Login

A Diplomatic Visit

by Evilhumour

Chapter 5: Chapter Five

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Chapter Five

Swift-Pad did his best to roll into the blow and get onto his paws but before he could react further, he felt himself lifted into the air with his magic seemingly out of reach.

“Don’t worry everypony, I got this!” a voice shouted, with the purple bubble looking very similar to some of the pictures in his folders. Already he was struggling to reach his runes to free himself, as the same pony said “Back to the Everfree Forest with you.”

“Wait, Twilight! Stop!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she suddenly dropped in between them. “He’s a good guy!”

And he’s the diplomat you’re supposed to meet, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie added in, causing Twilight to pause in surprise, her magic canceling out abruptly with Swift-Pad having no chance to properly prepare himself for a landing. Pushing himself upright from the dirt, he was about to defuse the situation when Twilight’s magic grabbed him again and lifted him upright.

“Oh my gosh! I am so so sorry! I didn’t mean to do this to you! I didn’t know you were the diplomat guest we were expecting! Princess Celestia didn’t specify because she wanted it to be a surprise, but it never occured to me that you might resemble a wild predator we have! Not that you are a wild predator, I mean. I just knew you were coming today, but when I came out to meet you all I saw was a big scary wolf that I thought was from the Everfree! I am so, so sorry for attacking you!”

“It is okay, your Grace,” Swift-Pad interjected, causing her to pull back with her eyes still wide in fright. “I accept your apology, your Grace as you did not know the situation properly.” he said as he shook his coat, causing his more loosely tied runes to rustle faintly with a few sounding like they needed to be refastened, while he quickly glanced around to judge how the crowd was reacting before turning to his current charge who seemed about to fall into one of her warned panic attacks.

“Still, I am so sorry for everything I did,” she said in the same quick ramble as before with Swift-Pad wincing at the fact that the notes on her foreign education was correct on the pessimistic assumption instead of the optimistic ones. “I don’t…”

As I said: It is okay, Twilight,” he said, cutting her off before she could babble on more as before. Seeing that she was unnerved by the sudden rise in his voice again he flashed her a smile with teeth but not with his fangs, and asked her in a softer tone. “If you may lead the way to a place I could freshen up, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Well, darling,” the other pony besides Twilight spoke up, causing Swift-Pad to turn his head to see her stride up to him, recognizing her as Rarity, another of the Bearers. “We could always take a detour to the local spa as it does wonders to calm my nerves.”

Swift-Pad smiled at the suggestion, seeing the offer as it truly was, a means to delicately discuss the entire situation in private.

“An excellent idea, miss Rarity,” he said, bobbing his head and moved to follow her, with Twilight opening and closing her mouth a few times before she joined them, clearly trying to think of how to fix the matter by her own means.

“Thank you, mister…” Rarity left the question hanging, making Swift-Pad realize he had yet to introduce himself to his charge.

“My name is Swift-Pad,” he said in a soothing tone and taking care to not signal out Twilight for her lapse in etiquette.

“An interesting name,” she said, glancing over to the alicorn with a concerned look on her face, clearly trying to help her friend. “Don’t you think so Twilight?”

“Er, yes, yes it is,” she chuckled in uncertainty, still clearly troubled by her previous actions. “How did you get such a name?”

“By my pack elders,” he chuckled, using some of the Equestrian based humour in this situation. Unfortunately it seemed that the joke was lost on them and he saw he needed to explain himself further. “As per custom in the Packlands, we are named after a trait our elders observe in us. For me, it was my ability to move swiftly on my pads when most of my littermates were all fumbling about.”

“That’s an interesting method of naming yourselves,” Rarity said while looking at Twilight, who was nodding her head but keeping quiet. The unicorn bit her lip for a split second before she schooled her face. “As you may not know, we tend to have something called the name dream.”

“To where expecting mothers have a series of dreams that inspires the name for the foal as it tends to have some tie their special talent?” Swift-Pad said causing Twilight to snap her head to look at him in surprise.

“That’s a mostly personal, private mare matter,” she said slowly, looking at him in the eyes. “How do you know about them?”

“I have been working with Equestrians for a while now and my educators have taught me a fair deal about your society,” he told her which she began to digest in her head, trying to determine if it was something he should have known or not.

“I see…” she said slowly, eyes darting to side with a blush on her face again. “Again, I am so sorry for what I did.”

Swift-Pad could not help stop his ear from twitching at this comment, making him wonder if her Grace Celestia had taught her anything and how naïve she truly was. “As I have said before, it is fine, your Grace.” He said in his most politically calm voice. “And thank you, Rarity, for this detour, it will be very useful.”

“It is not a problem, darling; you can freshen up after all,” Rarity said, causing Swift-Pad to prod his memory. He had an inkling of what a spa was, but it had been a while since he had last heard the term. Looking over his coat, he saw that it was dirty and he then remembered what he’d read about Rarity in his folders and quickly pieced together what she was indicating.

“I appreciate your offer but,” he paused mid-step as he thought of an escape to being subjugated to the inner workings of the spa when he heard the rustle of his rune stones and let out a small sigh of relief. “I must fix my rune stones before I can even think of participating.”

“Well, I’m sure I can help you with that, Darling,” Rarity stated, going into full dealing-with-a-reluctant-little-sister mode. “After you’ve had a bath and a good brushing.”

“Actually, no, you cannot,” he told her as he stretched his neck out to show the runes around his throat. “A fair deal of my runes need to be removed in a certain order as they are overlapping and the whole procedure can take a fair amount of time and I do need to focus on fixing the string as it is a delicate procedure to thread the needle.” He winced internally as he spoke of tailoring in front of the tailor.

“Which should give us plenty of time to talk. I’ll just book us for an extended session to cover the required time to take care of your runes. They do look quite lovely on you. I’m sure that if you explain what needs to be done with them to Aloe and Lotus, they can either help you or leave you the required time to do what needs to be done with them. And I can help you with the strings, unless it specifically has to be done by your own paw - I am familiar with the idea of sympathetic magic after all.”

Biting his tail internally, he knew it would serve his mission better if he agreed to these measures and Rarity seemed to be a good buffer for her Grace Twilight to get more at ease with him and possibly have the start of the dialogue between the two. “While it is tradition that a rune wolf like myself handles their own rune maintenance, it would be incredibly rude of me to just dismiss such help out of some personal reservations about others attempting to groom me.”

“Well,” Twilight said caustially, looking at Rarity for support. “If it makes you really uncomfortable, we can just ask Aloe and Lotus to give you a pass on any procedure that you’d rather do yourself or use an alternative method.”

“If he must,” Rarity consented, relenting from her push to get the gentlewolf diplomat properly cleaned and groomed to her vision.

Flicking his head upwards, he saw that they were in front of the place in question, and with what he hoped was a barely audible grumble, walked into the spa.

“Greetings, Rarity!” Aloe and Lotus said together as they saw their favorite customer come in. “Is this a group session then?”

“Why yes it is, Darlings!” Rarity confirmed. “Aloe, Lotus, this is Swift-Pad, the diplomatic guest from the Packlands. And of course you both already know Twilight. Swift-Pad, these are Aloe and Lotus. They own and run the Ponyville spa. If you have any special requirements, or if anything makes you too uncomfortable, be sure to let them know, and they’ll personalise your session to suit your needs. They really are dears.”

“That would be most appreciated,” Swift-Pad replied.

After a somewhat brief discussion with the spa owners, a mutually agreeable session was planned out, alleviating many of the worries Swift-Pad had been experiencing. The ponies had even been amenable to experiencing a bit of cultural exchange involving cleansing and grooming techniques, which allowed him to escape the experience of being repeatedly soaked in uncomfortable amounts of water.

Before too long, the three were settled in for a good cleansing curry brushing to rid themselves of their grime, loose hairs, and any pests they may have picked up. But first, Swift-Pad had to remove his packs and his runes. Following the owners to a place where he could reliably leave the papers that were needed for the meeting tomorrow as well as the gifts for their Graces without worrying about them, he returned to the girls talking to each other with Rarity speaking words of confidence to Twilight which was good. Flashing them a smile, he saw the prepared sheet laid out for him and felt the attention of the room on him as he began to remove his runes. Deciding to start with his neck, where his shield runes were, he tapped into the runes around his paws that allowed him greater flexibility before he reached for the protection runes and slid them off of his body. Placing the long string of the still empty protection-based runes down on the sheet, he could see that a few would need to be outright replaced and even without his crafter’s glasses with the high detail fold-away lenses, he could spot the cord was fraying and he would need to replace it sooner rather than later. He then moved onto the runes along his hind legs that boosted his speed as well helped increase his endurance before doing them for his forelegs, examining them each time he placed them down while making mental notes of what he had to fix and touch up before he let out a sigh as he reached for his head and slid off the ones that aided his eyesight.

Immediately, he began to squint, the abrupt change always causing a small headache for him and being the main reason why he only took it off when he was going to sleep or had to repair them. Forcing his eyes open as not to alarm his hosts, he moved to take the ones off of his paws, following the ingrained route of the runes that eased walking around before he slid off the ones that increased his dexterity and flexibility and placing them down with the rest of his runes.

He gave his body a shake, feeling particularly exposed without his runes, before he sat back down with Rarity and Twilight, the former looking at him closely and the latter eyeing his runes. Twilight clearly wished to examine them closer but knew better than to actually touch them without his permission.

As the attendants came to start this spa treatment, Twilight coughed loudly, turning to him and saying, “I must say, I have never seen anything like those runes before. I mean, I’ve read something about them, but only about the few that unicorns had made, and I see a lot more here than just those that I’ve read about.”

“Ah yes,” he said as one of the ponies began to work on his coat, keeping his attention split between her and his runes. “Unlike your kind, not all wolves have the potential for some form of magic, and even those of us that do require some form of focus to bring it out. As our innate arcane abilities are limited, naturally we have expanded our knowledge of the tools we use that enable us to work magic at all. That is why, when we are young, we are instructed to try and copy the beginners’ sets to see if we have any mystic potential. Once we know enough, those that can work with the runes are encouraged to experiment a bit with crafting our own in order to expand our knowledge as a whole. Of course, at first, these experiments are properly supervised. We don’t really start truly independent design work until our masters are satisfied with our skill and even then, there are strict guidelines of what we can and cannot do.”

He paused and chuckled as he recalled the past. “Then again, more than enough of the youngsters proved themselves capable of magic by trying to craft and tap a rune beyond their capabilities. Which is why not all the runes that were designed by the ancient masters were all that beneficial; some were made no other reason beyond to trip up younger, eager pups that were overreaching their abilities.”

Leaning over, he traced two symbols that looked near identical. “This one is meant to allow one to control lightning and this one,” he said, eyeing the symbol he’d made and recalling the time he had crafted it, “will cause the rune wolf to send a quite sizable amount of electricity through their body with a loud noise to signify that it had been used.”

“You sound like you are speaking from personal experience there, Swift-Pad,” Rarity purred with Swift-Pad blushing, his ears folding back slightly with a low rumble in his throat.

“I am sure we all did something foolish with our magic when we were young,” Swift-Pad said, glancing to the sides.

“I, ah…” Twilight blushed. “I once cast a spell that let me enter a book as an illustration, but I had forgotten to memorize the part of the spell that reverses the process. If Spike hadn’t seen me on the page before putting the book away, it might have been a long time before anypony found me…”

“Well darlings, if you Pinkie Promise not to tell a soul,” Rarity began with Twilight and the attendants quickly performing the ritual, Swift-Pad copying them a moment later. “I once, after getting my cutie mark, tried to find some gems and listened to my magic blindly. Needless to say, as a result of this, I received a very strict lecture of why it was wrong to take things that belong to others. Even if they did hide them in a box buried under a bush just beyond their backyard.”

Swift-Pad could not help himself from laughing loudly at this, only to let out a yelp as he felt the brush along his back reach a particularly tough knot.

Twilight giggled briefly at Rarity’s story, then looked at Swift-Pad in alarm when he yelped. “Are you alright over there?”

“I am fine. The brush just hit a tangle.”

“Oh, okay then. And again, I am ever so sorry for my misunderstanding in the town square earlier…”

“You are truly a blind pup thrown into the hunt,” Swift-Pad said, shaking his head before standing upright. “We need to talk, Sparkle,” he said tersely. “In privacy.”

Twilight was clearly spooked by his sudden change in tone, moving to stand before she was aware of it. Walking over to the office, Swift-Pad stood inside waiting for Twilight before closing the door.

“You truly are completely ignorant about the world beyond Equestria, are you not?” he asked sharply, preventing any chance for her to muddle around the issue.

“Er… I read some books on Griffonstone…” she began with Swift-Pad snorting.

“Which are more than likely out of date or written by Equestrians for Equestrian audiences with little to no input from actual griffons or those who live in the area,” he spat, his eyes hurting him as he tried to keep his eyes on hers. “In any case, the answer is clearly no, your Grace.”

“I’m sor-”

Please stop saying that,” he was fighting the urge to growl at her, remembering his training. “Something that your mentor should have told you, at the very least, is that for us wolves, we have slightly different views on making amends. For a majority of the time, we are out together where trust with each other is essential if we are to have enough food for the winter and the pack to survive. That means when one makes a mistake, we have to know that they learned from their error and will not repeat it again. So they only apologize if they are sure that they will not repeat their mistake and we can trust them again. To add onto this, it is only accepted if the apology is believed to be honest. Furthermore, when a matter has been resolved, it is considered horribly insulting to bring it up again as it implies that the transgression was forgiven too easily, that they did not know what they were forgiving, that they were unaware of the entire matter at paw.”

“Oh my gosh, I had no idea, I am so so…” Twilight stopped, gathered her breath, and thought for a moment. “I apologize for not taking the time to become aware of other cultures surrounding Equestria. I assure you that I will take the time to do so, but it may take me a while to acquire the necessary information.”

“Completely expected and I do accept your apology,” he said, easing his glare. “That was why I was selected for this mission; as to be as your instructor of sorts into the complicated mess that is foreign affairs. Come, we should head back to your friend lest she becomes worried.”

“Before we go back, may I ask you a question?” Twilight sounded hesitant again and Swift-Pad was wondering what she was mulling over in her head.

“Of course; this is what I am here for,” he said as closed his eyes, doing a mental check in his head to see if he still had the medicine in his pack for his headache and resolved to put the runes that helped with eyes back on as soon as he can.

“Why do you keep on calling me, and the other princesses, ‘your Grace’?” Twilight asked and Swift-Pad had to wince; of all things she had to ask, she had to choose one of three impolite things to talk about in conversations outside of a strict student/mentor relationship, which they had not quite established yet. As well as explaining his nation’s official religion to a secular citizen who more than likely had never heard of the concept was going to be a challenge.

Next Chapter: Chapter Six Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 13 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch