Freefall walked amongst the halls of the castle all to himself as the sun has set for the day and made way for the moon. It’s late at night, and all that need not be awake have taken themselves to bed long ago. Though for a guard off duty on a Friday night, Free (like many) found himself unable to sleep as they search for something to keep themselves busy as they wait for the coming day when more will be available to do.

After getting off his shift, the guard had searched around for his friend. Yet when the stop at the several taverns and bars dotting the area, that Iron frequented while he was in, didn’t turn up the stallion. Free had only one place that he could think would yield the strange colt… his work bench.

Cracking open the door to the production area below the castle, Free calmly walked in. All of the workers had gone to bed for the night, and the whole area seemed dead to any that found themselves wandering the halls. Though the guard knew his friend well, as he continued down the aisles and corridors of the area to further the nations war efforts. He heard the familiar sound of a hammer swinging as it struck against metal.

Free cracked open the door ever so slightly, and he watched his friend in his own little world. The area laden with light from a simple illumination spell that burned in the housing above brought to view the several bottle of hard cider that riddled the room, while chunks of metal lay tossed about, all while the lone colt sat there calmly at his workbench. Piecing together what he could of the scraps he had to work with.

All the while in the center of the room, laid Iron’s personal suit of armor. Although Free has seldom if ever seen him have to use it, in the many tests that Iron would do, he saw his fair share of what it was capable of. The armor withstood more than Free could ever throw at it with any weapon he could wield, and even as they would spar back and forth with one another, more often than not Iron would win from simple ingenuity of an old piece of tech.

A single flash from the bench yanked Free’s attention back to his friend, “Son of a-!” Iron called out as he held the end of his hoof in his mouth.

Taking his que, the guard walked in on him, “burn yourself?”

Iron did a quick turnaround as he licked his wound, “No… well not yet anyway,” he levitated the gem up to Freefall’s face, “I’ve been bouncing back and forth between my suit… and this.”

Free looked over the gem. While nothing stood out on it, other than the obvious fact that it was now steaming a bit from whatever Iron did to it, he knew his friend wouldn’t waste his time. “Okay… it’s a gem stone, if I’m not mistaken,” he held it in his hoof, feeling the gentle heat ride through to his nerves, “though what’s it really?”

“That… is some sort of magical storage gem,” Iron leaned back on his stool, barely keeping it on the back two legs while he explained, “This was found as I was running around yesterday looking for something to show Grace up, and I did just that…”

Free looked closer at the gem, before tossing it on the bench. Both colts stood fast as they watched the small shower of sparks scatter around them as the stone made contact, and once again Free found himself looking at his friend with nothing more than a deadpan expression spelled across his face.

“The gems charged…” he answered rhetorically.

“Exactly…” Iron pointed out as he leaned forward back to his bench, “this probably is what helped, whatever we encountered, cast spells… it’s a better theory than us possibly fighting an alicorn.”

Free simply nodded at the statement, he couldn’t very well argue with him. The guard had tried to do that with his friend on more than one occasion… needless to say Iron’s wit was faster than his own. “So… if that’s the case, what did Grace say when you brought this to her?”

“Well let’s see here…” Iron bound in to the previous days’ excursions to keep his friend in the loop, “during my search I back tracked where we had gone with the figure, from the wall, alleyway, and eventually the market.” He placed the gem in to a mason jar, before stowing it away inside a built in drawer.

“What are you?” Free rolled his eyes, “A detective?”

Iron grinned as he got up from his stool and waded over to his armor, “Far from one, I’ll admit that… Watson,” before popping open a compartment on it. Producing a cigarette pack, the unicorn plucked one out as he lit it with a simple spark from his horn, “all that said though… I still have my moments of genus.” Iron took a long drag on the death stick before blowing out a single stream of smoke, “finding nothing along the wall, I made my way up to the top. Where I found a simple piece of cloth…” the colt brought out the chunk of fabric as he passed it off to his friend.

For a moment, Free looked at it, before his face fell flat. Reading his friends mind, Iron picked back up, “I know what you’re thinking, ‘this proves nothing’.”

“You’re right… as always,” Free dreaded to admit, “So what else did you find then?”

“As I followed our steps back to the market, I recalled what we did to the figure. I just happened to hurtle them in to a tree, which left clear marks of damage across the bark,” Iron took another puff off of his cigarette, “as I was looking around the tree, I got in to a delightful conversation with a young filly that was out playing as her parents shopped…”

“Wait… you talked to a kid?” Free grinned back at him, as he tried to hold in a laugh, “that probably hurt more than the fight did.”

“Oh it wasn’t that bad.”

“You hate kids…”

“No, no, correction,” Iron held up a hoof in his defense, “I strongly dislike the fact that they’re completely oblivious to the world around them, and they think everything is fun and games. Even though in reality what they do and think at that age won’t matter to them or anyone else, and it’s just a shame that they won’t realize that until they grow up.”

Taking a deep breath to clear his lungs, the colt coughed a bit as he felt the flem cake the back of this throat. Gagging on his own bodies concoction to protect him from what he inhales, Free steps up behind him and slammed his hoof in between Irons’ shoulder blades.

“You alright?” he looked down at Iron as he finally got some oxygen back.

“Yea I’ll live… It’s just cancer,” that word froze his friend where he stood for a moment as he tried to figure out if he was serious or not. Though the slowly stretching grin on his face put a little ease in Frees’ own throat, “I’m joking… though now we’re off subject.” Iron took one last drag before putting the butt out on the stone floor and tossing it in to the waste basket, “I chatted with the kid and as I did, I found a talon guard buried in the trunk… clearly something for a gryphon soldier, or spy.”

“So now you are thinking that it’s a gryphon?” Free peered at him, “what about the pony tail that you saw?”

“That could have been a trick of the eye, I don’t know,” Iron shrugged once more, swallowing his pride for a moment as he accepted the facts, “granted I still think I’m right… but then again I’m just working with what I have.”

“Okay so you found a piece of torn fabric at the top of the wall, probably from where they leapt over the side as their cloak got caught. Then you have a chunk of armor that broke off when they hit the tree and dug in to the trunk,” Free summed up for them both, keeping Iron from going in to a long drawn out explanation, “So where does that gem fall in to place?”

“That was actually a gift from the filly,” Iron let that sit for a moment before he explained further, “in our chat I told her that I somewhat work with the princess… many little fillies love that mare, for some reason, so she wanted me to give it to her as a gift.” Iron reached down to the leg bracer attached to his suit, “the filly found it by the tree as well, and as you said, the suspect had gems all along their talon…”

“…Just like your bracers,” Free put together what he was saying.

“Precisely,” he winked at him, “needless to say I’m familiar with enchanting gems to use in combat, after all we were taught some of that in basic training, and I picked some up on my own,” tapping the sapphire on the end of the bracer with his hoof, a bolt of frosted air shot out from its edge between them as it hit the wall. In a matter of seconds, a sheet of ice formed along its surface, creating almost a mirror for the two to look in. From that sheen, Free could see the clear grin across Iron’s face, “Yea… I know the spell she was using.”

Free looked back at the suit, and back to what Iron had found from what he explained. All of which makes a pretty compelling case that what they saw, really was there. Though in the end there’s just one opinion that matters in this. “What did Grace have to say?”

“Oh that’s the fun part…” Iron started to grin, “well showing her the fabric did little, just like you said, it proves nothing. Showing her though the talon guard got the gears turning in her head. The final piece though was showing her the gem, and what it could do…” the colt rested his head on the suit stand before him while he explained to Free, “after bantering back and forth a bit, I presented what I had, she analyzed it. Talked about putting together a small team to do their own spy game against the gryphons… in the end she actually,” he swallowed a bit, “apologized for calling me a drunk?”

“Did that really surprise you that much?”

“Well… sorta,” Iron admitted, “I’m used to the royalty being… royalty. Seldom did I ever really see her parents, or even speak more than a word to them, and Grace doesn’t really seem like the regal, stuck up, snooty princess roll.” He thought about it more, letting his eyes glass over a bit, as he went in to his own mind, “she can be a rather uncouth mare at times, then turn around and be a saint. Act incredibly well mannered, while she’s insulting me… it’s kinda odd.”

“Well that’s just how she works… I should know,” Free chuckled to himself, “she has her own personal guard, though when he was out on sick leave, I got picked to fill in…”

“How did that turn out?”

“Exactly as you described, however, Grace is rather nice once you get to know her really…” he remained sincere with Iron, one of the reasons those two stayed friends for so long, “she doesn’t like to play that princess role all the time, hell if she had to that mare probably would have lost her mind a long time ago… Something you two have in common actually.”

“What could you ever mean?” Iron asked sarcastically as he watched his friend step closer and closer to the door, “I mean we already know I’ve lost my mind at some point.”

“That’s obvious to anypony who talks to you for more than five minutes,” Free pointed out to him before placing a hoof on the door knob, “though I was referring to the fact that she wears a mask, to hide who she really is underneath… something you should know all too well.”

“…Oh…” Iron turned his head around quickly to avoid eye contact, “I don’t do it... that often anymore.” His voice softened from the right nerve being hit.

“That may be true… it just takes the right pony to get you to take it off,” Free muttered back to him as he opened the door and stepped back out in to the hall, “and as much as I may hate to admit it, for now, the only ones that can do that are Amber and I.”

“Shut your mouth,” Iron snapped back in to his usual persona, “you know very well that you enjoy me for how I am.”

“Well… that much I have to admit.” Freefall nodded with only half his face shown, “however, enjoy your success, and have yourself a goodnight, Iron.”

The colt waved back to his friend, pushing the words to come from Free off of his shoulder, while he took his time to delve deeper in to his work. If only to keep the quiet thoughts at the back of his mind silent for just a little longer.