Despite the lack of an authentic initiation parlor, commonly known as a feather dresser in the seedier parts of Cloudsdale...and despite their mother lamenting on the negatives of ruining her pure pony body, Liberty did have a valid point. Fitting in as a seasoned pegasus, who already had her cutie-mark at such a young age, wouldn't go amiss with some artificial coloration. The hair specialist Karen had been using for her own appointments was incredibly excited to work on such a unique subject. Up to this point, the hair specialist had been working with humans, basically. Occasionally some less than human, her professional opinion.

Naturally, Liberty wanted it all. The mane, the tail, the wings, the fetlocks (Civil outright put a hoof down on that as soon as it was out of her muzzle. Fillies did NOT entertain such stallion flourish) and even a dressing up of her cutie-mark area. Civil was so horrified she would even suggest such an atrocity, even Liberty got the hint and backed off. Karen, on the other hoof, opted for only highlights, specifically the bangs.

After a good thirty minutes of female arguing, Civil bravely stepped in and mediated a compromise. All the ladies were very receptive to his thoughts and ideas. Initially it had flustered him, yet he eventually figured it was because he was the resident expert on all things pony, and more importantly, the topic of initiation. He tried to describe what he remembered, what trends had come and gone, what was considered grotesque (Really, the fetlocks!?! Fillies don't even grow hair....down....there, except those nutters that live out on the plains grazing in the wild and playing guitars and running around with kirin-...no we are not discussing kirin!!!). Ultimately, it was a mix of everyone's opinions. The stylist initially was unsure on feather treatment, but a few searches online got her up to speed. Who knew color alteration was already trending as a new market?

What walked out of the parlor was...well, simply stunning. She retained her copper-colored mane and tail, along with her seagreen coat and wings. The body of her mane was copper with strands of darker and lighter orange mixed in. Toward the ends of the long hairs, the highlights turned bright yellow. It was the same with her tail. Civil had found an old AD&D image of a nightmare online, and the stylist ran with it. Put simply, Liberty's head and ass looked like they were on fire.

The wings were mostly left alone, except the tips of the primary feathers and the last few full feathers. From her original light green color of the sea, the feathers were dyed to transition to a vibrant blue, then dark orange to an earthy umber brown, as though singed by the fiery mane and tail.

Cutie-mark was untouched, over a threat of Civil reciting the five-score curse again. That made her shut up fast. It didn't take all that long to finish up, just a few hours in the morning, fortunately. The convention was set to start noon that day and Liberty wanted her colors at their absolute most vibrant, as though she just stepped out of the beauty salon.........yeeeah.

Once the initial shock wore off, he had to wonder if, perchance, she hadn't already done this before, in her mid-adolescent years of course. Supposedly this was her personality before having a foal, so it would stand to reason she wouldn't ignore her pegasus heritage. She might have even planned a similar session for him, if her sickness hadn't come on with such crippling ferocity. He thought of his home life in that lighthouse on the coastline. His father, Civil Justice, and grandfather Civil Court, smiles forced when they saw him leaning against his mother as she laid there in bandages. In a way, those two were a different kind of pain he would need to reconcile one with himself one day.

At some point he must have been staring a bit too hard at the vibrant feathers. Liberty ventured a question or two about what color he had chosen, and being awash with memories of his past, he related those same conclusions he had come to, the impracticality of moving an invalid from the ground to the sky just to dye a few feathers. Liberty did not ask again and the humans let it go as a pony thing.

For now, looking back on it as they rode in the car, he thought of the alternate possibilities of his youth...what he might have lost out on, or ignored things he should have noticed as he struggled with a torn family that most other ponies never had to think about. Or he could have been a tad nicer to ponies in his past because of his struggles, having insight into the reasons why some ponies were habitually bitter. Some of those ponies, he might even see today and recognize.

They had swung by to pick up his Daniel and were headed to downtown Dallas, horrid traffic and all.

"You are brooding," Liberty chimed in after a solid twenty minutes of silence in the car. World record for her. He agreed and nodded. She was intrigued and waited. The brood must have been strong with him today because she was not dogging his ass as hard this time.

He continued staring out the window, his ears swiveled to hear her response. She sat with unusual poise and patience. Yikes. Civil took a deep breath and exhaled. "This con, there are going to be a lot of ponies there, in high concentration. In Frontier they were kind of spread out all over town, so it wasn't so bad. The most we saw were at the arcade, but...I was distracted. I didn't pay attention to hardly any of them." A quick glance at her noted a grin on her face. Distracted was not the word she would have used. He looked away, face warming slightly. "Now, at this convention, all under one roof? Bound to be a few I have not seen since before the curse. I haven't heard of anypony coming over to Earth and getting Celestia's special treatment to stay...uh...ponified, so....yah. I don't know who I am going to run into." He wanted to say more, but wasn't sure how to put it.

Liberty nodded slowly. "Lots of memories. Broken memories, flashes of the past. Unexpected meetings with ghosts and regrets." He winced, knowing memory was a sensitive subject for her. Still, she had been a trooper so far. Not having the benefit of her own memory flashes of the past meant trips like this, and his own recollection ability, were her primary sources of a world she had lived in. Maybe died in. She waved a hoof in dismissal at his concerned look and sat quietly.

He tilted his head slightly. "I suppose you could say I'm remembering things differently now than when I was a colt, a stallion's matured perspective reviewing coltish events. For instance...my pony grandfather, Civil Court. Before he retired, he was a royal guard arbitrator in the courtrooms because he had a truth detection talent. I remember learning never to lie when I was growing up in our household. His wings would glow when a falsehood was in earshot...or something nearby was fake." Civil thought. "That night we got the letter...his wings glowed."

Liberty sat up. "Woh...a fake letter, sent by Celestia, the one written by me!?!"

He nodded. "Your words, her hoof writing, sent by her. Yes. It glowed when they first had it. Later on, when they were discussing the subject and the whole notion of you leaving our herd, they said they should let go of you as though you were dead. He glowed then as well. I never put both instances together. The first time I was very young. The second time, I was a hotheaded adolescent. Both times, I felt they were dishonest...but now it is obvious. The letter was phony, or had falsehoods in it. The falsehood of the letter carried over years later into their discussion and he glowed. Knowing the nature of it, accepting a truth forced down our throats, they...allowed the lie to persist, to protect us for some reason. For all of that, I was angry with Court and Justice. Angry with you both times, as well. First for leaving us, then for being dead instead of just leaving." He tried to smile at the absurdity of his feelings now, and yet, they were still raw in the remembering. His smile came out lopsided.

Liberty gave him a sad smile and listened quietly, for which he was thankful.

"I know you being dead wasn't your fault. Deep down I knew this. But I carried that anger for a long time. Discovering you were Liberty on our trip to Ocean City. It was....weird. So much weight disappeared, and so much more replaced it because you were a foal. Anyway, the letter was to blame, not my sire or grandsire. I know that now. See, normally it was difficult for him if truth and lie were tangled together, his talent couldn't discern the minor details. So, he would use the old noggin to figure out the rest. That was kind of how I got into my love for investigation. Except, with this letter nonsense...." He didn't finish the thought.

"Except, he chose not to," she filled in, voice neutral. "It was pointless, given the loss you guys were facing. Why bother with the minor details when the biggest detail was known. I was not coming back," Liberty said. Civil nodded.

He exhaled. "They chose shame and determination instead of loss and depression. They protected me. Celestia protected me. You protected me. And nopony ever asked how I felt about it...well, nopony asked directly." He stopped talking, now starting to remember a few details from when he was in Canterlot. Many of his interactions with the princesses, his commanding officers, his peers, all of it started to take on a different meaning. Shaking tlhis head as if to get rid of those memories, he watched Liberty quietly.

She reached out to touch his cheek with her newly dyed wingtip. "A tough pill, either way. A tough, dry pill to swallow, if what you say about that letter is true." She sat still for a minute, glancing out the window. Then she turned back to him, shrugged, and tapped his shoulder with her hoof. "Changes nothing. We wait until next portal, pop in, demand all the answers. Kick ass if she resists."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Great plan, until the enemy shows up." Sun Tsu never anticipated alien pony things like Civil and his mom-sis, he mused to himself. Or a near god like Celestia, he added sourly. Liberty might have actual fires to put out on her body if she doesn't watch it.

Their parents stayed quiet throughout the conversation. Dan wasn't good with this stuff, so he stayed out of it. Their mom turned her head to look back at them, her eyes watery. "Have faith. These things work themselves out. We are here for you both. Remember that."

***

Parking around the Kay Bailey Hutchinson convention center was hell. While they wound through the lots looking for an empty spot and slowly started getting further and further away from the front doors, he could see several different groups of people, ponies, the odd kirin or griffon making their way to the building complex. A few flying pegasi coasted low overhead before landing in front of the center's doors.

"Dan," Karen murmured in awe.

Her husband nodded, more focused on the chaos of Dallas drivers than the teeming masses. "I know...."

"So many colors. It's like Disney World. Wherever you look..." She glanced back and saw her children listening to her curiously. "I mean, you told me there would be a lot. I just never...." She drifted off as she resumed her gawking.

Civil nodded. "When I was in the desert for a few months, I got used to the drab tan landscape and pink skies, with all the dust storms that would blow through. When I rotated stateside, what hit me was green. Just....green, everywhere."

She hm'd to herself, finally starting to understand what he meant back in the day. There was a look of wonderment on her face as she spotted not just ponies but other species here and there. This convention was really drawing the crowd. Liberty had her head out of the window like a puppy dog, taking it all in. She shot a look at Civil, glanced up and down at him and giggled. "Compared to all that out there, you are in a desperate need for color!"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not changing my colors just because a bunch of other dingalings think it's 'cool'."

She scoffed at him, "Oh come on, you are going to be a police officer soon. Like, maybe some blue! Or better yet, a touch of red highlights...or better yet, blue AND-"

"Shut it!" He exclaimed at her. "Don't you dare even think about making me look like a squad car."

"But-!"

"Ah ah ah!!! No. N. O. NADA! I already get teased for looking like a black and white in class."

Karen pulled her eyes back into the car, along with Liberty, and they both looked at each other. Karen asked, "Like, New York cookies, black and whites?" Liberty nodded and looked at Civil.

He started to say something, thought better of it, then sat back. "Dad, just park the car. They are driving me nuts."

"Working on it, son," Dan said. After a few more minutes, he put it into park. "We will have to walk, it seems," he mused. Their parking spot was definitely a few streets away. That was Dallas parking for ya.

Karen nodded and smiled. "Good. We should all get some exercise anyway." Liberty and Dan shared a look that said 'yah whatever' but remained silent. Civil smiled at their wise decision of silence. Finally, no more talk about his colors. Red and blue, are you kidding me!?!

The gift of silence lasted all of two minutes.

"Aw. I miss that saddle." She was seated in her usual perch these days when they were on the go; his back. Their parents followed behind, letting the ponies take the lead. "It's a comfortable ride with that on. Why aren't you wearing it?"

"It's too ostentatious-"

"It's too ostentatious," she mimicked in a whiny voice, cutting him off. He so did not sound like that. "Honestly, I have seen your anime costumes-"

"It's called cosplay and I have won an award or two in the past-"

"Yeah, whatever. You should have brought the saddle. Your back is bony."

He chuffed at her. They paused while a vehicle trundled by in the parking lot, then resumed their trek. He glanced to see if she had anything else to clap back at him with. No? "You only want it for the cup holder, WHICH, is where Deadpool belongs."

Slightly mollified that he would choose to show off her gift versus her getting a convenient drink at hoof, she whisked her hoof over the imaginary pommel where the little bubble encapsulated anti-hero would have been, IF there was a saddle to begin with. She replied, "What if Hot Pink wears hers?"

Shaking his head, he replied confidently, "She is not wearing hers today. It would distract from the speech she is going to make at the opening ceremony. Something about the mind's eye as opposed to visual candy....what?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wings do little buzz flaps. He had learned early on this meant shock and excitement at the same time, something she had a tough time containing.

"You spoke to her?! Look at the shining knight in love's armor coordinating fashion sense! So, what else did you discuss?" She leaned forward, ready for a juicy story.

"It was private." No juice today, you nosy little pain in my back....

"Yeah, sure," she scoffed, sitting up. "I bet you barely said hello and went right for the saddle question before hanging up, right?"

"No, I didn't!" He sputtered. "I asked other things! Like how she was doing, and the...about the arcade...and the town. And the theme park."

Liberty stared at him while he tried to navigate the crowd at the front doors and glare at her at the same time. Rolling her eyes, she waved a hoof. "Oh whatever, I will find out soon enough. Besides, she probably wanted you to wear it, too." He snorted, not taking the bait this time.

Their family followed the rest of the milling crowds into the large foyer and up the stairs. Karen would occasionally utter something like 'so many' as she and Dan looked around, mesmerized. And not just the colors, but all the cutie-mark variations too. Civil smirked. They had no idea. On the second level they saw the majority of Equestrians and humans slowly filing into a room through a pair of doors. A sign marked 'Visitors of Frontier' was posted on a stand next to the doors.

"Heyo, Civy! Over here!" They spotted a unicorn approaching them. It was Striding Thunder. "Glad you could make it. Hot mentioned you might be bringing the herd on by." Her eyes found the filly riding shotgun on Civil. She squeezed them shut and muttered, "...couldn't lay low if her ass depended on it...." Before they could respond, she gave them an exceedingly plastic smile. "Ah, Liberty, nicely done. Got that ignition thing going on, I see." Aside from the smile, there was an odd pinched look to Striding's face. In a way, Civil felt right at home with that look. Afterall, he had seen that plenty of times in the past when she was dressing him down over some rule he might have broken or problem he might have caused. Good times....

"Initiation," Civil and Liberty replied in unison. The stallion eyed his former CO for a second. "I think you know exactly what to call it and choose not to."

"There are a lot of things I choose not to, and many more I have to."

"LT," Civil said in a slightly sing-song voice to change the subject, "I thought you weren't into crowds. 'Tight quarters means tight fights,' and all that."

She snorted at him. "Case in point." She whisked her horn in the direction of the ballroom entrance, lightly whipping his muzzle with her mane. "Certain ponies of industry put my name in the hat for crowd control, on account of my past service to the crown."

"How big was this hat?" Civil mused.

"Come to find out, there was no hat. So here I am. Right now, I was trying to usher the last stragglers into the main ballroom for the welcome speech. Solidarity and all that. I am also supposed to quell any nervous tension in the room, settle any jostling going on in there. Almost the whole town is here, and then some. You know we even have a few from that one place they set up near Dust's place, New Beginnings?" Civil raised a brow. Dust...oh yeah, Lightning Dust. Good for her. To be honest, he was indifferent about other townships. Lord knew he had his hooves full with Dallas and Frontier as it is. What he did care about was where this conversation was going. Striding Thunder only explained things to those she was about to press-gang into service.

"While I am no longer in the guard," she nonchalantly continued, her eyes boring right into him, "I will stay professional and not grouse about having a few hundred four legged critters, hair-triggered to stampede, all shoved in a stuffy room at the center of a human building. Horrible idea. The location, not the grousing. The horrible idea is just my opinion, unsaid, unheard, and unhelped." There was the thinly veiled signup sheet. Dammit.

"Wait a minute!" Liberty exclaimed. "You just said there WAS a hat-!" A white wing bent upwards and stuffed the tip in her muzzle. She was starting to get tired of tasting that damn wing. He had good aim by now, too.

Civil understood crowd control and its merits in the current situation. Canterlot hadn't aways been a peaceful place. He sighed and said, "Knowing you would never ask me to take up my old role as a guard, I," he paused, not believing he was about to say this, "I...could...keep an eye on the area we eventually squeeze our herd into. That help?"

She beamed at him, quite warmly considering how harsh she used to be with him in Equestria. "Sometimes, you are absolutely brilliant." She briefly touched his cheek with her muzzle and spun around, trotting to the ballroom door. His ears stiffened.

Liberty leaned in close and whispered, "Oh she SO wants y-" and nearly rolled off his back as he started forward quickly toward the doors. He paused just long enough to put a few humans between him and Striding's receding ass. Tail, her receding tail.

To distract himself, he looked backwards to make sure he didn't lose his parents. "Oh, by the way, that was Striding Thunder. She was my old supervisor back in the guard." They nodded to him slowly with mixed expressions.

"We got that, son," Dan said, a huge grin on his face. Karen's brow furrowed slightly, but she said nothing. Civil muttered to himself and slowly led them around the outer edge of the room, trying to get to the side. If something did happen, he did not want them on the train tracks to the door. The room was massive. Huge partitions, normally used to divide the large, cavernous room into smaller rooms, were folded up and tucked to either side against the walls. Three rooms total, opened up to make a massive one, with a stage centered up on the far side from the entry doors...and it appeared the entire town was there. Still, not quite as stuffy as it could be, yet any sudden mental shift by the crowd could prove disastrous.

He made sure they got into a spot they could observe the stage. There were several empty seats and a podium with a microphone already in place. Liberty was just about to complain about her boredom when the lights dimmed, and cheering erupted from the crowd. Many four-leggeds began stomping approval as well amidst the clapping of human hands and wings.

Several humans and ponies walked out onto the stage and took their seats. Consequently, he missed half of what the first human was saying at the podium because he had spotted Hot Pink as one of those seated ponies, and that's all he saw. Her mane and fur sparkled and shimmered under the stage lights. She must have used some kind of glossy shampoo to make her coat glow. Her hooves were equally well cared for, a dark mauve paint or enamel. And her eyes...they had a light all their own-

"Civil!" Liberty hissed harshly in his ear. He blinked and looked around, then saw Striding standing next to him with an amused expression. "Snap out of it. I've been saying your name for like, since, forever."

Striding glanced at the stage and grinned knowingly. "See something you like, space cadet?"

As he stammered for a response, she chuckled and briefly brushed against his cheek with her shoulder with a hello and stood next to him conspiratorially. It wasn't as intimate a hello as earlier, but it just happened to occur when Civil thought he saw Hot Pink looking his way, eyeing both of them. He glanced at Striding to see if she had noticed, but her attention was split in several directions, from watching the antics of Liberty trying to use his neck and head to see over everyone else to the watching the crowd, then the stage, and back to the crowd. She was a mare of duty, if nothing else. It would have been easier if humans were not present, though that would have meant the exclusion of his parents. When he looked back at the stage, Hot was focused on Frontier's mayor who had just finished a very pony invocation and had begun the welcome speech.

Striding said quietly, "While you were star gazing, I already made my rounds." She regarded the stage. "Ah, the mayor is speaking now. They usually calm down when she speaks. Instinct for following matriarchal leadership, I would wager. " Despite Civil's dubious glance at her, she nodded and flicked her eyes to the rest of the room. "The crowd seems to be in good spirits. Lots of positive energy out there." She regarded Civil for a minute. "You, on the other hoof, could possibly do with a salt lick. Was it that bad under me and Princess Celestia?"

He huffed derisively but went back to watching the crowd as he promised. At length, he shook his head no.

Liberty leaned forward and whispered over his head, "He's just scared he'll see somepony he had issues with, or had past fweewings with, or past wewationshwips with-"

He jostled her to shut her up. "Nothing worth mentioning, ma'am." Liberty gripped his neck tighter and glared.

"Mm," Striding mused, "I don't remember too many Canterlot civies that got into it with him back in the day. Nobles and foreign dignitaries, that was his cup of tea. And I didn't see any of those in today's crowd, so there's that." She snorted to herself softly. "Some memories are better than others. The ones I CAN remember." Grinning at Civil, she added, "Still, my memory is spottier than yours. You did get a bonified CMCTR, right?" Civil rolled his eyes and nodded.

Liberty asked, "Huh? See-em-tee...?"

Civil muttered, "CMC Total Recall. One free for every Equestrian coming back home for the first time. Mandatory for ponies still in the guard. That was one of the first messages we sent back from the other side after the battle. Was an absolute boon, considering we were having to piece together all of civilization. Sending back word to Earth of that discovery was an absolute priority. To spread hope, as Celestia would put it."

Striding's gaze narrowed, "She's still your princess, no matter what world you are in." Civil glanced away, saying nothing. Her tone softened. "At any rate, since I am retired from the guard, and not returning, I don't get one of those brain boosts." Addressing Liberty directly, she said, "The Cutie Mark Crusaders can revive one's full memory, IF you are on the other side of the portal and reach out to them. I did hear through the grapevine that they might hop on over this side and do a memory revival tour, or some nonsense. Maybe in a couple of openings, possibly. Just a rumor though, so I wouldn't chew hay over it."

Liberty got a strange look on her face.

Civil and his parents watched her with concern. The filly appeared torn, looking from Striding to Civil, to Karen and Dan. Civil said quietly, "It's not guaranteed, especially in your situation. We don't even know if it would make things worse, seeing as how reciting the curse had such an impact on you. And we could get stuck there for two and a half years." He paused in thought, then added, "We might not want to come back, too."

The mayor moved on to highlight points of interest in the very young and quickly growing town of Frontier, pony built and welcoming to all.

"I wouldn't see it as being stuck," Liberty responded, more upbeat now. "Just, maybe a long vacation. Oh, they could join us!" She pointed to their parents. Dan had a boyishly optimistic look while Karen scowled slightly.

"Walk on all fours for three years? What would I do there, anyway?" Karen looked over at her husband. "Dan, don't even think it." He pouted slightly and raised his arms in his classic argument move. "Lockheed would fire you after missing work that long."

Pausing, he mumbled low enough so only his wife could hear. The lowering of his arms had already signaled his defeat. The word 'sabbatical' reached Civil's ears while Karen replied with a list of things to worry about; the mortgage, utilities, being left alone waiting for her family to return, if they returned. The dreamy look faded from Dan's face. Civil would mention the three-day window at a later time. Now seemed not the right time.

Karen took that moment to reach out to Striding and whispered, "Miss Thunder, my name is Karen Barringer. We didn't get to introduce ourselves earlier. This is Daniel. We are very pleased to meet you. I understand you were my son's boss before he...well, before he became my son, it seems."

The mare grinned and let the woman hold her hoof in a shake. "Striding is fine. Yes, he was assigned to my unit in the city and castle, and I have no permanent complaints about him." Karen's eyebrow raised.

"Oh? What would be a permanent complaint?"

Civil saw that look on his human mother's face. She had lost some of her warmth and was contemplating a few verbal weapons to defend her son with if need be. She could be very protective of her children. He took a step forward to try and head this off.

"Let's just say he challenged our ability to boast that we in the EUC can fix anything," Striding replied. "He does get into stuff." He groaned, putting his hoof down from the next step he was about to take.

Karen mused softly as her smile returned. "Yes. That he does. I am glad you were there to keep things, non-permanent?"

Striding nodded, laughingly agreeing, "Non-permanent, indeed." She craned her neck around. "Well, about those past ponies you were so worried about, Civil, do you see anypony you recognize? I might know them as they are now, versus say, when you knew them. They might have changed. Twenty-five years as a human can do that to some folk."

"Sort of," he said. "I've seen some I vaguely knew in passing. A shop keeper here, a fellow guard I played a few card games with at the barracks. Hm, there's Abstract Living." Indeed, they could see the old unicorn off to the side, leaning against the wall in a seated position, looking absolutely bored. Liberty craned her neck and giggled. Civil glanced around some more. "Also, a citizen I caught pilfering a flower box once. There's a soup shop clerk. They used to have some good noodles....oh, there's that pizza mare."

"From Equestria?" Striding asked, glancing in the same direction he was looking.

"No...uh, that place we went to in Frontier, the mare with the Pac-Man cutie mark."

Liberty coughed behind a dainty hoof. "Um, that's a pizza, dufus."

"Wuh?" He was partially distracted as the mayor had moved on to the economic aspects of Frontier, namely several prosperous attractions and, coincidentally, the best damn arcade that side of the Pecos. He tore his gaze away from the stage to figure out what Liberty was talking about, completely missing the moment Hot Pink stood up to talk about said attractions. He stared back at the pizza waitress. True, he had the keen vision of a pegasus. But....was that really...?

A pizza, shaped as a Pac-Man. Eating pepperoni dots. Liberty tapped his head. "Seriously, you didn't get the symbolism?? There was like, always a Pac-Man machine in the pizza parlors when we were in Houston. Don't you remember? And I'm the blank slate here."

He ignored the dig. "Yah, I get the Pac-Man reference, but a pizza crossover on top of that?" He continued to examine the mark. The poor mare still hadn't noticed a whole herd was oggling her flank. He looked up and shook his head in slight embarrassment, mostly for being distracted. He would much rather see somepony else's...ahem. "Naw, I actually didn't catch that."

Liberty rolled her eyes in disgust. "Always just video games with you. Tron, Galaga, Moon Patrol. They never get rid of those oldies." Civil ignored her ramblings of classics and went back to watching the stage. The conversation with these two had lost its appeal a few flanks ago.

Striding finally saw the mare. "Oh yeah, that's Mary Nara. Glad she got the weekend off to see the con. Wasn't sure she'd make it. It's been nonstop busy with all the tourism these days at a lot of the businesses at Frontier. They hire me as a guide when it gets really busy. It's mostly to just keep the peace, I assume, but I don't mind. One of our tour stops is for authentic pony pizza. I mentioned that last time, didn't I?"

Civil responded, "Sort of, in passing. Before you went all MI:6 on us." Striding snorted, but went back to eyeing the crowd. She felt a little guilty for letting her watch over the occupants get distracted. Civil has that effect, she mused to herself.

Daniel snickered, barely containing his laughter. "Mary Nara? That is borderline genius!"

Karen elbowed him softly. "Danny, stop it! This is their culture, be respectful."

Dan ignored her. "Civil, spot some more. Who else do you see?"

Civil shook his head, but scanned the ponies anyway. "Hm. Well, there is Fryer Tuck. He ran that fast food place/hotel, the Tuck Inn. Was the main chef there."

Daniel grabbed on to Karen's arm and bawled into her sleeve. He says in a muffled voice, "Karen, tuck in! And a frier! You say 'tuck in' when it's time to eat, and they have oil friers, and Robin Hood fryer tucks-!" She stepped on his foot, cutting him off.

"I have a masters in linguistics, you don't have to explain everything to me," she grumbled in irritation as she noticed they were starting to cause a scene.

Dan poked his head out and whispered, "More! Civil, I need more!" Karen squeezed his arm alarmingly, but he ignored it.

Civil muttered, "I recognize Bo and his sister Rapsody. They used to run the Hemian Herd Flower shop-"

Daniel could barely stand, he was crying. "Bohemian Rapsody! A flower shop! They call hippies 'bohemians' now," as he nudged his wife's arm. She shook her head with gritted teeth. "And lemme guess, they have a cousin named Nature List?"

"Actually, they do-" Karen put her hand on Civil's muzzle as Daniel finally slid down the wall. Karen stuffed her jacket over his head and glared at Civil.

"Quit encouraging your father. Daniel, behave yourself, you are being rude! Liberty-!"

"What!?! I didn't do anything!"

"Not yet, and don't." She raised her eyebrow. "Don't give me that look, I know you were about to start making up names."

"I was...not...dammit, you are such a wet blanket." She frowned, then lit up. "Oh, but hippies ARE also called naturalists now," She wriggled her brows.

"We are in public!"

Liberty clamped her mouth shut. She knew their mother was in parent mode and at her limit.

Striding watched all of this in neutral silence. Civil wasn't sure if she was amused or offended. He had his answer when his father finally wheezed out, "Just one more, one more."

Karen made a noise in her throat, followed by, "For the love of-"

"Oh, I see one of my subordinates over there," Striding said. "Union Jack. Nothing too special about him. Normal accent, no odd eating habits like mayo with fish and chips." Much to Civil's dismay, Striding's eyes twinkled when she added, "He does have a red coat...."

That did it. Civil hid his head under his wing as his father laughed so loud, several ponies turned to stare at them. What was worse, the pony speaker up on stage paused to look over at their group. It was Hot Pink. Thankfully, the bright lights were keeping her from recognizing them. After a few seconds, she said in the mic, "Um, that wasn't a joke, just a statement of fact about Frontier's future estimates in fertilizer production." She went back to describing the other great details of their fair town. He had just begun sighing when she did a doubletake and squinted. Smiling blandly, she continued her report of up-and-coming Super Pooper Dirt while briefly throwing up her hooves at Civil as if to say 'what the Tartarus?!?' He tried very hard to look away as her eyes twitched at him. His wing moved back up to hide his face from the crowd, and that glorious mare up there.

Striding was starting to slink away into the crowd when he peeked at her. He hissed from behind his wing, "Hay! You know damn well there was no red pony named Union Jack under your command!"

Striding paused and tilted her head. "Oh? How would you know? Unless you were poking around in my personnel files, hm?" His eyes widened, face turned red and he took a step back. She grinned. "Yes. That, I remember. I placed hairs around my file cabinets for counter surveillance, just to see how often I was snooped on. You replaced some, but not all." His eyes went to pinpricks. "I knew about Luna using you to poke around and occasionally pull off a prank or two as part of your pennance." She walked back to him and murmured in a low accented voice, "You're good kid...but as long as I'm around, yer second-best. You might as well learn to live with it."

Liberty, who had been hanging on every word, hopped up and down on Civil's back. "Oh, oh! I know that quote! The Cincinnati Kid! It was a film we had to watch in social studies-" She sputtered as a wing pomfed her in the muzzle to shut her up.

"I had higher orders," was all Civil could mutter out dejectedly.

The older mare grinned and nodded. "Which is why I let it slide. We all tended to have higher orders back then."

When Liberty finally got all the feather whispies out of her mouth, she interjected, "Would you stop doing that!?! Hold up, what pennance?" Civil narrowed his eyes and barely shook his head at Striding, hoping she would not take petty revenge for higher orders carried out.

Quick as lightning she replied, "Certain words were said while certain dignitaries were visiting. The Griffon Empire banned him." Civil smacked his own face with his wing. Just blurt it out there why doncha, he thought.

Liberty had the ignorance to ask, "Banned him from what?"

"The Griffon Empire."

Liberty laughed into her wings, eyes tearing up as Civil twisted his head around. She and Civil stared at each over the tops of her wings, her eyes continuing to water. Striding added, "Plus five hundred hooves near any visiting dignitaries. Remember that one time you had to pretend to be a suit of armor for two hours while they admired the tapestries in the west wing?"

Liberty was barely able to stay atop Civil's back as she choked from her own laughter. Civil then stared darkly at Striding for a very long time. Finally, when Liberty was reduced to hiccups and heaving for air, he said quietly, "Why not tell her WHY certain words were said....?"

Liberty said in a rough voice, "Yes! Do tell! Why certain words?"

In a sober voice, Striding replied quietly, "They were retelling an old war story where the might of their empire would have been quadrupled, if not for the interference of a conniving little strumpet of a feather duster named Liverteats, Liberturd, Liberty or some such silly pony name. Their exact words, mind you."

Liberty sat up straight and got a cold feeling in her stomach. Striding noted her change in behavior and nodded. "They are a boastful race, tending to cite not only victories of the past, but victories that should have been and still could be, a sort of poor sportsmanship warning to scare off rivals. They are a bit more like popinjays than lion-eagle hybrids, though they will swipe your head off if they hear either comparison."

Waiting for a response and getting nothing, she plowed on, "They even take their losses as victories, as though NOT losing any worse than they did was somehow an act of great prowess. The strength of mitigation, they would call it. Poppycock, I call it. Still, it's a thing. PRINCESS Celestia," Striding's eyes narrowed, an earlier reminder that his matriarch still existed, "made us aware of them as potential enemies to the Civil herd after..." she chuckled, "after his little spat with the prince of the empire. She made sure we kept your champion here protected. You see, during that visit I mentioned, our boy Civil was conducting a routine hallway patrol. On passing the doorway to the receiving chamber, he overheard the delegation boasting in typical griffon fashion...only this time, your name was dropped, along with those other names. There were some other unsavory comments I care not to repeat, along with a healthy round of laughter. In he marched, out of his mouth even more unsavory comments marched, and he made a right ass of himself."

Civil muttered, "I did double check what name they were trashing first. Trust but verify."

Striding smiled wryly at him. "Yeah. That rule he remembers to follow. Anywho, back at the pizza parlor, I was taken aback by your existence, little one, so the whole griffon thing skipped my mind, other than the warnings our princess gave us. Thinking long on it since your trip to Frontier, it took awhile to remember the finer details, so there you go."

She scanned around to make sure nopony was giving them undo attention. She said, "I feel you are entitled to this information, especially you, Civil. Being in the public eye may bring up these details, so be ready to address it. And THAT is as much as I know of anything about your...eh, your 'status,' Miss Liberty. Dig further at your own peril. I think my watch over your family is officially at an end. Unofficially, call if you need anything." She grinned. "I have LOADS of embarrassing stories about Sam Spade Civil here and his relentless pursuit for the truth. And trouble. Anyway, I should go mingle before somepony thinks I need to lose my horn." With that, she did slip back into the crowd of ponies, moving more like a predatory cat than a battle-hardened Royal Guard.

Civil's parents and Liberty stared at him in silence as he watched Striding disappear. Hot had sat down long ago and another speaker was up, so he stood there, glumly watching the next speaker drone on about charity programs on stage. Finally, he shook out his wings and glanced back at them.

"What?" He asked defensively with a shrug, "Don't talk about my mama."

Liberty lightly reached out to his head with both her hooves and whispered, "You...you got banned from a whole empire, just to defend my honor?"

He shrugged again, paused, then added, "Don't talk about my mama."

She patted his head lightly, "Civil is a good pony." He nodded as though that was the most obvious thing in the world. His human parents were still stunned and weren't saying anything. After a minute, Liberty asked, "Wait a second. WHY would some foreign dignitaries be bad mouthing me, anyway? What did I ever do to them???"

He shook his head. "The princesses never told me. Figured the comments I made about having me some scrambled eggs pushed the conversation past the point of...uh....civility." Liberty snorted at the jokes. "Anyway, I asked and they were keen on keeping any past interactions of you and the empire, not to mention current interactions of me and the empire, under strict secrecy. I had wondered why my 'pennances,' such as they were, ended up more like pranks the sisters pulled on each other. Even with visitors, they used me as the pawn of their schemes. I always thought I had lucked out on not being tossed into the dungeons. Now, with you being some great hero, they were obviously protecting our herd. Always more questions than answers, it seems." He hissed quietly to himself, "Celestia...."

Liberty nodded her head. When she thought he wasn't paying attention, she motioned to their mother and pointed back at his head, whispering, "The whole empire! For me!" He felt a bit conscientious but wasn't about to dampen her wonder.

Karen nodded and whispered back, "You remember that when you decide to troll him next time." Liberty made a face at her, yet she didn't say anything further.

A con organizer on stage was now getting to the list of events available at the convention. Finally, some meat to this ceremony. As soon as the topic of voice actor panels came up-

"I want to go to the Discord panel!!! We HAVE to go to the Discord panel!!!" Liberty was hopping up and down.

Civil muttered out of the side of his mouth while focusing on the stage, "Shhh! His name is John de Lancie and he isn't Discord. He just sounds like him."

"Well duh, same difference. That's why I want to go, to ask him all about that."

"You realize he is probably sick of everypony blaming him for even sounding like the creature? He's just an actor."

"Then I will treat him like an actor and make moony eyes at him." She started batting her eyelids. It was kind of scary.

"Calves eyes, you mean? Knock that off, you don't do it right."

"Same difference."

"You know you are contradicting yourself with just a two-word sentence?"

"What's your point?"

Civil paused. Knowing where this eventually led, over and over, he gave up. "....I wish I had one. Fine, we go to the panel-"

"Yay!!!"

"-and you do NOT ask any stupid questions. Anyway, with the number of fans that will be there, I doubt they will call on you."

"Yah right, I so got this." He noticed her hoof pumping the air.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he bemoaned.

She shook her head. As the list of names were rattled off at the podium, "Oh, oh! They said Tabitha St. Germain is here! You know her, right? Hello?" When he didn't respond, despite ears rotated right back at her, she added:

"• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic – Rarity, Princess Luna / Nightmare Moon, Granny Smith, Muffins, Mrs. Cake, Princess Flurry Heart, Photo Finish, additional voices[4]"

He twisted around, grimacing at her. "You read that off Wikipedia. You even read the footnote number."

"Yah! Because it's correct and you should always credit your sources! Oh! And Tara Strong is here, too!"

"So?"

"She voiced Twilight Sparkle and Lego Unikitty!....and....she voiced Teen Titans Raven." Her tongue snuck out of her mouth, dainty hooves tapping together lightly.

"....."

"I felt that-"

"No you didn't," he said in a slightly higher voice.

"Yes I did!"

Karen leaned in, "Liberty, what did you feel? Is everything okay?"

"Don't you dare te-"

"His withers shivered! Omygod that's like a full body blush! That's so cool, we are totally going to that one. I'm getting signatures, you are meeting your secret heart throb and you can't stop either of us!" He squinted his eyes shut. There were just no words.

Karen blinked. "This Raven person. Teen Titans, these are...cartoons, right? Not real people running around like the ponies and...?" She glanced around, trying to be inclusive of the other Equestrian denizens.

Groaning, Civil reiterated to himself that there were still no words. Eventually he peeked at both his mothers and muttered, "Ugh. It's college all over again. No mom, not real. Just animated characters on television." Karen shrugged. She preferred old classic movies and 007 films.

"Oh whatever," Liberty scoffed. "You are into anime stuff, right? What was that one thing you used to watch?"

".....Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyou-"

"Sailor moon, that's the one!" Civil saw several humans and ponies look at him. One or two gave a hint of a smile but the majority looked away, shaking their heads. He lowered his head, "Not so loud. That stuff is old school now."

"Uh huh. Don't you have a signed limited edition issue #1 comic con comic book? And a Polaroid of her signing?"

"....maybe. Why?"

"I want signatures."

He snorted. "Of course destination What's The Point would be all about you, party of annoying. And you have something special for those voice talents to sign on, I assume?"

"Yah, I-"

"-and NOT your chest fluff with a permanent marker?" She started to open her mouth. "Or ANY body part? Christ, Liberty!"

"......then, no."

His jaw moved back and forth in exasperation. "Which means....<groan>....the dealer's room."

"YAY!!!!!!"

Thankfully, it appeared the participants on stage were wrapping things up.

The human coordinator stepped up and said, "This concludes the opening ceremony, as well as a special welcome to the residents of Frontier, out of town ponies, and most sincerely, you fans who make them welcome here!" There was lots of cheering and stamping of hooves. "Ladies, gentlemen, stallions and mares, I have been informed there is a substantial crowd waiting to see our visitors in the foyer. We have cleared a way through them so you can enjoy the rest of the attractions here in a timely manner. However, I ask that you file out in an orderly manner, preferably pony by pony and human by human so there is no delay or confusion at the door. Please do not read anything into it. A narrow column of guests should get everyone through the crowd outside."

They watched those closest to the doors trying to arrange themselves according to the exit instructions. It was looking to go exactly as expected, Civil mused. A bonified...no wait! A PONified cluster fu-

"Hah!" Liberty snarked. "Pony by pony. You can't get herd animals to move in an orderly manner with words. It takes DIVINE intervention, duh."

Civil blew some hairs out of his face, on account of Liberty was propped up with her front hooves on his head to try and see over the crowd. "This isn't Noah's ark, Liberty, so don't suggest it. We are not animals." Her compressed lips were a dead giveaway.

After a second, she groaned out, "I am not an animal. I am a human being." He stared at her blandly. She perked up a little. "Elephant Man?"

He muttered, "I know where that's from." He made a noise in his throat and glanced back at the crowded doors, then added, "Okay, great crowd organizer, what do you suggest?" The instant the words left his mouth, he knew he had made a mistake.

She lost her glower and started tapping on his skull with a hoof. While it wasn't exactly painful, it was annoying. Along with that Egyptian music playing in the background. He growled under his breath but said nothing. Anything was better than being stuck in this closed in room waiting for the crowd to move. And.....it was a tastefully done metal cover.

Liberty stood up on Civil's head and began to sing, "♪ Standing in this crowd, this herd oasis. I never envisioned it, humans and ponies. ♪"

Twirling around on her hind legs she stood up, wings and forelegs out to each side, still on his head, "♪ Con after con, with this ocean of colored fur! ♪" Her mane blew back with a sudden gust of air, "♪ AC blowing pleasantly, friendly chat to occur!♪"

Several ponies lined up, two by two and began walking in lockstep, singing the chorus, "♪ Pony by pony...Pony by pony. ♪"

Liberty nabbed a microphone from somewhere, jumped onto the nearest ponies and started walking back toward the stage yelling, "♪ I'm trying to remember, lost memories! I've come from another dimension, blank life to live. ♪"

Now the crowd was forming a snaking line zigzagging in the room. They chimed in as Liberty sang:
"♪ Spontaneous music feats of...harmony! ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

"♪ This path I'm walking now is...my destiny ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

The music came back around like the beginning. Civil glanced around to find where Liberty had gotten to. At the last second he saw the mic careening through the air and snagged it with his wing before it could bash him in the head. Feeling the music taking a hold of his soul at this point, he knew what he had to do.

Holding the mic up to his muzzle, he sang, "♪ Every day I fly over...a gray concrete sea ♪" He turned to the stage and spotted Liberty, "♪ My former life was such mess, but now I have you with me. ♪" The filly positively beamed.

Turning to see the town's delegation with Hot Pink watching him, he added, "♪ I have new friends, and a....budding romance!" The mare turned deep red as several ponies leaned in with the back up, "♪ Budding romance! ♪"

Liberty snatched the mic from him, now standing on his back and pointed,"♪ See the lines are moving now...to this pony dance."♪

Indeed they were moving, and singing, "♪ Pony by pony...Pony by pony."♪

The music accompaniment paused with a steady kick beat and a single synth sound. Liberty started moon-walking, on Civil's back, while working an Egyptian move like she did back at Sarah's party. Civil just stood there and took it. Anything to get them out of here.

She resumed her now obviously metal yelling into the mic, "♪ I'm looking for a whole new life now...new memories! No regrets for the past or future...MY life to live!!!! "♪

Sitting back, she stared up at the ceiling, singing:
"♪ Trying to understand this pony...harmony! "♪
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

"♪ This new life's journey is changing...my destiny! "♪
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

The music shifted again and seemed to set up for a solo. Joy, what will- He blinked as he felt the weight shift on him. Twisting around he saw the filly's forelegs wrapped around a suspiciously familiar electric guitar. It was the one from Sarah's party! And Liberty was whipping out some nasty riffs with it. At this time special thanks can be given to Little V, @LittleVMills youtube channel for providing the music to this effort to get the @#$@#%^ out of here!

Civil began to sang, out of boredom more than anything, "♪ Sitting in this line, I can't help but contemplate...what other travesties, you have to test our fate. ♪"

Liberty responded, hiding the guitar behind her, "♪ I have no idea...what yer talking about! I just sat here harmonizing, just to get us out!!! ♪"

The crowd chimed in, "♪ Pony by pony! Pony by pony! ♪"

Liberty continued, "♪ I'm trying to remember, lost memories! I've come from another dimension, blank life to live. ♪"

Civil muttered, "...we heard this already-"

She countered with:
"♪ Spontaneous music feats of...harmony! ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

"♪ This path I'm walking now is...my destiny ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

The drums got super heavy and Civil sat back on his haunches while Liberty climbed into his head and stood screaming:

"♪ I'm trying to remember, lost memories! I've come from another dimension, blank life to live. ♪"
"♪ Spontaneous music feats of...harmony! ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

"♪ This path I'm walking now is...my destiny ♪"
"♪ Pony by pony. ♪"

Liberty finally droned out one last low guitar chord which rattled away into silence. Most of the crowd was out of the room and Civil's group were close to the doors now. He stood back up and looked at the guitar, then at her. She looked at him, then the guitar, then at him. Slowly she folded it up (yah, somehow it is completely foldable and in tune, neck to body) and stuck it into a backpack their mother was holding out to her. Civil spied it was one of Liberty's old college backpacks. He grumbled, "Was that the reason you were pestering me about the saddle? For storage?"

She looked around at everything but him, then exclaimed while pointing, "Hay! We are here!" He shook his head as they made their way out, their mother giving him a sheepish smile and shrug. Once outside, Civil and the gang peeled away from the column and were able to reach a space out in the foyer where they could regroup. Striding Thunder stood off to the side, watching them intently. After exhaling in frustration, she got closer and grumbled, "This is how you keep a low profile?"

Liberty buried her head in Civil's mane and looked out from the hairs. They heard the unicorn mutter, "How she saved anypony, much less a continent, is beyond me." With that, she promptly stomped off down the hallway, growling at some of the other ponies to move, she had important business to attend to, like the security of this whole damn convention, among other things.

"Your boss is kinda mean," Liberty murmured, raising her head to make sure the coast was clear.

"She was my commanding officer, and she was being nice, just now. She's also correct." He eyed her askance. "You need to dial it back some while we are here. Think you can manage that?"

"Sure. Dischord panel! Wait. Dealer's room!"

Before they could move, they heard someone yell, "Yo, Civil!"

Baro Metric, Strato Sphere and Hot Pink showed up and were walking toward them. The mare had a somewhat cool expression when she regarded Civil. He wasn't sure if it was from her interrupted speech or Striding's flirtations. It certainly couldn't have been that outing of their relationship in front of the whole town. That was Harmony...come on! On second thought, he thought it best to not say anything. Just let the mare take the lead. Civil was a good pony.

Strat did a double-take at Liberty and flapped his wings twice in approval. "Alright, Liberterian!!!"

Liberty chuckled nervously, "Ah, I'm Liberty-?" She pulled back a little. And here Civil thought he was the antisocial one.

"Of course you are! Got the initiation thing and everything! Let's see you hit the primes!" He swung a wing at her and she ducked low, nearly falling off while putting a strangle hold on Civil's neck. Civil tried to move opposite Liberty's weight, which moved his head just enough to get swiped by the stallion's wing.

"Hay, what the fuck, dude!?!" Liberty exclaimed. She flashed a glare at Karen before their mother could mention language.

Strat pulled back and held up a hoof. "Woh, woh. Sorry Civil...you, didn't teach her?" Liberty sat up, curious.

Civil rubbed his face with a hoof and then awkwardly avoided Strat's eyes. "I uh...didn't have time. She did the treatment this morning."

Strat stood straight up and positively cringed. "Oh, come ON! Seriously, she has to learn. This is her birthright. Look, Libs, it's very simple. Hop onto Barry's back and I'll show you. Civil obviously isn't up to the task, it seems." Civil snorted, but let it go. Liberty looked a little hesitant, either from Strat's insistence, or the more presumptuous offer to stand on the other, larger, stallion's back. When she looked to Civil, he nodded in Baro's direction.

"It's ok, Liberty. I trust them. You can, too." She stood up slowly, and with remarkable grace, hopped up, flapped her wings a few times and alighted onto Baro's back. Right away she turned a shade red and avoided looking at the very large stallion she was standing on. To his credit, Baro's one ear twitched while the other seemed focused on Strat. Otherwise, the larger pony appeared somewhat disinterested and was slowly glancing at the ponies and humans walking by, almost the picture of boredom. Civil knew better. It was a tactic parents typically did to make their foals feel brave by not being under their baleful eye, and yet still allowed them to keep watch. He knew she would be in good hooves for a bit...assuming the more energetic of the two males didn't teach Liberty some extra level Cloudsdalian nonsense. Even as a proud pegasus, he could attest to the existence of some loopy shit from that floating city.

Right away Strat rolled into his lecture. "Okay. All pegasi learn this on their initiation day. We may forget EVERYTHING else because of that damn curse, and good riddance, but THIS, we never forget. So first, the wing shake." He slowly went through the motions, this time swinging his wing around and getting her to do the same from the opposite direction. They tapped primary feather tips as they passed, then it was a matter of the initiator coming down while the receiver came up, then trading places, then a few more moves, until finally they both stood sideways to each other facing opposite directions and arched their furthest wings over their back like attacking scorpions to stab at each other, only to flutter the other's wingtips against each other at the last instant. Liberty couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah, I know," Strat mused. "It's not a serious greeting. Meant to be flamboyant. Like us!" He stepped back and took a pose, wings splayed, one foreleg slightly raised, hoof tip touching the floor.

"Spbptp, I don't care! I am so learning this. Do it again!!!" She had completely forgotten about the massive stallion she was standing on now. Baro did have an eye on her at this point, just to make sure she didn't fall off doing this move. Normally it was done by two roughly equal height ponies. On top of that, Strat's larger wings could easily knock the filly off if she wasn't synchronized with her moves. Yeah, Baro was a tad more down to earth than Strat was, so Liberty was fine.

Civil shook his head as the other two nutters went through more greeting antics and wandered over to his parents and the mare. The ladies seemed to be deep in conversation and updating notes in their phones while Daniel listened in. He still seemed fascinated by all that was going on around him. He did grow up on a farm, so despite having two children being talking ponies, he was still in awe. "What are you two talking about?" Civil asked.

"Recipes," both ladies responded. His eyes flicked between the two.

"We are opening up a few restaurants," Hot said with a shrug. "Thought your mother might want to know how to feed you guys." After a second, she looked over at the human woman, "I'm sorry. I meant, try some things from our culture. We are still building up a menu of all the meals we remember eating. Quite a few are not...for the human palate? I know you've tried some things with Liberty and Civil already."

Karen lightly touched Hot's shoulder. "It's alright. It was touch and go in the beginning, especially with the formula at first." She smiled appreciatively at Daniel, who in turn put an arm around Karen and whispered something lovey-dovey in her ear. After blushing, Karen said to Hot, "Let me know when you officially open and we will make a trip there to see how these recipes taste. I can follow a set of instructions easily enough. It's the finishing touches that sometimes escape me. Seeing what it is supposed to look like and taste, that will seal the deal, so to speak."

Civil blinked at Hot. "Branching out? What about the hotel line, Mare Yacht, like you had before? You could do a bed and breakfast, something similar to what you were used to doing?"

She shook her head at him. "Not likely. Marriott would sue the floof off me." She rolled her shoulders back slightly.

He stared down and was lost for a few seconds. Laughing, Hot waved a hoof in front of him and he pinked up at the ears. "Gotcha. You are too easy, Civ. In any case, I think I can leave that in the past." She looked wistfully at the other con attendees. "There is heritage, and there is an unhealthy reliance on the past."

Regaining some of his courage, he thought about it for a few seconds, then said tentatively, "What if you went for one of those, what are they, a franchise license? Like a subsidiary of Marriott. Sell it as a pony experience for tourists, in Frontier. The town itself is your advertisement for experiencing all things pony, like free advertisement for the brand name. If it goes anywhere, branch out. Into other pony towns or even some human cities. Eventually buy the full rights to the name Mare Yacht, with a tie-in to Marriott listed as part of the business history and sponsorship. I'm sure several ponies can attest to the originality of the family named business, and you sweeten the pot by keeping Marriott affiliation as part of Mare Yacht's history so anytime someone or somepony visits Mare Yacht, they are getting Marriott advertising as well."

Hot looked at him with shock and true warmth in her eyes. "Civil Patrol, you ARE listening to my business lectures. That....that is truly inspired! Bleach me white and initiate me again thrice!"

He turned deep red. "Ah....I don't think you have to be that drastic....." He could have positively died at that moment, her blurting out such-

"You can get initiated more than once??" Liberty asked. Baro had walked over with her, Strat next to them. The smaller stallion looked away. He was so not lecturing on this one. He was a good pony.

Civil choked and stared at Hot with dismay. She did her best to crush the shit-eating grin on her muzzle. And failed. Her ultimate move was to put a lollipop in her mouth. And still grin, eyes watering with mirth. He sighed and slowly turned to to Liberty. Oh God. "It...it's an adult thing." He raised a hoof before the filly could respond, "When you are physically old enough, we can go over that. I promise. Anyway, did you get your wing thing done?" She seemed to be mullified for the moment. He was so going to pick a funny bone with Hot later, love interest or no love interest.

"Yah! But he won't show me that ladybugs awake jig, like in the TV show."

All the adult ponies stared at each other. Then Hot Pink turned to address liberty, dead serious. "Sorry, hun. We pegasi do not discuss 'that' greeting in civilized conversation." Liberty's eyes went wide. She glanced around and saw another lone winged pony that had paused to eavesdrop on them. When their eyes met, the young mare shook her head disapprovingly and mouthed 'no ladybugs' and walked away. Liberty inhaled sharply.

"No shi.." She spotted her mother's glower and said, "uh, no kidding. That much hate." Several pairs of dark looks saw to the end of that topic and she buttoned up.

Strat nudged her shoulder with a hoof. "Here, let the professionals show you. Civil, look sharp."

Civil right away responded with a perfect reverse slap, under up and upper down, with two diagonal slaps in opposite directions, perfectly timed with Strat. Both spun in opposite directions to slap wings, then spun the other way for another slap. When they got to the last move, instead of standing sideways like Strat, Civil faced him head on, lowered his neck and shoulders in what seemed to be a prepared charge, only to twist both his wings back over his head in a double scorpion attack where he caught Strat's wingtip midair, then Civil flared his own wings forward and out, pushing the other stallion's wingtip away. Since the normal move had Strat's wing tense in a curved pose, it caused the stallion to stumble a step or two away from Civil. Strat spun back around to Civil, not in anger, but in total surprise.

"Woh! The Manehatten Twist. I haven't seen that in years. Baro?"

"Nope," Baro rumbled softly. "The odd visitor from the east coast might mention it when they visited my village. Rarely showed it. Island city pride, they claimed." Too much rumbling for Liberty to stay in control, she hopped up and flew over to sit on Civil again. Eyeing the flighty filly, the large stallion nodded to Strat, "Hadn't seen it in years."

"Yeah....hadn't done it in years," Civil replied, hardly noticing the filly. She quickly got over the shock of Baro talking so much in a single chapter.

"Okay, so now there's this 'Manehatten Twist?'" She exclaimed. "What's that? I wanna learn that now!" They ignored her.

"Wait, you never said you lived in Manehatten," Strat stated. Hot sidled up next to Civil and eyed him curiously. "Hots, this news to you?" She nodded slowly. After a while, it became obvious nopony was going to say anything until he responded.

He shuffled in a huff and muttered. "I never lived there. Why would I say I lived there?" His friends eyed them, obviously aware he was dodging.

"So..." Hot said softly."How did you learn that-" She paused, then grinned sardonically, "-that oh so tantalizing, and difficult greeting? You are full of surprises today."

He mumbled something. Liberty, upon hearing Hot's description and the word tantalizing, was all in fits about wanting to learn it. Still got ignored.

"What was that?" Strat asked.

Civil cleared his throat. "My...mom. My mom taught me...the twist." He couldn't feel more embarrassed if he tried. Karen leaned over to Daniel and told him she would never teach such a thing. Maybe the tarantella because she was Italian, but not...THAT. Civil growled softly, "Pony mom."

All the ponies stood there blinking, not the least of which was Liberty. The filly hopped up and down. "She did? I did? So what's the big-" That's when she started twisting around her wings. "-...deal.....ungh.....dammit. Teach me." It was truly pathetic, watching the poor filly try to move wings that normally fell off doing that. "What was that thing you did, the twist...the twist thing...yow! Ow ow owie, yah that hurts."

Hot sighed, knowing she was partly to blame for getting Liberty so riled up over it. She reached up and forced the filly to put her wings back in their proper resting positions, if nothing else but to avoid muscle injury. "Don't, sweety. I may not know how to do that, but I do know that's NOT how to do it."

Civil explained, "That's why it's called a twist. And not like that. We'll be in the emergency room, you keep that up. It's a learned thing. You have to push forward just so...." He started to lower his head, quickly remembered she was still on his back and stood up straight. Also, he wasn't about to present his tail to his marefriend and parents any longer than what he had already done with the split-second move earlier. "Never mind, I'll teach you later. It requires some uh....stretches, not fit for public." Hot grinned ruefully around her lollipop at him.

"I am SO learning that shit," Liberty said, hooves crossed in front of her.

"No shit," Strat said. "I kinda want to learn that shit now, too."

"Language!" Karen said.

"Yes ma'am," all the ponies responded. Karen stiffened slightly, then nodded. As it should be.

Except for Hot. She was too sophisticated for such speech. And she had a lollipop in her mouth. Stepping closer to him, she nuzzled Civil's cheek. "By the way, you forgot to say hello." He definitely got goose bumps all over, yet he nuzzled back. Liberty gently pranced back toward his rump to give the two love birds some space. After a few quiet seconds, Hot retreated slightly. Taking the lollipop out with a wing, she eyed Civil quietly. He fidgeted slightly, rubbing at one fetlock with his other hoof.

"What?" He finally asked under the scrutiny. "You aren't still upset about earlier, are you." She tilted her head in question. He sighed and added, "During your speech? Or uh...the song?"

Snorting softly, she mused, "Please, that was like, last year already. I know you probably had a good reason to be braying during a speech I had been preparing for months." Dan's eyes widened and he slowly moved behind Karen, who was rolling her eyes at him. "And...I thought the song was endearing."

Civil knew better than to argue. Plus, he wasn't about to play the blame game when she was...maybe...not that upset over it. And the song was endearing. He felt warm inside. Still, Hot was eyeing him for some reason. "Then, what else?"

Giving her lollipop a single lick, she said, "You didn't wear your saddle."

Liberty busted out laughing, hopping up and down and yelling I-told-you-so's relentlessly for the next ten minutes as they all searched for the dealer's room. Civil knew this was going to be a long day.

***

As he expected, the dealer's room stretched before him like an auction house of madness. Not like there was any actual bidding going on, yet the cacophony of noise was palpable, to be sure. Rows of tables lined the walls of the massive room. Tables set up akin to old French military square formations created islands taking up most of the middle of the room. Corridors of tall wire shelves holding all manner of merchandise created stifling hallways of eye candy for the mildly curious to the downright ponyfile alike. Dealers and customers answered questions, asked more questions and discussed all things pony. It was utter depravity from a capitalistic point of view. And all of it was in celebration of his people. He didn't know whether to feel horrified or honored. Both? Plus the sheer number of humans wearing some regalia of pony ears, glitter, accessories, clothing, wigs, hair colored from simple highlights to the obvious Rainbow Dash colors of the entire spectrum, and all in between. A few costumes were two people in fabric stitched giant pony bodies. While nowhere near representative of what they truly looked like, the effort was amusing. Sort of. Getting anime con flashbacks, he tore his gaze away and tried to focus on where he was going.

Prior though, they had approached the door to the room, a veritable mouth to all this madness. Before they could enter, a staff member had to check their passes. Hot stepped aside to have a chat with the human. He nodded, recognizing her as one of the invited guests representing Frontier. He also occasionally checked other entering con goers, glancing at passes dangling from lanyards that were around necks of all shapes and sizes...and colors, too. Striding Thunder was also standing watch next to the staff member, more a reminder for the Frontier folks to behave themselves than anything else. Hot then addressed Striding in a low voice and the two proceeded to exchange words, though Civil couldn't hear above the din of the crowd inside the large room. He did catch Striding's reply, her authoritarian tone cutting through some of the noise.

"....technically, I did see him first...."

The look Hot gave Striding could have frozen Hell over and left some to cool down a certain princess' sun, too. He did see Striding bark out a single laugh to Hot's expression and said a few more things, though Hot didn't react quite as bad after that. When it had looked like both had said their peace, along with a few seconds of eyeballing each other, Hot returned to the group since they had already moved on inside. She acted as though nothing had happened. Aside from a whispered 'poachers' to Strat and Baro, both of them guffawing and shouldering Hot while she whipped her mane about in mock outrage.

Civil knew otherwise. Civil also knew not to get in between two mares...for any reason. Ears got torn that way. He instinctively laid his back. He liked his ears.

Liberty stood on her tippy hooves to see all there was to see. Consequently, she was highly visible, and her coloration caused many fans and some Equestrians to stare back at her as they moved through the crowds at the different tables. Civil made sure his loose entourage stuck together. His primary concern was losing Liberty in this mess, either from someone swiping her off his back as though she were the latest battery-operated toy, to her simply flying off on her own. There was already a standing rule of no flying inside the building, yet young ones, and pegasi in general, were the flighty of the bunch here.

At one point Liberty was waving at the younger fans as though she were a rock star. They in turn were thrilled to be noticed by a small, cute filly and were waving back, most likely hoping to get in a pet and hug, Civil mused. Or swipe her off his back, he eventually thought suspiciously. The academy was really starting to amp his hyper situational awareness. Striding Thunder might have had a point about crowds, afterall. When Liberty started opening up her wings and slowly moving them up and down in a flapping motion, he turned his head to her.

"What the Tartarus are you doing?!"

"I'm flexing my Equestrian heritage."

Narrowing his eyes, he said "We were told to keep a low profile. What do you call this?"

"I call this hiding out in plain view." She underscored that with waving a wingtip at another young human girl who was drowning in her own giggles. Civil thanked the Faustian gods when her parents pulled the girl away to go explore other tables.

"I call it highlighting yourself. And if you even think of doing a Titanic 'king of the world' on my back, I will wingslap you so hard you will have black ink upside your head. I touched up my wings two weeks ago, if you were wondering how dry they are."

She stared at him. He stared at her. She stuck her tongue out, but she did tuck her wings back in. That still didn't stop her from waving occasionally. One pony, what would be considered an old teenager or a very young adult, waved back while trying to dodge the milling crowd around her. She had a light green coat similar to Liberty, but her mane and tail were a shimmering gold blonde. Liberty waved back. The filly waved back to Liberty again.

Liberty started getting a weird feeling. She waved one last time and pointedly looked elsewhere, as though something got her attention. Eventually she peeked from the corner of her eye. The other pony was not there anymore. She sighed. Finally catching the hint and no longer enjoying the fame, she whispered to Civil she was serious now about browsing the wares. Snorting, he nodded. They started really looking at what was on offer in the gigantic room.

Strat nudged Civil while they paused at some cold cast resin kits. Some of them were very nicely done. "Hay, Civ. Barry and I are going to head on. Most of this stuff they sell out of Frontier anyway. Might grab a poster or two for the flat back home. We'll catch up with you later, kay?" Civil nodded at him and waved a wing at Baro. The larger stallion nodded solemnly and headed off, Strat right alongside him.

Liberty's eyes followed the two until they got lost in the crowd. She turned to their mother, "Mom....you caught that, right?"

Karen glanced in their direction, then at Liberty. "Was there something significant I was supposed to notice?" The filly pointed her hoof in the departed ponies' direction, then hesitated, seeing Hot, Civil and Karen watching her. Their father, Daniel, was staring at all the pony stuff on the tables.

"I...well, I figured....mom, come here." She walked out to stand on Civil's butt and made it a point to wave both Hot and Karen over to her while Civil was excluded. He ignored the nutter and examined the cold casts on the table. There was a beautifully painted Luna statue with her standing proud, wings flared. Liberty must have forgotten ponies had very good hearing.

"Mom," Liberty whispered, then looked at Hot, "I kind of felt, you know, warm, talking to Strato Sphere and Baro Metric. I was STANDING on his back, too! And, well, I thought, um," She looked so embarrassed that Hot reached up and gently touched her cheek with a wing.

"It's okay, that's just a physical reaction. We are very passionate when it comes to physical attraction. We are also very sentient and can control those passions. Is that what is really bothering you?"

Karen glanced over at Hot Pink and asked, "Everything is ok, yes? They didn't do anything, did they?" Hot grimaced and shook her head.

"No, most ponies would not do anything bad to a foal. Those two least of all."

Liberty sat up and said, "Wait, why not those two least of all?" This caused Hot to form her mouth into an oh.

"Ah, that's why you are concerned." Liberty glanced away in chagrin. To Karen's bewildered look, Hot stated, "Aside from her small body, she may have noticed that, despite her adult mind and, ahem, sometimes adult personality-" pausing to accept Liberty's quick glare, "-she may have noticed that they do not seem that interested in looking at other ponies. She may also have noticed how other mares regard them. Am I right?" A look of understanding spread across the Karen's face.

Liberty's face confirmed it. Hot added, "And that is a story for them to tell at their time of choosing, not yours. Remember, not all of us remained the same gender." With that, the mare pulled away. Karen stood straight and was content with the explanation.

With new wonder, Liberty turned back to see if she could spot them again. It took Civil a little while to put it all together, from Hot Pink's explanation and Liberty's reactions, all the way back to when Liberty was first dealing with ponies other than him. Her behavior with the doctor and at the pizza parlor made sense now. As much as he did harp on her having a filly's body, she had adult memories of a human in a filly's brain. A very flighty and imaginative brain. She noticed things as an adult, responded to things, sometimes, as an adult, and as an adult, he really should treat her as such, while still trying to protect her. If she was confused about what she should be feeling around males or females, or, in this case, why others were not feeling that way toward her or others, he would have to bridge that gap and be more diligent in his explanations. That also meant seeking advice from Hot, too.

Liberty sat quietly down on his back with a worried look on her face. He leaned his head over to her and said, "Liberty, we'll see them later. If you want, you can ask them how things are done the pony way, including the proper way to date other ponies. More importantly, they may help you steer clear of choices you can't undo. If you have any other kinds of questions, Hot and I can help. That sound good?" She looked up at him and smiled a little, nodding. Seeing the others waiting on him, he said, "Why don't we find some decent material to get signed?" She noddled at them and they moved on.

After having bagged some lithographs, posters, post cards, a couple of vinyl figures, and a few other things, they finally slogged their way out of the dealer's room and were able to track down the hallway which had several smaller dining rooms branching off on either side.

"Um....Civil?" Liberty whispered, "We are being followed."

There was the other horseshoe dropping, he thought to himself. Alright, let's get this over with. He turned around and faced the oncoming travesty he had predicted back in the ballroom.

A young mare approached them apprehensively. As she got closer, she was clearly an adult, though just. Subtle details like skull shape, chest and hoof size were a giveaway. She stopped and almost seemed like she was ready to bolt. Addressing Civil, she said softly, "Hi. Um, you may not remember me," the young mare said. He stared at her. There was something familiar. He shook his head in apology, knowing he was about to feel really stupid in a moment. "My name is Mint Jubilee?" Liberty raised an eyebrow and looked at Civil. And here the filly had thought the mare was waving at her in the dealer's room.

"Oh yeah," he exclaimed. "Back at the hospital. The Hispanic family." He turned his head to Liberty, "You were in the emergency room. The curse, remember?" Looking back to the mare, he said, "You were the g-"

"We met prior to that. At least, I think we did. In Canterlot, at a bar, The Princing Prancess?" This time he was stumped. He hardly drank at bars, even back then. And a bar with that kind of name, ouch.

Liberty guffawed. "Him, at a bar? He hardly drinks, and then it's just foo-foo drinks."

Before Civil could respond, Mint giggled nervously, "He wouldn't have enjoyed this bar. It was for....um....." Her eyes looked up alarmingly at the small pony, and then at Civil and murmured, "....the bar was for filly-foolers, and colt-cuddlers."

Both Civil and Liberty were shocked, but for different reasons. Liberty's one word reply was, "WHAT!?!?"

Civil's shock was more of a revelation. "Huh. That finally makes sense. I mean, I knew I was bad at dating, but no mares would so much as look at me in that place. I thought it was just me."

The mare giggled, this time with more confidence. "It was you. Just.....well....you know, not the right type. I even felt bad when I turned you down for that drink. I could tell you had a good soul." When he smiled sadly, she reached out with a hoof to touch his shoulder. "I'm sorry I brought up a bad memory. I have so few to work with as it is. When I saw you today, that whole incident flashed into my head, about the offer for a salt lick drink, and then you stepped in to defend me from that horrible bully of a mare-"

"Oh yeah! You were the head of the Royal Celebration Team!" By now, his entourage head crept in closer just to listen to the drama. Hot most of all.

Mint blinked at him. "Royal Celebration Team...?" Her eyes started to glaze over, more memories flooding her brain.

"Yes. In fact, that was how I was recognized by the Guard. Word eventually made it to the princesses. It wasn't until later I found out who you were-"

She reared up and put her hooves on both his shoulders, eyes pleading, "You know who I am?!? Please, tell me more. Back at the hospital, you said my name, when I was still human. You said Mint Jubilee and I knew it was true! And the dreams. I thought they were weird before, but then after that name was uttered, they just kept coming. That and the name were the only clues I had when I completed my change. I remembered the bar in Equestria, and random snippets here and there. I remembered when Discord came for me! He said my works were too much hope and happiness to be allowed. To this day I didn't know what those works were, but I could feel them welling up in me to be let out. I was hoping to find you again and thank you for defending me! And if you could tell me what else I did in Equestria!"

He pulled his head back, almost bumping into Liberty. She in turn took a step back and glanced at Hot. The mare was genuinely entertained, which the filly thought was odd, given her reaction to Striding's coziness with Civil earlier.

"Uh, well, heh, you....your name is Mint Jubilee." Her eyes quivered. He frowned at his own statement of the obvious. He glanced at her cutie-mark. "And from what I recall, you were employed by the royal court to head up all major celebrations at Canterlot. Sumer Solstice, Winter Solstice, royal birthdays. You name it, if it was big, you were there. Your specialty was magical fireworks. You would change up what would fall down from the sky, but most of the time it was wintergreen flavored peppermints. They would rain down from some of the most spectacular blooms of lights in the sky." He chuckled to himself, "Also...this is really weird, but I 'think' they got the X-men character Jubilee inspiration from you. I know I can't prove it since they introduced her in...1989-ish, but-"

Mint nearly strangled him as her eyes teared up, "I knew it! I've had dreams of candy raining down from strange Fourth of July displays. Displays I had somehow made! I didn't know if I was obsessed with being a pyro, or candy, or both. There were exploding colors...and candies...I thought I was going crazy, until I changed, and the dreams simply felt more real. And my cutie-mark-" She glanced back at herself. "You know what it means." It wasn't a question, just certainty in her voice, a realization she finally saw a finish line she did not know she was running toward.

He nodded. "The mint leaf for the candy, the firework bursts in mid-explosion for...yah, fireworks. The stars at the centers of those explosions denoting the magic needed to generate them. It is what you were famous for."

"As weird as that should sound, it feels right, somehow." Without warning, her horn glowed a golden color. A single spark flared up and headed straight to the hallway ceiling, which was very high. Before it could hit the plaster, it burst into a small shower of sparkling rainbow lights, which then fizzled into small, wrapped candies that rained down over everyone in the hallway. While the adults cried out in surprise, the children, and several adult ponies, too, ran about collecting the candies and cheering. Among the ponies, plenty of them started reminiscing about past visits to Canterlot and the spectacular shows put on by Princess Celestia.

She laughed, now openly crying. Hugging him tightly, she said, "Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!! I know who I am! You have done so much for me. I don't have anything to give you now except my undying thanks. I will pay you back one day, I promise!!!" With that she realized what she was doing, backed up with reddening cheeks, paused, then hopped forward to give him a peck on the lips and galloped down the hallway to rejoin her human family.

Civil stood there, stunned. Liberty watched the mare go, then looked to Hot. Again, she was smiling, almost in a proud manner. The filly asked, "You are ok with that?"

Hot smirked and quietly replied, "Innocent damsels in distress are one thing. Devious poachers are something else. I think I can tell the difference. Civil, you continue to amaze me with your history." He swallowed and shuffled his hooves in embarrassment. Hot sighed and said, "Which is poor thinking on my part. I already know you are amazing, so this shouldn't surprise me at all." She walked over to him and whispered in his ear, "But I love being amazed by you."

Now filled with more emotions than just embarrassment, he replied, "Yeah. I only knew her from a distance. I didn't know she was...that way. I'm not interested, if you are worried about that."

She chuckled, "No, I am not worried. Still," she added after another glance down the hall, "she is young, shows an endearing quality of naivety, and has much to learn about the world. And herds can have more than two, you know." She bumped Civil, "Fancy some fireworks in the bedroom with an after-dinner mint?" She gave him a husky chuckle as his face turned crimson. Daniel cleared his throat and looked away, not sure if he should add to his son's discomfort.

Even Karen laughed softly, wiping her eyes with a tissue. Obviously she was moved by the story and meant to ask him about it later. When she saw the look in Hot's eye, Karen furrowed her brow, "Miss Pink. You aren't serious...are you? About herds, that happens?"

The mare shrugged, "It would be hasty to make a decision without vetting her. These things are very complex."

Karen's eyes widened. "I...see. So...no issues with, well, her persuasion? Or pegasus and unicorn, um, how should I put this...mixing?" Right away she grimaced at her own choice of words, but she still didn't quite have the cultural vocabulary. Hot laughed and patted her arm with a wing.

"That's a new way to put it. No, no issues. With the way the curse jumbled up leanings and tastes, at this point I figure everypony is due a second whack at things. Even love. As for, heh, mixing, the undercurrents of tribe versus tribe are there, though they rarely rear their ugly head. Aside from a rude comment now and then by ruffians who were dealt a bad hoof in life, everypony seems to be tolerant. Most ponies tend to blend their strengths with each other and support one another in times of need. Mostly. Hearth's Warming reinforces those ideals." She walked over to Civil. "What do you say, Civ? Are you open to mixing-?"

"Alright I think we need to find that voice actor's room, the one they mixed-MENTIONED! Mentioned....early...earlier, in that other room. Before...you know...this way!"

There was no end to Liberty and Hot's laughter, the human parents following the ponies along with other con goers down the hallway.

One particular room had the primary cast of voice actors in it. The more diehard fans of more than one genre were filling into the room. The moment Civil's group stepped in, Liberty tapped his shoulder.

"That's Discord!" Liberty exclaimed. Some of the fans nearby chuckled at her exuberance.

Daniel blinked and scanned the table of assembled actors. "I know him. That's Q! From star trek? You remember, Civil? Come on, help me out, you know what I'm talking about.

"Dad, his name is John DeLancie. He's an actor."

"Yah, that guy. I know him as Q."

Civil grumbled. It was bad enough his dad was geeking out, but his main worry was that monkey on his back, Liberty. He said one word to her. "Behave." She sat primly on his back, tapped her chest with a single hoof like a good little Roman. Snorting, he found a set of seats and made his family take them before they filled up. Before long, a staff member came over and turned on a microphone in front of each actor. John spoke first.

"Before any of you ask, yes I am aware I sound like the villain Discord. Yes, I do care about what has happened to Equestria. Yes, I still find it incredible that there is a whole world out there with pony residents and many of them are here, in this very room and building. And, yes, I am aware I sound like the villain Discord." The crowd chuckled. "Call it what you will, cosmic irony, the intermingled web of fate, or just plain silliness.....and no, I do not know if Q really exists, though that role was magnitudes of fun to play. Now, who has questions?"

Most of the hands and hooves went down. A few stayed up, including two small hooves waving wildly above Civil's head. Eyes up watching her, Civil quietly, slowly, shook his head. DeLancie smiled broadly and nodded to Liberty. "Alright. The tiny one, sitting on the glum looking stallion, fourth row back." He chuckled when Civil's ears pulled back in embarrassment. The room erupted in chuckles and soft laughter. Someone came over to hold a mic near the filly. Civil's eyes went to pinpricks as everyone in the room watched him and the filly.

"Mister Discord, you said in an interview once that Discord shouldn't be redeemed. After everything that we know now, along with stuff that we don't know like my death and lost memory-" a wingtip slapped Liberty in the back of her head, "-do you still think Discord should not be redeemed, or is he redeemable? Or do we right off the bastard entirely."

The room was as silent as the grave. Civil stared straight ahead. He was stunned before she had opened her bigh mouth. Now the thought if killing a tiny filly sometime in the future floated around in the back of his head, warring with several different fight or flight scenarios. Only his years of guard training, and some police candidate conditioning, kept him from complete and utter panic.

John's smile disappeared and he steepled his fingers in front of him in thought. Dan got a kick out of that. Classic Q look on display. After several seconds, John spoke. "What transpired in both our worlds is heartfelt, shocking, and repugnant. I would never condone the death or suffering of any creature, human or alien, to satisfy a television show or a narrative. Neither would I condone it for the self-entertainment of a godlike entity. With that said, my thoughts in that interview were on the Discord character from a storyteller's point of view. Typically I am handed the script when I arrive at the studio, they have me read the lines into the microphone after only a minor skimming of the material and we review the material if more takes are needed. However, if I have an opinion on where the role of a character is going, or if it is not being true to the essence of that character, I make my sentiments known. Sometimes they writers will work in a change. Sometimes, not."

Sitting back he takes a more relaxed posture. "Write the bastard off, you say?" He laughs, which in turn garners some nervous chuckling from the audience. "We could do that. This is my personal opinion. It's alright if you find fault with it. Again, I am only an actor. Consider this, though. Q, Discord, beings with timeless existences next to us mortals. What do we as mortals prioritize in our short lives? Family, friends, love? Material success or meaningful accomplishments? What of the friends those immortal beings have had in the past? To them, those friends wither away into dust as they go on living. They see scenarios play out again and again and again to the point that they can predict everything, not out of some special psychic powers, but out of sheer boredom of seeing it again and again and again. 'We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two?' Not just a catchy insurance meme. I have thought on this, moreso with the role of Q than with any other I have had the privilege to perform. And these days, most especially Discord's situation. Can any mortal contemplate eternity, with our limited experience on Earth...or Equestria? I'd imagine even common decency, something a normal person strives for, withers away after a few thousand years. Sanity too, perhaps. Not that I would expect her to go that same route, but I see now that Princess Celestia's...eccentricities...I see they were not simply written into the script by accident, were they? And from some rumors I have from personal contacts, those eccentricities are well-founded."

There was a pause as he let that sink in for the audience. He drink some water from a glass and shook his head, regarding Liberty with a soft smile, not at all the horrible visage of a vengeful Discord, or even the wily deviousness of a Q. "Write him off? No. I would not. Condemn him for his deeds, teach him a better way," he raised a finger while making his point, "but bear this in mind. One cannot change the nature of a thing. Redirect his focus, maybe. Give him something worthwhile to do, but his nature will not change. To force it otherwise, that would be unnatural, and we would be the monsters, then." He spread is hands plaintively, "This is my perspective on the matter. If I have offended anyone, especially the residents of our sister world, for that I apologize. That is how I feel, little one. Anything else?"

Civil glanced up. By this time Liberty had lowered herself to where she was hiding behind his head. She peeked out and whispered something even the microphone couldn't pick up.

"Could you repeat that?" John asked while leaning forward.

She cleared her throat and asked meekly, "...um....could I still get an autograph?"

The room laughed and John chuckled deeply. Civil visibly slumped as the tension washed off of him He was so killing her, screw federal law. "Of course you can. Once the panel is over, we can have a less public discussion on the Discord conundrum if you so choose."

The crowd ooh'd and aw'd. Liberty turned crimson and buried her face in Civil's neck. He muttered darkly up at her, "Serves you right."

The man took several other questions, quite a few surprisingly about other roles he had played in the past. He saw Tara, Tabitha, Ashleigh, Andrea and several others answer questions, and quite willingly after the big tension getter from Liberty, but he was so not daring to grab that kind of attention again. Still, he could at least mention something once they got up to the tables afterward during the signature phase.

Before long the staff reminded everyone of the schedule and the audience got up to form a line at the tables. Two poplice officers stood at either end of the tables to make sure the fans behaved themselves in front of the distinguished celebrities. Being on the fourth row back meant Civil and Liberty ended up in the middle of the line, so there was some wait to it. Hot, Karen and Dan stood to the rear of the room so they could 'let the kiddies have their fun.' Civil wasn't THAT interested. Sort of. Maybe.

He might have bought a poster that had all the characters on there, for a group signing. Maybe.

It was another thirty minutes before they were almost to the table. Civil's ears caught frantic chatter on a radio from one of the police officers standing next to the table. His training kicked in and he stepped out of the line, walking right up to the officer to listen in on the radio. Liberty was asking what he thought he was doing, but he ignored her. The officer eyed him, his elbow indexing his sidearm. Civil didn't make any sudden motions, just tilted his head. The second bit of chatter had more details.

"....female, single stab wound, side alley...."

The officer waved at the other one and circled his hand in the air. Both of them started stepping to each actor as if executing a preplanned protocol. Civil heard them saying the same thing to each person. "We have reports of someone getting stabbed. They are asking everyone to shelter in place until-" He felt Liberty tense, knowing she heard the same thing.

Growling, Civil made his way to the back of the room near the doorway. "Fuck that, not on my watch. Libs, find Abstract and get him to that victim, got it?" He ignored the filly until he reached his parents and the mare. "Hot Pink, Liberty has a mission. Help her find the doctor and get him to a stabbing victim."

"Wait, I don't even know-" Liberty squawked when he jostled her to the side and grabbed her out of the air with a wing, only to sit her atop the older mare's back. Hot nodded and attempted to get Liberty's attention as Civil ran out of the door.

He started to trot down the hallway and took a few turns randomly until he spotted some security guards and a few officers running to the outside doors out in the main foyer. Once he saw their direction, he took to the air and flew, despite a few staff yelling at him about the rules. Just short of slamming into the backs of the first responders, he landed, slipped in between them and out the doors, then hopped up again to flow low. He circled around the north side of the building and ducked under the concrete ceiling that had some of the city streets above. Toward the east side of the large building there was a round dome structure, with a small parking lot tucked in between there and another building along Canton St. This was where several people were surrounding a person on the ground. He landed and slowed down his trot.

It was a woman, not too distinct from any other person he had seen today. Except...the hair. It showed different colors, faded. Before he could think anything, a sound caught his attention. He looked up and saw something fluttering over the edge of the circular building. It was the large arena where they held concerts at the center. Before he had thought to call for attention or help, he jumped into the air, pumped his wings to get over the edge of the roof and landed on the hard platform with a clatter of hooves. He galloped along the roof, whipping his head this way and that to spot-

A heavy body slammed into him, knocking Civil to the roof. Sitting out in the noonday sun, the surface was scorching, burning his back and wings. He struggled to get up and found his limbs and wings pinned by a humanoid figure that had settled down on him. A hood obscured most of the person's face, yet he could see a strong chin, nose...and the eyes. The eyes were a bright green. The figure loomed down until it was almost nose to nose with the rash stallion.

Civil started to move and found something poking the bottom of his chin. He couldn't see what it was, yet deep down, he knew it could deliver a single stab up into his brain in the next instant. He became very still.

The cloaked human looked over the pony slowly, never letting off the thing that was tucked under Civil's chin. The eyes seemed to dull down to a darker green, but Civil wasn't sure if that was the light reflecting off the white surface of the roof. After a few seconds, the figure loomed closer and whispered, "I cannot allow you to sabotage my mission." The person's jaw clenched. Then, in a moment of utter horror, the figure licked Civil on the cheek!

At was at least a minute later before Civil realized the figure was gone. Rolling onto his hooves, he looked around, verified nobody was on the roof with him, and then hopped up in the air. Berating himself for being so stupid as to land before doing this before, he made several circuits around the roof to make sure nobody was hiding, then found his way back down to the large crowd down in the parking lot. By now, squad cars, fire engines and an ambulance had rolled in. He spotted Hot and Liberty standing off to the side, ignored them completely and made a beeline for the ambulance where a gurney was being prepped for the victim. Abstract Living was right there on the ground with the woman, horn glowing while he was arguing with the paramedics.

"You will get your chance to be the hero in one more minute, AFTER I knit the veins, and not a minute sooner." His glare, along with the horn glow, convinced them to standby for a bit. The woman moaned, but Abstract was right there, tapping her arm with a hoof. "There there, sweety, I know this itches. Try not to move. I don't want this opening up right after it's done."

Civil approached and said, "Doc, when you get a chance-"

The unicorn hissed. "Shut up, colt. This is hard enough as it is. I don't do humans. Be lucky I decided to crack open some books after you visited." He spared a single glance up, then back to his patient. "I had this feeling, with the Civils back in my life, these old bones were not getting retirement anytime soon." Civil clamped shut. He had seen enough battlefield dressings to know magic was not forgiving around flesh. At length, the unicorn sighed. "Done. She'll hold. Go!" He waved a hoof at the paramedics. Despite his limping, Abstract was able to dance out of their way while still berating them. "Careful, don't jostle her around. Those stitches are little more than a few tissue layers newly healed. Yank her wrong and the wound will reopen." Civil wasn't sure if the paramedics were paying the pony any heed, but Abstract seemed fine with their handling. He wiped his brow with a fetlock and looked at Civil beleaguered expression.

"Ok.....son....what else you need?" He panted.

"I was wondering if you could scan me."

The old pony stared at him. "Scan you? For what?"

"The suspect, he...uh.....he licked me."

"....what?"

Civil pulled Abstract to the side and lowered his voice, "He licked my muzzle. Can you scan me for DNA or something?"

Abstract rubbed his temple with a hoof. "Son, any other pony, I would have questions. With you and your mother..." The codger glanced over at Liberty who was standing up on Hot's head for a change to see what was going on in the ambulance. "...just another day." Looking back at Civil with tired eyes, he said, "For the DNA, there is pure magic and pure science. So far as I know, they have not blended the two enough to get the result you want. Just get the local police to swab your face. Tartarus."

Civil blinked, remembering his forensics class at the academy. "Oh.....yah, I guess that works. I just thought...well, with magic around, I figured there were new ways to do things."

"Huh," the unicorn muttered. "I thought you were wanting something else. Not the weirdest request I've gotten, swabbing a face, but it's up there."

"Something else?" Civil asked, "What else would I have wanted that would be less weird?"

Abstract shrugged. "Like another scan of the lady, specifically her wound."

Frowning, Civil said, "But you did that already....didn't you? Standard Triage Protocol, EUC. That should be nowhere weird at all."

"Of course I did!" Abstract scoffed. "I needed to get the lay of the land before I could sew her back up."

"And.....?" Civil prodded.

"I thought I sensed something...familiar. I didn't have time to do another scan because she was bleeding out."

"Do another one!" Civil exclaimed, turning to the ambulance. By now they were buttoning up the doors. He paused, looking back at Abstract sheepishly, "Oh, your healing. It saturated the wound. The whole magic signature thing."

Nodding, he smiled at the younger stallion. "You remembered. Anyway, I thought you wanting a second scan. Can't. With my healing, it washed away whatever it was I felt. I had no time to play detective. She was bleeding out."

"Yah, I got that, now. Are you saying....the wound was magical?"

Abstract shook his head. "No...honestly, I don't know what I am saying. There was an echo of something, familiar. Not magic, per se. A magical attack would have resonated the instant I touched it. On the surface, the wound was done by a physical weapon, that much is obvious. But...there was an oddity about it."

He paused in thought as the ambulance pulled away. Several officers were moving around, attempting to get witness information. Civil eyed them, knowing he would be tied up with them soon. He watched Abstract and slowly asked, "If you... sisters forbid...if you had another body, would you know what that familiar sensation was?"

"A dead body? Yes. The immune system would not be active in a cadaver to clear out the foreign magic, or whatever was left behind. However, for a living body, I would need to fly out the instant it was discovered. Oh, and any other foreign implements working on the body will wipe it. Surgical implements overwriting the weapon used, like...well, like derezzing a VHS tape with a magnet."

"A VHS tape," Civil responded blandly.

"Fine, a hard drive," Abstract grumbled. "Tapes were still around when we were human babies, you know. Suffice to say, untouched, I can do a thorough examination. But you need to be damn sure, son. I can't fly out for every clue you come across; these bones can't take the jostling. Or the chariot expenditures." One of the officers walking by had to stop as Abstract stiffly raise his foreleg at Civil. "Hay, officer. Get your physical evidence guys to take a sample of his face. He may have the bad guy's DNA on it."

Before Civil could respond, the officer stared at him. "The suspect licked you?" Several witnesses stopped talking to stare at this new spectacle. Civil cringed and nodded. He didn't trust himself to say anything intelligent at this point, or even explain how the licking occurred. To his credit, the officer merely said, "Hold on." He looked over the pony and asked, "You that new recruit that's been in the news?" Civil nodded. "Somehow," the officer deadpanned, "I'm not surprised you got licked by the suspect." Civil slowly nodded the third time. Yah, a really long day.

"Doctor, sir..." the officer asked.

"Doc is fine, son."

"Yeah. Make sure nobody touches his face. We already ordered PES so they shouldn't be too long. We'll try to process your face first." He waved over a junior officer to stand guard over the two ponies, and a face.

The unicorn glanced at the pegasus sourly, "Thanks, Civil. Always count on your herd for some USDA Prime pony shi-"

Civil stopped listening pulled out his phone to text his family twenty feet away that he would be held up for quite a while.

***

After a week of more academy classes, along with all manner of rumors and stories getting around involving Civil's new approach to capturing criminals through a process known as CLP, the Civil Lick Procedure, he was finally able to get hold of the detective assigned to the stabbing case back that occurred at the convention center. The victim had survived, and to nobody's surprise, she could no recall seeing the suspect, only that she was pulled around from behind, saw a large shadow and felt the stab.

Civil was able to call the DPD headquarters and get a hold of a detective in Capers, Crimes Against Persons bureau. Detective Weller picked up the transferred line, but didn't have great news as to the direction of the case, or DNA results.

"But the other detective that answered the phone said you had gotten back results from the lab," Civil said.

"Yes and no." Weller sighed loudly, "Sort of." He sounded very tired on the other end.

"You...hit the whole spectrum of possibilities." Civil said in exasperation.

"Heh, you think? So did you. Case in point. First of all, the results were inconclusive. Second, Civil Patrol, you get around.

"....what?"

There was a shuffling of papers on the other end. "Lab found no less than 27 different sources of DNA, and none of which came back to a human male. At least, not the one you described. There was one, Daniel Barringer, your father I believe. We eliminated him from the list of possible hits. Other than that, no other human male suspects."

"Uh, yes, he is my father, and he was with us the whole time.

"Like I said, not on our list."

".....but then...what was the 'sort of?'. Was...was one of those other sources the killer?"

"That's just it. Most of them were ponies, the tech said. Mostly. A couple of the isolated strands were garbage, some stuff about broken or messed up strands. He got really into the weeds about it all before I hung up."

Civil didn't know how to feel about that. "How do you mean, garbage? You are talking about DNA strands, right?"

"As they explained it, they found mostly material from human DNA, and pony DNA. So, since you guys first hit the scene, we have been pushing the science community to kick some of their discoveries to our forensics departments, in case....well, in case something like this crops up. Having to redefine a new genetic category to do gel runs on, we might as well be back in the infancy of DNA. The upside is we are making rapid progress with our current methods and technology."

"I am glad we aren't completely scary to you," Civil chuckled nervously.

"Hah. Don't count your chicks yet. We can at least recognize a pony sequence from a human one. That's what the tech said. Something about some illegal research finally being used for good. I saw some of it in the news here and there."

Civil had a sick feeling he knew where that was from.

After a pause, Weller continued, "But the fly in the ointment is, there was some stuff that looked corrupted. First, they thought the sample might have been bad to begin with. After spit balling a few ideas, they arrived at two possibilities, both a bit worrisome. First one....an RNA based vaccination."

Civil got a slight chill. "How would a vaccination change genetic code? All the popular studies say that the...that RNA thing, it can't penetrate DNA. Protected nucleus or something."

"Impressive. I had to look up that stuff myself. Yup, that's what he said. Messenger RNA enters the cell to make it produce antibody material to fight the virus. With a human, not a problem. With ponies...well, some people may have had vaccinations prior to the change. Some after. With the way they pushed for virus vaccinations and improper vetting by the FDA....yeah, who knows."

"So the killer could be a vaccinated pony? He was human. He FELT human. Weighed as much, anyway."

"Mmm, as unlikely as that might be, a pony was the more remote possibility. Or, a more plausible one for a mixed-up DNA source? Silly as this would sound even before the epidemic, what if it was......magic?" Civil inhaled sharply. He should have thought about that. The detective must have heard that and said, "Yeah, you would know better than I. The garbage source was a mix of pony and human code. Could a pony look human and create a jumbled human-pony DNA source? Was this something you might have seen in Equestria?"

As much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn't. "Not having humans over there before the curse...I don't know. It could be magic, like an illusion spell....but from what I know, that is purely visual. The physical evidence wouldn't be that altered. If a unicorn used an illusion and, let's say, chipped a fingernail, it would leave a hoof chip behind. The cloak of magic comes off outside the magical field."

"There is also the rub that, if magic were in play, why use a knife? Why not some, uh, magic kill spell. I've heard you guys have some nasty stuff."

Civil's voice was wooden. "You would have to ask a battlemage or some other member of the EUC, the Equestrian Unicorn Corps. I flew for a living."

"Right. Heh, Ignorant human here, you have wings."

Civil lightened up a little. "I can tell you what I've witnessed in the past. When it comes to magic, it's always a bit more complicated than a 'kill spell,' but yeah, I see your point on the instrument of attack. Almost makes that RNA thing less of a headache."

"At the end of the day, you are an alien species and we are primitives throwing rocks at the moon." Civil snickered at this, thinking of a certain princess and how she would take such a comment. "I have to send up a memo and disseminate it to other law enforcement agencies regarding the magic options for evidence gathering. We definitely need to get a hold of some unicorns to at least rule out some of these scarier theories. The current list of DNA sources will remain attached to the case file, if someone else gets a similar hit down the road. I assume a Miss Civil Liberty has an alibi? She is on the source list, too."

"Yeah. Pegasus, tiny one. She was with me the whole time, as were my two human parents, Karen and Daniel Barringer. Beyond that...actually, how did you get her DNA for comparison?

"We asked everyone around us to submit samples. You ponies tend to be pretty trusting, not needing warrants and the like. At the time, you were being interviewed. You didn't know?"

"Um, no."

"Ah. No sweat. Getting rid of possibilities is the next best thing to actually finding the bastard. Especially this one."

Civil agreed. "Yeah. I don't want to think some....some regular pony I know is the bad guy, much less...a mutant."

"I feel ya. And the garbage sources could be nothing, just theories for now. We are still reviewing cameras to rule out the other sources that uh, got on your face. Cutie-pictures help for tracking them down. Should be a simple matter of sending a few of our people out to that pony town and asking around. Anywho, just stay focused on your studies, pass the TCOLE exam, get a badge. I think you can do some real damage in the criminal world. You seem to have that magnetism for finding stuff."

"Or it finding me," Civil said glumly.

"Yeah....there's that. We call those shit magnets. How you survive determines your worth. And if you remember any other details from the rooftop, please let us know."

"Will do."

He hung up. Slowly turning to go back to the kitchen, he spotted Liberty standing there in the hallway.

"Twenty-seven sources!?! You dirty stud, you!"

Karen's voice chimed in from the kitchen. "Honey, I know you guys are all touchy feely when you meet each other, but don't you think twenty-seven is a bit excessive? Come back and eat, your meal is getting cold."

"Holy shit, Civil-!" Dan exclaimed.

"Language!" Karen interrupted him.

"-now THAT is my son! Still, we wouldn't mind grandchildren someday, and it is a bit tough to get that with just dudes-!"

"Daniel!" She interrupted again.

"What!? I'm just pointing out the obvious...."

"Who he chooses is his own business. And what he chooses. From what we saw at that convention, there is a lot of who and what, it would seem. All those diverse creatures. I wonder if there are any anatomical issues to deal with....."

Civil merely stood there, staring at a laughing filly rolling around on the floor as his parents had their own discussion about his.....fuck it. He walked past the hysterical Liberty and sat down at the dinner table, tuning out all noise and ate his obviously cold meal.

Family.