Don't forget the 'ye' pronoun.

Stelimus and Copper found themselves back in front of Oriyis and gulped quietly upon seeing...yis' face.

"I have dealt with more important tasks of my people, so I now have time to play with you, little deer." Ye leaned against an arm rest and took a moment to breathe in deeply. "You want to know the source of the 'black snow'. This much has been established already."

"Yes," Stelimus answered. "And so far, you haven't been too..." Stelimus tapped his toes together. "-forthcoming with the information."

"Yes. Well..." Oriyis took some olives from a platter attached to the right arm of yis throne and threw them in yis' mouth. Ye was taking his time to chew, but Stelimus considered yis taunting to be a test. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you think I was testing you?" Ye coughed. "With my irritatingly slow eating." Stelimus did not respond. "Hm. If you are indeed intent on gaining knowledge to reject this 'gift', then I have an offer that might benefit us both."

"Do go on," Stelimus said calmly. He refused to break eye contact with the zaoris.

"Huh. I was expecting you to accept right away." The 'playful' atmosphere surrounding Oriyis immediately dissolved. "I need your aid in an affair concerning my people to the northern reaches of our lands." Hora whispered in yis' ear briefly. "And I have learned that, during your trip to my country, you caught a glimpse of the issue on the map."

"You mean those little dots with hammers over them?" Stelimus responded.

"Yes," the jackal growled. "The little 'dots' are 'lost' portions of my country that I want to recover. I lost them this year and I refuse to lose more."

"That's an awful lot of detail on a map for something seemingly recent," Radivus whispered in Yolumay's ear.

The deer king sat on his haunches and crossed his forelegs. "So what do you expect me to do about it?"

"If you want the information, you'll have to go up north and recover these lost pieces of territory."

"...What? How?"

"I want you to join in our 'debacle'."

"Wait, are you at war?!" Stelimus asked.

"I wouldn't call those things sentient, so I consider this as a hunt to recover territory lost wild beasts."

He gestured behind himself, pretending that his country was right there. "You want me to bring in the entirety of my people, who didn't ask for any of this, to enter a war in a territory they have no reason to be involved with and don't know?"

The zaoris said nothing.

"You want me to join your war?!"

"Yes," Oriyis replied blandly.

Back in the deer capital, Grimliss was standing within the 'secret' lab where the reindeer's finest worked diligently on improving their lives. Stelimus' mother was there, further working on the gunpowder's potential. She and a few other scientists were busy with a few prototypes working on a militaristic application of the substance while others worked on more peaceful aspects that could related to mining or farming.

"What are you doing with those tubes?" Grimliss asked.

"None of your concern," the doe answered harshly.

"Oh. Such an attitude." The dark miasma formed around his right hoof into an imitation of a dragon's claw which he used to grab her by the throat and slowly squeeze her trachea. The scientists around yelled and scampered as far as possible. "You know very well that it wouldn't be beside me to just take care of you like this right now. Your husband had no qualms before."

The doe gasped for air and kept trying to forcing the claws off her, but she couldn't. "W-what if..."

"Hm?" Grimliss hummed as he loosened his grip. "What was that?"

"What would...your nephew think...of you."

Grimliss pondered for a moment then let her go, letting the doe massage her throat and gasp for air after every cough. "You're right. And this isn't my method of working anymore. I don't care for killing randomly. It's just..." He looked at the mare with a curious glare. "Killing me."

"So what DID you come here for?"

"Well, Fyavr, I was curious as to what exactly you've been up to down here."

Fyavr was helped to her hooves by her colleagues who trembled in terror every time they looked at the god-king.

"I mean, you've been down here for eight years. What you've been working on certainly can't be that important." He examined the black powder on the white table. "I thought you were doing this as a way to cope with losing your husband, but I learned from the mouth of your own son that you didn't really leave the laboratories before then."

Fyavr glare at him as she massaged her throat, but she felt herself assailed by the grimy hands of some manner of 'evil' spirit grabbing onto her soul, and Grimliss' eyes started glowing as the miasma started forming a frown over his jaws.

"You haven't been actually experimenting on the Black Snow, have you?"

"Wh-what?! How dare-Erk!" The hands started crushing her insides.

"Do not lay to me, doe. The one thing I will kill anyone over is from the use of and-or corruption from the Black Snow. I am, however, curious as to the purpose."

The doe fell to the ground. "I swear!" Fyavr pleaded. "I don't have any of that here."

"The dead cannot lie, Fyavr."

"And the dead cannot enter these halls either without you being here."

The hands disappeared from the doe who was now standing upright, enduring the pain and staring a god-king straight into its face. She had courage, that was certain, but there was something else hiding behind it that pushed such a thing forward, and it was not her experience of having a god-king as her own mate.

"Fine. I'll leave you be, but if any of you are dabbling in such things, I won't let you corrupt the rest of the tundra. I've about had it with losing family."

"Then get out of here."

Grimliss almost took a step forward but refrained from doing so. "Speaking of family, you do have a strange relationship with your own son. During the first years of his life, you were always with him, then you stopped." He brushed some of the miasma off of himself. "Oh, how the 'motherly instinct' lasts so short."

With little care, he immediately left the facility and returned to the throne room where he started to ponder on what to do next. He had done all that he needed, and his suspicions were well-founded, at least to him. For now, however, he would need to get back to the tasks at hoof, and one of them involved sending the armor and weapon Stelimus had forgotten to him, but just how would he proceed with such a daunting task?

"M-my god-king?" one of the guards stuttered. "Where were you?"

"That's not important." He looked at the guard. "So, what is it?"

The guard gulped and mumbled under his breath. "What was that?" Grimliss asked. The guard mumbled again. "Speak up!"

"The armor and weapon of your nephew have disappeared!"

"They what?!"

In Niris, Stelimus sat on a bench surrounding a tall, white monolith and rubbed his temples. Copper kept away, but Yolumay and the other two did not.

"Time to think? You ponies have a strange tendency to take so much time into thinking."

The deer king was getting quite tired of all of this slander and stupidity surrounding him. These anyubinites were impossible to talk with. Even that pope thing was extremely aggravating to deal with.

"What now?" Stelimus asked aloud. "I can't decide on what to do."

"Well, what are our options?" Yolumay asked. "I'm a warrior. You're the king. You must make the tactical decisions based on what exactly it is you know and have."

"Well," the deer tapped his chin. "I know that if I go to war, it'll be against a people I've never met and for a people I do not know, all for the loss o my own people that don't like me. I don't want to go to war for that reason...but if I don't, they'll never tell us he source of the Black Snow and how to stop it, which will cause the future reindeer and ponies eventual death."

"The god kings are indeed few in number now, and with every encounter..." Yolumay spun her spear in place. "It's uncertain that Grimliss and Effervescence will ever be able to stop it if it comes for us again. The tundran reindeer will be lost forever, not to mention the chance that it doesn't at us and keeps gong south. The whole world could be engulfed by the black snow and warped...changed...Their souls essentially destroyed."

"You see things in black and white, Stelimus."

"I don't see things in black and white," Stelimus replied.

Yolumay twitched her head. "I didn't say that."

"Mix the two and you'll have a color that mixes in between."

"Copper?"

"I'm too far for you not to recognize me," she replied with a shout.

"Then who is talking to me?"

If you truly want to start negotiations, start mixing the colors. Only you can do that. Keep the essential basis of the proposal but modify certain aspects to be more profitable to you than to them. The importance is not what you want, but what you NEED."

"..."

"Stelly?" Copper called out.

"I think I have an idea about what is that I need to do."

"There's a good stag."

"Excuse me?" a voice asked.

"Yes?" Radivus replied as he and Tenyom stepped in front of the cloaked figure.

"You don't need to block my way to Stelimus."

"You know who I am?" Stelimus answered.

The tan cloak looked like it just imploded, revealing the colorful figure of Effervescence. The flowers on her head had started retaking shape, and the vines surrounding her body had chipped away, giving way for a new generation of vines to come forth.

"Effervescence?! What are you doing here?!" the deer king shouted.

The doe fumbled a bit and looked down, averting her gaze. "You forgot your armor and weapons," she said.

A large bud popped out from the ground and blossomed open to reveal the armor and spear Stelimus wore so long ago.

"I didn't really forget them, but--"

"I had them made to change size with you, nephew."

"Oh. Well. Thank you," he hesitated to say.

The stag took the armor and spear out from its hold, ignoring the crowd staring at them from afar. As he inspected his 'forgotten' belongings, something hit him mentally.

"Wait, how did you know I was here?"

Effervescence looked upwards and scrunched her lips inwards. "Well, I used...the plants..."

Stelimus pointed at her accusingly. "Are you stalking me?!"

"Well," she clapped her hooves together. "I wouldn't say 'stalking'. That's a vulgar term."

"You are stalking me! What's wrong with you?!"

The god-king started shrinking from Stelimus' yells and accusations while the anyubinites around stopped most of what they were doing and were now staring at the 'tourists'.

From the pyramid, Hora and Oriyis watched from up high, near the peak. They were observing the events transpire before them.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Having these outsiders intervene?"

"If they are truthful in their sayings of this 'black snow', then they will become our allies regardless. However, I must make sure that they aren't just fodder. Especially this young 'king'. I will know if he has the ability to improve when he comes back with his answer."

"What if he refuses?"

"HA!" the zaoris bellowed. "There is too much on the line for him to refuse, but he is most likely going to go through the possibility. All he can do is accept and go to war with them."

"If this is your plan then I hope it comes to fruition."

Oriyis started intently at the deer king and squinted. "There's something near him, but I can't see it."

"A mirage?"

"Perhaps."