"What do you mean by that?!" In an instant, Gunther's magic had wrapped his body in a suit of icy plate armor. A chill breeze blew through the room as he spread his wings, but just as he started to created a spear in his talons, his body froze. The other ponies and griffons in the room could hear the young Knight-Captain struggling within his own suit, but the armor didn't budge. The reason for that was the talon that Gertrude had placed on his wing, her own magic overwhelming Gunther's control over the ice. "G... grandmother?"

"I'm sorry, Gunther," she said regretfully as she forced him to sit down again. Her tone grew a touch colder as she turned her attention back to the bespectacled griffon at the end of the table. "But under the circumstances, I think we should give the Emperor an opportunity to clarify his statement."

"Yes! Please do, Grigori," Celestia added sternly, the undertone of her own voice as heated as Gertrude's was cool. "I never took you for a griffon who would make threats against one of my friends while under my own roof!" At her side, Cadance simply stared at the Emperor with a stunned expression.

Despite Gunther's reaction and the angry glares of two demigods directed his way, Grigori remained unmoved. This was more than could be said for Senator Snaketail, who had leaped back, nearly tumbling out of her seat when Gunther rose up, or General Airstrike who had reached into an inner pocket of his uniform to slip on a set of thundersteel knuckledusters at the first sign of hostility. As if none of that had happened, the Emperor elaborated, "No threat was meant. I certainly wasn't advocating that Gertrude's death would have to be immediate, or even literal. I was simply relaying the decision that the senate and I have arrived at; that Gertrude Snowheart's immortality is a complication that must be addressed before we can even consider allowing her into our nation."

Gertrude scoffed, "Why? Are you afraid that I might try to take over? I may be stronger than the average griffon, but hardly powerful enough to conquer an entire Empire by myself. I don't even want to rule over you. I have no interest in interfering with how you run your government."

Senator Snaketail laughed bitterly at that as she reclaimed her seat. "Forgive me for some of us finding that difficult to believe, considering the cult of hundreds down below us. For a griffon who wants nothing to do with leadership, they're certainly loyal, to freeze themselves for twelve centuries. Fanatically so, you could say."

"One could say that," Grigori interjected, looking askance at the senator. "And even if we were to take you at your word, Ms. Snowheart, the fact remains that as things stand, you have ample time to change your mind. Perhaps none of us here have any need to be concerned, but what about the leadership fifty years from now? Or a hundred? Or five hundred? The Empire was founded on the refutation of permanent or dynastic leadership."

General Airstrike nodded. "Our Empire has grown strong by being able to change with the times! Every griffon on this side of the table was either elected to their position, or appointed by those who were. Sometimes you need to build your nation up. Sometimes you need to get your knuckles bloody and fight. Whatever we need at the time, that's what we look for in our leaders! A griffon who never dies and never changes would lead the Empire to stagnation!"

Though still immobilized for the moment, Gunther growled at the accusations. "I can not believe what I am hearing! Are you cowards truly so terrified of the one to whom you own your very existence? If your system of governance works so well, and your people are so proud of being ruled by mortals, then what do you have to fear?"

Gertrude nodded, granting Gunther control of his armor again as he seemed more willing to argue with his words, rather than his spear. "I just want what is best for my clan. If it would assuage your concerns, I would be willing to forswear any form of high political office."

"You could make that oath," Grigori replied, "but what if the citizens came to you, asking you to break it?" Snaketail snorted derisively at the idea, but the Emperor continued to posit, "A number of my predecessors have not been what you might consider the ideal leaders. Corrupt... vicious... some even turned out to be outright insane after working their way into office. There have been times when the Empire was placed on the precipice of ruin. Imagine such an Emperor came into power. Who would the citizenry turn to? In times of strife, every creature seeks out safety. Stability. Who better exemplifies that than a wise and beloved immortal? If, in their desperation, thousands came to you begging for you to take the place of a wicked Emperor, can you honestly tell us that you wouldn't answer their call?"

Gertrude's mouth hung open as the Emperor's question battered against her mind. Well... he has you there, Gungnir whispered. After you went to the effort of saving me, could you possibly say no to even a single one of your own people in need?

"No," Gertrude eventually replied honestly. "No, if even a single griffon came to me seeking help, I can't say that I would refuse them."

"Nor should she have to," Gunther interjected, using the table to raise himself up. "Why should any griffon, let alone my grandmother, suffer the leadership of a depraved ruler?"

As if he had been anticipating that very question, Grigori smoothly replied, "Because we have survived depravity before. We have suffered cruelty and incompetence, but even after reaching our lowest points the Empire survives, and like a forest set ablaze by a lightning storm, we have grown stronger and wiser in the recovery. We hold our past leaders up as historical examples, both the good and the bad. A griffon who has only one lifetime to give in service to the Empire has ample opportunity to leave a legacy for good or for ill. For those who have the ability to not only see how their memory affects future generations, but to continue to shape it, the temptation is all the greater to whitewash away past mistakes."

"And what would you have me do?" Gertrude asked after thinking on this for a bit. Regarding Grigori and his companions, she mused, bringing a talon to her breast. "If you are going to ask me to surrender my immortality, don't bother. My agelessness and connection to Winter aren't just powerful magic, they are an obligation. There was a time when this entire realm was in danger of collapsing in on itself."

Senator Snaketail rolled her eyes. "And now the messiah complex is out on display."

"Think what you like," Gertrude replied, "but the Elements of Harmony chose us. They changed us into what we are now. You all have duties to your people, and I understand that. This is mine, and I wouldn't even know how to surrender it. Perhaps if the forces of Harmony chose another creature to replace me as Warden of Winter, I would accept that, but until then, this is what I am."

Gertrude sat up straighter, with regal dignity as she continued, "And that puts us at an impasse... because unless I've guessed wrong, you still aren't saying everything that you mean. You can't allow me to join your Empire as things stand, but you can't afford to allow me and the rest of the clan to remain apart from the Empire, either."

"We certainly can," Senator Snaketail shot back before Grigori could reply. "We don't need you!"

"But you do need to keep me from supporting Equestria over the Empire's interests," Gertrude suggested. She saw Snaketail glanced toward General Airstrike, who had clenched his talons somewhat in response to her comment. "That's it, isn't it? I have read a history book since my return, you know. I know that the Empire and Equestria have, for the most part, maintained a sense of equilibrium. Especially with the lone ruler of Equestria falling into old age, albeit much more slowly than other ponies. That equilibrium could have survived Celestia regaining her youth, and maybe it could even survive Luna's return, but if three immortal wardens of the forces of nature were to formally join forces with no counterbalance in the Empire, griffons might begin to get nervous about the Empire's position in the world."

Gertrude felt sure that she was on the right track, but had to pause a moment to think on it further. "What still confuses me is why you would suggest that I would have to die. You have to know that, if I were to do so, whether it be by your talons or my own, that my friends wouldn't allow that to stand. Relations between Equestria and the Empire would be irrevocably damaged. Your citizens and your own public image would suffer dearly for it."

The corner of Grigori's beak quirked up in a sly grin as he looked Gertrude straight in the eye. "To clarify, Ms. Snowheart, what I said was that you would have to be willing to die. It isn't a perfect solution, but there is one path to compromise that I can think of."

The doors to the meeting room flew open so hard that they slammed against the walls as Gunther stormed out of the room. His armor had grown fierce and jagged, leaving frozen paw- and talon-prints on the floor with every step. "That smug, honorless, conniving vermin-eater," he growled.

"Calm down, Gunther," Gertrude said as she followed him at a calm, steady pace. If one were to look straight into her eyes, however, they would find her gaze dull and distant.

Her grandson turned to face her, his anger causing his control over the ice surrounding his body to waver. Even as it grew out from his body in jagged spikes, bits of it cracked away from his face. A single pink eye looked back at her, burning with a fury she had not seen in a very long time. "Calm down?! Grandmother, that piece of filth has offered us nothing but unreasonable, impossible choices! We cannot possibly have any dealings with him or his ilk!"

When Gertrude simply continued to walk by without saying another word, the rest of Gunther's armor began to crumble away into chunks of ice littering the palace floor. "... Grandmother...? No... you cannot possibly be actually considering it," he said as he watched her walk away, his voice having dropped from a raging roar to a stunned murmur.

Gertrude made her way to the nearest balcony exit, and once she was out in the fresh air and sunshine again, the former queen looked down at the tents far below. "Just... give me a little time to think," she said in a soft, but firm tone while spreading her huge wings wide. "I'm going to go down and spend some time with our clan."

With that, she pushed herself over the edge and began to glide down the mountainside.

Gunther grit his teeth and let out a gutteral, frustrated sound while behind him, the doors slowly swung back into position, and the rather dazed guards who had been stationed at either side of the doorway flopped out of the pony-shaped dents in the walls that the Knight-Captain's violent exit had created.

Author's Notes:

Woo! Fast update! Heh, even I didn't expect that, though I suppose it helps that most of the points and counterpoints brought up during this meeting were things that I had been mulling over ahead of time.

Fun fact: In the Griffon Empire, the title of "Emperor" is not an inherited position. Rather, the emperor is elected by the Senate, who are each in turn elected to represent the various regions of the Empire. The emperor has great political power, but the Senate serves as check and balance against that power, along with a set of constitutional laws designed to avoid repeating the excesses of previous emperors whose actions proved to be particularly unpopular or detrimental to the health of the Empire.

Some of these laws are so overly-specific, though, that they are utterly worthless the majority of the time. A frequent example is the law drafted after the reign of Glenda the Prude that no, the Emperor does not have the authority to require that all ducks in the Empire must wear long pants.