The filly rolled over and stretched before cracking an eye open. She had expected to see Twilight slumbering in the bunk opposite. She hadn't expected to see a pegasus staring back at her with watery blue eyes.

"Fleur?"

"Yes?" was Fleur's mumbled reply, spoken from the bunk beneath the pegasus.

"There's a pegasus in here, and she keeps staring at me. It's kinda weird."

"Sorry mistress!"

"And she just called me mistress, which is also kinda weird."

"Sorry mistress!"

"She's also apologising a lot."

"Sorr-"

"Okay okay! I get it!" Fleur groaned and propped herself up. "The pegasus is called Summer Skies. We rescued her from the harem. Well, I say we, but I mean I saved her from the harem."

"Why? What was wrong with Trixie? Couldn't walk straight?"

"Yes. Well, no, but not for the reason you're implying. She was completely rat-arsed and was unconscious before we even got back here so I had to carry her. Anyway, Summer, this is what we have come to call 'the filly,' since she doesn't seem to have a name and we can't seem to think of one."

Summer gave a very small bow, "It's a pleasure to serve you mistress,"

"Why'd she say that?"

"It's a thing she does, just roll with it. The grey pony beneath the filly is Octavia." Octavia said nothing since she was still asleep and as a result of that Summer neglected her usual greeting. "Twilight and Trixie you've already met, sort of."

The filly nodded thoughtfully, "Okay, cool," she said before laying back in silence for a few seconds as she tried to work out which question was more prevalent to her; what's for breakfast? Or why was there a pegasus in the harem?

"What's for breakfast?" she asked.

"Why must you ponies insist on talking so loud? Trixie doesn't feel too-huerk! Oh no..."

"Trixie! Don't you dare! Don't you dare! Don'tyoudare!" Twilight shouted before a torrent of freshly blown chunks splashed her in the face. Twilight lay there, a look of horror frozen on her face as the former contents of Trixie's stomach slid down her chest and into her sleeping bag.

"Sorry..."

"Excuse me," said Octavia's sleepy voice, "but why is there a pegasus in here and why has Trixie thrown up on Twilight?"

The filly lay back again, crossed her legs behind her head and grinned at the ceiling. She had a feeling there was a good chance of today being totally awesome.

I can't believe you threw up on me," Twilight grouched for the hundredth time that morning. As soon as she was able she had galloped to the communal bathroom and run herself a bath, dragging Trixie with her. The filly had also joined them on the basis that hungover Trixie was the best Trixie. To annoy.

"I said I was sorry," Trixie said, her voice echoing slightly since her head was halfway down a toilet, "and could you please talk a little quieter, Trixie's feeling delicate..."

"You know what to do," Twilight whispered to the filly. The filly grinned and snuck up behind Trixie.

"Twilight says okay!" the filly shouted. "I however, make no such promises!" Trixie immediately jolted and banged her head on the inside of the toilet before extracting her head from said toilet and clutching it in her hooves.

"Ow... Why did you feel the need to do that?"

"Just 'cause!" was the filly's cheerful, and loud reply.

"I hate you so much. I hope you would've been nicer to me if I hadn't managed to stop that stallion from having his way with me."

"Of course we would have," Twilight told her, "but since you got absolutely stinking drunk instead and threw up on me, I'm not so inclined towards niceness right at this moment."

Trixie looked like she was going to say something but instead she burped weirdly and dry heaved into the toilet a few more times. "Why won't it stop!" she wailed. "Twilight... is there a spell to cure hangovers?"

"You're kidding right? You get pissed,-"

"Yeah."

"-throw up all over me,-"

"Uh-huh."

"-and now you want me to fix you."

"Please."

"All out of the goodness of my heart..."

"You do have a very good heart, if I do say so myself."

Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes, "Fine, but only because I don't want to hear you whining all day, and because there are things we need to do." There was a splash as Twilight hauled herself out of the bath and she dried herself off with a spell. "I just hope you know what you're getting yourself into."

"Please just make it stop! I'll do anything!"

"You won't be saying that once I begin." Twilight walked over to the toilet and held Trixie's mane back with her magic. "Prepare for the worst ten minutes of your life," she said before casting a spell that enveloped Trixie in a purple aura.

"That wasn't too bad, I don't know what you were talking abo-ugh! Oh crap... Urrrgh... Bluergh..." Trixie suddenly stumbled like she had been hit by a litre of bourbon all at once, and started heaving into the toilet repeatedly. Twilight looked on grimly as Trixie kept heaving and coughing up the occasional glob of... something, and didn't stop even when Trixie hunched up in obvious pain, tears streaming down her face.

"You might want to go," Twilight said to the filly behind her. "This is going to take a while and it's not going to get any prettier."

"What are you doing to her?"

"Purging spell. It'll get rid of the alcohol in her system and she'll be right as rain after. But it takes time and none of that time is pleasant for anypony involved."

"I can see that... Yeah, I'm gonna go see what the others are up to." The filly dashed out of the bathroom and galloped back to the room, weaving around the few ponies that were about at the time. She barged into the room to find Fleur and Octavia having a discussion about Summer, while the pegasus in question quivered on the floor between them.

"How are we supposed to hide her then?" Octavia asked, barely glancing at the filly's arrival, "Twilight can't hide her wings with magic, and she can't wear that dress all the time because you'll be able to see the outline of her wings against the fabric."

"I know, I know... Maybe she can borrow one of our cloaks or something? After all, we're a lot further south now, chances are it's warm enough to go without."

"If we don't need them, she definitely won't. Pegasi don't feel the cold as much as we do, so we might end up accidentally cooking her."

"How about a padded vest?" the filly suggested. "If we get her a padded vest, but removed the padding where her wings go, she could hide her wings in the pockets without making a bulge on the outside!"

Fleur patted her condescendingly on the head, "And that would be a great idea... if we had a padded vest and somepony capable of making such adjustments. She'll just have to get used to wearing a cloak for the meantime."

"Yes mistress."

"And that's another thing we're going to have to change. Stop calling us mistress. We don't own you. Nopony owns you."

"Should I c-call you master then?"

"No, if you are to call us anything you're to call us by our names." Fleur pointed to the various ponies in the room including herself, "You can call me Fleur, her Octavia, and her... uh... hmm. When we think of a name for her you can call her that, but until then you can call her 'the filly,' or just 'filly.'"

"Yes mistre-eh-heh-haaah... Yes Fleur."

"Good. I guess we better work out what we're supposed to do now. I know Twilight wants to talk to that assassin, but we don't know where he is, and we can all assume he's heavily guarded in wherever that place is."

"Would this boat have a brig?" Octavia asked. "Do you know, Summer?"

"No mis- Octavia, I'm sorry, b-but I don't- I don't know."

"Maybe we can ask a guard?" the filly suggested.

"I doubt they'd be willing to tell us anything," said Fleur. "Trying to assassinate the Viscount isn't something they would take lightly."

"There's a good chance this assassin wouldn't want to tell us anything either, so it's hardly worth the wrath of the guards just to learn absolutely nothing of any use to us."

"Octavia's not wrong." Fleur rested the back of her head against the wall and savoured the cool sensation for a few seconds, "So we got nothing then."

"Not necessarily," said the filly. "Even if this boat had a brig they'd still want to get him off to protect the Viscount and his guests, right?"

"Right, your point?"

"They'd have to stop the boat to do that. Maybe we could get off when he does and follow them to wherever they take him."

"We'd be getting off in Neigh Orleans anyway," Octavia said in agreement, "and there's a chance they would take him to a jail or something?"

Fleur shook her head, "A prisoner like him? Chances are he's going straight to High Rock for interrogation."

"In that case they would stop the boat before it got to Neigh Orleans since we passed High Rock on the way here!" The filly grinned widely. It felt good to be contributing. Take that, Trixie! "There'd be no point taking him further away from High Rock, just to haul him all the way back."

"Maybe..." Fleur rubbed her chin with a hoof as she thought. "There's not much in the way of major towns between Neigh Orleans and Whiplash though, so if they did stop the boat to transfer him off, chances are they'd have to hold him somewhere for a while so they could organise transport to High Rock." Fleur suddenly shook her head and hauled herself to her hooves. "This is all a moot point though, for all we know we're already in Neigh Orleans and we're wasting time sitting here. If only this room had a window."

"We just need to get outside then," said the filly. "No prob-" The door suddenly crashed open, permitting entry to Trixie, who was walking like her legs no longer had joints. Her mane and tail were also sticking out in all directions, and her eyes were wide with her pupils like pinpricks.

"Never, EVER, let Twilight cure your hangover," she announced. "EVER!"

Twilight entered the room behind Trixie, trying and failing to keep all traces of amusement off her face. "In my defence Trixie, you never asked if I actually had a spell tailored to fixing hangovers, and you never asked for the details. Most ponies only go through it once and never ask again."

"Unless you're Vinyl."

"Huh?"

"Vinyl learnt a purging spell she could cast on herself. She's done it that many times she's damn near immune to the side effects of them."

"That's really not how they're supposed to be used."

Octavia shrugged, "Tell that to Vinyl."

Trixie blinked a few times until her eyes came back into focus, eyes which immediately set on the other blue pony in the room. "Who's that?"

"For crying out loud Trixie," muttered Fleur. "This is Summer, I saved her from the harem."

Summer took a step forward and bowed before Trixie, "It's a pleasure to serve you mistress."

"Hmm, it is, is it? Interesting..."

"I know what you're thinking Trixie-"

"I wasn't thinking anything! Much."

"-and you, Summer, call her Trixie. The mistress thing would go straight to her head."

"Yes m- Fleur."

"Did we miss anything while I was getting my innards thoroughly spring cleaned? I only ask because the boat's stopped moving and Trixie doesn't know if we're getting off or not."

Fleur snorted and poked Trixie in the chest with a hoof, "You're kidding right? You spent most of last night pissed as a fart and you're curious about what you missed this morning?"

Trixie knocked Fleur's hoof away, "Don't even go there Fleur. If it wasn't for your stupid plan I wouldn't have been anywhere near that mini bar, and I wouldn't have had to club that stallion over the head and tie him to a bed! Excuse me for making the best of a bad situation."

Twilight, Octavia and the filly gave each other sideways looks, Summer stared fearfully at the floor, and Fleur hung her head in shame. "Yeah, I know, I fucked up bad and I'm sorry. Honestly, if you hadn't done that to that stallion I would probably be feeling a lot worse right now, so I guess I should say thanks."

"Thanks? For braining a stallion?" Trixie suddenly grinned, "Last time I did that Twilight yelled at me."

"Different circumstances," Twilight said. "The stallion in the harem was going to hurt you so I can't really say anything. I still think the one in Stalliongrad was a bit unnecessary though."

"I'm confused." Fleur looked up at the still grinning Trixie, "Are you mad at me or not."

"Your plan was stupid, and I think any plan you come up with in the future should be thoroughly scrutinized for such stupidity. On the other hoof though, it was a very nice bourbon." Trixie shrugged and sat down on a bunk, "All in all I think I came out on top."

"Ooookay... so you have no objections that Octavia, the filly and I have been planning on getting to the assassin and finding out what he knows?"

"Assassin? What assassin?"

"Yeah, you were totally out of it last night, weren't you? Pack your things and we'll explain on the way." Fleur started to pack her own belongings when a thought struck her, "Trixie, how did you know the boat had stopped?"

"I was hungover, I could feel if you were breathing too hard on me. Every movement the boat made while docking felt like a sledgehammer to Trixie's stomach."

"This sure as hell isn't Neigh Orleans," Fleur stated unnecessarily. It was pretty obvious the small town surrounded by woods on all sides wasn't Neigh Orleans.

Twilight leaned up against the rail to get a better look at the town, subconsciously spreading her wings since she was no longer encumbered by her cloak as Summer was borrowing it. "I don't see a name anywhere."

"Maybe we should disembark and have a look around?" Octavia suggested.

"I don't think we can," said Trixie, "look." She was pointing down to the gangway that connected to a small wooden jetty. How the small platform was stopping the giant riverboat from drifting away was anypony's guess. Standing side by side by the gangway were two guards, facing towards the boat.

"Why are they facing towards us?" the filly asked.

"To stop ponies from leaving I imagine," said Fleur. "Perhaps Lady Aramon ought to go say hello."

"Oh no you don't," Octavia piped up suddenly. "Asking silly questions to dangerously armed ponies is my shtick." Without waiting for anypony to argue she headed off towards the guards.

"Does Octavia seem... different to you?" asked the filly.

"She did seem different at the party last night," Twilight admitted. "I think getting to play last night did her a lot of good."

"And here I was thinking Octavia was largely devoid of amusing little quirks."

"Good morning sirs," Octavia said to the two guard ponies, giving them a polite smile. Soon as she said it the guards crossed their halberds in front of her.

"Nopony is to leave this ship," the one on the left told her.

"But I was hoping to stretch my legs. I'm not too good with boats and I was hoping a brisk trot around town would help."

"Nopony is to leave," the guard on the right reiterated.

"Is this because of what happened last night? The attempt on the Viscounts life? Has the assassin been taken off the ship?"

"That is none of your concern," the left one said.

Octavia did her best to appear panicked, "You mean that madpony could still be on board!? You're keeping us on trapped on board with a would be killer!?"

The guards looked at each other out the corner of their eyes. "No ma'am," the right guard said.

Gotcha, Octavia thought with glee. "So he's been taken off the ship then?" the right guard nodded slightly, "Oh thank goodness," Octavia sagged slightly, feigning relief.

The left guard turned and glared at his coworker, "It's meant to be a secret you idiot! You really are the worst fucking guard here, you know that?"

"I hardly think it's an issue that this fine lady knows her life is no longer in danger."

"Excuse me," Octavia really didn't want to stand there and listen to them squabble like children, "if the assassin isn't on board, then why aren't we allowed to leave?"

"Well go on then," the one on the left snapped at the other guard, "tell her since you're determined to give away all our secrets!"

Clearly the right hoof guard was impervious to sarcasm because straight away he said, "Nopony's meant to leave until we're in Neigh Orleans, and we're still a few hours away from there because we had to stop. That and the Viscounts pet pegasus is missing. We know she can't fly so she must be onboard somewhere, and we can't just let her walk off and escape. Too bad really, it was my turn to 'guard' her last night, heh-heh."

"'Pet' pegasus?" Octavia glanced towards her companions, seeing a small dot of blue poking from beneath the hood of Twilight's cloak.

"You're kidding right?" said the left guard, utterly ignoring Octavia. "After a party? Sloppy seconds is bad enough, but sloppy sixteenths? Gross!"

"Aw c'mon, it'd be fine. Dirty bitch'd be well up for it. Hey, you remember that time I made her lick me clean after I fucked her ass and she said 'thank you master' afterwards? That was so hot."

"You... You vile beasts!" Octavia yelled suddenly. "That pegasus is a living, thinking pony! Not some mindless animal to mistreat how you please! Actually that's not true, I doubt even you would treat an animal that poorly! How could you do such a thing!?"

"Easy there miss, it's just a Pegasus. Pegasuses get treated bad all the time, so why does this one matter?"

Octavia took a step back, her mouth hanging open in amazement. "You don't get it do you? All pegasi matter! No pony should be treated like that, nopony! Not pegasi, unicorns or earth ponies!" She stomped a hoof and growled in the back of her throat, "You disgust me," she spat before turning and heading back to the others.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked.

"Lets just say I fully appreciate why Summer appears to be terrified of everything. I can't believe they would do that sort of thing to a pony and think its okay." Octavia took a deep breath to calm herself, but failed and instead snarled and bucked the wall nearest to her, splintering the wooden board she struck. The sound echoed around the woods like a gunshot.

"Woah," the filly muttered. "I didn't think Octavia knew what angry was."

Octavia's chest heaved with her anger until she happened to look at Summer quivering beneath Twilight's cloak, looking at her with fear. Not wanting to scare the poor pegasus further she forced her breathing to steady. "Summer?"

"Y-y-yes mistress?"

Octavia suddenly felt bad for scaring Summer enough that she reverted to calling her mistress. "I'm sorry I'm scaring you, but those guards said such horrible things about what they had done to you and I got so angry." She sat down in front of Summer, who flinched slightly but didn't move, "I promise that I- we, won't let anypony hurt you like that again, right girls?"

"Damn right!" "Of course not." "No way José!"

"And that begins," said Twilight, "by getting out of here as soon as possible. Octavia, has the assassin been taken off the ship?"

"I do believe so."

"Excellent," she looked around and found no other ponies nearby. "I've been trying to find a good spot and I think I got one, so it's time we got going." She raised her head and her horn started to glow.

"No!" Fleur shouted, "Wa-" There was a purple flash and the six ponies reappeared in a small clearing in the trees by the river bank, "-it!" she finished shouting, but it was too late. The filly stumbled sideways, fell over and threw up. Summer fared a little better but appeared to be on the verge of a full blown panic attack.

"What the fuck was that!?" the filly asked once she was done throwing up. A few meters away Octavia was trying to calm Summer down, a task made harder by the fact that she had to do it without touching her and without appearing to be threatening in any way at all. It wasn't proving easy.

"Damn it Twilight!" Fleur yelled, "There are two ponies here that have never been teleported before! You know the first time is the worst, even when you know it's going to happen!"

"Sorry." Twilight picked the filly up off the ground using her magic and cleaned off the vomit the filly had gotten on herself. "I don't mean to do it. I'm just used to doing magic."

"Wait, where are we?" the filly asked, having got enough of her bearings back. She spotted the riverboat through the trees to the right. "That was teleporting?" Twilight nodded. "Cool! I can totally see how that would be useful. Apart from the bit where you throw up that is."

"Actually that usually only happens the first few times at most. You'll get used to it."

"Awesome! Hey Trixie, Can you do that too?"

Trixie looked awkward for a moment, unable to think of an adequate lie before sighing and admitting that she couldn't. "I tried to learn but it isn't easy, and I didn't have anypony to teach me."

"If you do learn I totally volunteer to be your guinea-pig."

"You would? Why? It'd be very dangerous to teleport you around without practicing first."

"Well, y'see, once I got past the whole throwing up thing, it'd be great! Think of the scams we could pull with teleportation!"

Fleur rolled her eyes and grinned. There was something strangely unstoppable about that filly and she had to admit she liked it. She turned her attention to where Octavia was trying to calm Summer, and was surprised to see that Summer was no longer panicking, but was sat with her hooves over her mouth and with tears in her eyes. "Is she okay?"

"I'm... not sure. She stopped freaking out over the teleporting pretty quick, but then she sat there like this and hasn't done anything since."

Fleur reached out and cautiously poked Summer, who didn't react in the slightest. "Hey Summer, you alright?" Summer squeaked something but Fleur couldn't understand it. "Uh, come again?"

"I'm off the boat..."

"What was that?"

"I'm off the boat!" Summer shouted, uncovering her face, which seemed to fighting a battle between shock, horror, and unbridled joy. "I'm off the boat! I'm off the boat! I'm off the boat!"

"Shh! Keep it down," Summer managed to contain herself barely, but her tears came even faster as she tried to hold it in.

"I'm really off the boat," she said a lot quieter, "It's real, it's really real!" She threw herself onto that ground and grabbed Fleur's leg in a hug, "Thank you mistress! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Hey, enough of the mistress talk," Fleur said good-naturedly, "but yeah, it's real. Why'd you think it wouldn't be?" Summer hugged Fleur's leg a little tighter as if afraid to let go, "Never mind, silly question. I guess we better discuss what we're going to do now, so you're going to have to give me my leg back." Summer reluctantly released her leg and they gathered around Twilight, Trixie and the filly, who were having a debate on the illegality of using teleportation to commit crimes.

"Trixie's just saying that using teleportation to commit a crime doesn't make the crime somehow more illegal. It'd just be a tool."

"I'm not saying it would be 'somehow more illegal,' but it's still wrong to use such spells to commit crimes-"

"Based on your opinion."

"Alright, yes!" Twilight growled in exasperation, "It is my opinion! Ponies skilled enough to teleport should not be wasting their talents on breaking the law! It's such a waste!"

"But what if you're breaking the law for a good reason," the filly posed, "like feeding your family or something."

Twilight sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, "I'm going to sound like such an elitist saying this, but ponies that are trained enough to teleport don't come from poor backgrounds. They wouldn't need to steal food for their survival, and any pony that did need to steal to live wouldn't be able to teleport unless they had a special talent for it, and any pony from that kind of background, displaying that kind of talent in Equestria would probably be granted a scholarship into one of the magic schools where they would never have to steal again."

"But they could steal if they wanted to though?"

"Of course they could, but once again it'd be totally illegal as well as a waste of their talents, which is why I think it's wrong."

"Okay!" Fleur shouted over them, "I have no desire to sit here listening to a cyclical argument about using magic to commit crimes. Instead we need to talk about what we're doing."

"All we need to do is find out where the assassin is being held and talk to him," said Trixie. "Shouldn't be too hard. Unless they've already taken him to High Rock, chances are he's being held somewhere secure in town."

"So, we'd be looking for a jailhouse of some kind then?" Octavia asked.

"Probably," agreed Fleur. "For safety though, I think most of us should stay here, while a couple of us go find him. Trixie, Octavia, Summer and the filly should wait here while Twilight and I go looking."

"What!? Why does Trixie have to wait here?"

"Yeah," the filly agreed, "why does Trixie have to wait here, whining the whole time."

"Uh! Trixie does not whine, she voices legitimate concerns to anypony who will listen!"

"Also known as whining!"

"Stop!" Twilight stood between them and cut off their argument. "I was actually thinking that Octavia should come with me, since she's the only other adult here that's seen him. I'm not being argued with about this since it also means that two 'earth ponies' would be going and would therefore be less likely to draw attention."

"Um... uh... ah... hmm..." Summer raised a hoof like she wanted to say something but wasn't brave enough to just say it.

Twilight smiled at her, glad that the nervous pegasus wanted to contribute so soon after her release, "Yes Summer?"

"B-begging your pardon mis- T-Twilight, but you're not an... not an earth pony." Twilight closed her eyes and performed the invisibility spell on her horn, opening them again to see Summer staring at her, wide eyed. "W-wha... How'd...how'd you do that mistress?"

"It's magic, a spell. Like the one I used to bring us here."

"U-u-unicorns can do that?" Summer started to rub her hooves together nervously. Previously, asking questions tended to earn her a beating.

"All unicorns can use magic to some degree, yes, like all pegasi can walk on clouds and manipulate the weather."

"Oh..." Summer's nerve finally got the better of her and she lapsed into silence.

"You didn't know pegasi could do that, did you?" asked the filly.

Summer shook her head and lowered it, hiding her expression behind the hood, which was probably for the best when Trixie snorted and blurted out, "Have you been living under a rock or something?"

"Trixie!" Fleur yelled.

"What?"

"You know what." Fleur growled and ignored Trixie who looked confused, the filly shaking her head at her disapprovingly, "Yeah, you and Octavia go. I think I need to explain to Trixie a thing or two while you're gone, and don't rush because it might take some time to get it through her thick skull."

"It's not that thick. Trixie can't help being born this way."

"Actually we might be better off coming back tomorrow," Octavia said before whispering something into Fleur's ear, whose expression quickly darkened. She spared a glance at Summer before looking to Twilight, "Do you think you could sink that boat from here?"

"Well... yes, but I'm not going to." Twilight quirked an eyebrow as Fleur bared her teeth slightly.

"That's too bad. You two go on then, we'll stay here and give Trixie a full education." She failed to notice Summer flinch as she said that, but Twilight saw it.

"Okay, but words only. Summer already thinks you're going to hit Trixie."

"What? No, no, I'm not going to hit anypony." Fleur ran her hooves down her face and sighed, "Dammit..." She waved a hoof in a shooing motion at Twilight and Octavia, "See you guys later."

Octavia roughly kicked at a pebble, sending it flying, "I can't believe Trixie would say something like that. I mean, you would think that'd be something Summer should know, but I can honestly say I fully understand why she doesn't."

Twilight sighed and stared up at the sky for a moment, "As much as I want to yell at Trixie for saying that, I have to admit she's not totally off the mark. What did they do to Summer to make her like this? To make her not know even the slightest bit about pegasi beyond that they can fly."

"She does seem rather... I don't know, childlike I suppose, but if I had spent my life chained up on that boat, being beaten, raped, and abused by everypony around me... Well, I like to think I could handle it but I'd only be kidding myself."

"What did those guards say to upset you so much? I've never seen you angry before, it was kind of surprising to be honest."

"I won't tell you the messy details, but they were talking about her like she wasn't a real pony. They would take turns to 'guard' her and do horrible things to her while getting off on her saying thank you for doing those things to her. It's like they don't realise pegasi are actually, living, thinking ponies with feelings!" Octavia shouted the last bit, some of her former anger bubbling to the surface.

"I know... What happened here to make this country so wrong? I've read the history of what happened before the exodus and sure the three tribes distrusted each other, but they never did things like this!"

"The Duke and his kind have a lot to answer for, that's for certain. Do you think most ponies realise what their rulers get up to?"

"Probably." Octavia looked at Twilight with surprise, prompting Twilight to explain what she meant. "Most ponies want to live their lives in peace, and for the most part they have that peace. To them, a few pegasi getting hurt is worth it if it means their lives continue in peace.”

"Choosing to live in willful ignorance is no excuse."

"I wouldn't call it willful ignorance." They continued in silence for a minute, until Twilight said something Octavia never thought she would say, "Have you ever thought to question the princesses commands?"

"Of course not! Hold on... does this include you?"

"For the sake of argument, yes, but pretend that we've never met and that I'm some," Twilight gave a heartfelt sigh, "some distant figure on a throne somewhere. Anyway, say that one day the princesses decreed something you didn't agree with, like forcing all unicorns to wear inhibitors in public. Since you're an earth pony it doesn't directly affect you, so would you do anything about it?"

"Of course I would, my best friend's a unicorn. What hurts her, hurts me."

"Even though the princesses have ruled for so long? Have steered Equestria since before you were born? You would try to overthrow their rule because they did one thing you didn't agree with?"

"I-uh... hmm. Okay, I wouldn't try to overthrow them, but I would certainly join any movement to get the inhibitor rule revoked."

"Right, very sensible. But what if you had grown up with that rule in place? Would you try to fight it?"

Octavia thought for a moment before answering, "Probably not. Even the unicorns would be used to it at that point. Is that what you're trying to say? Nopony does anything about the pegasi here because they're used to it being this way?"

"Pretty much. Add to that the fact that the Duke is the head of a ruthless military that will kill you and everypony you know for showing a hint of dissention, and yeah, nopony's going to want to fight back."

"But some will. Prance proved that."

"Yes, but that wasn't about the pegasi in the slightest. Using the inhibitor example, they weren't fighting to get rid of the inhibitors, they were fighting because an entirely new law was forced on them, like forcing earth pony's to wear fetters so they can't buck or something silly like that. You'd be fighting to get rid of the fetters, but not the inhibitors."

"What can we do to make ponies fight for the removal of the inhibitors then?"

"I don't know. Ponies aren't going to fight for the removal of inhibitors if they aren't wearing one themselves, so why put their neck on the line like that? They'd have to have something else to fight for that coincides with the removal of inhibitors."

Octavia smirked at Twilight, "Such as freedom from the tyrannical rule of the princesses?"

"Heh, yeah, essentially. But what if those same ponies are afraid of the idea of unicorns living without inhibitors? Would they still fight? Or would they be put off from fighting?"

"The way the pegasi here suffer hardly compares to living with inhibitors. Inhibitors don't hurt the ponies wearing them."

"True, it doesn't compare, but that same fear still exists. They might be afraid that free pegasi would go back to the way they were before the exodus and start making demands in exchange for manipulating the weather. As far as they're concerned, the current system works better for them, because it’s the pegasi that are suffering instead of themselves. There are probably ponies that think what the pegasi suffer is justice for the centuries of demands the pegasi put on them for food."

"You've been thinking about this a lot haven't you?"

"Yeah, I have." They both fell silent as they approached the edge of the town. They stopped, trying to determine the guard presence in the town, but they couldn't really tell from where they were.

"How does this all end Twilight?" Octavia asked quietly, her eyes betraying her worry.

Twilight frowned as she thought on how best to answer. "I don't know," she said eventually. "It's almost too much to hope that this has a happy ending. This country's too broken for that."

"Hoovendale," Octavia read out loud from the sign she was looking at on the front porch of the general store. "At least we have a name for where we are."

"Doesn't help us find the jailhouse though. That pony said it was near the general store, but all these buildings look the same!" Octavia couldn't argue with that, as the town did seem to be running a monopoly on rough-hewn log buildings. The only reason she had known it was a general store was because of the sign saying so.

"The pony did say we'd know it when we saw it though, so there must be some distinguishing feature that sets it apart from the others. Twilight looked up and down the street adjacent to the general store and spotted what the distinguishing feature might be; a pony in stocks outside one of the buildings. Reluctantly she approached the pony, which was a reddish-pink unicorn mare. "Good morning."

"Good morning? Good morning!? Do you have any idea how much my nose itches? It's been driving me nuts all night!" The unicorn tried to reach her nose with her hooves but couldn't quite reach.

"Why don't you use your magic?" The unicorn sagged in her restraints, taking a moment to answer.

"Can't, ain't got no magic," the unicorn said sadly. "Lost it a couple years back, don't know why. Banged my horn, then it went numb and my magic went and never came back."

"Sounds like you damaged the nerves in your horn," Twilight said. "Pretty hard to fix even with the right know how."

The unicorn looked at her funny, "You a doctor or something?”

"No, I just know a thing or two about problems that affect a unicorn’s use of magic. This might seem like a silly question, but is this the jailhouse?"

"No, it’s my ma's house, I broke one of her vases and she takes discipline very seriously." The unicorn rolled her eyes at Twilight.

"I'll scratch your nose if you answer me straight."

"Yes! Yes it's the jailhouse!"

"Did some ponies bring a white stallion here? If so is he still here?"

"Yeah, coupla hours ago, and I haven't seen anypony bring him back out. Buncha army types went in there with 'im. Can you please scratch my nose now?"

"One more question. Why are you locked up out here?"

The unicorn grinned, "Drunk and Disorderly, if ya really wanna know." Twilight shook her head and reached out a hoof and scratched the unicorns nose making one of the unicorns legs start twitching like a dogs would, "Oooohhhh... That's the stuff, thanks!"

"Don't mention it." Twilight gave the unicorn a nod and disappeared around the side of the building, followed shortly by Octavia.

"Are we getting jaded?" Octavia asked. "We just talked to that mare, who is locked up in stocks, like it was nothing; the most normal thing in the world."

"She didn't seem very upset so I'm guessing that wasn't her first time in them. She seemed cheerful enough." Twilight stopped at the middle window of the squat, one storey building and studied it, wondering which one of the barred windows the stallion they sought was behind. "Besides, there's nothing we can really do for her without drawing attention to ourselves.” Twilight reared up and leaned against the building to look through the nearest window, but even stretching her neck out she barely reached the tip of her nose to the bottom of the window. "I can't reach."

"Maybe you could fly?"

"No, if somepony saw that... Let's just say that trying to look through these windows would be the least of our problems." Twilight looked around, hoping to find something to stand on, like a box, but the back alley was curiously devoid of box like objects. "Octavia?"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if I stand on your back?"

"What? Why do you have to stand on my back? You're bigger than me, can't I stand on yours?"

"I can use my magic to lessen my weight. You won't hardly know I'm standing on you."

"Then why don't you float yourself up to the windows then?"

"For the same reason I shouldn't use my wings; it'd just look bad. Actually give me your cloak first." Octavia grumbled under her breath but removed her cloak, hoofing it over to Twilight who quickly donned it and cancelled the spell hiding her horn. She then motioned for Octavia to stand by the first window before enveloping herself in a levitation field and climbing onto Octavia's back. "Nothing in here," she said. "Move onto the next."

"This is ridiculous," Octavia grumbled, but moved on anyway, Twilight walking her front hooves along the wall for balance. Octavia stopped, letting Twilight peek inside.

"There's somepony in here, but not the pony we want. Go on to the next," Twilight walked herself along the wall again until they stopped at the next window. She peeked inside and saw the assassin, but he was accompanied by two guards. Twilight yelped and quickly ducked down before she was spotted, "Found him," she whispered, "but there's two guards in there with him."

"Can't you, I don't know, knock them out or something? Use that spell you used in Prance on the soldiers?"

"I could, yes..."

"But?"

Twilight sighed. That she didn't really want to do that to a pony again was the problem. That wasn't really a good enough excuse though. "Fine, here goes." She concentrated and formed the spell in her mind before poking her head up so she could see the guards. A purple glow surrounded their heads for a moment before both gently collapsed onto the floor, much to the surprise of the assassin.

"What the fuck?" he half shouted, scrambling back from the guards as fast as his restraints would allow. "Is somepony there?"

"Uh, yes actually," said Twilight, giving the stallion a weak grin.

"Who are you?" the stallion demanded as he backed away from the window.

"I was at the party on the boat, I saw what you tried to do and I have a couple of questions for you."

"Why do you think I'd tell you anything? If you were at the party then you must be on the Viscounts side. I'm not saying anything."

"Actually my friends and I had snuck into the party for our own reasons. Nothing so sinister as trying to kill the Viscount mind you."

"I don't believe you. Go back to the Viscount, or the Duke, or whoever sent you and tell them I'm not falling for it."

Twilight bit her lip as she thought. She hadn't expected the stallion to be so resistant, but that was probably more her fault than his. "I only wanted to know why you were trying to kill him."

The stallion barked a laugh, "Why? Isn't that obvious? This country is sick, and it's never going to get better until the Duke and his entire bastard family are dead!"

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Twilight said quietly to herself, although she wasn't sure why. She looked at the stallion for a moment before asking, "Who's Pierre?"

The stallion jumped up and glared at Twilight, "How do you know that name?"

"Uh, you yelled 'Pierre sends his regards' at the Viscount when you were apprehended."

The stallion buried his face in his hooves and groaned, "I did, didn't I. Fuck!" The stallion looked at his hooves for a moment before speaking again, "All I'm going to tell you is that Pierre is the truth."

"I need more than that! Can't you tell me who he is? Where to find him?"

"Why? So you can go and tell the Duke? Then what? Is he going to hunt Pierre down and kill him? No fucking way."

"I'm not with the Duke!" Twilight looked down to Octavia to see if she had any ideas, but the small head shake was enough to tell Twilight she didn't. Twilight thought desperately, the one and only lead she had was at risk of turning into nothing. "What if I broke you out?" she said desperately.

"Pfft, and how exactly are you going to do that?"

Twilight grinned, "Easy." Her horn flared and less than a second later the stallion was standing in the alley with them, doing his best to remain standing upright while his eyes were clamped shut. "What the fuck?" he yelled, "What did you do to me?"

"Teleported you," Twilight said before jumping down off Octavia's back. "Open your eyes." The stallion did so, cautiously opening one eye before quickly opening both. "Fucking hell," he muttered in amazement.

"So are you going to tell me who Pierre is? Or am I going to have to put you back in your cell?"

"You could do that anyway," the stallion said. "With that kind of power you could force me to tell you everything and still put me back in the cell. I'm telling you nothing."

"But I- I just busted you out! You can't tell me nothing!"

"Come on Twilight, there's no reasoning with him." Octavia said, "Let's just leave him and go." Octavia pulled gently on Twilight who gave the stallion a baleful stare before following.

"Wait!" the stallion shouted a few seconds later, "You're just going? You're not going to put me back in the cell?"

"Why would I? I'm not your enemy," Twilight told him before resuming her path. A few seconds later she heard jangling as the stallion tried to run after them.

"Hold on," he said, "if you get these cuffs off me I'll give you a clue." Twilight's horn glowed and tore the cuffs apart, reducing them to mere scraps. "Now turn around and wait a minute." Twilight huffed but complied, waiting while behind her the stallion made some strange scratching sounds before galloping away. She and Octavia turned back around, the stallion was indeed gone but he had left something scratched into the dirt of the floor; HAIL GREEN SON. He had also scratched 'thanks for busting me out' under the cryptic message.

"Hail green son?" Octavia said out loud, "Is that a code or something?"

"I don't know." Twilight studied the message for a little longer before erasing the message with a sweep of her magic, "Maybe it's something a Mareitanian would know. Let’s get back to the others."

Twilight pushed aside the last few branches separating her and Octavia from the clearing where they had left the others. Surprisingly, things were remarkably quiet with Trixie sat some distance from the others, poking the dirt with a hoof and looking rather contrite if Twilight were any judge. Summer was sat next to Fleur like a dog staying by their masters side, which is a terrible comparison to make but Twilight couldn't think of any other way of putting it, and Fleur was laying on the grass next to a tree, idly watching the filly who was halfway up said tree.

"How'd she get up there?" Twilight asked once she had approached Fleur.

"She climbed," Fleur told her. As they watched the filly ran along a branch towards the trunk before jumping, springing off the trunk, and grabbing the underside of a branch above before scrambling onto the top of the branch. "Mad isn't it," said Fleur. "Anyway, how'd it go in town?" Did you find him?"

"Yeah we found him, but we didn't exactly learn much..."

"What do you mean you didn't learn much?" Trixie asked, having approached them. Twilight couldn't help but notice that Trixie was doing her best to avoid eye contact with Fleur.

"I mean exactly what I said, we didn't learn much. He wasn't overly talkative and suspected us of being agents of the Duke and wouldn't tell us much until we busted him out. Even then he wouldn't tell us who Pierre is, or where to find him."

"So what did you do?"

"Nothing. We were about to leave him and go-"

"Leave him?" said Fleur, "Outside his cell? Are you serious!?"

"Well... yeah, why shouldn't I be?"

"Because he might be a complete psycho murderer! Pierre could be a voice in his head for all you know! Nice going Twilight."

"I don't think so. He seemed perfectly reasonable. Besides, what would we gain from putting him back in the cell? Anyway, we were about to leave him when he offered us a clue in exchange for removing his hoofcuffs."

"And that was...?"

"Hail green son, son being spelt with o, not a u. He ran off before we could question him about it and we don't know what it means so we were hoping one of you guys might have an idea."

"Hail green son, Hail green son..." Fleur murmured to herself a few times before shaking her head. "Nope, nothing here. Trixie?"

"It sounds like a reference to something, but I have no idea what that could be. Do you know Summer?" Summer squeaked something and rapidly shook her head.

"Did you at least find out where we are?" Fleur asked.

"Hoovendale," Octavia told her, "and we only found that out by accident." Twilight got out the map and studied it until she found Hoovendale before placing it on the ground where everypony could see it, "Know anything about it Fleur?"

"Big logging industry a few miles upstream, mostly because of all the trees. Other than that I got nothing."

"Are we still heading to Neigh Orleans then?" Trixie asked, a small hopeful grin adorning her muzzle.

"I guess so," Twilight muttered noncommittally, her eyes following the line of the road between Hoovendale and Neigh Orleans that ran alongside the Mareissippi. It was roughly fifty miles by her guess.

"Or, we could take a little detour," Fleur suggested. Using her magic she highlighted a spot on the map and made two glowing lines between the spot, where they were, and Neigh Orleans. "It only adds a few days travel to Neigh Orleans, and I rather feel turning up in Neigh Orleans so soon after sneaking off the riverboat might be detrimental to our health."

"What?" Trixie cried. "No, we need to go to Neigh Orleans! We should- We should see if we can find out what this 'hail green son' is there!"

Twilight put a hoof on Trixie's shoulder, "Fleur's right, we should wait until anypony who can recognise us is gone. Imagine what would happen if somepony recognized me as Lady Aramon and freaked out that I have a horn and I'm travelling with two prostitutes and a cellist. I don't think it'd end well."

"Not to mention if somepony recognized Summer as their escapee pegasus," Octavia reminded them.

Trixie looked like she was about to argue but eventually grumbled a "Fine."

"Hold on," Octavia said, "you haven't told us where this detour is going. Fleur grinned and morphed the spot on the map to a ring so everypony could see what was under it. Twilight immediately started bouncing up and down like a little filly.

"The Caverns of Mareitania! The Caverns of Mareitania!! Eeeeeeee!!"

"You're joking right?" Trixie growled, "Why the hell do we need to go there? You yourself said it was a waste of time Fleur!"

Fleur shrugged and folded the map up before answering. "Maybe it will be a waste of time, but we need to lay low for a little bit and it would be nice to have a bit of a break where something unpleasant probably won't happen. Besides it was totally worth it to see Twilight bouncing around like an overexcited schoolfilly."

Trixie growled and bucked out at nothing, which was still enough to make Summer yelp and hide behind Fleur,” I can’t fucking believe this!"

"Trixie, you've waited over twenty years to find your parents, surely you can wait a few more days?" Trixie snorted but didn’t argue.

"Oi! Filly!" Fleur yelled at the small yellow pony clambering about in the branches above them, "Get down from there, we need to go!"

"Okay! Catch me!" The filly charged along a branch and leapt out into the clearing, spreading her forelegs like she had every intention of flying. Suddenly three different magic auras surrounded her as Twilight, Trixie and Fleur attempted to catch her, and lower her to the ground. Once she was safely earthbound again the filly grinned at them, "Heh, that was nuts. Kudos to you though Trixie, I guess you do care."

"It was all shock factor, I assure you."

"Are you insane!?" Fleur suddenly yelled, "What if we hadn't caught you?"

"We wouldn't be having this conversation right now, that's for sure."

"Why you little... yellow... maniac! Twilight, tell her!"

"Me? Why should I tell her?" Fleur glared at Twilight who suddenly realised what Fleur meant, "Uh, I mean that was stupid! You could have been seriously hurt or even killed!"

"Yeah, but I wasn't. It was like some kind of crazy trust exercise, and congratulations, you all passed! Well, the ponies that could catch me passed anyway. Sorry you two," she said to Summer and Octavia.

"I-I-I... I don't... I don't even... Just don't do it again, okay?" Twilight rubbed her head and glanced at Fleur who seemed to be having the same reaction she was.

"Fine, ya bunch of cry-babies. So... where we going then?"

"The Caverns of Mareitania!" Twilight told her happily, doing another little bounce for emphasis.

"The what of the what?"

"She means the Caverns," Fleur said in a deadpan tone. "Some ponies ought to remember certain naming conventions don't apply when you're in the country something's named after."

"Uh-huh. Why we going to the Caverns?"

"For funsies mostly."

"Oh, okay. Sounds good if you call wandering around in a big dark cave fun."

Author's Notes:

Life seems to be done crapping all over me, and I've taken one hell of a metaphorical shower so it's high time I got back in the saddle.

For some reason I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and because of that it might be a load of bollocks but I haven't realised that because I'm biased. Heck if I know.

Also on 25th I'll have been a writer on Fimfic for a whole year so happy anniversary me, or something.