I leapt through the sitting-room door, turning to the front door in mid-air and sliding slightly on the hardwood flooring of the hallway. My hooves clacked against the smooth surface as I fought for the friction needed to throw myself at doorway.

I ran on the spot for a couple seconds, skidding about slightly as each hoof seemed to glide over the smooth flooring with little-to-effect.

They had both noticed me and were both staring. Dan was staring in amusement, while Feather was more concerned about her well-polished floor.

I pushed out an extra burst of power as I saw Dan. In the pale light of the moon, I could see that his clothes were covered in small rips and stretches and I could tell he didn't look particularly healthy. But he looked happy either way. And I certainly was.

I began to slowly glide forward along the floor, hooves still skidding. The movement quickly picked up momentum however and I had picked up quite a lot of speed by the time I reached the door frame.

Dan's eyes widened as I leaped from the doorway. Dan, either through experience or luck, managed to catch me as I barreled into his chest. He stumbled backwards, but maintained his balance. I squeezed his chest tightly, my head under his chin.

My mind was arush with emotion. Both my own... and the ones I could sense coming from Dan.

"I missed you to buddy, I missed you to." He mumbled into my ear as he returned my embrace, blocking the cold night air from my recently warm skin.

Feather shuffled in the doorway. "You two, I know you're happy to see each other but... do you think you could at least come in? You're letting the cold in."

Dan snorted slightly. "Oh, yeah, sorry." Dan carried me inside, I was still latched to his chest.

Feather led us further into the house, Dan closed the front door behind us. This time, Feather passed the sitting room door and walked into the kitchen where there was a small wooden table sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by the kitchen counter that lined the walls. The table held three wooden chairs, two had cushions on them, the one Feather sat on, didn't. Dan sat on the cushioned chair opposite her.

I released Dan from my grip and sat beside him, only just fitting, it was a chair made for one. I leaned into Dan's side as he put an arm over my shoulder. I sat silently, still just appreciating Dan's presence.

Me and Dan shared a mutual smile before Dan looked about the room, looking slightly concerned. "Damn Feather, it feels like a desert in here." He said, and he was right. Compared to the chills of the night outside, this house was like a furnace.

Feather flinched slightly, perhaps at his wording, and looked about the room nervously for a split second before composing herself.

"I guess I... put too much wood on the fire." She said. I felt Dan's body tense as she paused, we both knew that if she was pausing or stalling her words; something was up.

I sensed an incoming silence, and gave Dan a slight nudge, he took the hint and changed the subject. "So, everything been okay since I've been gone?" He asked, smiling. Not exactly the best subject...

Feather looked down to the table. I figured she was going to stay quiet, so I looked up to Dan and answered for her. "You know the hive that captured my Queen? All those years ago?" Dan nodded, a slightly worried look on his face. "They're..."

Feather placed her hooves on the table and pushed herself up slightly. "-Attacking. They've threatened Canterlot and are arriving in a couple days, max. There is a lot of them from what we know, so we need everything we can get... that's why you were going to be released, Dan."

Dan recoiled slightly, a confused glare on his face. "Wait... why are they attacking?"

Feather huffed and slid back down into her seat. "They seem to have a vendetta of sorts against Ebony's Queen. The plan is to get everything we can and create a wall of defense that they cannot penetrate. Soon, the whole city's going to be on lock-down. No-pony in, no-pony out. Everypony who isn't trained in a medical or military field have been sent to a nearby town for their safety." Feather stopped and thought for a second. "Wait... What did you mean by... 'Accidentally escaped'."

Me and Feather both looked to Dan, who seemed to have an unreadable facial expression. The air filled with the taste of pride and fear. "It's... a long story. I'll explain when this is all cleared up, cause by the sounds of things... you guys can't run this country without me." He said, smirking. Feather rolled her eyes. "Sorry about the short visit Feather, but I think I should go and talk to Celestia."

Feather nodded. "Yes, that would probably be best." Dan stood from his chair, hefting me in his arms. "Oh, and Dan? There was a situation with Chrome earlier tonight, could you check up on everypony for me?" She asked, Dan nodded but looked slightly confused.

I looked up to Dan. "I'll explain what happened as you walk."

Feather gave me a thankful look as Dan unceremoniously waved to her and began walking for the door. She called as Dan reached for the door handle, "One last thing Dan." We turned to see Feather standing in the kitchen's doorway. "Welcome back."

Dan blinked. "I er... Thanks." He said awkwardly as he shot another quick wave at Feather and closed the door behind him. Dan shivered slightly at the massive temperature difference. "I never was good at responding to those..." He mumbled to himself.

Dan continued in a louder voice as he took the first couple steps into the streets. "So, what happened with Chrome this time?" He asked, smirking slightly.

I explained what had happened since I didn't have the journal on me. I didn't know much, but I mentioned everything I could remember. Dan's smirk was replaced by a contemplative look as we continued walking, now approaching the palace.

Dan shook his head as I finished my story. "Ugh, I thought something like this would happen."

"Something like what?" I asked.

Dan groaned, "Chrome is blaming himself for putting me in danger or something. I'm pretty sure he's the one who brought me here, so he's probably been carrying some heavy guilt for a while now." He nodded to the guards sheepishly as he entered the palaces main gates. They gave him narrowed eyes but didn't make a fuss. Perhaps they assumed he had been let out a day or two early.

Dan wasted no time in heading to the infirmary after hearing me out. He figured Chrome would be there, recovering from whatever he had drunk or inhaled in that room. He slowly pushed open the waiting room doors with his side as his arms were still occupied holding up a rather happy changeling.

There was no one at the desk when we walked in, so he set me down on one of the seats.

He leaned down to me, meeting my eye level. "Ebony, you might want to wait here. I'm 'a go and get all emotional with a hungover or drunk pegasus. And it ain't the kind of emotion you like." He scratched one of my ears as he stood. "I'll be back soon, okay?"

I smiled and nodded to him as he walked over to the desk, after a couple seconds, a mare came out of a small room behind the desk. They had a small conversation about room numbers and prisons, they seemed pretty familiar with each other.

Eventually, Dan thanked her, and entered thought the double doors leading to the infirmary hallways. The mare headed back into the small room, I presume she was sorting papers or something, as I could hear a lot of rustling.

I waited patiently on the small birch-wood bench.

I cleared my throat slightly and hoped I wasn't coming down with something. The cough didn't persist, so it was probably nothing. The noise seemed to alert the mare, however, as her head popped up from behind the desk. She let out a small gasp as we met eyes. She quickly dove into a small desktop shelf and pulled out a small note and studied it.

"...Tow-ers... Towers right? Ebony Towers?" She said, looking up from the note.

I nodded. "Yeah... That's... That's me." I said with halfhearted enthusiasm.

"Used to be part of the guard right?" She asked. "Dan told me to talk to you some time, since I didn't recognize you last time you came in because... you know..." She gave me a nervous look.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeeaaah... Sorry about... this."

She shook her head, smiling. "You don't need to apologize for being who or what you are, Towers. I'm just surprised is all."

As Dan had taught me through example; I sensed an incoming silence, and changed the subject. "So how goes the infirmary? Last time I came in here as a guard was when I had tripped during a training exercise and landed in that bush."

She giggled slightly. "I remember that, they spend 3 hours removing those thorns. The infirmary is fine, we are just having to sort out all of the emergency supplies we just got delivered, in perpetration for the changelings." She flinched at her own wording. "The army, not you. ...Well the supplies are available to you, I mean. N-not that I'm implying that you'll need them! I... You know what I mean." She said, waving a hoof at her own ramblings.

After a while; Dan came back through the door. He didn't look right, something was off. He looked... scarred.

"How'd it go?" Me and the mare asked at the same time.

He simply shook his head and hefted my up into his arms. "I was right about what I had said, but there are a lot of things that I can't tell you about. Luna was in there too, she helped explain things." He looked down to me and read my face perfectly. "Chrome and Luna's relationship is fine, Ebony. Look, I don't want to talk about it." He said as he pushed through the infirmary's door, completely ignoring the happily waving mare behind the desk who sighed slightly as the door swung shut.

Dan continued walking, heading deeper into the palace. "As much as I hate to say it Ebony; it does not concern you and I really really don't want to talk about it."

I looked up at Dan, concerned. "Is it about the things he destroyed?"

Dan shook his head as we walked the candle-lit halls. "No, he did that because he blames that wing of the science department, plus himself, for everything bad that has happened to me. And now that I'm being sent to fight, he was convinced I was going to die or something. Me and Luna sorted that out, but he's still fragile right now, so be careful if you see him." Dan sighed. "Basically he just scrapped that entire section of the building just because it held the research and methods that were used to bring me here and he doesn't want it to happen again. And understandably... he's lost his job. What he'll do now... no one knows."

I nodded understandingly and took a look around the hall we were headed down. "To Celestia?"

Dan smirked. "To Celestia."

I pushed myself tightly against Dan's chest as he carried me through the empty halls, towards Celestia's quarters. I was so glad to have him back, yet no words needed to be shared. I could taste his love, and he trusted me enough to silently assume that I was returning it. Which I was.

We were ascending up the spiral stairs when Dan stirred me from slight doze I had fallen into. It was well into the night and probably into the morning hours.

"Hey, Eb." Dan said, shaking me in his arms slightly. I found I had slumped onto my side in his arms, facing his chest. I pushed myself back onto my back so I could face him. I looked up to him with sleepy eyes. "Hey there, wakey-wakey." He continued quietly.

I gave him an unamused look before rubbing at one of my eyes, trying to scrape the sluggish feeling from my face. "What..." I yawned, "...what is it?" I asked as I folded my limp wings back up onto my back.

"What do you want to do?" He asked as he reached the top of the stairs. "Come with me and talk to Celestia, or stay out here with Ste-" Dan held the 'ee' sound for a couple seconds before trailing off. "You're not Steve." He said, pointing, his eyes narrowing.

I turned my neck to look ahead of us. There was Celestia's door... and in front of it was a large pony covered in armor.

The pony gave us a bored look. "If you were expecting Rosewood, he's in the infirmary." He said matter-of-fact-ly.

"Why? What happened?" Dan asked, his body was like stone, cold and frozen. I didn't understand why.

The pony shrugged. "Attacked in the halls. Of course he won bu-"

Dan cut him off. "Attacked by what?" He growled through grit teeth.

"C-changeling, sir." The pony said, stuttering for... no real reason. I sensed no fear coming from him, in fact... I didn't taste much at all. This guy must have been trained using the old methods. I thought. They were very harsh on the mind.

Dan didn't sigh, he simply let out a very long breath, hissing through his nose. From what I had learned about Dan, this was a sign of stress and thought. His arms became slightly weaker under me. He never broke eye-contact with the pony.

The pony continued after a couple of seconds. "Rosewood only suffered minor injuries, and only received them because he was hesitant to fight for some reason, same for his fiance. She walked away unharmed though."

"Probably thought it was Ebony..." Dan mumbled under his breath. He continued in a louder voice as he walked towards the pony. "Thanks, I'm going to talk to Celestia." Dan said, stepping past the pony who didn't even try to stop him.

Dan pushed open the door, revealing a dark room. Dan quickly put me down, not bothering to put me right-side-up , and shut the door behind him, as if expecting an impact. The slam of the door awoke the sleeping princess I hadn't noticed. The room lit up.

She, at first, gave Dan a harsh glare. That glare turned to shock. "Dan?! What are you doing here?" She looked to the moon, ducking her head to look out of the window. "The guards I sent to pick you up are not scheduled to arrive at the prison for another few hours!" She glanced at me. I was staring in shock, never before had I seen the princess in such a... situation. She looked down at the sheets gripped in her hooves, looked back to me and rolled her eyes sightly before looking back to Dan, who had since placed a small chair under the door's handle.

Dan turned to Celestia. "I escaped, accidentally, but I'll explain that later, after the war." Dan said, slightly rushed. "Right now though, we have a situation."

Celestia blinked, her ears pointing to Dan attentively. "What? What happened?" She asked, glancing slightly at the now blocked door.

Dan rolled his shoulders slightly. I could tell his mind was rushing by the way he stood, constantly moving slightly. "That door is sound-proof I assume?"

Celestia nodded. "Yes, only recently, but yes."

Dan pointed to the door. "There is a changeling on the other side of that door," Celestia and I both froze slightly, "and I have reason to believe he is with the enemy hive." Dan said in a slightly hushed tone, not trusting the door completely.

I looked to Dan and tilted my head slightly. "Dan, are you saying that guard was a changeling?"

Celestia looked to Dan, awaiting his response.

He nodded. "He had the green-speck-eyes goin'."

Celestia rose from her bed and composed herself as best she could with a bewildered changeling staring at her from across the small room. "First Rosewood gets attacked... now this..." She sighed and her horn lit.

The door lit in her magical embrace for a second, before a small part in the center of the door turned transparent. I backed away from the door in fear of what Celestia was about to do. She stared at the back of the pony's head for a couple of seconds, then relinquished the door from the spell before lowering her horn, pointing it at the door.

There was a short hum of energy as a white beam launched from her horn, cutting a pin-prick hole in the door and presumably coming out the other side. The beam seemed to have broken any sound-blocking spells, as a metallic clatter could be heard from the other side of the door.

Dan looked to Celestia, who nodded in return. Dan removed the chair from the door and ran a hand over the tiny hole the beam had created, as if checking it was real. With his curiosity satisfied, Dan slowly opened the door. I took a couple more steps away from the door as I saw what was on the other side. There lie a limp changeling, in ill-fitting armor, white bolts of what looked like lightning shot about its metal armor momentarily, causing its body to twitch.

I put a hoof to my face and tore my gaze away from the dreadful sight. Celestia glided over to me and placed a comforting hoof on my shoulder, before quickly moving to the door and picking up the changeling in her magic. Dan rushed over to me, seeing my discomfort, and lifted me back into his arms. I turned my body to face his so I wouldn't have to look.

Dan walked over to Celestia's side. "So... er... is it dead? Or... what?" Dan asked slowly.

Celestia huffed and shot a quick glare at Dan. "No, of course not. It's merely immobilized." I heard a quick surge of magic, followed by the pop of teleportation. "And now it's in the dungeons." She sighed. "I had expected this, they probably sent scouts even before they got the message to Viss..."

Knowing that the changeling was gone, I lifted my head and turned away from Dan to face the princess. She was looking down to me with a motherly gaze I was not comfortable coming from anyone other than my Queen.

"Ebony?" She asked. "Are you sure you are going to be able to fight?"

I was about to answer when Dan rolled his eyes and said, "Of course he will, he's got a Queen to defend."

I nodded along with his answer, though not as confident. "I... I must protect my Queen, at all costs."

Celestia seemed saddened by my answer. "Okay... But know this: your Queen said the same about you, Ebony. You're all she has left."

There was a silence as I nodded slowly, the silence continued for a couple seconds afterwards as well. I could practically hear Dan groan inwardly as the silence went on, he hated that kind of thing.

Celestia smirked ever so slightly, probably picking up on Dan's attitude to the situation. "You two go get some sleep now." She said in a playful manner. Dan rolled his eyes and began walking past her, but Celestia caught his shoulder and whispered, "Don't have too much fun, you actually want to get some sleep."

Dan turned around and stared at her for a couple of seconds. I could not see Dan's face, but it was enough to force Celestia to hold in her laughter. Dan slowly lowered his arms, I took the hint and stepped down onto the floor. I turned around to watch the scene unfold.

Dan stood, staring at her for a couple more seconds, before throwing a only half-playful underarm punch at her shoulder. She immediately reacted, backing up a step and placing a small magical shield in his hand's path. It disappeared on impact, but slowed his fist to a complete stop.

"Ahhh, I'll get you one day, Celestia." He said jokingly, pointing at her and taking a couple steps away. "One day." He motioned for me to follow him as he walked to the doorway leading to the spiral staircase. I did so quickly, I was yearning for my bed.

As we descended down the stairs, their boring interior threatening to send me to sleep right there and then, Dan turned to me and held out his arms, creating a familiar and very welcome shelf for me to nuzzle into. I took his invitation almost immediately, jumping sluggishly into his arms for yet another time that night.

Dan carried me back to our room. Remaining silent. We were both idly smiling as he walked.

Dan was back with me and I was back with Dan.

"Hey, Ebony." Dan said, as he closed the door to our room behind us. "You still got my journal?"

I nodded and headed to the bedroom. "Yep, been writing in it every day... as best I could, I'm not a good writer." I said, passing it to him with my magic.

Dan looked about the room, as if searching for something, as he took the journal, he smiled and scruffed the top of my head. "Thanks bud." He flipped through the journal in his hand for a second, then handed it back towards me. "You wanna finish up? You're kind of in the middle of something there."

"Oh, yeah. Sure." I said, taking the journal back and setting it on the table in front of me as I sat on one of the sofas. "I'll get this done... then I'm heading to bed." I said, now concentrating on writing out the last day or two to the best of my recollection.

As soon as I said that, I heard Dan practically launch himself at the bed.

Now, about half an hour later, I can already hear Dan snoring slightly. I've got to be careful not to wake him, we'll need all the energy we can get if this attack is going to be as bad as I think it's going to be... I'll give him the journal when he wakes up.

I hope this will all just come to pass...

And thus concludes Ebony's rein of tyranny over the journal. Aye, for now, Dan will hold this tome.

As-per-usual, I have no idea what is going to happen. Well, I do. Just... well... nothing is certain before it's written, so I don't wanna say anything. In case I end up contradicting myself.

The formatting in this chapter is annoying me, but fixing it would take forever... so... nah.