounds of what a single mare working alone can do.” His eyes flitted to the wine stand.

“They have no part of my crimes,” Rosewater said coolly, too quickly. “I was there to help raise them both when I was younger. They are family to me as my mother is not.”

“But they are your associates, and we know of three former Dammeguard living there, and she stands accused of luring them. Your orders? Orders from Roseate?” Wing shrugged and stepped back, opening the circle to Dapper more clearly. “I can’t say, but I do say that it’s suspicious that you would run to them almost as soon as your… cousin was taken. To ask them help in taking her back? Why did you wait near a week to enter negotiations? Did you hope to break her out yourself?”

“They are my friends,” Rosewater answered, pushing back against the anger and fear boiling in her. “You’ve heard, no doubt that Dazzle has been my friend and confidant? One of the ‘lured’ as you say. He lives there of his own accord, loves freely, and associated with me out of his own conscience.”

“I’d hear his word on it.”

“You did. Last Spring Gala, when he was confronted and nearly taken against his will back to Damme before Firelight stepped in and—”

“If I may,” Wandering Star said, stepping closer and raising her head. “I wish not to let this question of Dazzle’s freedom to come up again. He has attested that he is where he is of his own free will and both I and Firelight accepted it. That is the end of it. I’ll not hear accusations of mind control or compulsion again unless you have fresh evidence to the contrary.”

“Nay,” Wing said quickly, stepping back to stand near his wife again. “We have none.”

“Then that is the end of the matter of Dazzle’s freedom.”

Rosewater tipped her head in thanks to Wandering Star. “He… helped me come out of a dark place. For that, I will always be grateful to him. They all did.”

“My dear,” Dapper said, circling around to stand on her other side and pressing a wing to her flank, “you should share more widely the story of your fall as you told it to us. Keeping it a secret only aids Roseate.”

“Everypony has dark places they fall into,” Down said with a dismissive huff. “It’s a part of life in this war. Having your own tale of depression isn’t special.”

“I think you should reconsider that view, my dear Primfeather Down,” Dapper said somberly. “Yes, you were born into a hotter conflict than your children were, and you should be thankful to my wife for pushing us all closer to peace. Rosewater was born to a mother who—”

“Dapper, enough,” Rosewater said softly, her voice tight, and turned to meet his eyes. “Enough. Please. Tonight is a celebration of what will eventually be. Here, at least, the past should be set aside so we can discuss the future.” After a moment’s silence, he nodded, and she added, “But I thank you for being an advocate for me.”

Wing and Down were sharing another look when Rosewater turned her attention back to them, and Wing took up the lead this time, saying, “Perhaps another time. I have heard tales of how she treats her serving staff. Those get spread the farthest on wings of gossip, but I can only imagine how she’s treated her own children.”

“Another time,” Rosewater agreed. “I am here tonight, yes, hoping to attract Collar’s attention, but not through wiles or guile or even dressing as I have, but by being the me that I’ve hidden away for so long. I don’t want to be that mare again. Whether or not he accepts my advances, I will respect his decision. Please understand that I don’t wish to harm Cloudy, but I can’t ignore the chance to end the war with our union.”

“And my son won’t marry into a loveless marriage,” Dapper said before either of the two Primfeathers could get a word in.

“Then you sanction this?” Wing said, his voice a pall of indignant rage. “This is a travesty of Damme’s customs!”

“It is not,” Dapper said calmly. “I recall the same thing being said when Lace proposed marriage to me, and we eloped. A travesty. No courtship. No warning. My son has not made his commitment to Cloudy yet, either, and it is not so strange for an eligible stallion to be courted by more than one suitor, even in Damme. Why, you, Wing, had—”

“I will not hear you discuss my courtship in the same breath you talk so blatantly about his courting two Roses. Two Merriers.” Down laughed harshly and stepped back. “It’s even in the name, isn’t it? Marrier. A marrying pony.”

“Who’s a marrying pony?” Collar asked, smiling as he slipped neatly between Wandering Star and Rosewater, almost brushing his shoulder against hers.

“Were you aware she came here to court you?” Down demanded of him, jabbing a hoof at Rosewater.

“Given that I have been the subject of her courtship attempts for some months,” Collar said drily, “no. I was not aware that she was attempting to court me.”

“Do not mock me, my lord.”

“Don’t mock my wife—”

“I was not making mock,” Collar said with a small huff. “I was pointing out the ridiculousness of your accusation. I would have to be blind not to see that she has been attempting to court me. I welcome her friendship, and she is a remarkably kind pony when it comes down to it, and… perhaps I am not so closed to the idea of something more as you might think.”

“Your courtship of Cloudy—”

“Is between her and I. I’m sure your spies in the household staff have no doubt told you that our relationship has changed of late.” Collar glanced at Rosewater, his eyes showing the pain at having to play the part, even if they hadn’t already planned this, planned the deception of Rosemary’s returning softening Cloudy’s resolve. “I have no wish to anchor her to me if that is not her desire, and it would be an anchoring under our laws. It’s why we haven’t already tied our shoes together.”

“And you think the Terror is—”

“I’ll not have you call her that in my hearing again, Wing,” Collar said harshly. “That name was pinned to her by her mother, not by us, not by our guards. By her own mother. For defending her cousin’s right to stay here in her home. I’ll not have you using it to harm her reputation more.”

Wing stared at him, then at Rosewater. “Is that true?”

She gave him a tiny nod. “It is. But that’s the past, Collar. Please. I just got through explaining that what I want to celebrate tonight is the possible futures. Not travelling again and again through the painful past.”

“Quite right,” Collar said more brightly, tapping a hoof. “I just got done talking to your mother and find that I need wine to wash the taste from my mouth.”

“I know just the vintage,” Rosewater said with a smile. “If they’ve brought it, I’ll show it to you. It’s quite delightful, I assure you, and I can attest to its ability to distract from a meeting with my mother.” After a moment, and before the Primfeathers could leave, Rosewater added, “Would you like to join us, my lord and lady Primfeather? I assure you I can point you to the best that might suit your palate.”

She had to make the offer, even though she knew the answer before it arrived immediately on the hocks of her last words.

“Thank you, kindly for the offer,” Wing said, sounding not quite so stiff as when they’d first come. “But no.”

“Thank you, then, for listening to me, Wing, Down. I hope that my actions tonight and in the future prove the truth of my words.” She bowed to them, more deeply than at first meeting, and turned away to join Collar and Dapper already making their way to the wine stand. “It’s a lovely vintage, with a fruity bouquet and a heady aftertaste. Cabernet Rosewine himself crafted it on the year I was born, in celebration of the heir’s birth.”

“A birthwine,” Dapper said with a sigh. “Stars, I miss that tradition. We should have had one made for Collar’s, but all we have is a wine that was laid down when he was born. We had an ale made, but that didn’t keep for thirty years.”

“You can share my birthwine,” Rosewater murmured, daring to brush her shoulder against Collar’s. “There are some thirty bottles of it left, I believe, and a few casks.”

Collar surprised her by pressing his cheek to hers. “We’ll need another wine for today,” he whispered. “For tonight.”

Rosewater’s heart swelled at the idea, at the casual show of affection in front of everypony. It was happening. “We will, won’t we?”

Book 2, 46: Gala, True Lies

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Collar sipped his wine as he and Rosewater walked slowly towards the raised platform where the musicians were just starting to sort out their instruments and sheet music and surveyed the landscape around him. Merriers and Dammers in every manner of fanciful dress from their uniforms of service to elegant suits and gowns that showed off or hid lines they wanted ponies to see or not see.

A dozen conversations on either side of the room held sway over the attention of the ballroom, all of them no doubt centered on the unusual entrance and what, he hoped, would be an even more unusual and eventful opening.

It would not be Lace who gave the beneficence, nor himself alone. As his guest, Rosewater had the right to make a speech, and she had one she said, written over the last few days, with her dreams for the future. Absent marriage, but towards Merriedamme.

“Are you ready?” Lace asked, sounding excited or nervous as he reached the steps a breath ahead of Rosewater. “Both of you?”

“I am,” Collar said.

“As am I,” Rosewater said, pulling out a tiny scroll from a fold of the dress around her neck. “I didn’t have time to memorize the speech, and I kept hemming and hawing over the wording.”

“It’s an important one,” Lace offered with a small smile. “I would expect no less from the first opening speech given by the ‘enemy.’”

Rosewater swallowed and bobbed her head. “I know. I went for unity, togetherness, and love conquering hate.”

Stars, you do have to tempt me with openings, don’t you?

Lace smiled brightly. “Then, we’re ready. Join me.”

As desperately as Collar wanted Rosewater to stand next to him, it was important that she be at Lace’s side as well, so he pushed aside his foalish desires and stood next to his mother, standing tall and proud as she took a single step forward and raised her voice.

“Good evening to one and all, guests, vendors, and foreign dignitaries.” Lace’s voice boomed out with the help of a simple spell, filling the hall with her words and drawing every eye and halting all but the most resilient of conversation. “Tonight is a special Gala, as some of you have no doubt already seen with your own eyes. But it’s even more than you know. Tonight, for the first time since I started hosting the Treaty Gala nigh thirty-six years ago, I will not be giving the opening speech, nor the announcements, nor the welcome. Rather, I will be letting my son and his guest, the Lady Rosewater Rosethorn, Heiress of Merrie, speak the opening words.”

Collar stepped up, pulled out a scroll from his uniform, closed his eyes as Lace stepped back and called up his own spell. “Thank you, mother. I can hear the mutterings from here, and yes, Rosewater has something of her own to say.”

He glanced at his scroll, unfurled it and skimmed over it, and took a deep breath, then tucked it away.

“As you can tell, I had something prepared. A formal welcome to all of you here to the Autumn Gala hosted by Damme. Rather, I want to speak to you all as individuals, not as a group. All of you, each and every one of you right now wondering why I invited Rosewater not only as a personal guest, but to speak at the opening, need to understand what I have come to understand.”

He stepped closer to Rosewater and lifted her hoof from the stage, cradling her ankle across his cannon, earning him a nervous smile from her and an increase in the muttering from both sides of the ballroom as ponies drew in closer to watch the spectacle about to unfold.

All but Stride, trying to hide in the back, his ears flat and likely unable to see all of what was going on through the crowd.

“We’re not two peoples divided by a hundred feet of river. We’re one people divided by ideology. Rosewater is no different from me in what she wants out of life, and I doubt she’s any different from any of you listening to me right now.” Collar raised her foreleg higher, resisting the urge to kiss her ankle. “Safety for our families. Freedom to come and go as we please, with the peace of mind in knowing that no matter which market we decide to shop today, we can greet our fellows as neighbors. I want that. I had a taste of that not more than a month ago at the Commoner’s Gala held at the Garden of Love, the representatives of which you can find on the eastern side of the ballroom, serving the wine they’re known for.

“I want more of that freedom to laugh, joke, and get to know my fellows across the river without wondering if they secretly despise me for the city I represent.”

To his surprise, Rosewater raised her hoof higher still and touched the neckline of her dress. “I want the same,” she called out, using his spell and leaning closer to him. “In the past two months I have come to love Damme for its beauty, its uniquely fragrant streets, and the ponies that I see often enough to almost know as I come to and from the palace. How many times I wished I could sit down at a cafe and have a light breakfast before starting the day’s business, I can’t even count. But I thank you, all of you, for being who you are, for making that plump smelling morning spiced bread and cream cheese. Someday, I want to be able to take that moment and…”

Her voice, earnest and powerful, had grown tighter and tighter throughout the impassioned claim of desire for such a simple thing, and she fell back at Lace’s touch to her flank to sweep away tears before they could touch her makeup.

Collar let the way her plea had touched his heart leak into his voice as he went on. “I want that for myself, too. The simple things. Not the grand gestures and the signings of treaties and the end of the war. I want what comes after. I want to live free of the fear, to wander a street at night and feel safe in the cool breeze and quiet night sounds and not fear that it may be a raider come to challenge me. I know all of you, each of you individually, want that, too. Those of you in Damme have complained to me often enough that I know you feel the same way I do, though not in the same words.”

“Well said,” Lace murmured gently as she led Rosewater back to the fore. “Don’t forget the announcements.”

“Stars…” Collar muttered, pulling the scroll back out and unfurling it to where he’d written the announcements down. “And here I said I didn’t need it,” he told the crowd.

A few chuckles came up from the gathering, but the icy glare of Roseate remained ever steady, fixed either upon him or on her daughter. Hate boiled from that mare so that he could almost see it distorting the air around her like an infernal heat rising from her body.

The Primfeathers, less hateful, seemed distrustful of the emotional display.

“One of the things we wanted to say,” Collar said as he read over the short list of announcements, “was that tonight is partly in honor of a disaster averted. I’m sure the word has gotten around by now that a foal fell in the river during the Commoner’s Gala. Thankfully,” Collar said as a few more murmurs from the terminally uninformed as they queried their neighbors, “disaster was averted by one of our own. A pegasi who asked to remain nameless swooped in after combined efforts of unicorns failed to reach the foal. Swift waters carried Raindrop Dancer far along in the moments immediately after, and out of the reach of those on the bridge.

“But our brave Dammeguard saw at the same moment and swooped in to rescue him in a show of bravery we’ve not seen in many years. The rains of the previous week had swelled the river to dangerous levels and rapidity, but it was also that same level of water that saved Dancer from a more certain doom. The stars were with us.”

“And I wanted to add,” Rosewater said into his spell before Collar could move onto the rest, “that the entirety of the Garden of Love owes this hero a great debt that we cannot repay so easily as giving thanks. I will respect your wish for anonymity, but please, if you’re here please consider talking to Petal and Seed. They want very much to start to repay that debt, and asked that I advocate for them.”

“You’ve done well,” Collar said, nudging her shoulder. “In other announcements, we’re pleased to announce that our crop yields are mostly in. The ones that are left outstanding are the late-harvest crops that only come in after the first freeze. We’re also grateful to Merrie for being prompt with our requests for yield counts so we can ensure all of our ponies in both cities are able to feed themselves through the winter.”

Roseate’s glare sharpened into a snarl, then softened as ponies around her gave cheers. It was no small accomplishment to not need to request food from the richer croplands to the south.

“You may also notice, or have already noticed, that the deerkin tribes have begun their migration, and I would ask all of you to remind your friends and neighbors not to bother them. Their migratory path is protected by Princess Celestia herself. And, finally, the number of bandit raids we’ve had to repel has dropped to an all-time low this year thanks in part to more widespread patrolling by the Equestrian military.”

Collar rolled up his scroll and turned to Rosewater. “And now, with a more interesting welcoming speech to give, Rosewater.”

Rosewater tried her best not to look at her mother as she stepped forward and unfurled the scroll with its neat rows of words, and swallowed, then pushed back the fear and the doubt.

“Welcome,” Rosewater said through her own amplification spell, “I know I’m not the one you expect to give the traditional welcoming speech, but Collar and Lace were kind enough to ask me, in the name of unity and togetherness, to speak and welcome you all to this, the two hundred and forty-third Autumnal Gala, even if it is closer to winter than it is to summer this year.”

She unfurled the scroll a little more and scanned the crowd. More ponies were watching her than she expected, and they were quietly attentive rather than whispering amongst each other, but that was all she could say about their expressions in a uniformly positive light.

The Damme side was almost universally suspicious, save for a few whose expressions seemed genuinely intrigued, and of the Merriers, there were too many who were taking Roseate’s mood for their cue. Not a majority, but enough that it would be hard to avoid hostility from her own ponies hoping to gain the Baroness’s favor.

“I had a dream for tonight. Not a sleeping one, but a waking dream that I shared with my hosts some weeks ago, and I would share it with all of you in the hopes that you won’t see it as a hollow plea. A dream of a city united, of Merrie and Damme no longer separated in name, but whole and prosperous and peaceful. A city where my daughter, my precious Rosemary, can dance and be free in the streets and not be obligated to participate in a pointless war.”

Collar gasped beside her, and she watched the ripple of reaction surge through the crowd as whispers rose and fell. Her mother seemed more shocked than the rest, her eyes flashing first to shock, and then to fury.

Yes. I knew. I took it from you before you could take it from me.

Rosewater smiled and let the love she had for Rosemary fill her from hooves to ears as she continued. “When I was younger, smaller, my mother, the mother who raised me, Carnation Rosethorn, took me often to Damme to visit the merchants and the stalls, to sample the candies and see the ponies. They’re little more than memories now, but I cherish them all the same, and I’m incredibly grateful that when I shared them with Cloudy Rosewing while we were waiting for a meeting, that she bought some for me for my very next visit. I have been… the stars blessed me with ponies that would see me and not my past.”

She took a shuddering breath and calmed herself. “That’s the dream I have. For mothers and fathers, daughters and sons to feel free to roam either city, to feel safe when the Merrieguard or the Dammeguard pass by rather than nervous and unsettled. I want our cities to be one, and I want tonight to be a preview of what we can all do together to further that goal.

“Towards that end, I want you to feel free to approach us. Lace, Dapper, Collar, and myself, and ask us about what we dream of for the future of the city we all call home.” Rosewater rolled up her scroll and tucked it back into place. “I want to see, tonight, Merrie and Damme mingling, dancing, laughing and talking. So many of you have things in common with your peers across the river, but you won’t ever know unless you try to bridge that gap. Please, in the spirit that the treaty was proposed, find common ground, find a way to talk to the other side. Find a way past the mindless hate and dislike. Find a way, like I have—” Rosewater teased Collar’s foreleg up with hers and cradled his ankle as he had. “—to make bonds with your counterparts. I promise you, together as one city, we can overcome anything.”

Cheers came from the back, and Rosewater startled to see Seed and Petal cheering for her from their stand.

A few other ponies from Merrie and Damme both stomped their hooves in appreciation. Perhaps not genuine, but there were a few faces that seemed to genuinely want to believe her words, as much as they distrusted her, personally.

She made note of them, and to approach them later, but the rest of them were already talking, but not across river lines, but amongst their little groups as she stood there, waiting for some sign to let go of Collar’s hoof, to stop being a sign that they could overcome their barriers.

The one pony she didn’t look at was Roseate, but her mother’s glare felt like a pressure on her coat, a blade trying to find purchase.

“A wonderful speech. But telling everypony about Rosemary?” Collar whispered against her cheek. It was almost a kiss.

“She knew,” Rosewater whispered back and finally lowered her hoof. “I had to take it from her before she could use it against me. I’m only grateful she waited so long.”

Collar’s eyes found Roseate at the same time Rosewater did, and the mare was staring murder at the two of them, her ears quivering upright, the tendons in her neck standing out showing just how tightly her jaw was clenched.

“That’s probably for the best, then.” Collar frowned down at Roseate, then smirked and pressed his cheek against Rosewater’s for a bare second before he turned away from the crowd. “Mother will probably want to talk to you before we break to socialize.”

Rosewater took one last look over the crowd and found her sister’s eyes somewhere to the back, Silk’s eyes a mix of fear and pride in the bare instant they met before they both looked away.

Stay safe tonight, dear sister.

“Let’s have a talk, then.”

It had been something of a gamble expressing her desire to accompany her mother. Roseate was allowed no more than two nobles to accompany her, and they were always her daughters. Rose Crown the pre-eminent researcher was a given now that Glory was in custody. The intelligence the mousey mare brought back from Damme on each visit had usually proven to be at least marginally useful.

Silk… had her allure. It was useful on the stalk, but hardly useful in the middle of a collection of ponies that were wary of her. Oh, she might get looks, but looks weren’t useful.

Since Rosewater would be attending, for a long time it had appeared that Roseate would have to decide between her least favorite daughter and the most valuable intelligence gathering resource the family still had completely within its control.

When Rosewater had announced to Roseate that she would be going independently of the family and as the personal guest of Collar, and since none of Roseate’s other daughters particularly wanted to go to a Prim dominant event…

All it had truly taken was an expressed desire to see if she could use her dressmaking skills to draw the eye and attention of a Dammer with a little too much to drink in a place where she knew the word would get back to Roseate through little Moon, thence to Rosary, and from Rosary to Roseate.

The second eldest of them had her own plans and plots separate from Roseate’s, but for the moment their plans were aligned: keep Rosewater out of power, so letting slip that she dreamed of attracting the attention of a powerful Prim would get distorted along the way.

After that speech, she wasn’t sure if that had been the brightest of ideas. Ponies were talking about it, and talking about Rosewater, no matter where in the ballroom she went, she heard her sister’s name on the air, and not always in a derogatory way, even from the Dammers.

The Merriers were subdued whenever Roseate came by, but once it became apparent that speaking about Rosewater in positive and hopeful terms upset the baroness enough to avoid the social group, it had spread. Whether that was by design on Rosewater’s part or merely the Dammers taking up yet another weapon, she had no idea. Either way, the results were at the very least interesting to watch.

“Stop dawdling,” Roseate snapped. “Go mingle and try to undo the damage your sister has done. You’re making us look bad.”

You’re making us look bad. Silk left the frustration unsaid and bowed her head instead. “Yes, mother,” Silk murmured.

“Neck straight,” Roseate growled under her breath. “You look like a supplicant.”

I’m not?

She wished, for the hundredth time that night, that she and Vine were alone again, nestled in close, reading, letting their closeness be enough. It was how they spent their nights of late, afraid to look for a lover to share, afraid to entangle more of their loves in their dangerous plots, lest their eventual downfall splatter onto them.

She straightened her neck until she was the vision of haughtiness that her mother was projecting. Half-lidded eyes, making the room appear darker and more menacing than it was. For a moment, at least, she kept that mien until she slipped out of her mother’s earshot before she let the real state of her mind show.

Nervous, hopeful, and studying every cut of dress and suit that she passed by on her search to find a place and try to imitate her sister’s social success.

Silk kept one eye on Rosewater as her eldest sister drifted from clump to clump of nervous Dammers, her mere presence enough to send a few of the group making hasty excuses to depart. But the mare always seemed to find one pony she could find some common ground with it seemed, and talked them up briefly before offering her hoof and making some excuse to depart and go startle more of the flock that shifted hither and thither at seemingly the whim of the mare.

They were always careful not to appear too forward in their obvious avoidance, and thus Rosewater always caught up to them, and the little snatches of conversation Silk was able to pull out of the conversational threads as she tried her best to join this or that social group discreetly gave her hope that the dream her sister had held up and shared with all of them wasn’t quite so far fetched as Roseate wanted them all to believe.

Still, she had not near the success Rosewater had, nor the presence, and when she tried to introduce herself to mares or stallions by complimenting their dresses, the conversation ended there, at the compliment and the thanks, and the Dammer’s closed ranks again, talking about upstart Rosethorns talking about too much above their knowing and taking too much for themselves.

After the fifth attempt, she couldn’t hide her exasperation anymore, but one glare from her mother froze her in her tracks before she could turn and retreat and maintain some of her dignity. She jerked around and snapped her eyes shut to stop the flow of tears before they could start, instead aiming for meditative calm.

Vine, please, please be having a better night.

“Silk Rose,” a sonorous male voice said from behind her, too familiar, and too gentle. “I couldn’t help but notice that you are without anypony to talk to. Perhaps…” A gentle touch of silver on her cheek, barely there, drew her to open her eyes and face Prim Collar. “I could be of some assistance? I am the host, after all.”

“You?” She asked, the words slipping out as she stared up at him. He was… handsome. Gorgeous up close. It was easy to see why Rosewater would be attracted to him. But it was his eyes, unjudging if a touch wary. Understanding and gentle. “Given that speech, I thought you and your mother were the hosts.”

“You misunderstand our arrangements, my dear,” Collar said, falling in beside her and offering a hoof to her. “I am the host, yes, but so is she. It’s a strange trial this year, as she said in her speech. Hope for the future, and the hope that love can make ways through the heart.”

“And your hope?” Silk asked breathlessly, taking the hoof and trying not to feel the surge of gratitude welling up in her breast for him simply talking to her when nopony else would.

Collar glanced around, then bent and kissed her ankle. “My hope is that I will get to show my love tonight.”

He said it so quietly she almost didn’t catch it over the murmuring around them that rose at his show of old-style courtesy between equals of opposite gender.

Stars, you are in love with her. I wasn’t imagining it.

“I-it is,” Silk said, prying her tongue from the roof of her mouth so she wouldn’t blurt out what she wanted to say. “Mother is going to—” Silk stopped and froze, starting a look around and trying to locate her mother, but couldn’t find her. She must have been on the other side of Collar.

“Rest easy,” Collar said, stopping with her, his horn gleaming as a shimmering dome of translucent silver covered them, blocking off the sound of the gala. “She won’t hear it from my lips. I know what kind of mare she is.”

You really don’t. Silk smiled instead and bobbed her head. “Thank you. It’s…”

“Difficult being your mother’s daughter,” he said, gesturing with his foreleg and hers that she should continue. “Rosewater tells me you are a dress-maker by trade. That you made her dress. It is impressive, and you should be proud of it.”

“She tells me nothing about you,” Silk said, testing the waters carefully ahead of her. “During our last fitting…” She confided in me again. “She was distracted. I imagine, given your terse negotiations, she was worried about how she would be received. I was surprised you and she came in together.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret. We planned it.”

Silk snorted a laugh, then let it out full bore. “You don’t say? You mean you didn’t just happen to both have speeches prepared?”

Collar chuckled and nodded towards a cluster of ponies lingering near one of the balconies and dropped his shield. “Let me introduce you to Prim Pleat. She owns Pleated Perfection, and mares and stallions alike come to Damme to have dresses and suits made for them. I know she would be fascinated to talk shop with you. But only shop. She’s very married.”

Warning given. Silk nodded and swallowed. “I’ve followed her work, my lord. She is talented. Very much so. I would love to compare techniques with her.” It wasn’t a lie. She raised her head high and looked up to him. “You didn’t have to rescue me.”

“Like a certain guard, I found I could not let a pony flounder in the river that separates us, Silk.” He smiled and flicked his ears once before he dropped the aural shield. “Prim Pleat,” he called, halting the group in place before they could take another step away from them. “Please, a moment of your time, my good seamspony.”

“M-my lord.” The mare whom the group shrank away from was somewhat plump, but it seemed from a pregnancy and not from weight. Her cheeks and neck were slim and only a hint of puffiness around the eyes suggested she was having issues with water retention rather than weight. “You catch me off guard, we were—” She broke off, looking around at the sudden retreat of what had been a close cadre not seconds before.

“I would like you to meet Silk Rose, Pleat. I believe both of you are only aware of each other’s reputations.” Collar raised the hoof holding Silk’s. “Silk Rose is more than a scion of Rosethorn. She’s a seamspony as well.”

“N-not a-as—” Silk stammered, then halted and cleared her throat. “I apologize. Lord Collar rather caught me off guard as well. I own the Silk and Scarlet Rose Boutique. It was a joint venture with my mentor, Scarlet Rose.”

“Ah, he was a true artist,” Pleat said with a sigh and a softening of her mien. “I understand that you and he were quite close for mentor and apprentice.”

“W-we were. He was almost a father to me, my lady.”

“Then you have my condolences for his loss. All of Merrie and Damme lost a true master of needle and thread.” She flicked a look at Collar, then away towards her departed social circle. “Was there a reason you wished to speak with me, my lord?”

“There is. I’ve learned a great deal about Silk Rose over the past few months through her sisters Glory and Rosewater. She’s not the mare you’re thinking of.” Collar raised a hoof and brushed Silk’s dress. “She’s a designer and seamstress, and I do hate to see a pony in distress when she is not the one who deserves the distress.”

Pleat glanced over Silk’s dress once, then stopped and leaned closer. “No stitches in the brocade at the breast?” She leaned closer still and glanced up. “May I? It looks like stitching, but…”

“You may,” Silk said, feeling a thrill up her spine and a flush of joy. Only another master of the craft would have noticed the fine detail in the cloth she’d used to cover her heart mark, letting it show through but only when it was darker. Shimmersilk was hard to work with, and harder still to make it accept a dye and retain its prismatic sheen, but Crimson had learned the skill and passed it to her. Mostly.

“I thought the talent had died with Crimson,” Pleat said after a long time covering and uncovering the panel. “I see now that it did not. You have a fine skill with the needle, but I’m not sure of the meaning of the pattern.”

“It’s an abstract meaning.” Silk tugged lightly at the panel of brocaded silk covering her breast like a piece of armor, subtle in color to almost match her coat, the bits that Pleat had noticed thick around the center in a heart shape made up of smaller abstracted shapes that, to her, called to mind Vine’s smile through the flow of fabric. “It’s hard to explain the meaning without going into personal feelings. But it is stitching, with a shimmersilk dyed to mask the color of my heart in light. And reveal it in shadow.”

“Your heart,” Collar murmured, absently glancing to the side where Rosewater was engaging with what looked like a merchant and his cadre. “Did you do anything similar for Rosewater?”

Stars, you’re lost to her, aren’t you? Instead, she flitted her tail against his hind leg and grinned. “I suppose you’ll have to pay close attention, my lord, if you wish to find out.”

Collar laughed. “I suppose I will have to, won’t I? She asked me to come to your rescue, in fact.” He glanced her way again, and this time Silk caught her sister raising her head to look towards the laughter, a smile and a blush in her cheeks.

Stars, you’re both lost to each other.

Pleat, following the exchange, and the looks, seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Leave her to me, my lord. I have some ponies that I can introduce her to in the textile shipping world that managed to make it here.” She flitted her tail and shifted herself. “I do believe that your… guest requires your attention.”

“Does she?” Collar glanced at Rosewater again, and Silk followed his gaze to find her sister giving the three ponies she’d been talking with farewells, and cordial ones that lingered with individual attention to each one. “I admit, I was worried when she asked to roam on her own.”

“I believe, my lord,” Silk said, touching his foreleg, “that she wants to show ponies who she is on her own. It’s what I wanted, but I’ve not the weekly and more often familiarity with your ponies that she does. Give her a little time to be herself.”

“And you?” Collar asked, flattening his ears.

“I need a little help. Needed.” She glanced at Pleat, who was watching the interplay with clear interest and a shrewd understanding lurking. “Thank you. And, for what it’s worth, I apologize for the roles I’ve played in previous attacks.”

“They weren’t ever your choice. I’ve come to see that through Rosewater. Take that for what it means, please, Pleat. But don’t spread it around too much.” Collar bowed his head and raised his head to look around the ballroom. “I’ll take my leave for now. I do believe that I see one of my mentees.”

“Fare well, my lord,” Pleat said, bowing briefly, then wincing and stamping a hind hoof. “Stars, so young and already active. I do believe I wish for a drink. Do you think there are any vendors giving out non-alcoholic drinks?”

“I believe that Seed and Petal brought some juices that aren’t alcoholic,” Silk said with a gesture towards the wine stand. “If not, I would be happy to accompany you to the vendor hall.”

“My dear, I want you drunk so you spill your secrets to me,” Pleat said with a laugh and a wink and gestured towards the wine stand. “Please. Introduce me.”

“It would be a pleasure, Mrs—”

“Just Pleat, please, Silk. I want to hear about Crimson Rose’s legacy without you stumbling over titles and niceties.”

“Pleat, then, and gladly.”

“Frankly, my lady, I’ve never cared for the war. It’s bad for business.” The lord, Clipper Primwave, current leader of the Primwave family, sipped his wine and snorted his opinion of the disposition of it.

Rosewater sipped at her wine and nodded absently. It was the motto of most shippers, honestly. “I can't disagree with you. It’s been ruinous to my own business, I can tell you. Trying to get different kinds of oils and alcohols—pure, mind, nothing adulterated—is beyond difficult when I have to work with Cargo Manifest. I swear he has it in for me.”

“He just might, you know. He’s an operative of your mother’s.”

“Oh, I know… but he’s also the only one who has contracts with ships that I can actually reach.” Rosewater raised her wineglass to forestall him. “Without getting arrested.”

“You could use runners, my lady.”

“I could,” Rosewater admitted with a sigh, “but I prefer this.” She gestured with the glass again, indicating the more intimate conversation with only a few ponies lingering in the circle that were having a side-conversation of their own about the latest shipments out of Saddle Arabia. “I prefer negotiating my shipping contracts face-to-face, Lord Primwave. Could I, I would gladly contract with your ships.”

“Treason, then?” Clipper winked and laughed, rustling his wings. “I jest. From what I’ve heard and seen of you tonight, and what rumors are starting to say about your true character, I would be willing to make an exception to requiring negotiation being held in my offices. Provided, of course, you can convince Petal Rosewine to let me carry some of her wines to Saddle Arabia.”

“I can’t promise, but I can advocate for you. I know Petal has her own contracts currently, and may not be able to free herself from them on my behalf.” A little tidbit from a conversation with her filtered up through her thoughts. “But… I seem to recall that she may have some free stock looking for a buyer lately.”

Clipper laughed and drained his wineglass. “You don’t say. Well! Let us away to speak with her and refill my own glass.”

Rosewater chuckled and drained her glass as well, considerably more full than his. It was her second… or third of the night. Maybe fourth. “I admit, I wish to try one of their newer vintages. I’m quite familiar with most of their older ones, but the newer ones… well…” She waggled her glass. “She’s been cagey about letting me into her stockrooms, even to help her count.”

“Why would she be worried?”

“Because I would be able to smell what she used to make the newer vintages.” Rosewater took a deep breath and called on her heritage, drawing in the scent of the bouquet from his glass. “Yours has a hint of raspberry honey, a dash of raspberries, and a mix of white and red grapes.”

Clipper stared at her, his eyebrows rising more with every ingredient she named. “You’re pulling my tail. You can’t tell that much simply from a sniff.” He hesitated as they crossed an invisible line separating the vendor area from the rest of the ballroom, looked around, and leaned closer. “Can you? What did I have for breakfast?”

Rosewater laughed heartily, resisting the urge to prance her delight. Never before had she felt so good to use her gift. A part of it was the heady feeling of wine without food, but a greater part was the enjoyment of being treated like any other pony. “A fried potato hash with fish filling and a vinegar and tomato jam spread on top. I must admit, the combination never would have occurred to me.”

“Stars, so you really could.”

“I’m more fascinated by this fish and potato breakfast food,” Rosewater said, grinning.

“It’s a common sailor repast. Fish is plentiful on a ship. Potatoes are easy to tend to in small pots of soil, too, so we tend to have fresh potatoes on ship every now and then.” Clipper gave a shrug. “So, how far back can you smell?”

“That depends. Today is usually pretty easy. Yesterday… it depends on when you bathed. You bathed this morning before breakfast…” Rosewater leaned closer, paused, then flushed. “May I?”

“Of course. I’m fascinated by this talent your family shares because I can see so many uses aboard ship.” He chuckled and waved his glass through the air. “I can’t even tell you how many times cargo spoilage has ruined a cargo.”

Interestingly, the pegasi’s scent was… scented. A light scent, but… “I recognize that soap. A friend of mine makes it specially for Damme.”

“Oh?” Clipper held out his glass to her, and she took it up, and he hobbled forward briefly to raise his foreleg and sniff at the back of his ankle. “I like that it covers the exertions of the day.”

“I forget the name, because it’s not something I’ve ever bought for myself or been interested in it, but she was making a batch once when I went to visit her.” Rosewater shrugged as she set both of their glasses on the counter by Seed, shifting Clipper’s to sit in front of him. “It does a good job of masking the day’s exertion and removing the previous day’s.”

“I am quite pleased to hear it.” Clipper nodded to Seed as the stallion turned away from his previous customer. “Good sir, I have a wish to speak with your… wife? Partner? I’m afraid I’m not quite as well acquainted with the social niceties in Merrie as I perhaps should be.”

“Wife, my lord,” Seed said, then tipped his head to the side. “But she’s currently engaged. I can leave her a message, unless you’d prefer to wait?”

“It’s regarding that extra stock,” Rosewater said in a low voice. “That Petal has recently been unable to find a use for. Since certain patrons cancelled their order.”

“Ah!” Seed peered at Clipper, then at Rosewater. “You’re here together, then? I admit it’s been rather busy and the social swirl of this gala especially has left my mind whirling.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Silk has been making quite the eddy in the current on the Dammer side, and a few Merriers seemed to have joined her flock as well.” Seed tipped his head towards a knot of ponies where Rosewater recognized Silk’s dress as one among many Damme-colored garments.

Rosewater only had a moment’s premonition of doom before another glass settled on the counter farther down and away from her and Clipper and Roseate’s voice broke over her thoughts.

“You should watch how much you drink, daughter,” Roseate said in a low, condescending tone. “Your drunken laughter and manner has attracted quite a bit of attention and derision.”

“From you, perhaps,” Rosewater said, deliberately slurring her words just a little more. “Lord Primwave, I apologize. Perhaps another time?”

He looked perplexed at the sudden slurring, but bobbed his head and slid farther down the bar before answering. “Of course, my lady. I look forward to your correspondence.”

“Trying for another toy in your basket?” Roseate asked crudely. “I admit he does—”

“Stop,” Rosewater said firmly, raising a hoof and swaying. “We were talking business.”

“The best you have,” Roseate snapped at Seed before the stallion could say anything, then aimed a sneer at Rosewater. “Just as you were ‘talking business’ with Collar all these months? I admit, that was a smooth play. Doomed to failure, but smooth. Do you really think he could love you? After all you’ve done?”

“After all you ordered me to do?” Rosewater countered as Seed wordlessly pulled out a bottle of the poorest vintage he’d brought—still miles above what snapping at him without cause deserved.

“I but gave you the order. It was your way to carry them out with your customary terrifying efficiency.” Roseate smirked and sniffed the wine, frowned slightly, and glanced at the blank smile Seed offered her before wandering away. “He’ll never love you,” she shot over her shoulder.

“She’s goading you,” Seed whispered. “Do you need some salty food? I have some—”

“I’m fine,” Rosewater said without the slur. Without most of the slur. “Maybe some of those fish-twist crisps I smelled out in the vendor hall? The ones with a bit of cheese baked in?” She sniffed, frowned, and glanced at Seed, brow raised.

“Ah. Those have been such a favorite pair with our wine.” Seed winked and pulled out a small bowl of them. “I had a guard fetch some for our patrons so they wouldn’t have to wander so far for samplers with different vintages.”

“Ah, Seed, you’re a blessing from the stars.” Rosewater ate two right away, savoring the richly smoked fish combined with the differently smoked cheese all wrapped in a twisting spiral of some kind of soft, salted bread. “Delicious. I could get fat on these.”

“Very true,” Clipper said as he slid back down towards her. “Those are from the Angler’s Delight tavern down on the docks. I’ve been trying for years to get Dainty Pretzel to sell me the recipe, but I’ve got a feeling the only one she’ll ever give it to is her children.”

“They’re delicious,” Rosewater moaned. “And just what I needed. I had no idea I was so tipsy.”

“No more wine for you, then,” Seed said, then glanced at Petal as she finished and came back down the bar.

“Give me some of your grape juice, then,” Rosewater said, winking. “I know you brought some, just in case there were pregnant mares or foals here.”

“You had a business proposition for me?” Petal said, raising a brow.

“Just one moment,” Clipper said, tipping his head to Rosewater. “What do you mean grape juice? I heard what she said, but I’m not sure I understand it.”

“She’s trying to goad me into doing something foolish. Like try to dance with Collar and show her just how much he loves me.” Rosewater winked as seed pulled out a glass bottle larger than most of the wine bottles. In truth, it was scented and flavored to taste like wine, but had none of the alcohol. It would leave the after-effects on her breath, but tasting it would give the lie. “So… I’m going to let her.”

Petal blinked as Rosewater ate more of the twists, glanced at the bottle as Seed filled her glass almost to the brim, and then barked a laugh she quickly covered. “Stars. You’re trying to turn the tables on her, then?”

“Not without checking with Collar first,” Rosewater said more somberly. “But either way, I want her to talk up just how ‘drunk’ and ‘desperate’ I am. I want her lies to be seen as they are by the night’s end.” She eyed the glass, then glanced between her two friends. “Tell me if I’m going about this the wrong way. Please. She’s pulled my levers all my life, and I need to know if this is yet another one.”

“That’s the mature Rosewater I know,” Petal said, relaxing and sitting back. “I’m not sure if it’s the right way, but if you can make her dance to your tune, what do you need from me?”

“And me,” Clipper said, grinning and reaching up to sweep a non-existent hat from his head. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be one of those dashing rogues the authors like to portray pirates as. This sounds like a jolly romp, if I do say so.”

Seed snorted a laugh. “Whatever the business is, Petal, let’s do it. I like him.”

“You would,” Petal replied with a snort and a smile. “We’ll talk later, my lord.”

“Clipper Primwave, my lady, at your service. And, if I may be so bold, my lady Rosewater, how close are you and Lord Collar? I’ve heard rumors, and your entrance and that speech was quite the eye-opener for many of my colleagues, and not generally favorably.”

“In love,” Rosewater answered before either Seed or Petal could countervail the claim. “And I don’t mind who knows it after tonight.”

“Ah, but ‘tis a secret for now. Mayhap keep the depth of the current a secret still, my lady. I can attest that not all are favorably inclined, but some more than you might realize are watching with interest to see what happens.” Clipper leaned in closer as Rosewater sipped at the juice. “Observe the breaking waves first before you land ashore, lest you catch your landing boat on a hidden shoal.”

“I intend to, and I thank you for the information and your discretion. I assure you, I will put both to the greatest use I can, but I don’t expect you to hold the secret if pressed.” Rosewater tipped the glass of grape juice back and downed it in one gulp, then settled it back on the counter. “Another.”

“My lady, I am a merchant first and foremost. That does not mean that I sell anything to the highest bidder.” Clipper snorted and held out his glass. “Something light, but definitely wine, please. I did eat just before arriving.” He turned his attention back to Rosewater. “It means selling a rare commodity only when it won’t disrupt the rest of the market. A one-time boost to my bottom line will only go so far if I poison the wells of other markets at the same time.”

“I do like a philosophical merchant,” Petal said, raising her brows.

“Ah, yes, and of course, I am selling not only goods, but myself and my reputation at the same time!” Clipper laughed again, more boisterously. “But to this plan. What should I do to make it more… efficacious? I have little love for your mother, and less now that I’ve seen how she treats you in public.”

Rosewater grinned and sipped at her ‘wine.’ “Spread a little rumor of your own about the smell of wine on my breath. You won’t even need to lie about it.” She waved her glass under his nose, then nodded at one of the small sampler glasses.

When he’d had a taste, his brows rose even higher. “Oh dear, I do love a good intrigue. Especially when all I have to do is speak the truth.”

She downed the glass once more, and held it out again. “Halfway. It will show her my fait accompli. When I hand it to her and throw her challenge in her face.”

“What are you going to do?” Seed asked, his eagerness almost a jittery thrum in his voice.

“Dance to a different tune.”

Book 2, 47: Gala, Dangerous Dance

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“Did you have a good talk with Stride?” Rosewater asked, swirling her glass and trying to look mysterious and alluring, playing to Roseate’s idea, but also feeling like a fraud trying to attract the attention of a pony who didn’t need the allure.

“I did. I think,” Collar said, looking past her to where the stallion was making his way back the way Rosewater had come. “He seemed wary of you, but… understandable, I suppose.”

“It is, I suppose.” Rosewater glanced back at him again. “I’d have expected him to have at least a few questions about Rosemary and myself.”

The stallion stopped shy of the wine stand and seemed almost ready to skitter towards the Dammerale stand over in Merrie ‘territory,’ stopped himself, and continued on.

“Maybe he wants to ask Rosemary first,” Collar said gently, stepping closer and sniffing at her wine. “That smells strong. I saw… well. I saw Roseate.”

“It’s not real wine.” Rosewater started to glance around then leaned forward and nipped his cheek. “I’d never drink my stress away.” She recalled the gala where Dazzle had nearly been taken back to Damme, and she’d been seeking the bottom of a wine barrel. “Anymore. I’ve drunk to numb, but never to forget.”

Collar looked into her eyes and nodded. “As have I. I don’t blame you for wanting to.” He took a breath and leaned in closer, pressing his forehead against her cheek and almost crossing horns with her. “Are you okay?”

“I am. In fact, I’m working the ‘drinking to distraction’ angle to trip her up.” She turned, swayed theatrically, and brushed her muzzle up under his chin.

“So… this is play drunk?” He smiled and nuzzled her cheek back. “I see. And drunken affection that I return?”

“As much as you want,” Rosewater murmured, glancing around to find Clipper Primwave had already joined a group of Dammers who were hanging on his every word as eyes darted to her and back to him. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be playing the part of a roguish pirate, but a somber storyteller. “What do you know about Clipper?”

“Primwave? He’s… a good pony, one of mother’s allies, too. He owns a sizeable fleet of ships, most of which winter in Los Pegasus or Saddle Arabia.” Collar glanced to the side, following her gaze. “I take it you two hit it off?”

“You could say that,” Rosewater said, bringing her glass up to her lips and pretending to take a long sip. “He’s helping with the ruse.”

“That you’ve been driven to drink by your mother?”

“Not so much that, I hope, as telling them how she treated me in public.” Rosewater sighed and leaned her temple against his cheek again, careful not to tangle her horn with his crown and only lightly brushing his ear with hers. “Is this okay?”

“More than,” Collar murmured, raising her foreleg and cradling it close to his breast. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that,” he said a little more loudly. “But I think I know something that will cheer you up.”

It was hard to stifle a giggle as he led her away and towards where Dapper was talking to the musicians getting ready to play. Out in the Crowd, Roseate looked torn between seething and glee as Rosewater lifted her glass one more time and drained half of it, leaving only enough left for Roseate to understand that she had been played.

Still, it felt good to both act and be happy with Collar in the public eye, and she was careful not to let her ‘drunken’ sway go more than a hair past disgracefully tipsy in the wake of her mother spending all night either snubbing her or badmouthing her behind her back.

“Rosewater, Collar,” Lace said by way of greeting, trailed by a few ponies that Rosewater didn’t immediately recognize. One was a Prim, and a woodworker or from a wood-working family from his mark, but the other was a Rosewood by his look, and clearly allies of Lace. Before continuing, Lace surrounded them all with a lightly held silence. “I don’t believe you’ve been formally introduced to Varnish Rosewood and Stave Primheart. Lady Rosewood, Lord Primheart, Lady Rosewater, heir of Merrie.”

With their names clicked the information about who they were and what they did… and why they might have an interest in speaking to her. “My lord, my lady. It’s a pleasure to meet with you.”

“I’ll get right to the point, my lady,” Stave said brusquely, as short and direct as his name implied. “Do you intend to succeed your mother?”

“Stave!” Varnish hissed. “We talked about this. That’s not the right way to ask. Especially not here.”

“It’s a fair question,” Rosewater said, taking a breath and focusing on the sturdily built Prim lord. “I am her firstborn, yes, and I have decided to take my responsibilities as the heir presumptive more seriously. This is about the hardwood export limits?”

“It is,” Stave said, relaxing. “So you know your mother has imposed a limit to ‘prevent over-foresting for foreign interests?’”

“I do, but I haven’t yet lodged my own complaint against it.” Rosewater cringed inwardly at the dereliction of duty. She’d been so… out of it, so distanced from the world aside from her small pieces of it that she hadn’t even carried out the basic duties of her station. For fear of inviting further reprisals. For doing her duty. “I will be doing so formally as soon as I am able. But in order to make my complaint, which has no real weight behind it, as I don’t use many woods in my craft. But.”

Rosewater raised a hoof to forestall the argument she saw coming from them. “I realize I have been lax in my duties even as heir presumptive. Largely out of fear of more being taken from me, but if I’m afraid of that, then I don’t deserve to be the heir. You, both of you, and both of our cities, deserve more, and I will be making a clearer stand as befits my station in Merrie. My partnership with Collar and Lace will only further my ability to make that stand.”

Lady Rosewood relaxed minutely. “You’ll be holding court? I can’t remember the last time Roseate held an open court session.”

Rosewater took a breath and briefly considered the ramifications once Roseate found out. It was her right as Heir Presumptive to hold court. She couldn’t actually do anything at court but listen and take complaints and suggestions to Roseate. In a more sane rulership, she would be sitting at her mother’s right hoof, dealing with the lesser issues and learning how to rule from her.

In this rulership, she would need to hold court on her own and bring them to Roseate.

“Yes. Yes, I will be holding court. I’m not sure where, yet, because I don’t want to bring the Garden into this, not without consulting with them first, but I will hold it on the Primrose if I must. You have my word.” She would also have to research the law and see if she could hold ‘court’ or if she would need to style it as some other kind of public gathering. She knew she couldn’t make decrees, only listen and gather complaints. “At this time, I can’t make any commitments to whether or not I would be heard, but you have my word that you will be heard by me.”

Both of them considered for a long moment, and Lace smiled behind them and nodded.

“I quite understand why you did not. When Roseline held court, it was with Roseate in attendance. Without Roseate holding court, there is no way you could have held court with her.”

“Nor,” Collar added, sidling up beside Rosewater and pressing his shoulder to hers, “do I blame you for not wanting to subject yourself to her crassness when she did hold court.”

“Nor I,” Varnish said, her ears dipping. “I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, my lady. Merely that I wish to be heard. Many of us wish to be heard, but even here she avoids being alone long enough for me to bring my concerns to her in confidence.”

“And we who rely on ponies like Lady Rosewood,” Stave said, dipping his ears, “have not even that much recourse save to complain to them when we can.”

“I’m not sure I can hold court for Dammers, but if you bring your concerns to Collar or Lace, they can bring them to me. It would be especially helpful if you encouraged your counterparts in Merrie to approach the Rose Palace first, to give the proper trail of actions before bringing your grievances to me. I don’t want to give her more reason to be vindictive against me or those close to me.”

“Of course,” Varnish said, relaxing further. “So, from business to other matters. I could not miss how the two of you entered, nor how closely you’re working together tonight.”

“Nor,” Stave added, “Cloudy Rosewing’s absence. It seems a deliberate replacement, and not because she’s keeping company… your daughter? Did I hear that right?”

“Yes. Adopted, of course. Carnation’s birthday present when I turned twenty-one was the chance to adopt her as my own as a second mother, as I had been raising her since… consciously since I was sixteen.”

Varnish and Stave shared a look before the former chuckled and nudged her business partner. “It’s not that unusual for sisters, or cousins, nephews and nieces to raise the children of their cousins, aunts, or uncles. Family is spread out, but all family is still family. It’s not going to be as shocking in Merrie as it will be in Damme.”

Stave grunted. “You say that. In Damme, it’ll just be another ‘Merrie’s just like that.’ More important will be how close the two of you are.” He tipped his head to Collar. “Just between us. How close are you?”

Rosewater opened her mouth, stopped herself, and glanced at Collar.

“Between us?” Collar chuckled and leaned in close to kiss Rosewater’s cheek. Far more intimate a display than any so far. She felt her cheeks heat and wished she didn’t need the rest of her ‘wine’ for her deception for her suddenly dry throat. “For myself, I’m in love with her. What’s happened thus far in the public eye is only so much less than what we’ve been through.”

“That’s quite a lot still,” Stave said, his ears flattening. “I support you, Lace, you know that, but this is going to shake a lot of ponies. I’ll need to see Rosewater hold up her words with action before I can say that I’m not one of them.”

“I support their union,” Lace said softly. “I’ve seen her actions thus far. She’s saved my son twice from Roseate’s machinations, albeit for reasons stated in the open that did not line up with her own actions. What she’s done since has convinced me that she is who she claims to be.”

“And your word means much,” Stave said after a short consideration. “But her word is yet untested in my eye.” He cleared his throat and faced Rosewater squarely. “I’m blunt, my lady, and I hope you will forgive it. I have little use for fluff in my words, and less use for it from others. Telling me you’ll hold court and argue the cause of the ponies who would be your subjects means nothing to me until I actually see it happen. But if you do, you’ll have my support. I’m tired of having to hedge on my ledgers and estimates for when I can get wood from Lady Rosewood’s loggers.”

“Understood, and I don’t mind your bluntness, so let me be blunt with you in turn. I will need some days to do my proper research to ensure that I’m not breaking the law or overstepping my bounds with what I can call my ‘court’ or what I can even do, but I will hold court, even if it must be on the bridge or in the treaty office, or just invite ponies to come to my shop and complain at me.”

Stave chuckled. “Good. If you simply leapt, I would be afraid you were somewhat tossed about in the head. You’ll have time, my lady, to accomplish your stated goal before I start stomping my hooves.”

“Winter is coming, too,” Varnish said with a huff and a glance at Rosewater that said ‘see what I have to deal with?’ “We won’t be doing much more than softwood harvesting for firewood for the near future.”

“Thank you,” Rosewater said gently, “both of you, for giving me a chance to prove myself. But, I think we’re ready to start the dancing.” She waggled her wineglass briefly. “I’m going to give it my best, at least, before I have any more.”

“You seem a much better sort than the rest of your sisters.”

It was the refrain Silk had gotten from the moment Pleat had dragged her off to visit with some of the more recognizably conservative crowd, those with the finer cut dresses and suits that hid more than they showed, usually older, but not always, and almost always faces she recognized from her training briefs on ponies to avoid capturing because of this or that reason usually involving causing problems for Lady Lace.

She wanted to tell them that she really wasn’t, but all she could actually do was smile politely and thank them, then compliment them on the stitching and pleats and how invisible it was in between Pleat herself telling Silk who was whom and generally making her seem… fake.

It wasn’t Pleat’s fault, truly, and she was almost certain that she knew what the mare was doing, but it was also painful to listen to them as they praised her for being a productive member of Merrie’s nobility, as if Rosewater’s perfumery didn’t usually make nearly as much as she did in a good year.

But clothing was tangible, touchable, and didn’t run into the same kind of problems that scents did in polite Dammer society.

“What does she think she’s going to accomplish?” One stallion harrumphed to nopony in particular. She’d lost track of who was in the circle that Pleat had gathered about her, some joining and leaving without warning or reason aside from a polite nod and farewell. “And what is that brat doing?”

Silk didn’t need to follow his gaze to know who he was talking about, but she did anyway to see Rosewater and Collar looking quite close indeed, and even caught him giving her a kiss on the cheek. They really were making their move tonight if that was also on the table.

“At a glance,” Pleat said, glancing at Silk and giving her a warning raised brow, “it would look as though they’re getting ready to start the dance portion of the gala.”

“And she will be dancing with him? Scandalous. He already has a pony he’s courting. Why isn’t she even here? She should be here, not the Terror, as much as I dislike her.” The speaker glanced at Silk and raised a brow. “I don’t suppose you know what she’s up to, do you?”

Fear spiked suddenly in Silk’s gut as she considered all the damage the wrong word here could do, but she pushed it aside and reminded herself that, as far as anypony was concerned, she had no idea what Rosewater was up to.

“I’m afraid not, my lord. We ten are… not close. Not all of us, at least. Rosewater, up until a few months ago, was the most distant of all of us, preferring to keep to herself and tend to… well, I suppose that makes more sense now that I know Rosemary is her adopted daughter.” Silk rolled a shoulder and tried to hide the shakiness in her hooves by shifting around to look more closely at her sister. “One thing that has been clear since Carnation was exiled by her own sister is that she loves that mare more than anything else in the world.”

A few uncomfortable coughs spread around the circle.

“As is only right for a mother to her daughter,” Pleat said in approving tones. “I can’t even imagine her distress when she was captured acting on Roseate’s orders.”

It didn’t take Silk much to imagine the same thing if Vine were captured and she were not. They’d been lucky thus far. Or if she were, and Vine escaped. Her precious, delicate sister…

“I can’t imagine,” Silk said softly, her voice unexpectedly tight. “Tonight has been a night of revelations for me, and so much has begun to make sense about our strangest sister. She, out of all of us, had the guts to stand up to our mother. To keep standing up to her. And now…”

It didn’t even take her long to find Roseate amidst a gaggle of Merrie nobility that looked more skittish than a deerkin caught in an open field at noon. Rage was too kind a word for what she saw boiling in the tension in her mother’s mien. Hate. Roseate hated that Rosewater was being accepted in a place where she had no power and no control.

“She looks ready to pop,” another mare said, laughing a trifle nervously. “Maybe… it’s not so bad that Rosewater is doing what she’s doing if it’s making Roseate that mad.”

“Making her mad is one thing,” the original lord said with a snort. “Polluting our leadership with…” He slid his eyes to glance at Silk and seemed to realize that what he was saying might just possibly be offensive to somepony he’d already claimed was ‘better than most’ Merriers. “Apologies. I imagine you find Collar courting two mares at once is commonplace.”

Silk flushed and shook her head. “It’s very common, but it’s not so uncommon in Damme, either, is it? The courtship isn’t one at a time, but—” Silk bit her tongue and glanced at Pleat. “Is it? If you spent time trying to figure yourselves out with one pony at a time until you found the right one, wouldn’t you spend months or years before deciding that something wasn’t going to work?”

Pleat laughed, and a few seconds later a few other chuckles sounded from the ponies around them. “You have it right! Stars, Lace, I hear, was being courted by no less than five stallions at once before she turned them all down in such a spectacular fashion. All of them Dammers, and she chose a Rose whom she had courted.”

“Very true,” the first lord said, looking as though he was swallowing a liverwort covered candy. “It’s not that unusual, I suppose. But having… relations with one is a commitment.”

“To us, sex is something shared between friends without commitments,” Silk said, shaking her head. “Rosewater wouldn’t see it as Collar having made a commitment to Cloudy if they’ve been having sex, especially since Cloudy is so recently a Merrier herself. Both of them would understand that whether or not Cloudy has had sex, Collar is still free to choose whom he courts.”

Every time she said ‘sex,’ several of them flinched as if she’d slapped them lightly on the flank. It made her want to shout the word.

“Well said,” Pleat said, bobbing her head. “It’s strange to us, because we’ve seen so very few cross-river romances, and fewer where the romance wasn’t between ponies that still lived on opposite sides of the river. I admit, learning all of this has been very enlightening.”

“And your preference, Pleat?”

“If Rosewater is sincere in her intentions, then I would prefer to see her. That’s an if, though, that…” Pleat glanced at Silk. “Perhaps you can shed some light on her character for us?”

Unamused looks spread around the little circle, as if they had been humoring Pleat because of her position in the community, and now were trying to hedge back their agreement that Silk didn’t seem like a bad sort.

“She’s the best of us,” Silk said softly. “She always has been. She has her flaws, don’t get me wrong, but understanding right from wrong has never been one of them. Understanding where her duty starts and ends has been. She’s a soldier, not a villain, and hating her because she’s an effective soldier isn’t… it’s not right. She wants this war no more than I or any of you do.”

“It’s important to remember, too,” Pleat said, setting a hoof against Silk’s ankle lightly, “that Silk is also a soldier. She has raided, captured, and imprisoned. But… let me ask her. Did you want to do any of that?”

“Stars, no. I only want to make pretty clothes for ponies.” Silk glanced at her mother, still arrow-sharp focused on Rosewater and not her.

“You’re scared of her,” Pleat said.

“Of Rosewater, stars no.”

“Of your mother. I can see it in the way you keep checking on where she is and who she’s paying attention to. Whenever she’s not looking at you, you relax.” Pleat hooked her foreleg around Silk’s. “Why? Why are you so afraid of her?”

Ponies leaned in closer, eager to hear this little bit of gossip from the mouth of one they’d nominally accepted.

Rosewater didn’t look cowed in the slightest by Roseate’s hate-filled glower as she, Lace, Collar, and Dapper spoke with the musicians. She looked, if anything, happier than she had ever been to Silk’s knowledge.

Live in fear or break free. Those were her choices. But it wasn’t only her choice. Whatever she said now would reach Roseate eventually. Maybe not tonight, and maybe not even for weeks to come. She might not even know when Roseate decided to enact retribution until it had already been wrought and forged and settled about her and Vine’s necks.

“Stars, she really is scared.”

“Yes,” Silk said, her voice quavering as she made her choice. “I’m terrified. I’m terrified of losing everything I’ve loved, everything I’ve built up, and the city that I made my life and living in. I’m terrified of losing the one pony that understands everything that I’ve been through, because she was right there with me. I’m…” She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the salt touch her lips, the trail coursing down her muzzle, perfectly following her Rosethorn mark until it dropped to gather on her upper lip. “She’ll take it away. Just like she took away so much from my sister. But she’s taking it back. She’s… I’m proud of her. I wish I was half as courageous as she was.”

As soon as she started speaking, it came out in a rush.

I’m sorry, Vine.

“I need a drink,” Silk said hoarsely.

Collar glanced again at the wineglass Rosewater had asked him to refill and tried to suppress a smile. She was still talking with Dapper and Lace, showing that she was quite capable of having a rapport with the leaders of Damme to everypony present.

Roseate, to his surprise, followed him so obviously that he stopped and waited for her to catch up, brow raised as the mare, admittedly quite beautiful in her own way, and appearing more youthful than her more than half a century of life would indicate.

She didn’t bother to ask before she threw up a barrier against sound and snapped, “Two years of no raiding.”

Collar laughed at her. “Stars. Two years. Weighed against a lifetime of togetherness. No, Roseate.”

“Then you are courting her.”

“That seems fairly obvious to me by now, yes,” Collar said, chuckling and moving to break the barrier’s line. “That’s a free bit of information, by the way. Here’s another: I never intended to agree to any terms for leaving her.”

Roseate’s eyes popped out wide, then a sly smile crept across her lips. “Faithless negotiation, Collar? I didn’t expect that of you. You’re more devious than I thought you were, and hiding all of this right under my nose.”

Collar snorted. “You barely even talk to your daughter unless it’s a reprimand or a demand. I would hardly call her walking across the bridge twice a week ‘hidden,’ and before you get any ideas, no, we didn’t spend any negotiation time romancing. I’m sure you know, more than most, that negotiation and waiting for meetings and documents involves downtime between. Little bits add up quickly.”

“And you know, of course, that she’s been sleeping with that rather handsome stallion… Dazzle? That’s been all over the town lately. Would hate for you to find she’s already attached.” Roseate chuckled and stepped back a pace, flirting her tail and sipping at her own wine, watching him.

“Oh, I know.” Collar rolled his eyes and shook his head. “She’s been completely open and honest with me about who she makes love to. I can even name all of her lovers, and I highly doubt you can do that.”

Something in what he said made her relax, and it didn’t take long to figure out it was her multiple lovers.

“In fact, I asked her not to restrict herself on my behalf.” Collar chuckled at the look on Roseate’s face, halfway between curdled milk and spoiled cabbage. “Cloudy has corrupted me, my lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to fetch her some more wine. It seems like somepony put her into a mood.”

Briefly, Roseate’s marks flared with light as she took in the scent of the wineglass he was carrying. She would need a much fuller nose than she could get from there to tell that the juice was only actually scented and flavored to taste like wine… without the alcohol. Rosewater had assured him of that.

Still, she frowned as she considered the glass, then him, and then her daughter. She flicked her tail once more, sniffed, and looked him in the eye. “Do consider what else I might offer in my daughter’s stead. There is quite a lot I can offer as recompense for the paltry bits of love she has left over for you when she’s done with her other lovers.”

“You truly don’t understand your own culture, do you?” Collar asked her, then snorted and shook his head before stepping out of the dome of silence entirely. “Don’t bother making another offer. I’ll not listen.”

Collar ignored the hearty chuckle from the mare as she dropped the sound barrier and wandered back to her side of the ballroom while he made his way to the wine bar where Seed and Petal were doing a brisk business and seemed to be doing more gossiping of their own with Merriers and Dammers alike.

Silk was also there with Pleat and a few of the more conservative block of nobility, the former drinking from a half-full glass of a light golden liquid, one of the white grape vintages, one of the fruitier ones Rosemary had painted her lips with before kissing him gently. He could almost taste it again. Pleat was drinking one as well, that must have been what Rosewater had sent him to get more of, that Cloudy had dipped her tongue in before kissing him.

Stars… wine-tasting day had been exhilarating.

“My lord,” Seed said, bobbing his head as Collar set both his glass and Rosewater’s down on the counter. “Refills? Or something new?”

“Something new for me, I think,” Collar said, nodding to Silk. “What she’s having, please.”

“You know that pickup line never works, right?” Silk asked with a small, wan smile. “Besides. I hear you’re a twice-taken stallion now.”

Pleat’s ears perked up.

“Oh? Who’d you hear that from?”

“My own two eyes.”

Collar chuckled and waggled Rosewater’s glass, then glanced back at her. Dapper and Lace were taking to the front of the stage with Rosewater at their side. She was beautiful, beyond what he’d imagined she’d look like when he was dreaming of tonight. Her mane, her tail, her dress… all of it fit and matched her white coat, all of it brighter for being combined and close to her coat.

“If your eyes are talking to you, Silk,” Seed said, a note of amusement in his voice, “then I’ll have to cut you off here.”

“You know what I mean, Seed,” Silk said with a roll of her eyes.

“I’ve seen quite a lot as well,” Pleat said, leaning forward to look around her companion. “You and she do look quite close, Collar. Care to share?” Her eyes drifted to Silk, as if saying he owed her one.

“How are you two getting along?” Collar asked instead, nodding his thanks to Seed as a new glass of pale gold wine was set in front of him. “Was I right to pair you together?”

Pleat, at least, had the decency to look abashed, though Silk didn’t see it. “I believe so, my lord. Silk has been… enlightening. Though I worry for her safety.”

Seed raised a brow and glanced at Silk, then Pleat, but said nothing.

“I’ll be fine,” Silk said quietly. “Really. And yes, thank you, Collar. Pleat has been so good to me.” Her voice sounded tight for a moment, and she took another sip, then a longer draw from the glass. “I’m sorry. I’m being emotional.”

To Collar’s surprise, Pleat leaned against her. “No need to worry. I think a lot of us on our side of the river haven’t had a good look at how things play out on your side.”

“It looks like you’re in good company, Silk,” Collar said gently. “I’ll leave you in her care.” He nodded to Seed as the stallion finished pouring another of the juice wines for Rosewater. “Seed, thank you again for being so good to Rosewater.”

“She’s an aunt to me, my lord.” He leaned over the bar a little, resting one hoof over the edge. “Thank you for loving her as she deserves.”

“You shouldn’t thank me for that, Seed,” Collar said quietly, glancing at Silk, who’d surely heard every word, and Pleat, who seemed ready to vibrate with the need to tell others. Confirmation from Collar’s lips. Make it more explicit. “I started falling in love with her as soon as she stopped trying to be somepony other than herself. Encourage her to be herself more, and I’ll do the same.”

Seed extended the hoof a little further. “Deal.”

Collar took the hoof, careful to maintain the delicate telekinetic spell on both glasses, and shook once. “Sealed.”

“You’re sure you want us to take the first dance?” Rosewater asked, her voice trembling faintly. “The opening speech was one thing, but this… stars, even I’ve seen you both start the dancing with a solo performance, and I’ve usually tried to avoid everypony at the galas before.”

“Consider it…” Lace glanced at the musicians paying a little more attention than was really proper for performance. “Well, consider it an early present and a show of our trust in you, Rosewater.”

Dapper winked and nudged her ankle. “Just be sure to engage him in some conversation. That close, you might need a mint? An engage mint?”

Lace swatted her husband’s flank with her tail. “Stars, Dapper, just tell everypony.” She rolled her eyes exasperatedly as Dapper made to step to the front of the stage. “Don’t you dare, you irascible stallion.”

“Well, excuse me for waiting for this day for thirty years,” Dapper said with a huff. “My son and…” He grimaced and leaned in closer to Rosewater, dropping his voice. “Stars, I should be able to shout it to the world, my dear. I’m sorry, but…”

“I wish I could, too,” Rosewater said, dropping her head to nuzzle her future father-in-law. “Soon, Dapper. Possibly sooner than you or I think it will happen.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve made a promise to hold court for ponies that can’t get an audience with Roseate and act as their advocates.” Rosewater gave her future in-laws a rueful smile. “I couldn’t exactly do that without a plan forward.”

“That is true,” Lace said quietly and with a sigh. “This is going to enter into a strange and potentially dangerous time for you, my dear.”

“I… I know.” Rosewater took a deep breath and wished Collar could be there when she first held court. Instead, all she could have was one of her mares in waiting. She could let Dazzle be there, but he’d already taken too many risks for her and she’d already hurt his heart more than she could bear or ask him to bear for her. “But it’s something I need to do. If I can. Stars, I’ll let ponies sit down to lunch with me and complain for ‘court’ if that’s what it takes, if I can’t hold a formal court.”

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to. I have yet to let Collar hold his own court absent my supervision, but that’s largely because I’m asking him to do so much else already.” Lace pressed an ankle lightly against her shoulder. “Rest easy. You’ll get through this, and I will always be ready to give advice, Rosewater.”

“Thank you.” Rosewater glanced behind her as hoofsteps approached. “Thank you, Collar,” she said as she accepted her ‘wine’ and took a sip. To her left, Roseate seemed to be seething in rage still, surrounded by sycophants and yes-mares and stallions looking to gain favor. But there was also an air of anticipation about her, as if she was waiting for Rosewater to embarrass herself on the dance floor. Stumble, fall, maybe even sprain an ankle.

Or break one.

“It’s time,” Lace said softly to her husband, then nodded to the musicians. “The opening bars of the Dammer March, please.” As if thinking about it, she paused and added, “And then the opening bars of the Merrier Dance of Feathers, please. I trust you know it?”

“Aye, my lady,” the lead violinist said, glancing back at his small brass section. “We’re versed with both cities. But we usually only play one or the other.”

“Tonight, and every night from now where you play in my halls, please play both. Unity, Mr. Fiddlestick, is the goal. We can’t much do that if we use our music to enforce our differences.” Lace bobbed her head to him when he gave her a cautious bow. “Thank you.”

As Lace stepped up to the edge of the stage, Dapper at her side, the music rang out over the ballroom in the opening trumpet blast of the Dammer March, the old war song softened by centuries of peace into using strident violin and deeper cellos to go with the lively sharp-edged trumpets. The single drum kept time with the beat, setting Rosewater’s heart to stirring.

Only half a minute of that was enough to get the attention of nearly everypony else in the room, save a few stragglers deciding to hide in the wings or linger near the drink vendors and watch from a distance.

When she didn’t speak after the last of the Dammer March faded away, the crowd began to murmur until the opening, lively notes of the single violin of the Merrie Dance of Feathers began, followed after each third note by another violin until the cellos added their deeper base, then the trumpets with a quieter, tamer, almost mournful sound backing them up.

Only when the last trumpet note faded away did Rosewater and Collar join Lace and Dapper at the edge of the stage.

“The music for dances is about to begin, and I urge all of you to find your partners or make acquaintances with somepony new. As you heard, we’ll be playing not only Dammer-inspired music, but a selection of Merrier dances as well, and not only waltzes, but some folk dances as well from both of our cities.” She held up a hoof and patted the air as the conversations started up and swelled into a low murmur from dozens of throats at once. “I am breaking tradition, I know, but there is one tradition I will hold to.”

Rosewater tensed, then followed Collar’s lead as he took a step forward. “It is the right of the heir of Damme to request the first dance of anypony he wishes. Tonight…”

Rosewater’s heart fluttered as Collar turned to her and raised her foreleg with a spell and bent over it, kissing her ankle gently.

“My lady, would you have this first dance with me?”

“Yes, my lord Collar,” Rosewater said in a stronger voice than she felt in her heart. So many eyes were watching her and him, and she was vaguely aware of Roseate bulling her way through the crowd towards the front and center. She pushed that awareness away as she focused on Collar. “Tonight, I am yours.”

He flashed a smile at her and let her hoof drift back to the floor, and leaned forward to kiss each of her cheeks in the Merrier fashion. “Then, my lady Rosewater, so am I yours tonight.”

She kissed his cheeks when he pulled back, lingering briefly on the cheek facing away from the crowd to whisper, “I love you.”

“I know,” he whispered as he stepped down with her, shoulder to shoulder, facing her mother in the front row. “Lady Roseate.”

Tension gathered around them, and a few ponies backed away from the confrontation, spreading out in an impromptu circle of either battle or dance. One face Rosewater was missing from the crowd was her sister. Missing, that is, until she spotted the mare standing with the same mare Collar had introduced her to, whispering in a low tone to her companion.

“Lord Collar,” Roseate said in a low, almost sensuous voice, if only it had been absent the undercurrent of venom in it. “If you truly wished to ease the tension between our cities, a first dance with my daughter is not the way to go about it. Let you and I dance this first dance, show both sides of the river that bygones can be bygones.”

“Are you being serious?” Collar asked, incredulity plain in his voice. “You tried to abduct me twice, and once by luring me out on false pretenses. Why would you ever think that I would offer you the first dance?”

“To hear my counteroffer.”

“No deal,” Rosewater said.

“You have no say in this,” Roseate snapped. “Go bury yourself in drink.”

Rosewater smirked and sipped from her glass.

“As she said,” Collar replied after a moment of rigid muscles and tight jaw. “No deal. There’s nothing you can offer that would convince me to either leave her aside or dance with you tonight. Step aside, my lady.”

Roseate snorted. “Fine, my lord. Enjoy your broken ankle when this sot trips and falls on you. Or have you not noticed how much wine she’s consumed tonight?”

“I have, and she’s assured me she is quite capable of still drinking me under the table if it comes down to it tonight.” Collar smirked. “Though she does have a considerable head start, and I’ll need to catch up if I have any chance of chasing her down when she loses.”

“I did warn you,” Roseate said with what Rosewater could only assume was an attempt at a weary ‘what will I do with my children’ sigh and disappointed look. “When you break your leg dancing tonight, blame me not for your pain and recovery.”

Rosewater snorted, took one last, long sip from her glass and passed it to her mother who, surprisingly, took it without smirking or protesting. “Hold onto that for me, and I will show you that I can still dance, even with as much as I’ve had to drink.”

Book 2, 48: Gala, A Dance to Dream Of

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Around the circle as Rosewater stepped past her mother were some of the ponies that she’d come to think of as, perhaps not allies yet, but ponies that at least wouldn’t look at her unfavorably for dancing with Collar in the first dance of the evening.

It had been, in the past, the way an heir or heiress of Damme had made his formal announcement of courtship public, even if the courting had been ‘public’ before. The fact that she was a Merrier put something of a confusion around that, as her tradition was for courtships to be chaotic and multifaceted.

Which would come soon enough. Tonight was about the Dammer traditions.

The floor opened up further, spreading out a circle that let nearly every pony that wanted to watch what would be historic. The first romance across the rivers between high ranking nobility after Frosty.

“I have waited for this dance,” Collar said loudly enough to be heard around the circle, but not so loud that it sounded like he was speaking to them. “And I thought about what song we should dance to first. Something… not of your city, nor of mine. Something that would speak to our purpose here. Something grand and stately and full of meaning.”

“What did you plan for?” Rosewater asked, a touch of trepidation in her voice that wasn’t entirely feigned. She’d studied the dance, tried to practice the motions with a mist faerie in her bedroom, and even practiced it twice with Lace in her private garden in the past two weeks.

“The Sun and Moon Waltz,” Collar said, finally looking around and nodding to Wandering Star and Firelight, speaking up to the crowd at last, “A dance that our esteemed representatives from Canterlot will recognize, and that I invite to join us, if you so choose.”

Firelight beamed as he stepped forward. “While I do greatly appreciate the gesture to include us, and even more the gesture of reconciliation between your cities, I must respectfully decline. My four left forehooves would end up broken if I tried.”

“I must also respectfully decline,” Wandering Star said, stepping forward briefly to bow. “This dance shouldn’t be about Canterlot, but we do appreciate the inclusion. This dance should be about unity, and I applaud you both for setting aside your differences to come together in so spectacular a way. It gives Firelight and I such hope that we might see an end to this conflict.” She stepped back, smiling and bowed once more. “Please, enjoy your first dance together.”

As if her words were permission to start talking, ponies turned to their neighbors and started talking for only the few seconds before the first chord of the dance struck, then stilled.

Rosewater found her place, her hooves settling into what felt like grooves worn into the floor, her head bowing in the ‘darkness’ after the first note, as Collar bowed his head in the same angle, their horns almost touching, their breath mingling.

Hers felt faster, more giddy than she had ever felt before.

On cue, she raised her hoof to cross with Collar’s and began the first circling orbit around him, his hoofsteps slow and deliberate, hers quicker as she had to move faster to make the same motion, the tap-tap-tap of her three hooves on the ground in time with the slow plucking of the cellos and the somber, slow notes from the violin describing the motion of the sun and moon.

She stopped at the first thumping of the drums, and it was Collar’s turn to orbit her, faster still, the tap-tap-tap of his hooves in time with the drum.

When the cellos started plucking again, Rosewater started orbiting with him around a common center, their pace picking up and up as the drums and cellos competed with each other until Collar and Rosewater had to lock their ankles together to keep from flying apart.

The trickiest part was the transition from three legged to two legged, without slowing their side-stepping prance around each other, without breaking the locked horns of the age of uncertainty following the Battle of Two Nights that this frenetic pace represented, Rosewater pushed off between one beat and the next as Collar did the same, the clarion call of horns announcing the climax of the battle as they drew closer and closer, disaster always on the edge of a knife, a misstep, a hesitation, a moment of worry about her partner.

Locked together, stable and breathing harder, Rosewater found herself wanting to laugh as the beat sped up yet more, the horns becoming more strident as they spiraled in towards each other with every revolution, courting danger more and more as breasts touched, necks arched, and the fire in Collar’s eyes seemed to be a reflection of her own vigor.

As quickly as it had come, the end of the battle came quicker still, cellos and drums silencing as the violins rose through a higher pitch, the cries of Celestia at the broken lands, the destroyed nation and shattered alliances and the devastation wrought by magic of moon and sun competing for space in the sky.

They stopped at once, breathing heavily, her tail swishing on its own as her vision whirled, her only source of Stability being Collar, and his only source her. One sway too far and they would both fall entwined so closely that their forelegs were almost about each other.

“Are you okay?” Collar whispered, his lips barely moving, his nose pressed to hers.

“More than,” she whispered back. Her hind leg twitched, waiting for the separation, then stepping back, letting her forelegs drift along his until they were entirely supporting each other, nose to nose, eye to eye, heads raised. The drums and cellos settled into a more sedate rhythm while the violin and horns drifted away and their orbit began again, together and in harmony with each other, timid at first, every step coming seconds apart.

They were approaching the first Summer Sun festival and the beat became more joyous, celebratory and quickly paced, the days growing longer and the moon still rising and falling at the same pace. Her role as the moon meant that she came closer to him, speeding up her steps while his slowed.

It was the perfect pose to share a more intimate moment.

It was the perfect pose, the perfect moment, she pressing closer to him while he stayed in the same place relative to her. He could feel the heat of her breath on his lips, almost feel the touch of them against his, and her eyes locked on his seemed to be asking him, pleading with him.

It started with a light brush of his lips against hers during a transitional motion towards the Summer Sun, the moment when the sun stood still aside from turning slowly to keep pace with the moon. He broke, for a moment, the support of her right foreleg, making her shift in response, but didn’t stop her slow rotation, instead pulling him closer as his foreleg brushed down her neck.

She shivered, her lips parting as if to ask him a question, then closed, and parted again to take in a breath.

He kissed her then, tilting his head slightly to the side to meet her lips, his own parting as she mirrored his tilt, followed his lead, trusting him even as he brought his foreleg up again to support her.

Gasps rose from around them as their slow rotation took them through the Summer Sun sequence, their kiss holding as they shared breath, shared a heartbeat, and shared the first moment of announcing they were courting to the rest of the nobility in much more explicit terms than they were likely expecting.

It felt like a flush in his entire body as the sequence ended and the kiss parted, her eyes fluttering open, tears in them that she blinked away to trail down her cheeks.

They parted again as summer went on, horns and violins speaking above the sound of cello and drum as the world moved on. The long autumn brought in a lone cello from the synchrony of plucking to sing about the slowing of the world’s affairs as the first winter approached and the Autumnal Equinox celebration came and went with only a passing note, the cello growing louder and louder as the plucking grew more and more faint, slower as Rosewater’s turn to stand still came closer and closer.

The sun passed faster, and Collar sped up his step, his heart thundering as his position started to mirror the first kiss, and…

“Again,” she whispered, standing almost still with the slow shuffle of her hooves her only responsibility as she broke her supportive pose briefly to stroke his neck, drawing a louder murmur from the crowd around them, but she paid them no mind, and he forced the repercussions away. His first kiss was permission.

Her first kiss given to him was confirmation, and they stopped while the music went on, slow and drifting away as the Winter Solstice’s quiet melancholy melted away in the heat of her lips pressing to his, her breath washing over his muzzle as she breathed in sharply, then out.

He didn’t let her pull away as the music began to fade, taking the lead and a step closer, deepening the kiss, welcoming the heat of his barrel against hers, the flutter of her heart as she pressed back, deepening their passionate moment yet further, lengthening it and drawing out until the last notes of music faded away.

When he finally pulled away, her cheeks were flushed, her lips still parted as she breathed in deep, rapid breaths.

He pressed his forehead to hers, their crowns clinking lightly as his slid under hers and he raised his hooves to cup her cheeks gently. “I love you,” he whispered softly.

“Stars,” she replied breathlessly, and for a moment he thought he could see them in her eyes, bright and shining as tears formed and spilled down her cheeks. “I love you.”

Collar kissed her once more, lightly and briefly, and nudged her gently as he backed away and dropped to all four hooves again, she following a second later.

Firelight was the first to move from the crowd of stunned onlookers, his smile broad enough to show teeth, and Wandering Star was a step behind him, her expression one of quiet pleasure.

“My lord, my lady.” He held out a hoof to Collar first as Wandering Star held one out to Rosewater. “Am I to take it to believe that this is an announcement that you are now courting?”

“You may, Sir Firelight,” Collar said, glancing aside at a beaming Rosewater as she accepted an embrace from Wandering Star. “You may indeed believe that.”

It wasn’t often that Silk felt a thrill of pleasure at hearing someone say anything, but when she heard Collar confirm that he and Rosewater were indeed courting, it confirmed for her everything she’d suspected. Their courtship was farther along than this. Rosewater’s mysterious hiding from my mother two day stretch now felt… like more. With Crown confirming that she’d completely sealed the place against sound intrusion and even her wards had been beefed up in the days before, as if she’d been planning for something.

Silk made her way across the gulf that still divided the two city’s factions while Rosewater and Collar vacated the floor to let Lace and Dapper and a few older ponies and their partners join in a more sedate waltz.

“Where are you going?” Pleat demanded before she’d made it halfway to the dividing line. “You know there are ponies that will want to know what you know.”

“I do. And I’ll be back, but…” Silk glanced at the gathering stormcloud that was her mother talking to one of her sycophants in a low tone. She couldn’t even remember the stallion’s name, but it was usually best not to pay too close attention to those her mother deigned worthy of lifting her tail for. They tended to look at Roseate’s daughters as competition, so even learning their names tended to be a sign to the pompadours that she considered them a worthy adversary. “I need to see if I can prevent an explosion.”

Pleat considered the focus of Silk’s attention for a long moment, then drew her back and away from the line with a light spell on her neck. “Is this going to splash back on you?”

“Probably. How much…” Silk shrugged. “I need to find out sooner so I can plan for it.”

Her companion was quiet for longer this time, the intense sympathetic look flicking between her and her mother painful to endure. “If you need it—”

“Don’t. Please. Stars,” Silk resisted the urge to scrub her face and put on a smile instead. “I might not be able to resist any offer you make, Pleat, and you only barely know me or what baggage I have. I don’t want to put that on you.”

Pleat’s jaw firmed. “And you don’t think you deserve it?”

“I don’t. Not until you can trust me.” It was an effort not to embrace her, but Silk leaned in close and bumped her nose against the other mare’s cheek. “Let me earn it through action and not sympathy.”

Pleat snorted and reared up just enough to wrap her in an embrace. “Then you’d better start earning it. You remind me too much of my niece, Silk. Go on. Do what you feel you need to, and we can talk later,” she whispered. “If you’re still around.”

Meaning if Roseate doesn’t drag me away in a fit of pique. “Thank you. For everything tonight, Pleat.”

With that she crossed the floor to where her mother had turned her attention away from the stallion she’d been venting at. Some lord who relied on shipping and trade for his wealth.

Roseate sniffed at the wine glass she was holding again, sipped at it, and scowled. She seemed about ready to fling the glass at somepony, possibly Rosewater, but she finished it off instead. “Rut that mare.”

Silk took a breath and inched closer, her tail flat to her hind legs, scared out of her wits at what might happen next.

“Did you know anything you didn’t tell me?” Roseate snapped out the question without bothering to wait for others to move away.

“No! Stars, she never told me anything. She told me what colors she wanted and even provided the silks for me.” That was half a lie, but not a big enough one for it to matter. “I thought she wanted it for Dazzle, not him.”

“She played us. The little traitor.” Roseate snarled and passed the glass to Silk. “What did you find out while you were being pampered by the Prims?”

“Pampered? Stars, they treated me like—” Silk cut herself off at her mother’s glower. “N-nothing much more than we knew already. Nothing about this. They were all as surprised as I was that Rosewater seemed to be getting ready to make the move she just did.”

“We can use that. Did you hear anything about how she’s viewed?”

Stars. She glanced aside at the ponies that looked at her with fear, disgust, or a haughty superiority. “Nothing that would affect this,” Silk said, tipping an ear back towards where Rosewater and Collar were being surrounded by more and more Merriers and Dammers all asking them questions. “Ponies hate the war. Half of them are elated. The other half are terrified she’s taken control of his heart.” Silk snorted and shook her head. “The first half think I’m better than my sisters because Collar attached me to—”

“Why did he do that? What game is he playing?”

“Rosewater asked him to take pity on me,” Silk said in a mechanical sounding tone that hid the surge of thankfulness for her sister’s thoughtfulness. “I don’t know why. Maybe to show me how much sway she has with him and the Primlines.”

Roseate gritted her teeth, but nodded. “More than likely, that’s the case. I thought she’d lost her ambition. Clearly I was wrong.”

You failed to quash it, and you failed so spectacularly that now it’s working against you. “I should get back. They’ll be talking about Collar and Rosewater’s courtship, and you’ll want to know everything, won’t you?”

“Yes. Do that.” For the briefest of moments, Silk thought she saw uncertainty in her mother’s mien, though it was gone before she could start to wonder why. “See if you can find out why she’s announced it tonight and so openly. And how long the romance has been going on.”

Months, you idiot. Since you forced them together to protect her daughter. Even that little tidbit of information, had she not already known it, would have been a shock to her. “Of course, mother.” She could imagine the reason Collar had switched his view of her. Recontextualizing all of her antagonism from a personal vendetta to attempting to keep her head afloat in the river of a mad ruler’s whimsy. “Is there anything else?”

“No. Do whatever you must to get into their circle. I must know in order to plan.”

Plan for your early exit from office. I’d put bits on them being bound to each other by marriage before the month’s out.

“Of course.”

“And find out where your sister is. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her.”

“Probably still in the library. You know how she is with books.” Silk snorted. “She probably insisted she be able to finish it tonight rather than trying to find it later.”

Roseate chuffed a laugh. “As long as she’s doing what she’s been ordered to, I don’t care.” She clucked her tongue and glanced around. “Get back to it, daughter. I expect a report at the end of the night.”

You’ll get whatever I give you. “Of course, mother,” Silk murmured, flattening her ears and bowing her head. “What—”

“Will I do?” Roseate turned to face her and cast a spell to straighten Silk’s ears. “What I will do is none of your business. Your only business is doing as I tell you. Need I remind you what happens if you fail?”

Vine. She would hurt Vine. Silk’s own pain was secondary to that. “No.” She pulled her head free of Roseate’s spell and shook it, her ears buzzing from the strain. “No, you don’t.”

“Good.” Roseate snapped her tail and stepped back. “Remember what they’ll do if we lose, Silk. Your sister doesn’t seem to care that she’ll be locked into having only one lover forever, but I do, and I know you do, too. This is for our culture to survive. If we lose…” Roseate’s features softened into an almost believable fearful mother’s look. “I do what I must, Silk. Do what you must.”

It was almost compelling. If Silk didn’t know the truth, if Rosewater hadn’t told her, if Collar hadn’t been kind to her, she might even want to believe it.

You do want to believe it. It was easier than believing she’d gone the way her mother wanted her to without considering any alternatives, too scared to look for another way to live.

“I will, mother,” Silk said softly and turned away, aiming for her sister where she was cloistered with Collar and Lace.

She only made it halfway across the gulf again before a wing settled over her back, startling her into a jump to the side. “Stars!”

“I called your name twice,” Dapper Air said, winking at her. “Granted, I said it very quietly because it’s so very hard to sneak up on pretty mares anymore.”

Silk laughed, sharp and short, then covered her muzzle, coughing and glancing around. Roseate had briefly looked her direction, but even as she looked, Roseate was already smiling at another lord. “My lord?”

“You were looking so intense, I simply had to intervene.” Dapper glanced over his shoulder and made a face at Roseate, already working her way through the sycophants and no doubt spreading her propaganda. It seemed like she’d already decided that her response was going to be along the lines of ‘My daughter has abandoned our way. Fear for the future.’ “She’s vile.”

Silk clenched her jaw tighter.

“You needn’t respond. Let’s go get a drink, you and I,” Dapper went on. “I know you’re afraid of her, but I don’t know what she’s holding over you. And you don’t need to answer, either.” Dapper pressed his wing to her side and guided her away from Collar and Rosewater. “But maybe I could answer the question you had for them? Perhaps better than they could right now.”

“I didn’t have a question I wanted to ask them.”

“And I’m a Hearth’s Warming turkey.”

“E-excuse me?” Silk asked, glancing at him.

Dapper clucked his tongue and strutted forward a few steps, his head bobbing back and forth. When he stopped, he glanced at her, brow raised. “Nothing? Seriously?”

“Is… it a tradition in Damme? I know what turkeys are, of course, but I’ve never heard of a Hearth’s Warming turkey before.”

“Oh, you sweet winter child. It is the most glorious and extravagant custom from Canterlot. Keeping a turkey for a pet and feeding it your table scraps during winter. The fatter the turkey, the richer the family is seen as being.” Dapper fluffed his feathers out, making Silk sidestep the extension of his wings for a moment. “And they have a contest at Hearth’s Warming to see who has the fattest turkey.”

“And then?”

“What do you mean ‘and then?’” Dapper clucked his tongue again and laughed. “That’s it. Fat turkey. And I am not a fat turkey. Which you will tell Lace at the first opportunity you get.”

“I-I will?” Silk felt herself floundering farther and farther into this strange stallion’s trap, whatever it was. “Why?”

“Because then I’ll answer your question.” Dapper flattened his feathers with a flick of his wings. “You were going at your sister with a look on your face I’ve only seen on hers when she wanted to know something and didn’t know how to ask it politely.” He grinned cheekily and flicked a wing against her side lightly. “You’re definitely sisters.”

“Alright. Fine. But how do I know you’ll give the same answer she would?”

“I guess you don’t. Do you trust her?”

Silk froze with her mouth open and kept walking after a sharp breath. “I trust her.” Roseate would expect her to add ‘to do what’s best for her.’ That was a lie. Rosewater had at least shown some of her true heart tonight and with her in the past. She’d given Crown an out to save herself. She cared more about her family than Roseate did, who viewed them all as easily manipulated puppets with secrets and blackmail material that she knew going back to childhood. “I trust her with more than anypony but Vine or Crown.”

“Then ask your question.”

“Is Rosewater tying herself to Collar, and Collar alone?”

Dapper was silent for a long moment, his expression blank before he glanced aside at her, then forward. “Do you think your sister would abandon the city she grew up in? Set aside a way of life that let her be happy despite all her mother tried to do to her? You know her perhaps better than I do, or at least for longer, but—”

“But you would be…” Images of Rosewater taking her hither and thither in the city, the mare tall enough to feel like an adult to her young self despite her lankiness flitted through her mind. Buying her candy, laughing with her and Rosemary as she and Rosewater and Carnation’s daughter played together and played jokes on each other. For almost two decades, she had grown up under a variety of parents, no one there long enough to ever be a solid part of her life, not even her mother.

“I thought you would. She’s done much to push your memories of her away, hasn’t she? Pushing her out of your lives as much as she was trying to keep her from gaining even an imaginary upper hoof.” Dapper shouldered her lightly towards the bar. “So… would she?”

“No. Not unless she thought it was the only way forward.”

“Mmm. Forward to what, I wonder.” Dapper set a hoof on the bar. “Seed, an opinion and a wine, please.”

“Got plenty of the first, my lord,” Seed said, glancing towards and away from a stallion his wife was currently having a long talk with in between sips of wine and others coming up to talk with one or both. “And more than enough of the second to remake the river in here. What’ll it be?”

“Mmm. Rosemary Reverence, please. I quite enjoyed my last glass.”

“R-Rosemary Reverence?” Silk asked, unable to keep her eyes from widening.

“For you, too, cousin?”

“It has a very nice bite to it that is missing from most other wines. It’s like a mulled wine without needing to heat it and spice it yourself.”

Seed rolled his eyes. “It is a mulled wine, my lord.”

“How long did you know, Seed?” Silk asked, her voice low.

Dapper tapped her hoof lightly. “Not the time, my dear. Don’t let yourself get distracted. Ask your real question.”

Seed paused in setting out the two glasses to glance at Dapper, then Silk. “Surprise me.”

“You know Rosewater better than I do, Seed. Stars, you call her auntie.” Silk swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Her aunt had been sent away by her own mother for being a thorn in her side. “Would… she give up our culture?”

Both of Seed’s brows rose slightly. “Are you asking or is your mother?”

“Me. Stars, Seed, do you think I’d be that direct if I was asking on her behalf?” Silk leaned against the bar-top, making it rock briefly as she slumped and sat hard on the floor, not caring if her dress got wrinkled. “I’m going to get burned for asking if it gets out, dear cousin. She’s already convinced that Rosewater is abandoning us, or at the very least she’s going to tell everypony who will listen that she is.”

“And you want to know if she really is.” Seed glanced at Dapper, then took a breath at some hidden signal from the older stallion. “No. Collar wouldn’t let her, either, if I’m reading him right.”

“He wouldn’t,” Dapper said, bobbing his head.

Silk closed her eyes. “Then what’s she doing?”

“You’ll have to ask her, cousin,” Seed said, judging his pour carefully, glancing at her, and adding a little more before re-corking the bottle. “It’s not my plan, but hers. Enjoy the wine. I’m told it’s very refreshing.”

Silk sighed. “I... I wish I could without looking like I was conspiring with her. Tonight, I mean. I… I want to go home and be able to tell Vine everything will be okay.”

Seed just gave her a look.

That look was asking her why she couldn’t go ask her. Well, why can’t I ask her? She could likely find out what she needed to if she tried to attach herself to Rosewater, too. Enough, at least, to convince Roseate that she wasn’t doing what she was actually doing.

If she actually trusts you enough to…

Silk took a sip of the wine and leaned against the bar a little more, looking around and trying to spot Pleat. Rosewater was easy to find, but Pleat…

“You did a wonderful job on her dress,” Seed offered, mistaking her silent study of Rosewater as she showed off her dress to her new friend as trepidation or perhaps something else. “Petal’s been talking about commissioning one from you.”

“Thank you.” There wasn’t anything more to say. She took another sip of the wine and stood up, straightened her dress, and squared herself off to face Rosewater. Just as Rosewater and Collar laughed at something one of the nobles attending them said and broke away for the dance floor again. “Stars…”

“Mmm.” Dapper nudged her flank with a bob of his hip. “I think, perhaps, you ought to take some time to catch up with your dressmaker friend.”

“Friend? After one night?”

“Don’t discount yourself, my dear. You are more than capable of building a new friendship after one night.” Dapper nudged her again. “We’ve been watching you tonight. You’re quite charming when you want to be.”

“I wasn’t trying to be charming,” Silk said, feeling her ears fall as Rosewater and Collar joined up again for a dance, looking more intimately acquainted than they had before the first dance. Not in their poses, it was hard to be more intimate than nose to nose, forehead to forehead, but in the way they moved together, how familiar they were with each other, and how easily they matched each other. This was a dance they’d practiced together before, and the look of beatific joy on her sister’s face as she spun through the first steps of the slower waltz warmed her heart.

“I hope I can find somepony I can dance with like that,” Silk’s lips said before her mind caught up with her.

Seed startled her by pouring a little more wine in her glass and pushing a bowl of fragrant twists at her. “I think, maybe, you ought to have some salty food before you go back out there.”

“I—” Silk met his eyes, saw the sympathy there that hadn’t been there earlier. Briefly, she wanted to reject it, protect herself from seeming friendly with Seed, even though she desperately wanted to be.

“She’s complaining at Lace,” Dapper said softly in her ear. “You’re safe to be yourself, my dear. Besides, you can claim you were abducted later.”

Silk snorted a laugh and crunched into one of the crispy twists. “What are you talking about? You did abduct me.”

“That was more calming,” Rosewater murmured into Collar’s cheek, parting from him when the music died away. Cheek to cheek for a few minutes, their hooves moving in time to the beat, each of them keeping an eye out for neighbors as they otherwise followed their whims on where they went, sometimes revolving around other dancing partners and sharing a little talk or smiles with the Merriers that joined them, or nodding to Dammers. “We should do this more often.”

“Mmm. Yes, we should.” Collar kissed her cheek, then stiffened when that act seemed to galvanize some of the crowd watching them. He glanced towards the bar where Seed and Petal were apparently playing a game with one of the patrons, though she spotted another pony making their way circumspectly towards the area.

As she watched, Petal broke off to tend to another patron, and the stallion opened his eyes, laughed, and…

“Trouble,” Collar whispered. “That’s Gale. Come on, let’s—”

“My lord, my lady,” Clipper’s voice from behind them just before he came around them, a worried looking Pleat following along behind. “A moment of your time, if you please.”

Collar clearly wanted to hare off and take care of whatever was happening with the Primfeather stallion by Petal and Seed, his eyes flicking from them to Clipper Primwave and back before he settled back slightly and nodded. “Of course, Lord Primwave.”

“I won’t take but a little of your time, but if we could have a bit of privacy, I’d rather have this be between us.” Clipper smiled at Rosewater and bobbed his head. “I quite enjoyed the show, my lady, and I was quite relieved to hear that many of the ponies I approached were at least impressed by your agility, if nothing else.”

“Thank you, Lord Primwave, for your entertaining my little game against my mother,” Rosewater replied with a light laugh as Collar surrounded them with a silence spell, straining to hold it against the swelling music. She lent a touch of power to his spell, shaping it lightly to be more like Crown’s efficient blocking spell. With the two of them working together, he relaxed minutely.

“Unicorn magic has always fascinated me,” Clipper murmured under his breath as the sounds around them faded away. “Is it usually easy to work together?”

“Not usually, my lord,” Pleat said, giving Rosewater a considering eye. “It takes practice, usually. Or long familiarity with each other’s magic.” She took a breath and shook her head. “But that’s besides why I asked Clipper to come with me. We’ve both heard, and corroborated some concerning things with each other, mostly with your mother’s opponents in the opposition houses.”

Cold settled into Rosewater’s guts. This was the uncertain point. The point at which everything could fail and fall apart. “What are they saying?”

“What I warned you would happen if you played your cards too early,” Clipper said with a sigh. “I understand you may have planned it all long aforethought, and I understand the reasons why you thought you had to play your cards here, but the Primfeathers, the Manes, and the Coifs are all trying to sway others to their cause.”

“Not everypony is laughing at them anymore,” Pleat went on, nodding at Clipper’s words and focused on Rosewater. “They’ve long claimed that the Reformations were a way for Lace to surrender power to Merrie, and now… it looks, to some of them, like they have proof. Nevermind the economy and the general lack of suffering. I know—”

“And I.”

“—that Lady Lace’s Reformation was always a way to find a way to end the war without one of us conquering the other. I believe that if your grandmother had not passed when she did we might have seen it come true.”

“I believe it too,” Rosewater said, bowing her head to Pleat. “I… thank you for taking care of my sister tonight. I need to say that first. I need a good thing to come out of tonight, no matter what else comes of it.”

“Of course. It’s clear from talking to her tonight that she loves you as a sister should. And I’m actually glad that you mentioned her. She might be the source of turning aside some of the ponies starting to think that Wing might have a point.”

“No.” Rosewater shook her head. “Stars, she took enough risks making this dress for me.”

“You have no idea how much more of a risk she’s taken for you tonight,” Pleat said softly. “Let her decide. This is her war, too.” She turned and waved her hoof at Silk, trying to look inconspicuous as she sipped at wine and watched the crowd around her until Pleat waved her closer. “We’re trying to make this look like an attempt at reconciliation, so…”

“Reconciliation…” Rosewater closed her eyes, waiting until she heard Silk’s hoofbeats on the floor before adding, “This is dangerous for you, Silk.”

“And it’s not for you?” Silk snorted and stomped closer. “Do you really think I’d let you take all of this on yourself? That’s just like you, just like Carnation to try to do. Stars, she tried to raise you on her own—”

“She didn’t! Stars, she raised me with Budding and Blue Star and Tempest. They all raised me in the Garden tradition, and that was half the reason mother hated me when I was young. She hates the Garden, and she always has since Roseline told her they were their own special rule.”

“Then why did you try to raise Rosemary all on your own? Why did you take that all on yourself if it wasn’t because Carnation taught that to you?”

“Ladies,” Pleat broke in before Rosewater could answer, her ears flat. “Please, I know you said you wanted to play it like a reconciliation, but stars, you’re not supposed to actually fight over your lives. Silk, you had a question for Rosewater, and… honestly, how you answer it is going to influence where I fall.”

“Pleat?” Silk blanched and glanced at the pregnant mare.

“I barely know you, as you said,” Pleat said, “but I consider myself a good judge of character, and I want to get to know your sister. I believe you can both do a good deal of good, but I would be lying if I said some of what Wing said wasn’t starting to make sense to me, too.”

“S-stars…” Silk stared at her. “Is… he really that convincing?”

“He styles himself something of an orator when he gets his nose out of his backside, and he’s not half bad at it when his gander gets up, and with the Garden playing games with his children, he’s not in an especially kindly mood tonight.” Pleat jerked her head towards where the bar was, where Gale wasn’t anymore, and where the young Primfeather Stride stood talking to Petal and Seed, the two of them making placating gestures.

“Stars…” Rosewater shook her head. “They’re not malicious. They’re friendly, and—”

“Oh, I know. They were more than kind to me when I went up, and they were even thoughtful enough to carry something that could give me a taste without endangering my foal.” Pleat snorted and shook her head. “Talk, Silk.”

“What are you doing? I mean… with this. With everything you’re doing tonight. Courting Collar, are… stars, what are you doing? Dapper said Collar wouldn’t let you abandon our way, but I can’t see… stars, I can’t see any other way, Rosewater. They’d never accept you marrying Collar and Dazzle.”

“I’m… not marrying Dazzle,” Rosewater said with a feeling of deeper sadness than she wanted to contemplate. “I can’t, Silk. Not and have my marriage to Collar work. Vine already tore into me over it, and if you think I’m not as torn up, at least as much, then let me tell you another thing. I love him. I love Collar. But if I’m to do what must be done, what needs to be done to end the war…”

“You need to abandon our way of life.” Silk’s voice sounded despondent. “Was there truly no other way, Rosewater? Is mother so in control that the only way you can win is to lose?”

“No.” Rosewater glanced at Collar, who gave her a smile, but nodded towards Silk as if saying it was her decision. “No, Silk. Dapper was right. I’m not abandoning our way of life, but neither is Collar abandoning his. If Merriedamme is going to work, we’re all going to need to compromise. We can’t have a divided city that only works because nopony ever crosses the river. We can’t be afraid of each other. Stars, just the other day, I saw young love blossoming between a Dammer washmare’s daughter and a young stallion of the Garden apprenticed to a vintner. That’s what we need.”

“And… you’re it?” Pleat asked while Silk stared at her.

“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying, to Silk, that Collar and I, and Lace and Dapper have agreed to support an arrangement that suits both Merrier custom and Dammer custom. We’re not having an open marriage like many in Merrie have, but a closed one after the Dammer style. Four of us.” She left out who. Dealing with her being married to her daughter in a public forum was… not the best of ideas. “Cloudy is one of them, and I have been courting her at the same time I’ve been courting Collar.”

“We’re working with the fourth, but we don’t want to make it even secretly public yet,” Collar added, glancing between Pleat and Primwave. “You, my lord, I know understand that compromise is necessary. We’re not giving in. Rosewater is giving up much of her cultural freedom, but I’m also giving up much of my cultural stability.”

Silk’s eyes widened more and more as Rosewater told her what she was doing, her jaw dropping until she started to tear up. “But… Rosewater, stars, you’re giving up more than he is. Stars, mare.”

“We discussed that,” Collar said, glancing from Rosewater to Silk, and then to Primwave. “Obviously we haven’t been able to vet the idea, but…”

“But we’re not ready to share them yet,” Rosewater added, glancing at Collar and shaking her head. “Rest assured, neither of us is giving up anything that would make ponies object too strenuously on either side of the river.”

“Rosewater…” Silk closed her eyes and took a breath. “You know what mother is going to say. That you’re abandoning our way, that you’re preparing to surrender to Damme and force us all to accept the Tussen Twee.”

“I do.” Rosewater winced and glanced at Collar again, closing her eyes. “And… I’m not going to make that easier to disprove for some time, sadly. Suffice to say that… when the time comes, I will show her lies for what they are.”

“But you’re… Rosewater, how long? Stars, you’re not getting married tonight, so you can’t possibly hope to head her off with whatever contract you have.”

Guilt twisted Rosewater’s guts again. In a perfect world, she’d have invited her sisters, all of them, and her friends and other family to witness. She could show Silk the vows they’d written and the contract Lace had prepared that left them a way to open their marriage to others for Cloudy and Rosemary to come into it. She could tell them that as of tonight, she’ll have declared for Collar, but that would reach more ears than she wanted it to too quickly.

It would be Roseate’s suspicion anyway, and any word or rumor that she’d actually done it would send her into an unpredictable and dangerous rage. She might ignore the binding of the Rosewine territory agreement and order her goons to attack the Garden directly.

“I don’t know,” Rosewater said with a deep exhalation. “I don’t, Silk. I’m sorry. A Damme courtship is… lengthy, as Lady Pleat can likely tell you. Months, at best.” Months she’d already gone through tension and doubt and growing certainty. “I promise you, though, I’m not abandoning our way.”

“Nor would I want her to, but my mother is right in stating that we need to be a unified front for a time to reassure ponies in Damme,” Collar added. “We’re not going to be enforcing the Principes. We’re not going to be enforcing the Tussen Twee. What we’re going to do is let ponies decide for themselves. That’s the only way Merriedamme will work. Neither of us can win. We have to come together and decide for ourselves what we want to do with our lives. We’re trying to be the example of that.”

“What you say makes sense,” Pleat said with a sigh. “But that’s not how either of your opponents are going to see it.”

“Since you’ve played your cards,” Clipper added, “you’ll need to be aggressive and push your initial surprise. Tell ponies what you’re telling us. If you have a third or a fourth, bring them out, have them tell their support.”

“It’s Cloudy,” Rosewater said softly. “I’ve been courting her, too.”

“That’s going to give mother conniptions,” Silk replied with a sigh. “But it makes sense. And that upset you put Vine through about Dazzle?”

“I… he knows. He helped us plan this, and he’s going to be a big part of it succeeding.” Rosewater closed her eyes and leaned against Collar. “Collar asked me not to hurt anypony, and I’ve tried my best to keep to that. It’s been hard to navigate the acting to make it seem like I was going to go all in for Collar. I never wanted to hurt him or her. I love both of them.”

Pleat sighed.

“It’s not so bad,” Clipper told her with a jaunty smile. “So long as she stays true to her heart, most of our ponies aren’t going to listen to too much of what the Primfeathers are saying.”

“You hope. Stars. Silk, this… this is what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted to see your sister not abandon your ways. But what the Primfeathers are saying is going to have a push forward, too. You and your mother need to push back against it before it has a chance to take hold.”

“We were going to say something at the closing remarks,” Collar said, glancing towards the knights currently mediating a discussion between Lace, Roseate, and a pony whom presumably had called them over to keep things cool. “Let the fire burn and heat the metal, then strike while it’s still hot.”

“I would suggest doing that sooner than later,” Clipper said. “Ponies will start finding their way out soon and you’ll lose your chance to do some amatuer blacksmithing.”

“He’s right,” Rosewater said aloud, realizing the truth of it. Galas weren’t long affairs, and as long as she was still going to stay, it meant that ponies were going to start leaving within the hour if not sooner. “Stars. Silk, I hate to ask you—”

“I already volunteered by listening to you, dear sister, and while I appreciate your caution, have a thought to how much we’ve endured, too.” She raised a hoof to Rosewater’s breast and pressed lightly. “You can’t be Carnation, Rosewater. You can’t take everything on yourself and get exiled for it. We need you.”

“Then, please. Do what you can with Pleat to downplay what Wing is saying. You know I wouldn’t force my way of life on anypony, and you’ve heard what I want, Pleat. Ponies to decide for themselves.”

“I have. I believe you, my lady. I’ve heard some of who you are from the Guard whose uniforms I burnished for tonight. Some hopeful. Some fearful. Some a mix of both.” Pleat tapped Silk on the shoulder. “Come along. I think I have some idea of whom to start with.”

“Be careful, ‘Water,” Silk said, her smile quirking at the nickname. “I don’t know when we’ll get to talk again like this.”

“It had better be tomorrow,” Rosewater told her with a nip to her cheek. “I need to complain at you about my dress, after all.” She winked and waved her off. “Be safe, and stars watch over you.”

“And I,” Clipper said as soon as they left, “shall go to do battle with the Lady Roseate’s misinformation.” He started off, stopped, and laughed. “You know. This is the most fun I’ve ever had at one of these galas. They’re always so stuffy and boring. Thank you, at the very least, for making things more interesting.”

Collar chuckled and tapped hooves with the older stallion. “Good luck and fair sailing in troubled waters.”

“Aye, thank ye.” Clipper turned to her and raised her foreleg gently with his, bending to kiss it even as he looked up into her eyes. “And you, my fair lady. Please be more open now that you’ve no more secrets to hide. You’ve a beautiful smile, and it would do both cities good to see it more.”

“I will do my best, my lord, and I will remember your kindness tonight. Thank you.”

It was… interesting to fold back into the crowd of Dammers, more of them wanting her opinion on Rosewater than giving it to her, each question full of its own bias against her and her way of life, as if romantic love should automatically be assumed to only apply to two ponies and no more than two.

“What do you think they’re going to do? Is she going to court more ponies alongside him?”

“How long do you think Lord Collar will entertain this fancy of his?”

“When do you think she’ll let him know she’s been seeing that Dazzle fellow?”

“Is she keeping that a secret from him?”

The barrage was nonstop, with only the faintest of pleasantries offered as each new question came at her, before she could even ask any of her own about Collar or what he was like, or what his relationship with Cloudy had been like.

“Ponies, please,” Pleat said, stepping half in front of Silk as another round of questions started before she’d even had a chance to consider what her answers to the first could be. “Let her get a chance to think, please, and don’t expect her to betray her own sister’s trust, even if she doesn’t follow our ways.”

Silence fell over the group for a few precious seconds, letting Silk pull herself together at least a little more fully. “Thank you, Pleat. Stars, ponies, I know you want to know more, but there’s only so much I can say.” Less than you might think, if I’m going to protect my…

She’s going to know what I said earlier. It will get back to her. Unless she hurt Rosewater here, she was… she almost cringed at the direction her thoughts were taking her, where she was afraid she might fall again. They wanted to hear things that would let them hate her, and they were giving her the chance to ingratiate herself to them. It was the same game, but on the other side of the river.

“Rosewater,” Silk said hesitantly, facing the first questioner, “isn’t one to abandon her ideals, but neither is she one to push her ideals on others like our mother. She’s a good pony, just like the mare who raised her, and respects and cherishes your way of life just as much as she loves ours.”

“Debauchery,” somepony muttered from the crowd. “Hedonistic flights of fancy.

“It’s not hedonism!” Silk said more heatedly than she wanted to. “Stars, we fight against it every day with our laws and our togetherness. We watch out for each other, take care of each other, and make sure that we’re all taken care of.” Silk closed her eyes and raised her head, taking a deep breath before opening them again. “I wish I could share with you the openness, the feeling of community that springs out of our way of life. The communal nature of our lifestyle is so welcoming and heartening. I truly wish that I was free to be as open as I could, but… I’m a soldier. Tonight is the first night I didn’t feel like I had that hanging over me when talking to a fellow Merriedammer.”

“Dammer, you mean?”

“Stars, no. That’s what Rosewater means when she talks about togetherness. It’s so much more than winning. We don’t have to win over you. You don’t have to win over us. All we want, all I have ever wanted, is to live a quiet life.” Silk tapped her breast lightly as she turned to face more of the ponies around her. “I don’t want to take away your lifestyle. I admire you for the commitment it takes to stay with one pony for the rest of your lives. I’m not nearly so strong as that. But I don’t have to be. What I lack, my neighbor has, and what she lacks, I have.”

Pleat was nodding slowly. “I… never really thought of it like that. But it makes more sense than what I’ve heard about having nothing but sex all the time. You do have an economy at least equal to ours, and having sex all the time seems hardly conducive to the spirit of… is it hard work or cooperative work?”

“Both. Stars, I’d get nowhere if I didn’t rely so much on my assistants. And if we get done early for the day…” Silk shrugged and let it sit. No need to further disturb her audience. “We help each other with each others’ tasks to get done earlier.”

Pleat startled and looked up at the sound of a shout from across the ballroom floor.

“I desire to leave! It is my right to leave!”

“Oh stars,” Silk muttered.

“Mother,” Rosewater’s voice came clearly over the silence that followed. “Please, this is something important. Collar and I—”

“I care not what madness you get up to! You won’t gain my consent in this union. I’ll not let you surrender Merrie to Damme’s wiles without a fight, and neither will my loyal subjects!”

“Stars above, that’s not what we’re doing! I love Collar, and—”

“Rut him, then, I care not, but you’ll never get my blessing.”

“I don’t need it,” Rosewater said more stiffly, standing up straighter and staring down at her mother. “I was asking because it was the proper Damme tradition.”

“You heard it from her own lips!”

“And Collar and I chose together,” Rosewater went on calmly, “that we would respect both traditions. I, honoring his, and he honoring mine. Though he has yet to ask my other lovers their blessing for my hoof in marriage. It’s our choice.”

Silence reigned in the ballroom for long moments. Wing, thankfully, hadn’t chosen that moment to leap on her calm words. For good reason, as well. It would make him look as reactionary and frankly deranged as Roseate appeared to Silk’s eyes.

“Let her leave if she wishes, please Sir Firelight,” Lace said in a tired voice. “Rosewater made her attempt, and I am satisfied that she has tried to uphold our traditions. I give my blessing, Collar. Rosewater has shown herself to be a right and honorable mare.”

“Princess Celestia’s writ…”

Firelight’s voice was lost for a moment behind a shimmering shield of silver and gold as the stallion conversed quietly with Lace. Roseate waited impatiently, blocked by the Dammeguard politely and extremely nervously watching from their positions guarding the open doors to the hall beyond.

“You’ll not steal our ponies’ way of life from them,” Roseate said in a decent approximation of passionate disapproval. “I won’t let you.”

Stars. She’s still playing up that angle.

After a long, tense silence with Rosewater looking extremely apologetic and embarrassed, Firelight dropped the magical silence, frowning. “You may go, Lady Roseate, but I will be having words regarding your conduct later. There are better times to… address your concerns.”

“I will accept the reprimand if it means I don’t have to watch the city I love be sold out from under us.” Roseate stormed out before Rosewater could respond or, by the looks of it, even decide how she could respond.

“I… apologize, everypony,” Rosewater said loudly enough to be heard over the starting whispered conversations all around the ballroom. “I wished to follow your cultural traditions and get the approval of not only my parent for Collar, but his for me. I am not trying to surrender my way of life, but neither am I trying to say that yours is beneath me. I want to respect your traditions as closely as I may and still keep my identity as a Merrier.”

She waited a theatrical beat, her head bowed for a long moment as if contemplating something profound.

“Not as a Merrier. As a Merriedammer. A citizen of a city united, where choice is free to all of which cultural heritage they wish to follow. Where Merrier and Dammer can live side-by-side in peace, prospering under the shining light of a new dawn that we make for ourselves, where we can all work towards a common good.”

“Stars,” Pleat breathed. “Did she goad her mother to act just so she could say all that?”

Silk stood there for a long moment, staring at her sister and realizing for the first time that she had a chance. Not just saying she had a chance, but believing that Rosewater could succeed. Not win, but she could succeed at her goals.

“No.” Silk took a deep breath and looked at all the ponies around her, waiting for her opinion, eager to hear her say something grandiose or pithy. “Stars, she doesn’t think that curvy. She might have tried to provoke her into saying something stupid, and asking for her blessing definitely qualifies as poking the rabid badger. But to say that? No. That… stars. Merriedamme.”

“What does Merriedamme mean to you, Silk?” Somepony asked. She glanced at him, then back to her sister. “What she said. Working together… stars, where’s Crown? She needs to hear this. She… stars, I want to hope and I want to share it with her.”

Crown rested her cheek against Note’s neck, her hooves stilled as the distant music faded, brought by Note’s tenuous magical connection to the hall and the music flowing outside the library door. Tonight was bliss. Surrounded by books, with her lover holding her close, her mother with no chance of finding her here without fighting her way through the entire Dammeguard contingent in the palace.

“Tonight was perfect,” she murmured.

“Almost perfect,” he replied, leaning back and looking into her eyes. “Your other lovers aren’t here.”

“They’re not yours.”

“Yet. Stars, mare.” He nipped her nose lightly and kissed her lips gently. She’d lost count of how many kisses they’d shared, all ‘in the open,’ in his city, in his home almost. “I’ve been watching you all for half my life, listening to everything you do, and longing for something even half as rewarding for myself, but afraid to admit I wanted more than what anypony in my city would possibly be okay with.”

Crown bit her lip, studying her love, staring into his eyes and looking for anything that said otherwise.

But all she saw was the faint exasperation of his words, no veil of deception in his eyes or his words. He was sincere, or at least as sincere as a Dammer could be without trying it for himself and seeing if it worked for him. Exchanging words in letters was one thing, but actually sharing day-to-day life, loving and sharing all around was another. She’d seen too many Dammers fail at that.

Stars, for a time she’d thought Dazzle, even after a year of living in the Garden, wouldn’t be able to handle so clearly and obviously falling in love with Rosewater. The signs had been clear enough even from the few glimpses of them together she’d had, and that late night rendezvous between them had been so charged and fraught with tension despite her sister’s blocking sound that she’d almost heard his confession anyway simply from the way they looked together.

And now she was here, in her sister’s position, wondering if her lover could be not only with her, but also Crisp and Gilded.

It came down to the same decision she was almost certain Rosewater had to have made. Either she trusted him or she did not.

“I trust you to know your own heart,” Crown said at last. “I trust you to tell us if you have any doubts or worries. I love you, Note, and it worries me every moment that we’ll be another one of the romances across the river that ultimately end without… without any…”

“You’re not Frosty Rosewing, and neither are you your mother. We’ll make it out on the other end, love. We will. Somehow we’ll find a way to make it work.” Note kissed her again, letting it linger as her eyes slipped closed, sharing more than breath, but hope for a future together, and not just together but with others they both loved.

When he broke away, she was breathing more heavily, her cheeks flushed and leaving her wishing that Crisp and Gilded were there with her to share the moment with him.

But they were not, and could not be until they’d solved the thorny problem of Roseate ordering her to capture him.

Would that she could tell Roseate that she’d already been captured by him and be with him openly and without reservation, take her loves and her books and her clients with her to Damme and set up to live a quiet life selling, reading, and writing books with her loves.

“I want it,” Crown whispered hoarsely. “Stars, I want our own place to be, surrounded by all that we love. Books and scrolls, friends and lovers, free…” Her throat tightened as an image of that dream came to her, late in the autumn, a fire in the hearth warming her flank on one side, a lover at her other sharing in the same warmth. The wind outside might be cold and fierce, the first real snow that would stick around until the next year already coming down in thick, gusting waves of white.

On stage, Gilded Page would be reciting a poem of her own to a small crowd of friends sipping warm mulled wine or warm cider, or ale, or…

“We’ll have it, love. All the things I see swimming in your eyes, beauty and friendship, love and peace.”

“Soon?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Sooner than you fear, but not so soon as you hope.” Note pulled her in for another embrace, holding her close. “I wish you could stay the night.”

“Me too.” But all she could manage was this time, alone with him and away from eyes that would warn her mother that she had already failed her mission. She would have to tell her sometime that she failed, but it was her sincere hope that she could wait until she was on the other side of the river. On this side of the river. With everypony that her mother could strike back at already also safely away.

“You did mention you wanted me to come to the Librarium… and I’ve been giving that some thought since you mentioned it.”

“You have? You didn’t mention it before now, why? Why not when I made that quip earlier?” Crown pulled back just enough to see the amusement in his eyes flash briefly.

“I wanted to save it for either a surprise… or when you needed a pick-me-up.” He nipped her nose and laughed at her faux-sour expression. “Come now. I need to keep a twist in my saddlebags at all times or you might get bored.”

“I would not!” Crown nipped his cheek, laughing, and leaned close. “So… tell me, my intriguing and not at all boring stallion… what’s this brilliant idea of yours?”

Book 2, 49: Gala, Conclusion

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“Good evening, everypony.” Firelight stepped out onto the edge of the raised dais, surveying the ponies that had stayed past the mandatory attendance period. Quite a few more than had been there during the summer gala, and it was heartening and exciting to see the changes that had gone on since that tense gala. “Tonight brings to mind a story Princess Celestia once told me about the moment she knew the Battle of Two Nights was almost over.”

Ponies stopped their talking to turn ears to him, and even the Primfeathers stopped their quiet proselytizing of other Damme nobles to pay attention to his words. The Battle was an event of mythic proportions, and still entered into mythologizing despite Her Highness’s attempts to maintain the accuracy of the records.

“A week before the Long Night was over, she said there was a tension to the air over her soldiers, not a feeling of impending doom, but that of a veil ready to tear and unveil a hidden wonder.” He tipped his head to Wandering Star. “It was something she said she felt before Wandering Star and I were assigned here.”

He held his breath for a moment, seeking out the two faces in the crowd that had finally let him feel that same tension and nodded to them.

“Tonight, I felt that for the first time. When I saw Lord Collar and Lady Rosewater dancing together, laughing together, and enduring the trials of facing their own ponies with their decision to set aside their past animosity—even personal animosity, as I understand—and look past what they knew about each other, I felt it, and I encourage all of you here to examine the reasons why you object to their courtship and if it makes sense.”

Tonight, he could feel it. His task, inherited from a line of ponies that included Rosewater’s own father, who’d stood watch for his five year stint here, was close to an end, and he could see Blue Star’s dream for the end come true. He’d read the old stallion’s logs as soon as he’d known whom he’d sired, and wished he’d had a chance to read his last testament.

Blue Star was a legend in the knighthood, and his daughter was a fascinating mare, both in who she was and what she’d done with her life.

“This night, Celestia believed, would let you come together and see that you’re not what you thought of each other before. It has taken time, as it has since the War of the Long Night, for ponies to see that the past does not speak to what you can achieve in the future, and I am glad that I’ve been here to see it.”

Wandering Star took that as her cue to step up to the front of the stage. “There is still work to do, but these first steps are important on the road to a united Merriedamme, and I, too, am excited to see them being taken. Some of you have heard some… terrible things tonight. I ask, in the interest of putting the past behind, that all of you think about tonight and what Lady Rosewater and Lord Collar have shown. We’re not here to tell you what to do, we’re observers and peacekeepers, moderators in a discussion that has gone on for centuries now.

“My office has always been open, as has Firelight’s, and I encourage you to take advantage of our experience as students of Princess Celestia and her long experience to discuss what comes next, how to adapt, and how to make friends and forge lasting relationships across the river that’s divided you ideologically and physically. We have experience with that in rebuilding our nation, and we would want to see you united, even if you choose not to join us in a union of nations.”

Wandering Star had stayed closer to the speech that Celestia expected them to deliver at every gala than he had, and she gave him a little smirk as she turned back away. Something that she would tell Celestia and he would have to endure her teasing for.

“Thank you all for staying as late as you have. As is tradition, now is the time for open questions of Her Highness’s representatives.”

Also on cue, Rosewater stepped up, raising her head and a hoof to tap lightly on the stage before anypony else could muster a question. “I know it’s late, and I know it’s outside the treaty bounds, but I want to tell my daughter that I’m courting Collar before it has a chance to get back to her through lips not my own. She deserves to hear it from me.”

“Of course, my lady. I would also like to check on both of Lady Lace’s prisoners and ensure they’re receiving the best care despite their long incarceration.” Firelight glanced at Wandering Star, practically vibrating where she stood. “Does anypony else have any questions?”

Cloudy flicked her ears and tried to pay attention to the cards tucked into her feathers. It was very hard, though, with Rosemary’s ears perked and her breathing quavering as she tried not to laugh at the comical face Thistle wore while examining his hoof of cards.

“I can lend you a few—”

“I am not going to lose!” Thistle rumbled hoarsely.

“You’re going to lose,” Coat whispered in his husband’s ear. “Look at that face. So serious.”

“I’m not. Now stop bothering me.” Thistle flicked his ear and set aside two cards. “Raise two petals.”

“Stars, this isn’t poker. It’s petals.” Cloudy rolled her eyes but discarded two cards. “I’ll raise you two. And pay in ten to get my kiss, Rosemary.”

Thistle’s cheeks heated, but he didn’t react as Rosemary leaned in, her eyes locked on Cloudy’s. She let her eyes linger on his for a moment only before she closed them and settled into the warm kiss, her fourth this evening bought mostly on teasing Thistle into giving up what his cards were.

“You’re not going to get me this time,” Thistle growled.

“You say that,” Coat replied lightly as he doled out the four cards, “and yet you’ve only bought one kiss from me tonight.”

“I was saving up for two. Besides, this is… I don’t understand the rules all that well.” He glanced at Rosemary, raising a brow, then sighed and flicked an ear. “Can you give me some advice?”

“Hey, no fair!” Cloudy cried.

“It’s not my fault she checked out early for cuddling.”

“Fold,” Rosemary said with a grin and a wink. “Cloudy’s got a solid hoof that’ll be hard to beat.”

“Not helpful.”

Cloudy felt it first when Rosemary raised her head minutely and sniffed at the air. When her marks glowed as she took a deeper breath and closed her eyes, even Thistle went quiet.

“They’re coming,” Rosemary said, her voice quavering with excitement. “Rosewater and Collar and…” She raised her head and sniffed more deeply still, gathering the air around her muzzle as she rose along with Cloudy and moved to a position by her bed. “Sunrise and Platinum and Lace and Dapper. And… I don’t recognize those two.”

“That will probably be the Knights,” Cloudy said, testing the air and smelling only a confused crowd of ponies with Rosewater and Collar foremost in her recognition. “Coat, you have your witness book?”

“Aye.”

“Oh my stars, this is happening,” Thistle said nervously standing and trying, briefly, to bring order to the cluster of food and drink Coat had brought from the vendor hall. “Stars, is this really happening? Coat, help.”

“Calm,” Coat said, using a spell to neaten the tray while Rosemary pulled together the rest of the room and settled the bed back into order. “This is expected, and we planned for this, remember?”

The tawny-coated earth pony bobbed his head and nodded, stepping back and tending to his own appearance with hooves and lips. “I know, but, stars… it was enough of a surprise when you sprang it on me.”

“Then imagine how surprised I was when a mare I had known as an enemy combatant only was to become my lord’s wife and mother to his child in the same night.” Coat said with a glance at Cloudy. “I was certain it was going to be you, eventually.”

“I know.” Cloudy offered him a small smile and checked again her log book, the entry for tonight already there in as good a hoof as she could manage, but not marked completed yet. It was the first entry in her book, the most important one not only on Rosewater’s journey, but what Cloudy imagined would be her journey to becoming a mother. Her journey to marrying Rosemary as she’d so often dreamed of. “I’m sorry, Coat. We wanted to tell more ponies, but not until we had more than a vague hope of a plan.”

“It’s still a vague hope of a plan,” Rosemary whispered in her ear as she settled the comforter down and arranged the pillows with a swift spell, then set about fluffing and rearranging the pillows they’d all lain on, remaking her bed-nest of pillows.

“Stars, I know.” Cloudy felt a moment of trepidation flitter through her. If Roseate snapped, there might not be a second chance, but if they could keep her distracted and unknowing for long enough, they might be able to make it. “But it’s the only way I can see forward.”

“Yeah.” Rosemary nipped her cheek lightly. “But… it’s happening. Mom’s getting married!”

“Very exciting for you,” Coat said gently, smiling and bobbing his head. “I’m glad you’re here for it, Rosemary.”

“And I,” Cloudy murmured against her cheek just as the door shook lightly, then Dapper’s graying muzzle poked through a crack in the door.

“You’re not doing anything I wouldn’t be doing, are you?”

“Dapper!” Lace’s exasperated voice sounded just behind his. “There are still guests here.”

“Ah. My apologies for any prudes that might be trying to listen in, then,” Dapper said with a smirk before he opened the door more widely and stuck his head in. “Seriously, though, is everything ready?”

“What do we need to get ready for?” Cloudy asked, leaning aside to try and get a look at Rosewater. She and Rosemary had watched them all trickle in, but from the second floor it had been hard to get good angles before they disappeared behind the bulk of the palace. “We’ve been playing Petals and getting to know each other all night while you—”

Cloudy’s words fell away when Rosewater poked her head around the door jamb, her crown glittering ruby and sapphire in the light from the myriad lamps around the room. She’d had some makeup on her cheeks, on her eyelids, and when her gaze swept over them, her smile burst into radiance.

Stars, it felt like a month or more since she’d seen her, and a part of her wanted to leap to her and throw her forelegs around her, but Lace’s reminder was right. There were guests out in the main hall still, their voices carrying inconstantly down the way in distant flickers of sound.

“Cloudy, Rosemary, it’s so good to see you again,” Rosewater’s voice came rich with emotion, thick with it as she picked her way past Dapper and bobbed her head briefly to Coat and Thistle. “Coat, Thistle. Thank you for entertaining my daughter and my lover tonight. I wish they, and you, could have joined us.”

Cloudy’s hackles prickled and her pinion feathers twitched. More was there behind the words than what Rosewater had told them she’d planned for, but there was so much she couldn’t have in the past hectic week of preparations and discord on both sides of the river.

“You look radiant,” Rosemary whispered, her eyes tracking over the dress and her mother’s mane and tail. “Stars…” She flicked a look at Cloudy, then at the other ponies in the room and behind in the hallway beyond. “Mother.”

“They all know,” Rosewater said somberly, closing her eyes for a moment and glancing behind her, then stepping forward to let Collar join her in the doorway and lean against her. “Roseate knew, and I had to tell them before she used it against me. So… they all know, Rosemary. We don’t have to hide anymore. We can’t.”

Cloudy’s eyes flitted to Collar, resplendent in his full regalia with the crown on his brow glittering in counterpoint to Rosewater’s, and leaned against her in support of her. They were closer than they had been before, open with affection to each other, and there was a not-so-subtle return lean from her.

“It had to happen,” Rosemary said after a long moment, stepping away from Cloudy, then back towards her as Rosewater and Collar came farther inside at the gentle clucking tongue of Lace behind them. “Stars, I’m not sure how… this is…”

“It will be crowded,” Lace said as she slipped in behind Collar and Rosewater as they shuffled in closer, Rosewater settling in beside Rosemary and nuzzling her lightly. “But we need all of these ponies as witness to tonight’s events so it will be undisputed.”

Cloudy settled in closer to Collar as he awkwardly backed himself in beside Rosewater, his tail flicking and ears flat as Firelight and Wandering star came in, pushing Coat and Thistle closer to the bathing room.

“It’s useful that you moved your bed against the wall,” Cloudy murmured around two ponies to Rosemary. Her wings felt tight as Sunrise and Platinum came in, followed by Poppy leading Glory. “Stars, I don’t think we have room for more if…”

“We have room,” Lace said calmly. “The other two rooms can see what will happen if ponies stand close to the door. “Be calm, everypony. We have a few things to discuss before we can start.”

Cloudy hesitated, then reared up and rested one hoof on Collar’s back, looking around the room at all the faces gathered to watch the union of her lovers. Some looked back at her with trepidation and worry. Even Lace gave her a worried look as the mare settled in beside the door as it closed.

I have to say something.

Even Rosewater was looking to her as if she expected her to say something.

Because some might view her as poaching from me. Not everypony here knew that she was courting Rosewater as well, or that Cloudy and Rosemary were lovers. She imagined the knights knew the least of the situation.

“Um. So…” Cloudy cleared her throat. “I’m not really one for speeches or big plays, but…”

“One moment, dear,” Lace said gently, her horn flaring. “Sir Spark, Lady Star? Would you consent to me silencing the room?”

“Of course, Lady Lace,” Wandering Star said, bobbing her head briefly. “And thank you.”

“Of course.”

“Stars…” Cloudy swallowed as Lace spread her magic through the gemstones in the corners of the room. “Sorry, my lady. I’m… anxious.”

“Of course you are. You’re about to stand witness to your lover being married.” Lace cocked her head and held one ear up. “You can give your speech now, my dear.”

Cloudy closed her eyes and accepted a nuzzle from Collar, then a surprise one from Rosewater across his back. “I, um. Stars, put me on the spot.”

“You put yourself on the spot,” Rosemary said with a soft chuff of a laugh.

“Fine. I approve of this marriage. For anypony that was worried that I was being set aside, you’re wrong. Collar has made sure I know that he’s not setting me aside, and Rosewater has, too.” Cloudy met the eyes of everypony in the room, looking for uncertainty or concern, pausing briefly on Platinum and Sunrise, two ponies brought in at the final hour out of necessity of trusting them.

They would be Rosewater’s initial escorts to ensure that the requirement of documenting her movements and whether she was alone with anypony else.

Sunrise flicked a look at Rosewater and bit her lip for a long moment before she nodded firmly, standing straighter and meeting Cloudy’s gaze again. “I have no problem with this. I’ve always thought it unfair to those that come to us from Merrie that they couldn’t practice their culture here.”

Platinum merely nodded. “I know, Cloudy.” She flashed a cocky smile. “I mean, I did help you break the law already. What’s one more, eh?”

Cloudy laughed and flicked one ear when Lace shot her an exasperated look. “It was a minor law, my lady. I assure you it wasn’t even close to illegal in Merrie.”

“Stars help me,” Lace muttered. “And to think you remind me more of Dapper each and every day.”

Dapper cackled. “Love and crime together. I love it.”

Cloudy chuckled and winked at him. “I think this counts as a conspiracy to commit crime, right?”

Firelight rolled his eyes and nudged Wandering as she started snickering. “We didn’t hear anything. We’re here to hear the vows of the betrothed and recognize the marriage. Since you can’t really do that publicly without giving away your entire plan. Right?”

“Exactly so,” Collar said with a sigh and a look at Cloudy. “Thank you, love. I promise, we’ll make this right as quickly as we can.”

“I know.” Cloudy kissed his cheek, then his lips. “Until then, I want you to enjoy marriage to one mare. I want you to embrace this marriage, Collar, and abide by it. Let’s not give Wing any more ammunition.”

His somber smile hurt, but he nodded and faced forward.

Collar worked free the ring on his horn, twisting it to get it free of the ridges of his horn, the crown floating with it for a moment before it left the passive aura of magic around his horn. Immediately, the faint strain left his horn, and he caught the crown before it could bonk him on the head like it had the first time he’d worn it.

Rosewater, beside him, had an easier time of it. Lifting the ring off her horn only made the thin silver metal of the crown wobble a little before she gave it to Rosemary. “I know I can’t take the ring home with me,” she said as her daughter worked the ring free of the hooks gently. “But I… I would like to wear it here, in private.”

“My dear, it’s my son’s to give to whomever he wishes, and of course you may wear it here. You may take it with you, if you want,” Lace said. “That he chose to give his grandmother’s wedding ring to his first wife is poetic and fitting. The last of the Prim raider regime to the first peaceful heir of Merrie.”

“It is,” Collar murmured, nuzzling her cheek. “I want you to take it with you. Wear it in private, love. Get used to it on your horn.”

Rosewater closed her eyes and leaned into him, then stood up straighter and stamped a hind hoof. “I’ll wait a few weeks to take it home and wear it openly. It will show that our romance is moving along faster than some might like, but it is moving along the lines ponies would expect for a Dammer marriage. Courtship, proposal, and then a long planning period before the marriage, and with winter coming…”

Collar chuckled. “Clever. Yes, let’s do that. Will you be ready… well, I suppose we won’t know until you do, will we?”

“No, we won’t,” Rosewater purred. “But… we can’t tonight, can we?”

“Nay,” Firelight said, breaking in with a step forward, then back. “Tonight is not the night to start your… carnal attempts. We must record the wedding in our logbooks for it to be accurate, and while I admit there are enough witnesses here, I daresay that if you were to get pregnant from tonight, the very fact that until tonight you were effectively uncelibate in the eyes of the law would pose questions. At least insofar as I understand the law in Merrie.”

“You have the right of it,” Wandering Star said with a sigh. “It’s one of the few restrictions on inheritance that I actually kind of do agree with on the Merrie side of the river. It has and does cause problems for ledgers, but we do get the occasional request to register a child by declaring and tracking, and it’s actually required for inheriting a certain amount of land… but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“It’s actually rather interesting to learn,” Platinum said in a musing tone, ticking an ear and glancing at Rosewater again. “I can see why it’s been so hard to find a mate in Merrie if your mother has interfered with every attempt for you to find one willing to undergo that.”

“Stars…” Rosewater shook her head and flattened her ears. “Not tonight, Platinum, please.”

“Oh.” The mare flattened her ears in apology and dipped her head. “Sorry. Of course, I’d love to hear more later about what goes on.”

“Feel free to drop by any time, my dear,” Wandering star said with a grin. “We get so few Prims interested in the laws of Merrie that sometimes I have to send my secretaries in just to dust the place. But! Stars. Are we ready?”

“We will be in just a little while, I hope,” Collar said, glancing at the door. “We’re just waiting for Seed and Petal, I believe. They were still finalizing some deals, I believe, and… I think enough time has passed for you to give me a request to see them, dear Rosemary.”

“Collar!” Rosemary reared up and embraced her mother’s neck, using it as leverage to lean over her and nip at his neck. “You could have told me that was an option!”

“Surprise, lovely,” Collar said, dancing away and forward, slipping between Lace and Dapper to the door, evading most of her playful wrath. But not a tweak to his tail from a spell. “I thought you might enjoy the shock of it.”

He danced out of the room to her laughter, and felt colder when it cut off abruptly past the silencing of the spell. A glance back at her smiling, laughing expression and Rosewater’s equally delighted look was enough to salve the loss, and the sound of the Dammeguard and vendors engaging in breaking down their stalls and setting off was a reminder, too, that the night was still very young for most of these ponies.

“My lord,” one of the guards at the entrance to the ballroom said. “Is everything in order?”

“It is. We had a request to see family from Rosemary. Seed and Petal. Are they still here?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Thank you.”

The interior of the ballroom was all but empty, with just a few pockets of nobility hanging about and talking to each other. The Primfeathers were still there, as far from the wine table as was possible to be without crossing the Merrie-Damme divide, where a few Merrie nobility were talking with Clipper Primwave still, the shipping magnate talking animatedly and likely telling one of his seafaring stories to his apparently rapt audience.

More than a few connections had been made tonight and, he hoped, the start of a solid foundation for Merriedamme when the time came to unify the city at last.

Petal and Seed were loading up a pair of small carts in their corner with the barrels, and the stock of wine barrels and bottles they’d brought seemed more compact now that it was packed into the honeycomb crates and stacked seemingly precariously, though the bar-top extended the bed of the they’d used as a part of the bar, the wheels and nature of the supporting structure hidden by the cloth they’d draped with the flag mark of the Garden of Love and the flag of Merrie.

“Seed, Petal,” Collar said, bowing his head to them briefly when they looked up from their deconstruction efforts. “I trust tonight was everything you hoped it would be?”

“More than, my lord,” Petal said diplomatically. “We made several deals, I believe, that will more than make up for the losses we incurred lately.”

“And we’ve made a new friend,” Seed said with a broad grin. “And you, my lord?”

“Actually, I’m a bit under a time crunch, but when visiting Rosemary, she asked if it would be possible to see the two of you tonight. Since, you know, you are both here.” Collar watched as realization flickered through both of them at what he was actually saying flittered through them. “Neither Firelight nor Wandering had an issue with letting you see her, as it is unusual for such a long incarceration, and family visits were never explicitly encoded in the laws of prisoners of war.”

Petal beamed. “Of course. We’d love to see her. Seed has dearly missed his cousin and partner in crime since… well, since she started making herself more scarce.” She coughed and glanced at Seed. “We’ve wanted to talk to her since she was taken.”

“Don’t get us wrong,” Seed said, glancing at his wife. “We’re grateful for the care you’ve taken of her.”

“She has been a pleasure to have here, forced guest or not. I wish the circumstances of her stay were different, and that she could have more freedom.” Collar waved at a guard close to the door. “Can you please keep an eye on their belongings? We may be gone for some time. It’s been months since they’ve seen Rosemary.”

The guard, a burly earth pony, glanced from him to Seed and Petal, saluted and nodded. “Of course, my lord.”

“And feel free to sample some of the goods,” Seed quipped at the guard as they all started to move away. “The less we have to take home, the easier the trip.”

Collar laughed and nodded to the incredulous guard. “It’s a party, Dust. Have a little fun tonight after us stuffy nobles had our fun.”

“Yes, my lord!”

“Stars, Seed,” Petal grumbled as they left the hall. “You could have given me some warning. I was hoping we’d be able to celebrate a little tonight at the Garden.”

“Who says we can’t?” Seed shot back, prancing more than a little as he kept up with Collar’s longer stride. “I’m definitely in a celebratory mood.”

“Emphasis on ‘brat,’” Petal muttered despite the grin on her lips. “Alright, alright. I’ll say we can break out one of the new vintages when we get home, along with whatever we have left.”

“If you have anything left,” Collar added. “My ponies are used to Dammerale.”

“And?” Seed raised a brow. “Our wine is as strong as your Dammerale. I’d propose a drinking contest sometime between you and Lady Rosewater, but I suspect I already know the outcome of that.” He raised his other brow and gave Collar a suggestive grin.

“Seed!” Petal swatted her husband’s flank with her tail and pranced ahead a few steps. “I apologize for him, but—”

“He’s not entirely wrong. I suspect he does know the eventual outcome of such an endeavor. Though perhaps not who would come out on top.”

Seed fell back half a pace, his jaw slack before he bellowed a laugh and caught up again with even more of a bounce in his step. “You surprise me, Lord Collar.”

“I’ve surprised a lot of ponies tonight,” Collar said faux indignantly, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t treat Rosewater’s cousin any differently.” He nodded to the guards watching them, one blushing and trying not to look at him, the others confused but at least looking amused. “We’ll be a little while. It’s a family reunion of sorts.”

“Of course, my lord,” the sergeant in charge of the group of privates and corporals said, her eyes dancing away from his as her cheeks heated more deeply red. “We’ll file it in the logbook as such.”

“Thank you, and Sergeant Comb, I assume, as per usual, that rumors of my ability to drink Rosewater under the table will be around the barracks by the end of the night?” Collar laughed at her further blush, and nudged her foreleg lightly. “I apologize for teasing, but tonight is a night I am in especially high spirits.”

The sergeant glanced at her guards, then nodded, her blush fading. “It’s good to see you in high spirits, my lord.”

“Does she love you?” Another guard asked, her eyes wide as she stared at him. Her uniform said she was a private first class, and her coloration and cutie mark said she was one of Poppy’s distant cousins at least.

“Parsnip!”

Collar raised a hoof at Sergeant Dovey Comb’s objection as the name gave him who she was. “Primbloom Parsnip, right?”

The young mare, likely barely old enough to join the Dammeguard, bobbed her head vigorously once.

“She does, Ms. Parsnip. I assure you, I wouldn’t court her if there were only political motivations. I am not my grandfather, nor my grandmother. We’re still exploring each other’s feelings, but…” Collar reached out and touched her shoulder. “I’m also not abandoning Cloudy. I know she means a lot to all of you, and I would never hurt her intentionally. I never would have started courting Rosewater without her consent and support.”

“But—”

Collar could feel Petal and Seed fairly vibrating behind and beside him as the young guardsmare struggled with the idea.

“She’s a Merrier at heart, Ms. Parsnip. Or, I should say, a Merriedammer. Her heart is in both cities, and this was the choice she made. And this is the choice I made. Lady Rosewater said it best that it’s up to every pony to choose their own path through life, not to have it mandated by one side of the river or the other.” Collar studied the other guards looking alternately at each other or at him, all of them clearly uncertain of how to feel. “All of you, if you take nothing else away from tonight, let it be that.”

Parsnip bobbed her head in a more subdued manner, as did the rest of the squad of guards. “O-of course, my lord. I meant nothing by… it just came out and I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Calm, Private,” Collar said, chuckling. “I mean to address the Dammeguard later about this development, but I’m glad to speak to anypony. Tonight, I’m reuniting a family for just a little while, but I’ll be announcing a talk with the Guard within the week.”

“O-of course, my lord.” The mare flattened her ears and gave her sergeant a sheepish smile as Collar moved on and up the stairs to Rosemary’s suite.

Opening the door, he found Rosewater laying half on the bed, Cloudy half draped over her while Rosemary gesticulated with her hooves and ponies laughed silently on the other side of the doorway and spell.

Rosewater looked to him, her eyes sparkling with mirth and flicked an ear backwards just as Cloudy rolled over and threw her hooves in the air, mouth open in howling laughter.

“Stars…” Seed swallowed, stepped forward, stopped, and glanced at Collar. “I can go in?”

“I wouldn’t have you sit out here and stare at her, Seed. Go in and say hello.”

“So, the second time I snuck out,” Rosemary said, glancing at Rosewater as her mother rolled her eyes and made a gesture to go on. “I asked her if she could get me another cushion and a blanket, because I wanted to lay down and read and it was cold.”

“Oh stars,” Rosewater muttered, rolling her eyes and covering her muzzle with a foreleg. “Rosemary, please, I fear I shan't recover!”

“Oh, let her tell the story,” Cloudy murmured, giving Rosemary a wink and a small flick of her wing. “I want to hear how she finally tricked the observant, super-serious Ms. Mom Teacher into letting her run free.”

“I didn’t sneak out right away. She was wise to that tactic, and I was old enough to know it. Instead… I sat there for a few minutes and read like I was supposed to until Seed—”

“Distracted Auntie Rosewater with a kerfuffle down the hall from where she was keeping watch and doing her own homework,” Seed exclaimed, his voice alone making her jump and spin around to stare at her near-brother and his wife. “And then, while Rosewater was distracted, she put the extra pillow under the blanket and snuck out the window!”

“S-Seed!” Rosemary launched herself at him, catching him around the shoulders and nuzzling him from cheek to neck as he pranced in a circle to absorb the impact. “Stars, I… I hoped, because you were here, but I didn’t… I didn’t… know if you’d left already.”

“We’re here, trouble,” Seed murmured in her ear, pulling her close and stroking a hoof down her side. “We didn’t know if Lord Collar could manage it without it looking extremely suspicious. But he’s sneakier than I thought he was.”

“I’m sneakier than most of you think I am,” Collar grunted, nipping Rosemary’s ear as he passed. “Sneaky enough that most of you don’t think I’m sneaky at all.”

“He’s lying,” Cloudy called from the bed. “He’s about as sneaky as a thunderclap.”

“I don’t know,” Rosewater murmured musingly. “Thunderclaps can be pretty sneaky. Especially when you close your eyes so you can’t see the lightning.”

“Excuse you?” Collar huffed and nipped Rosemary’s ear.

“Excuse you!” Rosemary leapt up from Seed to wrap Collar’s neck and nip his ear. “What did I do?”

“You were closer,” Collar laughed, staggering as he bent his head towards her. “But to the point, he can’t be here for very long. I made it known that I was reuniting family to the guards, and they’ll do the job of spreading the reason better than if I’d announced it.”

Rosemary’s ears drooped, but she nodded. “Can… can he stay for a little while after the ceremony?”

“A little while, sure.” Collar glanced at Seed. “How much of your stock did you want to put to good use?”

Petal opened her mouth, and Rosemary could see the argument brewing there before it fell away in a smile. “All of it, my lord. However long it takes to empty the last cask. As Seed says, the less we have, the easier it will be to carry it home.”

“Then I think we can let it be an hour or so afterwards,” Collar said, tipping his head and nuzzling Rosemary’s cheek. “You have the ring, love?”

“It didn’t really fit in the crown’s hooks,” Rosemary said raising both the diadem with the silver chains reattached to the original silver ring and the golden ring with the thicker band decorated with tiny sapphire chips around the rim and the words of Damme chiseled in tiny letters wrapping around them. “It’s a beautiful ring, Collar.”

“And you’ll have one like it, if that’s the style you like, Rosemary,” Collar promised her. He glanced at Rosewater, then at the other ponies around them. “I know the laws of Merrie and Damme both prevent Rosemary from joining us in lawful wedding until her twenty-first birthday, but she will be joining us when the law allows. She and Cloudy were lovers before Cloudy and I, and had plans to marry before Cloudy’s ouster. I won’t break up that relationship, nor does Cloudy wish to break away from me.”

“That makes things rather complicated on the side of the vows,” Lace said, stepping forward and bowing her head. “It’s my duty to approve of the vows of my heir to ensure they conform to the laws of the land. In this case… I must make exception to my duty and approve vows that explicitly fly in the face of our laws in the hope that they will change. To that end, I ask that this marriage be recorded under the Seal of the Sun, and ask that the Crown of Canterlot recognize an… unusual set of vows.”

“Are you attempting to circumvent your laws?” Firelight asked calmly, looking unconcerned by the severity of the question.

“No. Rather, we are asking that my son’s marriage be recorded in the style of Merrie, but obviously the one that would register such a marriage is hostile to the union.” Lace snorted and glanced at Rosewater. “Thank you for making that a matter of public record, by the way.”

Rosewater snorted. “I didn’t provoke her on purpose. I meant every word of what I said, and if she had blessed our union, even sarcastically, I would have taken it as approval.” That sly look Rosemary knew so well came back a second later. “Not that I didn’t know the answer long before.”

“Then, with the power vested in me by Princess Celestia as her chosen representative, I will agree to witness your wedding under the Seal of the Sun with the vows you have chosen to follow the Merrie tradition.”

“With modifications!” Rosemary blurted, then blushed and wormed her way through the crowded room to her desk, where she pulled out the scroll she and Cloudy and Collar had been working on with the sporadic input from Rosewater ever since they’d decided on their course of action. “We have some modifications. Namely, it’s not a completely open marriage. But neither is it completely closed. It’s more like a formalization of the social niceties of Merrie culture where lovers are… vetted is the best word, before they enter the relationship.”

“She’s spent a lot of time working on them,” Collar said, nuzzling her ears when she came back with the scroll. “If we succeed in this endeavor, then they are the same vows she and Cloudy will speak when they join us.”

“They’re not really written into Merrie’s laws,” Rosemary said, ears flat as she offered the scroll to a curious looking Firelight Spark. “They were me writing down what’s normal for couples when they’re considering expanding their family to other members, either as full marriage or as lovers or occasional partners or surrogates for foals.”

She watched as Firelight read over the vows and the addenda and the copious notes she’d taken while she and Cloudy had talked over the unspoken rules of Merrie, sometimes with Collar learning the history, sometimes with Rosewater offering her own interpretation.

Wandering, reading over his shoulder, bobbed her head periodically, smiling and whispering in Firelight’s ear whenever he seemed confused over some piece.

“This is an interesting set of vows,” Firelight said at last, both brows raised. “I can see it’s a blending of Dammer mores in some senses, but it takes in its main form the ways of Merrie. You’ve seen the vows, my lady?”

“I have. I’m prepared to defend the decision against our current laws, as the law doesn’t specifically disallow a marriage from being declared as ‘open’ so long as the marriage is not functionally open. Meaning so long as they don’t invite others to take part in their marriage, it’s not an open marriage.”

Rosemary beamed and reared up to set a hoof on Collar’s back. “That was the key to getting around Frosty’s Law. It prevents polyamorous marriages, but the way we wrote the vows and the binding, it’s only polyamorous if Collar and Rosewater agree it is. And they’re not going to agree it is until after we’ve defeated Frosty’s Law!”

“I see you’ve spent your time well,” Firelight murmured, reading over the vows again.

“I’m sure the librarian thinks I’m getting ready to argue my own case for release before the court with as many legal books I’ve been asking for from the library.” She waved at the writing desk with a hoof. “I had to do something or I’d currently be standing on the ceiling and wondering why all you weird ponies were in my dimensional space.”

Firelight snorted but nodded. “Very well. In the interest of keeping your sanity, I will recommend to Lady Lace that you have more time outside your cell. Given the length of both your and Glory’s tenure, I’m going to write formal recommendations that your sentences be made more lax despite the laws requiring confinement. Long-term incarceration for non-violent combatants is… cruel.”

Rosemary’s heart skipped a beat. “I… I can go outside more? I can… maybe I can go to the city?”

“I can make the request,” Firelight said, his ears dipping. “It’s up to Lady Lace’s legal experts to find the limit to which your laws can be stretched, but if you are kept in too much confinement… it’s unjust, in my eyes, but I am only an observer.” He ruffled the scroll again. “But for tonight, thank you for providing the vows for our records.”

“I think we can manage letting you out to the city on special occasions,” Lace said as she stepped off to the side and tapped a hoof on the floor. “Rosemary, would you stand with me as witness for Rosewater?”

“I-I will.” Rosemary swallowed and settled in beside Lace, taking the place beside the mother of the groom that Rosewater’s mother should have been even as Seed joined Dapper opposite her as witness for Rosewater in place of her father. Her near-brother flashed her a smile and a wink. “You had this planned out, didn’t you?”

Rosewater chuckled. “We did. The surprise part was actually Seed’s idea.”

“Hey!” Collar nipped Rosewater’s cheek as he settled into place beside her. “I thought we agreed that would be my idea?”

“Your idea was how to get us back here. I said you should keep it from Rosemary so I could surprise her.” Seed stuck out his tongue and laughed when Dapper raised a hoof to tap with him. “You’ll have to come up with your own tricks to play on her.”

“My own father!”

“Boy,” Dapper warned with a laugh, “I taught you better than that. You can’t borrow tricks. Make your own!”

“Don’t encourage him!” Rosemary cried out, laughing. “Stars, the three of you together…”

“The four of us together, Rosemary,” Rosewater said, using a spell to touch her chin. “The four of us together can defeat whatever coalition Dapper and Seed manage to bring against us.”

The four of us together. For the first time in so long, her family was closer to being whole than it had ever been. “And you’ll start it.” Rosemary raised her chin free of the spell and squared herself to face her mother, her husband-to-be, her family waiting to have her join them. “Please, I hope my contribution to the marriage can be something that will bring us all together.”

Rosewater looked around at friends and family all watching her and Collar and felt the levity leave the room as Rosemary’s words settled over the gathering, reminding them all of the solemnity of the occasion despite the levity Rosemary had brought to the moment with stories of her and Rosewater in their relative youth.

“Thank you all for agreeing to be here,” she said softly when she was certain she’d captured everypony’s attention. “I wish more of my family could be here, but thank you, Glory, for agreeing to set your hoof in the rapids with me against mother.”

“At this point,” Glory said with a sardonic, twisted smile, “I’m certain that if I did regain my freedom at her hoof, I’d do nothing more than gather my lovers and all I cared for and return here. I can’t watch her destroy my family even further without doing something.”

“Amnesty and protection could be granted,” Lace said softly. “In my eyes, you’ve more than served your time, Glory, for a mistake.”

“It was no mistake, my lady. I broke into Cloudy’s apartment on purpose with the intent of gathering intelligence on her. I deserve to be where I am at this moment.” The smile came back, more sly and with a touch more warmth than before as she leaned into Poppy’s embrace. “I deserve to be where I am, my lady. With my secret lover, on vacation from playing my mother’s sick games.” She smirked and nodded back to Rosewater. “And thank you, dear sister, for including both Poppy and I today.”

“Of course. I wish I could have invited Silk, but…”

Glory met her eyes and nodded slowly. “She’ll understand, Rosewater. She’s got too much to worry about to also keep your secrets. Leave her to keep hers and do what you can to help her and Vine, please.”

“I will.” Rosewater looked around and found Sunrise and Platinum standing half in the doorway to Rosemary’s sitting room, the small chamber barely large enough for two ponies to sit on the couches inside. “And thank you, new friends and confidants for accepting your roles in our plan. I very much could not do this without your help. You will be pivotal in making our plan work.”

Sunrise flushed, but nodded, and Platinum chuckled.

“Of course, my lady. Now, please get on with it. I hear there’s wine in the ballroom.” She raised a hoof and coughed into it. “And I think Rosemary really wants to catch up with Seed.”

“Alright, alright. I suppose we ought to.” She grinned sideways at Collar and pulled over the chair Rosemary more often used as a bookcase than for its intended purpose and turned it sideways so they could set their hooves on it together. “We’re ready, Sir Spark, Lady Star.”

“Then, let us begin.” Spark glanced at the scroll one more time and let it roll back up. “Friends and family, we are gathered here today to witness a historic moment. It has long been a dream of Princess Celestia’s to see the conflict ended and the cities of Merrie and Damme brought to peaceful union, and tonight, I am more than happy to witness and guide these two ponies through the vows they have written as a group to bind themselves in the tradition of Merrie.”

Silence followed his words as he opened the scroll again, the tension in Rosewater’s muscles coming and going as she imagined that Roseate might barge in at any moment and ruin everything.

But nothing of the sort happened, and Firelight mouthed several words before beginning again.

“Lord Collar, as this is not your city’s tradition, there are certain requirements that must be met in order to ensure that your marriage remains whole and complete in the eyes of the law. First, you must swear and attest that for the duration of the effect of Frosty’s Law, you will not lie with another mare or stallion in the matrimonial bed, nor sire by accident or purpose a child on any mare besides your lawfully wedded wife.”

“I understand and do so swear,” Collar said, his voice thick for a moment as his eyes flitted from Firelight to Cloudy and back. “Under the law, I will have attestations available for any that care to review them that I will not have slept with any other pony for the duration of the law’s effectiveness.”

“Then… do you need the scroll to recite the vows you have written?”

“Nay. I have them memorized.” Collar licked his lips and shifted his hoof closer to Rosewater’s. “In the light of a promised future where we will not have to hide, where our loves will not have to sit aside from us, I give myself to this union with a heart full of wonder at the beauty of what the future holds for us. Whatever may come for us, the hardships and glories, arguments and compromises, joys and miseries, I will always be mindful of our promise to each other to watch and care for each other, to accept help and guidance from our family and friends, and never let the small things work against our love for each other.

“In the spirit of an open heart, I promise to consider your love for others as well, and ask that you consider my open heart, that together, we may decide whom else we share ourselves with.”

“I will,” Rosewater promised with a quiet, tremulous voice, her eyes flitting to Lace and then back to Firelight.

He raised his hoof to cover Rosewater’s foreleg, his eyes earnest as he finished his vows. “Our children will never want for love from me, Rosewater. None of our children will ever find their lives anything but full of love from all of their parents. I swear, Rosewater, that their lives will be as far from you and your sisters’ childhoods as is possible for them to be.”

Rosewater closed her eyes to stop the tears from coming as she heard the soft murmur of approval from Glory. “Thank you, Collar,” she murmured as the tears came anyway, trailing down her muzzle. “Stars, thank you.”

“That means more to her than you may know,” Glory said into the intensity of the silence. “Thank you, Collar.”

“My lady,” Firelight said gently. “Do you need the scroll to say your vows?”

“N-nay,” Rosewater said through a throat thick with the need to unleash more than a few paltry tears. “But… thank you, Collar. I know you will. I’ve come to know you more through your parents, and I have come to trust that the Lady Lace and Lord Dapper have raised a stallion that not only knows what love is and means, but knows how to show it and share it.”

“He is his father’s son,” Lace said solemnly. “He has always known the value and meaning of sharing love, no matter to whom it was.”

“And from you, he’s learned stubbornness in the pursuit of what’s right,” Dapper added in a rare grave voice. “This is right, Rosewater. This is what’s right. Never doubt that. I will be proud to call you my daughter after all is said and done, but first… you do need to get the said part done, dear heart.”

A soft chuckle came from the rest of the gathered ponies, pushing back some of the lingering threads of dread and fear that Collar’s words had dredged up, that she needed to always do more.

“Of course,” she said after swallowing back the ache and pushing herself back into shape long enough to get things done. She could collapse at the Villa tonight knowing that she could unload all of the stress from tonight, all of the joys and triumphs, and know that tomorrow… tomorrow she could begin to put her life to rights once more. This time as a married mare aiming for a life together with her family.

“Lady Rosewater, as this tradition is yours, but you are unable to register your marriage with the Merrie Registrar of deeds, the Seal of the Sun will be placed upon your vows until such time as you are able to properly register your marriage and your intent to bear foals with Collar. We will act as intermediary in this matter. Do you so swear that your intent is to join with Collar with the purpose of bringing to this world a new life?”

“I do so swear. I have four of my Mares in Waiting here to witness my intent and set their hooves to paper to declare that they will attest to my whereabouts, my companions, and my activities for the time that I am fertile and ready to get with foal. I have more Mares in Waiting waiting to speak their oaths, but these four will vouchsafe my word immediately.”

“Will those four please raise their hooves and say after me,” Firelight said.

Petal raised her hoof, as did Cloudy, Sunrise, and Platinum, the four mares glancing between each other and sharing small smiles at their cross-river covenant of silence.

“I do so solemnly swear that I will accurately record any time when I am put into Rosewater’s company, whom was with her before, and whether she was alone with a stallion for any length of time. I swear that my testimony will be accurate under the Seal of the Sun and I will speak no falsehood under penalty of law and forfeiture of the validity of the lineage of the foal.”

Sunrise swallowed thickly when she finished reciting and glanced aside at the solemn-faced Platinum, but lowered her hoof as the other mares did.

“Thank you. I expect all of you to visit my office regularly to review your log books and make any copies necessary to the master ledger.” Firelight lowered his hoof. “Thank you, my lady, and now you may speak your vows.”

“In the light of a promised future where we may celebrate our love openly and without fear, where our lovers may join us on the grand stage of life and love, I give myself to this union fully, my heart full of the wonder at the beauty waiting for us once we cross the bridges between our cities. Whatever may come for us, whatever trials and joys we may face on the path through life, we will always have our love, our family, our shared community to help us get through even the worst of arguments, and to share the greatest of joys. I will always be mindful of the promises we have made to each other to watch and care for each other, and never let the smallest of things come between us.

“As you have asked that I consider your open heart, please consider my open heart, that we may share more fully with each other and bring our other loves together in an open and honest relationship.”

“I do so promise to consider your loves with an open heart, Rosewater.”

Just as she finished and Firelight raised his hoof, Rosewater raised hers to forestall him.

“I wish to make our promises more than words, Collar. Words can be forgotten, their meaning lost to time or corrupted by darker emotions. I propose we take a new name for our family. Neither Prim nor Rose.” Rosewater shook her head. “I am not proposing we abandon our history, nor am I proposing we lose our heritage. Rather, I propose we take the family name of Primrose, combining our families together, that we might never forget our promise not only to each other, but to all of our loves, to all of our ponies both Merrier and Dammer.”

“Lord Primline Collar Primrose,” Collar said softly, nodding gravely. “I like the sound of the idea and the name, my love, and it will serve as a reminder to our ponies that we are neither Prim nor Rose. We are both.”

It took a moment for the congruence to register.

“A new city,” Lace said softly. “A new ruling family. A new name born of both. I approve.”

Firelight nodded gravely. “Very well. If you are assured of your decision, then, Lady Rosewater Rosethorn Primrose, Lord Primline Collar Primrose, it is my greatest pleasure to pronounce you husband and wife, your vows witnessed and Sealed to the Sun. Congratulations. You may now kiss.”

“We’ve got that part down pretty well,” Collar murmured as he turned to her. “My lovely Lady Primrose.”

“Lord Primrose,” Rosewater said, a laugh coming to her lips just before his met hers.

Wedded. They had come so far just to get to this point, and had so far to go yet.

But that hardly mattered at the moment as the kiss lasted and deepened, shared breath coming in a quick gasp before they parted to cheers that strained the spells holding sound at bay.

They were one step closer to being able to live in peace.

Book 2, 50: Epilogue - In Canterlot

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Firelight barely had the chance to close the door to his office before the gem on the wall started to flash urgently. It was past midnight by the moon’s position, and he was near dead on his feet from standing and walking and talking for nearly six hours at a stretch and then officiating a surprise-not-so-surprising wedding for the future rulers of Merriedamme.

But, of course, he needed to record the wedding in the Seal while the memory of it was still fresh and the ink on the vows not yet even fully dry. Tomorrow would be too late for something like this, and he daren’t trust it to any of the regular clerks.

He activated the spell and was unsurprised to find Celestia pacing in and out of a field of golden light at the center of the alcove the magical runes were kept hidden from regular sight. She made two circuits through before she seemed to realize he’d answered.

He knew better. More was nagging at the Princess, and he thought he knew why. The news he got from Canterlot was sparse at times, but he got enough from the long-haul pegasi to know that something was brewing to the east. Not that there wasn’t always something brewing as it became clear to the other nations of the world that the rebuilt Equestrian Nation wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Most of them didn’t seem to care one way or the other, though.

“Firelight,” Princess Celestia said by way of terse greeting. “How went tonight?”

“Better than the last two hundred galas combined, your highness,” Firelight said. “At least in terms of real progress. Whether or not that progress will stick…”

“There have always been steps forwards and backwards, Firelight,” Princess Celestia said in a soft voice. “It’s sometimes hard to see that when reading the history, or even when I try to recall what happened in a given year. We are blessed to not remember everything with perfect clarity.”

“The royal We, your highness?” Firelight said with a tired-sounding chuckle, even to himself.

“Nay. Though that is part of it. It is late Captain. Please tell me the news, and I will let you get to bed.” Celestia sat, then slumped to lay in the circle of light, her eyes looking tired and harried even through the monochromatic golden color of the sending.

“Of course, your highness.” Firelight couldn’t help but take a little pleasure at revealing the fullness of the night. Of necessity for secrecy his regular reports by long-haul and ship were bare of details. “Tonight, I witnessed and Sealed to the Sun the marriage of Lord Primline Collar Primrose and Lady Rosewater Rosethorn Primrose. The first of their family name, and began the laborious process of holding a secret ledger for ensuring the lineage of their firstborn is accurate and true.”

For a moment, his words didn’t seem to register with the Princess as her head cocked to the side, eyes widening slightly, then narrowing as she leaned forward, as if the sending on her end could show him or his office in any more detail than he knew it did. To her eyes, it would be little larger than an outsized diorama that she could, if she wished, magnify at the cost of clarity.

“I have the document with their signatures, their vows, and the attestations of the four Mares in Waiting Rosewater has chosen for her initial retinue.” He set the scroll gingerly on the desk, then the signed pages of each of the witnesses beside it.

“Married.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Stars, have they even announced their courtship? I know they were getting closer from your reports, but—” Celestia’s eyes widened and she leapt to her hooves. “Were you deliberately downplaying how close they were getting?”

“Not deliberately, your highness,” Firelight said calmly. “But the regular channels of communication are not as secure as I would wish to share such information. They’ve taken care to keep their courtship a secret so far, and I would hate for our office to be the source of any kind of leak that would expose it.”

“And yet,” Princess Celestia said with perfect aplomb, narrowing her eyes as she stared at him. “And yet we have this wondrous means of communication I spent no small amount of coin setting up in your successors’ office for this express purpose.” She huffed and ruffled her wings, then shook her head. “But I suppose I cannot blame you for an overabundance of caution. They are well suited to each other?”

“They appear to be, yes, your highness.”

“And her mother?”

“An absolute ass the entire night once it became clear that they were going to announce something big,” Firelight said with a snort. “She even stormed out when Rosewater asked for her blessing on the union. A clever ploy to reveal to me in no uncertain terms that I not only could, but needed to register the marriage as Sealed to the Sun until such time it could be registered properly.”

“Clever indeed. You’ve handled this well, Captain. I thank you for your foresight and for proving that I was right to delegate this task to you.” Celestia closed her eyes and seemed to shrink. “I wish I could come to Merrie and Damme on the next day, but I made the promise that I would not interfere more than the treaty dictates required. I will hold to that promise, Firelight, unless you say that there is a good chance that the proper rule of law will be subverted, I can’t make any moves to disrupt the rule of law.”

She wanted him to say that there was a chance Roseate would go rogue so she could come and make things right and oversee the peaceful transition of power from one regime to the next.

But he couldn’t. Not with absolute certainty, and not even with a ‘good chance’ certainty. Right now, Roseate only knew that her daughter was courting Collar, and she’d made no moves to indicate she would do anything but shout and yell at her ponies. But her duplicitousness and her attempt to capture Collar while using the Treaty as a foil against her bad faith...

“I can’t say that she won’t disrupt the proper flow of law in Merrie or Damme,” Firelight said softly, choosing his words with as much care as he could. “But neither can I say with certainty that she will. She’s tried and failed to subvert the treaty, but I have warned her—”

“And that warning is all she gets, Firelight,” Princess Celestia said firmly. “She has been warned. The next time she tries to break the treaty’s strictures, or subvert it—” Celestia’s eyes blazed, but she stopped herself before she could go further than exhort him to do his duty. “We want Rosewater on the throne, but we can’t place her there by fiat and pretend that the rule of law means anything to us. To me.”

“I understand, highness. I will do as the law commands. Even if it means Rosary takes the throne instead.”

“She is not as bad as her mother by a long shot, but she is still young, and let us not forget that even Roseate was able to charm her way into Blue Star’s heart before he saw her for what she was.” The princess closed her eyes and shook her head, slumping to lay on the bed of pillows that briefly became visible in the field of light. “Let us hope that the stars are kind and that his daughter is as honest as he ever was.”

“I believe she is. Or she is a better actress than anypony I’ve ever known.” Firelight touched his hoof to his plastron. “The light of the stars watch over you, your highness.”

Celestia snorted. “It is late. Keep me informed. And more fully than you have been. If you have to drain the circle of magic to keep me informed, do so. I will not let the law be subverted yet again.”

“Of course, highness. My apologies for the lack of detail. I won’t make the mistake of caution again.”

“Stars, Captain, make the mistake but at least keep me informed of the worst. I placed you in charge of the Merriedamme contingent for a reason. Continue to show good judgement and I won’t need to come up personally to resolve matters.” Celestia shook her head slowly and reached out towards him, or the sending, with a hoof. “And thank you for the good news. I’m going to tell her mother in a few days, so it seems as though it came through the regular dispatches. She’ll be elated.”

It was that personal touch she tried to give to as many ponies as possible that made ponies love her. It stretched her out, but she always claimed that after a thousand years of life, a little stretching of her mental muscles was more than called for.

“I’m glad, your highness. Seeing her mother’s letter was, and continues to be, something that brings her to tears whenever she comes by. It’s what makes me believe she is absolutely not her birth mother’s daughter. She loves, and deeply.” Firelight reached out to touch the sending’s light, the warmth of the woven sunlight a balm against the cold of the night. “They, together, are the ponies you’ve been waiting for. I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right, and I believe you are, Captain. Get some rest.”

“You as well, your highness. Celestia.”

Celestia chuckled softly. “I will. Never fear.”

The sunlight and the warmth faded from Firelight’s coat as Celestia broke the link, the gemstone on the wall darkened slightly from the length of the conversation and growing brighter slowly even as he sat, considering her words.

Roseate was a thorn, but she was also a thorn that was insignificant next to the flow of time that Celestia had already gone through. The rule of and flow of law was necessarily more important to her than breaking it to cause chaos. Word amongst the Students of Celestia throughout the ages, and passed down through the order’s histories, was that the War of the Long Night had been brought about because of a breaking of a law to suit a whim.

He’d asked her, once, and gotten the clearest answer he thought she would ever give on the subject.

“I reacted too harshly to a problem I created by sitting idly and doing nothing when a pony dear to me broke a law meant to protect others. I sat idly because I loved her and I trusted her and refused to believe that she would turn so completely against the ideals I thought we both shared. Law is important, but blind adherence to it is dangerous, as she showed me. I trusted her to bend or break the law so it would be beneficial instead of correcting the law. One step led to another, and another broken law to ‘preserve the public good’ and that led to another and another, until the sun went dark, the moon rose to replace it, and ponies and creatures everywhere suffered for my arrogance.”

Whatever Celestia did if Rosewater could not succeed on her own, he couldn’t say, but it was easy to imagine the breaking of one law leading to the breaking of another to justify the first. There was room for leniency and flexibility within the letter and spirit of any law, but outright breaking it to impose will wasn’t the right way to go.

Firelight carefully filed the marriage documents away in a chest and set his strongest seal against opening upon it. Not even his secretary could open it to see what was inside.

Tonight had been an exhilarating night, but not without its stressors, even after Roseate had left, and he was looking forward to bed.

Carnation wound her way through the maze of offices and paper baskets being maneuvered around the heart of the Equestrian bureaucracy, avoiding the worst pockets of gossip from the gala in the north by six long years of experience and knowing where the regular gossips liked to set up ambush points to corner her and pester her about things she was increasingly disconnected from.

It was a quarterly social fluttering that saw more than the usual number of ponies stopping by her office on the main floor of the Palace Administration compound, but this year had seemed to be particularly busy, and she couldn’t share even a tidbit of what she actually knew.

Rosewater was still there and she was taking care of Rosemary as best she could. Beyond that…

Last week had seen her dealing with the aftermath of that mess with Baroness Highwater, and the contraband from that customs inspection was still on its way to Canterlot along with the Baroness herself from the port of Los Pegasus, albeit rather slower than she’d expected because of the rains that had turned so much of the roads to the west into mud.

They would be arriving soon, if not today, and she would get to deal with that bundle of joy the couriers had already warned her about.

One of her assistants, taking the place of Golden Glow while she and her wife were on their honeymoon to Merrie, poked her head in just as Carnation was settling in to the stack of trade receipts and cargo manifests ready for review and tabulation.

“Lady Rosethorn?”

“Just Mrs. Rosethorn, Ms. Net. Do you have more invoices?”

“No, my… ma’am. They’re bringing the Lady Highwater in, and the customs officials are requesting your presence to inspect the contraband and assess it for charging.”

“Ah. Just how I wanted to start my morning. Dealing with an angry noble about to be fined half her flank.” Or incarcerated, if the contraband was bad enough. There were very few things that were legal in Merrie that could get a pony arrested for possessing them. Using them was another matter. “Alright. Did you want to come with me?”

“May I? I thought Golden—”

“She’s on vacation for an indefinite period of time,” Carnation said gently. “I assure you, Stellar, you’re more than capable to handle her duties while she’s gone or I’d not have asked for your help to fill her horse-shoes.” Carnation ushered her forward to walk side-by-side with the younger mare. “How is your family doing after the early snow?”

“They’re doing okay. The mountain shielded them from most of the storm, but they were happy to see me for a few days all the same.” Stellar Net smiled at her. “And… your family?”

The hesitancy wasn’t new. Most ponies that asked her about her marriage to more than one pony, or about her son born here in Canterlot.

“Starlit Dream is doing well and handling being a father a second time remarkably well, considering everything else he needs to deal with, and Feather Drop is doing well with her pregnancy.” Carnation ignored the faint discomfort the mare showed at her speaking about her husband and wife. That was a part of the price of staying in Canterlot instead of moving to a more open-minded part of the nation. “I’ve been considering that I might like to have a third myself, but I want to see how little Winter does with a brother or sister first.”

“I don’t believe I’ve met Winter, yet. How old is he?”

“He’s almost three and a half,” Carnation replied, smiling and letting herself sink into the familiar talk about her child, the light of her life here in Canterlot. She would always pine for Rosewater and Rosemary, but as long as she had family here, she could stay rooted in reality.

Winter’s early life, an unexpected pregnancy after she let her contraceptives lapse without thinking to since she and Feather Drop had been nearly exclusive lovers for almost a year by the time they met Starlit at a poetry and painting meeting. A few months later, she was pregnant and panicking and then married and calm again.

She let herself reminisce about her early years to Stellar Net as they made their way through the city and its chill air to the customs compound and its sturdy gray stone walls built right up against the side of the mountain itself along the wide road leading down and around the slopes of Mt. Canter.

It was a day crisp with the cold of the north, but dry to the point that her nose and lips started to chap from the constant, chilly wind blowing in from all around.

“I… can’t imagine what it must be like to live with two spouses,” Stellar murmured as they rounded the final bend towards the compound. A carriage stood out among the many, many carts moving steadily along the road, most passing without more than a cursory glance at bills of lading. “D-do you think…”

“Princess Celestia lets everypony follow their own hearts,” Carnation said to the unspoken question. “If you find two ponies you find you can’t live without, talk to them and see if they would be open to sharing love. I can recommend several books on the philosophy of Rosethorn the Wise and our way of life if you’re interested.”

“M-maybe… my parents would disown me if I even thought about it, though,” Stellar replied in a glummer tone of voice. “I… it sounds lovely, though. Sharing love.”

“It’s not for everypony. As the current conflict says. Don’t leap in, Stellar. I didn’t, and neither did Starlit or Feather.” It wasn’t exactly true. Letting Starlit mount her while she was horny hadn’t been her best or brightest moment, but she wanted it so badly it hurt. To feel a pony she loved filling her, to feel him come, to feel the warmth and rush as she came around him.

Stop it. You can let Starlit mount you tonight.

“It’s something you have to work towards, and build understanding before you can truly enter into a polyamorous relationship.”

“I… I see. So, it’s not just spontaneous?”

Carnation laughed. “Stars, no. We’ve had to work at it every day to make it work, but every day we grow closer together and understand each other better.”

They were crossing the way to the customs station when the carriage opened up and two liveried customs officials in the Equestrian uniform stepped out, leading a haughty mare who immediately started demanding to be released.

“A yeller,” Carnation muttered. “Lovely. Let’s go in the—”

“You! You’re a Rosethorn!”

Just what I needed. Carnation wanted to ignore the mare, but the best way to get her to shut up would be to speak with her and get it over with. She gestured for Stellar to follow her and approached the mare. Her lanyard with her badge of office flashed silver and gold, marking her as a trade factor and one of Princess Celestia’s higher ranking bureaucrats. “I am. Carnation Rosethorn, my lady, of Princess Celestia’s Office of Trade Regulations.”

“I demand—”

“Nothing of me,” Carnation said, breaking in and gesturing to the guards. “Do what you must, officers. I’ll be in to review the evidence in short order.”

Carnation flattened her ears to her head as Baroness Highwater started screaming at her to let her go. As if she had any such power to do so. Even had she, given how the mare was acting, like she was entitled to break the law any way she wanted, she wouldn’t have.

“With me still, Stellar?” Carnation asked the mare as she walked in a stiff-gait away from the scene the mare was making.

“U-u… yes. Yes, my lady. Stars. She’s mad.”

“She got caught. Of course she’s mad. Now come. Let’s see what it is that requires my specific attention.”

It was a bottle of perfume. Hardly surprising considering where the Baroness’s travel documents said she’d been. Among other ports of call, she’d stopped at Saddle Arabia on her way back to her home province, and spent more than two months making her way home.

The amount of liquid left in the bottle was concerning, but not for how she might have used it in Saddle Arabia. That nation was famously more liberal in what it allowed than Merrie was. Being a trade hub of the entire North Lunan sea, it was home to more cultural districts than any other, even Los Pegasus. She’d been, once, on a trade mission for Her Highness, but had been unimpressed.

“You can see the original fill line done in filigree,” Carnation murmured, demonstrating the delicate silver line half-inlaid in the glass bottle. “She’s used a fair amount, and the stopper is similarly well-protected against leakage.” She demonstrated by attempting to jiggle the plunger top free. “It’s moulded to the glass with magic so that it doesn’t wiggle, and it takes an act of will to open it. Against accidentally arousing everypony around you.”

Stellar shivered and backed away. “I-is that what it does?”

“It does, but you don’t need to worry. My daughter makes an exceptionally well-crafted perfume.” Carnation pulled the stopper free just a bit, letting the aroma of musky mare fill her nose and drew deeply on her gift, identifying the components the base, and, since she felt no pull even drawing so deeply, the likely target.

“Y-your cheeks.”

“A gift from my family,” Carnation murmured and pushed the stopper back in, the soft click as the wire snap parted around the top and clicked back into place satisfying. “This one is aimed at stallions, not mares. It seems like our baroness likes to sleep around, but not everypony is amenable to that at first blush.”

Stellar’s nostrils flared. “But that’s dark magic! And… your daughter made it?”

“It’s not dark magic. It’s not mind control, Stellar. It’s what we call an enticement. It’s a bit like flashing your marehood at a stallion without saying hello first. Rude to do to strangers and, depending on the setting, worse than rude.” Carnation set the bottle back on the table and considered it for a long moment, wondering why Rosewater would have made such a thing, why she would have agreed to make such a thing for a pony like the Baroness Highwater.

The only answer she could come up with was coercion.

Her sister had made her own daughter make such a rude and, outside Merrie or Saddle Arabia at least, illegal perfume. For what purpose or what reward, she didn’t know, but…

“Highwater Keep is along the Highwater River… and the Merrie and the Highwater share a watershed.” Carnation closed her eyes and focused on the map of Equestria as it was and traced the familiar lines of the Merrie river all the way along its curving path to… “There’s a marsh and some land about three hundred miles inland where the Highwater and the Merrie come close. They actually share a swampy flood area for a few miles of their lengths. I suppose enterprising barge crews could try to get around tariffs by going the long way and trading cargo there. Another area for the Princess to point her tax enforcement ponies at.”

Stellar made a face. “They’ll hate that. A swamp?”

“All the better a place for smugglers to set up camp.” Carnation shook her head. “It’s just a theory, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Roseate needs a noble to look the other way, bribes her with something only my daughter can do… and then twist a hoof or two to get her to do it. Rosewater would be none the wiser about the true purpose of the ‘gift.’”

“Unless it was a legitimate trade for goods and there are no smugglers?”

Carnation considered it, huffed a laugh and nodded. “Okay, fine. Maybe there are no smugglers. Consider me suspicious wherever my sister is involved. It’s not hard to believe the worst of her, because the truth is usually worse than I believe.”

Stellar gave her a pitying look. “What do we do?”

“Report our findings. We don’t even need to interrogate the suspect, so there’s that. Go back to the office, Stellar, and start a report. I’ll fill it out when I get back.”

Stellar stood up and started to leave, then stopped. “Where are you going?”

“To destroy this, and to report to the Princess. She’s asked me to report any incidents of contraband that come out of Merrie or Damme directly to her.” Carnation waggled the bottle. “Besides, it needs to be destroyed in a hot fire so its magic breaks down properly and I don’t have an appointment available at a forge this week.”

“Oh.” Stellar straightened herself and nodded. “Thank you, ma’am for letting me handle the report.”

“Of course, Stellar. Thank you for stepping up so fully.” Carnation bobbed her head at the mare and tucked the bottle into her day bag. “Do let the guards know that the Baroness’s case is still in decision.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The royal palace, centuries old, didn’t so much loom as dominate the skyline as Carnation made her way from the customs compound to the center of the administration of an entire nation, the houses and buildings getting older and darker gray as she got closer to the original source of the mountain city’s stone.

The high walls, painted white and accented with gold on every fourth slab in the construction, surrounded the tall towers of the palace and the sprawling complex of buildings connected by hallways built after their original construction. It was a home continually expanded to fit the growing family of cooks, servants, guards, secretaries, and other staff needed to help an immortal ruler manage a country.

“Mrs. Rosethorn,” one of the guards at a side entrance said, bowing his head slightly to her. “More customs nonsense?”

“Mmm. Nobility trying to bring contraband in and use it.”

The guard winced. “The Princess may be available today. She’s been shuffling her schedule about from what I hear. If you hurry, you might be able to get caught up in the shuffle.”

“Oh?” Carnation’s ears perked up.

“Yeah. Courier from Captain Spark just arrived and it’s apparently caused quite a stir.”

“A courier? This close to winter?”

“Something big happened, apparently, but nobody is saying what.” The guard waved her on. “Spill for me will you, if you find out?”

Carnation snorted a laugh. “It depends on what her highness lets me say about it. But you’ll be among the first if she lets me talk about it.”

He laughed and nodded as she passed into the green space Celestia preferred to cultivate.

Garden plots were everywhere in the courtyard, full of flowers that could only survive in a mountain environment and protected by all kinds of pines and firs that likewise thrived in the mountains. If it weren’t for the pathways and the carefully boxed plots, it would have seemed like a forest in miniature with ponds and fountains scattered about mixed with statuary that artists had crafted over a half millennia.

Creatures that she’d only heard of stood in solo poses or in groups, every one of them with a plaque detailing the artist and the work and what it meant. It was, in a way, a museum of past art, one of many endeavors that the Princess promoted for the greater well-being and prosperity of her ponies.

Walking through the grounds always felt to her like wandering through history itself at times. Star Swirl the Bearded had several statues in various forms, almost always engaged in his favorite activity of teaching foals about magic, and not only unicorn magic, but pegasus and earth pony magics as well.

Any other day, she would have happily wandered the gardens for an hour before her appointment with the Princess, but… this wasn’t scheduled, and the bustle was intriguing. It was just long enough for the event to have been the Gala.

The palace guard passed her by without comment, looking bored.

Not even five steps into the palace, Princess Celestia’s seneschal saw her and waved her over.

“Carnation, I was about to send a runner for you,” Ravenwing said as she trotted up. “Her Highness needs your input on something that’s happened in Damme.”

“Something happened?” Carnation gasped. “What? Did she—”

“Calm,” Ravenwing said gently, tucking her wing over Carnation’s back and guiding her down a side-corridor Carnation had rarely had a chance to travel. “She’d have told me if it was something bad, I’m sure. If anything, she seemed pleased.”

“But… her private quarters?” The four guards standing watch eyed her and Ravenwing but passed them into the well-lit corridor with sun-lamps set in sconces lighting the hall as though it were perfect daylight and not a stone corridor on the first floor of a multi-story palace compound.

“I have a feeling it’s something she wants to ask in a more comfortable setting,” Ravenwing said quietly as they passed down the corridor of busts of ponies from history that Princess Celestia had cherished or wanted to remember.

She’d only been down this corridor once before, when she’d accepted the position, and been given a personal audience, alone, with the Princess to talk about her exile and what accepting the position meant to her.

This… it was something that Princess Celestia wanted to speak to her personally and privately about. Even her meetings with the Princess for trade details and her work with the customs office weren’t quite so private. There was always somepony on the other side of the door, or even somepony in there with them to record the details.

“Princess,” Ravenwing called, tapping a hoof against the door. “Carnation Rosethorn is here.”

A muffled pop sounded from within, similar to a teleportation spell, but too quiet to be one. At least too quiet to be one from a normal unicorn. She had no idea what the Princess’s teleportations sounded like. They might actually be silent as a ghost for all she knew, as refined as the Princess’s magic was.

“Thank you, Ravenwing. Please let her in.”

Inside, alone with the Princess, Carnation was both surprised and not at all surprised to find that little had changed in the four years since her first visit to these chambers. Four doors led off to rooms she assumed were bathroom, wardrobe, personal library or other such niceties that let the Princess relax in the comfort of her privacy when she wasn’t out of them.

It was cozy, but not extravagant and in fact rather humble considering Celestia was supposedly a thousand years old or more, and had surely amassed enough personal wealth to carpet and panel the walls and floor with pure gold if she wished. That she didn’t…

The door closed behind her, making her jump, though she held back the indignity of yelping at least.

Immediately, the walls flashed sun-gold, then dimmed as the minute sounds past the door and the rest of the world cut off abruptly.

“Carnation, welcome,” Princess Celestia said, stepping over a rumpled carpet that she straightened with a quick spell. “I wasn’t expecting you for some time yet.”

“I was on my way to request an audience, your highness. The Highwater situation finally arrived, and it’s both better and worse than we feared it would be.” Carnation pulled the phial of perfume from her day pack and set it to hovering halfway between them. “It’s, in Merrie, a very rude kind of perfume. At least when used in general public. But not illegal there.”

Celestia blinked, snorted, and wrapped the phial in her own magic before bringing it to her nose and unstoppering it for a moment. She grimaced and flicked her ears. “Rude seems to be the least of that. It smells like a mare ready to rut.”

It was Carnation’s turn to blink in surprise at the ready admission. “I… yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s magical, too, and meant to affect mostly stallions. Not openly controlling, but it’s rather like if she had walked up to a stallion and raised her tail as the start of a conversation. Only, without the obvious display.”

“I see. That sort of thing…” Celestia shook her head and studied the phial itself more closely. “This is your… your daughter’s maker’s mark, is it not?”

“It is, highness. She’s one of the few… perhaps the only pony who could make such a thing for another. She has always been talented with perfumes. Far more than she has any right to be, if I’m being honest.”

“Her talent, perhaps?” Celestia mused, swirling the lusty red liquid about briefly. “She knew such a thing was illegal outside of Merrie? In greater Equestria?”

“Doubtless, yes. Her scents are quite popular here in Canterlot even, your highness. She’s aware of the laws that govern Equestrian magic.” Carnation swallowed and glanced from the phial to Princess Celestia. “I doubt she knew the purpose to which the baroness intended to put it. Or she did, but… I doubt even that she made such a thing completely willingly.”

“I’m less concerned that she made it than that Baroness Highwater either had it commissioned or had somepony else commission it for her. She should be just as, if not more, familiar with the laws governing mind-altering magics. You say it’s largely benign?”

“Yes, your highness. The effects on a stallion, I surmise, would be to generally make them more receptive to flirtation. Willpower notwithstanding, I would imagine it would open them to listening to her more carefully and interpreting her words with rather more… sexual overtones. Mares, of course, be they largely lesbian-oriented, may also be affected.”

“I see. What would the purpose of such a thing be in Merrie? Were it used, as you say, not ‘rudely.’”

“As foreplay, highness. A precursor to a likely planned night of lovemaking. More than likely, all ponies involved would be wearing something rather less specifically targeted.” Carnation flushed as she described the opening of more than one orgy she’d participated in, the memories coming back to her unbidden. “It’s… something that lovers do to feel more… to feel the moment more fully. It’s a… it’s hard to describe, highness. But it feels wonderful once the promise the scent gives is fulfilled. As if the entire body is floating in a sea of bliss.”

To her surprise, by the end the Princess was studying the phial with rather more interest than she had before. “Fascinating. Were it not commissioned to be so specific or so rude, I would see such a thing used by spouses in Equestria to liven up their sex lives.” She glanced over to Carnation, smiled, and shook her head. “My dear, when I was young, long ago, sex wasn’t some mysterious thing that happened behind closed doors. The evolution of the belief that it should be is as mysterious to me as why bees prefer purple flowers to red ones, but I can recount every step along the way from the openness that Rosethorn carried with him to Merrie to the state of affairs today. It makes no more sense for that ability.”

“I-I see.” Carnation coughed. “Regardless, the perfume is still contrabanded by law.”

“It is.” Celestia sighed and pondered the glass and silver work of art. “It’s a shame to destroy such a beautiful container for the contents. Your daughter certainly does have an eye for enspelled silver.” She glanced at Carnation. “Close your eyes, this will be brighter than is safe for mortal vision.”

Certain that this tiny, impersonal memento was going to be destroyed, Carnation did as she was asked and looked away. For several seconds, a brilliant light flared, seeping into her eyes despite not looking and having them tight-shut. The hum and crack of glass and metal coming under sudden, intense heat sounded, and then it was over and only the smell of acrid fumes from the burnt off perfume remained, harmless and inert save for the tickle it left in her nose.

“You may look, Carnation. I apologize for needing to destroy the phial, but I think we can make something more… useful out of it.” The princess opened one of the doors to what looked like a miniature crafting hall and ushered Carnation in. “Come. It’s rare I get to show off the things that keep me sane over the centuries, but there is a reason why I so often patronize the arts. It fuels my imagination, and inspires me to create new things that I’ve never before imagined.”

“Why do you not show them off?” Carnation asked, the question leaping past her lips as she scurried past the Princess, her monarch, and into a private space not meant for the eyes of others.

It was… chaos inside. The chamber was larger than it had appeared from a cursory glance, extending to the left and right of the entrance in a long, broad hallway filled with stations of many kinds. There was a tiny forge and kiln at the far end, covered half-over by a chimney, and no less than five different blocks of marble in various states of being turned into something resembling a statue stood at rest, the dust from the crafting swept into a pile to one side, but still there as a pile of debris, not disposed of.

“My own little creativity room,” Celestia said with not a little note of pride in her voice. “This way. I keep my glassworking tools near the kiln.”

“Princess?” Carnation coughed delicately, now following Celestia down the corridor, past a station with clay pots, bowls, jars, and what she was certain were variations on napkin holders she’d seen at state dinners. “I was told something had happened in Damme.”

“It has. And that’s why I’m so pleased you brought me this bottle.” It wasn’t a bottle anymore, but an orange-hot glowing ball of semi-liquid glass. Sitting apart from it was a ball of cooling silver slowly regaining its lustre. “It’s a part of your daughter’s work. Even if I had to destroy the spell on the silver, the glass… glass is hard to work, but rewarding and remarkable when done right.”

More confused than before, Carnation followed, hoping her not-quite-question would be answered but afraid of pushing for an answer. The Princess often had her own ways of doing things, even the simplest of things, that didn’t always make sense to her immediately.

Celestia set the ball of metal into a fired clay bowl where it sizzled and skipped a few times before settling down to hiss and creak as it cooled against the ceramic. The glass she set into a larger bowl and pulled out two small, clear cylinders of glass that shone prisms around the room as she held them in her magic for a moment, examining them.

“The most important part to creating something new from glass is to start with the right stock. This is made from white sand from Saddle Arabia, pure quartzite sand, just as it appears the bottle was made of. The clarity of the glass made it obvious.” Celestia glanced at her, smiled, and settled the large bowl of glass into a dark kiln. “Glass like that has a high melting point, and alchemists use it often for keeping potions and ingredients pure. A perfect choice for a magical, even alchemical, perfume.”

A spark of magic and sunlight spilled from the bottom, painful to look at directly, but not so bright that she had to look completely away. It lasted only a moment before the dark bed of what Carnation had assumed were coals started to glow, cycling from dull black to red to orange-hot and growing brighter as whatever spell Celestia had cast induced the material to radiate a heat she could feel from feet away.

The heat grew yet more intense and more, until the ceramic bowl began to change shade from dark brown to glow with the heat of molten rock.

Just as Carnation was about to back away, a shimmering field popped into place between her and the source.

“I don’t often have visitors here. I forget how hot the kiln can feel,” Celestia said softly. “It won’t take long, I promise, and you’ll have your answer by the time I’m done.”

Carnation sat to watch behind the strange shield that blocked heat, a spell she could barely even conceive of the components to, and deigned to reach out a hoof to touch Celestia’s flank. “She’s safe, isn’t she? Please tell me that much.”

“She is!” Celestia laughed and shifted to sit with her flank against Carnation’s. It felt almost sacrilegious to feel the warmth of her monarch against her coat, but at the same time it was… pleasant. To know that she could even be so personable. “Stars, forgive me for keeping you in that much suspense. Nay, this isn’t a memorial piece of art, but a celebratory one. I only have the barest details yet, and hope more will be to come, but yes. Rosewater is safe and well.”

Celebratory. Carnation felt her heart skip several beats, but restrained herself from pressing for more, instead watching as the Princess tipped the bowl back and forth, using a dark rod to poke and prod at the contents as the cylinders started to glow, then slumped and started to cling to the tool. A second rod joined the first, stirring the materials in place. A second bowl joined the first after some period of mixing the ball of molten quartz glass together, and she neatly divided the glob to rest one in each bowl.

“Coloring glass is a well-known process. I’ve had the pleasure of making several of the colored glass panels in the Hall of History. It will never flake or lose it’s color, as the color is baked into the glass itself,” Celestia said as she began adding bits of other things to each bowl. “But that’s simple soda glass for the most part. It’s something regular ponies can work without requiring a kiln that can get this hot.”

“This is… colored quartz glass?”

“It will be. Each piece will have a bit of the original bottle in it. It’s not an insignificant thing, magically speaking,” Celestia said as she tipped the bowls towards her. “It’s hard to see right now, but the one on the left will be pink, and the one on the right blue.”

Blue and pink. The colors of Merrie and Damme. News about Rosewater. “She’s formed an alliance with them? In the open?” Fear spiked in the pit of her stomach. Spying for Lace had been one thing, and she’d done so knowing that any time she’d gotten caught would have been the end of her time in Merrie. But staying in Damme would have done more harm. Rosewater would have followed her, ending any chance for the war to be over through her.

Celestia chuckled. “In a way. What I’m about to tell you can’t leave here. But I felt keeping it from a mother would be cruel. Every loving mother should know when their children go through important life stages, I feel, no matter the reason for their absence.” Celestia pulled one of the balls of molten glass out and checked it against a white tile, tipped her head to the side as she turned it, and nodded. She pulled over a wooden block and poured a splash of water from a nearby bucket on it. “The Gala happened a month later than it usually does because of your sister’s interference which, combined with Rosemary’s capture, gave Rosewater… hmm.”

Celestia paused in her storytelling to focus on the glass, rolling it back and forth and pinching and pulling at the glob, lengthening it and shaping it as the orange glow began to fade and show the bluish color of the glass. A thick neck rose up out of the glass, then a tail, and four legs, each one teased out and held stable in a matrix of glowing spell-light and metallic tools. Feathering of the tail and mane came from shears pressed into the glass and stopped just shy of cutting through, and features came out of the glass, shaping into something that might have been familiar if not for the clarity of the blue making it hard to fix on the face. The horn was done with a quick twist of pliers

As it began to cool more, the blue began to darken and cloud, giving the surface more of a solid-looking feel to it.

“Quartz glass, sadly, doesn’t remain as clear as soda glass when it’s colored. It can be, but it takes—” Celestia shrugged one shoulder. “I like it like this. It gives Collar—”

“Collar!” The name burst from her lips. “Stars, she and Collar? Together?”

Celestia laughed softly and flicked an ear. “Patience, Carnation. I think this captures Collar, don’t you think? It has been a few years since I’ve been to a Gala, so the details may be off.”

“It’s him,” Carnation said, barely able to stay seated. “Stars, it’s him, isn’t it? They’re courting now.”

“Mmm.” Celestia gave her a smile as she set the glass figurine on a workbench and pulled the other blob of molten glass out. “This is going to be even cloudier, but Rose Quartz often has white rime at edges. Quite fitting for your daughter, I believe. She is a Rose to the heart, I hear.”

“She is. Stars, I raised her myself. Half-raised her. Sometimes I think she did the other half on her own.”

“Given who her father is, I would find that not at all surprising.” Celestia hummed softly as she went through the same process with the other blob, and this time, knowing what it was going to be, she could see it before it was even finished, and could see the cloudiness spreading from the center as the crystalline structure hardened. “Blue Star was never one to let himself languish in a state he didn’t want to be in. He was always moving forward, and… I do miss him, but life continues and ponies like his and your daughter, both of them, remember his legacy and push it forward. I see him in her and in you, Carnation. I thank both of you for giving him a happier life towards the end.”

“He… Rosewater was there with him, at the end. I worry, often, what trauma that caused for her.”

“Too much,” Celestia said sadly, pausing in her work to glance at Carnation. “I didn’t know that, but more things make sense in that light. I’m sorry she had to go through that, but Blue went to the stars with his daughter’s love in his heart. I hope she knows that.”

“I can’t imagine that she doesn’t,” Carnation murmured. “She has always been an empathetic pony, and that night was the night she got her cutie mark.”

Celestia glanced at her again, her eyes deep pink and soulful in the dying light of the magical embers. “A father’s death is a pivotal moment in any pony’s life. Even more so when the pony is as young as she was.” The Princess was silent for a moment, staring at the figurine cooling in front of her, then firmed her jaw and focused on the work.

Rosewater, her daughter, took shape before Carnation’s eyes, the pink gradually bleeding into the clarity of the molten quartz and clouding it with occlusions of white appearing here and there.

“Blue Star was always a dedicated pony. Perhaps not as discerning of personality, but he would never stop moving forward once he set on a course. I have a feeling Rosewater has that in her as well.”

As the pink started to reach the outer portions of the figurine, it started to pale and turn white, seeming to fracture and fragment as white spiderwebbed across the surface, but never seemed to break the smoothness of the crystal.

“Hm.” Celestia frowned at the piece, cocking her head as the pink faded out from the mane and tail. “That didn’t quite turn out as I expected, but I’ve never had a chance to work in rose quartz before. Maybe…”

Carnation waited patiently as the princess returned the piece to the kiln and added a new, smaller bar of clear crystal to the other bowl and set about mixing the second while the first softened.

Before it could completely deform, it was pulled out and reshaped carefully back to the exact configuration as before save for the mane and the tail, both of which were split and merged back into the whole carefully.

Minutes passed as both went back and forth in the kiln, the second piece worked into two parts for mane and tail separately, the pink darker and clearer than the pink lightening to white of the main body with only a hint of the white frosting under the surface, and only where the mane and tail were pinched and feathered for detail.

“The color is… hard to get right. Centuries of trial and error,” Celestia murmured. “It’s the experimentation that takes my mind away from the stresses and trials of the days that go by. Not merely glassworking, but metallurgy, sculpting in clay and stone, painting… creativity is my saving grace, and I wish I had known it would be long ago.”

“It must be lonely for so long.”

“No.” Celestia smiled at her, head bobbing. “It can be difficult to deal with grief sometimes, but experience is a wonderful teacher on how to manage it in a productive, creative manner. The ponies I’ve outlived haven’t ever left me, you see. They live on in the stars, and it’s my pleasure to remember them to this plane from time to time. Occasionally, I meet an old friend come down from the stars to live a new life for a time. It’s only a matter of time before I see them again. It helps.”

Carnation bobbed her head slowly. “Blue Star, I’m certain, is watching his daughter with pride in his heart.”

“I’m sure he is. Now.” Celestia set the finished figurine on the table to cool, the dark pink of the crystalline mane and tail slowly darkening to near opacity, the joins where the different types of crystal had been worked into place seemingly perfectly blended together. The white body with a pinkish tinge around the edges and if she stared at it for long enough, the white horn with pink ridges. “I need some gold.”

“Gold?” Carnation looked up, brows raised.

“Yes. For their wedding bands.”

Celestia’s sparkling smile grew broader as Carnation stammered and glanced between her and the two figures, standing in a pose that she now recognized would have their forelegs crossed if they stood side-by-side, their hooves resting on an invisible bench.

“Married?”

“Yes. Eloped, to be more accurate. Witnessed to the sun and kept secret. Which is also why, sadly, I can’t give these figures to you now. Ponies would be able to do the math if they saw and knew who they were. I won’t—”

“I understand. Please. You don’t need to justify not giving me such a gift, highness. Knowing is a great gift on its own.” Carnation’s eyes swept to the figures again, and she wanted to take them home, wanted to revel in her daughter’s triumph in the open… but doing so would get back to Merrie eventually, and possibly before Rosewater was ready to reveal it to the world. “We all make sacrifices in a war. Even those of us not participating in it anymore.”

“Thank you, Carnation, for understanding. Now. Let’s see about some appropriate wedding rings, and I would appreciate hearing about Blue Star in his final years, if it’s not too painful.”

“Of course, your highness. Thank you.”

Book 3, 1: Rising Dawn

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Rosewater woke to Petal with a foreleg thrown over her neck, the smaller mare’s nose tucked into the space between her ear and the pillow, the long, slow breaths having shifted being the thing that finally woke her.

Morning’s first light was still a dream in the window, though the sky she could see through the curtains and past the glass and wood braces of the window was lighter than full night. Even more telling was the silence that held still over the villa save the burr and bluster against her ear.

She flicked it away and curled her head and neck further, but knew already she wouldn’t be able to find sleep again. Her dreams, of wonder and disaster in alternating bouts of joy and terror hadn’t been so terrible that they had kept her from sleeping, but neither had they given her the rest she truly needed after the whiplashing of last night.

Stars. Last night. It felt like half a dream itself. Dancing with Collar, kissing him in front of everypony, and then confirming their courtship in front of everypony.

Her hoof strayed to her horn briefly, the weight of the golden ring that had so briefly settled there somehow a phantom that only touching the base of her horn dispelled. Married. She was wedded to Collar. She was even more in love with him than she had when they’d been dating.

It was all real.

And so had been the seriousness of the escort home. Sunrise, Platinum, Cloudy, and Coat all joining together to form an escort around the nearly empty wagons of casks and bottles rattling and rumbling through a city still well-lit and well-patrolled by Dammeguard that shadowed them from street to street until another patrol group found them and left the first’s territory.

Before they’d left her, all three of the Dammeguard mares had made a note in their books, and Petal had made one in hers, formalizing the passing of custody from them to her.

Even asleep, she had to be accounted for, and so Petal had joined her in bed, and she would have to stay with Rosewater until they were able to get Prism, White Rose, Zephirine, Bliss, and Roselyn to have their own logbooks and be instructed in the protocol for their use, something they would need to do over the course of a week save the first two. Petal had her own life and couldn’t rope herself to Rosewater for days at a time.

Something to plan for as soon as the office is opened.

She yawned and tried to force the thoughts in her mind to still for a time and enjoy the slow lightening of the sky into dawn.

It took some time of fending off thoughts before she was able to settle in and enjoy the sight of low-hanging clouds gaining first a crown of gold as they scuttled towards the sea, fleeing the cooler air flowing in from the east. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction to call up the fog on land, but if she were to shift position and wake up Petal…

The cold was still too far distant from freezing to make frost settle on the window, but more than cold enough to appreciate the warmth of a pony at her back and a warm, thick set of blankets over the both of them.

So she lay still as she could as Petal’s breath shifted and she chased Rosewater sleepily across the bed to hold her close and bury her cold nose in the warm spot between neck and pillow and leth the warmth of the blanket suffuse her.

The natural flow of morning resumed when hooves tap-tapped past her door, paused, and then a gentle rapping at the frame made her acknowledge that it was time to wake up.

“Yes?” Rosewater called as quietly as was possible to reach the door. Not quietly enough to keep Petal from groaning and burying her muzzle under Rosewater’s neck in an attempt to escape.

“I don’t suppose,” Prism asked, her voice breaking into a yawn. “You have an inkling to rise and have an early breakfast?”

“Tell her to rut off,” Petal said, her voice too muffled to make it past the comforters and mattress padding.

“Petal is quite comfortable where she is,” Rosewater called back. “I’m afraid she might visit violence on my flank if I were to take away her source of warmth.”

“Too right.” Petal sighed a moment later and pulled her muzzle free to lay against Rosewater’s neck. “What is it, Prism?”

“You must be hungry, and I want to know what’s going to happen, going forward. So do a lot of ponies.” Prism tapped a hoof on the frame again. “Besides. Seed is going to come wandering in before too long. And I want to visit the Treaty office early. Have some business to take care of.”

Then she was gone, her hoofbeats trailing off down the hall.

“Rut me,” Petal groaned. “Why’s she gotta keep that Dammeguard schedule?”

“She’s excited, just like you are.” Rosewater rocked slightly to roll to her hooves on the floor. “Just like I am. Stars. I can hardly believe half of what happened.”

“It happened,” Petal replied with a grin, winking and adding, “Lady Primrose,” in a whisper. She pushed herself from bed, stretched, and opened the door. “Come on. I can’t imagine the rest of the conspirators aren’t already awake or soon on their way thanks to Prism.”

Cloudy woke, not alone, but with Rosemary nestled between her fore and hind legs, her lover’s tail twitching slowly in a pattern that said she’d long been awake. The movement against her loins was teasing, but not overly.

It explained the last bit of dream fragments of her and Rosemary making love, of her with a stallion’s bits mounting the other mare. Only the fact that she didn’t have a cock and balls meant her sheets were more or less clean. Just a slight slickness against her dock.

“Morning,” Rosemary purred, flicking her tail up and pressing her tail’s stiffness against Cloudy’s mons, the muscles of her back twitching against Cloudy’s teats. “Have pleasant dreams?”

“I think I might still be having it,” Cloudy said muzzily, the light streaming in through Rosemary’s curtained window enough to give her a good view of golden mane and pink ears twitching. She could almost see the smile curling her lips. “I dreamt I had Collar’s equipment.”

“Oh?” Rosemary turned her head to look at Cloudy with one eye, and there was that smile, so sweet and seemingly innocent. “How was it?”

“It felt…” Cloudy nibbled at her lover’s ear while she tried to reach for the fading fragments. “I might have to try it to recapture it,” she said after a moment. “I hear there are some artisans that can craft a toy for mares to capture at least the feeling of mounting.”

“Or be a unicorn,” Rosemary murmured, rolling to her back and casting a misty illusion of Collar’s erect cock between her legs, twitching and glistening with the memory of being inside Cloudy at the time. A spurt of white flew from the tip and spattered Rosemary’s chin and neck in an almost real display. It moved too sluggishly for real come, was too brightly speckled for the light coming in… and it faded as Rosemary released the binding spell.

“Or be a unicorn,” Cloudy murmured, her tail curling over her back. “I might have to have you do that for me for real later.” It would be the closest she got to Collar for some time while he and Rosewater were trying to found their new family line. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Rosemary murmured, a hoof trailing along the spatter of wetness along her belly and chest. “And you’ll have to ask around for somepony who can make a toy for us.”

“I will. I might have to ask Rosewater to buy one. I sincerely doubt I could find a crafter who could make such a thing here.” Cloudy shifted and rolled to her back, then her front with one hind hoof hanging off the edge of the bed. “But I need to wake up. Today is going to be busy.”

Rosemary’s eyes looked pained, but she nodded. “For you.”

“For you, too, soon,” Cloudy promised, wishing she knew when Firelight’s promised clemency would come down with official approval. “You heard Firelight.”

“I know. I almost wish he hadn’t said it.” Rosemary rolled towards her, one foreleg crossing Cloudy’s. “I love you. I can hold on until then. Just… remind Collar I want to help with planning, too. I have little else to do.”

“I doubt he would forget,” Cloudy murmured against her cheek. “If it weren’t for his devotion to the law… stars, even being in the room with us was pushing it. But I’m glad you were there, Rosemary.” That night would help her through the weeks and possibly months that it would take to know when Rosewater was pregnant, and the time until then would be filled with Cloudy needing to keep her distance from Collar in a romantic sense.

No more sharing his bed. No more sharing quick kisses.

Cloudy closed her eyes and kissed the one pony she could still make love to, could still kiss and spend the night with. “I need you,” she whispered.

“And I need you,” Rosemary murmured back. “I’ll be here. If…”

“I can spend every night here, Rosemary. We were lovers before you were captured. There’s no power balance we need to address.” Cloudy kissed Rosemary lightly on the lips and slipped from the bed. “Only appearances. And I need a place to stay since my apartment is hardly safe anymore.”

“You still pay for it?”

Cloudy snorted and backed off the bed, then headed for the bathroom to clean up. It would be rude to Collar to show up around him aroused. He might never know, but…

It was the principle of the matter.

Collar’s bed felt empty as he lay in it. Dreams of married life in an idyllic paradise had dogged him throughout the night, disappointing him with the current reality. He was married to a mare who couldn’t share his bed every night, couldn’t even visit every day. His official courtship of her would help somewhat with that, but would make finding time to spend together difficult.

Why am I so…

His hoof landed on the empty bed, the mound of pillows that had, briefly, emulated Cloudy’s presence that had become so familiar and necessary to his good sleep. Or at least waking up in a good mood.

He pulled himself out of bed, following his morning routine without a pony to joke with or tease, and prepared himself for a day spending time with Cloudy, his staff, and preparing the city for what was coming after his brazen and open announcement that he was courting a pony some saw as the greatest threat to their future.

Priceless had helped with some of the planning of the night, but even he hadn’t pushed to announce it in public. He would have likely lost some hairs on waking to find the gentle arrangement of his house of cards radically rearranged in one go.

It was easier to leave his bedroom than it was to enter it alone last night, and halted in the corridor outside his room. The guard in front of Rosemary’s room was standing closer to Glory’s than he was to the door he was meant to be guarding, and his glance at Collar when the click of the latch on his door drew his attention spoke to something not quite sympathetic.

“Good morning, my lord,” the stallion said, edging closer to the door. It took Collar a moment to recognize the young Corporal, Bellwether Feather, a second generation transplant from Los Pegasus. “I… heard…”

“The grapevine works overtime, it seems,” Collar said with a sigh. “Yes. Cloudy and I… well, to be more accurate, Rosemary and Cloudy have decided they wanted to rekindle their old romance.”

Bellwether glanced askance at the door, then back at Collar. “I meant…”

“Yes. Rosewater and I are… courting.” He sighed and strode up to the door. “More will be coming later, but that much you’re free to spread. Stars…” He knocked on the door to Rosemary and Cloudy’s room. At least, he was fairly certain Cloudy had chosen to change her room to her lover’s. Whether she would make that permanent… “I’m in love with her. That much I want you to know,” he said, cocking an ear to the guard, and leaving one on the door. “This isn’t a political move, despite the implications.”

Whatever answer Bellwether had was cut short when Cloudy slipped out of the room backwards, her neck stretched back into the room for as long as she could with each step. Rosemary’s pink muzzle and dark muzzle marks briefly made an appearance before she broke off the kiss.

“Love you,” Rosemary said breathlessly.

“Love you, too,” Cloudy replied in the same breathless tone before she stood up straighter, glancing at Collar not at all apologetically. It was as if she were announcing to the other guard that she was able to love easily and more than one. “And I still love you, Collar, but I know…”

“I do, too, and we all discussed it. You’re in love with Rosemary and not being able to be with her openly has been hard on you,” Collar said gently and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “And I’ve fallen in love with Rosewater. This is beneficial for all of us, Cloudy.”

She gave him a hard look, her disgust with acting plain on her face, but thankfully not obvious to the guard. “I know. But it runs counter to everything I grew up with. Everything Rosemary grew up with.”

“I know.” Collar glanced over Cloudy’s head to where Bellwether was trying his best to look away and pay attention at the same time. “Relationships are complicated. Especially when they cross the river. And… nothing says we can’t still be friends. Like we were before we started courting.”

Cloudy snorted. “I know. And that chafes, too. Rosewater is depriving herself more than I am.” She nodded down the corridor. “Come on. We have a meeting, right? And you’re going to lose a few tail hairs for springing that on everypony last minute.”

Collar snorted. “I’ve already lost a few, thank you, dealing with Wing and his wife last night.” He turned his head and flicked an ear at Bellwether. “Please resume your position. Given the upsets last night, it would look bad if we didn’t observe the propriety of guarding a… guest properly.”

Cloudy’s ears splayed flat briefly, then perked back up with an apparent effort of will. Her jaw was tight and her tail held stiff as they made their way down and then down again into the cool halls holding the library, more secure jail cells that hadn’t been used in ages, and on to the center of intelligence apparatus that decided their defensive strategy.

“I know you hate this, Cloudy,” Collar said gently.

“You’re rutting right I hate it. You’re alone at night, Collar. Stars, I know what that’s come to mean to you. Waking up in the morning with me. And… I missed you last night. You’re bigger than Rosemary.”

Collar snorted. “Oh, come now. Tell me you weren’t happy to have a pony you could hold without straining your legs all night.”

Cloudy gave him a sidelong glance, then nipped his shoulder. “I’d rather have all three of you in bed.”

For the rest of the way down to Priceless’s room, he couldn’t think of a way to make light of the situation and her desire. By the time they reached the door, he’d decided that it was best not to make light.

“I know. I’d rather have that, too. I want Rosewater here overnight sometime, if we can manage it.” Collar pushed open the door and ushered her in. “And I want it to be coordinated. I want it to be a part of our…” he winced. “Project.”

Rosewater stopped at the guard post on the Merrie side of the river, glancing at the ponies that had stepped out to intercept her and her small entourage of Prism, Petal, and Bliss.

They were Merrieguard, but not the usual bridge guard that stood watch. Roselight wasn’t there, likely assigned to a different bridge. Their armor was more polished, more impressive than the usual bridge guard fare of scuffed and buffed links that stopped gleaming by day’s end. This armor had never seen actual service aside from polishing and parades.

They were likely Roseate’s personal guard, loyal to her. None of the lackeys that did her dirty work, but professionals. Rosejoy and her cohorts had been around, but shadowing Rosewater from a few streets away from the river. It wasn’t hard to guess where Rosewater was going for those that listened to rumor or got direction from Roseate personally, so shadowing her through the twisting, hilly streets above the river wasn’t hard.

“Behind,” Prism murmured, stepping up beside Rosewater and warning her as quietly as she could of what she could guess on her own.

“I have business with the treaty office,” Rosewater said, taking a step forward towards the guard. “Please do not bar my way.”

Two of the guards glanced at a third, clearly identifying their leader and, after a brief glower at his subordinates, stepped out to do more than block her. “We have orders.”

“And I have rights. I have the right to visit the treaty office for any business or none at all.” Rosewater glanced at the blocky Merrie treaty office, the windows facing the street open, and cocked her head at the sight of movement inside. “You have no right to bar me from exercising my right.”

“Traitors don’t have rights,” the guard to the left growled, earning a snapping tail from his superior.

“So you’re here to arrest me?” Rosewater asked, raising one hoof as if asking them to clap irons around her legs and spoke not to the sergeant, but behind him. “Please, show the representatives of Her Highness just what my mother has ordered you to do.”

After a moment of glaring at her, the stallion followed her gaze to find Wandering Star standing on the front step of her office, watching them with ears perked, a scribe at her side holding a scroll tucked into one hoof. “We were ordered to do nothing, traitor. But we know what you’re doing. You won’t win.”

“So you decided to block my business with the office on your own?” Rosewater moved to the side, edging around them and keeping a glower on the sergeant. Her friends nudged her farther along as she continued on her way, her eyes never leaving them as she set hoof on the path forward.

“You’re on notice, traitor.”

“Oh, wonderful surveillance strategy. Let the target know they’re being watched,” Bliss snapped sarcastically as she hopped forward to place herself between Rosewater and the guards now watching them from behind. “We’re doing nothing illegal.”

The guard snorted to give his belief of that, but waved his long cudgel to his guards and returned to standing guard before Wandering Star could find cause to berate them for blocking traffic.

Wandering Star and her scribe stepped away from the office to intercept Rosewater as she made her way to the bridge’s stone ramp.

“Do you wish to file a complaint?” Wandering asked, her scribe’s quill fairly quivering.

“No. They’re not here on Roseate’s orders, according to them.”

That didn’t seem to make Wandering any happier, but she gave the scribe a look and flicked her ear. “Do you need an escort back? I’ll not see you harassed for doing treaty business.”

Rosewater snorted and shook her head.

Petal, however, nodded. “Please. Could you get us a pass along the Damme riverwalk back to the Rosewine bridge?”

“Petal, that’s not necessary.”

“You thought it was last night, and now I see you weren’t wrong,” Petal insisted, setting a hoof lightly against her ankle. “As your friend, I won’t see you subjected to whatever other harassment they can drum up between now and when you need to go back. Nor do I want Bliss or Prism to be harassed.”

“Then you’ll have an escort.” Wandering stepped back and nodded to her scribe. “Ms. Inkfeather is on loan to me today from Firelight’s office. When you leave my office today, she will take you to the Rosewine and return posthaste to Firelight.”

“I…” Rosewater glanced back at the guards, still well within earshot. This is going to get back to her. It was all going to get back to her. That she trusted Damme to ensure her safety more than she did her own city. “I must decline the offer of escort through Damme. I am still an enemy of that city, my own courtship of Collar notwithstanding, and I will not test our newfound relationship by straining his own citizenry. Nor will I say that I distrust my own city by my actions or words.”

Petal looked like she was ready to steam for only a moment before she flattened her ears and glanced back the way Rosewater had. “Fine. I accept the reasoning.”

“I will accept the escort, but only because there are some matters I’d like you to record, Ms. Inkfeather. I have some business dealings at the Rosewine Villa that I would like to put the Seal on, if it would be possible. Finalizing my land deal with the Vineyard for the acreage outside of town.”

Wandering gave her a curious look, then nodded. “An inheritance question?”

“It is. I am part-owner in the stake, but I have questions regarding the way some of the deeds were written and how they would operate if, well, if Collar and I were to eventually bind our hooves together.”

That casual mention caused a stir in the guards behind them, and Rosewater flattened her ears and ushered Vellum Inkfeather and Wandering Star ahead of her. “Please, to business. All of us are quite busy this morning.”

“I see.”

Collar sipped his tea after finishing his report to Priceless for the reasoning behind his actions. Most of what he’d done had been in the heat of the moment. Even choosing to announce their courtship in public in such a pronounced way hadn’t been planned. Their plan and what they planned to let leak out through rumor and supposition had been a few dances, cordial chatting, and an overall much less… direct approach.

But the dance, her eyes, the moment…

He could still feel the rush of his heartbeat as the choice came and went, the feel of her lips against his and the thrill of being able to kiss her in public…

“I don’t need to say that this mornings reports are full of Roseate’s words from Merrie, and full of Wing and his cohorts’ words here. Backed by real proof—” Priceless held up a hoof when Collar started to object. “In their eyes, my lord. Real proof in their eyes.”

Collar down the rest of his tea, gritting his teeth as the dregs sandpapered his tongue. “I know. Stars, I know. It just feels… raw.”

“I know, Collar,” Cloudy said gently beside him. “I know. But I also agree that this is the best way to handle a difficult situation. If Rosewater suddenly got pregnant two weeks from now and nopony knew she was courting you, and then announced you were the father, that would be so much worse than if you were courting, she became pregnant, and you held a public wedding to make the entire thing official in the eyes of our ponies.”

“You’ve given this some thought.”

“Rosemary and I gave it some thought. That’s what we pieced together after you all went to bed.” Cloudy snorted. “Please, I’m not that politically savvy.”

Priceless gave her a doubting look. “Don’t downplay your own intellect, my dear. You and Rosemary reconnecting in rumor has done quite a lot to soften the separation in rumor. I don’t doubt that was part of your contribution.”

“I-it was.” The look Cloudy gave Collar in that moment hurt. It felt like half of a goodbye, even though he knew it wasn’t. The planning and scheming that had led to the decision to ‘break up’ hadn’t been easy for either of them. To him, it felt too much like going through an actual ending of a relationship, and he could only imagine what it felt like to her, who likely never thought she’d need to choose between lovers before. “I agree it’s the best way to handle a bad situation in the time we had available to us.”

“I’m sure, if you had decided to push off—”

“There isn’t time.” Collar said it firmly as Priceless spoke, making sure his old friend knew not to push. “And… not just because I want to make love to her more, Priceless. That’s a part of it, yes, but more… much more of it is that I…”

“You need an heir,” Priceless said. “And so does she.”

“She more than I. But I wish I didn’t have to put it in such… terrible light.”

“In this time and place, you must be frank, my lord. If you had time, and if the laws were on your side, I have no doubt you’d do a more proper job of courting her,” Priceless said in a consoling tone. “But this is not a time or place to comfort your feelings. The reason you’re moving so quickly is political, not romantic, and we must consider the political ramifications of your moves, both those in the public eye, and how your elopement is going to change the board going forward.”

“Marriage. Fully sanctioned by my mother. It’s not an elopement.”

“Eloping makes it sound so much more rebellious, Collar,” Cloudy retorted, her voice mockingly teasing. “Embrace it.”

Collar rolled his eyes and focused on Priceless. “The first thing we need to do is figure out a contingency if the marriage somehow becomes common knowledge before we’re ready to announce it. What’s our reasoning?”

“The truth. Or at least the political truth,” Priceless suggested. “You married to cement a secret agreement to form an alliance and provide an heir for both regimes who would embody what we can do together.”

“It’s a little on the nose,” Collar said with a sigh. “It also suggests that I’m not doing what I want. Which was the whole point of Rosewater’s speeches last night. Choice, Priceless. My choice. My love. My way forward.” He stood and paced to the small stove, using a spell to refill his teacup with hot water and the infuser with freshly crushed tea. From his bag, he pulled out a bag of roughly ground star anise, cinnamon, and clove, all dried and a gift from Rosewater after their last date. He added a pinch of the mix to the infuser and dunked it into his cup.

Immediately, the rich, earthy scent rose up from the steaming water, reminding him most of the kiss she’d given him when she’d opened the pouch first.

“I’d rather our response be something closer to the actual truth.” Collar sipped the tea, savoring the rich, sweet bite of the star anise and how it accentuated the rest of the mix. Rosewater had been clear that this was a tea enhancer, not a substitute for actual tea, and despite having had it multiple times since, it always surprised him how much the flavor seemed to shift and flow between mixings. “Perhaps we can tell more of the story of our romance. Not all of it, but enough to make it clear that it wasn’t merely political.”

“Enough to avoid revealing just how much time she spent across the river?” Priceless asked, raising a brow and flicking a look at his teacup. “Just how much she’s made her way into your daily life?”

Collar raised his teacup deliberately and took a deep breath. “If she were a part of my daily life, Priceless, she’d be sitting here telling me that I put too much of her mix in my tea.”

Cloudy chuckled. “Too little, love. I’m not swimming on the steam.”

“You take my meaning, though, don’t you?” Priceless tapped the edge of the table. “We need to spend some time crafting the response. Just in case.”

“Just in case.” Collar sighed. “Why does that sound so much like ‘When?’”

Priceless didn’t give him an answer other than a smile as he pulled out a pyramid of scrolls. “Because the rumors are already flying, of course.”

“Of course they are. Then we need to make our courtship look awkward and new.” Collar rolled his eyes when Cloudy gave him a dead stare. “In public. I know we’re still a little awkward together.” He sighed when Priceless shook the pile. “And, dear spymaster, just how many of these rumors are you responsible for?”

“Of those on the street now?” Priceless gave a little shrug. “None yet. I’ve got a few feelers going out for what the reaction would be starting on the docks and I’ve got assets ready to catch what they transform into farther in. I expect we’ll have some reactions by this afternoon.”

Collar drew over one of the scrolls and started reading the parameters of the test rumor, then read the text and would have choked if he’d been sipping his tea. “Seriously? She’s already pregnant with my child and we’ve been married for years?”

Priceless shrugged. “It was a natural extension of your secret courtship.”

“And it hints that every interaction you’ve ever had has been a foil to mislead everypony over your true intention.” Cloudy nipped his neck. “Honestly, if you’d spoken to each other more than twice at the last five years worth of galas, you might already have two foals and this was the announcement of the third.”

The next two were lower on the scale of heart-thumpingly worrying, with him having sired a foal on her accidentally, and they were getting married soon to make the union legitimate. The next was a variant, that Rosemary was actually her biological daughter—an impossibility considering the relevant ages involved—and she needed to marry Collar before the relationship would be seen as valid.

“Not any mind to reality or facts, huh?” Collar asked, tempted to crumple up the scroll and toss it in the fire.

“Your opponents certainly don’t.” Priceless pushed the last two at him. “These are a variant of the truth and the truth respectively.”

“Why are we telling ponies the truth at all, even couched as a rumor?” Collar grumbled, reading through them briefly. “If anypony at all links your leaker to you, and then to me—”

“Then that will also enter the rumor stream as a conspiracy, competing with all of the other conspiracies and rumors out there for dominance.” Priceless shrugged. “The truth usually loses.”

Collar knew that all too well. Rosewater’s truth, the beauty of her heart, was too unknown to his ponies for them to trust the truth of things. “Then we need to give the truth a boost. I’d like to schedule a date with her in public where we can show her heart. Perhaps some of the ponies that ran into her at the Commoner’s garden can be asked to be there.”

“That will push the true rumor closer to public acceptance.”

“As long as Roseate doesn’t believe her daughter is so bold as to marry me secretly…” Collar trailed off with a sigh.

“Believe? You’d be an idiot to not believe she hasn’t already started some plan to oust, discredit, or even kill—”

Collar sucked in a breath.

“You have to consider it as an option,” Priceless insisted. “You need to. Of all of the Rosethorns, she is the closest to our bloody ancestors in temperament. She might not survive the attempt, but neither might Rosewater or any around her. If she’s backed into a corner, I don’t want to let ‘she wouldn’t do it because the treaty forbids it’ lead to the death of your wife, my lord.”

Or your child. “I know. It… it’s been below the surface of my thoughts. She’s poisonous, and… I know. When she’s here, she’ll never be left unguarded.” Collar cocked his head to the side. “And we have three Dammeguard in the garden. Two of whom I think are lovers of hers. Would it be possible to covertly offer them reactivation as her guards?”

Priceless raised a brow. “Bringing back the Shadows?”

“For the protection of a Rose, rather than the prosecution of one. In this, The Rose Shadows’ name will be more fitting. They will be her shadow, always there, protecting her.” Collar didn’t have to glance at Cloudy to sense her approval. “And, it just so happens we have an interview with them we can use to float recruiting them.”

“I would say contacting them sooner than late would be more prudent, my lord. Roseate may decide exile is preferable to inconsequence and strike before we think she will.”

Collar gritted his teeth, but nodded. It was in the far realm of believability, but it was still there. “Then have a proposal to me soonest. If you don’t hear from me regarding implementation within the hour after you send it to me, assume it’s approved.”

Book 3, 2: A Little Surprise

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Priceless had a plan of action waiting for him when Collar came back from a somewhat calming walk around the outside grounds of the palace, the cool air and clear skies soothing his nerves enough so that he wasn’t ready to invade Merrie immediately and rescue his wife from an imagined threat.

It wasn’t as comprehensive as he thought it would be, and noted that attempting to contact any of the former Dammeguards in the Garden outside of official channels would attract far more attention and lead to a potential accusation of treason and collaboration with the enemy.

Collar, in fact, couldn’t involve Rosewater at all in arranging her protection if that protection was directly working for Damme. The reasoning made sense, but also stuck in his throat sideways. He couldn’t give them orders. He couldn’t make them Rose Shadows.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t pay their wages for acting as guards.

Priceless made a note of the deals that Seed and Petal had made last night, including the cost of the ‘unused’ wine that hadn’t been used as a distraction for the wedding.

Further down was a plan for immediate action and mitigation of risk, and Collar skimmed over the details of paying for guards for Rosewater in a roundabout way to see what the suggestion was.

It was, in fact, straightforward. Their existing monitoring network would need to be focused on Rosewater, which meant they might miss other movements of agitators and guard movements, but they would form the first line of defense. Then, each nest would need to have a rapid response team assigned to it formed entirely of pegasi that would be tasked with protecting Rosewater at the drop of a hat.

There weren’t any suggestions for who to assign to each team, but he suggested two teams, one for night-watch and one for day-watch. The additional bonus of that would mean they had a strike team for invaders, though an invasion coupled with an assassination attempt would…

Stop. Collar closed his eyes and pushed away the thought of Rosewater being attacked for the moment. He needed to be less emotional to plan. She was as strong as he was, and it would take an overwhelming force to attack her directly.

Rosethorns don’t attack directly.

“Gah!” Collar surged up from his desk and paced to the window to stare out it, his tail lashing, his gaze roving over the white-streams of smoke rising from dozens of chimneys.

The sight calmed him, somewhat, but he was still tense and worried and didn’t react when his office door opened and closed behind him, or when the silence spread over the room, giving him a hint at who it was even before his mother cleared her throat.

“Priceless said you might be stressed.”

“Stressed.” His voice sounded strained on the edge of panic.

“Stressed. He told me why. He also shared with me the details of his report, and that he might not be the best one to talk to you.” Lace’s hooves tapped across the floor until she was standing next to him. “Roseate is dangerous, but even she will hesitate to resort to murder as her first course of action.”

“Hesitate,” Collar said, glancing aside at his mother. “Meaning she might still resort to it.”

“She might. And I’m certain Rosewater is as aware as you are that she might. Or at least worried that she might. That mare puts paranoia on a whole new level.”

“I know.” Stars, she’d spent six years pretending to be her mother’s lackey just to protect her daughter. “I… I wish I could be there. I wish she were here.”

“As do I. The mother of my grandfoals…” Lace’s voice trailed off into a deep breath and shook her head. “The first mother of my first grandfoal. That’s going to take some getting used to, stars.”

Collar glanced back at his mother, eying her briefly before turning back to the window. “I do appreciate the attempt to distract me, mother, but…”

“But you want the problem solved now.” Her hooves tapped on the carpet slowly before her shoulder brushed against his flank, then his shoulder, and she sat beside him, looking out the window with her cheek inches from his. “The problem with problems such as this is that they can’t be solved immediately. We can’t reactivate the Rose Shadows on a whim. We need to vet ponies, set them to training, innoculate them against Wing and his rhetoric.”

Collar sighed and nodded, then smiled and leaned against his mother. “The mother of my children. My wife.” Not even a day old, and the term felt… right. “We’re going to need more wine.”

Lace chuckled. “Figured out the loophole.”

“Petal and Seed have as much motivation to keep her safe as I do. Paying them extra for their wine in order to get premium consideration for delivery…”

“Indeed. Now. So that I can properly assign you the budget for the wine… what event are you going to need it for?”

Collar let his gaze drift back out over the city, sighed, and leaned against his mother. “For the Ice Festival at least. For Mare’s Night. For Hearth’s Warming.”

“Mmmm. ‘Winter celebrations comma all,’” Lace said in a monotone and laughed. “How many do you want them to hire?”

“At least the three there already. Dazzle included.” He raised a hoof and set it on the sill. “I know he won’t be able to guard her alone, but I don’t want to leave her with only a single guard. She needs eyes behind and above at least.”

“And below.”

Collar mulled over the words, imagining scenarios of caltrops, loose stones along the riverwalk, pothole traps for a broken leg or worse. “That would be insanely indiscriminate of Roseate.”

“Given time, she may feel it is her only choice.”

“Then I have no choice, either.”

“We have no choice,” Lace amended. “This is your marriage, but it is our best chance for peace. As much as I want you to have the chance for love without complications, remember that. In public at least.”

Collar nodded somberly. “Through peace, we’ll find our world less complicated. We understand that, and… we’ll do what must be done in the short term to ensure a long life of love.”

Rosemary clucked her tongue and dropped onto one of the long stone benches in the Prim Gardens. “You should train them to be better at wordplay.”

Collar glanced behind him at the retreating Stride going along with Cloudy, the latter laughing silently on the other side of the gleaming privacy dome Collar had erected around them. “I never thought I’d have to have them fending off playful mares trying to tease blushes out of them.”

“Maybe after the war is over, you’ll need to. I can see a lot of Merrier mares and stallions interested in your Dammeguard ponies. They’ll be practically unarmed against their wordplay.” Rosemary stretched out, languishing in the sunlight streaming over the edge of the wall in one of the few places not blocked out by trees in the mid-morning. She kept one eye on Collar, gauging his reaction to her stretch and exposing her belly to him.

“Maybe, when the war is over, I’ll have to hire you as a trainer to keep them on the tips of their hooves,” Collar said with a smirk, bending his head to nuzzle her barrel, then dropped to the grass in front of her, the jovial attitude evaporating like water on a stove. “I… can I relax with you for a little while?”

Stars. It wasn’t often she’d seen Collar so… tired. He hid it well, because of course he was good at hiding his exhaustion. Of course he was used to it. Rosemary glanced around the garden, at the sleeping stalks of annuals, the falling petals of the late-blooming Snow Lilies, their petals turning from brown to white after the first frost and littering the floor of the garden with their beautiful snow.

The few gardeners that still wandered the grounds tended to the Winterberry bushes that were just starting to flower, and none of them seemed terribly interested in what she and Collar and his lone guard hanging back and inspecting several potted plants with obvious feigned curiosity.

“You can, Collar, of course. Coat will make sure we don’t do anything scandalous in public.” She bent her neck to nip at the back of his ear. “She’ll be back here sooner than you think.”

“I know. I’m not worried about that. Or.. only that. I just want to lay here and think about nothing for a while, Rosemary.”

“Very well, my lord,” Rosemary murmured, resting her chin behind his horn and draping one hoof over his neck. “Then lay here and rest. I’ll be happy to keep you company.”

Collar nodded slowly, and though she couldn’t see it, felt his eyes close. It was something about his posture, the way he settled in more heavily with his cheek pressed to the bench’s rounded edge.

He would talk to her soon.

In the meantime she gathered up some of the white petals, their flesh still pert in the days after first falling, though they would freeze and spill enriched water into the roots of their parents as soon as the winter came. But for now…

Rosemary gritted her teeth and plucked a hair from her tail and began to thread the long blonde strand through the bases of each petal, humming softly to herself as she worked the stiff root through the flesh with a bit of magic, ensuring that the petals lay just so.

The list of things Collar could be worried about filtered through her thoughts as she made the crown… or necklace. She wasn’t sure which she wanted it to be yet.

Roseate would be at the top of the list of things he was worried about, or near it. From there, it wasn’t hard to suss out what he was worried about. Roseate making a move against Rosewater. Whether their play last night would backfire, whether their public kisses would give too much of the game away, along with their announcement of courting.

She’d plucked another strand of hair from her tail and woven it together with the first before he spoke up, and it wasn’t what she was expecting.

“Where can I even take her on a date in Damme?”

“What?”

Collar snorted and raised his head to look at her out of one eye. “You were expecting a different line of questioning?”

“I think that should be fairly obvious, yes.” Rosemary nipped his ear again. “You were worried about Roseate.”

“I still am. But it’s not something I can do anything about right now. What I can do is figure out where in the stars I can take her without causing a riot.” He twisted his neck and leaned away to look at what she was doing. “Is that…”

“My tail hair. And snow lily petals.” Rosemary tested the length around his neck. “It came on a whim. And…” She would need another two tail hairs to make it hang loose. As it was, it would be a choker at best. “Maybe someplace on the docks. It’s someplace Cloudy says you like to go often?”

“For business.” Collar snorted and leaned back against the chair, letting her try her fitting again. “I go there for business and to check in with ship captains and Lord Clipper.”

“And? You’re playing your romance with Rosewater off as half-business aren’t you?” Rosemary tested the length again, then tried it in a ring around his ears and horn. “You can still show your interest in her if you take her to someplace you normally go for business.”

“I know. Stars, I know she’d be happy to be with me in public at all, but I don’t want to… settle.” Collar tapped a hoof on the grass. “I want…”

“What can’t be given right now. And what about a date at the Garden? They hold events leading up to winter to close out the year with flash and joy.” Rosemary nibbled his ear until he flicked it away. “You should ask her out to one of those.”

“I…” Collar swallowed.

“You’re thinking the same way she does, aren’t you? ‘I don’t want to cause them any more trouble.’” This time, she nipped his ear and thumped her chin against his skull. “Stop it. Ask her to one. Or many.”

“Alright, alright!” Collar flattened his ears and rolled away from her, pressing a hoof against her shoulder and laughing. “I’ll ask her. Stars, I can ask her at the next bridge commerce event.”

“She’s going?”

Collar bit his lip.

“Send her a message asking her to come. You can do that, you know, since you’re formally courting each other. Roseate can make noises, but she can’t block you from writing to her.”

Slowly, Collar settled down against the ground, his hoof against her shoulder still and giving her an idea. While he thought, she worked at threading her second hair through the same holes in the petals the first hair went into. She plucked a third, then, and worked it in between, carefully weaving it between the petals to bind them into a shell chain.

He would come to the conclusion he needed to without her prodding, the conclusion that he already knew was right, but he still fought against because he was a decent pony and he didn’t understand how vile Rosemary’s aunt could be. All she could do right now was quietly lay her own claim on him.

“I’ll write her this afternoon,” Collar said with a small smile. “My only concern is getting it across the Rosewine without being intercepted and ‘lost.’”

“Use a palace courier during the daytime. The Rosewine Bridge isn’t going to leap to Roseate’s orders unless she’s taken liberties that I don’t think she can.” Rosemary tugged the three strands into two knots and considered how to tie it so it wouldn’t fall off, but also wouldn’t bite into his flesh when he bent it.

Collar noticed what she was doing after a moment more of thought. “Take a strand of my tail hair and tie it into a bowtie. Easy to take off.”

“And easy to spot,” Rosemary added, casting a spell to snag a strand of his tail hair. “You’ve been growing it out.”

“I usually trim for the summer.”

“Don’t next year. Your tail looks wonderful long.” She plucked the hair, and he only gave a small wince, then watched as she tied the flowers around his ankle. “Take her out to The Two Sisters. They have a good fare, clean tables, and I believe a waitress who’d remember me.”

Collar blinked at her, the gears ticking away visibly behind his greenish eyes. “Stars. The place Pink took you to?”

“It’s fitting. In a way… that’s where we all started down this road.”

Silk sat, trying to keep her muscles from moving more than necessary to breathe, to blink, to follow her mother’s pacing behind her desk, to the window and back. The crown that had been Rosewaters was a mishappen lump of gold on the desk, gems from the sigil of the Rosethorn family scattered like drops of blood around it.

“Nothing.”

“Everything I heard, everything I said is in that report,” Silk said, her voice sounding rough and scared to her own ears despite her attempts to keep it steady and mechanical.

“And seen?”

“She was surrounded by ponies after you left, mother. Even if I tried, I couldn’t get close without getting ejected. I gathered what I could from witnesses closer than I.” She’d made plausible distortions. “All I know is that she stayed when I was compelled to leave.”

“You should have made some excuse.”

“The guards were clearing out all but the vendors. I tried, mother, I did, but the last I saw of Rosewater was her standing with Collar, Baroness Lace, and the Knights.” Silk swallowed and bobbed her head. “I did try to wait for Crown, and even tried to delay, to wait for Rosewater, but I was all but frog-marched to the bridge.”

Roseate gave her a look that bordered on anger before she swept the mangled gold crown into a bin. “Your task hasn’t changed. Send your sister in when you go.”

Outside, three of her sisters were waiting. Rosary looked like somepony had taken her dreams and shredded them.

The golden crown and scattered ruby shards made more sense. Powder and Well were crowded around her, the twins' sky blue coats seeming lackluster in the wake of such wanton maliciousness.

“Roseate… mother said to send you in,” Silk said awkwardly, glancing between the three, then focusing on Rosary. How much can I ask her? “You’ve heard what happened, then?”

Rosary nodded, gathered herself and nuzzled her two sisters lightly. “That traitor stole my crown. I heard. Mother…” Her voice trailed off and she glanced past Silk at the closed door. “She knows what’s best.”

Silk couldn’t say anything to the contrary in the palace, not within earshot of her mother. Nor could Rosary, whatever her true feelings. Instead, she said, “How did Moon handle not being able to go to the Gala? She was practically drooling over fabrics and dreaming about her first dress for the last month.”

For a moment, it seemed like her sister wouldn’t react, her eyes darting from door to Silk and back. Then she smiled, and it looked genuine for once. “She was disappointed beyond words. Featherhawk and I had to read her a story with voices before she would calm enough to go to bed.”

Silk chuckled. “The Rainbow Feathered Albatross still, or has she moved on to more adventurous stories?”

“She’s moved on to a grand sea adventure, Canary’s Roost and the Treasure of Seven Seas Island. Featherhawk practiced his pirates cant all week.” The momentary release from what had to have been Roseate smashing down Rosary’s dreams of being the next baroness, of being able to give her own daughter the heir’s crown, lightened the look in her eyes. “I don’t say it enough, but thank you for keeping her busy. She might one day open her own shop if she keeps learning about sewing.”

“She has an eye for design,” Silk said with a nod, then stepped forward and nuzzled her sister’s cheek. “Lunch tomorrow? It’s been too long.”

She offered it on a whim. Rosary was hardly the favorite of her sisters, but she had trusted Silk with caring for her daughter while Rosary ran her own business with Well and Powder making scented beads, oils, and poultices. Their goods rivaled Rosewater’s for price and quality, and the volume dwarfed their eldest’s best efforts. None of them could quite match Rosewater when it came to the finest tweaking of emotions, though, or match her raw strength.

Together…

“Day after tomorrow, and it’s a deal. I have a meeting with the consulate from Saddle Arabia for a barrel of bath beads for next year.” Rosary glanced at her two business partners. “Would you two like to come?”

“If it’s on Silk’s dime…” Well said, a mischievous light in her eyes. “Of course. Stars, mare, you must have made out like a bandit on Rosewater’s dress.”

In fact, she’d only made the dress at cost. “She wasn’t… happy about how much I charged her, that’s for sure.” True. Rosewater had insisted on double her usual rate for such a short time, but the chance to be able to parade her business dealings as espionage had been too good, and she wanted Rosewater in her debt.

At least at first. As it went on…

“Fine, fine,” Silk grumbled. “On me. And I suppose Powder as well?”

“Mmm. No. Chancery and I are spending some time with Kestrel. The poor dear is going through her first moult at the wrong time and her feathers are all out of sorts.” Powder shook her head. “She’s itching like mad and losing feathers when she’s supposed to be gaining them. I swear it’s because she sits in front of the fireplace all evening and reads.”

“Deal.” Silk nodded to Rosary. “Good luck.”

Rosary gave her a wan smile, then wiped it away with a shake of her head, becoming the chill, spare mare she was in every moment when she wasn’t outside her home. “I don’t need luck, Silk. But you will.”

That was her confidence, the bluster that let her bowl through anything in her way except their sister, Rosewater. And their mother.

Silk spared the twins a look, but they were putting up their masks as well, hiding the true selves they kept hidden except at their most vulnerable. They were ambitious, and they’d lined up behind Rosary to support her. What plans they had, she had no idea, but the three of them were closer than a pomegranate cluster.

They only let Silk see this little bit when she was invited over for dinner with Rosary at her estate in the south of the city, a sprawling multi-acre compound covered with gardens of not only flowers, but berry-bearing bushes, its own small granary, and a low wall that had once been a part of the southernmost defenses of the city in an age when blood flowed into the river regularly.

The wall, now tumbled, had been reshaped into an elevated trail with sloped sides all around covered with decorative grasses and flower beds that went around the entire property. A more useful fortification in an age of espionage and trickery.

Silk left them, pondering what she’d told Rosewater about trusting them, pondering her own suspicions of them. They were loyal to Roseate, yes, but she didn’t know how much of that was because of whatever leverage Roseate had over them or because they truly believed in Roseate’s methods and madness.

They played everything they did close. Even Moon, sweetheart that she was, wasn’t immune from their ambitions.

Or… they want her to know you as a trusted aunt. Just in case.

Silk contemplated that all the way back to her home, where Rosetail and Vine were sitting playing Petals with dinner options on the table as stakes.

What she was doing was playing a higher stakes game of Petals, with more players and two cities on the line.

Oh, stop, melodramare. Silk nuzzled her sisters and sat down to deal herself in.

Lunch was barely out of the ovens when Rosewater was interrupted helping in the kitchen by young Zephirine bursting into the villa’s main room shouting for her, the sound of her landing barely preceding her arrival.

“Rosewater! Rosewater! There’s a letter for you!”

“Go,” White Rose said with a grin and a wink. “I think I can handle slicing some bread for soup.”

Rosewater hesitated, worrying her lip.

“Stars, mare, unless you run off I can hear you from here. I don’t have to have eyes on you every moment of every day, else how’d you go to the closet?” The mare snorted and tossed her head, then sighed as the shouting descended to panting in the doorway. “Or she can hear me and come charging.”

“Rosewater, a letter from Damme,” Zephirine said, beaming at her just before ducking her head and withdrawing a faintly rumpled letter in folded cream paper with the seal of the Heir of Damme stamped in blue wax over the corner. “Oh stars, is it from Collar? Is he asking you out on a date already? Open it!”

“Calm!” Rosewater laughed, her heart skipping a beat as she worked at the wax, trying not to break it too roughly. “Stars, Zephie, have a seat and take some water. It looks like you almost broke the sky trying to get here.”

“I did try,” Zephirine cried, accepting a mug of cool water from White Rose with a nod. “I was crossing the bridge to pick up some mushrooms for dinner tomorrow night when a courier in Dammeguard blue dropped out of the sky. Stars, they were graceful, just all wing and turn and grace, and that creamy coat and her feathers and—”

“Breathe, Zephie,” White said, grinning and thumping the young mare across the shoulders with a ladle’s handle.

“Right. Sorry.” She gulped down the rest of the water and closed her eyes, though she was still vibrating as if trying to fracture the stone of the kitchen floor.

Rosewater took the reprieve to open the envelope and take out the folded sheet of palace letterhead. Not just any letter then, but official palace business. Before she could read past the ‘Beloved Lady Rosewater,’ Zephirine’s restraint broke again.

“She started talking to the bridge guard about taking a letter across, and they started arguing, and your name came up, so naturally I stepped in and offered to take the letter to you. And, you know, they know me, so they know I’m Seed’s sister, and so I got the letter, and I saw how important it was immediately, so I took off straight here.”

“I see,” Rosewater said, taking a moment to touch the mare’s shoulder with a soothing spell. “Thank you, Zephirine. I think this is from Collar.”

“I know it’s from Collar,” the younger mare replied with a beaming smile. “His name came up too, and stars, he’s just so handsome and kind, and I saw him at the Commoner’s Gala, and I saw you and him dancing, and stars… and now you’re courting!”

“And I need to read it, Zephie.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m just so excited!”

Beloved Lady Rosewater,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. It’s only been a day, but last night after you left was… lonely. Since we’ve announced our courtship and despite your comfort with me continuing to share my bed with Cloudy, I feel uncomfortable letting our ponies see that I am breaking faith with our custom and even our law. I know asking you to stay the night would be overmuch this soon into our courtship, but I find seeing you only every third or fourth day wears thin when my nights are empty a bothersome chore.
I’ve spoken with my mother about courting you and what that will entail as regards your arrest warrant. I’m not sure how to word this without it sounding like extortion

Rosewater laughed and covered her muzzle, glancing aside at White, serving soup and raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

so I’ll just come out and say it. As long as you’re with me on a date, your arrest warrant will be suspended. I can’t have our guard arresting potentially their future Lady of Damme, after all. But Captain Pink will pass down the orders, and your daughter actually suggested the place. It’s a common place on the docks for sailors and locals to meet for meals. It’s called The Two Sisters, and if you agree, please send a reply with the mare who delivered this message. I’ve instructed her to wait, if possible, for a response.
All of my love and care,
Lord Primline Collar

“Did… she say she was going to wait for a response?” Rosewater asked.

“Oh.” Zephirine flicked her ears back and stared at the floor. “I… don’t know? She just asked me if I knew where to find you, and I said of course, and she held out a letter, and I… er. Well. I kinda snatched it from her lips before she could ask me anything else. Stars, I think I almost kissed her! A Dammeguard. Stars, am I going to be on a watchlist?”

“Calm down, sweetie,” Rosewater said, folding up the letter again and moving to sit beside her. “You’re not going to be put on a watchlist for being an exuberant sweetheart. But I will need you to deliver the response back to her if you can, or to Collar’s own hoof if you can’t. Can you do that for me?”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea. To the bridge is—”

“Can I see Lord Collar again?” Zephirine blurted, prancing in place and apparently not even having heard White Rose’s partial objection. “Stars, I want to talk to him a little more. Just a little more. He seemed like such a nice pony, and that mare with him! Cloudy, stars, she was—”

White Rose gave Rosewater an exasperated look and rolled her eyes as Zephirine continued on for several more breathless sentences, then said, “Fine, fine. I withdraw my objection.”

“I can go?” Zephirine drummed all four hooves on the stone floor, and just barely restrained her wings from snapping open inside.

Rosewater glanced at White Rose to confirm, and got a nod in return. “You can go, Zephie. Do you still have your Rosewine tabard and, more importantly, is it clean?”

“Uh…” Zephirine stopped bouncing and considered. “Yes. But clean? Um. It went out with the wash?”

White Rose sighed and gave Rosewater a glance, then said to Zephirine, “Ask Petal for a clean one from stores, please.”

“But if I’m just going to…” Zephirine waved a hoof across the floor and stopped it. “The bridge…”

“But you might need to go to the Palace,” Rosewater added. “As much as I know you love to fly, I’d prefer to get the answer back to Collar with as few rumples as possible.”

“You need to look good, Zephie, if you’re going to represent us to the world.”

“Why not Bliss? She already looks good?” Zephirine said with a sly smirk.

“Because Bliss is… busy,” Rosewater answered with a glance at White Rose. “Or will be shortly.”

“Oh.” Zephirine blinked, cocked her head and blinked again, then gasped. “Oh! So… where are you two making love this afternoon? I don’t want to interrupt, but I—”

“We’re not making love, Zephie,” Rosewater said with a sad smile. “She’s… keeping me company.”

“Oh.” Zephirine sighed and ruffled her wings. “Alright. Is… is everything okay with you two? You were pretty close for a few weeks.”

“Everything is more than okay,” Rosewater assured her. “Now, please, I need to finish helping White Rose making lunch for everypony. Find a tabard and meet me back here before lunch starts.”

As soon as she was gone, Rosewater set a silence around the kitchen. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have thought to include her.”

White gave her a look, sighed, and shook her head. “She’s always been headstrong. Comes of being Seed’s sister, I suppose. She’d have moped for a week if you did send Bliss. Despite what she said.”

Rosewater snorted. “It sounds like Seed taught her well.”

“Stars have mercy.”

“I hope they send Bliss soon so I can fetch my ink and quill.”

“You really need two of us at least to escort you, dear. I can appreciate not wanting to disrupt more lives than necessary, but…” White gave her a pointed look as she set out the trays of small sandwiches for the children of the Villa.

“But having only one of you means you’re tied to me as much as I’m tied to you when something unexpected happens.” Rosewater bobbed her head minutely. “I was hoping I’d get a few more days to work out who else we can trust absolutely on this side of the river that isn’t already tied down by other duties.”

“Well… that nixes Silver, then. She’s been working herself spare at the forge keeping up with orders, and she being the only silversmith we have…”

It was the purity of the metal that made it useful, and ponies used it to enchant everything from small baubles to entire bottles. Rosewater hadn’t made things easy on her slate of orders, either with an order of a crown in such a short span.

“I know.”

“Zephirine would swoon, but I’m not sure she’d be able to keep herself from saying something.”

“You never know. She might surprise us all.” It would be a risk, but all she had left were risky maneuvers. Either she hamstrung one pony at a time for however long it took for her to be sure she was with Collar’s foal, or she found a way to be more flexible. From what she understood about Carnation’s dabbling with Compass Rose before Rosemary was born, gleaned from her diaries after she was gone, it had taken her more than a month to be sure.

And that was if her cycle and her times with Collar matched up.

“Stars, I hope I’m right about when my cycle starts up again.”

White gave her an arch-browed look. “You stopped taking the candies the day of the gala?”

“Since they last for a week…” Rosewater counted backwards to the last time she’d taken one of Rosie’s contraceptives. “I should… well, unless I paused in the middle of a cycle, three days hence.”

“Is that how they work? I’ve been curious, but never curious enough to look into it.”

“Mm. They stop the estrus cycle at the point when you take one. Which is why you sometimes get breakthrough pregnancies for ponies who miss a day. Very next day, they went into cycle, then took a candy, but it was too late.”

“My friend, Highstep, had that happen to her. She loves her little Surprise, though, and he looks just like a blending of her and her lover. It’s unmistakable.” White chuckled softly. “I thought she’d just had a bad candy, or trusted an old one.”

“Little Surprise,” Rosewater murmured softly. She shook herself lightly and settled in to help White Rose finish preparing lunch for everypony. She would have her own little surprise soon enough.

Book 3, 3: Open Negotiations

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“My lord, there is a, um…”

Collar looked up from his perusal of a plan Cloudy had prepared for him for a retreat with him, her, and Rosewater. “What is it, Poppy?” Collar asked, covering the page with a book surreptitiously. He needed to make that a habit. He’d almost spilled the plan to Stride when the stallion had poked his head in earlier to let him know he was starting his second shift with Rosemary early.

“There’s a mare here to see you in a, uh… tabard. It’s not a Rosethorn tabard, and she doesn’t have a treaty flag.”

“Not Rosewater, then.”

“No, my lord.” Poppy flicked a look at the desk, then away. “Would she?”

“Stars, I hope not without an escort and not without notifying us first.” Collar rubbed a hoof over his mane, not realizing until that moment that he’d been worried that she might. “Did she give a purpose?”

“Courier, sir. She had a letter she would only give over to your care.”

Wise. Is that Bliss? He was curious about the storied beauty of the Garden Villa, but not overly intrigued that she might be there. “I’ll be out straightaway, Poppy. Please see her to one of the sitting rooms and ask her to wait.”

“Yes, sir.”

Collar stood and tried to push down the disappointment that she didn’t deliver it herself, or connive to have it delivered as she used to, with one of her clever little tricks about his favorite foods.

Maybe she’ll…

Collar shook his head. That was when she’d been playing a game, not seriously courting him. He set the page of planning into his center drawer and locked it with a quick spell, then left. It wouldn’t give Poppy much time, but he didn’t want to delay, either. Rosewater hadn’t spent much time delaying her response, after all.

He found Poppy and the young mare just about to enter a bottom level sitting room just off the main hall, still not fully set back to rights after the gala last night, with Poppy apologizing over the state of disorder in the sitting chairs and single couch inside.

“It’s alright, Poppy,” Collar said, startling the stallion. “At least we moved all the other furniture back out. I forgot how much work it was to clear out the gala rooms.”

“Ah. My lord.” Poppy cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting you for several minutes yet.”

“Forgive me for being anxious to hear news from the mare I just announced to the world that I’m courting,” Collar said with a wry smile and a pat on the other stallion’s shoulder. “Back to your post, corporal, and thank you.”

“W-wait!” The mare cried, tapping a dainty hoof on the ground and tossing her dark pink mane and ruffling her strikingly colored white-pink wings. “Aren’t you supposed to, um….” Her cheeks flushed pink, her eyes darting nervously from Collar to Poppy and back again. “Introduce me?”

“Oh, uh…” Poppy floundered for a moment before he found himself again. “Um. My lord, Zephirine Rosedown. Zephirine, Lord Primline Collar.”

“A beautiful name for a beautiful young mare,” Collar said, offering a crooked hook for her. “My apologies, again, for my hastiness.”

Zephirine’s blush grew at least a shade darker as she set her hoof on his. “N-no apology needed, my lord.” Her ears flattened as he raised her hoof to kiss lightly on the back.

“Of course it is. A gentlepony should never rush introductions.” Collar stepped aside and waved her into the room while he cast spells on the furniture to set it more to rights, shifting it by inches and moving pillows about in a delicate dance that set his concentration to the limit. “Please, I’ll have you comfortable when you deliver your news.”

“Th-thank you, my lord.” Zephirine gave him a halting bow and stepped inside, stopped, and turned to the chairs, then to the couch and froze with her tail flicking side to side.

“Take the couch, Zephirine, please. I’m used to chairs,” Collar said in a gently encouraging voice before he closed the door part way. “Poppy, thank you.”

“Of course, my lord.” He stepped closer and closed off the air around them with a variant sound shield. “She’s… very young and very excitable, my lord. I don’t think she’s a professional courier.”

“She isn’t. So far as we knew, the Garden had no need for couriers, official ones anyway.” Collar tapped the corporal lightly on the foreleg. “Back to your post.”

When he slipped into the sitting room and closed the door behind him, Zephirine was carefully arranging the pillows at one end of the couch under her shoulder, very carefully using her teeth and opposite forehoof to adjust it in place.

She startled when he cleared his throat and stared at him with wide eyes.

“Please, feel at home. I know these pillows aren’t the most comfortable.” He studied her for a long moment, cocking his head to the side as a memory tickled at the back of his throat. “I’ve met you before. Briefly, I think.”

“A-at the Commoner’s Gala, my lord. Stars, you’re handsome.” Her eyes bulged wider and she seemed about to choke on her tongue when he laughed and waved a hoof at her before pulling a cushion down from a chair and sitting on it on the floor. “Stars, my… my mouth.” She covered her muzzle with a hoof.

“It’s fine, Zephirine. It’s flattering, if I’m being honest.” Collar forced himself to follow the line of Damme pleasantries and glanced around for tea, but found none. Of course. He’d given Poppy no time at all to prepare the room. And then sent him back to his post. “Please forgive me for my own hastiness. I should have tea prepared for visitors, but I’m afraid that I have…” He twirled a hoof, looking for the words.

“You want to know what your lady love has to say,” Zephirine breathed, her eyes shining again. She ducked her head to pull a letter from a day-bag rather than a courier’s satchel under her wing. “I have her reply, m-my lord.”

“Collar, please, Zephirine. At least in private.” Collar took the letter, but settled it to the table instead of tearing it open as he wanted to. “How is she doing this morning? I would hear it from a resident and friend of hers.”

“Well. Stars, she was beaming all morning at breakfast, and it’s so amazing to have her there living with us. I don’t know if you know this, but I was only eleven when she stopped coming by, and it was… stars, my lord, it was hard missing an aunt, and my brother took it even harder.”

Before Collar could say anything, she went on.

“And we have you to thank for it, don’t we, my lord? She came back to us because she found love that… that she can’t touch?” Zephirine was half off the couch, her forehooves dancing. “She loves you and because she has love, she can share some of it with us again, right?”

“I…” Collar stared at the mare, the earnestness in her eyes drawing his thoughts to a stop. He could claim that was his doing, but her first trip to the Garden had been inspired by Cloudy, not him, back when he’d still been suspicious of her motives, before he’d seen the heart she hid. “I wish I could take the full credit for her coming back, but Cloudy should take most of it. She encouraged her to open up again first, and when she did…”

He waved a hoof and closed his eyes, then opened them wide. “I saw her. Stars, the first time I saw the first hint of the real her shining through, I thought she was playing a game, but the more she and I talked, the more she let herself be open, the more I saw the beauty of her heart. I have you, all of you at the Garden, to thank for that, don’t I?”

Zephirine, her mouth open to continue her stream of thought, openly stared at him. “You… didn’t fall in love with her at first sight?”

Collar chuckled. “I’m afraid not. We had… differences. But we’re past that now.” Collar paused as the door opened again and Cloudy poked her head in, dipping her ears, then backing away to let a floating tray covered in light golden magic float in and settling on the table.

“Heard through the grapevine we had a visitor,” Cloudy said shortly and bobbed her head to Zephirine before hedging further into the room, then hopping and bounding forward with a yelp before the door closed again behind her. “Stars, she can be pushy.”

“She can be,” Collar agreed with a laugh. “She doesn’t want you to lose your touch with diplomatics even if we’re not dating at the moment.”

Zephirine flicked a hoof between them, staring open-mouthed. “W-w-wait—” Her mouth clicked shut all of a sudden. “Wait! Sorry, sorry, not my business.”

“It’s… fine,” Cloudy said with a small effort visible in the set of her ears. “We agreed that things had changed. Not in how we feel about each other, but in how our relationship needs to progress. Collar fell in love with Rosewater and, honestly, so did I. But Rosemary and I…”

“Oh. Oh stars, I remember seeing the two of you at the Garden, now. I wondered what happened…”

Cloudy’s expression tightened, then relaxed, and she smiled faintly. “It’s okay, Zephirine. It’s… political. Sort of. And not sort of, too.”

Zephirine cocked her head. “Oh. ‘It’s complicated.’”

Collar rolled his eyes. “Yes. Very. But to make the most ponies the happiest, we all agreed to this arrangement. I’m courting Rosewater, and Rosemary and Cloudy are courting each other again. Sort of.”

“It’s complicated,” Zephirine and Cloudy said, only slightly off-tempo, giggled together and tapped hooves before sitting down opposite Collar.

“So…” Zephirine seemed to relax more with Cloudy there, as if having another Merrier present made things seem safer. “You’re in love with her, too?”

Collar listened while the two mares caught up, tossing names back and forth that he stored for later, and poured hot water and started tea to steeping. He dropped three dollops of honey in Cloudy’s tea at the right time, and raised a brow when Zephirine’s ears rose she leaned over to sniff.

“Honey?”

“Um. Please. Is that blueberry honey?”

“My favorite,” Cloudy explained, bending down to swirl her tea about with the long rod attached to the steeping bell.

“She likes her tea strong and sweet,” Collar added, offering to drop some in Zephirine’s tea. “I have some cream here, too.”

“Just cream, please. Too much sugar and I feel like I’ll vibrate out of my coat.” She reached out and tapped the stirring rod. “Just below the rim.”

A statement Collar had no issue believing would be literal if she had too much. “I understand she also made a visit to the Treaty Office this morning in Merrie?”

“Oh! Yes! I don’t know what all that was about, but she took Petal, and Prism, and White Rose with her, and they were all in a snit when they came back. Something about the bridge guard being different. I didn’t hear much, but White Rose was really annoyed by them. I guess Roselight wasn’t there today.”

The name flicked a memory from a report. Just a small one from Platinum about one of her subordinates who seemed sweet on a mare by that name. “Oh?”

“Oh yeah. She and Roselight have a Rose Night every now and then with a sweet stallion from the Garden Village named Rosewood Kiss.” She leaned in close. “He’s also a Merrieguard on bridge duty.”

Interesting. If Roseate was mucking with the daytime bridge schedules, perhaps it meant she was trying to push the normally rotational schedule into chaos. Perhaps punishing those she considered to be city loyalists… or rewarding those she considered loyal to her. Among the Dammeguard, day bridge duty was considered a plush and cushy position, even if it meant long hours and dealing with a sometimes irate public. They could stand around most of the day.

Nighttime bridge duty was sometimes scary, but often boring and tense at the same time. He imagined that it was only boring on the other side of the river, not having to deal with raids or infiltrations or even to be on guard for them.

Though… if they were punishing the city loyalists…

Collar snapped himself out of his strategic ruminations and settled back on his chair. “Well. I’m glad to hear she had most of a good morning. How was she when the letter was delivered?”

“Making lunch,” Zephirine said shortly around the rim of the mug, then sat back and tapped a hoof on the floor, her eyes darting to the letter and back.

Cloudy cleared her throat. “Are you just going to let it sit there? Stars, Coll, I know you’re dying to know what she wrote.”

Collar glanced at the steeping tea, sighed, and picked up the letter with a spell. On the back was written a simple message, ‘Break the wax, my lord.’ He showed it to Cloudy briefly before bringing it back and sniffing at it, then inspecting it more closely. There appeared to be a small bubble under the wax, a bulge where his seal had been partially melted and then resealed.

Cloudy’s smile widened, then clamped down as she took her mug of tea, her eyes shining as she hid the delighted grin behind it. “She’s not done playing games, it seems. I wonder what delight she’s sent us this time?”

Zephirine looked like she was about to pop from excitement.

Before she could, Collar chuckled and snapped the wax around the bubble, trying to preserve whatever pocket of scent she’d most likely trapped inside. But as soon as he started cracking the wax, a sparkle of magic glittered across the surface and the bubble erupted in a puff of pink and green swirls glowing faintly as the perfume atomized itself and activated.

As it descended over his nose, he had the brief sensation of no longer being in a castle with the suddenly sharp and acrid smell of stone. Then the castle was back, but when his eyes fluttered closed to take in the scent descending on him, he was in a glade surrounded by blooming roses wrapped with layers upon layers of lilacs, lilies, and thick, short-bladed grass all around him, all of it fragrantly expressed in the brief moment before he opened his eyes.

And somewhere close by was a hint of Rosewater nearby.

Disappointingly, the vision vanished when he opened his eyes and only a dim reminder of it came back when he blinked again.

What lingered was her. An indefineable essence of who she was. Calm, for the most part, a touch of excitement so he could almost see her ears twitching, and his heart beat a little faster at the suggestion of a promise that he could smell her much more clearly soon.

“That…” Cloudy murmured, settling back down to sit, blinking. “That was something else.”

Collar nodded slowly, using a spell to gather up the remnants of the wax blister. If there was a hidden message, Rosemary would be able to uncover it with the remnant of perfume he could still smell was lingering on the shining shards. “Did you see her?”

Cloudy gave him an odd look. “I smelled a hint of her, and I saw a glade. I think… I think I even know where it is in the Villa grounds. But this time of year…”

“She’s the best,” Zephirine said proudly, puffing out her chest. “I watched her make the perfume. A drop of sweat, a dash of denatured alcohol, and a few dried flower petals from Lover’s Glen. But…”

Collar glanced at the young mare. “But she did something with it all you didn’t understand.”

Zephirine nodded. “One moment, it was just a pretty smell. The next…”

She used her talent to bring me hope and calm.

“She looked really tired, but the wax was whole again in moments, and there was some kind of glowing pattern on it. She made me promise not to crack the wax. Or let anypony else crack it.” Zephirine cocked her head. “It was really lucky that pretty mare didn’t wait. I’m not sure I’d have been able to give her the letter without her being super suspicious.”

“For the best, but you can trust her if you see her again,” Collar said, sliding the wax into the envelope at the same time he drew the letter out. Disappointingly, no text started to fade into view, but he suspected Rosemary would have to do something else with it to reveal any messages. More magic he’d have to ignore. Not that he wanted to after that. If she could activate the perfume again…

His words were on one side, hers on the blank back and at the top there was a suspicious gap where a message might hide, if one knew to look for it. Otherwise the hasty scrawl below it would look like the writer hadn’t bothered to properly set their lines first.

My love,
I would be honored to be your date. A day hence? You left no mention of time, so in the manner of duels, I choose the time and weapon of choice. A kiss, and tomorrow noontime for lunch.
I only regret we won’t be able to dance as we did our first night together.
My hopeful regards,
Lady Rosewater Rosethorn

Collar felt heat rising in his cheeks at the mention of their first night together. Their first night in bed together, even if nothing happened. But the next day…

Or does she mean the first first time? Her, awkward and scared and alone, confessing just how nervous she was. The words on her letter were playful, but…

“She’s nervous,” Collar said gently as he passed the letter to Cloudy to read, glancing at Zephirine to see if she’d sussed out anything. She seemed a little more than politely curious, studying him from horn-tip to hind hoof as if she were committing every line of him to memory.

“And excited,” Cloudy said after giving the letter a quick look and sniff. “Tomorrow is faster than I thought she’d agree to.”

It’s later than I hoped. Stars, he wanted to go there tonight. He wanted to see her tonight. Hold her. Fall asleep with, and then wake up with her again. But the danger was too great.

“But you should take it to Rosemary,” Cloudy added, sniffing it again and raising a brow. “She’ll be more than happy to see a scrap of writing from her mother.”

Collar pursed his lips and nodded, his heart fluttering and trying not to hide the potential for a hidden message indicating a rendezvous sometime tonight. Somewhere out of the way. Someplace they both knew.

Except she’ll need a pony to accompany her. So far as he knew, none of the residents of the garden were so skilled at subterfuge and infiltration as she was. Unless she could drain herself to hide another until he could take over for her. Or if… Prism’s talent for bending light would help her, but not against the noses and ears of counter-agents.

Losing her to the Garden had been understandable, but still a blow to the Dammeguard’s ranks. That she still visited her parents on occasion gave him hope that she was happy and a good, useful example of…

Stars, listen to yourself. Collar bobbed his head again and cast away thoughts of political plays using Rosewater’s friends. “Soon enough.” He bobbed his head to Cloudy. “Could you fetch my letter tray?”

Cloudy smirked as the door opened and the tray floated in, on a diluted purple field to settle on the table. “Lace sent Poppy to fetch it as soon as we were informed a courier was here.”

There was even a brilliant blue candle and a striker, not a normal part of his writing kit, and a single, blank envelope laying underneath both.

He hid a smile behind an exasperated sigh and roll of his eyes that he hoped would distract from the flush he felt in his cheeks, rising up to envelope his cheeks.

It didn’t take him much to write the words he knew he had to write, and wished he could spare a little time with Rosemary to add a secret message. But he couldn’t hold her for however long it took for Rosemary to gather the ingredients needed for such a thing, or however long it took to write. Truth be told, he had no idea how it was even done except by scent magic.

My lady Rosewater,
I write back in haste, I know, but I wish not to keep your courier overlong in case she has other duties to attend. I wish I had more time to think on your words and find the right witty repartee as has become our custom in the quiet moments between meetings, but I can’t.
Of course tomorrow at noon will work. I will meet you myself at the Rosewine Bridge and escort you thence once our meal is done.
I ask only one boon, or three boons for one thing. A kiss beginning, middle, and end.
Let that be a promise for at least three dances to come.
Yours,
Lord Primline Collar

“I regret,” Collar said as he clicked the striker over the candle’s wick until it caught, “that I have only tea at the moment to speed you home, but I must ask that you do be speedy as you can on your way and deliver this to her hoof alone.”

Zephirine squeaked around the lip of her tea mug and dipped her ears in acknowledgment before she swallowed the tea and set the mug down. “I will, my lord, of course.”

Collar fished a silver buckle from his day bag and held it out to her along with the letter. “And afterwards, treat yourself on my buckle.”

“Interesting.” Crown sat on the ridge overlooking the Rosewine with a spyglass to her eye, not even bothering to hide that she was watching the traffic. There wasn’t any point. Everypony who knew what had happened last night was trying their damndest to find out anything they could about the sudden shift in apparent power dynamics.

Rosewater had just declared war on her mother’s intent. Openly.

“It’s terrifying,” Silk said from beside her. She couldn’t quite hide the tremor in her voice. She’d come straight to Crown to tell her everything after her meeting with mother, not even to go home to let Vine know. Crown destroyed, Rosary being prodded into a dangerous mood. “What do you think she’ll do?”

“Bide her time for now. Stars, what can any of us do? Did you see this coming? Did Roseate?”

“Almost certainly not,” Silk replied with a snort. “Can you imagine mother sitting still while Rosewater courted a stallion?”

“She did that one time,” Crown said with a light shrug she didn’t feel.

“Because he was her first cousin.” Silk nipped her neck. “You wanted to tell her.”

“She didn’t deserve to be branded with incest when she didn’t even know.” Not that it was unknown. She had to have suspected, even if he didn’t talk about his reason for being there. Even if he hadn’t recognized his uncle’s features in her. “Maybe she wanted to believe that there was a chance, and didn’t want to ruin it by looking for the truth.”

Silk made a noise low in her throat. She knew, better than most, the weight of that brand, even if it was secret and in full fairness not entirely wholly on her shoulders. Too young, distant mother, her only caretakers the disinterested staff. It was easy to see two young ponies clinging to each other for support as their bodies changed and matured taking one step further with the thought, ‘just once is alright.’

Crown shook her head slowly. “Whatever her reasons… this is… Collar actually kissed her?”

“First, yes. He initiated. It’s been going on in secret for… stars, I don’t know how long. Years?”

“Then why doesn’t she already have a foal of her own? Why hide herself away? No. Think about it logically, Silk. This is new.” Crown raised a hoof, ready to list off points when a pegasus landed at the bridge, wearing an unusual tabard, but clearly a courier of some sort. Just not one from either Damme or Merrie. “And… so is that. Do you recognize that tabard?”

Silk raised her ears and accepted the glass, peering through it. “The pegasus? No. The crest? That’s the Rosewine family crest.”

Crown waited for her sister to make the connection. “She was a volunteer at the Commoner’s Gala. I saw her several times while I was there.”

“What’s she doing coming from damme in that tabard?” Silk stared for longer, tracking the bright tabard through the queue. “She keeps checking under her wing. Flight bag, but not very good if she’s a courier. The tabard, though… that’s the Rosewine family crest.”

“And Rosewater is staying with the Rosewines. She hasn’t even been back to her home since before the gala.” Crown glanced aside at her sister and strengthened the sound scrambling field around them. “Since she was with Dazzle and Collar went on his ‘patrol’ for two days and disappeared.”

Silk lowered the glass and glanced around, ears perked. “You’re suggesting that Rosewater and Collar spent the night together.”

“I am. I’ve been out in that direction on patrol. There’s nothing out there within a day’s march. Half a day, since he returned a day and a half after he left.” Crown shook her head. “Maybe he went to Dammehollow, but we’d have heard about a visit by him there.”

“What if he went north?”

“To where?” Crown snorted and shook her head. She’d studied the maps of the north in case Roseate sent her out on patrol that way. “The only thing north is the old Imperial road and the trackless forest.” Crown snorted and shook her head. “No. That was a lie. Wherever he went, he wanted everypony, including his own ponies, to believe he went somewhere he did not, but nopony has given it too much deep thought.”

“Mother has. By now at least if not then.”

“Of course she has. She complained at me for missing it this morning.” Crown glanced at her sister. “What did she ream you about?”

“What I told you about what I saw. I apparently didn’t try to stay longer and see Rosewater leave.”

Crown flicked an ear. She would have to ask Note what he knew. If he could tell her. It was likely he didn’t know much more, though. She shook her head and dismissed the idea almost immediately. After last night… stars, she had to start making other plans.

She accepted the spyglass back and watched as the young mare took off again immediately after passing the checkpoint, landed in line at the other end, and worked her way through the line again before taking off again straight to the villa.

“She sent him a letter.”

“They’re courting. That’s not unusual,” Silk said, her voice resigned. “But mother will chew our hides for not intercepting it.”

“How?” Crown barked a laugh. “The slowest pegasus in the air can still outrun a unicorn.”

“Rosewater, Collar, Lace, and Roseate might. Rosary, too, if she tries. Maybe.” Silk shook her head. “I could, with enough preparation and length of silk.”

“In the right circumstances, perhaps.” Crown followed Zephirine’s flight all the way back to the Villa, where her line of sight was broken by the screen of trees around the main building. Even so, she caught sight of a flash of white between the limbs before even that was gone.

Hardly concrete proof, but it seemed like Rosewater had been waiting for her arrival.

“What did you think of what happened?” Silk asked, her voice quiet even despite the fuzzing sound field around them. “About… Rosewater courting Collar.”

“You’re sure it’s that way around and not mutual?” Crown asked, glancing aside at her sister. “I saw them both the day of the Commoner’s Gala. How easy they were with each other, even considering Collar was there with Cloudy. And remember how we thought they were serious.”

“Serious enough for mother to try and abduct her. Pretty sure the exile would be null, but she’d have still tried.” Silk was silent for a few breaths. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“You really want to know?” Crown snapped her scope down to a small tube a little longer than the breadth of a hoof. “Can I trust you?”

Silk winced. “Fine. Trust for trust.” She steeled herself visibly. “I want them to be together. Stars, Vine wants her and Dazzle to be together because she’s already imagining a full romance novella for them. But… this wouldn’t just put Rosewater in charge. It would end the war, Crown. Stars, I told you the speech she and he gave. She sounded sincere. What would Rosary do?”

Crown tucked her chin to her chest and flattened her ears. “I don’t know.”

“I gave you enough for mother to pile on me and throw Vine and I to the wolves. Give me something back, Crown. Please.” Silk’s earnest plea drew Crown to meet her older sister’s worried eyes. Her lips were tight, her ears flat.

“Nothing I could give you would match the weight she holds over you, Silk.” Crown closed her eyes and shook her head. “But… trust and trust. I love Vine, Silk, and I would hate to see her harmed by something I did.”

“She’s the best of us.”

“She is. I want them to succeed. Rosewater and Collar. I… have my doubts that Rosary, Powder, and Well are as far from us as they make it seem. Stars, Rosary has two children to keep care of, and Powder and Well might as well be one mare as far as Kestral is concerned.” Crown shook her head. “They’d never risk harm to their children. No matter the cost to them.”

“You’re certain?”

Crown thought about Rosary sobbing too close to a window, picking up the vibrations from the panel. Listening to what her sister told her husbands in broken words about what Roseate said, what she was going to have to do.

She had stopped listening halfway through and gone home to drown the memory in wine.

“I don’t trust them because they would sell us all to mother for a promise.” Crown shook her head. “But I see what Rosewater has done to keep her daughter safe, and… it’s not easy. But I trust her more than them. I just don’t know what we can do to help and keep ourselves safe at the same time.”

And ensure that Rosewater keeps on the same path. But there was also, clearly, more that Silk hadn’t told her, and wouldn’t until they had built up enough trust with each other.

“It would help,” Rosemary said gently as she melted the wax slowly under the bell glass, the heat barely enough to release the fragrance into the sealed jar, “if you weren’t crowding around so much.”

Collar backed away obediently, ears flat. “My apologies. I’ve never seen this done before and, well, when you did it for Rosewater’s first message, it was barely five minutes before you had it done.”

“She sent me a pure sample of the key the first time,” Rosemary said with a small huff. “If you’d opened the letter with me, I could have managed to capture it much more easily, I assure you. But I need to capture the purest essence I can from hot, not burning, wax.”

“Oh.” Collar glanced at Cloudy and settled in on Rosemary’s other side, his tail flipped over hers. “Well. I will sit here quietly and watch. And do not tease you with neck nibbles.”

Rosemary gave him a sidelong glance. “And why not?”

“Yeah. Why not?” Cloudy asked as she settled in on Rosemary’s other side and gave her a light nip just below the ear. “I assure you, she is very tasty.”

Collar, the dear, coughed. “I’m sure she is.”

Rosemary clucked her tongue and leaned in against Cloudy, giving Collar his space. As much as she wanted to be with him, that wasn’t going to happen for some time yet, and what she could do was help him romance Rosewater and do her part to help subvert the laws in Damme.

When the wax was all a pool of glistening blue at the bottom of the bowl, Rosemary gave the bowl a few taps to release any pockets of perfume or air still stuck in the mix and surrounded the top of the flask with an impermeable scent barrier, then cooled down the air until the perfume condensed back into a few precious drops that wanted to boil off again almost immediately.

“Letter,” Rosemary said shortly, shifting bowl and flask aside to make room for it. She’d already sniffed out the location of the hidden words, and all that was left was to bind the perfume to the paper again, forming a key inside a lock too tiny for pony eyes to see.

It was as if, when she finished layering the few droplets of perfume over the page and activated the spell, she actually turned an invisible tumbler as the text bled into view in the span of a heartbeat.

Meet me tonight near our first date. Bring an escort. We have things to plan.

“Fascinating,” Collar murmured. “The last message was short, too. Is there a reason for that?”

“Not anything about her asking for a secret rendezvous?” Cloudy said with a huff. “You want to know about why it couldn’t be more?”

“Well, obviously. If it could be longer, just think about how much we could send back and forth without Roseate knowing. Right under her nose, even if we had to send them via registered courier with copies sent to the palace.” Collar glanced at Rosemary, then Cloudy. “You know we can only keep our correspondence like this secret for so long.”

“And why not? You’re both consenting adults. You’re not negotiating on behalf of the city.” Cloudy huffed.

“Because she’s going to insist that we are doing just that, and we’ll need to provide proof that our letters are nothing but saccharine and sweet, tooth-rotting lovers’ letters.”

“The reason we can’t,” Rosemary said gently, turning the scroll over and checking twice before she called her quill to her and bound a little ink to the final droplet. She wrote out a single word, ‘Love,’ and made it disappear, twisting the spell so the ink bled into the clear perfume.

When she turned it over, it was just barely possible to read ‘Love’ in broken bits and pieces through the other letters it had gone through. “The spell doesn’t care if it’s new ink or old. It disappears. It’s best, for the finest precision, to mix ink and perfume first, then bind it rather than write it and mist it after, as some lovers do to send entire ‘secret’ letters to each other.”

“And writing broadly spaced lines, enough to fit even a small message in between…” Collar sighed. “It’s well known in Merrie, isn’t it?”

“Sadly, yes. Even pegasi and earth ponies can do a form of it with their magic, though theirs is not quite so finely applied as ours.” Rosemary gave Cloudy a glance. “But in some cases, it is more effective.”

“Mistwriting,” Cloudy said with a shrug. “She’s right. I’d end up blanking out an entire page, but it would take another mistweaver to uncover the writing.”

“And… is there anything stopping us from blanking out writing and then writing over top of it?” Collar asked with a raised brow.

Cloudy glanced at Rosemary and shrugged. “I’ve tried it, but all I did was bleed ink all over the page. Anyone who has has likely kept it secret how they did it.”

Collar sighed. “Of course. Well… I may ask you and Rosemary to experiment some more and see if there’s any way you can work it out when working together. It could be a vital tool.”

“A spy project? For your prisoner?” Rosemary asked in a teasing voice. “Why, I might just send Rosewater a few choice words of my own and tell her just where you like to be nibbled.”

“Excuse me, but you don’t know where my nibble spots are.”

“But I do,” Cloudy purred in a low voice. “And you’re asking us to work together. Who’s to say we won’t write a dissertation on how to tease you into a gibbering pile of horseflesh with a few well placed love nips before you have us write the actual letter, hmm?”

Collar laughed and nipped Rosemary’s ear. “Fine, fine. But I would like you to try. Even if it comes to nothing.”

“Mmm.” Rosemary cocked her head slightly. “Let me think about it, Collar. If it comes out that I’m helping you with this… Roseate’s argument will be that I’m a traitor and Rosewater’s negotiations will be terminated.”

“And yet, we’ll still have our courtship,” Collar said gently, kissing her cheek. “I know it means a lot to you to see this through. I won’t demand you do anything that would compromise that.”

“It’s tempting. I won’t lie about that. Even openly defecting is tempting now that you and Rosewater have a way to see each other that doesn’t require the treaty.” Stars, she could actually go outside this room without requiring at least one guard if not two to go anyplace interesting. But… it would also make Roseate believe that Rosewater might already be pregnant. “But… I can’t. Not yet. And it’s not so onerous, you know. I have plenty to read, and I’m even starting a history.”

“I’d love to read it,” Collar said in a soft, earnest voice. “I’d love to see your perspective of everything.”

She kissed him. Lightly and chastely on the lips. “You will. You’re a part of it, love.”

“It’s all still here,” Rosewater murmured, touching a hoof to the long-dead embers and glancing to the side where the stones she’d arranged to mark the place just in case the fire pit had been washed away in the rains. But they were still there. Soggy, yes, and the remnants had mostly washed out of the circle, leaving dry-packed sand and dirt with rivulets marking the flow of water. But nopony had come to disturb the space.

“I’m impressed,” Prism murmured, wandering around the edge of the small clearing and peering down the trails. “You can just barely see the city from here. Very… well, if you don’t mind me saying, very risky.”

“It was.” Rosewater stared up at the darkening sky. “It still is.”

Prism snorted. “At least you’re better able to care for yourself than most of my primaries in the past.”

“Have… you had to protect many ponies from us?”

“From you?” Prism stopped her circuit of the clearing to come sit on the other side of the dry fire pit from her. “Not you. The fear of you, though. And your sisters. And the other infiltrators. It’s always some scared bureaucrat thinking that Roseate has it out for them specifically because of reasons I didn’t care to listen to after the first three gave me some theory about how raising the import duty on beans from Merrie—”

“That one’s real. You have no idea how incredibly petty Roseate could be.”

“Seriously? She had you going after low level tax advisors for that?” Prism snorted and tossed her head. “Stars, I almost wish you had gone after him when I was covering his butt. Literal bean counter.” She cocked her head to the side. “I’m not entirely sure his cutie mark wasn’t a pile of beans.”

Rosewater laughed and flicked her ears. “I didn’t take it. I asked mother for too much for the task to be worth it to her. She may have given it to a pegasus to harass him for a while. I don’t know, because she… I didn’t want to know what she did. I wanted as little to do with her as possible.”

“Understandable.” Prism flicked her tail and focused on the ground beside Rosewater. A flicker of her horn and a prismatic image of herself flared to life, then settled into stable colors, matching her entirely, but with the blue armor of the Dammeguard day watch clad about her form. “Did you ever see me?”

“Once or twice. When I was doing daytime reconnaissance as Rosetide. Before the time Crown was captured in that failed raid.” Rosewater shrugged and looked the image of the mare over. “When you said you were good at veiling, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Light, yes, but… you’re nearly as good as Glory.”

“You’re better at sounds than I am.”

Rosewater snorted. “That doesn’t help much if they can see my shadow or see through my disguise. I can’t veil completely for long.”

“But you still do it quite well,” Collar said, startling them both as he let his dome drop, revealing both he and Cloudy. “Cloudy was quite impressed with your ability to veil during your first chase.”

Cloudy nipped his neck and danced to Rosewater, stopping just shy of giving her a kiss. “I… wish we’d had more time to catch up last night, Rosewater. I wish we had more time now.”

“As do I…” Rosewater tipped her head to the side and nuzzled her lover’s cheek. “But I asked you here for a purpose. We need to plan. Collar and I need to have time to have sex regularly. I don’t know when my cycle is.”

Prism chuffed lightly. “Right to the point. Good. We’re exposed here.”

Collar clucked his tongue and flattened his ears. “We were exposed during two of our dates and nopony came to investigate the campfire.”

“Because your ponies are considerate of others out on romantic encounters,” Rosewater said gently. “I knew that if I made it look like a romantic getaway there was a decent chance no curious pegasi would want to interrupt two lovers having a romantic dinner in the open.”

“I hope you won’t rely on such presumptions tonight,” Prism muttered, but relaxed minutely out of the corner of Rosewater’s vision.

“They’re all watching the river and beyond tonight,” Cloudy said more firmly, glancing past Rosewater to the opening in the clearing that let them see out over both cities. “We’re almost certain Roseate is going to make a move sooner than later to disrupt your romance.”

“Which is why I must also move more quickly,” Rosewater said, her jaw firming as she glanced past her to Collar and flicked an ear for him to join her. “Here is no good. Obviously. There’s a logging camp farther up with a permanent residence for the woodskeeper during the harvesting months. Could we use that?”

Collar grimaced. “When I imagined what you wanted tonight in your secret message, I had… I imagined…”

“Prism will likely escort me to our meetings for mating, Collar. She must deliver me to your care and ensure that I do not deviate to meet with another male.” Rosewater snorted and tossed her head. “My ancestors made everything more complicated. But… it feels good to cross again with a pony that I can trust by my side.”

He nodded, unhappy but apparently understanding. “It’s… stars, Rosewater.”

She stepped up to him and lightly kissed his lips once, then let herself indulge in a longer, more intimate kiss of shared breath when he reached for her. “I know. We can find someplace private, Collar. We can make it romantic. I love you, I want what you want.”

Cloudy kissed both of their cheeks. “We. We can make it romantic. All of us. Rosemary… maybe she can cook?”

“She can.” Rosewater leaned her forehead against Collar’s and let the weariness of the day settle over her. “Just give me a moment, and we can talk about what we’re going to do.”

Book 3, 4: Planning for Clouds

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“My lord.”

Collar bobbed his head to Platinum briefly as he settled in beside the Rosewine bridge inspector’s watch house. “Sergeant. Trade seems to be picking up.”

Platinum eyed him as her corporal and privates managed the traffic that afternoon. The line wasn’t long to get in, and more were heading Merrie-ward than into Damme, to wait at the other side. “It’s been picking up from the Garden, certainly. I’m not so sure about the Dockbridge.”

“Well. There aren’t any but our home fleet docked.” In truth, the home fleet was little more than a shoal of fishing schooners. The rest of the ships that called Damme home couldn’t be trapped there during the winter months and make their owners any money during the idle months.

“Liar. The ‘home fleet’ is out fishing.” Platinum chuffed and flicked her tail. “Beautiful weather for it, and nothing in the forecast according to Corporal Sunshine.”

“He would know, I suppose,” Collar mused, watching the flow and farther down the bridge’s length until his breath caught in his throat. There, just setting hoof on the bridgeway from the channel island, was Rosewater. She didn’t wear ribbons in her mane this time, but she did wear a scarf of light pink, with blue tassels that hung down to mid-forelimb, and it and her hair blew in the light breeze coming off the bay.

“She didn’t wear her crown,” Platinum observed after a moment of watching with him. “And her escort looks familiar, but I couldn’t say from where.”

It took a moment to find the mare trailing Rosewater a pace or two behind as a cart passed them by before she darted up to walk with the taller mare, saying something that both of them laughed at.

“You know how I know you’re besotted?” Platinum asked under her breath.

“Excuse me, but she was behind Rosewater. And that’s Prism. She’s good at making herself go unnoticed.” Collar glanced aside to get the other mare’s reaction.

“Really?” Platinum leaned forward and squinted, as if that could bring the pair closer to her. “There’s been talk about her for a while in the barracks. Speculating about where she went and why.”

“She went to the Garden to try out the Principes lifestyle,” Collar said gently. “Of her own free will.” He paused a moment as Rosewater and Prism again settled into single-file to pass by another cart, Prism behind again. To cover her back, Collar realized. She hadn’t given up her trained instincts, at least. “Her choice. The only way Merriedamme will work, Plat.”

Platinum gave him a nod, then wandered over to her corporal when he turned around, froze, and stared at Collar. “Have a good date, my lord. I hope to hear a hundred rumors by the time she returns.”

Clouds scudded overhead, the breeze they hinted at reaching down to caress her flank as Rosewater made her way across the bridge, tugging at her scarf and billowing out the blue tassels. It had been meant to be a part of her dress in an earlier version of it, but with the version she’d worn, Silk had been left with a garment that she couldn’t sell in Merrie, not with Damme blue in it.

“I’ve been curious,” Prism said as they dismounted from the central island.

“Oh? I like pancakes more than cereal, and generally, and I do mean generally, enjoy heat more than pressure with a massage.”

“I already know how you like to have sex, Rosewater,” Prism shot back, shifting to trail behind her as a cart trundled past, taking up most of the space on the cobbled bridgeway. “Bliss and Dazzle weren’t quite out and out about what you enjoyed, but I remember quite well that contented look on all three of your faces the next morning.”

“Then how do you know how I like to have sex?” Rosewater shot back as Prism rejoined her.

Prism gave her a sidelong, disbelieving look. “Dear stars. Have you forgotten when we had sex?”

Rosewater laughed softly, and Prism followed her. “No, Prism. I haven’t forgotten. I hope, someday, we can have that time again. It was good for me to connect with a mare like you.”

“Same,” Prism murmured, sidestepping to bump her shoulder lightly to Rosewater’s. “It was good to see another side of you that I never knew. I’ve seen you scared and afraid, gentle and loving, but that was…”

It had been tender and slow, neither of them in a rush to finish, and spent almost as much time talking as they had making love to another.

“It was the true Rose Way,” Rosewater murmured back. “Friends connecting across the heart. It’s something I lost sight of in trying to take care of…” She sighed and shook her head, smiling more brightly. “But you know that already, and it’s the past. Today, I’m going to have a date with Collar, and then I’m coming back home to family and friends and lovers.”

Prism gave her a sidelong look. “That wasn’t just for my ears.”

“No.” Rosewater gave her a brighter smile. “But it’s still true. I’m doing better, Prism.”

Her friend mouthed something that looked like ‘one day’, let out a soft laugh, and bumped her shoulder against Rosewater’s again. “It’s good to see you happy.”

Rosewater raised her eyes to where Collar waited for her, his eyes meeting hers as she climbed the last, shallow incline up to Damme. “I’m happy, too. More than you can imagine to be able to do this in the open.”

Prism chuckled.

“Do what in the open?” Collar asked as Rosewater came up to him.

Her only immediate answer was to flatten her ears and close the last few steps to kiss him. He startled, but not away from her, his eyes widening before he let his ears relax and closed his eyes, deepening the kiss for a moment before he let the kiss part and nuzzled her cheek.

“It’s good to see you again,” he murmured against her cheek. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed you, too.”

“We’re talking about how we can get you to come to the palace for dinner,” Collar said quietly. “But today…” His eyes sparkled as he stepped back. “I have a place to take you for a lovely lunch. The food is good, the sea air is refreshing, and your daughter had an encounter there with a certain captain of mine. Having her mother appear just a few months later…”

Rosewater laughed brightly. “Stars, that was her idea, wasn’t it?”

“It was! Cloudy giggled madly when I told her.”

“She did?”

“Obviously.” The light in Collar’s eyes dimmed, clearly wanting to joke with her about Cloudy’s reaction last night. But the ponies nearby would wonder, and they would want to know how Rosewater already knew about Cloudy’s reaction to the date. This was as much performative as it was real. A chance to revel in the feeling of being in the open with her love and her real self. “I’m glad we can court in the open, love. It’s been…”

“I know.” Rosewater kissed him again and nodded to Prism. “Enjoy your stay with your family. I’ll see you in a few hours?”

Prism chuckled. “If they want to, would you want to meet them after your date? I know they’ve been curious about you after I mentioned you a few times.”

Rosewater glanced at Collar. “I know my amnesty only goes so far as we’re on a date, Collar. I don’t want to strain that boon too far, but… Prism is a friend.”

“As long as I come along, it’s a date.” Collar nipped her cheek gently.

“It’s a date, then, Prism. If they agree.”

Seeing the reactions of himself walking beside Rosewater, talking to her sometimes distractedly as the whispering of his ponies caught his eye or ear, and saw her eyes darting where his attention came.

Then she would turn her attention back to him and nip his cheek, smile, and guide him further along the way to the docks, past the empty docks now empty. He wished he could have shown her the ships, given her a tour of the merchant fleet, introduce them to her and the idea that she and her ponies could be a great boon to the shipping yards.

“Have you had a chance to speak with Clipper about setting up a meeting?” Rosewater asked as they stepped out onto the main dock, the stone under his and her shoes clicking only a small part of the bustle as ponies rushed from warehouse to warehouse, carts of goods and pouches of coins changing hooves as the mad scramble of daily life on the docks in the trade district.

“I haven’t. Sadly, Clipper has been busy writing letters and managing his business into winter months, so most of his time is spent coordinating cargoes and contracts from across the continent.” Collar shook his head, grinned, and nuzzled her cheek. “But you didn’t come on a date to hear me talk about trade.”

“Mm. Well, if we finish our courtship on favorable terms…” Rosewater nipped the side of his muzzle when he, surprised, glanced aside at her. “Wherever the conversation takes us, Collar. I have my hooves in trade, too, and I’m excited to get to work with Clipper again.”

“Again?”

“Oh, my dear, have you hit your head?” Rosewater laughed at his harrumph. “It’s no secret we played a trick together. My mother has to know that he was at least partly responsible for the reception we got. And he controls most of the shipping in Damme, so unless she wants to get her contracts for exports and imports vastly more expensive or cancelled, she can’t really go after him.”

“He told you that?”

“I figured it out after going over the shipping tables yesterday afternoon.”

“Stars, you do not like to sit idle.”

Rosewater chuckled, but it sounded forced, her eyes darting away and then back. “You know that better than most. I want to be ready to move my contracts from Cargo to Clipper as soon as possible, even if I can’t get my imports until spring. Jumping sooner for my non-perishables means I can get better prices since there’s a glut during winter for products from the southern reaches.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Collar said, nodding and casting his gaze over the empty slips. “I wanted to show you some of our ships, get you to meet the captains and crew. This is the heart of Damme, and…” He waved a hoof over the line of warehouses with their bay doors open to the day as a sort of bulk goods bazaar. “This is the most active time of year. Ponies jockeying for the best export cargoes of dry goods come Spring starts now.”

“I wish I could…” Rosewater stopped to glance over the interior of a warehouse that seemed to hold all manner of dried herbs, some samples of which were on display on crates out front. “I wish I could make the time today to make a deal for some Rosemary.”

Collar chuckled. “It’s a very versatile herb. Do you use it in a lot of perfumes?”

Rosewater gave him an odd look. “No. Well… once, but I would like to buy a crate of dried rosemary for the Garden for cooking. It goes especially well with tuber dishes like potatoes, carrots, and leeks, especially when paired with a savory fish. Petal also uses it as an additive to some of her wines to give them an earthy aroma and taste.”

It clicked after a moment. “Rosemary Reverence?”

“It’s not really named after her. Happy accident.” Rosewater giggled. “That she took full advantage of when she went visiting last year. There’s a portrait of her somewhere holding a bottle of the first run before it got put into storage.”

“A… card portrait?” Collar asked, a rushing tingle flashing through his body.

“No, not one of those. She wanted to, but Budding said no.” Rosewater glanced aside at him. “Do you mind if I strike up a deal for some rosemary to be sent back to the Garden before our date?”

Collar nipped her cheek. “We’re already on our date, Rosewater. If you want to go shopping while we’re out, I have no issues with that at all.” He closed the distance between them, small as it was, and walked in step with her, shoulder to shoulder. “It’s… it would feel more normal if we did something more together than simply going out to eat someplace.”

“Normal.” Rosewater said the word slowly, as if tasting it. “Is that what it feels like to walk with you in daylight instead of sneaking kisses around corners?”

And more. Collar kissed her neck lightly. “It can be. We need to do this more than that for this to be normal. It’s how the word works.”

“You don’t say?” She laughed and raised her nose to the air as a breeze flowed around them and swirled as it hit the buffer of warehouses, sending leaves skirling into arcane, living patterns on the stones of the walkway. “Then, this one. They have rosemary in stock, it smells like.”

“In addition,” Collar added, “I would like to secure some herbs to make meals like those you make in the Garden. Fragrant and tasteful at once. If you could help me decide upon some, I will make a list and send them to our steward and the chef for including in our daily meals.”

“And the recipes?” Rosewater asked, eyebrow piqued. “If you haven’t used the ingredients before…”

“A fair point. Perhaps… well, I have been meaning to open more business with the Garden. Perhaps an opening overture could be trading for recipes. I would love for you to be our ambassador if you would be willing.”

“My lord, an ambassador must necessarily not be a part of the faction you’re negotiating with. It rather firmly goes against the meaning of the word.” She glanced aside at him and stepped up closer to the row of crats with samples of the herbs held under a plate of glass, a crude manner of displaying them. “Pardon me, but what is the minimum bulk amount of herbs you will sell?”

Minimum? Collar stepped up with her and nuzzled her cheek, drawing a surprised look from the keeper of the warehouse front.

“You… uh…” The salespony seemed terrified, glancing between Rosewater and Collar. “My lord?”

“We’re on a date, good sir. I assure you trading with her will not have any legal repercussions.” Collar glanced aside at a pony whispering a little too loudly to be ‘subtle,’ but didn’t say anything in reply to the newborn rumor. It was one of the gentler ones he recognized from Priceless’s list of rumors his own little birds had started singing. Maybe she was…

Then the mare met his eyes, and all doubt dropped away. She wasn’t one of Priceless’s songbirds, but somepony who was as tired of this war as he was. There was an air of hope about her as she turned away with her friend, still chattering away and walking away.

While he’d been listening to the ponies, Rosewater had negotiated a decent, though not crushing price for a small crate of dried rosemary of a strain common to the Saddlehair Oases that had a more vibrant feel to the fragrance it released when it was included in a baked dish.

“Is that rare?”

“Not uncommonly so,” Rosewater murmured as she finished filling out the delivery contract. “The Saddlehair Desert is a wonderful place to find many rare herbs and oils, and Saddle Arabia controls the only port even halfway close to the nearest oasis.”

“I can’t imagine it was easy to get that kind of thing through Cargo Manifest,” Collar murmured. “I’ve heard about how shady his dealings can be.”

To his surprise, the trader scoffed. “Cargo Manifest is one step above pirates, and it’s a short step.”

“You haven’t half the story,” Rosewater said with a hint of disgust in her voice. “He trades contracts for sex. He’s not from Merrie, which you’ll understand half a second after meeting him. He tried to pester me for sex for a discount on a contract.” Rosewater met the trader’s eyes. “I declined in a way he’ll not soon forget.”

The trader swallowed. “I can imagine. Thank you for your business.” He pushed the contract into a slot on the back of the crate. “We’ll have the contract processed this evening and have the goods delivered tomorrow. Is that soon enough?”

“Of course. I’m not in a hurry, but I would like to be able to bake something special for Collar sometime next week.” Rosewater glanced at him, then nuzzled his neck. “I have a recipe from Carnation for a potato souffle that calls for a rosemary chutney as a glaze. Quite fragrant and quite tasty, but I want to add my own twist to the chutney.”

“I’m not even sure what a chutney is,” Collar said with a laugh, flicking his ears back and feeling a blush creep up his neck. “But I’d like to learn. Can you cook that in our palace kitchens? And let me help.”

Rosewater’s ears flattened, but she nodded slowly. “If… if you think it wouldn’t be an issue diplomatically, I would love to cook a home meal for the family. It’s something Carnation insisted on doing at least once a week. It’s something I learned from her.”

“No issue. We’re courting, Rosewater. It would be strange if we didn’t trade family traditions.” He kissed her cheek, surprised at the warmth lurking there despite the glowing flush crawling up her neck. “I want to share some of mine with your family, as well. Even as large as your extended family is.”

“My—” Rosewater snapped a look at him, then laughed and bumped her cheek against his and guided him away from the warehouse and back out into the flow of traffic towards the bustling pre-lunch crowds migrating to the myriad of diners, cafes, and taverns lining Tavern Row. “Yes. I will have to see if we can invite you to share some of your family traditions with my family.”

“At the Garden?” Collar asked, raising a brow as they wove around a cart jam with ponies arguing about right of way. “I would love to, but I very much doubt that Roseate would agree to let me stay even half an hour without the treaty getting involved and laying out ground rules.”

“Then, I suppose, we’ll need to bring the Garden to you.”

“And just how do you propose to do that? It’s not like…” Collar glanced at her, at the devious smile growing across her lips. He hadn’t thought she’d broach the idea in a crowded public forum like this. But there was no better place to put out a rumor or a ‘fact’ than in the middle of Damme’s commercial heart. “Oh. Well, we are heading into festival season, aren’t we?”

“Indeed we are. How could I have missed that?” She nipped his cheek and pranced ahead a few paces so all he could reach was her flank when he retaliated. He did, and earned a few louder whispers and a laugh from her. “Oh, right. I did not miss that. I was planning on inviting my family in the Garden to participate in some of the public festivals with your family.”

“And the best place to say that was…”

“Here. That’s right.”

Collar chuckled. “Well. No better way to let everypony know they will be social events not to be missed, I suppose.”

Lunch was, surprisingly, very uneventful. Considering. It surprised Rosewater a little just how much ponies paid attention to them without bothering them. It was one of the more popular places for out-of-city patrons, so perhaps their having lunch there wasn’t as odd.

The wait staff, however, spent half the time they spent at lunch whispering to each other and getting hissed at by the owner or their supervisor. But, in Rosewater’s experience, it had been the best service she’d ever received at a restaurant. Her glass of water never went below three-quarters full with ponies, ears pricked for the faintest bit of gossip to share, waiting their table with all the eagerness of a child asking parents for permission to play a game.

She had made sure to give them some little bits and pieces, including a slow kiss towards the end of dinner while the pony taking lead on caring for their table delivered their bill.

After, they wandered down the almost empty docks, ponies engaged in pre-winter maintenance the only spectators to their walk as Collar talked about his plans for trade the next year, letting free his dreams of finally seeing more open trade between their cities.

“I would love to do business with your captains directly,” Rosewater admitted as they passed several workers pausing their work in replacing dock boards and painting pitch over the joints and bottom to seal them against seawater. “I would love to walk here myself, meet you or any of my friends here for lunch or browse the new incoming wares, or…” She shrugged.

“Or for us to board a ship and go to Canterlot for a honeymoon,” Collar murmured, nuzzling her cheek. There wasn’t anypony about to listen or carry his comment. It was for her, and her alone.

It sent a thrill down her spine. “With…”

“Yes.” Collar bobbed his head once and fell silent for several steps, his eyes raised to the sky instead of watching in front of him. It spoke more to his familiarity with the docks than anything he’d said. “The future is going to be busy, but right now…” He nodded towards the beach.

“Our second date?”

“I thought it would be nice to revisit the campsite. Even if we had to cover it up.” He flicked a look at her, then away again, a small smile creasing his lips. “I didn’t have much time to plan ahead, but… I did manage to smuggle out some Dammerale.”

“We have some plans to make, too,” Rosewater said. “My monthly cycle…”

Collar glanced around sharply. “Here?”

“There’s nopony close enough, Collar, and I want to listen to the sea while we talk. I don’t want to have this discussion be…” She waved a hoof. “Silent. I want to plan our child with life surrounding us, Collar. I wish I could do it without worrying about ponies listening in.”

“I know.” Collar blew out a breath.

“This is something that has always been talked about with family, friends, and community in Merrie. This is new for me, keeping secret…” Except for all of her Mares in Waiting. “Mostly secret,” she amended, a flush rising up her neck. “I wish I could gather all of you together and talk and have a night to remember when my cycle is at the peak. It’s a… an orgy, Collar. With you and I at the center of attention, celebrating our fertility and the hope of a child coming soon.”

Collar stumbled, coughed, and bumped a shoulder against hers. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. It’s far enough for me that I can have sex with Cloudy in front of Rosemary.”

A shiver ran over Rosewater’s flanks, and her tail flirted high. “I… stars, I want to share a night with you and Cloudy.”

“Soon. Remember, we know when to invite you. The first big storm…” He glanced to the sky. “We still need to find out when the first winter storm—”

“I want to stay over sooner. I thought about it last night after I got home. Stars, Collar, if we try to keep it as secret as we want. Ponies will wonder when we had the chance to have sex.” Rosewater nuzzled his cheek. “It will be a risk, yes, but I think no more riskier than it is now. If my mother doesn’t suspect, her receiving word that I’m staying overnight with you will only make her more certain.”

“And put you in more danger.”

Rosewater sighed and shook her head. “Now that I have more freedom to pursue love as I want I don’t want to let her dictate how I can do that. Not anymore. Stars, I’m going to be holding court, Collar. That’s going to poke her in the eye much more than me possibly making love to you.”

Collar grimaced, nodded, and let out a long sigh. “I’m not happy you’re doing that, but I understand why you’re doing it.”

Rosewater snapped her tail against his flank. “I need to be the leader my ponies need.”

“I know.” Collar grunted and chewed his lip. “Stars, I know. I wish I could send guards to keep you safe.”

“I wish you could, too.” There wasn’t anything she or he could do. She had already started making plans to make a contract of payment for experienced guards from the Garden, including the three former Dammeguard. It would hurt to have Dazzle be there as her bodyguard instead of her lover, but she’d already discussed it with him in brief. Until she knew he would accept… “I’m trying to gather my own bodyguard.”

“I thought you might.” Collar relaxed minutely. “So. The first time you stay overnight.”

“The first night should be only you and I, Collar. I don’t want to risk rumors from serving staff that we’re planning a polyamorous relationship. Not yet. Lovemaking with Rosemary will have to wait.” She winked at him, trying to lighten the mood into discussion of making love instead of the tight knot of mood.

Instead, Collar coughed and glanced aside at her uncomfortably, the flush in his cheeks clear. “She… you might need to have a talk with her. I understand her fears, but I don’t agree with her conclusion. She’s afraid, very afraid, that she’ll be married to you without the same kind of love you share with Cloudy and I. And, if we can’t later open our marriage through choice, she’ll be…”

“Trapped?” Rosewater felt a curdle of understanding twisting in her stomach.

“Trapped. She wanted to come to you herself, but she’s not sure what to say.”

Rosewater nudged him to the side along the trail down the beach and around something rotting ahead of them. Most likely seaweed from the sour undertone. “She… wants to participate in our lovemaking.” It wasn’t hard to connect the thought process. It was a part of any healthy marriage that active members of the partnership shared with each other. “Not to make love to me.”

“Yes.” Collar held his mouth open to say more, then closed it.

He was waiting for her response. She wasn’t even sure what her actual response would be in the moment if Rosemary tried to help her make love to Collar, Cloudy, or both. She could imagine safe ways to do so, but being so close, even letting Rosemary hold her while Collar mounted her, or while Cloudy ate her out. In the moment of passion, though…

“It makes opening our marriage up even more important,” Rosewater said after considering the mistakes that could happen, the aftermath, and the uncomfortability that would come with it. Not to mention the scandal if anything came out. “I don’t want to keep her out of our relationship. She’ll still be my…” She cocked her head to the side. “Wife, but not…”

Collar laughed. “I can understand why sisters getting married to the same pony is so rare.”

“It is.” Rosewater snorted and nipped his neck. “It’s rare enough that there’s not a common cultural touchstone to look at and say ‘this is the right way.’”

“I take it, then, that each marriage is handled differently?”

“They are. We’ll have to find our own equilibrium.” Rosewater glanced aside at him. “At this time, she is not married to us, nor is she even engaged to you. But she has lovers amongst your guard. She is untied to our marriage or our commitment to being a closed marriage.”

“Our ‘commitment,’” Collar said with a sigh. “I want to make love to her, Rosewater. I want to show her the commitment I have to her. Us. I want more than watching her pleasure herself with an image of me. I want to be able to show her in all the small ways. Little kisses, hugs, just having her be in places where only a lover could be in my life.”

“Like we are, right now.”

Collar nodded slowly and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Being able to go out with her without it seeming odd.” He grimaced. “I almost wish she would defect. It would be easier.”

“In many ways, it would be easier. But it would mean she’s abandoning her home and her loyalty to it. Even beyond our hasty plan, she doesn’t want any of her friends thinking she’s abandoning the city she grew up in.” Rosewater tapped his ankle lightly with a hoof. “I won’t push her to defect sooner than she’s ready.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Collar nudged her down the left and towards the bay and the sandy beach beyond the harbor. “But, back to the subject of planning for a foal. Sooner? How soon did you want to stay over?”

“Would this week be possible? Is there a special dinner being planned soon? Something you would invite your paramour to?” The thought of staying with Collar, being a guest instead of a functionary, sent a thrill of excitement and anticipation through her.

“So soon?” Collar’s cheeks flushed. “When is your cycle starting?”

It was a question she’d pondered for the last week after they’d finalized their plan, trying to remember when she’d frozen her cycle almost six years ago. “That’s not the only reason I want to stay overnight, Collar. It would be a bonus if I hit the peak of my cycle, but… I know you spent your nights with Cloudy in bed. Sex or not. I want you to have that with somepony you love. I want to have that.”

Something in Collar’s eyes flickered. “I want that. Stars, Rosewater, I want that tonight.”

It was tempting to say yes. To invite him through the basement again or to not go back to the garden when the date was over. Her eyes burned with unshed, frustrated tears. “You could—” She cut herself off before she even made the offer.

“I could. I want to. Stars, I could…” Then he shook his head. “No. I’d be literally sniffed out if I tried to cross the bridge. And teleporting into the Garden ground—” He cut himself off and let out a bitter laugh. “Stars. My own guards and staff would rat me out.” He chuckled. “A week from now. We’re hosting business owners from around Damme. It would be a chance to…” Collar shrugged.

“I know. I don’t want to focus on making connections, but it will be the price we pay to be a couple. I’ll pay it gladly… and maybe find a few new friends at the same time.”

“And afterwards…”

“I’ll stay. Even if the sky doesn’t have a cloud in sight.” She kissed his cheek lightly. “For just one night.”

“For now.”

“We have some time left today.” Rosewater glanced up at the clouds scuttling slowly across the sky, ponies shepherding some of them into a line leading out to sea. Not far out, but far enough out that most of them would get swept up in a different air current. “It’s beautiful today.”

“It is.” Collar leaned against her and guided her to a low, flat rock carved smooth by wave and tide. “You know, when I went here the first time with my parents to watch a newly commissioned ship…”

Rosewater listened, asking questions, and wondering where she’d been at the same time, wondering if she could find a way to turn back time and find a way to be with him then, to be with him from the start.

I’m with him now. He was sharing his life with her, telling her who he had been, letting her live his childhood with her. That was more than enough. “I love you.”

Collar paused his story, smiling, and kissed her. “I love you, too.”

Book 3, 5: Court in the Market

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“Day one of trying to hold court,” Rosewater murmured, glancing around the marketplace in the early morning, ponies still setting up their awnings and signs, using chalk of various colors to mark their prices and draw fanciful renditions of their wares around the edges.

Fog still crept along the ridge to the west, sending feelers out that almost touched the high-pointed roofs of the homes dotting the hills just below it, the white smoke from their fireplaces rising to mingle more thickly with the tendrils before both faded in a breeze high above the valley, shredding the veil for a few moments before more spilled out of the treeline.

Prism, at her side, followed her gaze and offered her a brief nuzzle. “It’ll get prettier for a little while when the sun finally rises high enough.”

“It’s plenty pretty right now, but thank you for reminding me how cold it is this morning.” It was, though not freezing, but the wind rolling in from the east held more than a hint of a colder night already passed.

“You’re the one who wanted to come out here early, before the bustle.” Petal nipped her neck and grinned. “Though if you came out later, you might have gotten Bliss and a nice feather blanket, too.”

“And remind me why you came out, too?” Rosewater asked, eying her friend and then returning her attention to her own board, considering the sparse few words she’d already written, terrified to write plainly what she was doing, but not sure how else to attract ponies to talk to her about holding court. “I thought you were going to poke Rosy Glass and her coterie of business interests.”

Rosewater Rosethorn
Perfume Consultation

Petal leaned over and studied the four words. “I am, and I think that works. Ponies will have heard about both the gala and your date, and at the market especially. Once they see you’re staying here until at least lunch, I think they’ll come talk to you.”

Rosewater flicked an ear and cast her gaze around the marketplace.

The wide open space with a fountain in the center, now shut off and dry, but depicting Rosethorn the Wise holding aloft a vase from which normally flowed a fragrant stream of lilac water. The basin was the same light purple the water normally was, and in the gloom of pre-dawn it looked like a portal to another world. Deep and dark.

A few ponies sat beside it, scrubbing away the scum draining the fountain had left behind and polishing the tiles. One of them kept casting glances at Rosewater as he spoke to his friends, and the others seemed to be paying more attention to him than their work.

Near one of the exit streets, a passel of guards stood, casting her obvious looks, but none of them had the finely polished gleam of the ‘elite’ guard that Roseate relied on for enforcement. They looked more like the rank and file that kept the peace and performed the duties that kept a city of laws running together.

Patrolling along a street one level above the market was the expected enforcers, a squad of four that walked slowly along the street, disappearing now and then as the street took them away from the low wall that kept foals from tumbling down the embankment.

Her stall, rented for the day for a few bits, could barely be called that. It consisted of a framework for an awning that she’d eschewed due to Bliss’s promise last night that today was going to be a clear weather day.

Her neighbors, an older stallion setting out bowls of glass beads of various colors, seemed more interested in making sure none of his stock fell out, and a younger mare hanging up skeins of colorful yarn, had only greeted her amiably as ‘my lady’ thus far and given her curious looks.

Farther out, it seemed like more ponies were giving her as much attention as they thought they could get away with without drawing either her attention or that of anypony they thought might object to giving her attention.

“Can you go rile them up? As it is, everypony looks too nervous to even look at me.” Rosewater glanced at the board of the young mare and the doodles and wavy circles that looked rather like yarn. She could draw little speckles and clouds around her border, she supposed. The stall manager had given her an eight color set of chalk sticks for an extra six bits and all she’d done with them so far was draw shine-lines out from ‘Perfume Consultation.’ “I’m going to see what I can do to jazz up my sign.”

“Draw hearts,” Prism suggested laconically and in a voice meant to carry. “I mean, you did just announce to the world that you’re courting Lord Primline Collar and, stars, you just went on an open date with him. Everypony is talking about it. Ponies wouldn’t think oddly if you wanted to show your love.”

A bowl of beads overturned with a curse and a muted tinkle as they clinked against each other and the wooden tray the bowls were all set on at the same time a row of skeins clattered to the ground.

Rosewater shot the mare a glower.

“Or write out the story in that perfectly neat, tiny hoofwriting you prize so much. Make ponies come up and squint to read it.” Petal laughed and pranced off, tail flirting in the air briefly as her high-stepping amused trot took her quickly out of casual swatting range.

“Fine.” Rosewater huffed and pulled out the white stick. “I do want to show my love.” The scene as it must have looked last night, with her and Collar standing with foreheads pressed together, forelegs locked in their dance during one of the rare pauses, flashed through her mind almost too quick for her to hold onto it.

But once she did, she sketched out the poses with proportions and marks for legs and tails and horns. A few more quick strokes formed the outlines of a mare and a stallion, devoid of their clothing from the night as she wasn’t sure she could capture it properly and capture who they were.

Her coat was easiest to fill in, white. And for her mane and tail, she crushed the tips of the red and the white and used the powder with her magic to make a crude-packed nub of pink. For his outline, she made it blue, and for his copper coat, she used red again with white and a touch of yellow, mixing the three until she had the closest she could to his natural color.

Underneath, in blue and the rest of the pink, she wrote ‘Rosewater & Collar.’

Plain for the world to see. A declaration to the world that last night wasn’t just a rumor, wasn’t a passing bit of hot air to anypony who saw it.

And, just to tweak Prism’s tail, she drew alternating white and red hearts around the border.

Prism snorted and nodded. “Bold. Maybe too bold?”

Rosewater shook her head as she turned the board around and set it to stand on its back leg. “Bold was the gala, Prism. It’s been three days, and ponies will have heard it all by now. I want to keep that momentum going.”

Prism let out a sigh, let her head, dropped it and snorted. “Alright. Yeah. Fine. Momentum.”

“I know I’m putting myself in more… direct view. But I need to do that.” Rosewater tapped the top of her board with the tip of her last stick of chalk. “And now I am.”

For the past year and a half, Silk had made her bi-monthly shopping trip for new bolts of cloth, often for clients with rather loose schedules for when they needed their dresses, or to make concept dresses to sell overseas where the novelty of owning a ‘scandalous’ Merrier-designed dress. She wasn’t the only one selling, and it made the shifting tapestry of fashions coming out of Merriedamme all the more varying.

Her signature was the use of silk in ways that not many other ponies could manage, including the Shimmersilk technique she’d inherited from her mentor and friend.

Different, today, was Moon Rosethorn chattering away happily as she pranced ahead and dropped back to ask Silk questions about what silks might still be available and what she might be able to make from her salary and the allowance her parents gave her, a not inconsiderable sum, and not unearned.

“I want to make a dress for my debut gala,” Moon blurted, then laughed and pranced ahead, then back to join her again. “Do you think I can debut this Winter Gala?”

“That,” Silk said, gently letting her down, “is up to your parents. But!” She raised a hoof to forestall the pouting huff. “I will talk to them and advocate for you if you do the entire thing on your own. I can offer suggestions and critique, but as long as the entire project from concept to the last stitch is yours, I will argue for you.”

Moon gave her a look common to most young ponies, full of a confident aspect stating clearly, ‘Of course I can.’ For an eight year old pony, she was good at handling needle, thread, and cloth, but she still mostly had to rely on Silk or her hireling seamsponies for patterns, cutting, and the fine detail work.

Her first self-made dress wouldn’t be a masterpiece, but it would be hers. Whether she wore that dress or the one Silk was already planning for her actual debut Gala was another matter. She did know that Rosary was hesitant to place her daughter up on the stage, or game board, despite the fact Silk was almost certain the little girl was feeding gossip to her mother whether she knew it or not.

Feeding gossip wasn’t an active participation in the ‘game’ Rosary was playing at her own and their mother’s behest. Active participation would put little Moon deeper into the web of lies, tangles, and dangers that being close to Roseate meant.

Moon didn’t know anything about the intrigues her mother and aunts were involved in, was likely not even aware of the danger her grandmother posed to her.

And she was still chattering on about colors and themes, topics Silk had been gently guiding her through since she expressed an interest in making clothes at the tender age of five. Three years of having the filly around on an almost daily basis, helping her mostly by watching the counter while she was consulting, greeting customers, and learning about color theory, style, and fitting ponies.

She ‘helped’ by keeping customers engaged in the wait for measuring at first, then helped with measuring, and even gave opinions to ponies as they watched themselves as Silk wove illusions around them and into silk that would eventually become a dress.

And she talked. A lot. To everypony that came to the store, to everypony that was a regular looking for an adjustment, or for a repair, she was a joy and a bright spark in the days of most ponies. It said much about the filly’s upbringing at home that wasn’t spoken aloud.

“Can I get my own measuring ribbon?”

“Mmm. I suppose. We’ll have to make sure it’s stitched right and doesn’t stretch. You know what the right stitching looks like?”

“Yes!” Moon chirped. “It’s stitched cross on both sides, tight stitching, not loose. It’s better to use silk because it’s harder to stretch.”

“That’s right.”

“Why can’t you make one?”

“I could, but I don’t have the licensing to make a registered measuring ribbon.” Silk stuck her tongue out at her niece.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to have to attend the semi-annual meeting of measurers. They argue over the width of a hair for hours.”

Moon made a face. “But hair is hair.”

“So you’d think. Hence why I don’t want to split hairs over the width of a hair.”

“They do that?” Moon sounded horrified. “Split hairs?”

“Verbally, yes,” Silk said, raising her head to look around the wide open market forum, looking for one of the smaller stalls that migrated around and carried a wide variety of beading that she used in accessories. “I need some glass beads for Lady Tamarind’s new mane bow.”

Moon made a face. “It’s ugly.”

“It’s her decision,” Silk said with a wink and a flick of her tail, drawing her attention briefly away from scanning the crowded middle-morning marketplace. “I did try to talk her out of it, but she’s paying me well enough to make a travesty against fashion.”

“But it’s ugly!” As if that were the only justification she needed.

“So it is,” Sik said absently, catching a flash of white and pink through the crowd between two ponies and a cart before the cart full of crates blocked her view again. On a normal day, she wouldn’t have even thought about it, but that single glimpse off in the corner of the market brought her thoughts back to the pony she’d been thinking about for most of the past two weeks. “This way, stay close to me,” she told Moon, glancing to make sure her niece was still tucked in close beside her.

As much as she wanted to go off and explore the market, Moon was well behaved and followed directions well once she was given a direction to follow. When she wasn’t given direction, she was just like any other filly. It was distressing at times to see how closely she followed directions.

But she didn’t have to worry about Moon darting out in front of a wagoneer or getting under the hooves of other shoppers and getting hurt or causing a ruckus. It allowed her to find the flash of white and pink more quickly, and found her eldest sister sitting with two of the other Gardeners and a few other ponies with a small line of ponies waiting for their turn to talk to her.

“Aunt Rosewater?” Moon asked in an incredulous voice, looking up at Silk. “But… I never see her out.”

“She’s been going through a lot lately,” Silk said softly. “You haven’t seen much of her, have you?”

Moon shook her head slowly. “Momma says…” She swallowed and looked around, then leaned in closer, whispering in a low voice, “Momma says she’s scared of her.”

Oh, you poor filly. Silk shook her head slowly, smiling down at her sweet niece. “You don’t need to be, sweetling. Rosewater is… different now. You’ll see. And the bead vendor is just a few stalls down.”

That would get back to Rosary. It was ambiguous enough that not much could be inferred from it and entirely deniable on Silk’s side, and obvious and enough in the public knowledge that she could claim she was stating only common knowledge.

Moon glanced between Silk and her oldest aunt, still apparently oblivious to their presence as she chatted with a pair of ponies, a scroll hovering between the three of them.

“What is she…”

A break in the throng let her see Rosewater’s stall more clearly. A sign stood beside her, and a mare she recognized as one of the former Dammeguards sat just behind it and to the side, chatting with a neighboring stall owner in the lull of traffic that let Silk slip in closer with Moon still faithfully crowding in close beside her even if the tension in the little filly grew in the form of her pressing closer and closer to Silk’s foreleg.

Perfume consultation. Silk read the board, saw the art obviously of her and Collar, noted the lack of products or any way to take payment on the rug she sat on or the poles holding up the canopy, and came to an uncomfortable conclusion.

Rosewater was holding court. In the busiest and most open place in the entire city aside from the main port-clearing marketplace just off of the Dockbridge landing, her sister was blatantly holding court.

Not blatantly. Rosewater had been mostly cagey about her setup. The sign was fresh, of course, and she was sure that half of the ponies that would come by would ask about the stylized ponies in blue and pink, their names and the startling choice of red and white hearts for the border making clearer than any rumor since Rosewater’s date that she and Collar were courting.

“That’s pretty,” Moon murmured. “Aunt Rosewater is in love?”

“You can ask her if you’re polite, Moon. She’s not scary. I promise.”

“But… mom said—”

“I know what she said, Moon. I promise. Rosewater is a kind pony, and she isn’t scary at all.” Silk nodded to the side at the bead vendor. “I’ll be right there if you want to talk to her. Or you can stay with me.”

“A-are you going to talk to her?” Moon asked, sidling closer to her side as Silk settled in to haggle for fall colored beads.

“Of course. Once I get beads for the ugliest bow in the world.” Silk winked at her and met Rosewater’s eyes briefly, her older sister paying attention with an ear ticked towards her while she talked with a pair of young stallions and a mare who must have been their mother. She didn’t believe for a moment that the ‘Perfume Consultation’ was what she was up to. “She’s my sister.”

“She’s momma’s sister, too,” Moon reminded her.

“Sorry. One moment,” Silk told the vendor. “Family matter.”

The older stallion she’d been talking to nodded and glanced aside, then at his wife, and shrugged. “I’ll keep picking out brown, green, and orange for you. How many?”

“For safety, a small pouch of each. Call it a hundred beads of each color. Variance in coloration is fine. The client wants some variance, but not random colors.”

“Gradient. Got it.” He waved her away and set out a small placard saying he was filling an order.

Not quite a gradient, but it was close enough that Silk didn’t bother to try and explain. She could make it look like scattered leaves and trees easily enough.

She also didn’t bother with the line waiting for Rosewater, instead standing just off to the side of the rug under the canopy, sizing up Prism as the mare studiously ignored her and spoke quietly with another pony Silk didn’t recognize.

“Silk Rose, nice to see you,” Prism said when the neighboring stall received a customer looking for a basket of beans, then shifted to block Silk’s approach when she came closer. “Rosewater has a line.”

“Oh, I know. I was hoping she could take a break soon. My order will take a while to fill, and Moon hasn’t seen her aunt in… well. I don’t believe she’s ever spoken to her niece before.”

That drew Rosewater’s attention away from the conversation briefly before she was drawn back in. The mare was concerned not at all about perfumes, but a mother’s concerns for her sons’ future in the Merrieguard cadet academy. She was concerned that the oaths her sons were being asked to give were to Roseate, not to the city. Even at the cadet level.

It was something Silk had not been aware of. The oaths by the guards were known and grumbled about often enough in the rumor mill that she had started to ignore them. Ponies were afraid of muttering about them to her anyway.

Just how did you get ponies to talk about what you wanted them to talk about? The signage was deniability. Rosewater was the presumptive heir, and here she was in a public forum. If ponies complained at her while she was trying to conduct business, then what could she do about it?

That Rosewater was obviously taking notes didn’t matter.

Nor did it matter when Rosewater finished listening and promised the mother she would try her best to address the issue with Roseate. She could pass it off as an empty promise to anypony that questioned her whom she didn’t trust.

Rosewater held up a hoof to stop the next pony, a stallion with a woodworking cutie mark, and tipped her head towards Silk and Moon, who was growing bored and looking over the board, her eyes darting to the basket of chalk sticks by Prism, most of them worn to nubs.

“Silk,” Rosewater said, turning her sign around to show she was taking a break. “It’s good to see you again. Is this about the last payment for my dress?”

“No.” Silk shook her head briefly and smiled. “I didn’t even know you would be here, so I don’t have my ledger.” She glanced down where Moon was half-hiding underneath her, peeking out around her legs at her tall aunt. Instead of urging the young filly out, she raised a foreleg to stroke Moon gently on the shoulder. “Rather, I wanted to see what you were doing in your downtime. I didn’t know you weren’t keeping shop hours anymore.”

“Mm. It’s a little out of the way.” Rosewater glanced down at Moon, smiled brightly, and laid down to be more on her level, or to give Silk the advantage of perspective. She laid her sign down flat and pulled the basket of chalk sticks closer to Moon. “This might be a boring adult talk, sweetie. If you want to draw on the back of my sign, I don’t mind.”

“Very kind of you, ‘Water,” Silk said, giving Moon a little nudge. “What do you say?”

Moon trembled, then swallowed. “Thank you, Aunt Rosewater.”

Silk smiled at her niece and bobbed her head. “Do you have some time to talk? You look rather busy.”

“For family?” Rosewater glanced over the line waiting, giving them all smiles and nods. “Stars, Silk. Family is everything to us. They’ll understand. You don’t need to worry about taking up too much of my time.”

The second in line, a trio of older ponies with the look of farmers about them, bobbed their heads to Rosewater and wandered away, starting the dissolution of the line as ponies went about other business they had to take care of or simply to wander far enough away to give them some privacy.

“Oh. Well then.” Silk glanced at Silk, who had laid down beside the board while Moon examined the chalk with a serious eye. “I did kind of want to catch up with you out of a formal or business setting.”

Rosewater raised a brow, her unspoken worry visible only in the tremble of her jaw that Silk recognized as her biting the inside of her lip.

It’s okay. Silk smiled and sat down in front of her sister. I’m supposed to ingratiate myself, after all, and learn the secrets I already know.

Throughout saying nothing to Silk with too many words, and Silk saying just as many words with nothing passing between them besides commentary on the weather, the gala, and the taste of wine, Rosewater was giving half of her attention to Moon, her niece having grown up to the point she almost didn’t recognize the filly from the last time she’d seen her, barely a year old.

What surprised her most about Moon was that she didn’t seem to be afraid of Rosewater nearly as much as she thought she might be, considering her and Rosary’s acrimonious relationship. Rather, she seemed perfectly content to draw what looked like the beginnings of a dress form in white chalk on the back of Rosewater’s board.

Keeping up small talk was a skill that was rusty, but that she’d mastered at Carnation’s insistence long ago, and getting back into the routine of hearing without truly listening, even for a few minutes, let her pay almost as much attention to the filly as she did to Silk.

When Moon was done making a very appreciable approximation of a unicorn, she stared at the chalk outline, then pulled over the basket of chalks and rummaged through the depleted stock, her ears flattening as she set aside little nubbins of chalk in various colors that Rosewater or previous owners of the basket had left behind.

Silk noticed at the same time. “I don’t suppose you have more chalk?” she asked in a low tone, leaning in closer so Moon wouldn’t overhear her.

“I don’t. The basket was all I was given.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “Prism?”

“I’m not leaving your side, Rosewater,” Prism huffed. “I’m sure another stall would be happy to let a foal borrow some chalk.”

Silk’s ears twitched at that.

So did Moon’s. “Auntie?”

“That’s up to your aunt Rosewater. It is her board you’re drawing on, Moon.”

“It’s fine with me, but I can’t leave, and neither can Prism. If I do, someone else is likely to snatch up the stall.” It wasn’t actually likely, but it was an excuse to stay put and let other ponies spread the news of what she was doing and where to find her. Not that it was hard to miss her.

She bit her lip, watching as Moon returned her attention to the chalk outline and what was slowly becoming the outline of a dress between bouts of tongue biting and glancing around.

“Maybe some other time?” Silk asked, turning briefly away from her to accept the pouch of beads from the merchant. “I’ve kept you too long from giving your consultations. Oh! You do still have one last payment on your dress.”

Rosewater chuckled at the ruse and nodded. “I know. I’ve been a little strapped lately, with my land purchases, having to actually put some downpayments on my cousin’s release, and the dress. It’s why I’m here, trying to drum up business instead of having fun at the Garden.” She tapped her hoof on the mat under her and grinned as Moon stared up at her like she was crazy.

“You don’t have a drum.”

“I don’t? You’re drawing on the back of my drum, little Moon.”

Horrified, the filly jumped up and looked around for something to erase her artistry.

“Moon, Moon,” Rosewater said, trying to hold back laughter as she settled in beside the little filly. “Calm. I let you draw on my ‘drum.’”

“It’s okay?” Moon asked in a small voice, picking up the chalk from where she’d dropped it and looking at the dress she’d started to sketch. “Momma says… Mother says,” she corrected herself, drawing herself into a more proper posture, “I should always respect other ponies’ property if I want them to respect mine.”

“That’s a very wise outlook, Moon.” Rosewater raised the sign and looked over the dress and the pony form drawn out in crude chalk lines. It was, for an eight year old, an amazing piece of work. “You must draw all the time. Do you always draw dresses?”

“No.”

“I like to paint with watercolor. Landscapes and flowers especially, but sometimes ponies, too,” Rosewater said and glanced around to see if anypony was waiting to talk to her. Merchants taking an extended break to talk with family or friends wasn’t unusual, but she wasn’t there to be a merchant, and she didn’t want to give anypony who wanted a chance to have their voice heard the feeling that she was putting off her duty. “Ask your mother if she would like to come by next week to pick out a piece I painted.”

As a peace offering, it wasn’t much, but it was also something that Rosary likely wouldn’t turn down as it meant getting into the space that Roseate had all but exiled Cloudy for refusing to sneak into.

“Why?” Moon, fairly enough, looked suspicious enough to back away.

“Your mother and I haven’t always been the best of friends.” Rosewater briefly formed the illusion of a diadem above her head before she let the water vapor go. “Largely because of reasons I don’t want to bother you with, but she’s still family, Moon.”

Silk was giving her a look that said she had better watch her step without actually saying anything, and gently nudged Moon to the side. “And we have the ugliest bow in all the universe to make. Let’s go pick out some silks for your dress, and we can go back to the shop.”

Like water washing away chalk, Moon’s uncertainty vanished as she bounced almost into the traffic, stopped at the edge of Rosewater’s mat, pranced back and bowed her head. “Thank you for letting me draw on your sign.”

Silk’s brows rose when she shared a look with Rosewater and offered a smile when Moon darted away again, pausing at the edge of the mat. She set a brief silencing dome around just the two of them. “Rosary has always been strict about maintaining manners in her children. That was her price of upbringing. Just as Vine’s is cleaning and mine is sticking my muzzle into rat traps.”

And mine was fear. “We all paid in different ways.”

“We all paid high prices because she was always hoping she could make another you, with our wills yoked to hers.” Silk shook her head and glanced upwards at the late morning sky and let the silence drop, letting in the sounds of the market again. “But the stars don’t work that way.”

“They don’t. Be well, Silk. I’ll have the next payment to you soon. And thank you.” She dipped her head minutely towards Moon. “Take care of her. She’s a treasure.”

Silk nodded and stepped back into her role as Moon’s guardian, and Rosewater set her sandwich board back up.

Five minutes later, she was taking notes as an elderly forester complained about getting hardwoods across the river in a timely manner, and his clients in Damme complaining and demanding prices be reduced for the inconvenience.

This had to be one of the ponies that had been tipped off, and she dutifully listened and tabulated each complaint so she could compile them later into a neater format.

Half of the ponies she spoke to didn’t want their names attached to the petition, only for the issues to be addressed, which would make it harder to address them, as anonymous complaints typically fell by the wayside in court as there were no benefactors or victims that could be identified readily.

The few that did were those whom had lost businesses or jobs to meddling with the rates, or had a client blacklisted from entering Merrie, who then broke off the contract even despite penalties, and cost the craftsponies more than lost time. Trust and belief in the need for trade was hurting them more than the surface.

As she listened to more and more ponies, and talked to Prism behind privacy barriers in between ponies approaching her, she came to the realization that most of the charges of petty interference were relatively recent. It may have been that they stuck out in ponies memories better, or, the more concerning idea, was that Carnation’s removal had emboldened Roseate along with her defeat in the dueling Arena to her own daughter.

She had been the subject of not a few petty slights and inconveniences that she was sure, but couldn’t conclusively prove, had come down from her mother in the form of licenses and scrollwork that was delayed or had additional fees added on top of the already expensive overseas trading licenses she had to purchase for each nation she had clients in.

Now she was finding out that the pettiness had gone far further afield than only her.

It made her worry that her allying with the Garden of Love would only bring—

Prism’s teeth on her ear snapped her back to the present. “Ow! What was that for?”

“It’s time for a break. That look in your eyes isn’t healthy, love.”

“We saw Aunt Rosewater at the market!”

Moon ratted Silk out the moment her mother came in the shop, startling the customers Silk and one of her assistant were helping.

“Did you, now?” Rosary asked, her voice deceptively light. “Was she shopping, too? Were you polite?”

“Se was doing perfume consultations and telling everypony she was courting Lord Collar,” Moon said happily, prompting Silk to apologize to her customer and asked her to wait for a moment.

“Oh dear, she was?” Rosary fixed a stare on Silk as she approached and rubbed at her throat with a hoof, reminding Silk of the incident in the tower when she’d pushed her sister too hard.

“Yup! And she let me draw on her sign! But she didn’t have any pink.”

“I see. Well.” Rosary took a breath and bent to nuzzle her daughter. “Finish up what you were working on, sweetling. Don’t leave a task Silk gave you unfinished.”

“Yes, mother,” Moon said, bouncing back to the counter and leaving Silk to face her elder sister’s anger.

Instead, Rosary closed off a corner of the shop behind aural and visual fuzzing and disappeared inside with a flick of her tail.

“I didn’t know she’d be there,” Silk said as soon as she entered the private area. “She set up a stall right next to the bead vendor I had to visit.”

“About the ugliest bow in the world.” Rosary’s lips quirked into a smile as she let Silk know she already knew about the trip and, likely, everything that had been said. Whether it was a charmed bangle in Moon’s outfit, expensive to maintain, or she had spies watching her daughter. “Word gets around fast, Silk, when you insult Madam Bow’s sensibilities.”

Rather than upset, there was a spark of amusement in her sister’s voice.

“I thought it would be a good chance to ingratiate myself to Rosewater, and even to get her to open up to us.” Silk kept herself from swallowing. “And she did. Perhaps it’s a trap, but she asked Moon to ask you if you would like to choose one of her paintings from her home. In a week.”

“That, I had not heard. I will have to pretend to be surprised and excited when Moon works up the courage to tell me,” Rosary said in a low tone, her eyes drifting back to her daughter with a hint of longing in her posture. “Was she happy to see her aunt?”

“She was scared at first,” Silk said, wondering just what it was her sister wanted her to say. If it was that Moon was scared of Rosewater, then what would she do?

“At first, you said.”

“She warmed up when Rosewater let her draw on the back of her sign.” And, since Rosary was going to hear of it sooner than later, “Rosewater wasn’t giving consultations.”

“I know. She’s not being very canny with her ‘subterfuge,’ is she?” Rosary looked tired all of a sudden. “Does she know how much trouble she’s causing for us by so openly courting…” Rosary waved a hoof. “Him.”

“Anypony else you would wish her to court?” Silk said with a snort. “You know mother’s tried her damndest, and succeeded, at driving away almost every male and female suitor she’s had. Stars, if she’d just stayed with that soaper, and if mother hadn’t put it in Rosejoy’s head to harass the poor mare, she’d still be childless, but less eager to buck her rule.”

Rosary winced, nodded, and leaned against the wall, rubbing her cheek against the smooth, fabric-covered wood. Whatever thoughts were going through her head, they evaporated to leave Rosary looking much like she usually did: cool and composed, a haughtiness to her bearing that bordered on arrogance.

It was public Rosary, and it wasn’t the first time Silk had seen it take her longer than usual to put on the mask.

“It’s getting heavier,” Silk said, nodding to her Moon, who looked like she was humming behind the counter as she folded and marked bolts of silk, organizing them for the projects they were for. “Especially when she’s as happy as she is.”

Rosary snorted and shook her head. “You don’t know what it’s like to care for a child, Silk. Don’t presume to guess my thoughts.”

“I know what it cost all of us to be Roseate’s children. That she’s happy at all is a testament to your own little rebellion, Rosary. Can you truly remember being happy as a child?”

“I have happy memories,” Rosary snapped.

“Name one.”

“I don’t have time for your games.” All words translated through the mask, words that Silk herself had spoken more than once. They said, ‘I can’t.’ “Tell my sister that I accept when next you see her. You seem to be very close to her, Silk, close enough for dangerous thoughts to enter your mind, perhaps?”

“Save the threatening words for somepony who cares,” Silk said with a scoff. “Mother doesn’t mean to let either Vine or I be safe and untested by our own fires. She just wants to squeeze as much out of us as she can before we’re tossed aside. Just like Glory. Where is your confidant?”

The mask shivered and Rosary flinched, but she didn’t try to justify why Roseate hadn’t seen fit to make any overtures to release Glory. After a breath, the mask was back in place, and she glowered at Silk. “She failed in her mission. And such a simple mission. Mother is still angry.”

“Two months later? She’s being punished, or discarded. The only one of us that was friends to all of us. Do you think Roseate didn’t see that she was courting some pony in Damme? For love, she’s being punished.”

“You’re dangerously close to traitorous thoughts, Silk.” Rosary raised a hoof and set it against Silk’s breast, holding firm. “I’ll forget this little slip, dear sister, because I know you have Merrie’s interests at heart. Please don’t make me tell mother that you’re actually feeling sympathetic towards Rosewater.” She patted Silk’s breast lightly and turned away, dropping the silence and the visual obscuring spells at the same time. “It’s always nice to catch up, Silk. Moon will be by again tomorrow at the usual time.”

Silk let out a breath and watched her sister leave, wondering just how much further she could push it before Rosary actually took action against her, knowing that Silk leaving would hurt Moon almost as much as if she’d lost a second mother.

She had been Moon’s caretaker during the day for almost four years, after all.

Don’t hurt your daughter, Rosary. Not for your mother’s sake.

Book 3, 6: Taste of Freedom

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“I really wish Rosemary could join us,” Cloudy said with a sigh, glancing down the hallway towards her now open lover’s bedroom before ducking back into Collar’s room and closing the door. It was easier to think of it as a bedroom than a prison cell when she thought about Rosemary. “She’s more of a guest anymore than a prisoner.”

“It’s going to be strange enough with the two of us going together but separately to a social event,” Collar replied, glancing at her and plainly wanting to come closer to her, to do more. Kiss her like he usually did before they went out. Then his eyes wandered to the gold band sitting on the jewelry platter in front of his mirror in the bathroom. By itself, it meant little among the other bits and baubles on the tray. Wearing it.

“You should wear it. Screw the theatrics.”

“I would, but I’m quite happy to drop that stone on Roseate’s head at the right time,” Collar said, using a spell to shift the ring about, then shuffled it under a chain that belonged to one of the official roles he rarely took up. “I do like how Rosewater’s revelation threw Roseate off at first. It gave us a few weeks of her being uncertain before she tried anything else.”

Cloudy hid a sigh behind a smile and butted her head against his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re married, you know that, but I can’t see the reason behind the deception.”

“We can’t have Roseate resign as soon as we announce without Rosewater having a foal to hold her position.” Collar shook his head slowly. “We don’t know that Rosary would be any better than Roseate.”

Cloudy grunted. “I think you should roll the dice.”

“I know. And, if things fall out other than how we plan, we will.” Collar rolled a shoulder in a shrug far more casual than she knew he was feeling. “But today… today is a happy day. Ponies need to see the three of us friends, despite the change in apparent relationship. They need to see that I am not resentful to you, and you need to see that you don’t resent her.”

“That part, I can do. I don’t resent her. Or you.” Cloudy shook her head. “Just the acting.”

“I know.” Collar kissed her cheek lightly, lingered, and laid his chin on her head when she didn’t respond. “It won’t be for long. And I don’t resent you or Rosemary. I’m glad things worked out as they have, actually.”

Cloudy spent a moment studying her mane from different angles in the mirror. “I’m not sure I am.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be, to be honest.” Collar’s voice thrummed through her skull, quiet as it was. “That uncompromising openness is the reason I fell in love with you in the first place.”

“I thought it was my charming smile,” Cloudy purred, leaning against him. “You do know how to flatter a mare.”

Collar chuckled, then sighed and kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay, isn’t it? That I’m asking you to not be so open right now? With either me or Rosewater.”

“I’m going to treat her as a friend. In the spirit of Merrie.” Cloudy stepped away from the mirror and nipped his shoulder. “I won’t tell anyone we’re already lovers, but I’m not going to treat her like she isn’t.”

“I know.” Collar let out a long breath, not quite a sigh. “I’m really looking forward to our camping expedition.” He held open the door for her, then closed and locked it as they left. “When were you planning to go scout for us?”

“Tomorrow. Or the day after.” Cloudy shrugged her wings and ruffled her feathers. “The weather this year is wilder than usual. Even the Primfeathers are having a time trying to wrangle clouds.”

“As long as we can leave for our trip in a week or two, I’ll be happy. Be sure to let Rosewater know as soon as you’ve found a spot as well.”

“You don’t want to tell her?”

“Oh, I do, but I want you to be seen being friendly with her, Cloudy. On your own, and not just because you and I are… were—”

“Are.”

“Are lovers.”

Cloudy held back repeating herself, flattened her ears, and glanced around the hall. Only a few servants were around, and Collar’s voice had been low enough that none of them had likely heard. Repeating it in the open… repeating it when she knew he knew…

“I’ll tell her. I’ll have to let the bridge guards in on the fact that I’m acting as a go-between, though. I can’t just fly to the Garden and not cause trouble.” She waved a hoof in the air, marking a line that she immediately crossed. “They might be separate from Merrie in quite a few ways, but the laws still hold sway there.”

Collar sighed and nodded. “I know. Which way do you think you’ll look? Out east is, well, apparently some new settlements.”

“North. Far enough to be outside of the city’s patrol area. I don’t want you to have to worry about visitors, Collar.”

“Makes sense. Close enough that the wild beasts in the area aren’t tempted by a fire, though. If it’s a regular summer patrol stop, that’s fine. Nopony’s going to venture that far during the winter.”

Not unless they have orders to, Cloudy thought, glancing at him. Or are pushed to by other powers in the city.

He nodded as if he could read her thoughts. “Just make sure it’s nice. I don’t want to have to set up a tent on a bunch of roots or rubble.”

“He doesn’t ask for much, does he?” Cloudy grumbled.

“Only the best.” He winked at her, reminding her of the other part of the plan. The part they could in no way share in a public space. Not in Damme, at least.

She sighed internally and grumbled at him. “Fine. Only the best.”

Rosewater stared at the small vial of light gold, wrinkling her nose as she swirled it around, mixing the chemicals and intensifying the smell until she could make out the most subtle of notes in it. She hated this part of trying to figure out what part of her cycle she was in.

But she needed to know. Especially for tonight. She glanced at her companion, helping her and making sure she was ‘alone’ and not entertaining a stallion.

Petal, beside her, frowned and raised her nose briefly. “I don’t think so. I remember when I was helping Silver. Or, rather, helping mother help Silver. Is that the right reagent?”

“It is. I’ve prepared it enough times for others. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t mistaking it.” Rosewater sighed and poured the vial out into a bucket and followed it with a caustic neutralizing agent, thankfully clearing the air. “It’s surprising how many times ponies come to a perfumier for help with identifying a scent.”

Petal rolled her eyes and snorted. “Fine. Point made. Are you done stinking up the greenhouse?”

“If I could do this in an outhouse, I would,” Rosewater grumbled. “But I need to be sure.”

She dropped the silencing spell from the glass walls, letting in the muted bustle of the garden during the morning back in. Laughter and the creaking of wagon axles and wheels dominated as ponies prepared to make the trek along the riverwalk to the Primrose bridge.

“Still going with the plan for tonight?”

“I am. The weather is still going to be pretty bad. Even if I wasn’t trying to make up an excuse to stay over, I wouldn’t want to be out in the sleet.”

“Sleet tonight. Stars.” Petal shivered. “I’ll have to send a warming brazier to the bridge guards. They’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.”

“It’ll be gone before morning, Bliss tells me. Warm front from Canterlot way coming up along the coast. But it will probably be the last one.” Rosewater put away the reagent, a silty compound made from a particular type of river clay that intensified certain scents. It made collecting the stuff an odiferous task, but a necessary one, as it was used often enough for more mundane reasons, including to make sure drinking water was uncontaminated. “I need to drop this off before I go to the bridge. Anypony would figure out what I’m trying to do with it if they smelled it on me.”

“If anypony doesn’t already suspect, they’re blinder than bats in a blizzard.” Petal shook her head, sighed, and opened a box near the door. “Drop it in here. It won’t look amiss, and Seed uses enough of it to make a little more not that odd seeming.”

“Thank you, but I need a certain purity. I don’t suppose a certain somepony lurking behind a hedge would mind taking it to my room?” She asked the door.

Zephyrine’s squeak was all she needed to confirm the fragrance she’d caught wafting in on the hocks of the neutralizing agent. A moment later, the young mare, with her ears flat almost to her skull, opened the door.

“I, um. Thought it was odd that Seed’s greenhouse was so quiet. I didn’t hear anything, honest.”

“I know,” Rosewater said gently, holding out the small pouch. “You’re a part of our circle already, Zephy. Can you take this to my room? Petal and I need to head out to the bridge before the Garden delegation leaves.”

“Oh. Of course.” She hedged after putting the bag inside her travel pouch. “So… are you?”

Rosewater laughed and flirted her tail. “No. Not now. But I think I am close. Maybe another week or two.” She winked. “Not that that won’t stop me from having fun.”

Zephirine’s coat shivered and she stamped a hind hoof.

“Don’t tease her. She’s been literally itching to see a certain mare again. And she doesn’t even know her name.”

“Petal!” Zephirine cried, then dropped her voice, cheeks flushed and hissed, “Stars, do you want her to find out?”

“Unless she’s landing right behind you just this instant, I highly doubt your mystery mare will hear of it, Zephy,” Rosewater said more gently. “Would you like me to try and find out her name for you?”

“Could you?”

“I could try.” Rosewater gave the younger mare a light nuzzle against the cheek. “The rest would be up to you.”

“Oh. Yes. Please. I-I know it’s up to me.” Zephirine straightened herself and ruffled her wings. “I just want a chance to get to know her. She was so… stars, her feathers!” Her wings ruffled again, pale pink plumage fluttering, the tips fading to a darker pink like her mane. “I want to get tips on how she keeps her plumage so… vibrant.”

Petal laughed brightly, flicking her tail against the younger mare’s hip. “And maybe that talk can lead to more?”

“I mean… I can hope. I know she’s a Dammer, though, so I’d just be happy to be friends and maybe grooming friends?” Zephirine looked so hopeful Rosewater’s heart almost melted.

“I suppose if I see her, I can let her know your platonic interest,” Rosewater hedged carefully. “Can you describe her in fifty strides or less?” She nodded towards the archway leading out towards the village.

By the time they reached the archway, Rosewater had enough information to actually identify the mare. Sunrise was one of her Mares in Waiting, but she would need to let Sunrise know and ask her permission to share her name with Zephirine.

Stars, who knows. Maybe Sunrise is just as smitten. For all she knew, they’d only ever seen each other once. But she’d heard of quicker ‘falling in love’ stories. Or, at least, falling in fascination.

At the arch, Dazzle, Prism, and Tremor were waiting, all three of them in what could generously be called Garden Guard vestments, the tabards used for the various festivals acting as impromptu guardspony’s uniforms.

They stood at attention, each one with a day bag slung over their shoulders and hanging against their barrel in exactly the same position, bulging in nearly the same ways for each of them, with the difference being Tremor’s thicker, shorter bag built for an earth pony.

“At ease,” Rosewater said softly. “I trust no other duties for today had to be overlooked to take up guard duty, Lieutenant Dazzle?”

He saluted after the Merrier style, hoof to breast and head bowed slightly. “No, my lady. I made sure replacements for our regular duties were found and informed before evening yesterday.”

“Good. I am ready. Let’s make this look good, please. We’re representing the Garden and Merrie today. I doubt my mother will make an appearance, but if she does, I want no trouble.”

“Stars, it’s good to see you taking your place as the Lady Heir,” Petal murmured against her ear. “Do you still need me, or should I look forward to Seed being a lazy lump when he arrives?”

Rosewater laughed. “There’s a difference?”

“Well, he’ll either be a late lazy lump, or an on time lazy lump.”

Prism snickered. “Best go back and kick him out of bed.”

“You might be surprised. He actually got up at dawn this morning. Something about being excited to see his auntie go on a real romantic outing.”

“Did… did he drink so much he forgot about the gala?” Rosewater asked in a low voice, trying to hide the grin.

“Well. No, not as such. But he did have his own distractions to keep his attention. The sneak.” Petal smiled and looked over her shoulder before the group started out. “So, you’re serious about the guard.”

“I am.” She didn’t elaborate and didn’t need to out in the open. That she’d said it aloud at all without a silencing spell risked it getting back to her mother. But she wanted it to. The more understanding that there would be a stalemate, she hoped that the stalemate would continue. “I would appreciate it if I could hire them on a more permanent basis.”

Dazzle cleared his throat, stopped himself, and fell back into line.

“Dazz, please,” Rosewater said gently, stopping to let him catch up, “You’re more than just a guard. You’re a friend.”

“I know, I just wanted to add that I’d volunteer my time—” He held up a hoof when she started to object. “—within reason. I mean, if you’re low on funds. I’m not going to object to being paid to do a job, but I also won’t leave you hanging just because I didn’t get paid for a couple hours.”

“Same,” Prism said, grinning. “I mean, waking up in bed with you is already pretty rewarding.”

Rosewater snorted a laugh and nipped her neck lightly. “Stars, Prism.” A quick glance at Dazzle showed a friendly smile and no hint of jealousy. She was sure he’d had a chat with Prism before, and likely with Petal and Seed as well. It still felt…

You’ve declared for Collar. You can’t be with another stallion. It made it easier to push the guilt aside and accept that she had to, for now, imagine she was trying to follow a Dammer’s mores for courtship.

Tremor grinned and shrugged when both of her other guards flicked a look at him. “Civic duty,” he said simply.

“So.” Petal pranced for a few paces, high-stepping and clicking her hooves against the road. “I am certainly looking forward to today. A certain pegasus is supposed to be there. A kind pegasus. A brave one, even.”

“Oh?”

“He actually came to us. And he was so polite and so very earnest. I think you’d like him, ‘Water. And he’s the one.”

“Oh, stars!” Rosewater gasped, feigning surprise and certain she looked like an idiot with her terrible acting. “He was at the gala? I asked Collar, as you asked, but I couldn’t get anything out of him and didn’t want to push.”

“He was!” Petal leaned in closer. “And he’s a well… maybe I shouldn’t say it so open. I’d rather not get him in trouble. But, stars, it gives me hope that even a—” Petal hummed loudly and grimaced. “Stars! I’m sure you saw him there. You know who it was?”

“I did and I do!”

Inanity and small talk were relatively easy to manage, meant nothing but let her keep up the story that she was unaware of Stride’s identity, and was just talking about nothing as they made their way down the river walk during the morning rush.

Ponies of all walks of life and color made their way along the smooth stones, the chill of the river water’s mist and the low susurrus of its flow over the rocks along the bank and against the pilings for the bridges was a calming, cathartic soundscape to walk through. It was one reason why, when she’d been keeping her schedule from estate to perfumier, she made sure to walk with her ponies.

Even if she was alone in her walk, she wasn’t alone.

Now, she was even less alone than she had been, and the difference was tangible. Her steps felt lighter as she laughed and joked with her friends about the days past, dreamt about the day to come, and made promises for the day.

Her one true plan, she kept to herself and away from the prying ears listening to her every word. No doubt Crown was getting bored listening to her make small talk and playing to a narrative she was trying to build of a mare in love, but taking it slowly with a lover from a culture whose mores spoke to building a rapport between partners over a long period of time, building equity in a relationship before making love.

For her, for most of the city of Merrie, making love was simply a part of the emotional landscape for friends and life partners.

At some point, she would either have to feign frustration with Collar’s mores, which wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense because Cloudy and Collar had been making love since almost the beginning of their relationship.

By the time they made it to the Primrose bridge and the impromptu fairgrounds set up on either side of it, Rosewater had run out of things to make small talk about. The weather was as well-trampled as she could make it, and the goings on of the garden, who was declaring for whom for the winter months, and the new relationships and pregnancies in the village were all small bits of gold in the day.

It makes me wonder why I wanted to stay away. The threat of Roseate, of course, but what was a storm to the Garden but a temporary setback. Life would always go on, and all she’d done was deprive herself.

But no more. “When do you think Silver will declare? And which of her husbands?”

“That was never a guess on whom, love,” Petal said, sticking out her tongue before rearing up to walk on hind hooves for a few steps, one forehoof braced on Rosewater’s shoulder. “The real guesswork and bets the bookies are taking is when you are going to declare for Collar.”

“Who says I’m going to make the first move?” Rosewater said with a giggle. “He’s been making the moves, not I, Petal. It’s actually very refreshing not to be the one leading the dance. Even if I do make little hints now and then. He often surprises me with what he does with those hints.”

“And you surprise him, as well?”

“Of course! Our courtship started with a surprise, after all. He expected me to demand, and instead I offered a secret. I still remember the look of surprise on his face when I told him Rosemary and my true relationship.”

“Well then, you’ll be surprised to know that Collar is already here. And so is Cloudy.”

Hardly surprising at all. “Oh? With Cloudy?”

“You’re not going to turn all the way into a Dammer, are you?”

“No, I’m just wondering…” Rosewater smiled thinly and shrugged one shoulder. “I just wonder why, is all. Is she here because there’s no hard feelings, or because of other reasons? She is still in love with my daughter.”

“Oh.” Petal’s ears flicked back, then snapped forward. “Oh! You think she’s going to ask permission? Like a Dammer would?”

“I doubt it. Not openly at least.” Rosewater cocked her head as if listening to something. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to try and smooth things over by being congenial. Collar, at least, might still be feeling chafed at needing to forego his relationship with her.”

“And understandably. He was with her for… a year and a half? I’m surprised they haven’t already had babies.”

She’s afraid of what motherhood means. “As I understand it, things were… complicated. But if she’s here now as a part of a social event with Collar, it means she wants to make it clear she doesn’t mean me any ill will.”

“Oh. Well.” Petal coughed. “I wouldn’t think that needed to be stated.”

“Not for me, for her city and the ponies that accepted her.” Ahead of them, the outer edge of the festival was picked out as flags attached to stakes, and beyond it temporary pavilions in a riot of pinks, reds, and whites marked out the Merrier space. Not a lick of blue to be seen aside from incidentally in coats and manes or tails. “This is really the only way she can cross the river anymore. I wonder if her family will be here, too.”

“I have no doubt they wish they could,” Dazzle murmured on her other side. “But the little bit of information we got from intelligence before I left suggested they were threatened to never speak to her again in the open.”

That won’t do. Rosewater flicked her tail and nodded. “Thank you, Dazzle.” She glanced at Petal next and fuzzed the air around them for a brief moment. “See what you can do to bring them to the Garden. I will pay to house them in one of the guest suites if we must.”

“Yes, my lady,” Petal replied with a smiled, her eyes glinting and head rising more proudly.

The look said, It’s good to have a Lady again.

Fragrances too rich and too varied for Collar to make sense of flowed through the tents like rivers of delight, enticing him to follow one and the next, and the next to its source and sample the wine, the pastry, or the savory roasted delight giving off the wickedly magical aroma.

He even caught sight of a chandler through the maze of tents, a pair of candles burning on either side of the tent in glass bowls that both protected the flame and concentrated the scent for an errant breeze to pick up and send on its way.

Cloudy at his side was dancing her way from stall to stall, following the impulses he pushed aside, laughing with the vendors and only occasionally pausing to make a purchase. Purchases she would have to find some way to keep low-key, or he would have to exert his influence to allow her to keep them.

Or she’s buying them for Rosewater, you ninny. Still, watching her partake while doing his best not to seem like her lover anymore, which frustrated him more than he wanted to admit to anyone, let alone himself, was a balm to his soul. The last trade event, during the spring, had been one she’d stared at from a rooftop, occasionally twitching, and clearly wanting to go down to participate.

Except her association with him had prevented her from partaking as she’d wished.

When she came back with yet another small parcel bulging out the space in her small day bag, beaming, he almost kissed her. That smile, always that smile. He felt its counterpart on his lips and nudged her shoulder instead.

“You’re enjoying yourself.”

“Stars above, yes. Collar, I have missed this more than I can say. This is…” She worked her jaw, the smile in her eyes fading somewhat. He could almost see the words she wanted to say etched into her coat. “I want her to see I’m not upset at her. I’m… glad. Very glad. That she’s courting you, Collar. In the open, I mean. I can do things for her. Like buy her something thoughtful.”

It was another reminder just how close the difference between friend, lover, and married partner were. In most cases, there was no difference. Friends and lovers were the same, and married partners were just the two words combined with a little string of law.

And he could help her with that deception. “Well. As this is the first time I’ve been able to indulge in the same with a mare who’s able to take things home with her… could you help me pick out a few items before she arrives? If it wouldn’t be—”

“Yes! Stars, yes, Collar. Let me help you!”

He laughed and nipped her neck lightly. “Alright, don’t make me force you into it or anything.”

They backtracked, and he actually allowed himself to follow some of the scents that inspired thoughts of Rosewater. One of the candles from the chandler, smelling like a bath of rose syrup drowning a pile of apples, he bought right away, and spent several minutes with the jittering young mare that ran the stall discussing what else he could buy for her.

She guided him again and again to a white candle that had little smell to it, but she insisted would bring him dreams, which wasn’t the direction he was going for until Cloudy butted in.

“Dreams of her, ninny,” she chided him, giving the mare a smile. “You’re Roselyn, right? Roselyn Dream?”

“And you’re Cloudy Rosewing,” Roselyn confirmed, grinning. “Yes.” Her eyes darted from her to Collar and back again. “Tell him to buy it.”

“I’m trying to buy things for her. I can’t very well buy scent magic to bring home with me.”

“Nothing magical at all about this candle. Unless you happen to have a scent mage to activate the fragrance. Otherwise… well. I’m told it brings…” Roselyn glanced around and leaned in closer. “Romantic dreams.”

His tail twitched, flicked, and he had to force down imagery of Rosewater baring herself to him. Later, boy. “Oh? And if it is activated?” Perhaps Rosemary might be able to help. Or enjoy the candle when Rosewater wasn’t with him.

“Mmm. I think I’d rather have you find out on your own.” She gave him a sly wink and pushed the candle across the counter towards him. “But you’d better not be sleeping when you do.”

Again, he pushed down images of Rosewater standing over him, her eyes heated, the scent of sex heavy in the attic air. Their plan for tonight. He hoped she’d bring the cards.

Roselyn grinned all the wider.

“Fine. I’ll buy the candle for myself.”

“Good stallion,” Cloudy murmured against his ear.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Vine straightened her neck and nodded. Too stiff. She tried to relax and nod again, and felt like her head was on the end of a reed whipping in the wind. “I-I need to, Silk. This is a chance to approach him openly and with reason.”

“You’re still going to talk to Seed instead of Collar?”

“I thought we agreed going to Collar was too risky.”

“It is. I just wanted to make sure you remembered, Vine.” Silk gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I… I worry, Vine. I want to…”

“Keep me safe.” Vine felt her cheeks heat at the thought, and bobbed her head slightly. Better. She did feel better when Silk was there to keep her safe, to look after her. The weaker sister. The damaged sister. “I need to do this, Silk. I can’t keep hiding behind you. Stars know…” I want to. “She can’t keep hurting me by threatening you. This is something I can do to make that happen, Silk. Please, don’t worry about me. If something goes wrong, I can pull a Glory and let myself get captured. Or something. I don’t know yet.”

“Stars, Vine, you’re only going to the commerce event. You’re not raiding Damme at rutting noon.” Silk nipped her neck lightly and nudged her towards the door. “Please, do be careful, though. I’ll have dinner ready when you get home.”

It was almost as if they were married. No! Stop it! She flinched away from the thought.

“Family can still have dinner together, Vine,” Silk said gently. “We need to move past this… wrongness. We need to trust somepony to help us, who won’t immediately tell everyone.”

“I know. Which is why I have to do this. For us, Silk. So we can be sisters. Good sisters.” Vine cinched the strap on her day bag for the fourth time, checked the straps were straight twice more, and gave herself a pinch on the rear to push her out the door.

“Have fun!” SIlk called from behind her. “Oh! See if you can find any of those snap-cakes they sell in Damme. I’ve had a craving.”

Vine chuckled and added that to her mental list, went over it again, murmuring to herself as she dodged around ponies automatically, giving them all a few tails’ length. The crowd at the event…

She wasn’t looking forward to it.

Book 3, 7: Expectations

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“Cloudy!” Rosewater laughed as she pranced through the crowd towards the other mare, Petal not far behind her and Dazzle closer behind still. “Stars, mare, it’s been too long.”

“Two weeks, Rosewater?” Cloudy said with a laugh, prancing towards her ahead of Collar. “That’s too long?”

“Oh, you sweet mare. I was lost without you!” Rosewater kissed her lightly on either cheek as Cloudy did the same, a tension in the other mare fading away and visible only for its absence. “Who else can I ask about Collar’s little quirks?”

Collar coughed as he caught up. “Gee. I wonder, Rosewater. Who could you ask about Collar’s little quirks?”

“I do ask you,” Rosewater said with a theatrical sigh. “But you seem just as surprised about your little quirks as I am.”

“Maybe they’re not quirks,” Collar muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe not,” Rosewater said more genially, smiling and meeting him briefly for a light kiss on the lips. “But I want to go into our relationship with both eyes open, and Cloudy has been more than happy to help me understand you.”

Collar chuckled and nuzzled along her cheek. “And I wish I had the same,” he said, drawing her eyes to Dazzle standing just behind and to her side. “What do you say, Dazzle? Do you think you can give me some insights?”

Tensions built along her shoulders for only a moment before Dazzle laughed, and she turned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Collar. “Of course, my lord. I’m happy that she’s happy, and only sad that I’m not able to be with her.”

“Ah.” Collar’s voice dropped an octave, and Rosewater’s heart ached as he added, “I wish politics weren’t quite so stringent, Dazzle. For she can’t be with me so freely as I would wish, and neither can I be with her that easily… and yet…”

“And yet your heart pulls you towards her,” Dazzle said gently. “I understand, Lord Collar—”

“Just Collar, Dazzle. We both love the same mare. I’d rather not have our relations tainted by lordship as well.” Collar held out a hoof. “What say you? Friends?”

Dazzle looked shocked, and glanced to the side where Petal stood, beaming. “Friends, my—Collar. I can do that.” He tapped his hoof against Collar’s, then held it there. “You didn’t take her from me, Collar. I hope you know that. She chose you.”

“Politics forced her choice, Dazzle,” Collar said somberly and shifted his hoof to grasp the other stallion’s ankle with his own. “I wish she were free to choose us both.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. It’s not that she has a voracious appetite. Stars alone know—”

“Collar!” Rosewater yelped with a laugh. “Please, not so frank around so many tender ears. They will have a skewed view of our relationship.”

“She doesn’t have a voracious appetite,” Dazzle continued, grinning and tugging Collar’s foreleg towards him. “But the appetite she has is very refined.”

Petal laughed. “That’s a pretty way of saying she enjoys—”

“Oh my stars, please, save the sex tips for later. Please,” Rosewater said with almost a giggle on her lips. “I enjoy mares and stallions, for the record, and it’s more the pony attached to the genitals than the genitals themselves that I enjoy. Though…” She sidestepped her hindquarters into Collar’s. “I am looking forward to when we reach that point in our courtship.”

Collar’s cheeks and neck heated, turning his bronze coat into a more alluring shade of forging bronze almost to his shoulders. “So. Perhaps we can have lunch or supper at the palace some day, Dazzle? Or out in town? I would very much appreciate your insights into Rosewater’s ‘quirks.’”

“I’m very quirky,” Rosewater agreed. “But stars, it’s good to see you two together and…” She wanted to say more. She wanted to say she’d heard their entire conversation again, to just get it out there that Collar had visited her already. She wanted to be open about her love and just how far along they were. She wanted her friends to be able to celebrate with her. “And just have you be friendly. I know it’s hard for both of you, and I truly do appreciate how much you’re both shifting your attitudes for me.”

“For us,” Dazzle said. “All of us, Rosewater.”

“I know, but… this is personal, Dazzle.” Rosewater clicked her teeth shut over the rest. It was personal, and not for the public. Not yet. “And I want to have this conversation with all of you soon. But today… Collar, I want to be on a date with you and Cloudy together.”

“I need to go find Seed and make sure he’s got our booth set up,” Petal said with a roll of one shoulder and a backwards step towards the streaming crowd of ponies making a bubble around them as the rest of the event sprouted all over. “You’ll visit us, won’t you?”

“We certainly will be,” Collar said with a wink. “I need to decide what I want to serve Rosewater tonight over dinner.”

“Excuse me, what?” Rosewater blurted, only barely able to keep the laugh from bubbling up. “Tonight? I thought—”

“Dazzle will be joining us for dinner later, but since we surprised my parents with our courtship, I thought it would be best if we started with, well, having a family dinner with the mare I’m courting.” Collar winked at her and flicked his tail against Cloudy’s flank. “It’s traditional.”

“At least you don’t need remedial lessons in court manners,” Cloudy grumped. “I heard from the gossip trough that the Gala went better than expected?”

“Roseate left early, and in a huff, so…” Rosewater flicked her ears sideways and grinned to show her teeth. “Yes. I’d say so. I was truly missing your presence, Cloudy. You being there would have smoothed over the transition, I think.”

“Or made it a hundred times worse,” Cloudy shot back. “I’ve learned the ways of Damme, Rosewater, and they’d have jumped to precisely the wrong conclusions and convinced themselves they were right before the night was even out, and then they’d have accused us of something else entirely. Just to pretend they didn’t think what was actually happening, happened.”

“I think you’re over-exaggerating,” Collar temporized quietly, glancing around to see who was staying still to listen in.

Rosewater followed suit, doing so more frankly and noting the ears tracking their conversation, some standing still and staring blankly into either empty stalls or past merchants trying to engage with them. Not many, thankfully, but there were a few backs of heads and rumps she thought she’d recognized from earlier.

In this mingling maelstrom of color, scent, and sound, it was harder to tell which were the Dammers and which the Merriers listening in. Though, there were a few tells just by looks. Centuries of interbreeding with the main lines of the Rose families had given descendants… a look that characterized them almost as much as their attitudes did. Pink locks, coat, or eyes were dominant.

A mixed crowd of listeners? She was almost certain at least a few of them were her mother’s bought and paid spies.

“Maybe,” Cloudy muttered, catching on and glancing around quietly and briefly. “But that’s not why we’re here, y’know. We’re here because you two need to kiss more where other ponies can see you.”

“That’s not the only reason,” Rosewater grumbled. “I need to find more of those strawberry candies you got for me, Coll. I swear, they disappeared almost overnight.”

Collar tipped his head to the side, his eyes exaggeratedly running over her flank. “Mmm. Something tells me it wasn’t your mouth they all disappeared into.”

“You know very well it was not. I need more, Collar. Roselyn liked them almost as much as I did, and she wants to know how they got the strawberry taste without the smell.”

“That name rings a bell,” Collar murmured. “Roselyn?”

“She left early this morning to get a scope of the land,” Rosewater said. “I think she was trying to get a look at you before I came to distract you.”

“Ah.” Collar’s cheeks heated again.

“We did meet her,” Cloudy told Rosewater. “She convinced me to tell Collar to buy—”

“Convinced you?” Collar laughed and backed up a step, waving a hoof back the way they’d come. “Let’s go talk to her and see if she can remember just how much convincing she had to do.”

“Mmm. Well. I would like to see how she’s doing,” Rosewater said, glancing back at Dazzle. “Are you going to be okay wandering around?”

“Oh yeah.” Dazzle’s expression hid a pain that she could see only because she had seen it bared naked before her. Only now he was seeing the rapport Rosewater had with Collar. “I’ll be fiiine. I heard Keg Tapper was going to be here. Been a while since he showed up to one of these, and I do miss a fine micro-brewed dammerale.”

“Is that a thing?” Rosewater murmured in an aside to Collar. “You can’t really, er… micro-whatever wine, so…”

“Actually, you can,” Petal said, nipping Dazzle’s neck lightly. “Come on, I’ll show you some small vendors that hire us for storage. They do all the brewing, but the temperature controls…”

“Alright. That sounds like fun. You like a little bit of toast to your wines, right Rosewater?”

Rosewater laughed and nodded. “I do like a good brandy, Dazz. Especially one with a fruity, fragrant presentation. See if you can find one you can surprise Collar and his parents with. Lace also enjoys a good brandy.”

That casual mention got a few ears twitching, and she smiled sweetly at Collar’s confused look before he got it.

It is a day to shatter expectations.

Vine hesitated at the outskirts of the crowd, biting her lip as she surveyed the streams of ponies coming in and out of the ring of tents, benches, and tables. She could make out where Rosewater was by dint of the fact that she was taller than almost everypony else and that she shone like a beacon in the early morning sun, her white coat gleaming in the sun.

From seeing her, it wasn’t hard to find Collar, an equally tall and striking stallion with a coat that seemed like a sunrise in the light.

It made her wish she’d seen them together at the gala, made her wish she could see how she meshed with Collar to allay the whispering worry that everything would fall apart right away.

You have your own goal today.

And it looked like Petal was still with Rosewater, though how long that would remain true, she didn’t know. She had to find Seed and talk to him alone, else she might lose her nerve over what she needed to ask.

You’re hoping to see Dazzle, too, aren’t you? She’d not seen him at all when she’d delivered the dress, hardly surprising to her mind at the time, but after hearing from Silk how the night had gone… she wanted to see him and see how he was taking the change.

She made herself stop dawdling at the edge of the crowd and forded into the stream of ponies, resisting the urge to cover herself with a veil. She was here to seek a favor from Seed, not advertise her presence as one of Roseate’s daughters. Still, it felt like everypony could see it on her, despite her not wearing anything identifiable, not wearing any of her clothes, and even worse, it felt like every eye on her said, ‘I know what you’re hiding.’

Ever since Roseate had told her that everyone would know what she’d done, that she had been the one to make the first move, she’d been the one who kissed Silk in a fit of desperate confidence, seeking some comfort in a connection to someone who loved her after her own…

They don’t know. They can’t know. They were ponies who only knew that she looked like a Rosethorn, and that was it. They couldn’t know what she’d done. Silk was still at her side, still loved her, but for all she said she didn’t blame Vine for starting them down the path they had taken…

She bumped into a pony when she was trying to avoid the gaze of another pony who was staring at her. Too many ponies for her to keep track of!

“Whoa, hey there,” a warm masculine voice said as she stumbled and bobbed to the side, caught off guard. “Oh, hey, I know you.”

Vine squeaked and backpedaled, only to jump ahead again when another pony snorted at her and her tail brushed against another’s shoulder.

“Easy, easy,” the stallion said, reaching up to touch her on the breast with a light hoof. “Not exactly the best place to be jumpy.”

“M-my—” Vine’s words froze on her tongue as it stuck to the roof of her mouth. It was Dazzle. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Well,” Dazzle said, nodding off to the side and drawing her out of the way of the main stream of traffic with a smile and a wink. “I was playing escort to your lovely sister as her guard, and now I’ve escorted her and left her with her paramour, so I’m free to explore.”

Was that a tone of bitterness in his voice?

Looking into his eyes for a moment, she thought it might have been, but then it was gone, evaporated in an instant. “Are you… is she… well?”

He seemed to understand what she was asking for real, or perhaps she was wearing her feelings out on her ears again.

“I’m well, Vine. I don’t know what you heard about us, but, um.” Dazzle looked around at the ponies surreptitiously listening to their conversation as they passed by, and tipped his head to the side. “Come on. I’ve been meaning to thank you for delivering her dress and—” His voice dropped to a low whisper against her ear. “—defending my heart.”

Vine’s heart skipped a beat, but she followed instead of fleeing. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, Petal got called away to help her husband at the stall. It sounded more than the usual ‘help, I’m being lazy and I can’t get up.’” He chuckled and tipped his head towards a stall selling buttered pastries. “I know it’s not quite what you’re used to, but Damme cuisine has its own culinary delights.”

“I, um, but I have a…” Then what he’d said caught up to her. “Oh. I wanted to talk to Seed about, um, sharing one of his greenhouses for the winter. I can’t use mine anymore for, well, it’s complicated, but I need to move some of my work elsewhere, and I was hoping Seed would…”

Dazzle glanced at her when she faltered in her prepared stream of lies, and he snorted. “Come on. He’ll still be lazy after Petal digs him out of whatever mess he’s gotten into. In the meantime, I’ve heard a lot about the gala firsthand, and I’d love to hear about it secondhand.”

An easy reply came to her lips, a smile at his goofishness. “Now that just sounds l-like—” Just like that the confidence was gone again.

“Like I’m making up excuses to talk to a pretty mare?” Dazzle continued for her, winking. “Well, you would be right.” He gave her what she imagined he thought of as a dazzling smile and stopped at the vendor he’d indicated.

“Good morning, gentlestallion and gentlemare. It’s nice to see a young couple up so early and so festive.” The mare at the counter and the stallion behind tending to a small brick oven loaded into the back of a cart were obviously married. “We have a fine selection of our finest, and we can always make something to order, but it may take some time.”

“Buttered Croissant with apple filling, please,” Dazzle said before Vine had even had a chance to look over the menu. “I’d recommend the same. They’re sneaky with the fragrance.”

“A-alright,” Vine murmured, tipping her head towards Dazzle. “What he ordered, please.”

“So,” Dazzle said a few minutes later as they wandered away from the vendors and towards the bridge railing, an exclusion zone for traffic to let ponies watch the river and talk. “What’s really going on, Vine?”

She didn’t answer immediately, savoring the taste and the faint fragrance that came to her nose with each bite. He was right, they were sneaky with it. Little pockets of almost liquid cinnamon sugar mixed with cream cheese and apple chunks. It was almost enough to distract from the nerves creeping up in her thoughts.

“I know you’re not…” Dazzle trailed off as ponies drifted by behind them. “I know this isn’t the best place to talk, but even Note would have problems listening in over the din.”

Espionage, then. “I need to talk to Seed, and my business is with him.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Dazzle gave her a smile and bumped shoulders with her. “I meant, you’re not the first pony I’d have thought of to defend a relationship between Rosewater and I.”

“Oh.” Vine winced and took another bite from her croissant to hide her sudden explosion of uncertainty.

“I love her, but I also accept that I’m the latecomer to her circle,” Dazzle said quietly, staring at the end of his pastry before taking a bite and chewing thoughtfully. “At first, it was to make your mother look at me, not Collar, for where her interest lay, and I agreed to it, stars, I wanted to help put one over on Roseate, y’know.”

“Oh.” Vine winced and forced herself to say more, “I didn’t see it in her.” Not that I saw her much, stars.

“She’s a good actress, most of the time. But she’s been getting progressively worse at acting. I think it’s because she’s been acting for most of her life, honestly, but now that she’s found a reason to be genuine, ponies she can be genuine with again…”

“Good.” Vine said softly.

“She told me I could trust you and your sister,” Dazzle added after a moment. “I got the feeling that she wished she could be more open with the two of you.”

Vine chewed slowly on another bite of pastry before deciding how to answer, feeling, for once, like she didn’t need to justify wanting to talk to a pony. He’d approached her, after a fashion. She glanced around to see who might be watching her and let herself relax when it was clear nopony was even paying attention to them. Just a mare and a stallion having a moment by the bridge amid a small battalion of ponies going about their own excitable businesses.

It was an effort, but she made herself calm down. It wasn’t like Roseate would show up. It was doubtful even Lace would show up. These sorts of events were for the common pony to enjoy and organized by the merchant guilds and coalitions and some of the craftsponies and their professional organizations.

“I do wish it.”

“So, I have a question for you,” Dazzle said just as quietly. “Why? Why did you want Rosewater and I together?”

“Why?” Why did I? “Because…” Vine shook her head minutely, lips pursed. “I suppose it was a lie, but she seemed happy whenever I heard about you about town. Not her usual self.”

“Happy, you mean?” Dazzle asked her. He sat at the railing and crossed his forelegs over it, looking down. He seemed pensive more than upset at her observation, as she’d been afraid of. “I admit I didn’t know her, only of her, and when I saw how she changed when she was around her friends and family who loved her, well.”

Dazzle finished off his pastry and laid his chin on his forelegs.

“Well?”

“Well, what? I thought it was obvious. I saw who she was and fell in love a little bit.”

“That’s it?”

“Does it have to be more complicated than that?”

Vine shoved the rest of her croissant into her mouth before she could fit even more of her hoof in along with it.

Dazzle laughed, but it didn’t feel like it was at her. Rather, it was the situation. “I know, it’s… silly. She knew me for… a month when I told her I wanted to try and pursue something more serious with her than our one or two nights playing Petals.”

“Oh. But you’re friends, isn’t that long enough to know you’re compatible?”

“Sexually and emotionally? Sure. But romantically? And secrets?” Dazzle shook his head slowly. “That was the first time I knew she was seriously pursuing Collar, and meant to follow the ways of Damme.” For a moment, he hesitated, his eyes focused in the distance, his jaw moving.

Vine swallowed and surrounded them with a minor aural shield, something similar to what Crown used to protect without being obvious.

He glanced at her as the pitch of the crowd shifted and offered her a weak smile. “You understand it’s still hard to say, knowing who your loyalties ultimately lay.”

“I can guess. And you don’t know my loyalties, Mr. Primrazzle.”

“Enlighten me, Ms. Rosethorn,” Dazzle said in the same stiffer tone. He didn’t exactly lose his friendly demeanor, but he did turn cooler. “Rosewater says I can trust you, but Rosewater’s heart has grown quickly, and I’m not sure she’s completely in her right mind when it comes to family.”

Vine chewed on her lip, then nodded. “She’s not. But to be direct, I’m devoted to my sister, Mr… Dazzle.” She bit her lip again, then shook her head. “To Silk. We should have been twins like Powder and Well. Stars above know we’re as close.”

“Ah.” Dazzle’s shoulders relaxed minutely, his coat seeming to soften as he did. “Family is just as important to you as it is to us.”

She almost corrected him, told him or hinted, she wasn’t sure what was going to pop out of her mouth, but she bit down on it before she could find out. She wanted somepony else to know, so they could hear the story, help her and Silk, and they could get out of the bind they were in.

For a long moment, it seemed like she was going to give up something precious for nothing… until he shook his head and sighed. “She said I could trust you. Alright. She was already dating Collar, then. Not getting to know each other. They’ve already spent the night, two nights, together in bed. She didn’t want to share until I told her it would be okay, and it hurt, but hearing her talk about the connection did help. Collar isn’t just a convenience, politically.”

So far so soon? “But… they just had their first date…” Vine strengthened the sound damping. “Stars, she’s been dating him already?”

“Yep. Before she even moved to the Garden.” He hesitated again, but this time for shorter before he chuckled. “But I’m sure you already figured that out.”

“I, well, Silk did, that’s for sure. She hasn’t told Roseate that I know of,” Vine murmured, giving him a surreptitious look. “And I haven’t heard that Roseate suspects any of what you told me.”

That earned her a longer stare, his mouth dropped open before he chuckled. “You’re not what I expected, Ms. Rosethorn,” he said, using her formal name as a tease instead of a way to distance himself from her. “Nor what I expected after hearing about what your sister got up to at the Gala.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Mmm. Good. Now. I know Seed isn’t the only one with spare space in their greenhouses this winter, and many are closer allies than the Garden ever would be to the Rosethorn line.” Dazzle didn’t change posture, but something in him radiated tension. The quiver of his ears, maybe, and the way he didn’t meet her eyes when he asked the question…

It would be a gamble to tell him even a little of what she was doing, but only if she did it wrong. Which meant she had to do it right.

Alright, brain, this is your idea… It would, in a way, be easier than talking to Seed.

Screwing up her courage, Vine settled in beside Dazzle and said, “I’m trying to escape my past.”

Author's Notes:

Ah. It feels like forever. I apologize for taking so long. I had this written for a long time, but I kept trying to push it to minimum 6k words before posting it because... reasons.

Vacation's almost over, but I got a lot of the things I'd been putting off because of stress and work done, so that's good. I got a lot of reading done, which is what recharges my writing batteries. I also got some gaming done, also something I've put off for a while. Almost done with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, almost done with Divinity: Original Sin 2 and had a surprise WLW romance with Sebille.

Ruined my sleep schedule for a while and confused the heck out of my kitty, who isn't used to me being home as much as I was. (Thanks Omicron.) Had fun with the family for the holidays, played some games... until my family was exposed to the new variant and stayed isolated for safety. Whee.

Anywho. New chapter, more expanded Vine/Silk stuff is coming, and I finally managed to complete the outline for the rest of the story.

Book 3, 8: Arrangements

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Collar drifted along in a light haze of alcoholic bliss after spending a little too much time tasting and comparing different vintages before picking the one that reminded him most of a kiss. He ordered two bottles on the spot, but afterwards couldn’t remember if the decision was a good one, and couldn’t recall if it had tasted like a kiss or because Rosewater had kissed him right before.

What does a kiss even taste like?

For Cloudy, sitting across from him and grinning like a cat who’d gotten into the cream despite everypony trying to keep her out, kisses always tasted just slightly on the side of whatever she’d last eaten. After she’d learned that, while brushing their teeth in their shared washroom, she’d occasionally make a point of nibbling something he liked an hour or two before a kiss.

For Rosewater, sitting beside her and looking at him with what could only be called adoring eyes—both a facade and a reality at once that he didn’t like, because it hid the looks she usually gave him, earnest and hinting at a desperate hope that everything would turn out okay—they tasted often like strawberry.

And now he knew why.

“Did I pick the right vintage?” Collar asked, nodding at the trio of bottles sitting on the table between them. Strawberry Kiss.

Rosewater winked. “I think so.” Her right ear ticked as a nearby conversation caught her attention, her smile straining ever-so-slightly. He was learning, both at their first public date at the seaside restaurant, and now here, that she paid almost as much attention to the world around her all the time as he did to their conversation. “I ran out of candies, though, so my kisses might start to taste an awful lot like Cloudy’s.”

That sent his eyebrows raising while Cloudy just laughed and shouldered her lightly.

“Rosewater, you have no idea what my kisses really taste like.”

Heat rushed up Collar’s spine and tried to excite him. The wine dulled its effects enough for him not to think about the kisses Cloudy had told him about, wet with Rosewater’s own orgasmic excitement. Or at least, not to let the image sink so deeply he couldn’t drive it off for a few more hours before the event was over and he and Rosewater would head to Prim Palace publicly.

Everypony would speculate, especially since the winter storm was a known factor and even as much as they protested the weather interrupting an already planned event, there would be rumors closer to the truth than they were trying to get.

He wanted to shout it. He almost did.

A little more wine, and he might. Knowing that what they said in public was the last thing ponies would be talking about, and trying to push ponies in a certain direction would almost certainly push them off in some other tangent, kept his tongue still. There were limits. Ponies would spread their rumors even hotter if he shouted that he’d already had sex with Rosewater and was trying to get her pregnant.

It would almost definitely blow the fact that they were already married…

Stars, I’m married.

The idea jolted through him at the strangest times, shattering his thoughts and making his coat hairs stand on end.

I’m married. And his wife was sitting across from him, her smile slipping from adoring to mischievous as her mask slipped away.

Rosewater shuffled two of the bottles into her day bag and the last into Cloudy’s. “No more wine, I think,” she murmured, grinning. “That dazed look says you’re ready to do something.”

“Somepony,” Cloudy murmured under her breath. Collar only barely caught it, but Rosewater’s lips twitched. Her eyes twinkled, and the urge to throw the masquerade flowed through him again.

He stuffed the urge deep. Stating it now would mean… something. It might forever bar him from Cloudy’s embrace. The fears slid off his armor of drink.

“Mm. Well. Maaaybe I’ve had a little more than I should have, but I’m a big pony,” Collar whined in a faux-childish voice, sticking his tongue out at her. “Seriously, though, I think all the walking around got it to my head faster than I wanted.”

“Mmm, we did do a lot of walking, didn’t we?” Rosewater murmured. “Though that bread we had should have blunted it.”

“Oh, my vision isn’t swimming or anything, but I am definitely feeling heady.” For a moment, his body remembered how heady it felt sliding into her, how she had responded and how she’d felt over him, under him… around him.

Until a cool, almost cold sensation against his sheath snapped him out of the reverie. Seconds only, but the wink Rosewater gave him, her horn sparkling and glowing with magic as the cool feeling persisted, told him she’d more than noticed his recollection.

Little too much wine. His thoughts were getting away from him, and she wasn’t helping much, that smile promising more, but later. He closed his eyes and shook his head lightly, trying to regain control of his arousal.

“Maybe we should walk around a little more and burn it off?” Rosewater murmured, her horn flickering briefly before fading back to white. The coolness lingered for a few more seconds. “That’s a difficult spell to keep going.”

“What is it?”

“It helps me delay… reactions in perfumes by cooling them. Usually when I need to mix more than one scent together. With them warm, they mix too quickly.” Rosewater grinned at him and winked. “It helps with preventing premature mixing of other reactants as well.”

Collar laughed and shook his head. “It’s like a whole language to you, isn’t it?”

“Innuendo? I’ll have you know that I am a native speaker.” Rosewater winked more slowly, her lips pursed in an exaggerated mime of a kiss.

“I think I might want to test my own knowledge of innuendo,” Collar said. At that moment, everything innuendo-related slipped from his mind, and all he could think of was that night and the deck of spell-scribed copper cards she had in her satchel. He latched onto the first thing that came to mind. “You’re pretty.” Definitely too much wine.

Cloudy burst out laughing, and Rosewater joined her, giggling madly and making her look even more beautiful as the genuine mirth made her seem to glow brighter than the early winter sun. He felt his cheeks heating more before he laughed and chased her back across the table to kiss her back.

“Oh, you are so precious,” Rosewater said through a spate of giggles and a smile that loosened her ears and shone in her eyes. “Where shall we go for a walk? I daresay we might find a juicer and see if they have… mmm.”

“I’m quite partial to this drink I think had something called fairy petal extract in it,” Collar said, tipping his head to the side. “I can’t remember what the base is, but the fairy petals…”

Rosewater’s smile grew wider. “I think I can do one better. How about some water for the buzz… and some candied fairy petals.”

“They can be candied?” Collar asked in a low, awed voice, trying to hide the signs of mischief.

“My lord,” Rosewater said in a deliberately grave voice. “Anything can be candied.”

“Even kisses?”

“See?” Cloudy half-stood and waved a hoof at Collar. “I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing, ‘Water. I was teaching him some innuendo.”

“Mmm. I’ll take your word for it, sweet mare,” Rosewater said with a laugh, and she looked for a moment as if she wanted to lean across the table and kiss her as well. “But I wanted to do more than look for candied petals and fortified juice. I wanted to get some of the scents of Damme, Collar. When you come to the Garden, I want you to feel at home.”

Thoughts froze, then started churning again as he processed that. She had mentioned him visiting the garden in passing, but he didn’t think they were ready to talk about it yet in public. Not where the plans would get back to Roseate.

Finally, he chuckled, though it sounded forced even to his ears. “Well. Breads are a good start, and freshly cut wood as well. Those are among the most prominent smells that I recall whenever I walk about the city, though there is a growing passion for smoked goods as well. Especially diced potatoes and a burgeoning interest in various smoked and dried fish.”

“I thought something smelled fishy,” Rosewater said, and winked. “I would love to get some samples.”

“Shall we?” Collar asked, rising and returning the sampler wine glass to the stallion overseeing the tasting with a nod. “I think walking will help settle the wine-tongue I have right now.”

“I think a candied kiss would do more,” Cloudy murmured under her breath, loud enough for Collar to hear. “Kiss her.”

“I’ve been—”

He broke off when Rosewater kissed his cheek lightly as they left the small tasting area and merged into the crowd circulating the festival grounds.

“I’m very much enjoying today,” Rosewater murmured against his ear. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad,” Collar whispered back. “I love you.”

The intricacies of capturing the heart of a city in fragrance form was as much art as science, and tailoring the scent to a particular pony required even more knowledge of them. Questions like ‘What does Collar focus on when he tours the city?’ or ‘Where does he linger when he goes out?’ were key to deciding what parts of the city she would gather scents from.

That had been her first attempt, with as much knowledge as she could glean from Gossip in Granny Galleon’s meandering way with a little help here and there from the everpresent, silent, and shy Rosetide Galleon.

Her second had been spur of the moment, intent but no planning behind it. That Cloudy took out the scarf after the passing of the noon hour and draped it around her neck as the beginnings of a chill wind began to sweep down from the north warmed Rosewater’s heart even more.

This time…

Rosewater let herself be led around, Collar following his interests and Cloudy occasionally pulling them off to the side for another scent she enjoyed or a treat.

They spent a good hour perusing through the books a bookbinder had laid out in a series of bookshelves under an awning, looking for things Rosemary might be interested in and eventually coming away with half a dozen Canterlot-style romance novels full of dashing Knight Captains and both mares and stallions needing rescuing from bandits or monsters or simply from boredom.

The smell of freshly bound books was another memory she captured in a patch of her scarf, the glue almost fully cured but exuding that faint fragrance of salt and the sea that kelp glue always gave off.

She could have purified the scent, but that wasn’t the point. The impurity, the warmth of everything else she captured and was layered into the soft wool was the point. A more complete olfactory record of the day that she would take with her to her first dinner with Collar’s family, her first night as a married mare spending the night with her husband.

Not for the first time, as she focused her magic on sealing the scent into her scarf, she felt a wash of anger and want for it all to be over.

“Where to next?” Rosewater asked, forcing herself out of the vortex of self-pity.

“I’d like to buy something for Rosemary as well,” Collar said in a low voice. “A… thank you gift, if you will, for being so understanding.” A flush in his cheeks hinted at more he hadn’t been able to share yet. Or hadn’t wanted to share.

Perhaps tonight would be a good time for a sharing circle.

“Well…” Rosewater leaned forward and glanced across Collar at Cloudy, currently grinning like a buttered lily. “For a good friend, something that will last a little longer than a glass of wine. Perhaps you could order a custom-engraved wine glass to enjoy many more glasses?”

Collar pursed his lips, ears twitching before he shook his head. “I think not. That’s too… impersonal. I’ve become very close to her, Rosewater. Largely through Cloudy, but I’m—” He shook his head again and smiled brightly. “She’s been so good to Cloudy, Rosewater, how can I thank her with only a wineglass?”

Rosewater closed her eyes briefly, thinking as they waited in the eddy of ponies milling about formed by a clump of ponies browsing at a nearby stall.

“A companion,” Rosewater said after a long moment.

“A pet?” Cloudy asked from Collar’s other side.

“Perhaps.” The suggestion sparked an idea and a memory. “A cat, perhaps. Rosemary spent a good six weeks pretending she was a cat when she was only five. I don’t think she’s ever lost her love of them, either, but…”

“But they tend to have a smell, and as a perfumier…” Cloudy flicked her ears back and nodded. “She never lamented to me when we were together in Merrie.”

“All of the cats she ever loved were at the Villa. Mousers and the occasional true pet, collar and all. We were never in the house for long, and I wouldn’t want to subject a cat to the… dangers my mother represented.” But now she’s freer to love even a helpless animal without danger.

“Stars.” Collar’s voice sounded ashen. “Even cats?”

“The danger was always there. And, as a perfumier, I often worked with compounds that would be poisonous to cats. The Rosewine cats are all descended from cats that learned where to step safe, but not so any I brought home. Even without my mother’s interference, or especially because of the danger of it being an easy accident to engineer, it would be cruel to keep a cat that couldn’t go where they wished.”

“Mom had a dog when she was younger,” Collar mused, tipping his head to the side. “A big hound, almost to her mid-cannon. He passed before I was born, but she has a portrait of him in her chambers.”

“One problem,” Cloudy hissed over Collar’s neck at Rosewater. “I don’t think there’s a menagerie here.”

“That would be a hurdle,” Collar barked. “Very well. Perhaps… is there anyplace you would like to go, Rosewater? We’ve been leading you around the entire afternoon to places Cloudy and I find interesting.”

Rosewater pursed her lips and ran through a mental checklist of the things she’d wanted to accomplish. Most of it related to being seen being friends with Cloudy and showing that there was no jealousy or antagonism between the three of them. She had her bag of scent-less strawberry candies and a promise to deliver another bag every other week via Rosie Night.

All she was missing was… family drama.

Through the crowd, she saw a head, followed by a tail, that was entirely too familiar to her.

Rosewater held back a sigh at the predictability of her mother’s motivations and actions. Roseate, thankfully, wasn’t there in the flesh, but Rosetail was still here. And her eyes were focused on a certain pegasus whom was all-too-familiar to her.

I thought I made my warning clear enough earlier. It hadn’t been a big moment earlier in the day. Rosetail had tried to make herself a little too available to Stride Primfeather while the stallion had been clearly uncomfortable.

A passing shake of Rosewater’s head when Rosetail spotted her had been enough warning for her sister to break off her misguided attempt at flirtation with Stride even after several negations.

Who was just a few paces away from a distracted Petal and Seed, both talking to a burly stallion with Damme colors and laughing. The younger stallion’s cheeks were flushed, and he didn’t even seem aware of the circling wolf watching for an opening.

“Excuse me,” Rosewater murmured. “I need to make sure my sister isn’t doing what I fear she’s doing.”

“Not alone,” Collar said with a snort. “I need to make sure Stride isn’t going to hangover himself in the morning.”

Rosewater laughed. “Thank you.”

Jasmine steam caressed Silk’s nose before she took a sip of the sweet tea, savoring the honeyed bite and the touch of cream she’d stirred into her one and only cup. She’d promised herself a relaxing day alone in the home she shared with Vine. A time to relax and finish the romance she’d been picking at in paragraphs and pages for the last month.

A simple romance between two ponies not related to each other. A dream she could sink into for a time, and perhaps more fully today.

Junebug and Lord Hammer were finally looking past the masks each had put up, the first of a common mare trying her best to fit into the society her mistress had pushed her into, haughtiness a false front against the terror that she would be found out, and Lord Hammer’s infatuation with a mare he’d seen without it in one panicked moment in the back of a coatroom.

Maybe they’ll finally tell the truth.

She almost screamed when a light tapping came at her front door.

For two glorious seconds, Silk considered pretending like she wasn’t home before a crackle and pop in the fireplace reminded her she’d set the fire earlier, and the smoke from the chimney was as good as a flag pinned to her flanks.

She took a moment to arrange her sitting room so it was clear she was expecting her visitor to leave quickly. Single cup of still steaming tea, book with marker prominently on display on the cushion at the head of her lounging couch, and her blanket piled up messily on one arm.

It took only a few seconds to make sure it looked right before she called out, “Coming,” in an exasperated tone.

“Dear sister,” Rosary said, her tone cultured and smooth, unfazed by the glare Silk gave her when she opened the door. When Silk didn’t invite her in right away, she shrugged. “I have business to discuss with you regarding Moon’s apprenticeship this winter.”

“And it couldn’t wait a day?” Silk grumbled before reluctantly stepping back and glancing past her shorter sibling, looking for Moon’s adorable smile. Or her trepidatious one, given Silk’s tone. “Where is she?”

“With her fathers,” Rosary said with a sniff. “Today’s business is not for her to partake in.” She glanced around the sitting room after scuffing her hooves to near perfection and gave Silk a softer smile at her incredulous look. “I remember the last time I walked in without cleaning my hooves, Silk. I wish to cause our little cleaner no heart palpitations.”

Silk huffed and settled in on her couch for a moment before cursing herself and getting up again. “The water’s still hot, if you’d like some tea.”

“Jasmine and blueberry?” Rosary’s question wasn’t a suggestion, her Rosethorn marks glowing briefly. “Yes, if you don’t mind. Another dollop more tea than you take it, if you please.”

While Silk set about making the tea, she called out from the kitchen, “I thought our agreement was settled for the winter. Moon seems to be happy, and her skills are progressing nicely.”

“I have no qualms about your tutelage, Silky,” Rosary called back, using her foalish name in a lighter tone than usual. “This isn’t to suddenly tear her away from you. It would hurt her more than I wish to take her favorite aunt away from her.”

Silk pursed her lips, pausing while the tea steeped and she swirled the infuser around in a slow circle, then reversed before adding three dollops. “You still take cream?”

“I don’t wish to impose more.”

Yes, then.

“What is it you want to change?” Silk asked as she set the saucer and cup down in front of her sister, trying not to wince when she saw the book was in a different position and the marker set deeper.

“A good book,” Rosary replied, dipping her eyes briefly and shifting it back to its original place. “Have you read it before?”

Before she responded, Silk took a moment to consider the comment, glancing from the book to Rosary and back again. “I have not. I’ve just arrived at the scene with Junebug finally buying her ball gown for the Summer Solstice dance.”

“Then I shan’t spoil it.” Rosary met her eyes as she sipped the tea, an uncommon crinkle creasing her brow as she swallowed. “That is a richer cream than I am used to.”

“Goat cream.”

“Mmm. I shall—”

“Please, Rosary, you know I have little patience for the pleasantries.”

Her sister closed her eyes and took a larger sip. “Very well. May I silence the room? I’ve no wish to share the details of Moon’s apprenticeship with your rival seamsponies.”

“Fine. Go ahead.” Silk added a touch of her magic to the weaving, lacing the threads of her spell in between the larger and more blunt edges of her elder sister’s.

“Mother is in an upset over your behavior, Silk.”

“Mother is always in an upset these days,” Silk shot back, feeling her guts quaver. Not yet. I’m not ready. “And it’s nothing to do with me. I did exactly as she asked.”

“And not a whit more?” Rosary’s perfectly groomed brow rose briefly. “I had my own little listener at the gala, my dear. Unless mother asked you to make nice with Lord Collar…” She rolled a shoulder and took another sip, eyes fixed on Silk’s.

She met the gaze unwaveringly. “I did see Lady Petal Broom there. I doubt she was in any state to witness anything, as deep as she was into her wife’s neckline the entire night.”

“Ah, you mistake my source.”

“What did you tell mother?”

“Nothing. Yet.” Rosary sipped her tea again and swirled the cup slowly in the air, her eyes falling from Silk’s long enough to shake her head. “And I shan’t tell her anything unless you blab about what I want you to do for Moon.”

Silk relaxed minutely. “Your word?”

“My word and my life on it, Silk. Moon is my life.” She swallowed and looked away. “I’ve kept her out of mother’s clutches thus far. I know what she did to you and Vine, and that she let it get so far on purpose.”

A humming filled Silk’s ears as the revelation sunk past layers and years of self-recrimination. “What?”

“I only found out recently. She was ranting at me about—”

“She knew!” She knew! And she hadn’t acted. She hadn’t tried to protect her own children. A more dangerous thought occurred to her, a troubling, monstrous possibility and her blood ran cold. “Did… stars above, did she push us?”

Rosary’s mute, pained look told her everything. “She holds something over all of us, Silk. I don’t know why. I don’t know if she initially planned it, but I suspect she did not. She did what she does. She took advantage of a perceived weakness. For you, your sister.”

“Proof,” Silk gasped, her mouth dry as ash, her tongue feeling swollen in her mouth. “Do you have proof?” The words came out thickly, the implications of what Rosary so casually dropped on her battering their way in from the back of her mind.

“No. Only my words and what I can claim I heard.”

Tear her down. Destroy her. Silk’s thoughts bubbled with fury for long moments before her sister’s image in her mind came to her. Fourteen years old, sobbing in the wake of Roseate’s dismissal.

“Why tell me?” Silk’s voice sounded like a grinding wheel to hear ears, rough and too high pitched, too close to the edge of panic.

“An offering to show my sincerity.” Rosary set her tea cup down and met her eyes. “Take a sip of tea, Silk. I need you in control.”

“I am in rutting control,” Silk growled. “I’ve spent the last five years living with the mare I’m attracted to, that I can’t be attracted to. I’ve learned more about self control than you can possibly rutting imagine.” She knew about delayed revenge, too. She’d once had a plan to visit it on Rosewater for abandoning Crown to enemy imprisonment so many months ago, only for those plans to fall apart at Crown’s own urging. “Why tell—”

Silk shook her head sharply and took a deep breath, pushing back down the fury. She could deal with that later. With Vine. They would deal with it together.

“Tell me what you want for Moon.”

“How much do you trust Prim Pleat?”

“I can’t bring an expectant mother into this, Rosary.”

“I’m not asking you to scheme with her. I’m asking how much you trust her. I want my daughter to learn more traditions of sewing and stitching than Merrie’s.” Rosary settled down more deeply into the facing couch, finishing off her tea and setting cup and saucer down with a ringing clink. “I want you to arrange a dual apprenticeship, and I would like you to find a way to accompany her to her second.”

“You’re assuming she would accept. She already has a child of her own and another on the way.” Her mind circled back around to Vine, but she pushed it back again and took a sip from her tea, keeping the cup steady with a more focused spell than she needed just to keep her thoughts busy for another moment. “I will write her, but understand she won’t readily accept. She likely has half a dozen apprentices already.”

“And you have but the one?”

“I’ll miss her, Rosary. Do you have a reason for wanting to split the apprenticeship?”

“She’s going to her first Gala this winter, Silk. I’d like her to be more comfortable with Dammers from the start than any of us were. It’s clear, to me, that this is the end of the war. Lace beat us, and she didn’t even have to raise a cudgel to do it.”

“But mother—”

“Mother is insane. Her rant, what she did to you, what she’s done to all of us…” Rosary’s eyes went distant for long, ragged breaths before she closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s not enough. But it’s all I can do. My children are my life, Silk. I would—”

Silk was silent as Rosary’s jaw worked, her eyes shimmering before tears started streaming down her cheeks, unseen horrors flashing by her eyes, her ears flatting as unheard, monstrous words trampled them down.

“I have done terrible things. I’m a monster, Silk. I’m a monster because my babies needed me to be one to stay safe. I need—” Rosary drew in a ragged breath. “I need you to do what I cannot be seen to do. I need you to make sure my sweet moon has a safe place.”

“And Quill?”

Rosary shook her head softly, a faint smile on her lips. “Quill is already safe, Silk. I have… made arrangements for him already with… well.” She shook her head again, more sharply. “Moon is the reason I came to you, and I’d rather not share more of my plans than I must.”

Silk pursed her lips, but nodded. “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” She cocked her head. “And Kestrel? He’s not really ill, is he?”

Rosary gave her a considering look, ears twitching. “He’s heartily sick of being cooped up, but he was truly ill. Featherfell, but a mild case. Powder and Well have made their own arrangements. I’m not privy to them, either.”

“You’re taking away mother’s arsenal, then.”

“Only the sticks and stones we care most about. They will never be used to break our bones.” Silk glanced at her cup, raising it to study the intricately painted lines of vines and greenery decorating the base. “You have a plan for Vine?”

Instant suspicion welled up in her heart, but she managed to keep it from her eyes and her voice, but only barely. “Do you really think I’m going to trust you to even answer a yes or no question? Either way, you have something over me.”

Her sister laughed, harsh and cold. “Fair enough. If you don’t have a plan, I suggest you make one. Soon. And don’t allow yourself to be alone with mother. Always have a witness, Silk.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have incest hanging over your head.”

“No. I don’t.” Rosary’s eyes turned cold and hard. “What I have hanging over my head is two piles of dirt, six feet deep. I will do anything to keep my children safe, Silk. Even if that means outing you and Vine. I don’t want to. But I’m a monster, Silk. Don’t make me be the monster under your bed.”

“You won’t threaten me, Rosary,” Silk said in a shakier voice than she liked. “I love Moon. You don’t need to threaten me to look out for her.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I know you’re scared. But this isn’t the way to ask for my help. ‘Or else’ won’t buy loyalty. Can’t you see that? That’s what mother does.”

Rosary held her breath for a long moment, then nodded. “I… I apologize. There is a reason why I came to you now, Silk. It wasn’t to interrupt your reading. I am…” She took a breath, then another, eyes closing as she focused and then relaxed. “I am not in my right mind. I had a meeting with mother this morn’ over breakfast tea and scones…”

“They are getting far too cozy with each other,” Rosate said for the sixth time in as many days, staring out the window towards the Primrose bridge. The noise of the festival was dimmed by distance, but the occasional shout of a hawker would reach them when the breeze from inland caught it just right. “There is no way they ‘happened’ to plan a dinner during the first snowstorm of the year. Tonight, there will be news that Rosewater has decided to ‘play it safe’ and stay the night and get herself with foal.”

Rosary shook her head slowly. “They have not yet registered. We’d know. Aren’t we paying a clerk to let us know if any such paperwork crosses their desk?”

“A hundred bits a month. With no guarantee and no leverage.” Roseate snorted. “That’s if she didn’t raise her tail for that knight captain and get it done under the table.”

Why must everything be about sex? Rosary shrugged instead. “If she did, and the paperwork isn’t settled properly, we can challenge the legitimacy of the foal in court. We know she hasn’t registered with a stallion in Merrie.”

“Because that Prim stallion of hers is rutting other mares now?” Roseate snorted. “Rosary, you’re too naive. The law says nothing about the stallion maintaining a single partner. He could come rut with me and get me with foal and Rosewater’s would be just as legitimate.”

Thank you, mother, for that disgusting image. He’s thirty years your junior. Rosary kept the sentiment from her face and nibbled at the edge of a scone, sniffing as she did so to make sure the body wasn’t doused with any of mother’s Softening Mind perfumes. She didn’t need to be saying the first thing on her mind. Ever.

Eventually, Roseate turned from her seething survey of the distant festival and rummaged around for a map in her wall of scrolls, coming away with one of the southern districts that she rolled out on the desk, ignoring the tea cup Rosary had to rescue and the half-eaten scone barely hanging onto its plate.

Roseate was unraveling faster and faster, and it was starting to show in the small things.

“How are your children?” Roseate asked abruptly, sitting down and resting a hoof on the map.

“Quill is recovering quite nicely from the case of featherfell he got from his cousin, though I admit he did have a rough time of it for a week,” Rosary said, shaking her head slowly. “At least he and Kestrel had some play time together.”

Roseate tapped her hoof on the map lightly. “Good. I’m glad he’s doing better. And Moon? I saw the bow she embroidered on Silk’s dress. It really was well done.”

Bow? Rosary wracked her memory for Moon telling her she’d made a bow for Silk for a gala dress. She’d have been over the moon with excitement if she had. Most of what Silk had her doing was simple hidden stitches in sashes and hats. Nothing fancy or more complicated than a straight line or an even curve. And certainly no embroidery. Not yet.

“It… was,” Rosary said cautiously, glancing down at where Rosate’s hoof tapped on the map intermittently. It was the most hamhocked way she’d ever heard her mother reference both of her children.

For a long moment, she stared confoundedly at the map and the words Roseate’s hoof were barely touching. The marks on the detailed inset crossing off rows upon rows of…

Sweet stars have mercy. Grave plots. Rosary drew in a sharp breath, her heart in her throat as she met her mother’s cold, dead stare. A pony didn’t look back at her, but a monstrous beast, unfeeling and uncaring.

“This winter will be especially harsh, Rosary. It’s important that we plan for all contingencies. I’ve ordered that we increase this year’s harvest of firewood for stockpiling in case of any emergencies, but we also need to beware of food shortages.”

Rosary’s mind reeled at the sudden shift. What did… why? Why ask me about my children? Why…

“I could barely keep my attention, and I’d half convinced myself I was making it all up. That I was paranoid and fearful. She wouldn’t… she couldn’t. She knows I’d…”

Silk stared at her sister as she finished recounting the harrowing morning meeting. “You came straight here?”

Rosary nodded distractedly, raising a hoof to her mouth and chewing lightly on its edge, a nervous habit Silk had thought she’d broken a decade ago. “Do you think she meant what I think she did? Am I being paranoid?”

“Does Featherhawk know?”

Rosary shook her head, ears flattening. “He doesn’t know half of what I’ve done. Not even a quarter.”

“You need to get them out of the city now, Rosary. Not tomorrow, not tonight, now. Send them… rutting hell. Send them to rutting Collar. He’d protect any child.”

“I can’t. Stars, I can’t, she’ll go after Kestrel.” Rosary’s fraying control snapped as she sobbed. “She’ll go after my foal, Silk. We haven’t even announced it yet.”

Pregnant? “Oh stars, Rosary.”

Her ragged nerves started making more sense. The entire situation made even less. “Stars, and you had to come straight to me. Why me, Rosary? Why can you only trust me with this? Why not Powder and Well?”

“Because…” Rosary hiccuped and swallowed. “Rosewater trusts you.”

Hoo. Silk sank down into her couch, staring at her sister and wondering just how much of the night, just how much of their private conversations, Rosary knew about. Words didn’t come for minutes as Rosary composed herself bit by bit, even getting up to make another two cups of tea without Silk registering the fact until the scent of Jasmine and blueberries tickled her nose.

She looked up to find Rosary watching her with a smile on her lips.

“And my daughter loves you.”

Silk took the offered tea and downed it in one gulp, barely tasting it, and cleared her throat. “I love her, too, Rosary.”

“Please. I need your help.”

It was a gamble. Stars, it was an enormous gamble. If this was a game, a ploy by Rosary to get inside information…

She shook her head and closed her eyes, focusing on the inner part of her magic that let her smell more of the world than anypony outside her family’s line, and took a deep breath.

Beneath the smells of the city clinging to her sister, there was a different flavor of tea, oranges and bread. Morning tea and scones. Underneath that was her sister’s unique aromatic profile. A mare, her hormones making small changes in her body that let out a particular pheromone that would only grow stronger in coming weeks as her body prepared her womb for a natal foal.

“I’ll do what I can, Rosary.” Silk closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t promise the world. But you’re right. I do have a friend who might help, but I might need to tell her some of what’s going on before she’ll agree.”

For the span of a breath being drawn in, Silk thought Rosary was going to tell her no.

“Do what you must.”

“And Quill?”

“His father is a pegasus, and we have a training saddle for our son to ride in. Quill can be gone without anypony being the wiser for most of a day before word gets back to mother.” Rosary smiled sadly. “I haven’t told him yet, but he trusts me to know when to get Quill to safety. In case of ‘bandits.’"

Silk relaxed more. “Good.”

Some part of her still warned her that this might be an elaborate ruse. Some way to get Rosewater to trip up through her. But another part of her, the part that wanted to believe that there was still good in her sister despite all she had done, wanted to believe her.

But there was no sense in leaving loose ends. “I want our agreement in writing.”

Book 3, 9: Firsts

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“So.”

Vine startled and almost dropped the apple she was inspecting. “Stars, Dazzle,” she gasped. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

He grinned at her, unrepentant, and sidled up beside her to inspect another apple while the vendor from Damme looked on, confused. It wasn’t hard to understand his confusion. He was clearly of a noble line of Dammers, and she was equally as clearly a Rosethorn. Aside from Collar and Rosewater, such pairings were rare to the point of being mythical.

“I gave what you said some thought,” Dazzle said after a moment of perusing the apples and selecting one wrapped in a cloth-of-gold trimmed hoofkerchief near the top. “These are the best. Meant for eating straight, not for baking.”

“My sons and daughters pick a few apple trees each year,” the merchant said enthusiastically, “and pay special attention to those, ensuring that only the best of their fruit makes it to market. These are far more than the basic quality of apple, but are meant to be a treat shared between close ponies.”

“And the hoofkerchief?” Vine asked, intrigued.

“A memento of a moment,” he said. “Apples of the Heart.”

Dazzle’s ears flicked back, and he sighed. “Ah. I see. Well. I now see that I was rather blind to some of the advances I received over the years.” He set the apple back. “My apologies, dear Vine. I didn’t mean to offer—”

He broke off when Vine picked up the apple he’d set back down, hoofkerchief and all and paid the ten bits for it without trying to haggle down the price. “An apple shared between friends, perhaps? I told you my life story, Dazzle, and you didn’t turn aside.”

“Between friends,” Dazzle murmured, glancing back at the merchant, then bobbing his head and followed her towards one of the many areas set up with benches and tables. “And I didn’t turn aside, lovely mare, because you didn’t show me a cracked and barren wasteland, bereft of emotion and feeling.”

Vine’s heart skipped a beat, but forced it to calm down as she took a seat opposite him and set the apple down, her hoof resting on the edge of the kerchief. “What did you see?”

“A mare who desperately wants to find her place in the world.” His eyes shimmered briefly as he met her taut gaze and he pushed out a shell of aural magic mixed with a shimmering fuzz effect. The aural magic was sloppy, but after a moment, she saw its workings and shored it up with a weaving of magic that grew through the gaps in his, leaving only the natural sounds of the world to come through.

She never understood why her spell worked that way, despite Silk going over the theory with her and explaining how her talent interacted with her magic. She got that, but she didn’t understand why it was so hard for her to get around it.

It made her an awful sneak, since her hooves on stone were natural, but it was why she never infiltrated alone. But voices didn’t come through except as the faintest of buzzings. Here in the middle of a crowd, it felt as though she were in the middle of a swarm of bees busily pollinating her flowers.

“You love deeply, Vine,” Dazzle said as he shaped his glittering magic into a blade to cut the apple in two equal halves, then cored it. “I saw a mare who was harmed by the inaction of those who should have cared for you, who should have seen what was happening and stepped in before it went too far.”

“Silk didn’t—”

Dazzle held up a hoof, halting her protest. “I don’t blame her either, Vine. Both of you were in a bad place and time. I don’t blame you for seeking comfort and relief, a release of tension, with a pony who seemed to be the only one who cared for you.” He worked his way around the accusation of incest, her confession, her opened heart bleeding all over the bridge. “I blame your mother and your caretakers for not seeing it. It wasn’t something that was sudden, was it? It certainly didn’t sound as though it was a decision you both made to leap off a wall.”

“It… was and it wasn’t.” Vine watched as he sliced the apple halves into even wedges. “And you lied, didn’t you?”

Dazzle raised a brow, glanced down at the apple, and laughed. “In part. I’ve had three offered to me before. I didn’t know what the kerchief meant. I mean, well, I suspected, but it was the way they approached me. I knew they wanted to court me.”

“And do you want to court me?” Vine snatched a slice away from him before he could add it to the neat circle of skin-side-down slices arranged on the kerchief. “You said you didn’t know, but you knew.”

He didn’t answer her while he finished sectioning the apple, his eyes locked on his work. It was his ears that gave away the turmoil in his mind.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said at last, setting her stolen section down where it belonged, then arranged the rest of them so they were all equidistant from each other, all oriented with the same angle from one-another. “I don’t know if I can let myself be courted while I don’t even know what I want from my own sister.”

“But you do know.” Dazzle smiled at her. “You know what you want from her. You want a peaceful life, unbothered by urges, to spend your days with her. Your best friend, your confidant, and the only pony you know who understands you.” His smile turned, faltering before he offered four of the eight slices to her, carefully arranged in a box pattern on her side of the cloth. “I want… I wish I had a pony I was as close to as you are to your sister.”

“You wanted Rosewater to be the one to open up to you.”

“She did, in a way.” Dazzle sighed and popped a slice into his mouth, then moaned and closed his eyes as he chewed. “Stars.”

Vine followed his lead, watching him as he finished chewing and swallowed, then bit into the juiciest apple she’d ever tasted. Sweet and tart in equal measures exploded over her tongue, and the pulp practically melted in her mouth, but there wasn’t even a hint of the sharp taste bruised apple flesh held. There was nothing but pure, unadulterated apple.

“Stars is right,” Vine groaned, eying the remaining three of her slices, then arranging them into a triangle. A perfect equilateral. “You were saying?”

Dazzle shook his head slowly. “Vine, in Damme, these apples would be the opening of a courtship. In Merrie…”

“You barely know me, Dazzle.”

He smirked at her and took another slice, shaking his head as he chewed. “Vine, I know you better than I knew Rosewater when I first confessed my love for her. But in Merrie, I don’t know what I’d want a gift like this to mean. I’ve never given one to anypony.”

“And here, I’ve given one to you,” Vine murmured, her cheeks heating. “I—I’m sorry, Dazzle.”

He chuckled and reached out with a spell to snag one of her slices. Instead of taking it for himself, he surrounded it with magic and offered it to her. “I’m the one who offered it to you, first. I don’t know what I want, Vine. I really don’t.”

But you know you want something. And she wanted something, too. She wanted his help, but that hadn’t been the reason she’d told him everything. She wanted him to understand her and, if possible, accept her; flaws, history, and all.

“I want to take a first step,” Vine said at last, spreading her magic over the slice he offered her, stopping when it reached halfway, and twisted, snapping it in half. “I want to feel like there’s somepony who understands me, and can come to love me, even knowing what I’ve done.” She offered him the half she held. “Will you share my life’s river, Dazzle? Even if it’s only to the next bend.”

“Yes.” Dazzle reached a hoof across the table for hers, and she accepted.

They finished their apples by sharing half slices, not talking except to debate who should get the last slice since Dazzle had eaten two of his before they’d begun their game of sharing. In the end, she had gotten the slice, and he the kerchief before they vacated their spot and let the silence around them fade away.

Dazzle nudged her down one lane towards the Merrie side of the festival. “You asked for my help with more than one thing, Vine. And I’d like to make sure that you get what you need. Or, at the very least, the chance to secure it on your own.”

A way to stay in Merrie. The Garden would certainly qualify, unless Roseate tried to exile them. Vine opened her mouth to ask a question, closed it again when she realized he wouldn’t know or wasn’t the right pony to ask, and switched mental canals. “So. Um. Would you like to meet Silk, too?”

Dazzle nodded after a moment, his grin coming back. “I would. From what you said, she’s very much a fiery personality.”

“It’s not fire, really. I mean, she does have the drive of a wildfire, but… she’s, hum.” Vine twitched her ears and glanced aside at him. “If she were in one of my romance novels, she’d be a knight galloping to save her lady love. Or stallion love.”

“I think I understand. Petal has quite a trove of novels like that herself. So does Seed, for that matter. And Roselyn… well.” He puffed out his cheeks and flushed. “She has a more… uh. Carnal. Inclination,” he added haltingly, dragging out the words and trying to look comfortable. He failed.

“Roselyn? The candle maker?” She could see it, she supposed. Roselyn wasn’t that much younger than her, but Vine was past her second majority, even if only by the bare skin of her dock. “She’s pursued you?”

“More than,” he said uncomfortably, flattening his ears. “I… I like her, and she’s definitely energetic, but I suppose I have a little more Dammer in my mindset than she’d like.”

Vine stepped the conversation back from that fork in the river, saying, “So, you’re rather enamoured of the polyamorous relationships in Merrier romance novels?”

“Very much so,” he agreed brightly, his shoulders sagging for a few steps, his ears slicked back in grateful thanks. “I realize they’re idealized representations, but it’s still helped me to see the dynamics of communal love. It’s why I was so…” He waved a hoof through the air briefly and hopped ahead to catch up. “Confounded, I suppose, when Rosewater turned me down. Not that she owed me, but I could tell she wanted the same thing. Stars, she said as much. I had—” He coughed and cleared his throat.

He knew she was courting Collar before the announcement. Stars, I knew it. She pushed down the upset on his behalf and waited for him to continue.

“I had not known,” he said, recovering with all the grace of a floundering whale, “that she was courting Collar. But it does make more sense now. She’s trying to abide by his city’s courtship mores and laws.”

Cognizant of the ears all around, and aware that anything she said would be magnified and twisted into a myriad of twisting mockeries of her original words, Vine tried to think of what to say that wouldn’t sound like she was saying Rosewater was abandoning Merrie.

Even if it felt like she was.

“A part of our culture, too,” Vine said cautiously, “is to respect our partners. Collar is a Dammer, same as you are, Dazzle. But he’s also more. He’s a representation of Damme. He’s Damme’s ambassador to our culture. Throwing him into the deep end would be just as confounding to your ponies as this is to us.”

“I truly, truly wish there was a middle ground,” Dazzle muttered, casting his eyes to the late afternoon sky. “But I suppose that’s why we’re at war, isn’t it? We couldn’t agree on the middle ground.”

Old ground, trodden over so much there was a path she could see ahead of her. If she let the conversation linger on the topic.

“I want to invite you to dinner,” Dazzle said at last. “You, Vine. I want to get to know you better. Somewhere… middle ground.”

Vine’s ears flattened, then popped erect again, surprised by the sudden shift. He doesn’t know Silk yet, she reminded herself. “A-alright. This is… a Dammer style date?”

Dazzle stared at her, his ears flattened sideways. “I… suppose you could—yes. Yes, I’m asking you on a date, Vine. Tomorrow night, at Rosy Glass’s tavern. I can get us a reservation, I think, for tomorrow. Would that be okay?”

“Well…” Vine drew out the word, then leaned against him. “It’s going to be very hard dragging myself away from worrying about my projects and trying to relax by reading, but… yes. That sounds lovely, Dazzle.”

Rosewater looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head to check her makeup, only a bit of blush and iridescent powder on her eyelids, all of it enspelled to stay put and not get in her eye. Powdered sea shell was beautiful, but an awful irritant.

Tonight, she wanted to be beautiful. She wanted ponies to look her in the eyes and see her sincerity. Her dress was an understated gown she’d had tailored two years ago for a winter gala where she’d intended nothing more than to lay low while not insulting the elegance of the planned festivities in Damme. The sides clung to her shoulders and her hindquarters, assisted by a thin strap that ran from her breast and between her forelegs to join with a cross-strap that did bunch up the fabric in both of the anchor points, but that was the point of it. From her shoulders and hips the gown shaded from its rich dusky purple to the white of newfallen snow just above her hooves in waves of color.

Along the back, the purple shaded pink to match her mane and tail. She didn’t wear the blue ribbons in Damme’s colors this time, instead wearing the colors around her fore and hind legs as part of the straps holding her winter shoes in place, the only concession to the coming storm she was willing to make.

It was a statement of intent.

“Tonight,” Rosewater murmured, smiling at herself once more before turning away. “Tonight, I spend the night with my husband.”

The villa was almost empty, and the village down the road busy with festive ponies singing and dancing as the wine flowed mostly freely, and the music from the enthusiastic if rough band, no doubt hampered by an infusion of wine rather than a lack of talent.

It was lively, and hard not to dance to the distant beat with her heart singing to her and butterflies in her stomach making her want to dance all the way across the Rosewine bridge.

He was waiting for her, his smile brighter than ever, twitching his uniform into order while Cloudy stood nearby, whispering to him and twitching her wing at this or that bit of brocade or decoration for service that he dutifully adjusted.

It was formal, and nopony knew. Nopony knew the truth save for them.

“Lord Collar,” Rosewater called as she crossed the last section of bridge, the guard not even bothering to check her over. Not with Collar right there. She didn’t recognize the stallion, but she did give him a brief nod in passing before meeting her husband just beyond with a chaste kiss on the lips.

“Lady Rosewater,” Collar purred against her mouth, a light chuckle rising up to rumble low and promising in his throat. “You are absolutely gorgeous tonight. Cloudy, isn’t she gorgeous?”

Rosewater laughed and almost went to her for a kiss as well, only stopping herself with a swift reminder.

“She is! Collar, I’m jealous. Even after spending all day with her I barely recognize her, and I never got to see her at the gala!” Cloudy clucked her tongue, her eyes twinkling. “Will you let me have a dance with her tonight, my lord?”

Collar’s eyes twitched at the last, but he chuckled all the same. “We’re not having a band, Cloudy. It’s dinner with mother, father, and a few dignitaries.”

Rosewater bobbed her head along the riverwalk. “You’ll have to tell me who’ll be there, Collar, and for how long. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep my Merrier tendencies to myself if it’s too long.” She winked.

“Oh, it won’t be long. You’ve met one or two of them already, and another few who’d been invited were disinclined to show up after hearing who would be attending.”

“Their loss,” Cloudy harrumphed. “And our gain. Or mine.”

“And my daughter?”

“Will be joining us. We could hardly hold a family dinner without her.”

Rosewater clucked her tongue and glanced aside at him, letting some of the joy fall away. “Is this a family dinner or a state dinner? It sounds like the makings of the latter, but…”

“When you are a head of state,” Collar said, his smile fading minutely, “formal family dinners are state dinners. The only dinners that are not are those informal dinners we normally hold. But, given your status, we could not… easily invite you to an informal dinner so soon after our courtship started, though I wish it were not the case.”

All things she knew already, said for the sake of ears listening across the river and the ponies that walked with and past them on business of their own. Tedium in the highest, but the play must continue.

And it did continue, Rosewater playing her part with as much enthusiasm as she could muster while Cloudy seemed to grow more and more reluctant to play. Collar laughed and tried to steer the conversation to safe topics for her to engage in without making her lie or present a false mask, and Rosewater followed his lead.

She learned more about the storm and its mechanics, how they formed and how the pegasi were instrumental in curbing the ferocity of the coastal winter storms. Controlling them was out of the question, but a pegasi could bring thermals into a winter storm to disrupt the flow of air from the north and nudge them either north or south depending on how many pegasi could be gathered to create a counter-vortex.

More, she learned about what the new settlers of Cloudsdale were trying to do, mostly tidbits passed on through the guards that they’d overheard from sailors and traders around the city. It was, in Rosewater’s opinion, a risky move to concentrate so many pegasi in one place.

The old tales of the Pegasi that had called down hubristic karma upon themselves for daring to control the weather and causing an ice age came to mind. It was, supposedly, the entire reason ponies had settled on this new continent, so far from the wide open plains that had been their ancestral home for thousands of years.

Supposedly.

Of course, Cloudy was quick to bring up the hubris of the unicorns, a fact Rosewater couldn’t rightly deny. Not when all the old tales and myths tended to agree that there was no ‘good’ tribe in the entire prehistoric morass of heroes and villains.

In the end, there were only ponies, and it had been a joint coalition that had traveled to this land to settle, away from past grievances.

But, whether myths were true or not was hardly the point. Mass control of the weather had its consequences on the natural world. That was something most natural philosophers could agree on, regardless of whether they were winged, horned, or neither.

The discussion, largely jovial and distracting, lasted until they reached the Primrose bridge, where the teardown was still ongoing. It was slowed, in part, by the enthusiastic tasting competition going on in what had been the largest of the seating areas, with Merrie and Damme vintners facing off against Dammerale brewers and Merrie meaderies.

It was loud and boisterous enough that she could hear it across the river as they approached, and while the majority of the teardown was already complete, the ponies that had stayed behind to attend the tasting competition were all mingling with the ease that drink leveraged.

Dazzle was there, she could see from his coat and mane before the rising arch of the bridge cut off the view, and sitting with a mare she hadn’t expected would stay so long.

Nor, in her wildest dreams, would she have imagined Vine of all ponies, raising what looked like a clear glass of golden ale or mead to the sky in a toast as a cry rose up from the rest of the crowd.

“Looks like mead won this time,” Collar mused with a chuckle. “I recognize Dazzle, but who’s the mare?”

“My sister, Vine,” Rosewater said softly. “Stars. They look cozy, don’t—”

The two shared an exaggerated, brief kiss and raised their glasses again before drinking down the remainder.

“Well.”

“Good for her,” Cloudy said, raising her head and pricking her ears forward. “And good for him. Dazzle always did seem to avoid getting into any entanglements, romantic or otherwise. It’s good to get absolutely knackered once in a while and expand your boundaries.”

“Be safe tonight, Vine,” Rosewater whispered to the air, “and take care of her, Dazzle. She’s fragile.”

“He will,” Collar told her gently. “He took care of you.” The unsaid, ‘when I couldn’t’ gripped Rosewater’s heart and sent a pang of regret through her thoughts when their eyes met. It was written right there, plain as the setting sun. “Come, love,” he murmured, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. “Let us gather ourselves for what is certain to be a bracing dinner.”

Rosewater gave her sister, one of the most fragile of their group one last look and let herself smile. She was raising up her mug higher, laughing and leaning into Dazzle. Clearly smitten, even from so far away.

It was the happiest Rosewater had ever seen her, and she hoped Vine could reach that same height of joy without alcohol loosening her inhibitions and pushing aside her fears.

She can. She’s strong. Rosewater nodded quickly and tapped a forehoof on the cobbles. “Of course, my love,” Rosewater said more loudly, chuckling and making herself push the fears to the back of her mind. “Please, if you would, and thank you, too, Cloudy, for being here with us. You don’t know what it means to me to have your support and approval.”

Cloudy’s smile felt like it was plastered on as they made their way through the city towards the palace. Not because of the company, it eased into reality without any need to force it when she replied to Collar or Rosewater. But the accusing stares, the incredulous looks, and the whispers she saw Rosewater listening too closely to…

She had no doubt the mare was subtly enhancing her own hearing and she wanted nothing more than to tell her to stop it. But that would only make Rosewater more nervous. She liked to know what was going on and being said. That much she had gleaned from their dates out in the wilderness, their time talking, and from talking with Rosemary. It was Rosewater’s way of being in control of the world around her.

But it grated that so many ponies glared daggers at her, and at Cloudy for that matter, for ‘betraying’ Collar’s trust and love, no matter that the stallion himself was laughing at Rosewater’s tales of her childhood growing up and raising Rosemary all at once, even if she had the help of a village and her own ‘mother,’ Carnation it was more than a teenaged filly should have had to bear.

She was strong, but oh so fragile. And she didn’t know it.

Not entirely. Cloudy had seen it come out in rare moments when Rosewater let her guard down completely and let her see the scared mare behind the facade and the strength she put out for others to see. She wished, hoped, that tonight she would get to see that mare again.

She wanted to tell that mare that she was there, and she would protect her.

She was also afraid that if she couldn’t tell that side of Rosewater, then the words would fall short and it wouldn’t get through her armor to reach where it would do the most good.

And she wanted to tell these ponies that who Collar loved was none of their business.

She flicked her wings and forced herself to calm down again, keeping one ear on the story of Rosewater and the purple-coated filly who’d decided that she could absolutely smash an entire tub of grapes on her own. Without telling anypony.

“How come Rosemary never told me that story,” Cloudy asked in a lull, Collar chuckling. “That sounds like a perfect story to tease her about.”

“Well. I think you hit the nail on the head,” Collar said with a snort. “Does she like being teased?”

“Yes,” Cloudy said at the same time Rosewater said, “No.”

Collar glanced between the two mares, then barked a laugh. “Well. Perhaps she doesn’t like being teased by her mother, but her lover. Well…”

“Not that kind of teasing,” Rosewater said with a half-laugh, half-snort.

“Oh, I dunno. I think she might look rather pretty, not to mention tasty, with raw grape juice staining her coat.”

“That it took three days and eight baths to finally get her to return to her normal pink,” Rosewater said with a scoff. “And the bedsheets took even longer! I swear, we have a set of sheets that still looks faintly purple to this day.”

“Sticky, too,” Collar added.

“That, too. Before we got her into a bath, we could all hear her coming down the hall, her hooves sticking to the floorboards with every step.” Rosewater shook her head, eyes rolling. “You don’t want to deal with that, Cloudy.”

“Floorboards?” Cloudy asked, picturing the main hall of the Villa in her mind and shaking her head. “I thought the entire villa was floored with mason tiles?”

“Exactly. Mason tiles are so much easier to get grape juice stains off of. We had little purple hoofprints telling the entire story for a year.” Rosewater sniffed. “It wasn’t like we weren’t planning on changing the flooring after some… other incidents, but having guests ask why there was a trail leading from outside to one particular room was getting old for Budding and Blue.”

“Liar, they probably laughed every time they told it,” Cloudy shot back, just barely holding back a giggle.

Collar barked a laugh. “Stars, I know my parents would have done just that.”

“You’re not wrong,” Rosewater said with a sigh. “But don’t tell her I told you tonight. I would like some peace and not have her accusing me of sharing all of her embarrassing foal stories to her lover.”

I wish I’d had the chance earlier, Cloudy thought, watching Rosewater’s expression morph from serious to silly and back again. She could have at least heard these stories then, perhaps helped Rosewater come out of her shell a little more.

Cloudy ruffled her wings again and shook her head to clear those thoughts out. “So,” she said instead, leaning forward to peer around Collar’s chest and catch Rosewater’s eye. “Is there anything she’d absolutely not want me to know about?”

“Cloudy!” Rosewater barked a laugh and tossed her head, surprise and delight in her eyes and the set of her ears. “You should know better than that by now.”

“Oh. Well…”

“You’ll have to wait until it’s just Lace, Dapper, and the four of us. Lace will absolutely want to hear about all the shenanigans she got up to.” Rosewater smirked and laughed louder as Collar stared at her before he started giggling like a colt.

“Does she have any about you?” Collar asked, teasing.

“She does, unfortunately,” Rosewater said, huffing. “Carnation thought it was unfair that I, only ten years her senior, knew so much about all of her foalish shortcomings. Not that I would ever try to polish my—” Her smile faltered, her step hitched and she fell back half a pace before she stuttered to a start again and caught up. “My father’s old armor with a dish rag.”

“Was it dirty?”

“It was just used to clean up several pots and pans,” Rosewater said defensively, flattening her ears. “It had a proven track record of making things shine.”

“And, logically, it should keep doing its job forever,” Collar added, the only sign he’d given of her faltering a brief flick of his tail against her flank. “Because nothing ever loses its properties of cleanliness.”

“Obviously. What other logic can a three year old filly employ?”

“Stars,” Collar asked in a wondering tone. “Will ours be as adventurous and logical all at once?”

Cloudy could tell the moment it left his lips that he’d not meant to ask it, the panic in his eyes as brief as it was intense. Rosewater’s ears ticked to the side as a burst of chatter from a nearby crowd of ponies at a small cafe rose and was abruptly cut off with a round of shushing.

“Maybe,” Rosewater said after a long pause. “I suppose we’ll have to find out, won’t we, Collar?”

“We will,” Collar murmured, turning to her just at the edge of an intersection and kissing her cheek, then her lips when she turned to meet him. It was more chaste than most of the kisses Cloudy had hoped to see, but their continued discussion and the kiss right after made the gaggle of ponies at the corner cafe stare and whisper among themselves, not paying attention to Cloudy at all.

Which was fine. It let her memorize the faces of each one. She was almost certain none of them were of any noble house, using the festival to indulge themselves in a relatively expensive treat of a dinner. And a show.

The hottest political theater show in either city.

Cloudy chuckled to herself and nipped Collar’s neck lightly. “We shouldn’t keep your parents waiting, and I don’t want to have to start selling tickets.”

Giddy. That had to be the right word. Rosemary was giddy for what felt like the first time in… well, a week if she was being honest, but it felt so much longer now that she was actually standing in the open. It was a risk, yes, especially if Primfeather Wing and his cronies came along despite them saying they would not be.

But stars.

She breathed in deeply, flaring her sense of smell to take in the sweet smell of almost freedom.

Beside her, Primline Lace chortled and tapped a hoof against hers. “This is just a taste, dear. Don’t go clogging your nose with cold winter air. How is that dress fitting? It looks right, but we couldn’t very well bring you to be properly measured.”

It was a little tight between her forelegs where she’d put on some extra weight over her months in confinement, a condition that would last until she could get a proper galloping exercise going, but the rest of the dress fell nicely where it wasn’t trying to fit around her frame. She tapped her forehoof.

“Tight in the breast, honestly, but not too tight. It’s perfect, Lady Lace.”

“Thank your mother. She provided the measurements and paid for the piece.”

“When? You didn’t say, and all she did was grin.”

“It’s my understanding that it was sometime after her debut with Collar. Perhaps even that same night.” Lace clucked her tongue thoughtfully and glanced at her husband. “Though if she has your measurements memorized, then I am very impressed. I can barely remember my own.”

“Why’re you looking at me?” Dapper groused.

“You’re the one who always remembers my exact measurements. I barely have to remember them at all anymore.”

“And that means I know Rosemary’s?”

“I mean, you must. I never seem to recall you ever measuring me, but you always know.”

Dapper harrumphed and then laughed. “Because I know you so well! And I didn’t spend all that time exploring your body to—”

“Dapper!”

“You asked.”

Rosemary burst out laughing and stomped a hoof on the ground, then tried to stop when Lace gave her an exasperated look. It only made her giggle and sputter through her attempts to keep her mouth closed.

“I swear. My Dapper was never this rambunctious before you arrived, my dear.”

“Hey! It’s not her—”

“I must thank you for livening up our lives. Truly.” Lace’s eyes sparkled as she ignored her husband spluttering to a stop. “Think of these first few steps as my thanks, though I wish I could let you escort your mother all the way here.”

Rosemary’s mirth faded at the gravity of her words, the depth of her thanks. “First… few steps?”

“The palace grounds are yours for tonight, Rosemary. I’ve asked for volunteers to be your escort while you’re out, and while it will be an indignity—”

“I made my choice, Lady Lace. I know my crime, and I know this is likely more than you can afford to let me do.” Rosemary met her eyes and did not step down to first of ten wide stairs leading down. “Is this truly okay?”

“Your mother argued quite strenuously about giving you more freedoms, and she’s not wrong to request them. The law was never meant to enable a debtor’s prison, Rosemary, and having an effective one, even if it’s not declared as one, goes against the laws of Equestria.”

That’s shaky legal ground, Rosemary thought, frowning. The Treaty enabled certain Equestrian laws to be enforced, but not all of them. Else the war itself would be illegal. And perhaps it should be.

Which would leave Merrie and Damme forever isolated as two cities instead of the dream her mother and her hosts spoke of so fervently. One city, one people, united in cause and purpose, joining Equestria as a greater part instead of two unstable halves.

“Damme doesn’t have debtor’s prisons,” Rosemary said after a long moment.

“We do not. Nor will I allow your debt to be used to imprison you until it is paid.” Lace sniffed. “It’s not right.”

But the law is the law. And breaking it would be fuel for Lace’s domestic opponents. Rosemary shook her head and put on a bright smile. “I promise, I won’t push your hospitality or your trust, Lady Lace.”

With that, she took her first step down from the palace gate, then another, and another.

By the time she made it to the bottom and Lady Lace nor any of her retainers had come after her, she felt more at ease and joined one of the guards standing watch at the bottom of the stair. “Platinum,” she said, recognizing the mare’s scent.

“Lady Rosemary,” Platinum said in her formal voice. “Lady Lace has asked that one of us accompany you and ensure that you know the boundary of the palace grounds.”

“It’s the old bailey wall, isn’t it?” Rosemary swept a hoof out over the gravel path that contained the browning park grass and trees that lined an intricate lacework of other gravel paths. Come Spring, Lady Lace had said they would bring the planters out from the palace gardens and make it a garden again, sparser than the dense thickets of planter boxes and rows of flowers and bushes. “Would… you go running with me in the mornings?”

Platinum glanced at her and nodded once. “Of course, Lady Rosemary. I’m sure Lieutenant Cloudy would be delighted.”

“You, Platinum. I want to go running with you.”

“But Cloudy—”

“Is my lover, and I doubt that Wing or any of his faction would appreciate seeing me with her. I doubt they’d trust her to keep me here.”

Platinum swallowed the rest of her protest and nodded. “Very well, Lady Rosemary.”

“And you’re my friend, Plat. You don’t need to tack on ‘Lady.’”

“I’m on duty, Lady Rosemary,” Platinum said, her eyes twinkling under the brim of her helmet. “It would look untoward if I did not address my lady as she was meant, Lady Rosemary. Ponies might get the idea that we’ve shared more than friendship.” She paused a beat until Rosemary opened her mouth to reply, and added, “Lady Rosemary.”

She laughed. “You sly mare,” she hissed through a spate of withheld giggles. “Come, then, Sergeant Platinum. Take me to the edge of my domain and let me look upon my lady mother.”

The guard on the other side of the stairs coughed and ruffled their wings.

“Shut up,” Platinum shot at them.

Rosemary pranced ahead before Platinum’s annoyance caught up to her and towards the edge of her newly expanded prison. “You don’t mind, all teasing aside, do you?” she asked as Plat caught up to her.

“Of course not.” Platinum nudged her shoulder when she caught up. “She only told us this morning. I’ve been itching to see your reaction since.”

Rosemary chuckled. “Have you and Sunrise made any plans for tomorrow night?”

Her friend’s steps faltered briefly. “H-how do you know…” She coughed and adjusted her helm on her head with a trickle of gray magic. “Of course you knew. You’re like a scary romance dowsing rod.”

“Scary?”

“Well. Your mother is scary.”

Rosemary was about to protest that when a laugh caught her attention from across the distance between the road that made up the Crown Circle that had once been the moat, and the start of the ring of businesses that catered to the palace’s needs and the homes of nobility that was too new or poor to own an estate in the Estate Hills district to the east.

It took her a moment to spot her mother prancing ahead of a Cloudy with her feathers fluffed out and shouting after her while Collar leaned against a lamp post, laughing his ass off.

“Get back here!” Cloudy shouted. “You will not get away with that unscathed!”

Rosemary barked a laugh and pranced ahead, losing herself until Platinum’s magic tugged at her, stopping her at the edge of the gravel path.

Rosewater stopped as soon as her eyes fell on Rosemary, her ears pricking suddenly tense, her entire body seizing, even with a foreleg raised for her next step but unable to make it.

Cloudy caught up with her a second later and gave her neck a nip that looked more savage than she was sure it was. Cloudy spotted her and grinned, then whispered something in Rosewater’s ear.

“Stars, I want to go to her.”

Platinum shifted her tail to lay against Rosemary’s flank. “Someday soon. Let her come to you.”

“Rosemary?” Rosewater’s voice trembled on the edge of cracking. “Stars, how? What…” Her gaze shifted in an instant to the palace, where Lace was standing, raising a hoof in acknowledgement. “Oh, stars, she didn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t…” She crossed the threshold in a rush, Cloudy a step behind and Collar following, his smile broad enough to take in his ears.

He knew? Of course he knew. “Mother,” Rosemary whispered.

She was there in the next instant, cheek pressed to her shoulder, foreleg pressed against hers. “‘Mary, stars I had no idea I would see you here.”

“I thought we should tell her,” Cloudy said with a cough beside them. “But maybe I was wrong.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the rest of the day as much,” Rosewater murmured, snuffling and then pulling back, her eyes bright but no tears in them. “Thank you, Cloudy. And you, Collar, I know you had more than a little to do with this…” She waved a hoof at Rosemary, shaking her head.

“I did. She’s your daughter, Rosewater, and what she did would have been a week’s sentence and five hundred bits fine if she’d been a regular Dammeguard.” Collar shook his head and nuzzled her neck, stopping before he could reach Rosemary. “But you’re not, and we can’t do anything about it now aside from stretch the law. I don’t suppose you’d consider defecting?”

Rosemary snorted. “No. Not while my mother is on the other side of the river, Collar. You know that.” But… not everypony does. This is a risk, Collar.

“I’m not abandoning Merrie, Rosemary,” Rosewater added in a low voice. “But neither am I abandoning you. I will find a way to win your freedom and end this horrible war once and forever.”

Collar coughed. “We… want to discuss what it takes to have our union registered. And thought, since, well, choosing to have a child is a family affair, it would be best if we started by asking you for your blessing, Rosemary.”

Rosemary stared at him, then at her mother, then Cloudy beaming with pride and fairly quivering with anticipation. Now? In the open? “O-of…” She coughed and rubbed at her nose with an ankle. “Of course I do. Does Cloudy?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. You and I talked about this. I made it clear to Collar that I want him to be happy.”

“A discussion we should, perhaps, move inside,” Rosewater said in a low, conspiratorial tone. “This is all well and good for a meeting place, but unless we want to silence an area for us to sit down and have tea and formalize everything now, I suggest we go meet your mother, Collar. She must be wondering what we’re talking about out here.”

Rosemary giggled and glanced around. There were a few ponies watching them, but none she thought that could easily overhear or cast a spell to listen in. But Rosewater was right, and they were keeping the dignitaries she’d seen arriving for the past half hour waiting.

“Of course, mother.”

Silk sat alone in her study, a cold cup of tea forgotten on the desk while she pored over the contract she and Rosary had hammered out in the span of an hour. An hour during which Vine still hadn’t returned from the festival.

The contract was simple, really. It was more of a layer of defense against Rosary going back and accusing her of stealing Moon away to Damme than anything else, a crime which would have dire consequences not only in Merrie and Damme, but in the eyes of the Treaty Court.

Foalnapping was one of the things written in iron language into the Treaty, going all the way back to the first days of its enactment.

I, Rosary Star Rosethorn, hereby give permission to Silk Dancer Rosethorn to accompany my daughter, Moon Star Rosethorn, to Damme for the purposes of furthering her apprenticeship and to further ensure her safety against any and all threats while under her care.

There followed some conditions in which Silk was expected to report immediately to a Dammeguard for protection or to a Merrieguard if she thought imminent danger was coming, and conditions in which Rosary guaranteed her protection against civil authorities and that she would not renege on her word and leave Silk flapping in the breeze, strung up on her whimsy.

That had caused a little heated debate, but Rosary had not fought hard. Indeed, she seemed more insulted than upset, but she’d agreed to the wording in the end.

‘Any and all threats’ was clearly aimed at Roseate, but it could mean anything else that tried to threaten Moon as well.

She spent more time imagining what kind of trouble the Dammeguard would try to get up to, and just how in the seven layers of Tartarus she was going to get them to let her by without arresting her and returning her to her mother. She didn’t think Rosary would do that. That was one thing she knew about Rosary for certain. She tried to protect her children against Roseate’s influence as much as was physically and magically possible. They were always ‘busy’ or not feeling well at the various gatherings and events that Roseate held.

Some exposure was unavoidable, but she couldn’t remember any specific actions she could say in hindsight had looked like Rosary was actively shuffling her children away from Roseate, but her memory wasn’t good enough to recall every instance she’d seen Rosate around Quill and Moon.

She folded up the contract and slipped it into a document case, then pulled out her quill drawer and activated the hidden switch underneath to pop open a slender slot in the edge of the desk where another few important documents rested.

When the lid slid back into place, she made sure the seams matched up perfectly again and laid her writing pad’s corner on top of it again, making sure the faded stain around the edges matched up.

Vine knew where to look in case something happened to her.

You should tell Rosewater, too.

She set that thought aside and swirled her tea around in her cup, sipped it with a grimace, and then downed it in one go.

As she was cleaning out the pot and her cup in the kitchen, she heard her sister’s voice finally coming in over the growing wind outside. It was nearly dark, she saw, and lamented that she’d never gotten to return to her book.

But she had needed to make sure Rosary hadn’t slipped in some kind of loophole somehow.

Another voice rising above the growing wind stopped her in the middle of scrubbing out the spout of the teapot. A stallion’s voice raised in laughter that sounded a little too boisterous and tempestuous to be… sober.

“It’s not like you, Vine,” Silk grumbled as she set the pot upside down on the drying towel and marched out to the mudroom, yanking open the door and letting in a gust of blizzardy cold with more than a touch of ice to it.

Vine and Dazzle made their unsteady way up the stairs to the front door, laughing softly, each of their cheeks’ burning bright with either cold or alcohol or both.

Both, she amended as Dazzle swayed to a stop in front of her, his breath smelling like he’d poured four different wines, two ales and at least three different varieties of mead down his gullet.

That he wasn’t passed out drunk somewhere was either a testament to his fortitude or his temperance.

“Lady Shilk!” he slurred, then winked at her. “It’s g-good to see you again.”

“You’re not that drunk,” Vine protested, laughing and swatting his foreleg with a hoof. Then hiccuped and laughed again. “I swear, beloved, I’m not that drunk.”

Silk sat back and raised both hooves to her forehead, massaging away the instant headache that started pounding its way through her thoughts. “Vine…” She rubbed at her forehead for several more minutes, staring through her forelegs at her new guest, then at the storm brewing beyond them. “What took you so long?”

Another blast of cold crashed into the house, howling against the eaves and even rattling the storm shutters. Another thing she’d delayed too long to protect her future. She cursed under her breath and backed away.

“Come in, already, both of you. There’s a fire going in the sitting room, but if you want any other room to be warm aside from the office, you’ll need to start a fire.” Habitually, Silk scuffed her hooves on the brushes leading to the rest of the house.

“She’s not really angry,” Vine’s voice said, slurring only a little. “If she was really angry, you’d know it. Clean your hooves before you come in.”

“Aye aye, Captain Vine!”

Sober tea it is, then. And she’d skip the headache powder. If they were foolish enough to get hangover drunk, then they needed the lesson. “I’ll put on some tea. Get warm, you two, and then I want to hear just what in the names of all the stars you were doing getting so wildly drunk.”

She’d wanted to tell Vine tonight, but her uncharacteristic impulsiveness would have to put that to later. She didn’t trust Dazzle not to rat them out and definitely not to keep the secret of her deal with Rosary under wraps.

That would all have to wait until tomorrow at least, depending on how long it took the cleaning ponies to clear the ice from the streets.

Book 3, 10: Dinner & Theater

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“Rosewater, my dear, don’t you just look utterly lovely this evening.”

She smiled at her mother-in-law’s greeting and kissed her cheeks daintily. “Thank you, Lady Lace, and you look positively regal tonight.” Rosewater flicked a look at the circlet that was nearly a crown for its heft on her brow.

“I thought it was appropriate,” Lace replied, grinning. “It’s not every day that my son brings home a lovely young heiress with the potential to end a centuries-long war.” She winked and stepped back to let them in. “I trust there were no problems getting here?”

“Some words may have slipped out,” Collar said, flattening his ears as he gave his mother a cheek nuzzle. “But they’re words that would have been said in a few weeks in any event.”

“Oh? What kind of words?” Dapper asked, his giddy tone telling Rosewater he knew exactly which words.

“Speculating about our future children together,” Collar answered dutifully. “I’ll be letting our friend downstairs know as soon as I get the chance. A few cafes probably overheard.”

Lace chuckled. “Well. If you want to make a more overt statement at dinner tonight, it might scare up more support than you’d expect.”

“We’ve not even planned when to announce the engagement,” Rosewater said, glancing at Collar. “I was hoping we could settle that down tonight. When to make the announcement, that is.”

“Then talk about that,” Lace said, bobbing her head. “The ponies who accepted tonight are very interested in what you’re doing and going to be doing. Many of them are hoping to get ahead of the political waves you’re making in our small pond.”

“Mm.” Rosewater made a noncommittal noise. “Any you think might wish to ally with our cause?”

“Perhaps one or two. It would help to both hear and see your commitment to a path that does not lead to further conflict. What that path would take, I am honestly not sure, but I have some advice if you would like to hear it.”

“Of course, Lace,” Rosewater said. “These are your ponies.”

“You’ve already made an ally of Clipper, and he’s not been quiet in his praise of your openness. Push that advantage. Two of his allies are in attendance tonight.” Lace gave her a wan smile. “He’s been instrumental every year in making sure our shipping interests are protected against the coming storms.”

Rosewater listened as Lace kept their pace slow and described the ponies she could reasonably sway with the right words, whom to avoid offending with the wrong ones, and what the general mood of the dinner was likely to be. She had as many neutral parties visiting as she had ones at least likely to look on her actions and her courtship with Collar in a somewhat favorable light.

There was also a small contingent of Manes attending, though they were from a distant offshoot family that had received their invitations from the main branch. It was an opportunity and a trap at the same time.

It was going to be a long dinner, she was sure, but it was also surely the first of many dinners she would be having in the coming weeks and months as her and Collar’s romance grew deeper.

And she couldn’t wear her mask at all. She could be, had to be, herself.

There was no hiding behind chill indifference anymore.

Thus, of course the first pony who approached her to be introduced was Featherlock Primmane, the matron of the pegasus branch of the Primmane family, and a pony who stood opposed to Lace’s ongoing reformation of the Damme wartime economy into one of peace and trade.

Because of course the universe liked to test her resolve at the first opportunity.

“Lady Primmane,” Rosewater murmured after the introduction, tapping hooves politely with her. “It’s lovely to finally meet you. I’ve heard and seen your pegasi helping us keep our fields watered year after year, and I want to thank you personally for it. Our own pegasi can hardly keep up with the demand, as low as our population is.”

“Mmm. Yes.” Featherlock met her eyes levelly. “We do hear that you have quite the population explosion of unicorns these past few decades. The Rosewing family has fallen on unfortunately hard times of late, and it seems that most of their name is now… wingless.”

Cloudy’s wings ruffled behind Rosewater, but went no further.

“We may have fewer, but we pride ourselves on the skill and expertise of those we do have. I consider it a shame that Cloudy was driven from our fair city by my mother in a crude attempt to use my own daughter as a lever against me.” Rosewater sniffed, and she didn’t have to feign the contempt she felt. “But I am proud of her for standing up for herself and finding a new life here, a life rich in friends.”

“And a love you stole?” Featherlock smiled grimly. “I will never pretend to have been an advocate for Lady Rosewing,” she said, emphasizing Cloudy’s absent noble status, “but I will never support a usurping homewrecker!”

Well. Rosewater coughed into her ankle into the silence that followed the older mare’s brazen declaration. “I believe there is a misapprehension, Lady Primmane,” Rosewater said before either Lace or Collar could recover from their shock. “Our courtship is a mutually agreed upon romance, and I spoke extensively with both Lord Collar and Lady Cloudy before Collar and I mutually agreed to explore a relationship not only for ourselves, but for the betterment of our ponies.”

Lace cleared her throat. “Please apologize to my guest, Lady Primmane. She is here at my asking, and I trust that you don’t think that I succumbed to her mystical wiles?”

“You, Lady Lace, I would never insinuate such a thing.” Then she opened her mouth again and proved that nobility was not perfect or wise. “It is well known that the Roses have long employed methods to weaken the resolve and willpower of those they take as lovers. I simply think it too convenient that Lady Rosewing should appear and entice your son so easily, and then she just steps aside? My lady, I beg you to consider the implications of—”

She got no further, and she hadn’t noticed the way Lace’s jaw clenched or the way Dapper backed away a few steps, ears flat.

For a moment, Lace’s horn flared with a purely golden light, and Rosewater felt the pressure as it pushed back on her own natural magical expression. Unicorn lamps in the hall around them flickered, then died, and one banner that had been hanging straight, tilted as whatever magic had held it in place was dispelled. The earth ponies looked more dull, sagging in place, and the pegasi’s wings lost a luster that Rosewater hadn’t noticed until it was gone.

Then the pressure was gone, and the lamps flared back to life, ponies shook themselves and glanced nervously at the mare who’d held a bridge against an assault on her own until reinforcements arrived.

There were still ponies who talked about Lace’s talent with the hushed sort of awe they normally reserved for the Princess of the Sun, immortal goddess.

“Did you have anything more to add, Lady Primmane?” Lace asked in a perfectly crisp, cold voice.

“N-no, my Lady Lace,” Fetherlock Primmane took a step back and fled back into the dining hall without a look back.

“Heavy-hooved, mother,” Collar murmured out of the side of his mouth.

“Really? I thought I was quite gentle considering she insinuated that my son was little more than a drooling buffoon.” Lace tapped a hoof on the floor and tossed her head. “Stars, that’s more than I’ve pushed myself in a while.”

“Is… she truly going to join us for dinner after that?” Cloudy asked, voicing Rosewater’s own concern.

“And leave, losing face? She’ll retreat more gracefully than that probably just before the dessert course is served,” Lace said with a sniff. “Leaving now would make it clear she’d erred in her assessment of you, Lady Rosewater, and of my support for you and my son.” She waved her in first, and tugged lightly at Collar’s uniform. “You two in first now, let them see that I approve of you. Cloudy, Rosemary, please stay with me for the moment.”

Choreographed dinner. Rosewater held up a hoof for Collar, and walked in side by side, each on three legs and supporting each other with the fourth.

No announcement, no herald to declare them, but conversation stopped all the same and ten faces, half of whom she recognized from the gala, looked up from their high-backed chairs to look in their direction.

Some, like the stallion Featherlock had fled to and was currently whispering fiercely to, narrowed their eyes or flattened their ears. But Lord Clipper raised a stein in her direction.

“Hear hear! Lady Rosewater, and looking as ravishingly beautiful as ever. Oh, and I suppose Lord Collar looks quite handsome as well.” He laughed, and a few hearty chuckles from some other faces she didn’t recognize identified to her some of Clipper Primwave’s allies and perhaps some that she might be able to draw to her and Collar’s cause, and to that of peace. “Come! Our lady host has provided quite the feast for the senses! Some of these appetizers come from the Merrie cookbook of your aunt Carnation if I’ve heard correctly.”

“You did indeed,” Lace said brightly as she followed them in, guiding Rosewater and Collar to the two chairs to her right hoof. “Rosewater was kind enough to lend me the book on the condition I would only copy recipes for our chefs and not let a precious memento of her exiled kin out of my sight.”

“Bloemblaadjesbroodjes?” Rosewater asked, taking a breath through her nose and scenting the air, displaying her ability to all as her marks glowed stark, blood red against her white muzzle. “Where in the nine seas did you get Cardamom at this time of year? I’ve been scouring the market in Merrie for weeks.”

Clipper raised his stein again and laughed. “I have that honor, Lady Rosewater. I… found some upon an inbound shipment that one Cargo Manifest misplaced. Naturally, as it was untaxed and seized, it went up for auction just last week. En zie, lieve merrie, petal buns.”

Rosewater laughed along with him and bumped her shoulder against Collar’s. “They’re delicious, Collar. Like nothing you’ve ever tasted before, I promise.”

“They smell quite… flowery.”

“Yes!” Rosewater giggled and danced to the seat a servant held out for her. “They are, Collar. Petal buns. Bloemblaadjesbroodjes. Saying the name is half the fun of eating them.” Before she took her seat, she bowed her head to Lace, then to Clipper. “Thank you, dearly, for a taste of home tonight.”

“My dear, tonight this is your home.”

That caused some stirring even among the ponies that seemed to hang on Clipper’s words, but the stallion laughed and waggled his stein.

“Thank you,” Rosewater said in as gracious a tone as she could manage with her throat tight over the wash of joy and hopeful upwelling in her heart. Stop hiding. Let them see you. Her smile trembled as she raised a glass just as Lace took her seat beside Dapper at the head of the table, and her voice cracked. “To Lady Lace Primline, long life and health, and my everlasting thanks.”

She kept her glass high, swallowed, and added, “Liberty in love.”

Lace held her glass higher. “Family overcomes.”

The old words of two families, once called out in bloody battle now offered in peace and the hope for a new age of unity.

Other old words rang out suddenly from three throats.

The Primwave, “Justice in trade.”

The Primmane, “Against folly and fools.”

And the Rosewing, “For love and honor.”

Collar finished and tapped his glass to Rosewater’s. “A toast to all our families and our words old and new. May we come together ever in peace and prosperity for the good of all our ponies.”

Rosewater drank to the toast and felt the tingle of portent in the exchange of words. A hinge on which history might bend in one direction or another. In another age, it would have been the start of battle.

In this age…¹

After Rosewater’s toast, Collar found himself settling into the dinner party more readily, the tension of being open in a relatively informal environment fading the longer Rosewater continued to show herself. The old Rosethorn family words had been a good choice. Born in blood and violence they might have been, but the core of them remained so very important to each of the families in either city.

The first course of petal buns, Collar could barely even pronounce the traditional name—though he did try—passed with the kind of light conversation he expected for breaking bread and sipping wine at the opening of a formal dinner, and none of it was so interesting as Rosewater’s opening gambit of sharing family words, though Lace did ask the question on everypony’s mind: “Why the old words of Rosethorn?”

“Because ‘Love conquers’ is not the way I want to live my life, my lady.”

And that was that, simple and direct. Rosewater had stated her position openly and everypony at the table knew it meant it put her in direct opposition to Roseate’s open goal of conquest of Damme as the preferred resolution of the treaty.

The ponies sitting near Clipper whom he’d introduced as business associates of his relaxed yet more and asked her about her own business interests and what kind of opportunities she saw in Merrie when the war was over.

Collar listened as she described the ponies whom she had once been close to and hoped to be again, tradesponies who made soaps, glass, silverware and jewelry, their friends and companions, lovers and business partners that branched out to cover a goodly portion of the economic power surrounding the Garden and its vineyards.

Her family.

The main course, a dish prepared in the Damme style to compliment the Merrie appetizer, of creamy potato-based pasta dish filled with a tangy, understated spice that lingered on the tongue and sank into the flaky bits of sauteed potato and flaky fish mixed into the lower layers, well smothered by cream, quite nearly too much butter…

Rosewater let out an appreciative moan at the first bite, expressing her pleasure in a way common in Merrie and drew the eyes and silent ire of the Manes, but Clipper laughed and drew her into a discussion of similar dishes from Merrie, and gave her a platform to launch into a story she’d promised to tell him at a later time.

The story of the fish cakes.

“Imagine,” Rosewater started, “if you will, a fish cake. Held together with sauteed mashed potatoes.” She scooped up a helping of the dish from the serving platter and, instead of adding it to the dwindling serving already on her plate, used her magic to form it into a patty, an impressive feat of finesse since most unicorns grabbed a thing and held it with their telekinetic spells.

“In the sautee…” Rosewater started to list out ingredients one at a time, spices that even Collar knew would be fragrant on their own. The more individual spices she listed, the more everyone at the table cringed and the wider Rosewater’s and Rosemary’s smiles grew. “And then,” Rosewater said, “there was the fish.”

Someone made a gagging noise down the table.

“Stars, and you fed me the result of this recipe on our third date?”

Rosewater laughed and Rosemary choked on her wine.

“Mother! I’m surprised Collar didn’t toss you in the bay! Carnation almost did.”

“I learned a lot since I was sixteen, Rosemary dear. So. Imagine all of that, and it smells divine, like a visitation from the stars themselves. Imagine it baking so sweet and deliciously and filling the house with an absolutely mind-melting aroma. I can smell all of it, every individual piece of it, a symphony of fragrance and beauty.” Then she laid out the ‘patty’ on her plate and grinned. “The first bite made my aunt reconsider whether or not taste was one of the five necessary senses.”

“I might seriously debate the necessity myself,” Lace laughed, leaning back and holding her hooves in front of her chest. “Stars, just thinking about that makes my mouth go numb.”

Collar’s attention wandered down the table as Rosewater finished the story with Carnation teaching her about cooking theory and gifting her the cookbook that had been handed down by her aunt Rosefire and had been a part of the estate she’d inherited.

It was as he expected. The Manes took it as a sign that Rosewater was and had always been malicious and a scent supremacist rather than the light-hearted story of a young mare trying to find her place in the world it was and were looking on with the thinly veiled smug satisfaction of imagining they were right.

“Interestingly,” Rosewater said as she sniffed at her spoonful. “I think both of our recipes, both the one I tried to—” She coughed delicately. “—improve upon are based on the same original on. I’d have to do some research, but I believe it was derived from an old Dammerlandic coastal recipe from the old world. Perhaps before the ice age that drove our ancestors from the plains.”

“It would explain much, absolutely,” Lace agreed.

“Rosethorn the Wise mentioned a similar dish in his journal,” Rosemary added, raising a hoof and glancing from Lace to her mother, then to Collar, her smile growing brighter. “Potatoes are easy to raise in this soil, so it was one of their primary crops and one of the most common ingredients. Fish, too, both fresh and saltwater, were common and easy to catch.”

“That makes sense,” Collar murmured, bobbing a nod to her and hoping nopony else had noticed the brightening of her smile. This wasn’t the time to flirt with him. Not in this company. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a chance to compare dishes before. At least, not from a place of peace.”

Conversation drifted then as other ponies offered their favorite dishes and a few even admitted to having enjoyed some Merrier specialties at the recent trade fair, having followed him for one reason or another, none shared, or for reasons of their own which Clipper was happy to admit and boast that he’d made no less than three new contracts with ponies willing to carry their goods on his ships.

Some, it seemed, hadn’t even known that shipping without going through Cargo Manifest’s company was even possible. One interesting tidbit he shared had Rosewater narrowing her eyes. Some of those he’d talked to had been under the impression that Manifest Destination Shipping was the only company authorized to contract international shipping through, according to elements Clipper hadn’t been able to get the names of at the time, only hints about.

“He tried to insinuate the same to me once,” Rosewater said in a voice cooler than Collar had heard all night. “Except it was my mother’s authority he appealed to. When that didn’t work… well.” Rosewater glanced at Collar. “I think you know the rest of that story. You were spying on me the entire day.”

Collar chuckled softly. “I was. I mean, you were acting under your mother’s orders at the time, so we kind of needed to.”

“What did he demand?” Rosemary asked, her voice weak, cautious. “What did you do for me, mother?”

She doesn’t know. Collar shared a look with Rosewater. He knew, she’d told him during when he’d asked, afraid of the answer and wanting to know all the same for… a tabulation of crimes against ponies. An informal one.

“What I needed to do,” Rosewater said gently. “Please let it go, Rosemary. It’s not a polite topic for the dinner table. I will promise you I didn’t compromise my morals or my body.”

Simply a piece of your sanity. Collar pressed a hoof lightly against hers under the edge of the table and leaned over to give her a swift nuzzle along the cheek. “I think it’s time we moved on to a happier topic. And I do believe that a change of course is in order to accompany it. Unless anyone objects, I would like to get dessert started before I have to house all of you tonight.”

Collar was surprised when, before dessert was able to arrive, a Dammeguard slipped into the ballroom, melting snow on his armor, and bowed briefly before rushing over to Lace and whispering in her ear.

This is it. This is what we were hoping for. Collar’s heartbeat kicked off onto a new, excited rhythm, and Rosewater glanced aside at him, her expression openly hopeful.

“I know we didn’t plan on me staying,” Rosewater said, lying through her teeth and smiling all the while. “But… I did bring some cards. Just in case.”

“Of course you hoped!” Featherlock snapped. “I’m tired of listening to you all fawn over this mare like she’s done an amazing thing by appearing to cross the river for the sake of love.” She stamped a hoof and stepped off her chair. “I was going to wait for dessert, but I’m not going to support this any longer. You’ll be hearing from us tomorrow, Baroness.”

With that, she stormed off as Collar suspected she would in any event before the final end of dinner. A rudeness after gathering as much information as she could. Tacky, but not out of character.

“I… Collar—”

“I know,” Collar murmured, leaning in close and nipping her cheek. “She and her family oppose mother in any event. You’re simply a more convenient lever for her to pull. Nothing more.”

“Rude is what she is,” Clipper declared. “Stars, she was bringing down the entire mood of the dinner, glaring at you the live-long hour when all of us are more interested in you, my dear.” He brought his stein to his lips again, paused, and grinned. “Ah. There is one more thing I meant to say, but I didn’t want to say it until I had you alone, Lady Rosewater. But now is as good a time as any since…”

He tipped his head to where Lace was conversing quietly with the Dammeguard.

“Since,” Lace said after a moment’s pause after the prompting, “the bridges have all iced over. It seems the wind is especially bitter and wild, and the waves and spray have sent ice and water enough to wash away the salt and sand and truly ice them over despite our best efforts to prepare. I’m afraid the way home is closed to you, my lady, until the ice melts, and if you suggest you can teleport, I will have you bound up in silk and sat down until you come to your senses.”

Rosewater laughed and raised both of her forehooves together, crossed as if ready to be bound. “Then bind away, for I shall suggest it, my lady, but for the sake of spending more time with you and your family, and with my daughter and her lover, I will do no more than suggest. And suggest only because it sounds like it could be the start of an entertaining evening.”

Dapper cackled beside Lace and slapped a hoof on the table. “Marvelous! Stars, I missed how open and brazen my home city can be.” He reached out and prodded his blushing wife, her jaw hanging open. “Maybe you can bind me instead tonight, eh?”

“Dapper!” Lace yelped. “Stars above, stallion. I’ll be fit to be tied if you keep bantering like that.”

Laughter broke from Rosemary and Cloudy, the latter biting her lip and glancing at Collar, the former whispering something in her ear that made Cloudy blush and nip her cheek.

Even Clipper chuckled, if a tad uncomfortably. “I know you meant it as a jest, Lady Rosewater, but it did go a scooch too far.”

“Ah.” Rosewater settled back and leaned into Collar, resting her cheek against his neck. “My apologies to all, and especially to Lady Lace. I meant no offense by my jest.”

“You had an announcement, Clipper?” Collar asked and dipped his chin to brush against Rosewater’s forehead. “For my love?”

“Aye. I’ve heard about that trial with the farmers’ family you’ve been trying to show your support for. They left their land because of an offer you made for it?”

Rosewater was silent for a moment. “Not solely myself, but yes. I’ve given money anonymously, as I doubt my reputation as The Rose Terror would do much to endear the judges towards their cause if they knew I was providing more than moral support.”

“While I don’t think you’re wrong entirely, I don’t think you have, or even have had the chance, to get a feeling for the attitude of the ponies arguing for polyamorous marriage to be recognized—so long as the marriage were officiated and recorded elsewhere.” Clipper pursed his lips. “And for ‘bastards’ to be considered legitimate.” He glanced down, then up at Collar. “I’m not married, my lord. You know that.”

“I do. I’ve always wondered why, but it’s not—”

“Not our way.” Clipper smiled bitterly. “What you don’t know is that I have a son by a mare I would have married had she not been taken from me by the same purge that took Carnation. She, too, was a spy though her bent went more towards economic rebellion than actual espionage. A bit cliche, is it not? But I have kept correspondence with her, and she let me know some years ago that our last… tryst produced a child.” His pained look went from Rosewater to Rosemary before fixing on Collar again. ‘I’m not so different from you, Lord Collar. And I don’t doubt you’ve suspected my motives from the start, Lady Rosewater. Now you know them.”

“You want to be reunited with your love and your child.”

“A sentiment you obviously share with me. The ponies I brought with me tonight are all sympathetic to my desires, some of whom have their own loves across the river, noble and not.” He waved a hoof at one of the ponies sitting next to him. “Lady Goldshine here is a moneylender and currency changer for my company. She found out about my unconventional family by the money I was sending overseas to support them and bring them some measure of comfort. She herself…”

The lady, her mane the same golden luster of a full sized bit, glanced from Rosewater to Rosemary. “I have two loves. One in Merrie, and one in Damme. If I were found out, or if it were found out that I intend to carry both of their foals at some point in my life, I would lose all of my credibility here. I love them dearly, my lady and my lord. I will support your bid for the throne in any way I can.”

“I have a wife I married in secret,” another stallion said down the line. “We have a child together, recorded in the way of Merrie, but not registered. She’s a Merrieguard, and my father is a retired Dammeguard colonel. If he knew…”

“My son is in love with a stallion in Merrie.”

“My wife and I both fell in love with a blacksmith in Merrie, and she with us. We have plans for a child with her.”

Their stories were all the same or similar, ponies who just wanted the war to end so they could love as they wished, and each of them pointedly did not look to Lace as they told their story, instead telling them to Collar, letting him know they saw him as the next leader who could help them, and a quick glance at his mother showed nothing but a smile and a nod of approval.

“Then.” Rosewater glanced at Collar. “I think our allies deserve to know. It will out soon in any case, and…”

Collar swallowed, glancing from her to Lace, then to Cloudy and Rosemary before closing his eyes and considering just how much to tell them. Anything could be too much, but hinting at the past as if it were something to happen in the future wouldn’t be as serious as telling them everything. Collar could guess at the names of maybe four other ponies besides Lady Goldshine, and he was half as certain of her given name as he was about the family names of the others.

“Rosewater and I are already discussing marriage and a child,” he said softly. “I would appreciate it if you not spread that around too widely, as we’ve only just started talking since after the Gala, but we believe it would not only be what we want for our long term life plans, but what is best for our ponies.”

“I wholly support them as well,” Lace added right on the hocks of Collar’s words. “This is a union not only between two ponies who love each other, but between our cities, and as much as I wish they could only settle into the first… they each know their duties to their ponies.”

“Good.” Clipper nodded sharply. “The faster the question of succession in Merrie is settled, the sooner we can move on.”

“A toast,” Rosemary said. “To a wonderful mother.”

“To a wonderful son,” Lace added, raising her glass of wine.

“To all of you leaving so I can go have a peaceful night with my hopefully future wife,” Collar added. “In all good fun, of course.”

Rosewater laughed and tapped her glass against his. “To a night to remember.”

“It truly is shaping up to be a nasty storm,” Rosewater murmured as they saw off the last of the ponies that wanted to get home before the storm. Clipper had been the last to leave, holding her hoof and looking into her eyes to wish her luck, and his form was just disappearing into the skirling flakes flying almost sideways in from the northeast.

The scent of cold pine and empty winterlands joined the scents of hearth fires she could see in the city, the smoke from their plumes barely leaving chimneys before being shredded into invisibility, only localized lulls in the gusting wind giving any hint that the smoke was escaping at all.

It was a good night to stay in and an even better night to spend it with a loved one.

And isn’t it a wonderful night to perhaps warm my womb? Please, stars, if you’re listening, let me be wrong about my cycle. Let Collar’s seed find life inside me.

The stars were long-since veiled from her vision, but she stared up at the sky for long seconds as Collar stood beside her, his own thoughts similarly hidden from her as he gazed out over the city.

To either side, a pace away, guardsponies watched them and the courtyard, ready to slip back inside the moment their lord decided he was tired of freezing his tail off.

“I love you,” Collar said gently. “Come. Let me treat you to a warm night of Prim hospitality, tea…” Collar glanced at the guards, then leaned in close and kissed her ear lightly. “And making love.”

Rosewater’s tail twitched up and to the side before she could stop it, but planted it back down and kissed him back lightly. “Come, then, before your low-hanging fruit freezes.”

Collar chuckled and followed her inside, the prance of his step telling his excitement. Or so she thought until she caught his silly grin and laughed.

“Out with it! What new innuendo have you to test ‘pon the tender ears of those present now?”

“Oh, but it would be grabbing at the low-hanging fruit, darling. But if you insist,” he said, taking a breath. “Worry not, fair mare, for yon twig will help set a fire.”

Rosewater tried not to laugh, ended up giggle-snorting all the way to the end of the entry hall before she caught him around the neck. “I think you are purposely botching your attempts now, my dear. That was bad in a whole new way from ‘You’re pretty.’”

“But it worked, didn’t it?” Collar murmured against her lips, shoulder to the wall, her foreleg over his shoulders and nose to his. “The fair mare has trapped me against the wall, ready to ask me to make love to her.”

Rosewater laughed and kissed him fiercely and briefly, lips to lips, teeth brazing his skin as she pulled back. “The handsome stallion makes a fair point. Upstairs with us. I do believe your mother was going to tell me which room was mine?” She didn’t bother to hide the teasing smile or try to suppress her involuntary wink as she passed by under his chin, her tail raised and trailing pink hairs against and then over his muzzle.

It was brazen out in the hallways of Prim Palace, but the servants were mostly away, and the guards would tell everypony she was being overly flirty. Expected of a Merrier courting a stallion, she hoped. But she was tired of playing it safe, and tonight of all nights…

“Stars,” Collar murmured, chasing after her as she came to the stairs, Lace and Dapper only halfway up them and talking together. “Rosewater, you are… stars.”

Rosewater grinned and glanced around, following her parents-in-law up, not trying to catch up, but following as was expected of the guest and host. At the top, Lace waited, then glanced at Collar and flicked her ears flat.

“What must be done to begin recording your attempts,” Lace asked once silence surrounded them, Rosemary and Cloudy joining a moment later. “I presume that some indication of ‘they went into the bedroom together’ must be recorded by…”

“Us,” Rosemary said before Rosewater, Cloudy, or Collar could say anything. “It’s a special time, the first time a new couple lays together after declaring for each other.”

“It is. A very special time for a family,” Rosewater murmured, sidestepping closer to Rosemary and kissed her cheek. “I wish it were more like it would have been in the Garden. I wish there was a celebration and a feasting and an orgy to celebrate fertility and invite the entire village to participate in the festivities.”

Rosemary looked hopeful for a moment before Collar cleared his throat.

“And tonight, I’d like it to be only Rosewater and I. After you confirm there’s no hidden stallions hiding in my bathroom that we have squirreled away.”

Cloudy chuckled and tapped Rosemary on the shoulder. “We can have some time to ourselves tonight.”

It wasn’t hard to miss the disappointment in her eyes. Locked away for months, given a little taste of freedom so it seemed things might go back to ‘normal’ soon, and then… Rosewater took a deep breath and nuzzled Rosemary’s cheek lightly. “It’s for Collar’s comfort, sweetheart. He’s not as comfortable as we are with open sexual displays.”

“Yet,” Collar said with an awkward laugh. “Not yet. Stars, just…” His eyes flicked between Rosewater and Rosemary, a muted ‘help me,’ in the pleading look.

“Not yet, Rosemary,” Rosewater said gently, nudging her lightly towards the edge of the bubble of silence. “That’s a discussion for another day. Collar hasn’t given his consent tonight.”

Rosemary flinched, but nodded. “I know. I’m… just being able to get out for even a few minutes.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I know. I know.” Rosewater reared up to pull her daughter closer and hug her lightly about the neck. “Say the word. Say it tonight, and you’re free. We’ll figure out the rest and we’ll make it work.”

“It’d be even easier now,” Collar said helpfully. “I have a legitimate reason to keep Rosewater coming to see me.”

“But… Roseate wouldn’t have her hooves tied anymore. I can’t.”

Rosewater kissed her forehead lightly. “She can’t keep me from pursuing a romance. Not if I reveal that we’re married.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow, sweetheart. We can talk more tomorrow. I don’t want to push you, but you don’t need to keep torturing yourself here.”

“Listen to your mother,” Lace said gently. “Your health, mental and physical, is more important than keeping a secret. Think about it tonight, and we can talk tomorrow if you want to.”

Rosemary closed her eyes, nodded slowly, and leaned into the embrace. “I’m sorry. Tonight is about you two, mother. Please, I want you to be happy. You deserve so much more than…”

“Shhh.” Rosewater rocked her slowly. “I’m your mother. I need to take care of my filly.”

“She does,” Collar said gently, sidling up on Rosemary’s other side. “And I love you too, Rosemary.” He seemed about to say more, but his jaw firmed and he met Rosewater’s gaze levelly in a ‘we need to have a talk’ way that went literally over Rosemary’s head as she stayed tucked in close.

Rosewater thought she had an inkling of what it was already, and dipped her chin minutely, then said, “Go on, Cloudy. Check and make sure there aren’t any lurkers hiding in Collar’s chambers.” She tightened her foreleg over Rosemary’s back to keep her in place. “Just relax, sweet mare. Only one pony needs to verify. More than that and it’d be an orgy every time we tried to have a child.”

“An heir,” Dapper corrected. “Very different standards.”

Lace stood and followed Cloudy in. “And one to witness. You know if there’s just one witness, Roseate’s going to harp on it.” she said. “I will be witness and provide my own record to support Cloudy’s.”

“She’ll harp anyway,” Dapper muttered. “You’ll think she took lessons her entire life, she’ll play that harp so hard.”

Rosemary huffed when they finished their documentation. “Which is why I should check, too. She’ll harp on the fact that Rosewater is actually pregnant because—”

“Tonight isn’t about her, love,” Rosewater murmured in her ear, gently quieting her with a nuzzle. “Go on and check. Collar and I will wait here.”

Rosemary snapped her tail and nodded. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t have anything to complain about.”

As soon as she was gone, Rosewater leaned in close to Collar. “What is it?” she whispered, soft enough to almost not hear herself.

“She’s my daughter-in-law,” Collar whispered back. “Not just Rosemary.”

For a heartbeat, Rosewater was prepared to argue for Rosemary’s equality in their future marriage, then stopped herself. Rosemary can’t ever be an equal part of our marriage. There’s always one pony she’ll never be able to share. She closed her eyes. “She wouldn’t be equal, ever. And… you’re not comfortable making love to her.”

Collar brushed his nose against her ear in a tiny nod. “No. I thought… I would get used to the idea. She’s beautiful, vivacious, unstoppably optimistic. But the longer she stays here, the more I see her as… as a sister. She’s like having a sister.”

“Stars.”

“Yeah. I… I don’t know how to tell her. We all agreed, and… yeah.”

Rosewater closed her eyes tight against the imagined sight of Rosemary breaking apart at being told Collar didn’t—couldn’t—see her as a lover. “Stars and stones,” she cursed under her breath, pressing her nose tighter against Collar’s ear. “We need to tell her. The longer we wait after we know, the more it will hurt her. Stars, it will already hurt her.”

Before Collar could add anything, another thought came to her.

“What about Cloudy? Rosemary wants to marry Cloudy. She wants that to be real.”

“Tartarus,” Collar groaned. “I… I love Cloudy, Rosewater. I don’t know if I can…” He cocked his head slightly. “Stars. It just gets more complicated. Could Cloudy and I have a non-monogamous, non-married steady relationship?”

“We’re making the laws,” Rosewater murmured gently. “If you think Cloudy would be okay with that…”

“I don’t know. Stars.” Collar shook his head slowly and pulled away to look her in the eyes. “But we’ll figure it out. All of us together.”

“We will.” Rosewater kissed his nose lightly. “But not tonight. It can wait one night.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, kissing her back lightly. “It can. I’ve been looking forward to tonight. To… to our foal, Rosewater.”

She could hear the almost awe in his voice. ‘Me, a father.’

Cloudy met her eyes across the small space of the bubble as Rosemary came back out of the suite, her expression serious, as if she’d heard what they were talking about, or guessed.

“We’ll figure it out,” Cloudy said, twitching her ears lightly and glancing at Lace and Dapper. “We will. Together.” All but proving she’d heard. “But I want… I hope. Stars, I hope you’re able to be with foal before the first heavy snows.”

Because then they could set aside the farce. “I hope so, too, Cloudy, but—”

“No buts. I already told you. I’m scared of being a mother, Rosewater. I’d need you by my side if I were to do it.” Cloudy’s attention shifted to Collar, and her expression softened as Rosemary ducked in close and she lifted a wing. “I love you, Collar.” Her wing tightened over Rosemary’s back.

But she came first.

Author's Notes:

Footnote 1:

Imagine a field of battle, two companies facing off against each other, neither particularly strong in the grander scheme of things. This far into the war, old hatreds rise. One pony shouts their family’s words, a symbol of everything that has led up to this battle, a distillation of centuries of conflict both hot and cold. Another answers from across the battle line, it springs back and forth, words coming fast and hot, spat and screamed. At some point, it’s too much, and the reminders of past atrocity and grief spur the companies to fight.

I know last chapter I said "sexytimes will be next", but... sorry. Things worked out quite a bit differently than planned in the writing. I'm out of buffer and the story has changed so much since I wrote the next 20 chapters that I _had_ that I've had to toss them out. Free flying from here on out, but not without an outline. That's still valid, and I'll still be able to pull snippets from future chapters for scenes here and there.

This time when I say sexytimes will be next, I mean that. Along with the start of a much needed conversation. Also. Next chapter is... TOMORROW. Because I did write this as one chapter, but needed to not immediately jump into sexytime after important revelation. So chapter got axed in two.

Also... footnote. Getting fancy. This might actually be the last footnote, really.

Update after queuing up this chapter. Trying not to doomscroll, I really aren't. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After months of 'no way this happens' it happened. So. Writing slowed down a bit again. But I do have a bit of a buffer again. Going to keep writing. It helps keep me sane. Take care of yourselves, y'all.

And I haven't written a word since I last updated this AN prior to publication. Basically shit blew up right as I finalized this chapter. Hope y'all are doing okay.

Book 3, 11: Awkward position

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Collar felt a wave of uncertainty roll through him as the door closed behind him. He’d seen that look. He knew Cloudy loved Rosemary more than anypony else in the world.

Romantically. Stars, stop thinking in straight Damme lines.

“She’s not going to have to choose,” Rosewater said firmly as she looked around. “We’re going to make sure that nopony needs to choose between loves.” She toured his room silently, sniffing here and there and letting her ears and tail twitch before she sat at the foot of the bed. “Cloudy loves you, Collar, and it would break her to have to choose, but… she has always looked for Rosemary first. From the first day I ran into her, she was disobeying orders to see her. Even a glimpse of her.”

He couldn’t say she was wrong. It hurt, stars it hurt. He hadn’t even considered that side of the equation, only that Rosemary…

“You would be okay with Rosemary being a part of our marriage?” He watched the complex wave of emotion pass over her, unable to say which was which or from what thoughts.

“It’s…” Rosewater raised a hoof and opened her mouth, closed it again and set the hoof against his chest, looking into his eyes.

“Complicated?”

She snorted a laugh. “Yes, stars. If you two had an honest attraction to each other, mutual, I would say yes. With caveats. Merrie marriages sometimes have them. A same-gender attracted stallion would marry a mare and a stallion to be with the stallion. The mare and the stallion would need to agree to it, and so would the other, but it’s been done and Rosemary knows a triad with just such an arrangement.”

“But… mother and daughter?”

She paused for a longer time this time, her eyes skittering away from his. “Rarely. Once or twice in history.”

“That’s about what I thought.” Collar let out a long, slow sigh and raised his hoof to cover her ankle, holding the hoof against his chest. “And I do love her, Rosewater. Maybe if I wasn’t also in love with you, or she were a few years older, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem. But somewhere along the way, I started seeing her… like you do. Almost. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe something snapped when, in my head, she was no longer ‘Rosemary’ but the daughter I married into being the step-father of.”

She nodded, gnawing on her lip.

“Or… no longer only Rosemary. It was easier, until I saw you curled around her, I think, to think of you as basically unrelated. Stars, all of our intelligence said you were basically obligated to care for her on behalf of your aunt.”

“Your mother suspected otherwise.”

“She knew otherwise. But what could she do?” Collar dipped his head and caught her hoof with a spell to kiss her ankle lightly. “If she’d made any move to contact you or let our intelligence know, what would have kept you from following your mother, er, Carnation, into the annals of history, just another unfortunate victim of the war?”

She sighed and raised the hoof to cup his cheek, a spell of her own catching his chin lightly. “I don’t blame her or you. I chose my course. Nopony but I need answer for it.” Her lips touched his lightly, warm and soft and tasting faintly of wine and fish and spiced potato. “I made my bed. I’m only grateful I managed to fumble my way into making it somewhat well.”

“You do make a good bed,” he agreed, chasing her as she fell a step back, catching her with another kiss. “And we’re not going to decide anything tonight.”

“No, we’re not,” Rosewater agreed with a faint smile crossing her ears as she backed into the foot of his oversize bed. “Unless you want to talk about names?”

“Something to fit the Primrose family,” Collar murmured. “Raspberry?”

“Not until you get on your back, love,” Rosewater purred, nipping his neck and shifting so her hindquarters rested mostly on the bed, her legs tucking up one at a time underneath her, inching back, her rump shifting and tail raised high.

“As a name,” Collar purred, rearing up and setting both forehooves on either side of her. “Silly mare. Raspberry Primrose.”

“As long as it’s not more roses,” Rosewater said with a laugh craning her neck back to nip under his chin, drawing a shiver down his spine. “I think it’s high time my family broke away from a theme.”

“Oh?” Collar asked, watching as her tail flicked back and forth lazily, his desire growing as that swish twitched the muscles in her hindquarters, her hooves subtly shifting back and forth as the long, luxurious expanse of curly pink decorated his bed in waves. “I… happen to like pink. Roses.”

She laughed and rolled to her side, her lower hind leg extending slowly as she rolled ever so slowly almost to her back, stopping with her uppermost hindleg cocked, her bare belly exposed. White and toned with her winter coat coming in, she looked so soft, but the white faded to pink ever so little as her belly narrowed and her breathing shifted the smooth expanse.

“Raspberry,” Collar said musingly, licking his lips and taking his mind from the sight in front of him. “I do like the sound of the name. Raspberry Primrose. Colt or filly?”

Rosewater’s expression cracked. Just for a moment, and she didn’t try to put her mask all the way back on and try to pretend. “I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“I wish we had more time, Collar. Not dribs and drabs as we can find them. To talk like this. Tease each other with names and dreams for the future.”

“We can arrange it.”

She patted the bed. “C’mere, Collar. I want to talk before we let passion take us, okay? Not about Cloudy and Rosemary. I know that’s tomorrow. About us. We’ve only had a chance to talk about bold strokes, and barely even those. And—” She pushed a hoof against his chest just as he moved to slide in alongside her. “—not who’ll run what council in the government. Just us. You and me, a mare and a stallion.”

“And the foal we want for ourselves.”

“Yes. Stars.” She laughed as he hopped up on the bed, her legs shifting to keep out of place, then one settling over his hindquarters and her forelegs around his neck. “How many?”

“Not ten, stars. Two? Three?”

“We’re pretty sure Roseate made a deal with something in order to have ten mares for daughters,” Rosewater said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. “Or some alchemical experiment or magical spell gone awry. I’d like to have a colt and a filly. Maybe one more.”

“I’ve wondered what it would be like to have a younger or older brother or sister,” Collar murmured against her throat when she stretched out her neck to look over the edge of the bed. Kissing any part of her warmed his soul, feeling the vibrancy of life so close, the beat of her heart, the scent of her brushing against his nose so real and richly defined. “You’re using a new coat shampoo.”

“I was hoping you’d bury your nose in,” Rosewater murmured. “I want my children to be able to rely on each other if they need to. Love each other.”

“They will,” Collar said. Her coat was thicker just below her jaw, dense with warmth and her. “Why are we staring at the floor?”

She giggled, the sound so free in the moment that his heart ached. “I’ve never seen your floor. Not… in any detail. The carpet is very pretty. Have you made love on it before?”

“Have I—” He couldn’t help it, he started giggling too. “Stars, of course you would ask that. You don’t mind. You want to imagine Cloudy and I having sex in the middle of the room.”

“Mmm. Her. Maybe…” She sighed and shook her head. “I was thinking… us. Soon. If you want to try—”

“I want to look into your eyes, Rosewater. I want to… I want to share. I want you to see me, too. What you do to me.”

“What you do to me,” she purred. “On the bed?”

“I would like that very much,” Collar said cordially, grinning at her, still upside-down to the world. “Though, it would be rather hard without seeing where I’m going. My head down here, and my head… up there.” He shifted a leg under her outstretched thigh, brushing against thinner hair and feeling at last the faint nub of her teat pressing against his coat.

“Then…” Rosewater started to slip down, propelled by hoof against bed, forehooves landing, straightening, and Collar got a horrible, wonderful idea. “Collar!”

He laughed as he caught her by the legs, her hooves outstretched and spread wide against the bed, her tail hiking up with her laughter as she shook her mane and shot a mock glare back at him.

“What?”

“This is very undignified.” Her scolding tone lost all of its heat with the giggle that followed. She made only a token effort to slip free before she let out a shiver. “Stars. Your covers feel amazing on my belly, Collar.”

“Then this next part…” He pushed himself up and nipped the base of her tail and shivered as her tail snapped up and flipped over his neck, half the strands sliding off to pool over one leg. “Beautiful,” he purred against the quivering tail pressing against his chin and neck.

Rosewater’s answer was a shivering laugh and flattening herself against the bed more. “Mmm. Tease.”

“But you love it when I tease you.” Collar shifted to lay half on his side, the pressure to let go and let his arousal grow shivering his coat as his head swelled into the cool air and against the warm bed covers. “Stars…”

“Mmm. You smell lovely,” Rosewater said, raising her head and taking a deep breath, her marks brightening just before a shudder ran down her spine and flicked her tail away and to the side. The sight was breathtaking, pink tender skin parting as her clitoris swelled, glistening darker skin flush with desire and heat inviting him to explore.

She smelled enticingly, arousingly femine, sharper than he’d ever smelled her as he pressed his nose to her lips, breathing in slowly as he ran his lips from her quiveringly erect clitoris to the apex of her folds, drinking in her aroma like he imagined she could from a distance and feeling her heated embrace waiting for him.

He groaned as he laid his chin on her back, closing his eyes as his erection stiffened, the flat flare against his belly pulsing just off-beat from the thudding of his heart. “Stars, you smell wonderful.” A deeper scent than he’d ever smelled from her before.

“My cycle, maybe,” Rosewater said in a deep, throaty voice, making his shaft twitch at both the sound and the implication. “It…”

He pressed his ankle lightly against her loins under her and she shifted a hind hoof to plant it under her, stumbling on her planted forehooves. “It’s starting?”

“Maybe, stars, Collar. Warn a mare before you give her something to rut against.”

“Is that what that was?” He mused, grinning at her over her rear and bending to nip at her still shivering tail. “Mare has a need to rut against something?”

“You, silly stallion. Let me up.”

“Mmm.” Collar nibbled at the base of her tail again, luxuriating in the way she quivered and the fragrance of her grew more intense briefly with every wink of her folds. “But you like being teased.”

He waited until she raised her head again, a glower forming along with a smile, before he ducked down to lathe his tongue along her sex from swollen nub to her deeper cleft.

Before he’d even slipped his tongue more than an inch into her, she pushed off the bed and landed on her side, laughing and rolling on the rug before he had a chance to figure out what had happened. One moment, he was tasting her musky, tangy arousal all around his tongue, and in the next moment, she was on her hooves again, tail lashing, her breathing heavy, and giggling as she stamped her hind hoof.

“What?” He watched, mesmerized, as a droplet trailed down her hind leg, growing smaller and smaller until it clung to her coat and disappeared. He shivered.

“My back or yours?”

“Well, I mean. Last time it was mine?”

She shivered from head to tail then raised a hoof and set it on the bed, her eyes suddenly…

“I’ll be gentle, love,” Collar promised her, standing up himself, and shifting back to give her room. “Unless you want to—”

“No.” She sucked in a breath. “No. I’ve… I’ve never been on my back while a stallion mounted me. I want to try, Collar.”

He nodded slowly. “You’ve not been with a lot of stallions?”

The look she gave him was curiously uncertain. She’d never openly talked about her past lovers before, nor compared them to each other. That wasn’t something that was done in Merrie culture—not, at least, by polite ponies.

“Dazzle,” she said slowly, bobbing her head. “Harvest, and my first, Vale.” She took a step onto the bed, her hind legs stretching out, then dragging forward as she languished in a long, slow stretch. “And you. Does… it bother you at all?”

“No.” Clear and unambiguous. Even in his Dammer mindset, all that mattered was that she was here with him now. He didn’t know what he would feel if she did accept another stallion as a lover, later. And it doesn’t matter now. “Get your beautiful butt up here and let me help get you comfortable, lovely mare.”

“You love my butt,” she purred, tail flagging to the left, then the right, before flipping up over her back and spilling her tail hairs over her white coat. It was art. Watching her climb up, slinking along almost like a cat, her hind legs and fore barely keeping her above the bedsheets.

“I dooo,” he purred, drawing the word out and dipping himself lower, following her as she crawled towards the center of the bed large enough for the both of them to lay back to back and still not reach the edges.

She winked at him once, with her eyes, then again with her marehood before she stopped and rolled to her side. “I’m ready, Collar.”

“I’m not,” he answered her, slinking up alongside her, his cock straining to keep above the sheets and not drag a trail of precome into the fabric. He wasn’t entirely successful, couldn’t keep the flex up, and dipped now and again and once more before he was laying behind her, his hind quarters barely on the bed, his hips trying to tell him to thrust with or without being inside her.

He ignored the instinct and used a spell to help her roll to her back fully, raising his head to avoid the swing of a hoof and thigh before she curled it close before relaxing both, letting her legs splay open for him, baring herself as she had never been before.

Her snowy coat shivered across her barrel, an avalanche of motion he followed down to her taut stomach, the hair growing shorter and finer, snow giving way to mottled pink and paler flesh where her thighs began, a valley of confection to lick and nibble at his leisure.

Even her teats were stiff, the pink nubs darker with arousal, the spare flesh around them pliant to his lips and tongue, softer than any other part of her save her thick, flexing folds. She gasped when his tongue touched the left, moaned low and deep in her throat, almost gutteral when he suckled and pressed his teeth in, letting her feel the nip before he gently pulled. Her thighs rose to trap his head as she writhed, her forehooves reaching into the air, down towards him, then above her head to press against the headboard.

Did she mention she liked having her teats toyed with? He couldn’t remember, but now he knew. “Oh, now that was something I want to hear again.”

“Do it again.” Her voice was still almost guttural, deeper and more visceral than he’d ever heard from her. He felt her need through her voice, her desire for more.

“I’m not sure I’ll last that long, love,” he said with insincere apology. He wanted to, but the ache at the base of his shaft begged for release. “I still want to try for a foal tonight, love, and I’m not sure the bed is as eager as you.”

“Tease,” she said in that same, low voice that set his mind back a step into a more primitive time. A time when food and mating were at the top of the ladder of important things. Primal. But her thighs fell away again to give him a better view of what his teasing had wrought. A tremor low on her belly, a shiver and shake running up her legs to curl her hind hooves pointlessly in the air, digging at imaginary ground and sending answering tremors down her tendons.

As he raised himself and Rosewater dragged her hooves from the headboard to reach for him, the look of naked lust in her eyes faded as the immediate pleasure waned. He paused with his cock bobbing to almost touch her cleft and met her eyes. Stars, he wanted to slide into her immediately, but…

“I love you,” she said, voice cracking from deep to her normal over the words.

“I love you, Rosewater,” Collar said, voice husky with need and want and more than he could describe. The mother of his foals was here, only the act separating the want from the truth.

He set his forelegs on either side of her barrel and craned his neck forward to meet her in a deep kiss, her hooves cradling his cheeks and stroking from jaw to muzzle as her tongue parted his lips and he met her halfway.

The kiss still pulled him as he tried to find her with his shaft’s head, sliding along her belly first and making her gasp, then resetting his hind hooves and rocking his hips back to press against her folds.

Then she winked and he slipped into her, the explosion of warmth around flesh exposed to cold air making him suck in a breath and pull back from the kiss to sink in halfway, his hips moving before he could slow himself.

She gasped and wheeled a hind leg in the air, then pressed her slender calf to his hindquarters and held there, shaking.

“Okay?” He gasped, holding back.

“More than,” Rosewater said, her voice hitching again at the raw, naked feeling of him, the heat of him so close, but with no weight pressing her down, the musky heat of his stallionhood permeating the room and mingling with her own cycle-borne tang. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. Soon.

She hadn’t been prepared for how raw and immediate it would feel when she was no longer freezing her cycle in place. Carnation had told her it would feel… more when she’d gone through puberty and learned about the dry emotional, philosophical, and biological explanations of what was waiting for her, but hearing it and feeling it were so very different. The difference between book knowledge and experience.

“Collar,” she moaned, her hind feet trying to find the purchase her mind said should be there, failing, and wheeling in the air until she found his flanks and held him in place. “Stars, Collar…”

She could feel every inch of him, pulsing counterpoint to her heartbeat and the flexing of her instincts, heat building slowly and steadily just behind her belly and spreading out from there as twitches and twinges along her legs and through muscles and nerves she rarely felt.

“Stars, you feel…” Then he slid deeper, his eyes closing and mouth dropping open as heat and fullness she’d longed for pressed into her. He didn’t slam himself to the hilt, didn’t do more than push to the medial ring, to where she could feel him meet more resistance, felt more heat, more pressure. But still more room. “Coll…”

“Not…” He huffed and shifted his hind legs again, pulling free briefly so only his swollen tip was still inside her, gasping at the no doubt cold air around his slick skin. “Stars, not… done it like this before.”

“Take—” Rosewater’s throat seized up as he slid deeper into her again, passing the medial ring past her greedy embrace and deeper into her, the heat and presence of his cock displacing the empty ache in her belly. “Take your time!”

“Hard to,” he panted, his cheek resting against the base of her neck as he rested, squatted over her in what had to be the most awkward position for a stallion to rut in. Ponies weren’t built to rut low to the ground. “Stars.”

But the angle, the way his shaft rubbed against her clitoris as he tried from different angles, the soft skin pressing against her and warming away the minor chill.

“We can try it more traditionally,” Rosewater breathed in a lull between trying to sink deeper into her.

“Want to see you,” he grunted, his forehooves trembling. “Want to see you when it happens.”

“Oh, love…” Rosewater trailed a hoof down his shoulder. “It might not be tonight.”

He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He grinned then, irrepressible. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing when you come.”

“Switch?”

Collar pushed himself up slightly higher and looked down at where their bodies joined. “If I pull out, Rosewater, I’m going to come. I’m pretty sure you can’t get pregnant through your belly. As fascinating—”

“Then rut me,” Rosewater laughed, reaching up and pulling him back down. “Come inside, Collar, if you’re that close. And we can switch for the next round.”

“It’s… uh.” Collar pulled back from her. “Kinda hard low to the ground.”

She giggled and pushed him up, keeping her hooves on his breast while he settled in, looking between them as he adjusted position again, rocking back and forth and staying firmly inside her. “Lesson learned.”

“Sorry.”

“We’re both learning, Collar. Each other more than anything. It’d be easier from the edge of the bed, maybe.”

“Oh, it is. I’ve done that with Cloudy, I just thought…” His cheeks reddened further.

“Then that’s what we’ll do next time,” Rosewater said gently. “I’m glad you had that experience with her, Collar, and you will have it again if you want it.” She tapped his breast lightly. “I’d hope you’d both want me there, too.”

“Stars, yes. Yes,” Collar said, nodding swiftly and rocking his hips forward, burying himself deeper into her, the angle too steep to do more than get another few inches past his medial ring, but stars, the view…

Just watching him disappear into her, feeling the weight of him inside her and over her, the pressure pushing deeper into her, his thickening head spreading her wider and making that full feeling grow tighter until she felt she should see it against her stomach.

She never saw her belly bulge, but watching as he slid out of her, his copper toned flesh mottling towards the middle twitching just before he rocked forward again and feeling every slow centimeter pressing past resistance, heat and lightning in her loins growing, her belly flexing as she tried to arch her back out of pure reflex, angling for more of him inside her, deeper to make that dam finally burst.

“Close,” Collar groaned as he pulled out again, shifting hind legs briefly at the verge of slipping out of her entirely, his scrotum tightening almost out of sight, the sway of his testes lessening. “A-are—you?”

“Come,” she commanded him. “I want to feel it, come inside me, Collar. Now.” Electric pleasure filled her as she said the words, as she watched his eyes widen and a smirk flit across his lips before it was gone, his jaw dropping open as he obeyed and sank in faster this time, his cock bending alarmingly for just a moment before he grunted and shifted, and suddenly he was more fully inside her, his body tensing for a moment, then rocking forward again.

He came.

The feeling of fullness doubled as a ripple ran along his shaft, thickening and pressing against her own body clenching down tight around him, anticipation and her own mounting pleasure making her clench tighter, her hindlegs pressing tight against his flanks, hooves curling in the air.

The first spurt came a heartbeat later with a grunt from Collar as he leaned into it, pressing against her forehooves, his head dropping and eyes closed tight for only a moment before snapping open again, a grin on his lips turning into a grimace.

Heat more than before filled her, liquid and intense, and the feeling of being too full intensified, swelling against her trembling canal, his head keeping it in, thick and pulsing like waves rushing up a river, pushed by the inexorable tide, hotter than her own, thicker than hers, and…

Another pulse ran along his cock, another grunt as he pulled against the bed and into her, the spray of seed coming on its heels, filling her more and this time his head wasn’t enough to contain it and she felt tickling bubbles of seed flowing through her against the tight confines of her sex, writhing and shifting as her muscles contracted.

“Stars!” She panted as a wave of euphoria rose up from her loins, followed in an instant by a wash of heat like the backlash of an inferno coursing through her and setting her coat to stand on end from the crown of her head to her shoulders, tingling in its wake.

The fire faded swiftly, but the euphoric daze remained, clouding her mind until the third, and then the fourth thrusts came a second later, a heartbeat apart as Collar’s jaw clenched, a groan of pleasure rising up like an avalanche flowing against gravity.

The feeling of euphoric bliss deepened, and the full feeling slackened off as the hot, musky fragrance of fresh come filled the air as the first trickle spilled free to pool against her dock, the heat shocking after the cool air.

He relaxed, his shaft starting to soften immediately, the head still thick and tight inside her but sliding out as the pressure keeping it in place slackened and her own body helped to push him out.

“Stars.”

That was all he got out as he rose on shaky hind legs, the sound of him pulling free almost lost in the combined panting, but not the sight of him. The pink and copper tip, mottled and thick at the tip, quickly losing girth as his cheeks turned flush and his belly tightened, was a beautiful sight. Off-white cream trickled from his tip to patter against her belly in little droplets of molten pleasure before he stepped to the side awkwardly and slumped to the bed beside her.

“Four times,” Rosewater murmured in his mane, staying on her back for the moment and simply letting the lethargic bliss that followed seep into her mind. “Last time was three.”

He swallowed thickly before speaking. “You… were able to keep count?”

“Mmm.” Rosewater reached down to press a hoof against her belly. “When I can feel it coming before it hits… it’s like… just the way you were pressing against me. You get thicker when you’re about to ejaculate.”

“You…” Collar swallowed again. “You didn’t mention that last time.”

“The angle,” Rosewater purred. She rolled over to lay her hind legs against his flank, one over the other, not quite on her side, but easier to nip his cheek. “You were pushing against my clit. Hard… not to notice.”

“Mmm.” Collar kissed her lightly on the lips, then rested his horn against hers. “Maybe we save this position for… another day? It was awkward, but if it did that much for you…” He let it trail off and swallowed again. “Did we remember to bring water in?”

Rosewater laughed softly. “It… kind of got lost in the shuffle, I think.” She rolled away. “I know where the kitchens are. You need warm water. Not ice cold.”

“But—”

“But I’m painted in your come?” Rosewater slid from the bed and raised her tail, glancing back on him. “You did paint a lovely scene of stallion virility all over my white canvas. It’s a good thing white is the same color as come.”

“But—” Collar stared after her. “The smell? And can’t you use a spell to clean yourself off?”

“I could.” She paused, then clucked her tongue. “Rut me with a sideways poker. Rutting Treaty.”

“The latter sounds painful, the former sounds improbable,” Collar teased, winking. “We should have a guard on duty who can vouch for you. I think Sunrise? She was going to take first shift. Then Platinum was supposed to come in until morning.”

Rosewater sighed and rubbed at her face with a hoof. “I’ll see if she’s just outside or…” she finished making her way to the door and opened it, making Collar yelp and roll away.

As soon as she stuck her head out, Sunrise startled and glanced at her. Then sniffed. Creamy cheeks turned crimson in a moment. “M-my lady?”

“Would you mind sending a servant or a guard for some water? I’m afraid my backside is rather impolitely appointed.”

“Y-your backside.” Sunrise glanced along her, stopping and snapping her eyes back to Rosewater’s grinning face. “Uh. Of course. Poppy!” she yelled. “Water for… for Lord Collar, please. He’s, um. Unable to get out of bed.”

“Thank you, Sunrise.” Rosewater was about to close the door when she caught a questioning look from her. “Yes?”

“It’s… nothing, my lady.” The pegasus glanced left, then right down the hallway as Poppy made his way towards them. “I was… curious. About how things will be after. The war, I mean. How do you want them to be?”

Rosewater glanced over her shoulder to see Collar trying unsuccessfully to appear as a cushion under the sheets. “Tonight might not be the best time.”

“Oh! Stars above, I didn’t… I should—” Sunrise cut herself off and took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking all night, my lady. Well. For the past hour or so. Or more. Really since… the—the you know.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it for a lot longer, and… equality. Choice. But also unity of purpose.” Rosewater shrugged and leaned in close to Sunrise’s ear. “But talking about that while I’m filled to the brim with my husband’s seed is hardly the proper time.”

Cheeks that had been red turned scarlet and ears flattened into her mane as Sunrise stammered an apology.

Rosewater laughed and nipped her cheek. “A tease at your expense, but truth, too. I know you want to know, and I know we haven’t had a chance to sit down and talk but time and place, Sunny.”

“O-o-of course!” Sunrise turned away, facing out as her training said, her cheeks and neck red as rose petals. “I apologize. We.. it gets boring.”

Poppy passed them by, his brows raised at his fellow guard, and he offered a smile and a nod to Rosewater. “Your sister sends her well-wishes.”

“My thanks, Poppy. I’ll return them on the morrow if I’m able.”

“She would greatly enjoy that, my lady. She misses her family dearly. Those that aren’t insane.” And then he was gone down the stairs, leaving Rosewater to stare after him, lips pursed. “How is Glory doing?”

Sunrise startled. “Bored. Lonely, I think. She’s been here longer than Rosemary, but she’s handling it… better? I want to say better, but she’s also sleeping a lot.” Her left ear twitched and a moment later Rosewater heard it, too. Hooves coming up the stairs, muffled by the carpet, and before she could process that, a stallion’s head appeared over the lip of the landing.

Rosewater thought she recognized him. It wasn’t Poppy, but he recognized her of course.

Her thoughts froze again as she realized what it must look like…

“Flare Star,” Sunrise called out, raising a hoof.

“S-Sunrise,” the stallion called, swallowing and flicking a look from her to Rosewater and back. “I-is she—”

“I invited her in,” Collar said from behind Rosewater, rearing up to lay a foreleg across her shoulder and leaning out to look down the hall. “Flare. Good to see you.”

“Uh. G-good to see you, too.” The Dammeguard stood there for another long, long moment before he dropped his head in a bow. “I-I will check the other wings, my lord.”

“Thank you for your diligence, Private.” Collar nodded to him and kissed Rosewater’s ear lightly. “Come back to bed, love. It’s cold.”

“It is.” Rosewater giggled. “I guess you’ll have to warm me up.”

The private fled and Sunrise, rather than turning a red unmeant to be seen by mortal eyes, giggled along with her.

“Teasing,” Rosewater told her calmly as she backed into the room, “is immensely fun when it’s meant in good fun. I hope your watch is quiet, Sunny, and your sleep calm.”

Then she closed the door and re-engaged the silencing warding as she prepared for a second round of making love with Collar.

Book 3, 12: Meanwhile

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It hurt.

It hurt watching Cloudy watch the door to their room, her worry over whether she’d made the right decision writ plain across her ears. It had hurt listening to her placatory words to Lace and Dapper that she would be okay, and she just needed time to listen to her heart for the way forward and she was thankful for Lace’s late-coming determination to raise her up to a proper lady.

The certainty in her voice that it wouldn’t be needed hurt, too.

All the while, Rosemary had sat there, her tongue cloven to the roof of her mouth, unable to speak, unable to do more than nod while images of Collar’s discomfort swirled around her. It was so plain when he sat next to Rosewater at dinner with her casual flirtatious looks.

She tried to remember if she’d ever seen that kind of look from him before, but she couldn’t recall. All she could remember was her more than insistent moment of weakness when she’d leaned against him and whispered to him about making love and held him in her magic until he came.

Did it start there?

He was a Dammer, half born of Merrie, but…

“I’m sorry,” Rosemary murmured, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears.

Cloudy’s ears flinched and her head raised briefly towards one of the silencing gems powering the spell, then another.

“It’s not your fault.” She shook her head and glanced back at Rosemary. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were a mess of damp where she’d cried silently after closing the door. “I should have known you’d end up here someday, ‘Mary. You have a way of getting into the most fortuitous trouble.”

“Someday isn’t… it’s not as quickly as I did end up here, Cloudy. Stars, if she wasn’t my mother…”

“But she is. And he’s… kinda your father-in-law.”

“Exactly.” Rosemary sighed and scooted closer to sit with her forehooves on either side of Cloudy’s flanks where she sat. “I should have realized it as soon as we started putting together the plan.”

“Mmm.” Cloudy leaned her head back to bump against Rosemary’s chin. “But you, me, everypony was scrambling to get ideas out, plan, and lay out the elements we needed to get it to work the way it did in such a short time.”

“More on the doing than the effect?”

“Yeah.” Cloudy sighed. “I… didn’t realize how long two weeks could feel, ‘Mary.”

“I consider myself an expert in waiting, Cloudy, and let me tell you, two weeks is a long time.” Rosemary settled in on her back gently, scooting forward until her belly pressed up against Cloudy’s backside. “When you’re waiting for something to happen, it feels like months. It’s why I cherished you coming to see me every day.”

“It might be years still until Collar can change the laws here,” Cloudy said with a sigh. “And I really don’t want to have an ‘affair’ with him. It feels wrong. It should be open, with Rosewater there by our sides.”

“I know.” Rosemary settled in to rest her chin on Cloudy’s head, closing her eyes briefly as ears flicked up to play against her muzzle. “Or… well. By your side.”

Cloudy snorted and leaned to the side to give her a kiss on her muzzle. “You really didn’t give much thought to Rosewater being there, did you?”

“Hey! I thought about it!”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.” Cloudy nipped her muzzle and kissed her again. “But I know you. You thought about it, said ‘That’s a problem for future me.’ and went on dreaming.”

“Past me is a jerk,” Rosemary grumbled. “Give her a kick in the posterior if you see her.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cloudy was silent for another long stretch while Rosemary watched her watching her. “What do you want to do? With the war, I mean. Rosewater’s right that you don’t need to pretend anymore, you know. You can denounce Roseate and seek asylum here. Roseate can make a fuss and annoy Rosewater, but she can’t keep her from coming here.”

It was tempting. To let go of her now self-imposed imprisonment and be free again. Unable to visit her friends again, but she couldn’t do that now. And having them visit her had dangers all on its own. Namely that their journeys might be entirely one-way.

There was too much she didn’t know and too much she feared would come to pass.

So much she hoped would come to pass. Some of which already had.

But at what cost? Cloudy’s future with Collar was… questionable. Hers was, too, but she couldn’t truly call what she’d wanted with Collar a plausible future. Not knowing what she knew now.

The important thing…

“The important thing,” Rosemary said, voicing her thoughts finally, “is making sure that I wait until Rosewater is pregnant at the least. Then, no matter what happens, Roseate can’t deny her the right to see the father of her child.”

“Reasonable…” Cloudy sighed and shook her head. “But we don’t know how long that will take. She admitted as much and I wager she knows more about her cycle than you do.”

“Probably,” Rosemary said with a sigh. “A month at most? I’ve been cooped up here for two. I can wait another.”

“Glory’s been here for three months. I don’t know how she stays sane.”

“Hate is a strong motivator,” Rosemary murmured, glancing at the wall towards Glory’s suite. “And she’s had Poppy since day one.”

“And you’ve had me.”

That was true. “I… I do hate Roseate. For what she’s done. But hate has never been a strong motivator for me. Love…” She’d done a lot for love, and to protect those she loved. She’d even given up Cloudy to protect her mother. Long ago, she’d realized that if she had fled, Rosewater would be given the impossible choice of recapturing her and bringing her back for ‘justice’ or abdicating her position and joining Rosemary. It had been, for her, an almost impossible choice.

But she’d never talked to Rosewater about the choice she’d made. It was hers, and if Rosewater knew about it, then she’d kept it to herself. She did know that afterwards, Rosewater had been an especially attentive mother in private, but had closed herself off even more from the outside world.

“I love you,” Cloudy said into the long, tense silence. She turned in place and met Rosemary with a light kiss and a nudge nose to nose. “I wish I had stayed. They had nothing they could have accused me of legally.”

“She’d have had three witnesses saying you denounced her to a group of ponies who would all say they agreed out of fear.” Rosemary nudged back. “You did the right thing, Cloudy.”

“Yeah.” Cloudy puffed up her cheeks as if getting ready to argue further, so Rosemary nipped her nose, making her deflate and laugh. “What was that for?”

“This is about the future. Our future, Cloudy.”

“Short term future, sure,” Cloudy replied, persisting. “Which is predicated on the past.”

“That we can’t change.” Rosemary nuzzled her lover again. “We can only learn from it. And one thing I learned is that I shouldn’t wait. It took me a while to figure out what I shouldn’t wait for. I thought it was romance with Collar. But it’s not.”

Cloudy searched her eyes for a long moment, but said nothing.

“It’s with you. I know I’m too young to ask, but I want you to think about it.” Rosemary set a hoof against Cloudy’s chest lightly and leaned in to kiss her lightly on the lips. “I want us to tell the world we’re committed to each other.”

Cloudy kissed her lips lightly. “Just us?”

Rosemary met her eyes briefly, searching for answers, and who Cloudy might be interested in. After a moment’s thought and putting together a few memories, she asked, “Sunrise?”

“And… maybe Platinum. They’re both mare-attracted. Sunrise is even more exclusive than I am, but Platinum is about as bisexual as you are.” Cloudy rolled a shoulder. “They’re in a relationship now and keeping it quiet, but both are at least sympathetic to our way of loving.”

“And,” Rosemary added, “there’s nothing saying that once the laws regarding bastardry in Damme are repealed, you can’t have Collar’s child under contracted pairing.” She flattened her ears and shrugged. “Or we can all migrate to Merrie after mom becomes the new Baroness and live our best life there. I’m sure there are still ponies there that would love to reconnect with you.”

“A few sent letters,” Cloudy said noncommittally. “Mostly wishing me well. I couldn’t send anything back. I still can’t. I can’t risk Rosewater being seen with my known lovers and friends lest they be targeted or she be accused of… something.”

“Having friends.” Rosemary rolled her eyes. “But what do you think? I like Sunrise, and while we’ve really only had kissing friend moments before she and Platinum got together, I think she might be interested, and I know Platinum is. I think I helped open her eyes… well.”

The mare had been a beauty sprawled on her bed, stomach heaving as she drew deep, frantic breaths after coming twice in as many minutes from Rosemary’s ministrations, her silver hair and gray coat doing little to hide the flush of cheek, belly, and nethers as she came down from the coital high.

And no hint of guilt in that look as Platinum met her eyes and used a spell to pull her closer to clean her muzzle with light kisses, licks, and not a little nuzzling as they settled in together.

Their talk afterwards, riding the afterglow of their joint venture, had ranged far and wide, from the mundane bit of trivia about the books in Rosemary’s room that were prominently displayed as conversation pieces for her visitors to ask her about, to more deep philosophical ideas that touched on the idea of having more than one lover, Rosemary’s relationship with Cloudy and bits and pieces of Platinum’s dabblings and flings with other guards and especially with Cloudy and all the ‘rumors’ going on about Cloudy’s promiscuity and the mares had had ‘affairs’ with her.

Maybe it was time to talk to her about bringing Sunrise into their little on-again-off-again brief flings. It would be a rebellion against her family, though, just like Rosewater was rebelling against hers. Except… Stride was also rebelling. In small ways that she’d seen here and there.

Talking to her. Listening to her, and befriending her against the normal teachings of the Primfeather clan. His sister was even more rebellious, having been her lover once, years ago, when they had both been exploring what it meant to be an adult in anonymous, frank sex.

Her own first rebellion against Roseate, in fact, making love to a mare from the family responsible for more than one intense, localized winter storm over the last decade.

The current storm might be more intense, in fact, simply because the Primfeathers delighted in pushing storm seed clouds into the airstreams that led back to Merrie.

That sometimes they also expanded to engulf Damme as well didn’t seem to bother them.

“I think,” Cloudy said after a long span of her own ruminating, “that I would very much like to bring them into our conspiracy of love.”

“Then, while Collar and Rosewater make sure we have a peaceful future, let’s make plans to take advantage of that future,” Rosemary said gently, a fervent light filling her thoughts and pushing back the worry over Collar’s response to her advances and her dreams. “Starting with us and how we can make sure that ponies here see us as… not threatening.”

Cloudy snorted, but didn’t argue.

“I think, tomorrow,” Rosemary said cautiously, “that we should be seen together outside the palace.”

It was cold by the window facing the storm, but Silk needed the cold then to keep her nerves from sending her into a breakdown. Something about the minute leak of cold wind every time the windows sagged inwards from the force of the wind calmed her on a level she was sure went all the way back to when her long-distant ancestors called the mountains their home.

Things were moving too quickly. Rosary was on the edge of rebellion, Vine was clearly falling in love with Dazzle, and he seemed to share the same kind of intense look throughout the dinner they’d had in order to get something in them to keep them from hangovers. Rosewater was doing… whatever she was doing, but seemed intent on making Roseate explode on pure outrage alone.

In the grand scheme of things, Dazzle and Vine starting a relationship was hardly the huge thing her mind seemed intent on making it, but it was one feather extra atop a mountainous load of worries.

Just that night, it was one feather too many.

Tomorrow, the load wouldn’t be less, but she would adjust.

Tonight…

The wind howled, fighting against the triple-latches holding the window closed against its fury and not for the first time, Silk pondered closing the storm shutters again. But the cold wind leaking through in a piercing whistle cooled her coat and ruffled her mane while the sound pushed back the whirling thoughts and worries centering around ‘How do I deal with this?’

Making plans now wasn’t the best of ideas, she knew, but the deeper part of her was still trying to. The plans the noisy part of her mind was trying to come up with included running away with Vine and just giving in to her desire somewhere nopony knew they were sisters.

After a time, maybe they would forget it, too. Just live as two mares who’d—

Stop it.

That wasn’t feasible. As much as trade was spreading there was no place they could flee that their history wouldn’t catch up eventually.

You’d live in fear that everypony already knows.

That seemed to quiet that particular part of her mind for the nonce, allowing her to worry about Vine leaving her forever and never seeing her beloved sister ever again.

A brief spate of jealousy towards Dazzle flared up inside her, quashed quickly with the reminder that Vine would no more leave her than the sun would go dark in the middle of the day.

Which circled back around to running away together.

Why not just throw open the window?

Or just open it a crack and let the cold frost her nose and eyelashes and cool the fears and madness trying to seep in through the cracks in her psyche.

How did Rosary handle it for so long?

She didn’t know.

And neither could she open the window, lest the papers she’d been working on get scattered to Tartarus and gone. She had too many dress designs from clients attached to their folios and preferences and her notes from their chats about what they wanted to make that kind of mistake.

Even the little bit of wind was ruffling the record she’d kept of creating Rosewater’s gala dress.

She couldn’t remember why she’d pulled out the notes, all of them false narratives tailored to look real and match the outcome of the dress itself. But here and there, she saw in them the real conversation she’d had with Rosewater that had shaped her desired dress.

It was the start of her own complicity in the rising rebellion against their mother.

No. Not quite. The first had been not facing down Rosewater on that ill-fated and ill-timed raid on Collar, offering ‘aid’ to the ‘enemy’.

“Stars, that feels like it was years ago,” she told the howling wind, tasting and smelling the mingled winter chill and smoky accents of dozens of chimneys with their fires. Yet even then, there had been the smoky accents in the air that said ponies were using their hearths for more than meals, leaving them to burn into the cooling nights.

Downstairs, their own hearth had been banked to flickering flames and coals, and the radiant heat from the slow-dying embers reached even here, though barely felt.

The only light came from the lone unicorn lamp outside on the street, the once-steady light relegated to the flickering uncertainty of flame by the cascading sheets of sleet and snow flying by and clinging to the frosted glass, then flowing away in the next gust.

It made the light more liquid and ephemeral look that cast strange shadows in her office. Those shapes helped distract her mind from trying to find a way out of the trap it was sure she was running into.

The trap of Roseate revealing her tryst with her sister so long ago and branding them as incestuous lovers.

“Running away with her isn’t going to solve that problem,” Silk told the window with a sigh, “so please stop trying to consider it.”

“It wouldn’t help.” Vine’s voice behind her startled her into a yelp. “It would be bliss for a few months at most. Then we’d need to run, and run, and keep running until there was nopony at all around us that could out us. Which means no ponies at all.”

“Stars, Vine.” She whirled to find her sister standing alone in the doorway, the darkness of the hallway behind her echoing the darker thoughts in her mind. She pushed them aside and pulled a pillow from a pile laying in the corner for guests and patrons. “What are you doing up?”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, Silk. I think, sometimes, that it would be worth it. Then I think about all of our friends, the loves we’d be leaving behind. The chance at a normal life.”

Silk didn’t want to think about it. But some part of her mind wanted to. “I’ve thought it might be worth it, too. Overland instead of by sea. Just disappear one night. Tell nopony.”

Vine came closer, her eyes deep and dark pink in the flickering liquid light, her beautiful coat and mane mussed from sleeping oddly.

She gave into impulse and kissed her on the lips, something she hadn’t done in months. And immediately hated herself for it.

Vine’s surprised squeak banished the momentary lust for a life with her as her lover, reminding her why.

But she still said it, “We could do it. Everypony will be stocking up for winter, so buying long-lasting supplies and warm clothes wouldn’t look amiss. Even buying a pair of sleds and firewood and—”

“And a tent,” Vine added when Silk broke off, her tongue cloven to the roof of her mouth. “How would you explain that as a ‘normal’ purchase?”

“Yeah.” Silk slumped back and looked away from the desire in Vine’s eyes. She wanted to do it, she wanted the kiss to happen again, and she didn’t. Neither of them wanted to want it. “So there’s no way to do it, unless we steal a tent from the Dammeguard.”

“We—”

“Can’t.”

Vine huffed. “I know. We can still be together. Just not… you know. Sexually. Dazzle knows about us, and he likes me. I’m sure he’d grow to like you, too. The three of us, together, perhaps?”

That laid to silence the voice trying to say Vine was going to leave her all alone.

It was a stupid voice in the first place.

“Yeah?” Silk forced her ears to perk up. “Did he say that?”

“Not… yet. But he’s intrigued by you. Cautiously, at least.” Vine leaned in closer, raising a hoof to cover her mouth conspiratorially. “He thinks you’re pretty.”

Silk snorted. “That’s something, at least. A start.”

Dazzle lay awake listening to the storm. It would be his first full winter in Merrie, his first having been halfway through after a particularly bad argument with his parents and brother, hardline Damme traditionalists that they were.

The fact that he was here and not at the Garden weathering the storm with his already established lovers said something, didn’t it? That first night in the garden had been terrifying, liberating, and vindicating. He’d cast aside family, profession, and home to live there, and it had been everything he’d wanted. Everything that he’d dreamed it would be.

A summer of light duty after a sprain had given him plenty of chances to talk to his counterparts across the river resolving tariff disputes and the—very occasional—lunch shared with a lieutenant or sergeant from Merrie to discuss a particularly thorny issue or to commiserate on the intractability of traders trying to skirt tariff laws with the strangest and stupidest of excuses.

This was the home of ponies he’d thought, even after joining the small independent village centered around the vineyard and the villa of old style Rosethorns and Rosewines, were enemies.

But they’re not. They’re as much victims as anypony they captured for ransom.

Vine’s story hadn’t sickened him as she’d so clearly feared. He’d learned enough about the hardships that families had when raising multiple children in an openly sexual environment. With proper education and parental involvement, such things could be avoided. Without…

Dazzle breathed out and rolled over to his other side, watching the window on the other side of the room rattle and shudder. Here on the second floor, the heat rising from the fireplace down below and the heat from the stones of the chimney at the edge of the room radiating out as the smoke and heat rose from the fireplace just downstairs stayed trapped in the well-insulated rafters.

Notably, it did not linger around the floorboards and with every fresh howl that let a leak of wind through the windows, what warmth there was around the base of the bed fled.

Only the thick and piled blankets kept the cold at bay.

He would have much preferred a more natural means of generating warmth. Trying a cuddle with Vine would have been nice. She was small enough that she could tuck her head under his and not scrunch her neck.

Silk was taller by several hooves, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Dazzle himself.

Unbidden, the thought of them laying together like he wished with Vine wormed its way through his mind. They likely did on colder nights than this, when a heavy pair of blankets was not enough to hold back the cold.

He tried not to imagine that they might desire more than merest warmth from one another.

But Vine had asked for help with divesting herself of her attraction to her sister.

And just how am I going to do that? He didn’t know the first thing about Silk aside from her prowess with all things woven and sewn, both as a tailor and as a fighter.

She’s prickly. That was one thing he knew about her. And she’d protect Vine with her life.

That Vine was the softer of the pair was clear, but no less strong of will than her older, fiercer sister. That she’d stayed mostly sane through the horrors of working under the threat of exposure for a foalish mistake years ago was a sign of her strength of mind and will.

He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep in the warm embrace of the blankets and ignore the cold.

“He does not.” Silk’s voice filtered down the hallway.

“He does!” Vine’s muffled voice, light with laughter, made his ears perk up more.

“He told you?”

Are they talking about me? Dazzle resisted the urge to amplify the sounds of their voices through a spell for all of five seconds.

He was nowhere near as proficient as even Poppy with the spell, but he could manage crude eavesdropping if the target was particularly close, boisterous, or stupid.

“He didn’t say it,” Vine said, her voice full of the sound of the wind outside as well, making it harder to hear what she was saying. But she’d dropped her voice so when he released the spell, all he could hear was a faint murmur. “…looks at you. You can tell he’s at least appreciative. If you weren’t so stuck in the mud, you’d have seen it, too.”

“Well, forgive me for worrying about why Rosary wanted me to offload her daughter on—”

Silk’s voice cut off, and Dazzle felt a sudden pang of guilt and worry. It wasn’t the sudden, sharp cut of a spell being erected, but the sound of a pony realizing she was saying something she shouldn’t.

He imagined she was used to being able to speak her mind during storms. Not even Note could penetrate the howling storm unless he had his ear pressed against the wall. This was their haven, home, and even if Rosetail was technically living here, he doubted they’d had enough to time fully adjust to her living with them.

“Is he asleep?”

“I doubt it,” Vine said, her voice coming closer. “Who can sleep in an unfamiliar bed with a storm howling outside?”

“I don’t know. Rosewater, obviously.”

“Crown, too. She’s hardier than anypony thinks. Why would the bookworm be familiar with camping and living out of doors?” Vine snorted. “Dazzle might be a guard, but I don’t think he’s ever been on a long patrol.”

She’s right. Dazzle had always been a city pony, and the few times he’d stood guard at night, it was always in the city with a barracks bed waiting for him at the end of it. The Long Patrol guard platoon was a special set of ponies that actually enjoyed roughing it, even if they did spend every night they could in the Dammehollow inn on their way back.

“Has she told you who her lover is?”

“Who else would it be?” Silk snorted. “She has one interest aside from her shop, and that’s also contained in her shop. The only question is, which of her various Damme patrons it is.”

Dazzle debated pretending to be asleep even as they talked about their sister’s love life, but decided in the end that honesty and the hope that it would endear them to him for the warning. “I am awake,” he called out.

“He’s honest, at least,” Silk said with a snort, and her hoofsteps came closer, louder, then tapped against his door. “Are you awake and pleasing yourself to my sister, or trying to dream of her?”

“The latter.” Dazzle rolled to his belly and covered himself more fully with the blanket rather than getting up to greet them. It was still chillier than he’d become accustomed to. “Both of your sisters, actually.”

“Truly?” Silk opened the door and slipped in, leaving it open for Vine to follow her in. “You were Rosewater’s lover?”

Dazzle hesitated before answering, studying each mare in turn. They were younger than Rosewater by some years, closer to his age than he was to hers, but showed all the characteristic signs of a Rosethorn adult; muzzle slashes brighter red than Rosewaters deep crimson, pink eyes that glittered with other colors in their depths—silver for Silk and green for Vine.

And those eyes were studying him in turn, neither judging nor expecting. Vine seemed more honestly curious than Silk, though, who seemed to know already. Likely that revealing of secrets in the hallway was a test of his trustworthiness, and he’d passed. Maybe.

Is this a test or do they want to know how I’ll respond?

He swallowed. “For a while, I thought I was in love with her. My heart certainly wished I was, at any rate. But I think it was partly lust, partly affection, but not capital L love. Not like you have for your sister.” He smiled wanly. “I’m still new to the idea that love, lust, affection, friendship, and sex aren’t inextricably bound together for two ponies.”

Vine was bobbing her head enthusiastically, her beaming smile tugging at his heart even more. She was so earnest. More so than Rosewater. But she was also younger, and not scalded by the world as much.

Silk rolled a shoulder. “It takes time. Are you interested in pursuing my sister for a courtship?”

“Not in the Damme sense. Not as one alone, at least. I don’t like the idea of demanding monogamy,” Dazzle flicked a look to Vine to make sure that didn’t unsettle her. “But if she’s open to it, I would like to treat her to a very Dammeish courtship.”

“I would like that,” Vine said almost immediately. “Both Silk and I have our own separate coteries of occasional lovers, and I wouldn’t mind you mingling with them if you would like to. They can tell you all sorts of things about us that we might not think are important.” She hesitated, then, and glanced at Silk before rushing ahead, “And I would like to get to know your lovers in turn.”

Dazzle raised his muzzle briefly as if considering, then nodded sharply. “Of course. After our lunch date? I can take you to the garden to meet ponies.”

“It’s a double-date, then,” Vine said with a grin and a twinkle in her eyes. “Is that what they call it in Damme? Two dates at once?”

“Scamp, you know it’s not,” Silk said with a snort, and backed out of the door. “I’m going to bed before you infect me with silliness, Vine. Sleep well.”

Dazzle watched as a transformation came over Vine when the door closed behind her sister, some of the giddiness fading away, replaced by both uncertainty and a lower burning excitement in the set of her ears and the way she bit her lip.

“She gives you confidence,” Dazzle said gently.

“When she’s around, I feel like I can do anything.” Vine pulled her eyes away from the door and glanced at him, then focused on him with a flick of her ears. “I love that and hate it. I want to feel like I can do anything by myself without her. I don’t want her to feel like she needs to help me. I don’t want her to resent me.”

“I don’t think she does. Or would. She—”

“Has her own lovers. Will someday have her own children who look to her for help, and I don’t want to be that weird aunt who keeps nothing but flowers and can barely function.” Vine shook her head and stood up to come closer, hesitating, then firming jaw as she came to sit beside his bed.

It hadn’t passed Dazzle’s notice that Silk’s hoofsteps had stopped only after a few steps. Either her bedroom was on the other side of the wall, or she was listening in.

“You approached me on your own,” Dazzle said gently, pushing himself up further and letting the blankets slide back. Colder air pushed its way into his warm space. “You told me about yourselves on your own. Don’t put yourself into a weaker position than you are.”

She came closer, finally settling at the foot of the bed and crossed her forelegs on the mattress just a few inches from his. “I had this idealized image of you built up in my head, hearing about you from rumor and my own fancies. That you and Rosewater were so deeply in love after… what was it, a week?” She snorted. “And I fell in love with that idealized version of you and my sister starting a family.”

“You’re a romantic.” Dazzle chuckled and bent slightly to kiss the tip of her horn. “I can appreciate that. I suppose I am, too.” He started to go on, but he pushed Rosewater from his mind. She was on her own journey, and it wasn’t one he wanted to pursue, or wait for it to come back around. Days and weeks since her gentle rejection had softened the blow, but his heart still panged oddly when he thought about what might have been. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

“No.” Vine looked up at him. Then, tentatively, she sat up straighter, licked her lips, and then started to sit back down, her ears flat.

“May I?”

“Yes,” Vine blurted, then flushed and started to pull away, stopping Dazzle, then she reversed course and pressed her lips to his. It was brief, dry, and as chaste as any kiss he’d given to a mare in Damme, but her lips were soft and warm, and her eyes were alight with a spark of confused joy that sent a tingle of want pulsing through him.

“Thank you,” Dazzle murmured against her cheek when she parted. “Sleep well, Vine. I’m looking forward to our date tomorrow.”

Book 3, 13: Morning After

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Warmth basted Rosewater’s back while chill kissed her belly even under the covers. The familiar dichotomy of morning sensations when sleeping with a lover, but in reverse. It wasn’t often that she was the smallest step in the lovers ladder. Only one other pony had been able to be her big step.

It was remarkably cozy, despite the belly shivers as she woke to the sensation. Having her back warm made her realize just how much she enjoyed sitting with her back to a fireplace. An odd thing to think with Collar’s sheath pressed rather firmly against the raise of her tail.

Morning brain. She grinned lazily and used a spell to pull the curtain on the window slightly out of jar to get a gauge of how far along the day was.

White turned gray by the imminent sunrise spread out from her thin view out into the world. Sloped roofs held onto their snowy treasures by happenstance, the leeward side of them carrying more and thicker drifts than the downwind side, with thin streaks of snow stretching from roof decorations and crenelations in sharp spines, making those roofs look like closing traps.

On their own sill, a glint of white frost decorated the bottom edge, sparkling even as the exposure to the warmer air of their room began to melt it.

A foreleg stretched over her barrel, and Collar’s other pushed against her back as he flexed and yawned against her neck and into her mane. “‘Orning,” he mumbled.

Rosewater yawned and stretched all four legs out, catching the comforter beneath them and dragging it off of them entirely by accident—or so she told him with a teasing grin after he stopped cursing the cold.

He didn’t buy it for a second. “You just wanted all of my warmth when you’ve already got your own.”

“I confess,” Rosewater murmured graciously and rolled to her belly to ply his muzzle with a series of light kisses and nibbles. “There was so much warmth inside me last night that I desired more without as well.”

“Greedy,” Collar said with a laugh, then his expression changed, turning pensive and worried. “Do… you think?” He raised his head and studied her flank intently for several seconds, ears flat as if by the simple act of staring he could tell if she were pregnant.

“Far too early to tell,” Rosewater replied, shaking her head. “But cycles are often invisible to the outside, and as messy as my mind is right now, I’m having a hard time telling if my hormones are to blame or simply my situation.”

“Laying in bed with a lover, trying desperately to get pregnant to stave off a civil war?”

“That, yes,” Rosewater muttered. “Can you not put it like that?”

“Trying to have a child with the stallion you are madly in love with to start a new dynasty based on peace and cooperative prosperity,” Collar said in a lofty tone that belied the worry in his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want to stop making love to you, Rosewater. Nowhere near that. I want to know as soon as possible so we can bring you here where it’s safe for you.”

“And I want…” She couldn’t admit that she wanted the same, because she didn’t. The moment she crossed that bridge with the intent to rebel against her mother, there would be a civil war. She wanted her mother to abdicate peacefully as soon as she knew Rosewater was with an heir to her legacy. She wanted the cities to unite on the promise of her heir alone. All nothing but pleasant dreams next to the cold reality of neighbors at odds with each other.

But she could voice those dreams, and did, and Collar listened quietly, stroking her flank with a hoof all the while.

“I love you,” Collar told her at the end. “And I will be there for you. So will Rosemary and Cloudy for that matter, and my parents. And all of Damme, once they know you as I’ve come to know you.”

Despite the gravity of her feelings, she smirked and glanced down at his loins.

“Almost as well as I’ve come to know you,” Collar amended with a roll of his eyes. “Now the real question is… dessert before or after breakfast?”

There really wasn’t any question in her mind. “After. A parting gift from you to me.” And a scent mark on her flanks that would tell anypony with more scent skill than a Merrie foal that she was rutting with a stallion. It was risky, but she needed to get the idea out there sooner than she was actually pregnant so the idea wasn’t as shocking to the public.

He nodded slowly, lips pursed as he likely worked through the same political calculus. “It’s a risk.”

“One I have to take. My ponies deserve to know that I’m not idly sitting by and let my sister take the throne after my mother.” Rosary had a reputation for coldness that their mother lacked. Roseate was a wildfire, seemingly as unable to control her impulses as a forest fire, and Rosary was an icicle, sharp and sharply contained, but no less dangerous should her ire be focused. “I need to open up to my ponies, Collar, and I plan on taking my entourage on a tour around the town, helping clean up after the storm in small ways. Heat spells, breaking icicles off, and the like.”

He grimaced but nodded and kissed her once more before sliding from the bed to stretch and tap his hooves on the cold floor. “Then bathing time first, and then breakfast. I’ll not have my wife smelling of hours old sex and lust while working up a sweat.”

“My thanks. My nose might not forgive me otherwise.”

Rosemary blew out a breath and set a hoof to the door, focusing her attention on what she needed to say instead of worrying about what they would tell her. She could hear them and smell them on the other side, freshly clean and only a hint of their last night’s escapades lingering on the undertones of their scent.

“I’m here,” Cloudy whispered in her ear.

With a nod, sharp and jerky, she lowered her hoof and pulled the door open to find Collar and Rosewater standing at the balcony railing looking out over the lower floor and the muffled rush of ponies going about the morning’s business.

Collar occasionally lifted his head to a pony below, and whispered their name to Rosewater.

“Good morning,” Rosemary called out.

Rosewater flicked an ear and stepped back from the railing, smiling to her with all the love she’d ever shown her. “Good morning, you two.”

“Mother, I have to say something,” Rosemary said in as clear a voice as she could manage. “To you too, Collar,” she added when he started to step away to give them privacy.

A moment later, a double-layered silence spell sprang up, pink and silver clashing for a moment before they glanced at each other, touched horns, and let their magic bleed together into one cohesive shell of silver etched with regular bands of pink.

That they did it seemingly without effort spoke to their skill as mages, not only as innate users of unicorn magic.

“I, uh…” Momentarily distracted, Rosemary lost her train of thought.

“Our relationship,” Cloudy whispered helpfully, a grin audible in her voice.

“Right, right.” Confidence and composure shaken, she pulled back together the threads of her scattered thoughts and faced Collar first. “I apologize, Collar, for making you uncomfortable with my advances. It was not my intent to make you feel pressured.”

He nodded solemnly, bowing his head for a moment and making Rosemary’s heart skip a beat at the seriousness of his bearing. “It is a recent thing that I felt uncomfortable,” Collar said slowly. “Before I married your mother, it hadn’t hit me yet that you would be my daughter-in-law. Things moved swiftly, and I am not quite so fast to adapt as events moved. You have no need to feel as if you did wrong.”

And I still do, because I should have realized it right away. “I… was fixated, Collar. I shouldn’t get so fixated on a lover I lose sight of the larger picture. You’re my father-in-law now, and I will never stop loving you for what you’ve done for us. But I understand that what I had hoped would be between us is…” Rosemary swallowed. “Too far. For either of our cultures.”

“It is, and I will never stop loving you for being a bright star in this gloomy war, and for helping your mother cope with all she has been through.” Collar stepped forward and nuzzled her cheek. “But please don’t call me dad. I’m too young to have a daughter as old as you.”

Rosemary smirked, and before he could amend his statement, she said, “Yes, father.”

Rosewater giggled and nipped his neck for her so she didn’t have to. “You walked into that one, my dear.”

“I did.” Collar sighed and glanced down the hallway in either direction. “Don’t you dare tell Dapper—or Lace! I’ll not ever live it down and I’ll have to stage a coup just to get him to stop teasing me.”

“I won’t tell him,” Rosemary promised, forcing herself not to meet Rosewater’s eyes and keep them locked on him, as much seriousness in her posture and set of her ears as she could manage.

“She’s good,” Cloudy said in an awed tone beside her. “I can’t tell that she’s blatantly lying at all.”

Relief flooded through her. They were still joking and teasing with her even after all the fraught come-ons and ignoring the warning signs Rosemary had missed for the two weeks since the wedding. Letting go of Collar was going to take time, though, and she still wished things were simpler and they could be together, but that should fade with time.

She hoped.

“I’m hungry,” Cloudy said, rustling her wings. “I was up all night helping Rosemary calm down, because I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem.”

“I didn’t! And… I’d never want to treat a mistake like that as a non-issue,” Rosemary protested, putting as much earnest feeling into her words as she could manage. “I don’t want to be anything like my aunt.”

“You won’t be,” Collar said gently, letting his part of the spell fade, and looking up, surprised, when the silence bubble remained for another few seconds before Rosewater let go of her side of the spell, the mixed magic still taking a few more seconds to dissipate. “Interesting. I’ve not done too many magic melding spells, or practiced it much beyond the basics, but that seems odd.”

“You’re both powerful unicorns,” Rosemary said.

“They are,” Lace said from her left, coming up the stairs with her husband. “I felt the melding and came to investigate. It takes trust and skill in equal measures to so perfectly meld two spells of similar purpose together. Every generation has some ponies that can do so, but they tend to be not so skilled and steeped in magical ability as you two, and most powerful unicorn mages hoard their secrets like dragons hoard their treasures.”

“Were you able to?” Collar asked, glancing from his mother to Rosewater and back again.

“Once, though I lost that pony’s trust when I married your father. My father is long gone now, for the good of all, I must sadly say. It is my hope that you two will bring in a new era of cooperation, and we might see works of magic unseen since before the Battle of Two Nights.”

Rosemary glanced at Cloudy, then at her wings. “Can… unicorns and pegasi mix magics?”

Lace pursed her lips, seemed like she was about to shake her head, then cocked it and shook it. “I don’t know, Rosemary. There have been attempts to emulate Celestia’s power, of course, but none have succeeded to my knowledge.”

“I can’t imagine a goddess would take kindly to having her power usurped,” Collar said dryly.

“Indeed not. Some rumors say that is the cause of the battle, but…” Lace stomped a hind hoof. “History lessons can wait. I can practically hear your stomach growling, Rosemary. Our overnight staff is almost ready with breakfast, I believe.”

“Excuse me, but my stomach is perfectly polite and would not growl,” Rosemary said with a sniff. “Mother’s stomach, especially after such a vigorous workout last night, on the other hoof…” She glanced at her mother expectantly, brow raised.

When nothing happened, Collar coughed into his hoof and started off down the stairs, a silver glow around his horn winking out after a moment.

“Did you silence her stomach?” Rosemary demanded.

“A friend doesn’t tell,” Collar called over his shoulder.

Rosewater chuckled and leaned in close as she passed Rosemary. “They’re making savory oats with a side of fresh caught spiced salmon pastry.”

Rosemary opened her mouth to tell her it wouldn’t work when her stomach interrupted her with a loud, borderline angry growl.

Before she could do so much as growl at her, Rosewater and Cloudy laughed and bounded ahead to escape Rosemary’s nipping bites as she chased after them.

Stars, it felt good to have her family here. Together and unafraid of showing affection.

“What’s the plan for today?”

Collar looked up from finishing off his breakfast at Rosemary’s question. She was clearly hoping that today would be the day she got to go outside with an escort. Which might not be a terrible idea, considering most of the attention would be on Rosewater’s visit and its aftermath, but more attention would likely fall on her because of Rosewater’s visit.

He doubted too many ponies in the city had truly understood that Rosewater had stayed the night, but they would when he escorted her to the Rosewine bridge.

“Well… I wish you could go all the way to see your mother off, but you’ll have to settle for seeing her to the edge of the castle grounds,” Collar said, sparing his mother a brief glance, but taking the lead. “Platinum should be available to act as an escort for you if you want to stay out for an hour or so.”

Rosemary’s brows perked up. “Platinum? Really, you’ll let me go with her even after—” She stopped short, flashing a worried look at Lace.

“You had sex the night Collar and I had our time together?” Cloudy asked with an arched brow. “I don’t see why not. You don’t want to leave right now, either.”

Collar nodded, his cheeks warming faintly as his mother gave him a curious look. “She asked to be part of your escort pool. As did Sunrise, but, ah… political considerations mean we need to limit her involvement for now.”

“I did not just hear a guard lieutenant admit that one of her subordinates had sex with a prisoner,” Lace muttered. “By the stars, you are going to drive me batty worrying about violations of protocol.”

“If it helps,” Rosemary said meekly, “I’m the one who started it. For a friend.”

“Swear you’re going to give me a heart attack,” Lace grumbled under her breath and Dapper patted her lightly on the flank.

“Anyway,” Rosemary said brightly, sitting up straighter as if she hadn’t just admitted to sexual relations with a guard, even if that guard was more of a friend who visited her regularly and frequently. “So. I understand that Sunrise’s family doesn’t like mine very much at all, or at all at all. But I really would like to see about getting an exception to those rules so Cloudy and I can offer to go on dates with them on the palace grounds. Picnic before it gets too cold and windy, maybe making snowponies and decorating the trees for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Have sex with them without consequences,” Collar murmured under his breath, loud enough for his mother to hear.

“I mean, that should be understood,” Rosemary said diffidently and with a sharp sniff. Then she glanced across him to her mother. “Shouldn’t it?”

Rosewater tried, and failed to hold back a giggle. “Sweetie, you need to be very clear with Dammers about what you intend to do. For example. Collar, the next time we meet, I want to be on my side with my hind leg up against your chest and—”

“Oh my stars!” Lace cried while Dapper cackled and slapped his hoof against the cushion of his chair. “You just enjoy seeing me blush. That’s it, isn’t it? Well perhaps I will invest in some rouge and you can enjoy it whenever!”

“Collar, dear,” Rosewater said through a mask of mirth, “I think we ought to call a truce with your mother, elsewise we might find ourselves in need of tactical retreat without a pony to back us up.”

“Yes!” Lace cried, raising a hoof high in the air. “A truce! Please?”

“Terms?” Collar asked as he lifted the last of his salmon pastry to his mouth.

“Layered mint cake?” Lace offered, raising a brow. “For your eventual pregnancy announcement?”

“I dunno…” Collar mused, glancing at his wife. “Rosewater, I think—”

“Deal!” Rosewater blurted. “With silverthrush mint and a strawberry frosting? It’s damnably hard to get a decent stock in Merrie.”

Lace bobbed her head side-to-side, considering. “Done. It may have to wait until Spring, my dear. Silverthrush only grows in the Silver Mountains across the continent.”

After breakfast was wrapped up and Collar stood with Rosewater in the entry hallway to the palace, letting ponies from the staff and ponies coming into the palace with deliveries and messages see them huddling close and sharing nips and whispers and light kisses.

Collar was soundly resolved to enjoy his ability to show open affection towards his love for the few hours before word got back to Wing and all of Tartarus descended upon his head in a nagging scatter of pestering remarks from all of the allies he could pull out of their winter hiding holes on short notice.

There would probably be shouting.

He let the thoughts sweep away as Rosewater offered him an opportunity for another kiss, and instead of letting it be a short, sweet kiss like the rest, shifted and deepened the kiss, much to her surprise, and then delight as she closed her eyes and savored it.

When it passed, a flush crawled up his neck and he leaned in to cross his horn with hers, letting a trickle of magic flow from him to her, a gesture of intimacy and trust.

Sensations flowed back to him, a trickle at first, but then a steady stream, unnerving and foreign emotions of longing, deep enough to make his stomach tremble as if he stood over a pit, satisfaction that flowed through him like a syrupy sweet and thick warmth, languid and humming through his body, making him want to sink deeper into it. Suffusing the entire flow was a warm glow he could only describe as pink. Softer than vital red, more all-encompassing and accepting.

Love, he realized after a long moment of letting his attention focus solely on that color and what it meant.

The more he explored, the more he found. Minute trickles of other emotions, threads of what might be thought. Incredibly complex and shifting from moment to moment like a whirlwind of color through his mind.

After what could have only been a few seconds, but felt like an hour swirling in her emotional state, she cut off the flow of magic, but kept her horn resting against his.

She bit her lip, eyes locked on his, waiting.

What can I even say?

“I… had no idea emotions had colors,” he whispered.

“Fear is a deep purple,” Rosewater replied softly.

It took him only a moment to take her meaning. The first time she’d saved him from Roseate, her magic had been a sickly, greasy purple. Tangible fear.

“I didn’t feel any fear from you.”

“I’m not afraid of you. I don’t want to be.” Rosewater kissed his nose lightly. “Here, I feel safe. But going back to Merrie… I’m not afraid, but I am worried. Anxious. But it needs to be done.”

“It does. I wish I could go with you.”

“Someday. Perhaps soon.” She gave him a bright smile as she backed away. “Maybe…”

‘Maybe I’m already pregnant.’ Neither of them needed to say it, but he still wanted to.

“I hope,” he whispered.

“Me too.”

They gave up the kissing game and instead waited quietly, leaning against each other while they waited for Platinum to arrive and for a little more of the ice and snow to melt as the sun rose behind the clouds still streaming by outside.

It was remarkably calming, Collar found, simply standing still for a while watching the rest of the palace move around them and know he didn’t need to move from his wife’s side until for at least a few minutes.

Cold winds swirled around Rosewater’s mane as she stopped at the edge of the palace ground’s grassy pathways, only the shallowly sloped curb of gravel separating her from the main road following the path the old fortress walls had followed, studying the ponies streaming by as they studied her in turn and then hurried onwards. It was her, she was certain that they hurried away from.

Lace and Dapper stood beside her, Platinum and Rosemary on her other side, and Collar spoke to a patrol of Dammeguard that had diverted to offer additional protection to their procession.

“I wish I could go all the way to the bridge with you,” Rosemary said, raising her head, her mane streaming out, unbound and catching the dappled light flickering across the land as the low clouds scudded by quickly in increasingly thin cover. “I want to see the city again, talk to ponies outside the palace, and feel…” She tossed her head and her mane flicked in a wave of golden light. “This. Freedom.”

“It won’t be long, sweetheart,” Rosewater replied, ducking her head through the wave of gold to kiss her cheek. “We’re getting close.”

“I know. It feels like every day now drags.”

“Because you know the end is near, sweetie. You’ve been cooped up for so long and now that the door is almost open, you’re anxious to use it.” Rosewater nudged her cheek with a light touch of her nose. “If this is the course you truly want to take, be patient for only a little longer.”

“It’s one time,” Rosemary said softly, raising her head and staring with her bright pink eyes at the whole of Damme. “I can be patient.”

And the next time, Rosewater didn’t add, leaving a kiss on her daughter’s cheek before turning back to watch her husband chatting with the Dammeguard amiably. She couldn’t hear them with the wind carrying their words almost directly away from her, and she didn’t dare use an aural spell to bring the words to her, but they didn’t seem alarmed by Collar and Rosewater together.

After another minute, they exchanged salutes, and the patrol marched off in parade synchrony until they were sure Collar was out of sight and returned to a more normal cadance of steps.

“I apologize,” Collar said to them. “I forgot the patrol patterns after the first snow changed. We’re all set to go, Rosewater.”

“What was that about?” she asked as she followed him up onto the road and trailing after the patrol by a good distance.

“Dammeguards trying not so subtly to get ahead of the gossip,” he replied, chuckling. “I might have dropped a few hints about our relationship.”

“Oh?” Rosewater tagged his flank with a flirt of her tail. “Do tell. I can’t be ignorant of the gossip spread by my very own fiancee.”

“You’re much nicer than your reputation allows for,” Collar said, winking at her. “You don’t eat foals for breakfast, you don’t grow ten hooves taller when I’m not looking. You know, that kind of thing.”

“Collar!” Rosewater laughed, skipped a pace ahead and bumped into him. “Tell, me, love. For real, this time.”

He chuckled and bumped back against her. “It seems that the rumors I started yesterday evening are already spreading with the morning rounds. They asked if I was intending to marry you. In a roundabout way, anyway.” Collar flicked his ears and glanced around, giving Rosewater the excuse to do the same and count the eyes watching them and ears pricked their way.

They weren’t shouting, and the wind wasn’t helping, and even one miscaught word out of ten might spark the wrong kind of rumor. Or the right kind. That was the problem with scattering sparks into the wind. Either she sparked the torch or set the forest on fire.

“We do need to talk about it more,” she admitted after they passed a few more expensive homes, their larger lawns out front sporting small gardens being hastily covered after the surprising ferocity of last night’s storm. She recognized the crest over the door. One of the branch Primline families, the Cuffs, if she wasn’t mistaken. “We should make an announcement to quell the rumors. It can only hurt us if we keep it quiet for too long after letting it slip.”

Collar followed her gaze to the garden workers only half paying attention to their job. “We should. But when? And when should we get married?”

Rosewater had an idea for when the public ceremony should be, but it would need to wait until she was well and truly confirmed to be pregnant with her heir. “I… I don’t know. I’ve always thought the winter is beautiful, can be beautiful here. When the river’s frozen over and ponies decorate the bridges for the winter festivals and the farmers from the Hollows come back to town to visit distant relatives. It feels like the cities are fuller than ever of life.”

Collar continued walking as he listened to her, his head bobbing slowly.

“In Merrie, it feels full of our way of life. The foreigners have all gone home for the winter, but there’s new faces all the same that don’t stare and blush at every loose kiss.”

“In Damme, too,” Collar added after a longer pause. “There’s more to Damme life than being ‘Canterlot away from home,’ and it feels like sometimes our tourists don’t truly understand that. There’s a flow to life here that they never seem to be able to fit into quite right until they’ve been settled for a few winters and understand the bustle to get everything prepared for the next winter.”

“That’s something we share.”

Collar chuckled. “This winter, then?”

Rosewater hesitated before nodding slowly. “I’m not sure when. I’m trying to settle into the Garden still and taking up some duties to help lessen the burden of having another permanent mouth resident in the villa.”

“Are you going to sell your estate?”

Rosewater immediately shook her head no, then reconsidered. “No. Not yet. It’s been in the family for generations. I have too many memories to let it go. Rosemary wouldn’t forgive me, for one. And it’s never come up in negotiations with your mother. What would she be able to do with… my house?”

The idea came and flashed through her thoughts faster than she had a chance to think about it. Why not? It would still be in the family, but she could sell the estate at an exorbitant price to the barony on paper, and immediately use the proceeds to pay off Rosemary’s debt without any actual money changing purses.

But it couldn’t be that easy, could it? Rosewater shook her head to dislodge the hope the idea had sent whirling through her scattered thoughts.

“What is it?” Collar asked.

“Nothing. But maybe everything,” Rosewater said softly, shaking her head slowly. “You’re a genius, Collar.”

He blinked at her owlishly before raising his head and adding a prance to his stride. “I am. Aren’t I?” He promptly slipped on a patch of ice he’d have seen if he’d been looking down.

It was several streets before Collar stopped laughing at his folly and Rosewater stopped giggling.

Book 3, 14: Messy Morning

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“Mommy! Can I go play outside?”

Rosary looked up from studying the ledgers from the woodcarving business she and her husband ran to frown thoughtfully at Rose Moon’s question. Her daughter wasn’t quite hopping up and down on her seat at the bay window overlooking the garden and hedge wall surrounding their home; she was a good and obedient little filly after all and knew that being rambunctious in the house was a no-no.

Briefly, she considered correcting her diction, then cast it aside. Moon would only be a filly for so long, and she might wish to hear mommy instead of mother more than once in the future. Too much lately had her worrying about the future.

“Is there a pegasus guard available to watch over you?”

Moon considered that for a moment, staring outside and up and all around before she pointed. “High Feather is out there.”

Rosary pursed her lips, then nodded. “Please speak to him first so he knows to look out for you, then you may play, Moon. But please—” It was too late. Moon was off the bench seat like a shot from an arbalest and out the lower kitchen door before Rosary had gotten the ‘but’ out. She sighed. Moon was at that age where she had more energy than sense, and her legs had grown out with her body lagging behind, leaving her a lanky looking filly too tall for her age.

She’d be as tall as Rosewater someday, Rosary was certain.

All the more reason to keep her far away from Roseate. The bitch was always looking for ponies she could turn into weapons to use against her failed experiment of a daughter. Now that Rosemary was out of her reach, she was turning her attention to the rest of her family.

She never thought of us as family. Not like Carnation did.

Bitterness welled up in her throat as she thought of her own part in Carnation’s exile. The report she’d laid on her mother’s desk a conglomeration of reports from Glory and her own careful observation of her aunt’s activities. At most, she’d expected Carnation to defect and flee to the other side of the river. She’d seen Rosary watching her as she crossed the bridge that last time. She’d had ample time to flee.

Instead, she’d let herself be caught.

Rosary moved her work to the bay window and pulled a table over so she could watch Moon play and tumble in the snow. High Feather, on one of the watch towers standing at each corner of the hedge wall, twitched his attention inwards every minute or so while keeping his watchful gaze focused mostly outwards.

The guards, private bodyguards, were expensive, but they held no allegiance to the Merrieguard or her mother. Only to Rosary and her family. That High Feather was also an occasional lover of hers was only an added bonus, and his attention flickered to her once in a while.

She offered him a smile once, and he gave it back with a dip of his head before turning his attention back to the outside world. He didn’t shift positions while Moon played, as he would have every fifteen minutes, to one of the other watch towers.

Kestrel yawned as he lumbered into the kitchen, quite the achievement for a stallion as lithe and wiry as he was. Most of the time, he moved with a dancer’s grace. “Morning, love,” he muttered, eying the state of the kitchen blearily and where she was sitting and working. “Not the office?”

“It’s warmer in here,” Rosary said languidly, stretching out on the bench and patting the wooden cabinet doors cleverly disguised to look like panels. A hiding place in case her children needed to be hidden. “Come sit with me and help keep me warm.”

Kestrel blinked owlishly at her and ruffled his wings. “I thought you were going to sleep in today,” he mused before he followed her suggestion and came to sit, sharing a kiss before she could answer.

“Mm. I was. But Moon woke up early.”

“Quill’s still sound asleep.” Kestrel yawned again and shivered as he sat. “I will never understand how he can sleep through her ruckus.”

“Says the stallion who slept through her ruckus.” She nipped her husband’s nose and shifted so he could more easily put his wing over her. “Is Loam still asleep, too?”

Kestrel took longer to answer, planting his lips behind her jaw and breathing slowly, inhaling her for long moments while Rosary let her attention drift back to the window and Moon practicing using her magic to make snowballs instead of merely squishing the snow. It was a delicate skill, and a good practice, and she was getting better with her aim using the failed attempts, shaking the loose, wet snow from the bare branches of the hedge.

“Morning,” Loam yawned on her way into the kitchen, her hooves as soft as her namesake on the kitchen tiles. She didn’t add anything else before bumping into Kestrel and snuggling her way under his other wing. “She’s not cold?”

“The sun is shining enough so her coat keeps her warm,” Rosary said, chuckling. Loam, despite her name suggesting a darker coloration, had only a dark brown, earthy mane. The rest of her was a light, creamy yellow with white spots spattered like paint across her forequarters. Even at its thickest, her winter coat couldn’t keep the warmth in near as well as Moon’s darker blue, more like Kestrel’s plumage. “Someone’s jealous.”

“A little,” Loam growled, leaning around Kestrel to nip at Rosary’s ankle. “Which is why I have Kestrel to keep me warm inside and out.”

“And I’m chopped cabbage?” Rosary asked with an arched brow.

“You are really good at filling in around Kestrel,” Loam replied, unable to keep an arch out of her neck at the memory of their last night together. “Quite good.”

“Mmm. At least my tongue is good for something, then,” Rosary said, sticking her tongue out. She turned her attention back out the window sharply at Moon’s sudden laughter. The reason for it was immediately evident, as a new high line of snow lay in front of the hedge. High Feather stomped a hoof in approval and cheered her on.

After she was done prancing in the wet snow, Moon shivered and shouted up at High Feather that she was going inside again.

And in the next moment, the low kitchen door flew open and Moon skittered to a stop just in front of the low-banked fireplace and started shivering.

Kestrel and Loam backed away from the bay window bench to let Rosary down, and she gave them each a light kiss as she did so. “Thank you, loves. Are you going home today, Loam?”

“Yeah.” Loam scrunched up her nose. “I would prefer not to, but they’ll need my help covering the gardens.” She tapped her hooves together. “And softening the ground a little so they can get the stakes in for the bigger tents.”

“Best be along then,” Rosary said, giving Kestral a look. “Go wake Quill so he can say goodbye.”

“I’ll go up with him to let him sleep in a little.” Loam said quickly, casting a glance at Moon. “It’s too cold for little hooves out there right now anyway.”

Rosary suppressed a pang of irritation at herself for letting Moon go out without putting her cold shoes on first, and nodded. “Thank you, both of you.”

When they were gone, Rosary made her way through the kitchen to sit behind Moon, covering her daughter with the warmth of her belly and barrel and using a spell to transfer some of the warmth of the hearth stones to the stones under them. Not enough to burn, but to feel comfortable against her rear.

“Did you see?” Moon asked after a moment, sounding almost trepidatious in her question.

“I did. You made a loose snowball?” Looking down at Moon like this reminded her so much of the days when Moon was less independent, more needful of her mother’s presence. Her heart ached that she was already moving out from under her care to explore the world. In fact, she almost came to Rosary’s neck sitting like this. At only eight years old.

She would be taller than her mother and father both when she grew up.

“I did,” Moon said, scrunching up her nose. “It was really hard. The snow kept wanting to fall out when I did it the way you do it. I had to…” She turned her hoof upside down and leaned back against her to free up her other hoof and made a shaping motion. “Pat it down first, then I could pick it up and not need to squeeze it.”

“Very ingenious,” Rosary said approvingly, kissing her lightly on the tip of her ear. “In time, you’ll be able to pick up the snow and shape it without needing to get your hooves so cold.”

Moon stiffened. “I didn’t wear my cold shoes.”

“No, you didn’t,” Rosary said softly, kissing her other ear. “But that’s okay. It’s not that cold out yet. And you learned, didn’t you?”

Moon nodded slowly, leaning to the side and twisting her neck to look up at her without leaving the warmth between her forelegs. “You’re not mad?”

“No.” Rosary’s heart caught in her throat. “No, sweetie. I’m not mad. Just promise me you’ll listen to auntie Silk like you would to me, okay? She’s going to keep you safe in Damme.”

“She’s nice,” Moon said, the comment seemingly a non sequitur. “Auntie Rosewater seems nice, too.”

How much do you know that you never say, my heart? “She… is nice. Very nice.” Anguish snapped free in her heart, and she caught a sob before it could come out. She missed her sister. She missed her aunt. She missed what things had been like before Carnation had been exiled.

They had been tense, sure, but Rosary and Rosewater had still talked about raising foals, and she’d learned more than a few things from her elder sister when Moon had been inconsolable. How to talk to her child and understand what she wanted when all she knew was ‘no’ and crying and no idea how to express the wants a young filly had when every need was covered.

One thing Rosewater had never done was let their animosity get between helping her try to learn how to parent when her only other example was her mother.

Then… Carnation happened. And I had to learn how to be a parent with only Kestrel by my side. He’d been as clueless as she, but at least his parents had stepped in to help. The last six years had been hellish for her. Mother had been a fragile vase full of rage, and the slightest misstep around her would tip it over and spatter her inchoate vitriol over everypony close, and she was only getting worse.

“Mommy?” Moon asked, her little voice full of absolute worry. “Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong?”

“No!” Rosary said, too sharply. She let out a choked sob at the panicked look on her child’s face. “No,” she managed weakly, softer, her smile trembling. “No, my sweet little Moon. You did nothing wrong. Mommy is worried about grown up things.”

“It’s because auntie Rosewater loves that stallion?” Moon asked quietly.

How much do you hear?

“Yes. Yes, in part. But you must never tell anypony about that. Especially not your grandmother.”

Moon shivered and backed deeper into Rosary’s belly until her spine was pressed up against her sternum. “She’s scary.”

“She is. And if she ever asks or tells you to do something, you need to run away. Run to me.” Rosary hesitated. “Or run to auntie Rosewater or auntie Silk and tell them what happened. Understand me?”

If she was ever incarcerated for her treason, at least Moon would have somepony to run to.

“I understand,” Moon said seriously, looking up at her with too serious eyes for an eight year old. Eyes that had seen too much of life already for her age. “I love you.”

Rosary’s control cracked, and she cried while she held her baby close, quiet, wracking sobs that Moon didn’t run away from. She made quiet cooing noises and nuzzled her foreleg, hugging tight and letting her know she was still there.

When Kestrel and Loam found her, she was curled up in a ball in front of the fireplace, Moon clutched in her forelegs. Quill ran around them to join his sister, and she pulled him in and told him to hush because ‘mommy had a rough morning.’

Her loves joined her, nesting around her and her precious children.

For the next several minutes, she soaked in their love, recharging her resolve to do what needed to be done to keep them all safe.

Vine’s heart trembled as she stepped out of her house with Dazzle at her side. Not only at her side, but with her scarf around his neck and her warming coat a little too snugly wrapped around his barrel and tied with the forelimb sleeves just behind his forelegs.

She had her own drawn closer about her, a scarf tucked around her mane to keep it tidy and warm and away from the chill that tried to claw at the faint dampness still clinging to it.

It wasn’t that she was scared, precisely. But she was sober, no longer running on the giddy adrenaline of telling Dazzle about her… flaw.

“It’s surprisingly still windy,” Dazzle said louder than he needed to, shivering and flicking his tail. “I’d have thought after a blow like that it would have gusted itself out.”

“It’s going to be a cold winter,” Vine said, raising her nose to taste the wind. Chill sharpened everything, letting her smell the pine firewood burning from too many sources to pinpoint, and the freshly cut firewood letting out a scent like old forest and hardening sap. “All the woodsponies are adding more stock to their firewood piles. It’s a pleasant smell. Pine, mostly.”

Dazzle chuckled and shook his head. “It amazes me constantly how clear your scenting is.” He nuzzled her cheek, careful not to touch her marks. Very knowledgeable about them, it seemed. “So, my lady. It’s a little early to make our way to Rosy Glass’s tavern, but the market is open, and I still have some bits and buckles to spend.”

“Oh? What did you want to buy?”

“Well…” Dazzle drew out the word, then bit his lip. “It would seem odd, to me, if our date ended at the tavern. I wanted to contribute to dinner tonight before I go back to my home. A part thanks to Silk for enduring our drunk behinds.”

“She was pretty mad,” Vine murmured, and opened her day bag to check how much space and how much she had in coinage. She could withdraw more from her stash, but with winter coming up and her primary income source being uncertain without a deal with Seed… “I have five bits for the week,” she said, pursing her lips. “That should be enough for something special without breaking my budget.”

“That’s about mine. The Garden always slows down during the winter, and there’s less work and pay to go around.” Dazzle shrugged. “Buy something for her together, perhaps? What kind of dishes does she like?”

“Smooth with a sleeper spice to it,” Vine answered immediately. “She does like textured and crunchy, too, but her favorite is when it’s something smooth, and always when the spice is something that she doesn’t know is coming until it hits her.”

“Complex tastes,” Dazzle murmured. “I’m afraid that’s a bit beyond my ability to cook consistently. Does she have a favorite dish?”

Vine hummed softly, flickering through the dishes she and Silk had made for each other. Silk wasn’t the best cook, but she was better than average, at least, and Vine considered her cooking to be at least on par with Powder’s husband, Starlit, who contributed to his family’s fortunes by being an assistant chef at one of the larger tourist venues on Saddle Row.

“If we’re cooking in,” Vine murmured. “Probably a soup. More of a stew, really. Thick and smooth. Carrots, dried onions finely ground into powder, a few spices, some potatoes stewed long and fall-apart soft… definitely not something we can do tonight. It’s at least a day long recipe for the simmer and heat just outside of the fire.”

“Sounds delightful,” Dazzle said, prancing in place. “Maybe we can get the ingredients today, and I can help you set it up, and we can have dinner tomorrow. The three of—”

“Tomorrow won’t be a good day,” Vine said, cutting in with a shake of her head. “The storm was lucky, Dazzle. Rosetail is also staying with us for now while mother gets over her… displeasure.”

“Well, poo.”

Vine laughed. “I could always give you the recipe. I have it on a card, and it’s not hard to copy. If somepony at the Garden is a capable cook, no doubt they could make it.”

“I confess to being a… lackluster cook. The most I do in the kitchen is chop and grind. Nopony lets me near the stew pot or crockery.” Dazzle snorted. “One time, I added salt instead of sugar and all of a sudden I’m banned from cooking until I can tell them apart. They’re both white! And finely ground!”

“And labeled?”

“Details!”

She burst out laughing and bumped against his shoulder on the way up the hill. “Stars, Dazzle.”

He laughed and bumped back against her. “I exaggerate a little, but in my defense, I felt rushed, and White Rose didn’t read the label either.”

“The life you lead there,” Vine said with a wistful smile. “I wish I could join you for a day or a week and not worry about what it would look like.”

“I mean, you could…”

For several streets, almost to the edge of the market square, Vine wrestled with the idea that she could. If she left Silk alone to deal with whatever mess Rosetail had inevitably gotten herself into overnight. The only reason they’d taken the headstrong mare under their roof was memory of a younger filly so earnestly seeking her mother’s love when she was busy plotting other things.

As much trouble as Rosetail was, there was still hope she could be made to see that their mother was no pony to look up to, and not worthy of the attention and worry she was wasting on trying to make her mother love her.

“Not tonight,” Vine said at last with a heavy sigh. “Rosetail is going to need… tender hooves, I fear. Especially if she was where I worry she was last night.”

Dazzle was silent for a few steps, then bumped against her lightly. “You’re a good sister. I didn’t have the patience to deal with my brother or my parents, so I left the Damme, and came here.”

Vine swallowed, then tipped her nose towards a cafe just starting to show steam and smoke from the chimney. “Want to have a tea and some sweet cakes? I’d like to know more about your family. You know everything about mine, after all.”

“Hardly,” Dazzle snorted. “I know the surface, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Rosewater about you family it’s that for every lily floating on the surface of that still pond, there are a dozen fish fighting underneath.”

“Apt.” Vine snorted, imagining Rosewater and Rosemary as happy frogs sitting on the lily pads for years and only occasionally hopping into the water to mix with them. But that wasn’t exactly fair. Rosewater was the big catfish and Rosemary her … minnow? She shook her head and giggled at the thought of Rosewater with catfish whiskers. “Cafe? We can gripe about our families over a sweet treat.”

“No griping, and it’s a deal. I just want to hear positives, Vine.” He nipped her cheek lightly. “And I want to tell you about my family, too. The good things. My brother and younger sister, my parents…” He shrugged. “What’s your favorite cafe?”

“Not Rosy Glass’s?” Vine paused, glancing down the cross street they were about to pass. Her favorite was to the left, away from the tavern.

“It’s not really conducive to a private conversation. Rosy likes her patrons able to talk to each other if they want, even if Rosewater always somehow managed to figure out a way to get a booth to herself most of the time.” Dazzle clucked his tongue and seemed about to say more, then shrugged. “She’s… stars, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a long time since we’ve talked. It’s good to hear about her, you know, and not just from rumors.” Vine clucked her tongue. “This way. Crown showed me a lovely cafe across from her book binder’s workshop last year and I’ve gone ever since.”

“Oh?” Dazzle followed after her, prancing a little to catch up as they headed up the steeper path leading into the low, sloping hills that made up Merrie’s southeastern flank.

“Strudel Strings Patisserie and Tea,” Vine said, grinning. “They have the best tea canes in Merrie, and their back porch covers most of the hill behind them in terraced glory.”

“Why terraces? Wouldn’t it have been easier to excavate?”

Vine considered that for a few moments, then shook her head. “Maybe, but I very much appreciate their use of deep-rooted northern ferns to hold back the soil. It’s very pretty and functional, and they have enough boulders in the mix to help the plants keep the soil from running away with every storm. I truly, truly wish I could talk to the original planter of the terraces. They were a landscaping master, truly, and I’ve spent so much time talking to the owner, Penrose Terrace, about how he maintains the terraces.”

Dazzle laughed softly. “Stars, it’s so energizing to hear somepony speak about their passion.” He leaned over and nuzzled her ear. “Have you had any thought of starting your own greenhouses?”

“Not… well. I mean, yes, but the taxes on our property takes up enough of our income, and Silk doesn’t make enough to fund my ambitions and her business both.” So many plans relied on bits or the cooperation of the rulership of Merrie, and because she was a failure as a raider, she had to either end up like Glory and Rosemary or find some other way to be useful. “Maybe… someday. I’ve been saving, but buying land and building the greenhouse is expensive.”

“True,” Dazzle said with a sigh. “I’ve looked into land outside of the Garden, but aside from being loaned the land by the Rosewines, I don’t have many options. I don’t make enough as an all-around helper to buy land, but it’s what makes me happy, and extra hooves are always needed.”

“I still need to get my project trestles into a greenhouse over winter. I’ve spent too long trying to crossbreed these rose vines to let them die in the cold.” Vine shook her head. “I don’t suppose Seed might be willing to let me rent some extra space in his?”

“I’m sure if you explained why you need it, he’d be more than willing to let you.” Dazzle cocked his head as they rounded the last turn before the cafe. “What is it you’re trying to save?”

“A type of rose vine that will be able to thrive without a greenhouse up here during the winter,” Vine replied, ducking her head. “It’s a part of an idea I had for a wreath that never dies for Hearth Warming. I know it will probably put me out of business, but I hate seeing wreathes get thrown out after they start to wither.” So much of her business relied on it, but she didn’t like to see her wreathes in the composting heaps as soon as they wilted. “I’m only a few generations from making a cold-hardy crawling rose vine, I know it! And then…”

Admittedly, she hadn’t thought past the ‘and then.’ Other than not having to see her works of art discarded.

“And then you get to work on the next project,” Dazzle replied with a laugh. He didn’t, and she was grateful for it, ask her what her next project was. By the time she got there, maybe she would have an idea. Silk’s projects were all externally sourced, or almost all. She had her personal passion projects, but they were almost always done and she’d moved on in a few weeks to a month at most.

This project had been her life for almost six years.

“What do you know about crossbreeding?” Vine asked after a long moment, genuinely curious.

“I… know that Seed has several crossbreeding projects going on right now. I know it means manual pollination and making sure that bees don’t contaminate the project.” Dazzle’s ears flicked for several more steps, all the way up to the last step around the curve of the street, passing several piles of ice and snow caught in the chaotic winding maze of streets and buildings.

They made the street up to the cafe shine and shimmer like a golden road, the freshly sanded pathway steaming faintly in the intermittently peaking sunlight.

The canvas awnings that covered the terraces that spotted the hillside with stone berms and solid stone stairways leading up to them along both sides and up the middle fluttered and snapped in the wind. A few ponies were already seated on the covered, padded wicker benches and tables. Wind screens strained like sails all around the terraced porches, hiding the ponies that dined there from view and creating an atmosphere of casual, private intimacy.

It was one of the things Vine liked most about the place. She wasn’t expected to interact with her fellow ponies dining elsewhere, but could choose to sit on the lowest level, a more open space and by far the largest dining area with tables and benches scattered all over. On her more sociable days, the lower level was where she chose to go.

That a few of her other less objectionable sisters, and especially Crown when she came to get a book repaired at the book binder’s workshop, joined her here was an added bonus.

“You lit up as soon as you saw this place,” Dazzle whispered in her ear, his voice amused. “Thank you for taking me here for our first date.”

Vine pondered that for only a breath before smiling back. “It is our first date, isn’t it? Not exactly according to plan, but…”

“Plans are made to be broken.”

“Rules, silly.”

“Oh, those, too.” Dazzle grinned slyly at her and flicked his tail to tangle with hers. “But plans are much more fun to twist into pretzels.”

“So… tell me some good things about your family.”

Collar hadn’t been wrong to expect Wing Primfeather to be waiting for him the very moment he returned to the palace, but he hadn’t expected Wing to not shout at him immediately. Rather, the stallion had tried at first to look extremely disappointed in him, with a borderline sad expression that almost hid the rage.

Not quite, though. There was too much of a tremor in his ears and his tail was too still by several measures. Not a twitch as he delivered his speech about the history of Damme and the prestige of the Primlines and the history of Collar’s own family as if he didn’t already know it.

Collar waited until the stallion paused for long enough to gauge his reaction to reply.

“I’m well aware of my own heritage, my lord,” Collar said stiffly. “I’m well aware of the history of this war, perhaps even more so than you, my lord, or you’d remember the dozen times alliances like the one Rosewater and I are in the course of making have failed because of the bigotry and malice each of our cities have held towards each other.”

“You mistake hatred and bigotry for common sense, Lord Collar. I do not hate Rosewater for what she is or what she does. It is the way of the wind to howl. Just as it is the way of the cliff to resist its howling.” Wing paced the width of Collar’s office, not far from the place he and Rosewater had shared kisses. “Nor do I begrudge Merriers their way of life, but it was never and will never be our way of life.”

Collar mused over the various ways he could make Wing’s heart stop. Telling him about their marriage might do it. Or that Rosewater was expecting his foal, whether or not it was yet true.

Only briefly, though.

“I’m not asking that our way of life change. I am only asking that we stop this senseless war before it turns to blood and madness again.” Collar shifted some papers around on his desk meaninglessly. Simple reports on the grain levels in each granary, the number and origin of foreigners wintering in Damme and where. Not many this year, but there were a few traders hoping to get in on the first spring boom. “Princess Celestia is not going to be patient with us forever, however much she professes to want to give us the ability to decide our own fates. A goddess, even one so benevolent as her, won’t appreciate us defying her will forever.”

“She is not the decider of our fates.”

“Yet.” Collar pointed a hoof out the window. “She will come with an army, Wing, and impose her laws on us. By Tartarus, she doesn’t even need to conquer us. All she needs to do is wait another five centuries. Or ten. Or twenty. Assuming we’re even relevant by then, and haven’t killed each other.”

Wing stared at him, then shook his head, sadness and anger in equal measure in his eyes and ears. “You’re young yet, Collar. You didn’t grow up with the war looming over your head.”

“My mother put a stop to it. That is why I have not had to suffer as you have, Wing.” Collar softened his tone and lowered his head. “You did suffer, Wing. All of your generation and the generations before suffered the war on both sides of it. Do you truly want the war to continue, Wing?”

“Of course not. But for the first time in five centuries, Merrie is weaker than it’s ever been. They’re fragmented, Collar, and you and your mother refuse to strike and break its hold, fragment its factions.”

“And take over?”

“No.” The answer was surprising enough to make Collar flinch. “I’m not a conqueror, nor would I ask your mother to be. They should have the chance to choose their own leader.”

“That would then surrender to Damme.”

“Naturally. It is the only peaceful conclusion to this war that can happen.”

Conquering with more effort. Collar wasn’t sure he should have expected otherwise. Remove the leadership, encourage the ponies to elect their own, and they’d be grateful enough to surrender and conclude the treaty ‘peacefully’… it must have all looked very neat to Wing. It was still invading, it was still removing the lawful authority of Merrie.

He didn’t seem to realize or was choosing to ignore, as seemed more likely, the likelihood that it would paint Damme as the villains again and restart the conflict anew with a flame all the brighter.

Collar doubted even the Gardeners would stand neutral in such a conflict.

Or our own ponies, for that matter.

“One side must succeed. Your courtship with the Rose Terror is nothing but a distraction. If you succeed, what do you think will happen? Our culture—”

“Is already so enmeshed with Merrie’s that we will never unbind ourselves,” Collar cut in more harshly than he intended. He took a breath and tapped a hoof on his desk before continuing more calmly, “Our shopkeeps gladly carry Merrie wares, our crafters import wood and silk, and our chefs outsource rare ingredients to Merrie. Our ponies cross the bridge to enjoy another way of life for a day, a week… a lifetime.” Collar swept a hoof out at the window. “Their ponies come to our city to be with friends and loved ones daily, only to go home out of necessity so they can continue their lifestyle of scent magic and free love. And Merriers who cross and live our lifestyle, but still return often to Merrie to participate in the rest of life there. How can you separate us without destroying what they have already created?”

Wing didn’t seem phased at all, his ‘disappointed father’ look only growing more pronounced. “That’s not the case at all, my lord. They keep to their side of the river and we keep to ours. Our cultures are not so mixed as you seem to think.” He eyed Collar, then glanced aside to the portrait of his mother and father. “It doesn’t help that your family has broken away from tradition that is respected elsewhere in Damme. Married to a Merrier, courting not one but two…”

Collar eyed the other stallion, trying to decide if he was delusional or in denial until he thought about all the times Cloudy had told him about what the cities looked liked from above. How beautiful and vibrant and interconnected they looked. Seven bridges, strong spans of stone and wood, ties of fellowship forged in the past three decades of peace.

But Cloudy is not Wing. What would he see, looking down on the cities?

“Have you truly walked among them? Not flown over them, Wing, walked among them and talked to them? Not only the nobility, but the common shopkeep, waiter and waitress, wood carver, baker, and fisher?” It was the great hubris of the pegasi of old. Looking down on the earth-bound ponies from great eyries and believing themselves masters of all they surveyed. Please don’t repeat their mistake and let their ancient sin destroy our future. He couldn’t say it and damage what chance he had of encouraging Wing to see for himself. “I implore you, Wing. Take a day, two, a week. Talk to our ponies and shopkeeps about their brother and sister ponies across the river and see what they say.”

“And the Rose Terror? She has committed crimes according to our laws, and yet she walks free.”

The change of tack was as blunt and predictable as it was frustrating. Wing likely knew he wouldn’t win against Collar in a debate about the views of the common pony. Collar knew he was right. He’d spent the time talking to ponies, and not only recently, but throughout his guard patrols and rising through the ranks.

This was the only argument Wing could reasonably win.

“She has committed acts of war at the behest of her city’s leader, and oft under duress. She regrets every action she has ever taken, and even under stress to break them, she has followed the rules of war.”

“She has still committed crimes, and you are standing between her and justice, my lord.”

Collar sighed and sat back down. He wasn’t going to get Wing to change his mind today. Least of all about Rosewater. “There are things I must do today, my lord Primfeather. As you can see.” He shuffled the grain schedules to the fore again and pulled a quill and ink pot set closer.

Wing nodded stiffly, but didn’t quite manage to hide the smirk knowing he’d scored a point. “One thing I cannot fault you or your mother for is the smooth running of the city. Only the manner in which cultural and military affairs are treated.”

It was an effort to resist continuing the argument that those very affairs were the reason why it was so easy to run the city otherwise. Cultural police were contentious in the best of cases.

“By your leave, then, I will attend to the matters of the city, my lord,” Collar said, and bent his head to the task of reviewing the figures projected by their analysts and logisticians.

“I will take your advice, my lord,” Wing said when he opened the door. “It is true that we pegasi do not often walk the streets if we have other places to be. I doubt I will see what you expect I will. I do listen to the reports my own informants bring to me.”

Do you not even know what your own children do? It was as if he forgot or dismissed the fact that both of his youngest were Dammeguard, and regularly patrolled the city on ground. It was true they also flew sky patrol, but every Dammeguard was made to know the city and its citizenry through close association if nothing else.

But pointing that out would only draw out an argument he was already tired of. “All I can do is ask that you consider a different point of view.”

Wing gave a minute nod, bowed even more fractionally, and closed the door behind him as he left.