It wasn't too long a flight down to where the Mareitanians had set up their beachhead, which was convenient since most of them heading in that direction were capable of flying. So long as you ignored the kirin being carried in Luna's magic, her front legs held out to the side as she wooted and hollered with glee.

"This is so awesome!"

"Is her... enthusiasm going to last the whole way?" Ember grumbled, having grown sick of the shouting after the first five minutes.

"Aw c'mon," Rainbow said to the dragon, "this is probably the only time she'll ever get to fly, so why not let her enjoy it?"

"At least she's not singing about it," Lightning added.

"That can be arranged!"

"No!"

"Aww..." Autumn folded her legs in a huff, "Nobody ever lets me sing. It's not like I'm bad at singing either. Spoilsports."

Vapor raised a hoof, "I'd like to point out that I'm not opposed to you singing."

"You are? Great! That's two against the rest of you, which is almost like a majority!"

"Not even close," Lightning said, only to be ignored as Autumn sucked in a breath to start singing. She didn't even make it to the first syllable when teal magic clamped her mouth shut.

"Start singing," Nightmare warned the kirin, "and I'll do something to your voice that can't be fixed. Possibly something like ripping it out... with my teeth."

"And that proves me wrong," said Luna. "I already thought you were going too far, but no, you found a way to take it that little bit further."

"Shush you. Shouldn't you be busy pointing some intense stares at the horizon?"

"And what would that achieve?"

"Oh please, like you haven't already. You're even doing it now."

Luna blinked and pulled her gaze from the horizon to glare at Nightmare instead. "That proves nothing. I'm just keeping an eye on our destination."

"Intensely..."

Luna rolled her eyes, then smiled pleasantly at her counterpart. "How's the sun treating you, dearest Nightmare?"

"Awful. I hate it. It should go away so we can have an eternal night instead." Nightmare gasped and covered her mouth with her hooves, mostly to hide her grin. "Oopsie! Did I say that out loud? What I meant to say was that you should go fuck yourself. Can't imagine how I mixed those two up."

Luna sighed and went back to scanning the horizon-

"You're doing it again."

-Carefully ignoring all other distractions, no matter how annoying and insolent they might be. The fact was that she had every right to be concerned about where they were going. This was a war they were flying into. Maybe not one they recognised due to the current nature of it being rather one sided, but it was a war nonetheless. Concern was warranted, especially when the Mareitanian camp came into sight.

To say it sprawled didn't seem like the right word, but Luna was damned if she could think of anything else to describe it with right then. It seemed that the Mareitanians, having discovered plenty of land to use, had endeavoured to fill as much of it as possible, leaving gaps between tents that were wide enough to put an extra tent up in. Not that they were all tents by name. There were also yurts, which had to be the yaks', while the kirin probably had the constructs that appeared to be made of whatever grasses they could find.

There was also a trio of ships anchored nearby. Two of them were slightly out at sea, while another was moored to a makeshift jetty, unloading supplies for the invasion. An army that size had to be chewing through a considerable amount of food every day. More than what a mere three ships could keep supplied, meaning that there had to be more out there, travelling between Zebrica and Equestria.

"That's a lot of ponies," Rainbow said slowly like she was stunned. "Well, not just ponies I guess. Yaks, kirin... and whatever else Faust has convinced to fight for her."

"I sincerely hope there's nothing else down there," Luna said to Rainbow's comment. "We have more than enough to contend with as it is."

"Where do you want us to start?" Lightning asked, indicating she was ready for action.

"First we find the zebras stationed nearby. I'd rather find them than do something to push the Mareitanians into a retaliatory frame of mind."

"Like burning their ships?" Ember asked, a predatory grin showing her teeth to the world.

"I had considered such things, yes, but that'll have to be later, after we've received a full update on all that is happening here." Luna started flying towards a series of hills that lay adjacent to the direct route between where they were and Zanzebra. "Hopefully the zebras are still alive to give it to us."

From the air the zebras small encampment, consisting of a few huts, was relatively easy to find, located as it was in a flat area between two hilltops that was mostly invisible from the ground. All the same, Luna doubted the Mareitanians weren't aware of its existence. More likely was that they were ignoring it, making it look like it was beneath them. Luna would agree, but she was also going to make them regret that stance if she could.

Most of the zebras looked up as they arrived, but none of them did anything more about it. Even the unexpected arrival of an alicorn, a 'thestral,' three pegasi, and a dragon wasn't enough to ruffle them, but the sight of the kirin did at least raise a few eyebrows if not spears.

"There can't be more than fifty zebras here," said Nightmare. "Are we really supposed to hold back all those soldiers with this? Are they even trying to slow them down?"

"There used to be twice this number," a robed zebra said, walking up to them. She dropped into a quick bow, and gave Luna a tired smile, "It is good to see you again, Nightwalker."

Luna returned the smile, giving a small bow of her own. "And you, Seeker. If only we could ever see each other at calmer times."

"Good luck finding such tranquillity here. Since you are here though, I hope it's because you aim to aid us?"

"There's two reasons actually. The first is to aid you, while the second involves her." Luna gestured with a hoof towards Autumn, "We're hoping she can convince the kirin to give up fighting for Faust."

"I was wondering about the kirin." Seeker walked a lap around Autumn, humming as she inspected the kirin. "You might be interested in meeting with our prisoner then."

"A prisoner?" Luna said, her interest indeed piqued. "I assume you mean another kirin then?"

"That's right. She was part of a scouting party, and was wounded, so we took her prisoner. We haven't been able to get a word out of her so far-"

"Yeah, that's not surprising," said Autumn. "Most kirin gave up their voices a while ago, but I can get it back if you happen to have some foals' breath flowers?"

"Foals' breath?" Seeker glanced back at where a healer was treating some of the wounded they'd accrued over the last week, "Isn't that for respiratory ailments?"

"Respiratory, throat, voice," Autumn shrugged, "it's all connected. Get me some foals' breath, and I won't just get her to talk, I'll get her to siiiiinnnggg-"

"Except that would be highly unnecessary, wouldn't it?" Nightmare said, giving Autumn the eye. Autumn just sighed in response.

"Foals' breath isn't exactly native to Zebrica," Seeker said after a short silence, "but hopefully our healer might have an extract or something like that with them. I shall be right back."

"What is it with you and singing?" Nightmare hissed at Autumn once Seeker was gone. "I'd be more than happy to make it through today without you bursting into song."

"But why? Singing's fun! Maybe if you tried it you wouldn't be so grumpy all the time."

"It'll be a cold day in hell before that happens."

"The singing, or the not being grumpy?" Luna teased.

"That... was a low blow."

"And so very worth it. But enough about that. Autumn, I can't help but notice you've developed a cure for your peoples' silence."

"Yeah, I kinda had to think of one because being silent was driving me nuts."

"Does it fix your nirik problem?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Oh," Luna uttered, that slim hope getting crushed before it could take off. "I suppose that was a long shot though."

"I wasn't even trying to fix that. Becoming a nirik when we get angry is part of who we are. All we need to do is learn to control it a bit better so we don't cause so much damage, which I think is a bit more reasonable than trying to get rid of it entirely."

Luna couldn't argue with that, not with the end result of her own issues standing beside her. "Very well. Unfortunately that's not a very compelling argument for those of your people seeking to rid themselves of their curse."

"Neither is hiding from it, or siding with a big ole meanie like Faust in the hopes she can fix it."

"We still need proof of that. Hopefully the prisoner they have here can provide that." Luna looked up as Seeker returned, a small vial held in her mouth. "Did they have what we need?"

Seeker took the vial out of her mouth and held it up for Autumn to take, "Some, yes. She does ask that you use it as sparingly as possible though."

"I shouldn't need much. All I need now is a cup of water, and a kirin to give it to."

"Follow me."

Seeker led them to one of the huts in the encampment. There were two zebras standing guard outside it, although it seemed a bit unnecessary for guarding one wounded kirin. There wasn't any noise coming from within the hut, although that wasn't particularly surprising, and would've been more worrying if there was.

Inside was a lone sleeping roll containing a very bored looking kirin. She was mostly brown, save for the reddish hue of her mane, and was covered in bandages. Her horn was also painted in a green substance that was probably made to limit her magic.

"Fern Flare?" Autumn said slowly, like she was surprised to find a kirin she not only recognised, but actually knew. "Omigosh, Ferny! It's so good to see you!"

The other kirin jumped in surprise as Autumn shouted excitedly, and tried to scramble away until her wounds reminded her not to. Even in pain she was silent though, when she should really be at least groaning from the pain.

"Probably not a good idea to move, Ferny," Autumn said with a small smile. "Uh, hi, by the way. It's me, Autumn, that kirin you all left behind when you all went running off to help Faust fight this silly war? Remember me now?" Fern nodded, although she still seemed freaked out by Autumn being there. "Good."

"Here," Seeker said, passing a cup of water to Autumn, which the kirin gratefully took, tipping a few drops of the extract into it.

"Drink this," she said to Fern, holding the cup to her mouth since her horn was out of action. Fern looked like she was going to refuse to, but sighed and drank it down.

"I don't know what you think that's going to do," Fern muttered, only realising a second later that she'd said that out loud. "I'm talking. Why am I talking?" She started to breath heavily, her eyes going wide as her freak out escalated considerably. "What did you do to me?!"

"Well, y'see, these zebra need to talk to you, and so does Princess Luna-"

"Princess Luna? The pony princess? What is that monster doing here? Is she going to torture me?"

"Far from it," Luna said languidly from behind Autumn, entering into the hut along with the others. "I see Faust's lies about me have taken with the kirin well enough."

Fern screamed. What she was hoping to achieve with it was beyond them, because all it did was make them uncomfortable. They let her persist though, with not even Autumn attempting to stop her until her voice started to go hoarse, giving them a small clue as to why she was doing it.

"Tell me," Ember said to Nightmare as Fern took a moment to suck in some air, "is this better or worse than singing?"

"Honestly, it's hard to choose."

"And that's enough of that," Luna said, shutting Fern's mouth with a hoof. "Listen well, Fern Flare. I am not going to torture you, and much of what Faust has told you is likely a lie concocted to make me appear as the villain in all this. You would do well to ignore her."

"Then what do you want with me?" Fern asked with a whimper once Luna's hoof was removed.

"To ask you one thing. What did Faust promise the kirin to get you all to fight for her?"

"Yeah," said Autumn. "We don't hate ponies, or zebras, or... whatever she's supposed to be," Autumn gestured towards Ember.

"I'm a dragon you idiot!"

"But I thought dragons were supposed to be huge."

"I breath fire! I- Oh, forget it." Ember sighed and left the hut, "At least it's fair I had no idea what you were without someone telling me."

"Uh, yeah, okay, as I was saying, we don't hate any of the peoples of this world, so why are you helping Faust to attack them? It doesn't make sense!"

"She said she could fix our curse. If we helped her to fight, she'd take away what happens when we get angry." Fern narrowed her eyes at Autumn, "I'm not saying I agreed with that by the way, but Rain Shine, and all of the other village leaders thought it was worth it. Don't ask me why."

"Would it have something to do with Faust's goal?" Luna asked. "Autumn made it clear that most kirin do not approve of the way we live in Equestria, and not just ponies in Equestria either."

"I don't know about that. I don't know what Faust's goal is either, so I'm not sure what you mean."

"You know nothing of her intent to revert the world to a more basic state? To strip all creatures of their sapience? To force us to live as animals, in harmony with nature?"

"That doesn't sound so bad," Fern hazarded.

Luna leaned in closer, making Fern back away a little. "Do you think the kirin are excluded from that?"

"Uh..."

"What better way to cure you than to strip away your emotions? Your thoughts, and your feelings? The very things that cause you to become niriks? Is preventing your change worth that cost?"

"Can- Can she do that? Really?"

"We're not sure," Luna answered, straightening back up. "We do know she has every intention to try though. The point is though, that she promised you nothing, and your people fight and die for something that would only hurt them in the end."

"I- I- I don't believe you! Why should I? You're just trying to turn me against her! Against the only one that can save us from our curse!"

"The only one that can save us from our curse is us!" Autumn shouted. "Faust can't wave her horn and make it go away, because if she was so benevolent, she would've done it already! Instead she's keeping you all on a string with a promise she can't keep, all so you keep on fighting for her!"

"Uh, Autumn?"

"What?" Autumn blinked as she caught a reflection of herself in Fern's eyes. Her coat had turned black, and a purplish flame covered much of her body. "Oh bother." Autumn drew in a breath to steady herself, and gradually the flames dissipated, and her coat returned to its proper white and green colouration. "Sorry, I guess I still need to work on my self control a bit. Still, nothing's on fire, so no harm no foul."

"How did you do that?" Fern asked, sounding more than a little bewildered. "How did you control the nirik?"

"By not letting my anger take over me. Uh, more than it did anyway. Look, we're always going to be niriks, but by bottling our feelings up until we explode, and by not accepting that it's okay to get angry sometimes, we're always going to live in fear of it. That's how we fix our curse, by controlling it, not by hoping for some miracle cure from a pony that only wants to use us."

"I don't know..." Fern yelped as Autumn's eyebrows caught fire, "but I'm willing to have a go and learn!"

"Good." Autumn patted out her eyebrow fire, "Does that mean you'll help me convince the other kirin to abandon their alliance with Faust?"

"If I can. I mean, we might not hate ponies, or whatever, but it's not like most kirin care about them either. I don't think we would've helped Faust if she didn't have something to offer us."

"Right, I forgot we're a bunch of isolationist jerks." Autumn rubbed a hoof up the scales between her eyes, "Great."

"What about the yaks and ponies? Are we trying to get them to leave Faust as well?"

"The ponies are magically influenced by Faust," Luna told Fern, "and the yaks consider her as a god, and treat her with the reverence of the truly devoted. Trying to convince either of those groups to leave Faust will likely result in your untimely deaths, so I strongly advise against it."

"Oh, okay." Fern went quiet and tapped the tips of her hooves together, "Are we supposed to be going now? It's that I'm not good at waiting. I get all antsy, and then I start talking and can't stop, which I admit is a problem I haven't had for a while due to the whole silence thing, and I am telling you now that I do not miss this in the slightest."

"Are we really trusting this thing to do what we want?" Nightmare whispered into Luna's ear. "I have the strangest suspicion that she's saying what she thinks we want to hear so she can get back to her people."

"I know, but what choice do we really have? We're not doing this on the expectation that it'll actually work. We're merely hoping it will."

"I know that, but..." Nightmare stopped speaking, unsure of what to put as her argument. This would either work, or simply wouldn't. At the very least it might get the kirin thinking enough to cast doubt on their own actions. "Fine, whatever, let's just let them go so we can get on with more important things."

"Not that I needed your permission." Luna turned to Seeker, "Do you accept this plan?"

"I too doubt that it will succeed, but apart from giving away the location of our base here, we have little to lose in letting her go. Unless of course she happens to know what the strategy our enemy is using happens to be?"

Fern Flare quickly shook her head, "I don't know. None of us do. I do know General Snowbright is getting impatient though, and wants to get started. Maybe they're waiting for something?"

Ember snorted a laugh, raising an eyebrow at Fern. "You're asking us?"

"Oh, right, uh... I guess you wouldn't know."

"Maybe they're waiting for Celestia to get here," said Rainbow. "That'd be my guess at least."

"And possibly a good one too," Luna said to the blue pegasus. "I suppose we shall find out in due time. If you have no more objections, Seeker, can we release the kirin and guide her towards the Mareitanian encampment? Blindfolded, if necessary?"

"Very well. I'll inform the Rangi of the plan, and see to it your kirin are safely delivered."

"Thank you." Luna waited until Seeker was gone, then nodded her head at the three Wonderbolts. "Shadow them from above, and make sure the zebras don't just kill them as soon as they think it's safe to do so."

"Would the zebras really do that?" Vapor asked, sharing a worried glance with her teammates.

"I doubt it, but this is war, and war makes people do strange things. I'd rather not risk the zebras taking revenge on these two. Of course, while you're out there I'd also like a full aerial recon of the Mareitanians, if you'd be so kind?"

Lightning gave Luna a crisp salute, "We'll get it done ma'am."

"Excellent, thank you."

The three Wonderbolts departed, and a few minutes later Seeker returned with a couple of stallions who got Fern up and blindfolded her before leading both her and Autumn out of the zebras encampment, and towards the Mareitanian one which was visible in the distance. Luna waited, watching them go and giving a quick glance up to find the Wonderbolts flying high above.

"I suspect you would like a briefing of the situation?" Seeker asked while she watched them fly away.

"You've been ordered to observe the Mareitanians and sabotage what you can to slow their advance, with little mention as to how powerless you are to do that. You've lost half your party tackling scouts, while the main bulk of their forces have done very little to warrant any action on your part. All to keep them busy and stationary while the tribes rally their warriors for war, which doesn't really seem to work on an exact timetable in the slightest." Luna gave Seeker a taut smile, "Apologies if I missed anything."

"No, you have summed up the situation quite well. Except the part where we might accidentally push the Mareitanians into premature action, before we're ready to fight back. That part is rather the double edged sword for us. Do nothing so the Mareitanians are more prepared, or push them into starting their attack before we are ready."

"Quite the difficult situation. Perhaps we'll have to see what can be done about it."

"This hurts so bad."

"Just keep walking, Ferny."

"I am, but seriously, every step hurts. If I trip over because I'm blindfolded, I think I might have to curl up and cry for a while."

Autumn sighed inwardly, then sparked her horn up to guide Fern as best she could, thankful that the zebras hadn't felt the need to blindfold her as well, although it would've been fairly pointless since she knew where their encampment was anyway. Honestly, she felt like there was too much trust being put in her. Sure the ponies didn't actually expect her to succeed, but they had relatively little reason to trust her enough to try either. It didn't really make much sense to her, but here she was, so try she would.

After several more minutes of walking the lead zebra called for them to stop. He whipped off Fern's blindfold, and slipped a bundle off his back that clanked when it landed. That done, he and his companion headed back the way they came, leaving the two kirin alone.

"Huh, rude much?" Autumn flipped the bundle open with the tip of a hoof while Fern blinked rapidly in the sunlight. It contained the weapons and armour of a kirin, or more specifically the kirin next to her. "Oh come on."

"What?"

"You've really been using this stuff?"

"Huh?" Fern blinked some more, then squinted at what Autumn was talking about. "Oh, that. What? Did you expect me to fight using angry looks?"

"I didn't expect you to fight at all! Or any of us! Sure the other kirin I can see doing this, but not us! We were always so peaceful. We even let outsiders into our village sometimes. We didn't even have weapons!"

"And? Times change, Autumn, or did you forget what happened when things weren't so peaceful? We almost burnt our forest down during that, so why is it so hard to imagine that we wanted a cure for our curse?"

"At the cost of becoming killers? I'd rather live my life in silence than do what you're all doing! Especially since you aren't even going to get what you want in the end anyway."

"You don't know that. What those ponies said back there was crazy, and you know it." Fern picked up the cloth her gear was in and spat onto it to start rubbing the gunk off her horn. "If you'd heard even half the stuff those ponies have done, you'd agree with me."

"And what have they done that's so terrible? Was it the overly aggressive way they tried to desperately defend their home from Faust?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"You're not even trying to make me understand! Or- Wait, is this to do with you not agreeing with how the ponies live?"

"It's only a matter of time," Fern said in a low voice. "Sure they weren't doing too much damage before the war, but they devastated so much fighting a war they couldn't win. If they get Equestria back it's only going to get worse, and they are going to tip the balance of this world. Will you think they're so harmless when the very earth beneath our hooves is dead?"

"So it's better that they die? They have a right to live on this world, and a right to how they choose to do it. This 'balance' that the elders go on about is wrong! For all the things that the ponies and others do, nothing seems to change. The world still lives."

Fern threw the cloth back to the ground, her horn now clean enough for her to pick up her gear using magic. "It won't always be fine, Autumn, and with Faust we have a chance to stop the damage before it kills us all. Is that not worth it?"

"No! It isn't!" Autumn grunted as she caught fire, but she quickly stopped it.

"And this is why we had to be silent!" Fern shouted as Autumn slowly sucked in a breath. "As soon as I get back to the village I'm going straight back into the stream of silence."

"I thought the idea was that Faust cured you by that point?"

"Maybe she will, maybe she won't. The important thing is our world will survive. Now are you coming with me or not? Or are you going to crawl back to the ponies who only want to use you?"

"I'll come, but I am not happy about this. Besides, you've used me to escape the zebras, so don't you act like you're better than them."

"It would hardly be an act. Now come on, and for the love of nature, don't you dare say a word to anyone, ever."

Autumn kept her head down as she sullenly walked after Fern, more out of shame for how wrong her people could be at times. The ponies weren't that bad, and neither were the zebras, griffons, or any of them. They certainly weren't any worse than the war mongering Mareitanians, who were causing far more damage than they were fixing, yet they were somehow acceptable allies.

She knew that her plan had failed, falling flat on its face before it could even start running, but she knew the princesses were right, and while she mightn't be able to convince the other kirin to not fight, perhaps there was something else she could do instead.

Autumn kept quiet and stayed behind Fern as they made their way into the camp. There were kirin standing guard, but all they did was give Fern a quiet nod as she walked up, given that they couldn't do anything else. Autumn wasn't so lucky though as the guards blocked her path. She just tried to act as surprised as she could.

"Why you not letting kirin in?" a nearby yak asked, right before grunting dismissively. "Nevermind, don't bother trying to mime it out for me again. She kirin, so let kirin in."

Autumn smiled as the kirin guards stood aside, even if with considerable reluctance. Of course it probably meant the yaks couldn't really tell two similarly coloured kirin apart, which displayed a real lack of effort on their part, but she was willing to take it for now since that's the entire reason she got in.

Fern was waiting for Autumn to catch up, even if she'd made no attempt to help her get into the camp, and led the way onwards. More and more Autumn started to recognise the kirin around her from her village, which meant they had to be sticking together even here, which also meant that...

Rain Shine's lofty gaze pinned Autumn to the ground as the two kirin came face to face, and she grinned nervously as Rain Shine had to know that she wasn't as silent as she making out to be. After a few seconds, Rain Shine pointed at Autumn, then gestured around the rest of the camp while using her most questioning look, which probably meant she wanted to know why Autumn was there. Autumn went to reply, but found she had no idea how to without using her words.

Fern came to her rescue by pointing at Autumn and tracing a cross over her throat. Presumably that meant she'd given up her voice again, which judging by rather expressionless stare Rain Shine was giving her was regarded as a good thing. Autumn was far from agreeing with that, but since it probably meant she wouldn't be exiled from the camp she went along with it and stared blankly back.

Autumn jumped as Fern tapped her on the shoulder, and thankfully managed to not scream, because that would've blown this from the get-go. Fern motioned for her to follow, so giving Rain Shine one last blank look she did, all the way to a tent that was thankfully empty, allowing them to at least whisper to each other.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" Autumn whispered harshly once they were inside. "If I hadn't stopped myself from screaming, this would've been a disaster."

"Hey, I'm trying to get you a place back with your people, so a little appreciation would be nice since I'm really sticking my neck out for you. Especially after you gave me my voice back without even asking me if I wanted it."

"Alright, I'm sorry. Thank you." Autumn sat and looked around the tent for a moment while Fern dropped her stuff and lay down with a pained grunt. "Uh, what's supposed to be happening now?"

"Now we get some rest, and later I'll tell the others how you found me wounded in the savannah, and patched me up before bringing me here."

"You're going to explain that... using hoof gestures?"

"I didn't say it was going to be a quick explanation, did I?"

"Are you also going to explain how I happened to be in the Zebrican savannah? Or are we going to hope they don't ask?"

"What do you think?"

"That if they do ask you're going to try and make me explain it."

"That is absolutely correct. Now lie down and get some rest."

"Yeah, I'm not really in a resting mood. Do you mind if I go and have a look around the camp? I want to get a better look at those huge yaks."

Fern closed her eyes and sighed, "Okay, but you won't get much of a welcome there, and don't do anything that could get you into trouble, and most definitely remember to not say a word."

"My lips are sealed."

"Alright then, don't be gone too long."

"Yes mom." Autumn ducked out of the tent before Fern could say anything back, and most certainly before she could ask why Autumn wasn't leaving her bags behind. There was things in those bags which other kirin didn't need to know about.

Autumn nodded and smiled at the few kirin that looked her way, and while some were suspicious of her being here, most seemed rather indifferent, a symptom of giving up their emotions no doubt. Since when was becoming apathetic to everything ever considered a good idea? More to the point, why did they have a stream of silence anyway?

Autumn stopped her idle thoughts from going too wild, because she knew she'd only end up humming absent-mindedly if she wasn't careful, which would more than likely give the game away. She had a job to do after all, and getting caught out wasn't part of that.

The kirin part of the camp wasn't as big as the others, so it didn't take her long to leave it in favour of investigating where the yaks lived. Strangely she received an even greater amount of indifference here than with the kirin. It wasn't like she was so small the yaks couldn't see her, but all the same she kept having to dodge out of their way to avoid being trampled.

"This boring! Why we wait so long? Zebras not ready, so we should attack now!"

"Patience, Prince Rutherford. The time is coming soon enough. Once Princess Celestia arrives-"

"Why pony princess so important? Is she going to bring us victory if zebras fight back?"

Autumn pressed herself against the side of a yurt as one of the two voices within released an effeminate sigh.

"I don't have all the answers, Your Highness. If you wish you can go see General Snowbright, and he might be able to explain the delay in the attack. If not, all I can ask is that you be patient."

"Yak no want to be patient, but if Nirmata wills it, so shall it be."

"Of course, Prince Rutherford, if you'll excuse me."

Autumn went quiet as a pony left the yurt, muttering to herself about the yaks, and how impatient they were, and how bad they smelled, and how could the Lady have possibly chosen them for allies, and how the kirin at least acknowledged you, even if it was with creepy silent stares.

"Friction between the yaks and others huh? Oops, that was out loud. So was that." Autumn clamped her mouth shut and worked on keeping her thoughts inside her head. It was a good thought she had though, because if there was issues with the yaks... Autumn didn't know, but others smarter than her might have some ideas.

"What kirin doing in yak camp?"

Autumn squeaked and looked up to see a large, shaggy yak looking at her. His fancy-ish clothes, and ornate horn decorations marked him as being more important than the others, and-

Autumn cringed as she realised he was probably the prince she heard talking.

"Get back to kirin camp where kirin belong," the yak said brusquely before stomping out of his yurt and lumbering away in the direction of where the ships were. Autumn quickly reasoned that this could be where she might find this General Snowbright that was mentioned, so resolved to follow him.

As she hoped, her tailing of the prince proved fruitful as he led her to a large tent in the pony dominated section of the encampment, although there was a few yaks and kirin dotted around the place. Still, a large tent had to contain something important, so while the prince entered through the front, she darted around the back, her keen ears working to pick up every word that was said.

"Prince Rutherford," a male voice said wearily, "How nice to see you again, for the third time today."

"If pony start attack you wouldn't see me so much. Be too busy smashing enemies of Nirmata. Why we still here? You said yesterday that we would be going by now. The longer we wait, the-"

"Stronger a resistance the zebras can put up, I'm aware. Very, very aware, but I've been ordered to hold here for the arrival of Princess Celestia, and I'm not about to refuse a direct order from Lady Faust herself, even if it disadvantages us. She must consider the payoff of waiting to be worth it."

"Unless other princess ponies here, I don't see why we need her."

"We cannot discount that being the case, Prince Rutherford. As was discovered in Saddle Arabia, not even a yak can stand up to an alicorn. If Faust, or the Shades, has received information about the deposed princesses being here, we must be careful."

"Fine." There was a crash, and the sound of wood splintering as a floorboard was stamped on. "We wait."

"I'm glad you agree."

"By the way, there was a kirin wandering around yak camp earlier. Only yaks and guests allowed in yak camp. Make sure it not happen again."

"Of course. Good day Prince Rutherford."

The sound of heavy hoofsteps accompanied the departure of Prince Rutherford, but Autumn decided to stay where she was for the time being. It was a worthwhile decision too, as a moment later the male spoke again.

"Fucking yaks. I don't want to question our Lady's wisdom, but why the hell did she have to recruit other species to her cause? Those yaks are way more trouble than they're worth."

"Ah, c'mon Snowbright, least those kirin are decent fighters. Put most of ours to shame."

"Yeah, but the way they stare and never make a sound is so Lady damned creepy. I mean, even when they're in pain they don't make a noise. Gives me the willies. By the way, Wick, are we supposed to care if the kirin go into the yak camp?"

"Uh, no, Snowbright, I don't believe we are. Yaks come in our camp all the bloody time, so why should they get to decide that 'yak camp for yaks only.'"

Snowbright chuckled at Wick's impression, "Nice. Still, if they want to go in the front, that's their business. One more dead yak is one less dead pony as far as I'm concerned."

"You said it. Besides, when is Princess Celestia supposed to be arriving?"

"Pfft, heck if I know, but chances are she'll be arriving with the last of our reinforcements, so probably tomorrow. Then we can finally get this show on the road."

Autumn bit her lip at that piece of news, but kept listening. Nothing of use was said though, so she decided to stop pushing her luck and leave. Not least because she now had a timetable, and it was not very long. It was time to put her very flimsy, if not downright stupid plan into action.

Autumn decided to wait until nightfall to work on her plan as it turns out that doing things in the dark was considerably easier if you were trying to be sneaky about it. That, and a rumbling belly had suggested that maybe a break and some food wasn't such a bad idea, although trying to not make conversation with the other kirin as she ate had been a strain on her that she never would've thought could exist.

Eventually though it came time to get stuff done, because it was honestly getting to the point of now or never if Celestia was going to be arriving in the morning. She did wonder whether she should sneak out of camp to warn the Princess that the army would start moving at that point, but had decided against it since she mightn't be able to get back in.

Autumn stopped and sighed, trying to push her errant thoughts to the back of her mind. She knew she was only putting off what she had to do, because she didn't want to do it. Getting exiled from the village was bad enough, but what she was going to do now would probably get her exiled from kirin lands forever. Assuming they didn't just kill her that was.

"Urgh, shut up brain! I'm trying to work here!"

Autumn gasped as she realised she'd said that out loud, and decided to hurry on to her destination, keeping low to avoid detection, because things would go a lot worse for her if she was caught.

The supply area was quiet at night, with just a few ponies hanging around, guarding the place with highly disinterested looks. If Autumn were to guess, they were probably wondering what they were protecting the supplies from. The answer would be something like her, but she didn't feel the need to tell them that.

Three large carts parked side by side held the large, wooden water tanks she was looking for, containing the water supply for the entire army. There was nothing labelling whether there were separate carts for each species there, so she had no choice but to spike the contents of each one. Honestly though, for anyone not a kirin the worst that might happen was that their throat felt better, which was hardly terrible.

Autumn hung around for a while, waiting to see how attentive the guards were, and what their patrols might be. None of them seemed to be watching too hard, and all of them ran off after a few minutes anyway, so using the opportunity she ran over to the carts and prepared to make some kirin very annoyed. Possibly with positive results. She sure hoped so anyway.

Autumn flipped her bags open using her magic, and rummaged around until she found the vial of foals' breath extract that the zebras had never actually asked to have back, leaving Autumn to stash it away with the feeling it would probably come in useful. As she poured a third of it into the first tank and stirred it in, she felt pleased to have been right.

The first tank done, Autumn hopped over to the second to repeat the process, then again for the third, still feeling rather pleased with herself. If the kirin could all talk, they were likely to want to avoid conflict in the hopes of not becoming niriks. Faust was bound to send them home if they refused to fight, at least until they all went through the stream of silence again. Even better would be if they asked Faust for the cure to continue fighting, only to find that she was lying to them the entire time about it. Then they definitely wouldn't help her.

"I am a genius," Autumn complimented herself as she poured the last of the extract into the third tank, shaking the bottle to get the last few drips out. "Not that any kirin would ever appreciate that," she added with a bitter note as she stirred the extract into the water.

Tucking the empty bottle back into her bag, Autumn sighed at a job well done. It was only then that she paid any attention to the commotion in the distance. She couldn't make out any individual words, but she found she didn't need to as she turned to face the direction it was coming from.

A bright orange glow filled the sky, coming from the ships nearby, each of which was burning brightly. As she watched, a stream of purple flame came from an invisible point in the darkness, adding to the already roaring fire on the ship currently moored to the jetty.

"Oh, wow. I guess Fern never actually told anyone that Princess Luna was here, or that she has a dragon with her. That's true dedication to maintaining our lie." Autumn nodded to herself, totally unsure of what she should be doing, but coming to the conclusion that whatever it is that she should or shouldn't be doing, she probably should or shouldn't be doing it on top of the water supply where kirin might be suspicious of seeing her right before they started talking again. At the very least it wouldn't connect her to the burning ships.

"Time to go," she told herself. She jumped down to the ground, landing in a crouch and slipping away back to the kirins camp, and into the tent where Fern was sat looking like she was having a crisis on conscience.

"There you are! Do you have any idea what's happening out there?"

"Yeah, the ships are on fire-"

"And who do you think's doing that?"

"I'm going to say the dragon. Probably, definitely, the dragon." Autumn shrugged, "Too bad we couldn't warn anyone here without giving away that you can talk, or were captured by zebras, or without telling them that-"

"Shut up!"

Autumn rolled her eyes but did as she was told as Fern held her head in her hooves and freaked out. At the very least she wasn't blaming Autumn for what had happened, which Autumn was more than fine with.

"We're so fucked!"

"Uh! Language, Ferny! I don't know why you're freaking out so much. All we have to do is maintain our lie, and we're fine. There's no way they can connect a dragon attack to us, and even if they do, all we have to do is give the ponies dumb, silent stares until they give up trying to ask us about it."

"You are really missing the point here!"

"Actually I think you are, but far be it from me to be right about anything, ever. Quite frankly, telling the ponies here that Princess Luna is in Zebrica seems a bit redundant now since her dragon just singlehoofedly... clawedly? Whatever, since her dragon just announced her arrival in grand style by incinerating all their ships. Telling them after that will only get us into trouble, and nothing else."

"Urgh, I wish you weren't right. I'm never sticking my neck out for you ever again!"

"You'd still be the zebras prisoner without me, and this would've happened anyway, so don't blame me. And don't get angry either, because you know what'll happen."

"Yeah, no thanks to you."

"And yet, all the same, you're welcome!" Autumn gave Fern a big smile, which the other kirin failed to reciprocate in the slightest. "Anyway, do you want to go watch the fires? They're quite pretty when it's not your home that's burning."

"Autumn, get the hell out of here."

"Nicely done, Ember," Luna congratulated the dragoness as she returned to the zebras hidden camp. "I assume they didn't see what hit them?"

"I think we can safely assume they know it was a dragon," Ember replied, her teeth shining in the light from the distant fires. "At any rate, I think they know that it wasn't the zebras, so they'll more than likely blame us eventually."

"Good." Luna watched the fires for a few moments, the flames reflecting in her eyes. "If this goes well we can win half this battle before it even begins."

"Yeah... since when are we that lucky?"

"Shush thine tongue, Nightmare."

Author's Notes:

Kirin adventures! Mostly for variety and fun.