Cadance sat at a long table. The table was not made of crystal, but she was in the north, which was an unusual combination. Across the table of wood, arranged on either side of it, were humans, many of them. They wore polite smiles. The kind of smiles that politicians and princesses had to wear often. She had one herself. She knew it did not mean anyone at that table was actually relaxed.

"Princess Cadance," spoke a man seated not far from her. "Is it alright if we call you Cadance?"

"Certainly." She dipped her head. "I understand we are here to discuss grave things, but let's keep our eyes on our peoples' needs, not petty titles."

A female human lifted a hand to hold the rim of her glasses. "I'm glad to hear you say that. Our people are, to put it bluntly, in a bit of a bind. In what is essentially the blink of an eye, they've been plunged into more inhospitable climates. They've been cut off from the waters they relied on for their livelihood, and--"

"--It's a mess," finished a male human across from her. "We can repel any would-be invader, but that doesn't solve economical problems. While the mainland is rebounding into a new age of industrial output, we are withering on the vine, so to speak."

Cadance nodded softly. "The humans who have visited our kingdom have spoken of such troubles. It was in part due to their tales that I hurried here. It is not in anycreature's benefit to have a neighbor that is suffering."

A brow went up on a male. "That's awfully altruistic."

"It's simple practicality," countered Cadance with a confident smile. "If I were to ignore the problem and it grew worse, it would eventually turn up at my doorstep. Desperate humans would flee when pressed, and I would, instead of taking helpful action now, be forced to deal with it later at a disadvantage."

The first woman removed her glasses and set them on the table in front of herself. "You've been reading up on us."

Cadance's eyes darted a moment before she sagged faintly. "Guilty as charged. I had hoped showing a little edge would help." She pressed her forehooves together. "I am genuine in my desire to assist your people, and I can see how it will eventually wash over us, but even if it never did, seeing my neighbors suffer is not... ideal."

The man at the opposing end of the long table pointed across to Cadance. "Do you have a proposal in mind, or are you here to hear what we have?"

"I would hope 'both' is an acceptable answer." Cadance smiled as she sat up straight. "You understand your situation better than I could, as an outsider. As well-meaning as I may be, I am not you. Please, fill me in."

The woman reached for a remote and with it dimmed the lights and called up a projector, showing a map of Alaska. "This is what our map used to look like. As you can see--" She pointed with a red dot towards several named cities. "--our larger cities tended to be by the water. And now--"

The map shifted, showing the same body of alaska with a dotted border around it. There was land stretching out in all directions. "We have miles of land in all directions." She flicked the pointer to the west. "There's the closest water. First problem, that land is not American. The president has shown nothing but support for the natives since the... incident, meaning he is unlikely to approve for annexing land."

Cadance frowned at the map, studying it. "No species currently has a use for that land. It is not within the land that the Crystal Empire holds say over. The Yaks live far north." Her horn glowed, gently pulling at the remote. When it was released, she began pointing, drawing a line where the Crystal Empire considered its property, then where the Yaks called their own. "It's simply empty."

The man at the end of the table stood up, approaching the map and slapping the wall where the empty land was shown. "You mean we can take this without repercussion?"

"I would be delighted to even lend a helping hoof, if it means stability for your people." Cadance waved a hoof, and the laser pointer, going between Alaska and the ocean it so desired. "There are wild beasts to contend with; monsters your people will not want to deal with, but I imagine with a little teamwork, the transition can be made easier. The weather will also act against you, but--"

"--Are you about to offer weather pegasi?" cut in another man.

"I was, yes." Cadance blinked at the interruptor. "I... understand your people often make do with what weather there is, but taking the worst parts off their backs as they settle in would be ideal, would it not?"

The woman made a gun-like symbol with her fingers. "I doubt any monsters are going to stop us."

"We were more concerned about international incidents," addended a male. "A state declaring war by expanding its borders isn't something America's seen since we hit the west coast of our old continent."

Cadance smiled gently. "Then it would seem history will repeat itself. I bid you, go west. Claim what will make you happy."

The female took the floating remote back. "There is another thing." With a click she pulled up a new overlay on the map, showing strange blob-like structures.

Cadance tried to guess what they were, but nothing came to mind. "What are those?"

"Known oil deposits. The oil we were aware of seems to have come with us, Thank God, but... There may be more, even some in your land."

Cadance blinked softly. "I would know if oil was on my land. It's hard to miss."

The standing man pointed to each shown deposit. "None of these are on the surface. Unless you know how to look for them, and drill for them, you'll never see them. Tell me, do ponies use oil?"

"In lanterns?" offered Cadance lamely. "Sometimes as lubricant? It's not a very valuable commodity, why?"

"We have other uses for it..." The standing man returned to his seat. "And we don't want to give up what we have."

Cadance could but shrug at the idea. "I don't know who would steal... oil? You have my word that ponies will not disturb your drills, or they will be met with full and proper legal repercussions for it."

Another man pointed at Cadance. "Instead of those weather ponies, do you have any unicorns that could detect that oil? Lend a few of those and things would progress much more smoothly."

The woman perked. "We could have our people off the street and back to work in months instead of years."

"The ones not working to build new roads and towns," noted another male.

The one seated at the end of the table nodded. "Is this possible?"

"Hmm... I can think of a few ponies that I would imagine are talented enough for the job. How far down are we speaking? A day's worth of work with a shovel?"

"Thousands of feet," flatly corrected the woman. "You would not even try to do this with a shovel."

"Oh... That narrows the list of possible ponies considerably... I'll send word to Princess Celestia, she would know better what resources Equestria has to put towards this. Now... while we wish to be good neighbors, such ponies would want to be compensated for their efforts."

One of the men threw up a hand. "Here we go."

Cadance looked across the table at the one that seemed in charge.

He nodded. "Cadance has shown willingness to be a good political neighbor, but that doesn't mean she, or her people, have to work for free. We are not that desperate that we, of all people, need a handout. She wants to be paid for good work. Good. Americans don't need charity. If your unicorns can find the wells accurately, they'll be paid. They'll earn six figure incomes as long as they remain employed."

Cadance was not entirely sure what that was, but the way he said it certainly sounded positive. "Fantastic. I'll send word, and get back to you with what the response is. Now, for today, is there anything else we can do?"

"No." He stood up and offered a hand across the table, though they were far too far apart to hope to reach one another. "I want to thank you for coming out here. We have planning to do, and cities to engineer. No matter how quickly we want this to begin, we have to make sure it gets done right."

Cadance stepped down from her chair and moved around the table, passing the other speakers to get to the leader. She offered a hoof to him. "A pleasure." They shook, with his fingers firmly holding her hoof as they did so.

"One thing," asked the woman as she put her glasses back on. "It's the question everyone has but is too afraid to ask a pony that might know. How in all the bloody hells did you steal our language?"

Cadance blinked dumbly a moment. "I... thought you were speaking Ponish to be polite. I was just about to compliment you all on your astounding skill. You all sound like natives."

The woman fixed her gaze on the male human that had interrupted before. "I told you she wasn't involved."

"Of course she'd say that," he grunted, looking unconvinced.

The one in charge released Cadance's hoof. "Another topic for another day. For now, we'll focus on getting our economy turned around. Have a safe trip, Princess Cadance."

"I wish the best for your people." She dipped her head, ears going wide a moment before perking back up. "Do call if anything comes up. We have a phone number now." She lifted a business card from a pocket and offered it to the one in charge. "By the way, are you their ruler? I thought that was President Crane."

"Crane's the big man on top of America." The man hiked a thumb at himself. "I'm the governor of Alaska. Just like Celestia rules all of the ponies, but when it comes to the Crystal Empire, you are the one that calls the shots."

Cadance's eyes widened with understanding. "Ah! I see! Lovely. A pleasure to meet another local leader then. We both have big shadows to live in, and I imagine we both want our people to do well. We really must meet and exchange notes, as two rulers of this region. Have you met the yaks yet?"

"That I have not," he easily confessed. "They don't seem eager to open communications."

"That sounds unfortunately far too much like them." She smiled wistfully. "I'll try to have our ambassador visit them and coax them in this direction for a talk. We are three peoples united by geography, we should all get along."

With one final round of hoof and hand shakes between Cadance and the other local government leaders, the meeting took a recess. Cadance was sent home, but the humans had plenty to go over.

They had land to annex. It had been quite some time since the last time a state was able to do that... "How do we make sure the feds don't lay claim to the whole thing?"

Another man frowned. "How do we make sure they don't just call the new land another state entirely?"

There were many challenges ahead, if they wanted to do things just the way they wanted to.

Nobody promised politics was easy.

Author's Notes:

This chapter? Alaska. One big Alaskan scene from start to finish. I felt this was very important, however. We need all the political figures properly set on the board before we begin to push them around, hmm?

PS: If I tripped over any logical loopholes, I do read EVERY comment, so drop a line! I feed on comments, yum yum yum. Even the not-nice ones.

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