"Mister Crane."

The president looked up from his work. "Yes?"

"Sir, updates."

He took the folder. He had gotten used to receiving them... "Hopefully good news."

Twilight was in a sterile room, bright white light shining down on them. Beside her was George, and across from her were two other humans.

"Are you here to fight?" asked one of the other two, his words slow and halting, having to look up each word.

"For peace," replied Twilight with a soft nod.

"(For Peace)," echoed George, smiling a bit. "(She's an ambassador and a scientist, not a soldier.)"

The other of the two leaned forward, a hand on his knee. "What are you? What is your..." He had to pause to find the right word. "job?"

Twilight pointed at herself. "I am a princess." They only looked confused and she frowned a little. Even George didn't know that word. "Leader? I am leader of friendship. I feel very silly speaking this way, but that is just how things go, for now."

George did his best to keep up, mouthing words a little as he processed it. "(She is a ruler, of friendship?)"

"(Is friendship a place?)" asked the first one, trying to make sense of it.

George looked to Twilight. "Is friendship a town or city or country?"

Twilight blinked softly, looking baffled. "Friendship is a thing I hope we now have." She gestured at herself, then George. "Friends. We have much to learn, but we have started, I hope?"

George looked to the other two humans. "(She presides over friendship, as a concept, as far as I can tell. She's happy to report she considers us friends.)" He waggled a finger between her and himself. "(I'm happy to keep that true.)"

"(Let's just assume she's their lead ambassador, that makes sense.)" Both humans nodded, happy with that logic. "Nice to meet you." He offered a hand towards Twilight. "I am not allowed speak for my kingdom. Can... pass... words and talk."

The word 'country', as it turned out, was not easily found in Ponish. Their countries were all kingdoms of one sort or another. It would take time for subtler words to be teased out.

Twilight reached out a hoof to meet the hand, pressing the frog of her hoof into the waiting palm. "Nice to meet you," she echoed. "(Hello.)" She looked so proud of her human word, one of the only ones she'd picked up. "Very well; let us begin. We are ready to forgive your senseless agressions on the yaks and ponies, provided--"

"--Slow, please." George held up his hands with a slightly confused frown. "You are using large words." He had to consult his own dictionary, making him feel a bit less like an interpreter. He was the best they had, for better or worse.

Once her statement was worked through and translated, one of the two there had a brow raised as high as it could go. "We did not start this."

"Yaks were attacked and killed. Ponies were later attacked, and killed. That was the start." Twilight shook her head. "It was only after these things that we reacted. Their attackers did not wear uniforms, but were armed with your small cannons."

The conversation was slow with the translator, George, working dutifully to get the meaning back and forth.

"If they weren't dressed in uniforms, they were not soldiers, or police. They were just random people."

"Random people that killed our people!" Twilight's wings flared a moment. "But... that is beside the point... We are willing to forgive this, if we can move forward. We have shown that we can defend ourselves."

The other soldier present threw up a hand. "You attacked random towns that had nothing to do with it and murdered the guards and some of the people. That's not defending yourself."

Twilight took a slow breath. "We only attacked those ready to attack us. Nothing was taken, and only armed humans were injured. Are we going to argue who's more at fault or can we talk about peace?"

President Crane finished reading, setting the folder down. It would have been laughable, if not for the fatalities. One bit he held outside the envelope. It was the scrawlings of a pony child, translation just below it. There were, clearly, portions of the enemy that had no desire to continue the conflict. One of them was the one he was advised to look for.

Were they brigands at all? He was starting to doubt that...

They never had acted as brigands. They didn't steal things, outside of weapons. They seemed to enjoy stealing weapons.

Speaking of that... He tapped a finger on the desk softly before reaching for the phone and quickly dialing a number. "I want to know where they make their guns."

"We already have that intel, Sir."

He cocked a brow at that. "I didn't get a report about that."

"We were going to send that after it was demolished, Sir."

"I'd rather have some say on if any action is taken. Keep an eye on it."

"We have been. We'll have a report sent immediately."

"Thank you." He hung up with a sigh. One hand not talking to the other? Never a good sign. Not that every commander on the field had to report directly to him before taking action, still...

A ship sailed directly for New York. It was spotted long before it got there. Even with sattelites still being in a sorry state, humans were fairly good at seeing things approaching what they considered precious, and the harbor of New York still qualified.

Ships disembarked to meet the incoming ship, because it was not a human ship. It wasn't a hippogriff ship, which would have been permitted with curiosity.

It was a pony ship. They looked nervous as the steel weapons of the human ships pulled alongside their relatively delicate wooden one, but they didn't attack. They escorted. One came in close enough for a gangplank to come down and a man to cross. "Where is the captain of this ship?"

"That's me!" A pegasus flew down from above and landed in front of the human. "Hello! It's nice to finally meet one of you." She thrust a hoof towards him. "Put 'er there."

The human met the hoof with a hand, shaking the hoof and the end of the arm it was attached to. "Nice to meet you, now you need to turn this boat around."

The pegasus mare frowned at him. "Why? You don't like trading? We brought good things." She gestured with a wing towards the stairs leading to the holding bays. "Everypony else is busy hiding, but I won't be that scared. I'll be the first trader." One could almost see the dollar signs in her eyes, or were those bit coins. "Do I need a permit?"

The man whistled softly. "A permit? You have... a lot more ahead of you than one permit. If you planned to just set up shop on the docks, you'd need paperwork for anyone stepping off the boat to be there. You'd need someone legally permitted to sell your goods and then somewhere to sell them. Your goods would have to be inspected for safety where applicable--"

The mare rose a hoof to the side of her head. "Celestia preserve us all! I just want to trade. You like trading, right? What kind of people with boats like those doesn't like to trade? Boats were practically made for trading!"

"If you consent to an inspection, we can see if there are any goods that could be sold without as much trouble." He gestured to those same stairs. "Or if you have a manifest?"

"Manifest!" She produced a clipboard, holding it at the end of a wing in a feat that confused the human. "Complete list of everything we have. Feast your eyes and then open your coin purses."

The soldier crept in cover of darkness. Despite the words of his superiors, he was moving to act. Those words had not reached him, and he was ignorant. He quietly pressed open the door. The fact that they didn't lock it was beyond his understanding. How did someone not lock a door to a firearms factory?!

It would just make his job easier. He kept low and moving on quiet feet. He had enough explosives to level the building, but he planned to do it right. It would be as controlled a demolition as possible; strike real fear into their little fuzzy hearts. Humans could do precision strikes against military infrastructure too.

A soft gasp broke the silence. A mare had spotted him, backing away fearfully, eyes wide. "W-what?!"

Well, crud. There went that plan. He drew out his knife and approached the backpedaling mare; only to come to a halt. How had he never noticed how... lovely they were? Even scared to death, the mare's eyes were so... pretty. He just... He knelt down to be on her level and reached. She squeaked softly, but he gently pet through her mane. "Everything's alright."

Cadance smiled gently from where she watched, her horn still glowing as she worked her magic. That human would never leave the same as he had walked in. Still, what had he been doing there? She planned to know, once the two forced lovebirds had grown familiar with one another enough to allow her to approach without ruining the effect.

She perked an ear at the sound of a kiss, her magic was starting to work on the mare with his aggression clearly abated. Cadance nodded softly. Of course, the love she had forced may not endure for long; but it had derailed things for the moment, and that was good enough.

Mobile Coral lay across a medical bed, her ears down and back. "Maybe I shouldn't have partied... that hard?" She spoke English, having become quite good at it.

The doctor, a female human, gently pat Mobile's shoulder. "We can't change what's already happened. You already refused an abortion when that was an option."

Mobile's ears went up. "What? No! I mean... sure, I was stupid and all, but, sheesh... I'll be a mom, that's just how that works..."

"Do you have work?"

Mobile lifted her shoulders. "I'm the official translator."

"Well, if you can provide for yourself, I suppose that's alright. Do you... have any idea who the father is?"

Mobile sagged at that, horse tail giving a lash. "Not really... I was really having fun." She put a talon behind her head. "That was dumb... I thought... I mean, you're not hippogriffs, or ponies, or griffons, or anything like that! Who knew?!"

The doctor couldn't argue with that. They didn't even have exactly chromosomes, exactly... It was hard to explain, but it working with human genetics? How... "You are going to become very famous."

Mobile sagged her head down onto her talons. "I was already that. Bring it!"

"On the bright side; everything appears to be in good working order. Are you seeing doctors... of your own kind?"

"Yeah duh!" Mobile stuck out her tongue at that. "I'm seeing three doctors." She pointed at the doctor. "You, a hippogriff, and a seapony. I want to be ultra super sure that everything's going right. "A human said you had a test that could figure out who the dad was. Can you do that?"

The doctor laughed a little wryly. "There are several problems with that. One, you're not human. Two, neither is your child. Three, we don't keep track of everyone's genes to compare to. I'm scared to death of taking a blood sample from your child. Amniotic samples though don't have the markers I'd use. Whatever your child is, it is not human."

"It... isn't seapony either. It's something new." Mobile reached a claw to rub over her belly. "Something special..."

The doctor had the sense to not bring up the high probability, from her viewpoint, of the child never finishing its development, or dying early, or being horribly malformed. There were a thousand things that could go wrong... "They are already special," she gently agreed, sparing her patient such troubling things.

Author's Notes:

Things happen everywhere! Twilight is finally getting a chance to do some diplomacy, yay!