For one of the few taverns in the town, the crowd that gathered here this Friday night paled in comparison to some of the other nights that Amber had faced down in the past. Largely working the counter by herself, the mare had time to even make her own self a little snack as the night pressed on, and the other servers that worked there tended to the needs of patrons that filled the tables and booths.

Leaning back against the counter, Amber hiked one leg up against the edge of the bar top as she held herself firm. Thankful that she managed to get the renovations done that she desired, if only to keep her friend from making more comments regarding her posterior… and just like that, the thought of the colt had come to her mind once more.

For months she hadn’t heard a word from Iron, he had been here one Friday, and just like that. The stallion never showed up again. Amber had figured it had something to do with the princess coming to see him, who knows what sort of trouble he may have gotten himself in out there in the capital. Especially considering some of the rumors she heard that went about town. Though all that said, as much as she may have told him No in the past.

Right now she’d say Yes… if only to have him back.

“Where ever you are, Iron,” Amber dipped her head down, as she tried to hide a tear away from those around her, “Please… just be safe.” The mare turned herself around away from the others in the bar, holding herself up with her fore hooves against the counter, “I don’t know what I’d do if you had gotten hurt out there.”

“Well I’m pretty sure that I’ve been through worse…” the mares’ head shot up, as her body whipped around and her eyes meeting those of her friends’ as he sat there on a stool. The bandages, wounds, and the missing horn that he wore tore away at the mare as she wondered what he had gotten himself in to over the last several months. Though with the coy smile that he found, it all became too much for the mare. “Tis but a flesh-”

Hoof met face.

Face met floor.

Iron laid there for what seemed like a few seconds, as his brain re-calibrated itself from the impact, and he tried to find those words that would save him from the obviously fuming mare.

“…You hit like a girl.”

Wrong words.

With his motor function out of commission for the time being, and his body tired from the fighting it’s had to go through recently. Everything seemed to fail the stallion as he laid there, and the mare leapt up to meet him head on, as she pressed against his chest to keep him on the ground.

“IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY?!” she fumed, breathing down his muzzle from her own.

Then again, Iron had stared down death more often than not lately, so a mare wanting to kill him hasn’t become all that uncommon. “Well hello to you too, Amber,” he kept up a simple smile.

“You leave after one night, I get a random special visitor, then you don’t show face for the next several months!” the tears that started to build previously to his arrival finally gave way, as they started to fall and saturate the colts’ coat. Amber could handle the embarrassment of the display in her own establishment that she was giving her patrons, she'd seen enough mares and even a few colts do the same thing.

All that mattered to her was she had her friend back…

“Where did you go?! What did you do? And why in the love of everything high and mighty did you not at least say you were safe and sound!” With those final words, the strength that Amber had left her. Like a rock, the mare fell on to his chest in a fit of tears. “I hate you… I hate you so damn much sometimes,” she sniffled, pulling her head back to look the colt in the eyes, “but I’d rather know you were hurt and injured, than out in some random country probably dead… and never hear about it.”

For a second there, the colt was still. Then a gentle hoof placed itself against her cheek, as it began to wipe the tears away, “That… is probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Iron started to chuckle a bit, before he helped himself and the mare to their hooves, wrapping her up in an embrace the moment they were steady. “I’m sorry I didn’t write or anything… needless to say, I was a little busy.”

“Clearly…” the mare returned to her former self with a chuckle, as she noted the injuries once more. Cantering herself back around the bar, she met him as he took his seat, and poured a glass of cider for the colt. “So… then would you care to tell me what in Tartarus you’ve been up to?”

“Oh I’d love to… but that might have to wait for another night, perhaps dinner?” the colt shrugged his shoulders sheepishly, “least I could do after keeping you out of the loop for several months.”

“Oh you’re going to be paying for this for at least the next few seasons…” Amber made a mental note. Intending to never let the colt live it down for as long as physically possible, “Though why not start now?”

“Hehe… this requires way too much time to cover,” Iron started, thinking of the best way to word the next part, as a smile grew, “besides, I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.”

A friend she hadn’t met? Something sparked the mares’ interest, especially upon seeing her friends’ reaction. “Someone special I may assume?” Amber tutted over, snickering at him.

“Oh…” Irons’ ears perked up upon hearing the door open up, and the bell ring. Looking over top his shoulder, even with the long cloak over head to keep the cool winds of the evening at bay, the colt still recognized that walk from a mile away. “… you could say that.”

Sitting on the stool next to him, the pony never caught the attention of Amber, as she still tried to read her friend. Though with a graceful hoof, the cloak hood was thrown back, and with it golden locks draped themselves over the mares features.

“Miss Ale looks like she either wants to kill you, or give you a hug,” the mare noted her counterparts position, “…Iron.”

Hearing her name, Amber snapped out of her daze, and from that moment. Lost most of her mental function of words, for a time that is, “Ahh… umm…” she shook her head, “Well this is a surprise.”

“Well she kinda tried to do both a few moments ago…” Iron mentioned, as he turned his attention to the mare of his interest, “I thought the doctor said to keep off your wings for a bit?”

Grace just rolled her eyes, her guards had said the same thing after all, “He may have, but it wasn’t that bad of a flight. Besides, I got an early start this morning and paced myself.”

“Well good evening, your majesty,” Amber finally realized to bow before the presence of royalty, “I’m sure you have quite the story to tell, one that Iron also will share… given that he hasn’t kept me up to date sense he left.”

“Oh is that so…” Grace muttered, glaring at the stallion, “under any normal circumstance I would allow you to interrogate the colt against his free will…” the princess watched as the stallion only chuckled at the thought, while Amber forgot for a moment that this was the mare running her country. “However, this isn’t exactly normal… so He’ll fill you in later though.” She left it off with a wink, one that only two mares would understand as Iron remained oblivious to the exchange.

“Much appreciated, princess,” the mare nodded gingerly, “May I get you anything though?”

“Have you Cloud Mist Vodka?” Grace watched as Ambers’ own memories of the drink filled her mind, and with an exasperated affirmation, her question was answered silently, “I’ll take a double shot… and please, still call me Grace.”

“Coming right up, Grace.” As the mare went about her duty, sure that she’d have a more entertaining evening to look forward to now.

The Pegasus in question turned her attention to the colt before her, “You kept her out of the loop?”

“Ahh… kinda?” Iron already knew he was going to get an ear full from the mare at some point about this. Hell he’d probably hear it from both of them actually. But it was a bullet he was willing to bite, “I was rather busy, you know running around different countries working two different jobs really.”

“Didn’t have to accept that second one…” Grace sent an appreciating nod as the glass of the clear liquid found her hoof from the fellow mare, “But I’m so glad you did.”

“Still one thing I don’t quite get…” she watched Iron sip slowly on his own drink, pondering whatever his thought was as much as the concoction he was drinking, “Why do it?”

“You mean… Bronze?”

“Yes, why go through all this trouble to try and wipe out everything between three countries?” he questioned out loud something he had wondered for a while now, “There was so much she could have done with her gift, why remain dead set on destruction?”

“That… I can actually answer,” Grace sipped the glass of her preferred poison, thankful to enjoy the crisp taste once more, “Bronze lost those that she cared about to war between the nations, whether as a direct result of the fighting, or just another domino in the chain. In the end, she blamed all three countries that took part.”

“Mom and Dad I’m to assume?” Iron asked the question he already knew, “That explains the picture then…” the colt muttered.

“What was that last bit?”

“… Nothing… nothing at all,” the colt brushed the experience from earlier off, “still though, it had been a while sense the last fight. Long time to hold a grudge, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, but it also gave her plenty of time to practice… something that didn’t matter in the end, she got what came to her,” Grace threw out there, as she took another drink. Though in the silence over her words, her eyes drifted back to those of the stallions, a pair of orbs that told her more than words ever could. “You think she’s still out there, don’t you?”

“… Not exactly saying it’s impossible,” Iron admitted to her, “There wasn’t anything found left of her, yet most of her tech left behind some remnants of its existence.”

“Hard to believe she’d survive though,” Grace backed up with, especially when she considered that they barely made it out of the ship, “if she does rear her head though, next time around… we’ll be ready.”

“I don’t exactly think that will be a problem…” Iron thought back to the bolt that he found.

No, he never took the picture... From what he can recall at least. Yes the bolt he never remembered crafting himself. Yet if he did just come across it and it got mixed up in his own bag of items. How did it get folded in with a picture, that would cause so many memories to come back in the future? Had the mare put it there, she could’ve just as easily slid a knife in his chest and Graces’ while they slept…

But she didn’t.

“Bronze… might have cleared her head with the little fight,” Iron threw his own opinion out there, mulling around how much he should really say on the matter, “If she did survive, I don’t think we’d ever know, and that’s how she’d like to keep it…”

Grace pondered the words for but a moment, before accepting them for their worth, “You might be right… assuming she is still out there. For her sake, I’d ask that she stay clear of Seren, or at least keep her head low,” the mare felt for her counterpart, “I know what it’s like to feel lost, and she was just dealt a bad hoof.”

Iron lifted his glass up in a hoof, and gently tapped the side of her own, “Though with that out of the way… lets switch to something a little warmer hearted, how long are you going to be down in my neck of the woods?”

“Well being a princess still grants me some time off here and there, counting in the memorandum I set forth with the council, they should be following my guidance even without my presence,” Grace thought about her decree, it was about time she grabbed the rungs. “That said, unless there’s another war, I should be free most weekends now… I think it’s time I learned more of those towns that lie further out, than I’m used to visiting…”

“I’m sensing a lot of travel in your future,” Iron looked down upon the coy smile of the mare.

“Well…” Graces’ eye lashes started to flutter, “I don’t think there’s any harm in starting with this one.”

“Oh really now,” the snicker of the colt met her own, “now who can we get to give you a tour about the area…” Iron started to wonder out loud, keeping a hoof to his chin as he rocked back and forth on the stool.

“I can think of one stallion who will have his schedule open in a month or so,” the mare reminded him of that fact, as if he forgotten it. “If he would be willing to act as my guide that is.”

Mulling it over in his head, Grace for a second had to ask herself if he was just being playful, or if he really had to think on that one. Though with the smirk growing as the seconds passed, it didn’t take long for her to figure that one out on her own. Iron placed a gentle hoof across her own as she left it resting on the counter top, and the action grabbed the mares’ attention two fold while their eyes met one another’s.

“I’d be delighted to… princess.”

Whether it was the brew she so loved going in to her veins, or the fact that none of the other patrons here this night had even recognized her yet, something gave the mare a little more encouragement this time around from their last encounter. Flaring a wing out, Grace wrapped it up and around the colts’ midsection as she pulled Iron in to her side, and with his hoof carefully wrapped around her. The two met in the middle, and expressed their affections like two young lovers often do.

As Iron and Grace let this little corner of the world melt away, creating their own domain. The kiss lasted longer than either of them intended, then again, a couple hooking up in a bar wasn’t something that was all that uncommon. Many of the others there didn’t pay the two even a second glance, so using the time they had to just savor the moment came at no extra cost to them.

To Amber on the other hoof, that’s a different story, as she now was short one plate in her stock after dropping it to the floor upon seeing the two.

Breaking away from one another after some time, a silent hush escaped either of their lips as the words they wanted to say fell on deaf ears for the night, but instead were spoken through their eyes. With only the subtle cues to egg them on, the pair simply relaxed in the comfort of their embrace, as Grace leaned her cheek against his shoulder. While Iron rested his chin atop her own head.

“So… Mister Knight,” Grace all but purred at the prospect of getting to spend some quality time with the colt, without a war looming over their head this time around… and probably getting the chance to annoy him, if only for some payback, “What do you say… we start with that drink?”