***Point of Perspective: Equus Melanie***

The morning was pretty quiet, the dawn was just as bright as ever. Meanwhile, the snow that covered the ground had glowed a bright yellow from the light of the sun. Outside I could hear the young foals using their free time to construct various snow sculptures, effigies, and forts. Others couldn't wait to hurl snowballs at one another. Spike ran by the front door of the castle, hurling a few at Applebloom and Sweetie Belle.

Meanwhile within the lobby of the small hotel, I looked outside and marveled at the blissful youth having their fun out in the snow. Parts of me wanted to take a walk out there, wanting to participate in the fun. But memories of last Saturday played back in my head, showing me just how easy it would've been for me and the others to get spirited away or something. Even then, that Ummie guy's face was the one thing I really felt had found some way to stalk me in some way.

Fortunately for me, the only thing that stalked me anymore than those lingering thoughts was Rickey, who walked up from behind me. "Yo, Cherry!"

His voice broke me out of my thought, startling me a bit. "I swear, it's like every time you see me, you just have to latch on to me or something." I said a bit frustrated.

"I'm just checking in." He said with a shrug,

"Seriously, we live together. Why are you being so clingy?" I questioned, still feeling unease about where we were and what we were doing.

"I'm just seeing if you're okay." He replied.

I stepped away from the window and picked up a magazine to skim through. "I'm fine."

"I mean you've been pretty quiet and distant for the past few days. It's almost like you just go from work straight into your room. You don't even talk that much anymore."

"Considering what happened last week, can you really blame me?" I questioned.

He paused for a second, recalling the footage we were shown. "Yeah, that whole thing just gave me the creeps. I'm not even gonna lie."

"So why are you still acting like it doesn't matter that much?"

"Cherry, our whole assignment was to act like everything's all good. We can't really blend in that much when we're running around town being paranoid, especially around us."

"I'm not paranoid!" I exclaimed, clearing my throat when I realized that I had yelled at him. "Okay, maybe I'm a little guarded. But I just feel like you're too close for comfort right now. I need some space."

"I mean we haven't really hung out since that whole meet-up with the princess. I've even tried to keep in touch while not even approaching you directly." He said as his voice seemingly got sadder. "Is it that you don't want to give me a shot anymore?"

I turned to him and gave my answer. "Look, I'm still trying to figure out if I even want this. A certain victim's been at the front of my mind since that whole meet-n-greet last Saturday."

"I've thought about him too. I know that they're probably shelving off some of the more sensitive details about it. But there hasn't really been any indication that something really turned south yet."

"As if it hasn't already been down in El Paso?" I rolled my eyes at his response. "They're actively trying to hide just how much he's suffering. The only one who's given me much of an idea is Pinkie Pie, and she stopped giving me updates after last Friday."

Rickey nodded his head slowly in agreement. "I know. She's been really quiet, even so much as bringing up the subject and she runs off to do some other chores or talk with some of the customers. It's been pretty quiet on that front, especially from the residential motor mouth herself."

"Maybe they know something we don't?" I asked.

"Definitely." He replied.

"You don't think he's dead, do you?"

"Nah, if he was, they'd probably have us on the first train outta here. And of course, they'd probably tell us upfront if something like that was to happen."

I took his reply into consideration, but contrasted against the times intervention was needed. "Remember when Chrysalis had taken over his brain, they didn't tell us about that until later? Or how about the time when she held Nondis' father hostage? There's a lot they don't tell us."

Rickey then rebutted. "But they did tell us that he's not doing too well with his mental health. I think we don't have to worry about them holding out secrets unless it's something they know we'll try and get involved with personally. And if that's the case, then it's pretty apparent that it's something we can't handle, or it's something we have no business looking into."

Shaking my head, I further fortified my point. "...It's hard to pretend that everything's normal. Even Kali came to work Wednesday morning pretty pale. She lost sleep over something."

"I think we all lost sleep over what we saw in that video." He mumbled.

"We saw death undone. How fucked up is that?" I stressed.

"Yeah, it's pretty fucked." He conceded.

I pointed at him as he solidified my argument. "That's why I can't really focus on how I feel about my own personal situation, because my heart is still fixated on whether or not he make it out of this thing alive. At the very least, I'm fucking terrified that he might actually consider suicide as a way out."

Rickey appeared dismissive over my concern. "C'mon. He's not that weak."

While he may not have had any context to his past, I did. I had to explain it to him. "You don't know him. My father and I spent a night trying to stop him from killing himself. He was really about to eat a bullet after his grandfather died."

Surprised by the revelation, Rickey became fairly mull on the matter. "Yikes."

I walked over to him, finalizing my point. "It's not that I don't care about you. It's that I care more about him right now. That's all, it's not you."

I made my way back to my room, all while passing by Cliff who had caught the last bit of our conversation. Rickey appeared defeated, dropping his head. "Yeah..."

Approaching the dispirited pegasus, Cliff chimed in with his hoof slung around Rickey's shoulders. "Damn, bruh. That's tough."

"Can't win at a game you were never invited to, I guess." Rickey replied with a sigh.

The brown stallion kissed his teeth at his friend's defeated attitude. "C'mon, man. She ain't say she didn't like you. Her mind's just preoccupied with shit."

"Yeah, him again." He replied sarcastically.

"But did she specifically say that she didn't want a relationship with you anymore?"

The orange stallion quickly answered. "Yeah, several times."

"Recently?" Cliff clarified.

"Well she didn't say she wanted to be in a relationship either. She said she'd give us a shot. And shit happened, so I guess my shot is as good as gone."

While the two turned to the growing snowball fight taking place outside, Cliff continued to give his advice. "Just be patient, bruh. We've been here for two weeks. Two more and we're back home."

"Two more, and I'll go insane watching her tear herself apart over a guy who dropped her after sticking his dick in something that isn't the same species."

"Bruh, didn't you and Cherry smash?" Cliff snarked, causing his friend to very briefly become caught off guard.

"That's different. We're still the same, just a different look."

"A different look?" The brown pegasus repeated with skepticism. "I'm gonna tell you from my experience with Sunset. It's... it's not bad."

"She's more human than anything nowadays." He stated.

"Yeah, but what was she before she was a human?"

"Okay." Answered Rickey, becoming more annoyed.

"And what are we now?"

"Okay!"

Cliff chuckled as he tapped his hoof against the orange stallion's chest. "So what do you think is going through my mind that first night when she came by and visited me last week?"

"A bunch of Nondis questions." He answered dismissively.

"And let me tell you, I received a lot of Nondis answers."

"Well I'm glad you had fun." Rickey said with a sarcastic smile.

"Bruh, my point is that our appearances shouldn't matter if our minds and our hearts are in the same place. Remember, we got girls who can't date you just because their dads would probably shoot you dead for something as simple as the color of your skin. And you speak Spanish too, they probably think you from the lawncare company. Hell, they probably think they'll get your happy ass on a roof for the low price of a case of beer."

"I get it." Rickey said, quickly putting a halt to Cliff's rambling example. "It's still not the same."

Cliff patted his friend's shoulder. "I'm gonna ask you one question. In the moment when you had her that afternoon, did you even care about the fact that you did that to something─not someone, something─that wasn't what you were to begin with?"

The orange pegasus grumbled his answer, already knowing that he had to concede that point. "I didn't─"

"And neither did she. After all that time of not talking to you, avoiding you, and she still took you up on your suggestion. If anything, she's trying. Just let her make up her mind at her own pace, don't try to force it. It has to be natural. And if it doesn't work... well you could always start over somewhere else."

Rickey was quiet for a while, letting the idea sink in a little more. But as that particular idea sank in, so did another question rear it's curious head. "Did Sunset tell you that too?"

"More than once." Cliff answered.

Rickey rubbed his chin and quirked an eyebrow at his friend. "Wait, how many times did y'all─"

Cliff interrupted him before he could say anything else. "Bruh, we're slow right now. Don't even ask."

***Point of Perspective: Twilight Sparkle***

After a tumultuous night of battling some nightmares and lingering thoughts pertaining to my time at the morgue, I took the opportunity to use the later hours of the morning sun to get some much-needed sleep. Although it wasn't part of my preplanned schedule, I had to accept that there would've been some consequences if I didn't pay any mind to my mental health.

Spike, however, carried on with gathering the girls for today's meeting about my findings over the course of the week, which left me to rest and gather my thoughts properly. It took me around an hour after their arrival for me to finally wake myself from my nap and push forward through the day.

As I approached the throne room, I could hear Fluttershy regaling the tale of another one of her animal rescues. "And then, she flew up into the air and looked back at me with a smile before flying off to be with her bird friends! It's was both rewarding and magical."

Rainbow didn't seem to care about it, rolling her eyes at the story's conclusion. "Ugh, another bird rescue story."

"Dashie, now you know how sentimental I am about rescuing animals and watching them being released back into nature." Fluttershy responded with a soft, yet critical tone.

"Yeah, almost as dramatic as Rarity." Applejack joked playfully.

"Really? I don't find myself being anywhere close to being that dramatic." Fluttershy said in defense of herself, then following up with an apology to Rarity. "Um, no offense."

"None taken, darling." Rarity said, giving Applejack a stern brow.

Realizing her joke didn't exactly go over well with the seamstress, Applejack found anything she could for a distraction. She found me walking through the doorway, tiredly rubbing my eyes. "Ah, there ya are." She chimed brightly. "So how did it go up there in the muck?"

"Let's just say I've learned how to self-apply some short-term sleeping spells to keep myself in working order."

The girls looked at one another before Rainbow asked me curiously. "Sleeping spells?"

"That rough, huh?" Spike inquired.

I then answered. "I know we're not strangers to the sight of death, but my time in Canterlot was a literal tour through a morgue."

"And she still won't talk about that part of it." Spike added.

"It's not anything you need to know." I rebutted.

Rarity patted her hooves on the table's surface. "So did you find anything?"

I began to explain what I knew. "I think that Umbra Sanctus may have some connection with the city morgue. Apparently there's a backlog of bodies, but everything is leading us to believe that it's artificially made that way. Burials are apparently the cheapest option where cremation was supposed to be it, but they're hitting everypony with a storage charge."

"Oh, you meant a literal tour through a morgue." Pinkie interjected. "How fun was that?"

"I can now give you several good reasons why cremation should be preferred for your loved ones. And one reason includes maggots."

Everyone in the room gagged at my response. Pinkie herself almost turned green with disgust. "Alright, that's enough for me."

"Any information about Nondis?" Rarity inquired.

"He and Kalimba stuck it out on last night during a bout at the arena. Apparently it was some thing they had where they were crowning him the title of 'Beast of the Week'. But what was more interesting was who he had to beat to claim that title."

"Who was it?" Fluttershy asked.

"A griffon assassin who tried to leave him for dead. His name was Gaston."

"Griffon assassin..." Rainbow took a moment to plug it all together, her wings flared open as soon as she did. "Wait, that griffon from the train!? That guy is bad news!"

"Not anymore. Nondis made sure that he wasn't an issue..." I replied while also thinking about how bloodied he was after that event. "...It wasn't pretty."

"Well now I really wanna know how 'pretty' it was." Rainbow insisted.

"He's disposed of. Permanently." I said before sliding a wing under my neck to emphasize what happened.

While Rainbow flinched at my visual metaphor, Rarity showed less consideration for it. "Well it's good to know that some justice was done."

"Not entirely." I corrected the fashionista. "Nondis is being made to fight again on Tuesday night with a bunch of others looking to possibly do a better job. And if that title is exactly what it means by the name, he'll be fighting some other creature come next week to preserve his own life."

In typical fashion, Rainbow brazenly interrupted with her pro-violence method. "Are you sure that's not a reason we can blast this guy with rainbows like we usually do?"

"Trust me when I say I'm finding a reason to do it. But it can't be long now. I have to head back to that morgue on Tuesday, mainly when we know that Umbra is going to be busy with his usual sessions."

Rarity then questioned. "So you're using Nondis as a distraction to infiltrate a morgue?"

"There's a hidden passageway within one of the storage rooms, leading to a much larger freezer chamber that holds hundreds of bodies. There's a door across the way that we were showed, but never given access to. I believe what we want to discover is hidden behind that door." I further explained.

"A door hidden in a room full of hidden bodies. This seems like this will get far worse than it will get any better." Pinkie surmised with an uncertain posture.

"Don't you think he'll need some help?" Asked Fluttershy.

I answered her question with confidence. "I'm sure Kalimba will be of great use to him since she was a tremendous help last night."

"I just wish we were there to support them." She replied.

"Trust me, Fluttershy. Some things aren't exactly for the faint of heart."

Sometime Later...

A few hours passed and the girls went about their day. But as my time with them came to an end, the slotted time I had for my magic training instruction had began. Both Starlight Glimmer and Kalimba Mavembe were given respective assignments to perform, just simple exercises. Naturally, Starlight thrived in her lessons while the far-less adept Kalimba struggled. But instead of ordering Starlight to play nice to her new classmate, I went forward and gave her more material for independent study.

Kalimba was the one I took aside and had the more personal instruction with. And since she was divided off, it gave me the opportunity to ask her about what all happened last night. But I didn't do that until after our remedial courses had come to an end for the day.

At last came the time for questions and answers. I began to ask about her time last night, she told me about what all happened behind the scenes. When she finished, I was more upset by a bit of news I had not seen coming.

"What do you mean you can't help!?"

The zebracorn expressed her disgust. "It is all to his design. I cannot help him, though my sitting back would feel like a crime."

"But you helped him last night. Why is it that you can't help him on Tuesday?" I pointed out.

"Dey have placed a wedge between me and him. I cannot even get close to him without dere being some controversy. I know dat I wish to be dere for him, but if you were dere last night, you would know dat dey made me a bit of a star. And as such, made me unavailable for Tuesday night due to a meet-up with de fans who won a raffle."

I started to pace back and forth. "So what now? We can't just let him fight this on his own, knowing the dangers that's out there for him to face. That assassin from last night may have gotten the worst of it, but he nearly took Nondis out himself. Who's to say that there won't be others as strong, if not stronger?"

"Dere could be de possibility of some guild members looking to make a name for themselves. Dey are more organized than dose idjiots coming at us with sticks and shanks. Dey don not care about his status, dey care about de fame of being de ones to take him down." She explained. "And dey are going to advertise to de crowd what dey want to see."

"But if you're not there, he'll get killed!" I urgently stressed.

"I can assure you, de Doctor will not allow him to die so easily. He will sooner see him live on to fight what he has lined up for him. I cannot say what dat is, I can only speculate dat it will be hard to overcome. But dere is no certainty of de Doctor keeping him alive past next Friday. He has already seeded de plans to use another human in his place should he fail, his bruddas to be exact."

"That's horrible!" I answered with heightened disagreement. "Nondis can't possibly be replaced by his brothers!"

"Den his collection grows. He will have an unknown total of bodies, plus three human ones at his disposal." Kalimba looked off to the floor, her eyes beginning to fill with dread. "I know dat I want to be dere to stop dis. But if he continues to separate us like dis, what choice do we have? I just do not want to see him become a puppet... like my last owner coming to haunt me."

I knew she was talking about Prod. Even since we got back home, dad made no mention or thought of it, but I knew he was suffering in his mind. While I had many questions about everything else, I couldn't help but to shake the idea of Nondis being affected by all of this. Seeing him last night and how he was treated had to damaged him in some way. "I have a question about Nondis."

Her eyes closed, shutting off the possibility of her worst nightmare coming to roost. "I may have an answer."

"Does he have moments where you think he's... off?"

She slowly turned to me. "What do you mean?"

I tried to explain myself, but ended up tripping myself over the number of thoughts about what happened last night. "I mean the moment when he had beaten Gaston, Nondis could've stopped there after cutting off his head. But he just... went off the rails. I know that he did it to hinder a certain process, but I'm sure that he wouldn't normally resort to... that."

"De reason he did it was not a fit of rage, it was a declaration to de one who tormented him. In another sense, I suppose it was his way of possibly disposing of de body in a way to make it unusable. He did de same to Count." The zebracorn had successfully confirmed my suspicions, but to a surprising degree.

"He did?" I asked about Count.

"Cut him apart, threw him in de old oven, set de shack on fire, watch de place burn down." She laid out quite plainly. "Now if you want to know if he has ever looked any way distant, it was de moment he looked into those flames and quietly begged him to stay dead for good."

"Did he seemed relieved in any way?" I inquired.

"Considering what happened moments before, no."

Moments before? Perhaps something occurred that had him disturbed to that far of a degree? "What happened before that?"

Kalimba shook her head. "...Sometimes, it is better not to ask about de doings of de Inner Circle."

In other words, something that could've damaged him or someone else. "So what are we going to do about Nondis? We can't leave him there to fight alone." I brought up once more.

She took a deep breath, trying to convince herself above all else. "If anything, Nondis will be fine. De Doctor knows dat Nondis will win every round, and den if he loses, his life will be spared. Besides, he has an infatuation with him."

"An infatuation?" I questioned, a bit unnerved.

"Well, we can consider it an unhealthy obsession." She hinted. "He wanted Nondis to entertain him... in other ways."

I was revulsed by the idea of a literal body-snatcher trying to lay his hooves on Nondis, and with nothing but sexual intentions. "Oh my Celestia, he's not... is he?" I tried to eloquently clue her in by waving my hoof around.

"More like a psychopath who cannot function without de smallest bit of controversy or insanity. Otherwise, he sleeps with anything dat moves."

"Oh..." Does that include the bodies he moves? If so, that's more news that I didn't want to hear in the wake of yesterday afternoon's excursion. Though I wondered how she knew about his sexual preferences. I mean in a place like that, it's hard to hide it when it's so readily available, but I still had to ask her if she and him had any prior engagements. "...Have you─"

She didn't even let me finish, answering with an angry scowl on her face. "As a slave, yes."

"Oh." I simply urged myself to speak no further on that topic.

She, however, continued her rant. "He was quite lazy, expecting me to do all de work. He enjoys servitude and obedience, subjugation to his every command and wish. If he wants you to open your mouth for him to unload─"

I found myself flailing my hooves in the air, interrupting her from continuing. "I think that's enough! Next topic, Diva Kalimba." I laughed awkwardly.

"Yes, dat." She said rolling her eyes with derision.

I went on to another topic, not trying to accidentally trigger her to talk more about her experiences with Umbra. "So... your father, or at least somepony claiming to be your father..."

"Ugh, what does he want?" I think that topic was even worse for her than the previous one.

"He was afraid for you. I guess he never really saw how you fight until last night. But I think he's still pretty worried." I briefly announced.

She was even more angry, letting that indignation burn deep in her words. "If he was worried about me, he would not have sold me off for blue joker when I was twelve! I am not in any way attached to him, he made his bed!"

"I completely understand that." I quickly changed the subject to something I knew she was more favorable towards. "So... Nondis is pretty fun to be around once you get to know him. I know you had some moments where you thought about him."

"My thoughts are what they are; Thoughts." She answered, initially hesitant on the topic.

"I'm sure you're just like me then. I'm worried that all of this might take away some of the things that made him who he was."

She didn't hesitate as much, only giving me a sobering answer bathed in reality. "We all change when we go through something. It is how we change our approach to dose we know that becomes a deciding factor if he can or cannot be de pony you wish him to be. Trauma does dese things dat makes it harder to live a normal life, dere is no changing dat."

Her words made me feel even more uneasy, almost like she was warning me that Nondis was going to lose himself eventually. Or perhaps there was a place inside of me hoping that he wouldn't change too much, and realizing that it was already too late. I looked to Kalimba, hoping for some mode of assurance. "You're still protecting him, right?"

"Always." She showed determination in her answer, but also an infatuation.

It was probably why she said her thoughts were only her thoughts, she had them about him. "...You didn't fall for him, did you?"

"We made our boundaries clear. I know my expectations." She seemed resigned to that answer, despite showing her dissatisfaction.

"And that is?" I asked.

The mare chuckled to herself. "I am going to be a mare who cannot trust other stallions. I would be better off on my own."

Her answer threw me off balance, I couldn't help but to pity her. "Kind of a sad outlook."

"Reality often is sad."

Before leaving the bank this morning, I made sure to drop Kalimba a good million to live on. Along the way back to the castle, I started to think about my future in both worlds. I'm rich by all standards in this world, but back home I was virtually bottomless. Doing the math, I summed up the mass amount of my wealth to be in the number of some tens of billions, of course taking into account the diminished value of gold should I transfer it all into my account back home. I know the IRS would probably have a field day with me, especially since I would be literally walking around with the same pocket change equivalent to four times the GDP of Zimbabwe. Hell, even dropping to a million bits transferred lands me safely in the billionaire status with some tens of millions to spare.

What was initially playground money had turned into me personally financing a tall skyscraper, with the permits and expenses paid for to furnish the damned thing. It brings my status of being in the guard to question, do I even stay in past this point? I could easily retire.

But then again, what good is there going through all of this hell, knowing that there's probably way more hell coming for me if I run away? I know the risks of my deserting, and it's not from the guard or Celestia that I'll be getting my consequences from. There's no other choice but for me to stay and fight.

Still, it landed the question of my sudden increase of wealth. "What the hell am I supposed to do with all of this shit?"

I stared at the card, finally being told how to see the runes for myself when I want to keep up with the amount in my account. Sitting in my room, I wondered about the many avenues I would take in spending and redistributing my wealth, especially since Blue wasn't going to let me send it back to her.

I suppose I could give the others a million a piece for sticking it out as ponies for a month. They could become instant billionaires like me if they decided to transfer it over. But it wasn't like I needed to see them now, I needed to keep everything about them out of my head until a certain someone could be dealt with. I could give the same to my brothers and parents, that's a whole eight million I just gave away to make seven more billionaires. She told me I had to put away a few million for taxes, I'm likely to estimate twelve percent there. That's roughly another four million. That into consideration, I'm still left with another eighteen million to do whatever with.

I ran my fingers across the card, using the spell to look at the number remaining, only a million short of what I had seen this morning. And yet, I had no idea how to really spend money in this world. I leaned back in my bed and stared at the ceiling, staring at the amount on the card. "Hoo-fucking-ray that I'm rich, but what the hell does that do when I'm probably going to die in like two weeks or something? It's like hitting the lotto and dying the next day."

My phone buzzed, showing I had a text from Shining Armor. He had told me that I would be expecting a visitor to talk about some of the things that happened with Celestia in the past. He also told me that she would be by here as well.

I had to admit, the bastard had some impeccable timing.

I got up to answer the door, surprisingly seeing none other than Solemn Oath. "You."

"I think we're supposed to talk."

I glanced down at my phone seeing Shining's message. "About?"

"It's something that Prince Blueblood told me."

Figures it was either one of the stallion princes. "It's always Blueblood." I mumbled to myself.

When she walked in, she started explaining why she had showed up. "He's trying to tell me some story of some mare who was locked in a tower for months, then tortured and raped for a day. He told me it was a princess who confessed to giving herself to a stallion."

"Oh yeah, that story." I said, quietly keeping some of my anger to myself. "She was pregnant at the time."

The mare gawked at my statement. "Well I can't imagine how it feels to be alive during that time period, surely Celestia had something to say about that happening."

I just looked at her, surprised that Blueblood had told her that much without dropping a single name of who it was. "...I'm sure she had a lot to say."

"But why wouldn't she stop them?"

Because she was the victim. "Laws were made, and she had to abide by them... even if it was bullshit."

The mare hummed and sat herself at my keyboard, mashing her hooves against all the white keys. "I don't remember there being very many princesses in Equestria history who was given punishment." She then briefly asked about the instrument. "So is this some sort of human futuristic version of a piano?"

"It's a synthesizer." I answered before getting back on topic. "In regards to the princesses who were punished, that's because it wasn't written down for common knowledge. If it was notated for anyone, it would be exclusively known to those who would maintain access to those records."

"So you're saying that Prince Blueblood is actively sitting on top of that information?" She asked, tilting her head as she became suspicious of the stallion.

"Not entirely, but he may know who holds the records."

I turned on the amp that was needed to hear the instrument. And predictably, the first thing that blurted through the speakers was the sound of several low notes mashed together in a dissonant mess. She quickly lifted her hooves to return silence to the room. "I was always taught that the crown was to be revered and protected, as the royal family would lead us to our brightest future."

"Who taught you that?" I asked.

"My parents. But their opinions have waned in the recent years. The big changeling invasion started having them question both the princess' abilities to protect the realm, and made them skeptical about my role in the guard. Since then, they've wanted me to settle down and start a family instead of furthering my military career."

Maybe they saw that her accolades had only gotten her so far and wanted her to experience life for a change, instead of experiencing her career and only knowing that for most of her young adult life. "And you chose the latter."

She sighed longingly, tapping the edge of her hoof against one of the white keys. "I just thought if I could get in close to the princess, I could possibly explain what happened. But as time went along in my service, I began to realize something about myself."

I urged her to scoot off of the bench, I went to the piano sound I preferred the most, and started playing Claire De Lune. "What's that?"

She was mesmerized by the first measures I played, she stayed silent for a while until I had started to struggle with some of the middle parts of the song. She snapped out of it and realized what she stopped short of revealing. "Ugh, why am I even telling you that!? I'm just ranting for no reason."

I stopped for a moment, giving my attention to her. "It's healthy to get out what's on your mind."

"Classified, top secret." She snarked back.

I nodded back in response to her, knowing she did that to spite me doing that to her. I looked back down at the keys and asked her. "You're briefed, right?"

"What about that?"

I played an excerpt from To Zanarkand. "Then I can finally open up to someone other than my fucking shrink."

"No thanks, you can keep your pity party to yourself." She said with a partially disinterested attitude.

I told her anyways what was going on, mainly because she needed to know. "I got thrown in the underground arena last night."

"That arena we walked through last Sunday?" She asked, suddenly becoming interested.

"The same one." I confirmed.

Her eyes widened and she stood by me, excitedly wagging her tail like a puppy. "How was it?"

Yeah, she had all the attitude of a girl coming out of the suburbs. I wasn't too thrilled over her possibly romanticizing my ordeals. "You know, the ponies down there really do hate anything pertaining to the structure of the princess and her guards."

"Well it's not like you couldn't turn into a pony and do all of that."

I grimaced as I corrected her. "Actually, I went in and fought as my current self because of an arrangement that fell through. So I got pelted with a lot of shit... literally."

"That's not good." She said with some revulsion.

I then added. "My cover isn't blown for the most part, it's just that the VIP sector already knows who you are when you get in. That's how they know if they want you in there or not, what your standing is in society or government."

"How do you do it? All the pushing through the nightmares and death." She still seemed to be romanticizing my dealings, but I could understand where she was coming from. It reminded me of when I was younger, I used to romanticize the idea of being in the military, coming out of training like a bulging hunk with girls swooning over me.

I mentally traveled back in time, thinking back to the conversations my grandad had with me over his time in Vietnam and how it altered him. From that, I created my answer. "My grandfather once told me that after the war he fought in, he had to find some place in him to move forward instead of staying in the moment. He said it was always a hard adjustment to civilian life after seeing so much death, so many people around you just don't understand and they ask questions like you're supposed to answer them with a happy-go-lucky attitude. The ones who never saw what you did will glorify your struggle, but never understanding the compassion of enduring loss where you damn near lose your humanity. And then to come back knowing the wrongs you've done to others, it's a stigma you'll never wash off." That part especially was true when I had to finalize Count DuMoneé myself. "He said it best, you go to sleep with those ghosts hoping you'd draw your last breath, just so they can drag your ass down to hell with them. And they remind you of them each time you close your eyes."

"Your grandfather was a guard?" She asked, becoming a lot more somber and respectful.

"In my country, they call them Marines. Soldiers. Young, impressionable men made and molded into killing machines, to do the bidding of the country they served. But that war was a proxy conflict, a battle against an opposing political ideology that made the upper-crust of the American society shake in their snake-skin shoes. You know how the story goes, rich keep their kids while the poor have theirs drafted."

Solemn tapped her chin and thought aloud. "Honestly, there hasn't been a draft since the Equestrian Civil Conflict. That almost wiped out every stallion in the land."

"I know. But imagine having a draft in a war featuring some of the human weapons that I use, but more defective on my grandfather's side than the other. Some guys had their brains blown out trying to unjam their weapons. And the trees around them housing horrors and traps far too cruel for modern warfare. Can you imagine having to deal with that, plus the sight of your brothers in arms getting sent to the great beyond in a split second while calling for reinforcements? Couple that on top of killing villagers at the whim of your psychologically traumatized commander."

The mare quickly established just how serious those details were. "That sounds like a recipe for PTSD."

I glanced onto my nightstand, seeing the unopen bottle of pills. "It was. He'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Even I heard him doing it when I was a kid."

"Wow." She said in amazement.

"I'll never know the hell of a human war, I don't wanna know. I'm finding out that even dark operations here in the equine world is too much for me to handle. Maybe I'm subconsciously processing the sapient qualities ponies have and seeing them as humans undergoing this process, it's probably why I'm not handling it like a normal human would."

The mare looked to me with inquiry, seeking to prod through my thought process. "So how does a 'normal' human handle equine death?"

"Depends..." I said in a low voice.

"On what?"

I shrugged as I quietly murmured to her. "On how much we like animals, or how long we've owned them."

She immediately shrunk from the discomfort she felt. "...Um..."

"Yeah, equines in our world don't speak. Personality out the ass, but no sprecken ze language. They're usually seen as pets and livestock." I explained. "That's why I'm an asshole about who goes in and under what conditions. It's why Princess Cadance was so harshly reprimanded for doing what you did, but through one of the more compromising portals. Most humans won't understand a talking equine when they see one. I have to give them a disclaimer course if they want to cross over. It took me six to ten hours just to give my parents the rundown of things here before they woke up in a panic about that same thing the next morning."

The mare asked inquisitively. "So if I went out there talking to you in my current form?"

I gave her an expedited rundown of possibilities. "Probably get picked up by animal control, sent to a group of analysts for your being able to talk, and experimented on by the government if you can use magic."

"Yikes." She said, holding her horn with a hoof.

"Yeah, don't cross over until I give permission and we made arrangements for you to blend in. Bottom line." I said with a fake smile.

The mare began to inquire about the relationship between humans and ponies, namely that of my own personal developments. "So... how did Princess Twilight ever come to deal with you and your... differences?"

"Remember, I was trapped here for six months, I had no other choice but to be open to the idea that ponies could talk and use magic." I candidly confessed. "But even then, we were really good friends before we ultimately started to share romance."

"But why romance? Why cross the boundaries between you and what you humans would consider as 'pets'?" I had to admit, that was a fair question.

"The whole talking thing made me feel a lot differently about it. I mean I wasn't exactly comfortable with that initial kiss, but I grew into it. You remember when I said that I sometimes equate equines here to humans back home and their personalities?"

"Yeah." She answered.

"Well all of what I experience here, in terms of social interaction, is no different from home. So I began to feel more at home. That's all."

Solemn watched as I started playing through some more music, namely Prelude in E Minor. As I played, her mind proceeded to formulate a different image of me than what she had grown accustomed to. Instead of seeing me as a rival, she started to see me as something else. "You know, I'm starting to feel pretty bad for saying that you didn't belong. I mean I'm still upset that you got the captain's nod before me, but I can see that you worked pretty hard to overcome your initial insecurities and started seeing us as equals." She tapped at the upper extremities of the keys, pressing down on a few of the higher note. But as I stopped to watch her, she slowly plucked out a distinctive melody. "The idea that you're getting less and less sleep over what we ponies go through is pretty sobering."

It appeared that she too was musically inclined. So I stood up and let her have the bench, giving her the chance to pick at a few notes until she could come up with something. All while she played, I spoke. "Well, I had a good grandfather who tried to open a young fool's eyes. After all of what I've been through, I'm beginning to understand. That's also another journey I'm taking part in."

"I see. I guess you've opened up a bit to me." She said embarrasingly.

While I was still uncomfortable with her being in my room for so long, she stared to also slowly grow on me. For once, she was fairly palpable to be around. "Partially."

"If that's partial, then I wanna know what the whole thing looks like." She said with an awkward and chirpy tone.

"Meh, sometime later. I'm still learning how to trust you." I replied honestly.

"That's fine. I'm doing the same thing with you, I guess." She said, trying to shake some of her awkwardness.

I glanced back at my phone, still seeing the message from Shining at the middle of my screen. "Question. I know you came in asking about the story Blueblood told you. Hypothetically speaking, if it was Princess Celestia who went through all of that, what would you say about it then?"

I watched and gauged her response, seeing if she was going to be as flippant as she was with me, or if she was going to react differently. "There's no possible way that could ever happen. She can raise the sun, I don't think anypony worth the salt in their body would dare think of doing that to her." Needless to say she was a lot more serious.

"Yeah..."

"I mean, she'd have some sort of branding on her chest. That's pretty unlikely."

I don't know what it is about today and miraculous timing, but it seemed pretty convenient. "Lots of visitors today. And here I was thinking I'd get a day alone with my thoughts."

I opened the door to see Princess Celestia standing in the way. "Good afternoon, captain. Same to you, Solemn Oath." She said on the way in.

As I made way for her, Solemn bowed her head. "Your highness! It is a honor and a pleasure."

Though I knew of the reason why she was here, I still feigned ignorance to that fact. "If I may, what brings you here?"

"Well, Blueblood informed me that you've been briefed on other matters." She said, mainly directing her attention to Solemn.

"Well I wouldn't say it was a briefing, more of him just telling me some story about a princess who got tortured." She replied, still holding some disbelief towards the story.

"And you came to the captain with this information?" She said, giving me a glance.

She then replied. "Prince Blueblood wanted me to confirm this story with the captain for some odd reason. I'm thinking is probably a code to inform me of something that probably occurred with Princess Cadance."

The both of us looked to one another, then back to her. "Okay, so what makes you think this happened with Princess Cadance?" Celestia questioned.

"Well, it was said that she was caught being infatuated with another stallion, and she was brutally reprimanded and abused, even having a brand placed on her chest. So if not her, then some other princess in the past." She answered, unaware of the princess holding her chest.

"It was a princess of the past, you can halfway lean on that." I said as Celestia remained mum. "Solemn Oath, I'm sure the reason why Blueblood wanted you to come to me about it was for me to question you about your loyalty. Which is why I gave you that hypothetical scenario to respond to. So I'm going to ask again, if it did happen to the very same princess in this room, what would be your honest response?"

She did not hold back her passion. "Well I would say that those responsible should not be allowed to live for the crimes they've committed. It's not fair that the princess would have to suffer for something that's completely her private business. Even if I may disagree with it, it's still her life. I'm willing to be loyal to her no matter who she falls for. The idea alone that a princess had to endure something like that is absurd."

"Why do you think that way?" I asked.

"The princess works hard for Equestria's future. It's not fair that she has to live in subjugation to a law that outwardly discriminates against the royal family and those who associate themselves with them. And by extension, it screws over the rest of the guards who are placed under the suitor's command. That's not fair!" She finally directed her words towards Celestia. "Your highness, I know that you try your best to make the world right. I know that you can sometimes have short comings, with all the respect due in the world."

"No offense taken. Resume." Celestia replied, wanting the guardsmare to continue.

Surprised that the princess was willing to hear her made her stumble over her words more frequently, looking in every other direction but the princess who was actually smiling. "Your highness, w-whatever suitor you may have in secret is your business. But you're a st-strong and proud mare, you shouldn't have to take anything from those old, crusty geezers who do nothing but tell everyone else why they should live the way they want society to be."

Celestia sat, intrigued by her answer. "So are you implying that something needs to be changed?"

The tremors in her voice gave away her nervousness. "Yeah, the whole system needs to change. It was because of some secret suitor that's being dangled over your majesty's head is why you couldn't conduct a sweeping cleanse of the Corrotto District. And if small things like that can jeopardize the quality of life Equestrian citizens are seeking, then it all needs to change."

The guardsmare continued to look everywhere else but Celestia's face. Meanwhile, the princess observed Solemn's growing habit of twitching and fidgeting. "You're shaking, but I like your answer." I replied.

The guardsmare glanced at the princess, but looked away nervously. "H-How can I not shake? It's the princess I'm talking to like this. I'm already cursing at myself for being so outspoken to her, telling her what she needs to do or how she can improve things when it's already not my place to do so."

I turned to Celestia and pointed at the trembling guard. "It's her first time speaking out to you. She does this with me every day we see each other."

"I see that." She answered, causing Solemn to shrink against the pressure of being judged.

I gave the princess shrug. "It's your call, do you think you can trust her to work with us, her knowing the full intent and history of our cause?"

Celestia remained seated where she was, directing her question to the nervous mare. "Solemn Oath, how loyal to me are you?"

"Whatever you order, I'll abide." She said, still shaking and looking down to not see the princess.

Celestia looked to me, her expressions softened as she started to levitate her regalia from off of herself. "Captain, please hold my chest plate."

"Sure thing. It's not as heavy as the sun." I obeyed her command, lifting the item up to my shoulder.

Solemn took a peek towards the princess, seeing that she was stepping out of her slippers. Seeing the princess naked hooves made her blush an unusual amount, even her ears reddened as she performed an about-face. Celestia quietly waited, but the mare cited her reason for averting her gaze. "Your highness, I shouldn't look at you like this. I'm sorry, it's improper to watch you de-rank yourself. I cannot."

Celestia's head lowered, closing her eyes. "Solemn... please look at me."

"Your highness, it's rude for me to behold you outside of your glory. It's disrespectful─"

"There is little to glorify with a body like mine." Celestia interrupted, unfurling her wings to reveal her many scars.

"Your highness..." Solemn turned around to voice her opposition to the princess' statement, but was silence upon seeing the many scars and marks on her, including the cruel T-shaped scar where her chestplate once covered. The princess opened her eyes slowly, awaiting the mare's response. The only thing Solemn Oath could express was her disbelief. "You, it was you???"

Celestia shuddered through her breath herself, expressing her own trepidation. "Each time I do this, I'm still nervous about it. I wanted to hide this for the rest of my life, I wanted to keep this to myself. It wasn't until the captain had me step out of that shadow, to finally reveal to the world what evils befell me in my reign. It not only reminds me of the fact that not all power is absolute, but it reminds me that there are others who will face what I have if nothing is done."

Solemn clutched her chest, seeing the unsightly scar. She turned to me. "You knew?"

I promptly replied. "Yeah. It's why I do the things that cause me to see a shrink."

After a lengthy discussion about Celestia's past, Solemn waded past her own disappointment and sadness to come to the conclusion that all of what I was doing was for the better, even if the immediate circumstances didn't reflect that. And several boxes of tissues down the line, Solemn had grown firm in her stance as a loyalist to Celestia's cause. She dismissed herself sometime after and I wandered into the alleyway located just outside of the back gate of the castle.

Glancing around to ensure that there were no watchers, I started to wave my hand before the brick wall and chant. "I am the mare who arranges the blocks."

Not much was in the cards for my visit to the hidden catacombs. But I was sent a friendly message over on Instagram, needless to say who it was from. When I dropped by, I had noticed that the place was already fairly illuminated, which meant that there was someone already present. The princess waited patiently, sitting in place as her eyes watched my every move. "Hello again, Nondis."

"Huh, this is probably my first time being down here in ages." I said, getting reacclimated to the stale air and the copious number of cobwebs. "And certainly the first time I've seen you down here."

She awaited me to get closer. When I did, she turned herself around and stretched her wings open, indicating to me that she wished to be held. "Well it's a place one of our departed royals suggested as a hiding place. But even she was found out by the parliament."

I obliged her nonverbal request, wrapping my arms around her body. "How so?"

The princess' horn glowed dimly, her aura highlighting an old-looking book. At the bottom-left corner were two figures crossing horns violently, all while another waited on the other side of the page. "Jealous sibling couldn't stand the idea of his younger brother claiming the virginity of the mare he wanted for his own. So he eavesdropped on one of their meetings and spoke rumor of what was done."

"That's a good reason why hearsay isn't evidence in court." I said with a groan.

She continued her story. "Well hearsay aside, the evidence of her actions couldn't be held secret for long. Her belly started getting bigger and the dresses couldn't hide that for too long. She was stripped of her wings and forced to marry the next day as a pauper. In a cruel twist of fate, they then banished him to, and I quote, 'make an example of those who break the laws of our esteemed land'. From there, she elected to follow him some days after, wandering off to the outer wilds of Equestria's borders."

"And then they started over somewhere else, living happily ever after." I said with certainty.

Celestia hummed sadly. "The brother became a politician, but took his own life with poison after she rejected his offer to live a life of means. Turns out that her love for him was of far more wealth to her." The bottom of the page illustrated the event, the pointed pony figurine drinking a flask and then passing out at the bottom of the page before disappearing.

"I mean, what did he expect?"

Celestia pointed to the next page, highlighting the pointed mare who looked for her spouse. In time, she too disappeared. "As for your 'happily ever after', she wandered the ends of Equestria to find her love with her newborn foal, determined to become a family with him. But she was never to be seen again. Meanwhile, he was found in the sands of the Palomino Desert, seemingly to journey back with the intent to find her. Needless to say, there's no 'happily ever after' to that story." The scene at the bottom of the page only revealed a dismal looking skull left to bleach out in the wind. That too disappeared.

"Are all royal suitor stories always so dark and abysmal?" I asked, still holding on to the princess.

"Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance were due to have a foal, as they gazed upon their glistening empire of crystal. The ponies of that land rejoiced for the soon-to-be heir. And they lived happily ever after." She looked back at me with a questioning shrug. "The end?"

I swiped my head from side to side, knowing damn well that story didn't come to a peaceful conclusion, not yet anyways. "Yeah, I guess that's not as rosy and Disney-friendly as many young kids want it to be, given the context."

"Of course, you understand why things need to change now." She said, smiling back at me. "Perhaps this is why I look to you so often."

She leaned back into my chest, I began to scratch behind her ears. "Do you really think Solemn is trustworthy?"

Pleased by my gesture, she fell all the more limp against me. "Not enough to know about us. But to know the why of what we're doing, yes."

"Well if you're happy with it, then I guess we can manage to make it work." I said, still a bit on the fence about the situation. However, I was cautiously optimistic.

"I suppose." The mare sighed, showing a lot of weight behind her breath.

"What's on your mind?" I asked.

"Nothing really, I'm just meandering through the moments, living for so long makes you think about the time that passes and what all changes comes as a result." She casually answered.

I went from scratching behind her ears to giving her shoulders and neck a rubbing down. "That's a pretty deep thought."

The princess swayed her head back and forth. "Yes, but it's not the one that gives me trouble. I'm so used to looking at the world from the view of a time nomad."

"Then what's the thing that's bothering you?" I questioned her.

She closed her eyes as she slightly lifted her head. "It's just a simple thing, really."

"How simple?"

She tilted her face where she could peek at me with only one eye open, pursing her lips. "Petty."

"How petty?"

She lifted her chin, gaining more of a view of me running my hand through her mane. "You."

"Me? What did I do?" I chuckled.

The princess applied her magic to my hand, guiding it to the midsection of her back. "It's not you per se, just the idea of having to lie about you. I can't stand not being able to defend you openly when you do something right, or when I know of the troubles that you go through. And the only thing I can do is watch as others tear you down."

"You do know I'm not new to this whole suitor thing, right?" I replied in deadpan.

"I know. It's just annoying when I have to look at others planting their hoof all over your face while calling you derogatory words. They don't even try to get to know the real you, it's all 'He doesn't belong' this, or 'He's just a pet for the young princess' that."

Admittedly, I've heard some of those words uttered as I passed through the castle halls, even down some of the streets of Ponyville on occasion. It's not anything new, but it still irked me at times to be delegated to just that. "Again, that's easy to deal with."

"But haven't you ever thought about how it makes you feel to have so many ponies assassinate your character?"

I know that last night was a borderline festival built around that concept. I can only imagine what Tuesday evening was going to be like. "Yeah, I can't help but to think about it. And I'm not gonna lie and say it doesn't bother me."

"So what do you do about it?" She inquired.

"Prove them wrong. And if they're not trying to see that, then don't bother. It's all you can do." As I finished my answer, I saw Celestia completely caught in trance, namely at me. "What?"

The mare shook herself out of her stare. "I still remember the pictures of you when you were younger, your mother showed them to us. I remember seeing the smiles on your young face. Even when you first arrived here, there was a brightness you had about you. But now you seem so... so─"

"Done?" I concluded.

"I was going to say... overburdened."

I exhaled exhaustively at the fact that my fatigue started showing in my face. Perhaps I need to spend more time in a mirror. "Life sucks right now. But hey, maybe there'll be a wonderful princess looking to make me a happy man at the end of a long day in my future..." I looked to the princess and gave a playful smirk. "Maybe?"

She blushed, but didn't look away, boldly accepting my expectations. "I already told you what to expect."

As my hand scratched her back, I went a little further down to the top of her hips. "Yeah, and I've only got a month now to make it happen."

"Has it been a month already?" She asked, amazed over how time had flew by.

"Yeah. It's been a month. It was a long one." I replied, looking back to this week exclusively.

Apparently I went back to wearing my fatigue on my face, because the princess had pulled me into an embrace over her shoulder. She began to run a hoof on my cheek. "I wonder what it is I could do to make you smile like you did in those pictures."

I snickered sarcastically. "Turn back time to the days before my grandma and her horse died. I'd like to have a bit of that, please."

The princess chortled in kind. "I don't think I can do all of that. If I could, I'd probably have dozens of re-do's with my first love."

"I bet you had the brightest smile on your face then." I replied.

The princess still showed her content in my presence, but showed remorse for her past. "No. I still had the stigma of banishing Luna to the moon. If you want me at my truly incorruptible joy, you'll have to go back to when my sister and I were but foals. Now that was a time where I was so carefree, often seen as reckless. My mother would brush my mane in the mornings and tell me stories of grand adventures and great beasts. Now that's my true nostalgia."

"How was it when you were a kid?" I said as I petted her sides.

"The air was fresh and damp. The weather was a little more unpredictable, but it was also kind on most days." She said, her eyes glowing brighter with an innocence so unrevealed to many, including myself up to that point. "I could remember the smells of the market. I could still smell the soil against the sweet scent of fresh fruit. The world was a lot bigger to me, everypony looked like smiling giants. The bakery wasn't as sweet as they are nowadays, but the smell of freshly-baked bread made my little tummy growl. My sister and I would run wild through the market, playing hide and go seek with some of the other vendors. I could remember one day Luna hid so well that I started crying. I was so upset that I was losing. The vendors pitied me so much that helped me find her when I couldn't, but they did the same for her when she couldn't find me. It's a fair trade. They would give us hints and tips on where to look next. And then our mother would call for us to come home. And of course, she'd give us a good talking to about getting messy out in town. I remember one time I fell into a boggy stream, my mother ordered at least five maids to clean me for two hours straight, I was such a mess!" The princess finished her flashback, giggling at the thought of her past before longingly sighing as the present started to settle back in her mind. "I miss those days."

"You ever wish you could stay there in time, hoping that the moment never ends?" I asked.

"Plenty of times. But that's not how life works."

"Ditto." I said, going back to my own moments of nostalgia. "Have you ever felt that about your first relationship?"

"Sometimes..." She said, levitating my hands around her belly, possibly to where her womb was. "The 'what could've been', I think of quite often."

I looked at her, sinking myself closer into her. "If I could ever give you back that moment, would you take it?"

"First, you would never give me back that moment because Sombra and I literally spent a day uninterrupted in each other's embrace. He was my first kiss, my first mate, my first love." She said quite emphatically. "Second, you're not the smooth talker he was. He was poetic with the way he spoke to me in those moments, I mean sure he probably had those sonnets about me written and rehearsed, but you're just making everything up as you go along. It's admirable, but sometimes I like creativity through order. And third, his embrace didn't leave any part of me untouched."

"Well isn't that some steamy details." I muttered in her ear.

The princess cooed as the heat from my voice tickled her ears. "But I can tell you the ways you dwarf my experiences with him."

"This I have to hear." I said, hugging her even tighter.

"Well, you have a much larger body while he was still shorter than me. Your arms cage me in when you snuggle me. The weight of you will have me yearning for air, but the warmth between us makes me want to draw you in closer against me. I'm sure you could even pick me up if you tried." She paused at that thought, biting her lips as a few ideas came to mind. Her hoof felt against my wrist, as she guided me to the top of her throat. "Your hands engulf my neck with it's grasp, threatening to crush me. But your fingers are so gentle and detailed that they tickle me in ways I didn't know existed." I lightly squeezed my fingers in, just to give her neck a light massage. Her eyes bulged from the squeeze and she almost whinnied at my actions. "It truly is exciting."

As my fingers traced the arc of her neck, the webbing between my thumb and index finger cradled into it just perfectly. I gently squeezed once more, causing her to quietly gasp. Seeing her try to suppress her desires drew my interest, and even I started to question just how far she would go if I had pushed a little further. I grew the more curious as to what all I could get away with. So I leaned into her, kissing her pearly neck, nibbling at the outward features with my lips. "You miss the sensation of a man whispering into your neck, don't you?"

The princess hummed with a mocking disposition. "You know, you should try to be a little more aggressive." It appeared that she was actively egging me on to go even further.

I took her teasing into consideration and removed the barrier of my lips from the equation. She was instead introduced into my teeth, mainly the pointed canines that outlined the forward corners of my mouth. She drew a sharp breath and slumped into my body while I bit down. Her eyes rolled back while an eager smile was etched to her lips. "You'll call me 'king'." I growled.

"You sound uncertain." She said, still goading me to go even further.

I took her words as further encouragement. I dared not to give her any room to long for the aggression she sought after. I coiled my arm around her waist, nibbling at her ears. "Hey, I'm trying. Who's to say that I'm not dedicated?"

Her foreleg hung as she gave me complete clearance to venture further. I snuck my hand between her haunches, rubbing the inside of them, intentionally highlighting the area that gave off the most heat. Her frustration began to build, and her impatience was starting to show as her hoof came down to guide me just that closer to her depths. "Getting warmer."

I withdrew my hand before she could guide me any further, which was a shame given the fact that her hips had raised up to allow me passage. But I knew what I sought out to do, I began to see the method of her madness, a way to establish control, a way to possibly tame that lust-driven beast hiding within that royal frame. "You like being subservient, don't you?"

The mare showed her disapproval by using her magic to pull my fingers close to the sequestered treasures she offered. "Maybe. Maybe I'm turned off by your revolting display of false dominance. Who's to say I'm not the dominant one here?"

I ran a finger up the length of her horn, causing her eyes to buck open for an instant. Her hindlegs shook, causing her to buckle back down under her own weight. "You like being taught." I whispered.

Her head fell, she uttered a snarl filled with nothing but disdain. "Sometimes. I like exploring new things."

She was becoming all the more pent up while I had my fingers dance around the surface of her soft underbelly. "You do like exploring, huh?"

"I've always been adventurous." She tried to hide the truth of her moaning that out, continuing to play it off.

"Oh... so you like the process, so much more than the result." I teased back, knowing she wasn't going to expect what I had in store for her next.

"The result is fine." She urged, trying to spark her magic one more time to get my hand underneath her. But I coiled my arm around her waist, using the other to clasp onto her chest. In doing that she was firmly secured as I lifted her from her seat, holding her up as if I was lifting a pet. The sudden sensation of not feeling the ground under her hooves had her feeling a bit anxious as her wings flared out to catch herself. But she looked back down to see it was still me who was holding her above the ground. "Mother of me!" She exclaimed.

I looked over to the table she once held the book on and threatened to slam her onto it. "How would you feel if I tossed you around a bit?"

The excitement on her face was purely childlike. I don't think I've ever seen her so eager to be made small. But she didn't stop her trying to play things off with her comments. "I-I may take some offense to it."

I threw her onto the table, her eyes widening once more as my hands pinned her down on either side. I pointed my knuckle against her chin, lifting her head as I kissed into her neck. "How often do you think of me?"

She tried to hold back her laborious breathing, still putting on airs over the situation. "...Not too often."

I pulled back, questioning her. "Oh, you wanna lie now?"

"You didn't expect me to just melt down that easy, did you?" She said with a smirk of proud arrogance.

I smiled back at her, letting her off the table to roam around as freely as she chose. "No. But I know what can."

"What?" She asked, raising herself from the table. "What?" She questioned once more, getting back to her hooves, all while using her tail to hide her own excitement. While I feigned a retreat, she smiled and strolled past me with a prideful countenance. "As I thought, you question your dominance─"

The princess seized up as my hand struck the mark of the sun on her posterior. I looked on with a carnal sneer, satisifed in seeing the ripples of flesh quickly subside with every collision onto itself. The sun was finally motionless, but started to redden overtime with the mark of my palm and it's five fingers reaching far over the sun's flaming talons. "Stay." I firmly ordered. digging my fingers into her rear and separating her cheeks from one another.

The princess performed the quickest about-face I had ever seen, her ears and cheeks even redder than the mark I had left her with. "...Excuse me?" She said with every last bit of her being caught off guard.

I leaned down and gave her a brief reunion of our lips, providing her with just a sample of my tongue before briskly walking away. "Good girl." I said after patting her cheeks, watching the anger and embarrassment well up in her eyes. "I'll see you later."

She hollered out to me as I passed through the portal leading back to the world above. "You did not just seriously..."

In the brief seconds she started to voice her complaints, the only bit of me she saw was my hand poking through, my thumb rubbing sensually against my index and middle fingers. She knew exactly what it was I implied by that gesture. When my hand disappeared, she placed her hoof on the area where my hand once impacted her. Her magic appeared at the base of her tail, slowly peeing back to reveal the aftermath of my unexpected approach still tracing back to the hairs of her tail. The princess gritted her teeth and cursed my name.

"You craven... bastard."

The Next Morning...

From the moment I left Celestia by herself, I started to wonder if I had inadvertently gone too far in my trying to tease her. I thought a few times that she would probably come back to me and tell me what all I've done wrong and how she felt about it. It didn't help that I didn't see her at dinner either, I stayed up a little while and checked my Instagram feed. Nothing on that front from her, but I did take the time to catch up with current events. I even saw that she was online, but she didn't message me once like she would. Perhaps she was angry. "Maybe I'll find out in the morning." I thought to myself.

On that note, my eyes closed to the world for another few hours before opening again.

But what they opened to was quite a surprise. "Good morning."

Celestia had stood at the side of my bed, ensuring that she would be the first thing I saw today. Even my phone was put on silent, the alarms and notifications on it completely quiet. The princess smiled as I groggily wiped my eyes. "Wow, that's a hell of a face to wake up to."

The princess leaned down and placed her head on the side of me. "Hmm, you should keep talking."

"Why?" I asked tiredly.

The princess cheesed while her ears flicked at the sound of my voice. "Your voice is so much deeper when you wake up. It makes my ears tickle when I hear it."

Okay, that answered my question from last night. She wasn't too angry with me over what happened yesterday. In fact, she seemed more enthused to be around me today. Perhaps I might have drawn more of her interest by playing into her taunting. But I wasn't exactly in the mood to celebrate it just yet. "Shouldn't you be raising the sun or something?" I said while stretching my arms.

"The sun is up. You're not." She used her magic to pull the curtain back, letting in all the sunlight. In doing so, she also yanked the covers from over me. After that she stopped and raised her brows in curiosity. "And evidently, something of you seems to show my sun the proper respect."

I looked down to see that I was sporting the usual morning salute, barely hidden from her perspective by my boxers. "Oh shit. Hey, let me get by you."

I walked past her, holding my hands over my crotch to keep myself hidden. But she didn't seem to want me to hide it from her, which was a pretty enticing change in her usually prudish demeanor. Maybe yesterday was my unlocking another level of that feral beast she had hidden within. "Where do you think you're going?" She said, yanking my arm with her magic in hopes to cause a wardrobe malfunction.

While the slit of my boxers had but one button, it held strong in retaining the morning mass. I had to tap her horn to get her to stop. "Bathroom. I have to freshen up, for her majesty's nose is quite sensitive."

The mare's eyes trailed slowly downward from mine. "Indeed, the last thing you should be doing is walking around the castle smelling like days' past instead of... today's present."

I turned my back to her, briskly going into the bathroom to relieve myself and take a shower. As I was drying myself, I looked down at my partner in crime, seeing that he had started to wind down a little more after that last intentional cold burst of water. I did a little more maintenance for today's appearance, mainly in part by seeing that I did have a bit of clamminess to my skin. I washed my face and did some exfoliation, making sure that I was looking a little more alive.

Upon walking out of the bathroom, partly dressed in my room attire to anticipate my daily wardrobe, I saw that Celestia was in my bed, clutching my sheets to her face. "What are you doing?"

Her magic tugged at my arm again, pulling me into the bed. My body bounced on the mattress, her hooves tugged me into her further. "Lay down with me." She ordered, offering me very little choice in the matter.

"I forgot you like your snuggle time." I was defeated in the sense that I wasn't going to get out of this without giving her what she wanted. So I obliged her.

She nuzzled against my back, placing her ears against the rear of my chest. "We've been pretty separated since our last clandestine meetup."

"You mean since yesterday?" The bassy timbre of my voice still remained, but started to subside.

"No, I mean it's been a month since we've snuggled last." Her ears flicked once more from my voice. "And I'm very displeased with what happened yesterday."

"What displeased you so much?" I asked her.

She climbed up my back and gave me quite the earful. "You literally threw me against a table, grabbed my soul out of my throat, slapped me on my posterior, and left me to my lonesome to think about the way you've assaulted me. How fair is it that I have to go around the castle with that moment forever mocking me in my thoughts? Do you know what I had to do last night when I saw you online? I was forced to decompress all of that, and to no avail in attaining nearly the level of satisfaction you threatened to give me from that moment your fingers started prying me apart." She pretty much gave me a more direct answer about how she felt about yesterday. I was pleased with her emphatic response, but silently worried at the thought of the monster I awakened. "...You know what, don't ever do that again." She was lying.

"You don't seem too offended that I did that." I called her out.

"I'm so offended that I came to be the first thing you saw when you woke up this morning, just so I could voice my displeasure to you." She rebutted.

"All while snuggling me?" I also pointed out.

"I don't admire being in a situation like that where I'm compromised." She stressed.

"How were you compromised?" I teased.

"Nondis."

"Oh. You mean slightly aroused?" I continued to make fun of the princess.

"Slightly COMPROMISED." She further emphasized, not wanting to admit openly what she wanted to say out loud. "And you know we can't go that far until this legal fight is all over and done with."

"And what would be the problem with me doing things to you to leave you, in your words, even more compromised?" I said, flexing my fingers in air quotes.

"I would respectfully slap you and walk out of this room." She answered rather sweetly, though showing her intent to do as she said she would.

I kindly acknowledged her warning. "Okay. How about this, I make it up to you with a wing rub?"

"Oh no, no preening today, mister. Not this early in the morning. I remember what happened the last time."

"What was wrong with the last time?" I asked.

"The last time was in your world, we are in mine." She explained. "The last time was perfect for us, nopony could hear me say anything. Even now I'm concerned that there might be some odd pony trying to listen in to what you're doing in the mornings."

I shrugged off her immediate worry, but acknowledged her lasting concerns. "The paparazzi hasn't been around since the headlines started spewing some bullshit about me idolizing my home's political system. They still think I'm plotting to overthrow the royal family or something."

"If there's any way you'd be successful at it, it would probably be with the idea that I'd willingly make you a royal. It would be the only way that happens." She said, hugging against my back.

"And that's not something that would be ideal for us."

"In many instances, it wouldn't work. But I know a way it would." She introduced.

"What's that?" I asked.

The princess exhaled with misfortune. "Two royals are within their right to marry one another without the approval process. But... history has a cruel way of reminding me of how that hope escaped from me."

"Huh, and you didn't think to marry Prince Fair Charity when that opportunity arose?" I asked critically.

"He was too much of a playboy at the time. And then there was the period of resentment he had against me for not making some other guidelines clear when he was crowned. That whole phase was a good two years wasted."

"Yeah, I'd imagine it."

She rubbed her cheek to mine. "Now you know what all happened when I made you Captain of the Guard. imagine if I made you a royal on top of it, just for the sole purpose of a political marriage."

Considering the protests from the higher officers, I can only guess how well that would end if two of those parameters would've been met in the matter of a year, especially with a foreigner like me. "Yeah, civil war inbound."

"A lot of what I do has to be carefully calculated... even my time with you has to be down to the second." She said, quickly rising from her spot. "In speaking of which, my time here is close to spent. I should get moving."

"Alright." I said, sitting up from the bed.

"Another thing before I go about my schedule." She added before leaving. "I'm going to Ponyville this evening for a meeting with the municipal leaders there. I'll need you to act as my security, so you'd better find a suitable replacement for your post. Shining's gone back up north with Cadance, Blueblood has visited the city leaders of Manehattan today with all of his wives. So file down who you're going to use."

"I'll probably get Solemn to do it." I suggested. The princess walked up to me and gave me a quick peck on the lips, prompting me to hold her head still so I could embrace them further. "You better get moving before I find ways to keep you here."

"You better let go of me before I find a reason not to leave." She replied with a smirk, torn between stepping back away from me and pressing her hooves into my chest to shove me back into the bed.

"You must really want those foals, don't you?" I whispered playfully, earning a slap on my wrist from her wings.

"I should definitely go." She said, clearing her throat.

"Yeah, get a move on. Your first stop should be the bath. Don't want to be smelling like me walking around." I suggested.

"Agreed."

Walking through the halls as unusually quiet as she could be, Solemn Oath gazed around at the many guards and maids, wondering how many actually knew what she knew. Judging from the way they interacted with one another without any kind of care for the environment they worked within, she presumed not.

Her whole world had been flipped on it's axis, much of what she once perceived to be normal had suddenly seemed too privileged for her, especially with knowing how the princess suffered behind the scenes. Throughout yesterday's conversation, she was enlightened to the many struggles the royal family had to endure throughout the course of their reign. And it soured her view of the country she served, so much that she had began to question what she could do as soon as she regained her rank, or even if she could take pride in her role as a guard anymore.

The guardsmare moved in silence, all before a voice called out to her from behind. "Solemn, hey!" Even the sound of her own friends hailing her had startled her out of her thoughts. She looked back to see the trio of mares approaching her. Gleaming Brass was the one who initially called out to her, and again she addressed her friend. "We haven't heard much from you since the captain towed you away from us."

"I take it you've been really busy with the secret assignment again?" Cobalt questioned.

"Yeah, it's been... it's been a lot I've opened my eyes to." Solemn answered, still trying to gather her wits about her.

Dress Right chimed in with a question. "So now that the captain is probably on the hot seat, you get any dirt to help Major Humvee?"

"It's a classified assignment. Sorry, I can't say much." The sullen mare replied.

The mare's mum reaction to the question was something that brought silence upon the group, the other three looking to each other with uncertainty. Gleaming was the first to speak out. "We understand. If it helps you get back your position, then we'll wait until it's all clear for the debrief."

The mare nodded with appreciation. "Thanks for understanding."

Cobalt then added. "But hey, you know what I found out recently?"

"What?" Solemn asked.

"So get this, apparently the captain was found in Canterrot on Friday night, but he wasn't on a search. Turns out he was there to try and win a huge cash prize in some underground battle arena."

"I heard the audience didn't like him too much, they say he's way too boring." Gleaming supplemented.

"You'd think that being a suitor for a princess would incentivize some pizzazz, but he was just meandering apparently." Cobalt cosigned. "What do you think, Solemn?"

Trying to match the energy of her friends, she put on more of a front to still show some passion. "Yeah, you should've seen how he treated me on that raid last Sunday. He literally used me as a bargaining chip for some negotiations."

The group was left aghast at what Solemn unveiled. "What kind of negotiations?" Dress Right asked.

"Basically the sexual kind."

The three others showed their disgust. "Oh no." Dress Right interjected.

"See, I told you. Doesn't matter the species, all guys are the same." Cobalt snarled.

"Yeah. They are." Solemn replied, her words flowing on the current of how the princess was treated in the past.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Gleaming Brass inquired.

Solemn looked over to one of the windows in the hallway, seeing the princess giving the figure known as Nightmare Moon a blast from the elements to send her to the moon. "I'm gonna put my best hoof forward for the princess. That's all that matters to me. I swear, Princess Celestia needs to make some sweeping changes in the guard if we're ever going to succeed in the future. Mares outnumber stallions, but stallions have way more power and position than they need. And with my help, I feel like we'll get it right eventually."

Cobalt lifted her head to see the guards further down the way saluting as a tall figure came marching through. "Uh oh, captain douchebag on deck."

The four mares assumed their positions and snapped to salute the passing officer. "Good morning, ladies." I greeted the quartet of mares.

The others said nothing, but Solemn was the only one who greeted me back verbally, albeit with very little enthusiasm. "Morning, captain."

"Solemn, I need you to run some security on this evening with Princess Luna. Princess Celestia is going down to Ponyville today for a regions meeting with Mayor Mare. She will be running late tonight because of a few other engagements following that up. I've been asked to provide security for her and I'm probably going to get stuck with her until then."

Through our course on yesterday, the princess made it clear to Solemn that she was to continue displaying her usual vitriol to me as a way to minimize suspicion amongst the other guards. She did just that, in spades. "Well with all due respect, captain, but being stuck with the princess seems like a honor more than an inconvenience."

"Lady, have you had to chase after her on a business trip? She's everywhere at once. You'd be lucky to even get a good ten minutes of standing still." I complained.

"Well I respectfully disagree." She stepped forward, calling me out in front of her friends. "The princess does what she can to make sure that everyone in this country is happy. You should be honored that you get to serve alongside her."

In turn, I was to continue playing the role of being distrustful of the royal family, namely to appease the political onlookers and some of the other guards. "Trust me, being around royals are a pain in the ass."

"I'm sure that has nothing to do with your failed suitor status with Princess Twilight." Solemn replied, coming through with a low blow.

I was honestly caught off guard by the comment, which gave me plenty of fuel to pretend to be angry with her. "You watch your mouth, enlisted." I walked off, appearing to be miffed at her comment.

Solemn groaned as soon as I disappeared around the corner. "UGH! I hate him so much!"

Another officer walked by from further down the hall, appearing to have witnessed the entire encounter. "No kidding. That's the head of the princess' security? The country might as well be leaderless with him being around." Major Humvee approached the disrupted mare, trying to sympathize with her emotions.

"What kills me is that the princess is so hellbent on trying to keep him around." Solemn added, continuing to play her role.

"It's as I said, Sergeant Major Solemn Oath." Humvee walked over to the guardsmare, maintaining his distance as he pointed to the direction where the human disappeared to. "Everything that he does is a detriment to the guard and everything we stand for."

Solemn felt herself faltering in her performance, knowing the truth of the captain for herself. "I couldn't agree more, sir."

The Major then inquired about some intel on the captain. "I have to ask, did you run into any information about his doings?"

The mares surrounding Solemn looked to her, waiting to see what she would say. Solemn simply answered his question with one of the rumors that was issued to her. "Sir, one of my friends informed me that he was spotted in Canterrot this past Friday evening. We believe he was participating in some underground fighting syndicate, potentially for profits."

"Profits?" The stallion asked, appearing offended. "The gaud of that creature. Our training is meant to be used for the protection of Equestria and all that lives within her borders. Not some unceremonious illegal fighting ring for a selfish profit."

"I understand, sir." Solemn nodded.

With a smile of satisfaction, the major offered praise to the guardsmare. "Very good on the intel, Solemn Oath. I'll be sure to file a written report and have it on Crackdown's desk come tomorrow morning. Think of it as a repayment for how he embarrassed you."

"Yes sir." She replied.

The major walked off in the direction from whence he appeared, leaving the group of mares to cheer their friend. "Ooh! You go girl! More of that and the captain's seat will be all yours." Gleaming Brass expressed.

"It'll be what you've dreamed for the longest." Cobalt added.

"Yeah." Solemn felt herself becoming more disheartened by what she was doing in front of her friends, knowing that Celestia had intentionally kept the captain at his post to help her. She couldn't skate the fact that what the major was unwittingly doing was sabotaging the efforts of the princess herself. And at the end of it all, she was supposed to contribute to that. It left a sour taste in her mouth, and even more butterflies in her stomach. "What I've dreamed for..."

The saw her face and recognized that something was wrong. "You okay?" Dress Right questioned.

"I'm just thinking. Don't mind me."

Ponyville Town Hall
Later That Evening...

"With our current trend of growth, we're looking at a substantial population boom with the more recent incentives taking place. Ponyville has had a vast increase of tourism. With our coming buckball arena, and more commercial chains looking to anchor themselves comfortably in the downtown district, we could be looking at an increased desire to move here in town. And with a clean standard of living, we look to have a 29% increase in families electing to move here. That figure was surpassed by a margin of 12%. Granted, it could have a lot to do with our residential element bearers, but with the increase of guard activity in the past few months, confidence in our security couldn't be higher."

I stood in the front of the room by the stage Mayor Mare was speaking on. In the audience were a crowd of around twenty ponies, namely land developers and business owners who had free time to attend. There were a few journalists, but they were only there to jot down any updates on some of the commercial properties they were bringing in.

To be frank, I was pretty bored with the event. It wasn't their fault in any capacity, I just never had any vested interest in civic development. Most of the terms flew right over my head, equity this, commercial that, district planning blah-blah-blah. And many of the slides they had on the projector were just black-and-white diagrams and graphs. It was hard to keep up with.

Meanwhile, Celestia had no problems in keeping with the program. Her assistant had jotted down a lot of details, meanwhile she made mental notes of how the city was growing before her very eyes. Perhaps she vested interest in the town, especially watching it grow from a farming outpost, into a tiny little hamlet, and finally into a thriving community with it's own castle recently added to the skyline. Can't blame her for wanting to watch how it develops, especially since she lived long enough to watch it grow into what it is today.

My eyes had gotten watery, my jaw stretched as I yawned as quietly as I could out of respect. The mayor took notice of my boredom and poked a bit of fun at me. "Perhaps it has something to do with our residential human as well."

The room filled with the spattering of sensible chuckles, the princess herself getting involved in the fun. "So you say?" She then called out to me. "Captain, it seems that your appearance has changed the entire tourism industry."

"I don't know why. I'm just doing my job." I said, wiping my eyes clear, shaking myself awake.

"Oh ever the humble human." The mayor finished her lighthearted jabbing and went back to her presentation. "Returning to our topic of the evening, Ponyville is slowly adopting a bustling city within it's boarders. With that being said, we are looking to have a grant implemented for the purpose of renewing older buildings and repurposing them for commercial use, as well as to potentially expand our boarders eastward."

It was Celestia's turn to speak out. She stood from her seat and addressed the civic figure. "Mayor Mare, we will be delighted to consider your proposal. Equestria's growth is in the birth of new families as well as a dire need for more stallions to be born. As of recent decades, Ponyville has had a ratio between mares and stallions slowly but surely leveling to equal proportions. The future is bright for this place, for all of Equestria frankly. So we will have to give it a closer consideration, especially considering many of our more recent international encounters have taken place here, hosting yaks and even Saddle Arabians. You've inherited a wonderful town and turned it into a thriving community. I must commend you."

The mayor accepted her kind words, but diverted most of the credit to elsewhere. "Your highness, it's only because of your student's advice that I was able to get the town to this point. All praises should really go to her. I'm only saddened that she is not present to see what all is being done, but sometimes it's much more important to be out saving the world."

Again, I yawned for a moment, grabbing the room's attention. As I tried to shake myself awake again, I apologized to everyone in the room. "I'm sorry, y'all. I'll try to do better."

The mayor smiled gently as she gave me a nod. "I understand your work has you running rampant at times, captain. We'll call for a thirty minute recess and reconvene. Can't let her majesty's security collapse from exhaustion."

While I was about to tell her we didn't have to do that, I was really thankful for the opportunity to move my legs and work myself back into waking shape. As per my assignment, I began to shadow the princess before she turned to me with an order. "Captain, please wait here for a moment while I go speak with some of the board members. Keep the mayor company for the time being."

"Of course."

The mayor's assistant accompanied her while the tan-brown mare approached me with a cheerful attitude. "Captain, I couldn't help but to hear that you've gone and made a nest over in Canterlot. I trust the accommodations are to your liking."

"It's alright, still pretty quiet at night though." I replied.

The mayor took interest in my response. "Ah, I take it that you're a bit of a night owl then?"

"I always love a good night life. Back home there's a whole strip of restaurants and clubs that have live music and plenty of drinks too. Socialization is pretty rampant on the weekends." I explained. "Then again, it's a growing city, and it's also a college town, so one would expect there to be some venues catering to that demographic."

She took my testimony into advisement. "I know that Ponyville is a bit of a family-oriented establishment, but perhaps you could give me a few ideas on what you would like to see here in our humble little town." Placing her paperwork in the hooves of her assistant, she directed her elsewhere while she pointed me down the hall. "But first, I do have something to grab from my office. Would you be a kind escort and guide me along the way?"

"Sure thing." I answered, thinking nothing of it.

As we walked, the sounds of the chattering crowd had completely disappeared from our ears. All that could be heard was the sounds of her hoofsteps and her voice echoing through the halls. "Now captain, I have heard rumblings that have concerned me about what's been going on. Suddenly there have been many tabloids coming out with your name on them, and not in a favorable light."

"I can assure you that most of those are rumors."

"As troubling as it may be, I do have to consider that you may be undergoing some changes in your habits since the break-up with Princess Twilight Sparkle."

"It's just the job wearing me down." I replied.

"Now, I've gotten word about your mental health, is everything alright with you up there?"

"It's just some on the job stuff. No big deal." I reiterated.

She began to push further on the subject. "We say it's not a big deal when it comes to our minds not being healthy. But it's an even bigger deal when you find yourself not being able to sleep, eat, or even enjoy certain aspects of your day that you previously enjoyed. I'm sure you know that there are dangers to living a life full of secrecy and stress."

"Ms. Mayor, I don't think there is any cause for concern." I said, trying to change the subject. "But thank you for showing it."

"Understood. We shall leave it at that then." She said before pivoting to yet another topic I wasn't too thrilled about discussing. "How is your romance life?"

"It's... it's trying." I answered, attempting to be as polite as possible.

"You haven't found another marefriend, what is wrong with the mares up there? You'd think that they'd be lining the streets looking for a chance to claim a free suitor."

If only she knew... "I haven't had nearly the fanfare since the tabloids started coming out. I think it's a manufactured effort to lessen my status."

"I'm sure that can cause a tremendous amount of stress for you."

"It does." I confessed.

We came to the doors of her office, she opened them to grant me access to enter within. "Well just know that many ponies here don't see you as anything less than our residential human. If you feel that you need a slice of peace and quiet to return to, Ponyville is waiting to welcome you back home."

"Thank you, Ms. Mayor." I said as I walked into her office.

As the doors closed behind me, I saw the mayor trot over to her desk, opening a drawer to pull out a few folders with some names on the tabs. "Now, I was curious if you were looking for somepony to... converse with."

"Converse with as in how?" I asked.

"Oh well, you know, I mean just... friendship and harmony building."

"Friendship and harmony building?" Oh boy, I just got roped into a date selection.

She spread out the folders, putting out the names I assumed were interested in me. "It's just a suggestion. But I can already pull from a long list of mares who would be a great fit for you. There are plenty of mares here looking to make you happy."

There are plenty of mares AND STALLIONS wanting to make me happy at this rate. I'm just not in the mood. "With all due respect, I don't really do the whole herding thing."

"I never said you did. Each of these mares are all looking to make you a more relaxed soul after a long day of work."

I rolled my eyes, pretending to go along with it. "Who's this mare?" I pointed at the first name at the top of the pile.

"Our residential mailmare, Derpy has been a kind soul who often strikes out when it comes to small tasks. But as clumsy as she can be at times, she's a certain brand of sweet and kind with a bubbly personality you would love to be around."

In other words, she's a loveable ditz. I don't mean that in a bad way, but I would hate to be around her when she tries to cook breakfast. Scrambled eggs all over my face, what is a guy to do? Looking at her photo, I saw that she was cross-eyed. I'm not really discriminating, but I honestly can't bring myself to think of how she would look in a heated exchange of passion.... Pass. "Who's that?" I pulled at the next name I saw at random.

"She's a bit of a wild one, Berry Punch can be a fairly brash one if she gets one too many in her system. But she's just looking for her moment to break out. Maybe you could be that spark to guide her in the right direction."

Given the description, she must be a drunk. Looking at the photo, she is a complete drunk. In conclusion, consent seems to be completely ambiguous with that one, and I'm not trying to catch a case. "This one?"

"Oh, I know you'll like her. Her name is Aloe, she and her triplet sisters works at the Ponyville Spa Clinic. She has a way with her hooves, and she's fluent in Saddalnese. She's quite the exotic, and she loves to exchange cultures with anyone looking to listen."

Well that's different, I will say. But I know that Rarity gets half of her dirt from her frequent visits at the Ponyville Spa. She may be a bit of a chatter bug, if not too much of one. I looked down to see two folders on the desk. I pulled one up to see the name Rainbow Dash... the fuck? I immediately wrote off that name and saw yet another... that one grabbing a lot of my interest for the wrong reason. "Um..."

She looked to see what I was glancing at, her eyebrows shooting up as she saw her name at the bottom of the pile. "Good grief, how did that get in there!?" She snagged that folder off the desk with the speed of an embarrassed mare who's secret had been revealed. "Oh my, I see I must've mixed up the documents while looking to get my... uh... my... what was it again?"

In her attempt to quickly snag her file from the pile, her photo tumbled out of it and landed right back on the desk. Her whole face ran red. "Mayor Mare."

She scraped up her picture and tried to be nonchalant. "Yes, sir."

"Are you interested in me?" I questioned.

The mare tried to write herself off. "...Well I've had a few ideas, but nothing romantic. I just thought that we should─"

I knew she was talking smoke and mirrors, and pointed her out on that. "Ms. Mayor."

The once-firm mare had started to play with her mane, twirling her outmost curl. "Perhaps I've had a night or two thinking about a few things we could do together. An evening out on the town square is a pretty lovely place to discuss some future developments, especially when the sun is setting. Maybe we could talk over a few implementations you'd like to see here in town, a few ideas from your world perhaps?"

As cute as the attempt was, especially now looking at how she managed to even lure me here, I had to place her down gently. "Ma'am, I'm afraid that I cannot reciprocate that request."

She gave a resigned sigh, but still seemed high-spirited in spite of the rejection. "Well, I'm glad I still asked. At least I know I've given it my best shot."

"It's alright. I mean I appreciate the idea that you've given me some consideration. But I don't feel as if I'm able to on the behalf of my being so busy. I'm already swamped with my work schedule as is. I just can't commit to the dating scene like I want to." I explained, half of it really covering for the fact that I was already seeing the princess.

The mare didn't seem to buckle under the hit at all, taking the rejection to the chin. She nudged it off and kept it moving, which was pretty admirable in it's own right. "Well, if you ever find yourself not being as busy, I can still give you a few references for future possibilities."

"Ma'am, your kindness is very much appreciated." 'But I'm not really interested in you like that', those were the words I told myself to subtract out of consideration for her.

Thankfully, I didn't need to specify that. She walked from behind her desk and opened the door to the outside hall. "We should be getting back."

"Yeah, I'm sure the princess is worried about us." I added.

Our walk back into the main hall was pretty uneventful. We didn't talk, but it wasn't too awkward for me. I think it was just me getting used to being hit on. But I was still surprised that she had even dared to shoot her shot at me. At least she tried, and I'm sure she felt better in knowing she tried and got rejected instead of letting the question remain in the air.

When I got back, we went about our separate ways. She still maintained that air of professionalism with the others, carrying the same beat she walked out with.

"I trust that she's made her pitch to you."

I turned around to see the princess standing behind me. "Wait, how do you know that?" I asked.

"It's just something I know about her, I do actually get to know the mayors and city leaders of the country. Her thing is that she's reaching her mid forties and she's still single. She's worried that her career may keep her so busy that romance isn't a viable option. So she at least tries to appeal herself to some young stallions looking for... how should I say... supplementary assistance."

Well that explains a lot. "Oh, so she's a sugar momma."

"Beg your pardon?"

It seemed there was some more human jargon I had to explain to her. "A sugar momma, a lady looking to not be lonely and will pay any price to keep some company around. Sometimes married, sometimes not, usually often divorced nowadays. Now that company she's looking for is in regards to certain acts of affection, often considered as physical."

"Oh my." She said, giving Mayor Mare a glance.

I leaned down to whisper in her ear. "You're a sugar momma."

The princess gasped and quickly argued back. "I am not!"

"What am I to you then?" I asked with a smirk.

"A guard used for security purposes." She quietly answered, glancing around to see that no one was really paying us any attention.

"Okay then, so I'm just a guard now?" I teased, putting emphasis on our implied non-committal status.

"No, you're─" It took her a little while to see that I was playing with her. "Okay, you."

"In the modern dating world, we consider that as a playful taunt, to get you to admit something that you don't want to admit out loud. You were supposed to commit to the idea that I'm just a guard, but my response to that incentivized you to look at your preferred outlook."

The princess groaned. "Ugh! Must there be some emotional manipulation in a relationship to make it worthwhile?"

"Sometimes. Just as long as it's not taken too far." I answered.

"Why can't things just be so simple?"

"Because simple can be boring at times. What I did just now will have you remembering the moment for the immediate and not too distant future. The point is that I want to be an impression, but in a way that's not damaging or misunderstood. Timing is everything, context is half of it. It's when and how you use it whether or not it becomes a problem. Just some tips from the modern world for you since you wanted to know." I teased further.

"Well aren't you glad that little exchange took place outside of public view?" She sarcastically questioned.

"I'm glad we had it, Princess Sugar Momma." I joked.

I stopped leaning down and stood back up as if I was performing my usual duties. In time, we "I am going to press you into a wall if you keep calling me that."

"You and I both know that's what you want to do anyways." I mumbled under my breath, still ensuring the princess could hear me as I said it.

Celestia immediately took our conversation to another level, using her telepathy spell to communicate. "What I want to do is a totally different thing."

"And what's that?" I pretended to play on my phone as I asked her.

"I want to see just how long I can keep you under without breathing."

My phone nearly fumbled out of my hand in response to her blatantly sexual commentary. To my truth, I was starting to feel a notable shift in the orientation of my boxers. I had to adjust my legs to make it not as noticeable in the pants of my dress uniform. "Your highness. You know you're not supposed to be thinking about that in public." I whispered out the side of my mouth.

She pulled out her phone, pretending as though she did nothing wrong. "What I think is in my own mind. I cannot be punished for my thoughts alone."

"That's true, very true." I opened up my Instagram app, going to my messages. When her name popped up, I started plotting my way to get back at her for her comment.

"Also, what I say in my own mind is what the world can't hear. Remember? You can never prove that I said it to you when I simply convey it to you in this manner." She reiterated. "If you don't like it so much, then you should be willing to correct me on it."

"Were you always this devious?" I mumbled into my phone.

The princess seemed to start her own message chain under my name. "Yes, no, maybe, that's a question you'll have to discover the answer to."

Before she could, I had already finished mine and sent it out to her. "Okay, playing like that makes me... want to do things."

"What kind of things?" She asked. And in perfect timing, the app on her phone showed that she had a message pop into her inbox.

The princess gasped, holding a hoof to her lips. She slapped her wing at my back as she telepathically called me out. "Captain, for shame." I glanced back to see the princess fidgeting with her hindlegs. "Will you say nothing to defend your honor, or are you a devout worshipper of debauchery?"

While I was starting to feel the growth in my pants shift to a more prominent position, I waited for the princess' reply on the app, knowing she would probably demand that I'd leave elsewhere. But as the indicator showed that she was putting in a message, a mare called out to me from my immediate right side. "Sir captain!"

I wasn't familiar with the mare's voice, she completely startled me out of my phone. I began to subconsciously tell myself to find some other means to not be aroused. I nervously turned my body while I looked at the mare below. "Hey there... Do I know you?" I asked the purple earth pony mare.

The mare proudly introduced herself. "Oh posh, of course you do. I am Diamond Tiara's mother, Spoiled Rich. You've done a lot of running around and saving lives, it's awfully hard to keep up with you."

Diamond Tiara... Diamond Tiara... Wait, that was the little foal I rescued along with that other batch of poor souls I stopped from getting shipped out. Sadly, her butler didn't make it out alive. The sudden juxtaposition was a complete whiplash to my sex drive. "Well it's nice to meet you, ma'am."

I reached my hand out for the mare to shake, she did so emphatically. "Oh believe me when I say that you have been the topic of my daughter's discussion. She even had the whole room decorated with a bunch of your pictures and headlines. She's really into your current bad-boy phase."

"Is she now?" I asked, unsure of how to accept that.

The purple mare gave off a haughty chuckle. "Let me tell you, she does not go a day without snuggling that pillow with you on it."

Well this just took a turn for the awkward. "Wait, she has a body pillow... of me?" I didn't even know they made those, when did that start and who the hell is selling them!?

"Indeed she does, and you know how young impressionable mares idolize the guys that save their lives. Let's just say she's dreams of you every night and worships you every morning."

...I need to go, now. "Oh... 'Kay."

I wanted to turn away, but her hoof kept my hand in place. For an unassuming figure, she sure had some serious earth pony strength. "Now I know you're probably worried about that age thing, but I can assure you that she's willing to be patient until the time for her to come of age. And if I calculate the years, it should be at least another five before she's legal for marriage."

And there's the red flag. Time to not go and not get arrested. "Alrighty then─Is it warm in here? I think it's pretty stuffy, I should probably cool o─" Without warning, the back of my shirt was tugged at and all I felt was ice cold liquid trickle down my spine and further down my backside. I yanked back at my shirt and turned around. "AAAHH! WHAT THE SHIT!?"

Everyone looked at me as I yelled so loud that my voice echoed through the building. Everyone seemed surprised except for the voice behind me. "Oh, silly me. I seem to have bumped into you with my drink. I apologize captain."

Upon turning around and realizing it was the princess, I had to change my tone to a less confrontational one. "What did you spill on me?"

"I do believe I had some red punch from the bowl." She said, still holding a cup with the aforementioned beverage in her possession.

I began to yank my shirt out from my pants, directing some ice cubes away from me. "Aw shit. If I don't get to this, Rarity's gonna have my legs broke."

"Then I suggest that you go to the restroom and have that treated before you carry on." The princess urged.

"I'm gonna go do that. I'll be brief, your highness." I replied, still holding at the back of my uniform.

I quickly rushed through the halls to find an available bathroom, coming up on a single-user bathroom. Once I got in, I quickly took off my uniform jacket and the shirt that was underneath it. While I took a look at the shirt, I didn't really see anything outstanding that could've left a stain. I leaned in to sniff out what it was that she poured on me, even giving it a light lick before coming to the conclusion that it was just water.

A giggle sounded from beside me. I looked over to see Celestia snickering with a hoof over her mouth, I pointed to my shirt and annoyedly stared at her. "Now I know you didn't just prank me with some water."

The princess stepped into the bathroom, grinning like the troll she was. "I might have, so what?"

I patted down my shirt with a towel and tried to put it back on, not trying to be bare-chested in front of the princess. "Not that I don't appreciate the out from that awkward conversation─"

While I was about to feed my arms into the sleeves, she pulled the shirt off and flung it to the counter next to me. Her magic faded out as she locked the door behind her. "Quiet."

I blanked out for a moment, intrigued by her majesty's actions. The look in her eyes had already most of everything I needed to know. I smirked back at the fairly beautiful royal. "Oh, so you wanted some attention?"

She walked to me and placed a hoof at the center of my abdomen, brushing against the hairs that pointed down towards my pelvis. "Just a little." She said with a tilted head, her eyes on my chest.

"You're such a sugar momma." I joked quietly, earning a playful tap from the princess.

"Excuse you, I stopped aging at twenty-eight." She rebutted.

I then pointed out the truth of her age. "You've outlived some dynasties. You're like the mother of all cougars."

"I am not." She argued.

I leaned in and whispered into her ear. "Sabertooth tiger."

Celestia gasped, shocked that I actually went that far. "You impudent─" But her tirade was severed short by my giving her lips something to physically argue against. While I dove in on her, she pressured herself against me, her hoof running down the clefts of my abdomen. When we broke off, she continued to show some fight over my joke. "No, we are going to discuss that insult."

"No we're not." I said, giving her lips yet another embrace.

"Oh yes we are, once you stop kissing me." In between the brief moments of our separation, Celestia tried to incubate the argument, an attempt that ultimately fell in vain.

This time, I provided more than just my tongue to silence her. I slid my hands past her wings, letting my fingers grasp at the toned shape of her flanks. I squeezed them lightly, massaging them apart to cause the princess to stifle a yelp. "So is that the insult you wanted to address?" I muttered, knowing that my actions had officially killed every part of her resistance.

She glanced back at the door, whispering to me instead. "Captain, we are out in a public venue."

"I thought you were adventurous?" I whispered back, giving her cheek a lick.

"I am." She said with a shudder.

getting a firm grasp on her body, I picked up the princess and sat her down next to the sink. "Then try to stay quiet before someone sees us. We got another forty-five seconds before questions start coming to mind."

Still overwhelmed by not just her ignited sense of arousal, but also the bulge that started to appear at the crotch of my pants. "On the counter? Seriously?" She said, still gazing down at my growing libido.

I wrapped my arm around her hips, causing us to clash against one another. Her hind legs parted to allow me closer to her body. Her magic sparked in her horn while we made contact with one another, albeit under the restriction of my clothes and her tail. "Thirty seconds, your highness."

The first ten seconds of that warning was anything but a dignified display. The princess of the realm was essentially winning the war of our tongues, bombarding mine with a vicious assault. Separations were only the fraction of a second long, the skirmishes being far more the battle of attrition. While her tail was tucked between herself and me, I could still feel the heat of our connection. Her eyes trailed to my pants, her magic beginning to pull at the button of my pants and the buckle of my belt. Both items fell to the floor, leaving just my boxers and her tail as the only barriers between our crossing the line. "Finish what you've started." She whispered, grinding her hips into me.

Reaching down I could feel myself at length, twitching at my own touch. The princess eyes were intended to the measure of how I held myself down against my inner thigh. The base of my thumb massaged some of the ache from my endowment, causing me to pant in retaliation to the lust I tried not to act upon. I couldn't help but to attest to my own promiscuity in a crude yet upfront manner. "Fuck... I wanna make you cum."

She didn't seem to mind the language, almost embracing the raunchiness of it as her hoof prodded against the mound her tail concealed. "What I would do for another five minutes."

"All you got is five seconds, kiss me."

As our heated moment timed down, our lips reunited for the last time. But as we rushed our final encounter, the antics of the princess had completely thrown me for a loop. Her magic had not only tugged at my boxers, but effectively freed me. She had already started to mentally acquaint herself with my shape, offering a few strokes until the final second had elapsed. As I pulled away, I saw myself leaking a fair amount of my preload onto her tail. Her eyes didn't pay much attention to that, instead gazing at my every reaction to what had taken place. Her eyes had locked to mine, her lips bitten on, her mane very much pinker than usual, and her coos much more delectable and mature. The positioning of her hoof coupled by the censorship of her tail provided me with two things. The first being her direct intent, the second being the playful taunt of still denying me the sight of her royal wares.

She knew exactly what she wanted, she knew she couldn't have it, and she knew this was the only way to get back at me for yesterday. It worked in spades. The only thing I wanted to see next was her getting off of that counter and having her head rest between my legs in humble submission to me. That same look in her eyes, beneath me, waiting with baited breath for my next command... A de-facto queen in complete subjugation to my every sexual need. What man has never imagined the thrill of this fantasy, much less having done nothing when the possibility renders the chance of almost certainty?

As I am Mark Antony, Celestia is the Cleopatra I seek to breed.

A voice passing through the hall was what snapped me out of my trance. My eyes fluttered a brief while to regain a sense for the present. I quickly stepped back and stuffed myself back into hiding. "Holy shit. I don't know how long we can last like this." I muttered.

Celestia too was startled by the voice outside and had turned on the water to begin her own clean-up. "It's been ages since I've been this riled up. I have to wash my tail after that."

I checked the front of my pants, only detecting a faint musk that could easily be perfumed over. But I wouldn't check it for long out of a concern to not become more driven to stay behind and acquaint myself with the princess throat a second longer. I threw on my pants, hobbling as I tried to rush out. "Get freshened up real quick, I'll be outside in the main hall."

The princess' ears were a bright beet red as she grabbed a few paper towels lathered in some soap. "So was that some sort of lesson in modern dating?" She asked, turning herself to me while hiding the fact that much of her arousal had bridged the gap between her legs and her nethers.

"No. Just us trying to get in what we can fit in." I replied, putting back on my belt.

"I've never done that before." She replied bashfully.

"We'll try not to make that a daily thing." I warned.

The high princess began to wipe herself clean, wincing at the cold water cooling herself down. "Now I'm really looking forward to our next date. Maybe by then we can finally share more than a few minutes, or seconds in today's case."

"No kidding." I replied as another voice started walking right by the exit. The both of us held our breath until they had completely passed by. When we knew for certain that they were gone, I grabbed my phone to check the time. "I didn't even look at which bathroom this is, I just saw an open door with a sink inside."

"If I recall, I think this is Mayor Mare's private restroom." She pointed out, tossing me my shirt and upper-portion to my uniform to put back on. "Her office is only a door away, just barely separated by the custodian's closet."

"Good. In that case, I'll see you in a minute." I said before poking my head out of the bathroom. Gauging the traffic, I saw that there were no others coming from any direction. It was safe for me to leave unnoticed. I walked out and left the princess to her privacy.

Meanwhile, Celestia wiped herself and waited until the colors of her mane had returned to normal. As they slowly transitioned, the princess stared back at herself in the mirror and sighed with a quiet admittance.

"Twilight Sparkle, I see why you've gotten in trouble with this boy."

Upon the first light of the dawn, I made a concentrated effort to fly from the my own castle to meet with Princess Celestia in hers. As I finally arrived to my location, I walked into the first place I knew I would see her on a Monday morning. My presumptions were correct, she was sitting at the table in the royal dining hall, reading the headlines from the weekend and gathering information of what days were either going to be overcast, snowing, or partly cloudy as to properly gauge the heat of the sun.

As she typically would, she welcomed me to sit and eat with her. Along with that, we talked about what happened in the town hall yesterday. She informed me that the mayor had some relatively high words of praise to speak on my name. I told her that I was actually taken the day to further train Kalimba on her magic, at least to get her to the intermediate level she should be by her current age.

Of course, our conversation steered through various topics, some on the condition of the three humans we had in hiding over at the motel, the number of parties Pinkie had planned to propose, Rarity's stressing over her next lineup, Fluttershy's aspiring vision to build an animal sanctuary, and Applejack growing role in the business of Sweet Apple Acres. Eventually our conversation veered into the direction of our true topic of interest, my findings throughout the week.

Celestia was quietly mortified over the news of what was occurring over at the city morgue. She wasn't made aware of the massive amount of bodies being caught in the backlog. She quickly concluded that there had to be an emergency cremation mandate established to limit the spread of disease. However, she announced that her intention behind closed doors was to hinder the possibilities of an event where Umbra had a number of bodies at his disposal, allowing him to be in various places at any given time. But even I felt that was a bit of a reach, considering that we've only seen him take over one body at a time. Celestia still offered no quarter, citing that he might be withholding that ability to an unknown degree.

We then moved onto the subject of the big event at the arena later that evening. While she was pleased with the idea that my father had went with me throughout all of this, she wasn't as pleased to hear that Nondis was made to compete on the arena floor. A variety of worries had ran through her mind, including the possibility of him being gravely injured. That only had gotten noticeably worse when I informed her of what was to come tomorrow night.

Just as she was about to react to the topic, the person of interest had stepped into the room with a bright smile on his face, seemingly owning a complexion far better than the week's past. "Good morning, princesses."

Celestia and I quickly adjusted ourselves to greet the human. "Good morning Nondis." She welcomed.

He looked to me with a quirked brow, but still holding a smile on his lips. "I guess I missed the memo on the visit."

I quickly came up with what could've been the most socially boring topic to many in society in the wordiest fashion. "No, no memo had, we're just having some interesting conversation on the transient properties of multi-casting while using the manipulative factor of alicorn magic." I lied.

What I hadn't counted on was the fact that my wordy answer had gained his attention. "Sounds interesting, can I sit back and listen to learn more?"

My heart stopped for a moment, feeling a dull ache from the fact that he was actually interested in the topic I threw out there. But then again, he was always trying to know more about magic. Even since the days where our relationship first got started, he wanted to know more about magic and it's uses. While he couldn't use magic then, he was still interested in what made it tick. It was a pretty heartwarming development from him, given that his first interaction with magic prompted him to hide underneath the sheets of the bed we had him in.

A part of me wanted to dwell on the non-existent topic to him. But I knew that my heart had to be taken out of it. I had a problem in hesitation, and it showed to Celestia. She then answered in my stead. "It's an alicorn subject. Sorry, but it's restricted."

A part of him looked mildly disappointed to be on the outside looking into our conversation. "Oh... okay. I guess I'll pretend that I'm not here."

Celestia pressured him further. "Nondis, don't you have a trial to get ready for?"

"It's in the next hour." He replied.

"But weren't you going to use Single File as a witness?" She also pointed out.

He stopped to think for a bit until he had jumped out of his seat. "Oh yeah, I guess I could get that knocked out of the way."

"You'll probably need to leave now. Traffic is pretty arduous at this time of the morning, if I do recall your brothers mentioning it on my initial visit." For someone who had grown infatuated with him, she seemed pretty eager to get him out of the room.

He pulled out his phone, checking the time. "Shit, you're not lying. I'm gotta go now." He pocketed his phone and waved at us one the way out the door. "Be right back."

"Just be careful!" Celestia hollered back out to him, then casually returning her attention to me. "Now what were you saying?"

At times, I had to remember that Celestia had a unusual talent for staying focused on a particular subject matter. I was more amazed that she had the strength to put her own affections aside. Then again, she's had to do that for well over a millennium, so it shouldn't be that surprising. "I was saying about what they were going to do on tomorrow night."

"That." And then the worry walked right back into the room. Celestia started walking back and forth, trying to put together a plan. "I can't allocate any guards to make the attendance. The sight of him participating in something like this would put his standing at risk, I would be forced to act."

"And I can't search the morgue for any new clues AND keep an eye out for Nondis at the same time." I cited.

Celestia then made a note of my father in the midst of her tangent. "I certainly hate that Crescent had to come out of retirement for something like this. The last time he had to report to that place, he was under an agency name, Night Light to be more specific."

"Why that?" I asked curiously.

"Because your father was brutally efficient in dealing with threats. It's the reason why he was captain for a while."

"Dad never really goes into his military history. He only shows the medals and plaques in the cabinet, never talking about it to either me or Shining." I explained.

"It's probably a lot to do with that particular assignment. I do know that he used to frequent the place with a number of other guards. Of course, that was when Blueblood still had executive say in the guard's dealings."

While the topic digressed to my father, I offered to point out something towards her. "Dad saw something on Friday night, I think it was the face of one of his old comrades on a life-size doll. The doll was fighting Kalimba."

"I see." She answered gravely, knowing the venue and what that bit of news could've implied. "What did she say on her availability on Tuesday?" She walked back to the topic at hoof.

"They're keeping her preoccupied with some raffle winners. She won't be able to help him either." I replied.

The princess began to ponder the options available to her. "Should I send some guards to the morgue?"

"Not yet. I need to find more evidence linking Umbra to the place to write up the grounds for a warrant." I answered, not wanting to stir up too much attention to the relatively sensitive matter.

Celestia released a stressful groan. "We're getting warmer. But the warmer we get, the more dangerous it becomes for Nondis." She sat in her chair, trying to come to whatever conclusion she had in mind. "Is there no other way to keep an eye out for him?"

Looking at her, I could tell she deeply wanted to involve herself. But after what all I've seen, I had my list of concerns about it. Especially since there was no disguise small enough for her to be able to use. I began to think of what options I had available to me. "I could use my student to observe the arena, but I feel like she'll be at risk to relapse into old habits."

The princess raised her head, becoming curious over what I had announced. "A student? You have one of your own?"

"Her name is Starlight Glimmer. She's a powerful unicorn, but learned her craft through misguidance. I'm trying to correct her." I briefly summarized.

The princess nodded in acknowledgement. "I would very much like to meet this Starlight Glimmer."

"I'll set up a date for when you're not too terribly busy with paperwork and meetings." I said, summoning a small calendar to check on which days had her availability.

Celestia prompted an idea that came to her as a result of our conversation. "If I could make a suggestion, why not use your student to observe the dealings of the morgue? That way you can attend Nondis' bout on tomorrow night."

Even that idea had some of my concerns, but it was one I had considered at the moment. "I'm sure she's not a stranger to death, but I don't know if she can handle it on her own."

"Who do you think would accompany her then?"

I tapped my hoof to my chin, seeing what I could work out. My intention was to ensure that nopony would ever be alone throughout the night. "The only way I can think of is if dad goes with her. I can take my friends with me to help out if things get dire. They've been wanting to do their part for a while now, it's only fair that I give them the opportunity to see this for themselves."

The princess then added. "If that's the case, then I want you to utilize Kalimba for this. Since she and Nondis will be separated for the night, it's only fair that she'd guide you and the others through safely to and from the arena."

I shook my head. "She'll want to be with Nondis up to the point he fights. Her being with us would probably garner too much attention."

The princess took another route of approach, coming up with a dire alternative. "Then I suppose I will have very little choice in the matter but to use somepony who knows the grounds."

"And who's that?" I asked.

The princess shrugged as she sipped on her morning tea. "Who else other than the royal provocateur himself."

A royal provocateur? The only one I could even think of that would fit that description is... oh no. Oh no, please not that. "Eugh... Does it have to be him?"

"He's your best bet for security. I trained him myself anyhow."

"Seriously, him?" I asked with disgust.

The princess rolled her eyes at my disdain. "Yes, Twilight Sparkle. He may not look or act like it, but Blueblood is very much trustworthy in Canterrot."

I began to think of the various sins and venues that could avert the eyes of the herding prince. "But who's to say he won't get distracted?"

Celestia firmly answered my concerns with her highest assurance. "He may be the playboy of our lot, but there's a reason why he's been my spearhead for many a century. His focus is unparalleled. Just be cautious of your friends, he may find an interest in them. Particularly for Rarity."

I then gave her a stern warning. "If he asks my friends to do anything creepy, I'm sending him into next week."

The princess smiled. "Change that week to a month, and consider it done. He's a tough guy, he can take it."

Well hello. I know it's been a month and I was supposed to release this one sometime last month, but I had a hell of a busy July, even going into the release of the previous chapter. It goes without saying that I'm happy to be writing again.

Though this month comes with the IRL cost of my not having many bookings to keep my finances stable, I will be using some of my free time to build on the current arc. I'm already halfway done (maybe a good 40% done) with the next chapter.

In speaking of which, this chapter seems to be back on the shorter side of things (as if 23k words is short in any capacity). But then again, I didn't want to write only a ten thousand word chapter and have you guys waiting for the sequences to be doled out on a day-by-day basis. It makes more sense (to me) to cover more ground with all the events taking place, using the days between for some character development.

Other than that. I've tried to maintain a goal of having a chapter per month this year. I had to jump back in shape in May and June, so that's why there was so many chapters thrown out so quickly over those months. Meantime, this was supposed to be June's release with a deadline of mid-July... guess we know how well that went.

So whatever I don't get to by the year's end, I'll probably drop in another Christmas bomb (I'm trying to avoid that).

Thanks for being patient with me and reading along. I hope to see you next chapter.