Airships bearing predominantly-changeling motifs, such as tattered wings and a single-headed bust sporting a curved horn paired with fearsome fangs, hovered incessantly a few miles around and above the region of snow. Changelings in military uniforms and coats watched from the decks, using rails for support and leverage as they scanned for anything that wasn't white and pure. This search lasted for some thirty minutes, and nothing turned up.

On one of the airships such a changeling with purple wings, dog tags stylized in the shape of a triangle, and an extra horn growing out of the top of his muzzle snorted. His lavender eyes narrowed slightly, his dark grey long coat billowing in a passing breeze.

Another changeling, one with what looked like a mottled leaf-green hood growing out of its skull and matching wings sprouting from its back with a pair of elytra covering them, stood next to the one with the extra horn. "Major Rhinoc, is it just me, or have we been had?" it asked in a feminine tone.

"I think the General got had. He told me something he himself heard from a fucking wraith," Rhinoc scoffed, nostrils flaring again. He turned to the changeling with the hood, almost eying her carefully. "Sergeant Cassida, we might not find anything at all out here." He lifted a holey hoof and gestured to the white below. "Except maybe Frostbite Haven."

Cassida scowled, her hood contorting slightly inward as she donned a very firm frown. "You mean the most recent town of filly-fuckers the General came across personally?" she hissed, her hood rippling with her low and angry tone.

Rhinoc nodded mutely, turning away from Cassida and to the landscape below. His ears twitched, and for a split-second the horn on his forehead gave off just the faintest glow of deep violet before it faded. "No love here… just as empty as it looks," he grumbled.

Cassida looked up at the dull, grey sky that hung heavily with clouds just in time to see another airship dart past the one she was on from above. Oddly, the vessel descended shortly thereafter, slowing down as it came to land, and she followed it with her eyes before noticing that it had an extra pair of gryphon-like wings. "Is that what I think it is?" she queried as another airship with fish motifs flew past and landed a few feet away, to the left of the first.

"Only one way to find out," Rhinoc snorted, his wings spreading as he turned to Cassida again. "Keep this ship afloat while I go down there to see what all the hubbub's about." Without waiting for a response he jumped the railing and fell from the ship, only stopping himself about halfway down to the ground with a furious buzzing of his wings. He flew to the two just-landed ships, likewise descending lower and lower as twin gangplanks opened from the sides facing outward and landed with snow-flinging thuds.

He paused in his advance as two groups filed out of the airships, trotted around behind them, and converged on the spot. A minute after that, two more forms trotted hastily out of the Scylla to catch up with the others, and one was adorned with distinct black garbs. Rhinoc flew to the gathering to see what the fuss was about, landing just in time to see Lance and Matt join the others. All eyes, foreigner and friend alike, fell on him in that moment.

"My, you are a sharply-dressed changeling. Your purple eyes only further accentuate your uniform, quite fabulously might I add," Rarity chimed with a grin, her utterance causing Rhinoc to flinch and blush.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Maria cut him off, "Daddy, who's that?" Rhinoc blinked and turned to the foal, his jaw dropping when he saw that she was pointing at him with a talon and looking at Lance in one sitting.

"Long story," Lance stated with a roll of his eyes when Rhinoc turned to regard him with his face turning a tinge of blue. "She's… unofficially adopted." Natalie gave a snicker at the utterance, grinning even as she got a sidelong glare in her direction.

"Where's she from?" Rhinoc asked, turning to Maria.

"Let's not discuss that. Have you found anything in this frozen hellhole yet?" Lance replied, watching as Rhinoc turned to him with a shake of the head.

"Only started the search in the last half-hour, sir," Rhinoc said, assuming a frown. "Where is the wraith who told you about a Godcat-forsaken temple?"

Katie tottered forward, wordlessly lifting a hoof and nudging Rhinoc in the foreleg with it once she was within reach. He turned to her and she looked up, and for a few seconds silence lingered in the freezing air. Rhinoc blinked once, twice, thrice, yet his eyes didn't deceive him. His horn glowed again and his violet aura seized her, though it did nothing else to her that anyone present could see.

But a sickening feeling settled deep within his body the longer his magic held her, making his stomach form into tight knots and his head start pounding in pain. It faded in seconds, yet the flashes of agony he felt only lingered thereafter. "Holy hell in a hoofbasket," Rhinoc muttered, turning away from Katie and to Lance yet again. "Sir, I think you've found a… this is the first time I've seen and sensed a changeling devoid of love."

Lance slowly lifted a brow. He lifted a hoof and gestured to Katie with it. "Devoid of love? Are you suggesting she eats something other than love, if she's even able to do so?" he asked.

Blueblood decided to interject before Rhinoc could answer, "Pardon my forwardness, but where is the nearest town, General?"

Rhinoc turned to Blueblood and sighed. "Nearest one in the immediate area is abandoned and consists of igloo huts," he stated in a flat voice, garnering Blueblood's attention as he spoke. "Second-closest… I think would be Whitefall Town."

"Whitefall?" Blueblood parroted, turning to Lance with a slight frown on his muzzle. "Is it anything like this 'abandoned space consisting of igloo huts' at all?"

Lance turned to meet Blueblood's gaze, promptly shaking his head as soon as their eyes locked. "Almost nothing like… the abandoned igloo… huts," he replied, his brow slanting a bit.

"That abandoned place is now very likely a mausoleum anyway. All the better, as far as I am concerned," Katie piped up, waving a hoof dismissively as the two stallions turned to look at her in unison. "That place was as sour and bitter as a bunch of screeching old nags with nothing better to do with their time other than snub the next generation."

Rhinoc grimaced. "And entirely devoid of love," he added as an aside. He turned to Lance again. "How long do you want me and the rest of Delta Unit hovering around here?"

Lance pursed his lips, and for a few seconds he was silent. "A day or two, if you don't find anything. A week, should you or someone else in the unit happen upon something," he answered. "After that, head to the base. I'll catch up with you there and you can give me the full report."

Rhinoc nodded and lifted his foreleg to give him a quick salute. "Yes sir." With that, he spread his wings and took off in a furious buzz, rocketing towards his vessel with purpose. This left the groups to themselves, and for a minute silence hung in the air as Shining regarded the platoon of airships already hovering about.

"I'll tell you what… your changelings are more organized than those of Chrysalis," Shining piped up, turning to Lance with a slight frown on his face. When Lance turned to him with a brow raised, he elaborated, "Instead of just a huge swarm going after everything at once, yours have airships and what I assume to be specialized groups."

"Sounds to me this Chrysalis you speak of lacked sorely in tact," Lance snorted, garnering a nod from Shining.

"And foresight." Shining smiled. "Now, then, shall we head to Whitefall?"

Lance smiled back. "After we discuss whether or not we'll sleep in the airships again, and how often," he retorted.

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A small village with no more than forty houses of brick walls and wooden shingles sat at the very far southern end of the tundra, marked by a forest of pine trees growing all around it. The sky was filled with dense grey clouds, which released snow onto the small town in a gentle flurry.

Some unicorn stallions, in addition to a gray-maned and speckled, hulking earth pony with very furry legs and ice blue eyes, were out and about. Instead of making snowponies or shoveling snow aside, they boasted leather armor and steel swords sheathed in to scabbards, and all of them were patrolling diligently about a small altar that was no more than a withered tree stump adorned with tattered paper talismans. The altar boasted a hoof-sized, star-shaped blue jewel with a diamond-shaped vein of gold in its center resting atop it that was kept out in the open.

The ponies paused and turned their gazes skyward when two airships sailed overhead at a sluggish pace, descending until they vanished behind the cold canopy of the surrounding forest. The earth pony drew his sword with a fur-laden hoof, wordlessly exchanging glances with the other assembled ponies. "You lot, stay here. I'll investigate," the earth pony ordered.

One of the smaller unicorns, one with a red coat and a beige mane, rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, sure. We'll do what ya say, you shitty excuse for an in-law," he snarked.

The earth pony turned to glare at the red-coated unicorn, eyes narrowing to chilling slits. "I beg your pardon?" he hissed in a low voice that froze the pony who made the statement.

Another unicorn, this one with a beige coat and dark brown mane, donned a smug smile. He turned to the red-coated stallion. "You're just mad Bartholomew here did your sister and married her, Andrew," he chortled. "I wonder what your family reunions are like."

Bartholomew sighed and crammed the handle of his sword into his mouth before cantering towards the pine forest at a brisk pace. Crossing the makeshift border between town and wood, he heard Andrew raising a fuss, though about what faded with rapidly-increasing distance. But that wasn't his concern, let alone something as immediate as two airships touching down somewhere in the forest.

His mind whirred about, presenting several dozen scenes as to what the arrival of the vessels meant. He gripped his sword tighter, taking no more than a second to blow out a huff of air through his nostrils as more vivid and disturbing imagery came to the forefront of his thoughts. Five minutes passed as he trotted through the wood, and the only sound he heard was the crunching of snow beneath his hooves.

Ten minutes after that, the world seemingly stood in silence, with him being the only soul daring enough to press on and break it. The air itself grew colder, and the snow started to fall in heavier clumps that were still light enough to gently drift down. Light grey mana pulsed faintly from his hooves as he took each step forward, barely concealed by the white surrounding him. Fifteen minutes passed in short order, and only then did Bartholomew stop dead in his tracks.

His ears twitched as he caught a very faint fervor of voices, and he scowled as he realized one of them was hollow. "You sure travelling on hoof is a good idea? It's gonna be a bit before we get to Whitefall," the hollow voice said.

"A wraith... absolutely no other creature on this Godcat-forsaken planet has such an empty voice. This ought to be a challenge," Bartholomew muttered to himself through the handle of his sword, just low enough that he could hear himself. He raised a hoof, but it halted in mid-air when another voice broke through the forest, this one slightly louder and masculine.

"Only for you, if you didn't just fly into town with those puny shredded wings of yours. I doubt your legs could carry you for more than ten miles before giving out," the masculine voice snarked.

Another voice piped up, also masculine, "You would too, Lance, if you were a trotting twig like she is. Give her a break."

The hoof dropped in an instant, and Bartholomew's scowl only deepened. He clenched the hilt of his weapon harder, certain that he would leave visible marks in it before the day was out. One second he was still, and the next he took off towards the voices in such a frenzied gallop that snow all but flew behind him in his wake. He could feel portions of the earth itself shake as he rushed headlong into what he assumed would be trouble, only to find himself airborne as a hoof snagged on an errant root of a pine tree and caused him to tumble helplessly into a clearing.

He found himself staring skyward, flat on his back and with his sword no longer in his mouth. Snow whirred around him as the two airships he saw minutes ago rose into the air with flapping wings. Only when they ascended past the canopy and took off did the snow cease flying in all directions.

"Look!" the hollow voice from earlier exclaimed before, though only now Bartholomew could definitely make out a slight feminine hint. "A tour guide!" Sluggishly, and with the realization that he was no longer armed fueling him onward, he rolled over and stood on shaky legs that threatened to buckle. Finding himself facing the trees and his sword as he stood, he gave a sigh of resignation and almost haltingly turned himself around.

The sight before him made his lower jaw drop instantly. There was an entire ensemble standing before him, and among them, a speckled face like his own also sported a dropped jaw. "Matt? … is that you?" Bartholomew questioned in a low voice that only held shock.

"Dad?" Matt replied, his eyes widening. "H-how… I-I thought…" Words failed him as Bartholomew bumbled forward and wrapped his front legs around his neck, pulling him into a hug that was somewhere on the scale between tight and outright crushing. Matt returned the hug, and after a few seconds they broke the embrace and stared each other in the face. Apart from minor differences between them, it was almost as if they stared into a mirror head-on.

Katie decided to toss in her two bits, garnering the attention of the stallions and ruining the moment in the process, "Alright tour guide, can you take us to Whitefall please?"

Bartholomew took a few seconds to size Katie up, and he frowned with a slightly slanted brow when he realized just how puny she was before him. He turned his head this way and that to do a headcount, scowling briefly enough at Lance that only a few present could see the quick-second contortion of his face, before he turned back to Katie and sighed. "As long as you behave." He snorted when a drifting clump of snow landed on his snout, making it fly off.

"Can't do much as I am. Alright, I'll be good," Katie replied with a shrug.

Blueblood piped up, "I say, you are… ill-equipped, considering the weather out in these parts. Do you not have enough funds for something a little more… decent?"

Bartholomew turned to Blueblood and shook his head. "This is the only suit of armor they had that'll fit my body. At least, until the armor-forgers can make another set," he replied in a solemn voice.

Blueblood's eyes widened, and his jaw quivered. "Is the issue that horrendous here? H-how would you be able to motivate the forgers here?" he asked, aghast.

Bartholomew's shoulders sagged slightly, and he huffed through flared nostrils. "I sometimes ask myself that. Haven't found a good answer," he stated.

"Would a good bonfire on their tails be a decent-enough motivator?" Natalie suggested, making Bartholomew jerk in place before turning to her to find her horn already alight and flickering with orange flames.

The flames died when Bartholomew sent Natalie a firm glare once he had gathered himself. "No; if anything, they'd kick you out of town," he responded coolly. "And you remember the last time you set somepony's tail alight?"

Natalie donned a small frown and nodded. Katie looked at the two for a few seconds, orbs darting from one to the other and back again. Her mind then whirred, and it took just one second for something to click in. "You adopted Natz, didn't you?" she asked, looking pointedly at Bartholomew.

"Yes," Natalie sighed, turning to Katie with shoulders sagging slightly. "I'm a foster foal, but I'd rather not get into the specifics."

Katie turned to Natalie and her orbs dimmed momentarily. Slowly, fractionally, a pale brow climbed up her forehead until it threatened to connect with the base of her horn-stubble. "And you're also freaking crystal…" Katie added, carefully.

"My lips are zipped," Natalie replied, and to emphasize her point, her horn glowed and seized her own muzzle before a zipper materialized over her mouth and seemingly fused with it. With the odd accoutrements in place, her mouth sealed shut in an instant. Her form then dulled until it lost its luster entirely, thanks to another quick flash of magic.

Katie's raised brow tabled instantaneously. She turned to Blueblood and sighed. "Am I dreaming?" she asked in a flat voice.

Blueblood shook his head. "You would not be the only one wishing you were doing so at this time," he stated somberly. He turned to Bartholomew and raised a hoof to gesture to where said ill-dressed pony tumbled in from. "To Whitefall, if you please. We haven't all day."

NoLegs jumped on Bartholomew's back and mewed. Bartholomew snorted and turned around, trotting a little ways ahead before stopping to pick up his sword and put it back in its scabbard. He went on his way, his ears twitching when he heard the sound of several hooves plodding and paws and claws scrabble along through snow behind him. Ten minutes flew by wordlessly, and still the snow continued to pile on in growing clumps that soon stuck to the heads of all.

"Matt, you do know wraiths are bad news, right?" Bartholomew asked, keeping his back turned.

"The one with us can hardly do anything on her own. Talk, fly, trot, and maybe poke if she felt like it—that's about it," Matt replied. He sighed as Katie took flight for a few seconds, only to land on his back. "At most, she's a hitchhiker. So we put up with her."

Bartholomew snorted, though whether in amusement or irritation, Matt couldn't tell. "Oh, the other guards in Whitefall are gonna give me an earful tonight," he sighed. "Say, who are the other folks with you? I haven't seen such a well-groomed coat, or a pink mane, or a diamond dog in a while."

"Vagabond," Fenrir answered tersely, averting his gaze to the side when he felt something climbing up his arm. He turned his attention back forward when Angel perched himself on his shoulder a few seconds later.

"Me and my friends, and my friends' pets… and Blueblood are Mythonian…" Pinkie began, only to halt when her brain momentarily went blank. "Oh, what's the word…" she grumbled after a few seconds, trying to rack her brain for an answer.

"Diplomats," Blueblood finished for her.

"We took these guys for a trip in our country, so they're doing the same with us. Fair's fair," Flash added, his response causing Bartholomew to halt and turn to him with both brows raised.

"So, is this… a sort of…" Bartholomew began, his ears twitching.

"'You show me yours, I'll show you mine;' exactly what it sounds like. For diplomatic reasons on their part," Katie answered, lifting a hoof to wave it dismissively. Her hoof fell in Lance's direction and she added, "He started it. His idea."

Bartholomew nodded and turned to Lance with a smile on his muzzle, but the smile was so faint that it seemed more like a slight twitching of the lips. "Is that true?" he asked in a calm tone.

"It's not entirely my fault," Lance began, briefly shifting his glance sidelong to find Shining Armor smiling at him, "but yes, I have some burden of responsibility on my withers."

"Mister, um… are cutie marks accepted in Whitefall?" Sarah interjected, again causing Bartholomew to halt in his tracks and, this time, toss his head back. A roarous laughter escaped the large stallion's mouth and echoed through the surrounding area, though thankfully it lasted for no more than thirty seconds.

"Not many in Whitefall mind cutie marks all that much; you've got nothing to worry about," Bartholomew replied once he'd calmed down. With that, he started trotting once again, and this time he broke out into a brisk pace. Everyone shifted gears and still trailed after him to keep up.

Sarah raised her brow, a skeptical frown on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it when she noticed that the trees were starting to thin out a little. Owlowiscious gave a hoot, and Sarah turned to him to find him sitting on Spike's head, and said drake himself had hitched a ride on Twilight. "What?" she asked.

Owlowiscious gave another hoot and turned to Sarah with a feathered brow raised. He hooted again, eyes glinting in askance. "Need something?" Sarah tried again, frown deepening as Owlowiscious nodded and lifted a wing to gesture up ahead. She turned to the direction he pointed at and she found the trees had finally gave way to the snow-covered village.

Andrew trotted up to Bartholomew and lifted a hoof to jab him in his barrel. "What's this gaggle you have here?" he queried.

Bartholomew looked at Andrew and assumed a wide smile on his face. "Your nephew and adopted niece are among them," he said in a smug tone.

Andrew rolled his eyes. "You're pulling my leg again, aren't…" Words died as Bartholomew stepped aside to give Andrew and the other guards a full view of the entire group he brought back with him. The other guards took one look and burst out into laughter as Andrew's face drained of its color then and there.

"He brought guests to the family reunion!" the beige-coated stallion howled, whereupon he promptly fell to the ground flat on his stomach. "Looks like Barthy and Drew-colt are gonna have a full house tonight, boys!"

"What's a full house?" Maria asked, nudging Lance's foreleg with a talon. He just stared straight ahead, seeing almost all of the guards assembled around the altar losing themselves to an almost-maniacal laughing fit. The only response he gave at that moment was a faint shiver as the air turned colder still.

"You lot, follow me and ignore the peanut gallery," Bartholomew stated, catching the attention of the group. He donned a smile and added, "I want you lot to meet somepony."

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A little ways away from the altar, about no more than a half-mile away, stood a grand church that boasted two stories and a bell tower slapped atop for good measure. The sky started to darken, and the snow started coming down in even bigger clumps as Bartholomew escorted the group right to it without so much as a flinch in his step. At this point everyone shivered, though they pressed on until their makeshift guide stopped at the church door.

Bartholomew lifted a hoof and tenderly tapped at the door three times. Though 'tenderly' in this case meant that each time his hoof connected with the door, it still shook as if it were a rattle and pulsed with light grey mana that faded as soon as the hoof dropped.

"Seems your pops is packing a lot of magic to accentuate his bulk. I'd hate to be your mother if he gets heated," Katie whispered to Matt, who merely responded with a dismissive snort and a twitch of an ear.

The door glowed with a soft blue pulse of mana and creaked open in an outward swing, and Bartholomew backed off before it could hit him in the face. Standing in the doorway was a tall and lanky unicorn mare dressed in a thick coat of fur, and one that covered up most of her body save for a light purple face accentuated by teal eyes.

She was one who could easily look Shining Armor in the eye, though her gaze seemed fixed straight ahead. For a second she was still, and a faint breeze touched a strand of blond mane that spilled out next to her horn before lifting it ever so slightly.

Then she turned to Bartholomew and smiled. "Honey, isn't it a little early to be off duty?" she asked.

"Snow's piling thick tonight. I don't think even my fur could help me withstand the night. Besides, I brought guests, Eve," Bartholomew answered, smiling back. He stepped aside again, giving Eve a wholesome view of what he was referring to.

Eve soon spotted Matt and Natalie, and her smile only widened. She nodded to them. "Come inside everyone." Her horn glowed a faint blue again, and her aura grabbed Matt and Natalie by their horns. "Especially you two." Without any further warning she dragged them both into the church with almost no effort on her part, and for a few seconds she didn't seem to notice Katie clinging to Matt's backside as she too went inside.

Bartholomew trotted in after them, going quickly enough for everyone else to start filling inside. As soon as everyone was in the church, the door slammed closed with a faint blue pulse, echoing through what the group found was a dining room with eight tables scattered about with accompanying chairs and thick table cloths.

Atop each table was a bunch of foodstuffs, mostly breads and vegetables with some meats here and there. Behind the tables stood a hall lined with several doors, culminating in a ladder at the very end that led upward. "Expecting the rest of the guards to hole up here again?" Bartholomew asked, watching as Eve dragged Matt and Natalie to a table and used some more of her magic to make them sit down. Oddly, Katie wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Yes, though I wasn't expecting more than just the guards tonight," Eve admitted with a sheepish grin, leaning over to nuzzle Natalie's cheek. Lance watched her just sit there and take the nuzzle. "But our babies coming to visit is fine too." She turned to the rest of her guests. "Sit down at the tables and help yourselves; I'll be in the kitchen making some more food." With that, she turned to the hall and merrily cantered down it before opening a door on the left and vanishing behind it.

"This is… quaint," Anna remarked, turning to Matt and Natalie to find them shrugging in return. She trotted to them and sat next to them, pausing when she felt a back pastern brush up against something sharp and pointy. She leaned to look under the table, fiddling with the cloth in the process to find Katie hiding under it.

"I can't eat; it would be rude of me to sit at the table," Katie explained, her snout wrinkling slightly.

"You're still at the table, technically," Anna pointed out with a frown.

"My point still stands," Katie huffed, eyes narrowing.

Anna rolled her eyes and leaned back prior to eyeballing the food before her. Seeing Matt and Natalie taking plates with their hooves, she followed suit as everyone else moved to sit down and do likewise. Soon the room was filled with the sounds of eating, though after a few minutes Bartholomew noticed that Katie was hiding, if only because her red tail poked out from under a table. "Take a seat and grab a plate; you need it," he remarked.

"I'm literally unable to eat; I'll spare you the specifics on why," Katie stated from her hidey-hole. She hissed when Anna nudged her with a back hoof, only to stop when Matt followed suit and managed to sock her in the mouth in such a way as to part her jaws. Only then did Katie comply, though she had to remove the hoof that lodged itself in her maws before crawling up into a seat.

"This is very homely, if a little large and much," Zecora began, pausing to bite into a rather large stem of cauliflower before swallowing. "I must say, I wonder who owns this place and keeps it such."

"My wife does," Bartholomew answered, turning to Zecora. "She always prepares before…" Words died when the door opened again, and in marched Andrew and the other guards, all of whom were slightly blue in the face and partially covered with snow. They filed in, and one used a warbling magic aura that was pink to close the door behind them. "That," Bartholomew finished awkwardly.

"B-beat u-us to th-the grub a-again?" Andrew hissed through chattering teeth, glowering at Bartholomew.

"Eve wanted us to park, so we parked," Bartholomew argued. He lifted a hoof and gestured around. "Go ahead and sit, and get to know the guests some. You need to warm up anyway, and your stomachs are first priority."

"They look like they barely escaped frostbite," Katie called from her seat, and she made to speak further before Natalie reached over and jammed a hoof that had a small biscuit into her mouth.

Grudgingly, Katie swallowed the biscuit whole—there wasn't much else she could have done, as a blue field of magic sparked around her and held her to the seat, coming from the same pony who shoveled the hoof into her face. The trip the biscuit pulled off on its way down sent aches upon aches through her system, and she shuddered as it stopped in her stomach and made it start gurgling instantaneously.

Andrew and the guards complied with Bartholomew's request once the spectacle at Katie's table died down, languidly shuffling over to the other assorted tables and taking seats. They were silent as they took their plates and started feeding themselves, though as they ate the food perked them up a bit, and the blue tinge on their faces faded a little in response.

"I have to say, this is good chow," Flash piped up with a smile, holding a fork in a hoof with a piece of cooked carrot impaled on its prongs.

Blueblood ate slowly, hesitating with each bite. Shining Armor looked at him. "Not your usual fare?" he asked.

Blueblood nodded and took another bite, chewing and swallowing. "It is… decent, though. I'll let it slide," he muttered in reply. His eyes fell on Lance, who had more meat on his plate than greenery. "Is… is he alright? Ponies don't eat meat…"

"Lance does. He's not a normal pony, Blueblood. He has an… allergy," Shining murmured, frowning. "But at least he has some greens on his plate."

"Daddy, what's this?" Maria asked, using a fork to prod at a pile of mashed potatoes.

"It's good for you, that's what. Try it; it's tasty," Lance replied, using his fork to heft up a small bit of potatoes that sat on his own plate. He shoved it into his mouth, and smiled as Maria picked up some of her own potatoes and crammed them into her muzzle.

She chewed the potatoes for a bit before swallowing, turning a slight tinge of green in the face, yet managing a smile despite the fact. "It is good," she chirped, wings flapping for a few seconds.

Eve emerged from the room she went into earlier and trotted into the dining room, carting with her a few more plates in her magic. "Who wants…" She stopped upon seeing the guards, and smiled at them. "Oh, dear, you look like you've seen ghosts. You lot need to rest as soon as possible. Are you full yet?" All the guards shook their heads, Bartholomew included. Her smile widened. "Then help yourself to some seconds."

Armin and Alexander watched as she heaped on more food on the tables, and the latter smiled while the former frowned. "Why are you such a sour pants?" Alexander asked before biting into a roll.

Armin turned to the beige guard and eyed him warily. "I can't put my hoof on it… but something's amiss," he replied.

Alexander looked around at the fervor going on, yet he saw nothing wrong. The room was alive with chewing and conversation, and all in all nothing was out of the ordinary. "Changeling's intuition, I assume?" he asked.

Armin's frown deepened and he slowly nodded in mute reply. He turned to Katie, who yet again had a piece of food shoved into her mouth by Natalie's hoof. His eyes locked with her orbs, and her ears stood upright in seconds. He grimaced as he continued watching as a bulge formed in Katie's throat and she was forced to swallow. "I think Katie feels it too… whatever it is."