The Primrose War

by Noble Thought

First published 6th of June, 2020

Lady Rosewater Rosethorn and Lord Primline Collar, rivals in a subtle battle for dominance over their twin cities divided by ideology and history, wage their own campaign.

Merrie and Damme have been at war for nearly five centuries following the Battle of Two Nights when Celestia took over the reign of a fractured Equestria and slowly began to knit together the broken lands.

Blood lies in the past, but intervention by Celestia brought about an era of relative peace, though the two houses were still at odds, their fighting fell to espionage and economic warfare, kidnappings and ransoming for favors and concessions.

In this atmosphere of tension, two weary soldiers, heirs of their houses, face off across the Merrie River, both wanting the war to end, both having different plans on how to end it, and different ideas on how the other plays a role.

This is the story of the final days of the Primrose War.

Updates weekly. Saturday for single part chapters, Friday and Saturday for two-part chapters.

Story starts In Medias Res (Wikipedia)

Sanity Checks, editing by Carapace and Minds Eye

Book 1, 1. Customary

The ink on the contract was barely dry, and already Rosewater was tired of the baroness. Prim Lace was more of a baroness than she was. Roseate was more of a baroness. Simpering fool that she was, the Rushing Baroness Highwater could hardly contain herself.

“What is your process?” the Baroness asked, leaning forward from her seat while Rosewater blew across the ink to dry the signature giving the Rose family exclusive access to the Highwater shipping for three months. “Please, I must know.”

“In time. You will be a part of the process, m’lady.” Rosewater tipped her nose up, taking in the mare’s scent. Too much powder in her mane; a touch of arousal, understandable for one not used to the rich accents of Rosewater’s personal laboratory; and some cheap perfume from Prance. She could practically smell the whale the base had come from. Vomitous. “First, you will be required to bath yourself. Nose to tailtip. Not a hint of another’s scent upon you. Nor that… vile odour you’ve adorned yourself with.”

“Vile?” The mare, Rushing Highwater, stomped a hoof. “I’ll have you know—”

“That particular fragrance costs five hundred bits per vial, yes, yes. I’m well aware of the esteem those whale hork peddlers hold themselves in.” Rosewater sniffed again, curling her lip into a sneer. “Should you wear that odour within my presence again before we are finished, the contract will be voided. It’s offensive.”

“Upstart,” Rushing said with a snort.

“An upstart with a better nose for fragrance and intimacy than you could dream of.” Rosewater sniffed. “The sanitation shower is through there,” she flicked an ear at the open door to the sterile, white-tiled room. “Use the soap provided, scrub everywhere thoroughly. If you fail to do so, I will scrub you myself. Nothing must remain upon you but your natural scents, Lady Highwater.”

“This had better be worth your attitude…” Highwater’s voice trailed off as Rosewater pulled down a vial of rosy pink liquid and unstoppered it. A fragrance like a summer’s day drifted out, floral scents accented by the soft loamy scent of a nearby forest. The smell of wine twined through it all, and the aroma of sex between a mare and a stallion underlay it all.

Rosewater let herself indulge for just a moment the afternoon she’d lain with a stallion outside of Merrie, just enough to hitch her tail aside and wink naturally. No need to induce a wink when the real thing was so much more believable. “This was made with out of entirely flaura. There is no hint of fauna in it, aside from myself. Need I demonstrate further, baroness? Further demonstrations will come at increased cost.”

She watched the mare consider the many meanings of the offer. One way, and Rosewater would gladly add secret additions to the deal Roseate had coerced her into agreeing to. Another, and the entire deal would be off.

Finally, the baroness shook her head quickly and ducked into the shower. It was amusing to see the mare trying to keep her tail modestly flat to her rear and failing.

She spent a moment longer watching to make sure the mare did as she’d been told. Rushing Highwater wasn’t an unattractive mare by anypony’s standards. She was russet, a rare color of coat, with a burnished copper mane, and a smile that would shake almost any stallion to the core, should she learn to apply the right scent upon her backside.

More off putting than the hork she dabbed behind her ears and upon her rump was the attitude and belief that she had no equal. It would do her no favors in Merrie, let alone in Rosewater’s own perfumery. There, she was queen, and not even her mother Roseate would dare to intrude without invitation or proper cause.

Not that her Baroness mother hadn’t tried. Or had her goons try, rather. Roseate rarely got her hooves dirty anymore. More and more, Roseate was trying to push Rosewater to do more and more odious things without letting her get involved in Damme directly again.

Roseate was too afraid of her again. For the moment.

Fear was an interesting emotion, and one could push a pony far using it, but there was a limit, and the more Rosewater used it to protect what was hers, the more it took in return. And the more Roseate grew a resistance to it.

This last time had lasted only a few months, and Rosewater was tired of fighting against her mother’s demands and threats. But there was also nopony else she could ask for help.

Rushing Highwater spluttering in the cold water shower brought her back to the present. Curses poured out of the cubicle as the water flowed, then further disgust at the scent of the soap—astringent, but it would dissipate on its own and break down in the cold water.

She brought a small vial of the neutralizer to counter her scent and wafted a cotton ball doused with the caustic liquid through the air to negate the aroma. A quick catalyzing spell, and the scents canceled each other out and drifted out the window in a haze of pink magic.

While the sound of the hoof-pumped shower continued, Rosewater tended to her own self with the purest water she could make and a sponge cleansed and cleansed until not the faintest hint of ocean remained upon it.

In between careful wipes down her nearly white coat, with the Rosethorn’s signature crimson curling along her muzzle from her nose to run down her throat to a heart shaped crest on her breast, she tended to the artlessly artful wisps of deepest pink mane tucked about her ears and horn.

She did not pause as she brushed over her cutie mark, a triplet of rose petals in a silver pond, nor did she stop when the Lady Highwater stopped showering, her hooves clattering on tile as she searched about for a towel. There would be none. Towels were gathers of scents. Only purest water and soaps she had developed herself were allowed in the sanitation station. But that, too, was part of her process.

“When you’re done washing yourself, please step free and into the basin in the center of the room,” Rosewater called to her.

The last part, washing her marehood, was the most delicate. She could not allow her own arousal to taint the final scent. But, standing with her tail lifted, she facing the mare, she let herself make a show of it as she pressed the sponge lightly around the outer folds of her marehood first, then dipping in to gather the last remnants of her own scent, and finally to wash over her dock and below, washing away with the purity of water and her own magic the last of her smell.

Highwater’s aroused scent flared in the room as she watched. Rosewater glanced over her back to see the mare standing at the entrance to the shower, her tail flagging obviously and stiffly.

“Enjoy the view, Rushing,” Rosewater said in a steady tone, lifting her tail higher to show the mare everything and more, but remaining calm at her core. Working with lust for so long inured one to its minor teases. “It will help with the process. Into the tub, now.”

“They said you were cold,” Rushing said in a strained voice. “H-how…” She swallowed thickly as Rosewater turned, tail lowering steadily, and stepped into the tub.

“Can I stand to be unaroused when you’re ready to be mounted by the first thing to walk through the door?” Rosewater allowed herself a moment of amusement and smiled. “Rushing, you believe that so little can tempt me? My darling,” she whispered as she strode forward, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. “Have you heard the other name the mares who sent you to my mother call our fair city?” Every step was a show, the sway of her hips and the flicking of her tail a reminder of the scent that had so briefly and thoroughly entranced a baroness.

“T-the…” Rushing licked her lips, her eyes darting everywhere but at Rosewater. “The city of Delight.”

“Delight,” Rosewater purred into the other mare’s ear, pausing to nip delicately at it before walking slowly around her, nostrils flared as she took in the myriad of scents the mare was exuding, seeking for that one scent that was the keystone of every mare’s and stallion’s desire. “My mother merely fancies herself its mistress, but I am the queen of Delight, my simple mare. What would you have to offer me in return for—” There it was, right at the base of the mare’s dock. A sharp, frantic scent, with its own pulse racing for completion. With a faint breath and an even more delicate nip to the base of Rushing’s tail, she flicked her own around the baroness’s neck like a caress. “For this?”

The scent intensified, and Rosewater called over a dab of pure cotton and a smooth, dull-edged spoon. The first, she dabbed at the softest part of the other mare’s dock, rolling it through and capturing the essence of her desire. The second, she used to collect a dollop of the mare’s arousal direct from the mare’s lips. Both went into stoppered tubes and set back on the rack they’d come from, glowing briefly pink to cement the scents.

“A-anything,” Rushing Highwater blurted as Rosewater walked away, already humming to herself. “Make love to me, here, now, and I’ll—”

Rosewater silenced the mare with a spell, binding her muzzle closed. “I haven’t even used my magic on you, and you’re already panting like a dog. Be silent or I shall, and you shan’t enjoy the experience.”

She left the spell in place for a few seconds longer as she worked through the scent’s complexities in her mind and began to formulate the mixture of herbs and oils she would need to properly bring out the arousal she needed to embody. Such a task was routine when working with familiar clients like her sisters, she barely needed to remind herself of their peculiarities to produce the scents they needed in the war.

The pointless war. A war her mother was dragging out needlessly long past its original roots. A war she was bound to participate in for the sake of a single pony she wished to protect, that she had already sacrificed much to keep safe.

And Baroness Highwater was clueless to it. Another pawn in the endless succession of jabs and ripostes Rosewater and Roseate traded. All for the sake of one love lost, and one barely held out of reach of the morass.

She caught herself staring at the door to her innermost sanctum, more protected even than her own home, and forced herself to focus on the two vials in front of her. A simple spell revealed the essential natures of both scents, drawing them through even the cork to tease her nostrils.

With somepony as easily drawn to lust as the Baroness Highwater, the scent would need to be bolder or the scent of her own lust would overpower the accents needed to instill it in another.

Then another scent washed over her, and she turned to find Rushing Highwater staring at her, tail flagged as she ravished herself with a telekinetic spell. Crude construct. Poorly adapted shape. It was roughly in the shape of a stallion’s cock, not molded to her own needs and deepest pleasures. She could offer the mare lessons… for a fee.

But the look of utter lust, without the hint of affection, repulsed her. “Have you no shame?”

Rushing glared at her and continued. “I thought this was something your City of Delights did openly.” There was a sneer in her voice.

“You know so little.” Rosewater shook her head. At least the spill would be contained, but the raw scent of sex in the air would ruin the effect if she let too much of it contaminate the base. “When you’re quite finished, wash yourself again and leave. I can’t work when you’re making a mess.”

With that, clucking her tongue at the wasted afternoon, Rosewater activated the security charms in her workspace, leaving only the front door and washroom unwarded.

Prim Collar perched atop the roof of a building across the river in the city Damme, a scope to his eye. It was crude, but effective enough to spy Rosewater’s distinctively lean, tall form leaving the front door of the Rosewater Perfumery. She was bare of the simple scarf and dress she’d went in with, and absent the company of the dowdy mare who’d met her at the docks.

“So begins week fifteen, day three of observing the perfumery,” Collar noted to his companion, Cloudy Rose, a sleek, grass green pegasus mare who lounged lazily in a hammock made of mist. “This is the first time she’s broken routine in the past month. Did you catch who her visitor was? And where was her assistant?”

“Dunno. Looks like today the shop was closed.” Cloudy stretched her wings. “When I did a flyover, I didn’t see anypony at the register.” She ticked her ears a few times. “She must be from the main family line, though. One of the lesser sisters, maybe. They all veil themselves, so it’s hard to tell.”

Collar clucked his tongue. “She’s not, right now. Do you think she’s going to Faerie…” Just as he started to talk, Rosewater’s image blurred, flickered, and fuzzed, then returned to normal. “Yeah. Well… there goes our target. Again.”

He kept track of the bright cloudy-white coat and carnation mane for a while longer. She was a beauty, even from a distance, and even as an illusion. And she was his equal, his foe, and increasingly intriguing.

The sprite vanished in a swirl of white and pink, an event that precipitated only an annoyed shuffle away from it until it dissipated..

“Pity.” Prim Collar lowered his glass and shifted his unaided sight back to the perfumery.

Cloudy let her gaze wander over the city she could never return to. Not even for a visit. As a defector, and having gone AWOL from the Merrieguard, she was an arrest on sight individual, and her imprisonment wouldn’t be pleasant at all. Not that Collar would let her stay arrested for long.

“Do you ever miss it?” He brought the glass to his eye again as the door to the perfumery opened. The blue coat of the baroness peeked for a moment before the door closed again and the mare disappeared back inside. Why do I feel like I was just winked at?

“Sometimes.”

Collar lowered his glass to watch his companion for a moment. “Sometimes?”

“Sometimes I want to wander the streets, drink in the scents of everything without worrying that I’m going to be cited for a scent violation.” Her tail did raise that time, and she let him see her wink. His loins stirred.

He swallowed and used a spell to lower her tail again. “Easy, Cloudy.”

“Sorry.” She buried her head in the cloud. “I was just thinking of this one mare. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes. “Rosemary was her name. Rosewater’s cousin, you know?”

“I know.” The only child of Carnation Rosethorn, exiled these past six years, apprentice to Rosewater. A top suspect for Rosewater's shop assistant. “What was she like?” Not that talking about Cloudy’s previous lovers helped him, but it helped her sometimes, to remember and let the pain of losing contact with them ebb away.

“Nothing like her cousin. She was… kind. Caring and gentle. But a real firecracker in bed. And a wit like the point of a spear. I…” She shook her head slowly and cast a yearning look at Collar. “I don’t want to remember her right now. But…” Her tail flagged to the side as she shivered. “You know how you get a tune stuck in your head?”

“Yeah. I do.” Rosewater, her mane wild, her legs spread and shaking, her tail canted as if waiting for him to come to her, her eyes glazed and locked on him. He could still read the message on her lips as she spoke too softly to hear.

“You will be mine.”

The image from a dream haunted him and had haunted him since she broke through his containment spell with some form of magic he wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t scent magic, and it had sent even Rosewater’s ‘allies’ into a full rout. In reality, she hadn’t canted her tail, hadn’t whispered the words, only panted and drawn deep breathes as the wild look in her eyes faded into the usual chill that he remembered from the few times they’d passed each other in formal settings.

“Maybe we ought to call it a day, then,” Collar said more jauntily than he felt. “Care for an ale? I could use one about now.”

“I’m still on shift, Collar,” Cloudy whispered, dismissing the cloud to land beside him on the rooftop. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. As your nominal commanding officer, I order you to escort your city’s heir to the bar.” Collar held the serious expression for only a few moments before Cloudy cracked up.

“Aye aye—” She snorted when he gave her a jaunty naval salute. “Sir.”

“Brat.”

The High Stepping Stallion was a place Collar wouldn’t have called upscale in his youth. The booths were all worn to a shine, the floorboards hadn’t been replaced in decades, and were worn to an almost glass-like polish tracing the path of the serving ponies and customers alike.

Now, only a few months into his thirtieth year, the place held a charm to it that was less worn and more cozy. The smooth bench seating, table-tops, and floorboards didn’t speak to disrepair, but to the opposite. There were no splinters, the wood wasn’t discolored—much—and the seats held a pony’s rear at just the right cup.

It held, compared to most other well established places, a certain air of dignity about it even from the outside, and within it was all understated lighting and warm candle-lit coves where ponies could sit and share a laugh and some of the finest Dammerale in Equestria.

“Never been in this place,” Cloudy murmured, sticking closer to his side than she usually did after a lookout. “Way above my pay grade.” She added a second later in a low whisper, “They also have a reputation for not liking Roses.”

“If they say anything to my chief lieutenant,” Collar whispered back, “I’ll have words with the management.”

Being a high-end establishment, they had to wait to be seated, but also as he was the Lord-heir of Damme, they didn’t have to wait long.

“My lord, a pleasure to have you visit our establishment again,” a short, thin stallion with a mustache and goatee said, bowing as he stopped. “Table for one?”

“Two. Cloudy is my guest this afternoon.” Collar raised his head to look around at the rest of the staff stopping to get a look at them. “Table for two, and two draughts of your finest Dammerale.”

“Is this a date, Collar?” Cloudy asked, a hint of mischief in her voice. “I thought I was still on duty.”

“Yes,” Collar said, grinning back at her shocked look. “A date, my dear Cloudy.” It’s about damn near time I took you on a public one. “One of the back booths, please. We have a few things to discuss.”

The look Cloudy gave him said that he did, indeed, have a lot to talk about. “I don’t suppose you have any Rose wine?”

“Indeed not,” the stallion said. “We only carry the finest of Dammerale and the best of the Primvine Yard.”

“Riverrock Stout, then,” Cloudy muttered, then chuckled when he gave her an affronted look. “Pinebark Red? Seafoam Light?”

Collar coughed and interrupted the continuing tirade of looks and counter-offers. “She’ll have a Feathered Bitter.”

“Ach,” Cloudy gasped. “I can already feel my Rosewing heritage crying out in horror!”

“She’s joking,” Collar said with a roll of his eyes and a nip to her ear. “Aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Now let’s go talk about our relationship, Lord Collar.” Cloudy nipped his cheek and flirted her tail in a very Roselike manner, and sauntered off to the farthest corner booth, currently empty.

Collar gave the stallion a weak smile. “She’s… very assertive. But I do love her.”

Once the Mist Faerie was covering her, Rosewater cast a short range teleport to the side, disappearing behind a hedge and pulled out her own spyglass, scanning the rooftops visible over the hedgerow blocking most of Damme from Merrie’s view.

There. Just across the river from her perfumery. Her tail on and off for the past several months. Sometimes the tail was actually hard to find, and wasn’t the future centerpiece of her collection of the best things life had to offer.

The hooded unicorn was definitely Prim Collar. It was hard to hide that color of coat and mane cloak or not. The other, a pegasus lounging on a cloud and not at all being inconspicuous with green wings against a blue, nearly cloudless sky.

She, definitely a she from the way she moved, shifted on her cloud and dropped to the rooftop beside him. She watched, lips pursed, as the pegasus kissed him, watched longer as he met it a second time and they disappeared off the roof in a rush.

“Keep him safe, little mare,” Rosewater whispered into the shadows. There were other watchers besides they two. “For me.”

For us.

It took only a moment to make sure her mistveil would stand up to the light of day, then she headed along the hedge, flicking her tail and cleaning herself of her momentary lapse in concentration.

When she broke onto the docks, everypony shied away from her, as was the proper deference for a Veiled Rose. She smiled behind the cloaking shadows and made her way through the bubble of ponies that spread out around her, too tall to be her mother, about the right height to be one of her sisters, if viewed from a distance.

None of the spies would be in the throng. Or, if they were, it would be coincidental. Most of them would be working jobs on the docks or pretending to laze in the noonday sun and wind blowing off the North Lunan sea.

Not that it mattered. Her business with Cargo Manifest and his oh-so-cleverly named company Cargo Manifest Shipping was none of hers. She laughed, then, and cast off her mistveil, startling everypony within a hundred yards at the sudden appearance of Rosewater, the Rose Terror.

Let the Prims ponder her reasons. Maybe they would think she’d gone mad. She had another good chuckle at that, then stopped to compose herself before opening the door into the rickety little shack.

The inside of the office was cluttered with corkboards and scroll racks, the latter tacked with all manner of orders and slips, the former overflowing with scrolls tucked everywhere. A palm-oil lamp guttered as she closed the door behind her. The windows were all open, letting in both the scent of the ocean and the rotting of seaweed and other… undesirable smells.

“Lady Rosewater, an honor. We had expected your mother.” Cargo Manifest said as he rose to his feet and glancing pointedly at the windows. “No funny business.”

She chuckled softly. If he thought such paltry uncoordinated smells would disrupt hers… She smiled brightly, letting a touch of mirth ring through in a throaty laugh. “Oh, my dear stallion. There’s nothing funny about my business.” Ponies outside would smell nothing, and the scent she brought with her would not linger. “I am here on my mother’s behest, not mine own.”

“Yeah.” He sat down again, eying her warily.

She allowed a genteel smile to grace her lips as she sat and composed her mane and tail to show off the whole of her sleek form from slender forelegs to slender, muscular hindquarters ready to either leap, run, or sway. And, just between her legs, the supple pink vale between her teats, unknown to milk, and small, but alluring all the same.

She flexed her belly just so, and coughed to cover it, but his eyes were drawn exactly where she wanted them to be drawn when she shifted her legs, bringing just the barest peek of her pink lips into view.

“My mother wishes to negotiate towards these terms,” she said after a long moment of his staring and the shuffling hooves of his attendants aware, but not having seen, the lure she’d placed right in front of him.

The scroll she drew from her satchel allowed her to cover the unstoppering of one of her special perfumes, one formulated for her own use. Along with the scroll, she sent a waft of herself. Barely enough to touch his nose.

Not yet. Let him think it natural first.

His ears twitched as scroll and scent reached him at the same time. He spent a long minute studying the simple, revised table of expenses and costs the Rosethorn family would cover and expect to be eaten by the company during their weekly voyages.

“So, she wants a better deal on exotic oils from Maretronia?” He floated the scroll back to her, giving her an excuse to split her magic again and send tendrils of herself spreading throughout the small office.

A touch of lavender to the guard to calm him to a light slumber, a touch of Rosewater’s own sweet nectar bound to the scroll as she pulled another, this the signature slip needed to record the deal. She touched the stamped, gold embossed symbol of the Merrie-Damme Trade Treaty Office on the slip. “We have already filed our copy with them. We only need your approval.”

She passed both back, flexing her belly again as she shifted once more. This time, she took in the air, filtering out the scents, and found the one she wanted. His desire. For her.

It was the easiest thing to tweak it, tugging it into a swirl with her own perfume, suggesting what she wanted him to do. She smiled brightly, nothing of mirth or pleasure in it as she bared her teeth. They fell so easily. It was hardly a challenge.

“Are you uncomfortable?” He asked, his voice slipping into a near somnolent cadence. “Perhaps…” He stood, revealing the stiff erection that had been hidden behind his desk. His eyes were glazing already, locked on her belly.

“Perhaps we can conclude our business first?” she asked in a coy, soft tone, flirting her tail against the floor. “Are the terms agreeable?”

“Terms?” he asked, his eyes breaking from her for a moment to settle on the paper she fluttered on the desk. “Ah…” His eyes cleared for a moment, shrewd business sense overriding his lust. “What’s in it for me?”

“I thought that would be clear,” she said, rising to her considerable height above him. “Was I unclear in my offer, dear Cargo Manifest?”

He stared at her, his eyes roving along her body, the glazed look coming back as he stumbled, trying to cross through the desk, snarling, and leaping over it.

“Yes, my lusty little unicorn. You get to have me.” Little was right. Even glazed as he was, he stopped shy of her until she rolled her eyes and dropped to her barrel again, tail flagged as she cast the last spell she would need to conclude business. She had to leap away from the Mist Faerie as he mounted it, slotting perfectly into the telekinetic sock she’d made just for his disappointment of a cock.

“You get to have me,” she whispered again as she pulled a jar from her bag and waited as he pumped away at the vaporous mare.

He was so lost to the lust for the object that so resembled her in scent and sight that he never noticed the real her padding around him invisibly. It wasn’t out of curiosity, except perhaps macabre, watching a stallion so badly butcher the art of sex. So obviously a foreigner. No Merrier would consider such a rough display sex.

Rutting or fucking, perhaps.

She clucked her tongue as she studied his terrible technique, his lackluster power, and his ferociously awful banter as he whispered heinous things in her mirror’s ear.

“Oh yeah. You like that. Want it harder? Yeah, you do.”

For all of forty seconds. Rosewater timed it. He didn’t even last as long as a dog rutting in the alley. She sighed and put the jar away. His seed wouldn’t be worth keeping, not even for experimentation.

She could… well, there were some old flames she might entice and let them give chase or consent to be chased if she needed come for some experimental perfume.

Wouldn’t that just annoy my mother?

When he finished, she cleaned him up with the sock, tossed the entire mess out the window to be lost to the sea, and led him back behind his desk. “Deal concluded?”

“Y-yeah…” He blinked rapidly as she wafted the scent of the ocean across his nose. “Damn… they weren’t kidding.”

“They weren’t?” she asked, pretending surprise that her reputation abounded. “What did they say about me?”

“That taking you was like taking Celestia herself. Fiery as the sun, and just as passionate.” He panted and waved at the slip of paper. “Yeah. Buck, Rosewater. Take it. My blessings.”

“Like Celestia herself, you say?” Rosewater chuckled. “I’m afraid she has a good three hooves on me, yet, dear Cargo. But thank you. Our business is concluded?”

“Aye. Maybe we can do business again?” The look of hope in his eyes was pitiable, had she any pity to give. Maybe a little sad.

“Mayhap. If my mother meets my price for negotiations again.” It wasn’t likely. She’d have to be pushed back off the ‘front lines’ again for that to happen. “Do be a stranger, Cargo.”

She left him pondering the words, still half in a fugue of lust, and left to return to her sanctum.

Book 1, 2. Accord

Baroness came, tried the sampler platter. Left without any take-home. No takers.

Rosewater snorted at the letter from Pippindril. Not the original. That letter had already crossed the river into Prim territory. She dropped it into the sealed container she kept correspondence in and set about making sure none of her wards had snapped. Any one of the nastier ones could have given her that appetite and more.

Her cupboards full of oils in enchanted jars, exotic goods and components for both spell and fragrance were all untouched. The sleep enchantments still hung about with their scent of magnolia acting as a cloying warning. Magnolia was only the warning, honeysuckle would suffocate the nose to all else and the spell would wrap the mind in layers of it, carrying the offender into a deep, dreamless slumber.

She disarmed them and went on to the door to her personal study, warded with layer upon layer of defenses. Sleep and lust, fear and confusion; all paired trap spells that struck at opposing angles. She left those in place. She wouldn’t need her diaries today. Not to create something so simple as the baroness’s perfume.

Which reminded her, along with the stench of unwashed come and apparently a fair bit of urine. Rosewater curled her lip at the smell and snapped a fragrance filter spell around the whole thing. “Adding this to my final bill, you cretin.”

There wasn’t anything to be done about it then, except to clean it up. She walked back out front to collect a few mane ties from the register where Rosemary kept hers, just in time to see the mare they belonged to turn up the street, veiled as she was supposed to be.

Rosewater pulled out her scope and leaned out of the shop to spy on the place her tail had last been.

Spyglass met spyglass, and she waved a foreleg. The other spyglass lowered. It wasn’t any of her regular tail. It was a pegasus in the purple and blue livery of the Dammeguard. He frowned at her, his ears flicking back before he raised the glass again.

“Where. Is. Prim. Collar?” She mouthed distinctly, hoping he was at least somewhat versed in the art of lipreading.

The stallion’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and shook his head.

She smirked broadly and flirted her tail before laughing, full and throaty, and ducked back into her shop where Rosemary was watching her, brows knitted.

Rosewater paused, pursing her lips, and studied her for a moment. It’d been a few days since she’d seen Rosemary, off as she had been to greet the baroness at the Rosethorn Lighthouse, a day’s journey away. And, of course, the baroness had been late.

Like her mother, Rosemary had had lighter eyes than the usual Rose, that tended towards the darker pink of a fine rosè wine, almost a soft carnation. She still had the distinctive muzzle streaks and heart mark, marking her as one of the main line of the Rosethorn branch of the Rose family, but it was fainter against her rouged coat speckled with flecks of white about her hindquarters and ankles.

Rosemary flicked an ear inquisitively and brushed back a strand of her pale gold mane. “Rosewater?”

“My tail.” Rosewater flicked hers, smirking. “They’re not even trying to be subtle about watching me. They’re toying with me, I think.”

“P-Prim Collar?” Rosemary swallowed and scanned the window, as if he might leap across a thousand or more hooves of open air and crash through into the shop right then. “He’s been tailing you?”

“Not him today. I expect he’s sleeping in. It’s his pattern after spending an afternoon with that delicious pegasus of his.” Rosewater chuckled softly and surveyed the shop. “I think we’ll close the front today. I would like to have you help me in the back as I will be going on a night mission at the end of the week, and I need to make sure I’m prepared.”

“Really?” The younger mare paused in locking up, her ears ticked back in consternation. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“More than sure. I have a future husband to entice.” Rosewater chuckled and drew down the curtains over the window, then drew the silence close, the listeners from her mother and from Damme having heard what she wanted them to hear. “But first… what news from you, Rosemary? I’m sorry about yesterday, but you know how I feel about involving you in…” She flicked her tail. “Lure creation.”

“I, um.” Rosemary flicked her own tail. “I may need your help in that regard. Roseate wants me to train for a mission.”

No. It was automatic. It had been automatic since Carnation Rose had left Rosemary in her care. Rosewater was shaking her head before she opened her mouth to say it.

“Roseate said you would say no,” Rosemary said softly with a sigh. “She told me to say, ‘Remember my one stipulation.’” She cocked her head to the side, ears flicking curiously. “What did she mean?”

It means she’s a manipulative, scheming wretch who doesn’t understand you.

Rosewater stared at the mare she’d helped Carnation raise, whom she had raised alone for the past six years. The only mare she loved without reservation or demand. The only mare who loved her as only family could.

She saw all of Rosemary’s life as a tiny gem, all of her joys, her first time with a stallion, with a mare, learning her first magical enticements, how she didn't need help with the non-magical. She had the open mind necessary to learn what Rosewater had to teach. She had the pure joy of enjoying sex for its own rewards that Rosewater hadn't enjoyed in years, and she showed no signs of letting that enjoyment go.

“It means she’s going to be pushing me to get you ready for missions. Or else,” Rosewater said through gritted teeth. “She means to keep me from pursuing Prim Collar.” Her coat bristled as she brushed past Rosemary into the laboratory. “Come. Baroness Pisswater can wait another day enjoying the pleasures of the city. There are things I must teach you. And there is one thing you must promise me.”

“What?” Rosemary sidled up close to her, cheek rubbing against Rosewater’s neck. “I’ll promise anything.”

“Promise me you won’t change, Rosemary. I loved your mother. I love you.” Irritatingly, tears began forming in her eyes. An application of will stoppered the churn of emotion. “Promise me you won’t become like me.”

“Why?” She paused to check the silence spell, smiled more brightly, and continued, “I love you too, and I could think of worse ponies to emulate.” Rosemary chuckled at her joke, but her grin faltered when she looked up into Rosewater’s eyes. “What?”

“Thank you, Rosemary.”

She would not let Roseate corrupt this gem.

A white face, beautiful, a smile that promised pleasure and pink eyes that drew him in.

“You will be mine, Lord Collar.”

He snapped awake, shaking his head free of the husky alto that still purred in his ears.

“Collar?” Cloudy licked his cheeks and between his eyes. “Collar, what is it?”

“Her. Her voice and face,” he groaned, shaking his head free of those wine-dark eyes. “Is it like that when a Rose gets a lure in you?”

Her breathing hitched for just a second. “No. Lures… only last a few days at most.” Cloudy’s eyes darted between his, then bent to sniff at his neck. “It’s not a lure. She’s got her hooves in you.”

“She’s frightening, Cloudy,” Collar admitted. “Even months later, I can’t get her out of my head.” He groaned and shook his head slowly. “I won’t let her have me. I have you, Cloudy. I want you.”

“A part of you wants her.” Cloudy Rose opened her eyes, those beautiful pink eyes, the signature of the Rose family, so like Rosewater’s, but without the golden flashes in the iris. He could still remember that detail, even from across the field. Striking. Beautiful. Dangerous. “She is frightening, Collar.”

“I can see why the Roses fear her, too,” he said, pushing himself up from her bed and smiling down at her. “But I still have you.”

Cloudy searched his eyes for a long moment, then smiled as she caught on to his desire to change the subject. “You do, and you always will, Collar.” Cloudy chuckled and nibbled at his cheek. “Stars, I never thought I’d spend this much time with a stallion before I met you.”

“I love you,” Collar whispered, smiling. “Even if you spend your off-time corrupting the mares in my guard.”

She laughed and rolled onto her back. “Oh, they’re fun, but you, my lord, are my greatest conquest. Or I’m yours. The lone Rose in the Guard, the lord of Damme’s lover. What a coup.”

“You are such a Rose, Cloudy,” he said with a laugh.

“And you are such a Prim, Collar.” She chuckled softly.

“Haha. So hilarious.” He nipped her cheek and backed up to nose aside her tail.

An hour later, after a second round in the bathtub with Cloudy riding him in a slow, heavy stroking, Prim Collar forced about him the calm and chill professionalism he adopted when in the city proper. It was right for a Prim to be as steady and firm as their name suggested. It was the hallmark of the city’s mien.

The clean streets had not a hint of scent not there naturally from the myriad of flower beds and flowering, fruiting trees that lined the flat stone boulevards and rose from the center to form shady arches that channeled the smell of the sea during the day and the sweet smell of the oat fields on the other side of Damme as the wind retreated during the evening and night.

Cloudy trotted at his side, garbed in her finest Dammeguard doublet with the colors of House Prim stitched around the neck. The silver pin in her doublet’s collar marked her as a lieutenant, one of the highest ranking Dammeguard.

She’d worn that pin with pride ever since Captain Pink had pinned it to her lapel. Her face was impassive, the control that the Roses also taught their soldiers evident in the steady set of her ears, and the calm, almost relaxed trot. Her eyes, though, darted everywhere.

On duty, she was as dedicated as any other guard, and more so than any when she was acting as his guard.

Ahead, the Prim Palace stood in its stark glory. The arches of the front portico were perfectly angular, the front of the palace an edifice of dark stone and narrow windows. It was a remnant of a time when the Rose-Prim War had been more openly fought, before Celestia had set her hoof down and forced the war to become a trade rivalry, fought with ships and goods instead of arrows and spears.

It was a reminder that, as hard as life could be with the Roses’ nighttime visits and threat of enthrallment to a prison sentence of pleasure and silk, it had been far, far worse. By contrast, the uninvited Roses coming to entice and seduce were civil, gentle affairs.

Not that they didn’t have reason to be resentful. Damme had the better port facilities thanks to geography. Merrie was left to suckle at the leavings that couldn’t find berthing in the extensive dockside piers that lined the inside of the bay’s northern edge. The southern half of the bay was rocky and hard to navigate, but the Rose navigators were some of the best in the world to compensate. It was the cost of hiring them that added to the incentive to trade in Damme instead.

Prim Collar sighed and shook his head as he passed the outer ring of guards standing watch. None of them reacted, and remained stoic statues in blue and purple livery.

They were finally stopped at the palace bridgeway, what used to be a portcullis and drawbridge, but had been permanently welded to the stone a century prior as a sign of their devotion to the Merrie-Damme Treaty.

“Your lordship,” the captain said, a mare named Prim Pink, a stern middle-aged mare with a pink mane and darker rose coat. “Your lady mother is waiting. She asked me to send you to her immediately.”

Collar started off, but stopped when the captain held a hoof up to block Cloudy Rose.

“Lieutenant Rose.” Captain Pink patted her peytral. “Her ladyship asked me to hold you behind.”

“She cannot order her when she’s acting as my personal guard,” Collar said, smoothly. “Lieutenant, with me. This is merely a misunderstanding.”

Pink snorted. “The court talks, young Collar. Be wary of what you let go in her earshot.”

That wasn’t unexpected. He allowed himself a thin smile. “The fruits of gossip grow more slowly than I remembered if that’s only now reached her ears. According to rumor, Cloudy Rose and I have been lovers for months.”

“As you say, your lordship. I wouldn’t believe it, of course.” A quirk of Pink’s lips said that was a lie. “Be wary of repeating that in front of Prim Lace, however.”

Cloudy remained impassive throughout the exchange, the only sign of her consternation a slight quiver of her ears. She waited until Captain Pink was far behind and the open courtyard gave a hint of privacy that she sidled closer.

“Don’t do it. Please. I want to stay with you.” Her tail snapped as she said the last. “She’ll find some way to send me away.”

“She will not,” Prim Collar said gently, looking up to the window where his mother’s office was, smiled at it, and stopped to draw Cloudy into a brief kiss. “She dotes on me, and she’s not as bad as that. She married a Merrie stallion. An offshoot Rosewing.”

Cloudy’s lips quivered, wanting to accept it, but he saw the doubt, the worry. He didn’t blame her. Baronesses had only caused her trouble when they’d gotten involved in her life. He kissed her again, and raised his eyes to the window his mother usually lurked at.

“Don’t,” Cloudy said as she drew away, ruffling her wings. “Not where she can see. I’m still not comfortable around her.” Her cheeks were flushed as they didn’t in private. “I’m trying to be a good Prim.”

“Ah, and the Rose is a corrupting influence?” He chuckled and drew back, gesturing forward before starting off again. He could almost feel his mother’s eyes on him.

“She thinks so. And she’s not wrong.” Her wings unfurled briefly as she stretched her back. “How many mares have you lain with before me?”

“Two. Brief little affairs.” He shook his head slowly. “They weren’t you.”

“Exactly. You’ve had more sex with me than you have with either of them. In months.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I love you, Collar. Love, and not just making love.”

“I love you, too.” In the view of the windows, he kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“I know.” Her smile was more tender than fierce, but impish still. “You talk in your sleep.”

His heart skipped a beat, but she winked at him, and then they were out of the entry hall, and Cloudy closed her mouth, drawing about her the professionalism of her position.

The main hall of Prim Palace was well lit with magic-fueled sconces that spread a steady clear light throughout corridors filled with tapestries and carpets, and even the high-arched dark stone ceilings were obscured by billowing blue silks that stirred in the slow breeze allowed to sweep through the palace.

It was as much a contrast to the outside as the warm heart of the Prim line was to their outward appearance. It was the cost of fighting against the Roses. The will and resolve to resist the pleasures of the flesh, and yet also to succumb to it with a loved one.

Rosewater closed her eyes, opening herself to the fragrance and magic that Rosemary drifted towards her. It wasn’t perfect, but the Slumbering Scintilla perfume and spell would put almost any pony to sleep. She shook her head and cast a bubble of clean air around her. Too much of it would send her to a slumber. Had she been a lesser mage, it would have put her to sleep immediately.

Rosemary pursed her lips. “It didn’t work, did it?” She stoppered the vial of fragrance.

“It did. Be careful using that scent. If you’re not careful, it can put you to sleep as well.” Rosewater chuckled. “Especially don’t use it when bound in a shield. You won’t be able to escape it.”

“Noted.” Rosemary made a note in her journal, lips pursed. “But about the lure. I’ll need it to pass the mission, won’t I?”

“No. You won’t need it to pass.” Rosewater couldn’t bring herself to entice her daughter, to take in that scent of her daughter’s desire. For her. She shivered. “You don’t need it,” she repeated. “It’s not the only way to lure a pony.”

“Then teach me how.”

“I could ask you,” Rosewater said with a chuckle. “It’s being you, darling Rosemary. The way you are. The way you charm everypony just by being happy with life, with your loves.”

“But…” Rosemary chewed her lip for a moment. “What if she expects me to have something? A lure. Even if it’s a poor one.”

There wasn’t anything she could say to that. It would be like Roseate to put hidden hooks in her orders. Some phrase that she included in her orders that could be interpreted in a dozen ways. It was how Roseate worked.

Can I do that for her? To her? Rosewater shivered and closed her eyes.

“Don’t, mother,” Rosemary whispered. “I’ve read all of your notes. I can make a lure.”

Not all of them. There were some things that were too dangerous to put to paper. Things that she could only do with her talent. But Rosemary had her own talent at mixing and bringing out the properties of herbs.

The look in Rosemary’s eyes pushed at her, and she let out a sigh with a shake of her head. “I’ll give you the use of my perfumery for the afternoon.”

Rosewater looked up to watch the same hiding place. Her tail was gone, which was odd, but not unheard of. Today was scheduled to be a boring day at the shop.

Why, Carnation? Why couldn’t you just do it? She shook her head and turned towards the Rose Palace. All around her, the city was bustling with trade and scents ranging from fragrant to foul in a careful tapestry of scents meant to draw the tourist and the trader to and from this shop or that shop, to entice and encourage the purchasing of knick knacks and souvenirs.

Baffles for wind kept the strong sea breeze from flowing unchecked through the streets, lest they muss the careful tapestry of vapors, smokes, and odors. Everywhere silks hung to direct that breeze and clear out the scent slowly into dead alleys that swept the scent up into the air, making way for fresher, stronger scents and carrying away the stale odors.

The way to the Rose Palace from her perfumery was deliberately long. The harder it was for her mother to bother her during the day, the better.

The Rose Palace was an open palace, massive pillars leading into an open courtyard bordering a tower that was the main Rose compound. The compound itself was a testament to the high pegasus population of the early city of Merrie. Eiries and balconies jutted out from the higher floors, and the top of the tower was an open dome with a myriad of platforms ready for flights of pegasi to land or take off from.

The outside of the tower was the same dark gray stone of the Prim Palace, but decorated with enchanted silks that fluttered about the tower and dome like a rose in bloom.

They did little to hide the one window she didn't ever want to see again. If she'd thought that Roseate had any inkling about how much that one room had shaped her, she would have thought her mother was drawing attention to it.

But Roseate understood feelings only well enough to manipulate her daughters and their children. The ones that had children.

Out front waited her sister Rosary, possessed of her mother’s diminutive height, temper, and ruddy pink coat. Rosary made her dislike of Rosewater apparent at every opportunity. Second eldest, second best. Rosary took coming in second with all the grace of a minotaur in a bramble patch.

“Roseate wants to see you,” she said, flaring her nose as Rosewater strode past, only flicking her ears in acknowledgement. “She wants to see Rosemary, too. Where is she?”

“Busy.” Rosewater didn’t stop, forcing Rosary to quick-trot to keep up. “If Rosemary wants to talk to her, she can. She’s still Carnation’s daughter, not mine or hers. She has no right to order her.”

“But,” Rosary said, keeping her pace quick to keep up and trying not to look like she was trotting to match Rosewaters stride, “she is your protege, and at an age she can be called upon for the militia. Roseate can command her to undertake raids.”

“She treads perilously close to a dueling insult,” Rosewater snarled. “Remind her of that, would you? She doesn't seem to listen to my warnings anymore.”

“You’ve gotten soft. That's why she doesn't listen. I take it Rosemary isn’t as good a lover as Carnation—”

Rosewater spun and snapped a foreleg across Rosary’s path, pulling the blow just enough to not crush, even in the snap of rage.

As her sister stopped, eyes wide, coughing, Rosewater pushed her horn against Rosary’s, spilling power into both horns to lock her into place even as she tried to fall. The feeble resistance her sister put up fell away under Rosewater's talent. Cold fury settled over her as she watched her sister’s eyes widen from shock and pain to horror as she found she couldn’t even twitch her tail to let the answering fury find release.

She let the chill fill her voice as she spoke, “If you ever speak that lie again, I will meet you on the dueling grounds and I will give you a taste of what I gave dear mother. I promise I will not be as gentle next time.” She let go of the fury and the magic and spun away to continue her long-striding rush to get the business with her mother done with. The less time she had to watch that cold fear in her eyes, the better.

“Bitch,” Rosary croaked behind her.

The less time she spent so close to where…

She forced the resurgent memories back and made herself look forward to the rage that would cauterize the grief again.

Her mother’s office was a mess. As usual. Pillows sat in every corner, their enchanted covers hiding the marks of stains from all manner of sex acts performed on each one. Papers and scrolls covered every flat surface and were stuffed into every cubby.

And her mother, once a beauty spoken of in song and story, she had been surpassed by her daughter in looks and stature. She still had the distinctive heart mark on her breast that marked the true lineage of the Rose, but it was indistinct against her mother’s dark pink coat and she worked hard to bring it out with makeups and dyes. The thinner lines from muzzle down to her cheeks were even harder to see.

“Mother.” It was the barest decency she could afford. She kept the chill out of her voice as much as she could. “I’ve come at your behest.”

The fear was there in Roseate’s eyes. Echoes of a fear in Rosewater’s heart; borne of love, fanned by this mare, her mother. She tried to take Rosemary away. She pushed away the fear and pain that threatened to strangle her every time she sat across from Roseate.

The cold fury, she embraced.

“Rosewater,” Roseate said in a sultry purr that did nothing to hide the glint of anger that was always there. “That look. So chilly towards your mother.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” You forced my hoof. You could have let me have her. Rosewater shook her head. “What do you want?”

“Rosemary’s told you she’s going out raiding, yes? You can’t keep her from that duty any longer.”

“I am aware. I’ve been training her.” Rosewater gritted her teeth. You didn’t bring me here to confirm that. “Promise me she’ll have support.”

“She will have the same support you have.” Roseate chuckled softly. “If you’ve trained her well, she should be fine.”

Rosewater ignored the implication. This wasn’t Rosary, who spread insults like squirrels did nuts. “When is she going?”

“Night after you, my dear.” Roseate pulled a tiny scroll. “Your night raid.” She floated a scrap of paper across to her. “Is tomorrow night. Here’s your target.”

That was an oddity. The raids thus far were usually only to capture whomever they could, not to take a particular target. It would be an escalation. And the name wasn’t one she recognized. Cloudy Rosewing.

“A traitor?” Rosewater flipped the scroll to peer at the tiny map, the little red dot noting the address. On the far side of Damme. A small district full of small houses as far from the docks as a pony could get. Nopony important would live there.

“Aye. She left the creche some two years ago. She needs to come back.” Roseate chuckled softly, languidly rolling one shoulder. “You will do this, Rosewater.”

I hope you aren’t home. She nodded slowly. Her plans shifted. From there, to the perfumery, then back to the palace after enough time passed to change the guard. A few hours.

Then, the odious moment, when she bowed her head and spoke the words her mother demanded when giving orders. “By your order, Mother, your command is heard, and will be obeyed.” When the Mare in the Moon returns.

She waited until she left the office, left the compound, and was well on her way back to the perfumery before she let herself shiver.

In his spyglass, Rosewater sat outside her perfumery, staring up at the sky. Her ear flicked towards him occasionally, acknowledging that she knew he was there.

“Do we know where she was just before this?”

Cloudy peered at the intelligence report. “She visited the Rose Palace for a half hour two hours ago. One of our spies there reported in. Apparently Rosary was taken away for a bruised throat after a confrontation with her.”

“Another fight with her family?” Collar arched a brow, but continued watching that distinctive profile. He hadn’t seen her up close often. But that dark pink streak down her muzzle and neck drew the eye to her chest and the heart outline tracing the plush swell of her breast. Enticing, even from a distance. But behind that heart was fear and chill. A dangerous mare in a pretty package.

“Maybe. Rosary hates Rosewater. She’s second-oldest. Shorter. Not as pretty. Not as skilled. And Rosary probably earned it.” Cloudy snorted. “She’s a piece of her mother.”

“What’s she thinking about?” The look on her face was hard to decipher. Her ears ticked erratically, emblematic of chaotic thoughts. If he didn’t know better, he thought she might be worried about something.

“You could go ask her,” Cloudy said with a chuckle.

Below, the door to the shop opened, and Rosewater turned her head, eyes crossing over Collar’s line of sight, and continuing without pausing to watch the Veiled mare stepping out.

Rosewater spoke silently, her lips barely moving. The other mare held up a vial of clear liquid. A lure. The other mare replied, Veil fuzzed ears ticking. She pushed the vial closer to Rosewater, then seemed to sigh, shook her head, and ducked back in, letting the veil fall before stepping back. She had a coat of a rosy pink darker than Rosewater’s, and a cutie mark that looked like two sprigs of rosemary crossed behind a rose.

“Sloppy.” Collar clucked his tongue. “Did you catch that cutie mark?”

Cloudy shook her head. “I was trying to read the label on the lure. It didn’t look like one of the Rosewater lures we’ve captured.”

“Odd.” He spent a moment sketching the cutie mark on the scroll. It was black and white, but not many cutie marks shared a shape. “This was the mark.”

Cloudy glanced at him, her ears canted back, a look of sick horror creeping into her eyes. “That’s Rosemary.”

“Your lover?”

“Yes.” Cloudy rolled up the scroll, swallowing and put it back in her pack. “If she’s making perfumes with Rosewater, it means she’s getting ready to go on raids.”

“Making her own lure?” Collar chuckled. “I wouldn’t think Rosewater would trust anypony with her perfumery.”

“She might not have a choice. Roseate can issue orders.” Cloudy clucked her tongue. “I wish she wouldn’t. She was so sweet and kind. But… Rosethorns corrupt, Collar.”

“They do.” Collar watched as Rosewater turned her attention to him, but didn’t do anything other than watch. Then she smirked, raised her chin, and her horn lit with a pink light along its length. She licked her lips. “What—”

Cloudy stiffened beside him, and a moment later he smelled it as well, a magical calm flowing over him briefly then fading into the smell of vanilla, honey, and something distinctly fruity dispersed into the wind, just a whiff, less than a suggestion, but enough to capture Cloudy’s attention a moment. He pushed it off more easily, and brushed the air away from Cloudy.

When she came back, she snarled. “I told you she was scary. She shouldn’t be able to reach that far.”

“And she shouldn’t have. Are you okay?” He turned her head left and right gently with a spell, looking into her eyes. Eyes normal, responding normally to light. Unlured. He relaxed. She was terrifying, but not that terrifying.

“Yeah. Not even horny. Just angry. It wasn't a lure. It was… calm.” Cloudy shook her head. “She didn’t intend to.”

He lowered the shield, but kept power flowing through his horn.

Rosewater smirked up at him, then spoke slowly. “I can reach you from anywhere. From any angle.”

“Go home, Cloudy,” Collar growled. “No questions, please.” He collapsed his scope, pulling more power into his horn. “She wanted to get my attention. She has it.”

“Collar?” Cloudy stood, her ears slicked back. “Don’t. It’s what she wants.”

“Now, Lieutenant.” He didn’t look at her, he couldn’t look at her. He needed restraint. Rosewater hadn't used a lure on purpose. He had to keep that in mind. “That is an order.”

“Sir.” She snapped a crisp salute to her peytral.

He would pay for that later. But he needed to do this alone. He could stand against Rosewater. Cloudy couldn't. Even that simple demonstration of a calming fragrance and her succumbing to it, or welcoming it, was a sign of that.

Cloudy leapt from the building and snapped her wings in a launch, leaving him alone to stare at the mare below, no longer smirking. Calculating, devious. Dangerous. That had been a calculated move on her part.

Power built in his horn until he felt the pressure beginning to tear away at spacetime in the pattern he needed. With a pop and a flash, he appeared in front of her, glared at her, and ducked into the perfumery and out of sight from the street, holding the door open for her. “We need to talk.”

Fury rolled off him in waves as he blocked the door farther back and spread a silencing shell around the rest of the room. He wouldn’t let her have access to whatever she had back there, and didn’t want Rosemary to hear what he had to say. She might still be the innocent that Cloudy remembered.

She followed him in, ears perked and horn glowing as she closed the door behind her, covering the entrance with a veil. “Talk under truce?”

“Under truce,” he agreed stiffly, his ears flat to his skull.

She laughed softly, lighting her horn to draw a long pillow to her. “Under truce or not, it’s still so nice of you to come visiting so unexpectedly, Prim Collar.”

“What are you playing at, Rosewater?” This close to her, her voice a dusky alto, matching her tall, slender frame, simmered in his ears near as much as the fury that had brought him here. It was a voice he'd only heard in passing at the Merrie-Damme Treaty Galas held quarterly. Up close, it was almost as enchanting as her spells. “What game was that out there?”

“Playing, Prim Collar?” Rosewater backed away from him slowly, her tail flicking against a display case. “I don’t play with my future mate.”

“You presume much. I will not be yours.” Collar snapped his tail and forced himself back to the purpose. She was dangerous, and he needed to limit the damage she could do in whatever way he could. He fixed her with a glower. “If you want to play your games, include no-one else. Do this, and I will propose an accord between us.”

“An accord. A binding, you mean?” Rosewater’s eyes left his to stray to the door back into the laboratory. “What do you propose?”

“Just what I said. Only you and I, Rosewater. Don’t include anypony in Damme.”

“What incentive do I have, Lord Collar?” Rosewater sniffed and flirted her tail. “Here you are, in my own shop, alone, at my mercy for all intents and purposes.”

“You think so?” Collar snorted and glanced at the door, taking a chance and throwing the dice. “And if I made an especial effort to capture a certain somepony.” He turned his head to look at the door, flicking an ear at it. “She’s soon to start raiding, is she not?”

He might as well have said he was going to capture a banana and eat it for all the effect it had on her.

“My lord, I would agree to it simply for the chance to have you to myself a few nights.” Rosewater’s smile told him nothing, her rose and gold eyes not moving from his even to look at the door. This close, it was hard to look away himself. “But perhaps you can offer more? The name of that delightful mare you were with, perhaps?”

“No.”

For a moment she feigned disinterest, ticking her ears and stepping back, the smile fading into a thoughtful frown. “My lord, I can hardly accept an accord with only favors on your side.”

“Fine.” Collar flicked his ears. “I’ll make sure your cousin gets a blind eye so long as she doesn’t break any laws.” It didn’t cost him anything to offer it… Rosemary was the rare Rosethorn who didn’t have a record.

“Accorded.” Rosewater drew out a slip of paper from a drawer behind the counter. It was already signed and stamped by the Rose magnate. All it would require was the Prim magnate’s stamp and signature.

“Nay. I will not put this on the official record.” He laughed. “This is between us, not the Treaty Office, and not for public record. I want you to swear it to me, Rosewater. On your cousin’s freedom.”

Rosewater’s eyes stayed on his but for the briefest flicker towards the shielded door. “You would trust my word?”

“I trust you to remember that I can order your cousin captured at any time.” He raised a brow, a small smile on his lips. “She’s going to start raiding soon. She’s also terrible at veiling. Isn’t she?”

That got more of a reaction: a flinch, barely discernible, and a chuckle. “Or she’s tricking your spies into thinking she is. It wouldn’t be the first time feigned incompetence set you all on your back hooves.”

“I will come after her myself should you break it, Rosewater.” He shoved his hoof at her. “Not one other pony involved.”

“Why not simply capture me here?” Rosewater offered, crossing her forelegs in front of her and sitting back on her haunches. “Bind me. Take me. It would be simpler.”

“You know I cannot.”

“Ah… yes. By the rules, aren’t you?” Rosewater tsked and dropped back to sit, forelegs still crossed. “No raiding. And this would be a raid if you abducted me here and now, would it not? No fun at all.”

“Walk across the bridge with me and we can make it official.”

“Walk across the bridge to me… and we can make it official,” she purred right back, grinning.

Collar glared at her, headache starting up. It was like talking to a spring. Everything he said, she threw right back at him. “Will you swear?”

Before she could answer, the backroom door handle turned and the door pressed against his ward.

A crack finally showed in the facade, her eyes widening only momentarily, then snapping to his face. “I swear. By her safety, Lord Collar. Not one hair, even should she break a law, or I will come after you.”

“You are already coming after me,” he reminded her, feeling the shift in the game and smiling himself. A sore point. Whatever it was. She didn’t want Rosemary to be involved at all in their game, if that’s what she was up to. “What difference would it make?”

“You will swear to her safety, Lord Collar,” Rosewater hissed as the door thumped against his barrier, carmine threads of magic sneaking out to probe at his barrier and start to press against it. “Or I will not swear to your terms.”

“You realize I could simply not. And nothing changes.”

“Please!” The look in her eyes changed without seeming to change at all, shifting at once from anger to… something else. “Do not force me to beg you, Lord Collar. She is not a part of this.”

The force against his shield was starting to drain, and he felt shouting against the aural barrier. He could simply drop both barriers and have it out then, but then it would be two against one, and he in enemy territory.

“By my word. Not one hair, Lady Rosewater.”

“Then I swear, not one more pony beyond us.” She slammed open the door behind her. “Now go!”

Author's Notes:

Cleaned this one up ahead of schedule. Enjoy!

Book 1, 3. Rumors & Gossip

The archives of the Rose Palace were, in larger part, disorganized. There weren’t many Roses that came along with talents in bookkeeping.

But the branches of the family were required to maintain their own histories and genealogies in the archives in the strictest order. It was a requirement for a society that was so free about sex and reproduction that none closer than third cousins ever mated.

Any Rose could recite, at length, their closest relatives up to three removes. Anypony outside that circle was safe. At least for breeding pairs. While it was frowned on quite strongly, Roses tended to look the other way for same sex couples of closer relations. In the past, during the hotter years of the Rose-Prim war, it wasn’t uncommon for sister-lovers to rise to prominence on the Rose side of the battlefield, using their bond-pairing to great effect.

They had also been the greatest tragedies. One side of the bond did not often survive long after the other perished. After one particularly tragic incident, the head of the family at the time had issued a decree that no future sister-lovers were to be allowed, and set forth stricter mating laws.

Still, the earliest years of the Rose family and its various branches rise in Merrie tended to look more like tangled webs rather than proper trees.

As a former Rose, even if she was a minor branch scion, Cloudy had to have left a presence behind when she left, and Rosewater was determined to find it.

It had taken hours to find the particular tome she was looking for, precious hours she would have preferred spending with Rosemary, teaching her in the hours left before her own raid.

“House Rosewing,” Rosewater murmured softly to herself as she flipped through the pages, tracing with mind and magic the pathways of family from page to page. Largely a pegasan branch, and militaristic in their earlier days, they had been scouts and strike troops, and had once been a far stronger branch, before the Rosethorns, Rosewater’s own branch, had pushed them out of power following Celestia’s treaty.

“Why do you want her, mother?” She murmured, flipping past former heads of the Rose family, soldiers, and guards, then later traders and messengers, and finally little more than commoners with the Rose name. She found Cloudy Rose in the middle of the fifth page from the last filled page. She had a two brothers and a sister, not large, but the Rosewing family branch had been in decline for centuries.

With that information in hoof, and a reference number, Rosewater was able to find a short biography about her, written by the Rosewing matriarch, Cloudy’s mother.

Fastest flyer in either city.

Prospects with a younger Rosethorn member, Rosemary.

Defected.

It was written in a shaky hoof, and there was more than a few discolored blotches on the page below it. The poor mare had had to write it at Roseate’s direction. She must have. She wouldn’t have willingly written it. Nopony wanted to write that word in the family book.

Roseate had relished writing it in the Rosethorn family book for Carnation. She’d read the first line, once, out of morbid curiosity, and couldn’t read on. It’d called the mare a traitor to everything from species to gender.

“With my Rosemary, were you?” She briefly considered breaking the accord, then dismissed it. That notation had been almost two years ago. The defection had been recorded last year. That they had recorded it wasn’t a surprise. A minor house scion bonding with a Rosethorn would bring that house up in prestige. But having defected to the Prims, she had sunk the branch’s prospects even lower.

She clucked her tongue. She’d have to be gentle with Rosemary in the questioning. Cloudy deserting her for the Prims may have hurt her dearly. If she knew about it.

If she’d only disappeared…

A memory sparked, of a period about a year ago when Rosemary had grown increasingly worried, downcast, and, at times, irritable, but she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and Rosewater had let her have her space. She had recovered after a month, and seemed cheerful thereafter. At the time…

It had been near the anniversary of Carnation’s exile. Rosewater could remember the day Rosemary had come home, stoic, hiding the fact that she’d been crying. Just as Rosewater had hidden her own pain at the remembrance of Carnation and the day that had ripped apart their happy home life.

Now…

Why did you leave her? Did you say anything? Try to say anything? Questions she would have to ask, if she got the chance.

She tapped a hoof on the table, considering the entry and the cutie mark that had been partially scratched off; a mark of Cloudy’s dishonor. Remnants of rose petals and a cloud. Perhaps a cloud raining rose petals. Perhaps a cloud shaped like a rose, shedding petals. She committed the scraps of image to memory.

She tried to recall which of Rosemary’s myriad of pegasus lovers it could be, but none came to mind. None of the ones she’d known the names of had defected. She frowned. Sometimes, Rosemary’s myriad of friends and lovers proved to be problematic, but they all made her happy.

A hint of her mother’s plan came to light, as well. Erasing the last vestiges of the mare who’d been like a mother to Rosewater in her youth. Carnation’s daughter would be the last thing to corrupt before she could claim she had won whatever petty contest she’d imagined up between them.

Take a former lover, one who’d meant enough to Rosemary to mope about for a month when others flitted through her life like petals on the breeze, would be an enticement worth the risk of having Rosewater foil the plan. Or, Rosewater thought, the perfect irony. For Rosewater to deliver into Roseate’s hooves the tool to finish destroying what she’d sought to protect for the past six years.

There would be traps along the way in whatever plan she had to keep Cloudy free of Roseate’s hooves, but she’d thwarted other plots by her mother.

Collar’s accord was going to make things trickier. She couldn’t just capture the mare and hold her for a time away from Roseate’s hooves and machinations and attempts to corrupt otherwise innocent ponies.

Her mother was, if nothing else, predictable. There would be tools the mare would leave out that Rosewater could pick up and use to her own ends regardless of the ends Roseate had intended them for.

She only had to be careful about how she used them.

Rosemary Rosethorn was easy enough to locate in the palace intelligence archives. As one of the highest of the Rose family, she had a file all her own in the main cabinet of files on ‘the enemy.’

It was also practically empty, just as it had been the first time he’d checked it months prior. Still no arrest record, so his accord with Rosewater wasn’t in danger from the start.

Hobbies, interests, possible meanings for her cutie mark, all blank. She was an apothecary, a rare skill even in Merrie, but whether that was related to her cutie mark or not was uncertain. The only definite information was that she was the daughter of Carnation Rosethorn, lived with Rosewater Rosethorn, and often spent nights away from home with lovers.

A lot of nights. She was apparently quite popular among the lower levels of the Rose family and claimed lovers all over the city. But she never brought any home.

“Are all Roses this promiscuous?” Prim Collar asked. “I mean, seriously, three pages of lover’s names?”

“She was special. Is special.” Cloudy’s ears flicked once as she stared at the sheets. “I used to be one of them, but not all of those names will be lovers. Some of them…” Cloudy shrugged. “Just friends.”

“You miss her.”

“Of course,” Cloudy growled, glowering at him briefly, then dropping her head to stare at the papers again. “She wasn’t just good in bed, Collar. I mean, she was that, but she was just as fun to be around.” Cloudy chuckled, her cheeks practically glowing as she stared past the page she’d been reading. “She was a little bubble-headed at times, but shrewd enough to know when to stop pursuing somepony. Or when to avoid somepony.”

She’s still in love. Collar swallowed and flicked his tail. It wasn’t the flings she had with her comrades; nights spent entwined with another mare. This had been a year gone and still affecting her like this.

He let the silence ride for a few minutes while he read the list of names and tried to guess who’d been a lover and who’d been a friend. It was hard to believe that all of them were lovers. Even for the purported promiscuity of Merrie, he knew that it took time to get to know somepony well enough to open up to sex.

Cloudy had said as much about her ‘flings.’

“Have you found Carnation’s file yet?” He asked.

“Yes.” She looked up from reading a mix of scrolls and flat paper pages, then dragged the wooden box over. “She’s got a huge file. Some… fascinating things.”

Collar heaved the box up and started picking through it. Early life, young life. Some mentions of Rosewater and galas they’d been to together. Carnation had been Rosewater’s guardian, just as Rosewater was apparently Rosemary’s.

To call their family broken would be calling the remnants of the Crystal Empire’s legacy a ‘ruin.’ But at the same time, a broken family didn’t excuse the things Rosewater had done.

Collar read silently along with Cloudy through the trove, making mental notes of different bits of information that he hadn’t known or had only known peripherally. Carnation’s hobbies: painting and horticulture—the latter something that seemed almost universal amongst the Rosethorns of the main line branch to lesser and greater degrees. Her likes and dislikes, habits and routines dated through the years.

Things a spy would need to know in order to follow her.

Somepony in palace intelligence had clearly put a lot of effort into tracking the spare, and some bits of intelligence were important enough that he made a short note in his own notes from the expedition.

“Fascinating reading,” he murmured sometime later, his eyes straining from reading through so many different styles of hoofwriting. He tucked away the bits and pieces of the file on Carnation, checking each against his list of things he wanted to make sure he found out.

“Alright.” He settled the box back into place, putting the label facing out just as it had been when they’d come down, and pulled up the two boxes that comprised Rosewater’s file. “Ready?”

“No.” Cloudy rubbed at her eyes, groaned, and sat heavily, staring as Collar pulled out half of one box and gave it to her. “But by the stars…” She pulled down the first scroll and stared at it. “Rumors and gossip.”

“Trash. Ignore it,” Collar said with a sigh. “I’ve seen it.”

“Then why keep it?”

“Because it tells us what other ponies are talking about, even if the rumor of her—” He leaned over and read the top line. “—seducing an entire company of ponies with a single spell is a complete falsehood.”

“She didn’t do that, is what you’re saying?”

“No. That was a mutation from the ‘battle’ of Primline Park. The spell she used that ended the battle.” It had been a powerful spell, but wild and unfocused, as much rage and fear as it had been lust. She’d been nearly broken from amplifying it to the point he couldn’t contain it anymore, and it’d nearly drained him.

She’d only been saved by the fact that she stood up afterwards and walked away amid the chaos the unleashed and unchained scent magic had done to both sides—more her own side than to the Dammeguard. It’d been the first time he’d really faced her in a tense situation.

If she hadn’t cast it… if she hadn’t lost control…

“It’s bunk,” he said, shaking himself back to the present. “Ignore it. It’s not useful for figuring out what she’s likely to do.”

“I’m more worried about what Roseate told her to do.”

“Capture a pony,” Collar said with a raised brow. “That’s all Rosewater’s good at. Roseate took a risk using her in a big raid, and it didn’t pay off.”

He read through the first page atop his pile, a recent incident report from the Merrie docks. Cargo Manifest claiming he rutted her. Further reading had the full tale from one of their informants. At least what they’d been able to see through an open window. The mare had indeed seemed to get the raw end of the deal with the cretin, a smuggler of ill repute barred from doing business in Damme, but also had a contract with several harbor pilots in Merrie.

He doubted, highly, that she’d actually let that happen to her, or that she’d welcome the… ah. There it was, at the bottom. When he’d finished, Rosewater had tossed his come out the window. It must have been a mist faerie illusion. It was the only thing he could think of that fit her style.

More reports of other incidents from informants and more reliable rumors lay underneath, including a brief note about the nature of her business with a baroness from the Equestrian Highlands. The mare had gone to a ‘House of Delight’ on the docks, but apparently found no relief and nopony willing to rut her. Pipindril, the proprietor, had sent the note apparently as a warning to Damme to watch out for her.

Older reports had conflicting information on incidents purported to be her. It was hard for her to hide as a Veiled Rose, her height giving her away more than any kind of ability did.

Why do you even bother?

That would be a question he’d need to ask when they eventually captured her. One of dozens.

He read on, occasionally glancing at Cloudy’s pile when she pointed out some interesting tidbit, slowly building up a picture of what intelligence thought of her. Something, quite frankly, he should have done long before rather than relying on the impersonal suppositions and broad strokes categorizations of why.

Now, having confronted her, poked and prodded her one-on-one, he had more experience with her than almost anyone else in the intelligence service.

From the bare observations, he was able to draw a more complete picture of the mare, from her early public life at the Rose Palace, the death of her father and her subsequent living with Carnation for most of her childhood into adulthood. All things that he knew, and all things that were part of the common knowledge, but also a part of the picture of the mare drawn together with Rosemary and Carnation.

Her own actions seemed to bely what she should have done, given whom she’d been raised with, hinting that she’d been corrupted early or even born with the same affliction her mother had.

It wasn’t until he got to the latter life portions of her file, when she was only a teenager, that a radically different mare started to emerge.

“I am more confused now,” Collar confessed in his office two hours later, staring at a painting of Damme, a piece done some hundred years before, showing a city largely unchanged. The greater changes were happening in Dammehollow, upriver. He didn’t want to look at the notes scattered across his desk and onto the floor, some touched up with red ink for inconsistencies and questions he still had.

Their intelligence service was good, but Rosewater, unlike most Roses, even most of her sisters, lived the life of a reclusive paranoid. She rarely left her home or her perfumery for anything other than business, and the few times she did and had were more than six years in the past, before Carnation’s exile.

“What happened, Cloudy? She was running raids before Carnation was exiled and wasn’t this reclusive.” He wondered if there was any truth to the rumor of Rosewater and her aunt being more than only that. It was sickening, but at least one report from an informant in the Rose Palace that hadn’t yet made it into the archive said Rosary had accused her of the same… and gotten physically assaulted for it.

“Dunno.” She shrugged and rolled over onto her side, rubbing at her temple. “I am not reading another word today. My head hurts.”

“Then… I guess I’ll have to order dinner for you tonight, won’t I?”

“Having dinner at home,” Cloudy grumbled. “Your mother had harsh enough words for you taking me out to eat already, Collar.”

“Rut the Primfeathers,” Collar grunted, wishing he’d had wings of his own to show his own annoyance the way Cloudy had. “I don’t give one stars-damned whit about what they think of us.”

“Neither do I,” Cloudy said with a snort. “But she wasn’t wrong, you know.”

“I know.” He pushed that conversation back into his memory before he could remember it again, how angry he’d felt at the time listening to his mother tell him he ought to be more circumspect about how he romanced the Rosewing known for her promiscuity.

It was her culture. He couldn’t ask her to change just because he wanted…

“And there’s that face again,” Cloudy said with a sigh, reaching out with a hoof to slap at his hindquarters. “Collar, you need to talk to me when you feel that way. You can’t just hold it in and hope it’ll go away.”

“Principes van Vrije Liefde,” Collar murmured, pulling a book down from his desk’s shelf. He’d been keeping a copy of Merrie’s main philosophical work there ever since Cloudy had started making a mess of his Dammeguard’s good order by sleeping around—off duty of course—with other consenting mares who found her just as intriguing as he had. Always the mares, though. He was, as far as he knew, the only stallion she’d lain with. “I want to understand, Cloudy.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I’m bad at explaining things. But you need to tell me if you feel jealous.” She pushed herself up and nibbled along his jaw until he leaned away. “I don’t want you to feel that about me, Collar. I just want to love you.”

Am I? He held the book against his horn, as if he could absorb the knowledge, the arguments, the history inside through osmosis. “What kind of love, Cloudy?”

“Romantic,” she whispered.

The highest form of love between two unrelated ponies according to the Principes. “I want that, too.”

“I can learn to be like Dapper. I can learn the Liefdesprincipes.”

He could hear the distaste in her voice, though she hid it under the near toneless whisper. She didn’t want to. But she would if he asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I love you, Cloudy. I can’t ask you to do something you’ll hate.”

“And I don’t want to run more afoul of your mother. I’ll be at my home tonight. You have patrol?”

“I don’t.”

“Mmm. Maybe you could,” she purred, nibbling along his jaw to his chin, capturing him with a kiss and a touch of her hoof.

He laughed softly and nipped her chin. “Maybe I misread the roster for this week.”

Author's Notes:

Shorter chapter today.

... I think this is one of the shortest chapters in the story. Second-shortest.

Book 1, 4. Raiding

Rosewater checked her vials once more, making sure she had none of her usual lures left in the pockets of her cloak. It would be inconvenient if she, by reflex, sent a pony to sleep or calmed his thoughts for a few minutes while she slunk by unnoticed. Even such harmless things might count for breaking the accord, and she couldn’t risk that.

Not with Rosemary going out tomorrow night with decidedly Damme-illegal scents about her person.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Rosewater called.

“Be safe!” Rosemary came from her work room, mane bound back and a smock hanging from below her chin to her chest. Thick glass spectacles were tucked against her horn and a powder-mask hung under her muzzle; the signature tools of an apothecary.

Rosemary was forever experimenting with different combinations, making the powders and precursors to scents and medicines, and experimenting with different ways of spicing wine, continuing one of Carnation’s favorite past-times.

“I will.” It was tempting to play mother before leaving, just to tease her into a fit, but her nerves were too on edge. Instead, she took a breath and patted her cheek. “Practice your Veiling. You’re still too sloppy. You need to keep it up no matter what when you raid.”

“I know, mother.” Rosemary rolled her eyes and sauntered up to kiss the air beside Rosewater’s cheek, careful to keep any residues free of her pristine coat. “Be safe. I don’t want to have to nurture you back to health. Again.”

“Be safe yourself. I don’t want to come home to the house in flames.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes and went back to her work room. “One time,” she called back just before slamming the door shut. “And I put it out!”

Rosewater chuckled, veiled, sucked in a breath, and stepped out into the dim, moonlit night, the Mare’s eye twinkling in the early autumn air through the mist gathered about her.

Merrie was empty this late at night, with only a few street-lamps kept aglow by the unicorns of the watch to light the streets, and the occasional meandering light from a watchpony not on shadow watch.

The nearest bridge, Primrose Bridge, was well-lit, however, and well-guarded on both sides, but nopony noticed the patch of shadow that slipped from darkness to darkness, adjusting the shade and quality of her veil as she went through long practice to keep even the outline of herself hidden from casual view.

She passed by the guards without needing to do more than use a ventriloquist spell and emulate a cat’s yowling in the shadows of a building to draw their attention for the brief second she needed to slip by on padded hooves.

Normally, she would use a distraction scent to distract them and walk by brazenly without bothering to adjust. They’d remember, later, and report it, making things harder for her sisters in the future, even if it also made it harder for her.

She was pleased to see that they’d finally given up their taboo of scented plants and put some blueberry bushes up. Paltry, but at least the blooms were good enough to use against distraction scents… if they thought to stuff their noses in the midst of the bush.

They were getting more canny, and had changed their tactics in the last four months. At least on this bridge.

She left without being any the wiser, and slipped into the square maze of Damme, almost as devoid of scent as Merrie was fragrant.

And yet… as she made her way through the streets, following a different route than the one the memorized map had suggested, she found more scents were waking and warming even this late at night. Natural scents of spring honeysuckle and magnolia from trees of each that lined the boulevard, heady and uplifting, reminding her of the greenhouses of the Garden of Love.

It wasn’t enough to distract her from the task, nor from the feeling of being watched. She had a tail, but whether it was a pegasus high above that had spotted the faint outline of her shadow and kept track of her or one of her sisters, or one of the more skilled Merrieguard.

In any event, they hadn’t blown that frustrating whistle on her yet.

Then again… they might be interested to find out who her target was to forgo a chase.

From the commercial district that bordered the river, Rosewater made her way into the heart of the city, the oldest part, mixing business and some of the oldest and most established homes and estates the city boasted.

She passed parks and preserved natural areas where ponies came to play, all of them kept ‘wild’ in some way or another, and almost all of them devoid of flowering plants. Some of the smaller ones even had toys that’d been left out by foals looking to pick up their play right where they’d left off when the sun rose again.

It was… sterile.

It was also home to thousands of ponies that lived, played, loved, and worked just like the ponies in Merrie did.

The relative lack of fragrance in the heart of the city also let her pick out a scent from among the myriads. Warmer, fresher than the old scents of the day. A male, and… familiar.

She almost laughed when she placed it, but kept herself silent and continued on. He wasn’t the tail she’d expected, but apparently he was hoping she would break the accord and had been waiting for her. Possibly shielded from sight near the guard station and only now coming closer because, if she continued straight, her path would take her right to the front gate of Prim Palace.

Did you think I would come after you so quickly?

At the next intersection, she side-stepped into a dark alley, hidden even from the Mare’s eye, and deepened the shadows around her, waiting as his masculine odor got stronger, then a shift of light crossed in front of the alley’s mouth, hesitated long enough for her to mark the outline of the distortion against the brighter backdrop of the sky behind it, and crouched low.

It was a risk…

If his shield brushed aside her mist, she’d be unveiled and all but naked to him and within his power, clearly trespassing and no doubt with several arrest orders waiting to be served.

But the distortion stopped, the edge of it barely filling the alley’s mouth, before it backed off and continued on.

Raiding was full of gambles. Tonight, the dice seemed to favor her so far.

She exited the other side of the alley, aware now of a flaw of Collar’s shield. The distortion. It wasn’t something Rosethorn Glory had ever had to worry about. Her sister was capable of true invisibility, not merely bending light or calling shadows from mist.

It was something Rosewater could do in a pinch, but it was far more taxing despite Glory trying to teach her how to do it when they’d been little more than teenage fillies.

As she made her way along a different route, the feeling of being watched didn’t fade. If anything, the feeling got stronger the closer she got to her ultimate target, but even when she stopped and sent out a weave of telekinetic force, the cobweb-soft filaments broke over nothing but walls, trees, and bushes.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been tailed without sign.

She doubted it would be the last, either.

Wary, alert, she approached the residential block with much more caution than she would have before almost running into Lord Collar on patrol, also not the first time she’d done so, though it’d taken running into him again to know that it was him with his scent still fresh in her memory.

The fragrances of her surroundings faded to so much background noise as she strained to filter out the fresh, warm scent of ponies either stallion or mare, even drawing on her heritage to draw in more despite the risk of the faint red glow under her mist veil giving her away.

Strangely, she found Collar’s again as she got closer, and sussed out the location he was waiting, at a corner that had a good view of the broad avenue that the long line of three-story buildings faced onto. It wasn’t even hard to find the lone Rose’s first floor patio, decorated as it was with a flowering bush and hung with a Dammeguard’s doublet to dry.

Thank you for leaving out the welcome mat, Lieutenant Rose.

Rosewater took a deep breath and let go of her heritage gift, letting the sharp scent-images fade along with the strain it put on her mind.

She slunk along the sharp, even line of buildings, mindful of her veil every step of the way, until she was at the edge of the distortion of his sight shield. Another risk, and a gamble, but one she had to take as a part of the plan formed fresh in her mind. It wasn’t planned, but she could see how it would play out, and he would either take it as the warning it was or as something else…

The tiny scroll with the map on it, and the name of her target, she rolled up until it was almost a stick, then veiled it and threw it right into the center of the distortion field, then crossed the street as soon as the field shifted and flowed towards her.

It followed, as she’d intended, and in the surprise moment of her crossing, she caught a first whiff of the other tail. Mare, hidden almost completely by a thorough wash and cleaning before the night began.

Clean, she might have started, but Rose Glory’s scent was familiar enough to Rosewater that she could tell her sister apart from the others without resorting to using her heritage. Her nose was sharp enough on its own to give her individuality from a fresh, seconds-old whiff of sweat.

Watch, Glory, as I confound mother with the most inept ‘capture’ in history.

The front door of the building was locked, but simply with a mechanism that fell to her magic as if it’d been open. Not meant to keep ponies out, likely, but to keep wild animals out. Sensible, if incautious.

Then again, it was an apartment building and not an estate, though it may have been at one point, with the decorations in the entryhall and how delicate the wrought iron stairway was. By itself, it was a work of art, and the tiling under her hooves, black and white, formed the pattern of the Primline arms over and over again in block-art.

A glance outside told her that Collar was watching her, still hidden, but the distortion hadn’t yet moved inside.

For a moment, Rosewater paced the interior, sniffing at the four doors that led to four different apartments, finding two families lived there, with a foal apiece, and another foal’s scent, full of youth and the messiness of being a foal, wended up the stairs.

Regardless of what happened, she would need to be careful here.

Finally, she sniffed at Cloudy’s door, and out of the corner of her eye saw Collar drop his shielding, the edge of the distortion field vanishing though she couldn’t see him yet. She could pretend she hadn’t seen, or she could flee.

Glory would report on the latter and she’d face repercussions.

Her sister was still out there, still hidden, and clearly Collar hadn’t spotted her or he’d not have dropped his shield so soon.

There was a mare there, and… Lord Collar’s scent. Old, faded to the point she could only barely tell it was his. Perhaps Roseate had leaked whom her target was supposed to be, set up a trap for her. It would be just like her.

Rosewater tested the lock with a spell, tested the handle, and pushed lightly against the door.

It didn’t even rattle in the frame, but a faint squeak came from the other side along with a rustle of wings.

Trap.

Before Collar could spring his side of it, Rosewater slipped a tiny scrap of paper under the door and adhered it to the tile on the other side.

She barely had time to back away before Collar loomed in the apartment entryway.

“Stop, Rosewater,” Prim Collar growled. “I know it’s you.”

The squeak on the other side came again, a muffled whimper.

The Rose Terror strikes again.

“My lord,” Rosewater said with a laugh, dropping her veil to face him, eye to eye, her tail flicking against the door as she stepped away from the door. “Have you a nose, now, to tell which Rosethorn is which? I confess you’re right, but… pray tell, my lord, to what reason do I owe your… interruption?”

He stared at her, ears ticking madly, the anger in his eyes flaring as his eyes darted from the door to her again. “What nonsense are you trying to pull? Surrender, Rosewater, and—”

Rosewater teleported, burning all of her immediate reserves to place herself a mile away without bothering to build up the power first. Just as the spell went off, she felt the wisps of a teleportation interdiction spell solidifying. Yet another spell in his arsenal she had to be wary of.

She landed in a wheat field atop a hill overlooking both cities and immediately fell to her barrel, the emergency casting sapping her energy. Just as immediately, she started pulling in magic again, preparing for another teleport, farther, careful in her drawing and careful in constructing the spell.

Of course, he could follow such a sloppy teleportation and he appeared in a pop and flash right behind her.

“Not even a full day, Rosewater,” Collar hissed, binding her fore and hind legs with spells, but not her muzzle. “You couldn’t even last a full day before you broke our accord.”

“I broke nothing,” Rosewater shot back, dropping her spellweaving. “Did you get my scroll.”

“The little scrap of paper?” he asked, some of the antagonism leaving his voice. “What of it?”

“I gave that to you as a warning, not that you seemed to heed it,” she said, testing the bonds. They weren’t binding her magic, at least. “I’m not the only Veiled Rose stalking the night.”

He walked around in front of her, lifting her chin with a spell to look into her eyes lit by the silver aura spilling off his horn. He had very handsome eyes in that light, even angry as they were. “What do you mean?”

“Are you an idiot or the stallion I chose as my mate?” Rosewater growled. “I told you. I. Am. Not. Alone. And not by choice.”

He turned to stare at the city, the aura around his horn growing in intensity, and the bonds around her legs falling away into silver shards and melting into mist. “Who?”

“I have no idea,” she said with a snort. “I felt her and smelt her, not saw her. If you value Cloudy’s safety, get back to her, my lord, and consider long and hard why I didn’t break the accord. If anything, I helped you tonight.”

“Helped. We shall see.” He cast a look back at her, full of anger and suspicion. “The accord stands unless I find treachery.”

Then he was gone, leaving her to craft her spell more carefully once more.

It might have been a mistake letting Rosewater go free, but there was a chance that she wasn’t lying, and that she hadn’t been alone.

He arrived back in the foyer, using far less magic to re-open the fresh teleport path there, and causing less of a flash when he got back. If she was lying, he could get back to Rosewater much more quickly than she could prepare anything more than a short-range teleport or try to hide in the wheat field.

The door was closed, but not locked, and as he opened it, chaos met him. Scraps and bracken from everything in her apartment lay scattered as though a tornado had rolled through, and if she’d had to defend herself against a scent in close quarters, that might be the long and short of it.

“About time you showed up,” Cloudy grumbled where she laid atop a mare familiar from half a dozen galas. “She tried to get the drop on a pegasus.”

“Rose Glory,” Collar said, clucking his tongue as she looked up at him, her face a mask of pain, fear, and anger. “You really shouldn’t do that to somepony who can drop from a cloud.”

“She also tried to entice me,” Cloudy said, flicking aside Glory’s curled silver and rose pink mane to show an unstoppered, empty, vial of fragrant rose-oil. “Magic and all. That’s two counts towards arrest, Lord Collar.”

Rose Glory still said nothing, her eyes fogged by pain. It was, he surmised, caused by a bruise the table collapsed under her, the short table in front of the lounging couch—a Merrier style of furniture, and one of the pieces that he wished were more in style in Damme.

He spent a moment studying her face, the dapple of light pink rosettes on a darker around her eyes, standing out against her carmine coat. Her Rosethorn pink eyes flashed as she shifted her gaze from Collar to Cloudy and back again.

“You’re not hurt badly, are you, Rose Glory?”

“Prim Poppy,” Rose Glory said, then closed her eyes and relaxed. “I only talk to him.”

“She said that to me, too. She hasn’t said one word otherwise.” Cloudy shook her head. “If I hadn’t been expecting Rosewater, I don’t think I would have been ready for her enticements.”

“She is, but she looks beaten.” Prim Collar waved a hoof, relief flooding through him as he finally let his guard down. Rosewater hadn’t lied about that, at least, and perhaps she hadn’t even lied about breaking the accord. “Let her up. If she was going to try something else, she would have. We need to take her to the prison, anyway, unless you want to let her stay the night?”

“Of course not.” Cloudy pushed herself up, wincing as Glory let out an involuntary wheeze and whimper as the table shifted underneath her. “Gah. Do you know how much I paid to have that smuggled into Damme? And you… ” Cloudy swatted the back of the prisoner’s head.

“Cloudy, don’t antagonize her.” Collar rolled his eyes at her.

“Well, sorry if I’m a little upset that she broke into my house!” Cloudy snapped her teeth at him, flicking her wings at the overturned coffee table and couch, the broken glasses and dishes. “Look at this place!”

“I take it she fought back?” Collar asked.

“It wasn’t much of a fight,” Cloudy said with a snort. “She tried to lock me up with fragrances, I swept them away and kicked her in the shoulder. She gave up after that.”

“Rough,” he said with a sigh, “but understandable enough. Why the mess?”

“She tried to flee after I kicked her, and I had to trip her, too. That’s when the table broke. She’s not very accomplished at this.” Cloudy smirked at the captured Rosethorn. “Are you?”

That got her a glower, but Rose Glory didn’t respond or rise to it, only closing her eyes and laying her cheek back on the shattered table.

“She’s beaten, Cloudy. Stop trying to provoke her.” Collar rubbed his jaw. “It’s already complicated enough. We have to report her injury to the treaty office, and… Cloudy, I’m sorry, but a hind-leg kick is only a life and death move. You could have killed her.”

“I know.” Cloudy deflated, ears flat to her skull. “I know, but I couldn’t help it. She broke into my house. I was afraid for my life, Collar.”

“Tackling her would have done the same thing. You’re a citizen of Damme. They can’t exile you, Cloudy.” Collar shifted closer to Glory, wary still of her and the subterfuge of the Rosethorn family.

Cloudy closed her eyes and nodded. “It was Rosewater, I thought.”

Collar glanced at her once more, then gently probed the bruise he could see spreading “She didn’t break anything, did she?”

Glory’s eyes opened, the pain in them telling him he would need to call for a medic as soon as possible. She shook her head and moved her foreleg back and forth briefly, then curled it up against her chest and closed her eyes again.

“I’m sorry, Glory. You know the rules of engagement.” That was going to sting their relationship. A reason why it wasn’t a good idea for superior officers to date their subordinates. A regulation overlooked only because he hadn’t been the one to initiate. “Captain Pink is going to have some words for you tomorrow. I have to report this to her and to the treaty office.”

“Aye. Sir.” She huffed again and more gently prodded Rose Glory’s back with a wingtip. “Up.”

She glowered at Collar moving her leg and wincing exaggeratedly, but saying nothing.

“Fine.” With his help, she was able to settle in on her three good legs, holding her left leg off the ground as soon as she was able to, her eyes unfocused as she looked between them. The swelling was showing even under her coat, darkening into a solid bruise.

“I’m sorry, Glory,” Cloudy murmured, unable to meet her eyes. “I… thought you were Rosewater.”

“Glory, can you walk?” Collar asked.

Rose Glory tested the leg gingerly, then lifted it again and nodded, ears folded back.

“Lieutenant Rose, go get Prim Poppy. Shake him out of bed if you have to. Drag him to the prison by his ears if he objects. I need answers.” He waved a hoof, dismissing her.

She saluted and left.

“Do not teleport. Do not cast any spells except to support yourself. Do not attempt to run,” he said, reciting the short list of orders he gave whenever he arrested a Rose.

Rose Glory glared at him over the last one and waggled her injured leg, but she started hobbling ahead. Already a darker purple bruise was appearing under the coat.

It was turning into a piss poor night. What had been meant as a night of fun turned into a night of terror and fear.

The walk to Prim Prison, an imposing, low-slung edifice of stone, took the better part of twenty minutes, and Collar had to stop twice to apply the minor bruise-cure that was about the limit of his field medical spell knowledge. It didn’t do much but reduce the swelling.

One more thing for Prim Poppy to look at. Maybe he could pass off his appearance at the prison that way instead of… apparently whatever was going on between them.

“I apologize for her,” he said at one point, coughing. “She’s high-strung. And you did surprise her.”

Rose Glory eyed him, then nodded, and kept walking.

“Really? Not going to say anything to me?”

She shook her head, giving him a faint smirk in return with an arched brow, and he was forced to make the journey from the northwest of the city all the way back almost to the palace grounds with a silent, limping prisoner and an increasingly ragtag group of guards he picked up along the way, then sent off when they passed into another patrol sector.

By the time he made it to the prison grounds, at least five different patrols had seen Glory in his custody, limping and beaten, and the prison guards as well, a mare and a stallion who exchanged a look before letting him in.

“My lord,” they said as one.

The inside of Prim Prison was as clean as the city, as neatly kept and organized… and also empty. The desk at the front had nopony there to guard it. Not that they had any prisoners at the moment, but the fact they were engaged in active hostilities still with the Roses, even if they’d entered a stalemate for a time with Rosewater out of the picture for the last four months…

“Ahem!” Collar grunted loudly and tapped a hoof on the desk. Then louder before the night’s inside guard darted out of a side room, his glasses askew.

“Prim Quill, I really do expect that you keep to your post during the hours you are assigned there.” He stood aside and waved Rose Glory forward, noticing the amused glint to her eye and the grin she wasn’t even trying to hide. “Please open the Rose Cage. Rose Glory here will need to be shown our best while she’s under our care.”

“Aye, sir.”

When Quill ran off to do his job, Prim Collar guided Rose Glory to a settee. “Please, lay down and rest. You haven’t been walking on it, but you’ll have been straining your good leg.”

She shot him an annoyed glare that said ‘I know that, idiot’ as loudly as if she’d screamed it in his ear.

“I know you do,” he said, flicking an ear at the imaginary yell. “I’m being polite. And while you have broken laws, and you are a prisoner, you are also nobility. There are standards that we must follow to keep our little spat from growing back to the old ways.”

The glare softened somewhat as she settled gingerly on the cushions, her injured leg dangling over the edge.

“You know, it’s much, much easier to be polite when a guest talks. I’m not going to interrogate you right now. But I sure as Tartarus am going to interrogate Prim Poppy.” He stomped a hoof and started pacing. “Look, I know there are Roses and Prims that cross the bridges at night for innocent reasons. Stars above, the bridges are there because we need to talk to each other. We need each other, Glory.”

She tipped her head to the side, blinking slowly, which did interesting things to the dappling across her cheeks.

“I’m already dealing with Rosewater’s insanity. Is there one sane Rose over there, or did Roseate just breed insanity?” He stopped pacing to glare at her for effect. What effect, he wasn’t sure, because it sure wasn’t to get her talking. “Or did she exile the only sane one?”

That got a flicked ear reaction, at least.

“Carnation Rose. I know she’s Rosemary’s mother. I know she as much as raised Rosewater.” He flicked his ears, stared at her, and snapped his tail. “Stars above, I have one of the only Roses who could tell me what in the name of the Moon is going on, and she’s not saying anything.”

The floor gave more reaction to his pacing.

A few minutes later, Quill came back down and guided them up to the Gilded Cage. He stayed quiet, his cheeks flushed to the point Collar almost apologized for startling him out of what he now realized was the bathroom.

Piss poor night, he thought, dismissing Quill with another wave of his hoof and helping Glory settle in on a more comfortable lounging couch, applying the bruise-cure again to only a minute sigh of relief from Glory and a tenuous, thankful smile.

And still no words. Not even a thank you.

“This cell is permanently warded against sound and teleportation,” he said as he settled on one of the other chairs

“He was sleeping,” Cloudy said.

“I see that. Were you gentle?”

“No. I was quite loud when I woke him up.”

“Good.” Prim Collar raised his head and straightened himself despite being more exhausted than he’d been in months. “Poppy, I presume you already know Rose Glory.”

“Er…” Poppy coughed, his cheeks flushed and his ears flat as he stared at the mare, then jerked his eyes to him. “How so?”

“Lover,” Rose Glory said at last. “Poppy, come here. I've kept my word. I've only said that I would only speak to you. I've said nothing of our arrangement to them.”

“Glory…” Poppy's eyes rolled from Collar to her and back, widening until he could see whites all around. ”What are you doing?”

“You never said I couldn't talk around them when first you caught me.” Rose Glory's voice was a sultry purr bordering on laughter.

Cloudy Rose broke into giggles that descended into laughter.

“Are all Roses this frustrating?” Collar asked of nopony in particular, and Cloudy only helpfully laughed harder.

Poppy walked stiffly to Glory, appearing more apprehensive by the second. “Glory, please cooperate.”

“Why?”

It seemed an honest question, though Collar thought even a single word had room for subterfuge where a Rose was concerned. “Why shouldn't you?” he asked.

Glory shifted her injured leg, still only looking and speaking to Poppy. “Why should I trust them? I’m a commodity. And she back-kicked me in the shoulder!”

“You were trying to enthrall me!” Cloudy shouted. “And I thought you were… Rosewater.”

“I was trying to put you to sleep so I could get away!” Glory shot back, trembling, huffing, clearly distraught and in pain. Then she settled, relaxing, and opened her eyes. “Not that a pegasus could tell the difference between sleep and enthrallment.” Her lips pursed, and she glanced at her again. “And, given her reputation… I don’t blame you, Cloudy Rosewing. I might have done the same if I thought my sister was out to get me.”

She shifted her leg, moved it, and extended it. “Nothing’s broken, I think. But… Poppy, do be a dear and settle the swelling.”

Are you trying to help her, Glory?

The bruising was hard to see under her coat, but when pointed out, Poppy gasped and began a more complex casting. Warm purple light surrounded her shoulder, and Glory relaxed in ways Collar hadn't realized she'd been tense.

When he was done, he sagged to his barrel beside her.

She lifted his chin with a spell and kissed him. It wasn't the fierce, passionate kiss he'd expected a Rose to give their lover. Not a Rosethorn. It was soft, tender, and the look in her eyes as she met his, then raised them to Collar’s briefly told him enough about the nature of the relationship.

It seemed he was going to have to do a dive on Glory’s file soon as well.

“Thank you,” Glory murmured when she let it go.

“You can talk to them,” Poppy said softly, leaning against her the settee and letting her rest her leg on his shoulder. “There's not much point in hiding from them now.”

She was silent, but didn’t say anything in the negative, only watched them.

“Why were you at Cloudy’s apartment?”

“The same reason she was. I was sent to keep an eye on her and make sure she did her duty to Merrie.” Glory quirked a brow and kissed Poppy’s ear. “And perhaps to sneak a night with my beloved.”

“But…” Collar shook his head slowly, bewildered at how open she was being. He hadn’t expected such a straight answer. Not from her. “Why tell us?”

“You asked, and my dear Poppy asked me to cooperate. Now. If you wish me to answer more, I want some concessions.” Glory smiled, and it was the predatory smile he’d expected all along.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing onerous. And one, at least, that I think you’ll like. Don’t punish Cloudy Rose for kicking me. That was my own damn fool fault for not checking whether the apartment was empty. I won’t press the injury, but I understand you need to report it.”

“Why didn’t you check?” Collar asked, curious.

“Rosewater seemed to think the apartment was empty.”

“She knew I was there,” Cloudy grunted. “She just didn’t have a chance to break in before—”

“My dear. Rosewater would have had you opening the door on your own, begging to be taken from across the street.” Glory laughed at the sick look on Cloudy's face, and she wasn’t wasn't wrong; especially not after witnessing an enticing from more than a thousand paces. “I was merely curious what she'd slipped under your door.”

“Cloudy, go find what she's talking about.” He paused briefly as Prim Quill came back down the stairwell from the Rose Cage. “And pick up backup along the way.”

“Of course.” Cloudy saluted and turned to leave, but she caught his eye before she left, and he saw in her the genuine anguish at what she’d done in a fit of fear and rage.

“Cloudy,” he called after her, “I love you. Be careful.”

She froze at the gate, her ears going flat. “I love you too, Collar. I’m sorry.” Her eyes flicked to Glory briefly before she left, the sound of talking downstairs rising briefly before the gate closed and the sound wards re-engaged, the gemstone anchors flickering to life again.

“I’d not heard a peep or a sight of you,” he said. He’d only just caught sight of Rosewater, and that only because of a shift in the clouds overhead had changed the light quicker than she’d been able to react before she faded into a chameleon outline against the storefront once more.

Once he’d lost her, he’d gone ahead to warn Cloudy, entreating her to stay put and not make a sound while he chased her off.

“Nor did she, I suspect. Though she would be an idiot to think mother wouldn’t send somepony to make sure she actually did as she was told.” Glory laughed softly. “She was playing with you, Collar. I doubt she ever intended to capture your dish of a lover.”

I doubt she knew Cloudy is my lover. At least, not by her name or scent. Unless she had access to Rose Palace intelligence, which he doubted Roseate would give her, the only thing she could possibly find was rumor… and considering how cloistered she was, he doubted that possibility.

“Your other concessions?” Collar asked at last.

“I’d like to see my Poppy at least twice a week. It’s how often we manage to ‘run into’ each other. I would also like reading materials. Mother doesn’t reward failure in her children, and here I am, clearly failed.” Glory chuckled and licked Poppy’s ear. “I’ve fallen in love with a Prim…”

“Both granted.” Collar took a breath and met Poppy’s eyes, pleading silently not to be angry with him. “Poppy, stay with her for the night. Make sure that shoulder gets the best treatment you can give. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Ah. You wish him to pump me for information?” Glory laughed languidly and flirted her tail as she shifted on the couch, exposing herself more. “I’m afraid I’ll come away with more from him than he from me.”

He didn’t come back for her.

She finished pulling in the magic she needed, reserving her power, and then enough to open her wards at home before she finished her teleport.

Then she had to wait the minute to cycle through the wards embedded in her door to release and cycle before they would let her in.

It was a beautiful night, at least. The stars above were skirted only by a few cirrus and a passing cumulus. The Mare in the Moon stared down in her dark majesty, a high halo of frozen cirrus making her wink as the wind high above tossed and tore at the diaphanous veil. The Married Mare, it was called when that happened. A common enough sight in winter, but rare in the early autumn.

It promised a cold winter ahead.

She finished opening her wards before a Merrieguard contingent could see her and wonder. Reporting her failure to mother would be hard enough. If Rose Glory made it out, it would make her story more believable, but if she’d been captured—as seemed likely considering Collar hadn’t come back to finish her—then the only one telling the story would be her.

There’s still the dueling grounds if necessary.

A last chance. The last resort.

She cast one last glance up at the Mare in the Moon, entreating her to watch over her secret endeavors and not look unfavorably on her goal.

Once inside, making sure the curtains were drawn and the door locked and warded once more, Rosewater let herself relax, let herself smile. Success.

Of a sort.

Whether or not Glory had also escaped, she would have to find out in the morning.

She found Rosemary in her room with the door open, on her belly on the ground, hind legs splayed and tucked close, her hind-legs held steady by the phantom hooves bracing her.

Behind her, muzzle planted firmly into her nethers, was a head, neck, and half-torso of an earth pony mare, her form made of colorless, odorless mists drawn from the moisture in the air and the mist from a warm, steaming bowl of freshly steeped rose-petal water.

It was the simplest of mist faeries, little more than a suggestion of form drawn from memory, and Rosemary’s cries were quiet, pleasant, and not urgent. Just masturbating to a friend, one of the dozen and a half postcard portraits on her wall. Mares and stallions of all colors and types of pony, all of them done in the same style of realism that Carnation had favored.

At least she had some fun tonight.

Rosewater almost passed by, then paused to watch for a moment, wondering if Rosemary would notice her.

A minute, then two rolled by, and Rosewater picked up on other details. She wasn’t just masturbating, but reading as well, turning the page and letting the faerie slow, then pick up again.

She rolled her eyes and coughed. “You could at least close the door if you’re going to masturbate yourself to sleep.”

With a squeak of fright and a pop, the faerie disappeared and Rosemary fell to her side, flanks heaving. “Rosewater! You!”

“I,” Rosewater agreed with a laugh and stepped further into the room. “You are well? No unexpected visitors tonight, I take it?”

“Just you, sneak.” Rosemary said with a laugh, pulling a decanter of rosewater, bowl, and sponge over to begin cleaning herself.

Rosewater nodded, then closed the door and set her horn to it. A whisper of magic bled into the room’s walls, damping sound from within. It was all she had left. She sagged against the door and slid to her barrel.

“Thank the stars and Celestia.” Roseate hadn’t come. Rosemary was still safe. Not that Roseate could enter without Rosewater’s permission. The walls were warded long since against teleportation, and the windows and doors would put to sleep any that tried to open them without the watch-ward spells to unlock them.

How long will that continue, though? She might have to send Rosemary away. Perhaps to Canterlot. She was talented enough to make her way there if she had to, and Canterlot, under Celestia’s watchful eye, was a haven for ponies trying to make a better life for themselves.

There was even a fledgling nobility that she could make her way into, if she needed to.

And then I won’t see her again for a long time. I can’t leave here. Not yet.

“Is it safe?” Rosemary asked. Drip-drip-drip went the sponge as it hovered over the bowl, her cousin’s eyes wide and fearful, darting from the door to her window to Rosewater and starting the cycle over again.

“I don’t know.” She heaved herself up, stumbled to the window and tested the wards with a quick spell before she sat heavily on one of the pillows scattered about the room. “It’s safe enough here. I’m more worried about you, tomorrow night. I may have stirred up a hornet’s nest unintentionally.”

A brief flicker of fear crossed those beautiful pink eyes, then her jaw firmed and she tossed back her head, blond mane falling loosely against her neck.

“I won’t fail. I won’t give her a reason to exile me.” So earnest, that smile, so certain and uncertain at once.

She could send her away. Seek asylum in Canterlot, away from this mess, and maybe even where her mother was. It wasn’t certain, as any pony that was exiled from Damme or Merrie was protected by the treaty.

Asylum seekers had more choice, but not much. It wouldn’t be a happy or a very free life compared to her home, but it would be a safe life.

“My friends are here,” Rosemary murmured, then straightened and squeezed out the sponge and resumed cleaning herself. “You’re here. My home is here. I won’t let her take that away from me.”

“I know.” How can I think of taking that away from her? Rosewater would be no better than Roseate. “Be cautious tomorrow night. Don’t strike. Watch. Wait. Your first mission shouldn’t be a required capture, Rosemary. Study the city. Let it become your nighttime friend and it won’t let you down.”

“I know.” Rosemary didn’t quite roll her eyes. “I won’t strike this time. I’ll focus everything on my veiling. Promise.”

“Good.” It was an effort, but Rosewater got to her feet and stumbled towards the door. Rosemary was safe. That’s what mattered. She could sleep soundly for another night.

“’Water?” Rosemary paused in cleaning her marehood and tail, then resumed, her ears set determinedly. “What happened tonight?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with yet. Focus on your veiling all day tomorrow. That’s all you need to worry about.” Let me take care of the rest. “I’m sorry for interrupting your fun tonight.”

“Who was your target?”

Rosewater flinched. Everything she’d dug up, had recalled, had surmised in the genealogy library came back to her. Rosemary’s lover. Close. Prospects. They wouldn’t have written that unless there’d been talk of bonding after their second majorities. Cloudy was already past hers, and Rosemary’s in early spring.

“I can’t…” Rosewater’s throat caught. She could tell Rosemary a lie. She wouldn’t. Not unless it was to keep her safe. Will this keep her safe?

“It was Cloudy Rose, wasn’t it?” Rosemary asked.

Rosewater startled and turned, staring at her cousin. “How—” Scenarios of Rosemary finding the note, the map, learning it from some rumor Roseate had let spread to reach Collar’s ears. She still had no idea how he’d caught onto her so easily. It was as likely Roseate trying to betray her as it was Collar’s own patrol schedule.

“Roseate asked me about her. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.” The sound of sponge and water continued more slowly. Cleaning couldn’t be ignored. “When you said you had a mission… I suspected then.”

Rosewater closed the door and rested her horn against it again. “It was.”

“And?”

“She wasn’t home,” Rosewater lied, her shoulder tensing and waiting for Rosemary to catch the lie and call her on it. “Lord Collar almost caught me trying to break in.”

Rosemary was silent for a long moment, toweling herself off and dropping the rag into the wash-basket before she turned her attention away from herself.

“I… was hoping I would see her during my raid. She’s a Dammeguard lieutenant now, I hear,” Rosemary said, a touch of pride in her voice. “She’s… doing well.”

“How close was she to you?”

“Close.” Rosemary looked away, but not before the pain flared in her eyes again. “But she defected. And she hasn’t even tried to contact me in two years, ‘Water.”

“She’d put you in danger if she tried to contact you,” Rosewater murmured, surprising herself. “I’m grateful she didn’t, even as much as it hurt you.”

“I know.” Rosemary’s eyes fell again. “I… wish you’d met her before, Rosewater. You would like her, I think.”

Rosewater flinched. “I wish I could have, too.” And put her in as much danger as her other lovers over the past six years. Roseling. Gray Rose. River Petal. “Goodnight, Rosemary.”

A cough sounded behind her, stopping her again, then the sloshing of water Rosemary resettled herself on the bed, covered modestly enough to please a Dammer.

“Stay, Rosewater. I… I can tell you about her.” Rosemary’s eyes pleaded with her not to leave. She was hoping for some snippet of news she might have from her raid. Anything about her lost lover.

“I’m tired, Rosemary. I don’t know how attentive a listener I would be.”

The bedspread smoothed out under a spell, and the air cleared as Rosemary pulled out her own version of a scent neutralizer, filling the room with the sweet fragrance of rosemary mixed with the headier scent of thyme.

“Stay. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Still hesitant, and heart still aching from Rosary’s accusation… the mare had no idea how close, how many times, Rosewater’s own confused upbringing had almost made that falsity a reality, and neither did Rosemary.

The shame. The ache. The loneliness.

Rosemary’s bed creaked as she settled in, head turned away, hind and forelegs curled close. It was how Carnation had rested with her on so many nights, offering to be a rock for Rosewater to cling to when the rising tides of despair and loss threatened to sweep her away.

“I met her at a bridge party,” Rosemary said in a hushed voice, edging closer and resting her head across Rosewater’s shoulders, the thrum of her voice in her throat soothing against her forequarters. “Four years ago.”

Rosewater closed her eyes and let Rosemary’s voice wash over her and into sleep.

Author's Notes:

Ah! This chapter was a delight and a challenge to clean up. This was one of the first chapters I wrote for the story (at least in part) and it's gone through five or six complete revisions before this final set of two or three minor revisions and cleanups.

Sweet stars, these early chapters were a pain to get right, but I learned a lot about plotting from rewriting them later on, and I've been applying that to other stories I've been working on. Enjoy!

Book 1, 5. Two Mornings

Stirrings of a mane under her muzzle stirred Rosemary to wakefulness well past noon. She yawned and raised her head to look down on her sleeping partner, Rosewater. Cousin, one of the two mares who’d raised her, and her only mother for the past six years. She stretched out her neck against the long, sleek one underneath her, rolling to her side and waiting for her partner to wake.

She didn’t have to wait long. Rosewater had never been a heavy sleeper, but for some reason she had been last night. She hadn’t even woken when Rosemary woke in the middle of the early morning to ease some of her nervous energy with a short reading of a different book, one guaranteed to put her back to sleep instead of arousing her.

Or maybe she had and chosen not to make her awareness known. Rosewater could be oddly prudish about the oddest things and then not even bat an eye when walking in on her making love to a mist memory.

“Morning, Rosemary,” Rosewater said in a soft whisper. “Did you sleep well?”

“I did. Mostly. I’m a little nervous about tonight.” Her first raid. That she didn't want to do. That Rosewater had been able to protect her from for a little more than two years past her first majority.

At great cost to herself.

“I noticed. Do you need a little privacy to relax?” Rosewater twisted her neck and slipped her head out from under Rosemary’s

She had noticed. Rosemary laughed softly. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

That made Rosewater frown and flick her ears back. “No. I was already partly awake. If you really want to put yourself to sleep, I’d recommend the Ballad of Frosty Rosewing. The Dammer version.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but… yes. I think I would like to expend a little energy.” She rolled to her barrel, rose, and stepped to the floor, turning to consider the paintings on her wall of some of her lovers. Rosie Night's tongue would be nice, delving and flicking. Or maybe Rosie’s husband, Trestle Night. His cock was always welcome… especially with Rosie suckling her teats and Velvet Night under her muzzle. Already her tail was flicking side-to-side, anticipating. “And you? How did you sleep?”

“Poorly,” Rosewater said, stepping down from the bed and stretching out one leg at a time.

Rosemary watched, admiring the play of muscle under coat and the slim line trailing down her neck. She waited until the older mare came closer to kiss the side of her muzzle. “Sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help?”

“Be safe tonight.” Rosewater turned her head, letting Rosemary trail light kisses down her neck until she tugged Rosemary up for a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Take care of yourself first. I need to bathe.”

Rosie Night, then.

Rosemary laid back down and raised her hind leg while she manifested Rosie in full behind her as a ghostly white mare, so far removed from the nearly midnight blue coat her long time lover had. She'd have to pay the earth pony a visit later that week to experience the real thing again. She could do things with her tongue that Rosemary just couldn't grasp.

Rosewater watched her for a moment, eyebrow arched, then smiled and sauntered to the bathroom, shaking her head slowly. “You should try the Misty Consort spell. I promise it’ll be worth it.”

“One day,” Rosemary said through a pant as the phantom pony's tongue slipped inside her, and her hooves began their slow massage of her belly and teats. There was little passion in it, though. It was all her mind, her magic directing it. She couldn’t surprise herself like a night with one of her lovers for real could.

A raised eyebrow was her only answer for a minute while her cousin faced the wall, her ear twitching and a flush starting in her neck. “You can try it. You’ve almost got the form right. Remember the Heart’s Opening sigil at the end. It will link the construct to your magic and your memory.”

A complicated structure, Heart’s Opening, she’d only managed to correctly make it a few times since Rosewater had started trying to teach her.

“Remember, you have to picture the mare wholly in your mind. Everything you want to feel, before the spell will really take effect, while the sigil is being formed” Rosewater flicked her tail and closed the door. “Maybe it will be cloudy tonight.”

She spent seconds ignoring the mist faerie’s ministrations, focusing her mind on the complex mental overlay needed to activate magic, the mental image of Rosie Night flickering back and forth between her and the last vestiges of her dream. But she finished it, and firmly implanted the image of her lover in the construct.

“Yes!” Rosemary cried out as the spell fully took hold, drawing from her memory, from her body’s needs, and took on a life of its own. She wouldn’t have been able to focus on the spell if she had to maintain control.

The misty chill of the faerie became a flush of heat rushing over her, holding her in a climax of warmth that filled her from head to hoof, the tongue inside her suddenly feeling real and alive, hot and wet as her spells never were. She rode it, her marehood tightening over the sensation of life pulsing and pulling. Even the hooves at her teats became more solid and warm as they pressed as if to meet the tongue.

She screamed as the final wave of fire coursed through her, numbing in its wake and leaving her twitching as her come pooled against her dock, hot and wet and welcome.

The spell kept going for several minutes after Rosemary stopped feeding magical power into it. That was a feature of it. It would draw on the magic drawn out by her orgasm to keep her warm, and it spent minutes cleaning her with a misty tongue. It was as pleasant as the rush had been exciting.

When it was done, the construct climbed atop her and whispered in her ear in Cloudy's voice, “You're lovely. Always so lovely…”

Shock coursed through her as she realized that the mare atop her looked like Rosie… but she had wings, and her eyes were the same as Cloudy’s, darker pink… and her voice…

Husky, feminine, always ready to descend into that easy laugh she remembered so well, even after two years.

“That's cheating,” Rosemary yelled when her senses came back to her. “Did you do that last bit?” Realizing that Rosewater hadn’t seen, she added. “That was Cloudy!”

“Not I, dear Rosemary. I’ve neither seen her nor heard her voice.” Splashing, shifting, then a groan. “You must be careful of whom you picture,” Rosewater’s voice and laugh came from the bathroom while the construct continued to lick her ear, sending shivers and shudders down her as the hind leg pressed against her clit, warm and firm. “It will draw from your memories and do what you imagine that pony would do.”

The implications sank into her slowly. “But I…” It’d been so long since she’d thought to have Cloudy as her lover… it was still too painful. “I didn’t want that, Rosewater. Not this morning.”

“You may not have, but the spell is drawn from your mind. Remember that, Rosemary. Just because you don’t want to be reminded of a lover doesn’t mean a mist faerie doesn’t listen to your mind. They’re extensions of your will. Not mine.” A pause, the sound of the water running from the cistern again, then stopping. “This one more complex than most, and it will take a life of its own once you let go. Your last thoughts will control its course.” The sounds of bathwater swishing and shushing as Rosewater cleaned herself was all she heard for a few moments. “Understand?”

“I do, and I think I might try this one again later. Just without thinking about her.” She lay still as the mist faerie of her lover dissipated into a fine, sweet-smelling vapor that settled across her. When I’m not dreaming about her.

“A very good idea, Rosemary,” Rosewater said, her tone playful as she laughed. “I’m glad you tried it, but perhaps start it when you’re more awake and not half-asleep.”

“I know.” Rosemary shook her head and sighed. “Did you sleep well?”

“You asked me that already.”

I did, didn’t I? She lay for long minutes, listening to Rosewater bathing, recovering from the bliss and shock of the spell’s working. Her heart was the slowest to recover, beating slow and fast by turns as the heat returned in aftershocks of pleasure that rocked her.

It must have been her telling a sleeping Rosewater all about Cloudy that had done it. She’d woken up dreaming of the mare more than once, her husky, brash voice, hearty laugh, and that devious sense of humor.

And her fiercely protective streak. It was no wonder she’d joined the Dammeguard. It was what she did. Even in Merrie, she’d been one of the Merrieguard from the age of enlistment, relegated to bridge duty because of her family, but taking pride in her work.

What made you leave?

Rosewater came out again, mane and tail wrapped, and bent to brush her lips against Rosemary's forehead. “It’s a very tricky spell to master. Try it again when you’re not half-asleep. And didn’t stay awake half the night tossing and turning.”

“I’ll… do that.”

Rosewater kissed her brow and left the room. “I’ll be in the perfumery if you need anything today, Rosemary.”

Cloudy stopped her cleaning an hour before dawn. She’d managed to right all the furniture and sweep up most of the largest chunks of glass and ceramic from her broken dishes. Most of it had been her fault, using her wings indoors to keep the fumes of Rose Glory’s spell away from her, frantic and thinking the mare was Rosewater in the darkness of her apartment.

She’d forgotten the mare stood out like a torch in the dark in her panic.

But in the dark, in a panic after hearing Rosewater not inches from her head, she hadn’t been thinking, only reacting on adrenaline and fear. And she’d still been coming down from an adrenaline high when she’d made the stupid, venal mistake to hurt Rose Glory for scaring her so badly. The heat of the moment. The kick landing resounding up her hind leg, the sick feeling of hurting somepony else descending like a sack of bricks on her head as she heard Glory cry out.

She’d been trained not to back-kick except in the direst circumstances. It was a pony’s deadliest natural weapon, and it had been used three hundred years ago in battles. Earth pony death squads trained to spin and kick with lethal precision. Pegasi trained to dive and kick.

Her family had been the latter, warlords of the wildest days of the conflict.

Revulsion filled her again. Her temper, slipping free at the worst moments with the risk of capture moments away, being taken away from everything she loved and had come to love, being taken away from the chance to bring some kind of justice to Roseate and see it done.

Worst… Glory had forgiven her.

That wasn’t going to save her from a dressing-down from Captain Pink nor, likely, a demotion and reassignment from patrol to something more desk related. Maybe even the prison.

Wouldn’t that just be an ironic punishment.

She was going to get a dressing down, too, for not returning to Collar to report what she’d found, instead remaining behind, alone against orders, to clean up and think about the note.

‘If you ever loved her, leave the city.’

She didn’t have to guess who ‘her’ was.

Rosemary.

A lover who’d started going through the complicated web of pre-bonding rituals, some of which were bound into law. Checking the genealogy library. Meeting with the parents on both sides—impossible in Rosemary’s case, and something Cloudy had kept putting off and off and off…

She hadn’t wanted to meet the Rose Terror. Not after watching her duel with her own mother.

Cloudy hadn’t understood Rosewater’s reason for dueling at the time, hadn’t even met Rosemary yet, but that had been the most brutal, one-sided duel she’d ever seen, and not because Rosewater was stronger than Roseate. Because she was more ruthless.

The screams of magically induced terror had haunted her for days.

They still haunted her.

But Rosewater hadn’t been after her. She’d been warning her.

Why?

She sighed and slipped the brush from her hoof. It would be better if she were early than if she showed up exactly on time, showing she was willing to take her licks. It would fall less harshly on Collar, too, if she was cooperative.

And she owed him that much for taking her in when few other Prims would trust the rogue Rose in their midst, and giving her a chance to prove herself.

She closed the door behind her, but didn’t bother locking it. Rose Glory had made the pointlessness of that readily apparent. It had taken her less than a second to finesse the ‘Best lock Damme has to offer.’

As exhausted as she was, launching into the air was still exhilarating after a lifetime of flight and pushed back some of the fatigue gnawing at her. The air rushing past her ears woke her enough to push out an envelope of calmer air until she could see where she was going, and banked left to follow the river west for a mile at a slow glide, barely trying to stay aloft.

This early, both cities were sleeping.

Even the hearty night life of Merrie had tapered off into a few ponies wandering drunkenly through the winding, silk-shrouded streets, rivers of fluttering cloth that glowed in the still brightly lit lamps that lined them. During the day those rivers would flow like rapids with ponies going about their businesses and pleasures.

It called to her heart, memories of those nights she’d spent with mares, and with Rosemary, enjoying the lively days of chasing her through the streets, laughing as they played their game of veil and hunt.

Cloudy usually won those games, and delighted in picking the day’s activities after. A play one day, running wild in one of the city’s many open plains parks. Some days she would win, and would choose a book to read, especially during the long winter nights.

And she was there somewhere still, hopefully still playing her games and finding her joys in the City of Delight.

On the north side, Damme’s straight streets began to darken as the enchantments were dimmed on street lights, turning the city from a ghostly jigsaw puzzle into a mass of darkened stone and dark greenery, a place of greater mystery than when it had been ghost-lit from within.

They were both beautiful cities on their own merits, but the hearts of them were as different as two cities could be, and she’d made her choice. It had hurt, and it had hurt more that Rosemary hadn’t seemed to get her letter. She’d waited hours at the secret place, but all that had come was a capture squad for daring to disobey an order so flagrantly.

An order to betray her lover’s trust.

She shook her head and banked away from the river and towards the sprawling stone edifice of the prim palace, and the far smaller tower barracks.

The courtyard was clear except for Captain Prim Pink, her tightly bound mane barely shifting under her captain’s circlet. She’d been waiting there, as if she’d known Cloudy would come early.

Not much passed by the captain unnoticed, and her eyes tracked Cloudy as she landed and trotted up to the regulation two places distance from her commanding officer.

“Lieutenant Rose, attention!”

Cloudy snapped to attention and saluted. “Reporting for discipline, ma’am!”

“You know what kind of manure you’re in, I take it,” Captain Pink said as she strode back and forth in deliberate, carefully measured strides, never taking her eyes off Cloudy.

“Aye, ma’am!” Despite the distraction, Cloudy kept her eyes snapped forward at an imaginary point just past her nose. Drills in the Dammeguard were harsh, precise, orderly, and expected to be adhered to exactly. The Merrieguard, her former home, was far more lax on parade ground discipline, but expected the same commitment to duty.

“Then I only have one question. Why?” Captain Pink stopped in front of her, nose inches from Cloudy’s own. “It better be good.”

Cloudy swallowed. “Because I was stupid, ma’am. And angry. And riding an adrenaline high.”

“Excuses,” Captain Pink barked. “I didn’t ask for your whining. I asked you why?”

Cloudy closed her eyes. The wrong thing to do.

“Look at me, Lieutenant!” The captain’s voice was a roar that echoed off the palace walls. She snapped her eyes open. “Or would you prefer to be a corporal again? Or a private? But before you tell me which rank you think you ought to be busted to, answer why.”

“Because they were going to take me back. Because I was going to be exiled. Because they sent Rosewater after me.” She swallowed back her terror.

“A better answer.” Captain Pink shook her head. “But not a good reason why. You both surprised each other. A little bruising is expected from a tackle or any one of dozens of take down moves I taught you myself!” The captain shook her head slowly, lip curled. “I did not teach you to back-kick, and you’d better be grateful you’re so stars-damned sloppy at it that you missed anything vital. Aimed wrong, it might have hit her neck, her head, or her ribs. You’re lucky nothing was broken.”

Just as the tirade was about to continue, Captain Pink froze and stared past her, for a second only, then fixed her with a parade-perfect drill stare. “My office, on the double. I’ll be up shortly.”

“Aye, ma’am!” Without a look back at Prim Collar, unable to face him even if she hadn’t been given an order, she rushed inside.

Faces peered out at her, some lovers offering sympathetic looks before ducking back into their bunks and ignoring her. Word had already spread through the grapevine, faster than a teleporting unicorn.

The captain’s office was as austere as the mare herself, only a desk, a padded bench behind, and two uncomfortable chairs in front. Sitting on the floor was a privilege in her office. Cloudy stood at rigid attention to the side of the door, eyes fixed on the wall between Captain Prim Pink’s portrait next to Prim Lace’s.

It didn’t take long before the heavy, steady tread of the earth pony captain made itself known, coupled with the lighter tread she knew so well. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall and swallowed, trying not to remember the hurt she’d seen in Rose Glory’s eyes. And the pain she’d seen in Prim Poppy’s.

She felt sick.

The door opened. “After you, my lord.”

Prim Collar stepped into her peripheral vision, his eyes trying to meet hers.

She kept her eyes rigidly locked in place.

Captain Pink strode in, past him, and shoved aside her bench, standing in behind her desk while she rummaged through the files and pulled out the thin folder for her. She knew it was hers. She’d seen it once before when she’d been caught ‘fraternizing’ with a superior. A mare by the name of Golden Prim, her first lieutenant at the time.

There’d been no such hearing when she’d started sleeping with Collar. Unless she counted the awkward talk with Primline Lace the other day.

“Lieutenant Rose,” the captain said, sitting on the floor and nosing open the folder. “His lordship has asked me not to be lenient, but neither to be too harsh. A part of that leniency is based on Rose Glory’s formal offer of forgiveness. We still reported her capture and injury, but since the captured is deciding not to press for restitution, only a demerit will be placed in your record for reckless endangerment.”

Collar again tried to meet her eyes, leaning forward slightly and opening his mouth as if to speak before closing it and sitting back.

“Do you understand?”

“Understood, ma’am,” Cloudy said evenly.

“Regardless of other considerations, your use of potentially life-threatening force mandates a punishment strictly defined by the Dammeguard charter under the Treaty. First, you will be broken one rank to Second Lieutenant. Second, you will no longer have command privileges and your squad will be reassigned to First Lieutenant Golden. Third, you will be barred from sleeping at your home. A bunk will be assigned to you in the barracks and your lease put on hold by order of Prim Lace. Fourth, you will be reassigned to the Palace Guard.”

The first two were expected, though lighter than she’d been anticipating. The second to last and last were odd enough to finally break her from her rigid disciplinary posture, and she flicked a look at Captain Pink. “Ma’am?”

“Certain intelligence gathered by Lord Prim Collar last night indicates that you are on Roseate’s personal shitlist, lieutenant. That encourages us to place you in confined quarters during curfew hours to keep you safe from further attempts on your freedom. Further, you ignored a direct order from your lord and did not return after investigating your apartment for clues.” Captain Pink’s eyebrow rose. “Did you find anything?”

“Y-yes.” Cloudy’s ears flicked back at the look from the captain. “Aye, ma’am. A note in block script.” Cloudy bent her neck about and pulled the scrap of paper from her her under-wing purse.

Collar took it from her, read it, and laid it on the desk. “If you ever loved her, leave the city.”

Captain Pink shook her head. “I hate mysteries. One of you tell me what that means.”

“Rosemary,” Cloudy blurted. “She means Rosemary.”

Collar bobbed his head once. “She’s right. That’s the only pony it can be. It means Rosewater gave us a warning. Or a threat.”

“As I said, I hate mysteries,” Captain Pink growled. “Explain why the Rose Terror would do anything nice for us.”

“She hates her mother, with a passion. That should be reason enough,” Collar said, shaking his head. “She was cryptic last night. I had her captured, but she let me know there was another Rose stalking Cloudy. I had to let her go to come to you.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant!” Captain Pink roared. “Control yourself.” Then focused on Collar again, every line of her screaming that she hated she couldn’t bark orders at him. “If you wouldn’t mind, my lord… please enlighten us.”

Cloudy snapped back to attention, but her ears wouldn’t follow the rest of her body’s example and stayed flat to her skull. He’d captured Rosewater, or she’d allowed herself to be captured, and then offered up just the right enticement to force him to let her go. And he’d had to bite.

She’s more dangerous than I thought.

“She’s playing a deeper game than I thought,” Collar said with a sigh, nearly echoing her thoughts save the sentiment. “She’s always been unpredictable, but this is…” He froze, snapping his head around to stare at Cloudy. “You were Rosemary’s lover. How exclusive were you?”

“Sir, we were together probably four days out of ten. Sometimes with others of her friends or mine. Sometimes alone.” She didn’t look away from that spot on the wall. Reporting their days in the sun, their nights entwined so coldly hurt. The talks they’d had, before and after, and with friends. The plans they’d started to make. “I loved her. I tried to get her to leave with me. But either she didn’t want to leave, or she never got my message.”

“Close, then. And if Roseate had you as a thrall…” Collar shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to think why she’d want to coerce or entice Rosemary. Or why she’d have to. She should be bound under the Way of the Rose to follow her orders.”

Cloudy hated the Way of the Rose. The binding that put all nobility in the city automatically in the military. She’d been bound by it, but it hadn’t been so bad. Rosewater was supposed to be bound by it, but if she’d been there, and hadn’t followed through… hadn’t taken Cloudy like she had only the day before demonstrated she could…

“She’s disobeying orders,” Cloudy said. “What makes you think Rosemary won’t as well? Roseate exiled her mother. She’s hardly a reliable soldier. Roseate will know that, too.”

Captain Pink’s face reddened until Collar waved a hoof at her.

“Candid discussion, please. Cloudy knows the Roses like we don’t.”

Like a summer storm come and gone, Captain Pink’s face returned to its normal complexion. It was a skill former drill instructors never lost. Rage in an instant, gone in a flash. “Aye, my lord. Frank discussion. Speak freely, Cloudy.” As if to demonstrate, Prim Pink plucked the circlet from her head and set it on the desk with a clink. “We’re just ponies.”

“Rosewater and Carnation Rose,” Cloudy said softly, ducking her head and flattening her ears. “They were… they were close.” That had to be the reason why Rosewater had dueled her mother, to get her to rescind an exile order already served. Except Rosewater had won. No. Not Carnation. Rosemary.“I think… Roseate is using Rosemary against Rosewater. If she can make Rosemary disobey an order, she can exile her. Guardianship or no.”

“But why? That would just make Rosewater…” Collar tipped his head. “No. She wants Rosewater to challenge her to another duel. She thinks she can win, perhaps.” He glanced at Cloudy. “You mentioned, in your intake debriefing, that you’d seen their duel.”

Screaming. Terror. The Rose Terror. “Yes.” If Roseate thought she could win…

“You said it was a nasty one.”

“The nastiest I’ve ever seen or heard of,” Cloudy said in a clipped tone, fighting to keep the images from her mind. “Roses don’t fight with fear, Collar. They fight with Lust. It’s what Roseate tried to use.”

Captain Pink shuddered and grimaced. “On her own daughter?”

“Roseate is ruthless, but Rosewater didn’t even blink,” Cloudy said, nodding and feeling not a little queasy herself. “But she wasn’t prepared for fear. I don’t know… how. Perfumed fear, perhaps?”

Collar shivered. “Dangerous mare. If she can do that, no wonder Roseate has been trying to gain leverage over her.”

“So.” Captain Pink crossed her forelegs on the desk and sat up straighter. “Roseate is walking on tenterhooks around Rosewater, knows that she’s the best to do what she wants, would probably enjoy the irony of Rosewater giving her the tools she needed to control a pony close to her, but Rosewater found out, guessed, or is generally obstinate to anything her mother wants.”

“The last of which could be a trap. Roseate is afraid to try exiling Rosewater, I’m sure, because she’s the only pony who’s a match for me on their side,” Collar said, flicking his ears. “Skill-wise, and one-on-one.”

“I think we’re missing something,” Cloudy said softly. “Carnation Rose, Roseate’s sister. How close were they?”

“Obviously not very if Roseate exiled her,” Captain Pink said with a snorted laugh.

“Not that. Rosewater was living with Carnation from age six. Four years before Rosemary was born. Why? Why would Rosewater live with her aunt instead of her mother?” Cloudy shook her head slowly, tapping a hoof on the floor. “The file said it was right after her father died. Is there anything to that?”

“Doubtful.” Captain Pink studied the desk, rolling her circlet up and letting it fall flat. “As far as I know, nothing happened there. One week, Rosewater was living in the Rose Palace, and the next, she was living in Carnation’s estate.” Captain Pink tapped the back of a hoof on the desk. “Roseate, dealing with grief and… what? Five other brooding children? So Carnation offered to take a six year old off her hooves in exchange for some favor, perhaps. I’ve got a six year old niece. Her mother wishes she could pass her off to somepony else every now and then. And she’s only got two foals.”

Cloudy shrugged. It made as much sense as anything else, and didn’t directly contradict Rose customs. “Children are often raised by a whole extended family.”

“We could ask Rose Glory,” Collar said. “She’s, er, taken a Prim as a lover.”

“I don’t like that, Lord Collar,” Captain Pink growled, picking up her circlet and placing it back on her head. “But you’re right. Assuming he didn’t spend all night cock deep in her glorious depths, I’d like to talk to him.” She patted the desk in front of Cloudy. “Or, rather, I want you to talk to them. Three times a week. You understand both sides of the river, Cloudy. But do try and not let your temper go.”

Cloudy stared at the symbol of the captain’s rank, the silver circlet with the triplet of amethysts above her brow, swallowed her immediate retort, and said, “Aye, ma’am. How long will this assignment last?”

“Until I’m satisfied.” Pink waved a hoof. “Dismissed.

“Aye, ma’am.”

Collar tugged at her chin gently as she relaxed from attention. “And, Cloudy, I would like for you to apologize to her. Sincerely.” He released her chin, his eyes softening. “It will help you, too.”

The list of things Rosewater had given her to collect in addition to all the items she needed to make on her own for the raid was a very esoteric collection, and most of it was perishable. Freshly baked biscuits for dogs that didn’t respond to other scents. Strips of dried fish for the cats. All of it sealed in scent-lock enchanted cloth bags until she might need it.

It was a beginners basic kit. Foals First Raid level of specificity.

Sometimes, she thought Rosewater just liked to annoy her. Carnation had been almost as protective, as smug in her execution of her role as mother. And just as playful.

Rosewater’s calm voice as she wrote out each item the day before came back to her.

“Just for your first raid. Once you get more comfortable with walking unseen, you’ll learn to watch ahead for these obstacles.”

She stepped from the shop, blinked, and quickly cast her veil before slipping into the crowd again. She kept the veil light, only hiding her cutie mark and shifting her coat and mane a few shades lighter than normal. A quick look over the river at the rooftops rising above the hedge confirmed her need. A glint of glass flickered briefly, then disappeared.

She flattened her ears at that much of a slip and frowned at herself.

“Remember the veil. It will save you.” Rosewater’s voice, repeating a mantra for the umpteen-thousandth time in the past two days.

Rosewater had been more her teacher in the art of spycraft than Carnation, the latter being more inclined to what Roseate called ‘indolence’ than that of a ‘proper’ Merrie noblemare. It had suited Carnation, though, and her paintings decorated their house. They were in her own style, a realistic modern aesthetic that eschewed the more impressionistic style popular in Canterlot.

That, too, was Carnation. She went her own way. Often, Rosewater had followed or tried to.

There was another part Rosewater wasn’t saying, but she’d never seen the look she’d expected in cousin’s eyes. Or in her mother’s. They weren’t mother and daughter. But they weren’t lovers, either. What they were, Rosemary had always had a hard time defining.

Rosewater was a confusing mare, and she always had been. She hadn’t always been cold to the rest of the family, and had actually found a second mother in Budding Rose when they’d been more of a whole family, and had lived together with her, and babysat her and Rose Seed both. She had imagined that there could be no happier life, and no warmer soul. They were both… more. Sometimes it was indefinable.

But then things had changed. Carnation had been exiled, hauled out of their home before they’d even had a chance to properly say farewell.

Something had broken in Rosewater then, shattered, and rage had replaced it. Anger and hate and not a little bit of fear. She’d disappeared into her perfumery for a week, and been tense and terse at dinner, the only time Rosemary saw her during the day during that frightening time.

Then the duel that Rosemary had been forbidden from seeing. Then she had become Rosewater’s charge in fact and name, and had murmured in her sleep, holding Rosemary close, that she ‘hadn’t had to use your gift.’

What that gift was, Rosewater had never said. That it had come from Carnation, and had been a private gifting between them… she’d never questioned that.

Things had changed, both in public and in private. Things Rosemary had been used to saying, she couldn’t say anymore, even in private for fear that they would be overheard and used against them. In public, Rosewater cut herself off from her old friends aside from an occasional and extremely clandestine meeting, as if she were raiding in Merrie itself just to sneak a night away from home.

In private, she was warmer than ever as if to make up for the cool aloofness she showed in public.

For six years so far, she’d kept it up. Each year wearing her down a little more, and each anniversary of Carnation’s exile taking more of a toll on her despite her outward confidence.

This latest development seemed to have shocked her out of that habit of staying aloof, and at each shop she stopped at, she got some little tidbit that her cousin had been there to place an order for her.

Hoof-holding, but… at least she was getting out.

More shops she stopped at to pick up a tidbit here and there took her coin and gave her a smile. Some of the keepers had been occasional lovers, others friends for a day of watching a play or having a picnic on the shore, sharing poems, and debating philosophy.

All things that Rosewater insisted she learn, both before and after Carnation had been exiled.

She’d also insisted that Rosemary make friends with as many shopkeepers as she could. They would be more careful with their goods if they liked her, and only sell her the best.

Of course, some of them were too delicious to pass up offering a night or a day of fun and not only friendship. Like her friend Rosie Night, a perennially bouncy earth pony with a pink coat so dark it was almost purple and a mane like the last rays of sunlight, burnt gold, red, and magenta, and a kiss that could be as soft flower petals or fierce as a tiger, and a tongue that always tasted of the sweets she made.

Her shop was filled them, jars upon jars marked with dozens of different flavor labels resting on shelves that were available for browsing and sniffing. The scent filling the small space was a cacophony to her nose, but warm and inviting all the same. She could spend, and had spent, hours sniffing each and every jar and letting Rosie tell her what they were and how she made each one.

The owner was a pleasantly plump mare, tender in bed, and knew a few things that Rosemary had yet to master.

She laughed softly as she leaned across the counter to catch Rosie in a kiss she let linger long enough to get the taste of the latest batch of rose candy.

“Mm.” Rosie licked Rosemary’s upper lip as she drew away. “Like the taste?”

“Always. What’s the secret ingredient this time?” She leaned in again for another, shorter taste. “Is that cinnamon?”

“Ooh, good. Yes. It’s a fireball for the senses.” Rosie swept a hoof down the rows of jars of candies. “Sharp, not too sweet, just enough of the bite of raw cinnamon to burn away fatigue. Good for when you need a boost. Do not use it just before going down on me.”

“Got it! No fireball clits.”

Rosie shuddered. “Never, got me? Trestle did that, and I still haven’t forgiven him.” She turned about, bustling with a cloth sack as she started measuring in some faintly reddish balls that smelled hot even above the lingering fragrance in her nose. “Say, I saw your cousin yesterday. Rosewater.” Rosie’s ear flicked nervously, not looking back. “She placed an order for you.”

“Oh?” Rosemary flicked a look over her shoulder, as if Rosewater might be watching her. But she wouldn’t be. She’d said she was going to spend the day making the perfume for Lady Baroness Highwater and send her packing on the morrow.

There was no tall mare, or shadow waiting outside, and the building opposite blocked the view of the river. No spies would be able to see what she was buying, even with her veil down, unless they happened to wander in.

“I’m a bit jealous, you know,” Rosie said as she disappeared halfway into the back and came out with a small pouch of candies she set and let spill out, bright green and striated with white stress marks.

“Jealous how?”

“How she seems to always be on your mind, dear.” Rosie rolled one of the balls forward with a breath. “I wish I was on your mind as much as she was.”

“I mean, you are, but it’s been hectic the last couple days.” It was likely to get more hectic in the next few weeks if Roseate really wanted her to start raiding. “What’s this?”

“These are Minty Minds,”

It melted on her tongue immediately and a wash of minty fresh feeling spread through her as she breathed out a stream of green sparkles. The troubling thoughts plaguing her since waking up seemed to wash away, and it felt like anything she focused on, she could do.

“Oh… wow.” She laughed and raised an eyebrow, focusing on Rosie. “Kissable safe?”

“Everything I make is kissable safe. Just not lickable safe. These are also not lickable safe.” Rosie winked and pursed her lips. “Sure you can’t stay for a little while longer? I can close the shop for a quick fifteen.”

“I’m sure. I don’t do very well at quick.”

Rosie laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Part of what I love about you, dear. Don’t keep me, or Vel and Trestle waiting too long, hear? They’ve been asking about you since they got back from Canterlot.”

“I won’t!” She stepped out, cursed, and veiled. Stars help me. At least she wasn’t on an east-running street, and no clouds in the sky to hide a pegasus spy. Though there were a fair number of pegasi in the air, and with Minty Mind rolling through her, she could see clearly enough to pick out features even so high, though the effect started to wane even as she focused on one in particular, a grass-green pony… who turned out to be a stallion.

Not Cloudy. She wouldn’t risk a flyover.

The last item on her list was… packing everything. Making sure it was all tucked away into the proper pouches, easily accessible within the cloak she would have to wear to keep all the little accoutrements an amateur raider needed.

Later, she wouldn’t need such a gimmick to hold her things. She would only need her enticement scents and her lure and her magic. The less encumbered a raider was, the easier it was to move without sound.

Rosewater went naked of all but her cloak lately, and that more to hide her white coat than anything else. Her lure was herself, her enticement a whisper of magic and whatever scents happened to be nearby.

She was nearly home when the bag of candies slipped from the top of her saddlebag. She managed to catch it before it fell, but her veil slipped for an instant. She glanced quickly along the line of buildings over the river, but saw no glint or telltale movement.

It wasn’t a secret that she lived with Rosewater, but the fact that she’d let her veil slip at all simply from a minor distraction…

That tendency towards distraction might be something they could use against her if they knew it was her going on a raid.

“Lieutenant Rose,” the guards at the jail’s entrance said, uncrossing their cudgels. The one on the right opened the door for her. “Captain Pink left orders last night that you would be expected.”

That…“Of course she did.” It’d all been a show for her benefit. She’d always been going to be Rose Glory’s interrogator. “Thank you, Corporal.”

Prim Poppy was just inside, chatting with the day warden, a scroll hovering between them as he pointed out specific lines of whatever had been written on it.

“…prohibited. Nothing more strenuous than a slow walk around the yard.”

“Understood. And I’m to understand you’re her attending?” The warden asked, taking the scroll from Poppy’s grasp and setting it on the desk.

“I am. If there are any complications, please send for me day or night. It’s in the scroll.” He pointed at it with a hoof, his ears starting to twitch.

Done with his medical duty, Poppy reverted to his usual self, nervous, more than a little anxious around other ponies.

How did you do it, Glory? Cloudy mused, studying him while she waited to get the warden’s attention. He was good at his job as their division medic, but he’d never really been very social, always preferring smaller gatherings to the usual bluster at a place like the Bridgewater Bilge, one of the only taverns in Damme that didn’t look down on her because she had pink eyes.

“Anything else, Corporal Poppy?” the day warden asked, reviewing the scroll with a wary eye. “Anything that would require an in person visit?”

“N-no. Just, make sure she does her exercises and gets chances to walk in the yard at least twice a day to keep her muscle tone, Warden Wheat.” Poppy’s confidence took a hit again as he jerked a look at the broad stairs leading up to the second level. “She’s a-an invaluable asset.”

Cloudy managed, just, to keep a smirk off her face. “She doing okay?”

Poppy glanced at her, startled, and nodded. “Y-yeah. Sh-she’s doing fine.” He swallowed, every line of him pleading with her not to tell anypony, especially not the warden, that he was Glory’s lover.

For all she knew, he was her exclusive lover. “Great. I’m here to talk to her. Not interrogate,” she added when a touch of that fiercely protective side of him came back, firming his jaw. She really did capture you, didn’t she? “How are you doing, Pop? Got enough sleep last night?”

Right back on his hind legs. “Y-yeah. She did, too. After she got settled in.”

Probably good that cell is soundproofed. “Glad to hear it. Get some rest, Poppy, you still look like you barely slept.”

Poppy laughed nervously. “Well, you know… one of the Rosethorn sisters.” He yawned and waved as he headed to the gate. “Be gentle, Cloudy.”

Warden Wheat pursed his lips as he stared after the stallion after he’d left. “He didn’t come down last night at all, the logs said.”

“She’s a high profile prisoner,” Cloudy said, tapping the logbook. “Sign me in, will you?”

Wheat raised a brow at her, but nodded. “Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

The stairs up were solid stone, broad, and carpeted with the purple and blue of House Prim, bordered with gold to indicate nobility. Her hoofsteps barely registered, and any echo she made was quickly swallowed up by the carpet.

The Golden Cage was little more than a wall of bars and a gate that closed off the rest of the prison from a suite of three rooms including a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bathroom. It was better appointed than her own apartment, almost as richly as Collar’s chambers in the palace.

While there was no privacy, or right to it for the prisoners, Roses who stayed tended not to care about such things. Rose Glory was lying on a settee in the sitting room, a book hovering before her. Aristallion’s Analytics. Her left shoulder was wrapped with white cloth, the point of impact thickly padded and stained dark with ointment.

She deigned to notice Cloudy when she set a hoof to the gate, and her rank insignia glowed, disarming the charms and breaking the silence as she stepped through and into the room still smelling faintly of sex. She didn’t have to be a Rosethorn to recognize that scent, though a Prim might mistake it.

Glory waited until the door closed again and the wards reset before put the book down. “My captor,” she said in a distant tone, eying her warily. “Why have you come?”

“To talk.” Cloudy swallowed, looking away from the binding around her shoulder. “And… to apologize.”

Glory raised a brow and glanced at her shoulder. “I’ve already forgiven you. What is there to apologize for? We both made mistakes, Cloudy Rosewing.”

“Why are you being so cordial?” Cloudy swept a wing at the cage behind her. “This has to be… frustrating, right?”

“My dear. Imagine, for a moment, if you’d completed that mission that had gotten you all but exiled.” Glory tipped her chin up as Cloudy’s ears flattened. “Imagine, for a moment, if you had used the love of that precious mare to sneak into the most well-guarded building in all of Merrie. Imagine her hurt when she found out.”

“How—”

“Now. Imagine that you have to do that every day. You have to use ponies to get secrets, even if you don’t want to, because the few ponies you care about are at risk if you don’t.” Glory’s voice got sharper with every word, her ears flattening into her mane. “Imagine if you had a reason to let it go through no fault of your own. If you didn’t have to make the same decision you did to outright disobey a direct order from your own mother.”

Cloudy stared at the mare and felt a shiver crawling down her neck to her tail.

“The analogy breaks down at the end, but I see you have quite the idea.” Glory flicked her tail against the lounging couch. “This, Cloudy Rosewing, is the lap of rutting luxury.” She blinked, grinned, and cocked her head. “I mean, it is, but not being required to run another errand because my particular talent makes me oh-so-very useful as a spy… just to protect one pony. It’s a vacation.”

“How did you know what my mission was?”

“I do more than spy on you. I spy on mother, too. And my sisters. And everyone.” Glory flicked her ears. “The secrets I hear help me keep the ponies I actually care about safe.”

There was a gap in that logic. “And now? What will you do to keep them safe now?”

“Why, by being a model prisoner, of course. I do so love Poppy, and I would marry him outright, and rut mother with a rusty tent-pole, but there are certain other ponies in Merrie that I am quite inclined to keep safe by not defecting openly.” Glory huffed a breath and glanced pointedly at her. “Nor reveal secrets that could only have come from me.”

“She rules by fear. We already know that.” Cloudy rubbed at her cheek, thinking. She needed something from Glory. Something that would help.

“Oh, and isn’t she so grand at it? Why, she…” Glory’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, grinned, and cocked her head. “Oh, but that’s a secret. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay dearly for that one.”

Cloudy growled, gritting her teeth. “What about Rosemary. I know she’s going raiding soon. Rosewater’s all but confirmed it by her actions. When is she going out?”

“Mmm. And what will I get if I tell you?” Glory’s tail flirted over her flank as she cocked her head to the side. “You’ll catch her, and you’ll take her, and then someone will know, or at least suspect, that I told you.”

“If she breaks no laws, then we don’t have a reason to arrest her. She’s not on any warrant list.” Cloudy chewed her lip for a moment, thinking, trying to think how much Rosewater might have corrupted her to the Rosethorn Way. How much of the mare I loved is still there?

“Ah, so she isn’t. She could pop over for a visit any time, couldn’t she?” Glory mused, tapping a hind hoof against the couch’s opposite rest. “Why hasn’t she, I wonder.”

Cloudy closed her eyes and started counting silently, her ears flat to her skull.

“I’m right, but I’m also wrong, and so are you, Cloudy,” Glory said halfway to ten. “Whatever reason you think she hasn’t come to visit is likely not the correct one. Give it some thought and let me know what you think tomorrow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Glory flicked an ear and picked up the book again. “It means: can you think, or can you only react?”

Author's Notes:

Argh. Cascading continuity issues! Cleanup, I love you, but you're such a pain sometimes.

I forgot how many continuity issues there were with later chapters in these first few. Bleh. But is cleaned up now.

Book 1, 6. First Time

Rosemary stood stock still while Rosewater paced around her, plucking at this or that item in her cloak’s pockets and nodding or tying it tighter. She winced at each of the latter and tried not to react to the former.

“Veil and prance in place,” Rosewater commanded, the familiar friendly tone gone. She was a taskmare, hard-eyed and serious. It wasn’t quite the face and tone she used in public with her mother, but it was close.

She felt silly drumming her hooves in place on the hardwood, focusing on both her veil and Silent Hooves spells, but she began smiling as Rosewater continued her pacing, nodding now and then as her eyes flicked from bulge to bulge, tugged at a knot, and then a vial. Nothing rattled or clattered, and her cloak stayed in place over her cutie mark and head. Nothing fell out at Rosewater’s gentle tugs.

“Very good. Now keep doing that and draw out Bluebell’s Bliss. And keep your veil up, your hooves silent.” Her cousin didn’t stop her pacing, a constant distraction she had to filter out.

The vial of sparkling blue liquid slipped free at a sharp tug, and the stopper came free with a twist.

“Good. Put it back.” Rosewater tugged at her tail just when it was about in. “Caught,” she said sharply as Rosemary’s Veil dropped. “No matter what, Rosemary. The Veil is your life in the night. The Veil will keep the rest of you hidden even if they grab your cloak or your tail or your mane.”

It was the same lesson as always, almost the same words. “I’ve been practicing.”

“You have. I’ve noticed the improvement.” Rosewater offered a precious smile, so rare during training. “Have you found a pegasus to chase you?”

“I’ve been looking. But none of them are… well.” Rosemary shook her head. “They’re… not like Cloudy.”

Her cousin’s expression flickered briefly, a tightening of the brow, a thinning of the lips then resumed their steady demeanor. “I know. Try to find somepony to train with. I promise it will help.”

Rosemary sighed, not looking forward to the interview process. She wasn’t looking for a lover. She’d never had to look for a lover, in any case. She stumbled into them. It was just so awkward trying to ask a pegasus to chase her.

She could go to the Garden of Love, but they would ask her about Rosewater, and Rosewater stayed away because of the stupid, however factual, notion that Roseate would target them.

“I’ll keep looking.”

“Please do.”

Rosewater paced away, head lowered, ears ticking as the mask of Taskmare started to falter. She could only keep it for so long before it started to hurt her. So her solution was… ‘don’t look at me.’

“Listen to me, Rosemary.” She stopped at one of the few paintings of them as a family that Carnation had not painted, commissioned years ago, it showed Rosewater, white coat captured perfectly with the faint creases and shading that made her look more real, her gold-flecked pink eyes and pink mane floating in the breeze, and Carnation, her bright smile and blond mane shining in the sun.

Between them, Rosemary sat impatiently facing forward, the river and Primrose Bridge as a backdrop. They could have been any other Merrier family in that portrait, two wives and their daughter.

The reality had been so very different. And also closer than any looking in from the outside would guess.

Rosewater’s hoof touched the wall by Carnation’s image, and her jaw moved slowly, whispering words Rosemary couldn’t hear. Words that Rosewater meant for Carnation alone.

When she turned around, the taskmaster was gone, and the mare in the painting looked back at her, a touch sadder, more tired, and still just as determined to be a good parent.

“Your first night, you don’t have to do anything.” Rosewater shook her head as Rosemary shifted. “I would prefer you not to even open any of those vials in your cloak unless you absolutely need to. Get used to wearing it. Familiarize yourself with the shadows and how they move in Damme. Get to know the guard patrol routes, and…”

“And?” Rosemary asked, voice trembling.

“If you get caught, don’t fight, Rosemary. Don’t let them hurt you.” Tears shimmered in Rosewater’s eyes. “There’s so much that can go wrong in a chase. I can’t lose you. I won’t.”

Tension shivered in the air for a moment.

“You won’t.”

Rosewater nodded sharply, her jaw tight, and made herself relax, another mask taking the place of the raw emotional pain shivering just behind the ‘guardian’ mask. “Most importantly, don’t attempt a taking tonight.”

“I can do that? I don’t have to bring anypony back?”

“No. You don’t. Not every raid is successful.” Rosewater turned her head to the side, towards the front door and the river, and Damme past it. “Mine, last night, was almost a disaster.”

Uncertainly, Rosemary took a step forward and pressed her cheek to her cousin’s. “Are you okay? You didn’t say much last night.”

“Yes.” Rosewater’s eyes closed, and she bobbed her head, pressing closer. “I will recover. I’m feeling much better today than I was yesterday.” She took a deep breath and pulled back, her eyes flicking between Rosemary’s before steadying.

Rosemary’s heart fluttered. She really was worried. “I promise. I’ll come back. I’m not going to leave you.”

Rosewater’s head bobbed once in a curt nod. “I know. Stay to the west side of Damme. I fear the east side will be under a tighter watch for my incursion. And be wary when crossing the bridge. I would recommend the Primrose, but it’s far too well lit, though less guarded because of that. The Dockbridge will be barely guarded, and may—”

Rosemary stopped her with a tweak of the ear. “I know my route. I’ve spent all day researching it and talking to some of my trader friends. I’m crossing the Rosewine. There’s an alley there that I can teleport to if I need to, and the bridge is barely lit at night.”

“Okay.” Rosewater opened her mouth to say more, then shook her head. The taskmare descended again and backed away. “Veil, Rosemary. Again.”

Testing continued. She had only an hour before sundown to practice more. To make sure her gear was set. To make sure she was in the proper mindset. To make sure she would return.

Cloudy Rose sat on a cloud far above the river, her wings barely stirring to keep the cloud drifting slowly in a circle. It was lucky the night was so calm, or a single cloud drifting slowly might draw attention if anypony bothered to notice that it never seemed to leave the general vicinity of the river.

She could have sat on one of the rooftop eyries, but she would have been far more visible there, and if she needed to take off, her wings would give her away with the launch and alert her.

The stoop was swamped with shade, no street lamp being near it, as every noble house preferred on the in Merrie. But it was easy enough to tell when something started to happen.

Just past sundown, with the moon still edging above the horizon, the front door opened, and Rosewater stepped out, unveiled. That was a surprise on it’s own, and the mare’s face in the scope was drawn and tired, but a tender smile played over her lips for a moment as she looked east towards the moon.

Then she turned, drew power into her horn, and turned off all the lights in the house, and started off down the river walk, heading east, drawing eyes in that direction, towards the side of Damme that she’d caused a fuss in during the past day.

The spies on the buildings watching the various noble houses would certainly be focusing on her. Rosewater gave her cloud a cursory glance as she passed by a street lamp, and saw a flicker of shadow swing just wrongly enough that it drew her attention.

It was a classic maneuver, false shadowing. And, sure enough, a few steps later…

Cloudy stifled a curse. Rosewater vanished entirely in the full light of a streetlamp. No flash of light for a teleport, nothing but a brief flare of her horn. Another thing Rosewater could do that she hadn’t been aware of. True invisibility.

A moment spent looking for her to reappear somewhere else proved fruitless and distracted her from her real purpose for being up here. No doubt the other watchers were intent on finding the most dangerous mare in two cities, quietly starting to panic and wondering if they should send out notices to bring up reserves.

She swiveled the scope back to the place where the shadow had wavered, pulling the scope back a bit to get a wider view, focusing on the span of the river walk between the Primrose and the Highline Bridges. Then shifting further down to the space between the latter and the Rosewine, the last bridge before the Dockbridge and the bay.

Just when she was about to swivel and search for other places Rosemary might have gotten off to, and cursing herself for taking Rosewater’s offered bait, a shadow moved just slightly wrong.

If it hadn’t been such a calm night, if she hadn’t been looking for just that kind of change, she would have missed it.

There! A shadow moved without the tree that had made it moving. Then the shadow of the tree next to it shivered. It was a good veil, but whomever was casting it wasn’t used to moving from shadow to shadow.

It had to be Rosemary, and she was headed for the Rosewine.

For long minutes, she followed the inexpert shifting, noting how the pattern moved, slowly becoming more comfortable with moving from deepest shadow to deepest shadow. She always had been a fast learner, but she’d apparently fallen out of practice hiding from pegasi.

An earth pony or unicorn likely wouldn’t have noticed anything from their angle, just a shadow moving along more shadows. But from above, all the shadows acted as a web, and changes to one drew the eye more readily.

Rosemary’s darker part of the night paused at the shallow rise of the Rosewine, and the Merrieguard stationed there. The made a point of not noticing the shadow that passed between them up on to the barely lighted span, then stopped.

The Damme side of the bridge was brightly lit enough to foil any veiling but invisibility, and unless Rosemary had the talent for it… and if she didn’t, it would likely cost her.

What will you do about that?

The shadow hesitated, drifting back and forth at the edge of the light. She would have to be careful, or she’d be spotted against the backdrop of Merrie by the Dammeguard watching the span. But, instead of passing, the shadow edge back down into a hedge and disappeared. Even from above, she couldn’t see through that thick growth.

But she did catch the bright flash, and a faint pop that echoed up from the city just a few dozen yards from the river.

Both Dammeguard flinched, familiar with the sound of a teleport, and aware it meant a powerful unicorn, but their eyes turned to the river, then towards the source of the sound, both glancing at each other and clearly wondering if they wanted to face the Rose Terror.

Not so powerful as you think, fellas, but still stronger than most of the Roses. It was still an impressive, and gutsy move, and showed the tutelage of Rosewater. A year ago, she wouldn’t have said Rosemary could have teleported.

Even as she thought, she launched from her cloud and dove towards the sound as the two guards crept forward, one of them having the brilliant idea that it might not be a departure.

One of them spotted her mid-dive and waved silently.

She halted her dive long enough to give the sign of ‘observation only’ and flashed her whistle.

They conferred briefly, then returned to their posts. Collar had asked her not to let any guards confront Rosemary—including herself—and only to observe and see what she did unless she broke a law. An order that couldn’t very well be passed around openly lest it enter the gossip mill.

Cloudy finished her descent more stealthily, spreading the magic from her wings to still the turbulence of her passage and cupping them in long, slow beats before settling down with little more than a tap on the rooftop overlooking the alleyway.

Rosemary stood there, unveiled, shaking and darting looks left and right as she hid between two piles of crates, curled up to be almost invisible should somepony casually glance down the narrow corridor. She was cloaked, and while it hid most of her, even her blond forelock, there was no mistaking the bit of muzzle that peeked out or the dappling on her single visible hind leg bracing her against the wall.

But she never looked up. She never turned her eyes to the sky. Never let Cloudy see those beautiful pink eyes or the surprise when their eyes met again.

Her eyes! Let me see her eyes! Let her see me, please! Let this charade end.

Almost, she abandoned her promise and threw herself off the edge. Almost. She restrained a whimper and chewed at her lip until the urge faded, even if her chest ached with longing to hear her voice again, to hear her laugh again that happy bright laugh that brightened a room with only the sound of it.

For her. She’d always felt more alive around Rosemary.

Stop. Stop thinking. The past might not live still in her. This might not be the Rosemary she remembered.

She’d promised Collar she would only watch unless Rosemary broke the law. She wouldn’t interfere with this test.

Rosemary recovered and veiled slowly, her horn’s golden glow fading into the darkness of shadow as she pulled them about her until she became little more than a flicker of movement in the dark alley.

And she never looked up to see where the soft patter of falling water came from or from where came the stifled gasps.

Just to see her and not through a spyglass, to be close enough to talk to her.

Cloudy dashed the tears from her eyes and launched to circle the block, easily spotting Rosemary’s shadow as she passed into the open space of a boulevard, adjusting the surround of her veil, but not above. Amateurish.

It was her first time. Cloudy shook her head and refocused on just following her.

Thank the stars she’s not good at moving while Veiled.

She only caught a barest flicker of another shadow as a cat darted across the way, chasing a rat.

The shadow they’d cast had been too large to be either, but so smoothly did it vanish into the darkness again after crossing the street that Cloudy would have dismissed it any other night.

Not that night.

Somepony was stalking the stalker. Stalking her lover.

Rosewater. Sudden fear spiked her stomach as she banked to follow Rosemary’s less subtle passage. Rosewater was a threat of an entirely different scale. The chance that she hadn’t been spotted in her moment of weakness was practically nonexistent.

She could have used her distraction, used Rosemary, as a foil to capture her cleanly and without anypony else being the wiser until morning.

And Rosewater still hadn’t gone after her. The capture order hadn’t been rescinded. She knew that much wouldn’t happen in one night, which meant Rosewater should have taken the first clean opportunity to take her.

If she was still following orders.

What kind of game are you playing?

Damme at night was vastly different from her few daytime excursions as a guest years ago. The city hadn’t changed much from her memories of walking with Carnation and Rosewater through the broad boulevards, dressed in their festival finest for the annual gala.

The magnolia trees were still carefully tended so their broad, waxy leaves spread a canopy of cooling shade and channeled the cooling sea air through the hot days of summer and kept the streets freer of snow during winter than in Merrie.

How the citizens of Damme kept such tropical trees alive through the decades since they’d been planted was a guarded secret, but rumor among the Rose families was that a clan of earth ponies from far southern Saddle Arabia had settled in, living their reclusive lives and tending to the trees that reminded them so much of their varied homeland.

All myth, of course. Rosemary had it on good authority from an absolutely delightful Dammeguard that it was the breeding of the trees, crossed with some form of crystal-infused bush from farther north that gave the trees their hardiness.

The poor dear had been so flustered by her proposition that she’d felt obligated to treat the young mare to dinner at a cafe to make up for her faux pas, one sweet Rose, barely of age to drink, her Rosethorn marks not dark or light enough to be seen amid her coat and aided by judicious use of a little makeup.

And afterwards, she’d accepted one night of bliss, so sweetly ignorant of the pleasures of the flesh until Rosemary enlightened her. And such a sweet waking up, the mare had squeaked and squirmed, laughing her delight as tongue and teeth teased her teats until she’d sat up and pounced Rosemary and enthusiastically, if amateurishly, tried out everything Rosemary had taught her.

Sadly, she’d yet to run into the mare again, and the night had gone by so swiftly, and the morning so turbulently, with her rushing Rosemary across the bridge before her superiors caught up to her, that she’d forgotten to ask after her name.

No matter. She knew the mare’s face and her cutie mark.

Mayhap she’d spend a little time trying to spy her out. If she was still in the Dammeguard.

She shook her head sharply and drew herself farther into the shadows along the middle of the boulevard as a patrol passed by ahead of her, looking neither left nor right as they chattered and laughed, their voices muffled by distance and the wind blowing the wrong way.

It was a reminder of the danger she was in. She was in a city that she’d be kicked out of, at best, if she were caught in it without a proper invitation. And Rosewater would be disappointed that she’d let herself fall into a daydream.

The patrol passed on, the mare and stallion raising a raucous noise marking their position easily enough.

She drew up the mental map she’d memorized of Damme and frowned as she focused on it. She was heading north towards the Prim Palace. Probably best to avoid that area, as the patrols there would be thick and numerous, and likely more than skilled enough to spot her beginner’s veil.

To the west was the docks. Mostly filled with visitors and non-Damme ponies. It would probably be best not to antagonize another city by working on a citizen they weren’t technically at war with. Not that she intended to, but a little sweet fragrance here and there to liven a party would do wonders to hide her presence.

To the east were all the residential areas and lower end shops and services that Damme had to offer, but would also likely be heavily patrolled—for the sake of the citizenry’s comfort if nothing else. No Rose raider would be so silly as to strike the same area twice in two nights, but the populace was easily spooked.

Which left the center of the city, a place of four and five story dark stone buildings with dark windows and firmly closed doors. Apartments, offices, and government buildings. Some were craft shops of course, but none of them were open this late at night. A safer place to practice her shadow craft.

Guards were the obvious targets, but they operated in pairs most often, and finding one patrolling around a building was probably her best bet to actually try enticing somepony. Just a quick distraction to slip by and make sure she got the motion of draw, atomize, and activate down without veiling.

Rosewater had drilled her, but… as she was finding out, field work was much different from the shaded sitting room or even the obstacle course of Rosewater’s laboratory

She let out a short huff and considered the map again, eyes closed and ears alert. Close to the courtyard grounds of the palace was the prison and, while it was technically in the central district of the city, going anywhere near the Prison was an idea on par with running up to Cloudy and kissing her right there in the open.

If I see her.

Still, the idea of even trying to get a glimpse of Rose Glory through one of the windows of the Gilded Cage was tempting… Glory had been one of the few of her cousins aside from Rosewater who wasn’t openly antagonistic towards her.

That she’d been captured and was being held in Prim Prison was the talk of the town. It was… not exactly a coup, but it was big news for the war and put it back into everypony’s minds again.

Yes sir jailer, I’m here to free my cousin. Oh, what? You’re putting me into that cell? What do you mean I can’t leave?

She huffed a laugh and covered it quickly, shifting around in a circle to see if anypony was around.

Nopony but us shadows. She giggled nervously and stifled her muzzle. Idiot girl. I wasn’t ready. Stars, I wasn’t ready. She lay down behind one of the bushes to consider her next move, ears twitching as she listened for anything that might indicate she’d been heard or seen.

There, she relaxed her veiling, trusting in her dark cloak to hide her from casual observation and settled in to recover a little more magic before continuing on, and considered whether or not she should pop one of the stamina candies now or wait.

Cloudy stayed high, watching both Rosemary’s pattern of movement, learning how the mare worked in the shadows—not well—and Rosewater’s increasingly familiar pattern of movement.

It was the latter mare that she had to spend more time watching and even simply looking for. She was damnably good at making sure her veil matched her surroundings, and only when she moved to keep up with Rosemary was Cloudy able to spot her again, even if she knew where to look.

Meanwhile, Cloudy at least hadn’t had to intervene on Rosemary’s behalf with any guards or wonder what might have happened did she. A part of that, when she risked landing in an alleyway behind and peeking out around a corner, was due to the face that the mare was very good at veiling from street level.

Makes sense… Rosewater, unless she stood on a chair and stared down at the mare, could hardly comment on what things looked like from above.

She took off again before Rosewater could reposition herself, grateful for the hood and cloak to hide her cutie mark and face.

But even with all the noise she made flapping it about above and both taking off and landing, Rosemary still didn’t look up. She looked side-to-side, yes, but not up except maybe once every few minutes, as if she’d had to remind herself to do so.

You need to look up, dear heart. But she couldn’t just go up to her and smack her flank, as much as she wanted to.

So far, her presence in the air was keeping away other patrolling pegasi, but that wouldn’t be true forever. She was already tiring from the exertion of staying airborne for an extended period, and she’d have to go back to the palace soon and report.

Before she did, she might have to scare Rosemary back across the river. Another of the Dammeguard would not be interested in observation, and she didn’t want to think what might happen if Rosemary was forced into a confrontation.

First… she needed to do something about her seeming inability to remember to look up.

Another intersection.

Another four directions to go.

North and south led to the palace and the river, two of the most heavily guarded place in Damme.

She spun a pirouette, came down on silent hooves in a random direction and set off, orienting her map. Little chance of divining exactly where to go since she had no concrete mission, so she might as well just go somewhere.

West. To the sea, towards some of the larger parks in Damme that were visible even from Rosewine Hill in Merrie, though only in strips seen through the streets and buildings, and the meadow of blue flowers there that were some of the only flowering plants she knew of in the entire city.

Prim Prance Park.

She’d just barely started out on her new ‘mission’ to explore the park when a whisper of wind carried the beating of wings to her from somewhere high above.

Pegasus. A dim shadow flitted across the street to her right, then to her left as the guard, and it could only be a guard this late after Damme’s normal curfew.

Stay still. Absolutely still. Motion was far, far easier to spot than something which could be simply a pattern of shadows on the stone. The trick, as Rosewater had explained, was to make sure that the veiling shifted with movement, paying attention to shadows and light to adjust the spell on the fly.

That was the hardest part. She’d never been particularly good at maintaining a constant mist-weaving. Even when she was masturbating with one, it was hard, but she had a lot more practice doing that. And that, really, was just using telekinesis. This was mist-weaving on a different level entirely.

The shadow crossed the street again, larger and lower, and the beating of wings heavier. A courier. Not a soldier. That had to be a courier carrying a heavy package.

Rosemary relaxed minutely, but kept her eyes on the sky as she continued on.

Stars, filly, finally.

Cloudy staggered in midair and dove for a flat building along the route Rosemary was taking. She hadn’t intended to spend so much time flapping about like a grounded bird, using almost none of her magic to stay aloft, and her wings were dead tired. The rest of her hadn’t faired much better.

She landed, wobbled, and braced herself against the chimney, her legs wobbly, her sides aching, and a cramp already starting at the bases of her wings.

That was stupid.

But… down below, it was harder to make out Rosemary. She was still there, but even from the low angle of the rooftop, she could tell that Rosemary had started paying attention to the sky again from the way the dappled shadows of the trees moved with her. At a jerky, halting motion, but they moved instead of staying static from one moment to the next.

A whisper of wind drifted across her ears, carrying Rosewater’s voice so softly it almost wasn’t there.

“Thank you.”

Cloudy startled and looked over the side of the building to her right. Briefly, Rosewater’s face appeared in the murky gloom, then vanished again with a wink.

What in Tartarus?

Another whisper came, this time from her left, “Why?”

Rosemary was moving on to the next intersection, and if she did the same thing, that silly blind pirouette, Cloudy wasn’t sure she could keep up if she moved too far off course.

“Because your cousin is awful at this,” she whispered as she tested her wings, ready to leap across to the next rooftop. She trusted Rosewater was listening using some means. “And I still…”

Why am I telling her?

Cloudy stopped at the edge of the roof and looked down, then across the intersection. Rosemary had already kept on going straight west, and if she kept up, she’d hit…

Primline Park was ahead, visible in the nighttime gloom some five hundred tails down the road. Barely guarded, open, and covered with a scattering of blue flowers, of course that would be where Rosemary was drawn to, even if she did that silly ‘I don’t know which way I’m going’ dance.

Once more, Cloudy called on her magic to make the leap easier, her wings cut through the air, and she gained some altitude, but almost not quite enough to make the next building. Only a sudden bubble of pink magic stifled her landing, and a telekinetic shove got her fully onto the roof.

“You need to go home.”

“Why even help me?” Cloudy growled. Safe in the bubble of silence, she didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “You tried to capture me!”

“You helped my cousin learn a valuable lesson. I repay my debts.” Rosewater’s voice came more clearly, and she didn’t deny the accusation. The bubble faded, and sound resumed, bringing with it the sound of guards laughing it up just down the street.

Down below, Rosemary crouched slipped into the shadows of an alleyway, all but disappearing into it, then dropped her veil in the deepest part of the shadows. Or… not dropped. It sputtered and went out.

Stars, she’s just as exhausted as I am.

As she watched, and tracked the guards as they turned down the street, Rosemary pulled something out, ate it, and a moment later breathed out a trail of green sparks. She veiled a second later and started south immediately, keeping to the deepest shadows.

“She returns home. You should, too.”

“Rut that.” Cloudy started to the edge, and stopped when a band snapped around her hind leg.

“You can’t fly in your condition.”

“Then give me one of those,” Cloudy growled, snapping the restraint with a sharp tug. “I know you have some.”

“Stubborn fool. At least now I know why she loves you.” Rosewater sent a puff of air to flash past her ear. “Go home.”

“I can blow my whistle and have you surrounded in seconds,” Cloudy growled. “Give me a damn candy.”

“Citrus Circus.” A dark cloth packet, twisted at both ends, rose up and hovered before her.

Cloudy let it drop into the cup of her hoof and leaned over the side to look down the narrow alley. Rosewater’s face looked back up at her, serious eyes studying Cloudy’s cloaked form.

Her lips moved, a soft pink glow covering her mouth, and another breeze touched her ear, whispering, “Go home, Cloudy Rosewing.”

As she watched, Rosewater faded into mist and shade, and the wrapper untwisted itself to reveal the candy nestled inside.

Cloudy knew Citrus Circus. She’d abused it often enough on watch to stay steady during late nights, but this… smelled different, and its core seemed to hold a fire in it that could only have come from a unicorn’s spell. One of Rosewater’s specially enchanted candies.

It was a risk, a huge risk, but she couldn’t let Rosemary be captured. She couldn’t see that free spirit dragged to prison, forced to endure monotony and loneliness.

Cloudy popped it into her mouth and chewed. Immediately, all of her senses exploded with information. The light from the moon blazed like the sun for a brief second, then faded as the edge wore off and the magic melted through her body, reinvigorating her legs until she felt like she could leap across the street without using her wings, and fly to the moon and back.

She could even see Rosewater below, crossing the street. Not clearly, but the outline of her through the mist wasn’t quite so fuzzy, the shadows not as deep.

Why don’t you use these all the time? They were so much more potent than the candies that she remembered, so much more useful.

Rosemary was even easier to find than Rosewater had been, almost completely visible to her enhanced senses, and it was so easy to keep up with her, not even needing to land, but circling high and low as she made her steady way, far too quickly for Cloudy’s tastes.

The reason why Rosewater didn’t use them became apparent not even five minutes after taking the candy, as all the energy started to leave her and the aches and pains of her earlier exertions piled back up again.

Panic surged through her as she started descending more and more rapidly, her bubble of calm air shredding itself to pieces the more and more frantically she tried to keep it together. She couldn’t even make herself glide very well, and only managed, barely, to keep from plummeting straight down into the middle of a building’s roof.

She at least managed to get her hooves under her again before—

Magic enfolded her in a shimmering web of fine lines of force, catching her and slowing her descent, guiding her away from buildings and walls to land in a heap at Rosewater’s hooves in the middle of an alleyway.

Unveiled, uncloaked, only a hundred paces from the river’s edge. She could easily teleport herself and Cloudy across, and that would be it. She’d never see Collar again, most likely, and she’d never see Rosemary.

A dim light played over her as Rosewater flipped back her cloak and checked her wings, then her legs, spells probing at muscle and bones, pausing at her cutie mark.

Cloudy tried in vain to keep her hood up when Rosewater tugged it back.

“So… we meet at last, Cloudy Rose,” Rosewater whispered. “If I’d known you were also Collar’s favorite pegasus…” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Fool.”

“Sorry, Collar,” Cloudy managed to whisper before darkness closed over her, leaving her helpless at the hooves of her greatest enemy.

Author's Notes:

This was almost a complete rewrite of some scenes. Good grief. Blahhh. Haha! It was also fun to get it working, and far easier than it was writing it the first time.

Book 1, 7. Returned

“You like to make things difficult, don’t you?” Rosewater said with a sigh.

Cloudy lay still, breathing shallowly, but still breathing, and her heart beat steadily—quickly, but steadily. She really should have been laying down for the end of Citrus Circus, but it was the only kind Rosewater had brought with her this time. A last resort kind of candy she’d enchanted just that evening.

She had two others with her, the power she’d stored in the candies enough for a teleport apiece, and enough physical energy for a short run. Or a short flight back to the palace.

Why couldn’t you have listened?

A moment later, Did you try telling her why?

Rosewater veiled again and started towards the river, intending to make sure Rosemary got across safely, but stopped as she saw a pegasus contingent of three Merrieguard making their way along the rivers’ edge. A capture squad looking for easy prey, and the reason for the curfew in Damme.

Damn you, Roseate.

If they spotted Cloudy’s unconscious form, they’d take her before any Dammeguard could do anything about it, and then she’d be in Roseate’s hooves. She’d chosen the alleyway because it was away from regular patrols on this side of the river.

Then Roseate would have leverage on Rosemary. Maybe enough to break her away from the path of freedom she and Carnation had opened for her.

She wanted to scream, rage, and curse at Cloudy’s unconscious form… but that would also be counterproductive in the extreme.

Rosemary first.

Crouched at the alleyway entrance, Rosewater watched Rosemary’s progress toward the bridges, and saw her more than once have to duck into an alleyway to avoid being observed by one of the riverwalk guard.

More were there than there had been when she’d started out—likely called by the teleport trace and looking to arrest somepony. That many could even overwhelm Rosewater, bare of her usual arsenal as she was.

That many would certainly catch Rosemary before she made it even to the foot of the bridge, and she was clearly too exhausted to make use of a teleport again. Amateur move, and one she would have to stress later with her. Management of magical stamina was an important part of raiding or spying, and that Minty Mind would only give her so much more, even if she downed a bag full. Not enough for a teleport, at least.

The pegasi roving the skies on the Merrie side of the river were probably at least as much responsible for that as the noise of a teleport had. Perhaps thinking that they were getting ready to pull an exfiltration of an agent.

They had no such orders, Rosewater was certain. They would let Rosemary flounder and be caught. Possession of illegal magics in Merrie was a minor offense, but she might panic and try to use them.

It made too much sense for Roseate to schedule an exercise like this on the same night Rosemary was on her mission just to make things more difficult for her. Or to see what Rosewater did.

Perhaps the goal wasn’t Cloudy, or it was, and this was one of a few different plots Roseate had put into play at the same time.

You could spend all night worrying, daft mare.

Just as it was important that Roseate not know she was there, keeping an eye on Rosemary, it was also important that Rosemary didn’t know she was there. Just like, it seemed, that it was important to Cloudy.

And possibly to Collar.

Why aren’t you with her, Collar? Are you out there somewhere?

Likely, after an incident with Rosewater on the recent books, he’d be waiting in reserve to head out to any trouble spot involving her. Why he’d let Cloudy out was… baffling.

Unless… Rosewater glanced back at the almost still form. You were under orders to stay high and observe only?

An insane plan settled into her mind. Stupid. Brash. Completely outside what anypony would expect from her. Enough so that it might work if she managed a bluff.

The trick was going to be making it look like she wasn’t disobeying orders from Roseate.

Time was also essential. She had to move before Rosemary decided to try and cross. She needed to draw those patrols away from the river.

‘Study the patterns. Wait for an opening.’

Rosemary lay huddled behind a crate in an alley, her cloak covering all of her from nose to tail as she watched the patrol stalk past her, eyeing the opposite side of the river and the pegasi that outpaced them several hundred feet up.

All well and good if there was a pattern, Rosewater. So far, the patrols had been scattered and random, sometimes five minutes passing before one wandered by, and sometimes two passing her hiding place in the span of half a minute.

All because of the pegasi on the other side of the river, she was sure.

‘Wait. Rosemary. Patience is your ally.’

And exhaustion her enemy. At least she’d found a place deep in the shadows, hidden from even the Mare’s sight by the closeness of the two buildings, where she could drop her veiling and recover.

The effect of the Minty Mind had worn off almost ten minutes ago by the length of the shadows from the moon, and her mind was edging towards sleep.

“Hurry up,” Rosemary whispered, laying her head down on her outstretched forelegs, listening as the hooves of another patrol started marching past. Several had peered down the alleyway already, but her cloak was a shade and texture not unlike the stone, and a casual glance wouldn’t have given anything away, hidden where she was.

They’d have to actually walk the alleyway to find her, and maybe not find her even then.

It was, perhaps, the safest place to hide right then, with most of their attention focused on the other side of the river.

All she needed to do was recover a little and then she should be able to create a veiling deep enough to cross the Rosewine just a hundred feet away, and another hundred to the midsection where she’d be safely in Merrie territory.

Patience.

The courtyard of Prim Palace was a sprawling open section of gardened gravel paths, bounded on one side by one of the former watchtowers of the outer bailey wall—two hundred years gone now—which was now the barracks for most of the palace guard, and another tower that served as an aerie for the guard pegasi.

That night, only a token guard force was present at either, though the courtyard grounds themselves were much more heavily patrolled and watched than the city itself.

And more well lit.

Rosewater checked her bait for the trap, and made sure she was still sleeping soundly, and actually sleeping and not merely unconscious. The deep sleep of the truly exhausted.

Going well past the limits of one’s natural stamina, boosted by a magical reservoir, had its costs. She’d done that herself more than once out of necessity, and both regretted and accepted it as a part of the fight against her mother.

A part of this plan working depended on Rosewater’s reputation, and the fact that, as a lieutenant, Cloudy wasn’t likely to spend her nights sleeping in the aerie, as she might if she were a lower ranking Dammeguard.

Here goes.

In the shadows, Rosewater finished empowering the Heart’s Opening sigil and sent it zipping off, gathering mist as it went, and focused on what she needed the autonomous construct to do. It was a risk, if she thought the wrong thought at the wrong time, but it was better than putting herself directly at risk.

That part came in just a few minutes.

As soon as it gathered enough mist, Rosewater’s image sprang into being with a pop and a flash, as if she’d teleported in.

Immediate cries of alarm came from every patrol in the area, and the alarm redoubled as the other part of her illusion of mist and magic, a substantial portion of her reserves, became apparent on her back as the veiling slipped away, revealing an unconscious Cloudy Rose on Rosewater’s back.

Just the same way Rosewater had transported the mare to the deep shadows of an alleyway from where she could watch… and give the signal to Collar when the moment was right. If the moment ever became right.

The Misty Consort spell stopped in the middle of the courtyard as a ring of soldiers gathered around her, led by an earth pony with a captain’s circlet.

“Give it up! You’re surrounded!” the mare bellowed, her voice loud enough to wake the dead from that close.

The Misty Consort couldn’t cast any spells, couldn’t even alter its own substance substantially. But it could speak.

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!”

Really? Rosewater grimaced and resisted the urge to rub at her muzzle and settled in to watch the play unfold. It was entirely too late to give the construct new instructions, and she could only wonder at the thought that had sprung that particular line into being.

“You don’t have much of a choice, Terror,” the captain growled, her voice coming to Rosewater through an aural spell, distorted but audible. She wasn’t Crown, who could listen to a conversation half a mile away in perfect clarity… but she managed with her own crude version of her younger sister’s finely tuned spell. “Put down the pegasus and step away.”

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!” the image cried again, with the exact same intonation and inflection.

“Send someone to fetch him,” the captain muttered. “I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but…”

Not even ten seconds later, before the guard sent to fetch him could make it halfway to the palace, Collar appeared in a flash and pop right in front of the construct.

“Put. Her. Down.”

“I will only surrender to Lord Collar himself!”

By the stars, that’s… Rosewater had to stifle a laugh as she watched fear and fury turn to confusion. Unexpectedly hilarious.

Collar edged forward, ears flat, and touched the construct on the chest with a hoof. It didn’t react at all except to shift away from the touch. His tail snapped and he slammed a hoof into the construct’s chest. It sank in… and the construct fell apart into mist and vapor, sinking into a fog that quickly dissipated.

“A trick,” Collar growled. “Everypony, scour the grounds, and check the barracks thoroughly. It would be just like her to do this as a distraction. Alert the other patrols. I want a cordon five blocks deep five minutes ago!”

“She can’t be far,” the captain murmured, looking around. “That kind of spell takes power.”

“She has that. She also has me on range,” Collar replied, his eyes sweeping the surrounding area as he turned a slow circle. “Fetch my mother. We might need her.”

You won’t, and I won’t face her. Primline Lace was one of the few ponies in either city that gave Rosewater pause, and the reason she’d worked on her range. Lace’s talents were best employed at short-range, but they were absolutely devastating to anything that used magic.

Rosewater crushed up one of the two remaining candies and extracted some of the fragrance from them, dispelling the magic in it, and sent it off to Collar in a faint pink cloud that got dimmer the farther from her it travelled.

A second later, he startled and whirled around, his eyes scanning the streets and alleys, his mouth opened to shout an order when Rosewater dropped her veil for a fraction of a second when he was looking right at her, then ducked back into the shadows, trading her veil for true invisibility.

The strain began to tell immediately, burning away her remaining reserves with a frightening speed.

It could be another trick. Or a trap. Or both.

The misty illusion had been… real enough looking to fool him on a quick inspection, even Cloudy herself had looked real. Rosewater’s chest had even been warm when he’d pushed against it the first time, and firm. Firmer than a mist faerie ought to be.

It spoke of an investment of magic that had to have drained her, or nearly so.

But it might also not be a trick, and she’d only wanted to get his attention.

Mission rutting accomplished, Rosewater.

By the time he reached where he’d seen her face, she was already gone, of course, if she’d even been there at all, and just as he was about to turn back when another spike of citrus touched his nose, stronger in one direction.

Further into the alleyway.

“Truce.”

The whisper, a touch of air against his ear, pulled him farther along, and down between two buildings into a dead-end. At the end of the alleyway, Rosewater stood, only partly veiled, and Cloudy lay at her feet.

“Truce?” he growled, stamping forward, rage blurring his vision as he built up the shields and bindings that would keep her in place, even if she had some trick for teleporting. “You—”

“She sleeps,” Rosewater hissed, and threw up a dim dome of pink around them. “Stay your anger, my lord. This was not my doing. At least, not only my doing. I did not break our accord.”

“That little show out there,” Collar ground out, then stopped and shook his head, pulling Cloudy up gently and towards him. She was sleeping. Her heart beat with the slow steadiness of rest, and her chest rose and fell evenly. “She’s not waking up.”

“She wore herself out,” Rosewater said with a faint smile, “then blackmailed me for one of these.” She pulled out a small object wrapped in black fabric and unrolled it to show him a glowing orange candy. “Do tell her not to accept candy from strangers. Or demand it.”

“Why are you here?”

“Mmm.” Rosewater rocked her head side-to-side. “Making sure you held up your end of our accord, Lord Collar. Shadowing Rosemary. I was surprised not to see you out and about.”

Collar watched her for a moment as she rewrapped the candy and tucked it into her mane. No doubt she kept a small satchel there, since she was otherwise without a place to stow the usual cache of vials the scent mages of Merrie kept about them.

“I’ll be leaving now,” Rosewater said at last. “Your lover is returned to you, and I must make sure Rosemary gets home safely.”

“Why?”

“Because I love her,” Rosewater said, ticking her ear and facing him from a few paces away. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Lord Collar. At least grant me the courtesy of believing that I can care for at least one pony unreservedly.”

“What evidence do I have of that?” But Collar released the hold on his teleportation interdiction, though, and replaced her shimmering sound shield with his own dual-layer invisibility and sound barrier. “You took a risk.”

“Not for your sake, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Rosewater stepped back from him and considered the black-wrapped candy. “Rosemary loves her still. Even after she ran off to your side without telling her. I won’t have her used as a weapon against her.” She paused, brow arching. “Is that reason enough for me to warn you?”

“You told her to leave the city.”

“She would be safer. Roseate isn’t going to stop coming after her. And she’s not going to send me after her again, not after the hash I made of her neat little pile of potatoes.” Rosewater snorted and released a small veil she’d been holding over the candy and popped it into her mouth crunching down before Collar could stop her, or even think to.

You should have taken it from her. He grimaced and shook his head. And forced a fight. He couldn’t risk that, not with Cloudy needing care.

“Go. You won’t have Cloudy to use as a shield next time, Rosewater.”

“Shield?” Her breath glowed like sunlight for a scant few seconds as she laughed. “My lord, she makes a paltry shield. Nay… next time, you’ll come willingly. I still haven’t given up hope, Lord Collar.” She winked, gathered power to her horn in a haze of pink and orange, and vanished with a citrus-scented flash and pop.

Belatedly, he realized that he’d drawn forces away from the river to cordon off a now Rosewater-free section of the city. All because he’d thought she’d used enough magic that night to keep her from teleporting with that little display.

He’d given her exactly what she wanted: a way for Rosemary to get home.

Idiot. You walked right into her hooves, and she played you like a mandolin.

Cloudy murmured as the scent of citrus faded from the air, coughing and rubbing her cheek against his neck.

But what if she was being honest?

Rosewater staggered as soon as she landed on her front stoop and began the laborious task of undoing the wards on the door. She had to be quick, or the Citrus Circus would run out on her before she could finish.

Seconds crawled by as she drained herself of every last erg of reserves to get the last wards undone, slipped inside and kicked the door closed behind her, letting the spring loaded spells reassert themselves immediately.

She was done. She had done what she’d needed to do and made an opening for Rosemary, as well as kept the fulcrum of her heart away from Roseate. It was up to Rosemary to get back across.

I’m sorry…

She slumped against the wall just a few feet from her bedroom, her legs buckling, and slid to the floor in an unceremonious heap as the last vitality she’d borrowed from the past fled.

Holding onto wakefulness was an effort, but she steeled herself against the building fatigue and, most importantly, she didn’t try to get up or do anything else that would tax the skin-of-her-teeth hold she had on consciousness.

Tomorrow was going to be awful.

Captain Pink met Collar halfway back across the courtyard, her hooves crunching on gravel and her jaw as tight as if she were ready to make more. “My lord.”

“Captain,” Collar said wearily, aware of how it looked to her that he’d wandered off for a few minutes and came back with Cloudy. “Is my mother roused?”

“Roused and armored,” Pink said stiffly. “My lord, may I inquire as to where you found Cloudy, and what happened to her?” A polite dressing down, from former drill instructor to former trainee.

“It’s complicated,” Collar replied, wanting nothing more right then to drop into bed and fall into a deep sleep with Cloudy finally at side in his bed… and to wake up next to her. If Rosewater wasn’t lying about what had happened. If she woke up. “I need Poppy here as soon as possible.”

“Is she—”

“She’s unconscious. Or asleep. Deeply asleep,” he added, since the talking and distant shouting didn’t wake her, nor did the slight jostle as they made their way across the grass and gravel, not bothering with the artistic pathways. “She was shadowing a suspect.”

“Rosewater?”

“Stars no. If I thought she’d be dumb enough to get anywhere near the mare, I’d have locked her in the dungeon.” A small voice told him that he couldn’t make that judgement. He sighed and shook his head. “But… I also trust her judgement in the field. I can’t doubt that judgement, Captain.”

Pink gave him a serious side-eyed look, her ears drooping. “Pardon me for saying so, my lord, but I think you’re too close to her to make that call. You can’t be her commanding officer and her lover at the same time. Tonight proves that even more.”

“I’m not her commanding officer.”

“You are her lord, my lord. There’s little practical difference.” Captain Pink adjusted her circlet. “It would be no different if you and I were lovers. You might not be able to give me the necessary orders, or hesitate when ordering me. She wanted to see her former lover. You let her go. I would have sent Stride or Streak, or both.”

Collar grunted, turning his head to glance at Cloudy’s closed eyes. Her features were peaceful in sleep, absent the usual range of emotion she displayed, and beautiful to him. She’d always been that. The vivaciousness of life adding to her what nature could not.

Captain Pink was also right. She’d pleaded, and he’d extracted a promise from her not to get too close or let herself be seen. He also hadn’t thought Rosewater would be brazen enough to sneak in two nights in a row. She never had before—though usually because she only needed one trip to accomplish her mission.

What is her mission?

“You’re right,” he said at last. “But not Streak. He’s got too much Primfeather in him still. He’d not see a mare we hope won’t cross the same line the rest of her family has. He’d only see the Rosethorn marks on her cheeks and breast and take her in for that alone.”

“Or force her to defend herself,” Pink said with a sigh. “Alright. Stride, then. I’ll reassign him to your duty roster starting tomorrow.” She eyed him again. “I trust just because you trained him you won’t have reservations?”

“No.” It was hypocritical… but he couldn’t stop his heart from yearning for more with Cloudy, and to keep her safe. And happy. Two warring needs he couldn’t have as a commanding officer. “I’ll… see what I can do with Cloudy. After mother finishes chewing my ears off.”

He nodded to the figure in silver-chased steel plate making her awkward way down the steps to the courtyard, his father dogging her and making snide comments she was unlikely to let slide later.

“By your leave,” Captain Pink said, saluting.

“Dismissed,” Collar said, and picked up his pace to meet his parents.

Lace stopped at the base of the stairs up to the palace entrance, ears splayed as much as they could under her helmet, still well-fitting despite the rest of the armor visibly tight in uncomfortable ways around her breast and barrel, and even more so against her hindquarters. Her days of being a front-line defender were long-gone, but the mentality was hard to get rid of.

“Mother,” Collar said as cordially as he could manage. “That armor is older than I am. Did you think you could fit into it at the drop of a hat?”

“Boy,” she growled, a small smile replacing the frown. “Dapper has been at me since Captain Pink woke me up. Don’t you start on me, too.”

“She’s safe, mother,” Collar went on, touching her lightly on an armored ankle. “And Rosewater is already gone. I’m taking Cloudy to bed and making sure she stays safe.”

“Which is what I want to talk to you about,” Lace grumbled, stumbling up the steps in the unfamiliar weight. “And slow down, Collar.”

He did, sighed, and tested the straps holding the armor together. “You did it too tightly.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Lace growled, making her halting way up the steps. “This is about Cloudy and her future with you, Collar.”

“I won’t leave her behind.”

“As has become increasingly clear to me,” Lace said with a sigh and glanced behind at Primline Dapper. “I… wished to have you avoid the rocky political landscape your father and I faced, Collar.”

“Bah.” Dapper shook his head. “Rocky? My dear, that was just the romance!”

Lace barked a laugh and snapped her tail at him. “Roses have odd senses of romance.”

Some days, he forgot his father had been born as Rosedown Dapper, a minor branch family of the Rosewings now extinct except in Collar’s blood. “Is it any wonder I was drawn to a Rose, mother? All my life, you’ve pushed the Lace Reformation, taught me that not all Roses are as evil as grandpa said they were.”

“Because they’re not. Cloudy there is a fine example, and so are so many of the citizens of Merrie, if not most or all of the common ponies.” Lace glanced at Dapper again. “And many of the minor nobility.”

“Is it any wonder then, that I fell in love with one?” Collar asked softly.

“No.” Lace closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “But… she is a Rosewing, Collar. You need to be certain of your devotion to her, because it will be tested. And not by me.”

“I know.” Collar sighed and glanced aside at Cloudy again. Still asleep, still peaceful. Calm, and unaware of the future that awaited her as his mate. “I wish you hadn’t pushed me at first, mother.”

“I wish you hadn’t tried to hide it from me for so long,” Lace growled back. “I had no idea you were so close to her, or I would have pushed Captain Pink to detach her from anywhere near your command chain long before.”

Collar sighed. “Tomorrow, mother.”

“Tomorrow, Lace,” Dapper echoed, grinning. “Let the boy take her to bed and rest.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Patience paid off, and it almost got her caught.

Sometime past actual midnight, with the moon bright overhead in the cloudless sky, whistles started going off behind her, frantic and from more than a dozen sources.

Rosemary huddled even tighter to the ground, trying to keep her ears from twitching to focus on each individual whistle blast.

From overhead, too.

She tensed, ready to bolt and take her chances with a flat out gallop across the Rosewine when the whistles abruptly turned back and started retreating, taking quite a few of the Dammeguard patrols that had thickened the border defenses with them.

What in the name of the Mare caused that?

Rosemary waited for another minute after the patrols had left before she popped a second Minty Mind, crunched, and breathed out the initial effect.

Veiled again, nopony who was left on the watch paid much attention to a lone shadow creeping away from the city. Their attention was all on the interior, talking amongst themselves in small clumps. The rumor mill’s wheels were already starting to churn away.

They still paid attention to everything going on around them, but were less focused on it than they might have been, giving her the opportunity to create a few distractions. A mouse illusion set in front of a cat and sent scurrying between the legs of one of the guards. Complete with authentic mouse smell—dry and a little musty with the just a hint of catnip extract to give it that extra manic boost and startle the guards.

In this case, one just started laughing uproariously as the cat frantically chased the illusory mouse around his hooves, desperate not to step on it, but equally desperate to keep from being used as a climbing post.

Rosemary slipped by and sent the mouse to bother the other guard for a moment, just to make things even, before she sent it off into the bushes, leaving both of them with a story to tell later, and her lips curled into a smile.

It felt good to make them laugh. Much better than using any one of the half-dozen scents she had on her to just daze them into letting her pass.

She stayed veiled until she was across the bridge, then dropped it, startling the two Merrieguard stationed there.

“Roselight,” Rosemary said, nodding to the one she knew. “Bit of excitement on the other side, huh?”

Roselight, a handsome mare with a delightful laugh when she was amused, eyed her. “Think your ‘escape’ plan needs a little work. Haven’t heard anything like that since… well, the last time your cousin took somepony.”

It couldn’t be that. Rosemary shook her head slightly. “She’s home tonight.” That was half a lie. She hadn’t started out at home.

“Liar,” Roselight purred and glanced at her fellow guard. “But we’ll keep that to ourselves.”

“Thanks…” Rosemary turned away from the guards, tail twitching nervously. What if she did go out? “Have a good watch.”

“Boring, maybe. You have a good night yourself, little mare,” the other guard said with a chuckle. “Nothing ever happens anymore.”

She could actually relax in the night in Merrie, and drew her hood down as she made her way back home. No doubt some spy on the other side would catch her at it, but it didn’t really matter. She was too tired to veil, and nopony was going to snatch her up while she was on this side.

“Home late, little mare,” a voice said from the shadows as Rosemary passed a cartwright’s stable, startling her into a crouch and drawing out Bluebell’s Bliss, a calming and distracting scent. “Hey now, careful there.”

Rosemary hadn’t even unstoppered the vial yet when the voice linked up to a name and a face. “Rosejoy,” she growled.

“Joy to you,” the mare chuckled, and out of the shadows wobbled a mare and two stallions, the former holding a bottle of wine, and the latter two smelling of sex and wine together. Hedonists. “Your cousin sure came back in quite the state. Surprised you look just as pretty as when you left.”

On guard now, Rosemary shook her head and picked up her pace down the river walk to the estate house, one ear on the trio. “I’m not interested,” she muttered in advance of the offer hedonists like Rosejoy and her current fellows always gave. ‘Join us, it’ll be more fun than you can imagine.’ And it would be, for one night through the use of stimulating magical scents, wines, and even direct magical stimulation.

She’d seen those mares and stallions, though. Those in less fortunate places than Rosejoy had as one of Roseate’s ‘top’ enforcers, the less official muscle that she employed to do less than savory things to other ponies that earned her disfavor.

They were the side of Merrie that nopony liked to talk about. The side that had failed to constrain their lusts and desires and dove into anything that could.

There were programs to help the willing, but Roseate just tempted them right back out with promises and gifts if only they would help her with a few tasks.

Not all of them were Roseate’s puppets… but Rosejoy was.

Rosemary hurried past and up the stairs, working impatiently through the complex weaving of spells for each lock and ward, preternaturally aware of the trio watching her from the corner.

“You can’t stay away forever, little mare,” one of the stallions called out. “You’re just like us, and you love the best things in life. Just like us.”

Don’t respond. Just get inside.

The last lock released, and Rosemary rushed inside, slamming the door behind her on the jeering calls of all three together.

“I’m nothing like you,” Rosemary muttered.

A moment later, as she took stock of herself and slipped Bluebell’s Bliss back into its slot, she saw Rosewater laying on the floor of the hallway, her tail and hind legs twitching as she tried to push herself up.

“What did you do this time,” Rosemary said through a sigh, drawing free one of the Minty Minds as she settled down beside her cousin.

“‘Mary?” Rosewater’s voice sounded hoarse, and her eyes were barely open when Rosemary sank to her barrel at her cousin’s side. “Thank the stars.”

Her breath smelled citrusy, far too citrusy. She put the mint away and nipped Rosewater’s ear, chastising her. “How many did you take, you daft mare?”

The half-smile on her cousin’s lips and the twinkle in her eye shone with pride, “Just one.” Her chuckle dropped into a sigh as Rosewater slumped further, her head resting on the floor. “Was desperate.”

“I see.” Rosemary shook her head slowly and laid down beside her. “Tell me tomorrow?”

“Tightrope,” Rosewater murmured, laying her head down.

“That’s not an answer.” But it was probably the only one she was going to get. Rosewater rarely talked about her capture missions or their aftermath. For her, it was an onerous part of being an unmarried noblemare, the legally recognized heir of Merrie, and the firstborn of the current baroness.

Expectations and duties sat on her shoulders that she didn’t want, and the tenuous protection the Treaty Office provided in the form of Royal Guard interdiction was less than flimsy at times.

“It’s the only one I have right now.” Her voice was dipping down into sleep, her eyes already closed, her ears drooping. “Forgive me.”

“It wasn’t for Cloudy again, was it?” Rosemary whispered.

Rosewater was silent for so long she thought the older mare had gone to sleep before she drew in a deep breath and said, “No.”

Not directly. Rosemary let out a sigh and laid her cheek against Rosewater’s shoulder, closing her own eyes. She’d hate herself tomorrow for sleeping on the floor, but she didn’t have the energy to coax Rosewater up and into a bed. “Thank you.”

Sleep wasn’t long in coming.

Cloudy woke to the pounding of the damned souls of Tartarus’s forges beating out a new nightmare to share with the world. In her head. Right behind her eyes.

She didn’t want to wake up just yet, and buried her head deeper into the soft, warm embrace of her… lover’s forelegs. Collar’s holding me? It was his scent in her nose, strong and scented with his favorite bath soaps—that is, barely at all aside from the leftover bit of floral essence that no amount of refinement could get rid of.

Olives. It was one of his olive-oil base soaps. He hadn’t bathed last night.

What happened last night? She hadn’t gone out drinking. She’d still remember it in that case, unless she’d… Cloudy shook her head slowly, feeling the headache seeming to slosh around between her eyes as she moved.

“Ugh…”

Her ‘pillow’ shifted then, and light streamed in as Collar’s movements shifted her forelock away from her eyes. “Hey.”

“Let me die,” Cloudy moaned, pushing away from him and enduring the sloshing ache to bury her head under one of the pillows.

He nibbled her ear instead, leading down to her neck and a light kiss. “I’ll fetch some water. Poppy said you might need some when you woke.”

Cloudy groaned and shifted to curl up as much into a ball as she could after Collar’s weight shifted and moved off the bed.

That was a cause for concern. Her bed was a feather down filled mattress with a solid base-board. She couldn’t ever feel it when Collar shifted to disguise himself or use that invisibility shield of his to leave and ‘finish’ his patrol or sneak back off to the palace and pretend he hadn’t gone anywhere.

Not… whatever this floaty cloud-like bed was made of or filled with. It cupped her body like a cloud would.

Where am I?

Not in Rosewater’s lair, wherever that was, that she usually kept her captured ponies. It wasn’t a nondescript warehouse. Collar wouldn’t bring her there… unless he was also captured. Or in cahoots.

That’s patently out of the question…

Cautiously, Cloudy pulled her head out from under the pillows and looked around, wincing at the bleary, blurry scenery and blinking rapidly as yet more agony pulsed, and the forge-masters of Tartarus beat on her eardrums.

She was in Prim Palace… in Collar’s bedroom.

It was a place she’d only been to once, and that time in the dark of night… and they’d hardly had time to make use of the bed before she had to run off again. In the light of day, it was still recognizable, but there was so much more to his room than the bed, the thankfully thick rug under the window, and the door she had to be mindful of listening for steps.

He had a painting on the wall of his mother and father, and a curious and probably treasonous—to Primfeathers at least—collection of memorabilia from Merrie; largely postcard paintings of famous historical figures from Rosethorn himself to Frosty Rosewing, a very distant ancestor of the Primfeathers and source of their animosity towards all Rosewings.

Collar came back, and Corporal Stride peeked around the corner just before the door closed again. “How’re you feeling?”

“Terrible,” she murmured, accepting the glass and downing it in a few swallows. Her throat was dryer than she’d thought, and the water tasted and smelled… lemony. “Tincture of lemon?”

“Poppy’s orders. Concentrated lemon juice drops.” Collar reached out a hoof to stroke her throat. “To ease the dryness. We couldn’t get anything in you last night.”

Cloudy winced. “Wh-what happened?”

“You… passed out. I was hoping you could tell me what happened.” Collar met her eyes briefly, then looked away. “I need to know.”

“Can it wait?” Cloudy grumbled, careful not to shake her head as she reached out to touch his chest. “And why am I in your room?”

“No, and because it was the safest place to put you.” Collar opened the door briefly. “Stride, more water, please.”

“Yes sir.”

Collar closed the door again and settled in more heavily. “It can’t wait because…” He sighed, sinking further onto the bed. “Rosewater is the one who returned you. In the most spectacular, antagonistic way possible and still not get caught.”

“And… you want to know if she told me anything?”

“Yes. I don’t care if you disobeyed orders, Cloudy, I—”

“I didn’t disobey orders! I kept the damn orders, even though she was right there, Collar.” Cloudy pushed off the bed, faltered, her vision swimming, and lurched for the door. The floor kept her from going any further, sliding out from under her hooves and turning ninety degrees sideways.

But she didn’t hit the ground.

“Crazy mare,” Collar grunted as he floated her back to the bed in silvery light. “I know you love her, Cloudy. I didn’t order you not to contact her because of that.”

“Then why?” She tried to glare at him, but it was difficult when he kept swimming in her vision and the stupid headache kept roving around in her head.

“Because…” Collar sighed and looked away again. “Remember how I said my mother used to keep things from me by saying she needed to walk a tightrope?”

“Yeah. It pissed you off.” Cloudy raised a brow at one of the images of him, trying to get the point across. If she was even looking at him.

“Regardless. I can’t tell you.” Collar smiled faintly at her. “If all goes well, once things have calmed down, I can.”

“So… never,” Cloudy groused, sliding under the pillows again where at least the cool weight seemed to do something to alleviate the pain, even if the darkness didn’t.

Collar stroked her hindquarters slowly with a hoof until the door opened again, “Thank you, Stride. Bring the whole pitcher this time. I feel like she’s going to need a lot of water.”

“Yes sir.”

The door closed again.

“Rosewater said she told you to go home several times,” Collar whispered. “Why would she do that? She has an order to capture you, doesn’t she?”

Cloudy buried her head deeper.

“She also said you pushed her to give you some candy? Like those… contraceptive ones?”

“Citrus Circus,” Cloudy grumbled. “Enchanted.”

Collar stroked her flank lightly. “She’s probably in no better a state than you right now, then. She took one and left, leaving you with me.”

“She could have left me.”

Collar’s stroking stopped, and he leaned over to kiss her on the shoulder, resting behind her back and holding her with one hoof, as if he were afraid to hug her.

“She said… Rosemary still loves you. That’s why she didn’t leave you behind.”

The pain in her heart briefly rivaled the pain in her head, until her first sob made both flare.

I love you, too, Rosemary.

Book 1, 8. Gossip

Rosewater rubbed at her forehead, squinting through one eye at the text swimming minutely in front of her. Tincture of rimeberry and plenty of water was helping her get over the migraine, but it was still there, and she had too much to do to sit still for one day, and especially not after her nightmares last night, now faded to little more than scraps.

Rosemary dragged off in chains, Roseate laughing and tearing up accord after accord, throwing them all in her face or the river, or both. Laughing at the Royal Guard as they stood by, helplessly tied hoof and tail by the precious Treaty Celestia made them enforce while the good ponies of Merrie and Damme suffered under tyranny.

And so she was in the Treaty Office in Merrie, a squat building that had once been a bridge garrison for a much smaller bridge that had fallen into disrepair and replaced with the broad, sturdy span of the Primrose.

Scrolls and tomes surrounded her in the small law library the office maintained, dusty tomes that hardly anypony looked at anymore because it was common knowledge what the treaty allowed and did not.

That was the common thinking, anyway.

Roseate had her own copy of the seven tomes of the treaty and all the amendments and addendums that had been added over the centuries, and had surely pored over them more thoroughly and more often than Rosewater herself had.

For her, there were only two amendments to the treaty that truly concerned her, and they, she could remember letter-perfect.

The amendment governing the succession of both cities’ leadership had been amended into the treaty in 260 AB, when Rosethorn the Mad exiled and banished every single one of his heirs because they refused to back a coup against Celestia herself.

When he started naming and banishing other successors, Celestia stepped in and undid the damage, reinstated his firstborn, and set down into the treaty that the succession for both cities was by order of birth and that a ruler could not exile their own heir excepting gross treason—proven in a court with Celestia as the judge.

Later amended again when a civil war erupted in Merrie following the death of Frosty Rosethorn the Second, also known as The Childless. Her sisters, both younger, had fought bitterly over the throne, and divided the city so much that it threatened to spill over into Damme, under the rule of a stallion who refused to take advantage of the fighting and end the war because… who knew. The reasons were lost to time, and the Damme histories that made their way across into Merrie curiously left that part of their history out.

So the stipulation was added, after a tense negotiation, that the heir who rose to power needed to have their own heir at the time power changed hands.

That last six words had been bitterly argued over more than once, but a further amendment after a second, much shorter civil war erupted, laid it out cleanly.

And it wasn’t as if anypony was going to tell Celestia that it wasn’t going to fly.

Merrie historians had long speculated that if a third civil war erupted, Celestia would call the experiment off as a failure and simply annex both city-states and deal with the consequences of a possible rebellion later.

That ensured that, as long as Rosewater didn’t cross the line of provable gross treason, Roseate had to deal with her. Rosewater didn’t want to step too far out of line and face that trial. She didn’t know that Princess Celestia would find in her favor, or even what the consequences would be.

Nopony in the almost two hundred and forty-odd years since had wanted to test it. Or her.

The second was more recent and more plainly laid out. Families were exempt from the war, excepting certain circumstances. Volunteering for duty was one of the exempting circumstances. Sometimes, however, Roseate found ways to ‘volunteer’ some family members with useful skills using simple scare tactics. Rarely, but she did it.

Also appended to the same amendment was a stipulation that children and offspring before their second majority, when the treaty officially recognized a pony as being fully adult and fully able to participate in life’s trials—at twenty-one for Merrie, and eighteen for Damme—were also immune from exile.

Rosemary, as Rosewater’s charge and legally recognized by the duel she’d fought with her mother, fell under that canopy. She had another card, but playing it would destroy assumptions, lay bare certain other of her plans, and give Roseate a further reason to find ways to corrupt Rosemary away.

Not even Rosemary knew. Only she and Carnation knew. And a certain few in the Treaty Office.

Those were the big two. But there were dozens of amendments, all spanning at least a few pages of a tome, and the treaty itself. And all started with what had meant to be a small pitched battle to seek restitution for prior deaths and escalated… and escalated further until the entire military might and a good deal of the civilian citizenry were up in arms and either fighting or tending the wounded and dying.

The Battle of the Red River. The last day of bloodshed between the two cities.

Three hundred years ago, in 202 AB, the bitter blood feud between two cities had been slammed to a stop with Celestia’s arrival with a contingent of Royal Guard cast in the raiment of the flaming sun, the garb of a warrior princess set to either conquer… or entreat.

In the middle of the bloodiest battle in a century and a half of on-and-off warfare, she had thrown down the forces of both cities with a single shout, a single enspelled word.

“Stop.”

The air trembled and the ground quaked at her word, and the sun stopped its motion briefly before resuming its placid journey across the noonday sky.

“I have put up with your conflict for too long. Too many lives have been lost, but until today the lives being lost in other parts of Equestria That Was were far greater, and your petty squabble has been a nuisance. That ends. Now.”

Both of the leaders at the time, Fiery Rosewing in Merrie, and Primfeather Lance were exiled to opposite ends of the land, to live their lives in simplicity and labor, never again to command armies or oversee anything like the bloodbath that had taken place that day.

Six hundred dead. Paltry compared to the mass chaos that had gripped the once-great nation of Equestria Eternal, but in the centuries that followed, it would be remembered as the Red River Day. Honored at the height of the Summer Sun celebration, both cities lamented the loss of so many.

In this day and age, the Red River Day had changed into a celebration of ancestors, and paper boats dyed red were floated down the river by both sides, each one with the names of the dearly departed written on them.

It was a day when the cities populace put aside the cold war that had descended in the wake of the treaty and remembered their ancestors together.

Mostly together.

The nobility still resisted. On both sides.

And there were yet more things she needed to look at.

The report of Glory’s injury and her refusal to press for restitution had put Roseate in a foul mood, but… Rosewater didn’t know for certain there was anything actually in the treaty about injury.

Killing was right out. Anypony found guilty of murder was exiled. They could appeal to Celestia, but there were very few that tried.

Accidental killings were more gray territory. During a raid, self-defense was expected and encouraged, but there had been very few test cases that pushed that boundary. The harsh treatment a murderer got from Equestrian law was… often more than enough to push that out the window.

Under the Lace Reformations, the Dammeguard had undergone a transformation from a mixed offensive-defensive force, with their own raiders and tactics for fighting the Rose’s tendency to use scent magic, to a purely defensive force, trained in injury avoidance and ‘gentle’ takedowns as well as mental acuity training to resist the effects of the most common scents and tactics.

Injuries had always had to be reported to the Treaty Office during the ongoing conflict for review and examination. Presumably a growing trend of abuse would bring further restrictions.

Bruising was common, and a broken bone wasn’t uncommon, but every broken bone was met with a full review, a dressing down if necessary, and if warranted, further disciplinary action.

That much, Rosewater knew from some of the contacts she’d cultivated through her alter-egos over the past two years.

It was less about getting in trouble with the treaty and more about making sure that none of them even got a glance at getting in trouble with the treaty.

Lace had even spoken of it at length at the galas Rosewater was required to attend every quarter, yet another stipulation of the treaty, this one added only a hundred years ago after the final unification of all of the former nation of Equestria Eterna into… simply, Equestria.

Save their small knot of inconvenience in the northwest.

Yet still, Celestia hadn’t forced the treaty to conclusion, and seemed to want the cities to reconcile on their own. Her reasoning, as an immortal with the patience of stone, was beyond Rosewater’s understanding, but some days she wished the mare would just end the conflict and let her and her small, broken family live in peace.

Instead…

Rosewater dragged herself back. The treaty was an annoyance to all. To her because she wanted it concluded, and she was coming to not very much care how.

Just not Roseate’s way.

“Focus, idiot mare,” Rosewater murmured, rubbing her head as it began to pound more from the frustration. Every day, she wanted Celestia to end it and just take over. Or Lace to get off her ass and stop pretending that Roseate could be reasoned with or worn down and attack.

Damn the Lace Reformation.

“Peace has to start somewhere,” she’d said. To Rosewater, even. “I hope you will see that someday. Your grandmother and I had such high hopes.”

Rosewater had barely known Roseline before the mare had passed away. When she was eight, and with failing health for three years before that. With Roseate taking more and more power every day.

“Her high hopes ended when she died,” Rosewater had shot back, stalking off to find a drink and drown the fact that she had to be there, had to act cordial to her mother. “And Roseate salted the earth where she lay.”

The mother that had, not even two months before, exiled the only other mother figure she’d known, the only one who’d treated her like a daughter, loved her as a mother should when she’d needed it.

“Focus!” Rosewater hissed, trying to drag her mind back out of the past despite the migraine seeming to want to make her suffer even more.

“Is anything wrong, my lady?” the librarian attendant, a young pegasus named Inkfeather, asked, poking her head in the door. “Any references you need looked up?”

“No… no.” Rosewater flicked an ear dismissively. “Thank you, Ms. Inkfeather. I’m just dealing with a headache both literal and figurative.”

“If you’re certain, my lady.”

Rosewater hesitated, thinking, and pursed her lips. “No… I mean… yes. I’m certain. Thank you. I’m… I only wish your mistress would stop letting us play charades and toy soldiers and end it.”

“She has her reasons.”

It was the only answer she ever got. She has her reasons. “I hope she explains them someday.”

“Rarely. But things work out.”

Rosewater raised a brow, regretted it immediately, and settled for a flat stare at the mare with the black tips on her steel-gray feathers. “Pardon me for saying, then, that this is an awful lot of working out.”

Inkfeather smiled, bobbed her head, and left, closing the door to the small library behind her.

Rosewater sighed, made a note on her scroll to apologize to the mare on the way out, and pulled down a different tome.

She had more reading to do yet.

Rosemary sat slumped at a table in the Rosy Glow tavern, staring at the grape juice in the wine glass in front of her, half-wishing it were actually wine, and grateful it wasn’t. Half of Rosejoy’s tendencies came from her drinking away her mistakes. It was one of the ways a pony could walk down the path of a hedonist and get easily lost, twisted about by the winds and promises of those holding the strings to their next fix.

Her ‘drinking companion’ Rosy Glass, the current tavern owner, sat across from her nursing a light lunch of celery and lentil stew with enough exotic spices to make Rosemary’s nose tingle even after it’d started to cool down.

The worst part of having Rosewater also be a raider was that she couldn’t very well complain about their nightly activities unless she wanted to upset Roseate.

Which she did, just not that way.

Fortunately, Glass knew where she’d gone thanks to rumors and gossip, and that she’d ‘failed’ in her mission. Whatever her mission had been.

‘Grab somepony’ was hardly a mission, and not one she wanted to do. She wasn’t Rosewater with her hidden hidey-hole to store prisoners of war so secretive that not even Rosemary had an inkling of where it was. She’d need such a place if she didn’t want her captured ponies to end up in Roseate’s hooves. Or ask Rosewater to use hers.

“You’re grumbling an awful lot,” Glass said, brow raised, and blew on the remains of her stew—more to blow the smell in Rosemary’s face than cool it down.

“Yeah, well…” Rosemary swirled the grape juice around in her wine glass and downed it. “Here I am, drinking grape juice, pining after my lost love… who was apparently shadowing me all night last night without my deaf and blind butt being aware of it.”

She had, at least, gotten some details out of Rosewater after the mare woke up with the worst migraine this side of the Merrie and before she’d doggedly dosed herself to keep it at bay and slogged off to ‘work.’ Not a lot. Merely that she was on a mission of her own and had happened to catch Cloudy shadowing her. Or did she actually say that? Rosewater twisted words like ribbons until she barely said anything plainly when she was being secretive.

It was easy to tell when she was being secretive, and she had been. Tightrope was her way of saying ‘I can’t tell you outright.’. It was less easy to tell which way the words were meant to fall.

“Well.” Glass reached over and poked her lightly on the forehead. “Could be worse. She could have dropped in and captured you. Then where would I be? Where would Rosewater be? Speaking of… you tell that mare to get her butt in here, alright? You do that, and she actually sits her ass down and has a talk with me, and next meal’s on the house.”

“You’ve asked me that every time I visit, and she’s come by precisely zero times,” Rosemary grunted. “She’s terrified of what her mother will do to your business.”

“She’s an idiot,” Glass declared, then lifted up and drained the last of her stew. “I can take care of myself, and I have some leverage over her ‘unofficial’ muscle.” The mare’s green eyes flashed as she fixed Rosemary with a glare. “If you don’t haul her butt down here inside a week, I’ll do it, and charge ya double.”

“I know you miss her, Glass, but don’t,” Rosemary said with a sigh.

“Of course I rutting miss her. All of her friends miss her.” The brash tone faded, and Glass ran her hooves over her white mane. “Stars, Rosemary, I get it. She… got hurt. But that’s not a reason to just cut all ties with everyone to protect them.”

“I know. Believe me. I’ve had that argument with her so much she just completely blanks until I’m done talking at her.”

“You’re both kind of in a rut, I think,” Glass muttered. “Try something new. Trick her. Stars know she does it often enough. Turn the tables.”

“Tried it.”

“Try it again, little lovebird.”

Rosemary sank into her seat and rubbed at her cheeks slowly, ears perking up when the door opened again, just in time to avoid getting completely blindsided by Rosie Night as she rushed in, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and took the seat bench next to Glass.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Mrs. Night,” Glass grunted as she scooted over, rolling her eyes in a ‘you younger ponies’ way.

“Hey, Glass, so…” Rosie leaned forward, and in a whisper, asked, “Did you hear what happened last night in Damme?”

Freezing panic surged through her stomach, wondering if she’d been made after all, and her name was now on a list somewhere. “N-no, I didn’t.”

“Well,” Rosie leaned even closer. “I heard that Rosewater tried to abduct Cloudy right out of the barracks, but Lord Collar stopped her.”

“What?!” Rosemary blurted, shooting up straight on her bench. Several of the things Rosewater had said snapped into focus in her mind, given context and meaning. “What… she never told me!”

Glass gave her a look that said ‘seriously, Rosemary?’

“Alright, alright, so she can’t really talk about her missions. But stars above, she’s practically…” She trailed off, a shiver trailing up her spine at what she’d almost said in public. Almost thought outside the privacy of her own warded room. “My teacher,” she finished lamely.

“Well, it’s just what I heard, lovely,” Rosie night said gently. “I was delivering some unspecial candies to my clients in Damme when one of them gave me the little tidbit that was apparently on every guards’ lips this morning.”

The whistles. That had been Rosewater making a move, using whatever stupid thing Roseate had planned for the same night to make the rest of the patrols light and had apparently done enough to give her a chance to make a move.

But for whom? Not for Roseate.

“Anything else they were saying?” Rosemary asked idly, forcing herself back to the conversation and smiling at her friend and often-lover.

“Well…” Rosie grimaced and glanced between her and Glass. “I know how close you were with Cloudy, Rosemary, and I know how much you loved her. But they did say that Cloudy was Lord Collar’s mate.”

“Wh-what?” Rosemary asked, her ears quivering, numb shock in her mind replacing all thoughts of whatever plans Rosewater was playing. “I… had no idea.” Is she a Tussen Twee follower now? Thoughts of Cloudy’s life here, with her, with their shared lovers, the fun they had, the… Why did you take me to your parents? It was the first step in expanding a family.

“Dear, you look like you’ve swallowed something awful.” Rosie reached across the table to touch her shoulder. “Should I not have brought it up?”

“No, no… it’s… it’s good to know.” Rosewater hadn’t said… Or did she? “E-excuse me. I need to go talk to Rosewater.” She started to get up, hesitated, and sank back down. What would I even ask?

“Darling, are you sure you’re alright?” Rosie Night asked ahead of Glass. “You look like you need a break.”

“Yeah,” Glass added. “You need to get out of that estate for a night. You’ve been cloistered in there night after night for a week.”

“Perfect idea,” Rosie said, grinning. “You know, Velvet, Trestle, and I have missed you dearly, sweetie.”

“They’re back?” Rosemary asked, blinking.

“Last week. Stars above, they wouldn’t let me out of a hug for a whole day, and I swear I’ve never had sex like that before.” Rosie chuckled and shivered, rolling her shoulders. “Sometimes I wish I’d gone with them, but the shop… well… they came back alright.”

It was a distraction. A good one, and one she needed, but it was still just a distraction. Rosemary took a breath and pushed her cousin from her mind for the time being. “Yeah? How’s Vel’s pregnancy coming along?”

“Oh, much, much better. She practically kissed the dock.”

“Pregnant sea-sickness?”

“Oh, stars yes. Poor Trestle held her levitated above their bed for long stretches just to get her a little sleep now and then.” Rosie laughed and continued on, detailing the exploits of her husband and wife while Rosemary settled in, losing herself in the happy reunion story. She really was happy for them… but still in the back of her mind was the mare she’d started making plans to bond with.

By the end of the tale of a trip to her spouses’ native Canterlot, Rosemary had an invitation to dinner and perhaps more to help her soothe away the ache, to help her lose herself in bliss. Just for one night.

“I’d love to have dinner,” Rosemary said gently. “But I’m not sure about spending the night.” I need to talk to Rosewater first.

“Well, give it a couple days, love,” Rosie said gently. “I understand you’re still shaken. We’re planning a good night ourselves this weekend, if you think you’ll be up for dinner at least with us.”

“Sure.” Rosemary took a breath, closed her eyes. “I’ll be there, and I’ll bring some of my jams. I’m sure Vel and Tres have missed them.”

“Of course, darling,” Rosie said, glancing aside at Glass. “Just don’t push yourself.”

“Really,” Glass said, reaching across and tapping her nose. “And give Rosewater a nip for me.”

“I will.” I need to talk to her anyway.

Rosewater was in the perfumery and had it open, running the counter herself, the blinds opened and a single patron inside that glanced at Rosemary as she came in.

“Cousin,” Rosewater said before Rosemary had even dropped her veil. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

The stallion at the counter, not somepony Rosemary recognized, eyed her for long moments before he turned back to sniffing his foreleg, and said, “I like it, but… perhaps something not quite so musky?”

“Of course.” Rosewater pushed open the perfumery door and pulled out a few small vials. “If you want to work on your perfumes, Rosemary?” She left the door open.

She nodded and closed the door behind her so she didn’t have to listen to the inane chatter as more than a background chatter and wandered the back room slowly, remembering all the times Rosewater had brought her there to teach her some bit of knowledge; the times she’d come here on her own to watch Rosewater work, to watch Carnation and Rosewater banter back and forth as they laughed and made new and interesting fragrances, each trying to outdo the other.

Rosewater usually won in the end, but Carnation was by far more creative, and pulled out surprising wins from their ‘judge,’ Rosemary.

Those were the happy days, when it felt like they were a whole family together, when laughter filled the walls.

After the duel, Rosewater had spent nearly a month almost exclusively cloistered in this room, eating only when Rosemary dragged her out of her studies of laws and spells, or the special project of enchanting the small office in the back, little more than a closet, to be an impregnable vault.

Rosemary still didn’t know how many bits her cousin had spent fortifying the closet, but in the end, it became a place where Rosewater disappeared to when she needed to be absolutely alone. The wards blocked out everything, and the door itself practically glowed with power that had been poured into the gems and gold and silver inlaying what had once been a simple wooden door.

It was now effectively a slab of steel, the cracks between the slats covered with form-fitted pieces of wood, sanded into a perfectly flat surface, and decorated with the visible sigils of magical power, gemstones at the appropriate points enchanted to give the spells longevity and permanency.

What she hid back there, Rosemary only had an inkling. Some paintings that were too sensitive to be kept in the house, that showed their family dynamic too closely, that Rosewater didn’t want to let go. Carnation, her, and Rosemary.

“That took a bit longer than I thought,” Rosewater said gently as she came in and closed the door behind her. A pink glow flowed along the walls and the sound of the city outside vanished. “I’m sorry, Rosemary. You wanted to talk?”

“It’s safe?”

“As safe as can be,” Rosewater said, glancing pointedly at the gemstone settings in the corners of the room. “I’ll know if someone tries to break through.”

Rosemary twisted around to shove a hoof against Rosewater’s chest. “You saw Cloudy last night. You saw Lord Collar last night.”

“I did.” Rosewater’s eyes fell, and she sighed. “Rumors travel as fast as Rosie does, it seems.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Rosemary hissed. “You have an order to take her in. Were you following it through? Were you going to take her to Roseate? For—”

“No.” Rosewater shook her head vehemently. “I’m never letting Roseate have her.” Rosewater teleported in two pillows from the front portion of the store and sat on one. “If you’ll have a sit, I’ll tell you all about last night.”

“Every detail,” Rosemary warned as she sat, then relented as Rosewater touched a hoof to her neck, stroking down to her shoulder. “I know you said tight-rope. But… how much can you tell me?”

“All of it, if you wish it. Roseate dragged you into her scheming, and I… I wished not to pull you into this. Ever if I could. What I do, what she makes us do, is not a happy business, Rosemary. What I’ve done, the ponies I’ve taken and held against their will…” Rosewater couldn’t meet her eyes as she dragged in a breath and settled in more heavily. “A war. We’re in a war. Not between Merrie and Damme, but between my mother and I.”

“And I’m a pawn?” Rosemary asked, a touch of bitterness in her tone.

“To her? Yes. To me… Rosemary, you’ve always been Rosemary to me. My Rosemary.” Rosewater leaned forward and nuzzled her ear gently. “I’ll tell you everything because it’s time, if you wish, but you not knowing may put you in danger.”

Rosemary opened her mouth and closed it again, then sighed. “And knowing may put me in danger.”

“Yes.” Rosewater gave her a thin-lipped smile. “But you’re a part of the war now. This private war. Roseate decided against my warnings. Against our agreements. You knowing is the best defense you have, ‘Mary. But it’s also your choice if you want to walk this tight-rope with me.”

“Tell me everything,” Rosemary said after taking a breath to collect herself.

Rosewater took a deep breath and started talking.

The report was nothing special, and a day old.

Lure successful. Sweets delivered the gossip. LIttle bird returned to momma bird. Nothing concrete said, usual silence in effect. Silence lasted for two hours, little bird and momma bird returned to nest. Nest’s cracks heard polite dinner conversation, then silence. No further word. Observation of nest continues.

Still uncertain about reason for visit to the Treaty Office. Four hours spent there.

Aside from the lure, it was nothing more than a routine report of Rosewater’s activities, and it said more than the reporter thought it did. Two hours of silence. More at night. That wasn’t normal for her. He’d spent months following the raid whose only effect was to sow discord in Damme watching her movements, reading reports of everything she said, did, and who she talked to.

He had, at best, an incomplete picture of who she really was, and even his delving into the archives and infrequent forays into the less useful gossip monger reports only told him so much. The mare generated rumor like a wet fire did smoke, almost all of it false. There were, however, some few truths hidden in the noise.

Precious few.

What did she ask you? What did you tell her?

He had no doubt she told Rosemary about Cloudy’s love still strong for her.

The most worrying part of what she’d done was the trip to the Treaty Office in Merrie, and he couldn’t ask, couldn’t bribe, couldn’t even listen in without risking the wrath of the Royal Guard. They were both separate from and intrinsically involved in the war.

“Collar?” Cloudy asked from the door, poking her head in and blinking blearily.

“How’re you feeling this morning?” Collar asked, opening the door to his office further and dragging over a pillow for her to sit on. “You were awful…” He grinned.

“Don’t say it,” Cloudy grunted.

“Cloudy yesterday.”

She bit his ear lightly and licked it. “That was a warning.” She settled in on the pillow and nuzzled his neck, then read the report. “They couldn’t pick better names?”

“They use traits. Tell me that Rosewater doesn’t act like a mother hen after that stunt she pulled.” Collar snorted and shook his head. “She’s protective of her little chick.”

Cloudy fell silent as she considered the report and its implications. But, instead of asking about anything in the report, she asked, “Do you think she told Rosemary that I still love her?”

Collar tipped his head and looked at her. “You still love her, too. Why would Rosewater keep that from her?”

“It puts her in danger,” Cloudy muttered. “If she knows I still love her, she might… do something stupid.” Cloudy slid the report back and forth with a hoof and settled in more heavily against Collar’s side.

“She loves Rosemary,” Collar said with a sigh. “She does, and I believed her when she said it. If Rosemary asked, I doubt Rosewater would lie to her.”

“Is she evil, Collar?” Cloudy asked, shifting the report about again, then dropping her hoof to the pillow.

“She does evil things, and has done” Collar replied. “She’s frustratingly obtuse, dangerous, and I’ve no doubt she’d do anything at all for Rosemary’s sake. That makes her more dangerous. She’s also, as far as we’re aware, unpredictable and possibly unstable.”

“That didn’t answer the question.”

“Good and evil aren’t like black and white, Cloudy. Not when it comes to ponies. Aside from Roseate. I’m more convinced than ever that she is evil. But Rosewater? She wants to make me her mate. Does that make her evil?” Collar grimaced and shifted on his seat. Even admitting that to Cloudy was difficult.

“Yes. If she’s going by Rosethorn tradition, she wants a thrall, not a mate,” Cloudy growled. “She won’t have you that way, Collar. I’ve seen what that does to a pony.”

“I know.” Collar shook his head slowly. “I have, too. Dad was almost one, you know. Before mom rescued him ‘by accident’ from the ceremony.” He snorted. “They were having a cross-river affair, I think.”

“Did he tell you what it entails?” Cloudy asked darkly.

“Vaguely,” Collar said, sighing. “When we rescued one of our own from the fate with a bargain last-minute. It’s not a willing marriage. It’s a rape of the mind and body. It’s… not an ordeal I’d wish on anypony.”

Cloudy leaned against him, nuzzling his shoulder. “I won’t let them take you, Collar.”

“I won’t let myself be taken.”

“Is it that time already?”

“It is, Glory,” Cloudy said as she closed the cage door behind her and settled onto one of the cushions. “But…”

Glory looked up from reading a book and cocked her head. “But what? Surely that delicious captain of yours hasn’t heaped more punishment on your head?” She clucked her tongue. “And after all that trouble of forgiving you.”

“I need to know more about Rosewater, and what she’s capable of,” Cloudy said, not meeting the sister’s eyes.

“Mmm. Straight to the heart. I do like that about you, Cloudy.” She winked. “Have you considered joining Poppy and I as a third?”

Cloudy dismissed the jab with a flick of her ear. “I know you two were closer than what our intelligence reports indicated. Or even what you’ve said.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

“Answer the question or I leave right now.”

“Fine. Fine. I have to find my entertainment somewhere, Cloudy.” Glory mused, tapping the book against her chin. “We were. Closer than mother would have approved of if she’d found out. She was the only sane one I could go to. But I properly glowered at her at every gala as mother instructed I should do, I shunned her elsewhere, and made sure that I was not seen anywhere near her precious home.”

“That… must have been hard.”

“Not as hard as you might think. Outside her small, happy family she was a bullheaded mare, and only a few ponies seemed to really see the fear that lurked underneath that facade.” Glory burnished her hoof against her coat, smiling. “I’m happy to say that I was one such. Why, I even gave Rosemary presents on her birthday. Secretly of course. It was hard not to dote on the dear.”

The oddity of the wording gave Cloudy pause, and she mulled over the word choice, aware that Glory, more so than most of her kin, loved wordplay and putting hidden meanings in what she said. “You make it sound like she was a niece, rather than a cousin.”

“Mmm.” Glory shrugged. “Perhaps. Rather, it was the age difference, dear. I’m eight years older than she, and in my family that’s practically an eternity. Thanks to mother’s legendary reproductive exploits.”

“Yeah… we all know how much she loves—”

“Loves?” Glory laughed bitterly. “That mare would not know love if it shot her through the heart with an arrow. She lusts, dear Cloudy. For power. For pleasure. But for power most of all.”

“Something we already knew,” Cloudy grunted.

“Ah, yes, well, she’s hardly made a secret of it, has she? Mother dear is very simple on the surface. If it gains her more power, she will reach for it. If she can’t have it, she will break it.” Glory held up a hoof. “Case in point, Carnation. Her own sister. Also, Rosewater.”

“How close were they? Carnation and Rosewater?” Cloudy asked in a soft voice. “How did it break her?”

“Close,” was all Glory said, giving her a wary look. “I do love her still, dear Cloudy, she was the kindest to me when my mother cast me aside because I was neither Rosary nor Rosewater. The least talented.” There was a pain in her eyes that didn’t quite reach her voice. “I’ll not give up the secrets she let slip in moments of weakness. Not to you, not to Collar, and not even to Poppy, so don’t even try to use my love against me.”

“I won’t.” Hidden depths. Cloudy frowned and sat back, staring over Glory’s head while the mare pretended to start reading her book again. There was more in the history of the Rosethorn ruling family than she would have thought possible. “How did it break her?”

Glory raised a brow, but didn’t lower the book. “I already answered you. ‘Tis not mine to tell, Cloudy.”

“If she asked you to—”

“She never asked me to keep it a secret. She doesn’t know I know,” Glory said, breaking in and lowering the book.

Acting on a hunch, Cloudy said, “Rosemary has started raiding.”

Glory flinched. It was small, but it was enough, and as soon as she met Cloudy’s eyes, she knew. “Don’t hurt her. That’s all I ask. Don’t hurt her, Cloudy. For Rosewater’s sake and yours.”

“I love her, Glory.”

“Collar knows?”

“I keep no secrets from him.”

“Then marry them both,” Glory said with a small smile. “Drag him to the Principes, teach him the ways of Rosethorn the Wise. Make him see that love can bloom between more than two.”

I wish I could. “He wouldn’t. He’s… he was raised in the Tussen Twee tradition.”

“And yet… he has half of his blood from the other side of the river.” Glory’s smile settled in deeper. “It would be one way to bring about an end to the war, you know. Reconcile the differences between the Liefdesprincipes Tussen Twee and the Principes van Vrije Liefde in one family, born of the ruling families of both cities.”

“I wish that were possible.”

Glory raised a brow and settled in again, sighing and raising her book. “You’re not even going to try.”

“Like I’d be given the opportunity,” Cloudy said with a snort. “Rosewater will never let her be taken.”

“You make it sound like she has a choice in the matter,” Glory murmured, turning a page and starting to read, then stopping and looking up. “Mother’s next assignment will close off whatever loophole it was that allowed my sister to call in all those whistles and let Rosemary escape cleanly.”

“Why?”

Glory sighed and lowered the book. “By the stars, mare, I’ve laid out all the pieces of the puzzle for you. Don’t make me finish it, too.”

“I know why, damn you, I want to know why Rosewater would go along with it!”

“Oh… she does have a brain amidst all that fury.” Glory rocked her head side-to-side. “No doubt for some ‘agreement’ that Roseate will break five minutes after making it.” She raised a hoof, cup up. “But…”

“But what choice does she have?”

“Mmm. My mother does so love the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ clause.” Glory raised her chin. “The only unknown factor is you lot. What will you do? Will you break my sister, or will you… not?”

Cloudy sat back, wings twitching. She wasn’t even sure what each option entailed or how dangerous it would make things for them. She didn’t know how dangerous a broken Rosewater was, but she did have an inkling of how dangerous an unbroken one was.

“All for one mare.” All for Rosemary.

Author's Notes:

This one is almost a complete rewrite of the original I had. Out a little earlier than scheduled because why not?

Book 1, 9. A Night with the Nights

Author's Notes:

Fair warning, this chapter does contain an explicit sex scene. It is, however, a small part of the story.

“Rose jam… Rosehip preserves…”

Rosemary tapped both jars into a pouch and considered the rack of sealed jars. She had some pears steeping in a mixture of rose jam and sugar water. But she hadn’t even tried them yet, and it would be a few weeks before she’d be willing to give them a try. They might turn out slightly alcoholic, too, and that wouldn’t be good for Velvet Night. And it wouldn’t be nice to let Rosie and Trestle Night enjoy them when she couldn’t.

“Hrm.”

Rosewater poked her head in. “You seem distracted.”

“Just trying to think what I should bring that Velvet can enjoy.” Rosemary flicked an ear back as she continued perusing the shelves of preserves, jams, and pickled fruits and vegetables of all kinds.

Rosewater cast an aural shield, something she did more and more often of late, and stepped inside. “You know, when Carnation was pregnant with you, she had odd cravings for salty things. And she hated pickled things. But she loved dried, salted fruits.”

“You never talk about her much anymore,” Rosemary said, hoping she’d drop another breadcrumb about her mother. Sometimes the oddest things triggered memories. Smells, a glance at a painting at a certain angle, a sound. Sometimes, she could get Rosewater talking for a few minutes, an hour… or just one little tidbit.

“It hurts, Rosemary.” Rosewater’s eyes glistened, but she smiled. “I… you should know more about your mother, Rosemary.”

“I know you write about her,” Rosemary said softly.

Rosewater was silent for a long time, poring over the shelf without actually seeing anything, the distant look in her eyes enough to fool somepony else. “Try these.”

It took a moment for Rosemary to adjust to the shift in topic, eying Rosewater and giving her a wary tick of the ear. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Salted nuts are great for new mothers.” Rosewater’s ears dipped. “And those are letters to her, not a journal, Rosemary.”

“Have you heard back from her?” Rosemary asked, already knowing the answer.

“I haven’t even sent them.”

Roseate. The mare always seemed to loom in the places Rosemary wished her least to. “Can’t you smuggle them to her? Even if she can’t write back, she’d love to hear from you.”

“And you?” Rosewater asked, raising a brow. “I’m pretty sure that diary you write in once a week is the same thing, isn’t it?”

Rosemary huffed and flicked her tail. “That’s private.”

Rosewater chuckled and nodded. “As are my letters to her, little mouse.” She walked to the door and stopped. “You fall asleep with it open sometimes, reading what you’ve written. I couldn’t help but catch a passage or two when I tucked you in.”

“You haven’t tucked me in in years.”

“I still remember every time, Rosemary,” Rosewater murmured and touched her chin with a spell. “She used to be the one to tuck you in.” The spell warmed to almost a touch, and a phantom hoof the light pink of Carnation’s coat formed out of mist. “Have a good night tonight, Rosemary. She would want you to enjoy life and not hurt.”

It’s what you’ve always told me. “I know.”

“She’ll be back, Rosemary,” Rosewater said gently. “This war ends with my generation.”

“I believe you,” Rosemary said, smiling brightly as she could. It wasn’t certain, and Rosemary’s own study of the histories told her that there had been so many others who’d believed the same thing. “Don’t lose yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Rosemary paused a moment and slid past Rosewater, nipping her neck. “I think I’m about set.”

“Tell Rosie hello for me,” Rosewater said with a small smile as she backed up into the hallway. “And feel free to stay the night. I’ll be fine. It would be good, if you’re up to it, to accept their invitation.”

“You promise you won’t stay up all night?”

Rosewater rolled her eyes, “No, mother, I’m not going to stay up all night.”

“You’d better not.” Rosemary winked, opened the door, and let it close behind her to the sound of Rosewater chortling to herself. It was good to hear her at least halfway laugh at something.

Merrie in the latter evening on the weekends was a wild place, exactly the kind of place Rosie said her clients warned their children about in Damme, but it was also a place where rules took precedence over simple lusts, where the dance of tongue on tongue was on open display, but never more than that.

At least, not on the streets. Bathhouses were festooned with lights and advertised the availability of both contraceptive spells and candies, made by Rosie or one of the other half dozen candymakers in town that knew the formula well enough to make it in large batches.

Ponies still worked, still tended to bars and made food for taverns, delivered packages and parcels from business to business, and from house to house, but there was an added salaciousness that came and went every weekend that wasn’t there during the week.

It was time to relax, after all, time to enjoy the fruits of the labors of the last week, and Rosemary was no exception. Quite aside from preparing for her mission and practicing every aspect of needing to be a proper raider, including the deceptive arts, she had been working on her jams and her preserves, a few sampler perfumes she wanted Rosewater’s opinion on for general sale for a few extra bits, and various odds and ends projects.

Tonight was going to be for relaxing, forgetting the trials of the week, and recharging.

The broad, curving arc of Mane Street, running from the riverside up into the hills and back down to the riverside a mile downriver carried her all the way to the small offshoot road that led to one of the smaller neighborhoods that bordered the city between the sandy river hills and the verdant forests just beyond that fed off the watershed of the Merrie.

There among the hills and dales, families made their homes higher in the ridges, forming small micro-communities that ran for the length and breadth of a ridge.

Rosie’s home was on a ridge that descended almost perfectly to the top of a rounded hill with a heart of crystal-striated stone, the remnants of a long-ago glacier that had deposited the crystalline errata and later silt-covered.

At least, that’s what she’d read in one of the natural philosophy books Rosewater had insisted she read that claimed the Great Migration wasn’t a localized event caused by angry spirits of ice and wind, but by a climatological shift caused by the change of the sun’s path across the sky.

Whatever had caused it, the result was a beautifully green ridge that sported so many terraced gardens it looked like a patchwork building all on its own, with entire sections of the ridgeline taken over by single colors of flowers and single types of crops.

Ponies tending to their gardens in the middle autumn waved to her and called out greetings she returned without hesitation, laughing when she saw foals in the gardens and staked out safe places where the community of neighbors kept close watch and guided and taught as much as relaxed.

There were no communities like that in her part of the city that wanted her, nor any communities with foals that she would feel safe to be around. Rosejoy and her lot didn’t care about whom was listening to their taunts and jibes, and didn’t care about the common sense community rules about protecting foals until they were ready to learn about the sides of Merrie that Damme so vocally railed against.

Soon… there might be. At least one small community that would welcome her as a foalsitter and teacher.

Velvet Night was pregnant, and stars if she wasn’t excited for that prospect.

Seeing the mare again after their month-long voyage by sea and land, travelling part of the way with Budding Rose, now surely in Saddle Arabia clenching deals for the Rosewine Hill’s wines, was going to be the highlight of her night, no matter what else she ended up following her heart to.

She was, in fact, resting outside in the sunlight, her wings stretched out while her husband Trestle Night tended to them, carefully going over the features with a hard-bristled comb, the wooden nobs on the end protecting the features while the ‘bristles’ helped separate and clean the feathers without harming them.

“Velvet!” Rosemary called, pausing to wave a hoof. “Great to see you again!”

The pregnant mare startled and looked around briefly, her ears flicking before she oriented on Rosemary. “Hey there, little lovebird!” she called back, grinning but not rising from her spot. “Forgive me if I don’t come greet you. Just a bit relaxing in the sun.”

“She was sleeping,” Trestle said, grinning and sticking his tongue out at his wife. “Don’t let her lie to you.”

Rosemary laughed and pranced the last few steps, careful of the glass in her saddlebag, and gave them both kisses on their cheeks. “Stars, it’s so good to see you! Let me get a look at you, Vel.”

“Oh.” Velvet rolled her eyes and huffed with a playful smile. “Just like everypony else and their mother,” she said, raising one wing to almost brush the rafters of the porch overhang. “Go ahead and give a listen. She’s very active lately.”

“He,” Trestle said doggedly, as if it were a long-running argument.

“Pftle,” Velvet snorted.

Roundly pregnant, only a month or so away from giving birth, if not sooner, Velvet’s dark purple coat shimmered in the sun as she rolled to one side, giving Rosemary a better place to settle her cheek and ear. Two heartbeats out of cadence with each other, mother and child, and the firm press of a hoof against her cheek greeted her.

“Kicker, isn’t she?” Rosemary murmured, rubbing her cheek against the motion. “I’m here, little one.”

“She is,” Velvet murmured, watching her with half-lidded, sleepy eyes. “She has wings, too. I can feel her stretching them now and then. Big for her age, too…”

“Eight months along, and three months or so to go,” Trestle said at Rosemary’s raised brow. “He’s gonna look just like his daddy,” Trestle said with a wink at Rosemary. “Or just like her daddy,” he added, when Velvet gave him a stink-eye.

“Mmm. Compromise,” Velvet giggled. “Rosie should be back soon. She just ran out for some mustard for the carrots and fish.”

“Carrot-stuffed fish?” Rosemary asked, raising a brow. “That sounds delicious. One of your recipes, Trestle?”

“Oh, no. One of my parents. I just substituted the nuts for fish. Doctor’s recommendation.”

“Oh.” Remembering the nuts in her saddlebags, she shifted. “Are nuts bad for her?”

“Mmm. Not necessarily,” Velvet murmured, closing her eyes again and resting her cheek against Trestle’s chest. “Depends on the nut. Need to be careful about almonds. Peanuts and walnuts are okay, though.”

“Oh, thank the stars.” Rosemary sat back and hefted the jar out and shook it gently. “Peanuts salted with sea salt and wrapped in kelp.”

“You are a life saver,” Velvet squeaked, tucking her wings in close to the brief annoyance of Trestle. “Thank you!”

“She’s been looking for a better way to get her salt intake,” Trestle said with a sigh as he put away the wing grooming kit and nuzzled his wife’s ear. “A salt lick is just a bit too bland for her, and she’s getting tired of only fish for her high protein needs.”

“Please tell me you have more,” Velvet pleaded, sniffing the jar as Trestle opened it for her and reached in to take one. “Oh my stars… with a faint… is that rosemary?”

“It is!” Rosemary laughed, winking. “Just the plant, I promise.”

“Tease,” Velvet said with a chuckle and made an effort to get to her hooves, then stretched before she gave Rosemary a proper hug. “Stars, I’ve missed hearing your laugh, my dear.”

“It’s good to have you here,” Trestle said, nuzzling her ears. “Especially after what Rosie told us. Stars, I’ve been worried about you all week.”

“I’m okay, really,” Rosemary murmured, nuzzling one then the other and luxuriating in the warmth radiating from both of them, loving it and the closeness she felt to them, lovers and almost… “Stars I missed this.”

“We missed it, too,” Velvet murmured, dipping her head to kiss Rosemary’s shoulder. “Wh-what…” Her cheek heated against Rosemary’s neck.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Rosemary whispered in her ear. “If you’re open for it, maybe. I have… I have another I’ve been thinking about, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to delve into it tonight.”

“Quite understandable,” Velvet said, drawing back and looking into her eyes. “It’s Cloudy?”

Rosemary nodded. “How much did Rosie tell you?”

“Just that you got hurt, almost got lost… she left the rest for you to tell us if you wish,” Trestle said, nipping her ear lightly and drawing her attention to him. “You know our offer is still open.”

“You’re one of the few lovers all of us feel comfortable with,” Velvet said, her cheeks still heated but her blush all but invisible under her coat. “Stars, a couple weeks in Canterlot and thinking about the other lovers we share…”

“You’ll grow back to it,” Rosemary said, grinning. “And… I’ve been thinking about it, but my focus has been on making sure my life here is secure. I’m still mainline Rosethorn. We have… expectations.”

“I know.” Velvet clucked her tongue. “And who would we talk to for your parents?”

“Rosewater’s my guardian,” Rosemary said. “You’d either need to talk to her or find out where Carnation went to.” The custom of talking to parents was less for permission and more for… meeting, seeing if two families were compatible with each other before the joining and making sure that if there were any rough spots, they were known. It was an often stressful time, but it was customary.

Velvet glanced at Trestle. “Rosewater is…”

“She can be intense, but she…” Rosemary shook her head. “You have to give her a chance. She’s been hurt. Badly.” And she keeps hurting herself. What Glass had told her had resonated with her, but Rosewater did her usual smile and listen, then dismiss it with a good reason. Or, at least, one that Rosemary could never brush away. It always devolved into a debate that Rosewater won by simple dint of being more stubborn than Rosemary was willing to be. “She can be stubborn, too.”

Velvet lifted her head as the sound of hooves got closer. “Rosie!”

Rosemary extricated herself from the embrace just in time to be caught by another one, trapped on three sides in a triangle of love that wanted her to be the fourth side of a square. It felt good to be wanted.

“Stars, mare,” Rosie whispered into her neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Cloudy sat on the building rooftop, spyglass pressed to her eye as she watched the love of her life, barely more than a speck even in the magnifying view of the scope, as she disappeared into the home of the Nights.

Collar leaned against her, nuzzling her ear. “You don’t have to watch,” he whispered. “I know it must be painful.”

“I need to know she’s safe,” Cloudy whispered back, not even sure why she was whispering. Collar’s silence shield, and only a silence shield, was keeping out everything, the silvery surface of it barely visible. It wasn’t like they had to hide here in Damme. Everypony knew who Collar was. He could hardly hide once he started casting spells. She was in her hood and cape, hiding her Rose heritage as best she could. “Besides…” she shifted to watching Rosewater’s perfumery.

Collar had held a watch over the building while Cloudy tracked Rosemary’s veiled path through the city. “She’s been busy lately. Three customers today. As far as I can tell, they’re just regular customers. And she just went back after closing the store.”

“It’s nearing the end of the regular tourist season, and there is a ship leaving tomorrow,” Collar said with a shrug. “Los Pegasans, Canterlotians… looking for one little sample of the City of Sin before they go. They always do.”

It was safe, too. Cloudy grunted and shrugged. “She’s exotic and she has a reputation for salacious perfumes. The safe ones are pretty mundane.”

“She’s been spending more time in silence, too,” Collar said, flicking his ear to one of the other perches where an aural mage sat, his horn glowing faintly. Prim Note, the best they had. “She’s received several special deliveries over the past week. It’s making me worried about what she’s actually doing.”

“Who knows what she’s up to,” Cloudy said with a sigh and turned her attention back to the Nights’ house. Lights were coming on inside, smoke curling from the chimney, and all Cloudy wanted to do was fly over there and knock on the door. That’s all it would take to see her again, to talk to her again, to hear her laugh again.

“Cloudy,” Collar whispered in her ear. “Don’t watch. Don’t torture yourself. Let’s go home.”

“I love her, Collar.”

“I know you do.” He kissed her cheek gently. “I hope…”

“I love you, Collar. I love both of you.” But I can’t love both of you. Not in Damme. “Lets go home.”

Rosemary stared into the stew, a thickening radish and mustard stew, small cut carrots floating in the midst along with a few other tubers and various bits and pieces of flower that added a uniquely floral texture to the smell rising from the small pot.

It made her wish she would be sharing it with one more pony that night.

“Hey, don’t be mopey like that,” Velvet said, nipping her cheek as she passed by, carrying a tray of cornbread muffins on a hot pad on her tucked wing.

“Sorry. I’m just… I’ve been thinking a lot lately.” She flicked her tail and sniffed the pot again, her Rosethorn marks glowing as she separated out the different fragrances and gauged them before adding a pinch of sea salt. “Thank you for letting me.”

Trestle snorted. “Darling, you’re here to relax. If thinking helps you relax, that’s all to the good.” He flicked his tail against her as he passed by with freshly minced celery mixed with some sesame seeds and a quarter of the cooked fish they would be serving on top. “Ready for these?”

“Ready. And thank you.” Rosemary nodded and stepped back as he added the ingredients, stirred once, and sniffed.

“Oh, you’re welcome!” Rosie chuckled and patted the side of her muzzle. “Dear, while you’re here, do whatever you want. Think. Stir the stew.” Rosie twirled her hoof. “That one, you kinda have to do right now. Need the fish to separate. The big pieces are for the rice pilaf.”

“Ah!” Rosemary stirred slowly, watching the pieces come up and start to separate already. “Sorry.”

“Anyway, think, stir, sleep, stay the night…” Rosie’s eyebrow arched as she smiled, deepening into a salacious grin. “Not sleep.”

Velvet nipped the back of her wife’s ear, “That wagging tongue of yours can find my rear later if she doesn’t want it.”

“I’m still not sure,” Rosemary murmured, fighting the innate desire to hike up her tail. She wanted this. The night. The Nights. They wanted her. But to talk to her about bonding customs and sleeping together in the same night. “I… don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

Velvet caught on first while the other two stared at her. “Dear. We would love to have you as our fourth. But I, and my spouses, also understand that your choice might not exactly be only yours to make. Especially not with your heart half-trapped on the other side of the river.”

“Exactly,” Trestle said, rising from preparing the last of the fish to be baked, throwing scales into the composting basket and fileting the rest into long strips. “We do understand, Rosemary. And we would also understand if you decided to stay and make love with us. No attachments. No obligations. Just a night to lose ourselves in each others’ company.”

Rosie flicked her ears. “We love you for you, Rosemary, regardless of whether you’re bonded or planning to bond with you. This is us, three of us, offering you a night together.”

“I…” Rosemary’s ears flattened into her mane. She could do this, partake in an offer of companionship for a night. Even the offer meant more to her than she’d thought it would, even knowing they loved her like another member of their family, even knowing her heart was on the other side of the river, they were going to open their entire selves to her. “Yes. I would like that.”

“No crying, love,” Rosie murmured against her neck. “Tears make the stew taste bad.”

Rosemary laughed, hiccupped and sat back, accepting the embrace Rosie offered her, then the one Trestle pulled her into, warmed on both sides and then from behind as Velvet sat heavily behind her and leaned into her. “Stars, you…”

“Many loves make the burden lighter,” Rosie murmured to her. “Whether those loves are part of your family or not.”

“That’s not the quote,” Rosemary rasped out, her smile straining her cheeks, her throat tight as she tried to return every hug all at once. “S-stars…”

“It’s alright, love,” Rosie whispered. “You’re with us tonight. Stay with us tonight. Tomorrow is another day.”

“But we’d better get back to fixing dinner,” Velvet said after a long moment, her stomach gurgling as the fragrance from the cooking fish started to fill the main room of the home. “Or the little one will get angry.”

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Rosemary laughed, wiping her cheeks with the back of her ankle and wiggling to give herself a little room. “Really, thank you.”

Her only answer to that was a kiss from three loves at once and a heart full to bursting.

“Careful,” Trestle whispered in her ear, “Careful….”

Rosemary huffed and glowered at him. “I have plated food before, Tres.” Rosemary finished pouring the stew over the rice and nipped his cheek. “You just want an excuse to hover over my shoulder.”

He lifted one hind leg, brushing it against her hindquarters. “Well, I would prefer to hover over your rear, but…”

“Not before dinner, dear,” Velvet chided and bit his ear, pulling him away to focus on his own part of dinner. “Fish now. Sex later.”

“Fiiine.” Trestle snorted and turned away, not even erect, and his scent only aroused but not flaring to the level of pre-coital musk. “Maybe I can have a sample of dessert?” he asked, flashing a wink at Velvet.

“It’s for Rosemary tonight, darling. Maybe tomorrow night.” Rosie stuck out her tongue and laughed when Velvet flirted her tail aside. “She did ask first.”

Rosemary stared as the older mare showing off her pouty marehood, and just underneath, the soft swell of her teats, each topped with a dark nipple and shaking as she stomped a hoof. They would be soft and tender, and she could just imagine Velvet’s cries as she suckled them. And Trestle’s urgency as he mounted her.

“Careful, or Trestle might try a sample of his dessert,” Rosie said with a snort, flicking her ear and staring pointedly at his flaccid member as it slid free, halted, and retracted.

Trestle rolled his eyes and pulled out the last of the fish and began preparing it for the rice. “My dear. As much as I would like to mount her right now, I shan’t because my dearest wife has yet to eat, and my dear unborn child is also hungry.”

“And that,” Velvet purred as she bumped against his other side and kissed his neck, “is why after we eat dinner, I am going to lay down, embrace my wife and lick to my heart’s content. Because momma is also hungry.”

Rosie shivered and flicked her tail, but settled herself with a flick of her ears. “My dear. You may attempt to rile me up, but I’m not going to give you the pleasure of watching me flirt my tail.” She gave Trestle a little wink and stamped a hind hoof. “Before it’s time.”

With that, she pointedly turned her attention back to her work with a pot of artichoke hearts steeping in a honey mustard and cumin bath by the hearth fire, steaming and letting loose the fragrant scent of artichokes and the smoky, aromatics of mustard and cumin together with the strong metallic tones of the hearts.

“Hearts for all,” Trestle said when Rosie presented the pot to him. “Specially prepared just for you, Rosemary,” he said as he scooped out a heart for each bowl and set it gently atop the slab of fish slowly melting into chunks on the fish. “It’s a family recipe from Canterlot. Heated Hearts.”

“Spicy?”

“Not very much,” Trestle said with a grin. “It’s lickable safe. With a little pre-dessert dessert.”

“That’s the strawberry cream delight,” Velvet said, nodding to a frosted double-sealed clay jar sitting in a bucket of chilled water. “It’s been chilling all day.”

“And I can’t wait to taste it,” Rosie crowed as Trestle and Rosemary set the table and set the bowls of dinner about for everypony to enjoy. “Rosemary, would you care to speak the guest’s blessing?”

She nodded quickly. “Always, Rosie.” She cleared her throat and began to recite the old, not always adhered to traditional blessing a guest gave upon their host’s table, “In such wonderful company I find myself, let all know that I feel welcomed and loved. My love is your love.”

The other three repeated the last sentence in a soft undertone.

“Enjoy, everypony,” Velvet said, ducking to tuck into her stew without another word.

Trestle and his wife, Velvet, had come to Merrie on a vacation and fallen in love with the city’s beauty. And then run into its quite shockingly open views of love and sex, and sharing, wandering the streets with a perpetual blush that marked them as outsiders no matter what shade their coats.

To hear them tell it, Rosie had taken them under her care the instant they got off the ship, love in their eyes already for the city that would become their home. To hear Rosie tell it, they’d wandered into her shop, their necks and cheeks so flushed she thought it their coat color at first; a story both disputed with laughter and a tinge of pink in their cheeks.

Rosemary had been a gawky, eager lover at sixteen at the time they’d bonded together, and the vestigial mores of the Canterlotians had kept her from their bed for another two years, though she enjoyed talking and laughing and comparing notes on sexual practices with Rosie until then, and respected their preferences.

And still saw Rosie on the side.

“How is it?” Trestle whispered in an aside to her.

“Mmph!” Rosemary bobbed her head quickly and swallowed the thick stew. “Delicious. I did a good job stirring it if I do say so myself.”

Rosie paused between taking a bite of biscuit and stew to chuckle. “You don’t have to be quiet dears. Please.”

Rosemary nodded, ears flat. “Sorry. I just want to include you all.”

“Oh, we’re included,” Velvet said with a chuckle, dabbing at her lips. “Please, I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen Trestle.”

“And you,” Rosemary said with a scoff. “I love you both. I want to hear all about your trip to Canterlot.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Trestle said. “It was a long voyage with the wind barely moving half the time, and screaming at the sails the other half. Then a week-long carriage-ride to Canterlot.”

“And then back the same route. Because the roads north were mud,” Velvet grumbled. “It would have taken a whole month to get back that way, and with all the bandit activity…”

Rosemary groaned and nodded. It was one reason for the Royal Guard being cut in the last year to handle caravan guard duties. “And your parents?” She shifted her attention between Velvet and Trestle. “I know you were worried about telling them about Rosie. How’d that go?”

Velvet flicked an ear at Trestle as she slurped another mouthful of stew, her faint smile telling her she’d hear good news last.

“Well…” Trestle took refuge in a flaky biscuit, chewing thoughtfully. “Mama Table wasn’t… pleased. The least to hear all the ‘horror’ stories about Merrie were true.” He rolled his eyes. “It took a while to convince her I was still married to Velvet. I probably took a few years off her life with that revelation.” He chuckled. “Papa Table patted me on the back and wished me luck in my marriages. To which I corrected him: it is only one marriage, of course.”

He fell silent for a few minutes while he caught up on his meal, and Rosemary did likewise, enjoying the subtle burn of the radish and mustard against her tongue. Just enough to waken her nose to smells too faint for her to otherwise savor in the stew. It was a lovely bouquet of mustard, pepper, and creamy potato with a dozen other spices in small measure.

“My parents were more understanding, and congratulated her on the foal and the second marriage.” Velvet said. “When we told them about our other lovers, they were not as pleased, but they accepted it. Some of that old pegasus blood I suspect Rosewing had more of.”

“I’m glad, Velvet. Did either accept the invitation to come visit?” Rosemary glanced at Trestle, then Velvet. “When the foal is born?”

“Velvet’s did. Mine… My dad offered, and mother threatened divorce if he set foot within the city limits.” He shrugged, but couldn’t hide the pain behind his eyes. “She’s very traditional.”

Rosemary’s jaw firmed. That pain wouldn’t last past the night. “I’ll be there for the birthing, if you’ll have me.” She glanced at Velvet. “I mean, I know you still have some foibles, and I’d rather not tread on your tail if I can avoid it.”

Velvet’s ears ticked for a moment as she slowed her chewing, then swallowed. “Yes. Whatever you choose about our offer, Rosemary, yes. I want you to be there, talking me on.”

“I’ll be there. I promise.”

“Delicious,” Trestle said around his clean tongue candy and scraped out the last of the stew out of Rosemary’s bowl with his spoon before dunking it into the sink with the rest of the dishes. “And you mares never leave me anything to scrape out like generous Rosemary does,” he added, pouting.

Rosie chuckled as she rolled her hooves down Velvet’s back in a slow massage of her aching muscles, making her as comfortable as possible while she mewled soft pleasure at the ministrations.

“Rosemary is a kind and generous soul who eats far too primly to ever lick her bowl clean.” Velvet purred, displaying her candy on her tongue for a brief moment, teasing them all and rolling her shoulders before she sagged nearly to lay her chest against the table. “Just like you, Trestle.”

“Bah. That’s what spoons are for,” he declared, spinning one in his magic and plunking it back in the sink. “Why don’t you three go set up and I’ll join you as soon as I’ve washed everything.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rosie said, “and it’ll get Velvet on her side sooner. You really need to rest more, lovely. You were on your hooves far too much today.”

“Meh.” Velvet grunted as she rose, hind legs shaking again as she took the weight of her foal and water. “I need to exercise or I’ll get too fat to fly.”

Rosemary held her gently while she swayed with a spell, and set a gentle massage spell along her spine. It wasn’t as intimate or welcoming as hooves, but it would do the trick until Rosie could take over again. “How are you for tonight?”

“Eager,” Velvet said, raising her tail to show her marehood already damp. “I’ve been wanting to be in your embrace again, lovebird.” She crooned as Rosemary ducked forward to sample the damp with her tongue, a faintly sweet acidic taste to her. “Not yet, lover… Let me get to bed first.”

Rosie flicked her tail up as she fell back to kiss Rosemary and get the taste off her lips. “Delicious, Vel… as always.”

She glanced over her back, shuddering, and hiked her tail higher, marehood contracting and the tight bud of her anus puckering tighter. “Stars, you two. I’ve missed that sight.” She grunted as she stepped up to the bed, holding herself steady with her wings partly spread.

Rosemary stood behind her, waiting until she steadied herself with a with a wider stance of all four legs, an obvious invitation for her with her tail still raised, her thighs apart to show off the gentle swell of teat and nipple. One step forward was all it took to nip at the back of Velvet’s thigh to let her know she was there, then tucked her muzzle between those delicious thighs to latch gently onto one teat and draw the nipple against her teeth with a strong suckle before releasing it.

Velvet’s hind legs quivered and her clitoris stiffened briefly to part her lower petals. “I-is that the game tonight?” she asked through a stuttering breath.

“Mmhm.” Rosemary nosed her thigh again, kissing her winking clit. “Lie down.”

“Oh, Trestle, you poor stallion,” Velvet said with a groan as she settled first to her chest, then settled more tenderly and in stages to her belly before rolling to her side in the trough just for her. “I take it…” she glanced at Rosie. “You’ll be on me, too?”

“Behind,” Rosie said.

“No… no, let me take care of you tonight.” Velvet nosed the blankets in front of her. “Come lie down. You’ll get a better view, too.” She glanced at Rosemary, grinning. “And I want to watch, too. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him mount another pony.”

“Last night?” Rosie asked, eyebrow arched. “Or did you fall asleep?”

Velvet laughed and nosed the sheets again. “Slept like a foal. Now come lay down. I want to get you started before she starts on me.”

“Shoot. And we did it so you could watch, too.” Rosie sighed and flicked her tail up. “Ah well, still fun.” She backed up to the bed, tail flagging high and to the side, stepped up, and crept back until Velvet reached up to nip her hind leg, then settled slowly, dangling her forelegs over the edge of the bed to touch the ground but barely.

Rosemary settled in on the bed to watch, idly nosing Velvet’s belly and rubbing her cheek against the midnight blue expanse. Her tail flagged and raised as Velvet began her always slow starting ministrations, nuzzling and snuffling at Rosie’s hard-winking marehood and only offering occasional shallow licks that made Rosie’s breath catch before she released it in a huff.

Her ears ticked as she caught the sound of cupboards opening and clinking dishware being piled up. She shivered, anticipation wringing her thoughts into noodles, and the smell of Rosie’s rising desire and Velvet’s anticipatory need flooded her nostrils.

Rosemary cast a simple reflective spell above Velvet’s head, mist drawn into a plane of ice so pure and flat it reflected, angled so she could watch her lovers working together.

Rosie’s breathing grew shallower, then deeper as Velvet plied her tongue and nose along the deep, slick canal, then left to begin at her clitoris, licking and suckling to draw it out, then latching on with a soft sucking sound. Evelvet met Rosemary’s yes with one of hers, making the younger mare shiver and rock her hind hooves farther apart, tail flicking up to almost curl over her back.

“Vel…” Rosie groaned, licking her lips and shifting her hindquarters. “Stars… that tongue always—” She gasped as Velvet’s tongue slipped into her without warning. The pregnant mare’s violet eye trapped Rosemary’s gaze before it closed and she pushed her muzzle more firmly against Rosie’s sopping sex. “Vel! Stars, deeper!”

Trestle came in, a bowl still held suspended, and grinned. “Ah… thank the stars I didn’t miss it.” His cock slid free, stiffening quickly as he watched in the mirror. He glanced at Rosemary, shivered, and half-pranced towards, her, his member bobbing and slapping against his belly as he flexed his stomach. He glanced at the bowl, shook his head, and set it on the bedside table. “I am not missing this.”

Rosemary raised her hindquarters fractionally higher, inviting him to take her right there and then. “I want you, Tres. Come mount me.”

“Ah, with an offer like that,” he murmured, stepping to the side and pressing his muzzle against her thigh, dipping between to lick at her teat and then up to suckle at her exposed clitoris. “Such a sweetly musky odor, little bird,” he crooned, his eyes flicking from her face to the mirrored surface.

Rosie was mewling, her forehooves curling and uncurling as Velvet rocked her head up and down, coming up only for brief seconds for air, then slipping back into Rosie’s pulsing, slick vulva. Her ankle, she positioned under Rosie’s nethers to let her rock her clit against the hard surface as she wished.

She wished, and her cries rose as Trestle’s tongue started bathing Rosemary’s dock in between bites and pauses to watch.

“Stars… you learned a few things about the dock,” Rosemary said, clenching her hindquarters and feeling herself quiver with need as he did, his tail flicking as he eyed her rear, grinned, and nipped beside her tail.

“You are too kind to me,” he said in a rolling husk of a rumble, his shoulders hunching as he flexed his stomach, another clear drop of liquid budding and dribbling to the bowl.

Rosemary stamped a hind hoof, more out of reflexive need than a demand, but he nosed at her nethers and plied his tongue slowly up the crease between her petals, flicking lightly across the tiny dimple of her urethra and then up to her depths, sliding in, then out in a second and drawing a dribble of her excitement as she whimpered and shuddered, pressing her cheek more firmly against Velvet’s belly, eyes closed for just an instant.

Rosie cried out, her hindquarters twitching. Rosemary had missed the moment just before, that clenching of the brow, the twitch of lips, and the sharp, sudden breath just before the release. But not the aftermath. Rosie’s beautiful face slackened as she moaned, her mouth dropping open, her ears going slack.

Velvet lifted her head, her muzzle slick from nose almost to cheek with the excess she’d rolled against, her hind leg lifting in her own arousal, mimicking Rosemary’s own wide stance and revealing her twinned teats in all their glorious beauty.

Rosie panted softly, her withers shivering, her coat twitching with each aftershock as Velvet plied her tongue more liberally and chastely along the outer of Rosie’s thighs, cleaning her as much as she could. Bathing would be the order of the night before bed, and perhaps another quick rut. If Trestle was up for a third.

“Stars, Velvet,” Rosie said at last, swallowing and licking her lips, eyes straying immediately to Trestle. “And our good stallion, watching me become dessert.” Their eyes met as Rosemary watched, and a spark seemed to pass between them, a faint flick of his tail and a soft whinny said more between them than Rosemary imagined they could say with words.

“‘Twas only admiring the dishes before I found my own dessert. And such…” He paused to press his nose firmly against the winked open passage. “Such an eager dish she is…”

“I’m with you tonight, Trestle,” Rosemary said in a throaty husk, setting her stance farther apart. She wanted him to mount her vigorously the first time. She wanted the heat and pressure building inside her.

“Ahem,” Velvet said, shaking her raised hind leg and setting her teats to shifting and rolling against her stomach. “And I’m yours, Rosemary.”

An unaccustomed flush touched her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Vel. I was so excited by…” She swallowed, the sound of Rosie’s orgasm and the smell of it still lingering in the air making her almost want to switch places. “Stars, Rosie… I forgot how beautiful you are when you come.”

“Mmhmm…” Rosie purred a laugh. “With your head between my thighs, that’s not a surprise.”

“May I, Rosemary,” Trestle asked, his voice fuzzing with the intensity of his desire. “I fear I may not last long if what I suspect…”

Rosemary confirmed his suspicions for him, nosing the lower of Velvet’s teats before slurping the nipple between her lips with a flick of her tongue.

“Stars, you mares…” He reared up without much preamble and settled to Rosemary’s back, his forelegs finding purchase around her barrel as he sidled forward with halting steps, his cock probing the back of her leg, twitching up to prod her thigh. “Been too long,” he grumbled. “You’re too short, little lovebird.”

“Says the giant,” Velvet said, her voice already fuzzing as Rosemary plied lick after lick against the nipple, wetting it thoroughly. “The first time you mounted me, you went in the back door.”

“As I recall,” Trestle said with a grunt as he prodded again at Rosemary’s back… almost finding her backdoor. “You quite enjoyed that.”

Rosemary slipped Velvet’s stiff nipple between her teeth, gentle as she could, and began to suckle slow, pulling Velvet’s teat against her lips with each slow draw and release of breath. The hind leg over her cycled once, then straightened out as Velvet opened herself wider to Rosemary’s suckling.

“Stars… let me get in before you…” Trestle hilted himself in her canal, his cock’s head already half flared as he groaned aloud, sidled a step closer, and rocked his hips back, pulling the thick head of his shaft against her inner walls.

She drew in a sharp breath at the first entrance, sending Velvet into a mewling whimper. As the smell of her arousal peaked and her breathing grew more labored and she pressed her head against Rosie’s dam hindquarter’s her ears flicked back.

“Vel? I… I want to watch,” Rosie said, shifting herself about.

“Go, Velvet said, shivering. “I get to watch the next one. Stars, I love watching him mount you Rosie… And you, Rosemary.” She shivered and rolled her head back. “And those teeth. Gyah… More…”

Trestle grunted and hilted himself deep, his length pulsing inside her, her muscles contracting in waves as she huffed and pulled more firmly at Velvet’s teat, huffing through her nose.

“Let me know when, Rosie…” Trestle rocked his hips once, stopped with a shudder and pressed his nose into the back of her neck, his cock twitching inside her. “But hurry. She’s teasing me really badly tonight. I think...” He groaned and raised his head, his hips twitching as Rosemary released the teat and gave her mound three quick laps, teasing her and not quite touching Velvet’s clitoris..

Rosie slipped to the floor pushing herself under Rosemary and reaching up with two hooves to stroke her belly and her own teats. “He’s all the way in, Vel… I can barely see his cock at all.”

Velvet shuddered, her tail dancing on the bed. “Gah! Don’t tempt me to come watch.”

“Too late,” Trestle said with a huff. He pulled back, slipping free of Rosemary entirely to spill a thin streamer precum and marecome into Rosie’s mane and across her ears. Without more than a fraction of a second’s pause, he thrust back in, and built up a quick rhythm of thrusts, each one dragging at Rosemary’s pleasure, drawing her higher and higher, fuzzing her mind towards that ecstatic release of heat. She still tried to keep her focus on Velvet’s teats, but her suckling was becoming more erratic the faster Trestle rutted her, and the thicker his medial ring and flare grew.

Rosie’s tongue danced along the skin of her labia as Trestle pulled out again, her hot breath adding to the flushed heat pulsing in her loins and making Trestle whinny as tongue and slick flesh teased him into pulling out for longer, his hooves curling against her flanks as he settled and whined his pleasure out into her neck.

“Rosie!” She cried into Velvet’s stomach, she couldn’t focus on suckling her lover’s teats anymore, she couldn’t do much but pant and keep her stance as she rocked against him, pushed more and more against the bed as his thrusting grew more frantic, quicker, shorter, his head flaring inside her.

It was Rosie’s hooves on her belly, her lips on Rosemary’s clit, tongue slipping into her with Trestle’s final thrust, that helped her cross close to him, pressing against the surge of her climax.

She screamed out her pleasure into the space between Velvet’s belly and the bed, a short, sharp cry as pleasure and heat broke over her, shivering her hind legs as he continued pulling her against his loins, each new press of loin to hindquarter spilling his hot seed into her, flooding her with heat not of her own making as his mingled with hers.

Four more thrusts drew a short whinny from her, and she panted herself into a shuddering stop. He made one last effort, but faltered, resting heavily on her back, his breath fogging her mane as he licked her neck and nipped at her shoulder before resting his cheek between her shoulder blades.

Rosie laughed softly, panting herself as she lapped away at the mixed come dribbling from her. “Marvelous!” She paused to nuzzle Rosemary’s teats before she went back to lapping away at the results of their combined orgasms, breaking for breaths and exhortations of her own lost. “Oh, stars Rosemary. Trestle. That was beautiful.”

Trestle limpened within her and he dropped from Rosemary’s back, his cock flopping as Rosemary looked back, beautiful and red and black mottling shining with their combined lusts. “Give… ah… give me a few minutes, lovely.”

Rosie moaned into Rosemary’s nethers as she licked away at the still dribbling come. “Vel, you next,” she said when she leaned away for a breath.

“Mmm. Came once already,” she moaned. “Watching Trestle. Might have to try him in the back.”

“Any time,” Trestle murmured. “Any time.”

“Tomorrow,” Velvet moaned as Rosemary plied her gentle teeth against the swollen nipple as she pressed her lips into the tender swell of her teat. “Stars, Rosemary.”

An hour later, Rosemary lounged in the common bath just down the road, her heart and body filled with the fading afterglow of sex with her lovely friends who rested in the water around her, Velvet with her head resting on Rosemary’s shoulders, sleeping quietly and lightly.

“How are you doing?” Trestle asked softly, nuzzling her ear.

“Fine, sweetheart. Stars…” Her tail flicked through the water languidly. “I forgot how much I missed you three.”

“Not as much as we love you, sweetie,” Trestle murmured, nipping at her cheek.

“I wanted it a little hard. I was hungry tonight.” Rosemary grinned and turned to nuzzle him, then meet him in a slow, heated kiss that lasted a few seconds before he pulled back, his eyes smouldering for a moment before he looked past her.

“Rosemary, lovely, did tonight help you at all?” Rosie whispered in her ear.

“Yes. Stars yes. Just being with you, being away from the estate, even having a bit of normalcy…” Rosemary let out a breath. “I needed tonight.”

“Then we’re glad to have given it to you,” Trestle murmured from Velvet’s other side. “Our home is always yours.”

“Thank you.”

Book 1, 10. Tidal Changes

The days passed slowly for Rosewater, preparing for her next move simultaneously against her mother and towards Collar. At times, it seemed like both plans were one, so similar in scope they were, and with similar goals.

One day, she caught herself staring across the river from her sitting room couch, lost in thoughts of what would be coming in the future if she succeeded in either or both of them. The next, she mixed up the ideas for both plans and when she finally realized it, she couldn’t tell the thinking that had gone into both sheets of paper apart.

“What in the Mare’s name am I doing?” she asked her empty, warded study. The books on the shelves around her offered no answer, and the two scrolls in front of her gave her even less of a care. In order to defeat her mother, she needed something to pull Damme to her side.

But she couldn’t openly pull Damme to her side. Making a plea to Lace or Collar would almost certainly be considered an act of at least open rebellion if not treason. At the very least she was looking at being disowned and stripped of title and heirship.

Without a child of her own, she couldn’t guarantee her disinvolvement in the war or her mother’s plots, and the best she could do was be incompetent at the tasks set to her in such a way as to disprove any plan to fail at them.

Without a mate… Stars above and Mare curse her. Any potential mates she’d gotten close to in the last ten years had been threatened, indirectly always, or enticed away. The last hadn’t even been a prospect that could give her a child. Roseling, a soap and shampoo making mare whom she’d shared one lovely night of talk about only mundane things, soaps, scents, fragrances, all near to Rosewater’s heart.

And one night of passion in the woods after a naked chase where Roseling, not Rosewater, had been the victor.

The very next day, her shop was visited by Rosejoy and her goons and warned her against seeing Rosewater again, to which Roseling had, of course, gone straight to Rosewater’s estate, knocked on the door, and kissed her right in front of the goon squad.

Thus began a weeklong campaign by Roseate to drive away customers.

Until Rosewater had put an end to it by asking Roseate to leave her alone. The price had been too high. Too much. Simply to have a lover unmolested. And no guarantee it wouldn’t continue.

Tears stained the scroll under her hoof as she stared down into memory and anguish. Just the latest cruelty made more poignant by Roseling’s pain, the hurt and the disbelief in her eyes.

Why did I do it? Why did I give her up?

Even now, she couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. ‘Because I was afraid of Roseate’ didn’t hold water. ‘Because she was losing business’ had likewise been stomped into the ground by Roseling herself. ‘Because I didn’t want it to get worse’ was the closest. She didn’t want to see what the next level of escalation would look like. Drummed up charges of treason, perhaps. Manufactured evidence of selling secrets to Damme when the Rose Palace leaked like a colander.

Roseling ripped away from her like Carnation had been.

She crumpled up both scrolls and threw them in the fireplace to be used as kindling later, dashed away the tears, and drew out a fresh roll of rough, fibrous paper.

Focus on Collar. He couldn’t be bullied like Merrie’s citizenry. He could stand up to Rosewater, and he had a reasonable chance of standing up to Roseate. Especially if Lace entered the fray at her son’s defense.

Not that she could count on the sixty year old mare for much. She was fit for her age, but she was also growing more delicate, and her husband wasn’t a powerful enough presence to hold back the tide of opposition. Collar himself was a formidable force in politics, as she’d garnered through her daytime excursions disguised as a simple seller of shampoos—one way she’d been able to see Roseling again and again, acting as a simple stallion who would act as her factor in Damme.

Focus. It’d been weeks since she’d seen Roseling, and it would be time to dust off her carmine makeup powders and the padding she used to bulk herself up without the use of magic. A simple—

“Stars above, mare,” Rosewater grumbled at herself and stood up to pace the small study, turning back and forth, trying to clear her mind of the mare who’d captured her heart for a night and held sway over her still. “It was one night, and she hates you now. Let her go.”

It was one night and the last time she’d really connected with another pony on a personal, and then romantic level.

She stamped a forehoof and snapped her tail, glowering at the fireplace. After a moment, some of the tension bled out of her, and she focused her thoughts on Collar instead, thinking about him, how he’d looked when his patrol had encountered their raiding party, the largest since the days before the Lace Reformations. Roseate’s orders had been simple: cause chaos, take nopony, but show the ponies of Damme that their leadership was unable to protect them.

It was simple. It should have worked.

What had been meant to be a strike and fade raid turned into almost a pitched battle, with both sides trying their best to subdue without harm. The Merriers to get away cleanly without their faces being shown, the Dammers to capture a bumper crop of infiltrators.

The forces had been equally matched, with Rosewater’s two sisters along for the farce, Rosary and Silk, not quite a match for the three prepared unicorns and two pegasi focused on them. The ten Merrieguard regulars had been similarly equally matched by seven Dammeguard working in concert.

Until Collar and Rosewater faced off, her tall and slender form no doubt instantly recognizable even under cloak and shadow, just as he was in his mixed mail and padded armor.

They’d shared no words as their private duel of magery began, she testing not with scents, but with spells to prod at his armor, loosen a buckle, shift a strap, make him stumble. All the while, he’d tried to capture her with silver shackles, neither of them managing more than a brief moment of capture before the spells broke or focus demanded attention elsewhere.

In the end, he’d given up the pretense of sparring and set a dome around her.

And, in that, he’d given her a tool. None on her side could see what she was up to, and thus hadn’t seen her preparing the Lustre Lilac perfume and spell, a simple psychedelic fragrance, not one to use often, but induced visions and dreams.

Surrounding herself with another dome of clean air within the dome, she’d atomized her entire bottle and pushed out with the fragrance, building pressure inside the dome, draining herself, and had taken two enchanted Citrus Circus to outlast him, to push against his strength the little more she’d needed until his spell faltered and the dome shattered, sending her spell out in a burst of lilac-induced madness that caught Merrier and Dammer alike, leaving her alone, panting and barely able to stand in the middle of a circle of expanding insanity.

And his look across the fields of blue poppies had been one of shocked incredulity, fear, and not a small touch of respect.

She focused on that look, the same one that still came to her in dreams. Respect.

Did you know why I did what I did? Did you suspect my reasoning wasn’t simply panic?

Whatever the reason, taking two enchanted Citrus Circuses had left her near comatose as soon as she’d staggered home, and left her unable to function without headaches or fatigue for nearly a week afterwards.

It’d taken her a month to get back to full strength.

“No more Citrus Circus,” she said. The boost they offered was tempting, but the cost to enchant them, almost a day’s worth of magic poured into a tiny hard candy, and the cost they extracted from using them too often…

She knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep. She would need to have at least one on her, and perhaps two or more if she meant to keep Collar and Cloudy free of Roseate’s influence.

The recollection put her back in focus on Collar, but left her with no more ideas than she’d started out with.

I really should see Roseling soon.

“Stars damnit, brain,” Rosewater grumbled, starting to pace again, then stopping. She couldn’t go to Roseling as Rosewater. That was right out. She also couldn’t just cross the river as Rosewater in broad daylight.

A plan began to form in Rosewater’s mind, around an awkward, lanky stallion and his quirky, frail gran.

“Rosetide, you genius…” It would get her just within range of a short range, small item teleport to Prim Palace. Small enough for a message in a bottle.

With a little treat attached.

It wasn’t often that Collar had no idea where Rosewater had gotten off to. Reports kept him apprised of where she was at the earliest to within an hour of her having been there. She was, after all, one of the most recognizable mares, veiled or not, in either city.

But every now and then, she disappeared around a corner and nopony saw her come out again anywhere else. For hours.

Then, as if she’d never been gone, she would come back out of the same street as if she’d never gone anywhere at all, go about the rest of her day as normal, with only the hours-long gap frustrating them.

It didn’t particularly make him feel better that the Merrier goons that seemed to shadow her almost everywhere didn’t seem to know where she’d got to either; rather, it meant that Rosewater confounded everypony equally.

Attempts to enter her perfumery or her house at those times, strictly against the decree of the Lace Reformation, resulted in only failure. They never went personally, of course, but teleportation spells sending small objects into Rosewater’s house or workspace always failed. It was expensive to ward against that kind of intrusion, but the mare that wanted privacy could do so, and it wasn't a complicated working, either, but the gems and gold needed to hold a spell for any length of time added a prohibitive expense for it to be common.

So instead of watching her, he watched the mingling of traders, workers, and the rare common pony as they wandered to and fro across the bridges.

Thirty years ago, it’d have been unheard of for so much commerce to cross either way, and that little bit of traffic that did would have been escorted by Dammeguard or Merrieguard the entire way, or under seal of the Treaty. It had been, his mother had told him during his lessons and afterwards, heartbreaking to watch the distrust that should have been honest commerce under her father’s reign.

Part of that was her association with Dapper, he knew. But, looking down and seeing the more honest cooperation between the guards and the common pony of Merrie, some of them even joking with familiar faces, trading stories while the customs inspection went through and cleared them of contraband, he knew that a larger part was this.

Camaraderie between neighbors, genuine care about others from different cultures.

Things were changing more than they had in the entire history of the Treaty, and for the better.

“Peace has to start somewhere.”

“It’s working, mother,” Collar whispered, and settled down to pony-watch. At least, during his stint watching the river, he could relax whenever Rosewater wasn’t around to give him conniptions.

He didn’t know where she was, and he couldn’t very well go looking for her.

A cart caught this attention after a few minutes, draped with the signage of Roseling’s Rosie Rinses. Cloudy still got her shampoos from salons that carried them, along with a few other brave scented soap merchants that were willing to shop their wares across the river.

Curiously, the cart was driven by a tall, slender stallion with his mane in a bun, but the one who did all the talking was the crotchety old mare in the cart’s bed. His cutie mark was an anchor sprouting roses from the eye, and hers a ship with rose decorated sails.

Sailors, then, and possibly not Roseling’s usual carting crew, but an interesting pair nonetheless.

Rose sailors. Collar clucked his tongue and watched as the cart made its way easily through the checkpoint. They’d be less awed of him, more broadly experienced with the world. And Cloudy needed something to soothe the mind.

“Corporal Primshawl,” he said, nodding to his partner for the day, Cloudy having been pulled off the active roster to take lessons with Lace. “I’m going to take a little break.”

After days cloistered inside, worrying about planning, worrying about Rosemary, and worrying about the next steps her mother would take against her, it was freeing to be able to cover herself with a mix of makeup, temporary dyes, and an illusion to cover her cutie mark, change the contours of her muzzle, and the padding under her cart blanket and go about Damme as if she were just another stallion in the stream of ponies trying to find their way to a good deal.

It was less freeing to, a few minutes after passing the bridge checkpoint, to have Lord Collar step out of the shadow of an alleyway ahead of her and her ‘granny,’ and even less when he raised a hoof while looking right at her.

He did not, immediately, shackle her, however.

She gave the mist puppet of Granny Galleon a voice she’d practiced on and off for the last few months, and said, “Why, my Lord Collar! What a surprise to see you.”

Collar blinked at the old mare, then at Rosetide, and shook his head. “Pardon me for interrupting your journey, and I would understand if you have your wares already spoken for, but my…”

“We call them mates, when we’re not bonded to them, young pup,” Galleon said with a tip of her chin.

He stared at the old mare again, huffed a soft laugh, and waved up the road, falling in uncomfortably close to Rosewater. She could smell Cloudy on him still, and the remnants of some of the same shampoo she was carrying in the cart. “Very well, my mate is running low on some of the wares your cart is advertising. Triple-R Soapery, right?”

“Roseling’s Rosie Rinses, yes,” Rosewater said in a high approximation of a male’s voice, throwing in a hint of seapony’s burr on each R.

“Apologies, good sir.” He turned his attention back to Granny Galleon. “I don’t suppose you have any that isn’t spoken for?”

“I’m afraid not, young colt,” Granny said, a touch of sadness in her voice. “But you’re welcome to try and barter away from our customers. Roseling had a full delivery route for us.”

“I see. Very well, in the interest of getting it fresh, I will accompany you on your journey, madame and sir,” Collar replied, a gaiety in his tone that had been absent in every encounter Rosewater had had with him thus far. “I trust that won’t be an issue?”

“It’s an issue so long as we’re strangers,” Granny groused. “Rose Galleon. Everyone calls me Granny Galleon. Used to be a captain of my own ship, the Rose Galleon. Till she sank and lamed my leg.”

“A pleasure, Granny. And you are…?” Collar asked, peering at Rosewater more intensely.

“Rosetide, sir. I’m just a seapony’s mate. Keep hopping from ship to ship with my scrip. Back in port every two weeks to look after her.” Was that too much? Rosewater resisted the urge to swallow nervously. You didn’t plan for this, idiot mare. You should have.

“Good stallion, then.”

They walked on in silence for a time, the tension rising until it was all Rosewater could do to keep her ears upright and herself focused on the road ahead and the slight rise from the riverwalk road into the city proper to the informally named Fashion Quarter.

Only a few ponies gave them a look, and while Rosetide and Galleon got looks now and again when Rosewater made this same trip to the gossip center of Damme, these seemed more focused on Collar.

Before they made the final turn, Rosewater prompted her mist puppet to ask, “If ye don’t mind me askin’, my lord, you don’t seem that uncomfortable around us. Mighty comfortable, really.”

Collar’s ears ticked, and he sighed. “You’re old enough to remember the days when things weren’t so peaceful, Granny. When my grandfather raided and caused as much chaos as Roseate is doing now. Or trying to do. You and Rosetide are making the difference, along with all the other Merriers who’re willing to brave the ignorance of my ponies.”

You… believe that, don’t you? It was all Rosewater could do to keep from turning to him and asking him if he did.

Instead, she had Granny say, “I do recall. I also recall when the Reforms came into play, and Roseline embraced them just before she died. And I remember when Roseate walked that back within days.”

Collar grimaced and sighed. “My mother was devastated when she passed on. But that’s why I’m not uncomfortable. Because my mother pushed me to understand that not everypony was a Roseate or a Rosewater.”

Before she could stop herself from broadcasting the thought to the puppet, Granny said, “Rosewater’s not bad, young pup.”

Collar raised a brow and glanced from her to Rosetide. “Your grandson doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment.”

Because I’m an idiot and can’t keep my thoughts from flowing into the magic. “It’s not that, my lord,” she said in Rosetide’s voice. “She’s… a cousin of mine. Distant cousin,” she added quickly at his sharp look.

“Family is important in Merrie,” Collar said, relaxing minutely. “I understand. Even if you don’t agree with them, they’re family.”

Resist. Resist the urge, Rosewater. Don’t blow your cover. “She can be scary,” Rosetide admitted, earning himself a thwack on the hindquarters. “What? She can be.”

“I knew her mother,” Granny grumbled. “Her real mother. She had the healer’s touch, my lord, in word and in magic. She helped me with me leg. Still can’t walk long, but at least I don’t need Tide to keep me goin’.”

“Carnation was an exception,” Collar said, still maintaining a polite mien in the debate. “And… possibly Rosemary.”

“Met th’ lass once,” Granny said with a grunt. “Sweetest thing on four legs.”

“Met her more’n once,” Rosewater said as Rosetide. “Too true.”

Collar’s ears perked, and he glanced from one of them to the other. “What’s she like, if you don’t mind my asking.”

Rosetide shared a look with Granny, and turned back to Lord Collar, flicked his ears once, and said, “She’s hard to describe.” He nodded down the street to where awnings and spinning barber shop poles driven by the wind started and stopped, carrying chatter and bits of conversation. “Pardon, my lord, but we do have deliveries.”

“Ah. Of course. I apologize for sidetracking you. I’m merely interested in her.” Collar coughed as that garnered some curious looks from nearby Dammers. “As a project for my mate, Cloudy Rose.”

“How is the dearie?” Granny asked, almost out of the blue just as Rosetide stopped the cart in front of Cuts and Curios, their first stop. “I heard she got into a bit of trouble.”

“She’s doing well,” Collar said simply. “I apologize that I can’t say more. Rumor has spread…”

“Oh my goodness, Rose Galleon, my dear mare!” Prim Cut cried as he bolted out of the store, then stopped when he spied Collar. “My lord. Was there trouble?”

“No… did you expect there to be?”

“Not with her, no.” Cut shook his head and blocked the wheels of the cart while Rosetide undid himself and started checking the orders against the crates of jars in the back. “Mrs. Galleon is a regular supplier of mine. She and her grandson are by every two weeks or so. Longer this time. Ship just get into port, ‘Tide?”

“Nah. Been in port. Just… well. Letting the ruckus die down a bit.” He turned his cheeks left and right to show the faint Rosethorn marks on his cheeks. “We’re not exactly popular.”

Collar pursed his lips and rubbed at his foreleg. “No. Rosewater didn’t exactly help things, either.”

Rosetide forced himself not to slip back out of character, even in thought. “I think that’s it. Four crates of Simply Lavender. She does sell other fragrances, you know.”

“I know,” Cut said with a sigh. “But we’re not exactly an imaginative people when it comes to scents, ‘Tide.” He nodded to the crates as he floated them inside. “For most of my customers, this is adventurous.”

Collar snorted. “I hope it’s not all Simply Lavender. Cloudy would chew my ears.”

“What scent does she usually use?” Granny asked while Rosetide hooked himself back up to the cart.

Collar pulled a scrap of paper from his saddlebags, studied it for a moment, and sighed, “Scintillating Sunrise. Do you all use alliteration in naming?”

“It’s a part of Merrie cultural heritage,” Granny said with a chuckle. “Alliterating alluring allegorical—”

“Stop, please. I beg you,” Collar said with a laugh. “I get it. It’s something Merriers do to torment us Dammers.”

Rosetide snorted. “That’s exactly the reason. We have some Scintillating Sunrise, but just one jar. Our next stop has a customer that asks for it.”

“That’s probably Cloudy,” Collar grunted. “She likes her mane shorter.”

“She sounds interesting,” Granny said, “and I heard about when she ran away from Merrie.”

“She didn’t run away. Get that straight if you could, over there.” Collar sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. Roseate… asked her to do something, and she refused. She fled before she could get the same treatment as Carnation.”

Oho? Rosewater glanced aside at Collar, letting the mannerisms slip for just a moment, and said in Rosetide’s voice, “She does that a lot. Roseate.”

Collar glanced at her, and Rosewater slid back into Rosetide like a glove.

Stop that, Rosewater.

“She does. You won’t get in trouble saying such things?”

“No. My master is my captain, not my baroness.” Rosetide said with a snort. “My ship of the moment sails out of Damme.”

“Interesting way of looking at it. Don’t you have anypony in Merrie you’d miss?”

“Granny,” Rosetide said with a sigh. “But she’s canny enough to seek asylum if Roseate got angry at me. And it’s not like we can’t live in Canterlot or somewhere south.”

“He keeps trying to get me to move for my health, the brat,” Granny grumbled. “But Merrie is my home. Even more than the Galleon was.”

Collar blocked the wheels at the next stop and waited as Rosetide slipped out of the harness and started checking the list and setting crates in order while Granny counted bits. It was draining keeping her illusion going for so long, and empowering her voice at the same time so much, but it was honestly refreshing to have a talk with the stallion without so much in the way of history and assumptions.

“This is the store that asked for Scintillating Sunrise,” Rosetide said, whistling and kicking his hooves, then startling and tapping at the door with a spell. “Sorry. Got distracted talking to you, my lord.”

“It’s quite alright, ‘Tide. I’ve enjoyed talking with both of you.” He chuckled and cocked his head. “It’s so rare that I get to talk to Merriers that aren’t scared of me.”

“We’re sailors at heart,” Granny said with a smile and nod. “We’ve seen all sorts in our travels, Lord Collar. Lords. Ladies. Brigands, and even a few pirates. A lord isn’t anything terribly new.”

“I see. Well, it has been refreshing.”

Prim Perm, the owner of the shop, peeked outside, startled, and ducked back in briefly, “I’ll be just a moment! Lord Collar is here.”

Rosetide tittered. “She was with a customer.”

Collar glanced aside at him, chuckled, and nodded, looking thoughtful. “Nevermind on the sale, Rosetide. Rather, I’d like to employ you as an independent trader to buy some varied, simple fragrances from Roseling’s soapery for Cloudy.”

“Sir?”

“Whatever you think a mare her age would like. Nothing magical or too fragrant, understand?” Collar pulled fifteen bits from his saddlebag, giving Rosewater a mere second to slip her message in under a veil as she accepted the bits. “Three jars?”

“Of course, my lord. Three jars. I’ll have them for you in two days.”

“How can she bottle cookies?” Collar demanded, staring at the impossible bottle and its message steeped in the smell of fresh-baked cookies. And not just any cookies, but his favorite peanut-butter-butter cookies. Freshly baked. “It’s not fair.”

“You know it has to be a trap,” Cloudy said, sniffing the paper again, then the bottle. “It’s not activated, at least… if it was even meant to be activated. We have spells to detect that kind of thing.” She pulled away and sat back down, cradling the bottle in the crook of her ankle. “I’m more worried about how she slipped it into your saddlebags in broad daylight.”

“Nopony said she wasn’t bold…” Collar plucked the letter from the desk and read it again.

My dear Lord Collar,

I am writing to you now because I believe that, for the moment, our goals are aligned. I want Rosemary safe. You want Cloudy safe. I can’t keep Rosemary safe if Cloudy is in Roseate’s custody. I would be compelled to give up guardianship to release the mare to my custody.

I doubt your ability to keep Cloudy Rose safe on your own, and so I propose an alliance in secret, even from your own ponies. I will share information you don’t have access to, and you will share the same.

Burn this letter after reading. I’ll meet you, should you agree, on the night my cousin Rosetide delivers Cloudy’s jars of shampoo.

She had to have been shadowing me the entire day. Somehow. He’d already checked into Rosetide’s history, and as a minor Rosethorn, he only had an every two-week visit with the bridge guards to deliver soaps. He wasn’t the only pony to deliver for Roseling, but he was the most regular.

“She’s involved her cousin in her schemes…” Collar sighed. “Did he slip it to me, I wonder? At her request? And why?”

“Maybe he did. Maybe she coerced him into it. Or maybe she slipped it in some other time. She has range to her magic, Collar.” Cloudy sighed and set the bottle on the desk. “Still… that was nice of you. I’m about out of Scintilla Sunset, and Prim Perm is expensive to see for a simple mane washing.”

“You know it’s probably a trap. The invitation.”

He sighed, remembering the concern Rosewater had shown for Cloudy. Or, at least, concern for Rosemary through Cloudy. He wasn’t certain at all what she was up to, but he was less certain of her animosity. Her intent to take him as a mate, she’d made clear more than once, and Cloudy’s belief that she meant it as a Rosethorn Thrall held some weight.

He pursed his lips and pulled the next paper from the inbox, another report from Priceless, indicating that Rosewater had been seen some hours later coming back out of the same side-street she’d disappeared into. Same modus.

Included as a footnote was Rosetide and Granny’s route back through the city to a warehouse far back in the hills, about as far from the sea, and the center of the city, as one could get and still be in the city. A warehouse that small could as easily have been a house at some point, and was likely where Granny holed up while her grandson was away on his sea voyages.

“Did you know them? Rosetide, or Rose Galleon?” Collar asked musingly.

“No. But, given what you told me, they were probably at sea most of my life.” Cloudy peered at the report, the footnote, and cocked her head. “Why? Do you think they’re in league with somepony else?”

“Not particularly, but they cart for Roseling’s Soapery on occasion, it seems.” Collar sighed and shook his head. “Most of the time, it seems like the makers themselves have to cart their wares over. It’s certainly the case with Rosie Night.”

“Makes sense. Sailor ponies wouldn’t have the same conniptions about wandering across the bridge as most of the rest. They have to, in fact.” Cloudy tapped the report. “Did they seem suspicious to you?”

Collar grinned. “Not particularly.”

Cloudy rolled her eyes. “You told me he seemed upset when you made aspersions against Rosewater. Doesn’t that seem a little unusual?”

“Well, I mean… for Merriers family is everything, right?”

“For most Merriers.” Cloudy flicked her tail against his flank. “Roseate’s made it clear that it doesn’t mean much to her.”

“Rosewater seems to be cut from a different cloth,” Collar said, frowning and recalling the playful manner in which she’d returned Cloudy to him. “Maybe not too different of a cloth, but different nonetheless.”

“What’s curious,” Collar said and ruffled the letter again, reawakening the scent of cookies enough to make his mouth water, “is how Rosewater knew Rosetide would be delivering the shampoos in two days.”

“Interrogated him, perhaps? He made no secret about where he went.” Cloudy pointed towards Merrie and ruffled her wings. “Made the letter, stuck it in a bottle with the scent, and got back to Damme before you got back to the palace. She had more than an hour to do that, since you wandered around enough.”

“Except she wasn’t seen at all during that time.” The mystery deepened, and he shrugged, then added, “Unless Rosetide is still out at sea and Rosewater usurped his image and his grandmother.”

“That’s getting a little far-fetched,” Cloudy said with a snort. “She’s good, I’ll grant you that, but she can’t hold that much illusion and telekinetic resistance for the cart harness to fit right. She’d basically be using her magic to pull the cart for hours, Collar. Not even you could do that.”

“Granted, if she was using only illusion. But there’s enough evidence that Rosetide is real and so is Granny Galleon, and I doubt that Rosewater could impersonate Rosetide for the hour he was out there, talking as much as he was, and not slip up to customers who knew his voice and face.”

Cloudy sighed. “Alright. So what if Rosetide isn’t real, and he’s been Rosewater all this time? What if Granny Galleon was one of those… autonomous mist faeries?”

“Yes, but Granny Galleon wasn’t one of those,” Collar said, shaking his head. “She was real and solid, Cloudy. Weak, but she handled the bits, and he did the work. And she didn’t… glitch out. She held a conversation with me. Cogently, I might add.”

“So she changed the spell after that, and now she’s in direct control of it.” Cloudy jerked her chin in a ‘so there’ gesture.

“Possible. But why go through the risk? We have spells to catch most of the tricks she uses, and they passed by the checkpoint cleanly.” Collar grimaced and sat back. “Until I have reason to suspect Rosetide as an imposter or an agent, I have to believe that he was exactly what he looked like, a sailor doing a good deed for his grandmare and a friend.”

“You know why I have to present the far-fetched, right?” Cloudy asked, relenting and settling against his side again.

“Consider more possibilities. And… you’re right. I’ll run it by Priceless later, too, and see if we can get a watch on Rosetide. Find out which ship he’s with, maybe.” He didn’t hold out a lot of hope for that. Captains were protective of their crew, so long as the crewmate in question was reliable—something sometimes hard to find and keep in the Dammer ports, when the siren’s call of Merrie promised an easier life.

Not that I’ve ever heard of sailors hunkering down en-masse. Merrie was too different for their tastes, too. Their culture was one of openness and acceptance—at least among the common pony—and the sailors from other monogamous cultures often found it harder to accept than the occasional Dammer who strayed and found their joy on the other side of the river.

Most of those who went were Dammeguard who’d gotten to know some of the Merrie traders better than most Dammers would consider safe, and most of those ended up living and working in the Garden of Love.

All possible because of the Lace Reformation.

And because of that possibility, and the potential that he would gain a valuable ally, he needed to consider that Rosewater was not acting out of malice. He read the letter one more time and set it in the fireplace.

“What are you doing? That should go to Priceless!”

“I have the letter memorized,” Collar said as he watched the coarse paper flare and curl into carbon. “If she betrays me, I’ll write it out again.”

“You’re not going alone, you idiot.”

“No, because you’re going to lead a squad of pegasi to follow us from above. You know what to look for with my invisibility spell. Follow us, stay out of sight, and don’t come down unless I give a signal or it looks like she’s trying to take me.” He waved a hoof. “Break out the lampblack for this one, Cloudy, and pick your squad. You have two days.”

Author's Notes:

Yay! I didn't have to completely rewrite this one. I did, however, split it off into two chapters. The second half is coming in three days instead of a week. (Just need to polish it a bit.)

Book 1, 11. Uneasy Tides

It was the most cliched of places to meet for a clandestine deal, a dark alleyway in the middle of the night, but instead of dirty dealings or espionage, Rosewater had to meet in the shadows with a jeweler for the simple and expedient reason that she didn’t want Silver Drop to get in trouble.

The sturdy earth pony mare, cloaked in a Falling Leaves Festival red cape, had been having a grand time participating in the aftermath of the day’s festivities, heralded by the falling of the first leaves of autumn.

At a pre-arranged time, she’d broken off from the party of Garden ponies, her ‘nephew’ and his mate included, with the excuse that she had to find a toilet.

As soon as they were both out of sight, Rosewater snapped a dome of silence over them and cast a complex illusion over top of it, making the once-open alleyway seem blocked off by crates and barrels.

“You have it?” Rosewater asked.

“I do.” Silver Drop’s face in the gloom fell, as if she’d been expecting more, but she fished the pouch from her saddlebags.

Rosewater didn’t dare open it, not in the open, but she knew Silver Drop’s work. “Thank you.”

“You should come back with me, Rosewater.” She jerked her head at the hollow backs of the fake barrels. “Your friends in the Garden miss you.”

“I—”

“Can’t,” Silver finished before she even started saying the word and glowered at her. “You haven’t even seen my son, Rosewater. Raindrop Dancer has only heard stories of you, and you’re half a mythical being among the older members.”

“It’s not safe for you to be seen with me, Silver. Not you, your wife, or your husbands. And not the Garden.”

“That’s minotaur shit,” Silver shot back. “The Garden has enough economic clout and independence to tell Roseate to rut herself, and she can’t touch me or my family. We’re legally bonded, have a child, and I am one of the only silversmiths in Merrie.” She jabbed a hoof at Rosewater’s chest. “We’re safer than you are.”

Rosewater stared at the smaller mare. Rosemary had been pushing her more often lately as well. To get out. To do things. She was, but that they were all espionage-related didn’t make her happy. “I don’t agree with your assessment.”

Silver Drop was silent for a few moments before she sighed. “Petal… doesn’t think you’re wrong. But I miss you, Rosewater. Stars, getting the request from you… I thought you were going to get married. I thought you were finally going to end your isolation.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Rosewater said softly. “I’m not getting married.” She saw, for a brief second, the ‘dates’ she’d gone with Silver on, just two, to see two parts of a play a troupe from Canterlot had put on while her wife and two husbands were busy with their part of the winemaking process on Rosewine Hill. Brief though they’d been, they’d let her see the Canterlotian’s heart, and how it’d changed since she immigrated formally. “But I do miss you, Silver. And Seed, and Petal.”

“Then come with me. Please.”

“If you can protect Roseling,” Rosewater said, touching Silver lightly on the chest, “I’ll consider it. She deserves more than what I can offer her for protection.”

“Roseling? The soaper?”

“Yes. At one point, I thought I saw a path in my heart to marriage with her.” Rosewater shook her head sadly when Silver’s brows raised. “This isn’t a marriage brooch, Silver. We can’t go down that path anymore. But I would still see her safe. Mother holds grudges, you see.”

“I-I can’t promise…”

“I know.” Rosewater relented and patted Silver’s shoulder lightly. “That was unfair of me to demand. But now you know what I feel like. I can’t possibly protect you all. So I have to do this alone, Silver, as much as possible.”

“Idiot,” Silver muttered as she walked away. “You’re taking yourself away from us, too, you know. It’s like you’re Carnation, but you’re doing it willingly.”

You’re not wrong, Silver. “I’m sorry.”

Enchanting jewelry with a spell normally took weeks, but the spray of gems she’d given to Silver Drop for the piece had already been enchanted, and so long as they were put in the right place in the inscribed pattern, they would work properly, providing her with the control, sustainability, and even a bit of telekinetic presence to the mist puppet she had to make for Rosetide, and only for Rosetide.

Silver Drop was one of the best at what she did in either Merrie or Damme, and the inscriptions were line-perfect to the schematic she’d provided, measurements and volumes all marked exactly. She’d understood as soon as Rosewater provided the inscribed and etched gems what the brooch was for.

“You do good work, Silver,” Rosewater murmured as she drifted around the image growing from the pendant floating in the air. It wasn’t a full illusion, but covered the parts of her that needed to be accentuated to look more masculine. Broader chest, deeper barrel, thicker jaw and deeper muzzle. Most importantly, it hid her cutie mark. “Just as if I’d cast it.”

It would last an hour without her needing to recharge the central gem, a deep blue sapphire. It wasn’t the best for holding magical power, but it was better for fine-detail work, letting its reserves drain at a measured pace instead of releasing all at once.

She stopped the enchantment and refilled the little bit of energy spent maintaining the illusion while she’d cast it, and slipped it over her neck before slipping into the padding and the mindset of Rosetide and set about pushing her luck.

Nopony in Merrie paid him any mind, and they never did. He was a seafarer, and they were a breed apart from most Merriers, or even most Dammers. Away from loved ones, if they had any, for weeks to months at a time. Their families were almost always other seafarers, and oftentimes they made up a significant portion of a crew.

Even the Dockbridge guards only gave his saddlebags a cursory glance as they waved him through, and one even asked where they could get a sampler manewash.

“Cuts and Curios,” Rosetide said with a laugh, flicking his tail and prancing past. “And tell Cut to broaden his selection.”

“Bah.” The mare waved him on and snorted. “Like he’ll change his lineup.”

Rosetide chuckled and went on, adjusting his scarf briefly and started off, mental map in his head, and hidden, unenchanted scents, Damme inspired, nestled in small bottles against his side. He had time to play tourist and liven up the streets of Damme with a little scent that was starting to fade in the waning sunlight.

He didn’t have a schedule to keep this time, and his cutie mark all but gave him a pass to most passerby, even for one of those Merriers. It helped that he was something of a familiar face to the ponies in the business district, even if he only came around every couple of weeks.

He had the sway of the seafaring pony, the look of one, and even the scent of one. He’d been careful about that detail today.

At two corners, he left the bottles nestled in the bushes, covered by a careful veil and opened to let out a faintly stronger scent of the city.

Even as he left each area, the fragrance was starting to work its way out, just enough to liven the steps of the ponies around him, almost as if it were the height of summer again. It would be perfect to draw Collar to the more lively state she wanted him in. Without using magic, without using anything more than the same scents he’d gathered during the night before, attuning himself to the pendant.

She wouldn’t break the accord this way, not making a perfume out of a city.

Once he was done, and back into Rosetide’s mindset, he made his way to the palace, getting more and more suspicious looks from the guards the closer he got, and the prison guards off to the west took his dark rose coat to heart and glowered at him especially fiercely.

But nopony accosted him, no guards intercepted him until he got to the guard station just outside the palace gate.

“Business?” The guard asked sharply, holding out a hoof for papers, and looking for the obviously missing mark of the Treaty office.

“I’m just here to deliver some shampoos on a personal request from Lord Collar,” Rosetide drew out one of the jars, showing the label. “Could you take these and deliver them, please? I should be getting back to my ship.”

“A moment.” The guard, a unicorn stallion who looked rather like Collar, turned and tapped one of his fellow Dammeguards on the flank. “Go fetch Lord Collar.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Coat.”

Rosewater put two and two together in an instant’s surprise, and forced herself to put the mannerisms back on.

“Primeline Coat,” Rosetide said, offering a small, tenuous smile. “Lord Collar’s cousin?”

“Yes,” Coat said, grinning. “Ahh. I’m so glad he asked for a bit more variety. Cloudy’s been going slowly scent-stir-crazy.”

“That’s not a thing,” Rosetide grunted. “She’s bored of nothing but stone and earth smells.”

“And that’s not scent-stir-crazy?” Coat raised a brow and chuckled, then glanced aside as Collar and Cloudy both coming down the stairs, chatting quietly, then both glancing at Rosetide. “Ah, my lord, my lady.”

“I’m not a lady yet,” Cloudy said matter-of-factly, fixing Coat with a level stare, then turning to Rosetide. “And you, fascinating stallion. Just who are you?”

They suspect? “A sailor, my lady.”

“Don’t you start,” Cloudy groaned.

“Today, I am a simple delivery stallion, er…. Cloudy.” Rosetide tipped his head to the side. “Is that right? You’re the Rose Lady everypony is whispering about?”

“Stars and Mare preserve me.” Cloudy snapped her tail and pranced closer, hiding a sniff in the snort. “Do not repeat that if you want to be welcome in Damme again.” She backed off and gave Collar a long, meaningful look, then settled back.

“If you have time, Mr. Rosetide,” Collar said after a moment, “we’d like to invite you in for tea.”

“I’m afraid that I’m on a schedule,” Rosetide said, bowing his head minutely. “I need to decline. My ship leaves with the next tide, and I must be aboard.”

“Ah.” Collar nodded, sighed, and waved his hoof. “Then I’ll accept delivery, Rosetide. Do you have somepony that you would recommend we ask for delivery service?”

“Delivery service? You could ask Roseling herself. Write to her.”

“Or I could just ask you to be our regular delivery service,” Collar mused, tipping his head and smiling.

Rosewater froze, tongue cloven to the roof of her mouth, and forced herself to draw the jars out and pass them over to Collar while Cloudy watched intently. “Will that last two weeks? That’s how long my voyages are anymore.”

“It won’t,” Cloudy grumbled. “This jerk keeps using my shampoo now that we share a bathroom.”

“Hey, that’s why I asked for three jars!”

Rosewater chuckled, unable to keep a smile from coming to her lips. Hers. It took her a moment to push back and take the smile into a wry grin. Even through the complaint, she could tell there was love there, the ‘argument’ more comradely ribbing than an actual fight. For show or not, it was hard for them to hide their affection for one-another.

All the more reason she had to keep Cloudy safe. Rosewater couldn’t make her plan work if Collar was worried about Cloudy. She could work around his Tussen Twee mindset, but she couldn’t do that if he was grieving her loss.

You like her, too, silly mare.

Rosewater bowed her head. “Fare well, both of you. I must be off.”

Cloudy glided high overhead, watching the tall stallion wending his way through the crowds of dock workers and sailors, offering greetings to some, nods to others, and generally acting like he belonged there.

And yet… something felt off about him. His voice wasn’t the deep tone that she’d have expected from such a tall fellow, rivaling Collar in height, even if he was on the slighter side, more delicately built. His height was one of the suspicious things about him, almost exact for Rosewater, even if his facial profile, even his scent were that of a male.

She followed his track until he walked up the gangplank for a ship and descended into the hold without a single crewpony stopping him, questioning him, or even turning from their admittedly busy work of getting ready to cast off.

A quick dive and swoop, and she got the name, Salty Rose. A Merrie-owned or affiliated vessel, then.

While it was tempting to question the dockmaster about the papers and taxes, that would draw attention directly to Rosetide and possibly cause an innocent stallion some trouble down the road.

It would be up to Priceless to gather what information they needed and give the stallion a clean bill or not.

For moments, Rosewater feared she’d not set up her arrival point in her basement correctly, the spell to teleport straining to open a locus in the small space she’d spent weeks testing on and off.

Opening a gap in her estate’s defenses was a risk, but she’d mitigated it, hopefully, but putting the only gap in the basement, behind a locked and reinforced door that had once been a safe room from Dammeguard raids. Then a cellar for wine. And now both that and an egress-ingress route for which only she had the key.

It was a tiny space, only large enough for her, and surrounded by anti-teleportation wards.

Then, she was gone, and reappeared in the small cellar, her nose crowded into the space for a wine bottle, her tail prodded by another.

It was so small, in fact, that she’d failed to account for the spacing and positioning of wine bottles, and the inbuilt failsafes of the teleportation spell didn’t let her complete it if she didn’t fit.

Minutes passed while she squirmed and thanked all the stars that the door swung outwards rather than inwards, and finally got the key in the lock, then spilled out into the basement of her estate, laughing.

“Success!”

Now she just needed to give herself a purity wash to get rid of the stallion scent, the dyes, and put on her real face for Collar.

Shadows drifted along with the clouds overhead, a scattering of high cumulus drifting in from the sea to join a storm on the morrow that would drench both cities. It was an additional risk, as well. Pegasi cloudwalking that high wouldn’t smell like anything but the clouds until they left their perches.

Not that Rosewater could have smelled anything that distant. Her nose was nearly as sensitive as that of a hound, but there was nothing she could do about such a distant source, and the wind steadily carried any of their hidden scents away in any case.

That Collar would have probed her trap for weaknesses was a given. Or he wasn’t the stallion she believed he was. She allowed herself a smile as she swayed with the movement of the wind, letting her shadow shift with the tree she was using as cover as the wind blew in as she’d expected.

Primline Park was a place where, during the day, ponies would gather to read and laugh, discuss poetry and quote it to small crowds, have picnics and run with their families. During the night, it was empty save the trio of guards patrolling its perimeter on their way through the parkland district.

Gleaming unicorn lamps shone their steady glow through the faint mist that was gathering around the trees and shrubs and above the grass, lending all of it the eerie beauty of the ghostlands, shrouding everything in diaphanous silk that tore and repaired itself as the chill of the city air and the warm wetness of the ocean met and mingled.

A perfect night for mystery and the plan. For the challenge.

Roseling had been her last in nearly a year, and seeing what her attentions were doing to the mare’s business had broken her heart—almost as much as telling the mare she could no longer see her. Even giving her the reason why hadn’t lessened the hurt for either of them, and Roseling had pleaded with her to not break off their romance.

Nearly, she’d given in. Almost, her resolve had shattered under the relentless assault of her heart. Until Roseling said the words Carnation had said to her, even as the High Roseguard pulled her to a waiting carriage.

‘Everything will turn out for the best.’

She couldn’t let Roseling be another Carnation, dragged out of her home, chained, and sent to Celestia only knew where.

It had hurt, and hurt more every day until it stopped. It was still painful thinking of that night, but it wasn’t so much an agony of the heart, and more the ache of loss as it faded again into a dull throb every now and again. Just as it had with Carnation.

At least she could see Roseling and know she was safe and well, and could help her, even if she couldn’t let the mare know who was helping her sell across the river.

Collar was different.

A different sort of challenge, and a different sort of chase, where the quarry only thought they knew the rules, and couldn’t know that she was playing by a different set entirely, a set of rules almost five hundred years old, uncorrupted by time or war.

This quarry, Roseate could not touch, could not break, would not break, though she had no doubt Roseate would try.

He would take the first bait, she knew. An alliance, even a distant and amicable one, was her hoof in the door. She might even be able to leverage Rosetide into a friendship with one or both of them.

“Spies typically don’t laugh and give away their positions,” Collar said from her right, invisible behind a sight shield, the mist making the edges even more invisible than usual until she knew what to look for and saw the swirling mist vanish across the edge and reappear differently on the other side.

Her veiling, by contrast, was nearly perfect in the same environs and gave away nothing of the shape of her, or the size of her—his shield was only large enough for him and maybe one other pony. Perfect.

“You came,” Rosewater said, pushing surprise into her voice. “But…” She lifted her nose and sniffed. “Alone. Bold of you.”

“What do you have to say?” His hooves clicked on the pavers as he moved closer. “And how can you tell? I’ve bathed recently.”

“You have. Blueberry scrub and an astringent shampoo for your mane. It reeks.” She considered, then cocked her head. “Though I suppose Rosetide didn’t arrive in time for you to get a proper bath.”

“Did you just come here to insult my bathing habits?” He snorted, and the scent of him came closer, carried by a gentle wind.

“Of course I did.” She unveiled the tip of her tail and flicked it, veiling again in an instant and dancing to the side.

With a sigh, Collar edged closer, his shield expanding enough for her to fit into the space, and she slipped inside, finding Collar there with a faint aura about his nose and mouth, his horn bright with silver light. Enough to light the space, but little else.

“Cautious, still, though I mean you no harm,” Rosewater said, raising a diaphanous pink dome inside his, cutting off sound. “There. We are secret, though I am trusting to our accord, my lord. Our games between us.”

“And Cloudy and Rosemary, apparently,” Collar said gruffly.

“My mother conspired to insert my cousin where she will only make a mess of things. Not by her fault, or by her intent, but because I believe my mother is starting to suspect my designs for you.” Rosewater sniffed and tipped her head to the side, starting off at a slow walk.

“You could give up any designs you fancy you have about me, my lady,” Collar said, pacing himself to keep up with her, his voice genial, though not nearly so genial as he had been to Rosetide. “I assure you, they will come to naught and misery. More for yourself than I.”

“I am already locked in misery, something you already know unless your spies are blind, deaf, and quite possibly dumb.” Rosewater snorted. “Did you miss the tiff I had with dear Cargo? Or the delightful company of the Baroness? Month-by-month, she tests my resolve.”

“I have not been blind to it, but much of it you seem to have brought upon yourself.” Before Rosewater could offer more than a glower, he went on, “You’ve left a bit of red behind your ear, my lady Rosetide.”

Rosewater ticked her ears and laughed. She’d left no such thing. “You are accusing my distant cousin of being me, now, my lord? Honestly, do you truly think I could pass as a stallion?”

Collar eyed her for a long moment, his hoofsteps even and steady. “You have a familiarity with him.”

“I do. And he is gone from my mother’s notice for weeks, if not months at a time. In return for his services, I pay him enough to hire a pony to look after his grandmother while he’s away.” Rosewater sniffed and tossed her head. “I’ll thank you not to mention that to your spymaster, or she’ll be out of home in a week.”

That seemed to relax him somewhat, and his ears settled down. “Then I apologize for the accusation. He seems a nice enough pony, even if he makes his friends in strange places.” Collar nodded ahead, indicating the street, straight and only slightly slanted toward the sea. “What terms do you propose for our alliance?”

“As I wrote. A sharing of information. I lack the means to effectively keep watch on Rosemary and her friends, but I am also certain that my mother’s patience with me is wearing thin.”

“For that, I would ask that you cease these games you’re playing,” Collar said, tossing his head. “I have a mate, and I am not inclined towards polyamory.”

“Have you even tried to be inclined? I assure you it’s quite a natural state of being, once you wrap your mind around the core tennets of the Principes.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “It would be a union of heirs, my lord. The end of the war.”

“I neither love you nor trust you. I’m not even certain I like you, my lady.”

“My heart aches, Collar. Honestly.” She smiled a touch weakly to him. “I understand our past encounters have been tense, but they were also under the aspect of war, not this amicable meeting.”

He was quiet for a time, his ears twitching, before he let out a sigh. “I’ll not marry without all three conditions. And I already have a mate. That’s the fourth.”

“As you said.” Rosewater sighed and pushed back the disappointment. This was her first real talk with him, pony to pony. As much as she knew about him, and as much as she felt like she knew him, he could only know her as she presented herself. “How is my sister fairing?”

Collar stumbled, caught his pace again, and coughed. “Glory is doing well. We’re treating her fairly, though we’ve yet to receive an offer of terms from your mother for her return.”

“And you may not for some time yet. Glory failed in her task, and mother is not one to grant leniency to failures.” Rosewater only had to look to her youngest sister, still enamoured of her mother’s love, believing that such a fantasy existed, to know that. “Continue to treat her kindly, my lord. Please.”

“That was never going to be in question. Since it seems that you will not give up your games—”

“And you won’t even consider my offer.”

Collar tipped his head, acknowledging the fact. “I will at least assume you not to be hostile, however, I will ask that you not use scented lures or mind magics against me or mine.”

“In return for?”

“Walking free tonight.” Collar smiled thinly and plucked at her mane, his magic spreading through hairs, then spread to check her fore and hind fetlocks. “You came without scents?”

“I am never without scents, my lord. Even in your city, there are so many fragrances I can twist to use as I wish.” Rosewater took a deep breath, drawing on her heritage deeply, letting the myriad of scents unfurl in her mind as a tapestry of artful chaos. “The smell of baking bread for the morn, I could use to enliven your senses, or freshly cut sawdust to dull them, the fading scent of poppies and magnolias to enchant with dreams. Or the stink of the harbor’s rotting seaweed to knock you out.”

“You give me little reason to let you go free, if you are as dangerous as you claim.”

“I am telling you because I choose tonight to put my trust in you. You could counter before I could do anything more serious than making the street stink.”

“Why?” Collar stopped her with a tug against her foreleg, stopping her in the middle of an intersection. “Why do you trust me tonight?”

“Because I am serious, and I want you to see how serious I am about pursuing you, my lord. I will end this war. I will see it ended.” She stared into his eyes, wanting to say more, but needing not to challenge his view of her too quickly, otherwise he might get the wrong idea, and might lead him to the wrong conclusion. “Together, Collar, as bonded mates, we could end the war. Peacefully.”

“Or you could find yourself a stallion not already attached,” Collar said with a grunt, turning away and starting back up the street. “And have as many foals as you wished with him.”

You knew this might take time. Rosewater let out a breath and followed him, a pace behind until he slowed to match her pace. They’d already passed one of the vials she’d planted as Rosetide that afternoon, but he was keeping that damnable filter over his muzzle.

“I’m not interested in mating only for politics,” Rosewater growled, catching up to him and snapping her tail against his flank. “Just like you.”

“And yet, here you are, presenting a political alliance,” Collar said, brows raised.

“I’m asking you to at least not close yourself to the idea,” Rosewater shot back. “Collar, we barely know each other. We’ve not had the chance to get to know each other. I’m asking for that chance.” She snorted and smiled. “I might find you’re an absolutely incorrigible, donkey-headed prig and not enjoy my time with you. In which case…” She had no backup plan yet. This one was still in its infancy.

Collar snorted a half-laugh. “A chance. Rosewater? There’s no chance. I’m in love with Cloudy.”

“And she’s in love with Rosemary and you,” Rosewater said, raising a brow. “The law in Merrie allows for up to a four way marriage.”

“With your own cousin?” His voice conveyed his dismay and disgust enough that she could see it without looking.

“We wouldn’t be romantically involved, my lord. We wouldn’t be the first, nor would we be the only currently married first cousins with a third partner between us.” Rosewater focused ahead, her ears flat to her skull. “I’m asking you to consider, my lord.”

“And your crimes? The hostage taking? The use of scent magic in our borders? The pitched battle?” Collar glanced aside at her. “I’m still not decided on whether or not I’ll simply arrest you at the end of this talk.”

“I don’t deny them. I abhor that I had to do them, but had I not, I would have doomed Rosemary to at least her mother’s fate,” Rosewater said softly, keeping her eyes focused ahead. “As you would if you took me tonight.”

Collar grimaced and looked away. “Why would arresting you doom her?”

“I… have been lax in teaching her as my mother would wish. Without me to protect her, Roseate would… I don’t know what she would do.” She did. But she pushed the thought out of her mind before it could chill her heart.

“I will, at the very least, offer her asylum, Rosewater. She’s a good mare. I can tell that much.”

“And the war goes on.”

Collar offered no rebuttal to that, instead continuing on with her, his eyes darting to the left and right at intersections, watching for his own ponies patrolling, or for signs of another infiltrator like her. They were slowly climbing out of the mist, becoming both more and less visible to passers by as his dome distorted the light ever-so-slightly.

“If the war goes on,” Collar said softly, then trailed off with a sigh, looking aside at her. “You’re not what I expected from our prior interactions, Rosewater. How do I know this isn't a ploy to get my defenses down? What changed?”

“The amount of time I thought I had to enact another plan has changed,” Rosewater said, then smiled and winked. “Not that I didn’t enjoy sparring with you. But I’m running out of time.”

“Why?”

“Because Roseate isn’t going to let Rosemary sit idle. She’ll make her do something that’s against her nature.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “That’s a bit of information for free.”

“That’s a bit of information I’d already figured out,” Collar grumbled. “Stars, are you going to offer anything concrete, Rosewater?”

“What would it get me? Information for a favor, Collar.” Rosewater leaned closer. “Roseate’s talent. Not the flashy things she claims for her talent. Her actual talent.”

He considered for a moment, then nodded. “One favor. Minor. My discretion on whether you can call it in.” Collar stopped and held up a hoof, cup up. “Take it or leave it.”

Rosewater tapped his hoof. “Her real talent is a glamour. A visual lure. She can inspire lust with a look as long as the ponies watching her can see her clearly.”

“How do you know?”

“She tried to use it on me in our duel.”

“It doesn’t work on family, then?” Collar mused, ticking his ears.

“It does. My talent countered it.” A tidbit, a little teasing bit of information. “It’s not only a sexual lure, my lord. It’s a suggestion. It’s a direct mental effect. ‘You want to do as I say.’”

Collar’s tail twitched, and he glanced aside at her. “And your talent? What would I have to give up to know that?”

“A date. Maybe two.” Rosewater laughed at his incredulous look. “I am not going to give up, my dear Lord collar. I have my goal, and I will see this war ended, and my Rosemary sane and healthy at the end of it.”

Collar raised a brow. “Your Rosemary.”

Rosewater twitched and flicked her ears. “My dear Rosemary.”

Collar continued on for a few more paces, studying her out of the corner of his eye, then relaxed minutely. “I’ll let your talent remain a mystery for now. Your price is too steep, Rosewater.”

“A pity then. For now.” Rosewater sighed and pranced ahead into the open field, or tried to. She ran headfirst into a physical shield, grunted as it gave against her horn and flexed. She stumbled and sat hard on her rump, massaging her neck with a spell and glowering at him. “I thought you were going to trust me for this night.”

“I never said that. You chose to trust me.” Collar came up to her and set a hoof against her shoulder. “I trust you only as far as I can see you.” He nodded to the field beyond the silver dome. “You leave here and—”

Rosewater folded the light around her and ducked out from under his hoof, sending her voice to his other side as she said, “And yet I can disappear from under your nose, Collar.”

He jerked away from where she was to spread a dome of silver force around nothing as Rosewater dropped her invisibility and coughed on his other side.

“Point proven,” Collar said, letting out a sigh and flicking his tail. “Fine. But why do you wish to prance about in this field? This is the old dueling ground.”

“What better place to spar, Collar, than here?” She joined him again in the center of the dome. “Now, as we’re nearly done for tonight, as I’d rather not make Rosemary suspicious about where I’ve gone, one last offer of trade for information. What would it cost me to get a single kiss from you? On the cheek,” she added quickly. “Just a kiss.”

“Your talent has to do with your lips, doesn’t it?” Collar growled.

“No. That much I’ll give for free.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Rose Kiss is the one with the magic lips,” Rosewater said, rolling her eyes. “A kiss, Collar, what is it worth to you?”

“To stop playing your games. One kiss to have you stop this nonsense with chasing me for a mate.”

“And that, dear Collar, is a price too high for me.”

“Why? Why are you so dead set on me for a mate? I’ve seen your file, Rosewater. You haven’t lacked for male companionship.” Collar backed away from her, glaring at her.

“Did that file also include what happened to my male love interests?” Rosewater shot back, lashing her tail. “Did your file include what happened to any of my love interests? Or were your spies only interested in me and not whom I found alluring and interesting enough to be my mate?”

“Well—”

“Did my file also tell you why I’ve had barely any lovers since Carnation was exiled? Did it?”

“There were rumors about you and her having—”

Rosewater snapped a band of force about his muzzle, her ears flat, her tail lashing. “I have never lain with Carnation, nor with Rosemary. I would never.”

Collar’s eyes met hers steadily as she kept his head still, her horn glowing near magenta with the thickness of power gathered in it. He flicked his ears back once and closed his eyes.

She let him go, let the anger go along with the frustration built up over the night. “I hear it from my sisters, from Rosejoy and her goons.” She sank to the ground and brushed at her cheeks, not surprised to find tears there, fascinated by them and why they’d sprung so quickly to her eyes. “I loved both of them dearly, Collar. I still do. But I was never romantically in love with them. I won’t hear you repeat them, too.”

“I never believed them,” Collar said after a moment, his voice calm. “And no. Your file doesn’t include what happened to your lovers.”

“I won’t let anypony else be taken from me like Carnation, Collar.” She took both parents from me. The thought hit squarely in her heart, and she staggered to her hooves. “I need to go. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

“She threatened you with that?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?” Rosewater gave him a look and tried to teleport away. His dome blocked her, and she couldn’t get the spell to even form properly. “Please drop your teleportation block.”

“I’m not blocking you. That spell takes a lot more energy.” Collar hesitated and stepped forward. “Is that why you’re pursuing me? Because she can’t do that to me?”

“Yes.” She tried again, aiming for a place south of town, out of view of the city’s regular guard patrol, formed the spell more carefully, and held it for a moment before releasing it. “Don’t let her take you, Collar.”

She appeared in a glade of the Deerkin just outside of town, one of the more regularly used ones, and one of the few that had been welcoming to her and Carnation when they’d made their first attempts to reach out to the nomadic folk. They were gone for now, still in the north wandering the trackless northern forests and pursuing their simple lives free from politics and intrigues.

Their only worries were where they would get their next meal, which glades to return to, and which cities and camps of ponies to prank or avoid.

I wish, sometimes, that I had been born a deerkin.

But she had not been, and she cloaked herself in mist and shadow and made her way home.

Collar stared at the space she’d been, considering what had just happened and all he had learned from her, or what she had let slip or made up. All of what had happened could be an elaborate acting trick, something to draw him out and draw in his sympathy, but there were too many things that tracked too well with what he already knew about her.

Finally, he dropped the shield and sent a flare up into the air, calling for Cloudy and her picked squad to come down, and sat staring across the river while he waited. From there, he could make out the chimneys of her estate, and it should have been easy for her to make her escape. True, there were a good number of buildings between, but even at a steady trot, she wasn’t more than a ten minute journey from home.

Wings cutting through the air in long sweeps of multiple pegasi coming in for a landing in a circle around him, Cloudy leading and trotting around in a circle, her nose to the air, then lower, and finally flicked her tail and saluted. “Grounds clear, my lord.”

“Good.” Collar glanced at Cloudy, then around at the other ponies. “Thank you. Our plan failed, unfortunately, and I was unable to lure the mare here. She was out there, but…” He sighed. “I apologize that our mission failed tonight, but I think we’ve put them all on warning.”

“That’s the point, right sir?” One of the Primfeathers, Streak, asked. “To let them know we’re not to be trifled with?”

“That’s exactly it. Dismissed from further duties for tonight. Get some rest.” Collar snapped a salute of his own, and glanced at Cloudy. “Lieutenant, walk with me back to the palace.”

“Stride,” Cloudy added, pointing a hoof at the corporal. “Get some extra rest, you’re not used to night duty, and it shows.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The rest of them snapped return salutes and took off almost in formation, demonstrating the level of their training.

As soon as they were out of sight, Collar snapped both a sight dome and a sound dome around them, and grimaced. That slow walk with Rosewater had done a number on his reserves, already flagging from a long day.

“I’m not used to late nights, either,” Collar grumbled, giving Cloudy a sidelong look. “How do you manage to look so chipper?”

“Practice.” Cloudy walked around him slowly, ears flat back and sniffed at his shoulder, neck, and flank. “I can smell her on you. So she did meet up with you?” She frowned as she paced around him again, her tail snapping. “And… you smell too much like the city.”

“I had a scent filter on the whole time,” Collar said, reforming the filtered bubble of clean air around his muzzle. “She did tell me she could use the city against me.”

“Of course she can. She’s a master scent-mage. She needs nothing but herself, Collar.” Cloudy sat back. “Was it a trap?”

“If it was, it was the worst trap ever.” Collar snorted and glanced at her. “What did you mean by too much like the city?”

“Well, it’s the city, but Collar, I’ve been through the streets more lately. It has never smelled so strong as when it did on you just now.” Cloudy shook her head slowly, lips pursed. “I can’t even imagine what she was trying to accomplish with that.”

“Calming me,” Collar said musingly, tipping his head to the side. “The city calms me. Would she know that?”

“If she were Rosetide, she would.”

“If she is, she’s a good actor,” Collar said, shaking his head. “I confronted her about it. She didn’t react except to scoff. Which is what she’d do if she was. She did say she paid him a stipend to take care of his Gran while he was gone.”

“Inconclusive, then. Also plausible.” Cloudy sighed and sniffed at his flank again. “How heavily burdened was she? I can’t smell any perfumes on you.”

“None. She didn’t even bring any of those candies. I could have overpowered her and taken her in before she could object.” Collar sighed and looked to the sky, then turned and started back toward the palace.

“Why didn’t you? And what did she want?”

“She wanted a chance, Cloudy. She said she’s running out of time.” Briefly, he relayed the rest, the courtship offer, her determination not to give up, and the reason why she was pursuing him: to end the war. “But… that’s almost too perfect of a story, Cloudy. It fits everything we know about her, and makes her sympathetic. She even claimed remorse for her crimes.”

Cloudy didn’t immediately answer, her eyes on the road. “Damme would never accept both of us courting you, Collar. Just like they wouldn’t accept me courting both you and Rosemary at the same time.” She looked up, but not at him, and asked, “Would you accept that?”

As much as he wanted to say yes, he hesitated. ‘Your devotion to her will be tested.’ He hadn’t thought it would be tested by Cloudy. She slept with mares, even after they’d started dating. For her, sex was both more and less important than it was to him, and was often a part of friendship without a declaration of love, and fidelity was only a word to her that Dammers put too much emphasis on.

She was loyal, and her heart steady, but sex was a step below romance in the hierarchy of relationship statuses for her.

She did take care not to do it too often, or spread herself too thin, and he knew each of her three intermittent lovers, trusted them. They weren’t in love. He understood that much from his reading of the Merrie Principes, and he trusted that she told him everything important.

Rosemary was a different case, and he didn’t know how that would change their relationship. Cloudy was still deeply in love with the mare. If they’d been born in Damme, they’d have already been betrothed if not actually married.

“What would it change between us?”

“For me? Nothing. I still love you, Collar. For you? Can you bring yourself to love another mare? Can you accept that I would have a lover that I’m in love with?”

“I was brought up to respect the Principes, Cloudy.” It wasn’t a yes, and it wasn’t a no, but it was the best he could offer her.

“I haven’t been with my other lovers since we made it public, Collar,” Cloudy murmured. “I’ve been trying to respect the Tussen Twee.”

“I appreciate that,” Collar replied, nipping her ear lightly and kissing her cheek. “It’s made things easier with mother, I’m sure.”

Cloudy frowned, then shrugged. “Perhaps a little. It’s all lessons on etiquette, trade, diplomacy, and politics. Nothing about courtship.” Another glance aside at him, a small smile, and she added, “Maybe she thinks I have that covered already.”

“Or,” Collar said, ticking his ears back as he considered his mother, her marriage, and what he’d been brought up to believe about Merriers and the Principes, his father’s culture.

“Or?”

“Or she’s waiting for you to bring it up.”

Silence accompanied them for a portion of the walk, the only sound their hooves on the street as they passed back down the street Rosewater had led him down, for no other reason than he wanted to find how how she’d managed to amplify the scents of the city without him noticing her cast a spell.

Halfway down, Cloudy slowed to a stop, sniffing at the air, then led him off to the side, nosing around in a patch of poppies before drawing out a mostly empty quarter-ounce vial of perfume with only a little golden liquid clinging to the bottom.

“Perfume.” Collar plucked the bottle from Cloudy’s lips and examined it. “What kind?”

“Alcohol base to diffuse faster… but it’s just flowers and a touch of baking bread.” Cloudy shook her head. “It’s not magical. Or at least, not magically activated. It’s an enlivening scent, not a calming one.”

“And it’s just been sitting here?” Collar asked.

“It seems so. It evaporated over the day and would have made anyone around it a little more energetic, a little happier.”

Rosewater, what did you do? “Is it dangerous?”

“Stars, no. At least… I can’t think of how it could be used to entrap somepony. At the worst, it might make a pony more open-minded.” Cloudy flicked her ears and shot him a look. “Vendors in Merrie use it to make customers more open to suggestions, but it’s hardly a strong suggestion.”

Collar swirled the bottle around and sniffed at it gingerly. Flowers and bread. Innocuous, frivolous even. Just like the scent of cookies on a slip of paper. What are you trying to tell me, Rosewater?

Author's Notes:

The second half of the Rosetide introduction/espionage chapter. Both chapters were heavily rewritten, but still follow the original flow.

Book 1, 12. The Mission

The Rose Palace was a beautiful place, a garden of roses of every variety spread over dozens of acres of land on the tallest hill in Merrie proper, sheltered from the worst of storms by the surrounding hills and ringed by streets that meandered off into the rest of the heart of the city, and disorganized enough that there were usually guides for tourists hawking their ability to show off the famous gardens and surrounding area.

While the palace proper was hardly enormous, it was hard to tell where the gardens ended and it began.

For Rosemary, ostensibly one of the nobility that could have claimed a room or suite in the palace itself, it was a place that she was almost wholly unfamiliar with. She knew how to get here and there within, but the faces she saw were strangers’ faces, and the ponies that seemed to know all about her were little more than passing acquaintances from the few galas she’d actually attended with Rosewater and Carnation.

The halls were wide and brightly lit, open for most of the year to the outside, the stained glass windows that descended for the winter stowed for another two months in some cellar or basement somewhere on the grounds.

She held the summons, a red letter sealed with the bright pink wax of the Rosethorn family crest, in front of her like a talisman against interruption. Interacting with the ponies that made their home here was the last thing she wanted. Hedonists to a one, the stallions and mares that crowded the halls were in a perpetual haze of some pleasure or another; wine, sex, scent, or all three.

They were the Rose Highguard at the top, the ponies that avoided true hedonistic tendencies only because Roseate required them to remain clear-headed when she needed them. Then came the palace guard, who could only indulge off-shift.

Finally came the goons, the ponies like Rosejoy—Roseate’s chief goon—who reveled and partied, rutted, drank, and sniffed themselves into oblivion until they were needed to do something low that Roseate didn’t want tied directly back to her since she could blame it on their hedonism even as she fed it.

They leered at her from their pillows and couches, too early in the day to descend into sex and pleasure, but not too early to be lazy and try to look pretty to capture the interest of a passerby.

She ignored them and marched up the stairs to her aunt’s office on the third floor. Invariably, it was where she conducted her business.

Just as she approached, a stallion that had once had a fancy for her—an unrequited interest since he wasn’t interested in anything more than the sex—stepped out of Roseate’s office, his cock still partly unsheathed and dribbling a single thin streamer of semen.

He saw her, and his flaccid member twitched and started stiffening again. “Rosemary,” he said, his voice husky with lust.

“Is my aunt still occupied?” Rosemary asked, ignoring him and his intent. He did have an impressive cock, but Trestle’s kindness, his tenderness in and out of bed, were more attractive to her than a member.

“Just with cleaning up the rutting I gave her.”

That she gave you, you mean. “Fine. Go clean yourself up, Rust.” Of course he would be one of Roseate’s hedonists. And of course Roseate had found out about his infatuation, and talked him into rutting her right when she was scheduled. A power play meant to discomfit her.

“Maybe you and I—”

“No, Rust. I’m not interested.”

Rusty Rose gave her a chilly sneer, but pranced off, cock bobbing. No doubt off to clean himself up and then brag about the noises Roseate made—noises that were as much lies as every other noise that came out of her mouth that wasn’t a threat.

That he’d been kicked out meant Rosemary had to step carefully to avoid the little beads of come on the stone floor, and even more carefully to avoid the ones on the carpet. The room smelled like sex, strongly enough for the sex to be magically enhanced.

Rosemary covered her nose with a simple clean air spell and breathed a few times to get the scent out of her nostrils and faced her aunt as she cleaned herself languidly on a pile of pillows beside her desk, her vulva on full display and still damp from being rutted.

“Rosemary,” Roseate said warmly, lying even with her tone, “I’d almost forgotten that I had you scheduled for this morning.”

“Take your time, my lady,” Rosemary said, giving her a modicum of privacy by pretending to study the paintings around the room. All of them were of Roseate save one of Rosewater. It had dust on the upward facing surfaces while all the others were clean and shining. There was no doubt she’d dragged it out from somewhere just for this meeting as a reminder of who was at stake.

It, too, was a calculated reminder. This was a threat, and not a lie. Roseate would use her to hurt her own daughter.

“I know Rosewater helped you on your last assignment,” Roseate began without preamble. “If you’re going to be useful to the city and our struggle against those who would take away our right to mate and make love as we desire, you need to be stronger, Rosemary.”

Rosemary stood there, eyes fixated on Rosewater’s portrait. Regal, her mane in a style she hadn’t worn since before Carnation was still there, proud of bearing. Both of those proved she was her mother’s daughter and ignored the heart that lived inside her. It was the still picture of Rosewater as Roseate wanted her to be: chill, perfect, and uncompromising.

“Your cousin cares only for your short-term happiness, not your ultimate well-being, Rosemary. She doesn’t know the struggles of fighting this war like I do. She doesn’t remember the strife Prim Cord put our city through.” Roseate rose and affected a limp that she didn’t have at other times, though she did have a small scar on her hip. “We need soldiers, Rosemary.”

“I understand, my lady.”

Roseate flicked a look at her and sat down behind her desk. “Your mother told me she understood. She lied to me. She undermined my efforts to keep our ponies safe, Rosemary.”

Quivering rage surged up her spine, setting her teeth on edge.

“I can’t have soldiers that lie to me, Rosemary, just like I can’t have soldiers that can’t handle a simple mission on their own.” Roseate pulled a scroll from her desk and slid it across the desk, nodding to it. “Nonetheless, you did make it to Damme and back, and I have a task that’s too trivial to hand off to another of my daughters.”

‘I have a task that’s too dangerous for my other daughters.’ “Yes, my lady.”

“You have two weeks to complete this job, Rosemary. Surveillance, reconnaissance, preparation, extraction. Details are in the scroll.” Roseate waited until Rosemary had finished reading the details, then sat forward. “If I find out Rosewater has aided you at all on this task, Rosemary, I will consider it insubordination, and I will have you exiled.”

“But—”

“Your cousin can’t protect you if you disobey a direct order. You are neither married nor a parent. Her guardianship does not cover gross insubordination.” Roseate was quiet as she delivered the ultimate threat, the chill in her soul creeping into her voice. “I will exile her as well, law be damned. Nopony disobeys my orders, Rosemary. Do you understand?”

It was hard to form words around the pit of bile in her throat. “Yes, my lady.”

“Good. Understand that I do this for the good of the city, Rosemary. I don’t do this out of a sense of malice. I need to protect my ponies, and insubordination is not conducive to protecting the ponies of Merrie.” Roseate nodded to the door. “You have your task, and the conditions for success. I have another appointment soon.”

Dismissed, chilled to the bone and wanting to vomit, Rosemary fled.

The only answer Rosewater got about what Roseate wanted was a single phrase, ‘tight-rope’ before Rosemary disappeared into her apothecary workshop part of the estate and sealed sound away, effectively telling Rosewater she needed to be alone for a while.

She tacked a quick note to the door, telling Rosemary where she would be, and retired to her own office, enspelling the wards to keep out sound as well and settled in with a scroll and paper to keep her mind occupied and not think about what thing Roseate had demanded of her.

It would require her to move forward more quickly with her plan with Collar, and perhaps seek out some contingencies beyond the simple expedient of fleeing the city. She had a cache of bits outside the city, safeguarded by one of the Deerkin clans that meandered north and south yearly, but that would, of necessity, throw her lot in with bandits and others and she could then only win against her mother by brute force of arms and encourage regime change through conquest.

Not that she had any illusions about how Celestia would take such an act of savagery. It would be a gamble, and far more dangerous than she wanted.

Her better option lay across the river and ‘failing’ in an infiltration into the palace itself. Perhaps even to negotiate her own way out of prison and into a better placement in both Damme and Merrie.

For such a thing to happen, she’d need to see Rosemary safely in asylum. Collar had offered it for her, but it was a thing that would also strip her of her titles and inheritances, just as it had for Cloudy Rose.

She tapped the dry nib of the quill against the page and flowed magic out through the tip, outlining in invisible thoughts the plan that might happen and erase them if the thoughts didn’t quite align before she put to words what she wanted to pass to Collar for their next meeting.

First, she needed eyes on Rosemary. His spies would already be watching her every move, so it wouldn’t seem strange for them to keep an extra close eye on her. Whether or not he would actually pass her intelligence, or simply keep it to himself…

Is that even relevant? Rosewater let the magic fade from the page and sat back. If he kept an eye on her, and if she could extract some promise from him to keep her safe…

“No.” Rosewater shook her head and wrote out the first sentence to the letter in magic, read it, and enchanted the ink into a fine mist that was drawn down into the letters, then continued.

Dear Lord Collar,

I trust that this missive will find you in good health and fine spirits, but I already have some information to trade. If you agree to a trade

The door to her study swung silently open before a tentative hoof reached past the sound barrier to tap at the floor.

Quickly, Rosewater stowed the letter in the desk’s locked drawer and touched Rosemary’s hoof in the same spell. She didn’t dare drop the silence spell yet. It would give eavesdroppers the idea that something important was going on if she dropped it and raised it again.

Rosemary swallowed as soon as she came in, her ears flat into her mane, her lip caught between her teeth. “How do you do it?”

“Keeping secrets?” Rosewater asked softly.

A little nod settled some of her tension.

“By understanding the cost of not keeping them. Feeling the cost of not keeping them, Rosemary.” A glance to the side at the portrait of Carnation hanging on Rosewater’s office wall served well enough to show her point. “There is a cost to every choice we make. Carnation knew that better than I did. She made her choice, and I think she knew she was going to make that choice for a long time.”

“The… choice to disobey Roseate?”

“The choice to… yes.” Rosewater closed her eyes and her mouth over that secret. Somehow, Roseate had known it, but knowing it about her mother would only put Rosemary in danger. As much as she wanted to share it, the burden had fallen to her to carry on. “She chose, Rosemary. I chose, too, when I fought my mother to keep you here.” You could have gone with her, been safe from all this.

And left all her friends behind. Her culture. Me.

“You have a choice, too, Rosemary, and unless I gravely misunderstand my mother, it means I can’t help you with your next task.”

Rosemary startled and stared at her. “How… did you know?”

“I understand her better than she thinks I do.” I hope. “I’m still here, Rosemary. She can’t stop you from seeking comfort and reassurance from me, and I will stop her from carrying out whatever threat she levied on you.”

Rosemary didn’t meet her eyes for the span of a few breaths, then flicked a look at her and back to the floor. “Exile.”

Rosewater pursed her lips. A duel, then, to prevent it, with Roseate more prepared and perhaps even guessing at the depths of her talent and the degree to which Rosewater had honed her understanding of it in the past six years. It wouldn’t be a duel she would be guaranteed to win.

“I won’t fail,” Rosemary said softly. “You won’t have to fight her.”

“You’ll do your best, but not everyone succeeds, Rosemary. Even I didn’t.” Rosewater took a deep breath and cleared her mind of the worry, drawing out a blank scroll. “Have you heard any rumors about town?”

It took Rosemary a moment to shift tracks, her eyes clearing as she blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Lots,” she said at last, then pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nothing about Roseate except the usual stealing husbands and wives that somepony heard from a second cousin’s third wife’s aunt’s dog. Oh. And a large order of stamina candies. Er, larger than usual. From Rosie, to a pony she’s pretty sure takes everything he buys straight to the palace.”

Rosewater’s eyebrows ticked up a notch. “Really, now.” That would mean she would be moving within a couple of weeks, before the candies grew stale and the magic that filled them burned out. “That is useful. What varieties?”

“A few different ones. Citrus Circus, Amazing Almond, Fiery Freesia.” Rosemary flicked her ears at the last one. “That one… maybe they’re planning an orgy?” Rosemary asked, chewing her lip briefly. “It's the end of harvest soon.”

“And pray, Rosemary, when was the last time that Roseate held an orgy open to the public?” Rosewater shook her head. “She likes her toys kept close, not shared. Besides, the White Rose Bath House has one planned for next week. And they didn’t buy any stamina candies. Orgies aren’t meant to be lasting affairs. They’re meant to be joined, to be entered, and then to sink into the laughter of wine and sleep and wake on the morrow with friends to clean up the mess.”

“Don’t tell the bit about an orgy lasting to Rosie…” Rosemary flicked her tail aside briefly.

“Ah, but Rosie’s ‘orgies’ are for friends only. Tell me, after you have a candy, what do you do?” Rosewater sat back to listen, curious.

“Well… I suppose you have a point. We talk. Fondle and kiss a little, some mutual masturbation. But mostly talk.” She cocked her head, pulling at her lip. “I suppose the candies are more for the body and mind than the passion. I can only get so excited in a day before I have to sleep, candy or no.”

“Passion is a mental state,” Rosewater recited from memory the Vrije’s views on sex, “and it is a necessary state to be in to find the fullest joy in life. To exercise passion in one part of life, is to exercise one’s passions for the rest of life’s joys.”

Rosemary chewed on her lip for only a moment. “And the Tussen Twee states, sexual passion is a finite resource, separate from professional or artistic passions, and must be guarded and given only to the closest of hearts.”

“Ah, but that ignores that artistic and professional passions can be sexual in nature, especially for the professional artist, the author, and the playwright.” Rosewater tipped her head to the side. “What then for them? Do they run out of passion and die early because they have no more to give to life?”

Her daughter’s ears sagged briefly, then righted. “But so many do die young. Or younger.”

“Is that true, or is it that the young, passionate writer, artist or playwright dying young sticks in the mind far more than the aged one who passes on after living a full life, filled with passions more completely than one who only had the start of life to look at?” Rosewater raised a hoof and tipped an imaginary scale up and down. “We mourn more for the loss that takes a youngling before they can reach an age where their passion for life can burn to its fullest than we do for a white-mane whose life’s passion has burned long, slowly diminishing as the wick runs out.”

As a philosophical question, death came up often, and Rosewater was pleased to see Rosemary did not fall to tears as she contemplated the idea. Her ears did tick back briefly, as would be expected of anypony with a heart, as Rosewater’s own had done when she first encountered the conundrum in the Tussen Twee.

“Primline was a passionate pony, Rosemary,” Rosewater said gently. “He mourned the loss of any young pony, and there were many in his age, with plagues and fighting following the Collapse after the Battle of Two Nights. He wrote the Tussen Twee in his latter years, filled with grief, and I fear that his teachings gained much popularity because of the state of affairs when he published it. Every young death ate at him, and you can see it in the other works he authored. The artists most of all.”

Rosemary nodded, tears now filling her eyes, but she closed them and let the tears trail down her cheeks only briefly before she lifted her head. “And Rosethorn had the opposite reaction to the same time. He saw the world falling apart because ponies were closed to each other, that they huddled in small groups, uncertain of the future. His reaction was to open his heart to every pony that came to him for help, and take them in, love them and care for them. Not to cling desperately to one pony alone, for too many single ponies were lost. But to cling to every pony he could, that the loss of one might not break him, as it had Primline.”

“They would be ashamed of us, could they see us now.” Rosewater shook her head slowly, sighing. “They had been the best of friends.”

The next day, after a good night’s sleep and a dinner at the Rosy Glow Tavern that she tried, and failed, to drag Rosewater out for—the hermit claiming that she had things she needed to plan for—Rosemary felt like she was finally ready to actually start on her task instead of worrying about it how she would fail every other second.

Rosewater’s note on her bedroom door that morning helped as well.

Be true to yourself, above all. We will find a way through this, come what may.

The first thing she needed to do was confirm everything on the scroll. Roseate had likely lied every step of the way, trying to trip her up and make her fail. The last task had been meant to get her captured by the Dammeguard, she was certain, and had only avoided that because the pony tailing her had been Cloudy.

Of that, she was certain. Any other pony would have hauled her in by her tail and not given a care that the only edict she was breaking was the curfew—which only applied to Dammers anyway, and then only as a caution.

Also, all of the information on the paper was suspect. The address, the name, and especially the enticements. None of them could be trusted to be accurate. Nevermind the difficulty in acquiring that specific information, Roseate herself would have likely made up the ingredients at random. And the address might be a Dammeguard intelligence operative’s house for all she knew.

She could plumb Rosie for information, but that might leak out in supposition, conjecture, or Rosie herself looking for information for her. As much as she wanted to ask, doing so might put Rosie in danger, or her business—too much asking about for information about sensitive subjects might put her on a watchlist or harm her trust with store owners.

Or she could try and appeal to Roseate to get access to the intelligence reports she needed to complete her mission. That route would be near as dangerous for different reasons, far more obvious. Roseate could simply give her fabricated reports, or outdated reports. The best case on that path would likely be Roseate simply denying her access.

That left her to gather the information on her own.

She chuckled as another thought took hold. She wasn’t on any ‘Arrest on Sight’ lists like her cousins and aunt were. Yet. She could go down to the docks, cross over, and find out for herself.

And maybe run into Cloudy Rose by accident.

She did not check with Rosewater.

The Dockbridge was the most heavily trafficked bridge in either city, being how most goods got to the greater number of deepwater docks, and how the few ships that called Merrie’s three paltry docks home got goods from Damme—most of whom called Merrie home, and a few that were no longer welcome in Damme for one reason or another. Cargo Manifest had gotten his start on the Merrie docks that way, having peeved off the Damme harbormaster enough to earn Roseate’s favor.

It was almost always busy, even well past the hour that most of the other bridges were effectively locked down to traffic. Bits moved, after all, and they didn’t much care how high the sun or moon was in the sky.

However, Rosethorns were an exception. From Roseate down, and only excepting some minor cousins like Rosethorn Seed—who often had legitimate business in Damme when he could be bothered to pretend not to be lazy—they were all villains in the eyes of the everyday Dammer.

I really should drop by the Garden this week… it’s been too long.

She waited in line patiently while the midday stream of commerce made its way across the bridge checkpoints, first on the Merrie side for a cursory inspection and logging of who went across, and the more extensive customs inspections on the other side. Coming the other way, a steady stream of traders and sailors bearing goods and packages passed through the Merrie checkpoints with only a check over a bill of lading and a collection of taxes and tariffs.

“Really?” Rosewood Kiss said when she came up, raising a brow. “Rosemary, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Kiss, it’s nice to see you. How’s your family? Seed still lazy?” She pouted at him and fluttered her lashes. “I don’t suppose there’s a reason you’re assigned to the Dockbridge today and not the Rosewine?”

Kiss rolled his eyes and glanced to the side. “Look, Rosemary, just don’t, okay? Not today. They’re riled up for some reason.”

“But I’m not on any lists. I’ve barely even visited Damme except for galas and the occasional festival.”

“That’s not going to stop them from at least holding you, Rosemary.” Kiss glanced around her and sighed, then waved her past. “But… that’s probably the worst they’ll do, and it’s ultimately your choice.”

Rosemary pursed her lips and nodded. “Trust has to start somewhere, Kiss.” You say as you prepare to go on an open espionage mission.

“Carry on.”

She joined the queue to reach the other side, drawing more than a few looks from Dammers coming over for shopping or, more likely, to meet friends. The common ponies of both cities found the barrier between them more malleable than it had been in a century or more.

Before she’d even made it halfway across the wide bridge to the broad, round halfway point, the Dammeguard had clearly flagged her as a ‘Pony of Interest’ and the stone guardhouse to the side had been roused to produce a pony with sergeant’s wings on their lapel, a pretty silver-maned and gray-coated unicorn with a wary look about her.

Following her was a pegasus stallion with a courier’s light cloth garb and finery.

The guards at the incoming side of the flow of traffic stepped up to her before she could cross the threshold into Damme proper.

“Come with me, please, Rosethorn,” The mare said, glancing at the guard and waving them on to continue checking traffic.

Ears flat, Rosemary followed, though she could have bolted across the bridge. ‘The worst they can do is hold you for a while.’ That was assuming they followed their own laws equally. “I… haven’t done anything wrong,” she said as soon as she stepped into the shade of the guardhouse’s awning.

“Corporal Pridewing, please go fetch the captain,” the mare said. “We have an infiltrator.”

“Excuse me!” Rosemary huffed, snapping her tail. “All I’ve done is cross the bridge. I’m not on any lists! I know. I’ve never even been involved in this stupid conflict!” She stamped a hoof, trying to act indignant and affronted even though she was trying to infiltrate. Just… not the usual way.

“That’ll be for the captain to decide, Rosethorn,” she growled, and glared at the corporal. “Did I stutter? Go fetch the captain!”

“Aye, ma’am!” The pegasus took off and winged off to the northeast, toward the Prim Palace, telling Rosemary enough about where the Captain had her office during the day.

“Um. Hi!” She waved and bobbed her head. “Look, no magic. I’m not veiled. I’m just looking to visit the docks.”

The mare shook her head. She was a pretty mare, silver coat of coat with a dark gray mane that made her seem almost monochrome aside from her dazzling purple eyes. The impression faded somewhat with the glower she leveled at Rosemary, and didn’t say anything.

“I’m Rosemary.”

No response.

“My mother is Carnation?”

“Is she your mother or isn’t she?” the mare shot back.

“Well, she is, I’m just wondering what it takes to start a conversation with you.” Rosemary hesitantly sidestepped closer to her. “What’s your name?”

No answer still, and only a glower, but she didn’t sidle away.

“I thought I would come over during the day and do some shopping. There are things, I hear, in the marketplace that I can’t buy in Merrie.” Rosemary raised her nose and sniffed as a wagon passed by. Neutral hay smells covering for a deeper perfume. The branding on the barrels marked them as one of the cartels that ran on Cargo Manifest’s ships. “You should check those barrels.”

Rumors of Cargo’s exploits, or claimed exploits, had reached her ears multiple times already. She wouldn’t shed even crocodile tears for costing him a wagon… if the mare would listen to her.

“Why?” But the mare touched the shoulder of one of the inspectors and nodded at the wagon.

“Because I’m trying to uphold your laws while I’m in your territory,” Rosemary said, smiling brightly and cocking her head, letting her mane bounce against her neck. “I’m honestly not here as an infiltrator, sergeant. I’m just a curious mare looking to expand my horizons.”

“Platinum,” the mare grunted. “Prim Platinum.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss… missus? Platinum.”

That quip earned her a sidelong look. “I have no interest in flirting.” Platinum raised her head and looked around, then dropped her head. “Rosemary.”

Ah, but you do. Rosemary held back a smile and nodded gravely. “Then I’ll stop.”

“Why are you here, anyway? You had to know this was going to happen.”

Rosemary smiled just a touch, just enough to show her teeth briefly. “Me? I’m trying to see where my lover goes for sales on every other day.”

“Lover, eh?” Platinum chuckled. “Not just friend.”

“Well, no. Rosie’s a sweetie. I couldn’t let her only be a friend. And she wouldn’t let me either.” Rosemary clucked her tongue. “I don’t know how you can get by with just one lover.” Not entirely true, but she had no interest in pursuing a single pony or being monogamous with anypony just yet.

“Easier than it sounds,” Platinum said, then raised her head again as a shock of pink mane, crowned by a silver circlet, rose briefly above the crowd, foreleg shading her eyes as she looked ahead. “There’s the captain. Better have your explanation ready.”

The captain, Captain Pink if Rosemary remembered Rosewater’s lessons on the military hierarchy of Damme correctly, made her way through the crowds at a brisk pace, less smashing her way through than her very presence commanding that others step aside, her mien nearly regal in its intensity, and her bright, Prim blue eyes sharp as she took in Rosemary and her guard.

“Sergeant,” the Captain said in a steady voice, “Corporal Down said you’d caught an infiltrator. Please, explain why you think this mare is an infiltrator.”

Rosemary stared at the sturdy earth pony, her tail flicking as she endured another look of cool command, and licked her lips.

“She’s a Rosethorn, ma’am. Her sisters—”

“Cousins,” Rosemary said with a cough, ears flattening briefly as she ducked her head. “Apologies, sergeant.”

Captain Pink spared her a glance, then gestured for Platinum to continue.

“They’re spies. She’s looking for information on her next target.”

“Next.” The single word from Captain Pink’s voice carried a threat with it as she turned her attention to Rosemary. “Did I hear that right, Lady Rosemary?”

“Y-you know my name?”

“I know the names of all of the notables that might enter my city, my lady. It is the duty of an officer, or one hoping to earn an officer’s bars, to know not only the politics of the situation, but to know all of the players in the game.” She spoke softly, genially, but neither warmly nor cooly. “Answer the question.”

“N-no… I mean, yes, but… I’ve never used scent magic in your city, nor been involved in any of the raids. I-it goes against what I want to do, your… er… my…” Rosemary swallowed and backed up a step, her ears and tail lashing. “Captain.”

“What is it you wish to do, young Rosemary?” Captain Pink asked, her eyes boring into Rosemary’s, as if the very act of staring could provoke a confession.

“Rosie Night!” Rosemary blurted. “She sells candies up and down Confection Row. They are, um… well… they’re somewhat scented, but they’re largely for contraceptive purposes, you see. Or energy. Or just because they taste and smell good.” Rosemary backed up another step and bumped into the guardhouse wall. “Really. I just wanted to see where she goes for work instead of hearing it from her.”

Please don’t see through it.

Captain Pink turned her attention on Sergeant Platinum. “And you, sergeant. What evidence do you have to support your statement?”

To her credit, Platinum didn’t turn resentful eyes on Rosemary. Instead, she hung her head and shook it. “She’s a Rosethorn, and I thought—”

“To insult the daughter of one of the kindest mares I have ever had the pleasure to meet,” Captain Pink said stiffly. “I had the honor of being the Lady Carnation’s escort to more than one gala, Sergeant, and while Rosemary doubtless doesn’t recall me, I let her ride on my back while her mother danced with Lord Dapper.”

“Wait, what?” Rosemary gasped, stepping forward and pressing a hoof to Captain Pink’s shoulder before she knew what she was doing. “You knew my mother?”

“Intermittently.” The captain looked down at the hoof on her shoulder, then up at Rosemary. “Please forgive my guard’s brusqueness. I’ll have words with her tonight, in private. For now…”

Rosemary danced back, holding her hoof to her chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Sergeant, please finish out your shift and meet me in my office when you’re done. If I’m not there, you are to wait until I arrive.” Captain Pink raised a hoof to salute. “Dismissed, sergeant, and corporal back to your posts. Lady Rosemary, with me, if you please.”

“Ma’am?” Rosemary took a hesitant step closer, then another. “Sorry, I’m not going to be arrested, am I?”

“Broken any laws? Any locks?” Captain pink raised a brow.

“N-no. Not that I’m aware of.” Her ears flicked back and she rose to show the heart mark. “This isn’t a crime?”

“Standing up straight? No.” Captain Pink snorted. “Your cousins and aunt wouldn’t be on our arrest lists if they hadn’t broken laws. That,” she said, reaching up to tap Rosemary’s chest and the heart mark on it, “is not a crime. Now come, I’d like to see what the mare I let ride on my back grew up into.”

“C-captain Pink?” Rosemary stuttered, ears flat, blinking away tears. “Why?”

“Because I’ve heard more about you than you may think, and I still remember that silly filly who could barely string two words together wanting so desperately to join her mother.” Warmth bloomed in the smile Captain Pink gave her. “You seem cut from a different cloth than the rest of your family. I’d like to know whether that’s because of your mother or the company you keep.”

It’s more because of her than you think. She couldn’t say that. Rosewater had asked her to keep that so under wraps that she wasn’t sure if she could unwrap it herself even in her own mind.

She nodded towards a large tavern with a sign depicting two alicorns with horns locked and wings outstretched. “Come on. The Two Sisters has a decent fare. If simple. I trust that’s acceptable?”

“Acceptable?” She laughed, her voice cracking. “Stars, Captain Pink—”

“Pink, Miss Rosemary. I’m not your commanding officer. Thank the stars and all the heavens.” Pink chuckled and pushed open the door, holding it open for her. “It’s been a while since I could have lunch with somepony who didn’t feel like they had to salute before every bite.”

The inside of the Two Sisters fell silent in a wave as Rosemary entered, ears slicked back as whispers followed when the closest got a look at her muzzle and breast. She almost backed out again, but Captain Pink pushed her ahead and stepped out in front of her.

“Hey. Quiddit. She’s with me today.” Pink shook her head, flashing the silver circlet. “Table for two, Lilt, if you please,” she said to a nearby mare with an apron around her neck.

“Captain.” Lilt, a mare with a peony blue coat with a flaxen gold mane tipped her head to focus on Rosemary. “Are you okay?”

“Lilt…” Captain Pink rubbed at her muzzle with one foreleg. “Please grant me the belief that I can take care of myself with one little Rose. Look at her. She barely comes up to my chin.”

“Yeah… but you’re, er… tall.” Lilt flushed, an interesting color that turned her almost lavender coat fully lavender. “I’ll get a table ready, Captain.”

“Thank you.” Pink turned to Rosemary and nosed her to follow the mare. “Changing attitudes starts at the bottom, and you and your mother helped to change mine. I hope you don’t change.”

That seemed like a veiled warning if ever there was one. “I-I’ll do my best, Captain, but life is change.”

“It is, and it is not.” Pink said, following closely enough to whisper. “Some change is welcome, some change is not. All must be accepted as happening or about to happen. And adapted to or resisted.”

“That’s remarkably philosophical of you.”

Pink waited until she was seated at the table Lilt had readied for them, then took her own seat and bobbed her head. “I’ve been trained in philosophy as much as a noble. It comes in useful from time to time, being able to argue a point effectively rather than shout at it.”

Rosemary decided to go out on a limb and test her. “Rosewater told me that our families’ ancestors would be ashamed to look on us now.”

“She wouldn’t be wrong.” Pink otherwise didn’t react to either Rosewater’s name or her apparent familiarity with her. “You don’t need to test me, Rosemary. I know quite a lot about you. And you know how. You’ve been waving to my spies and blowing them kisses.”

A nearby stallion coughed on his drink.

“It’s amusing to think of their blushes,” Rosemary said with a wink at the stallion, who was blushing a fine shade of pink. “And they really can’t complain. I’m not the one watching me all day, every day.”

“A fair point. I can’t complain either, because it amuses me, too.” Pink chuckled. “I don’t need to tell you we’ve taken an interest in you. And the only reason you’re on the other side of that table right now is because of a certain somepony who vouched for you.”

Rosemary’s heart caught. “I-is… Is she okay? I’ve heard nothing since—” She cut herself off. She’d almost blurted what her mother had told her.

Pink didn’t seem to mind not hearing the rest. Or already knew it. “She’s fine. Were you really her lover?”

“Almost bonded.”

Pink raised on eyebrow. “Oh, that does tell me quite a lot about you. And her. But enough about the past. Why’d you come here, Rosemary?”

“Rosie Night. She comes here a lot to sell her candies.” She chuckled, flicking an ear. “The contraceptives are really popular over here.”

A mare behind her coughed. “Er… how much?”

“A bit for two in Merrie. I don’t know what she sells them for in Damme. It’s part of what I’m curious about.” Rosemary cocked her head. “She and her family offered me a bond. I’m curious to see what the family business is like, if I’m to help out. Trestle and Velvet do a lot, but I think I could help with some of the other ingredients, too. Better quality. I already sell her a lot of rosemary she uses in some of the sweeter candies.”

The mare coughed again, this time almost choking.

“The plant, I take it?” Pink asked, a grin on her lips.

“Of course the plant. I would never sell myself to her. I give myself to her freely. And she to me.” She parted her lips in a grin showing teeth. “And to Trestle, and to Velvet. Why, just the other night, the four of us—”

The mare fell into a coughing fit, the fake coughs almost turning to real ones.

“Rosemary, you shouldn’t tease too much.”

“Fine. I’ll behave like a good little Rose.”

Pink sighed, rubbing her muzzle, but smiling underneath it. “I have reason to be very afraid. But I like you. Try not to make me not like you.”

Rosemary swallowed, nodding. “I-I won’t.” The mission burned in her mind. It would most definitely make Pink not like her if she found out.

“You shouldn’t have anything to worry about. You seem very sweet. Nothing like your cousin.”

Rosemary swallowed. “You know I live with her. How bad can she be if I live with her?”

Pink smiled, shaking her head. “Ponies aren’t always who we think they are, are they?”

No. They’re not. She longed, not for the first time, to tell somepony their secret. She closed her eyes, instead, and bowed her head. Roseate couldn’t even suspect or the dream would end. Already, she could feel like she was waking up from one, and the reality of the waking world, glimpsed through brief flashes, terrified her.

“No. Not always.”

Collar sighed and slapped the report against his head again, then glared at Cloudy as she came in, an eyebrow quirked.

“You asked for me?”

“What in the blazes of Tartarus is your lover up to?” he asked, tossing the report at her.

Cloudy read it, chuckled with a strained smile. “Doing what she does best. Confounding expectation and custom. Captain Pink met her and said she was courteous to a T, for a Rose anyway. Also, she was kind, and left without causing more of a stir than she usually does.” She held up the report in a crooked foreleg. “Am I supposed to be able to read her mind when I can’t even go see her without making everything, and I do mean everything a thousand times worse?”

“And I thank you for your forbearance. Negotiating this… thing with Rosewater is going to be tricky enough.”

“I don’t trust her. She left behind vials of scent she could use to ease your mind, Collar. Are you certain you kept that filtration spell up the entire time?” Cloudy peered into his eyes again, checking them for the notable sign of dilated or contracted pupils when they shouldn’t be.

“I don’t either. She’s got plans and plots, and I know her goal now. I’m certain she wasn’t lying about that. But I don’t know whether she was being honest about wanting to court me like you have.” Collar tapped the report. “If she’s anything like Rosemary, then….”

“Don’t rely on that.”

“I’m not. And I’m not going to give her the chance.”

“If she’s being honest,” Cloudy said, pushing a hoof against his shoulder, “why not?”

“Because we talked about this, Cloudy. It would never be accepted in Damme.”

“And in Merriedamme?”

The name of the city after the war ended and both cities became one, either contentiously joined by conquest or peacefully through either joint agreement or marriage. He had a strong feeling that Merrie would resist being subjugated. Roseate kept on pushing the idea that Damme wanted to take away their freedom to love, their polyamorous marriages, and their sprawling families.

What they didn’t seem to know was the reason Lace had proposed the family exclusion was precisely because she didn’t want to see those large families broken apart when she still hadn’t been certain of her Reformation.

“You need to think of what happens after the war, Collar,” Cloudy murmured. “Will you let us keep our way of life? Will you even adopt some of our ways?”

“I’m not sure I can do that, Cloudy. I need to keep in mind what my ponies will and won’t accept from me.” Collar sighed and shook his head, shifting the paper around on his desk and trying to imagine the mare who’d caused such a frustrated message from Priceless.

There were obstacles to accepting her as a mate beyond the fact that it would be with a Rosethorn, and a polyamorous one. There was her age, for one, ten years his junior even though she was an adult and had been for four years in Damme, there was a stigma to age gaps that didn’t exist in Merrie. Or didn’t exist like it did in Damme from what Cloudy had told him.

“The language you’re using suggests otherwise, Collar,” Cloudy said, breaking into his reverie. “You’re not saying ‘I can’t accept it.’ You’re telling me Damme would never accept it.” She tapped his shoulder. “But if you want this war to end in your lifetime, Damme would have to accept it. Merrie will never capitulate if a part of the agreement is losing their individuality. Our individuality.”

She was right. “There’s a problem with that logic,” Collar said, leaning against the table and settling in to think. He enjoyed these philosophical discussions with Cloudy, even if they sometimes shattered his conceptions. “I’m only the heir to the ruler of Damme, and all of my legitimacy comes from my mother, and her power comes from the trust her ponies have in her, and in how they think I am upholding her tradition.”

“Does that include monogamy?”

“For the Primfeathers, Manes, Coifs, and Yards, it does. They control a lot of the commerce and influence a lot of the opinions of our ponies, Cloudy. They’re already upset enough that I haven’t chosen one of theirs to court.” He snorted. That was an understatement. Wing Primfeather had been none-too-subtly pressuring his mother to look to the small stable of Primfeather mares who were still unattached. “If I were to even start to look like I was going to court Rosemary as well as you, there’d be an uprising.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “Thirty years of the Reformation has taught your ponies that I’m not evil, Collar, and they’ve already put together that I’m not monogamous. Rumors of my ‘infidelity’ are all over the city, even if the names of the ponies I’ve been close to are still secret.”

“And yet even you have gone monogamous since we’ve gone public.”

“Because I’m afraid of how my appearing to be polyamorous will affect your relationship with your friends and how ponies look at us. That it wasn’t something you chose to accept in our relationship.”

“I did choose to accept it, Cloudy.” She’d come to him after they’d started ‘dating’ in private, little moments together as ostensibly commander and subordinate, something that didn’t have as much meaning in Damme, and asked him if she could have a night with another mare she’d had a previous relationship with. He’d been shocked, and they’d had a long talk afterwards, but…

“I know you did.” Cloudy leaned forward, eyes fixed on his, and kissed him gently on the lips, then more forcefully, a heat spilling from her into him, then fading as she leaned her head against his neck. “I love you, Collar, and I don’t want to hurt you with my desires, but I don’t want to give them up, either.”

“I don’t want you to give them up.”

“You know, then, what that means, Collar. I still want to marry Rosemary.” She glowered at his grin, then smiled and nipped his neck and butted her head against his chin. “Smartass. But I do. I want to marry her. And I want to marry you. In Merrie, in Merriedamme, that shouldn’t be a problem, should it? I should be able to marry both of you if you both consent.”

Would I be able to consent?

He didn’t have to answer that question right away, thankfully, as a pressure against his security and silence spell announced a visitor. A raised brow silenced Cloudy’s next volley of assaults on his conceptions.

It was two letters brought by a guard. One from his mother and bearing her crest, the other a red letter from the Rose Palace. He opened his mother’s first.

Collar,

Please take care of this request from Roseate. I leave you with full discretion on how you want to handle Glory’s negotiation for her return. I still do expect you to pass any details of the negotiation to me for final approval, but I will expect you to hammer out any corrections, rather than expecting me to suggest a solution.

With Love and trust,

Lace

He passed it to Cloudy and studied the last. It was on the official Rose Palace letterhead, complete with the gold-chased cradle of thorned roses with a unicorn horn rising from the pair reminiscent of the wings of an alicorn spread wide.

Lord Primline Collar,

I am writing to set up a meeting about returning my daughter to me, and I would like to set a meeting at the treaty office to discuss the opening terms of a treaty-bonded negotiation.

Further, pursuant to the treaty, I would like a letter from my daughter regarding her treatment and the status of her injury. I expect this as quickly as possible, tomorrow morning.

Yours,

Baroness Roseate Rosethorn

It was her right to request it as a parent, and as long as it wasn’t unreasonable, a request or a demand for communication with a parent or child was sacrosanct under the treaty, and whether birth or adopted—a requirement added to the treaty for Merrie in the earlier years of the post-treaty conflict—no parent could be kept from talking to their child.

“What time is it?” Collar mused, looking up from the letter and considering the grandfather clock in the corner of his office.

Cloudy glanced at the window. “Getting dark, but I don’t doubt Glory would be appreciative of some company. Though… I can’t recall Poppy’s visitation schedule.”

Rosewater looked up from her reading in the sitting room, ears perked as the sound of her mail slot opening and closing without any preamble or warning from her warding of the front door.

A spell delivery, then.

Rosewater sighed and glanced at the book in old Dammerlandic, her written copy of Rosethorn the Wise’s original words, and the translation sitting on the table in front of her, ink drying from her latest bout of translation work.

It wasn’t like she was in the middle of a word, and she was working only on attempting to properly interpret the language through five hundred years of dialectic shift and not let what she had learned about him and his teachings color or cloud her translation of the work true to the word.

“Rosemary?” Rosewater called out, still loath to leave off this passage.

No answer came, and vaguely Rosewater recalled that she’d gone out for a visit with friends that night. A dinner party and possibly an orgy, but after receiving her still unknown mission from Roseate, she’d been more reserved, afraid almost it seemed, even though it’d only been a day or so.

“Fine…” Rosewater carefully marked her place and set the journal down before getting up, stretching, and found herself surprised at how late it actually was.

The mudroom was silent, and a peek out the peephole told her that even the gang of goons that practically lived in the cart stall across the street were gone. Whomever had left the message had made sure it wouldn’t be noticed.

Plain paper envelope, scentless save for the crisp, faintly astringent smell of still-drying ink, told her it was a Rose, and quite possibly one of her cousins or even a hidden sympathizer among her sisters. Somepony who’d noticed Glory’s absence and Rosewater’s minor change in habit and put the two facts together.

The freshness of the ink on the page spoke further to urgency, and the contents sent a chill through her.

The jaguar stalks a strange jungle.

Rosewater spent only a few seconds considering the implications before she snatched up her stalking cloak and her two standby enchanted Citrus Circus.

Roseate was going after Collar.

She didn’t know, but she knew that was what was happening. Somehow, she knew Rosewater had her sights focused on him.

And she was going to take him away before she even had a chance.

Author's Notes:

It's hard to think up a note for this chapter. A lot gets set up here that will come to fruition in the future, and some more exploration of the world and its history as well as a closer look at Rosemary and her impish impulsiveness.

Also, Roseate is just the worst. I have a hard time writing her, honestly, because she's just... that bad. Tyrant level + medieval times + power over ponies.

It also came up a bit during editing that exile really isn't that bad of a punishment, and honestly, it's not the end of the world.

It's not death, no, but there's a reason why it was used so often, especially in city-states like Greece. Being exiled carries with it a stigma, and it can be hard to set up in a new place with that stigma attached to you. As well, it cuts you off from someplace that (in these character's cases) was your home for your entire life. All your friends, loved ones, possibly even potential spouses, plans, wealth, and property... all gone. Unlike the Greek exile, which was for ten years, this is a permanent exile. There's not really a place to include that in the story other than hinting at it (which I think I have already) so I thought I'd make that, and the reasoning for it being so onerous, explicit.

Book 1, 13. Ambush

The dark of night descended quickly by the time Collar and Cloudy made their plans known and where they’d be with the palace guard, a necessary state with the conflict apparently ramping up again.

Front and center on Priceless’s recent reports were sightings of shadows moving oddly in the night, a sure sign of Roseate’s daughters on the prowl for guards or unattached nobility. They avoided the citizenry for the time being aside from scares and mist faerie spells in windows to startle them and drive down the confidence they had in Lace and her Reformation.

Something that Primfeather Wing banged on and on about whenever he managed to get Collar or Lace alone for a few minutes.

Collar responded in the only way he could: by going out personally.

Tonight, after the visit to the prison, he would do so with Cloudy and have a talk with her while patrolling quietly under an invisibility spell and silence spell.

“Prim Collar to see Rosethorn Glory,” he said at the gate to the prison. “On a matter of the treaty.”

Both guards saluted and the one on the right opened the gate and waved them through. Inside, Prim Plum sat at bored attention behind the warden’s desk, and off to the right in the regular cells, a pony watched him from the bars, his eyes red-rimmed and clearly drunk. Probably he had started a fight and got thrown in to sober up before being fined.

Just another night.

“Visiting Glory on a matter related to the treaty,” Collar said, stopping briefly beside the desk to nod at Plum before continuing on without waiting.

“Aye, sir. Logged.”

Collar made his way up the stairs, pondering when Poppy was due to have his next visitation, and stopped as soon as he got to the top of the stairs and turned the corner. Poppy was on his back, hilted inside Glory riding atop him as she slowly rose and fell, her mouth moving, her ears back as she spoke.

The silence spell on the gate kept both their activity and her words private. They were in the ‘bedroom’ portion of the Rose Cage, but since it was a prison cell, there was no door and no privacy. Not that either of them seemed to be worried at the moment, even as Glory looked up and winked at him.

“I guess visitation is tonight,” Collar groaned as he turned back around and stopped, staring down the stairs at Plum still playing cards behind the desk. If he went down, he’d know something was up, but he couldn’t just…

Cloudy hooked a leg around his and dragged him back to the cage door. “Silence,” she whispered.

He obeyed her command, casting a quarter dome to keep them quiet. “What do we do?”

“Go in, of course,” Cloudy hissed. “We can’t let the guard downstairs know anything is amiss. I don’t want Poppy’s relationship with her to get out.”

“Not yet,” he agreed with a sigh.

He opened the cage door without another word and stepped through into the smell of sex and rutting ponies. This is not how I wanted to see him. Or her. Cloudy closed it behind him and coughed loudly.

Poppy squeaked and thrust up at the same moment, his eyes closing as the look of an orgasm cross his features even as he covered his eyes and muzzle with his forelegs.

“Oh dear,” Glory purred. “Poppy popped. I must say, my lord, you chose an odd time to come visit.”

“It was not by my choice,” Collar growled, turning around and facing out. “Your mother—”

“Bah.” Glory growled, and a wet sound drew a blush to Collar’s ears and cheeks. He could imagine what she was doing to make that sound, and after a moment Cloudy joined him, grinning instead of flushed. “Thank you for ruining the mood, my lord.”

“G-Glory!” Poppy whined, his voice still muffled. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning, love. If my mother is involved in a visit this late at night, she’s either done some atrocity or demanded something last-minute per the treaty.” Glory’s voice was gentle and gently teasing. “Clean yourself, too, and nevermind what they saw. I daresay they’ve done it together before.”

Collar’s cheeks should have caught fire, but a nip from Cloudy on his neck drew him back. “Let me know when you’re decent, please. This is a matter of the treaty, and I’ve no idea when your mother will demand a letter from me.”

“That game?” Glory sighed and the sound of hooves came behind him. “She waited until the last minute to ask for something, yes?”

“I take it she’s done that to you?”

“Many times.” Rustling sounded, and the cushions on the lounging couch sighed as Glory settled in. “Thank you for attempting to spare my love some embarrassment and from being found out as my lover. I fear his fellows would not treat him as gently if they knew.”

“You could not make love to him when he visits,” Collar said, and knew as soon as the words left his lips they were the wrong thing to say.

“I love him, my lord. I have been in love with him, and for him I have eschewed other males. It makes him nervous, you see, if I lay with stallions, the poor dear.” Glory clucked her tongue. “But I digress. We were careful to keep a lookout, and I am not without my illusions even here.”

“You could have used one!” Poppy groused, his hoofsteps coming out of the bedroom. “My lord, I—”

“No need to apologize, Poppy,” Collar said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “I… suppose having it shoved in my face makes me believe it more. You love her.”

“Deeply. It’s because of her that I’ve avoided capture several times, my lord. Her teaching and training has helped me overcome some of my anxieties.” Poppy swallowed loudly. “We’re, um, decent… my lord.”

Collar turned around to find Poppy sitting with a towel around his hips and covering his loins while Glory was much more relaxed, her tail dancing as she watched him with amusement shining in her eyes.

“I didn’t know that. One day, I would like to hear the full accounting of your relationship with her, Poppy. For now… I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Poppy said, bowing from a sitting position, his magic still firmly clinging to the whole of the towel. “She makes me happy.”

“And he, me,” Glory said, smiling. “He was so sweetly polite the first time he ‘caught’ me that I nearly lost my heart then and there.” She chuckled and flirted her tail against his back. “Please, Lady Rose, don’t resist. And how could I resist such sweet politeness? Before I knew it, I was finding excuses to pop over for a quick kiss—clandestine kisses are such a novelty, my lord—and later more.”

“Glory,” Poppy groaned, edging forward and nipping her shoulder. “Please don’t. We could be here all night talking about our courtship. My Lord Collar came here with a purpose.”

“Right, right,” Glory said and sighed. “Fine. What purpose has you jumping at my mother’s beck and call? It had better be important or I may just defect to stick it up her craw.”

“She wanted a letter on the morrow from you ensuring you were treated well and that your injury was tended to.” Collar held out a scroll and an ink set, complete with three extra quills of the finest crow-feather.

“My lord splurges on quality,” Glory mused as she examined one of the implements and inspected the tip. “Magically hardened, still flexible enough for broad flourishes… can I keep them? And have a steady supply of scrolls?”

“As a good behavior allowance, yes,” Collar said. “I presume you know what your mother wants to hear?”

“She wants to hear that I’ve been so poorly mistreated that I cry myself to sleep nightly,” Glory growled. She considered the scroll for a moment before dipping the quill and writing quickly. “Dear mother, I have been treated exceptionally well, and have received the best care for my shoulder. I am, in fact, already healed and more fit than I was when I was captured. I am granted twice-daily the run of the exercise yard, and I use it judiciously. The Primlines have granted me, too, the use of their library, although I must request broad genres rather than books, but I have not been bored to tears with their selection.”

She spoke as she wrote, dipping the quill for every fourth or fifth word to maintain a solid line, her ears flat, her teeth bared.

“I hate her,” Glory said at last, her sweetling voice fading to a tired tone. “Please, please don’t let her take my Poppy.”

“You could marry him,” Collar said gently. “Then—”

“Then my other lovers would be in peril, my lord. They’re both sweet mares, my lord, and I couldn’t bear to see them torn away from the city they love so much.” Glory’s eyes brimmed with tears as she thrust the letter at him. “Don’t let her take him. Promise me.”

Torn between two cities, loves on either side of the river. Collar closed his eyes and flattened the scroll to let the ink dry. Just like Cloudy was, but she couldn’t even have the luxury of meeting Rosemary in clandestine quiet. The young mare was awful at veiling according to her, and a glance at Cloudy said she was thinking the same thing.

“He’ll be safe, Glory. He’s on palace rotation right now, and I wish I could make it permanent, but…”

Poppy cleared his throat. “But showing favorites might cause resentment.”

Glory nodded. “Leave me, please, with my love. We have some talking to do.”

Collar glanced at the ink on the scroll and nodded, rolling it up and passing it to Cloudy to tuck under her wing. “I’ll tell the guard you’re helping her settle her shoulder. That will give you another half hour, Poppy.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Collar padded along the road bordering Primline Park under veil of darkness and dome of invisibility, his thoughts on Glory’s situation, his eyes on the darkness around him, and wondered how he could find out not only who Glory’s lovers were, but also whether or not he could coax them across.

Both of them were quiet, watching the watch patrol go about renewing the enchantments on the unicorn lanterns, strengthening the glow of light around it, making Damme just that much safer. He’d been that unicorn before, nervously taking attention away from the surroundings while his partner kept watch, and then continuing on to the next in a cycle that took them through areas that needed the reassurance of a guard presence.

Their goal was the watch posts, to bolster the watch and receive any new intel about what had gone on since the last round from Priceless. Roseate might be trying to draw attention away from the border with that ploy, focus their intelligence efforts elsewhere, and they needed to know if there was any change in the pattern of slinking or conversations in the dark.

Somewhere out there, maybe, was Rosemary too. He’d need to decide on a regular watchpony to keep tabs on her when she inevitably made her nighttime excursions again, and alert him personally if she did anything, but…

Cloudy’s mind was clearly in the same space, she doubtless wishing it were her, and that she might reunite. But also scared of it at the same time. It would make things doubtless harder on both of them if they were to meet, regardless of what happened.

They made their way quietly down the road until a unicorn lantern flickering caught their attention. It happened sometimes when too many bugs died in the glass globe and clogged the etchings with their legs and wings, and all it needed was a quick shake to get them cleaned up enough to work properly.

As they approached it, Cloudy’s wings flared and she jerked her hoof up to her mouth, whistle at the ready in the instant before a mass of green smacked against her chest and exploded into vines and roots, the latter digging in between the cobbles and the former snapping around her barrel, forelegs, and wings.

“Collar!” Cloudy screamed, the sound not echoing as it should have.

Collar blew his whistle in the next instant, the piercing shrill tone dying without echo, and in the distance the pair of guards continuing their rounds didn’t react one bit to the distress call.

“Rosewater, you bitch!” Collar roared.

“Oh, dear me… she is going after you, isn’t she?” Roseate’s older, cultured voice purred from the darkness before she stepped into view even as a mist-shroud grew about them, jewelry on her neck and ankles glowing bright with stored power being released. Silver and gold, expensive sapphires in intricate spell-worked latices. “My dear—”

Collar slammed a dome over her, blocking her from his sight before she could use her talent, and hopefully—

Searing pain crashed through his head as a jagged spike of power lanced his dome, shattering it into silver shards that evaporated as they fell.

“My dear Collar,” Roseate continued, her tone chiding as she began to glow, her figure limned with rapturous beauty, her eyes shading to the same pink as Cloudy’s… and he couldn’t look away from her. She was beautiful, stunning, worthy of his adoration, and the insidious thought began to claim she was worthy of setting aside the feud for a night. “Do play nice. My daughter might not know your weaknesses, but I do.”

“Don’t look, Collar!” Cloudy cried out, her voice straining as she strained against the vines.

He snapped his eyes closed and snapped the shield over himself this time, his mind reeling from the shock of power and the still throbbing ache of a spell imploding. At once, he tried to snap the vines from around Cloudy’s wings and barrel and give her a chance to flee, but as soon as he did, the lance of power pressed against his shield, and he had to let it go before she snapped it once more.

“Do look, Collar,” Roseate purred, prancing about to stand between him and Cloudy, her tail raised and bobbing, her marehood exposed as she glowed once more, the slickness of her marehood shining and calling to his reeling mind. “Do more than look. Do what your stallionhood asks.”

“Rut you, Roseate,” Collar growled, closing his eyes and calling on the calm of training to remember. He needed to cut Cloudy free without hurting her, difficult with the rootbeds holding her hooves firmly to the pavers of the street and snapping new tendrils around her legs each time he cut one.

The calculation passed through him in an instant as he tore and cut the vines from her.

She fell still, her ears flat back, her head turned as she looked straight at Roseate. “No… p-please…”

“She asks so nicely,” Roseate purred, raising a hoof to touch Cloudy’s chin, then dancing back when Cloudy snapped at it. “Feisty. Strong-willed… oh, I can see what you like her, little Collar. I’ll let you keep her if you come with me willingly.”

Collar tried to teleport both he and Cloudy away, but the spell wouldn’t accept it, not while she was still bound to the earth so tightly. He might as well try to move the sun and the moon. Instead, he snapped another dome around them and poured his will into it, making it strong as steel, and settled in while he tried frantically to release Cloudy from her entrapment.

“Tsk. Very well, imp.” The musky fragrance of sex and mare filled his nostrils before he could think, filling his mind with thoughts of sex. Mounting Cloudy right there, rutting in the streets and…

Collar broke free again, snapping a filter around his and Cloudy’s muzzles. “You won’t get us that easily, Roseate.”

“Mmm. All I need to do is—” Another lance of power jabbed at his shield, drawing more strength to resist the point-pressure of a unicorn as powerful as Roseate, but letting the shield flex instead of resisting entirely. The air filter fuzzed out and the smell of sex poured in again. “—get you in the right mood. It’s been a while since I’ve had a challenge, and nopony has ever resisted me for long, dear Collar.”

He knew she was right, and he had no idea how many tricks she’d brought with her. All it would take was a moment of weakness.

“Save yourself,” Cloudy panted, her tail flagging, then snapping flat to her rump. “Get help, Collar. Don’t let her take you.”

“Mmm… but you won’t, will you, dear Collar?” Roseate’s gleeful harangue stiffened his resolve not to leave Cloudy to her. “Love is powerful leverage, is it not?” Another lance jabbed against his shield as she stood just on the other side of it, her hoof caressing the surface, then brushing her flank against it, her tail trailing over it. Trying to tempt him into lustful thoughts.

Then, in an instant, the scent vanished.

“You will step away from my mate,” Rosewater’s voice called out in the clarion silence of the dome. “Or I will face you in a duel again, mother.”

“My traitor daughter, come to protect the enemy?” Roseate sneered, stepping away from the dome. “I’ll have you exiled for this, daughter or no, heir or no.”

“That was your plan?” Rosewater laughed.

Collar dropped the sight and physical shield to watch, his mind numb from the shocks of lance and shield meeting. He couldn’t have held it for much longer, and he needed to use the time Rosewater had granted him with the distraction to recover his reserves enough to call for help somehow.

“Dear mother,” Rosewater said in an equally sneering tone, “protecting one’s mate is not treasonous, and I will fight you again in the arena to claim my right of free association.”

“Your mark is not on him, daughter. He’s open season for any. Not even the pegasus has laid claim to him in our way.”

“He is hardy against your way, Roseate,” Rosewater shot back, her expression flickering, her ears setting back, the only sign of apprehension or fear he could see in her. “I have opened courtship with him, and I will protect him from you.”

“Like you protected your other lovers?”

Rosewater flinched, but stayed firm. “I’m done bowing before your demands and your threats. You can’t take him, can’t threaten him, can’t threaten me with sending them away. I will not give!”

“Then I will see you beaten now,” Roseate hissed. “Did you think I was unprepared for you?” She stood straighter, her voice crackling with authority. “Attend to this, Lord Primline Collar and the traitor Cloudy Rosewing, I accept the duel my daughter has issued, and as my prerogative as the challenged, I demand immediate satisfaction. Here. Now.”

Rosewater’s stance grew firmer before Collar had the chance to answer. “Accepted!”

It was the only chance Collar had at the moment. To trust in Rosewater’s ability to defeat, or at least weaken, her mother. “Witnessed,” he said weakly, slowly regaining his magic and shaking off the effects of Roseate’s spells. He would wait for the right moment to strike, let them weaken each other first.

Beside him, Cloudy trembled and pressed against him. “Shield your mind, if you can.”

Rosewater swallowed back bile as she danced across the bridge in shade and silence, barely bothering to distract the guards with a splash in the river below, hoping they didn’t think it was a pony and waste time and effort searching for whomever had just fallen in.

But she didn’t have time to think about that, and melted into the shadows of an alleyway, relying more on her cloak than her veil to keep her hidden, but keeping it up as she crossed street-after-street. Keeping as much magic in reserve was going to be a necessity of facing Roseate. She’d only won her duel with her mother because of the unexpected nature of the perfumes she’d used, and the mental state she’d kept herself in for the duration.

It was the only way to effectively guard against emotional manipulation through scent-magic or otherwise.

She let her fear build, welcoming the worry that Roseate might take Collar, embracing that idea, and sent her thoughts down darker paths still, waking the old despair of losing Rosemary that she’d poured into a bottle and distilled into liquid loss. By the time she crossed the street leading to Primline Park, the most open place for her mother to play her tricks, she was reliving Carnation being taken away, grief and anguish burning her eyes with unshed tears as she funneled it all into the fore of her mind.

Her legs trembled by the time she found the telltale signs of a mastercrafted mist veil, and her ears wanted to droop, but she needed to stay strong and endure the ache of everything that had happened to her.

Roseate hadn’t spelled the border against intrusion, only sound and sight, and as she stepped through, the knot of magic at the base of her horn had started to leak out as sickly purple sparks that faded into shadow before they fell past her forelock.

In the center of the dome of silence, a smaller silver dome sat, almost too small for one pony. Magic sparked against the surface, and the silver dimmed and flared as Collar fought it off.

Surprise attack. That was the only explanation. This had been a carefully orchestrated plan, and Collar had at least listened to her, it seemed, and wasn’t looking at the shining figure of Roseate, the magic to draw the eye washing against Rosewater like a muddy stream rushing around a boulder. It could touch her, but it would not drown her.

A quick spell drawn from the grass and flowers around her, their neutral scent to counter the carnal one she could smell even from outside the dome of illusion.

“You will step away from my mate,” Rosewater ground out, halting the quaver with force of will, and stepped all the way in, dropping her veil and holding the magic at bay. If Roseate suspected, she would flee, and she needed to teach her mother a lesson in surprise attacks. “Or I will face you in a duel again, mother.”

Roseate startled only a little, then her smile broadened as she stepped away from the dome, her glamour sharpening into an angry aura that tried to tell her to bow down, to not provoke her further.

It was a broadcasted glamour, weak compared to the boiling surge of despair Rosewater welcomed, taking the glamour and using it to further fuel each of the components of her spell despite her heart aching.

“My traitor daughter,” Roseate crooned, her smile turning to a sneer, the anger billowing into rage, “come to protect the enemy? I’ll have you exiled for this. Daughter or no. Heir or no.”

“Was that your plan all along?” Rosewater forced a cold laugh free. It made too much sense. Of course Roseate would do that, then take that pony away… perhaps even use that pony as leverage. Then call her traitor and disown her, exile her, and be free of a nuisance. She took that and fed it into the cold fire burning in her heart. Exiled from the city she loved, from the friends she hoped would still be there at the end of all of the mess, never to see them again.

Collar dropped his shield and slumped against an entangled Cloudy. That explained why he hadn’t left, why he hadn’t even tried. Even as long as it took him to exit the veil, find help, and come back would be too long away from Cloudy.

“Dear mother,” Rosewater said, pushing back the ache long enough to sneer back, “protecting one’s mate is not treasonous, and I will fight you again in the arena to claim my right of free association.”

“Your mark is not on him, daughter. He’s open season for any. Not even the pegasus has laid claim to him in our way.”

The Rosethorn Way. Take whatever a pony wanted, and damn everypony else. The corrupted Rosethorn way. “He is hardy against your way, Roseate,” Rosewater shot back, shivering with the fear that she would win and take her one chance at happiness away. That, too, went into the fire, leaving her again cold and empty, each belief building on the others, her words bravado against the maelstrom. “I have opened courtship with him, and I will protect him from you.”

“Like you protected your other lovers?”

Too close to reality, her hold over the calm coldness faltered and the maelstrom almost consumed her. One look at Collar, his determined resistance, and Cloudy’s defiant snarl, fed her resolve. “I’m done bowing before your demands and your threats. You can’t take him, can’t threaten him, can’t threaten me with sending them away. I will not give!”

“Then I will see you beaten now,” Roseate hissed. “Did you think I was unprepared for you?” She stood straighter, her voice crackling with authority. “Attend to this, Lord Primline Collar and the traitor Cloudy Rosewing, I accept the duel my daughter has issued, and as my prerogative as the challenged, I demand immediate satisfaction. Here. Now.”

Perfect. “Accepted!”

“Witnessed,” Collar croaked, raising his head and letting it fall, either acting or recovering. His eyes on Rosewater, sharp and clear, told her he was playing weak for his chance to break Cloudy free.

Please don’t look, Collar, she thought as she circled wide, letting purple light spill along her horn, releasing the torrent of fear, anguish, and despair into her magic and casting a purple light around her, sparks bursting into shadowy mist as they fell from the tip.

Roseate opened with a tanglevine, her magenta magic empowering the living core of vines to explode into a writhing mass before it was halfway to her. A touch of the emotionally charged magic uncoiled the enchantment binding the vines to life and they rotted away in seconds, leaving behind foul magical matter that dissipated slowly in a green fog.

She didn’t waste words as she advanced on Roseate, through the mists of perfume that broke apart on a shield of purple light, another tanglevine that disintegrated before it had even been activated.

“You will be exiled!” Roseate roared, giving up the slow retreat around the inner wall of mist and breaking out into the wider parkland. “Across the sea, never to see your precious Rosemary again!”

Rosewater followed, cutting apart the veil even as whistles flared and screamed around them. This won’t stop me, mother. Neither could she let the fight last longer. It was a risk, but Rosewater teleported in close, taking Roseate by surprise, and locked horns with her, magic spilling free to almost freeze her in place, purple flickers of lightning crossing beaten back by Roseate’s will.

No Rosary, Roseate grunted and pushed back. “Insolent child! You will not beat me this way!”

Fear surged in her, that Roseate had found a way to beat her even here. For long seconds, she struggled against Roseate’s will, resisting.

“You’re weak,” Roseate growled. “Weak, daughter. Submit.”

“Never.” She held fast as Rosate’s hatred boiled against her fear, sapping her strength more the longer it went on, will against will. Rosemary. She’ll take her from you if you lose.

She’ll take Collar. Cloudy. She’ll win.

She embraced it, believed it, and forced it against the surging tide of hate, standing straighter and snorting as she drew from her core and beat down hatred with fear. Like she always had. It had been her strongest emotion, the fear of loss, the fear of another being taken from her. The fear of seeing another pony she cared so dearly about dying in front of her again.

It could be Rosemary.

Roseate cried out, screaming her terror as Rosewater’s magic surged through her, then faded back to a trickle of purple flaring around the tip of her horn, that final image of Rosemary’s still form keeping her upright, keeping the power of the spell flowing, dangerous still as she watched Roseate recover, shaking, tears in her eyes that had never been there for a personal reason.

“Submit, mother, and I’ll make sure they’re gentle.”

Roseate shifted her jaw and crunched down, sunlight and citrus spilling from her lips as she snarled wordless rage and vanished with a flash and pop.

Rosewater stood still, shaking, as whistles redoubled and the wings of pegasi overhead alerted her to the danger she was in. Unveiled, in the middle of a park, with dozens of new witnesses to the end of her duel with Roseate. To hear the vitriol between mother and daughter and add to the Rose Terror rumors and tales of how dangerous she was.

Unprepared, unexpected combat had left her nearly drained. She hadn’t expected Roseate to be so skilled at mental resistance, nor so ready to pool her hatred. She’d felt all of it, every reason her mother hated her, and it sickened her to think of half of them.

The pegasi coming in for landings in a circle around her could take her easily if she didn’t use her Citrus Circus and put herself out for at least as long as Roseate would be. She needed to be at the Treaty Office tomorrow, however, to be there when Collar attested to the duel and its outcome.

“Collar,” she said aloud, shaking herself from the numbness that came over her thoughts. It’d been like that after the arena duel as well. Worse, since the source of her fear had been so recent. She staggered to Collar and Cloudy, reaching without dark magic to crush the heart of the vines holding her in place into gelatin and fiber, releasing her. “Are—”

“Stay back!” Cloudy cried, leaping forward to put herself between Collar and Rosewater, wings wide, crouching and ready to rush her. “I won’t let you take him, Rosewater!”

The thought was laughable. In her state? She snorted and looked around at the pegasi landing all around her, staying back despite their overwhelming number, and she couldn’t blame them for their caution.

“I’m hardly in a state to be taking anything, let alone Collar,” Rosewater murmured, drawing free her own Citrus Circus candy and hesitating, looking around her at the ponies gathered.

Rumors would spring from tonight, from both sides of the river. What, she didn’t know. She wasn’t yet exhausted enough to need a candy to return home, but if she had to fight her way out…

How much can I salvage? What was the plan for tonight? Did I have one? She was still acting on her old plans, the ones where she kept Roseate in the dark about whom she was courting. Now Roseate knew she was at least pursuing Collar and had won her right to try and court him.

Collar rose to his feet smoothly, shaking his head free of whatever state Roseate had put him in, and said, “Stay back. All of you. Let me deal with this.”

Rosewater swallowed and turned, the candy half-unwrapped and to her mouth before a silver dome descended over her. She didn’t think he had enough strength to keep her in place, nor even to fight her with anything meaningful. She could simply teleport away, but there was still fuzz in her horn from abusing her own emotions like that, a lingering ache deep inside that would stay with her for days, if not weeks. Taking the candy would worsen it.

She’d known there would be consequences for using her talent to distill her darker emotions into pure magical essence, but she accepted it just as she had to protect Rosemary.

But he hadn’t shackled her and told them to take her. That fact alone kept her from attempting to break free and bluffing her way back to Merrie or at least until the fuzziness cleared and she could cast something other than simple spells through her horn without any lingering side-effects.

Getting caught is a major lingering side-effect.

She was about to risk it when Collar stepped through the barrier and pulled the candy from her grasp. He didn’t let the barrier drop, though, and merely glowered at her.

“What were you doing in Damme tonight?” A moment later, his expression softened, and he relaxed. “Not that I’m ungrateful, understand, but what’s your motive here?”

“Hoping I could see you,” Rosewater tried, offering a half smile along with the lie.

He sighed and unwrapped the candy the rest of the way. “You’re usually so good at lying,” he said with a sigh and sniffed the candy. “This is one of the enchanted candies you gave to Cloudy?”

“When she demanded one, yes.” Rosewater pulled it from his grasp again and rewrapped it, the urgent need for it seemingly passed.. “You’re not going to take me in?”

“I should.”

“But you’re not going to.” Again.

“No.” Collar glanced to the side as Cloudy rushed in, wings half-arched and ready to downsweep and clear out the air. He restrained the charging mare with a hoof firmly against her breast and shook his head. “Tomorrow at the Treaty Office? To register the duel? You have plenty of witnesses to your victory.”

“Tomorrow,” Rosewater said firmly, shifting her attention from Collar to Cloudy. “Take care of him for us.”

The haunted look in Rosewater’s eyes lingered in Collar’s mind as he let the shields of sight and sound remain, a look of deeper pain than he’d thought she’d been capable of. And that magic, unlike anything he’d ever seen, had pulled against his horn, feeling like a whirlpool of negativity, drawing his mind to fear and doubt.

What did it cost you to cast that spell? He glanced at Cloudy, staring thoughtfully at the ground where a black wrapper had fallen, spilling out just a touch of sunlight where the folds of it had unraveled.

“Was the duel like that?” He asked finally, picking up the candy and pocketing it.

“Nothing like it.” Cloudy’s ears flattened as she looked up into his eyes. “The color, yes, but I thought that was the perfume she’d used, not…”

“Not the raw magical aura?”

She nodded and pawed at the grass, sniffing lightly. “There was no perfume, other than Roseate’s lust. It was raw magic, Collar.”

Distilled fear. He shivered. The ponies of the Crystal Empire had been able to crystalize Love, and then fallen to Fear and Despair. That had been the start of the fall, according to the histories, a mere few months before the Battle of Two Nights had sundered the sky, leaving Princess Celestia victorious over a broken land.

The Rose Terror. He had an inkling now, of how she’d earned the title, and it wasn’t merely hyperbole. It was literal.

And yet… Collar closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head. “She is a complicated mare.”

Cloudy gave him a look that bordered on rolling her eyes. “As you say, sir.”

“I do say. Let’s…” Collar dropped the shields and straightened himself despite his exhaustion. All around the shield, a small army of ponies stood waiting for his word, some with nets ready to throw, some that even started to throw as soon as the shield vanished, then pulled them back hastily, looking sheepish.

“She got away?” somepony asked.

“Are you unharmed, my lord?” another called.

“I am unharmed. Thank you for your quick response, all of you. I am proud that all of you asleep remembered the new standing order. Tonight, you witnessed a sanctioned duel between Rosewater and Roseate. All of you saw the outcome, and I expect you to report it accurately should the Royal Guard question you.” Collar bowed his head briefly. “It is for that reason that I was compelled to let her go.”

“Because she was in a duel?”

“No. Because she started the duel over me. Roseate chose to try and pursue it now.” Collar glanced at Cloudy, took a breath, and let it out. “Because of that, I was able to talk Rosewater down afterwards rather than face off against her. I did not want a repeat of the same incident that happened here four months ago.”

Several ponies looked nervously askance at each other, but the general consensus seemed to be agreement that it had been the smarter course of action. He heard ‘Rose Terror’ whispered a few times.

What kind of madness are you playing with, Rosewater?

The darkness of exhaustion and the pull of the nightmares to come were already closing in about her as she worked the spells to open the door.

Before she was halfway done, Rosemary opened the door for her from the other side, letting her stagger in.

“What did you do?” There was concern, love, and a hearty mixture of exasperation and a touch of anger. “Stars, m—” Rosemary cut herself off, biting her lip, fear in her eyes as she darted looks about the hallway, as if one could see an eavesdropping spell.

Too close. “EIther ruined our future here or saved it,” Rosewater breathed, sinking to the hallway floor as the last of her energy drained away. “Time will tell.”

A few minutes, or moments, passed before a blanket settled atop her, and Rosemary settled in beside her. “It’s going to be cold tonight.”

“Why…” Rosewater sank down deeper into the well of sleep, towards the waiting nightmares belief always brang. Tomorrow… tomorrow after…

“I’m exhausted, too, idiot mare. I can’t carry you,” Rosemary murmured in her ear and settled down cheek-by-cheek. “And you can’t sleep out here alone. You’ll catch something.”

“You’re too kind to me,” Rosewater murmured, opening one eye to watch as Rosemary turned down all the lamps in the house. What did I do to deserve you in my life? She couldn’t shake the fear and doubt so easily, and tears came to her eyes, unbidden.

“Let me mother you for once.”

Warmth settled in beside her again, weighty, and acted as a faint ember in her thoughts as her dreams descended into the despair of true belief.

Author's Notes:

This chapter went through a few iterations. At first, it was a short, punchy battle between Roseate and Rosewater, with more words for sparring before the fight, but it made Roseate look weaker than I wanted to show her as. She is strong, and dangerous, and frothing mad that Rosewater beat her once.

Book 1, 14. Meetings

Cloudy sat perched on a cloud high over the treaty office, watching as Rosewater stepped into the Merrie treaty office and resigned herself to enduring the jeering of the Merrieguard that saw her only as a traitor. She sighed and closed the scope, settling in to wait for Collar to arrive.

He was still briefing Captain Pink on the situation from last night, and had sent Cloudy ahead to either meet Rosewater, a prospect she wasn’t exactly thrilled with, or at least tell him which treaty office she intended to use.

She, on the other hoof, wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with the Merrieguard that could harass her, but not actually detain her under the treaty flag. It would not be a fun day. It was… strange how much she missed being in the Merrieguard, though. The structure and teasing that went hoof-in-hoof with living in Merrie.

It was miles above the more rigid structure of the Dammeguard that incorporated the stiff history of not dating or even making eyes at her comrades. It had taken her six months to prize loose the first gentle kiss with another mare, Sunrise Primfeather. And they’d kept it secret, so very secret that they were cool to each other in the barracks before Cloudy had moved out, as was the prerogative of an officer.

Movement below, at the Treaty Office door in Merrie, drew Cloudy’s attention again, and she didn’t need a spyglass to know it was Rosewater stepping out again, the pennant of the treaty flapping against her flanks as she made her way past the line of Merrieguard that didn’t bother to harass her.

What’s your game?

“Is it even a game for you?” Cloudy whispered, drawing the spyglass free and drawing a bead on Rosewater’s face, nothing but determination and resignation visible through the unsteady glass. Any finer study would require that Cloudy actually go down there and interact with her.

But also, below her, she saw a trio of Dammeguard emerge from the Dammeguard guardhouse and approach the Treaty office before Rosewater had even made it halfway across the bridge. Word had already spread about the fight, and they must have known why she was there.

Cloudy wasn’t stupid enough to believe that they would thank her for her protection of Collar. She was still the Rose Terror to them, and the end of the fight had demonstrated that to all of them. Rosewater could wield terror as a weapon.

She spent another few moments after the trio below and Rosewater came into close proximity, the latter ignoring the former and taking a seat beside one of the Royal Guards and engaging him in quiet conversation for a few seconds before settling in to wait.

The trio of guards, all of them fairly anonymous from above with their padded armor and helmets, kept their attention focused on the closest danger from a ‘safe’ distance of a few yards.

She needed to let Collar know what to expect.

You chose to use the Damme Treaty Office… why? Rosewater asked herself as she sat at apparent rest outside the office, waiting for Collar to arrive. She had the option to use the Merrie Treaty office as well, but the royal guard wouldn’t stop Roseate from coming in while she was having… a talk, a stars-blessed talk in the daylight with Collar.

Even if it meant she had to do so in front of a representative of the Royal Guard.

They were all very cordial, even to her, as they were supposed to be. Cordial, but not friendly, and her attempt at polite conversation was met with gentle rebuffs and stoic smiles.

So she settled in to wait, breathing in the free air of Damme waking, thankful she could get a sense of the city during the day from the breeze that wafted close, and closed her eyes for a few moments to just take it all in.

The bakeries fixing the pastries and loaves of bread, each one adding its own flavor to the morning that she so rarely had the chance to simply savor. The wind did its part to help her sink into the bliss that helped keep away the darkness. It was a new sensation, and that, for now, was enough.

Before she could settle in for the wait, several Dammeguard came out of the bridgegate post, eying her warily, their hooves curling against the dark stone, itching to arrest her, no doubt.

But while she wore the gold and white sunburst pennant indicating treaty business, she was untouchable so long as she did nothing to violate the terms in which the mark had been granted. Sitting quietly, waiting for the other party to arrive most definitely did not violate those terms.

After a few minutes, she felt the despair creeping back in again. She could fight it off with novel scents only so long, and stamping it down, in her experience, only made it ressurge later, more potently. Even she couldn’t manage keeping the after-effects under wraps for long.

Conversation helped, but her only attempted partner was little more than a puppet until he was off-duty. While he was on-duty, his thoughts and words were locked away behind protocol.

Her only other prospects were eying her like she might grow another head, spit flame out one and ice out the other.

She cleared her throat, making several of them jump. Amusing, but it wouldn’t serve her purpose to scare them out of their wits. “Pardon, but might I ask your names? If we’re going to sit here staring at each other, I would at least like to converse as civilized ponies. I’ve no idea how long it will take for Lord Collar to arrive, and I’ve no wish to sit here bored out of my wits until he does.”

“Don’t tell her, she can use it to control your mind!” One of them said, a petite pegasus with a distinctly un-Primmish mane-cut, shorter than they usually preferred, and a sunset-gold coat and reddish-gold mane.

“Nonsense. I’m neither a vampony nor a betoverend paard,” she said, offering a tidbit of an ancient myth they wouldn’t understand. Perhaps curiosity would lure out their conversational skills. “And I am under treaty-granted truce. Do you trust that I am not strong enough to defy the will of her glorious Highness, Princess Celestia?”

That seemed to give them pause, at least.

“How can we trust you won’t wait until the truce ends?” asked another. “You tried to steal the Lord Collar. Again.”

Is that the story, now? “I did no such thing. I will sign an affidavit signed to the Treaty to that effect, and Lord Collar will confirm it for you when he arrives.” She sniffed and raised her nose. “Truly, you all believe the worst of me.”

“Because you are the worst,” a third added.

Rosewater pursed her lips, wishing Rosemary were there to give her advice on how to step her way out of this hole. Without tripping over a dozen and a half traps that would set her mother to declaring her a traitor and attempting to exile her. She would not succeed, but neither would Rosewater win, either. She was truly stalemated with her mother.

“You’re not denying it,” the first said.

“Would it do me any good?”

She opened her mouth, seemed to consider her words, then ducked her head. “No.”

“Then why waste everypony’s time?” Rosewater blew out a breath and allowed herself to show a moment of consternation. “What about when this war is over? If it ended tomorrow. Would I still be a villain in your eyes?”

The fiery little pegasus chewed her lip, actually thinking it over. A first step. “But the war won’t end tomorrow, will it?”

So much for hope. “No. Most likely not.”

“I’m Sunscatter Firebolt,” she said, rather unexpectedly stepping forward. “I would call you, er, the Rose Terror, but that seems a little rude.”

“Rosewater is the name I’m usually known by on the other side of the river, though some few of my own call me that as well.” She let her distaste for that show as well. “If you ever have occasion to duel your own mother, avoid it being a public one, Sunscatter.”

Sunscatter flinched, ears folding back. “You… fought Roseate?”

“And won. Twice. The second of which I am here to officially recognize.” Rosewater shook her head. “‘Twill be my mother’s second embarrassment by my hooves, and she hates me for it.”

“Stars, I can almost pity you.” Sunscatter coughed, then, and stepped back. “But that doesn’t excuse everything else you’ve done.”

“Nay, it does not. I have done things I am not proud of, in service of my city. I will do more, if I must. ‘Tis my duty, just as it is yours to stop me.” Rosewater held up a hoof, offering a greeting. “It is well met, Sunscatter. Should I meet you on a raid, I promise not to harm you or to take you.” It was an empty promise. She would avoid all of them save Prim Collar, but it cost her nothing to offer it.

“You could just… not raid,” Sunscatter grumbled, not making a move towards Rosewater. “Or, you know, turn yourself in.”

Rosewater shivered, rolling her shoulders. Rosemary would be alone in such a case. “Nay. I cannot do either, I’m afraid. But ask your brethren and sistren. Have I harmed a one of you? Have any of you seen me, when I did not wish it?”

Sunscatter hesitated again, glancing between the hoof still held up, then at Rosewater, her mouth opening, then closing, hesitating as she chewed her lip, then finally ducked back. “You still took them without their permission. We haven’t retaliated.”

Rosewater closed her eyes and held the hoof aloft for a moment longer. That was true. “I know.” It was her turn to hesitate, to look inward at what she’d done, all the things she’d done in the name of protecting Rosemary. She lowered the hoof to the pavement. “I wish things were different.”

She sat in silence for the rest of the wait, and the Dammeguard seemed to be fine with that state of affairs.

Dealing with her inner demons was her price for doing things her own way. Yesterday, she’d given them fuel, and she couldn’t rely on the ponies she’d used as fodder for her mother’s game to alleviate their gnawing.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Prim Collar and Cloudy Rose arrived, escorted by a small contingent of Dammeguard that joined Sunscatter and the rest at a cautious distance.

Cloudy eyed her suspiciously, glancing between her and the guards, then the pair of Royal Guards on station outside the office. “You’re here early.”

“I am here on time, since we never decided on a time. I take it you were watching,” Rosewater said, raising her eyes to the slowly scudding clouds above them. “And fetched him from whatever task kept him busy.”

Too much. Rosewater resisted the urge to bite her tongue out of annoyance at its flapping and, instead, smiled.

“She was. I asked her to let me know when you decided, since I can’t exactly send you a letter, seeing you don’t live in the Rose Palace.” Collar said with a sigh. “The rest of you, why are you here and not at your duty stations?”

“Sir! It’s…” Sunscatter glanced at Rosewater, swallowed, and said, “It’s the Rose Terror, sir. We’re making certain she doesn’t do anything to violate the treaty.”

“That, lieutenant,” Collar said stiffly, “is not for you to patrol. That is for the Royal Guard.” He hesitated, though, and glanced between all of them, then at Rosewater. “But perhaps you can learn something. Captain Pink will have words with you if you are not at your assigned patrol stations in the next five minutes. And I’ll have you use her proper name. You do know it, yes?”

“Sir! Yes. She… told us.”

Rosewater gave him a mirthful smile, smoothing over the forced look of it with a chuckle, when he jerked a look at her. “I was bored. They were nervous. Entertainment was had by all.”

“I’m sure,” he said drily and turned to the guards. “You have your orders. Be good ambassadors of our fine city, if you would like to not be scrubbing culverts, and remember your manners.”

A chorus of acknowledgments met his dismissive wave of a hoof.

Once they had all left, Collar turned his attention back to her. “Given your proclivities, I imagine that entertainment included a livid recital of some of your bedroom exploits?”

And he was a part of the problem with her reputation, as he kept proving. “I have not had bedroom exploits in a year, Collar. Save by my own hoof and horn.”

That seemed to shock Cloudy into an incredulous stare. “Liar.”

“And there’s the other reason why my reputation is so depressingly low. I am a liar, a serial philanderer, by Prim standards, and a soul-sucking betoverend paard on top of being a vampony and probably a foal stealer, because why not believe the worst of me?” She huffed, tossing her mane and stamping a hoof. “Do you truly believe me incapable of not having sex for a whole year, Cloudy Rose?”

“Obviously.” Cloudy looked away, rubbing a foreleg against the other. “But not the rest. Thanks. For last night.”

“It was a thwarting of my mother’s plans. Thanks are not necessary.” But they were welcome. Her estimations of Cloudy Rose ticked up a few notches. “Shall we conclude business so that I may remove my distasteful self from your presences?”

Collar clicked his tongue. “Stop that. You didn’t ask us here—”

“I did not ask the both of you at all. I asked you,” Rosewater snapped. “If you wish to hear me degraded further, please catch up to your guards and listen to their gossip. They would be quite willing to further lower your opinion of me.”

“Stop the theatrics,” Collar growled. “This isn’t like you. You have a reputation, did you not expect it? You could have waited until we came to your side.”

Rosewater stared at him, her eyes burning at the rebuke. It shouldn’t have hurt her. She should have had a bit more self-control than that.

“Have you ever considered, Lord Collar, that my reputation disturbs me? Have you? I have one place that I can be free of it.” She snapped her tail and closed her eyes, pulling the cold mask back over herself, forcing her face to calm serenity, her ears to right, and her tail to still. “Let us be done with our business that I might return to it.”

That the display was borne of truth did nothing to lessen its effectiveness. Collar put a hoof to her hindquarters as she opened the door to the office.

Cloudy swallowed as she stared at her. “Does it hurt you that much, Rosewater?”

She shot the pegasus a glare, then jerked her head in a nod. “I am not a monster, Cloudy. I’m…” I’m still feeling the effect of the spell. The lingering despair gave fuel to the monstrous fears clawing at her heart, the worries, the future she was, right then, almost certain would come true. “I will recover.”

“Will you?” Cloudy’s brow knit as she frowned. “I’ve never heard of magic that affects a pony that way.”

“Not here. And not now,” she said, her voice still in the calm, cool tone of emotionless courtesy. “We have kept the guard waiting for us to conclude our business long enough.”

Cloudy blinked, shaking her head. “Sorry? What?”

Collar touched her shoulder. “She’s right. We have business to conclude.” He pulled his own mask on, wiping away the sincere set of concern on his brow. “We can talk on this more.”

Cloudy shushed a guard as the stallion grumbled behind her. “I thought the tears were a little much.”

Was I crying? She raised an ankle to brush at her cheek, and the cold mask cracked when it came away damp. Perhaps a little too much of the real was in that. She would have to be more careful, or something might slip that she didn’t want to. She resettled the mask and wiped away the dampness on her cheeks.

“Are you feeling okay?” Collar asked her in the same calm tone she had used.

“Yes. Let’s conclude, then you can return to the palace, and I can return to—” She swallowed the words and gritted her teeth. She was too on-edge to risk thinking about Rosemary. “To my home.”

“Is that truly all you wanted out of me?” Collar cocked his head. “It’s important, but both of us are not required at the same time, so long as we seal to the magic our sides of the story.”

“Yes.” I wanted to see you again. “You’re looking rested.”

“And you are not.”

The Royal Clerk at the desk eyed them as they approached and pulled out the sunburst seal and a gold foil sheet. “Business?”

“Duel,” Rosewater said, the procedure coming back to her after six years. “Between Roseate Rosethorn and Rosewater Rosethorn.”

The clerk lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing, only noting the details. “To be held when?”

“Last night. My witness is beside me, and a second outside.”

“One is enough. Sir, if you would complete a description of the duel, the outcome, and the terms…” The guard flipped around the blank Celestial letterhead form.

“One thing,” Collar said. “They were fighting over who had the right to take me as a mate. I agree with neither party.”

The clerk sighed. “Nothing is ever simple around here.” He checked over the page, added a notation, and looked up again almost to the ceiling, rubbing at his muzzle, eyes closed as he said an imprecation to Celestia for patience. “The terms of the duel, as stated, were not for who would take you, were they?”

“They were.”

“They were not, actually,” Rosewater said. “My exact wording was ‘I will claim my right of free association’ and let me pursue him as a mating prospect. It means that she can’t accuse me of being a traitor for attempting to court you.”

“Then the duel would still be valid, but I doubt that Celestia would mark ‘courtship’ as treason in any case,” the clerk said. “But perhaps it’s better to have that solidified.” His words had the bored tone of a functionary, but his ears quivered.

“I can accept that,” Collar said with a sigh, glancing aside at her. “Is this the chance you wanted?”

“No. This is merely the legal right to have the chance.” Rosewater allowed herself a brief spark of hope, but stood still where she was, the distance between them closer than they’d ever been before in the daylight. “Have you given any thought to my offer?”

Collar clucked his tongue and took the white quill and ink the clerk proffered to him, the tip coming free with golden liquid that shimmered and glowed even in the daytime. Magical ink for contracts, enchanted by Celestia herself.

“I have. I can’t, at the moment, see any reason to go through with it, though I would rather not have your mother professing her interest,” he said drily, not looking up.

“I rather wish she hadn’t in such a blatant way,” Rosewater replied with a sigh. “I wish she hadn’t at all.” The banter felt forced, and she forced herself back to seriousness. “Are you alright?”

“I would be better if I knew what game you were playing.” He took the quill and began to jot down the details.

“I’m afraid I’m not playing a game.” Rosewater shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve been sincere. Not that I’d expect you to believe me yet.”

“I’m not quite sure what to believe right now.” He looked up briefly to the guard. “Would it help to provide a Prim Palace official after action report?”

“No. Personal testimony under the seal of truth is acceptable. Princess Celestia will review the results and the magical residues and return the declaration and its results in a few weeks time.” The clerk tried not to yawn as he said it, but it was clear that he had to explain the truth seal over and over again to ponies who tried to lie under it.

Lies with intent left a certain magical residue in the special ink the guards used, and while nopony less skilled than Celestia could detect it, it served to keep both sides at the very least honest in their treaty-bonded dealings.

Rosewater looked over his shoulder, nodding slowly as she saw the details take shape. He had a good memory, even a couple days after the event.

When he was done, she read it carefully, nodded, and called her magic to her hoof, forming her cutie mark across the cup of her hoof, patted it against the ink pad, and pressed and rolled her hoof in the square box at the bottom left for Claimant. Collar did the same for Witness.

“Very well.” The guard raised his left hoof, golden magic swirling around it from the amulet around his neck. “Repeat after me. By my responsibility as a participant of the Treaty of Merrie-Damme of 226 AC, I affirm that every word I have written is true. On pain of exile, I set my hoof to this document, and seal it to the Treaty.”

Rosewater and Collar repeated the words in solemn lockstep, feeling the magic of the words and the seal bleeding into them and the page, making the ink transform to golden light, then burned itself into the paper.

If either of them had spoken the oath with falsity in their hearts, the ink would have set fire to the page rather than set the words indelibly. In that case, an investigation would ensue, and the culprit who’d attempted to lie would be punished in scaling severity relative to the lie.

“Very well.” He set his hoof to the center box, and gold fire flared over the paper, turning it glossy. When he lifted his hoof, the seal of the Sun Princess gleamed in silver and gold. “By my responsibility as a representative of her Highness, Princess Celestia, Sun’s Ray, I affirm that this document has been witnessed and sealed. You may go.”

Cloudy Rose was laughing with the guards when Rosewater stepped out after Collar, and all eyes turned to her immediately. The smiles fell away.

At least they didn’t seem to have been talking about her.

“Our business is concluded,” Rosewater said, glancing at the pennant draped over her flanks. Considering her options, she lifted it off herself and held it out to the Royal Guard, who accepted it and stowed it in his pack without comment.

One of the Dammeguard stepped forward, hoof raised. “So… can we arrest her now?”

“You may not,” Collar snapped. “She is leaving an accorded meeting with the Treaty office. Attempt to arrest her at your hide’s peril, for I’ll strip it from you myself before the Treaty guard gets a hold of you.”

The guard stepped back, blanching, ears folded back. “Aye, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Was there truly nothing else to discuss?” he asked her, stepping closer and keeping his voice low. “Was this it?”

“I thought there would be, but I find my taste for wordplay soured.” Rosewater closed her eyes. The effects of the duel were still clinging to her. The despair especially.

“I saw your face,” he said even more quietly. “You have to feel those emotions to project them, don’t you?”

“Yes. I thought you would understand.” She forced herself to smile. “And I suspect you know the other part, now that I’ve confirmed it.”

Collar nodded, flicking an ear. “What did you use, to feel those?”

“My own feelings,” Rosewater said with a roll of her eyes. “Were you to ask it more clearly, I still would not answer. Permit me some privacy, even as you unveil my secrets one by one.”

He seemed to reach some decision as he stepped up beside her. “Walk with me.”

Rosewater startled forward a step when he flicked his tail against her side, passing her and onto the Primrose, heading towards the Sun Seal. “Collar?”

“Walk with me, I said.” He glanced back. “Or do you wish, truly, to not talk about what you did? You are hurting, Rosewater. Even I can tell. And you have nopony you can talk to about it. I, at least, have Cloudy Rose.”

Cloudy shot Collar a knowing look, then stepped forward, offering a hoof, “Rosewater, may I apologize?”

“For what? Collar has wronged me more in my earshot this afternoon than you have since we met.” Rosewater shot Collar a look. “Please, save the apology until you do something to actually harm me.”

Cloudy’s ears flattened, her brow drawing down into a scowl. “I’m trying to apologize for what I thought of you.”

Rosewater tightened her lips over a curt reply. She is trying. “Cloudy, your thoughts are private, and yours alone. Do not apologize for them. Your actions are what should require apology. Have you done something to wrong me that I’m not aware of?”

Cloudy stared at her, one eyebrow raising. “I… don’t think so.”

“An apology, to me, is a thing that is sacred. I have never apologized for what I must do. I have only apologized for my mistakes and my wrongdoings.” She raised a hoof and touched Cloudy’s chest. “Let me apologize for giving you Citrus Circus without telling you what it would do to you should you not listen.”

Cloudy continued to stare, only glancing down once at the hoof on her breast. “That was my fault for not listening.”

“Partially. You would have recovered on your own in time had I not helped you recover from your welcome attempts to educate.” She patted the hoof gently, then set it down. “That is what I consider an apology worthy of. Harm, especially unintended. Have you done me any harm?”

Cloudy finally looked away, shaking her head. “No.” She huffed. “Why are you so courteous? I had this image of you as…”

“A monster?”

“Well, yes.” Cloudy waved a hoof. “Collar’s been trying to tell me otherwise. Are you a monster?”

“I would prefer not to be.” But preferences fell aside when need reared its head.

“Can’t you stop, then?”

“Can you stop doing what you do to protect him?” Rosewater asked, tipping her head towards Collar. “Would you stop if I asked you to?”

“No.” Cloudy hunched her shoulders. Her lips formed the name of Rosewater’s daughter. “Will you try anything with him?”

“I will not try anything because…” Rosewater closed her eyes, the despair gnawing at her again, the anguish not far behind. “Fine. I suppose…” She slammed the despair away with a flurry of anger at herself. “I could use your help. I admit.”

“Good. Respect among foes, yes? It makes the war less onerous.” Collar squeezed Cloudy once more. “I promise, I’ll stay in sight the entire time.”

“You’d better.”

As soon as Cloudy was out of range, Rosewater cast a silencing spell around them and fuzzed the air enough so that their lips could not be read, but they could still be seen.

“She dislikes me quite a lot despite her apology,” Rosewater said softly. “Why?”

“Because you’re Roseate Rosethorn’s daughter, and her entire brood of daughters enthrall their mates.” He bobbed his head as he crossed the edge of the massive stone disc. “She wants to mate with me. Whole of mind and sound of spirit.”

“Then do so.” Rosewater shook her head. “Unless there is a reason why you cannot?”

“We came here to talk about you, not me. What… how closely did you have to embrace those feelings?” He asked her gently. “Despair, fear, and anguish.”

“I had to believe them. Despairing that I would never leave my mother’s power. That I would fall to it and grovel before her like a thrall, only hoping for her favor.” She shuddered as the image crawled up from her gut again and threatened to strangle her. “Fear. I cannot tell you. Nor can I tell you anguish. The despair is what hits me hardest.”

“Why can’t you tell me the others?”

“Because it is secret. Nopony knows one but I, and—” She almost said it again. “Let me go. I would return to my sanctum and recover.”

“I want you to promise me something,” he said, putting a hoof over her heart mark. “Promise me you won’t believe them. Whatever they are, they’re not true.”

Rosewater closed her eyes, reaching up to push his hoof away. She hesitated. His hoof was warm against her chest. A hoof that was not hers touching her in a way that made her feel better. For the first time in a year, somepony other than Rosemary had offered her kindness. In payment of another kindness.

“You can’t handle it much longer, can you?” he asked.

“I will handle it as long as I must, Prim Collar.” Rosewater pushed his hoof away. “Because I must handle it. The alternative is too horrific for me to contemplate.”

“Will…” He sighed. “You are… infuriating. Sometimes. Confusing. Give me something.”

Rosewater stared at him, gnawing at her lip. He was asking her to give up her most guarded secret.

“In return for what, Lord Collar? What can you offer me that can match what I have given to you already? And you ask more.” Rosewater shook her head, gathering power for a short range teleport. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!”

Rosewater let the power bleed from her horn. “You have something you think worth all that I’ve given?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working as he tried to offer something. “I have nothing of equable value to offer. But I will look more favorably on your letters. But… can I ask you something out of curiosity?”

“You may.”

“How do you know my favorite kind of cookie?” He tapped a hoof on the bridge. “It’s been confounding me.”

“My lord, sieves hold water like palaces hold secrets. Why do you think I do not live in one?” Rosewater sniffed and began gathering power in her horn again. “I have contacts in your city, though they don’t know me for true, or they’d run to you and the guard. They all talk quite freely for the chance to obtain treasures from Merrie that are otherwise near banned in Damme.”

“Of course. Goodbye, Rosewater. Until we meet again.”

“Fare well, Lord of Damme.”

Collar stared at the dossiers in front of him, simple portraits reminding him of the ponies the names were attached to, and considered his choice again. He had three possibilities in front of him, all pegasi that would be able to take advantage of Rosemary’s blindness.

Sunrise… thought she’d hidden her dalliance well, but she was too closely connected to Rosemary to be reliable. She might not act if the need as she needed because of that past association. She might let Rosemary go down a darker path simply because she couldn’t bring herself to get Rosemary arrested.

Streak, a distant cousin of hers, was too antagonistic towards all Roses, Rosethorn or otherwise. He did his duty at the bridge when it came up, but his vitriol would see him arresting Rosemary over small offenses and potentially taking away the one support Rosewater still had left.

Regardless of what happened with Rosemary, he wouldn’t let her be taken unless she actually broke the law. If that happened… he would deal with it as he could, and do what he could to repay the large favor he owed her. He couldn’t repay being saved from certain capture, both he and Cloudy, by taking away her sole support.

But neither could he allow the rule of law to be subverted either for or against Rosemary.

Not for the first time, he felt the urge to curse the war that had pitted them against each other. More and more, he was getting the feeling that if the war hadn’t gotten in the way, he and Rosewater might find themselves less at odds and more allies, if not friends outright.

The last portrait watched him over the desk, sitting at attention, his gray-dappled blue coat shifting and twitching as he watched Collar considering the three folders.

“You know why I called you here, Stride?” Collar asked in an even tone.

“A special assignment, sir,” Stride said immediately, the perfect response that Collar himself had trained into the young pegasus. His first training platoon.

“Indeed.” Collar closed the other two folders and pulled out a fourth, this one with a portrait of Rosemary that he’d had made on the fly from one of their profilers. “What do you think of Rosethorns, Stride?”

At the name, Stride’s ears flattened to his mane. “Sir? They’re… our foes.”

“All of them?”

Ears twitched, and that thoughtful look returned to Stride’s eyes. He remembered that expression from so many days lecturing his platoon on philosophy, a part of an officer training program, of whom only Cloudy Rose and Coat had made the cut. The rest of them had still garnered higher commissions from their testing under Captain Pink than they would have otherwise.

But he’d been too timid to speak out, too fumble-tongued to articulate his arguments. Officers couldn’t be either. Sometimes, he still saw the foal he had been, well on his way towards becoming just another Primfeather thug beside his brothers. Some of that timidity certainly came from his youth, as the youngest brother.

“Not all of them,” Stride said at last, looking down at the portrait. “Who is she?”

“Rosemary Rosethorn, daughter of possibly one of the kindest Rosethorns to be born in the last century. According to my mother, at least.” Collar slid the folder across the table. “This is a summation of what we know.”

Stride read it, brow furrowing. “She’s my assignment? Am I supposed to act as an escort?”

“In a way. How are you adjusting to the night shift?”

Understanding sparked in Stride’s eyes. “Well. I’ve switched to waking up a few hours before sunset, and my bedtime has shifted to a few hours after dawn.”

“Good. Rosemary’s doing the same, though she’s still active during the day. I believe she makes her bedtime sometime after midnight.” Collar pulled out another scroll from his desk and set it out in front. “This is a very delicate operation, Stride. For diplomatic reasons, I’m giving Rosemary a lot of rope. Whether she just strings it out or uses it to hang herself is up to her.”

“Sir?”

“She has a mission from Roseate. That much, we know.” Collar crossed his forelegs on the desk and leaned forward. “That is not reason to arrest her, understand? Until she actually uses illegal scents or magics in Merrie, she is not a criminal.”

Stride chewed on his lip for a moment before nodding. “Motivation to commit a crime is not commission of a crime.”

“Exactly. It is still up to her whether she commits a crime.” Collar pushed the scroll closer. “Your next mission is to shadow her, without being seen, and report on her activities. Identify her target, if you can, watch her patterns, and keep track of her. If she commits a crime, do not blow your whistle. Fetch me.”

Further understanding bloomed as Stride’s wings arched off his back. “You couldn’t trust Cloudy to this?”

“She’s as fast as you, but there are personal reasons why I can’t trust her to this… or subject her to it.” Collar’s ears flattened to his mane. The state Cloudy had been in after he’d asked her to do it, believing that he could only trust her, had been painful to see, and his fault. Not even the headache, but the heartache she wore like a collar around her neck. “Can I trust you not to judge her for what she hasn’t done?”

“Sir, justice only works when it’s applied evenly. If she has committed no crime, then it would be unjust to arrest her.”

“Textbook answer,” Collar said softly. “Do you believe it?”

Stride was silent for long moments, looking at the scroll with his potential fate in it. His eyes dipped to the floor for several seconds, then up to Collar’s. “I do. Justice is what Damme was founded on. It’s what the Reformations are about. The other side of the river isn’t evil. The ponies that live there aren’t evil.”

“They aren’t. Not even all of the nobility are evil. Rosemary,” he said, taking the folder back from Stride and closing it, “has given every indication of being a sweet mare, untouched by her relatives’ madness.”

“I understand.”

For a moment, Collar studied him, then nodded. “Then you start tonight.”

Author's Notes:

I had an emergency come up with my sweetheart kitty, Nemo. He's sixteen, and I've been scared for a long time that he'd have more health issues. I'm worried now that he might leave me soon. He's been with me for all of those sixteen years, and sleeps on my shoulder to wake me up, then sleeps on the bed where I lay until I'm ready to start the day.

But he's okay for now. Just had a scare.

Not relevant to the story, but my head isn't quite in the game today.

Book 1, 15. Beliefs

Rosemary peered down at the dimly lit notebook floating in front of her, the charcoal stick she was using to make her own notes floating slowly in front of her. She was well hidden in a bush that was starting to lose its foliage while she watched the house down the way with a spyglass floating against her eye.

It was the address Roseate had given her, and she’d taken notes on the elder pony’s habits from this safe distance several blocks away in the decorative median running down the middle of the street.

She’d made sure to check above her this time before settling in, and knew that the broad leaves of the magnolia were still giving her enough protection from the overhead that as long as she hadn’t been seen slipping into place, nopony could see her from above.

He was a majordomo, that much she’d been able to gather from little tidbits of conversation she’d managed to pick up with her weak ability at aural magic. He had been. Friends had come by last night and they’d shared tales about what they’d done in their youths.

Along with the tidbits of life, Rosemary had gotten the reason Roseate wanted this one. He’d been an early noble supporter of the Lace Reformation, and had served as a nanny for Collar himself. Such a pony could give away a lot of secrets, and he was also the heart of an elder social circle that supported the changes.

They were shopkeepers, a librarian, and a retired trader, a core part of the spread of acceptance of the Reformation in Damme in the earlier days, ponies willing to trade and deal with Merriers.

Taking one of them out, the heart of their group, would be a heavy blow to the support the Reformations had in Damme.

She glanced at the notes she’d made again, the dark marks on the light paper visible even in the moonlight with one of her tinctures stinging her eyes and enhancing her night vision. It wasn’t a pleasant tincture, but it briefly improved the ability of her eyes to take in light.

But it left her vulnerable to bright lights, too.

This is the price for my citizenship. Rosemary shivered as she collapsed her spyglass and tucked away her notebook. It was the price for staying close to Rosewater and making sure the mare didn’t hurt herself more.

She was still recovering from her duel with Roseate. Rosewater hadn’t been able to hide the symptoms of using fear magic from her, and Rosemary had had to cancel a couple evenings to take care of the idiot.

That’s not fair to her. You were off doing your own stupid thing. The fight explained why it’d been so easy for her to slip across the bridges, the whistles in the background couldn’t be Rosewater, after all. Rosewater wouldn’t intervene in her task, even if it meant her capture.

Capture was better than exile, after all. It meant she could only be held accountable for what she’d done in Damme.

And if word came back that Roseate tried to exile her, she could defect.

Rosewater might even follow her.

She could hope, at least.

Tugging her cloak over her, Rosemary looked about, searching for and listening for the nearest patrol and, seeing none, she slipped into a veil and off towards the west.

Several times, she had to duck into deeper shadows to avoid a whisper of wind from above, but she made her way back to Bridge Row without issue, but the first alleyway she peered out of had a full complement of alert guards, half with scent-masks on, the other half with theirs close to hoof.

It couldn’t be easy to breathe in them, but it was a sensible precaution for anti-ambush tactics.

The next alleyway she peeked out at gave no better news. This group was keeping an active watch, even, and she was certain they’d almost spotted her. They could catch her before she got halfway to the safe point.

She couldn’t resist, or that would break the promise she’d made in her heart to Captain Pink. She couldn’t hurt the guards.

She couldn’t even hurt the old stallion. There would be a way she could follow Roseate’s orders to the letter and let him be. It might be hard to find, but she wouldn’t break that promise.

The next bridge, the Primrose, with both Royal Guard and Dammeguard on watch, the former only keeping a perfunctory watch on the door to their offices. Still, the Dammeguard presence was lighter because of it. Nopony in Merrie wanted to accidentally catch one of Celestia’s own guards in a spell.

There was also… Rosemary’s eyes widened as she recognized one of the ponies standing guard, her platinum mane distinguished in the moonlight as she wandered away from the torchlight on a short patrol.

An idea began to form. It was insane. Stupid. And it might… well…

Rosemary considered the cloak she was wearing. She hadn’t brought any scents along, nor anything but candies. The cloak itself, she had no special emotional attachment to. It was drab, mottled, and she’d bought it herself. It was something Rosewater either hadn’t thought to do, or couldn’t do.

But it was still the cloak Rosewater had trained her in. That training…

Stars damnit, mare. It was also a piece of clothing that would mark her as having been on a mission of less than above-board task. That would at least invite suspicion. More suspicion, anyway.

Taking a compromise, and hoping they didn’t frisk her, Rosemary doffed the cloak and bound it into as small a package as she could. It was something she could tuck between her hind legs. It would be barely visible, and veiling it made it even harder to notice.

Still, she’d be counting on Dammers not wanting to feel her up or get anywhere close to sensual to not find it.

She squinted at the guard on the right, cocked her head, cast a whispering voices spell, and giggled into the guard’s ear.

The guard snapped to her right, “Who goes there?”

“Stars, Platinum, you’re jumpy.”

“No I’m not. Somepony just giggled in my ear.” Prim Platinum waved her cudgel through the air slowly, as if Rosemary could turn anywhere close to invisible. “Come out!”

“Prim Platinum?” Rosemary asked as she strode around the corner, unveiled and grinning. “Hi!”

Platinum groaned. “It’s you.”

“It’s me!” Rosemary stopped a respectful distance away and brought a hoof to the heart mark on her chest, bowing to the other guard. “And I don’t believe we’ve met, good stallion.”

“Is, uh… This the pony Captain Pink chewed you out about?” he asked, not looking at Rosemary, but jabbing his cudgel at her.

“Yeah.” Platinum took a deep breath, let it out. “Hokay. This is a new one on me. Why are you in Damme, at night?”

“Well, I’ve already seen everything Merrie has to offer at night, hundreds of times over, so I thought it might be nice if…” Rosemary shrugged one shoulder, still looking at the stallion. “You know, I got to see what the night side looks like from here.”

To her surprise, Platinum smiled and relaxed and tapped the tip of her cudgel against the other guard. “It’s fine. She’s harmless. This is Rosemary and, if you hadn’t heard, Captain Pink took her out to lunch.”

“I’d heard. I’m Prim Glider, commander of the watch tonight. Explain yourself and your reasoning.”

“Well… I’m not exactly welcome here during the day, so I have to sneak over to see what it’s like.” Rosemary didn’t try to hide the shame at her actions, her ears flattening into her mane. “And it’s beautiful at night. Here.” She advanced a few steps closer, keeping her eyes turned away from the too-bright torches.

Platinum sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Stars, your eyes.”

“Yeah. Nightsight tincture,” Rosemary said. “It’s one of my own blends. It lets me see better at night. Almost like it’s daytime, actually. The downside is that everything is brighter.”

“This is all well and good,” Prim Glider said with a glower and roll of his eyes, “but what are you doing here tonight?”

“Oh, relax, Glide,” Platinum groaned, tapping him again with her cudgel. “She’s harmless. I mean, she walked right up to the bridge, completely guileless, and just sat there talking to me while Streak went to get the captain.”

“Plat, protocol needs to be followed.” He pulled out a gemstone set in an intricate golden brooch, shifted his focus, and poured magic into the clear diamond. “Stand still, Rosemary. This detects magic.”

Hesitating, Rosemary stood still, pondering the notebook wrapped up in the cloak between her hind legs. It was definitely full of incriminating evidence. But she could bluff through it. Maybe. She let it unveil and clenched her thighs together, catching the cloak and desperately hoping none of it came loose, then let go of all of her magic.

He held the brooch out, passing it over her. It flashed pink briefly near her horn, and again near her cutie mark. “No active enchantments.” Glider relaxed minutely. “Have you broken any of our laws?”

“No.” Rosemary bowed her head once. “I’ve used no scent magic. Only a veil, because I know it makes you all jumpy if I’m in town. I just wanted to see the night sky through the magnolias, to smell the night sea air rolling in from the bay without it going over the hills first. And to watch the moon’s light reflecting off the wavetops from atop Prim Rock.”

“Tourist, then?” Glider chuckled. “Alright. How was it?”

“Beautiful! Absolutely gorgeous.” She pranced in place and crouched, letting her own excitement overcome the nerves she felt. It looked like she was going to get away with it. “I never thought the gray stone would be so pretty, but it is. In the moonlight, everything is pewter and tin. Even the grass is beautiful. And who thinks that about grass?”

Even Glider smiled at that.

Platinum chuckled. “Not me. Fine, fine. Maybe I’ll stop and admire the grass someday. Lieutenant, thoughts?”

“Eh. It’s easy to see why the captain took a shine to her. Fine, let her go.” He stepped aside and lifted his eyes briefly. “Just be careful, miss. We’re watching you. Don’t break any laws, and I won’t have to see that smile go away, okay?”

“I promise!” She danced forward and offered a hug to him, which he declined, and a glance at Platinum brought her to a stop between them.

“Sorry, not tonight, Rosemary.” Platinum’s ears ticked back, and she glanced at Glider.

“Shoot. Well, thank you.” Rosemary settled for patting her on the peytral. “Have a nice night.”

Cloudy Rose stared at the stack of tomes and the spray of folders laid out before her. Reading had never been easy for her, the least of the reasons for that being a pegasus. The days of unicorns hoarding learning to themselves was long gone. It was the fact that she had to stand or sit still to read that bothered her the most.

But running and flying all over the city for the past two days hadn’t brought her the peace she needed to think about the Rose Terror. Collar wouldn’t tell her what had passed between them on the Primrose bridge, and she couldn’t very well ask the other source, but he’d come back more contemplative than when he’d gone off with her.

The only thing he’d told her was, “She hurt herself deeply to help us. I think she does not realize how deeply.”

Other than that, he would only tell her what she had already guessed herself from the brief unguarded moment when she’d cried over her reputation. A reputation that she herself had fostered. All for the sake of Rosemary.

Natural looking tears were hard to fake. They required the actor to pause to embrace something sad, or for somepony to tweak their ears until they cried. Fake tears didn’t fall out in the middle of talking. They didn’t rivulet, but dripped.

Rosewater’s tears had run in a brief stream down her cheeks, following the partial path of the Rosethorn marks. In part, it was what Collar had said. Her duel with her mother had injured her in some way. In another way, perhaps she was tired of being the monster on both sides. Especially when there was an actual monster to worry about.

She sighed and pulled down the top tome, a discussion by multiple authors about the nature of the Rosethorn magics, and settled in to read.

And closed it half an hour later, rubbing at her temple with one hoof and pushing the tome away with the other. They did like to pontificate at length in essays and musings about the oddest things tangentially related to Rosethorn magic. The chaos of spellworks here and there hadn’t helped the growing headache. By comparison, Collar’s notations had been easy to read, and she still knew nothing about what he’d shown her.

She might as well try to explain how she walked on clouds to him, or why a pegasus needed magic to fly at all reliably without sort of gliding.

The next tome, a collection of essays on the war’s history, proved no more useful. Pontifications and pride, lauding the Dammeguard for successfully raiding Merrie and bringing back prisoners to trade for concessions at the same time they reviled the Merrieguard and the Rosethorns for doing the same thing.

She pulled down the third, stared at the cover, Treatises on the Nature and Balance of Power Between Merrie and Damme, an Exercise in Political Games and Theory, and promptly set it aside. There would be nothing useful inside, despite the archivist’s boastful admission that he’d written three of the pages inside. Likely the index.

The fourth was newer, the pages still creamy wheat in color, the edges neat and orderly, the wooden cover still showing the carver’s mark where age had not softened them. Carnations and Crimsons, a Split Between Sisters.

The title promised mystery. She pursed her lips and almost shoved it aside. At least the last book had boldly stated that it would be useless. She did not like the new trend of catchy titles to draw the reader in.

She opened the book and began to read the angular block-script.

Carnation Rose, second daughter of Roseline, split from her elder sibling in personality early on. Sources in the Rose palace provide multiple accounts of Carnation being far kinder, taking more after her mother than Roseate did. The two disliked each other as sisters are sometimes wont to do. The typical sibling rivalries were magnified between heiress and younger sister.

Cloudy settled in to read, going over the early disputes that were rumored to have happened, and those that had corroborating evidence outside of Rose Palace rumor. Witnesses in the street to see Roseate taking an iced cone from her sister, to Roseline’s displeasure, of Roseate secretly belittling her sister to the few friends she was able to cultivate despite her caustic attitude. Numerous incidents involved Roseate tripping her sister, then pretending to help her up as if she hadn’t been the one to do it.

The cruelties got more subtle as they grew older and Carnation moved from the Palace to an estate owned by one of Roseline’s aunts as a ten year old filly. There, she had matured at a rapid pace, settling into her personality as a kind pony whom the commoners loved and the nobles looked down on, save the aunt, Rosefire, a rare pegasus in the line of unicorns.

Five years passed before Roseate, then eighteen and throwing the cultural underpinnings of Merrie to the wind, had her first foal, Rosewater. And then another, and another, and another. Carnation Rose had had strings of lovers, as was the Rose way, but none that she had settled in enough with to allow herself becoming pregnant. But by the time the fourth foal of Roseate’s had come, and Carnation had passed the age of twenty one, Rosefire had deeded the estate to her and returned to live and care for her mother, then entering into her dotage.

The young Rosewater, suffering from some dispute with her mother after earning her cutie mark at the tender age of six, had quit the palace of her own will and been taken in by Carnation.

Of her own will? Cloudy stared at the passage again, reading it carefully.

Invoking a little used law of parental right, and navigating the legal pathways of the treaty with the help of Carnation Rose to retain her status as the heir presumptive, Rosewater separated herself from her mother with the help of Carnation Rose and placed herself squarely into the guardianship of her aunt until her final majority at the age of twenty one.

Not exactly. But it still was interesting that even at the age of six, Rosewater was willing to defy her mother. And her talent at that age. Perhaps that was the reason why, especially if Roseate treated her own daughters the way she treated Carnation at that age. Or, she’d gotten a dose of whatever had attracted Roseate to the father in the first place. Strength, surely, and her pleasure to dominate it and subvert it. Fitting that the father’s act of revenge had been the offspring he’d sired if so.

She shook her head and read on, following the text into the beginning of Rosemary’s life, twenty years ago. Then ten, Rosewater had applied herself brusquely to the task of helping Carnation raise Rosemary and kept up with her own schooling, showing her dedication to the tasks in the businesslike manner in which she comported herself, neither showing more or less affection for Rosemary in the early years than was expected of a cousin.

In later years, as Rosemary grew into her own, little signs of affection began to creep into their outside interactions, signs of a sisterly love, or that of an aunt doting on a favorite niece. That much, she knew, and skimmed the sections for mentions of Rosemary’s name. There were few, save where their interactions seemed to place stress on the relationship between Roseate, and her daughter and sister.

Exile.

The chapter title, a single, bold word urged her on.

Not much is known about the reasons for the exile of Carnation Rose. Speculation…

She skimmed over the next few paragraphs covering speculation she’d already read elsewhere, ticking her ears in annoyance.

One immediate effect of the exile was Rosewater declaring a public duel against her mother. Roseate, as the challenged, had chosen the weapon to be scent magic, and Rosewater had agreed with a fervor that began the whisperings of the name The Rose Terror. She would cement that title during the duel.

The terms of the duel were to be kept secret, but a careful observation of the lifestyle of Rosewater and Rosemary indicated that they had not changed their disposition afterwards. If anything, their relationship in public grew cooler and more distant.

She’d seen it on her own, felt it on her own. Rosewater was a mare who could inspire terror. Even thinking back, however, she could see a few faces in the crowd that looked sympathetic, faces she’d thought had stood out among the other spectators and witnesses as unusual.

Rosy Glass had been one of them, the tavern-owner holding her hooves to her mouth as her eyes tracked Rosewater on her way out.

Collar’s familiar cadence came down the stairs several minutes later as she contemplated the last few chapters, mostly filled with speculations and a few disjointed treatises on the early lives and manners of Carnation and Roseate.

“Is a monster still a monster if the things they do are in a good cause?” Cloudy asked as he walked within earshot, paging through the index for interesting keywords.

“Ah. That book,” he said by way of reply. “Yes, but monstrous actions must also have context. And truth. How much of what she’s supposed to have done is truth, and how much has been rumor she’s cultivated or at least not bothered to stamp out?” He sat beside her and flipped to a page she’d already read. “How much of it is rumor that Roseate’s cultivated and she’s accepted as her mother giving her yet more armor?”

“And how much would she do to further her own goals?” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “I don’t trust her to not do monstrous things.”

“I trust her to act against Roseate,” he said. “I trust her little farther than that.”

“Good.” Cloudy tensed, he had that look about him that said he was going to say something to upset her. “But…”

“But I think she can be brought to see reason.” He held up a hoof, waving her down. “She’s the heir, legally by the terms of the charter forming House Rose. Until she steps down or is cast out of the family, she is the heir.”

“You’re not thinking of accepting her proposal? You know what that means.” Cloudy had to struggle to keep her tone even, and she still spat out the question.

“I do. But I don’t have to be her mate to bring the cities into accord. I only need her to agree to a partnership of cities.”

“And if Roseate passes on without Rosewater having children, it will pass to Rosary, who already has one filly and a colt.” Cloudy shook her head. “The war would go on for at least another generation.”

“Well, then. Let’s wish Roseate a long and miserable life,” Collar said with a snort.

“Toast to that later?”

It ended up being a nightly toast for two nights running, a joke shared between them over dinner with Prim Lace and the other important functionaries of Prim Palace, until the idea of Roseate living long enough for Rosewater’s apparent celibacy to become a problem soured the mood.

That question had nagged at Collar for some time after she’d admitted to being celibate aside from masturbation, and he’d set Cloudy and Stride to combing the archives for a chronology of Rosewater’s lovers. Those they knew about, at least.

The result of that report sat on his desk. It was… extensive. From her first sexual awakening at fourteen, she’d had more than a dozen lovers, the numbers petering out into her adulthood as they usually did even for the famously promiscuous Merriers. And then several stretches of months with no romantic encounters following the duel, marked only by a name or two. And then the last, Roseling, an earth pony she’d met at the Gala in Merrie last year.

He tried to recall her, but could not. He barely recalled Rosewater, and that mostly had been because she had been caught up chasing one of Merrie’s once most prominent soap makers.

Roseate probably had much to do with the reason Rosewater didn’t have lovers anymore. Roseate took them away from her by one means or another.

Collar rubbed a hoof against his muzzle and groaned. He was probably the only one safe from her predation. Something that apparently also was not true.

He pushed the report aside and pulled up the next one, the nightly report on Rosemary’s activities in the city. She continued to do everything she’d told the bridge guard she did, wandering the city to admire the sights in moonlight, but she also did so after doffing her cloak and going about only veiled—or half-veiled when she pulled in the mists and danced in moonlight and darkness.

That was already causing rumors to spread about a ghost in Primline Park, a rumor that he was reluctant to quash or address. It gave her a cover, of sorts, and made her activities at least slightly understandable.

She was getting better at hiding, too. Prim Stride was starting to have difficulty finding her in the dark, but not when she settled in for the first activity she partook in, observing the retired majordomo Prim Cottage. Last night, he’d heard her humming along with the song the old stallion sang with his friends, low enough that he’d thought at first it came from Cottage’s home. At least until he could make out her head bobbing in time with it.

Out of tune.

He chuckled and shook his head. She was too inexperienced to do what she was doing, but he would rather not push more of Rosewater’s buttons than he had to. And what she was doing thus far was harmless. Annoyingly wasting his guard’s time, and pestering the bridge guard when she returned, more brazen than the last time, but he also noted that there was a sort of quiet respect in the guard for her.

Spread in part by Prim Platinum.

Rosemary was making a habit of finding the bridge she was stationed at when she was stationed at one of the bridges and flirting with the mare. True, she’d only done it for the past week, but it was a pattern that was hard to ignore, and Platinum’s reports of her activities were growing increasingly wistful.

“Will I even be able to get them to arrest you?” he asked as he finished reading Stride’s musings on the odd mare.

Stride couldn’t quite understand why Platinum, another daughter of a hardline anti-Rose house, would admire and respect a Rose, or a Rosethorn especially. But he’d also never actually talked to her.

Rumor and watching a pony quietly couldn’t convey personality and charm the way talking to them and meeting them eye to eye could.

He glanced up at the clock and shook his head slowly. The door to his office banged open as his next appointment came in. Prim Stride. He set aside the stallion’s report, prominently placing it where he could see it when he sat.

“Sir? You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Stride. At ease, this isn’t a guard request.” He pulled over a cushion from one of the benches and set it in front of the desk. “I wanted to talk to you and get your thoughts on Rosemary.”

“Sir.” He sat, his eyes flicking to the report. “Everything is there, sir.”

“Is it?” He picked up the report again, flipping through the two pages, front and back, of it. “There isn’t anything about how you feel about her in here.”

“It’s an action report, sir. It’s not…” He gulped. “Sorry, sir. It’s not a diary.”

“No, it’s not. And I’m not upset at you for that. But I wanted to get how you felt about the mare.” He waved the report in the air, making it crinkle and crack. “You almost waver into it, but you keep away from personal feelings. I would like to hear those.”

“Sir—”

“Please drop the sir. This isn’t a guard event. I want you off your hooves, Stride. I want your raw feeling.” He sighed and rubbed at his muzzle. “Just tell me what your gut feeling is.”

“Y-yes—” He swallowed again. “She’s a Rosethorn and a scent mage. I don’t know why she hasn’t been locked up yet.”

“Has she done scent magic?”

“Not in Damme, but she’s used it. I’ve heard stories about her cousin—”

“She is not her cousin,” Collar said firmly. “Please remember that. My lover is in love with her still. And you know Cloudy Rose. Do you dislike her because she’s in love with a Rosethorn?”

“N-no, sir. It’s just that… Rosemary is…” He swallowed again. “She’s a free spirit. She unveils herself in the parks and prances in the grass and rolls around in it, laughing. She’s like a filly. But she’s a Rosethorn.”

“Let’s reverse the situation, Stride. Say you did the same thing she’s doing. Enjoying herself in her city the same way she’s enjoying herself in ours.” Collar raised a hoof to halt his exhortation. He was far too much under his parents’ influence still. “A thought experiment. I trust you’ve been reading and studying the philosophy I’ve been assigning you for off-duty hours?”

“Y-yes sir. My parents don’t like it.” Stride shook his head. “But I’ve been learning. And I’ve been talking with Cloudy and Coat about the philosophy books.”

“This is a thought experiment. Say you heard that Merrie’s night life was a wonder to behold and you had to witness it first hoof to understand its joys.” He waited, but Stride only sat, quiet, waiting for the rest. “Say you went, and it was as wondrous as you’d imagined, and you want to keep going back, but every time you do, there’s a danger that you might be caught and detained, and kept from your family? What would you do? That is the situation that Rosemary is putting herself into every night she comes over.”

To his credit, Stride didn’t immediately say anything, but stared at his hooves, his ears ticking back and forth as he worked through the ideas. He wouldn’t tell him that the night life of Merrie was a wonder to behold, or that he’d witnessed it twice in his life at the side of a Rose who took him to the tasting booths to sample the wares of the common pony.

He’d forgotten the stallion’s name already, if he’d ever been told, but it had been a moment of brotherhood, of sharing delightful tastes of wine and food that he’d never had an inclination to before.

He looked forward to the next time it was held in Merrie, this time to go with Cloudy.

When Stride looked up, his ears flat, Collar saw the answer he’d wanted to see in his eyes.

“I’d want to go back, sir. Watching her cavort, it’s… I see what you mean. Seen from that perspective, she’s… beautiful. Isn’t she?” Stride blinked his eyes rapidly. “Why doesn’t she just come over and leave the Rose Terror—”

“Please don’t call her that,” Collar said stiffly. He could still see the flicker of Rosewater’s eye as the guard called her that, the deep pain that she hid so well it might even have been his imagination. The tears hadn’t been, or the pain he’d heard in her voice as she spoke of her sanctum. “Not ever. She is a pony, Stride. Don’t let yourself forget that by making a monster out of her by naming her something else.”

“S-sir, aye, sir.” Stride raised his hoof in a salute. Collar caught it before he could complete the gesture and guided the hoof back down to the floor.

“As a pony, not as a guard. Can I ask you to consider that she does what she does for reasons as unfathomable to us as the reasons we do many of the things we do?” He shook his head. “Think about it. And remember that whatever else we are, all of us bleed the same blood and cry the same tears.”

Rosewater hesitated at the entrance to her own workshop, aware of what she was about to do might be considered ‘interference,’ but fighting with herself over the need to know Rosemary wasn’t going down the same path she had.

Appeasement after appeasement that ultimately led her to become the second most hated mare in Damme, below Roseate herself.

It’s done. You have to deal with the results.

If Rosemary was going to go down the same road, she needed to know. To prepare herself, if nothing else.

She opened the door with a purpose, pretending like her hesitation hadn’t even occurred as she came into the workshop and stopped, glancing at Rosemary working at the main bench, the entrance not even twitching her ears as she stared at the solution swirling about in a small beaker.

Rosewater settled in a little farther down and made a show of preparing her own work for the day, even though she wouldn’t start working with the aromatics. That would ruin Rosemary’s work.

Instead, she started making a shopping list and checking her stocks of certain herbs and oils, and making notes on what she’d have to ask Rosemary for help with for a precise infusion.

Minutes passed while she kept half her attention on Rosemary as she finished her work and poured the white, shimmery liquid into a perfume vial, the measure of what she’d made almost precise, and a waft of it bringing thoughts of sleep to her mind.

Gentle sleep, filled with dreams of more pleasant times.

Not the forced sleep of a capture.

But she couldn’t offer comment. This would fail, and Rosemary would be captured if she tried to pull her target across the bridge like that.

She still has a week. It was what kept her from panicking in that moment. Rosemary would have time to realize her mistake and correct it.

When she was done, and had washed out the beaker and set it on the drying hearth to bake away any residue for another rinse further down the line, Rosemary finally acknowledged her presence.

“I know what I’m doing,” she said.

Rosewater’s heart skipped a beat. “You do.”

“I’m doing this my way.” Rosemary set the perfume bottle on the counter and drew out two more vials, one filled with a glittering, ruby red perfume, the other with an orange that looked as if it weighed more than it should.

Faint essences of wine and a dinner lingered about them, the natural outgassing past the cork that nothing but a glass stopper with a perfect seal could prevent. But glass stoppers were hard to manufacture with the right precision, and had a tendency to fall out far more easily than cork.

“A full course?” Rosewater asked past the lump in her throat.

“Yes. Roseate wants information, not the pony himself. I don’t have to guess who about.” Rosemary met her eyes briefly. “I don’t need to bring the pony. Only what he knows.”

“That—”

“I’m not you.” Rosemary flashed her a brief, apologetic smile. “I can’t hide myself and another pony. I can barely hide myself, and I know it. I have another week if this doesn’t work. If she doesn’t accept it.”

“Very good planning, then.” Rosewater swallowed. It could work. It would make Roseate angry to be run around like that, but it could work very well. Especially if Roseate gave her the chance to try again inside the original time span.

“Thank you.” Rosemary swallowed and pulled her cloak from the hook beside the door. “I’m going tonight.”

Don’t follow me. That’s what she was saying, and Rosewater heard it plain as day. She wouldn’t. It would mean exile for Rosemary at the least, which meant a fight with Roseate so soon after the last duel, and her heart barely recovered.

She swallowed again, the lump in her throat tight and painful.

“Be safe.”

Even as tears appeared in Rosemary’s eyes, she looked about and strengthened the warding on eavesdropping, adding more power to the glyphs until the walls practically hummed with the silence they imposed.

“I love you, mother,” Rosemary whispered.

Rosewater didn’t correct her, didn’t stifle the secret in that moment. Instead, she pulled her close and rested her muzzle atop her adopted daughter’s head, the mare who was as much hers as Carnation’s child.

“I love you,” Rosewater whispered back. “Come back to me.”

“I promise.”

Author's Notes:

Shoot! Almost forgot a note.

Um. So... yeah.

*munches chips* I don't have popcorn right now.

Book 1, 16. Breaking the Law

That Rosemary was going to make a move soon seemed obvious from the reports from Stride. It’d taken her a few days of teasing the bridge guards and playing games with Platinum before she vanished. It was cleverly done, as well, with Rosemary making a remark that she needed to readjust her sleep schedule soon or ponies would get suspicious.

Platinum hadn’t thought anything of it.

The very next night, she had been a ghost, using a finer veil than Stride had seen her use before, and actually using distractions properly. Not scented ones. He’d have blown the whistle on her if she’d even used a hint of perfume on the guard.

Rather, she’d started using cats and mice. It helped that it was the right season for both to be readying for winter, the latter trying to stuff their little bodies with stores for the winter, and the former trying to feast on fat little dumplings.

That not even Stride could tell whether they were mist-faeries or not spoke to Rosemary’s gift with illusions. That he’d learned she was a painter as well made more sense. A little tidbit from Platinum’s glowing reports about the mare. She’d even brought a small postcard painting of herself to give to Platinum.

If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Rosemary was courting the mare.

What if she is?

Collar sighed and stared at the small bundle of reports that were the last few days of Rosewatching. Rosemary’s charade was only a small part of that, but it was also the most active part of it.

They had countermeasures in place, knew who her target was, and had a pony on the watch for her every night.

It helped that she was a terrible infiltrator, but…

That was the thought that made him both relieved and terrified that she was going to buck the trend, that her mission was all a guile-ploy to pull his ponies off-guard and off-center and strike somewhere else. It didn’t matter that it would only work once. What mattered was that it would work.

He sighed and stood, stretching and trying to recall what Cloudy’s schedule was for that day. She was supposed to be visiting Glory later to keep her company. It was less about atonement now, and more… He would hesitate to call it friendship, but Glory wasn’t like the other Rosethorns.

Whether that was because she was playing a long game or showing her genuine self, he didn’t know. It could be somewhere in between and probably was.

But she was proving to be a font of information.

Maybe she would drop a little insight about her cousin.

Glory was reading when they came up the stairs, a book floating in front of her. The title was one he’d grown up studying. Liefdesprincipes Tussen Twee. A curious choice.

She barely looked up to acknowledge their presence as he opened the door and slipped in, letting the silence fall again before she spoke. “You Prims follow a strange and twisted logic to bring yourselves to believe that romantic love can only be between two ponies.” After a moment, her eyes moving across the page, she turned it, placed a bookmark between the pages and set it down.

“I could say the same of the Roses,” Collar said, settling in with Cloudy beside him, her wing settling over his back as she did more and more since his bout with Roseate. “The Tussen Twee has led our customs for four hundred years.”

“As has the Principes van Vrije Liefde done for Merrie,” Glory said with a snort. “Please, Lord Collar. I’ve debated far more in depth with Rosewater over such matters. On both sides.”

“The only surprising part of that is that it is Rosewater,” he said.

“Oh, not openly. Often, at least.” Glory chuckled and patted a hoof on the wooden cover. “How did you think I got my information to her? By shouting it from the rooftops?”

“Of course not. I thought you would have met with her.” He raised an eyebrow. “You can turn yourself invisible, after all.”

“Ah, yes, and sometimes I did. Most times, it was by letter with code words. Occasionally, by dead drop.” Rose Glory shrugged. “We had a system, she and I, of talking from when we were fillies growing up. Roseate, after it became clear she couldn’t fully corrupt Rosewater thanks to her sister’s influences, focused almost solely on Rosary. I was a disappointment, and she largely ignored me.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” It was more than he’d expected to get from her from casual conversation.

“I’ve had a few days to think about my mother using me to falsely bait a trap,” Glory said, showing her teeth. “I’ve decided I’d rather not return home. But I’m also not ready to defect, as I have my lovers in Merrie to consider. Besides.” The grin grew wider. “You might corrupt me with the Tussen Twee like you did my poor, distant cousin.”

Cloudy growled. “I’ve not lost my respect for the Vrije Liefde, Glory. But I also respect the Tussen Twee, and I’ve come to adopt some of their ideas.”

“I do suppose that Primline did have some good ideas that Rosethorn abandoned in pursuit of the ultimate realization of a free love society. Only the purest of adherents will argue seriously for things like a marriage-free society, for example.” Glory said. “But you came here not to debate philosophical points. What purpose brought you here?”

“Rosemary. She’s getting ready to strike,” Collar said, glancing at Cloudy. He’d told her little, save that Rosemary was safe from arrest unless she broke any laws. He’d kept her strictly off Rosemary watch after her little incident with Rosewater.

“And you’re expecting me to land her in your tender hooves?” Glory held an arched brow for a beat, smiled, and shook her head. “Of course you aren’t. You respect my relationship with her too much to expect such, yes?”

That closed off that avenue neatly. He sighed. “She’s going to get caught, Glory. No matter how good she is, she’s going to get caught.”

“Her mentor has never been caught.”

“Her mentor is one of the most terrifying mares I’ve ever met.”

“She is only terrifying to those that endanger that which is most precious to her: family.” Glory slipped from the couch and tapped her chest. “She did what she could to ensure I would be safe. Having me captured? I’m safer here than I would be in Merrie.” She jabbed a hoof at Cloudy. “She cares more for Rosemary than her own life. She has, in fact, given it up for her sake.”

Collar closed his eyes, remembering the bleak look, the barely contained grief. All for Rosemary. Not even for him. For her.

“She’s why Rosewater is still sane.”

“You catch on quick, my lord.” Glory stepped up in front of him, her nose inches from his, her eyes fixed, jaw firm. “And you’re going to take that away from her.”

“She’s going to break our laws,” he said, gently rather than forcefully, and pushed her back. “I can’t allow that, Glory.”

“Then scare her off!” She tramped to the bedroom portion of the cell, paused, and came halfway back. “Stars, she can’t. She won’t be able to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think that mare, who prances across the bridge at night in full view, flirts with your guards—and yes, I have heard the rumors even here—would want to subvert another pony’s will?” Glory’s eyes sparkled briefly before she closed them, tears on her cheeks. “You don’t know her, Lord Collar.”

“In fact… I have a reliable inside source.”

“Who knew her for three years? Four? I’ve known her since she was six, my lord.” Glory’s tail snapped as she turned away again, hesitated, and composed herself with an obvious effort of will. “I apologize, Cloudy. I know you love her dearly. That was crass of me to say.”

“I do love her.” Cloudy took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. “And I’m thankful you’ve shared as much as you have about her early years, Glory. We…” She glanced at Collar and flicked an ear at him. “Need your help.”

“I won’t help you capture her.”

“I know. I won’t be the one to capture her, either.” Cloudy glanced at Collar. “I wish she didn’t have to be, but if she breaks the law, and—”

Glory rolled her eyes. “She’ll have to. She’s got no choice, or she’d be at the bridge hamming it up with some of your guards, and perhaps bringing them snacks.”

Cloudy smiled. “She always wanted to believe the war was already over.”

Collar sat, feeling his heart heavy over what duty compelled him to do. Rosemary didn’t want to be a part of the war. That much was clear, and it made him want to meet her even more. Some part of him hoped he might see a shade of the mare that had had a hoof in raising her and not the scheming, tragic figure sacrificing herself and her pride for a single pony.

“Maybe this will shock her out of her complacence,” he murmured after a long moment. “I know you won’t help us take her, Glory. Do you have any advice on how to make the arrest easier on her?”

“Be gentle. But firm. You’re not her friend, Collar. But you can be.” Glory flicked her ears. “But give some thought to what you’ll say to her. She’ll be panicked, freaking out.”

“Ah. Yes.” Collar shook his head slowly, then leaped back as Glory rushed him, her teeth barely grazing his nose before she sat back down, leaving a ruffle-winged Cloudy staring at her in an equal amount of shock.

“That’s how long you’ll have to think, Lord Collar, before she does something rash.” Glory slunk back to her divan and slumped onto it. “Be kind, my lord, but be prepared to restrain her.”

“Point well taken,” Collar said flatly. “I’ll give it some thought.” He eyed the mare for a moment, thinking about the logical paths a panicked Rosemary would take, considered Glory.

“In fact,” Glory said, watching him right back, “I expect she will be scared when she finds she’s been arrested. I would be willing to be there, if you would permit it my lord, to calm her nerves.”

Almost, he rejected it, then hesitated and raised his brows. “What would you ask in return?”

She snorted and smiled. “All I ask is that you allow me to visit my Poppy outside of this cell. In the palace, if you please. It should be easy to keep secret that I’m there, and it wouldn’t do to let mother know I left my little cage. I give you my word I won’t attempt to escape. I wasn’t lying that I am safer here than in Merrie.”

“Mother is going to strangle me,” Collar said with a resigned sigh. “Fine.” He lowered his head and sat. “I owe Rosewater at least the comfort of knowing her cousin is safe and comfortable here.”

“You must still capture her first, my lord.” Glory smiled sweetly. “She was trained by Rosewater.”

Slipping across the bridge had become something of a routine. Rosemary had learned how to use the smell of fresh fish to lure actual cats to the bridge, purring after a treat that would linger long after she stopped focusing on the smell. Rosewater had told her to vary the approach.

“Never use the same method twice too soon together.”

Owls were also useful, as were furious splashings in the water. Most useful were the clouds and an overcast night.

That night, Rosemary knew would be the night. She didn’t want to be detected at all. Not even by the friends who had come to know her over the past two nights. Platinum had smelled especially nice last night, and had even consented to a gentle peck on the cheek before she parted and passed over the bridge.

The mare wanted more, but was too shy to ask. For now. Like her other mystery Dammeguard mare, Platinum only needed the right encouragements and she would ask. Maybe tomorrow night, if she slipped away from her deed unseen and unnoticed.

She called up a mist-mouse, scented with the fur of a mouse, and lured forth a pair of cats she’d been enticing with the smell of fish all the way from the docks. They weren’t gentle cats, but rough and tough dock and ship cats, used to fighting for their food, already yowling at each other as the mist-mouse scampered ahead and they leapt to the chase.

She followed quickly, knowing the distraction of two cats going after the bit of fish she’d tucked into the center of the mist-mouse wouldn’t last long once they took in the catnip infused mist.

She only hoped the hopped up kitties wouldn’t get too rambunctious.

On cue, the yowling and yelling rose to a fever pitch as the cats caught the mouse, promptly tossed it away, and started dancing in a fevered, catnip fueled frenzy around the legs of two of her friends, Prim Hedge and Prim Star.

The two Dammeguard worked to keep the very real claws away from their legs as the cats sought the high ground in their fight.

Neither set of eyes even came close to her as she slipped past the post and into the night. She went far enough to the west to set off another distraction, calling down a mist owl to perch on the roof of the guardpost and hoot loudly for a few minutes at odd intervals. Both ponies there glanced at it, shrugged, and went back to watching the Merrie side of the bridge. It wasn’t until Rosemary made the bushes rustle and the owl take off that she got them to wander away from their posts to check out the noise.

A mist cat sprang free, yowling, and dashed away from them.

“Mating season,” one of the guards said with a chuckle after they managed to disentangle themselves from the two cats and calm them down enough to pet. “Gonna be a lot of kittens come this winter.”

And then it was on to her target, slipping through now-familiar alleys, shifting and swaying with the clouds above to stay in tune with the movement of the actual shadows on the ground without having to change her veiling’s pattern much.

Frequent checks above her had become a part of her routine, but no wings crossed the moon and no faces or eyes looked down at her.

There was still a feeling of being watched. Rosewater had said it would be an instinct she gained over time, but no matter when she felt it, she couldn’t seem to find anypony watching her, and she couldn’t decide whether or not it was her nerves.

A scrape caught her attention from above, just a bare shiver of sound. She would have ignored it any other night as an owl or other night bird landing.

She froze in place under a broad-leafed magnolia tree, waiting, listening to the sounds of the night, her heart thumping as she waited for a hoot or a call of some bird, or the call of a pony angrily demanding why she was trying to hide.

After a moment, the scrape repeated, and the faintest sound of wings told her it was most likely a night bird.

She sat still and frozen for long minutes more, waiting still. All the while, her ears ticked and twisted to follow every minute sound of the wind rustling the trees or catching against some upper level obstruction and making it hum or rattle as the wind rose and fell above, barely reaching down to the streets below.

More night birds she could see made similar sounds, settling her nerves minutely. Night-hunters didn’t hoot when they were hunting. It hardly made sense to alert prey to the presence of a predator.

At last, she shifted, stepping to the side rather than forward, and looked up to where the sound had come from, having to peer through the leaves. There was nopony staring at her, not even a bird, an owl, or a mouse. Just the dark of the sky speckled with stars and the silver glow of the moon reflecting off dark stone. She hadn’t used her tincture this time since she was expecting to enter the old stallion’s home.

She shivered and reconsidered, not for the first time, the wisdom of doing what she was about to do. She’d never enticed a pony to do what they would not otherwise want. She had only enticed openly, with scent and sight, as an invitation to take what she offered with a promise of more.

Deceiving with her scents would be new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. Before, she had only used her scents to tell what she wanted in more ways than she could with voice and body. It was a second language to her, and not one that lent itself to lying.

It was the fatal flaw to all of Roseate’s and her cousin’s lusts and lures.

They were lies.

The power of scent magic lay in the truth it could offer. Rosewater had taught her that. Nothing Rosewater made had a hint of falsity to it, and she had taught Rosemary that nothing of scent should be false. Even disguises, she’d said, should lie through truth. A mist-mouse could be made to look and act like a real mouse with enough observation and care, but if she tried to make it smell like a dog, it would quickly be found out.

Which was why she was going to offer the smells of foods she had actually baked and captured the essences of, of wines she had distilled to a perfection of smell to capture the purest essence of what wine was to both palette and nostril.

And dreams of the past distilled into white mist.

Fail, and you will be exiled.

Rosemary closed her eyes, gathered what little scraps of courage she had left, and stepped briefly from shadow to the brighter shade between two streetlights and made her way to the alleyway she had made her outpost for the past week of observation and contemplation.

Prim Cottage had told his friends last night that he would be alone, and intended to spend the night catching up on his reading. A new book, he’d said.

It will still be there tomorrow, night, Cottage, she thought as she settled in, shifting her dappled shadow veil to make her blend even more into the stone at her side and underneath her. She tried, for a moment, to stretch the shadows to form a bubble around her, as Rosewater could do, but the effort of bending the mists that much gave her a headache, and Rose Glory hadn’t been able to explain how she did it so well.

No matter. She was familiar enough with the ground that she could become effectively invisible. Until she had to get up to go talk to the old stallion once he came out, looking for the pony he wanted to invite in and share such a fine meal with. He would have the ingredients for her to actually cook it and make her feel better about the deception part of her plan, but the wine, she would have to give up some other time.

Stop stalling.

He was right there in his sitting room where he always entertained his friends, a book propped up on one flank while he twitched his ear.

She swallowed and pulled free the two vials, veiling them as she did so. She unstoppered the first and drew out a bit of the orange liquid. It hovered in front of her, smelling of a delicious roast carrot meal still despite being on its last day of purity. The wine tried to fizz out again, and she barely managed to catch it before it rose into the air. She let all but a little trace of it dissipate into the air. She didn’t want to loosen his thoughts yet, only enough to let in the suggestion of friendship she bound into the rest with a trickle more power, focusing on how much she wanted to get to know him.

The orange atomized and tried to sink immediately as the magic flowed into it, but the spot of red fizzing at its center kept the fog of vapor aloft as it gradually lost its color, mixing with the ambient air just enough to make it less overpowering and more inviting.

She sent a tendril towards the window and the crack she knew would be there, the same crack she’d drawn the scents of spices the second night of observation.

The tendril flowed against the window’s edge, and stopped.

She frowned, tipping her head to the side and tried a different crack. Also sealed.

They had been the avenue through which she’d exfiltrated the sounds from inside with extra clarity.

A chill wind shivered down the alleyway, tugging her veiled cloak before it subsided. The tendril evaporated in the wind, and she sighed. He must have sealed against winter with it coming on.

Another thing she’d not accounted for. Old ponies would be more careful about heat loss, especially in their most favorite rooms to sit and read. Rosewater was going to chide her for that.

Such a simple detail.

More precious wine essence fizzed into the air along with more carrot. She considered the house while she combined the two again, finding ease in it at the second attempt. She wanted to get to know this old stallion for real. He could tell her a lot about the Lord Collar that Rosewater had fought both for and against.

She shifted her attention to the chimney billowing a wispy white cloud of smoke that drifted on a fitful wind, rising almost vertically up to a ceiling where it faded into the night sky and drifted away. The heat of the fireplace might destroy the scents, unless she folded them into a solid bubble of outside air and let them in, a daunting task. Her skills were being tested already pushing scents so far from her.

But the flue… She didn’t know how the flue looked or how it was constructed.

She resisted the urge to growl and stared at the door. It wouldn’t be sealed nearly as well as a window that never opened, but it would be refreshed more often because of it. She could break the wax, but that would also alert him before she could get the scent back inside.

For a moment, she considered trying to emulate heat to melt the wax, which would be quieter, but her goal tonight wasn’t to leave evidence of her being there. She wanted only to start a conversation with a pony lulled into believing she was a friend before sending him to a gentle sleep where she was only a dream by morning’s dawning.

Or give it up for tonight and plan again for tomorrow. Perhaps a tubule she could insert past the wax to send the scents through. She knew where the cracks were. As long as she made sure it was flexible and hard enough to penetrate the wax and go around the barrier, it would work.

An echoing pop sounded behind her in the instant before a silver dome snapped into existence around her, glowing with cold gray light. The surface shimmered twice more before the shock wore off and realization snapped.

Caught.

She leaped to her hooves and dashed at the edge, turning at the last moment to throw her weight against the dome before it could fully form.

It stopped her shoulder cold, flexing only slightly. She’d waited too long. She lashed out a hind hoof with all her might, but the silver curvature deflected her kick and sent her sprawling.

She plied her horn against it from where she lay, focusing a surge of magic against the point. The shield rippled where her horn touched as she pushed magic against it, and flowed as it absorbed the blow without breaking.

She focused her magic for a teleport, but as soon as she gathered the power, the spell wavered and fell apart, distorted by the dome.

Nonono!

Caught. Caught. Caught. It rolled through her with every heartbeat, faster and faster. Her mother’s face, wracked with anguish tugged at her. Come back to me.

A hoof stepped through, followed by a pony she’d only seen at a distance, recognizable for his stature, his surety, and his bronze coat and golden mane.

Her coat tried to stand on end. All thoughts of actual escape or trying to bluff her way out shattered as she caught the stern look he leveled at her.

She could try to—

Silver manacles folded around her legs, just above the ankle, as if she’d telegraphed her plan to rush him to surprise him and startle him enough to drop the spells.

She swallowed and met his gaze, then looked away from the disappointment she saw there. Of course he’d been watching her. No doubt Cloudy had been watching her and keeping tabs on her. The thought made her heart ache. She wouldn’t even get to see Cloudy if she got captured. She’d be jailed and left alone aside from her jailor and possibly Collar for interrogation.

If there was a way out, she couldn’t see it.

“Rosemary,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Please give yourself up. I truly don’t want to do this, but you’ve broken our laws. Blatantly.”

The two vials of perfume she’d managed to hold onto trembled in her magic, the corks firmly stoppered. A quick glance at them, then back at him, and she got an idea.

The third. “M-my lord,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she lowered the two vials and tried to draw out the third covertly with another spell. “I-I had no choice.” She tried to work free one of the corks, obviously doing so. “I-I didn’t want to meet you this way.”

“Rosemary, don’t try it,” Collar growled, stepping closer and taking over her hold on the two vials without any apparent effort on his part. He tucked them into his saddlebag. Evidence of her crimes.

“T-try what?” Her teeth chattered as she eased the cork on the Ivory Dreams vial. It made a pop as she pulled it free and she tried to draw a few droplets free.

His eyes narrowed and never left hers as he started what sounded like a rehearsed speech, “You’re under arrest for attempted subversion of will by use of scent magic. Anything you say or do will be added to the—”

She was under arrest, and she couldn’t beat him. There was no way she could possibly beat him. She swallowed hard and pulled out the third vial, a distraction for him while she held the three droplets in suspension. “L-let me go. I-I don’t…” She swallowed again as he took the vial from her without any effort yet again.

But while his attention was on the last of her defenses, she atomized the three droplets and pushed magic into the cloud, making it glow in the shield and drew his sharp attention again.

“Rosemary,” Collar warned as she brought the glowing mist between them like a shield. A flimsy shield that he could brush away with a thought. “Don’t try it. You can’t win like this. Don’t make things harder for yourself.”

She gave him a small smile, shaking as she darted a look from him to the cloud of pearly white mist. If she did it, she would have no control over what happened to her. Not even to speak. It would be worse than surrender.

But then she wouldn’t need to look at the disappointment in Captain Pink’s eyes. She wouldn’t need to see Platinum’s look of betrayal after learning what she’d done.

A sob choked her as she pulled it closer to her. She didn’t want to face that. She wasn’t strong enough to watch friends lose their trust in her.

“Rosemary, what are you doing?” A note of panic entered his voice and a swipe of a spell cut away half of the cloud as she drew it closer and leaned forward to take in the gentle scent of clean linen and fragrant hyacinth soap.

Immediately, her eyes felt heavy even just from the first scent of so little. Sweet dreams would be better than being marched through Damme as a criminal. She was too cowardly to face that, to face Platinum’s accusatory glower, Pink’s disappointed shake of her head. The images started following her down into darkness.

“Sorry,” she whispered as the world started to fade away. “I’m sorry.” Mother, stay safe.

Everything else was lost as the world tilted crazily and the darkness caught her in a silver glow.

The last thing she saw before sweeter dreams took over her was Collar’s fearful, shocked expression as he loomed over her, his lips moving as he asked, “What did you do?”

I gave up.

Rosewater sat in her perfumery, staring at the vial she’d been meaning to save until Rosemary’s twenty-first birthday. It swirled on its own, seemingly alive in the bottle as swirls of pink and gold danced with the promise of coming alive with little more than a touch of magic.

She’d been working for the last year to distill the other side of her feelings into this. Love, and not the heart-pounding lust of a promise of mating. A mother’s love for her daughter. Slower, gentler, sometimes fierce, often buoyant and soaring with pride.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” she asked the empty room, her voice hoarse from sobbing. The answer, of course, was the despair. The certainty that she wouldn’t see Rosemary again. It was the stars-cursed spell she’d used against Roesate.

She’d never before pulled up so much raw emotional magic in one pool before. Even the perfume she’d made for her fight against Roseate had been dribbled out over days and distilled, refined into the purest raw fear she could make.

This had leaked out like a broken bucket.

Beside the vial was a small stack of letters, one of them exuding the faint fragrance of the perfume. It would hardly do, in a normal covert message, to provide the key with the invisible ink. In this case…

She started to fold the letter into its envelope, her heart breaking over what it would mean, but helpless to keep herself from the certainty that she was going to lose Rosemary.

Preparing for it, at least, gave her some control over the situation. Otherwise, she’d be at the estate, gnawing her hooves to nubs and worrying about what she couldn’t change. This way…

“I’m trying, Carnation,” Rosewater whispered, her eyes tearing up again as her beloved Carnation’s last words to her replayed in her mind.

‘Keep her safe, love. Keep yourself safe.’

Temptation rose again to unstopper the bottle of Mother’s Kiss and remember again the only mother that had meant anything to her. The mare who’d later become more…

She wanted to remember Carnation’s voice anew, to sink into the past and forget the fears of now.

For a moment, she studied the bottle, the silver filigree inlaid into the glass marked with Rosewater’s and Carnation’s cutie marks on either side of the bottle. On the cap, a glass stopper held in place with a simple latch, Rosemary’s cutie mark decorated the stem.

This was for Rosemary. She had some left from the original batch, sealed in her own vial of enchanted silver and glass, keeping the spells that swirled through the pink and gold alive and strong, waiting for a further infusion of the right spell to bring it fully alive with memories so real it was like living them again.

That vial was waiting for her at home.

She slipped the gift for Rosemary and the three letters into her saddlebags.

She hoped she didn’t need them.

Fear said she would.

Author's Notes:

The original version of this chapter had a lot more of the preparations Collar had made in advance of Rosemary making her move, but I decided to cut that out since it didn't really tell more than I could say otherwise in a more concise scene or through context clues.

The interview with Glory was also different, occurring from outside the cage and its silencing wards, now moved inside so they can speak more freely.

I've also gotten ahead on my editing! A large part of the change debt has now been paid, and I can focus more on cleaning up dialogue and story rather than making new from almost whole cloth.

Also, the next two chapters came in at over 8,000 words apiece, so I'm cutting them in half. Part 1 and Part 2, but fear not! The chapters will be posted as they were whole, so double chapters for the next two weeks, but shorter. I know long chapters can be sometimes harder to get through in one quick sitting, so I'm trying this out to see if it works.

Let me know if it does, and thank you for reading. (Posted one day early)

Book 1, 17. Arrested, Part 1

His first, surreal thought, as he cradled Rosemary’s limp form in his magic was, She’s smaller than I thought she’d be.

His next was less thought and more reaction as he called upon the limited medical training he had to cast a spell to check her pulse, slow and steady, as if she’d been sent into a dream, and her breathing was slow… too slow for a mare who’d been panicking moments before.

Whatever she’d taken wasn’t agreeing with her, and all he could hope for was that Glory would be able to counteract whatever it was.

He dropped the shield and pulled in power, fixing into place the destination and expanding the spell to take himself and Rosemary with him.

It was a good thing he hadn’t done much else before preparing to settle in for a watch at the palace gates, waiting to see if this was the night Stride would come calling.

He popped out, leaving a startled looking old Stallion Cottage with his face pressed to his window, and reappeared on the steps of Prim Palace, between two very startled guards and almost on top of a panting Stride.

“Get Poppy,” he snapped. “Get him now.” He waited until Stride was just barely gone from sight before he turned his attention back to Rosemary. “Come on, calm down. Let it go,” he whispered into her ear, hoping she was still aware enough to hear him. “I’m not going to harm you.” If she was conscious, she gave no sign of it. She was either asleep, and a deeper sleep than he would have believed possible with all the jostling, or simply unconscious.

He tried to recall if she’d struck her head on her way down, but the blur of panic and fear as she’d fallen wouldn’t let him recall the moment he’d caught her clearly. Only that barely whispered ‘I’m sorry.’

He could barely bring himself to look up as he heard the voice he’d been afraid of hearing rising in a panicked gasp.

“Cloudy,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I tried to take her gently. She… she did something and collapsed.”

Her eyes were wet and shining as she took a halting step forward, ears flat, hoof raised to reach out and stroke the soft blonde mane spilling against the stairs. A moment later, her expression firmed and she fixed him with a look. “What did she do?”

“I think she was going to attack me, then she took the scent to herself and inhaled it.” Collar related what he’d seen of her collapsing, how he’d caught her, and how she’d fought to open her eyes one last time… and apologize.

Cloudy ruffled her wings. “I know who we have to consult. Keep her safe, Collar. We don’t know who else is out there.” Before he could stop her, she’d pulled out her whistle and blown a quick trill, then a longer shrilling tone. ‘Gather, but no immediate danger.’

He sighed as the distant whistle signal was repeated again and again, spreading to the barracks until a flurry of activity had drawn them in. It made sense. If Rosemary hadn’t been the only infiltrator, whomever else had come over would find him with only a few palace guards on the front steps.

It would be bold, but Roseate had proven she could be more than bold. Reckless, even.

Cloudy hesitated, staring down at the sleeping beauty Collar kept cradled close and safe, her eyes darting from her eyes to her breast and the heart mark there, then to him. Her breathing came more raggedly before she shook her head and darted down the stairs and towards the prison, visible as a dark, low lump in the night.

She’d gone for the pony who could cure Rosemary tonight, if there were any who could on this side of the river. It was the right call, but it was also a call that he wasn’t sure he would have made so soon after making the deal with Glory.

More, the whistle had drawn a cordon of ponies who donned scent-masks and faced out from the palace steps while a sandy-coated pony without one dashed up with his well-used medic bag, followed by Stride himself, hanging back at the cordon, suddenly uncertain, his eyes locked on Rosemary.

“My lord,” Poppy said without preamble, shooing him away with little more introduction before placing his cheek and ear to her breast, eyes closed as he wove spells about her. Slender tendrils touched her here and there at joints and pressure points, soon pulsing with what seemed like her own pulse.

Collar stood and stepped down to meet with Stride.

“My lord, she fought?”

“No.” Collar shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know what she did exactly, but you did well to fetch me immediately. I only hope she didn’t harm herself in the process.”

Stride swallowed. “Would she have fought you?”

Collar thought back to the shaking, scared mare who’d still had the guile to distract him with a false threat. “No. She is not a fighter, Stride. She is a lover.”

Stride glanced around at the ears listening, nodded, and said, “I’ll return to the air, my lord.”

Leaving him with a ring of guards focused on keeping the palace and a vulnerable young mare safe.

“My lord,” Poppy called.

Collar jerked himself out of his fears and trotted back up the few steps to where Rosemary was resting gently on one step. “What is it?”

“She’s sound asleep, but nothing I’ve tried to wake her has worked. She moves away from smelling salts, but she doesn’t wake.”

“Poppy, she’s a Rosethorn. Of course she would move away from smelling salts.” Collar settled to the step again, looking down at this strange mare who wouldn’t fight, but would attempt to abduct one of his oldest friends. “Rosemary?”

“She’s asleep, my lord, not faking it,” Poppy said with a sigh, packing his things back into his bag. “She has no concussion, nor is she drugged in any way that I know. She does show the signs of a magical sleep that we’ve seen the Rosethorns employ from time to time.”

“Can you wake her?”

“No, my lord. I’ve not the skill to break through their spellwork without harming her.” Poppy rose and settled a telekinetic bed underneath her, raising the slumbering mare with a full support. “We should take her to the prison and get her into a bed. She’ll need to sleep it off.”

Collar hesitated, then shook his head. “No.” He cocked his head, then nodded. “Take her to the Clothier’s suite and get her settled in, please.”

Poppy stared at him, blinking, then nodded. “As you say, my lord.”

He left, leaving Collar standing there on the steps, watching the prison and wondering just how Glory was going to trick the guards into believing she was still in her cell… or if she would even try. Maybe it would be best to show some favor…

Except no. Glory didn’t want her mother to know she might be wavering away from the Rosethorn line to his. Or to Poppy’s. It would at once paint a target on her lovers in Merrie and a bigger one on Poppy. He wasn’t exactly their best guard, and he couldn’t bring himself to go the extra step of forcefulness to arrest somepony.

But he’d volunteered for guard duty all the same.

Now he knew why, and getting to know Glory, he couldn’t blame either of them.

Collar closed his eyes and listened to the rustle and muttering around him, pushing away the ache still in his horn from a double-teleport, effectively a triple, in only the span of a minute.

He opened his eyes again as he heard a hail and response from Cloudy as she trotted up to the cordon and then passed through it and into the palace without more than a glance at him and an arched brow.

She had Glory, then.

“Double guard on the prison,” Collar called out. “And double on the palace for tonight. The rest of you, bolster the patrols for another hour. Those on duty for tonight, return to your duties afterwards. Those of you not, return to your beds and report to Captain Pink for assignments tomorrow morning.”

He found the suite abuzz with activity when he entered, Cloudy resting on the bed beside her lover, lips in a firm line as she stroked the mare’s blonde mane slowly, the shaking of her hoof the only outward sign of her nerves.

On the other side of the bed, Glory used a spell to quickly dry out some flower petals she’d snatched from someplace and raided Poppy’s medical bag for a bottle of spirits that she eyed suspiciously before replacing it and drawing out another.

“What do you need, Glory?” Collar asked quietly.

“Silence,” Glory snapped, drawing out more items from the bag, then up at him again. “Silence, my lord. On the room.”

The room wasn’t one of those enhanced with gemstone and gold to hold the spell more easily. He sighed, nodded, and pushed magic through his horn, wincing as the silver barrier pressed against the walls, then settled in as the wood, stone, and cloth drank up the magic and obeyed his will to remain silent.

“I need spirits, but not the kind used to disinfect. The stronger, the better.” Glory inspected the bottle of smelling salts, pursing her lips, then replaced it. “And some citrus.”

Collar shared a look with Cloudy, and she nodded, her jaw tight.

“Poppy, do as she asks.”

When he was gone, Cloudy murmured, “Thank you, Collar.” Her hoof never stopped moving slowly over Rosemary’s mane, and her eyes only darted to him and back to her sleeping visage occasionally. It was as if she were trying to decide whether to tell him something or not.

“Cloudy,” Glory murmured as she inspected the petals, “tell him. You’ve been away from Merrie for two years. Don’t let that absence take away your understanding of propriety.”

“He knows already,” Cloudy said. “I love her. I never stopped loving her.”

“Good.” Glory looked up briefly, her eyes locked on Collar’s. “The question is, now that she’s here, and you can see that love, my lord, what will you do?”

“This is hardly the time,” Cloudy growled.

“This is exactly the time,” Glory shot back. “I care for her, Cloudy, and I like you. The earlier you deal with how you’re going to handle the clash between Tussen Twee and Principes, the better. Don’t let her get hurt. She’s a prisoner now. She has no power to determine her course.”

“I disagree,” Collar said gently. “She has a great deal of power on how to determine her course. If she helps us to capture Rosewater—”

Glory barked a laugh.

“What?”

“My lord, you have a lot to learn about Rosemary and Rosewater.” Glory shook her head slowly and glanced at Cloudy. “As do you.”

“I’m already planning to tell her myself that Rosemary is under arrest.”

“May I suggest you wait for her to wake?” Glory asked, inspecting the small bowl of petals now looking as dried as if they’d spent a winter drying. “This won’t be the best. I’d much rather have naturally dried petals, but needs must.”

“What are you making?” Collar asked, aware suddenly that he was condoning scent magic. He would have to destroy the mess before Lace found out. But he was also certain this was the right path to take.

“A general counter to sleeping scents. It won’t be as good as a custom-made counter, but it should wake her up enough to answer questions.” Glory eyed him briefly, then returned to her perusal of Poppy’s bag. “He used to keep a tincture of rosehips in here…”

Collar’s brows rose almost to his forelock. “Just how close are you?”

“My lord, were it not for this damnable war, I’d be courting him openly and likely carrying his foal by now.” Glory sniffed and tossed her mane. “Honestly. What was that stallion thinking?”

“What was he thinking?” Collar growled, rolling his eyes and checking out the door to see where Poppy was. Out of sight, but he could hear shouts and calls that would be waking his parents and the rest of the castle staff before long. “Hurry up.”

As if his imprecation were a summoning, he caught sight of his mother’s tall figure across the palace, the straight lines of the construction letting him see her before she could see him as she talked to one of the guards.

He ducked back just in time to avoid her sight and glanced at Glory. “I apologize.”

Glory rolled her eyes. “It was my choice to listen to Cloudy’s request. I’m more worried about the fallout for you. After all, all she can do to me is extend my sentence.”

A moment later, Poppy slipped back inside with a bottle of Lace’s private stock of liquor, and he gave Collar a meaningful look as he displayed it, trusting he would know from whence and from whom it’d come from.

If he’d been hoping that his mother wouldn’t learn of his exploits until morning, they ended there. It did give him hope that she would be gentle in her reproof. All he could do was wait and keep Glory as secret from the rest of the palace as possible.

In the meantime, he rose and made his way around the bed to settle in beside Cloudy, resting against her while she both leaned against him and moved her hoof to settle in against Rosemary’s back while Glory and Poppy worked together to make scent magic.

If Glory was going to betray his trust…

“I trust her,” Cloudy whispered against his cheek.

Collar relaxed minutely. I trust you, Cloudy.

A cool compress over her eyes was the first sensation to filter up past the numbing fear of a dreamless dark. Light filtered in, red and fuzzy, and a hoof stroked her barrel slowly, gentle as a whisper. A familiar feminine scent wafted past her nose as she took a deeper breath, somepony she loved.

A tickle of an inkling percolated up from the darkness, then popped as awareness began to fill her, starting most immediately with the pain behind her eyes and the throbbing at her temples. She was under unscented sheets, freshly laundered with a hint of the washerpony left behind, and a very faint smell of roses wafting up past her nose as she shifted and a hint of citrus.

“Mother?” she tried to ask, and choked on it as phlegm caught in her throat.

The hoof left her barrel immediately, and hooves skittered across carpet, then stone before a door opened and slammed shut.

The familiar scent left with the skittering hooves. Memories started to bubble up, of the alleyway, the silver bubble, panic, and her decision.

She struggled with the sheets, kicking and thrashing with her uppermost hind leg until she was able to get some purchase, and threw them off just as the rag slid from her eyes to show the Prim quill and scroll hanging over a door, and a stallion sitting by it jerking himself awake. He wasn’t a very impressive specimen, but his cutie mark, a rolled bandage opposite a quill marked him as a pony versed in medical arts.

The sight of the pony beside him, Glory, stilled her worry for a second. She licked her lips as both ponies rose from where they’d been curled up together.

A glance at the window and its opulent window treatment told her it was still late at night, and unless she’d slept a whole day--and there hadn’t been enough Ivory Dreams to do that.

She blinked as Glory yawned and blinked sleepily at her, then kissed the medic lightly on the cheek. That was a level of familiarity there that belied the obvious Prim heritage he had.

If Glory was there, she could have brewed something to wake her up… if she had permission.

Rosemary licked her lips and glanced at the window again, then at the door—one of three doors in the room. She sniffed the air delicately, drawing on her heritage, and identified one of the rooms as a bathroom. The other smelled like… books. Lots of books.

She remembered Collar telling her she was under arrest, so she had to assume that held true even if she wasn’t in prison.

“Lay down, Rosemary,” Glory said through a yawn as she pushed herself up. “You’re going to have a hangover come morning, so take it easy.”

“I’m under arrest.”

“Sadly, yes. Though it doesn’t look like we’re going to be prison buddies.”

The medic gave her an exasperated look and pushed himself up. “I’m Prim Poppy, Corps Medic of the Dammeguard. You are, in fact, under arrest, but I will let Lord Collar explain the circumstances.”

The circumstances appeared to include a suite that was more fancifully appointed than her own room in Rosewater’s Rosefire Estate. Rosemary pushed herself up, her hooves sinking into the soft bed as the world spun around her.

“No, no. Please, Rosemary. You may not be hurt, but you went through quite an ordeal.” The pony’s horn lit with a blue-green magic that held her gently at bay. “Er… the pony who was on watch went to get Lord Collar. He should be along—”

Rosemary sank back down, her vision swimming. “Wh-what?”

“Improvised Lucid Lemon,” Glory said with a thin smile and a wink. “Though that’s a secret. You’re really just especially hardy against Ivory Dreams.”

“But—”

Glory winked more deliberately, and she got it, then. She’d done it with Collar’s approval, but not while Collar had been there, and it was a secret to everypony but the ones in the room.

“Poppy, is she awake yet?”

“She is, my lord,” Poppy called back, holding a hoof up to his lips as he glanced at Rosemary. “She is a bit dizzy, as expected from the smelling salts.”

Rosemary’s brows rose as she stared at him, then at Glory, and took in the scents in the room again, her rosethorn marks glowing bright enough to cast light on her eyes. Unicorn stallion.

Pegasus mare.

Her heart skipped a beat as the door opened. She would know and remember that scent anywhere she found it. Cloudy Rosewing.

After two years, she was just on the other side of the doorway, standing there with her wings halfway arched as if she wanted to take off, either to flee or to rush toward her.

Rosemary didn’t give her that chance.

She was off the bed before any of her jailors could move to stop her, heading for the door, but Cloudy’s panicked look stopped her in her tracks, barely halfway there. “Cloudy?” She whispered, swaying as her blood rush caught up to her.

Silver light surrounded her, lifting her back to the bed as Collar advanced on her and glanced behind him to Cloudy, still trembling on the edge of flight.

“Lieutenant, please inform my mother that the prisoner has woken up,” he said, his voice that same gentle, firm tone he’d used on her.

Orders. Rosemary swallowed and watched as Cloudy struggled with herself, then nodded and offered a shaky salute, her tail flicking and her ears flat before she turned, halted, and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry,’ before she dashed off.

Collar closed the door behind himself and sealed the room against sound. “Lady Rosemary.”

Glory stood up and interposed herself between Collar and Rosemary. “My lord. You accepted my assistance to wake her. Please accept my assistance in treating with her at least this first time. She’s scared. She’s in shock.”

“It’s alright, Glory,” Rosemary murmured, pressing a hoof to her swimming head. More than simply dizziness. Cloudy was so close. She could smell the lingering fragrance of her shampoo in the air. That had always been her favorite. “I just need—”

I need Cloudy.

Glory was on the bed when the first sobs hit her, cheek pressed against her neck, gentle coos and whispers filling her ears as a close and warm body settled in, reminding her she wasn’t alone, she had ponies who loved her close by.

I need mother.

She gasped and clenched her teeth against the ache in her heart. Rosewater needed her and she’d failed her. Captured. Arrested even after trying to do things her way and not Roseate’s way.

“I hate to break in,” Collar said, his voice almost timid as he sat and leaned against the bed, looking away. “But I need to have you write something for me to your cousin. Before the sun rises.”

“Not now,” Glory growled. “That can wait.”

Cloudy hesitated at the door to Lace’s study, the bleary-eyed guard on the side waving her in and swaying in place.

She had no excuse not to follow orders. She wanted to flee, to think, to… make her abandonment of Rosemary all the more obvious. She could have found the mare that day, talked to her, told her something. Instead… she’d fled Roseate’s goons before they could arrest her for revealing her secret mission.

There was no other way they could have been there. They’d known she tried to alert Rosemary that she was going to flee.

Cloudy pulled herself back and pushed open the door to find Lace seated at her desk, a glass of dark liquor rotating slowly as she stared into it, another glass settled in front of one of the chairs.

“Sit.” Lace waved her glass at the chair. “Please. I can’t imagine how much tonight has hurt you.”

“My lady?”

“Lace, tonight, my dear.”

She sat, uncertainty numbing her emotions as she cradled the glass of dark whiskey and sniffed it. Undercurrents of nutty flavor swirled up to her, and she took a sip. Heat coursed down her throat and began filling her belly.

“Rosemary was always going to be captured,” Lace said gently. “She was always going to be assigned something that would force her to break our laws. Roseate does not play gently.”

“I know.” It didn’t help the ache in her heart. She raised the glass for another sip, hesitated, then set the glass back on the desk. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“I imagine my son will ask me to leave her in the Clothier’s suite,” Lace said with a slight smile. “And I imagine he will also ask that you be given visitation rights.”

Cloudy sat there, staring into the gently rocking liquid on the desk. “Will you approve his requests?”

“If he asks, I will.” Lace took a sip of her whiskey and set it down. “You, on the other hoof…”

“Me?”

“You. You’re in love with her, Cloudy, but even I can tell you’re still hung up over the way you left her.” Lace’s ears ticked back briefly, and her voice softened. “Will you leave my son for her?”

“No!” Cloudy was glad she’d set the glass down, the way her legs shook. “How can you ask that?”

“I ask because I must ask, Cloudy. I must ask, because I must know to plan for the future.” Lace’s mask dropped at last as she settled more heavily in her chair, the ache of being a ruler visible in her eyes as she met Cloudy’s. “You have put me in quite the situation. You love them both, and you have made your intentions quite clear where Collar is concerned.”

“My…” I want to marry Rosemary.

As if she’d heard the thought, Lace inclined her head. “Thus, you’ve left me in quite the pickle. While polyamorous marriages are legal in Damme, thanks to the familial exclusion section of the Treaty, such a union for the heir would need popular support to retain any power among the nobility.”

“Wait. Wait. I thought Frosty’s Law prevented that from happening.” Cloudy shook her head, ears flicking. “I’ve read the law so many times, my lady. I have to—” Her voice choked off.

“Choose?” Lace shook her head slowly. “You’ve read Damme law. Treaty law allows for families to migrate from Merrie to Damme and vice-versa. Nowhere in the law does it say where the family has to start.”

“That’s a very loose interpretation of the law,” Cloudy growled. “You know that’s going to be challenged, don’t you?”

“It may be,” Lace agreed with a thin smile. “But I am willing to take that chance if Collar is.”

“Why?”

“Because I have only ever wanted happiness for him. It was his misfortune to be born into a family that requires duty to maintain the greatest amount of happiness for our ponies.” Lace sipped at her glass again and grimaced, then set it down again. “It would be easier for him if he’d been born a common pony.”

“Easier.”

“Easier.” Lace smiled thinly and shook her head. “But that’s not what’s in store for him. His path is… I can’t plan for all of what may come, but I know things, Cloudy, and I’ve done what I can to ensure that there are openings and options for the future.”

“Such as?” Cloudy stared at the glass in front of her.

“Cloudy, I will not spell it out for you. You already know what option is open to you.” Lace clucked her tongue and downed her glass. “It’s likewise up to you to follow through with it.”

And teach Collar more about the Principes. Cloudy swallowed. “He barely knows her.”

Lace chuckled, her eyes twinkling. “Just like he barely knew a plucky, scared mare both defiant and terrified of what crossing the bridge meant for her future.”

Cloudy stared at her for a long moment, then chuckled and downed the last of her whiskey. “They say the second mate is the hardest to accept.”

Lace’s eyes glittered. “They say that, hm?”

Cloudy furrowed her brow and stared at Lace for a long moment, then shook her head and set the glass down. “My lady, Rosemary is awake. That’s what I was supposed to come tell you.”

“I’ll be along shortly. Please see to her comfort, Cloudy.”

Author's Notes:

This chapter was nearly 9,000 words long. For the sake of those that don't like longer chapters, I split this one in two, and am posting both parts at the same time.

Updates have also moved to Saturdays. It's less hectic for me to remember to do it then (and I have a 3 chapter backlog)

Book 1, 18. Arrested, Part 2

Watching Rosemary in Glory’s embrace told him more about both mares than he thought should have been possible from a simple meeting. Glory acted more like an aunt than a cousin, taking the reins of guiding Rosemary back to coherence and away from whatever pain was making her curl up into a ball on the bed.

Simply being arrested shouldn’t cause that much anguish, but…

Collar closed his eyes and tried to block out the short breaths and pained whimpers. She was trying so hard not to cry it hurt him to listen to it, but whenever she raised her head to try and face him, her jaw trembled, and Glory pulled her back down, tucking her head in against her breast and holding her.

The family dynamics of the Rosethorn clan were more complicated than Glory had made it seem.

“Glory, love,” Poppy murmured from the side, “is there anything I can do to help?”

Rosemary’s head came up briefly to look Glory, then Poppy in the eye. “Wh-what?”

“We’re mates,” Glory murmured gently, nipping the back of her ear. “My Poppy and I.”

“But—” Rosemary sniffled and swallowed, then pushed herself up, ears flat. “M-my lord. I’ve been rude.”

“You’ve been distressed,” Collar said gently. “Could you tell me what has you so upset?” He knew already, or thought he did.

“C-can…” Rosemary swallowed again and nosed Glory’s neck gently. “Let me up, Glory.”

“Not until you call me auntie Glory,” she said, chuckling and nipping the back of Rosemary’s ear. A moment later, she winked at Collar, giving away the joke and how plainly written his thoughts must have been on his face.

“I am not calling you that.” Rosemary took a breath that hitched in the middle and nosed the older mare gently. “Let me up, please.”

“Are you sure?” The false levity faded as Glory pushed herself up to look down on the smaller mare. “Rosemary, if you need to go back to sleep…”

“No. I-I need to… my lord, I have no right to ask a favor, but I need to.” Rosemary swallowed and pushed herself up on trembling forelegs, then slipped to the floor, flexing her hind legs and shaking out her fore. Her jaw was still tight, but her eyes fixated on Collar firmly. “Could you please let Rosewater know that I’ve been captured? Tonight, if possible.”

“She’s already returned to her home for the night,” Collar said gently. “She stayed late at the perfumery.”

“So she wouldn’t be tempted to follow me,” Rosemary whispered, swallowing again. “She knew… she knew I might fail.” Her jaw firmed again, but it wasn’t the beginnings of another bout of sobs. Instead, she faced him directly. “Will you do it, my lord?”

“I was actually going to ask you to write the letter, Rosemary,” he said with a faint smile and nodded to the bed stand where a tray with an ink pot and scroll sat, a crow’s feather quill resting beside it. “It would mean more in your hoof than in mine.”

Cloudy Rose paced back and forth outside, her wings rustling as she stared at the door, waiting for some glimpse of Rosemary again. Awake, this time, and not merely a catatonic pony who looked, smelled, and felt like the lover and friend she’d known for two years. She was still beautiful, innocent in sleep, and smelling faintly of the roses she always smelled like for days after working in her apothecary or her cannery.

The cannery had been her favorite days to see Rosemary, to taste the sweet sugar and savory spices she used in her fruit jams on her lips and tongue, and especially her rose jams.

Then to spend the day wandering and talking about everything from the latest play by Roseby, or the match between the Vineyard Polears and the Greenhouse Rosetears. To read with her into the night, reciting favorite bits of verse and discussing them until one verse or another touched off Rosemary or Cloudy and they would find each other bound together for an evening’s bliss.

But those days might never come back. What she’d done to her, leaving her was unforgivable. She could have endured Roseate’s machinations a little longer, to plan something a little more robust. But one request had pushed her over the limit.

Use your connection with Rosemary to gain entry to Rosewater’s house. Do this, and you will be rewarded.

Use my love to infiltrate her cousin’s house. Betray her for… what? Cloudy snorted and stamped. It was the last straw. The last thing that convinced her that she needed to leave. She had written a quick note to Rosemary and left it in a secret place she knew Rosemary checked every day for messages from her, a place her cousin didn’t know to look, cryptic and alluding to a secret place by a secret pony.

And within hours she had been running for her life, chased out of her house by goons she’d been convinced were either Rosewater’s or Roseate’s, and never sure which, harried from the air, she’d only been able to escape by blind luck, her familiarity with the back ways of Merrie, and how close she lived to the Primrose Bridge.

Now… she was certain they were Roseate’s. Rosewater would never employ goons. But a younger, more scared her, terrified of Roseate’s reputation, hadn’t been as certain.

She stopped her pacing to stare at the door, a whimper building in her throat that she quashed an instant later. Everything might have been different if she had succeeded. She might not have met Collar. She might not have met her friends in the Dammeguard that accepted her despite her Rose name.

Rosemary might not have been corrupted. Or… hurt. Or whatever had happened to her. Collar had told her the bare details when she’d returned with Glory, but none of it made sense yet, and the murmurings she could hear through the door didn’t help at all.

“Calm yourself, my dear” Lace murmured gently as she mounted the stairs, her husband at her side. “You’ll wear a hole through the rug.”

“My lady, my lord,” Cloudy murmured, bowing her head briefly to both of them.

“Bah.” Dapper ruffled his wings. “Young lady, you’re practically family. Call me Dapper.” He winked. “Unless you’d prefer to skip a few steps and just call me ‘dad.’”

“Dapp…” Lace rubbed her muzzle and glowered at him over her ankle. “The mare is not in the best mind for your teasing.”

“I-it’s fine,” Cloudy murmured, stopping her pacing to nod to both of them more informally. “I’m just waiting for…” She gestured at the door and sat.

“You could just go in, my dear,” Dapper said gently. “By all I’ve heard, she misses you terribly.”

“I-I can’t.” She wasn’t even sure how to explain it to them. “I-I need to…” She pawed at the rug, then resumed her pacing. “I need to know she’s willing. I can’t push myself at her.”

“Because she hasn’t crossed the bridge for you?” Lace’s question was softly said, but struck straight to the heart of her fears. “Dear Cloudy. She is bound by much the same kind of obligation you’re under. What would it look like if she were to visit a defector? The mare is terrible at hiding, and I’ve no doubt any open crossing would be watched closely by the Merrie equivalent of our intelligence service.”

“I know that.”

“You know it, but it’s hard for you to accept it. The question of why not is a hard one to overcome, but please, don’t hold it too harshly against her.” Lace came closer and tapped her breast lightly with a hoof. “She’s not one to betray one love for another.”

“You… know her?”

“I knew her mother.” Lace’s ears ticked briefly. “And I know the kindness and devotion that mare engendered in others.”

The door opened, and there was Collar, sliding a letter into an envelope and then sealing it with the blue wax of official Damme. He paused before he could press a seal to it, his eyes on Cloudy, then flicking to his parents. “She’s awake and well, beloved.”

“What is that, Collar?” Lace asked, her magic enfolding the letter halfway in golden light before Collar’s silver light spread to take over again.

“A promise, mother.” He slid it into his saddlebag and stepped away from the door, letting Cloudy see Glory laying side-by-side with Rosemary. For a moment, it seemed like he would say more, then he smiled at her and stepped over to kiss his mother on the cheek. “I have to stop another mare from doing something insane.”

Rosewater. Cloudy jerked her eyes away from Rosemary for a second. “Collar, I—” She froze and bit her lip.

Collar raised one, smiling. “Your place is here, Cloudy. Please see to her. She needs a loving face other than her cousin’s.” He raised his voice as he called back, “Who needs to return to her cell before dawn.”

“If I have to call you brother in the future, I will be very cross,” Glory shot back, her tail lashing the bed. More quietly, she spoke into Rosemary’s ear. “It’s safe. You’re under arrest. You don’t have to pretend you don’t want to go to her.”

Immediately, Rosemary slid from the bed, her ears quivering, her legs shaky. “Cloudy, I… I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, Cloudy felt her heart start to fracture.

“I-I couldn’t come to you,” Rosemary whimpered, stepping closer still, her lower lip quivering as she took step after step towards her, Collar holding his position, watching them with a curious look in his eyes, halfway between ache and understanding. “I wanted to. Stars curse me, I wanted to for weeks. Months.”

Why not?

Lace’s presence at her back stopped her from asking. It wasn’t fair to Rosemary. She had to have her reasons.

“Why are you s-sorry?” Cloudy asked, her voice cracking at the end of the question, her step forward halting. “I’m the one who left without telling you why I had to go.”

“I know why,” Rosemary whispered as she came within kissing distance. She didn’t close the short space between them, instead looking between Cloudy’s eyes, knowledge and understanding there. “It took me only a few days to understand why. I’m not so naive to believe the story Roseate told your family. Neither did they.”

Cloudy licked her lips.

“I couldn’t come t-to you.” Rosemary’s voice broke, her lower lip trembling. “B-because she needed me, too.” Her throat bobbed as she backed away, glancing at Glory, then at Poppy peeking around the edge. “I-I can’t… I can’t say why. But she needed me.”

Glory nodded, smiling faintly, and Poppy closed his eyes, sitting back out of sight.

“No. You don’t need to be sorry for that,” Cloudy said, closing the distance between them and setting a hoof to her breast. “Please, Rosemary. Can we…” What? Start over?

“Talk,” Collar said. “Talk, Cloudy. That’s a good first step.”

She nodded vigorously, swallowing and feeling a pang at the grateful look Rosemary sent Collar. “Can we, Rosemary?”

“Yes.” Rosemary bobbed her head and backed up another few steps, but it was less a retreat and more of an invitation. Her eyes darted to Lace, then, and she froze mid-step, as if the resolution of one problem revealed another to her. “M-my lady!”

“I will talk to you in the morning. I would hear the tale that made you break our laws.” Lace raised her chin to look down her muzzle briefly. “I would compare it to how and why your mother broke them.”

Before Cloudy could finish processing that, Lace turned away and passed her son with a whispered few words she couldn’t make out.

Dapper, lingering, gave her a more cheery wink and shooed her into the room with a wave of his wing.

Uncertain still of what the future would hold, Cloudy mechanically walked into the room and felt the door close behind her, Glory spreading silence over the room as she settled down with Poppy again, her eyelids drooping as she settled in against his flank.

Rosemary stared at them for a long moment, her ears flat and ticking before she sat heavily beside her bed. “Talk…” She licked her lips, ears rising and then falling to droop again. “I’ve missed you, Cloudy. So much.”

Cloudy didn’t answer her with words. She had, in truth, no idea what to say. Words would have only muddled what she needed to do.

Instead, she wrapped Rosemary with her wings and simply held her, drinking in her scent at the join of shoulder and neck, and stayed there.

Rosemary’s scent blanketed Rosewater, pushing away the fear that had been growing since midnight’s passing. More and more as night stretched into the dawning hours.

She kept the coverlet draped around her as she sat in the sitting room, staring at the watercolor painting she had done of Rosemary, Carnation, and herself. Seven years ago. That afternoon, Carnation and she had taken turns at Rosemary’s side as they painted each other into place.

Carnation had always been the better artist, and she’d touched up Rosewater’s attempts at water colors expertly until it looked more like her, an impressionistic painting of sorts. She had done the buildings and the sky, the river and Primrose bridge behind them, Damme’s riverfront district gleaming in the noonday sun.

More watercolor paintings covered one wall, all of Rosewater’s doing as she took up the hobby Carnation had held for so many years, and had tried to impress on Rosewater at a young age. Before they started raising Rosemary together. Before Rosewater even knew that Carnation had signed treaty work noting Rosewater as Rosemary’s second mother by adoption.

Her later works were more varied and less amateurish, but still lacked the beauty and simple artistry of Carnation’s paintings. That had been her talent, as her cutie mark attested: a paintbrush with a carnation as the head instead of bristles. It had been how she carried herself through life.

Into adulthood, Rosewater and Carnation began sharing more than a home and parental duties.

They’d not been duties for long past her sexual awakening and the understanding that some day, she would be a mother in her own right, and she’d been given a brilliant chance to learn.

Learning became love, love became an understanding that progressed until she realized that what she was feeling for Rosemary was not that of a sibling. She no longer viewed her cousin as her cousin, and she’d kept it to herself for almost a year before she’d built up the courage to talk to Carnation about it. About how she felt, taking care of the then four year old Rosemary.

Carnation, rather than rebuffing her, had held her close, her breathing rough.

“This is not what I would have wished for you,” she’d whispered. “For you to see yourself as a parent so young. You should have had a joyous childhood, the same kind of childhood you’ve been making sure Rosemary has.”

Duties. They had become her joy, and every triumph Rosemary had was one that Rosewater and Carnation shared as her parents seeing a happy, bright soul move through life, unburdened by the war save for the small barriers that kept her from having the run of both cities.

Tonight, Rosemary was making her move, and all Rosewater had of Carnation was the memory and her daughter. Their daughter.

And maybe not even that after tonight. Rosemary was late. Far too late for it to be her taking her time. Far too late for her to deny the despair and anguish as remnants of her spell.

I tried to be a good mother to you, Rosemary, even though I had no idea what I was doing half the time. A thought that Carnation had confessed to her as well, saying she’d had no idea how to raise a filly who’d already half-raised herself with her father’s help, and had left her woefully unprepared for dealing with Rosemary after the stallion that had sired her had vanished into the mists.

Likely because of Roseate scaring him off, as she did for all of the potential complications to her power.

Which left me watching you in his stead, didn’t it? Of all the petty things her mother had done to scare off Rosewater’s lovers over the years, scaring off Rosemary’s sire was the one thing that hadn’t worked out as Roseate had intended. Carnation had gotten pregnant against Roseate’s attempts to keep her sister childless, and given Rosewater…

She was never my sister, was she, despite my early attempts to pretend otherwise.

Throughout the years that followed her birth, Carnation made painting after painting of them all together, always kept secret. Always painted from memory or in the privacy of a home. Sometimes the scene was sketched first and the ponies added later in the secrecy of her home.

Always, Carnation had put Rosewater at her side and Rosemary in front of them. A picture of a family with two parents.

Two mothers and their daughter. Forbidden outside the estate among other ponies.

Except for one outing where they’d worn their motherhood proudly, and neither of them had tried very hard to hide the care and love they showed to Rosemary as she played with her friends, or the closeness of their own bond, barren as it was of the customary intimacy of marriage.

Carnation had taken them all to the Garden of Love for the day, to relax in the baths there and partake of wine fresh from the cask—and grape juice for Rosemary. She’d brought her painting supplies with her, and had had Petal stand in for Carnation for the sketch phase, Rosewater’s cousin looking rather confused as to her placement at first, but settling into an easy smile once the sketch began.

It had been an unusual afternoon, one where they acted like a family among ponies that loved them. Seed had still been a little cretin, trying to tease Rosemary into flinching during the sit, Budding and her family had sat close by, occasionally dragging Seed back into line with rolling eyes before they started talking again.

Usually they kept quiet and Rosewater didn’t treat her aunt and cousin as more than housemates outside of the estate’s walls where they lived as a family.

But that one afternoon…

It had been freeing to put her feelings in front, and have them validated by the ponies at the Garden.

She pulled the painting off the wall and brushed her cheek against its edge. “We were happy, outside our home, for one afternoon.”

Had that cost us the rest?

“No…” She wouldn’t let Roseate take that from her. That one happy, perfect afternoon. She clung to it, fanning it by drinking in more details from the painting, things she’d noticed in passing and reveled in rediscovering. Little bits of Carnation hidden here and there. Her not-quite-wife hiding her warm, bubbly love in the peculiar curl of a lock of Rosemary’s mane, mirrored in the curl of a cloud above.

“I won’t let you have her,” Rosewater said, holding the painting barely a pace away as she sank into the chair, snugging herself deeper into the coverlet.

Roseate wouldn’t be able to corrupt Rosemary into willingly fighting her, but there were others that could be used to coerce her into it. The Nights, Garnish’s new family, a dozen others Roseate could threaten or drag down as she had Roseling.

A stool that had once been Rosemary’s perch when taking lessons from Rosewater in scent-craft, or painting lessons from Carnation now became a stand for the painting as Rosewater settled it into place and tucked the coverlet filled with Rosemary’s memory around her.

Staring into the past, Rosewater settled in to wait, a tiny spark of hope blooming in the gloom of her thoughts.

Morning found Rosewater waking to the tap-tap-tapping of a morning bird seeking seeds in the roofing tiles.

Everything ached from sitting in the chair as Rosewater roused herself to find the house still intact, the painting still upright with Carnation and Rosemary staring back at her, happy to have brought their frumpy housemate out and gotten her to show her happiness at being out. Rosewater’s smile in that picture looked like it was real.

It was a real smile, wasn’t it?

Rosewater pulled the picture closer to nuzzle the corner, then set it back into place on the wall between other paintings of them all together indoors.

Shaking the coverlet from her shoulders, she paced to Rosemary’s room to set it back in place, stopping as she considered the empty bed, tempted again to crawl in and sleep away the nightmare until Rosemary came in and woke her with a touch to the shoulder.

“It’s morning,” she reminded herself, recalling to mind the charade she was playing to keep Roseate distracted from what she was actually doing. Not that there seemed to be too much chance that Roseate could mistake her intent, but keeping the facade would introduce uncertainty.

She had too many ponies eating from her trough for Rosewater to sway personally. For that, she had always needed Rosemary’s help.

For six years, she’d been planning for a moment in the not-too-distant future when she did not have to what she felt, when showing her genuine affection for her Rosemary wouldn’t be cause for further reprisals, when it could be a moment that any parent wouldn’t think twice about. Always, it was in the future. Just another few months of planning.

And then Roseate had thrashed her plans.

Again.

She should have seen it coming, in hindsight, but her hopes had been churning and chaotic, overriding better sense.

When she was done retucking the sheet, she sat on the bed’s edge, her hoof tracing the trough where Rosemary normally lay and had lain since she was old enough to have her own bed. Now wasn’t the time for pretending or hiding her head under the covers hoping things would fix themselves.

Now was the time to be strong, take on the mantle of the Rose Terror as she always did when she left. That haughty mask with cold eyes. She had to plan again, adjust and react, then act.

If Rosemary was taken, as seemed not merely likely, but certain, she needed to act like it didn’t bother her. It was a risk always when raiding. Glory proved that, as had Rose Crown months before, which had precipitated the current tensions between Merrie and Damme, when a massive assault had ended in a stalemate and the return of Crown in return for rather more minor concessions than Lace had originally demanded.

In the short term, it meant Rosemary was out of Roseate’s grasp. She nodded once. In the slightly longer term, it put her under the potential to be returned as a prisoner of war under the strictures of the treaty. Which would put her directly under Roseate’s hoof.

The solution, then, was to impair the negotiations. Or take over them. Which might overplay her hoof.

Which Roseate might do all on her own. But she might also not.

First, she needed information, and a way to get that information existed for her, but doing so would potentially break a useful tool. But she needed to maintain her face in public.

“Get it together, Rosewater,” she told herself, and tweaked her ears as Carnation used to when she would get too serious.

By the time she stepped out onto her porch, the sun was already cresting the horizon. She was a little late to start, but not enough to cause much consternation if her mother’s spies managed to link the night to the events that would surely be sending rumors spreading through Damme.

The usual bevy of spies was situated in place when she looked up, watching the rooftops,

A pop and flash of light at her feet stopped her perusal.

A letter.

She picked it up and drew out the scope she always kept in her saddlebag, adjusting until the rooftops came into focus, scanning until she saw the copper coat gleaming in the sun that she expected. He was watching her through his spyglass as well.

It had been him, most likely, who’d captured her. She pursed her lips and thought for a moment, then collapsed her scope, placing it and the letter in her saddle bag. She couldn’t deal with that right that moment. Not and keep her ruse going.

She would break if she read it and saw it confirmed in his writing that he’d caught her breaking their laws, all knowing that she couldn’t make reprisal against him for it.

Yet a small part of her reminded her that he could have taken her at any night before when Rosemary had so foolishly cavorted and played with the Dammeguard in the open.

She took a deep breath and started towards her perfumery, the letter burning a hole in her side, his eyes upon her no less a weight all the way to the door of her shop.

Once inside, she made sure the shutters were drawn tight over the window, locked the door, and made her way to her sanctum. The only space she could trust was warded against everything she could find in the libraries. It was her impregnable fortress the size of a closet.

She had to wait while the enchantments withdrew, the letter afire against her chest where she held it. She had to wait while the enchantments reset behind her and locked her into the tiny study where she kept the mementos she couldn’t risk even being glimpsed.

The painting of herself at fourteen, holding a squirming five year old Rosemary between her hind legs and fore, her chin on her daughter’s head, smiling at the painter while he sketched out her appearance and took notes on the rest.

The painting of herself at ten, lying with Carnation on a bed of rose petals with a less than one year old Rosemary between their forelegs. Both commissioned from painters in Canterlot who’d come to their home, been sworn to secrecy, and sent on their way once done.

She would not risk them being taken, torn, or seen, lest anypony who would use them for malice see the mother’s look in her eyes both times, the smile that said ‘This is my daughter.’

She took solace in them, in the letters she’d written to Carnation and never sent, uncertain even where to send them and afraid that they would be intercepted. But she had to write them. She couldn’t not write her mother, her partner in raising Rosemary to share all the milestones she passed from the age of fourteen on.

And one more letter she couldn’t let the world see.

Her forelegs shook as she braced herself against the writing desk and opened it ever-so-carefully.

Rosewater,

It was in Rosemary’s hoof. She had written to her. Tears threatened, but she kept them at bay through an effort of will. Collar had allowed her to write the letter. Maybe knowing what it would mean to her.

I’m sorry. I got caught. I’m not going to be able to keep that promise. Glory is here, and so is Lord Collar. It was him, but he’s been gentle since I was captured. Please don’t blame him. Blame me.

“Never,” Rosewater whispered. “I should have found another way.”

If you know where she is, please let mother know I’m okay, and I love her.

“Too blatant,” Rosewater said, sighing. “Please tell me he didn’t read it.”

I love you, Rosewater. Please don’t worry about me.

She snorted a pained laugh, “Not worry about you?”

Everything else washed away as the dam broke and she sagged against the writing table, crushing the letter to her chest with both hooves.

Safe. She’s safe. Thank all the stars.

Author's Notes:

The second half.

Book 1, 19. Before the Storm, Part 1

Prim Collar sat on the rooftop, studying the perfumery through his scope as if he could pierce the stone and wood and whatever else was inside to see into the mare’s heart. She’d shown more reaction in the wheat field outside of Damme.

She had to have known what was in the letter and she hadn’t done more than look at it, confirm who must have sent it, and continued on, only departing from her normal routine enough to close the perfumery’s shutters. It was the only acknowledgment he’d seen that she knew.

“Was I worried about nothing?” he asked Prim Note, the Dammeguard’s best eavesdropper, a specialized aural mage whose entire life revolved around sound. He was, by all accounts, one of the best singers in Damme as well.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Note said, shaking his head. “She wasn’t silenced in the house, and she was awake most of the night. I could hear her moving about until about two hours ago. She didn’t say much, and what she did say, I couldn’t get a clear read on. But she’s never stayed up all night before. Usually only most of it. Then she naps in the perfumery.”

He sighed. “Alright. Keep a listen for her. I’ve got to get back to the palace and stop my mother from starting the interrogation. Whatever happens, report back at noon.” He clapped the stallion on the back with a hoof and stood. “And if she does anything unusual, send one, and only one of the pegasi back. Glide, Wind, one of you is to stay here at all times until your shift change.”

“Aye sir.”

He hoofed it down the stairs around the outside of the building, not wanting to go in and bother the shopkeepers and their family. He barely even noticed the traffic starting to build up as the day started, nor the whispers and praise that followed behind him, congratulating him on his latest victory over the Roses.

He wanted to snap at them and tell them to shut up, especially when they started calling Rosewater the Rose Terror.

Something about the way Rosewater seemed to defy that name in her private meetings sat wrong with him. Ever since her moment of weakness at the Treaty Office, he had trouble seeing her as anything more than a scared pony trying to make her way in the world against the near insurmountable pressures mounting against her.

Even her apparent playing to the Rosethorn tradition of entrapping and enthralling mates was suspect. He still couldn’t forget the little quip ‘Take care of him for us.’

It’d been meant, he was sure, as a barb to push the narrative she was trying to sell, but ‘us’ didn’t fit that story.

His jaw tightened as he forced himself to remember the reasons he was fighting against her. Her goal, as far as he was aware, was to take him as her mate. Whatever chinks there were in that narrative, it was the only one she was actually pushing. Even her actions today pushed a story that she was less concerned about Rosemary than he would have thought.

And yet…

She had stayed up all night. He, at least, had gotten some rest. Doesn’t that show some concern for her cousin?

That question rolled around and around in his mind the rest of the way to the palace, weakening his resolve again.

By the time he reached the steps, he was less than surprised when a faint pop and clink announced the arrival of a bundle of letters and an intricately filigreed, glass-stoppered perfume bottle.

She’d never sent a stoppered one before.

The top letter’s envelope read “Lord Collar.” The second read Rosemary.

He sighed, gathered up the letter and perfume bottle, pausing for a moment to stare at the pink liquid swirling around inside, little bits of glittering gold dust flashing and flickering in the sunlight as he swirled it. An expensive perfume.

The letter, he considered leaving unopened until he gave it to Rosemary, but reminded himself that however sweet she seemed, she was still a scent mage, and before he could give her the perfume, he had to make sure it was safe and couldn’t be used to allow her to escape. Rosewater probably expected him to read it in any case.

There were two letters inside. One addressed simply to him.

Lord Prim Collar,

Burn this letter as soon as you’re done reading it. I am trusting you to keep to our accord and not involve others.

I trust that my cousin will be safe in your prison, and that she will share her cell with Glory. She does not do well when she is isolated. If there is any concession I can grant to ensure her safety and comfort, please do not hesitate to ask.

The perfume is magical, but inert. It was magically crafted, but once made the components are inert.

Rosewater.

He considered the letter, debating.

“Your palace leaks like a sieve.”

This was evidence of collusion by the first line of it, and she was giving him something that might be considered treason. Negotiations for Rosemary’s return hadn’t yet begun, and thus any communications she sent would be considered at least infringing on the line.

Collar glanced at one of the oil lamps and pulled free the striker. A few taps later, and he had a part of the letter smoldering. A simple application of a filter spell fueled the flame with pure air, charring the letter to ash within seconds.

“Sir!” One of the guards at the entrance stared at him. “Wh-what was that for?”

“A security precaution,” Collar said absently, reaching a hoof to stir the flakes of paper ash drifting on the front step. There wasn’t enough left to put together even a corner of a page.

The next letter was addressed to Rosemary, but because she was a prisoner…

He prized it open, feeling guilty about doing so even though Rosemary’s mail fell under the law afforded to criminals rather than diplomats. This was less directly conspiratorial. A guardian had the right to communicate with their charge, and Rosewater had fought dearly for that recognition. It was two pages, the first clearly hastily written.

Rosemary,

I’m afraid I don’t know where your mother is right now. Under Celestia’s grace, she was granted asylum, and that is all that I was allowed to know. I’m sure she loves you very much, and thinks about you every day. I will see if I can write a letter to Celestia to pass along to her. She has denied my request in the past, but if it is from daughter to mother, perhaps she will relent.

Please recall every lesson I have taught you in court manners, and every lesson on secrecy I have taught you. Some secrets, I would ask you to keep. You know which is most important. That, you must never tell. Not even to Cloudy. Not even to an empty room. Try not to even think about it.

Curious and curiously worded, all of it. Surely Rosemary knew as much as Rosewater about her mother. It might have been a code of some sort. Safewords indicating fair treatment, perhaps. A key to maintaining their accord. The second was only a few lines of text, detailing the perfume.

He could hope so at least.

I love you dearly, and I miss you. This perfume was made with your mother in mind. Please be sparing in its use, as I have not the materials to make more at the moment. I call it Mother’s Kiss.

It did look a little like Carnation’s coat color, now that he looked at it with that in mind. His estimation of Rosewater rose another notch. It was, for a Rose, perhaps one of the kindest comforts he could imagine.

How much can I trust her?

Not far enough to let a magical perfume into a master scent-mage’s grasp.

He sighed and unstoppered the bottle briefly, the filigree glowing briefly and letting loose an apparently measured amount of perfume. The fragrance wasn’t like anything he could describe. It was something akin to freshly laundered sheets, a warmed hearth without the smoke, and an indefinable trait that he could only describe as… motherly.

The fragrance rose in a pink cloud as it was exposed to the air, and he stoppered it quickly.

Oddly, the pink cloud retained the golden sparkles seen flashing in the liquid, motes of light drifting on invisible currents within the rising mist. Magical indeed.

He inhaled, taking in just enough to capture more of that indefinable essence so he could try and identify it.

A brief memory of his mother, younger than she was now, vibrant and as stately as ever, stronger and with far less gray in her mane. When did I forget her mane used to be a burnished gold?

It was in their sitting room, and Collar sat at a short writing desk, his first magically controlled letters scrawled on the surface of a pebbled bit of paper in messy lines sat in front of him. The effort of an hour rose, and his eyes with it to meet his mother’s storm-blue eyes that flicked from the paper to him.

“I’m proud of you, Collar,” she said, kissing his cheek.

Then it passed, and he was standing in the corridor again, staring at a swirling pink bottle of pink and gold.

Mother’s kiss, indeed. That she could evoke that much emotion, let alone memory in him from a supposedly inert fragrance was, frankly, terrifying.

There was little chance that it was anything other than a comfort fragrance, and as frightening as her skill with scents was, this was one thing she’d made that was unequivocally love. Love magic, perhaps.

That it was a part of her talent seemed obvious, and it threw into question her heritage and just who her father, Blue Star, had been. If he was a descendant of the lost Crystal Empire, it begged the question of how he’d ended up in Merrie. Or if she was simply a fragment of skill unconnected and the white-coated stallion had only granted his coat to his daughter and not a hint of his heritage.

He sighed. She continued to confound his expectations of who she was. But perhaps the perfume, too, was a message; her way of showing off a piece of her true heart without telling anypony what was actually there.

“Why can’t you just let it out?” he muttered.

Rosemary woke to the shifting of a wing over her, a hearty yawn on her lips, and the long-missing fragrance of pegasus mare that she’d missed in her bed for two long years.

Sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the curtains, sending a warm bar of light across the covers, highlighting a grass-green coat and wings of emerald feathers.

“Cloudy,” she whispered.

“Stars,” Cloudy whispered in her ear. “I was so worried…”

“I was, too,” Rosemary whispered back, then lifted her head from the muffling feathers. “I was worried that you left because of something I did or said. You were so unhappy that last week, Cloudy. Why?”

“Not now,” Cloudy said, raising her head to kiss Rosemary’s forehead just beside her horn. “It doesn’t matter right now.”

Rosemary pulled back to kiss her. The first kiss she’d shared with her since…

She still tasted the same. Wind and rain and the hay and oats she had for breakfast. Natural Cloudy. Rosemary kissed her again when the first parted, feeling a hunger waking in her that she hadn’t ever felt so acutely.

“Not the time, Rosemary,” Cloudy said, her wings quivering as she drew back. “Please… I want you, too, but not now.”

“I know.” She reached for another kiss, stopped and bit her lip. There was a time and a place for making love. Now wasn’t it. Not just made a prisoner, not even an hour after waking up.

She glanced up at Poppy still watching out of the corner of his eye. Glory, despite the warning against returning to the prison, had insisted on remaining in place until Rosemary had had a good night’s sleep, her reasoning being that sometimes waking one from an enchanted sleep had side-effects that were less than pleasant.

“They’re really in love?”

“They are,” Cloudy said softly. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said no way. Poppy’s a good stallion, but he’s far too tightly wound to let himself loose.” She chuckled at his blushing smile. “And despite mounting her and she riding him for months, he still blushes whenever I talk about sex.”

“Shut up, Cloudy,” Poppy said, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks still darkened. “And yes, Rosemary, I do love her.”

Glory chuckled and raised her head. “I love you too, my Blushing Poppy,” she purred, kissing his cheek. “Someday, we’ll have to bond, you know. After the Merrie fashion.”

“And I think it should be after the Damme fashion,” he said. “You know—” He huffed and closed his eyes. “Not in front of my patient.”

“And I think there are more doors in your heart to open yet, Poppy,” she said gently, licking his cheek. “Rosemary will agree with me, right, cousin?”

“I agree that he shouldn’t in front of the patient,” Cloudy said before Rosemary could interject. “Nor should you, Glory.”

Rosemary sighed and nipped Cloudy’s neck. “I’m fine. Just… scared myself more than anything.” And probably Rosewater. “You should give it at least a try, Poppy. There’s nothing in the trying of another philosophy of life that’s harmful, is there? Especially if it means something to the one you love?”

“I’ve tried that,” Glory said. “I think he’ll come around.”

“I might,” Poppy said. “I might. You understand why I’m nervous, though?”

“Yeah. Your grandparents,” Cloudy said with a sigh. “Your folks are okay with you being my friend, right?”

“Barely. It was knowing you that let me think ‘maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,’ and if they found out that I’m actually in love with a Rose, let alone a Rosethorn and Roseate’s third daughter…” He swallowed and leaned hard against Rose Glory, his ears flattened back. “My granddad especially makes Stride’s parents look like moderates. Thankfully, my parents thought that caning every Rose that came across the bridges was a little on the extreme side.”

Rosemary flinched away. “What? They want to do that?”

“They talk, Rosemary,” Poppy said quietly. “They’re old reactionaries that used to raid and take just as much as any in their age. They’re one of the reasons for the Lace Reformation. Well, not them personally, but ponies like them. I promise you won’t find anypony like that in the palace or near it. Most of them dislike Lace for her ‘softness’, but won’t dare do more than grumble. The Dammeguard is all loyal to her absolutely.”

“Why?” The Merrieguard was a much looser collection of ponies, as the need to defend against Damme had fallen apart, so too had the discipline of the guard. They were little more than a token force, and some only paid lip service loyalty to Roseate.

Rosemary knew from experience some of them were there only because being on the inside afforded protection from the predations of those who were drunk with their own power.

“Because we don’t have to break apart families or see them broken apart. The Dammeguard is mostly common ponies in the ranks, but those of us with officer potential tend to be at least nominally nobility.” Poppy patted his chest. “I’m a minor branch scion, the Primblooms. We tend to be the ones to take care of the boulevards. I’m an outlier in more ways than one,” he said, nuzzling and drawing Glory into a brief kiss.

“I see.” Rosemary lay back down, drawing Cloudy with her to the bed. It was a lot to think about. The politics of Damme were just as complicated as Merrie, even if they were less subtle about the dangers they presented.

“I know that look,” Cloudy said softly, patting her nose with a hoof. “You’re thinking like Rosewater, aren’t you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way she thinks,” Rosemary said with a huff.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t had to endure her claiming Collar will be her mate.” Cloudy chuckled. “Honestly, I don’t—”

“Wait, what?” Rosemary pushed herself up, staring down at Cloudy. “She’s what?” What in the blazes do you think you’re doing, Rosewater? Claiming Collar as her mate was tantamount to stating she was following the corrupted Rosethorn way, the way she had explicitly warned her against.

“She didn’t tell you?” Cloudy frowned and nipped her chin. “I don’t think she’s as close as you think she is.”

Rosemary shook her head automatically. “It’s not that. If I asked her, she’d tell me, but…” she sighed. “She calls what she keeps from me a tightrope. What she can keep, what she can tell.”

“Can you give us any reassurance that she doesn’t intend following that path?”

“I don’t think she’s claimed him as a mate.” Rosemary pulled away from the nip and rubbed at the spot. “She’s been acting strange lately.” It could easily have been a ploy to make Roseate think she was playing the same game. But why tell Collar? “I thought it was because I told her not to interfere with…”

“With your mission,” Glory filled in when Rosemary hesitated. “Blunt. Straightforward. It’s right there in mother’s bag of tricks. As to Rosewater claiming Collar… that’s hogwash. That mare could no more follow the way of her mother than she could raise or lower the sun.”

“She’s always been strange,” Cloudy murmured, a thoughtful look in her eyes that seemed to transcend their conversation as she stared somewhere over Rosemary’s head before jerking herself back to attention. “We have a lot to catch up on, I think.”

“Yes, we have a lot of catching up to do,” Rosemary said with a sigh and caught a scent on the air, familiar and masculine, masked by bathing scents. “But later. All of you are tired, and should probably find your own beds.”

A hoof knocked on the door heralded Lord Collar’s entrance. He took a moment to take stock of the room, his eyes lingering on Cloudy and Rosemary curled up together, then on Poppy and Glory. “I think that’s a good idea. Bedtime for all of you.”

“My bed is in a jail,” Glory said with a wry twist of her lips. “And it’s daytime besides, so I’m stuck by Poppy’s side until I get put back. Not complaining, mind.” She flashed her lover a grin that Poppy returned with a roll of the eyes. “But I’d rather be with him when I choose.”

“That’s going to change soon, Glory.” Lord Collar waved a hoof. “And for today, take the next bedchamber over. I don’t care in which direction, they’re both single rooms. I’ll make sure Mother understands why I chose to do it. Just be sure to hide yourself, Glory.”

“Yes, my lord,” Glory murmured, bowing her head and vanishing with a brief flicker of magic. Poppy smiled tiredly and slipped out, the door hanging open for a moment longer than should be necessary.

“And me?” Cloudy asked.

“Stay,” Lord Collar said, rubbing at his cheek with a hoof. “I would, um…” Collar flushed and glanced at Cloudy. “I would like you to introduce us, Cloudy. Please. Maybe that will make this less awkward.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Cloudy said, still holding onto Rosemary with both forelegs and drew a wing over her almost entirely. “She means a lot to me.”

“Understandable.” He waved a hoof again and sat. “But you’ll have to let her go for introductions. She can’t talk very well if you’ve got her head covered by a wing. I promise she’ll still be here tomorrow. For which I apologize, Rosemary.”

“I broke the laws,” Rosemary said with a sigh. “I knew what I was doing was wrong to your standards.”

He nodded. “You did. But I believe you did so reluctantly. First…” He closed his eyes. “Cloudy? Come here, please. This is an official interview. I can’t have you nuzzling the interviewee.” At least he wasn’t calling her prisoner.

She stiffened against Rosemary, then nodded and let go of her. “Sorry,” she whispered and slid towards the edge of the bed, every line of her radiating her protest.

“Go. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I was going to ask to use the privy soon enough.” Rosemary said, chuckling and trying to inject a tiny bit of levity in the moment. “Go. Stand with him.” She sat up in bed as Cloudy slipped away, patting down her mane and using a spell to brush down where her coat had gotten ruffled.

“Rosemary, Collar. Collar, Rosemary,” Cloudy said shortly, snorting at the end and fixing Collar with an arch-browed look.

“Thank you, Cloudy, for removing all of the awkwardness,” Rosemary said deadpan, a smile tugging at her lips despite her situation.

Collar’s lips twitched into a smile as well. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, Rosemary,” Collar said, glancing at Cloudy. “Cloudy has been talking a lot about you lately, and I’ve been receiving reports of your activities.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Collar,” Rosemary said, following his gaze for a moment, then turning back to him. “I wish it were under different circumstances. And I wish I had not come to, as you must see it, steal away your lover.”

“I’m… more open than that. My father, as you may know, is a Merrier from your grandmother’s generation. I grew up with his teasing and his mores mixed with my mother’s,” Collar said with a smile. “I’m hoping you will not steal her away for more than a couple nights here and there. I do dearly love her, and I understand that her loving you does not in any way diminish the love she has for me.”

Rosemary stared at him, her ears slowly flattening sideways just as Cloudy’s were. He wasn’t the terrifying visage of power that she’d thought, not even last night had he been. Rosewater’s equal, he was, but he was far more nuanced than rumor and her sparse interactions with him in the past would have suggested.

“That is… very…” She swallowed. “Why?”

“My father raised me to understand that love can have more nuance than one pony to another.” His ears twitched as he glanced at Cloudy. “And I’ve been pushed by my love to understand that her loving others romantically in no way diminishes her love for me.”

“I’ve… heard much of Dapper,” Rosemary said, licking her lips. This wasn’t at all how she’d expected her morning to go. Not with her crime so fresh. The bed, reunited with Cloudy, this cordial meeting. “I’d like to meet him?”

Cloudy smiled faintly, her ears relaxing into an upright pose, a releasing of tension.

“You’ll likely meet him soon enough. He’s a regular visitor of Glory’s, and I don’t doubt he’ll want to get to know you as well.” Collar rose from his seated position and patted Cloudy lightly on the shoulder. “This will be official, gentle, and as to the point as can be made. But first…”

Rosemary’s ears flattened in turn as he pulled a letter with the seal broken and a small bottle of an unfamiliar perfume and set the bottle on the bedside table. It was unfamiliar to her, the glittering pink and gold seeming like her eyes more than anything else, as if she’d distilled the loving look she held in her heart when she was behaving like her mother.

“This was sent by Rosewater just as I arrived back at the palace. I apologize, but I had to open them to make sure there would be no contraband.” He floated the letter to her.

It was short, simple, and sweetly vague enough that she had told Rosemary all she wanted to hear from both of her mothers. And a warning she’d already taken to heart: tell nopony about our relationship, or you won’t be safe.

“Why does it smell like smoke?” Rosemary asked, sniffing at the paper.

“Er… Your cousin sent a second letter and asked that I burn it as soon as I read it.” He rubbed one foreleg with the other. “She doesn’t trust palace secrecy.”

“She has good reason for that,” Rosemary said idly as she considered the paper, front and back. There was a faint, even to her, scent marking on the back held in place by a simple spell. A hidden message. “She kept on muttering about cookies for a week, some months ago.”

Collar shared a look with Cloudy, both of them arching brows but neither gave her an answer.

She folded the letter back up and slipped it into the envelope again, working to contain her excitement. It wouldn't have remained secret long in the Rose Palace, where such things were used to send playful messages to lovers, but it was based in scent magic, and no Prim, especially in Prim Palace, would dare. She only had to figure out which fragrance Rosewater had keyed it to. If she’d had little time to prepare…

The perfume bottle drew her attention, curiosity mixed with dread and hope making her heart skip. When she looked back up, Cloudy smiled at her warmly and leaned against Collar, making the ‘interrogation’ feel more like it was a meeting between old friends.

That wouldn’t do. They would be asking for Rosewater’s secrets. Those that she knew, or thought she knew, anyway. “I'm ready, Lord Collar,” Rosemary said. “Please begin.”

Author's Notes:

Part one of this two-parter released today.

In other news, I now have a larger backlog! That means I can work ahead somewhat or just relax a bit.

I've been playing Horizon: Zero Dawn on the PC and getting increasingly frustrated with the crashes and some of the acting and storytelling choices are just... OKAY, well, that happened. But it's a good game overall, and I'm getting better at the machine hunt and the machine stuffs.

So yeah. This half chapter today, because FimFiction doesn't like it if I update two chapters in a day (no more time on the updates board).

So, please, enjoy this first half today, and second half tomorrow morning.

Book 1, 20. Before the Storm, Part 2

Collar glanced again at Cloudy, whose eyes never seemed to leave Rosemary, and wondered at the wisdom of keeping her there for what might be a difficult interrogation, depending on the nature of what he discovered. Or did not discover.

“Very well. First…” He took a breath and steadied himself. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Trying not to get exiled,” Rosemary said simply. That startled Collar, but not Cloudy, and he shot his lover a look that didn’t take much guesswork to figure out.

“It was the price of failure for my task as well,” Cloudy murmured. “Not explicitly stated, though.”

Collar closed his eyes and leaned lightly against Cloudy. “I know. You’re safe from that.” He let her lean against him for a moment before opening his eyes to find Rosemary studying them, her veneer of calm belied as false by the twitching of her coat and her ears.

Nowhere in her could he see the terror she’d shown last night.

“Why were you trying to abduct Prim Cottage?” Collar asked at last.

“I wasn’t trying to abduct him.” Plainly said, Rosemary’s answer had nothing on the surface to grab onto. “I wanted to get certain information from him. About you, my lord.”

“What certain information did you want to get?” Collar belatedly pulled out a scroll and made a few quick notes, wincing as Cloudy rolled her eyes. He couldn’t let the informality run the meeting, nor her apparent openness beguile him away from asking questions.

“Anything I could get him to talk about,” Rosemary said evenly. “I had planned to weaken his inhibitions about talking to a mare like me, a Rosethorn, and then approach his door openly and ask if he wanted to share a dinner with me.”

“Not sex?”

“I will not use my body for Roseate’s gain,” Rosemary growled, her ears flat, her tail lashing the floor. “Nor will I coax one who would otherwise be unwilling into bed with me. Regardless of reason.”

“Noted,” Collar said softly, glancing aside at Cloudy, her face an impassive mask… if he ignored the small tick pulling at her cheek telling him she was fighting to keep from clenching her teeth. “Please explain your plan, and any culpability of any others.”

“Others.” Rosemary’s voice was flat. “Roseate, you already know. No other was involved in my planning.”

“Not even Rosewater?”

“Do you think me incapable of executing a raid on my own?” Rosemary asked.

“Planning, no. Executing, yes,” Collar said simply, raising a brow. “It’s been clear from the start of our surveillance that your heart wasn’t in it, Rosemary, and while we had our suspicions about whether or not your playfulness was a ruse—”

“It wasn’t.” Rosemary seemed to slump even though she barely moved. “Stars above, it wasn’t.” Her eyes lifted to meet his, then slid off to the side. “I didn’t want to do any of this, Lord Collar. I had to do it. I had to take the risk.”

An inkling of what Rosemary was really like flitted through his mind. Those reports from Stride of her activities weren’t simply her making up a persona. He had no doubt in that moment that her every interaction with his guards, and her dancing and making light of her trespass were nothing more than they appeared on the surface.

A free spirit yearning to be free.

Collar checked the evidence bag he’d dragged in with him and rifled through the contents for a moment before he pulled out the three vials of perfume.

“As this will be used to determine your sentencing,” Collar said as she settled them on the floor in front of them, “please tell me what each of these does.”

Rosemary blinked at him, then at the perfumes. “My lord. What’s stopping me from using the white fragrance on you? I gave you a demonstration of what it does.”

“You did. But rather than use it on me, you used it on yourself.” Collar glanced aside at Cloudy when she flinched. “My trust in your integrity comes from a very reliable source,” Collar said. “Unless I have vastly underestimated you, I believe that you would not use these out of malice.”

“I would not,” Rosemary said, but still hesitated as she lifted the first one, the nearly viscous orange liquid lazily swirling. “Th-this is an appetite encouragement. It makes a pony hungry for the scent I captured. In this case, a brown-sugar roasted carrot casserole. I made sure Mr. Cottage had all the ingredients before I made the perfume.”

“How?” Collar asked, quickly flipping through the mental copies of the reports Stride had written.

“By smelling them. It’s how I knew there were cracks in his window. I drew out the air from inside and smelled it the night before I decided what recipe I would use.” The vial in Rosemary’s magic swirled slowly. “I would have made him hungry for it… then offered to make it for him, and talked to him while I was cooking.”

Collar resisted the urge to rub his muzzle. “Prim Cottage would have gladly welcomed you into his home, Rosemary,” he said instead. “He was…” He trailed off and waved for Rosemary to go on, the look in her eyes telling him she was at least eager to prove she wasn’t totally incompetent.

“He was the palace steward while you were growing up, and was a supporter of the Lace Reformations. Both were reasons why Roseate wanted him abducted. At least, I think so. To weaken support for the Reformations and to garner personal information about you.”

“But you weren’t going to abduct him?” Collar asked, glancing aside to see a very smug-looking Cloudy nodding along with his question.

“No.” Rosemary set the glass down again. “I was going to try to play ignorant with Roseate. I’m terrible at hiding. I know it. She knows it. You know it. I had a week still until the deadline came due, so even if playing ignorant didn’t work, I hoped she would give me a second chance.”

She wouldn’t have, dear mare. “Like she gave your mother.” For the briefest moment, Collar thought Rosemary was going to start crying again, but she held it in and shook her head. “What about this one?”

“Only if I needed to loosen his inhibitions about talking to me further.” Rosemary raised that one and swirled it, the liquid sloshing and almost seeming ready to burst into gaseous form at the slight motion, then sliding down back into a liquid. “One of the Garden of Love’s vintages, from…” She took a breath. “Before Carnation was taken from us.”

“Us.” Collar raised a brow.

Rosemary’s ears flattened, and for a brief, panicked moment she stared at him. Then she righted her ears and pushed calm back into her expression. “Us. Rosewater and I. Both of us loved her dearly, and it was devastating to both of us when she was exiled.”

“Rosewater turned into a recluse,” Collar said.

“Roseate made her a recluse!” Rosemary shot back. “I’ve tried so hard to push her out again, but she’s terrified that Roseate will take everypony else that she’s ever loved from her. Just like she did Carnation,” she finished in a whispered. “She took my mother from me. She took Rosewater’s mother away, too.”

He had to ask it. He hated that he had to, but he needed to know why. “Why didn’t both of you leave with her and start over somewhere else?”

Rosemary fixed him with a glower that he knew he deserved. “I love Merrie. I love my friends. I love that I am free to pursue love as I understand it. As for Rosewater… ask her. But as long as she stays here, I am needed here.”

That confirmed something Collar had long suspected ever since their first clandestine meeting. “You’re her sanctuary.”

He could have rubbed snow in her mane and gotten a less surprised reaction. “You know?”

“She told me.”

For a moment, it seemed like she was going to say more, then she closed up again, suspicion in her eyes and her demeanor. “Is it any wonder that we’re close? Carnation raised both of us. She’s lost two families, Collar, and I’m all that’s left of her second. I will…”

She swallowed, her ears drooping as she looked between Collar and Cloudy.

“I… I won’t be there for her, will I?”

“No.” Collar said the word softly.

He watched as the realization settled over her, the events of the night catching up to her along with all the implications of what her arrest meant. This wasn’t a jaunt across the bridge that she would joke with the friends she’d made of the Dammeguard about, and it wasn’t something she was going to simply walk away from.

“Will she be okay?” He asked after it seemed like the fullness of the ramifications had settled over her.

“I don’t know.” Rosemary stood, her legs shaking, and moved unsteadily around the bed to look out the window. The Clothier’s suite looked out over the courtyard, facing to the south towards Merrie. On the second floor of the palace, it wasn’t high enough to see over the buildings of Damme to its sister city, but she didn’t seem to notice as she sat there, coat shivering as unknowable thoughts passed over her.

She raised a hoof to set on the glass, flat and gentle as if she were saying farewell to somepony. She swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was rough and strained. “I don’t know, my lord. I don’t know.”

At the third repetition, she sank against the stone wall and wept quietly.

Cloudy was at her side in an instant, with only an apologetic look to him before she settled in to hold her former lover, a mare she still loved dearly.

Leaving Collar to stand and watch, and wonder what was going to happen to the relative calm he’d been able to gather to him in the past two years.

Cloudy found Collar reading reports, or at least pretending to read reports. His eyes were fixed on the page, but they weren’t moving, and a sweating bottle of chilled Dammerale sat on the corner of his desk, the condensation ring telling her he’d barely touched it.

He looked up briefly as she came in and slid the top page across to her silently.

Rosewater returned home early morning. She was not witnessed leaving the perfumery.

How she’d pulled that off, they would likely never know. A mist illusion on the door, perhaps. Or simply teleporting from within to without. Someplace she could observe the palace from afar and teleport the message and the bottle when Collar approached.

“She slipped up,” Cloudy said.

“But was it deliberate?” Collar eyed the bottle of Dammerale and took a long pull from it. “Or is she already cracking?”

“It’s not even been a day, Collar,” Cloudy said softly. “She’s stronger than that.”

“She is normally.” Collar drew in a deep breath and let it out, then took another swallow. “I need to ask a favor of you, Cloudy. I need you to watch for her on the river. If you see a chance to talk to her, try to take it.”

“Because if she’s unstable, we might have poked a badger.”

“The badger needed poking,” Collar said with a wry smile. “We can’t ignore the law for one pony just because her cousin—”

“Sister,” Cloudy said, certain of her intuition. “That wasn’t a cousin she was missing, Collar. That was her sister, and a dear one at that.” It was hard to describe to him, a single child, what it felt like to be separated from her family every day for the past two years. Even though it would only take a second to cross the river, and another few to land, the repercussions for her family would be wide-ranging.

Cloudy was a traitor in Merrie, and any visitation by her to her family would be seen as traitorous acts. Hundreds of years of familial history in that home would be ripped away from them in an instant if Cloudy gave in.

What she’d seen in Rosemary, what she’d felt as she settled in to cover the mare with a wing, was like that. It was a bond of family more potent than blood that had been broken.

“I see.” Collar leaned back in his chair and pushed his hooves against the desk. “I hate this war.”

“Gospel, sir,” she said and swiped the bottle to take a swig. It was a good batch, freshly brewed, but it still made her nose twitch as she set it back down. “I’ll be on the river, Collar. I don’t know that trying to talk to her won’t cause more problems.”

He grimaced and drained the rest of the Dammerale. “I wish I could just… ask her. Right now.”

Cloudy smiled thinly. “Duty.”

“Rutting duty,” he agreed. “Rutting war.”

Collar nosed his way into the suite, past the guard standing watch outside, and found Rosemary asleep on the bed, a pillow cast over her eyes and only her nose sticking out.

A nose that twitched when he pulled the cover off her lunch. “You didn’t have to cook what I made in my scent,” she murmured.

“It was from my mother’s trove of recipes,” Collar replied. “I had the kitchen make it for you.” He settled the platter of carrot casserole on the small desk and pulled out a chair, then hesitated and pulled one of the unused pillows from the bed to sit on, after the Merrier style. “You said you’d planned to cook it for him.”

“I did.” She didn’t elaborate.

“I wanted to talk to you informally,” he said softly, settling more comfortably in place and silencing the room to the outside. “About your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

Collar pursed his lips and tugged at the pillow covering her face gently. “I know she’s closer to you than most cousins are.”

“She’s been…” Rosemary tugged the pillow back down with a hoof rather than a spell.

“You care a great deal for her, regardless of your relationship.” Collar pulled the pillow away. “And you can’t hide, Rosemary.”

“I’m not hiding. I have a headache.”

“My apologies, then. But I am assured that eating will help remedy that after a good cry.” He smiled encouragingly and pulled another pillow down from the bed to set in front of the desk. “I apologize for the lack of an actual table, but this room was never intended as a prison cell.”

“I’m not going to be sent to Prim Prison?” Rosemary asked, frozen halfway through dismounting from the bed.

“No. Given her… tendency to be overprotective of you, we felt it best to keep you in a more secure location.” Collar smiled at the furrow-browed frown. “Oh, it’s not easy to break into Prim Prison, but it has been done before.” He waited a beat, holding a smile until she glanced at him, brows rising. “Getting out again is the hard part.”

She snorted and sat at the desk, sniffing delicately at the dish, her Rosethorn marks glowing a delicate pink. “My mother…” She swallowed. “She used to make it like this.”

“Lace has been saying quite a lot about Carnation lately,” Collar said, not bothering to hide that he was fishing for information. “The impression I’ve gotten is that they were once very close.”

Rosemary glanced at him. “If they were, it was before I was born, my lord.” Her eyes widened slightly as the knife she was using to cut up the carrots practically fell through them without the need for pressure. “When Rosewater makes it, the carrots are nowhere near so soft.”

“She cooks a lot?”

“She does.” Rosemary fell silent while she ate a few bites, her eyes brightening more with each one. “You want to ask about her, my lord.”

“I do.” He settled in more firmly on his pillow and crossed his forelegs as he leaned against the desk. “But I’d rather ask about you. Or, rather, what your plan is.”

“Stay put.” She raised a brow questioningly. “Unless you’re asking if I plan on making an escape?”

“I trust enough in your integrity to post only one guard and to leave you the Mother’s Kiss perfume.” Collar shook his head. “Strictly speaking, that should be contraband, but I’ve felt its effects. There’s no harm to it.”

She opened her mouth, her eyes flashing, but stopped before whatever she had been about to say came out and settled back down to eat another bite of casserole.

“Your cousin can bottle emotions and sell them as perfume,” Collar went on. “How she does it, even with a talent, I don’t know. It’s a rare and dangerous talent, if that’s what it is.”

“And here, I thought you wanted to know about me,” Rosemary said flatly, then demured, ears dipping, and raised another forkful of casserole to her lips. “That was meant as a gift to me. I know you didn’t miss the filigreed representations of our strange little family.”

He waited until she swallowed before answering. “I did notice. But forgive me if I’d rather not give a prisoner the means to escape so neatly packaged.”

“You did not need to give it to me at all, my lord, and yet…” Rosemary glanced to the side where the bottle sat on the bedside table, the latch firmly secured. “Why?”

“I owed her a favor. A rather large one.”

“When Roseate tried to abduct you.”

“She told you? Last I’d heard on the street was that mother and daughter just happened to be fighting over me and I, mighty stallion that I am,” he said with a pull back of his head and puffing up of his chest, “defeated both of them readily.”

Rosemary giggled. “Strong as you are, Rosewater would still stand on level ground with you, my lord. And yes. She told me.”

“That’s why,” Collar said more gently, resuming his more relaxed posture. “Ponies are going to wonder where the Rosethorn Princess has gone, you know.”

“What?” Rosemary stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Ah. The rumors must not have reached Merrie yet, then.” Collar offered her a smile, and added, “The ghost of a Rosethorn mare pining after her lost love, dancing through the mists of Primline Park before sitting down on Prim Rock to hold a silent, eternal vigil for her love lost at sea.”

“That… that’s what they think of my dancing?”

“A lot of emotion can come out in motion,” Collar said. “Such as the mournful movements of a mare preparing herself to do something she doesn’t want to do. I have the reports from the night before you were arrested. Our watcher reported you were melancholic, or seemed so, different from your usual cheerful self.” He shrugged. “A mare, half-veiled, dancing by the moonlight and then watching the sea. It’s not hard to put a sad tale to it from a pony watching at a distance.”

“I had no chance to pull off my plan, did I?”

“No. But we didn’t arrest you because we wanted to believe that you wouldn’t.”

“I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Rosemary. You could have defected to us, as Cloudy did. I would have loved to see Cloudy’s face light up to have you come to us willingly.”

“Do you think I didn’t consider that, Lord Collar?” Her face twisted into anger mixed with sorrow. “Do you think I wouldn’t wish for that to have been the easiest option?”

“Why wasn’t it?” he asked in as gentle a tone as he could.

It was curious to see her face close up as she shut down her emotional response to the question. It should have been an easy question to answer. It took her a long time to bring her breathing back to normal, and for the pain etched across her brow and ears to fade, but when she raised her head again, her expression one of careful, fragile serenity. It was how he imagined a younger Rosewater might react.

“Because it was not,” she said in a smooth tone, as though she’d been talking about the weather. “You read the letter. There are secrets I must hold close. Even inside a bubble of silence, I’d rather not even think about them too loudly.”

“I must ask. For the sake of my ponies and my city, Rosemary.”

Her eyes turned from him to the casserole, a look of understanding dawning in her eyes. “Was all this a setup to bring me here? To this conversation?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “I wanted to see what kind of mare Cloudy would fall in love with and hold onto for years of separation.” He had his answer, too, and he couldn’t blame Cloudy for her love. Rosemary was… different. “I didn’t want to ask, but I must.”

The fragile control she held over herself trembled, tears trickling down her cheeks as she stared over his shoulder, her throat bobbing, her jaw tightening and relaxing as she spoke carefully.

“I had a duty, too.” She closed her eyes. “I failed, and now she’s alone again.”

Rosewater. Collar swallowed. “She cares greatly for you. What would her reaction to your letter be, do you think?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Hide.”

Collar closed his eyes and saw her face again in the secret meeting on the bridge, the pain in her eyes barely restrained. “I’m sorry, Rosemary.”

“Me too.”

They stayed silent for a time, Rosemary struggling to bring herself back under control. He pondered what she’d been hiding, knew it must have been more of the same he was seeing in Rosemary’s eyes, only more expertly restrained, more firmly reigned over.

She resumed eating, but the joy of enjoying the food was gone.

“You know, Prim Cottage would have loved to get to know you even without the fragrances.”

Rosemary’s ears dipped once. “I know.” She opened her mouth, closed her eyes, her head sagging. “It wasn’t an option.”

“Why not? You made friends with my bridge guards easily enough.” He let a bit of his wry amusement show in a half-grin. “I had no idea what you were up to.”

“I didn’t, either.” She finished off the last of the casserole in silence, her eyes not lifting from the plate to give him a polite chance to talk to her. When she finished, she dabbed her lips clean, set the napkin on the plate and covered it again. “Thank you, my lord, for lunch.”

“Of course, Rosemary,” he said.

As he closed the door, he hesitated, watching her stand and take up the perfume bottle before sliding onto the bed, staring at it and the letter.

“Coat,” he said as he closed the door. “Listen for her, please. Let me know if anything changes.”

Author's Notes:

I was expecting to get this out before 7am... I slept in.

Book 1, 21. Storm Clouds on the Horizon, Part 1

Silence had a sound in the old estate house. It was the creak of wooden beams in their stone sockets, the sigh of the wind past the four chimneys, and the tap of her hooves on the wooden floor as she paced her study.

It wasn’t true silence, not the way she could create it with a spell, but this quiet felt emptier than the absolute of magically created solitude.

Rosemary was gone, and she had no idea for how long.

Worst of all was that she was just across the river, within range of a teleportation spell. Save that she’d already taxed her limit for the day by teleporting to the promontory above Damme to watch Collar’s progress with a spyglass.

She could have used that magic to break into Prim Palace… and likely been captured herself. Lace would make it easy for her to be captured. Take away her magic, even for a minute, and she’d be in chains before the whistles stopped echoing.

That was just one of the plans currently waiting for a spell to turn them into fuel on the hearth. She’d gone through half a dozen after getting back from her ill-advised and ill-planned trip to the forested hills overlooking the city, and each and every one of them was a ball of kindling.

She’s not gone forever.

It was easy to think it. She’d thought the same thought at least a dozen times, and another half dozen variations on it at least that often.

Believing was harder. So many ponies had been taken from her through her life, scared away, exiled… dead.

Even Glory, her sometimes companion far outside the city, late into the night, was gone, captured through Roseate’s machinations, and cutting off her information from the Rose Palace.

She could, again, walk down the path of everypony she’d lost contact with through the years, or she could stop moping and start planning.

The desk passed by her left again as she paced, the newest blank page already stained by tears. It would be a hidden message to Rosemary if she left it. “Mother loves you, and she misses you.”

The crow’s feather quill rose, fell as she sat at the desk again, and settled back into place, unused once more.

She needed to plan something. The letters had helped somewhat, but what to do after she delivered them had escaped her, as if she’d only planned for it out of worry.

You should have planned for this before.

Coward that she was, she hadn’t wanted to think about Rosemary being taken from her, too. She had, in fact, done everything she could to prevent it.

Did I? Did you never consider giving it up and defecting?

She laid her cheek on the paper, staring at the quill rocking back and forth slowly as her breath stirred it to a semblance of life. Defection was an option. It had always been an option. All it would mean was doing to her ponies what had been done to her.

Abandoning them.

Only, this time it would be her choice. She would do it willingly.

She couldn’t. As much of a coward as she was, that had never been an option.

Duty.

Rosewater closed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, her neck was stiff and it was growing dark outside. The paper had wrinkled and stiffened with salty white stains where her tears had patted against it. She almost threw it away, too.

Instead, she folded it in half and kissed it lightly, then set it aside. Tearstained paper could be used in a variety of ways to write a note. It would be a message Rosemary would understand that few others would.

The fading sun in the west cast stripes of gold across her office where the storm slats didn’t quite block out everything, and where the low, scattered skyline of Merrie didn’t block the light.

Glittering silver and glass with a muted swirling pink caught her eye, set beside a special quill she’d used to pen the secret message for Rosemary, done in the hopes that by planning even this little bit for her to not make it back, she would confuse fate and make it not come to pass.

Fate, of course, didn’t care. But sleep had been kind enough to leave her feeling more numb than hurt. That the sleep had been her passing out from lack of it helped.

She slipped the vial into a mane-clip and secured it tightly. She had only a little time before the moment to use it came.

After, she stood, stretched, and made her way to check the mailbox.

Set into the estate home’s outer wall, and double-sealed against intrusion, it was a welcome feature that let her check the mail without needing to step outside.

The expected gold-edged envelope was there, sealed with silver and gilt wax, along with another in a plain red envelope. Official notice from the Rose Palace as well.

She opened the Treaty envelope first to read the formalized notice of a prisoner of war being captured in the act of performing an unlawful hostile act in Damme. As the guardian on record, one had been delivered to her, and the other to the ruling seat of Merrie.

It was expected, but it still hurt.

The red letter took that hurt and twisted it deeper.

Citizen of Merrie Rosewater,

It has come to my attention that you have sent several unsolicited letters to the Prim Palace. As I had not given express permission or denied, I will do nothing at this time but warn you that all correspondence is to be directed through me to the Prim Palace. Failure to heed this warning will result in legal action against you, up to and including exile at my discretion.

Formally,

Baroness Roseate

Forbidding her from communicating with Rosemary would be verboten, as she was Rosemary’s guardian, and Roseate knew it.

Damn her!

She took a deep breath and calmed the fury and hate burning in her, putting it away neatly into a box to be used or discarded later.

One card left in her hoof could change the outcome if she played it at the right time, in the right place. All she had to do was ask the Treaty Office to unseal the birthday present Carnation had given her for her twenty-first birthday.

Formal adoption papers signed and sealed by Carnation and the royal notary.

It had taken less thought to add her signature to them than it had to remember to breathe when she’d first seen them.

They were secret, still, held in a sealed lockbox in the Merrie Treaty Office, and she had the only key still in either city. It was one of the treasures she kept locked away in her safe room in the perfumery.

Playing the parent card needed to come at the right moment, and she needed to see if she could play it close to the heart. Letting Roseate know that the relationship between Rosemary and Rosewater went deeper than an obligated guardianship would only make her insane mother try all the harder to take yet another pony away from her.

The chance to play it would come, and if Roseate continued to be Roseate, it would come soon. The mare never could resist gloating.

That would come later. The next part of her plan, she’d come up with before she’d had time to think about what it would mean to have Rosemary actually gone from her life, however long it meant she was gone, and it meant she needed to put her mask on.

And a scarf. The nights were growing chillier as autumn left behind summer’s heat and the cooler northern weather began to remind them all just how far north they were.

Roseate’s goons were waiting right outside the door, as she’d known they must be, waiting for a glimpse of the interior of her home in an unguarded moment. They were disappointed, of course, and only got a look at the mudroom and a bit of the hallway beyond.

“Good evening, gentleponies,” she said genially. “I trust my mother is doing well?”

One mare stepped forward, somepony who might have been a beauty in her own right, had she any sense of decorum, and wasn’t perfumed with enticements that she plied against Rosewater to little avail. “She would like to talk to you, gorgeous,” the mare simpered, flirting her tail in what she surely believed was a fetching way.

“I feel the opposite,” Rosewater said, dousing the mare’s enticements with a single spell, pulling the chill fragrance from the air to cool the warming lusty scent. “Run along… Rosejoy, was it?” She thought the name fit from what Rosemary had told her of her more frequent harassers.

Now that they hadn’t Rosemary to shadow… apparently they’d picked her.

“And tell my mother to stop trying to entice me to come visit. She wastes everypony’s time. If she has official business, she knows how to reach me.”

Rosejoy pulled a vial from her mane, lips twisted into a malicious smile, apparently believing she had the upper hoof. Right up until it and every vial clipped into her mane came free and, with a series of distant plops, flew into the river a hundred paces away.

“Do not attempt to entice me, either, Rosejoy. I am not to be trifled with, and my tolerance for the arrogance of goons runs thin. On this night, thinner than most.” Rosewater glared at her, then at her nearest companion, pushing a touch of heat into her voice and her posture. “Begone.”

They scurried away. At least there was some use for her “Rose Terror” moniker, as much as she hated it.

She watched them go, holding onto the sour thoughts for a moment only before she pushed them away. This wasn’t a time for sour thinking.

Tonight, she would share with Rosemary memories of Carnation. Even if she couldn’t be there with her to remember together, she could at least catch sight of the prison and the palace.

That was no time to be in a snit.

There were a few other ponies wandering the meandering river road, couples and thruples in their conversations, laughing and prancing in the hinted at chill of months to come, their breath nowhere near to fogging. That didn’t seem to stop them from trying to accomplish the feat a month early.

Love. It was what she wanted to preserve in Merrie. The pure joy of partnership, of relationship, and of friendship. Here, like no other place in Equestria, it could bloom without restriction.

It was the love that Carnation had brought Rosewater up to believe in, that her father had passed on to her in the few years that she could remember of him, and it was the love that she and Carnation together had encouraged to thrive in Rosemary.

It was the love she held in a vial of pink and gold.

She’d named it Mother’s Kiss, but the first time she’d inhaled her triumph, she’d seen her father, too, beaming at her as she worked on her first letters, his tall, lanky frame and white coat too thin, even in the memory.

Halfway between the Rosewine and the Midway bridges, Rosewater caught sight of the Palace in the distance, framed perfectly down Damme’s straight streets.

Whether Rosemary was there or in the Prison, she wasn’t likely to get a better view of either than this.

She stopped, raised her scarf high in the air, and shone a bright light from her horn on it. The silver threads embroidered through it shone like the moon, and Carnation’s paintbrush rose Cutie mark, embroidered there by Rosemary years ago, gleamed against the creamy orange of the scarf.

The sign she’d written for Rosemary to look for.

It would confuse her watchers, both in Merrie and in Damme, but if Rosemary was watching from somewhere in the Palace, she would see it, she was certain.

A count of ten, and she lowered the scarf, wrapping her memory of Carnation tightly about her again, and counted again to ten.

She had to trust that Collar would give her the perfume. She had to trust that he was a decent pony, and that her attempts to sway him, few and paltry they might have been, had been enough to get him to trust her.

The cloud of perfume glowed soft pink as she infused it with magic, empowering the latent spell hidden in the matrix of the fragrance, and drew it in.

Cloudy napped on and off at the Rosewater watch post, Prim Note waking her at intervals to give her an update and occasionally making comment that she should find an actual bed, and not the lumpy dispatch bag she was using as a pillow and sun-shade.

Throughout the day, Note reported that the silence would come and go, but he had faint sounds of cursing, some sobbing intermittently, and then a long silence.

He woke her up again when the goons arrived to loiter in the cartwright’s yard across the way from Rosewater’s home.

By then, she’d gotten enough in the way of catnaps and shut-eye that she wasn’t groggy. She spent some time writing up a description of each of the goons while Note tended to his other watch duties, more to pass the time than to make any real attempt at identifying them. Priceless likely had postcard portraits of all of them along with their vices and known crimes.

Still, it helped to pass the time and keep her mind off of Rosemary and Collar. What she was going to do about that situation, she wasn’t sure yet, but it was something she was going to have to put thought into, and more than “I’ll figure it out.”

Just as the sun was setting, and Cloudy was sure that Rosewater had actually fallen asleep, or into unconsciousness, her door opened, and the mare walked out, scarved against the moderate chill. She watched as Rosewater dealt quietly and quickly with the goons and resume her walk without seeming to skip a beat.

Note relayed the conversation word-for-word back to her.

“She’s on a timetable,” Cloudy murmured.

“Is she going to try and rescue her cousin?” Note asked, raising a brow. “Or attempt to? Lace is at the palace today.”

“No.” Cloudy shook her head slowly. “She wouldn’t risk it. But…”

She watched as Rosewater made her way past revelers delighting in the chilling air and wished for a moment that she could walk beside her and ask her what was bothering her. She knew, or thought she did, but sometimes a simple question she thought she knew the answer to had unexpected depth.

She stopped some distance from the lookout post, and well within range of another of the main posts, almost half a mile away and still visible thanks to her white coat.

“I’m changing stations,” Cloudy said abruptly, rising and stretching out her wings before stepping onto the ledge. “Keep watch, Note.”

“Can’t do much else from here,” he said sourly. “I can’t reach that far.”

She grinned at him and took off, watching as Rosewater flashed some kind of signal toward Merrie using her scarf, and landed just as she wrapped it about her again.

From the Midway lookout post, she was able to watch Rosewater as she pulled out a silver and crystal perfume bottle, unstoppered it, and enchanted a pink and gold glittering mist into being in front of her.

For a moment, afraid of some kind of attack, Cloudy arched her wings, ready to rebuff any attempt at sending a scent her way.

Instead, she pulled the cloud closer and inhaled slowly, her eyes closed.

“My lady,” the watchstander said, his salute audible behind her. “Rosewater watch?”

“Yes. Please, do you have a spyglass?” She held out a hoof, not letting her eyes leave Rosewater. Whatever she was doing, she seemed not to be moving at all, save for shrinking the cloud as she inhaled it slowly, the glowing pink mist descending on her until it was all gone.

A heavy metallic weight settled in the crook of her ankle, and she sat back, peering through it and getting a look at the mare’s face as if she were only half a dozen feet away instead of more than three hundred feet distant.

“What’s she doing?” The stallion asked.

“Shh. Do you have an aural mage on staff tonight?”

“Nay, my lady.” Again he used the noble title she’d not earned or inherited. Not in Damme at least.

Rosewater’s lips were moving, her brows high and tight as a beatific smile spread to take in her cheeks, the cut-like marks of her Rosethorn heritage pulling to cup them, like a lover might before leaning in for a kiss. She was beautiful when she smiled so brightly, and Cloudy felt a need to know what it was that made her do so.

When her eyes opened, the smile slipping from her face, the faintest sheen of glowing pink and gold spilled from them before it faded to be replaced by tears as she went from nearly ecstatic to grief-stricken in the span of moments.

That phase didn’t last nearly so long, but it took time for Rosewater to regain the composure she’d walked down the riverwalk with. By the time she opened her eyes again, her neck was unbowed, and a fainter smile, but no less real for that, graced her lips as she raised her head to look seemingly right at Cloudy.

Then she turned and walked back up the road, her gait even and sure, and there was even a swish in her tail. Whatever that scent had been, it had improved her mood tremendously.

Whatever it had been, it was the same one she’d given to Rosemary. She’d have staked her freedom on it.

She collapsed the spyglass and handed it back to the watchstander. “Thank you.”

“What was that all about?” he asked, his ears flat. “Was she just letting us know she was there?”

“She hardly needs to do all that to make us pay attention to her,” Cloudy said with a snort.

“Fair enough,” he said with a sigh and returned to scribbling his notes down for a report. “Are you going off shift?”

“I’ve not been on shift,” she replied, narrowing her eyes as Rosewater didn’t return to her home, but continued on down the road, following the river still as the night drew close. “I’ll be back in half an hour to take reports from the watch posts.”

“Aye, my lady.”

She took off again, making her course north, then dipping below the skyline and angling east on a course parallel to Rosewater’s until she was well outside the sight of the cities before turning south again and crossing the river in the last shadows of the dying day to land behind a farmer’s barn.

Either she would get answers or she wouldn’t, but she needed to try.

Lingering memories of her father walking her outside the city to sniff at flowers and train her heritage when she had barely been cannon high to him coerced Rosewater to follow the road out, bypassing her empty home and its promise of only misery.

Rosejoy and her gang weren’t anywhere to be seen, and none of the other watchers that would normally dog her steps seemed interested in following her to wherever she went.

Even Cloudy had parted from her watchpost to return to the Palace and report what she’d seen. They would piece it together, of course. Keeping it secret from she and Collar had never been the point.

Now, at least, they would know to search her letters for hidden secrets that she didn’t want them to be able to suss out without Rosemary’s help.

That… and she’d been able to share a moment, maybe, with her daughter.

She could still remember her father’s voice as he guided a three-year old already possessed of her letters and numbers, to identify this or that flower by the side of the road.

Most of them were still the same as they had been a lifetime ago, with only small variations in the concentrations of the roadside foliage as the years went on.

The further she got from Merrie’s gate, the wilder the grasslands around her grew, interspersed with fields and farms that were beginning their late-year harvests, some with half their fields scythed and bundled, others just starting.

Cottages stood out here and there, their either silent or streaming forth white smoke and the fragrance of dinner done or being cooked, and a few barns here and there for the larger farms stood as stark and silent sentinels against the vermin that wanted to eat the silage for the coming winter.

It was a peaceful walk, letting her draw out the memories given her by Mother’s Kiss. Blue Star had been diligent in his duties as a parent, and loving in ways that Roseate could never match and had never tried.

He taught her the mores of his home of Canterlot, the noble code of the Knights of Canter, and told her stories about the long-gone Crystal Empire, of which he claimed to be a distant descendant. He taught her that love was a force in the world, and that he loved her so very dearly.

It had been that love which had tainted Roseate against the prospect of keeping future mates around after they’d sired a foal on her. It had also been that love which had woken Rosewater’s talent earlier than it should have.

Her talent wasn’t simply bottling emotion. It was emotion.

It had been her talent that let her know that her father loved her so very much.

She stumbled as the last memory, one she didn’t need a perfume to recall, that was branded into her soul, flickered through her mind before she put it back in its box. Gently.

A minute passed before she was able to find her footing again and blink clear the tears that welled up, but she continued on, maneuvering as much around dips in the road as she was around painful memories.

As the final rays of the sun winked out below the waves to the west, Rosewater stopped to watch the moon rise, the horn of the Mare coming into view first as silver light replaced golden, and the dim pewter cast to the world made it seem even more like a memory.

“What would you think of me now?” Rosewater asked the Mare as her eye came into view. “Would you approve of the things I’ve done? Were there other ways through this mess?”

She hadn’t been expecting an answer, and when one came, from the shadows of a barn set off the road a ways, she jumped and flared her magic, slipping into shadow and darting to the side before she’d placed who the voice belonged to.

“Easy,” Cloudy said, sounding much as she remembered from their nighttime repartee, but adopting a rural twang for a disguise. “I just asked who you were talking to.” She didn’t leave the shadows, a wise precaution, even if simply being there was a risk.

Rosewater swallowed her panic but kept the veil in place. This far from the city, she could more easily blend into the wild, the mottling easier to cast doubt on the shadows than it was with sconces and lanterns laid all about.

“I didn’t come to fight,” Cloudy continued, “but to talk.”

Privacy. Rosewater hadn’t given much thought to who might have followed her.

A simple spell, weaving gossamer threads of telekinetic force together in a web around her, then casting it out, let her feel her surroundings for as far as she could reach. Glory couldn’t have hidden from it, except by hiding behind something, and the only something in the area immediately around her was the barn.

There was nopony else with her on the road, not as far as she could feel, and while that wouldn’t have given Rose Crown an issue with her abilities as an aural mage, it gave her some hope that she could hide this conversation.

Another spell silenced the area as she crept behind the barn to find Cloudy watching and waiting for her, worry in her expression, but determination underlying it.

“Truce?” Cloudy asked.

“For tonight,” Rosewater agreed. “Tomorrow night, I would not count on it.”

“Why are you still acting like you’re our enemy?” Cloudy demanded.

“Is that truly the reason you took a risk to talk to me?” Rosewater sniffed and turned away to peer around the edge of the barn and sent another whisper of telekinetic threads across the landscape, letting them build a mental map of her surroundings and look for anything pony-shaped. Still nopony there. “I could capture you now and have Rosemary back by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“But you won’t.”

“You sound so sure of that.” Rosewater turned to face her, risking a little light to bring the mare’s features into view. Cloudy’s face told her the story in the dim pink light. “You aren’t, are you?” And she’d still come. “You’re either brave or stupid.”

“Or I know you better than you think,” Cloudy growled, stepping closer. “I know you could capture me right now, and you’re not wrong. Collar would, at the very least, return Rosemary for me.”

Which begged the question of why Rosewater wasn’t doing just that right then. She had no witnesses.

Rosemary loves her. Collar loves her.

“You love Rosemary,” Cloudy said more gently, touching her foreleg with a gentle hoof. “You know what it would mean to her if I was used as a bargaining chip for her return.”

“I wouldn’t betray her trust.” It would also gravely damage her hope of gaining Collar’s trust. “Where is she being held?”

“Why?”

“Personal reasons.”

Cloudy eyed her for a moment. “Second floor of the Palace. I trust I don’t have to tell you attempting to break in would be ludicrously futile?”

“You don’t.” Rosewater stepped back from her, eyes closed, and made sure her mask of emotional control was firmly in place. “Why did you come here?”

“Collar asked me to. He’s convinced you’re not a danger to us.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“And yet…” Cloudy spread her wings a touch.

“Not completely an idiot,” Rosewater amended. “What did he want to talk to me about?”

“You, I presume.” Cloudy smiled faintly. “I’m afraid Rosemary was… she had a shock delivered last night, and today it hit her heart that she wouldn’t be making a jaunt across the bridge to flirt with the guards and make her merry way home.” She touched Rosewater’s foreleg again. “She was worried about you, and how you would take it.”

A dozen responses came to mind, playing to the various masks she’d worn in the past years, all of them antagonistic toward the mare who’d come to tell her that her daughter was terrified, but still worried for her.

“I will survive,” she said at last. She took a breath. “And I have something I need to share, though I am trusting that you won’t spread it about. Roseate has forbidden me from contacting Prim Palace for any reason, on pain of exile. That includes you.”

“Why?” Cloudy demanded, stalking away and then back. “Aren’t you her guardian?”

“I am.” And more. More that would hopefully let her throw her mother’s order into the river and let her take the offense for once against her. Whether or not Cloudy and Collar would let her… “Go. Before somepony thinks to follow me.”

“I’ll be seen.” The way Cloudy said it made it a reminder rather than telling her she was being stupid.

“No, you won’t.” Rosewater split her concentration between her veil and a short-lived veil powered by a Heart’s Opening sigil. “Fly quickly north and get to ground before this wears off. You have a minute.”

“Thank you.” Cloudy leapt and dashed to the north, the draft from her launching downsweep scattering dust and bracken out from Rosewater’s silence.

A few seconds later, Rosewater marshalled the last of her flagging reserves and recalled herself to the basement, remembering to keep her posture just so.

She made it after only two tries this time.

Author's Notes:

The next several chapters are singles, not having reached the threshold of splitting them up yet. Thank you for reading!

(part 2 tomorrow morning)

Book 1, 22. Storm Clouds on the Horizon, Part 2

Collar sat back in his chair after Cloudy finished her report, tapping a hoof against the arm of the chair. Rosewater was cracking, that much was clear from what Cloudy had said of the first exchange of their meeting, and she could break either for or against Collar’s interests, depending on how things played out.

She’d also given little away about what her true intentions were, aside from protecting and cherishing Rosemary. If he’d sent anypony else, they might not have returned from the meeting.

“I’m sorry, Cloudy,” he said at last. “I hadn’t thought beyond the immediate need.”

“I’m not.” Cloudy huffed. “I watched her use that perfume on herself. I saw the effect it had on her. Whether she intended to or not, she showed a side of herself I believe she meant to keep hidden from all.”

“But why there?” Collar rustled some scrolls around before finding a city map of Damme with a focus on the riverfront. “You said she stood here?” He highlighted a spot on the map.

“Yes.” Cloudy rolled her eyes. “I’ll save you the trouble of figuring it out.” She drew a line from the spot down a straight street and tapping the palace’s blocky square. “I don’t know whether Rosemary’s suite is visible from there or not, but she brought with her a ‘flag’ that could be seen miles away when she lit it up.”

She was right. Collar frowned down at the map. “Has she bottled telepathy?”

“You keep telling me telepathy isn’t possible,” Cloudy reminded him, yawning widely and blinking. “Stars above, today took a lot out of me.”

“Go to sleep, then. I’ll join you shortly.” He rubbed at his cheek again, staring at the map, certain he was missing something. It might have been exhaustion clouding his mind. “I just have some more thinking to do.”

Her lips were warm and soft against his, waking an ache and a want in him for the brief moment they shared a breath. “Don’t stay up too late.”

She didn’t bother to flirt her tail on her way out as she usually did. A sign of just how tired she was. The little catnaps that Note’s report of the day’s activities hadn’t done her much good.

They were more than he’d gotten for himself.

His day had been spent cloistered with Lace to discuss Rosemary’s sentencing and to set an appropriate and appropriately high cost for her ransom. On the table as well was the potential of making her serve out the sentence in full.

There was no provision in the Treaty to force acceptance of a herdgild in return for waiving sentencing, simply that it was the most common practice and mechanisms had been enacted at the start to facilitate that trade of flesh for coin or favor. Distasteful as he found it, it was the only way to truly put pressure on Merrie that the Reformations allowed.

Economic pressure.

Rose Crown’s return had fetched an increase of bridge taxes for the use of Damme’s ports by Merrie’s merchant class and had caused a subsequent increase in the grumbling their spies reported aimed at Roseate. Rosemary’s…

He yawned and leaned back in his chair again, thankful for the support helping him stay awake. If he’d sat on a pillow throughout the discussion, he wasn’t certain he’d have stayed awake.

Rosemary’s obvious remorse, and her fumbling attempt at an infiltration had pushed Collar to think more leniently on her sentence and forego the price, compelling her to serve time.

That would frustrate Roseate.

Collar slid from the chair and resolved to make a last check of Rosemary’s comfort before retiring to his bed with Cloudy.

The palace was quiet, empty feeling this late. Lace and Dapper had long since retired, and the night watch was circumspect in their patrols of the halls, lest they wake the staff that slept in their quarters on constant retainer. There weren’t many of them in that class, but some had elected to take the offer of housing in return for services and an increase in pay to compensate for their being always on call.

It took him a moment as he made his way up the staircase to the second level to realize that Prim Coat wasn’t on watch outside Rosemary’s cell. In his place, Sunrise Primfeather stood there, her ears splayed sideways and going flat as she caught sight of him.

“My lord,” she said, saluting.

“At ease,” Collar replied, returning the salute automatically. “Where’s Coat? I thought he’d be taking the last watch of the day.”

“Er…” Sunrise chewed her lip and glanced at the door and swallowed. “I was… he…”

“Something happened?” Collar’s sleepiness fell away. “What happened?”

“N-nothing, my lord. He called for me as I was passing by and asked me to keep watch.” Sunrise swallowed hard. “Then he went inside, and there was nothing but silence after that.”

Collar relaxed minutely, but the adrenaline response still kept him alert. “Thank you for making things seem normal. Where’s your normal duty shift at this time of day?”

“Patrol, my lord.” She saluted again. “I’m night shift patrol for another few days.”

“Get to it, please. I’ll have a word with Coat later.” Collar waited until she’d left before he thought to ask how long ago that had been. By then, it was too late. He sighed and rubbed at his muzzle before opening the door and slipping in to…

Rosemary was lying on the bed, curled up into a ball, her nose tucked between her hind legs and tail covering her ears. Her small frame shivered and shook in time with the faint whimpers drifting up from where she’d hidden herself.

Coat looked up from where he half-lay on the bed, his hoof stroking her back and not pausing even as he acknowledged Collar’s presence with a nod.

Scattered on the bed were the letter Rosewater had sent and the perfume bottle, its stopper thankfully clasped tightly shut and latched.

“What happened?” Collar whispered as he settled in across from his cousin.

“I don’t know,” Coat replied in just as soft a whisper. “Scent magic isn’t my forte. All I know is that when I came in, she was breathing in a pink and gold mist as she stared out the window, and she was calling for her mommy.”

A memory from foalhood. “Was the mist glowing?”

“Brightly.”

She’d activated and empowered the perfume and used it on herself. He couldn’t imagine how much clearer or impactful the vision of a memory past would have been with that much magic coursing through it. It’d been what Rosewater had done, and as he looked out the window, it all clicked into place.

“By the stars and the Mare,” Collar whispered, closing his eyes. “They were sharing a memory.”

Rosemary’s whimpering and sniffling grew fainter and her back stiffened.

Collar glanced at the letter, noting that the words seemed different, and in a different shade than they had before.

“Rosemary,” Collar asked in a more normal voice. “May I read the letter again?”

Her head bobbed in a nod, and her voice rose briefly. “Thank you for asking.”

The back of the letter held a small paragraph of fine script that smelled faintly of the perfume he’d tested.

Dearest Rosemary,

This gift was meant for your twenty-first birthday, to share with you the memories I had of your mother, and the love we had for you. I love you with all my heart, and your mother does, too.

At the sun’s downing, look to the river and share with me a memory of Carnation.

Love,

Rosewater

By the stars. Collar swallowed. All that pageantry. All the setup. All the work she must have put into planning and executing the delivery of a letter and a bottle of perfume.

All to share a memory of their mother. Their true mother.

Collar folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into its envelope and laid it on a pillow at the head of her bed. “I’m sorry, Rosemary.”

He should add to her sentence for willful use of scent magic in Damme’s borders. That’s what the law said he should do, and what he would have done in any other circumstance. This…

It was the opposite of everything that most Dammers believed of scent magic. It wasn’t controlling, or harmful, but uplifting and loving. For Rosewater to create it, to share it so freely with another…

He met Coat’s eyes and tipped his head to the door. “You’re supposed to be on door guard for this shift.”

Coat bristled briefly, his cousin, soft-hearted stallion that he was, rebelling against the apparent chill. “My lord,” he said, reverting to formality. “She was upset, and alone, and scared.”

“She was not. She is.” Collar tipped his head to the side as Rosemary straightened herself out. “Thank you for taking care of her, Coat, but I do need you to follow orders. Find me the next time something like this happens.”

Coat swallowed and nodded. “She is.”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

When the door clicked shut again, Collar took over maintaining the silence ward in the room, and made a mental note to ask for the funds to make the ward semi-permanent.

“I’m sorry,” Rosemary murmured, her hoof reaching out to touch the silver and glass bottle.

“I can hardly arrest you for the same crime twice, while you’re still under arrest” Collar said, more lightly than he felt. “But if it had been anypony but Coat or I who found you, it would have extended your sentence.”

“Extend it.”

Collar blinked at the mare as she twisted her head, her cheeks stained by tears. “Excuse me?”

“I broke the law again, my lord. Willfully.”

“Ah.” Collar forced himself to chuckle and plucked the perfume bottle from the bed with a spell. “Then I suppose I should get a sentence as well, considering it was I that lent you the tool to commit the crime. That’s called being an accessory.”

She smiled weakly, but it was a smile. “I’m being… overdramatic?”

“No.” Collar inspected the silverwork encasing the bottle, playing for time. “Honestly, I have a hard time sometimes understanding what it’s like to have siblings,” he said finally, setting the bottle on the nightstand. “I’m an only child, and while I grew up playing with Coat and a few other cousins, that’s all they were. At the end of the day, I went home, and so did they, leaving me with my parents and the staff of the palace for company.”

“I’m an only child, too,” Rosemary murmured, looking aside and betraying the lie.

“You were Carnation’s only child. That doesn’t mean you didn’t grow up with a sister,” Collar replied.

Something in Rosemary’s stare at him said he’d not quite gotten to the truth. Not as they saw it anyway. Still, he knew what he’d seen in her eyes, and Cloudy wasn’t far off the mark, either. She had experience with that kind of ache.

Finally, Rosemary nodded, hesitantly, but she acknowledged the point. “Carnation raised both of us.”

Not, he noted, the same as saying ‘She raised us as siblings.’

“Get some sleep, Rosemary,” he said. “I won’t stop you from remembering your mother, but please ask if you want to use scent magic in the future.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I-I…” She trailed off again, biting her lip. Still holding back. “Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can get you?” Collar asked, thinking of what flowers he could find that were supposed to be useful sleep aids, then grimaced. “Some warm milk, maybe?”

“No.” Rosemary smiled, beaming the same smile Cloudy had said Rosewater had shown. “I think I’ll sleep okay.”

When he stepped outside with Coat, he sagged to his hindquarters. “You’re more in tune with the crowd in the barracks than I am these days. Think of some Dammeguard that would be kind to her, possibly friendly. Don’t tell them who she’s related to.” Collar looked up briefly to make sure Coat had gotten his meaning.

“I’m not an idiot, sir,” Coat said with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t have guessed it myself, with how sweet she is.”

“I know. I intend to put myself in the rotation as well. For at least an hour a day.” He jerked his head up and back at the door. “That young mare… she doesn’t deserve this.”

“No.”

He sighed. “I’m starting to get the feeling that Rosewater doesn’t, either.”

Coat wasn’t that far along. He eyed Collar, then lifted his nose briefly. “If you say so, sir.”

At least he liked Rosemary. He could work with that.

The next morning, Rosemary woke alone in the luxurious bed, with only the remnants of Cloudy’s scent decorating the coverlet beside her.

With that draw of breath, she also caught another mare’s scent, that of a mature, if not elder mare. It was fresher, and the sound of shifting hooves told her she wasn’t alone.

“Peace,” Lace said softly from beside the doorway as Rosemary twisted to get a look at her. “I come bearing breakfast and an offer of companionship.”

“My lady.” Rosemary swallowed, frozen in place on the bed, uncertain what she should do in the situation. “Companionship?”

“A young stallion who’s been Collar’s protege for some years now. One of his proteges, at least.” Lace tipped her head to the side, indicating a sealed plate. “And a game. Can you guess what’s under the dome from smell alone?”

Rosemary frowned, and immediately pulled it into a neutral expression. “Why?”

“It was a game your mother and I played while she was a prisoner of war,” Lace said softly. “Some years before you were born, and in the same year Rosewater was. Guess the food, ask a question. Fail to guess, answer a question. Honestly and fully.”

“You knew my mother?” She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, that Lace knew her or that her mother had kept it from her. Did she keep it from Rosewater, too?

“Very well.” Lace’s ears dipped briefly as she gave a small, sad smile. “I take it that she did keep our accord, then.” She settled in. “I’m afraid that I still cannot break our accord, but suffice to say that before I was convinced to release her from our custody, I had an ally on the other side of the river. I was quite reluctant to do so, you understand, as the sister of the heir of Merrie was a powerful bargaining chip.”

A thin smile parted Lace’s lips at the end, showing a hint of teeth.

Rosemary swallowed past the sudden tension in her throat. “She… never said anything.” She took a breath, drawing upon her heritage more deeply than usual. “You sealed it with wax and washed the cover.”

“My dear,” Lace clucked her tongue. “I can’t make it too easy.”

Another few breaths only yielded a hint of the chef and the mare who’d delivered it. “I give up. You’ve cleaned away the scents too thoroughly.”

“Mmm. So I get to ask a question.” Lace cast a spell on the plate and dome, and with a faint pop, it came free, revealing eggs with a side of whipped roe adorning a slice of toasted bread and two crispy hashed brown patties. “If you agree to my terms.”

“What are your terms?”

“Answer honestly.” Lace smiled sweetly and floated the plate, a napkin, and a dinnerware set to rest on the foot of the bed. “That’s all.”

“If I have my own promises and secrets to keep?”

“Then say you can’t answer.” Lace bobbed her head slightly. “A fair question. And my first one is this: what was she like as a mother?”

Rosemary resisted the urge to swallow. She could ask for clarification, but that would give away the secret, or she could assume Lace meant Carnation… or she could assume that Lace knew, somehow, that Rosewater was more than she portrayed herself as.

“Carnation Rosethorn,” Rosemary said slowly, testing the way ahead with words, looking to Lace for confirmation that this was what she wanted, “was loving. She…” She swallowed, glancing at Lace, and flattened her ears. “When I partook of Mother’s Kiss, I relived a day when I was with her on a picnic outside the city. It was springtime, and she’d brought her easel and Rosewater had made some raspberry tarts for us to share while Carnation and Rosewater took turns painting one another into the landscape.”

Lace’s smile grew warm, motherly and matronly at the same time, and she settled in to listen.

“Rosewater was trying so hard to learn to paint like Carnation, but watercolors were never something she could get the hang of. She was much more comfortable with precise lines and proper, exacting shades. But she was learning to soften her touch, and look at the world more impressionistically.” As she spoke, the memory bubbled up again, and it was easy to steer clear of calling Rosewater mother and see her as a sister, from Lace’s perspective.

“I was ten years old…”

“Are you sure this is going to be okay?”

Rosemary looked up from nosing through the picnic basket to see Rosewater staring off to the north, her nose lifted to the air, a hoof on the bonnet keeping her mane in check as the wind gusted and blew down from the mountains far off in the distance.

“We’ll be fine. Nopony else is going to bother coming out here, you know.” Carnation laughed and nuzzled Rosewater’s neck, as high up as she could reach on the younger, taller mare. “Come back and sit down, Rosewater. I promise, we’ll make it home before the storm settles in.”

Her mothers, one carefree and spirited, the other worrisome and tightly constrained, were a portrait of opposites, and yet they fit together, each one making up for the others’ shortcomings. That Rosewater was sixteen years Carnation’s junior didn’t seem to matter to them, and so it didn’t matter to her.

They were her mothers. That was a fact as solid as the stones she’d spent half the morning scrounging up to weigh down the blanket.

“And the easel?” Rosewater eyed the tripod and the canvas frame, both of them attempting to fly away.

“We’ll figure something out,” Carnation said. “Come on, I’m not going to listen to you gripe about the weather, ‘Water. Today, regardless of whether I get some painting time in, is for us. The wind helps us stay private, after all. It’ll shred any listening spells.”

That was a cue for Rosemary to bound around the basket and hug her dour mommy’s foreleg. “Come on, mother, let’s have lunch! I’m starving!”

Little else could pull Rosewater away from her worrying, but that could, even if she did cast a fearful look back towards the city at Rosemary breaking the taboo against calling her mother in public.

In the end, she lost the battle against her beloved’s urging and her daughter’s pleading, and relented, though she did keep an eye on the storm brewing far north, the dark line promising a chilly gale much later.

“If either of you catches a cold,” Rosewater said indignantly as she was drawn back to sit on the blanket, keeping a small dome of calm air over the easel and canvas, “I am going to say ‘I told you so’ for a week.”

“And if we don’t,” Carnation said, grinning broadly, her eyes twinkling, “I get to choose where we go for our next four outings.”

Rosewater couldn’t hide the amusement in her eyes even as she put on a mock-severe face. “Deal. I look forward to wearing my voice hoarse.”

“And I look forward to having Seed and Rosemary braid your mane.”

“The horror,” Rosewater said, a laugh finally breaking free and the dour facade falling away to reveal the mother she was in private, delighting in Rosemary’s recounting of finding the biggest rock, a quartz and granite geode that would later grace their kitchen cabinet-top.

“Rosewater begged off painting anything but the landscape,” Rosemary said as she cut the last of the eggs with a fork and pushed a touch of the whipped roe onto them. “She’s always been better at painting wild spaces than ponies. I think it’s a part of her fascination with the Deerkin tribes that use our bridges to cross the river on their way south for the winter.”

“I would love to see some of her work.”

“She… keeps it all locked up in the estate,” Rosemary admitted, smiling faintly. “In part because Carnation often adds us to the landscapes Rosewater painted. Sometimes little figures hiding in the woods, sometimes sitting in the focus, and sometimes…”

Lace’s brows rose. “Sometimes?”

She’d almost let it out. It was too easy to think of Rosewater as her mother. She hadn’t had that problem before. Not for a few years.

“Sometimes, she liked to imagine we were a happy family.”

“It sounds to me like you made your own happiness,” Lace said more gently than she would have thought possible from the stern older mare. “That was Carnation. She made her own happiness, and if she couldn’t, then she found it and dragged everypony with her.”

“That sounds like you speak from experience.”

“I do.” Lace smiled more broadly and chuckled. “When Rosewater was just six, she pulled that poor little filly to a gala and introduced her to me, and to Collar. I doubt either of them remembers it. She was still grieving over her father, and he was a six year old Damme colt.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“No. I… don’t know what became of that filly, Rosemary, and I don’t want to make assumptions that could give my son the wrong idea.”

“She’s still a good mare.”

“I hope she is.” The smile fell away after a moment, and Lace nodded to the plate. “Finish up, dear, and I’ll take that with me.”

“What happened?”

“Roseate happened, sadly.” Lace’s smile turned thin and bitter. “You are more familiar with the story than I from there, young lady, and I won’t burden you with retelling it. I am happy to hear a touch of what my dear friend got up to after she was forced to let go of her contact with me.”

Rosemary darted a look from the plate to Lace. “After Roseline died.”

“Roseline and I never saw eye-to-eye on much, and we butted heads on more occasions that I care to think of, but she was as devoted to the well-being of her ponies as I was to mine.” Lace cocked her head to the side. “Had she lived but a few years longer, both cities would have seen the Reformations come to pass. I had hoped Roseate would at least not destroy the work we’d already put into it, but the ground was still soft, and the mourning candles still smoking when she burned the agreements.

“We lost two great ponies that year, Rosemary. Blue Star, your uncle, also passed only a few months before Roseline.”

Rosemary closed her eyes and sent the plate over to land on the desk, appetite destroyed. “I never knew him.”

“And Rosewater wouldn’t talk about him.” Lace smiled and bobbed her head. “One of the last things Carnation told me was how closed-up Rosewater was becoming about her father, as if she were hoarding every memory of him to herself.”

Unspoken, but still heard, To keep them safe from Roseate.

“I’ll be happy to share what I know of him,” Lace continued. “But it would be best if you asked your cousin. She knew him best of all of us. She rarely left his side for four long, mostly happy years.” She gathered up the plate and utensils and sealed off the rest of breakfast. “Most of who she is came from him, I believe. Both good and bad.”

“No. Carnation is there, too.” Deep down, below her armor, Rosemary knew that Rosewater tried her hardest to live up to all Carnation tried to embody.

“Oh, she is, I’m sure. But Blue Star was a determined stallion. I see more of that in her than I see your mother’s carefree nature. Those early years shaped who she would be, Rosemary.” Lace opened the door, hesitating before she let the enspelled silence drop. “Only Rosewater can tell us who that pony is.”

After the spell dropped, Rosemary worried her lip and stared at the door. “My lady?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“What… what happens next?”

“Coat will be along with lunch around the noon hour. Try to get some rest until then.”

The door closed and locked behind her, and she heard Lace’s voice issuing soft orders before silence fell again and left Rosemary to consider all over again just what her parents had been hiding from her.

The latter morning and early afternoon found her talking quietly with Prim Coat through the door, asking him questions about Damme and his family, and eventually about his husband.

It was a quiet and reflective way to spend an afternoon, thinking on family and what somepony else’s family was like. Coat’s was normal compared to hers, and he was Collar’s first cousin—a fact that left him open to politics from all sides, both pro- and anti-Reformation.

He was, she was happy to learn, pro-Reformation and despite being married and eligible for the family exclusion, had volunteered to remain in the Dammeguard, and at risk. Not only for duty, but because Collar needed a first cousin to kick some sense into him now and then.

By the time it was starting to get darker out and the afternoon shaded into early evening, a new scent joined Coat’s.

A moment of hesitation seemed to shiver against the door before Coat knocked lightly. “Visitor, Rosemary. We have new orders.”

Rosemary glanced at the book she’d been reading idly to pass the quiet time. She couldn’t talk to Coat all day, after all. She’d run out of things to talk about in just a few days and have to start making things up.

“Come in. I was just reading.”

While Coat stood only a little taller than herself, the pegasus stallion that entered with him was only another hoof or two taller still. A far cry from Collar or Rosewater, but that fit his streamlined frame, and the shape of his wings made clear he was a sprinter rather than a glider or an acrobat. His graceful appearance was belied only by the sheepish and guilty look of a clumsy foal with their muzzle caught in a cookie jar.

“Primfeather Stride, Rosemary Rosethorn,” Coat said in a formal voice, bowing briefly and ticking his ear at the younger pony. “Our new orders, from Collar and approved by Lady Lace, are that we are to be allowed an hour of each shift providing you with company. If we choose. And if you choose.”

“While I do appreciate the offer,” Rosemary sait, eying the pegasus briefly, “I’d much rather the company be mutually agreed upon rather than mandated.”

“Volunteered, m-my lady,” Stride said, swallowing and glancing aside at Coat. “I-it was something Sergeant Coat asked me personally if I would be willing to do.”

Very interesting. Rosemary cocked her head to the side briefly to study him, an act which made the pegasus flinch. Birds of prey cocked their heads, and she realized her mistake instantly.

“Sorry. I… picked up the habit of doing that from Rosie Bliss.” Rosemary smiled and perked her ears instead, a more normal unicorn sign of interest. “She’s more like a dove. But don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

“Why not?” Stride asked, brows rising.

“Because she thinks doves are pretentious,” Rosemary said with a wink. “Strutting around like they own the place.”

“I-I see…” He plainly did not, and neither did Coat, both of them looking more confused than if she hadn’t tried to make a joke.

“Nevermind.” Rosemary sighed and slipped from the bed, stretching languidly and coming to sit in front of them, hoof outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“A-and, um…” Stride raised his hoof hesitantly, glancing at Coat before he tapped his against hers. “Likewise?”

“Well then.” Coat bowed slightly, glancing at the window as he rose from it. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

“Of course.” She pursed her lips, then nodded. “Go on, Coat. Be with your mate before he heads off for the evening rush.”

“My thanks, Rosemary.”

Once he’d gone, Rosemary sat quietly and regarded Stride curiously. “Why are you afraid of me, Stride?”

“B-because…” He swallowed, closing his eyes and settling his wings closer to himself from their half ruffled state, ready to spring open at a moment’s notice. “Sorry,” he murmured, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “I have a hard time with…”

“With rose thorns?” Rosemary asked, biting the inside of her cheek briefly. “I do, too, to be honest.”

“Wait, what?” his eyes snapped open, meeting hers, then dancing away. “Why?”

“Because they’re sharp, and pointy, and if you believe the tales, they gave me these.” She turned her head to the sides, showing off the deep crimson lines along her muzzle and tipping her muzzle up so they looked like the flowing of blood from a scratch.

He stared at her for a long time. “They… gave you those?”

“Well, not me. My distant ancestor. Rosethorn the Wise. His name is on our philosophy, and he was the first of my ancestors to know the smells of the flowers to be more than pretty.” She raised the book she’d been reading from the bed. “This book doesn’t tell it the way we tell it in Merrie.”

No response from him save for a flutter of his eyelids and a glance towards the door.

“Legend has it that Rosethorn’s mother was stabbed by a twining rose bush as she tried to pull it from its trellis, and the wounds would not heal, no matter how she tried to cure herself.” She raised a hoof to trace the line. “And the trail of her blood, her heart’s blood if the story is to be believed, one day drew the attention of the Mare in the Moon while she was sitting, hurting while pregnant with her first son.

“The Mare in the Moon took pity on the young Rosecrown and came down to her. She spoke the words of the Rosethorn family. To thine own heart, be true, and to thy nose, listen. The wound healed, but where the blood had trailed from her nose to her cheeks, dripping to her breast, her coat had turned the livid crimson of fresh blood, and whenever she opened her mind to the scents of the world, they came to her, and spoke to her heart. Every Rosethorn following her has borne the marks to varying degrees.”

She touched her breast, then her cheeks and muzzle with a hoof. “The mark of the Rosethorn line.”

“Is it true?” Stride asked, his eyes flicking from her face to her breast.

“Who knows. Rosecrown lived before the Battle of Two Nights. Not much but dust and legend exists of those times.” She shook her head. “I’m not like other Rosethorns. My family, I mean, not the bush thorns. I’m sure Lord Collar said that.”

Stride’s jerky nod was her only answer for a few seconds before he cleared his throat. “I, um. That’s… an interesting bit of story.”

“I can tell you more. Merrie isn’t a scary place, Stride. Not like Damme is,” she said, laying out a tiny bit of bait.

“But Damme isn’t—” He caught himself and chewed his lip, staring at her.

“But it might be, if being in Damme is half a jail sentence with these marks,” she said. “You have a beautiful city, Stride. I only wish I’d had more time to experience it before circumstance forced my hoof.”

He sat slowly, still watching her, his body angled away to keep his privates private. Cute of him, but unnecessary.

“Maybe…” He trailed off, looking at the bookcase. “Maybe… tell me a little of what it’s like in Merrie?”

Author's Notes:

This time, I set an alarm!

So! I made an offhand comment, and talked it over a bit with my pre-readers/editors, and a few friends. And yes, there will be an interludes chapter between book one and book two featuring short vignettes from the following ponies so far:

Firelight Spark
Roselight
Roseling

Even with those, it barely comes up to two thousand words, and I'd like to round it out to ~4,000-5,000 words. These are little vignettes that round out the world a little more, introduce bits of the cities that aren't necessarily part of the story, or take a peek at ponies who don't play a large part in the story.

I'm open to suggestions for a vignette or two from another character. These will be short ~800 word vignettes.

Is there a character you'd like to see a little more of that I can put into that space, or something in the lore or backstory you'd like to see?

Let me know and I'll see if I can work it in.

Book 1, 23. Gathering Storm

“Crying, huh?” one of the ponies in the tavern said, his face shrouded by a mug of Dammerale. “That don’t sound like the Rose Terror to me.”

“Saw it with my own two eyes,” said one of Roseate’s personal goons. It wasn’t Rosejoy, and she hadn’t felt the need to learn the rest of their names. “Just looking across the river, bawling like she’d lost her favorite stuffed animal.” He chuckled and patted the counter. “She’s not so tough as she makes herself out to be.”

You’re right and you’re wrong, my dear, Rosewater thought as she slipped a further hint of magic into the aromatic wine the stallion was sipping, the effect subtle enough that the play of her magic along the glass seemed little more than a refraction of light through the red liquid, enhancing the intoxicating aroma and flavor.

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, Plum,” the bartender, Rosy Glass said softly as she tugged at the bottle in front of Plum Rose. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“Back off Glass. I’ll say when I’ve had enough,” he said, ignorant of the shadowy pony sipping her glass of watered down wine in the corner, smiling as she touched his emotions through the fumes rising near invisibly from his glass, and urged him on. “Once we’ve won this little war, we’ll toss ‘er out on her backside.”

Oho? Do go on. Glass, at least, didn’t look her way. The dear had enough discretion not to look. But she’d always been a canny pony, and a stellar partner in bed. Six years of absence hadn’t lessened the affection Rosewater held for her, nor, apparently, what Glass had clung to.

The Rosetide amulet nestled under her sailor’s tie, which told her ship’s name, one recently returned to port. Whether or not it’d crossed paths with the ship that Rosetide had supposedly departed on didn’t matter in the short term, and the long-term ramifications of using him as a disguise were outweighed by the need to get the lay of Merrie.

Not that Rosetide had fooled Glass in the least. Either Silver Drop had spread the word to her closest friends or she simply recognized Rosewater’s voice no matter how she tried to disguise it.

Glass had certainly heard her voice in enough variations over the years they’d known each other to have a chance at it.

Plum set his glass back down and began filling another, far more than was considered couth, but enough to leverage a further seeding of his animosity towards Rosewater.

“Jus’ you wait,” he slurred. “Gotta…” He leaned forward and whispered into his glass, then tossed back half of it in a few swallows. “Roseate’s…” He frowned and shook his head, brows knitting as he frowned. “Nah. Shouldn’t.” He slammed back the last half of the glass and set it down.

Rosewater frowned, shaking her head. He was far too aware of his own state for her taste. The ponies Roseate called her personal guard were some of the more skilled scent mages and otherwise skilled or talented earth ponies and pegas, but these ponies were supposed to be the hedonists of the lot. Addicted to the pleasures and comforts that Roseate gave them for their loyalty.

He shouldn’t have been aware of her manipulations.

And maybe he isn’t. She tossed back her own watered wine and grimaced, then waved Glass over for a refill.

“You owe me a night, Tide,” Rose Glass growled as she poured undiluted wine into the glass. “And five bits.”

“Ouch,” Rosewater said in Rosetide’s lower voice, flinching. “Why so pricey?”

“Because you owe me,” Glass said, stumping away as soon as Rosewater laid the bits out without further complaint. “Because I like you, Tide. Why’d you go quiet?”

“Not now, Glass,” Rosewater whispered in a husky voice. “I can’t.”

“Obviously not now. Think about it.” Glass stumped away and snatched the bottle from Plum before he could object further. “Tavern closes in an hour. Can’t have you passed out.”

“Ornery,” Plum muttered, pulling out a spill of bits and tossing them over the counter. “Fine. See if I come back here.”

Rosewater caught the coins as soon as they disappeared out of his sight and stacked them neatly in two piles for Rose Glass to pick up more easily. She frowned and pulled up a globule of wine, atomizing it and filling the vapors with a sleeping charm that she sent after him as soon as he stepped outside.

Plum Rose made it another five steps past the door before he swayed, wobbled, and slid to the ground to snore loudly on the cobbled road.

“Somepony get that…” Glass waved a hoof at the heap of a stallion outside. “That back to the palace.”

Rose Petal stepped past the snoring guard, chuckling, and flicked a tail at the lump. “Seed, Sweet Grapes, take him back. I’ve still got business with Glass, and I’d rather not have trash obstructing the lovely view.”

“Of course, lovely. Enjoy business,” Rose Seed said, flicking his tail against Grape’s flank. “Come on, young buck. Let’s find an embarrassing place for him to find his night’s rest. Maybe upside down in the petunias.”

Rosewater lifted her nose and a brow. Merrie’s premier vintner rarely did business directly with tavernkeeps. Petal wasn’t using any enticements, but she still had the floral scent of Seed’s greenhouse about her, and a fairly recent fragrance of passionate mare and stallion. Two stallions.

“Petal,” Glass said, laughing as she came around the bar, half prancing. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting you this late.”

“Mmmhmm,” Petal hummed into a mutual embrace and cheek kiss. “If not now, then when? I’ll not disrupt your business to get what I really want, dear heart.” She backed away briefly and surveyed the rest of the crowd, eyes passing over Rosewater without pausing. “I see you’ve still got enough to keep you busy, so I’ll be brief.”

“Feh. They can care for themselves for a bit.” Glass pushed out a chair and sat in one, just a few tables away from Rosewater. “Let’s have a seat and share a glass, hmm?”

“Of course.” Petal took the offered chair, sniffed delicately, and glanced at Rosewater. “That’s a fine smelling stallion.”

“Heh.” Glass snorted and rolled her eyes at Rosewater. “Rosetide’s not too shabby. Comes in now and again when his ship’s in port. I think I might like to take him home one day.”

“Mmm. Kind, hard worker… my dear Rosetide, why are you alone?”

Rosewater shot a hard look at Glass, who only smiled wider, as if to say You owed me. “Er. Ma’am. Miss Petal. I’m a ship pony.”

“Ah, that high, sweet alto,” Petal said with a purr in her light soprano. “Why, he would be perfect for a night-time symphony.”

“S-some other time, ma’am,” Rosewater said, ducking her head and shifting a glare to Glass. “H-how much do I owe you, Miss Glass?”

“Mmm. Just a kiss, darling.” Glass raised her nose and puckered her lips for a brief moment while Petal looked on, scrutinizing her entirely too closely for Rosewater’s comfort. There was a reason she didn’t infiltrate the Rose Palace as Rosetide. He’d be found out in an instant. That was if Seed didn’t pick up on her voice, scent, or mannerisms right away.

Still, it would be good to see him, even if it was only for a little while. He was another connection to Rosemary. They’d been best friends growing up, partners in crime, and her frequent foalsitting had given her a great appreciation for the mischief and wily mind behind that laconic smile.

Rose Petal might not have been a Rosethorn, but Rosewater had visited the vineyards often enough over the years, often to babysit for Seed, that Petal might still recognize the hint of her under Tide’s musk, even despite the purity bath.

So she nursed her glass of wine carefully, drawing and atomizing wine to cover the rest of her in a haze of drunken scent.

“Well, maybe another time, Tide,” Glass said and brushed aside the last of the crumbs left behind by the ruffians and settled in. “To business?”

“Aye.” Petal shifted the glasses to the bar and examined the seat critically before sitting. “I was hoping I could offload more casks on you this time. The Rose Palace reduced their standing order again after Roseate made a ‘pass’ at Prim Collar. For just a baroness, she sure can screw up royally. Rosewater’s made her interest plain enough, and I’ve not been quiet about my unease. Mothers shouldn’t go after their daughter’s mates.” Petal waved a hoof and drew a bottle over.

Glass snorted. “You and a good chunk of the commons. They might not like Rosewater much, but they like mate-stealing less.” Glass took the bottle in hoof and twisted the cork free with a bite and jerk of her head. She spat the cork into a basket at the end of the bar and poured. “That why they’re so hard up on your lot lately?”

“Even the bottles, they’re not taking as many of. Starting last month, they’ve been cutting back, and we’re edging steadily towards breaking even instead of profit.” Petal chuckled. “Not that that stops her ponies from coming down to the vineyards for a premium tasting and chat.”

“W-why not sell across the Merrie?” Rosewater asked in Tide’s nervous tone. “Gran’s been selling more and more soaps and shampoos.”

“An idea, thank you, Tide. I’ll have to see if there’s anypony willing to represent me there.” Petal flicked an ear. “I’m afraid I’m a ‘pony of interest’ in several cases of scent magery. And Seed’s about as Rosethorn as you are.”

Rosewater closed her mouth again and sank into her wine, sipping at it while she listened to the other tables. None of them had said anything interesting all night, though, and she’d already known about the Rose Palace trying to snub the Rosewine Vineyards. The reason why was new. She would have to keep that in mind for the future.

“Do you know why they’re doing that?” Glass asked.

“Eh. Cutting costs, I think. Talk down on the docks is that Roseate’s been buying a lot of fragrance ingredients from overseas. Even had her daughter go down and ‘negotiate’ a better deal.” Petal rolled her eyes. “Surprised Cargo Manifest could see straight after rutting Rosewater, if he’s telling even half the truth.”

Glass shot a look at Rosetide that Petal didn’t miss.

“Oho?” Petal took a closer look at Rosetide. “Ah… I’d wondered why you smelled so familiar. You have been having a go at her, then?”

“No,” Rosewater said flatly. Her coat prickled as more eyes turned towards her. “E-excuse me.” She slid from the darkest end of the booth and stepped free, making sure to keep the carmine powders from scraping free.

“You know,” Rose Petal said as Rosewater sidled past, “one of our patrons said he was going to be spending the night at our humble Gardens in a couple nights. Unusual for him, he’s usually getting strung along pretty hard behind that cold Rosetail. The poor dear might need a detox.”

Rosewater hurried off as Rose Petal chuckled softly.

Touche, Rose Petal, and thank you.

“You waited.”

Rosewater, cleaned and with the brooch stowed in her slim night saddlebag, expanded her shadow and a spell of silence to cover just the two of them, becoming little more than a darker patch of shadow in the alleyway behind the Rosy Glass tavern.

“I… I had…” Rosewater cleared her throat.

“As yourself.” Glass stopped a few paces away, watching her. “I heard about Rosemary. How’re you managing?”

Half a dozen lies came to her. “Barely,” she said honestly. “I’m running on no ideas but what I’ve been running on for the past six years.”

“Isolate, isolate, and isolate?” Glass asked sourly. She sighed and took another step closer. “That’s not fair. Not to you. Do you need a place to stay tonight?”

It was so very tempting. Not for sex, but to have somepony she could wake up to, share a meal with, share a quiet evening with. Something she couldn’t do in the estate. She had things she needed to do, though, and while it would have been nice to reconnect with Glass, she couldn’t afford the distraction.

Glass must have seen it in her eyes because she nodded. “We all still love you, Rosewater. Six years isn’t going to erase us growing up together.” She came closer and kissed her lightly on the lips, the warmth nearly breaking her resolve again. “We all miss you. Can I tell the others anything? That you’re holding up? Silver’s in a state, worried about you, and Seed’s been chewing the furniture whenever he’s over.”

“Roseling?” The name came up without thought and was out of her mouth before she could think to call it back.

“She misses you, too. She still growls about how you left her, though.” Glass shook her head, smiling. “I know why you think you had to. I can’t even disagree with you, with how they treated her shop, but you should have done it more gently, ‘Water.”

“You…” Rosewater sat, suddenly exhausted, tired of the entire mess she’d dug herself into.

“We’re still here for you. Don’t push us away.”

“Roseate will target you,” Rosewater said softly, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to make her back off before she’d even finished saying it. She could push. She could, and Glass would leave her again. Would she let me come back afterward?

“She has been already,” Glass replied, offering her a small smile. “Those of us who were your friends, have already been targeted for harassment. Do you think those goons came to my tavern because I welcomed them?”

“No.”

“They don’t drive away my other customers, my regular,” Glass said softly, “because they know the score. Among those regulars are some of the Merrieguard you fought with at the Battle of Primline Park.”

“It was hardly a battle. It was a couple of my sisters and a few Merrieguard.”

Prowling the night in Damme was something Rosewater had done many nights simply to get the lay of the city, mark out points of interest and where she might go to ground if she needed to. Alone.

In a small group, spread out across the southern lawn of Primline Park, the guards from the Rosewine bridge behind them stupefied by Silk Rose’s Sweet Embrace, it was harder to keep themselves hidden. Too many shadows moving across the open field made for an easy target.

It had been Roseate’s idea, and then her order when her daughters objected. It was a stupid plan, but Roseate knew that, and so did Rosewater. This wasn’t a ploy to cause chaos so much as it was a ploy to get Rosewater captured, and blatantly so.

Then Roseate could blame the capture of so many ponies squarely on her shoulders and levy punishments to her citizens that would also be pinned squarely on Rosewater’s shoulders when she was ransomed back. If Damme agreed to it.

And nopony would be left to counter her claims that it was Rosewater’s poor planning that had led to the capture.

She checked that the Bloom of Confusion perfume was still ready, something she’d made for just this occasion. It’d been tricky to distill the essence of confusion, but it had at its base, an essence of fear and worry, two things that Rosewater had in spades.

If the Prim Palace took the anonymous warning seriously, their ambush should be found out soon enough. It had been tricky aiming the teleport of her message in a bottle into a cloud at the right moment when it would fall into the public gardens of Prim Palace, but anypony watching would assume it was a pegasus who’d delivered the note, not a unicorn who’d been working on her range.

To her right, Silk Rose glanced at her, shadowed ears twitching, and to her left, Rose Crown’s ears flattened. They smelled it, clearly as she did. Ponies of the Dammeguard in all likelihood, but only a few of them. Scouts perhaps, or merely the careless ones that did not wash themselves properly.

She saw nothing ahead of her troop, however. An ambush behind an invisibility spell, she decided, and prepared the Bloom of Confusion. One spell to leave the ambush off balance, and then the order to retreat.

Rose Crown teleported ahead, blowing their cover.

Surprising Rosewater as much as it did the ponies suddenly revealed in the middle of Primline Park as a dome of invisibility faltered and fell into a shower of silver sparks.

“Ambush!” one of Merrieguard along with them cried, darting left to put himself in front of Silk.

A roar of battle cries from the Dammeguard rose as they thundered forward, their blunted capture poles raised and ready to ensnare any leg or neck that presented itself.

Rose Crown’s voice rose in an enchanting melody for only a moment before it was cut off, a silver dome covering her and taking her out of the fight quite neatly behind a veil of silence and the charge of the Dammeguard as silver manacles bound her to the ground.

Behind her, Lord Primline Collar locked eyes with Rosewater as she dropped her veil and drew out two perfume bottles, ready to do battle. Or pretend to do battle.

Distant sounds of whistles called for reinforcements as the two forces met, magic and hoof fighting back against the poles and bludgeons.

In any other age, the battle would have been comical, with both sides trying their best to incapacitate with the least injury, which would normally have put the Roses on the better footing.

Silk Rose darted off to help a pair of beleaguered Merrieguard fending off a trio of Dammeguard.

The purpose of the raid had shifted in a moment from causing chaos to harnessing a retreat out of the debacle.

Rosewater sent a fog of sleep to cover one Dammeguard chasing after a dodging pegasus who only stayed on the ground to harass long enough for their commander to rally. For her to rally.

As the Dammeguard slumped to the ground, asleep in moments, the pegasus took off and landed behind a pair of Dammeguard harassing the small contingent Silk Rose was helping. Both of them wore scent-masks, and while that would limit their ability to fight for long, it meant that Silk was having trouble working her way with them.

Before Rosewater could tear the masks away, a silver dome snapped into being around her.

Perfect.

Slumbering Scilla went away, and Rosewater began exerting pressure on the dome, forcing Collar to focus more and more of his attention on her. She, with only two tasks to accomplish, was at an advantage against him, with so much more to worry about, and it began to show immediately as the fog of confusion and worry began roiling inside the dome.

More pressure, draining herself faster and faster, and more confusion as she drew and pressed the perfume into the miniscule space between his dome and her own.

The shimmering silence around Crown flickered and died, then the manacles, but another pony came and captured her, his greenish magic a contrast to Collar’s.

Crown didn’t deserve that.

Anger flowed into her spells, and with a final heave and raising of her head, she pierced his dome in one spot even as her pressure on it everywhere else increased.

A resounding crack silenced the battlefield for a moment as the pressurized confusion snapped into a wave of orange and white swirls, coating everything.

Silk used the momentary confusion to rip the masks off the two ponies and then teleported outside the spreading ring of magical perfume.

Spent, Rosewater staggered forward a step, her eyes locked on Collar’s shocked expression.

“Retreat!” Silk bellowed. “Back to the bridge!” Before she passed Rosewater, she gave her a glare and snarled “You hesitated.”

Silk and Crown were friends. That came to her mind in a moment of incongruity as she watched her younger sister corralling their milling, confused forces back toward the bridge.

Out of everything that Rosewater hated about what she’d had to do that night, making her younger sister hate her that much more felt the most onerous. If she hadn’t played both sides, Crown might not have been captured, or felt the need to throw herself into a trap to warn them.

Not that Silk knew that, but Rosewater had been given the lead for this expedition, against the protests of her sisters and Rosewater herself—up until Roseate had thrown in a boon of ignoring Rosemary. It was her fault, ultimately, that Crown had been captured and Silk deprived of one of her closest friends—friends they could trust were few and far between as daughters of Roseate.

Rosewater gave Collar one last look before she turned, taking two of the golden glowing experiments and popping them into her mouth.

Immediate vitality surged through her, borrowed from herself in the past couple of days.

She was gone before the raging chorus of whistles and its attendant reinforcements could reach the edge of Primline Park.

“Silk still hates me for that,” Rosewater said softly.

“She isn’t a regular. And I hear she snaps at everypony that even so much as looks crossly at her anymore.” Glass snorted and shook her head. “Look, I know that faraway look in your eye, so I’m not going to push tonight, but please, Rosewater. Please come by someday in the open. We can catch up for real, and not like… like spies in our own home.”

“I—” Rosewater coughed and shook her head free of the embers of the fight. “You’re sure?”

“Rut me silly, Rosewater, of course I am. I wouldn’t have made the offer if I hadn’t been.”

“I have… if…” Rosewater cleared her throat and recalled herself to the task she’d set herself that night. “I need to know if Roseate is making any moves. Anything you can tell me would help.”

Glass sat back and stroked her chin. “What Petal told you was pretty much all we have. She’s been playing close to the mark lately, but I’ll put some feelers out to our business contacts.” A glance aside, and a thin smile, and she nodded. “Actually, I have something. Rosie Night sold a large quantity of Citrus Circus to the palace just last week.”

There were only a few reasons that the Rose Palace would want a lot of energetic candy. “They’re not planning any orgies.” And the candies would start to lose their efficacy as the magic Rosie Night poured into the batch leaked away. “She’s making a move soon.” Sooner than she’d thought Roseate would make it. Something had scared her.

“You’re sure?” Glass frowned and reached out to tap her breast. “Please take care of yourself, ‘Water. And please. Come back to us. All of us.”

“If… if she moves soon, I’ll be… I’ll need…”

“Us.”

“You,” Rosewater agreed finally, closing her eyes and hating herself for needing to put her friends in danger. “After.”

Glass frowned, but sighed and nodded. “After the dust settles. I’ll hold you to that promise, Rosewater.”

“It’s rare you call me down here in person,” Collar said as he walked through the permanent silence erected around the most secret of rooms in Prim Palace.

“It’s rare,” Prim Priceless said, passing him a stack of papers, “that the stars align.”

Collar scanned them quickly, noting the codenames of several operatives they had in Merrie, some of them familiar, some not, almost all of them operating as merchants or carters. He recognized a name he hadn’t seen in a while.

“Foe of a Foe is active again?” Collar turned the page over, then back again, frowning. “I thought they got caught after they tipped us off to the raid four months ago.”

“Either they did, and this is a ruse, or they didn’t, and they’re only warning us about the threats they consider big enough.” Priceless clucked his tongue. “I honestly thought we had Foe of a Foe in the Gilded cage.”

“Hm.” Collar glanced at the paper again, turned it over, and sniffed at the back. Nothing.

Lord Collar,

Our mutual foe is on the move and appears to be planning a large scale raid.

Foe of a foe

“Another raid?” Collar asked, sighing. “Is she going to try to make Rosewater go on this one, too?”

“Doubtful,” Priceless said, plucking out a sheet farther down in the stack and put it in front of him, detailing Rosewater’s known haunts. “Rosewater’s been more reclusive than usual this past week. But that pony you asked us to watch out for is back.”

“Rosetide?” Collar asked, raising a brow as he came to the sheet. Rosetide’s, on the other hoof, was practically social, even if he did tend to spend most of his time on the docks or at the small warehouse where his grandmother lived. “I see he came back on a different ship.”

“Not unusual in itself, but given the reasons you’re suspicious…” Priceless tapped a quill against the page and returned it to its place behind his ear. “Given his ‘timely’ arrival back in Merrie, I’m more inclined to give it a higher probability.”

Collar shook his head. “It’s not something we can test unless he comes over to Merrie, but it is something to keep in mind.” He shuffled through a few more sheets, scanning them. “I don’t see anything here that would warrant calling me down.”

“This… is about Rosemary, Collar,” Priceless said quietly. “This isn’t an outside threat, but an inside one. That’s why I asked you here, and why I haven’t put it into writing.” He settled in more comfortably, leaning against the desk full of ordered chaos. “Primfeather Wing is making noises that he’s likely to draw a line in the sand over her being housed in Prim Palace, and Lustrous Primmane is making the same sort of noises.”

“Do you know what kind of action us crossing that line will be?” He had some ideas. They had citizen groups they were the heads of, and businesses and ship-owners they were allied with that could make life more difficult for them.

Driving up costs of goods or artificially restricting the flow of them would make the citizenry more upset, regardless of who was to blame. One option would be to reduce tariffs on goods flowing from Merrie, making it more palatable for traders from their sister city to make the crossing if there were suddenly a dearth of goods Damme wanted that Merrie had.

Which would lessen pressure on Roseate. It was rotten, no matter how he tried to cut it.

“Not as yet. A few breweries have been listening, but they’ve always been on the side of anti-Reformation. They’ve already taken a huge hit to Merrie’s wineries.” Priceless smiled faintly. “Sometimes it’s strange to use my public job for covert work.”

“I’m sure.” Collar sighed and rocked back. “Something to keep in mind. We’ll have to wait and see what the cost of continuing to house her in the palace is.” He pulled out the Foe of a Foe letter. “I’m taking this with me.”

“Think Cloudy might have an idea?”

“No. I just want to think about it for a bit.” He sighed and rose to his hooves. “Anything else?”

“That was it. Be careful how you treat that young mare, my lord.”

“I won’t let it become an issue with the Primfeathers.”

“I meant in regards to her guardian,” Priceless said softly. “Word is that the bridge guard of Merrie is to forbid entrance of Rosewater to Damme for any reason.”

Collar let the ramifications of what that meant creep through him. Not merely could she not send letters however she managed it, not and have them be clearly from her…

“Stars. I can’t think of anything more cruel Roseate might have done.”

“I’m glad that you cannot, my lord.” Priceless smiled thinly when Collar gave him a questioning look. “It speaks to your character as a kind pony. I can think of several ways she might have been more cruel.”

Collar swallowed and closed his eyes. “Mare look after her.”

Days passed with nothing interesting happening beyond the slow progression of the sun across the floor, watching ponies go about their days, and assigning personalities and names to the most frequent of them Rosemary could see from her prison window.

No change in accommodation had been made, and while she hadn’t seen Glory again in the four days since, neither had she heard anything about her disposition.

The staff that came to see to her linens changing and ensuring that her soap and shampoo for bathing weren’t running low offered her another chance at breaking the monotony of being imprisoned.

Linen Dreams, a young laundress, was especially interested in talking to her, and even after changing out her bedclothes, she’d stayed to chat with Rosemary about what it was like in Merrie. Apparently what she’d told Stride had started to spread, and not a few ponies were interested in talking to the polite Rose in a glass cage.

There were others, but her daily highlight was when Cloudy came around for breakfast or lunch to catch up over the last two years. There was, unsurprisingly, a lot that Cloudy had gotten up to in the last two years of rising through the ranks of the Dammeguard, and their chat ranged from new friends, to new lovers, to business, and to Collar.

Which gave her fuel for her daily visit with Collar a couple hours later.

She could admit to herself that she’d been lax in learning about the Lord of Damme, heir of the house of Primline, but it wouldn’t do to show that she knew so little of the tidbits of gossip that Rosie had almost certainly dropped to her over the years she’d known the social butterfly.

It was his visit that she looked forward to as well, because it was then that he brought her a little bit of information about Rosewater behind a screened door. He’d met with her once in the last two days, at night, outside of the city, he’d said, and she’d been agitated to say the least, and kept the meeting short before leaving.

She got the impression that Rosewater was trying to act cagey, and said she would try to find some way to get a letter to her.

That had been two days ago, and while it had assuaged some of her worries following being told that Rosewater couldn’t contact her directly, it hadn’t done much to settle the worry that her mother was dropping into the same kind of depression that had followed Carnation’s exile.

“I could have done more. Should have done more. I could have fought a duel then.”

“Except Carnation had begged you not to,” Rosemary murmured from her ponywatching seat. It was getting on toward late morning, and breakfast was gone, Stride had come and gone for his morning chat, and now she was left alone for a few hours with nothing but the small library adjoining the suite to occupy her time. “She begged you not to because then you’d have been mother’s very next target.”

Time passed as, below, a trio of carts came into view and began unloading goods for the kitchen and the running of the palace. Nopony she recognized was there, but a fourth cart, hauled by a stallion who was clearly a Rose, stopped in front of the palace and waited until a stallion of Dammeguard came up to him and started talking.

It was a divergence from normalcy, and it held her rapt attention for the duration, wondering what Rose would be delivering directly to the Prim Palace and how he’d made it all that way without being remarked on or called out, or his… crate of jars.

Wishing she had binoculars, Rosemary strained to see what they were labeled with, but it was too far for her to make out more than that they were obviously glazed clay, patterned after the Merrie style for shampoo and conditioner in alternating sets.

“For me?” she wondered aloud.

She studied the stallion more closely, wondering if she’d seen him or partnered with him at some point, and almost immediately she felt a sense of familiarity with him. The way he held himself, the way his ears never seemed to stop moving even when he was talking to somepony else, twitching to every new sound around him.

Nervous, understandably, but not without intention. He never looked the way his ears twitched, keeping his attention on the pony in front of him, but he was always aware of what was around him.

Just like a raider was supposed to. It was hard to hide those instincts, even if they could be masked by adopting a nervous persona.

He was a raider, but had avoided getting caught or even seen.

After the second guard left, the stallion allowed himself to look around, a dopey smile on his face as he surveyed the grounds, then turned to openly gawk at the Prim Palace, massive bastion of stone that it was, until his eyes found Rosemary’s window.

Not his eyes. Her eyes. She’d know those eyes from any distance.

Oh my stars, you… Rosemary sagged against the window, her mind whirling as thoughts slid through and past others, wondering who her mother had impersonated, wondering how she’d managed it without her being aware of it going on.

The hiding place. The place Rosewater always took those she captured, so secret and hidden that not even Roseate could find it with all her resources.

Not even hidden, but out in the open. It had to be. If he, she, was there and doing legitimate business as a carter, then he had to have a home, or at least someplace where he went and disappeared from.

You sneaky mare.

The eyes lingered on her window for far too long, and the stallion jerked them away when a guard came up, and he made a show of apology as Collar came out to greet him. Her.

Stars above, she came to see me.

She was, all of a sudden, excited for Collar’s later visit. Rosewater wouldn’t make such an obvious show and not send something. A letter. A… a something.

Some memento from home for a keepsafe charm.

She was less than surprised when, fifteen minutes after the carter had left, Collar came knocking, a sheepish smile on his lips.

“Rosetide,” Collar said by way of greeting as he made his way down the stairs, the other visitors giving the stallion a more thorough study. The stallion was standing, nervous as usual, his eyes roving over the Palace’s structure. “I hadn’t expected to see you for another few days.”

“Aye, sir,” the stallion replied with a sheepish smile. “Got a message at the last port of call that Granny wasn’t doing too good. Hopped over on the next ship out, paying and working.”

“Ah. Good stallion. How is she?”

“As well as a pony her age can be expected to,” Rosetide said, his eyes dropping to the ground. “I don’t expect I’ll be leaving port again for some time.”

Collar nodded gravely, watching the pony for any sign of duplicity, though he was as he had been, nervous and a touch fidgety. Understandable for a distant Rosethorn cousin deep in Damme. It was hard to ascribe anything to the stallion that didn’t come from his natural circumstances, and pondering over it overmuch, or even attempting to unmask him would do no good.

“Anyways,” Rosetide said with what seemed like forced cheer, “I’ve been doing more around town because, and I got word that Roseling had a shipment waiting for you. A new order?”

“Aye, and I honestly hadn’t been expecting it for another few days.” Collar glanced at the palace where he saw Rosemary watching them out of her window. She often did that. Ponywatching was one of the few things she could do that was vaguely social. “We have a new guest we’ve been trying to make as comfortable as possible.”

“Aye. I heard.” Rosetide’s voice betrayed nothing, but his eyes danced away. “There’s been talk on the docks and in the taverns. And I hear things.”

He couldn’t tell what the stallion was trying to tell him, other than that he’d heard it, but his instincts were telling him there was more that he was trying to say. “I imagine. It was quite the event here. But don’t you worry, and pass my thanks to Ms. Roseling for filling the order quickly.”

Rosetide smiled sheepishly. “She was quite happy to, she said. She, um, also chewed my ears a little. She’d have been happy to look after Granny, she said.” He looked down at his hooves, then up and into Collar’s eyes. “But I’m gonna be there. I’m the only family she has left in Merrie.”

His eyes were unwavering as he said the last, and for a moment, Collar had the feeling the younger stallion wasn’t talking about Granny. He dismissed the idea out of hoof. Tide hadn’t given him any reason to distrust him, aside from his tenuous link to Rosewater.

“You’re a good stallion, Tide,” Collar said softly. “Give Granny my well wishes, and Roseling my thanks for filling the order so quickly.”

“Of course, my lord.” Rosetide raised the crate out of the back of his cart, and this time, because he was looking for it, Collar didn’t miss the letter he slipped ever-so-neatly into his day saddlebag in the same motion. He’d have missed it, if he hadn’t been watching for it this time, contained as it was in the order slip. “Rosemary’s usual order, and topping off your and Cloudy Rose’s standing order.”

If he’d known Rosetide would be coming by, he’d have had Rosemary write something. Presumably, he’d know how to get it to Rosewater clandestinely, but as it was, all he could do was offer him the bits on the bill.

“Take care of yourself and Granny, Rosetide.”

Rosetide tipped his head briefly and gave one last look up to the window before starting off. “Will do my best, my lord.”

Collar silenced the room before she could even ask him who he’d been talking to. She hadn’t moved from her spot sitting by the window, either, and only glanced at him briefly as he came in.

“A letter came for you today,” he said softly.

She glanced at him, then at the walls before she pushed herself up and closed the curtains. As soon as she did, the chill seemed to melt away from her and she offered him a tentative smile. “I can guess who from with that look.”

What look? “I haven’t opened it, but in the manner in which it was delivered, I can guess. Your… sister.” He was still having issues reconciling that idea, but it wasn’t so far-fetched. The issue was he’d always thought of Rosewater as Roseate’s daughter, and thinking of her as the daughter of a sane and, by all accounts, kind and thoughtful mare was stressing his imagination.

She opened it neatly, holding a knife to a flame for a moment, then slipping it under the wax seal, careful not to break it, and sniffed faintly at the melted wax. “Scented,” she murmured.

That Rosewater might scent the seal of a letter seemed absolutely absurd… until he recalled that scented candles of all types were common in Merrie. Still… “Another scent-marked hidden meaning?”

“It’s peach cobbler,” Rosemary said, raising a brow.

“My favorite dinner dessert,” Collar said with a sigh. “A message to me. ‘The palace leaks.’” In more than one direction. Wing was likely to hear about the stallion delivering scented soaps to the palace within the hour, if he hadn’t already.

Rosemary read the letter quietly, her jaw tightening, then relaxing, her lower lip trembling as she kept in her response. “The… last page is for you, my lord.”

Dearest Rosemary,

I apologize for the terseness of my last note. I had written it without the foreknowledge that you would be captured, but assuming that of the ponies arrayed against you, that Lord Collar would be sympathetic to your situation, if not your actions. I wish, dearly, that things would have played out differently, but I had thought from the start that this might be the outcome, and I only wish that I had prepared you better for it.

I have asked a friend to deliver this letter to you, a friend that I trust as I would my own four hooves. However, please do not send a letter back. I cannot guarantee that he would not be searched at the border. More and more merchants and common ponies have been subjected to customs searches in the past week.

I don’t know why, or what madness Roseate hopes to accomplish, simply that my communication with you will be spotty, at best, and conditional on Lord Collar’s agreement that a guardian should not be subjected to monitoring with the potential for retribution simply because I wish to write to you.

I will reveal nothing here about what I am doing, nor about what Roseate is doing. That would break my oath as your guardian, Rosemary, and I love you too much, and have too much regard for the responsibility as your guardian to do so.

All my love,

Rosewater Rosethorn

Heiress of Merrie

He turned to the second page, not quite done digesting all that Rosewater had revealed in her admission of why she couldn’t sneak letters across more freely. He had heard from Priceless that written information from Merrie was becoming scarcer, and the number of pegasi willing to drop a parcel with no questions asked was dropping precipitously.

Soon, he’d have to risk pegasi of the Dammeguard to set up dead drop pickup locations.

Lord Collar,

Any information you have regarding the health of my charge, or any needs she may have that I can see to, please communicate them to the Treaty Office, and I will be certain to receive them. Please ask Rosemary that she not expect any letters she attempts to post via the Treaty Office to remain unread. She will know what I mean, if she does not read this anyway.

My one plea is that you not accept any offer from Roseate for her return. She will sue to remove me as guardian, and that she has not done so already worries me. She would lose the case, I believe, before Celestia’s eyes, but I do not want to risk that case.

I will delve treaty law and try to find a way to step in myself, but my resources available to pay a herdgild are paltry, and the law does not support the right of a guardian to negotiate one for a pony past her eighteenth birthday. Were Carnation here, she would be able to request that right as a parent, and I would help her.

Please, my lord, burn these letters as soon as both of you have read them. I am treading a thin line already with Roseate, and this may be one step over if she were to find out.

Regards,

Rosewater Rosethorn

Future Baroness of Merriedamme

Collar snorted. She was playing the role of his future mate to the hilt, even in private correspondence. “You read both pages?”

“Yes, my lord.” Rosemary bobbed her head and eyed him speculatively. “She’s being earnest, you know. She’s offering herself for courtship, rather than telling you she’s going to court you, whether you like it or not.”

“How can you tell? It seems like she’s being very forward.” He waved the second page at her. “This isn’t the first time she’s claimed that I would be her mate.”

“She hasn’t in that letter. She implied.”

“Small difference.”

“Maybe, but if she were truly following the way that Roseate espouses, that a mate can be taken, I doubt you would be here, now.” Rosemary shook her head slowly. “Either you would have taken her prisoner or she would have taken you. There would not be wordplay, Lord Collar.”

Collar read the page again, thoughtful to the words she used and wondering how much care had been put into the choice of them. Rosewater did like wordplay, that was true, but… he sighed. He’d have liked to give it to Priceless, but giving Rosemary a letter and letting her have a memory of her mother hardly seemed like a fair repayment for his continued freedom.

“Do you want to read them again?” Collar asked. “Is there some kind of hidden message, possibly?”

“No hidden messages beyond the scented wax. Keep that, by the way. It may be a key to a future message.” Rosemary heated the knife blade again and prized free the slender medallion of wax. “If… you don’t mind? Can I keep it?”

“Please.” Collar chuckled. “It’s not like any of us could decode a scent message anyway…” he trailed off, thinking about the Foe of a Foe message he’d still not managed to come to a solid conclusion about. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Rosemary. Be well, and keep that medallion safe.”

Rosemary snorted and raised a brow. “You could simply come again today.”

“As the peach cobbler reminds me, such an act would be remarked upon. Departure from a pattern always is.” Collar settled the pages in the fireplace and touched the candle to them. “And keep a candle burning. I’ll supply you.”

“Thank you. It’s… it’s how I let her know I’m okay. If she stalks by at night.” Rosemary smiled faintly. “I think she knows. It’s… it’s something Carnation did. Whenever Rosewater had to go out on Roseate’s orders, Carnation would leave a candle burning in the window for Rosewater to come back to, to let her know that a safe space was waiting for her.”

“You both loved her very much.”

Rosemary’s smile brightened as she glanced at the perfume bottle. “We do love her still.”

Book 1, 24. Storm Warning

Market day was one of the few days when Rosewater made her trip to the stalls of the Merrie Market to stock up her pantry of perishables and a few fruity treats before retreating back to her sanctum. It was also still new to her to not go about veiled during the day like her sisters did. She stood out too much for her height anyway, and confounding the spies in Damme wasn’t one of her goals anymore anyway.

There was one Veiled Rose passing through the market, however, and other ponies made a point of avoiding the unknown noblemare. From the way the shadows moved, and the mist twisted, she could tell it was Rosary… likely keeping an eye on her and trying to appear nonchalant.

A mare, whose name she thought was Rosedawn or something similar, sidled up to the same stall she was browsing fruits at, picking over the latest imports from Saddle Arabia. Pineapples and star fruit featured prominently in the last shipment, it seemed.

“Are you interested in the star fruit?” she asked, flicking an ear at her.

“Might be,” Rosewater murmured, nonplussed and trying to place the mare and where she’d last seen her. “They’re quite delicious when you can get them relatively fresh, and it looks like this ship employs a unicorn with a talent for cold enchantments.”

“But the Pineapple keeps for much longer even without.”

“It does,” Rosewater said, feeling increasingly put off by the mare’s openness in talking to her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Maybe.” The mare flashed a look at her, then twitched her ears around. “Glow’s. Corner booth. Ask Glass for a pint of the rough.”

Rosewater blinked rapidly as the mare bought a star fruit and bit into it, then sauntered off down the row.

What in the name of the Mare?

If it was another scheme of Glass’s to pull her in, it wasn’t appreciated, but… she knew the mare somehow, and not as a lover. She knew all of her lovers, both mare and stallion by name, face, and voice intimately. She’d never gone in for the quick romance, which was a part of the reason she was in the situation she was in.

She didn’t want the father of her foal to be… she wanted him to be like her father.

You have issues, Rosewater.

Rosewater picked a pineapple and paid the bit and two buckles for it and resolved to forget about the mare as just another pony who was trying to pull her into someplace that would get them hurt. If they weren’t working for Roseate.

It was only as she turned away from the direction of the Rosy Glow Tavern that she recalled the face and the voice. A name came moments later.

Roselight, not Rosedawn. She was one of the ponies that had hesitated on the bridge after the failure of the raid those months ago. A pony who Glass had said was free and home because of her keeping Collar’s attention on her.

What does she want?

She hesitated, looking around and trying to find the ponies around her that were her mother’s watchers. Veiling would hide her, but also say that she had something to hide. But… going to Rosy’s tavern… in the daylight…

I have nothing to hide. That mare had something to hide. She hesitated for a moment before making her way through the market as if nothing had happened, and stopped to pick up a few more grocery items that would keep for a while before heading down to the Rosy Glow.

Since it was the afternoon, the tavern was only serving lighter beverages and a light lunch fare from the kitchen, provoking memories of Rosewater stopping by nearly every other day to have a light bite and a chat with Glass when she’d been little older than Rosemary. It’d been a ritual for her, or nearly so, to visit her while they’d been lovers and chat about the day, the goings on around the city, and ponder the future.

Stars, those days feel so far away.

She stopped in the doorway, ears flattening as the feeling of having done this so many times before rolled over her paired with the feeling that she shouldn’t be doing this.

“I see you’ve finally decided to listen to your cousin, Mare watch over her,” Glass said from behind the bar where she was engaging in the perennial occupation of bartenders everywhere: arranging the glasses and wiping the bar down. “Come in, ‘Water. It’s been too long.”

It was too late to back out. “Glass.” She swallowed and smiled. “It’s… it has been too long. I’d like to catch up with you after I have a glass of the rough.”

Glass raised a brow and didn’t quite glance at the corner booth. “Of course. It’s been a rough week for you. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you came by again.” She hesitated, then nodded towards the booth. “Afraid I don’t have any other tables clean at the moment. Rough night last night.”

She didn’t ask if Rosewater was okay with sharing. In Merrie, sharing a space to eat at a public space like a tavern was second-nature, and none of the tables or other booths had more than token partitions between them, inviting socializing between the patrons.

“Afternoon,” Rosewater said noncommittally to the pony lounging on the bench across from her.

“Afternoon,” Roselight said quietly, glancing around and then casting a spell on the middle of the table, dim letters formed of rosy light. ‘Silence.’

Rosewater copied the mare’s spell, spelling out ‘Suspicious if we go silent.’ It would also be suspicious if they went completely without sharing a single word. “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?” ‘Find a reason for the silence first.’

Roselight’s ears flattened, and her cheeks reddened as she considered the words, both written and spoken. “I-I’m not sure. I know you, of course. Everypony knows Rosewater.”

“An auspicious honor,” Rosewater said with a thin smile. “I know I’ve seen you someplace, though, but my mind has been occupied with other things lately.”

“Maybe… well… I’m a frequent visitor to the Garden, and I know you used to go there quite often. Maybe you saw me there?” Roselight spelled out, ‘Rosemary?’

“Ah. Maybe so. You’re young enough to be in Rosemary’s social circles regularly. Lover?”

“I can’t say that I was. I’m… I’m mostly into stallions, truth be told, but I’ve kissed my share of mares.” She calmed, settling into a smoother routine. “To be honest, you’ve always caught my eye, Lady Rosewater. It’s not rare that a mare can do that, but I think maybe…” Roselight rolled one shoulder elegantly. “If we got to know each other.”

“Very forward,” Rosewater said with a laugh, and glanced at Glass, who wasn’t quite seething. “I think our talk is upsetting the matron. Perhaps we should make this conversation more private?”

Roselight looked so relieved she might as well have blurted out that it was all a ruse. Not that her words were any more convincing, but getting words to mean what they sounded like on paper was harder than hearing them spoken, and the magic had yet to be invented that could capture something so ephemeral and fleeting as sound for later use.

As soon as Rosewater surrounded the booth with silence, both Glass and Roselight relaxed, the former visibly, the latter letting out a gusting sigh and running a shaking hoof over her mane.

“I wasn’t meant for this covert spy work,” Roselight muttered.

“What did you swear your oath to, Roselight?” Rosewater asked softly. “When you took up the mantle of the Merrieguard?”

“The city,” Roselight said after a long moment. “I love Merrie, my lady. It seemed more appropriate than what she asked us to consider.” Another pause, and Roselight glanced down at her hooves, then back to Rosewater. “She wanted to consider pledging to her, personally, as the protector of Merrie.”

“I’d… heard that.” It was a low point in Roseate’s rulership of Merrie, and had been whispered about for weeks afterwards, then largely forgotten when nothing came of it. Nothing had come of it for more than a year, but then the goons had started harassing citizens who spoke out against Roseate’s policies towards Damme and trade with their sister city. “You were one of the few that pledged to the city.”

“And I got relegated to bridge duty,” Roselight said sourly, then winced. “I mean, it’s necessary to collect taxes on goods, but…” She tossed her head. “That’s not why I asked you here. I could get in trouble talking to you.”

A hint of Roseate’s plan came into view, but before she could chase it down, Roselight took a breath and continued.

“Some of our ‘friends’ in the guard are lording it over us bridge guards that they’re going on an important mission soon. I think you know which ones.” Roselight’s sneer made it clear what she thought of those that had willingly pledged to Roseate personally. “Roseate’s put a clamp on gossip between the guards as a response, but…”

“But that only makes the talk move to shadowy corners of taverns,” Rosewater said wryly. “I was aware that she was getting ready to move. I wasn’t sure when. Do you know anything about that?”

“I…” Roselight glanced aside. “Can you stop her?”

Rosewater blinked, then blinked again at the direct question. “Stop her?”

“Roseate. You… you fought a duel with her in Damme for Lord Collar’s hoof, right?” Roselight flushed faintly. “I’ve seen him a few times. He’s quite handsome.”

Rosewater stared at the mare, wondering just how far the rumors had progressed in Merrie, and what they were like in Damme. “I don’t know about stop her,” Rosewater said with a sigh. “I pushed my luck confronting her and dueling her and claiming him as my future mate. I want him whole, not a vegetable.” She hated it even as she said it, and forced down the disgust at claiming him again. She’d much rather he just accept her proposal to court him, even if it was clandestine.

“I… I know, and I know what I’m asking is a lot, but I know she’s going to lead some of my friends to do things they’ll regret.” Roselight looked away from her. “I know… you Rosethorns have your ways. But they’re not mine. They’re not my friends’. I don’t want to lose—”

She couldn’t take it, being seen that way. As a pony who would take another’s will away. “They’re not my way either. Stars above, I need to act it, but I’ve… I’ve never been my mother’s golden child.”

Roselight stared at her for a long moment, then let out a breath, some of the tension seeming to leave her. “Is that true?”

Just how terrible is my reputation? Rosewater swallowed and nodded. “Ask Glass. She seems Tartarus-bent on getting me to endanger my friends again.”

“How?”

“By associating with them.”

Roselight stared at her again, the flavor of this particular incredulous look bending more towards pitying. “Some of the rumors in the barracks make sense now,” she said softly, settling down. “That you’re not… you know. The Rose Terror. That some of the upper echelon of Roseate’s personal guard have been bragging about making even the Terror quake in her home.”

“I’ve heard some of that through Rosemary,” Rosewater said quietly.

“But that’s why it’s so important that you’re standing up to her! You will, won’t you?”

“If I can without getting myself or anypony else exiled,” Rosewater replied. “I will.” She smiled faintly and bobbed her head, taking a quick look around. Nopony else was watching them, and Glass was still at the bar, alternately watching them and the door. “That includes you, Roselight. I’m afraid I might have to beg a kiss from you on the way out. To sell the story.”

Roselight’s cheeks flushed, but not from embarrassment. “I wasn’t lying. You are somewhat attractive to me, and knowing more about you…”

“You’ll make Glass jealous with talk like that.” She winked and smiled more broadly. “But… is there anything you know specifically about the action? Anything you can tell me that more than one pony knows?”

“One of your sisters was complaining about a migraine in my earshot. Said it was the way Roseate enchanted a candy?” Roselight shook her head. “It didn’t make sense to me, but I only use sweets like that on night shift. And only sparingly.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple days?” Roselight shook her head again as if trying to prize free more information. “She kept muttering about hoping not to need to use it.”

Rosewater pursed her lips. That would correspond with a day when Roseate was in little evidence anywhere else. She could have spent the day enchanting candies like Rosewater did. Her stunt after the duel was over had proven she knew the spell and likely its effects, and was trying to get the raiders used to them.

They would only hold an enchantment for five days before it started to weaken and eventually crumble under the strain. It didn’t mean she absolutely meant to make her move soon, but Roseate was loathe to waste effort. That gave her a window of a few days when she could make a point to watch the bridges more closely.

She might even be able to warn Collar in time if he’d figured out the message she’d left. If he hadn’t…

Risking a more open approach would be risking treason charges if anypony spotted her. It’d been a gamble including the hidden message in the first place. The peach cobbler was hardly a subtle scent, but it served a dual purpose, and she’d been sure to leave out anything incriminating in the marked message.

“I should be going before I’m missed outside,” Roselight said, breaking Rosewater out of her thoughts. “I… might take that kiss if you’re still willing. Maybe… more?”

Suspicion crawled up out of its hole. Roselight was a Merrieguard, one of the ponies in the direct employ of Roseate. Simply letting Rosewater act on the information given to her had given Roseate enough to potentially level treason charges if Roselight was acting out of bad faith.

“Roselight… would you consent to letting me touch your horn with mine?”

“W-why?”

“Would you? If I’m going to do anything, I need to know you’re treating with me honestly.”

Roselight gulped, her green-ringed rose eyes going wide. “You can read minds?”

“Stars no.” Rosewater chuffed. She pushed herself up and craned her neck over the table as far as she could reach. “Either trust me, and I’ll do what I can, or don’t, and I’ll go my own way.”

“Trust you.” Roselight swallowed even harder, looking into Rosewater’s eyes before she nodded and pushed herself up to meet Rosewater a little less than halfway.

As soon as their horns touched, Rosewater sent a featherlight touch of magic through the physical connection, freezing the other mare in place with a gentleness that she’d not shown Rosary or Roseate. Then, with that touch done, she pulled back and opened herself up to the feelings flowing through her horn.

Deception wasn’t an emotion, she’d discovered over the time of learning her talent, in the rare times she could get past her fear of what she could do, but ponies that were lying and confronted with her power had one of a few reactions: absolute terror at what she was doing to them, or a feeling of dread at being found out.

Rarely did she feel hope in those that were lying to her.

Roselight’s emotional presence was a wavering flame of hope, flickering and barely there, but it had all the emotional hallmarks of it. Rosemary had been hopeful a lot in her young life, as had Carnation, and it was one of the emotional tapestries that she was intimately and thankfully familiar with.

After a moment, she released her hold on the magic that held the other in place and the hold on the hidden place in her mind where her talent lay.

“I’ll decide to trust you,” Rosewater said softly. “Can you trust me?”

“I must. You’re the only one I can hope will stand up to her.” Roselight’s words came thickly, as if her tongue were trying to say more than she could express all at once. “I felt you. I felt… hope?”

“A reflection of your own feelings,” Rosewater said faintly, smiling. “I hope I can live up to it.”

The next note was something of a surprise to both Collar and Priceless, who’d assumed that Rosewater had cut off communication with them by Roseate’s order, but there it was, sitting on the table between them, a small vial of murky brown liquid next to it that smelled strongly of one of Collar’s favorite Dammerales.

Even though the message wasn’t signed, it was clearly Rosewater’s, or had been meant to look like one of hers, and it’d appeared on the doorstep of the palace overnight, only the pop of the teleport telling the guard that anything was amiss.

Lord Collar,

There are things I wish to discuss with you about Rosemary’s return and Glory’s disposition that I don’t want Roseate to find out about. In two nights’ time, I would like to meet at the duelling grounds. Bring as many Dammeguard as you wish to ensure that I am honest.

R.R.

Collar read it again, then glanced at the bottle suspiciously. In all the time she’d been opposing him, Rosewater had never used alcohol as a lure.

“It’s obviously a trap,” Collar said with a growl. “Rosewater isn’t nearly so blunt.”

“And yet, if we don’t spring the trap,” Priceless said, “she may decide to run rampant in whatever part of the city she’s actually going to.”

“It’s clever, in its way,” Collar mused, ruffling the paper. “If we ignore it, we ignore an opportunity to capture… well, at least one of Roseate’s brood if not Roseate herself. But if we don’t ignore it, that has its own risks. What if she does it to draw us out and then rampages in another part of the city. Wing would have a festival day with that, calling us feckless and impotent, and all sorts of other hurtful things.”

Priceless barked a short laugh. “That nail is well and truly pounded flat, my lord. It was my own assessment.” The merriment faded immediately as he pulled the letter back across. “There is also the possibility that Rosewater has written this as a way to throw her defiance in her mother’s face.”

Collar winced. “Stars above. Do nothing, and we pay Tartarus for whatever bill Roseate decides is worth it. Do something and maybe get ambushed again. Do something and maybe get hoodwinked and still pay Tartarus.” He sat back and stared up at the stone blocks of the domed ceiling. “I need to be there, whatever happens. I can’t let Wing claim that I’m feckless and weak.”

“You are not, my lord. Nor was your mother when she announced the Reformations.”

“Yes, but she was also an accomplished warrior at the time, and would have had ponies trembling in their armor if she showed up in her full battle rattle on the bridge one day.” Collar snorted softly. “Not that she could really have taken on the Rose Knights and won, but she’d have made them regret it.”

Priceless was silent for a time, then nodded. “In the world before your mother, battle honors and combat acumen would have counted for much, Collar. In the world you’re working to help your mother realize…” he waved a hoof. “My public position would be my only position. Your wife, wives, or wives and—”

“I’m not interested in a Merrie style marriage,” Collar blurted, his cheeks heating. “Stars, Priceless.”

“It’s something you’ll have to consider, condone, and support,” Priceless said softly. “Winning doesn’t mean Damme wins the war. Winning means Merriedamme can know peace. And that means reconciliation between the culture in both cities.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I respect their culture already, but I don’t want that for me. I want what my parents have.” The quiet abiding love they showed each other, even if that ‘quiet’ was subsumed by their play-bickering, that was what he wanted. He and Cloudy already had that.

And she’s far more Merrier than Dapper.

The thought crept in like a saboteur and left its notion to sit there, heavy and ponderous, reminding him that she had lovers besides him in the Dammeguard and Damme itself. Not many, by Merrie standards, but enough that not every night was a night spent with him.

She always offered to tell him what she’d gotten up to, sometimes grinning and obviously wanting to share some silly thing, and other times… he sighed and pushed the memories away. She was bringing him into Merrier culture by little bits. She never shared what she did with her lovers in bed, only what they did out of bed.

The bed, the bedroom, was her limit and her nod to the Dammer mores against talking about other ponies love lives.

“You’re just realizing that you’re already a part of it, aren’t you?” Priceless asked with a twinkle and a grin that was half a smirk.

“Stars damn you,” Collar growled and stood up. “I did. But…” To make her happy? In Damme, it would have been infidelity. The word still tickled his mind from time to time, but it was less often. She’d been nothing but open with him about her mores and her intentions ever since making her blatant offer almost a year and a half ago. He’d accepted it, not expecting much more than a short romance before she tired of him. “Stars above, I love her, Priceless. Merrie is a part of her, and as much as it makes me uncomfortable, if she hadn’t been born a Merrier, I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with her.”

“As it goes. I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with my wife if she wasn’t who she was.” Priceless patted his hoof. “As for what to do about this obvious trap… I think we need to spring it, too. How we spring it is going to be important. Fully mobilizing the Dammeguard would scare them off, however, but it may be a good idea. However, there will be a cost to do that, too.”

“I know. The day guard would be left listless. And Wing would accuse me of jumping at shadows if we scared them off.” Collar sighed. “We’ll have to make do with the night guard on a short trigger and a few guards in full scent-gear.”

As he said it, a plan began to form, and he outlined it to Priceless.

It was the least terrible of a basket of bad options.

There was an art to mixing emotional magic and scent magic, and far less of one of the natural sciences that the industry of perfumes was based on. Rosewater had nopony else to consult with for her art, and the only ponies that might have understood what she was trying to do were either long dead or lost with the Crystal Empire.

Thus every perfume she made was a new creation, every one different and created for a particular purpose.

For this perfume, a compilation of fear and energy, she had a variety of citrus that was all but unknown in Equestria at large and had a name she could barely pronounce in its native Saddle Arabian, but that Merriers and Dammers called Squid Lemon for its many tentacle-like parts.

It had a pungent smell, and while it had the signature sharp lemon texture to it, it lent itself well to accepting the spell as she drew up her fears and pressed them into the solution of not-quite bound ingredients. The magic would do that and twist the bright yellow into a sickly purple mixed with strains of yellow, like a bruise on the soul.

It would induce, she hoped, panic and an adrenaline response that would keep the afflicted ponies from realizing it was induced emotion.

While it didn’t need to be as precise as the perfume she’d gifted to the Baroness Highwater, she still took care in making sure that when she tested the base perfume on herself, it pushed on her the feeling she wanted to instill.

Empowered…

By the time she normally took a break for a nap, she was exhausted, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep the emotional dissonance she was drawing on from overwhelming her sense of reality. It was dangerous, and she knew it.

She also could see no other alternative.

The glyphs on flat paper, precisely metered and measured lines of power that represented the graven representation of a spell, still gleamed wetly from the ink Collar had used to fill in the fine charcoal lines on the parchment.

It was a spell he’d been working on for years now, on and off as the need for it waxed and waned, and while his mother almost certainly would have disapproved of what the symbols and sigils meant, it was something he could see little option but to develop.

The Resolute Heart spell was a natural extension of his talent for making ward and shields out of magic. This one, rather than a shield against an outside threat, shielded his heart and mind from the insidious nature of the magics he’d seen Roseate and Rosewater use.

Simpler scent-wards wouldn’t work against something like Roseate’s visual glamour spell, and would work even less well against Rosewater’s terrifying incarnation of emotional magic. He already had a counter ready against Rose Crown’s voice, and while the mare was powerful and frightening in her own way, the simple expedient of ear flaps on helmets was enough to mute her song, and if that failed, he could bubble her up in a silence spell.

But countering the other two took more drastic measures. He couldn’t not look at Roseate to fight her. That was stupid and dangerous, and allowing Rosewater close enough to lock horns with him when she could teleport in range easily also wasn’t feasibly preventable during a fight.

Rather, he had to divorce his actions from his conscious mind.

It was akin to sleepwalking, except he walled off his emotional self, the parts of his mind that could be affected by magic, from the parts of his mind that controlled his body.

Dangerous was an adjective Cloudy had used when he’d explained the principle to her, but she also compared it to a full thrall… something that had also been banned by the treaty. A full thrall was a mindless husk of a pony, and the cruelty of the last bloody years of the war before Celestia had stepped in had ended the practice and made it an automatic banishment.

It was dark magic.

Using it on himself… would be grey magic, at best. Similar, he suspected, to what Rosewater could do would be considered.

He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, just as Rosewater was so determined, and for similar reasons. If they were, either of them, the war would be all but over, and not favorably to either side.

Why can’t she and I just sit down and talk this over like rational, reasonable ponies?

The answer, of course, was Roseate.

Wing and his power bloc could impede the peace process, but so long as Roseate was against peace, there was little that Wing could do that would make things worse. In truth, he had no idea what Roseate hoped to actually accomplish, or if she was dreaming an impossible fever dream and dragging all of Merrie with her.

“Maybe this spell is an impossible fever dream,” Collar murmured and blew on the ink to dry it so he could examine it with more care.

He’d tested previous iterations of it at least a dozen times already and given himself a headache all but the last two times, but nothing more serious, and he hadn’t done more than seem to float somewhere behind his eyes. Without an opponent to test it against, there wasn’t much more he could do about it.

Either it would work, and the feeling of his consciousness floating behind his eyes and not in his head was how it was supposed to feel, or he would have a headache again. This latest iteration had felt more like he’d been floating above his body, even though he was still seeing through his eyes…

But maybe that’s how distancing himself from emotional attachment was supposed to feel.

He settled in and went about tracing the glyphs again, frowning as he put a trickle of power into the spell.

The house was clean. Down to the last speck of dust. It was how Vine coped with stress, giving herself some semblance of control over her environment that she didn’t have elsewhere.

Silk, watching her inspecting the entryway mat for the sixth time in the last hour, her tail dancing as she muttered, hoped she would calm down and settle in before the tea got cold. Not that she couldn’t heat it, but Vine needed to let her nerves go for just a little bit.

For her part, Silk did her best to stay out of her younger sister’s way and not think about what they were supposed to be doing whenever Roseate gave the order. The stallion that Rosewater had set her sights on was their target. Again. If Roseate didn’t rut the delivery of her warning.

It was very likely that Silk would end the night on the inside of an enchanted jail cell. Whether that was with Glory or alone, or with Vine…

Stars, what will she do if we’re separated?

“Love,” Silk called, wanting to spend just another few minutes with the love of her life. “Come have some tea with me.”

“This mat—”

“Is clean enough to eat straight off of. Please, it’s stressing me out seeing you stressing.”

Vine’s ears snapped flat to her mane, and her cheeks colored. “I’m sorry, but…” She didn’t need to say it. If they failed, but didn’t get captured, or did get captured, Roseate would tell the world about their attraction to each other.

They had only once indulged, and it was a mark of shame in their lives that Roseate held over them, controlled them with, and tortured them with. Exile would be the least of their problems. Anyplace they went would know they had been intimate with each other, and incest would put a black mark on their lives forever if it became public… no matter if they hadn’t engaged in it again.

“We’ll find a way out of it. We will.” Silk swallowed, looking down at her hooves. There were ponies they could go to for help. They would also trigger Roseate to tell everypony, and then they would be marked. Submitting to Roseate was the only way they could last long enough to find the help they wanted.

“We…” Vine hiccupped. She wasn’t a fighter. She tended her plants, grew them into the beautiful wreaths that decorated their home, could encourage plants to grow out of their usual pattern magically, and Roseate’s plan hinged on her enchanted root balls. “We could defect.”

“We can’t. We would have a day of freedom at best before everypony in Damme knew about us. We’d never have a chance at a normal life.” Silk wanted to stomp around, growl, shout, let her temper free. All of which would make Vine upset. So she reigned herself in.

“You could defect,” Vine whispered, her ears slick flat, her eyes haunted.

“No. I would never leave you, Vine.”

“But you could—”

“She would exile you and maybe I could lie, and ponies would believe it. But, Vine… would either of us be happy with that?” Silk wanted to go to her sister, kiss away the worry, but that would only dig them deeper. She had to settle for holding out a hoof and clasping ankles, pressing her forehead to Vine’s. “I wouldn’t be.”

Vine cried softly in her embrace, and Silk closed her eyes over the rage that wanted to explode out of her. In darkness, with only her sister’s grief to cling to, it was easier to push everything else away but that beating pulse of protective love that had thrummed through her from far in her youth.

She’d found her sister crying in the greenhouse she’d claimed over what had been a pretty wreath she’d made for Roseate, that their mother had called useless.

Vine herself had trampled it, then laid on the ring of petals and wailed until Silk found her, wanting to show her the bow she’d made.

From that moment, she knew she had to take care of her sister, her fragile, gentle Vine.

Silk had to be like her namesake. Strong. Flexible. Warm.

She could even use her silks to hide her own pain from Vine.

Crown forced herself to read the line again, squinted, and crossed it out, sighed, and crossed out the entire page and threw it at the fire.

“Love,” Crisp Corner said with a sight, levering himself up from where he lay on their bed with Gilded Page. “Stop torturing yourself. You’re not going to get any work done on your poem like that.”

“I’ve already discarded it,” Crown said, forcing herself not to put her anger into the words. Neither he nor Gilded deserved her scorn. The only pony who did held their freedom, and that of all of her friends, above Crown’s head. The only, only, reason they hadn’t been hounded into leaving the city was that she had disarmed the trap Collar had set for the rest of the raid. That alone, Roseate had told her, had proven her worth.

Roseate hated that she wasn’t a scent mage, and hadn’t seen the utility in having an aural mage daughter until Glory, bless her heart, had been captured. Then, with her only other source of secret information gone, Roseate had turned up the charm. And the threats against her lovers and her group of book lovers had gotten more dire.

Of them all, Crisp and Golden she held in the closest confidence, and told them everything. She was trusting them with her future, with the future of all of them, and that trust meant their silence outside of this carefully warded bedroom.

“Love,” Golden said through a yawn. “It’s late. She didn’t give the order, so come to bed.”

Crown flicked her ears twice. They were right. But it fell on her now that Glory was gone, and Rosewater apparently grief-stricken and insane from all she could gather from listening to and following the mare.

She needed something she could turn into the Royal Guard that would knock not only Roseate, but Rosary, Well, and Powder from their perches and hopefully into a royal prison cell for the rest of their natural lives.

All of her talent at acoustomancy meant nothing when it came to trying to listen to Roseate. The palace was too well warded against all kinds of intrusion, and even Glory had had to step lightly around the wardings against veils to get her little tidbits of secrets.

Roseate trusted nopony. She never had. The only thing she trusted was her own power and the leverage and addictions she could push to get ponies to do what she wanted.

It made finding secrets that Roseate wanted hidden damnably hard.

It meant she had to play along. If Rosewater never recovered, or if she did something that got herself exiled and disowned, something Roseate constantly harangued Crown to find, then her next best hope was that Glory would finally accept her Dammer mate’s seed and become the next heir in line after Rosary.

“Love,” Crisp crooned, raising a wing and fluttering his feathers just enough to push the blank page off the desk and to the floor, “Come to bed.”

“Stars, I want to, Crisp. I want to.”

“Then do. You’re going to drive yourself batty trying to think of a way out of this mess.”

“I can’t lose you.” Crown rose, her ears flat, and instinctively checked the wards again, pouring just a little more magic into the central nexus diamond, powering the spell for another few hours atop the hours it already held. “Stars, I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“We don’t want to lose you, either,” Gilded murmured, pushing herself up and tugging her lightly closer with a spell. “But we are. To worry, fear… you’re not wholly ours anymore, dear heart.”

Was I ever? Wasn’t it all just a dream waiting for Roseate to snap me out of it?

She allowed herself to be drawn in, understanding a part of what had driven Rosewater to break off her ties to others, to protect them from fallout.

It made her decision to warn the mare of Roseate’s prowling feel all the more right. The duel fought and won had earned them all a little more time, and a touch of hope that their eldest, strangest sister could triumph.

Not all, though. There remained the fear, hardly spoken, that Roseate would ‘abdicate’ to Rosary if it looked even halfway like Rosewater was getting close to pregnant. Rosary would be just as bad as Roseate. Their second-eldest sister hadn’t ever been like Rosewater. She was Roseate’s child, and that status had been cemented ever since they were foals.

Gilded’s lips on hers drew her back to the present, and the warm wing over her back as Crisp traded places with a kiss of his own drew her into a new moment. This, she could accept for now. They needed her as much as she needed them.

It was getting harder to find the necessary escape.

Soon, she might not be able to relax into it.

But for that night…

For the hundredth time in the last day, Rosewater checked the clasps and folds of her stalking cloak, making sure that every perfume and every tool of the trade she had ever needed was still right where she’d put it.

Years of stalking, of capturing ponies, and of honing her craft demanded that she keep everything exactly where it had always been so she could snatch a vial without thought as to what it was beyond her intent.

The new vial was an itch in her mind, a new tool she’d never used on a raid. It had always been for one pony and only for one pony. It wasn’t the same perfume she’d used on Roseate in their duel, but the core of emotional, raw fear was the same. This was a more potent, more virulent fear, and it would linger like a poison in the mind.

Roseate needed to fear her. Her sisters needed to fear her. For one night, she had to embrace the mantle of Rose Terror for the protection of the future of all of Merrie, whether they knew it or not.

She had named the perfume, as she had all of her perfumes.

The Rose Terror would be more than a name for one night.

She slipped the cloak on and made her way into the basement and her secret bolthole, warming up a teleport to a forested area just outside of Damme.

Sneaking out wasn’t an issue, normally, but since she wasn’t supposed to be crossing the bridge for any reason…

Night after night, she’d settled into the mantle, for the last three nights, and night after night, her prowling of Damme’s streets had yielded nothing more than whispered rumors from the Dammeguard, and the drunken caterwauling of those citizens who ignored the curfew to go drinking.

They would be mostly common ponies, and Roseate had yet to stoop to the level of snatching commoners. Or, more likely, she hadn’t wanted to take the risk of snatching a family pony by accident and thereby earn sanctions from the Sun Throne.

As she passed into the basement, she let herself touch and admire the painting she and Carnation had collaborated on together.

It was one of the rare times she’d allowed herself to be a mother outside of their home. Surrounded by nopony else, secreted by the howling wind preceding the stormclouds Rosewater had painted, the forest below darkening, and the mountains to the north all but swallowed up by the roiling mass…

Carnation had added the three of them, their happy, strange family, watching it roll in as they ate a picnic and six year old Rosemary frollicked and played in no less than six different places, in six different poses.

It was the reason she let herself take on the mantle of the Rose Terror, let her feel what it meant to be a terror.

That day, and too few others, she had been happy outside of their home.

She had to be terrifying so she could claim that happiness again. It was what Roseate’s actions demanded.

Two other ponies had entered the sphere of her hopeful outlook. Cloudy, who loved Rosemary seemingly as dearly as she did, and Collar, who’d been so kind and so understanding that it hurt to act cold around him.

Forgive me, Collar. Cloudy. Carnation.

She drew the hood over her mane and descended.

Author's Notes:

This was a newly written chapter, setting up some minor viewpoints for later consumption, and exposing some of the instabilities in the way Roseate handles her reign, but also the terror and pain of her own daughters (some of them)

Three? Three more chapters until the interludes chapter, then a three part "Chapter 1" for the second book.

Book 1, 25. Stormbreak

Fog covered the streets of Merrie and Damme both, making it hard to tell where other ponies were, and the mist carried scents far longer than open air would have, leading Rosewater down false trails as she tried to find where Collar was having his patrol go that night.

She had no doubt that he was Roseate’s target. Rosewater’s own interest in Collar said that much, and while she might have the right of free association, Roseate had nipped that off by forbidding contact with the palace.

It wasn’t her way to leave things half-done. Roseate obsessed until something was all the way done.

Which meant Roseate would take Collar. She would use him as leverage to bring Damme down and ‘win’ the war through conquest. Or try to. Rosewater suspected that Lace was made of sterner stuff than Roseate was prepared to deal with.

Still.

Rosewater sniffed the air, letting the fragrance of ponies recently passed through the mist call to her. Collar was there, as was Cloudy, and at least half a dozen other scents, most of them also exuding the astringent fragrance of their scent masks. That lay heaviest on the air, letting any Rosethorn who also followed them know what they would contend with.

Any other night, Rosewater was certain that would be deterrent enough to a raider, but her sisters were taking odd hours, just as she was. All of her sisters were, some less obviously than others.

The whispers on the street in previous days had grown nervous whenever she picked her way through unveiled, and the ones she heard as Rosetide were similarly disturbing. Roseate had been issuing threats and making deals behind the scenes, but somepony had been leaking rumor and information to the common pony.

Roseate was on the move, and as far as she could tell, not one of her sisters were going to be spared going out. A few of Roseate’s personal guards would likely be along as well, far more than Rosewater could handle on her own, but bluff and bluster would go far against siblings she was almost certain didn’t want to be there.

It took her some time to discern which way the force had gone, but she followed them until she found a swirling vortex rising like a miniature twin tornado up out of the mist.

Cloudy’s scent, and the airy, warm air smell of them, was strongest there. They must have suspected something was up ahead, and a quick orientation of her mental map told her they were approaching the open field of the duelling grounds.

It was the place Rosewater had taken Collar on that first night treating with him amicably.

Why would you go there?

The reasoning caught up a moment later.

Whatever enticement Roseate had sent was related to her somehow, perhaps even trying to trick Collar into thinking it was her, though she couldn’t know just how much of an open line to the Prim Palace Rosewater had been able to cultivate in such a short time.

He wasn’t foolish enough to believe anything sent by her was trustworthy, and if he was trying to spring a trap on her, she could only hope he’d brought enough ponies to handle all of her siblings.

That was a small comfort… though he could also be walking into a trap laid by Roseate.

It was the last thought that gave her steps speed even as she caught the telltale sound of downsweeping wings as a pegasus came in for an uncertain landing.

In the mist and fog, she would need to be cautious.

Silence descended on the mist, and Rosewater crept forward, drawing forth her fears into a scented fog that drifted with her, using the fog to bolster it. Unknown in the dark, fear and adrenaline mixed with an inability to see would be her advantage.

“Nothing,” Cloudy reported as she landed, ears ticking as she heard the other ponies around them shifting, relaxing as they heard her voice before Collar dropped a silence around them. “No stirring in the mist. It’s just flat foggy. We’ve got some of our patrols watching other areas, and the signal whistle elicited the proper call and responses.”

“Another night of nothing,” Collar muttered.

“Seems like it, but I don’t like how quiet it is. Something feels… off.” Cloudy glanced around, wishing she could see the ten or so guards arrayed around them in staggered positions. It would make her feel safer to see their shadows and know they were still there instead of the ghostly rustling of armor in the night.

Even the sound felt off, the mist drinking in the faint whisper of padding against straps, the fainter thudding of hooves against sodden grass-covered soil. Even the counter-whistle signs had sounded off when she’d made the rounds to the other patrols, tinnier and farther away than they should have been.

“Nothing feels right about tonight,” she said at last, looking up. “At least above the fog, I could see the Mare and make out the tops of buildings.”

Collar cursed under his breath. “Autumn fog be damned,” he growled at last and sighed. “You did what you could. I think—”

His lips kept moving, but no sound came out. Surprise widened his eyes a moment before the first flashes of light in the mist announced they were under attack, and he dropped his spell to call out.

No sound. Not even a whisper.

Rose hues mixed with the blues of the Dammeguard unicorns, even a few attempted strobes into the night were cut off, the flashes like lightning on the underside of a cloud.

All in silence.

Cloudy’s gorge rose as she realized what had just happened, what was still happening. An aural mage was silencing the entire area, and the piercing whistle blasts that should have come were kept quiet.

In the next instant, Collar beamed a pulse of light into the night sky, but without a cloud to target, the light would just scatter, and unless a pegasus were looking right at the duelling grounds, there’d be nopony to see the warning.

Cloudy snapped her wings into an emergency takeoff, but two of the cursed tanglevines slapped against her wings, fouling her escape before a sachet of powder exploded against her chest, the bag and powder clawing at her wakefulness immediately.

As she slumped, she saw another sachet catch Collar right in the throat and explode, wreathing his head is rosy light. He’d given them a perfect target to aim for, and in the split second before his thoughts had turned to defense, they’d gotten him.

Still, even as Cloudy slumped to the ground, her vision growing hazy with sleep, she saw him shake his head and cast it off, a small bubble of clean air surrounding his muzzle as he tried to pull the vines free of Cloudy’s wings.

They’d already taken root, and a new light glowed in the mist that forced Cloudy’s eyes toward it. Tantalizing, scintillating light surrounding a pony who glowed with vigor and beauty, who’s eyes were half-lidded, a triumphant smile crossing her lips.

Roseate.

Cloudy closed her eyes to keep from falling under the sway of her glamour… and lost to the sleeping powder filling her mind with fog.

Collar set his shield around himself and Cloudy, the fringes of sleep dulling his reflexes as he ducked another thrown powder packet before he fought to put the shield in place and forced his mind to respond. It was nothing but magic. Strong magic, but Roseate’s smile told him there were more where that came from.

The flashing lights of the fight around him grew slower and slower, more sporadic as the fight seemed to be over almost before it had begun.

All of a sudden, sound returned with a rush that thundered in his ears. Cries for help and a belated, strained whistle rose up from the fog to his right, the whistle quickly silenced as its very presence alerted the attackers where it was.

But it had gone out.

“Tch.” Roseate clucked her tongue and glanced to the side, her Rosethorn markings glowing. “Tail, darling, keep watch on the perimeter with Hip, and see what happened to Crown. I want that silence ready to go again.”

The fog of drowsiness started to part again as he realized just what had happened. Rose Crown had silenced the area. Their reports had her as an aural mage, but that would be something Note could pull off only for a minute at best before it drained him, if he could pull off the spell at all.

“I-If you’d had that four months ago,” Collar growled, “You needn’t have worried about reinforcements.”

“Strong will,” Roseate murmured, her horn glowing brighter as she stepped closer and set her hoof against his shield. “But not strong enough.”

His shield popped like a bubble as she pierced it with her horn and a stream of magic, and he staggered to the ground again, trying to fall to protect Cloudy.

“Oh, you needn’t worry about—”

Another whistle rose up out of the fog behind her.

“Powder, Well, see to it the rest of them are subdued,” Roseate snapped to her left. “Rosary, help me truss them up. We’ll need to concentrate for a mass teleport.”

“Mother, I’m not as strong as Rosewater, I can’t—”

“Shut up. I gave you the candy, use it. It will give you the strength you need for a few moments at least.” Roseate pulled out a faintly glowing amber jewel and crunched down on it, her breath becoming sunlight. “Quickly, before he can recover.”

Taken. The word resounded around his head and thoughts. He was going to be taken. And there was…

He only had the one chance. An untried spell, uncertain of its effects, could be disastrous, but right then, with sleep clawing at him again, with Rosary and Roseate preparing a teleportation spell, the second-eldest daughter’s breath also glowing with sunlight, he couldn’t see anything worse than being taken.

He stopped trying to reform the shield and closed his eyes, focusing on what he needed to do, whom he needed to protect.

Cloudy, himself, the future of Damme.

Silver light filled his mind as he formed the complicated construct, and he felt himself starting to detach from his baser self, the part that knew that the sleep, the come-hither glamour, and everything else was nothing more than a trick. What was left was a stallion that needed to protect his mate, needed not to harm his foes, and needed to keep them prisoner.

When Collar’s eyes opened again, he wasn’t looking through them, but seemingly above them as the world slowed, as action and reaction happened simultaneously.

Rosary, closer, went down first with silver bindings wrapping her from tail to muzzle, her cry rising above the din of his heart thundering in his ears.

Roseate, stronger, more aware, managed to side-step his first assault, her eyes wide with fear and confusion as spell after spell tugged at him only to be torn away. Even the vines that flew at him exploded into plant matter as he met them with counteracting force and tore them apart.

Powder packets pelted him all of a sudden, the greatest danger from them the powder clogging his throat and lungs, and then Rosary was free behind him, another mare, Rose Well, breaking his bindings with her elder sister’s help.

He took a moment to clear his vision, noting distantly that so much powder was turning to sludge in the mist and coating his muzzle in rose-colored, highly fragrant sleeping draught.

Even as deep into the spell as he was, he could feel the clawing tendrils of sleep dragging at his waking mind.

Dreading what it would mean if he lost control, and dreading even more what would happen if he fell, Collar poured more magic into Resolute Heart.

Self faded as he became his purpose.

Protect Cloudy.

If she hadn’t been close to the fighting, Rosewater never would have heard the whistle that washed through the fog, the sound seeming to drown in the mists.

There was almost no chance anypony else had been close enough to hear it, or to see the dim flashes of light that briefly, and more and more sporadically lit the darkness unless they were as close as she was.

She doubted it. Collar’s patrol had crossed several others, but they had all been moving in straight lines along Damme’s straight streets, criss-crossing in a pattern that would have found any other trouble beside what lay ahead.

The lights had first caught her attention, the silence convincing her for a brief moment that one of her sisters had been caught unawares by Collar’s silence… until the rose hues took over, soon becoming the only hue.

Rosewater drew her fog more closely about her, a deeper darkness in the mist, and crept forward, ears straining, nose working and Rosethorn marks glowing intermittently as she sought out the telltale scents of her sisters at work.

Just as she found the first of them, Rosetail by the sound of her low whisper, a silvery light crept through the mist, growing steadier even as shouts of alarm from farther into the duelling grounds rose from Roseate’s and Rosary’s throats.

She came upon Rosetail glowing in a circle of light, her ears flicking frantically from sound to sound, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at the source. She was still afraid of the dark, but was managing not to hide behind one of her elder sisters’ flanks.

“Go home, Rosetail,” Rosewater whispered. “This isn’t your fight.”

Movement to her right announced Vine throwing tanglevines at her voice, the magical constructs of plant and creeping vine encountering the shell of purple mist and falling apart before they landed with wet, messy plops at Rosewater’s hooves.

In that moment, Rosetail rushed her, eyes wide, teeth bared, and spun at the last moment to whip her braided tail at Rosewater’s muzzle.

Rather than dodge, Rosewater snagged the tail in midair and held it as Rosetail came to a stumbling stop. “Go. I don’t want to fight you, Rosetail.”

“Too bad, I want to fight you!” Rosetail snarled, edging towards her, then whimpering when her tail refused to move with her. “Let go!”

“Give it up,” Silk’s voice growled from the mist to her right. “Go home Rosetail, we’ve lost tonight. You don’t have to spend the night in jail.”

To her left, Vine cleared away the mist in an area around her, a small bubble opening that gave her an opening to Rosewater’s flank, and three bundles of tanglevine glowing faintly around her.

“My quarrel isn’t with you,” Rosewater said softly, glancing left, then right and dropping her hold over the protective shell of fear-infused mist to dart ahead.

Tanglevines whipped past her, diverted with a last-second spell to aim for where Silk’s voice had come from, only for a third voice to sound out in surprise as the bundle made contact with a pony.

“Crown!” Vine cried, darting through the shredding fear mist towards the sound, her eyes and nose closed as she traversed the contamination. “Stars, I didn’t mean to hit you.”

Rosewater stopped where she was, staring towards the sound. Rather than continue and possibly subdue her, Vine had abandoned the attack and gone to her sister.

As she did, Silk slipped through the mist, white cloth dropping and wrapping around Rosewater’s muzzle before she could react, and another two twists wrapped around her ankles. “Don’t resist,” she hissed.

Roseate’s shouting rose in the mist again, “Help me subdue him! All of you!” Panic tinged her words, and Rosewater gave Silk a meaningful look.

“This was none of my doing,” Rosewater whispered, holding her breath against the compulsion scent Silk usually doused her silk bindings in.

“But it would have been,” Silk growled.

“Nay.” Rosewater edged backwards, keeping her movements slow and deliberate as she pulled one leg free, then the other of Silk’s binding. When her sister didn’t retaliate, she removed the binding around her muzzle, loose though it was. “I court him. She attacks him because I do. I’m only here because I want my future mate safe.”

Silk’s eyes met hers, and some of the heat went out of them before she looked away towards the silver glow. “He’s strong. Mother is having difficulty handling him.”

“He is. It’s part of why I chose to court him.” Rosewater stepped towards the silver glow, ears perked. “But he’s not invincible.”

Before she could move away, Vine called out, “Silk! I need help getting Crown away.”

Rosewater hesitated, closed her eyes, and drew three enchanted candies free. Her entire stock. “Give her one of these. Are there any others?”

“Hip’s out there somewhere,” Silk said softly, taking the candies and unwrapping one to inspect it. “Mother wouldn’t trust us with these, much less how to make them.”

“She stole the idea from Carnation.” Rosewater tossed her head. “Get Hip out here, if you can find her. She’s too young to be involved in this mess.”

Silk gave her one last look, smiled faintly, and nodded before disappearing into the mist.

Rosewater drew out her fears again, touching them to the mist and gathering three dense pockets of it she infused with sickly purple light. The eldest trio of her younger sisters were still out there, and they were close followers of her mother’s.

Rosary and her scented, pressed beads of petals were less potent than most, but combined with complimentary oils from Well, they were a dangerous combination, and Well herself was no slouch with burning scented oils, most often in lanterns and oil lamps, and her twin Powder supplied dried components for her as well as used them herself.

The mists were their home, and made their aromatics far more potent and dangerous.

That Well hadn’t started burning any of her oils yet was a sign she wasn’t ready to make herself known… or it was too dangerous to do so.

Of them all, Powder was the most dangerous in the mist, her powders clinging with damp and becoming more aromatic. It was Powder she needed to take care of, and hope that she hadn’t given much of her supply to her sisters, otherwise she might be in trouble.

The silver glow pulsed slowly as she approached it, casting shadows back through the fog of the three mares who circled the source, making an odd pirouette of light and darkness, and backlighting her targets readily.

You asked for this, Rosewater thought as she waited for the nearest to come just a hair closer, to turn and present her head with the—

Movement in the fog to her right startled her into a dodge just before a powder sachet sailed through the space her head had just been, and she danced back and out of the way.

“You speak too loudly,” Rosary growled, sending two more sachets darting after her.

Rosewater hissed, not wasting words, and dissolved the bindings on the packets of mist and shoving it all in the voice’s direction, pushing more of her instant terror at being caught into the spell-woven mist and sending cracklings of purple light flashing through the air, a hideous counterpoint to the steady silver.

Rosary had time only to draw a breath before she started screaming, pitch ratcheting up as the Rose Terror enveloped her.

“Rosary!” Powder’s cried as another of the shadows peeled away from the silver light towards the purplish glow. “We have to help her!”

“You have to help me get free!”

Another shadow slipped free, a twin to Powders, both apparently in defiance of their mother. “We’ll need her help to get you free,” Rose Well growled. “That’s Rosewater out there, and unless you fancy a stay in prison…”

Even forewarned, the two were still unprepared when Rosewater decided it was time to drag the fight into the open.

With an effort of will, she wove her telekinetic spiderweb with broader bands of force and pushed it out, getting a mental map of the area and clearing the battlefield of obscuring fog. Ponies were down everywhere, some still struggling against the tanglevines, others laying complacently. The fog of fear dissipated slowly, dissolving the tanglevines and wakening those lying complacent.

That, she couldn’t help, and if they managed to get their whistles out, there’d be reinforcements coming soon.

One pony, a pegasus lying a short distance behind Rosary, stirred and then leapt, his hoarse cry sending a stab of guilt through Rosewater. She hadn't meant for it to touch anypony while it was still so potent, but she couldn’t do anything about it now.

Collar stood beside Cloudy, his horn glowing a steady silver, but it was his eyes that were pulsing with light, as if he’d enchanted himself to resist Roseate—who was bound to the ground, shackles and bindings around her legs and barrel, with only her head and neck free.

What did you do?

Collar looked around steadily, taking in the suddenly clear area and the slow-creeping fog as it began to move back in, and then settled a shield over his love and sat down, complacent as if he’d been at a dinner table.

“We came prepared,” Rosary growled as she shook her head free of the lingering effects of induced terror. “Mother will see you exiled for this.”

“Stop talking and get her!” Roseate screamed.

Powder didn’t hesitate and flung three packets of powder at her.

Rosewater spared her retort as she deflected one of the guided sachets towards Roseate, snapping Powder’s control with an effort of will. The other two she sent to smack into the ground and called mists to smother the resultant explosion of glowing dust..

Roseate, unable to dodge, screeched as she deflected it up and into the night. Collar didn’t react at all, other than to place a shield over Cloudy, perhaps sensing that there was something about to happen.

In the moment of distraction, Rosary had thrown her strings of beads, glowing rose in the night, to catch around Rosewater’s upper neck with a snap and click of beads circling just where Rosewater had knocked her with a foreleg.

Flickering light heralded the next attack from Rosewell as droplets of enchanted and scented oils pattered down around her and caught fire, igniting fragrances that began to swim Rosewater’s vision as she took them in.

“Suffer,” Rosary hissed as she sauntered up, drawing more lines of beads from her saddlebags, their surfaces oiled with more scents, her namesake and her weapon of choice. “Traitor.”

The beads around her neck tightened as Rosewater set her magic against them. She couldn’t use heat, that might ignite the oiled length, and she couldn’t set a cutting force between the beads. Powder recovered one of the sachets and approached.

There wasn’t any other choice. I’m sorry, Collar, she thought as she pulled free the vial of Rose Terror. She still had most of it, and it glowed faintly as she started to pour magic into it. She had to take in the fear of loss, so close, and let it into her heart before she could finish activating the magic.

“Fools!” Roseate cried. “Don’t—”

Roseate never got to finish her warning. Purple mist exploded from the vial as she removed the stopper and let out her fear of losing Rosemary, the fear of losing to her sisters and being dragged off to suffer the consequences of her rebellions. Of losing to Roseate.

Rosemary.

Rosewell screamed first, her eyes widening as her pupils shrank to pinpricks at the images the fragrance of fear woke in her mind, devouring rational thought in the madness of elemental terror.

Rosemary. For Rosemary.

The light flared brighter, sending flickering tremors of luminance through the cloud as it expanded to take in Powder and Rosary, who’d started back as soon as Roseate called out to them.

Rosary held her breath and tightened the noose around Rosewater’s neck, gritting her teeth as her horn flared against the counterforce Rosewater applied against the beads. “You. Will. Not—” she managed to grind out, her horn flaring brighter before the beads’ strong core snapped finally under the opposing forces, sending oiled balls of polished, calcified rose petals scattering into the night.

Powder flung her sachet at Rosewater in a last-ditch attempt to fell her, but the magic around it faded to nothing as it entered the purplish cloud and, leached of its power, it puffed against Rosewater’s shoulder and fell to the ground, leaving behind only an inert scent of honeysuckle and wine.

Rosary staggered forward, her eyes wide, her mouth foaming as she fought against the fear far more effectively than Roseate ever had. Hatred burned in her eyes, wild and berzerker.

“Don’t, Rosary,” Rosewater said sternly. “What will I tell Rose Quill when his mother doesn’t come back from tonight? What will I tell Rose Moon?”

It was a risk, stabbing into the dark and hoping Rosary had some love for her son and daughter, something she promised them before leaving. It was also cheap, but it hit home. The first spark of fear flickered through Rosary’s eyes, and she gasped and started screaming as tears came down her cheeks.

Powder’s eyes were wide, fear and confusion spreading across her features. Her own son, barely a year older than Rosary’s youngest, must have been home as well.

Now you know what I felt, Rosewater thought as she shook herself, exhaustion bordering on collapse bleeding into her thoughts.

Rosewell lay on the ground in the aftermath, her sides heaving and spittle flecked her lips. Powder breathed fast, her eyes wide as she stared at Rosewater, then at Rosary. A hidden schism had just been revealed in the family, a weakness.

The flickering flames burning fitfully cast an eerie light over the tableau, washed out by the steady silver light from Collar’s enchantments. That was new from them, the oils and oiled bindings. Dangerous as a combination, but they must have been desperate to use things they hadn’t had a chance to work together with.

Collar looked on without any interest, merely shifting to watch all of them and keep himself between them all and Cloudy.

“You will leave my future mate alone,” Rosewater said flatly as she stalked forward towards Roseate and Powder, the latter huddled a goodly distance from Roseate. “You will return to the Rose Palace, you will not retaliate. You will not do anything but adhere to the treaty bonded duel. In return, I will let you take my sisters back to safety. If not…” Rosewater looked pointedly towards the Prim Palace.

“I did not try to claim him,” Roseate spat. “This is a legitimate action, and you are a traitor if—”

“Oh, well, in that case…” Rosewater turned away from her mother. “That pegasus will bring the rest of the guard down on you, leaving me to rule.” It was a tempting idea, to let her be taken, to let them all be taken, and to take the reins by fiat. Except Roseate could cripple Merrie for her own release and continue the war, and brand Rosewater a traitor, exiling her and guaranteeing the war would continue. “I’m acting in your interest, mother. And mine, I admit.”

“What are the terms?” Roseate hissed, looking to Powder, then to Collar. The latter paid her no more attention than a stone would, and said nothing.

“Never try to take Collar again. I will entice him in my own way, and bind him to the Rose Way. If you agree, I will let you free and face his immediate wraith.” Her magical reserves should be enough to break all four bonds at once at the least, and if Collar turned his blank ire on her… then so be it.

“You surprise me, daughter,” Roseate murmured, her eyes glinting in the silver light. “Fine. It is agreed. Powder, gather your sisters.”

“And don’t think of lying to the Royal Guard,” Rosewater hissed. “I will agree to a truth-telling if I must.” A painful, invasive magical procedure that would draw the absolute truth out of a pony. Due to its bordering on dark magic, Celestia’s decree mandated it as a voluntary procedure, and that it only be performed in her presence.

Roseate flinched back. “Fine. Free me, girl. And quickly!”

A deep breath, and another, and Rosewater stepped towards Collar, her magic worming its way between Roseate’s legs and the shackles. It wasn’t easy. His magic enfolded her ankles with an elastic power, but Roseate helped her by shifting her legs minutely. His attention shifted immediately as the distance between himself and her shortened to less than that of Roseate. “Collar?”

Nothing flickered in his eyes and his ears stayed steady, one trained on Cloudy constantly. He didn’t seem to pay attention at all to the way her magic slowly conformed to Roseate’s ankle size and shape, the consistency of hairs and the warmth of body.

“Collar,” Rosewater whispered again, taking careful steps towards him, ready to bolt at the first sign of aggression. His attention on Roseate waned as she came closer and closer, and he shifted again to keep himself between her and Cloudy. “I’m not here for her. I’m here for you.”

He reacted much as a stone would to an ant crawling up to it. If a stone could look her in the eyes and see through her as if she didn’t exist. She poured more magic into the spells around Roseate’s ankles, expanding the seeming of pony flesh and forcing the bindings open. His magic adjusted with resistance, but it changed.

His eyes were gray-lit from within, a heartbeat-slow pulsing the shade of a foggy morning haze clouding his usually brilliant blue eyes, and they did not react at all as she stepped to within a pace of him.

“Collar, talk to me.” She glanced at Cloudy, her wing retracting to rest against her side, her hooves moving feebly as the sleep charm fell away as its holder’s will faltered. “Was this to protect her?”

He stared at her, then at Cloudy, then back to her. Nothing else.

“What did she let you do,” Rosewater moaned as she stepped one pace closer and pressed her cheek to his neck. Even that drew less reaction than if she’d done it to a tree. He swayed, leaning away, then stopped and held still. Nothing more than an autonomic balancing of weight. “Collar, talk to me, please!”

Roseate laughed as she stepped out of her bonds with Powder’s help, using Collar’s focus on her to find the time to do it, the smaller mare already burdened with the weight of her two sisters. She staggered away as Roseate teleported to the other end of the field, far out of Collar’s range and sight, only the lightning flash and pop of her exit giving away where she’d gone. Powder put on a poor veil and staggered after her, the labored breathing more than loud enough to give away her position even in the obscuring mists.

Rosewater dismissed them all. “Please!” she cried, louder, and raised her head to look him in the eye. “Collar, where is the stallion that traded quips with me right here? Where is he?”

Nothing.

“Where’s the stallion that risked telling me—” She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Where is the stallion that cared enough to tell me personally before…” She rose and cupped his cheeks in both hooves, balancing carefully as she lifted his head. He didn’t resist, and didn’t look away from her.

“Whatever you’ve done to yourself, please don’t let it be forever,” she whispered.

“Get away from him!” Cloudy gasped, staggering to her hooves, her eyes unfocused, her ears twitching.

Rosewater ignored her for the moment and kissed Collar on the lips softly. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d been here sooner.” She backed away when he showed her no inclination of returning it, or waking up.

Stupid fairy tales.

Ponies appeared at the edge of the mists, uncertainty written large in the way they halted at the edge of the glowing silver light, staring at him, at her, and at Cloudy recovering slowly, her breath heaving as she came to her full senses.

“I’m truly sorry, Cloudy,” Rosewater said as she pulled energy into her horn. “Keep him safe.”

“Wh-what happened? Why didn’t you step in sooner?” Cloudy demanded, staggering forward. “Did you want him like this?”

“I didn’t, Cloudy. I don’t know what happened tonight, but…” Rosewater bit her lip and backed away another step. “He’s protecting you,” Rosewater said as she drew the last power she needed. “He’s always protected you. He loves you.”

Cloudy eyed her for a long moment, then closed her eyes. “I’ll keep him safe. Go.”

Rosewater tried to teleport to her hidden space, but failed, and she staggered to the side, then stood straighter and veiled herself before dashing into the mist to try again before the organizing guard and Lace could get close enough to her to make a difference.

Shouts followed her into the mist, calls for her to stop, and above them all rose Lace’s voice.

“Let her go. We have incapacitated to take care of.”

She didn’t want to find out if that was a ruse and changed her target, hoping she had enough afterwards to open her front door. It wasn’t like Roseate wouldn’t know where she’d been.

With a pop and a flash, she reappeared on her porch, sagging against the door and sliding to her barrel as she expended the energy in a rush. Too much.

Hoofsteps sounded as she dragged her head up and stared at two veiled figures coming up to her from the street. Roseate would be coming this way soon.

“Clever,” Rosewater murmured. “Wait until I’m too weak to resist.”

Silk’s voice purred in her ear as the sounds of the night vanished, and the light dimmed as a veil and silence surrounded them all. “We won’t forget.”

Vine’s muzzle touched behind her ear. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight. Open the door. We waited for you. We wanted to talk.”

Rosewater closed her eyes. “So she can have it, too? No. I’d rather our home be sealed forever.”

“Stubborn fool,” Silk hissed and bent to touch her horn to Rosewater’s, and sent a torrent of undiluted magic into her, rivulets that crackled around the spiral at the edge of her sight. “Do it yourself and drag yourself in, then.”

“Why?” Rosewater asked as she began the process of undoing the wards on the door. She let the last ward tremble on the edge of parting, locking it in balance until she got an answer.

“Because there are some things which require repayment,” Vine said gently, her eyes going to Silk’s. “If you won’t let us care of you—”

“How would you explain it to mother?” Rosewater asked. “When you left here in the morning.”

“We’d lie our tails off about what we saw,” Silk said, a grin audible in her voice. “We snuck in, and snuck out while you were too exhausted to notice.”

“Why?” Comprehension struggled against instinctive wariness.

“We talked it over on the way here,” Vine said. “You don’t deserve what mother’s doing to you.”

“I… I can’t.” Rosewater said as she slipped the last ward and let the door swing open. “It’s been our home—our home—for too long.”

An understanding look passed between her two sisters, and both nodded.

“We understand,” Silk said softly.

“Far too well,” Vine added.

“Thank you for helping us rescue Crown. We won’t forget.”

Then they left her to finish opening the door and staggered inside, barely closing it before she collapsed into exhaustion and nightmare.

Lace was the first to reach them, her eyes fearful under the impassive outer shell she wore for her guardponies. “What happened?”

“Ambush, my lady,” Cloudy said distractedly, not letting her eyes leave Collar’s as she reared up and cupped his cheeks between her hooves, meeting him eye-to-eye even as he tried to look at the new ponies that were surrounding them.

“Why is he still…” Lace trailed off as Collar turned his head to look at her blankly. “What happened to my son? What did Roseate do?”

“I don’t think she did anything,” Cloudy murmured softly. “I think he did it to himself in response to her.”

“Then she as much as did it herself,” Lace said with a growl as her son continued to stare at her, blank eyes pulsing with the beat of a heart that wasn’t his. “Collar?”

He didn’t respond, but one ear stayed trained on Cloudy as she stayed reared up, supporting herself with a hoof to his shoulder.

“Rosewater said it was to protect me.”

“She did, did she?” Lace murmured, glancing in the direction the mare had left. “That one continues to confuse me.” After a moment, she turned back to Cloudy. “See to him, and see if your being safe will break him out of whatever spell he cast. I need to see to my ponies.”

“Send a pegasus for Stride,” Cloudy said, tipping her head toward the city proper. “Rosewater used fear again. Against her sisters this time. I… stars, it was terrifying.”

Lace smiled faintly. “Fear often is. I’ll see to it.” She raised her voice. “Captain Pink, perimeter watch around Collar and Cloudy, and get ready to escort them back to the palace. By force if necessary, if he resists.”

“Cloudy? Collar?” Pink asked, coming closer. Her voice had lost the parade ground snap and the carefully restrained rage of a drill instructor, gentler, kinder than she’d ever heard the captain speak. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Cloudy said bluntly, pressing her head against Collar’s neck again. His pulse still beat against her ear and forehead, proving he wasn’t an animate statue of unliving flesh. “He did something. He’s been working on a spell to counter Rosewater’s magic, but it wasn’t Rosewater.”

“Who then?”

“Roseate. It was a trap. That—” Cloudy pushed the thought from her mind and pushed herself back to find Collar looking down at her, the silver light in his eyes dimmer than it had been. Or it’s my imagination. “Collar? I’m safe. Come back to me.”

It wasn’t her imagination. The light dimmed perceptibly, his normal hazy purple eyes coming back slowly, the irises closing before he blinked, shook his head slowly, and slumped against her.

“Collar, don’t leave me,” she murmured, falling back under his weight as it settled against her, his fore and hind legs shaking. “You’re with me, love.”

“Cloudy,” he whispered, his voice cracking as though dry. “Cloudy Rose.”

“Yes,” she whimpered. “Yes, that’s me, Collar. You did it. You kept me safe.”

“Tired,” he said, and sagged to his barrel, then to his side. “Stay with me.”

“Always,” Cloudy said, lowering herself to rest her cheek on his, listening to his breathing as it slowed, deepened, and fell into the soothing rhythms of sleep. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Author's Notes:

This was an interesting chapter to write. Getting the fight in two locations kind of down, figuring out how Roseate and company react to Collar's new spell. Some repercussions from this fight will reverberate through a lot of the story upcoming.

Book 1, 26. Storm Debris

Morning came for Cloudy with a pair of forelegs holding her close and loosely, warmth spreading across her back where Collar had finally laid down to rest after being roused long enough to wash him of the myriad of fragrances that the ambush had left him peppered with.

He smelled of Cloudy, now. Her wings. Her body. Her kisses.

She opened her eyes and winced at the bright daylight filtering in. A guard stood at attention inside the bedchamber, long cudgel at parade-stance. It grew straighter as the guard saw Cloudy shifting.

“Ma’am,” he said softly, clacking hoof to peytral. “Lady Lace wanted to see you as soon as you woke.”

“I’m not awake,” Cloudy grumbled, twisting her head to get a look at Collar. He was still asleep, and seemed hardly likely to wake for anything shy of a full parade march. Circles under his eyes looked almost painted on, worse than he’d looked last night. At least there was color to the insides of his ears now, and his lips were warm to the touch. “Sleep.”

Collar’s ears ticked and his eyes twitched under lids, but he didn’t move.

When she glanced back, the stallion was looking away, his ears flattened to his mane. It was clear that this wasn’t a duty that he thought was necessary. But there were questions she needed answered before the pony who knew them recovered enough to resist her questioning or fall back into her old way of denying everything.

Slowly, Cloudy eased herself away from Collar’s embrace, waiting between each shift to see if he would wake or shift in his sleep.

He did not, and by the time she slipped to the ground finally, Cloudy was certain he would sleep for another few hours at least. If nopony woke him up.

“I’m going for a walk,” Cloudy said as she approached the door. She recognized the pony up close. He was one of the palace guard, but a lower rank. Tide Watcher. “Collar won’t be able to participate until he wakes anyway.”

“But—”

“I need a walk. After last night, I can’t stand being cooped up right now. Lace will… she will understand.” Cloudy didn’t need to act as she stared around the room, feeling claustrophobic. She’d been trapped last night, unable to fly, to flee. “Please.” She ruffled her wings. “I need to see the sky again, Tide.”

It was only a moment’s hesitation before he stepped aside from the door. “I can understand that. Where are you going? I have to let the Lady Lace know if she comes before you return.”

“I just want to see the sky,” Cloudy said, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know where my hooves will carry me, but I won’t go anywhere there isn’t a guard.”

“Alright.”

As soon as she stepped out of the palace, repeating her story to the other guards and not having to feign being increasingly agitated about leaving for a walk or a short flight. And it was a short flight. Just to the riverside from the palace.

It was too short of a flight to work out most of her agitation, but it was enough to at least take the worst of the edge off and calm her nerves somewhat. She would need to be calm to confront Rosewater, even if she had to channel her anger. She couldn’t let that anger get out of control.

As luck would have it, or timing, Rosewater was just stepping free of her house when Cloudy began circling for a landing at the listening post across the river. Instead of doing so, she skipped the landing there and diverted to the farther west watch post keeping an eye on the perfumery and a minor Rose house.

“Good morning, my lady,” Prim Note said, shooting her a smirk as she bounced off the hay pile for pegasus landings and came to a rest beside him. “Sorry I missed the fighting last night.”

“You shouldn’t be,” she grumbled at him. “Still on schedule this morning,” she noted, nodding towards the tall white figure making her way through the traffic walking along the riverside. Rosewater stood out, and would have even if she had tried to veil. The others of her sisters were more average sized and could pass more or less anonymously when they veiled in shadow in the daylight.

“Little late,” Note murmured, flipping through his notes. “By about half an hour, but she’s been more erratic the past week, too. Spending the night sometimes in there, too.” He shrugged. “She took some work home with her night before last and hasn’t been back till now.”

“Guess we know why now,” Cloudy said with a sigh.

“Yes, my lady,” Note said with a snicker. “I heard the after-action gossip from here.” He flicked his ears and grinned at her, though there was a slight darkness under his eyes. He’d been out last night, too. Of course, as one of the best spooks of the city, his skills were in high demand. “I wish I’d heard something earlier.”

“You did all you could,” Cloudy said softly, glancing at him briefly and surprised to see something like guilt on his features. “Something you heard last night, lieutenant?”

“No. I mean, that should have been my clue. The Rose Palace had been silent for a few days. I should have been more suspicious.” Note’s ears drooped and he looked askance at her. “I should have emphasized that more strongly in my reports, my lady.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” She flicked an ear at him and raised her scope to watch Rosewater’s progress. She was slower than usual, her ears drooping, her eyes half-lidded. The fight that Cloudy had been knocked out for had taken its toll on Rosewater. Cloudy pursed her lips as she watched, noting the way her forelegs trembled with every fifth step or so, no real pattern to it. Unless she hurt her leg somehow. She was vulnerable.

“Because of last night. You kissed Lord Collar and woke him from a dream. Just like the fairy tale.” He chuckled. “They’re calling him the Prim Prince because of that, now.”

“Oh, please let me tell him,” Cloudy said, forcing a playful smile she didn’t feel. “I want to see the look on his face.”

“Of course. Nopony would take that from you.” She almost looked up, but Rosewater stumbled and shook her head, paused, and continued on at a more stately pace, her ears ticking erratically. It wasn’t going to be fun to ambush a mare she was almost certain had come to their rescue. But she needed answers. She had to protect Collar.

Distracted, tired, and soon alone. Cloudy twitched her wings. She had to wait until Rosewater opened her shop before swooping down, otherwise the few bystanders that wandered the streets would have more time to determine just who she was and report to Lace.

“Why are you here so early?” Note asked genially. “Not like you to be up and at-em before the sun finishes rising.”

She considered her answer for a moment while she watched Rosewater turn up the street to the perfumery. A careful survey of the area around the shop showed few ponies awake, and fewer paying any attention to Rosewater in any obvious way. The nearest Merrieguard patrol was busy at the Rosewine bridge, inspecting a cart.

There wasn’t a better time for her to tempt fate and hopefully get the answers she needed. “Unsanctioned action,” she said as she leapt from the rooftop and swooped in low across the river to land with a tap and flutter of wings just behind Rosewater.

“I was wondering when you would stop watching and come down,” Rosewater said, voice tired, weary. “Come to capture me in my weakest moment?”

What can I say? Cloudy hesitated at the question.

Rosewater turned to look at her after a moment, the weariness in her eyes even more apparent from up close. She was tired. Bone tired, and had been pushing herself far beyond what a pony could expect to do.

She must have seen some of the sympathetic pangs Cloudy felt shooting through her, because she smiled suddenly, and it washed away some of the shadows to show the beauty she had always been, but warmer instead of sharp and chiseled out of stone.

Rosewater opened the shop and walked in, pausing with the door still open. “Please, do come in. It appears we need to talk.”

The shop was as it had been when she’d taken away her perfumes she’d been preparing for the past week, most of which were now expended or stale, their volatile natures requiring them to be remade daily lest their potency drop.

At the front counter where Rosemary would handle most of the business, dust covered the glass displaying her specialty bottles and fragrances with outrageous prices attached. That was for the tourists that didn’t know or didn’t care because of time, that her perfumes could be bought from their home cities for far less from other merchants.

But ‘from the source’ held a certain appeal, and the bottles she commissioned from the city’s glass workers held up to the finest standards of beauty and elegance that her perfumes usually demanded. Those in the know bought one bottle from her direct, and refilled from local merchants.

“You charge that much?” Cloudy asked in a choked tone as she passed by the counter, her eye drawn to the unique shapes and colors of the fluted glass vials.

“Only to those desperate, stupid, or vain enough to want the designer bottle,” Rosewater replied with a smirk as she pressed open the back door, her magic flickering as she undid the complicated seals with the key-spells.

“And your custom fragrances?” Cloudy asked in a hesitant voice. “How much do you charge for those?”

“Favors,” Rosewater said simply.

Cloudy swallowed and jerked her eyes away from the counter. “Is it—”

“It’s not safe yet,” Rosewater said gently. “You have your friend outside who’s listening to us right now. That’s all at the moment, but Roseate’s spies will be arriving soon to listen. Unless they’re out of action.”

Cloudy swallowed again and followed Rosewater into the back room, letting the pegasus explore the room as much as she wanted as she gathered the magical strength to empower the charms hung about the empty space, watching as the gemstone dust sparkled and glowed to life in the patterns that represented the physical representation of the magical arcana that silenced the walls.

The effort left her drained, but Rosewater forced herself to pull out a bowl and the bag of cereal grains she’d kept for the increasingly frequent times she’d slept over in the workshop. Cloudy, to her surprise, waited patiently while Rosewater ate a few bites. Even the act of eating breakfast infused some warmth into her and drove back the ache behind her eyes.

“You put it together,” Rosewater stated, turning her head to briefly glance over Cloudy still looking around the workroom. It would be the first time a Dammer had been inside, and it felt strange to have a near-complete stranger in her private space. No less strange than the Baroness’s visit…

“We did. As soon as I was able to shake off the sleep, I figured it out. I don’t know how much Collar remembers.” Cloudy raised a hoof before the statement completely filtered through Rosewater’s mind, and waved it in a conciliatory gesture. “He’s going to be okay. You came in time.”

How do you know? Rosewater bit her lip before she could ask it and closed her eyes. “Good. Are you angry at me?”

The sound of hooves coming closer didn’t tell her anything about Cloudy’s disposition, and she braced herself for a slap.

Instead, Cloudy pressed a hoof to her cannon and stroked slowly along the bone. “I was. At first.”

Rosewater opened her eyes, and found Cloudy sitting and looking up into her eyes. “Why aren’t you now?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.” Cloudy chuffed and shook her head. “I had time to think about it all the way back to the palace, and all the way here this morning. What I don’t understand is this.”

It was fascinating to watch the way Cloudy controlled her emotions. There was still anger there, and it showed in the way she clenched her jaw, the way her ears set back, then twitched forward, quivering.

“Why did you let her escape? You were right there. All of them were right there. All of them! The war would have been over if you hadn’t let them go!” Cloudy had advanced throughout the questioning, her eyes blazing, until she was nearly chest to chest with Rosewater. “You would have been advanced to the heir, Rosewater.”

Before the last statement was over, Rosewater was already shaking her head. “No. I wouldn’t have. A captured leader is allowed to negotiate their own release. Even demand it if there’s no legal heir. There’s precedent for both Merrie and Damme.”

“You!” Cloudy spat. She reared up and set her hooves on Rosewater’s shoulders, almost nose to nose. “You would have been the heir.”

“No. I’m the presumptive heir. So long as I have children by the time Roseate steps down or dies. Or, as seems increasingly likely, gets accused of a treaty violation so heinous Celestia herself will need to step in.” Rosewater shook her head but didn’t back away or back down. “She can’t remove me as her heir, either. But once she’s removed from power, the laws of Merrie take hold and the succession branch starts counting down. Me first. If I have no heir able to carry on after me, then it falls to Rosary. She has heirs. After which… the war continues for another generation.”

Cloudy stared at her. “Then get rutting pregnant! You must have some lover willing to declare for you?”

“None. I have no male lovers at the moment.” Rosewater smirked and shook her head. “I was hoping for Collar. He’s the only one that mother can’t scare off.”

That got a different reaction. Cloudy backed off, staring at her with her mouth open. “That’s your reason?” Cloudy worked her jaw for a moment, her ears flat. “You terrified us for weeks. No, months, and it was something you could have just come out and told us?”

“Would you have listened?” Rosewater shot back. “I’m the Rose Terror! I eat babies and steal husbands and lovers!”

“Did you try?” Cloudy stamped her hooves and curled a forehoof, the shod tip grinding against the wood floor. “Did you even think to be open? To trust somepony?”

Did you trust Rosemary? The unasked question slapped her across the face. “No.” It came out as a whimper. “I didn’t trust her.”

Cloudy, mouth already open to shout again, hesitated. “Trust who?”

“Rosemary,” Rosewater whispered. “I didn’t want her to know. Not until I knew.” Rosemary couldn’t handle losing another loved one. I’m not sure I can. Keep him at a distance until she knew. That was the plan. Don’t fall in love until he fell in love.

“Why?”

“Because I’m… an idiot.” After that, the rest wanted to flow out. All of her plans and ideas. The reservations she had about acting like Roseate wanted her to act. It was always Roseate’s want when Rosewater had been young that she would follow the corrupted way of the rose. “I-I thought… if I behaved like Roseate wanted me to, even on the surface only, that she would leave me alone.”

When no answer came immediately, Rosewater shook her head. “It sounds so stupid saying it aloud. Of course she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” Cloudy drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “And after the first time she tried to capture Collar? Why not then?”

Rosewater chewed her lip. “I told myself… I told myself that would be the end of it. That I’d won.”

Cloudy’s ears flattened and she nodded. “I… thought sort of the same thing. Not that you’d won, but that at least Roseate was going to not be insane.” She shook her head slowly. “Why would she try?”

“She almost succeeded. That’s why,” Rosewater said. “If it weren’t for somepony sending me a warning—I never would have known, and I would have woken up to hear the news that Roseate had raided Damme and almost certainly won the war.”

“Or… she’d have been captured.”

“And Collar?”

Cloudy flinched, the insides of her ears blanching. “It didn’t happen.”

That gave her some idea of the aftermath of the fight. “Tell me what happened.”

“Tell me the deal you made, and I will,” Cloudy replied immediately. “What did you promise her?”

Impulse told her to forego the sharing of information, to keep her conversation with Roseate private, and what she’d done secret. She’d freed her mother, when she was on the cusp of being captured in a reversal of fortune, and all because there was uncertainty about what would happen afterwards. More than likely, Rosary would have been captured as well along with all of the other of her sisters that had children.

Likely. There was a good chance that Powder would have still escaped, and her son qualified her for the heirship. While Powder wasn’t as objectionable as Rosary, she would still continue the war with the intent of making Damme the subjugate city-state, something Collar wouldn’t allow.

That new ability of his put the weight squarely in Damme, especially if Lace made a point of persecuting the war more aggressively and put herself into the front line. The Merrieguard was ill-equipped to handle the organizational power of a Dammeguard that had had thirty years to recoup and train. And she might, despite the Reforms, if it seemed like the war was going to go on for who knew how many generations.

Here, Cloudy was offering her a chance at collusion. Information only, for now, but it was so much more than what she’d been able to do with either Collar or Cloudy before. A small hoof in the door. Maybe that was all she needed.

No. Rosewater shook her head sharply. She would have to play boldly if she meant to take advantage of the deal she’d made with Roseate and the fear of reprisal from the Sun Throne.

Cloudy was backing away, her eyes hard.

“Deal, but not right now,” Rosewater said before the mistaken assumption could go further. “And I would ask a favor in turn, but one I think you, Collar, and Lace will find intriguing and advantageous.”

“What kind of favor?” Cloudy asked, suspicion in her eyes and the set of her ears.

“The kind where you take a message to the Prim Palace, along with a gift to demonstrate my intent.” Rosewater turned away and rose to all four hooves, shaking briefly as she heaved her hindquarters off the ground. The rest and breakfast grains had helped, but not enough. She would need to have another few bowls and rest more before she could embark on the next part of playing her trump card.

The seals on her inner sanctum took far more work to undo than even the estate’s wards, and while she worked on managing the magical flows she’d managed to recover, she was aware of Cloudy watching her carefully. The other mare was a curious pony, full of contradictory impulses and surprising depths that nonetheless sat out in the open, waiting for a companion to unwind them and find her heart.

Once the last seal unlocked, Rosewater hobbled closer, then shook her head. “It’s there on the desk. The book. I have a sack you can carry it in if you need it.”

Cloudy hesitated, then took a step forward. “This isn’t a trick?”

“Would I honestly tell you if it was?” Rosewater asked with a roll of her eyes. “It’s no trick. I’m tired. And tired of hiding.”

It was apparently the right thing to say, because Cloudy snorted a laugh and moved to open the door all the way, cautious still, and stood in the doorway for a few moments looking inside without going in, then back at Rosewater. A sensible precaution, considering.

“The paintings are…”

“Carnation, Rosemary, and I. The one on the left is Rosemary at one month old. The one on the right is for her tenth birthday. We couldn’t risk any more commissions after that.” Rosewater smiled lightly, her eyes brightening as she recalled the day, almost eleven years ago now, when the painter from Canterlot, Bottle Brush, had come down to paint them in front of their estate. “She couldn’t sit still for long, despite her mother and I coaxing her. Friends came and went, watching as we sat still as stones, waiting for him to finish the outline and choose his colors.”

Apparently satisfied that it wasn’t a trick, Cloudy advanced inside and surveyed the desk. Everything was neat and orderly, scrolls tucked into their cubicles and inkwell and quills neatly arranged on the writing surface.

“Is this it? Is…” Cloudy trailed off, her hoof on the cover of the translated Principes van Vrije Liefde that Rosewater had been working on. Just beside it was the tatty original, its cover almost flaked into dust. “Stars… Is this…”

“It’s his personal journal. It’s what became the Principes in later copies, removing a lot of the personal anecdotes as it was translated and reinterpreted through the centuries.” Rosewater allowed herself a prideful smile. “But that’s neither here nor there. I need to set some things in motion today, before Roseate can move.”

Cloudy grunted, giving her a seriously skeptical look that almost shouted, ‘you look like you couldn’t set a marble in motion.’ “You want me to take the translation?”

“Yes. It’s not done yet, but Lace will understand what it means about my intent.” Rosewater let herself smirk at Cloudy. “And, I suspect, a little of that will be influenced by the fact that I suspect you’re here without orders.”

“Just give me the damn bag,” Cloudy growled, all but confirming her suspicions.

It wasn’t until Cloudy was standing on the stoop of the Rosewater Perfumery that Cloudy realized that she liked Rosewater. Without the fear of her, and a new, growing certainty that she was on their side, everything that she’d done up to that point had a new angle. She wasn’t a would-be tyrant like her mother, but a lonely fighter hoping for a better world. Maybe.

The rescues were enough, along with her friendly repartee and willingly letting Cloudy inside her inner sanctum. Less a sanctum and more of a vault than the Bank of Damme’s, the spells laden in the door had set her feathers on edge just being close to them, and it was clear why it was that way. The journal of one of the founders of the two cities was a prize far beyond priceless.

Glancing around, Cloudy tried to make it seem like she was only a satisfied customer with a custom bag from Rosewater’s Perfumery as she made her way to the bridge, the straps bouncing against her neck as the book, bound in twine, jostled against her shoulder with every step.

It would be best not to bring further danger to Rosewater, or attention from the Dammeguard, if her actions had gone unnoticed.

Nopony paid attention to her. She had the look of a Rose, the mane and the cutie mark both, and most commoners weren’t so caught up in the war that they knew who all the major players were.

The danger was the Merrieguard at the bridge. She’d been one of them for a time, before she’d turned ‘traitor’ because of Roseate’s greed and hatred.

In the end, she decided to take a turn down the street towards the docks, carefully settling her wings so her primaries obscured most of her cutie mark and settled into a purposeful trot. The bridge at the docks was always the least guarded of all the bridges on the Merrie side. A bribe or a distraction would do well enough for the guards on the Merrie side.

More than once, she considered just taking off and winging it to the palace, but being so conspicuous after leaving Rosewater’s place was sure to get the mare in trouble. As it was, she was almost certain she hadn’t been followed by any of Roseate’s goons. Most likely, they were holed up in the Palace, waiting for doom to fall on their heads after last night’s debacle.

The thought cheered her as she made her way through the early morning throngs, just one more pony looking to get across the river and set up shop in the lucrative docks market, one of the few ‘free’ trade zones that catered exclusively to foreigners. It was lucky, for her, that it was near the end of the sailing season and ponies were trying, desperately, to get their wares out and sold before the long drought of trade over the winter.

She managed to attach herself inconspicuously to a large entourage of merchants and pass by the lax guards without incident. They only gave a cursory look over the others and Cloudy, not even looking her in the eye.

Lazy gits. They probably didn’t even know what had gone on last night, though. They might just be as tired of the war as the rest of the common pony.

Once she was on the other side, she was recognized immediately by a startled Private Starburst.

“L-lieutenant?”

Several of her erstwhile companions startled away from her and hurried to their business dockside, not eager to get caught up in Dammeguard drama.

“Yes,” Cloudy said with a sigh. “Sorry to startle you, Starburst. Go back to checking the crowd. I need to get to the palace.”

“Er…” Starburst held up a hoof and turned to fish a scroll from his bag. “This arrived just a few minutes ago, ma’am.”

Stars above. Cloudy unfurled the scroll on the private’s back and read quickly, grimacing more with each word. Lace must have sent orders to each bridge detachment to get it to her. Getting back to the palace was even more important now.

Collar was awake, and Lace’s orders, while brief, promised a scathing reprimand when she got back. Even more scathing than the talk she’d gotten for hurting Glory.

She probably thinks I went to go attack Rosewater.

Without another word, she tucked the scroll into the open neck of the bag around her neck and leapt for the sky. Rosewater would have to watch over herself.

Platinum, looking haggard from last night, but still doggedly standing her watch-shift, saluted when Cloudy touched down. “Prim Lace is on a tear, Cloudy. You might want to re-defect.”

“Haha,” Cloudy grunted. “I’ll take my licks, thank you.” In fact, she hadn’t more than slipped into the open side-door to the main gate that she heard Lady Lace’s voice chiding her son over his insistence on walking with her.

“You’re more than half-dead,” Lace was saying, her voice muffled by the door that still separated them from her. “That mare has got more than a little of the Rose Spirit in her.”

“And that’s what I love about her,” Collar replied in a weak voice, so weak that Cloudy had to press her ear to the door to catch it at all. “She’s spirited, mother, and she’s not afraid to tell me an idea’s a stupid one.”

“Then I should think she’ll tell you getting out of bed in your state is a very stupid idea,” Lace muttered.

If that isn’t a perfect invitation… Cloudy smiled to herself despite the trouble she was about to get into, and pulled open the door to step out into the entryway. Collar and Lace were standing a little distance away, Collar more leaning against one of the few couches that dotted the long entryway where petitioners would sit and wait for their time to speak.

“I agree with the Lady Lace,” Cloudy announced. “It’s a stupid idea to be out and about after last night.”

Collar smiled weakly at her. “And I think it was a stupid idea to…” He trailed off as his eyes settled on the bag around her neck, the Rosewater Perfumery logo and title prominently displayed. “Oh my stars…”

Lace caught up a few seconds later. “You didn’t—”

“I talked with her, I didn’t burgle her shop,” Cloudy said with a huff and a roll of her eyes. “And there’s much I need to share, but not here,” she added with an exaggerated look around the grand hall. Servants on the ground dusted and straightened or carried burdens to and from the various storage vaults inside the old fortress, and a pegasus above watched those below with a careful eye. The watchmare’s position. It was a boring, and often disciplinary position, used for those who couldn’t follow orders.

Lace’s eyes blazed with heat, but her voice was calm as she nodded. “Very well. We shall retire to my offices. Collar, please consider returning to bed. She is safe and returned to us.”

“I will not,” Collar stated with as much vigor as he could, and tottered over to Cloudy to press his cheek against hers. “I’m so glad you’re safe. When I heard Note’s report…”

“Shh.” Cloudy gently began guiding him after Lace, openly letting him lean against her on the way up the stairs and around the corner to the wide administrative hall surrounded on all sides by the offices and machinery of the city, already in full bustle even that early in the morning.

The high windows were thrown open, letting in the breeze from the bay to fill the hall with salt chill water with an undercurrent of seaweed and fish—at least to Cloudy’s more sensitive nose. To most Dammers, it was little more than a cool, refreshing breeze that only occasionally played havoc with scrolls.

To her nose, it was more. Much more.

There, too, was another scent that prickled a familiar tingle along her spine. “Collar?” she asked, sniffing loudly. “Why do I smell Rosemary?”

“She’s inside,” Lace said coolly. “I was having a talk with her before I was informed you had gone on a foolish errand. Now. Inside.” She opened the door and ushered them inside with a glance at the guard to the side. “Nopony comes in unless I allow it specifically or there is an emergency.”

Rosemary was there, laying full out on the rug in front of a chair, her chin resting on her crossed forelegs. She only looked up briefly when Cloudy came in, then caught the look on Lace’s face, stormy with a chance of shouting. That chance increased when Lace closed the door and cast a silencing spell on the walls, igniting similar, but different glyphs than Rosewater had used in her perfumery.

The thought passed away as Lace settled down in the chair behind her desk and crossed her forelegs over the edge of the desk. “Rosemary, please sit up. I know you were up late, but this is important for you to attend as well. I expect that Cloudy, despite her frankly idiotic, not to mention insubordinate, flight this morning, has news.”

“I-I had reason, my lady,” Cloudy said, feeling nervous all over again and glancing at Collar. He sat near Rosemary, seeming to show a bit of solidarity for the other tired pony. A pang of guilt shot through her. She hadn’t even thought of what Rosemary had gone through. Lace had briefed her last night, but the pieces hadn’t stuck until just then. “How did you know to come at all?”

“A patrol caught up to Stride and managed to talk him into landing and straight into Poppy’s care. They sent word to the palace, and we roused everypony to come. I wish, now, that I’d only taken a token force, but I’d no idea what we were facing.” Lace tapped a hoof on the desk. “I will debrief him once Poppy has given him a clean bill of health. He’s resting at the moment. As the two of you should be,” she added, giving Collar and Rosemary a stiff glare that lasted only long enough for Cloudy to feel sympathy for what was coming for them.

“Now, you.” Lace turned her attention back to Cloudy. “I expect a full report. Now.”

Cloudy snapped to attention and began rattling off her report of the events that transpired, leaving nothing out and only pausing to take breaths and gauge Rosemary’s reaction to the mentions of her… sister didn’t seem right. Those paintings hadn’t been framed as sisters, side-by-side. What she was to Rosewater remained to be seen.

Once she was done, she felt drained, and the book sat on the table in front of her, the tea set having been cleared away as soon as she said what it was and how precious and rare it was.

“Mother, please. She’s…” Collar side-stepped to stand beside her. “She’s very protective.”

“As are you,” Lace said more gently. “I am upset with you, Cloudy. Though not yet in an official capacity, as I don’t know all of the details. As my son’s lover, I—”

“Mother!”

“Please, Collar. You were impudent enough to begin courting her when I advised against it, you will suffer the consequences of being involved with a follower of the Principes. That includes frank and open talk with your mother about your love life.” Lace’s cheeks colored briefly, but she did not back down. “Your lover, and I would hope future wife, must learn that there are consequences to her actions when she is known to be your lover.”

Cloudy fought to keep her smile hidden as she stepped forward. “As his lover, I am also bound to protect him from threats. As a Rose, I’m very well aware of the threat posed by so many. It’s my duty, and not just as a Dammeguard.”

“Your duty,” Lace said sharply, “is to follow the order of the liege you swore an oath to.”

“Please,” Rosemary cried, leaping from her chair. “Calm down, everypony. I know last night was hard, and terrible, but this is what Roseate would want. She would want us to be at each other’s throats. Please. My… my cousin and I have been working against her for so long. That’s how she works.”

Lace blinked. Rosewater had hitched on the same phrase. “She’s… not just your cousin, is she?” Or your sister.

Collar cleared his throat. “Sisters, right? Under Carnation.”

Rosemary looked unaccountably guilty as she glanced up at Cloudy. She was lying, too, and letting Collar lie for her because he didn’t know.

“Yes. Rosewater is… complicated.” Lace’s stern mien softened. “It’s why I wanted to talk to you first, Cloudy.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “It seems you saw her in the same way I hoped to see her after all these years. How did she seem?”

Cloudy stared at her liege lady for a long moment before Lace coughed and waved a hoof at her to continue.

“Ah… she seemed lost. Tired. Until the end. She had some plan that she made it sound was a last resort.” Cloudy smiled wanly. “And it involves coming to us under the treaty flag.”

“Mmhm.” Lace pursed her lips and turned to her son. “I think your revelation of her being a sister figure is close to the mark. That leaves what to do with you, Cloudy.”

No, not sisters. I saw those paintings. She was on the edge of the revelation, she could feel it. It was right there in the painting. “I know I made mistakes, my lady, and I’m prepared to face the consequences for them, but I also believe that I was right to face her, to get the story before she arrived. To get the news that she was arriving before she startled us all.”

Collar suppressed a grin as he nuzzled her cheek. “You’re not wrong, but you also disobeyed orders.”

“But I’m… I’m… you’re training me, Lady Lace. What do those lessons in forward thinking mean if I don’t use them?”

Lace didn’t quite smile, but there was a twinkling in her eye all the same. “Did you think far enough ahead to where your actions would lead? Much of what I tried to teach you was to temper your… well, temper.”

“I didn’t go angry,” Cloudy protested. “I was seeking the truth. She’s been cagey, but never openly hostile toward us. Her words alone could be measured as hostile, not her actions.”

“And if you’d been caught?”

“It was a risk, but she keeps the same routine every morning, Lace. What is that if not an invitation for us to make a surprise visit? Why not change her patterns after Collar confronted her a month ago?”

Lace furrowed her brow. “Collar?”

Collar coughed. “Er… yes, mother?”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are becoming much more like Cloudy than she is like you.” Lace rubbed at her temples with both hooves as she leaned back in her chair. “Like you were. You’ve changed, Collar, being with her.”

Collar bristled, his ears flicking back.

“Lord Collar, she’s teasing,” Rosemary cut in before he could say anything.

“Of course I’m teasing,” Lace said, smiling at the younger mare. “I’m proud you’ve been able to see past the prejudices that the hardliners push and act more like a Rose. More than I would have liked, if I’m being honest, but there’s a reason I fell in love with your father, Collar, and I see more of him in you every day.”

“Mother,” Collar sighed, glancing aside at Rosemary. “Just how much have you talked to our guest?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” Lace said calmly. “She’s a fascinating mare, Collar, and deeper than you might know just now. I quite approve of her as a companion for Cloudy.”

Cloudy squeaked. “What?!”

“What I said, young mare, doesn’t leave this room. I am far more progressive than my peers in the Manes and Primfeathers believe. I have to maintain a stern facade for them, or it all falls apart. At least for now.” Lace lowered her hooves to the arms of her chair and sat more regally. “For now… Rosemary, please enlighten us all to what your… sister is going to bring to us.”

“Are you sure this is necessary, my lady?” Sir Firelight Spark of the Knights of the Sun was an imposing pony and the leader of the Treaty enforcement offices of both cities. More than his clout as Princess Celestia’s personal representative “If you think it is, then I’m happy to lend my presence, but…”

“I promise I won’t be wasting your time, Sir Spark. I have been their boogeymare for nigh on six years if not longer,” Rosewater said, nodding to a contingent of Dammeguard standing rigidly, scowling at her as she walked beside him. But none of them made a move. Assaulting a Royal Guard, or a pony under the guard’s protection, was grounds for immediate exile not only from the city, but jail time in Equestria. “I have important business to attend.”

“Agreed,” he said with a sigh. “I hope you get her back. I don’t know what I’d do if my…” He trailed off at Rosewater’s glare. “Apologies.”

“Granted. Thank you for doing this. I know you didn’t have to.” She smiled at him as they passed from a side-street to the main thoroughfare towards the palace. A contingent of Dammeguard stood to the side of the way, eying Firelight and Rosewater with equal displeasure. “But…”

“I see your point.” He coughed and raised his voice. “Clear the way. You are impeding a representative of the Treaty in a bonded negotiation.”

The street cleared precipitously fast, not only of Dammeguard, but of commoners and minor nobility alike, all whispering and murmuring as she passed. The last night’s battle was on everypony’s lips, it seemed, and all of them were watching her with veiled hate and distrust.

“Will you need an escort back?”

“I hope not. Once the negotiations are concluded for the day, I can teleport back to my home from the palace steps.” She flicked an ear as a particularly loud individual denounced her, quickly echoed by others in close proximity. “I daresay even with official escort, I may find myself overwhelmed by their good cheer.”

“There was some kind of fighting in Damme?” he asked. “Do I need to take official notice?”

“Perhaps. My mother attempted to take Lord Collar. It would have gotten about my right to freely associate with him. She’s also barred me from contacting the palace. I have a letter from her for proof.” Rosewater allowed herself a cold smile. “She was not any more successful the second time.”

Spark chewed his lip for several seconds. “I can put it in my report. I’ll need the letter, of course.” He sighed and nodded. “I see I’ll need to accompany you to the palace in any regard to have a discussion with the witnesses to the attack. Her highness likes to know of any major actions.”

“Several exist in theory, but they were in various states of panic, subdued, or otherwise charmed away from being reliable. Or they were my sisters and mother.” Rosewater shrugged one shoulder. “I have no doubt they would not lie to a Royal Guard, but please keep my name out of it if you go calling on them. Family dinners are tense enough as it is.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Of course,” Rosewater said with a tired chuckle. “I’ve not had dinner with any family but my niece and her mother in near two decades.”

He sighed. “I hate family feuds.”

“As do I.”

The rest of the walk passed in near silence, aside from the murmurs and shouts that occasionally came from side-streets. Damme during the daytime in fall had hardly changed in all the years that had passed since she had walked its streets during the Harvest festival with a pregnant Carnation at her side.

Even then, Rosewater had been tall enough to pass nearly for adult despite the fact that she’d still had to fill out the rest of the way to fit her gangling legs. Any who talked with her tended to assume she was a young adult, and Carnation her elder sister. They had not been far wrong even then.

One day, I’ll walk these streets and be greeted by friends. It was a dream of Carnation’s that she held close. One she hoped to one day share with her again. Exile didn’t have to be forever.

Prim Palace in the daytime looked much the same as it had during the night, its dark gray granite outer walls glittering dully in the sun as it did in the lamplight at night.

A stronger knot of Dammeguard waited out front, these drawn up in parade formation rather than as a part of a greater rabble filling the streets. Captain Pink, she recognized, but the rest she did not. Captain Pink was hard to not recognize.

“I’ll be quite alright from here,” Rosewater told Spark. “If you wish to return to the Treaty Office, I will report to you on the morrow with the next steps I wish to take.”

He eyed the burly captain and blew out his cheeks briefly. “If you’re sure. I think I might have trouble taking her.”

“As would I. Captain Prim Pink is quite the formidable earth pony,” Rosewater agreed quietly.

The captain approached stiffly, ears erect. “State your business, Lady Rosewater Rosethorn.”

Rosewater eyed Firelight Spark and nodded, then spoke, “I have come as a bearer of the Treaty’s flag as a representative in the prisoner of war negotiation on behalf of my charge, Rosemary Rosethorn, as her legally appointed Guardian.”

Prim Pink’s eyes widened briefly, then shot to the Royal Guard. “You have the paperwork, Sir Spark?”

“I do, Captain. Sealed, signed, and witnessed. It has been on file in the Treaty Office for nine years.” He held out the courier pouch containing the guardian paperwork that would be needed to make a claim. “Lady Rosewater had this all prepared months ahead of time.”

“I also have a sealed envelope for Lady Lace’s eyes only,” Rosewater added, showing the large envelope embossed with the sunburst of Princess Celestia’s cutie mark, and a large golden glob of wax on the flap flickered and glowed in the sunlight, showing itself to be still intact and untampered with.

Captain Pink eyed the envelope, then Firelight Spark, who nodded. “Acceptable. Please follow me, my lady. Baroness Lace has been expecting you.”

Rosewater smiled. I have played my card, mother. Let us see what you have to say to that.

Author's Notes:

We're getting so close to the end of this book! Two more chapters to go!

Book 1, 27. Family Ties

As certain as she had been when she started out, doubt started to creep in as soon as she was seated in the uncomfortable chair in the entry hall of the Palace, the Dammeguard watching her warily, but a few at least giving her cautiously appraising looks.

Word of what she’d done last night, kissed Lord Collar in an attempt to wake him up, then fled before the Dammeguard arrived as reinforcements had surely passed through the ranks.

Whether or not the truth went with those rumors was harder to say as none of them seemed inclined to talk with her while Captain Pink went to speak with Lady Lace. She presumed it was Lady Lace, at least.

Minutes ticked by slowly, measured by the tapping of the hooves of the Dammeguard that watched her, waiting for the flag of treaty to fall, or mysteriously disappear so that she might be captured and the “Rose Terror” might be ended once and for all.

Or at least traded for some similarly huge concession as a herdgild.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Collar or Cloudy that came for her, but Lady Lace herself.

“Rosewater,” Lace said in a cool voice, her ears erect, eyes steady as she came to stand a few paces away, dismissing the guards with a look and a flick of her tail. “I find myself in the unusual position of owing you more than a small favor. Yet again.”

“My lady?” Rosewater asked, surprised.

“Through your action, I have a son still possessed of himself, and his wife-to-be still able to be herself freely.” Lace glanced at the departing guards, most of whom had ears pricked backwards. “And yet…”

Rosewater swallowed. Cloudy had told her, incidentally, what she might be worried to face. And yet… “I came to make a deal, my lady.”

“As Rosemary’s guardian? By the rules of herdgild, only family may demand to pay the price. Or the leader of the city.” Lace gestured back the way she’d come when Rosewater shook her head. “If you’ll come with me, I think we should take this discussion more private.”

“Is Collar—”

“He’ll be involved, but he is understandably exhausted. Cloudy is tending to him right now.” Lace waited for Rosewater to extricate herself from the chair, her expression impassively cool, contemplative and waiting. “You look exhausted yourself.”

Breakfast and a little more had been enough to remove the shakes, but the walk through Damme had sapped her energy again. “I am not unaccustomed to being tired, my lady. It doesn’t change what I need to do.”

As she followed Lady Lace up the corridor, the fragrance of her daughter crossed her tail, fresh and familiar, with the faint essence of the shampoo she’d chosen for Rosemary from Roseling’s wares. Collar’s was there, too, and intensified at the same rate as Lace led them to the left.

“Rosemary?” Rosewater asked, taking a deeper breath and drawing on her Rosethorn heritage.

“Was in discussion with me when this all settled in,” Lace said, her voice betraying nothing, and her expression as she glanced back telling her less. “We were discussing your shared mother.”

Rosewater’s breath caught in her throat and she stumbled as the revelation hit her harder than she thought it would. “My lady?”

“When we are in a more private place,” Lace said softly.

The interior of Prim Palace was much as she recalled from her brief visits for galas, but here and there she could see signs of change brought about by Cloudy’s involvement with Collar. Small changes only, but potentially important ones.

Flowers had been added to decorative pots that held small trees or ferns from far-off places, and more color and fragrance filled the hall—all of it subtle but noticeable to somepony who knew the Prims as relatively dour decorators compared to their Merrier neighbors.

Whether that had been done by Cloudy herself or as a concession to her…

“My husband,” Lace said after noticing Rosewater’s attention. “You knew he was a Merrier?”

She had, but whether she should… Rosewater shook her head sharply. She couldn’t live in that headspace anymore, especially considering what she was about to trust these ponies with. “I knew. I’ve studied your family as closely as I can in the past couple of years.”

Lace gave her a curiously studious look. “I see.” She held open the door, and Rosemary’s scent came through more strongly, though she could hear nothing beyond the portal, and Collar and Cloudy’s scents intermingled came through as well. “Please, Rosewater, inside, and we’ll discuss the deal in due time.”

The door closed behind Rosewater, and she moved towards the seat closest to her, also the closest to Collar. The spark was in his eyes again, shining with curiosity as he studied her, and while the tiredness that maintaining such a defense must have cost him still hung about him as a malodor might when a miscreant leaves, he seemed vital and whole again and would be right once more with time.

Cloudy sat at his side on a pillow on the ground in the Merrier fashion, and Rosemary sat at a further distance, also on a pillow. The straight, high-backed chairs Collar and Lace sat in were decorated with stained blue and purple wooden inlays bordering a comfortable cushion.

“I am pleased you are well, my lord,” Rosewater said as she hesitated in front of the chair obviously meant for her, not sure if she should take a seat yet. “I was worried when I had to leave you.”

“I don’t recall everything,” Collar said, lifting his teacup towards Cloudy. “She filled me in.” His eyes steadied on hers, as he added, “And while I appreciate you trying to kiss me awake was a spur of the moment tactic, it is the last kiss you’ll get from me.”

Cloudy’s ears twitched. She, at least, had understood the meaning of the gift. It seemed like she would either have to spell it out… or he had understood it, and this was his rejection of it.

She took a short breath and glanced at the book sitting in the center of the table. He did as well, and when his eyes rose again, she saw no understanding of what it meant, but Cloudy’s expression showed a hint of interest, poorly hidden.

“I apologize. I had not meant to discomfit you, my lord. In truth, I was terrified that… that all of us had lost you.” Rosewater pressed a hoof to her breast, not yet moving to take her seat. Dammer courtesies required her to stand until she was invited to sit and partake in the discussion. “I came here today to discuss with all of you a proposal and an alliance of formalized intent regardless of other outcomes.”

Lace’s brows rose before she glanced at Collar, her look questioning.

“Regardless of other outcomes?” Collar asked, looking to Cloudy for insight.

“Listen to her,” Cloudy said softly. “Let her present her proposal before we make any decisions.”

“Very well.” Collar nodded to the chair. “Then, please. Take a seat.”

“Before I do…” Rosewater opened her saddlebag, making every pony there flinch aside from Rosemary. When she drew out the gold-sealed envelope, the wax glob still faintly luminous, and set it on the table atop the book, they relaxed. “I have a confession to make about my relationship with Rosemary.”

“What?” Rosemary startled off her pillow, taking a half step towards her. “But—”

“You’re sisters?” Collar blurted, his ears practically leaping to attention and his attention rapt.

Rosewater smiled and turned her head, nose lifting. “What you are about to hear and see does not leave this room. Please. I will give any assurance. Roseate must not know. I fear she would try anything to take her away from me.”

“Mother,” Rosemary whimpered. “Please.”

Lace’s eyes widened, and as Rosemary’s voice creaked on the word, Collar startled. Cloudy only looked interested, as if she’d guessed.

“Please, my lady, my lord, open the envelope,” Rosewater said, her tongue feeling thick as she raised a hoof for Rosemary, and in the next instant lost her voice as Rosemary rushed to embrace her, babbling apologies and assurances that she hadn’t said a peep about their secret relationship.

It was all Rosewater could do to hold her mask in place and keep the tears from flowing even more rapidly, to keep the fears at bay, to keep the wound she kept picking at on her soul from bleeding more.

She watched, her mask in place, waiting for the rebuttal, the denial of her love for Rosemary as a mother, and the deeply ingrained protective instincts that drove her daily, that fueled the fears she used in her magics.

Lace opened the envelope, her eyes darting back to Rosewater and Rosemary as she pulled the official papers out, two simple pages of the finest paper, decorated with the gold of Celestia’s mark at the top, proclaiming Rosewater Star Rosethorn to be the lawfully recognized adoptive mother of Rosemary Carnation Rosethorn, and granted all rights and responsibilities of being her mother.

In that set of rights was the right to demand to negotiate herdgild.

Wordlessly, Rosewater watched as she passed it to Collar and Cloudy.

All the while, Rosemary held close, her horn to the side of Rosewater’s neck as she held the mare close and hid her from the possible fallout.

Collar’s brows rose as he read both pages of official documentation before he set them back down on the book at the center of the table.

“How long?” he asked.

“Since I was sixteen,” Rosewater said, her voice creaking over the words.

“Stars be merciful,” he whispered.

“You have nothing to fear here, child,” Lace said in a kinder voice than Rosewater would have expected. “We will keep your secret, and it will not even be spoken outside of a silenced room. Or written anywhere. I would, however, caution you that keeping this secret for too long.”

“I cannot tell it too broadly,” Rosewater murmured holding Rosemary closer. “She took my Carnation away from me, my lady. It was only because I fought for her that Rosemary didn’t follow.”

“I understand you’re afraid for her, but here she is safe, and if you’re here to deal with us directly, as her mother, then that will supersede any attempt to negotiate by Roseate.” Lace raised a hoof and lifted the documents. “You may even leave these here and know they would be as safe as they would be in Princess Celestia’s own treasury. We will keep her safe, Rosewater, and your secret.”

“How… did you plan to keep it secret if only parents can negotiate?” Collar asked, his expression serious, but softer than it had been a moment before.

“Only parents may demand the right,” Lace corrected him quietly. “But the wronged party may opt to treat with anypony, and Roseate’s own actions of last night would harm her reputation with us enough to want to treat with another. Her guardian, for example.”

Collar swallowed again, and closed his eyes. “Stars above. So much makes sense now.”

Rosewater didn’t answer, holding Rosemary as shock wore off and the tears started coming, then the sobs. Being able to be open even with only a few ponies…

“Shh.” Rosewater murmured in her ear, her own mask cracking and flaking away as she held her daughter close, held her and rocked her side-to-side. This, she hadn’t planned on, being so vulnerable when she hoped to…

“Mommy,” Rosemary whimpered.

Rosewater let go of the mask, holding Rosemary closer, tighter, and sitting back on her haunches to clasp her daughter with both forelegs. “I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much.”

My mother. To think it was safe and comforting. Rosemary sobbed it aloud as Rosewater held her and rocked her back and forth slowly. It terrified her. It filled a need she’d known for almost a decade of her life. To acknowledge the mare she knew as her second mother to the world. To make them see her as the kind, caring pony she was inside.

Her thoughts scattered to the wind as her mother’s tears trailed down her back as she whispered “My child, my child,” over and over into her mane. Safe. There in Rosewater’s embrace, she was safe. She always had been.

Carnation was her loving, sweet parent, whom she could always bring her problems to and work them out. When they couldn’t be worked out, or even talked about, nightmares and dreams that terrified her, she went to Rosewater to feel safe. The fierce protector who guarded her from harm.

“Mother,” she whispered as her sobs diminished into stillness again. “Why now?”

“Because,” Rosewater whispered back, “I need help. We need help. And…”

Collar cleared his throat. “We had no idea.” His voice was strained.

“She is not my birth daughter,” Rosewater said more strongly, not letting her go. “But from the moment she came into this world, I was there. I held her in my forelegs while the midmare cleaned her and Carnation recovered. I held her while she took her first look at the world and saw two faces looking back at her.” Her mother hugged her close. “From then on, I was not Carnation’s daughter. I was Rosemary’s mother. It only took me a while to realize it.

“Her first steps were from Carnation to me. Her first words were spoken in our presence. Her first laughs, her tumbles and her scrapes. Everything my mother never did for me, I did for her.” Rosewater loosened her hold and settled back more firmly on her hindquarters. “I have never stopped loving her, through all the trials and tribulations of raising a foal through her teen years.”

Rosemary lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder to look at each of the faces, all in various stages of shock, staring back at them. “I have never once thought of her as my sister,” she said, her voice hitching only slightly. “From my earliest memories, she has been there, guiding me and teaching me along with Carnation. She has always been, in my heart, ‘mother.’”

“Carnation,” Prim Lace said, her voice quiet and tremulous. “You never told me…”

“We didn’t know who to trust, my lady. After Roseline’s death,” Rosewater said, her voice firming. “A hint of it in the wrong ear with the truth behind it and Roseate would have found ways to use us against each other. What would I not do to keep her safe? What have I not done? Things I am not proud of. For her sake.”

“When I inhaled Mother’s Kiss, I didn’t see only Carnation. I saw Rosewater as well. Growing up, they taught me never to talk about our home life, but when we were at home, I saw them as my parents. Odd family that we were, I never questioned that they loved each other and me as dearly as if they had been married.”

Collar’s cheeks flushed. “Stars above… because they were aunt and niece.”

“Roseate started that rumor.” Rosemary cringed again when she thought of the first time she heard it. “It was… when I was ten, and starting to wonder why my moms were different. She must have heard my curiosity, and spread the rumor to filter back to me.”

“Carnation stopped me from dueling her,” Rosewater said, ears ticking back. “We could never prove it.”

“But…”

“But we were wives of a sort,” Rosewater went on, bobbing her head to Lace. “At home, we lived the lives of wives, preparing meals, tutoring our child, loving her, loving each other sans the intimacy.”

“My apologies,” Collar said, looking away from Rosewater to Rosemary, then Cloudy. “Is that sort of thing common?”

“Family is so very important in Merrie,” Rosemary said with a faint smile. “I’ve seen siblings parent nieces and nephews without a concession to what it looked like to Dammers, but we couldn’t even do that. All we could do was feel it in our hearts, the safety of our home, and only rarely, outside it.”

“And now here,” Lace said firmly. “I wish I could offer you a free pass as any other mother would be given to see their child, but given that you wish not to reveal it at this time, all I can do is hope that your offer entails frequent visits for her negotiation.”

Collar cleared his throat. “Speaking of which, we should move to discussion of negotiations to at least nod to the fact that you’re here under treaty to do them. But I will agree with my mother. Any time you visit, Rosewater, you may be free to see your daughter.”

He didn’t hitch over the last at all, Rosemary thought. “Wh-what happens if you come to an accord on how to release me?”

“Then you will be released, as per the requirement of negotiating with a guardian directly, to Rosewater. But I suspect that you did not come here to simply ask for her release?” Lace raised her head slightly to almost look Rosewater in the eye, missing only a few inches of height to do so. Her son was able to do so without raising his head, and would need to stoop slightly to do it proper.

“No, Lady Lace. You are correct. Rosemary committed a crime in your city, and I don’t expect you to let her off lightly,” Rosewater said with a hint of a smile playing at her lips.

Rosemary jerked back from her mother, staring at her, then smiling as she began to see the shape of the plan Rosewater had put together. “I agree,” she said after a moment, and nodded.

The ramifications of agreeing to a long imprisonment weren’t as important as something that might end the war, after all. And if Rosewater intended to use this as an opportunity to get her hoof in the door peacefully…

And, she thought as she separated from Rosewater’s embrace to settle beside her and got a better look at Cloudy, it would give her the chance to truly reconnect with a love she’d thought lost.

Collar was still adjusting to the idea that Rosewater was a mother. But the papers were staring him in the face, as was her mien around Rosemary. All the signs he’d learned of a mother were there when he looked back, obscured by the need to keep it secret. Her need to protect Rosemary, even to the mare’s detriment, even that stunt by the river, a mother letting her daughter know she wasn’t alone in the only way she knew how.

It was easy to accept that Rosewater was Rosemary’s mother, and might have even believed her to be contrite.

“Her crime was hardly heinous. It was the intent we are most anxious about. I would let her go to you for her promise to quit the war.”

“She would never allow it,” Rosemary whispered. “I’d be a traitor for ‘quitting’ while I was still unmarried and without foal.”

Collar grimaced. “That three year age gap between your majority and second majority has a more sinister purpose, it seems.”

Rosewater shook her head. “No. It’s meant to keep ponies from making mistakes they’ll regret in the full passion of youth. Roseate has corrupted it, like everything else she’s touched.” She took a breath and let it out. “And that is actually a part of my offer. Not the passion of youth, but passion nonetheless.”

Before he could react, Cloudy’s ears perked up and her eyes darted to the book, then back to Rosewater. “That’s the reason you sent the original Principes. The full diary. It was… I thought, but…”

What? Collar glanced at the book with its fresh pages and neat binding. “You said something about it being a Rosethorn journal.”

“Not a Rosethorn journal. The Rosethorn’s journal. The founder of Merrie’s personal journal. Rosewater has the original.” Cloudy tipped her head towards Rosewater.

“Yes. It was passed down by my aunt Rosefire Rosethorn, who kept it preserved as best she could.” Rosewater raised the book and glanced at Cloudy, her eyes earnest. “You know what it meant? That this was my gift?”

Slowly, Cloudy nodded and glanced at Collar. “It’s… it has meaning, Collar. She’s offering herself as a partner for you, in a formal courtship. It’s a gift to show her intent to follow the Rosethorn way as practiced by the common pony.”

“She’s already done that,” Collar said with a snort, glancing between Cloudy and Rosewater. “What… you’re not thinking seriously about it, are you, Cloudy?”

“Collar, listen to her, please,” Cloudy said, her voice earnest. “I don’t know what she has in mind, but shouldn’t we at least listen to her about what she has to offer?”

Coming from anypony else…

Collar leveled a stare at Rosewater, looking for any sign of smugness, any sign this was a ploy and not as forthright and honest as Cloudy seemed to believe.

If he was honest with himself, if it had come from anypony but Cloudy, he’d have dismissed the notion out of hoof and not bothered looking back, and sent Rosewater on her way with little more than a promise to treat fairly for the herdgild cost.

But the love of his life was asking him to consider it—to consider taking up more of her traditions, to accept her moral code of love and open his heart to the possibility of more than one love in his life.

Rosemary shifting beside her mother, a fact he was still struggling with, reminded him that in a way, he already had, albeit through a proxy kind of romance. This, what Rosewater seemed to be ready to offer…

“I’m offering exactly what Cloudy said, with one small change. You said, once, that you wouldn’t marry without romance, and love.” Rosewater took a step forward and settled in front of her chair. “I’m offering a chance for all of us, all four of us, to court each other after the Merrier fashion and find our way forward together, Collar.”

Cloudy stepped forward, but not between Collar and Rosewater, but advancing to sit closer to the other mare. “I would accept, for my part. You have been intriguing me from the day you showed just how far you could reach with a fragrance, and every time I think I’ve learned all I need to know to judge, you show a new facet. I offer my open heart to this endeavor.”

Cloudy, we haven’t… Collar closed his eyes and rubbed at his muzzle. She was making her choice, just as he would have to make his. If they aligned… But what if we don’t? What if she falls in love with Rosewater, and I don’t?

Stars, listen to me, I’m already… “No decisions will be made today.”

“Of course not,” Cloudy said with a snort. “I’m offering to be open and honest. Nothing more. It’s a far more formal kind of courtship in Merrie. I was starting down that path with Rosemary when Roseate intervened.”

“Good.” Collar relaxed minutely. “Is that the offer? The deal? Courtship for Rosemary’s freedom?”

Rosewater’s ears dipped slightly. “Not entirely. If… if the courtship fails, I may need to seek asylum in Damme. I won’t let Roseate win if I can help it. If I can—”

“We will not be taking over Merrie by force, young mare,” Lace said softly.

“I understand.” Rosewater lowered her gaze to the floor, her breathing even, her ears twitching. “Would you support my claim, in the event…”

“Collar, please,” Cloudy whispered, turning to him, her ears flattening to her skull. “At least consider the offer. What harm can a secret courtship do?”

Secret until it isn’t. Collar swallowed and considered both her and Rosewater, his mind churning over the possibility. If he… if he accepted Rosewater’s offer.

“I don’t even know you,” he said softly. “I don’t love you. I will only marry for love.”

Rosewater nodded solemnly. “As will I. Otherwise we might not be in this predicament. I’ll not have a child without an assurance that they will have a father there.” Her throat bobbed sharply as she said it, and her voice cracked over the word ‘father,’ and little wonder why. “You… you can be there. You can be safe from her.”

“Is that why?” Collar asked softly. “Me?”

“Not… only why,” Rosewater said, her eyes shifting away from his, then back. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a reason.”

Collar closed his eyes, his thoughts still swirling and uncertain. More and more over the past few weeks, he’d uncovered bits and pieces of a history that spoke to pain and suffering in Rosewater’s past that he only had the tiniest window to.

A part of him wanted to know what drove her, what made her do everything she’d done. Some of the answer was sitting beside her, biting her lip and keeping quiet as much as she could. How much she knew of the reasons Rosewater was the way she was…

“I can accept getting to know you better,” Collar said at last. “I can accept working towards a deal whereby you are recognized as the heir of Merrie, regardless of marital or motherhood status. I can even accept Cloudy courting you, if she so chooses.”

It hurt to see the hope in her eyes, the tensing of her shoulders as she waited for the final blow to sunder it.

“I…”

There was so much in the political calculus that he needed to consider, that he needed to take into account before he could…

“If you choose,” Lace said, interrupting his thoughts, “to pursue a relationship with Rosewater, Cloudy, and Rosemary in the Merrie fashion, I would not object. I would advise you to consider the pros and cons later, Collar. Deciding against it now, when you’ve barely had a chance to let the ramifications of one revelation settle in, may close off paths you’ve yet to consider.”

“I would like to go on the first date,” Cloudy said, raising her head high to look him in the eye and half-arching her wings. “I want to know more about Rosewater and who she is. Decide after that, love. We can decide together.”

“I accept, then,” Rosewater said, relaxing minutely and glancing at Rosemary, then at Cloudy. “We can discuss when and what later, and…” She smiled, the relief evident in the brightness of it, and the undiluted excitement briefly making her ears quiver upright. “Thank you. All of you. For accepting me here, and as Rosemary’s mother.”

“Will you stop your raiding?” Collar asked suddenly.

“I will. I will not take part in mother’s raids. But neither will I be able to lend aid as I did. Once I return to Merrie, I’m going to make the negotiation formalized, and I would ask that you see to recognizing that you would rather deal with me instead.”

“On that note,” Lace said with a nod, “and seeing that your proposal has been provisionally accepted… we have some questions about the events that led up to last night’s incident before we can discuss the conditions for Rosemary’s imprisonment.”

Ever since Lace had voiced her blessing, Rosewater’s stomach had felt like it’d fallen out, and her heart kept trying to crawl into her throat. Here, she had hope.

It was almost enough to crack the hold she had on herself, a hold she couldn’t let slip just yet.

“What… questions did you have, my lady?”

“One, actually.” Lace pulled a letter free of its hiding place under the journal. “It came with a bottle of dammerale-scented perfume. The initials at the bottom were meant to make it seem as though it were you sending the letter.”

That much was clear, and a hint of the perfume that had been sent with the still clung to the paper, though it took her drawing on her heritage, and making Collar and Lace stiffen as she did so, to get the truest essence possible from it.

“If you’d inhaled it,” Rosewater said after a moment, “it would have dulled your senses and your thoughts. It’s the opposite of an enticement.”

Rosemary nodded beside her. “Enticements are supposed to quicken the mind and excite certain thoughts. We use enticements in Merrie every day. Shop owners especially love to use them to excite their customers about their products. It’s not even required to be scent-based. Teasing, flirting, playful thoughts… all enticements.”

Collar glanced at Cloudy, who nodded minutely.

“It’s just a broad term for that kind of social or magical engagement meant to attract attention.”

“And this,” Rosewater said, raising the paper, “was not written by me. Nor would I ever send you a gift of perfume that would dull your senses when you think about me.” That earned her a flick of the ears.

“I’ll believe that. We thought along similar lines, but it’s good to have the confirmation that it wasn’t you. It means Roseate intended no fair dealing.” Collar glanced at Cloudy when she snorted and smiled wryly. “Which we already knew. We just needed your confirmation before we brought this to the Treaty Office. Any dealings with prisoners of war, herdgild or not, needs to be held to a certain level of honesty.”

“She’ll claim it was me. Or a sting to catch me engaged in double-dealing,” Rosewater said simply. “You’ll need more.”

“I have no doubt she’ll provide more.” Collar’s smile bordered on bitter, but a glance at Cloudy settled him down again. “I… hope you understand that this is very awkward.”

“I can take a hint,” Prim Lace said with a cough and a smile. “I will leave the three of you to discuss this, and you do have my blessing, whatever you decide, Collar.” She stood and bent to whisper in his ear as she passed, unheard by Rosewater, though she saw his brows raise. She kissed his cheek and continued to Rosewater. “I never saw it. But I am glad that Carnation was never alone.”

“You were not meant to,” Rosewater said, swallowing thickly and standing straighter. “I would talk with you privately about my daughter’s status later, if it pleases you?”

“I would hear more about Carnation from her…” Lace left the statement open to answer, her brow raised and the calm expression belying the sharp curiosity and judgment pending the particular answer she got.

“We weren’t bonded. She was my aunt, but I saw her, treated her, like we were bonded mates to a third.” In another age, more primitive and primal, there would have been little question about their status. They would have been mated and bonded. In the current age… “We were, most days, like very close sisters.”

“I see.” Lace’s eyes said she saw more than what Rosewater had revealed, but she kept it to herself, and only said, “I hope to see more of the mare that Carnation raised, and to hear more about my friend from her closest.”

Friend. Rosewater swallowed and closed her eyes. More that Carnation had hidden from her. “Would… you be able to tell me about her? And your friendship?”

Lace searched her eyes for another moment, then nodded, raising her muzzle to touch her lips to Rosewater’s cheek and whispered quietly, “If you need it, I would consider asylum under my word, with only a probationary period only for both you and Rosemary.”

“I-I…” Rosewater’s tail flicked side-to-side. Why didn’t you offer it to Carnation? “I will consider the offer, my lady. It is… generous.”

“The offer has no time limit,” Lace said as she put a hoof to the door.

Rosewater closed her eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks briefly. “Why not Carnation?”

Lace stiffened. “I did offer it to her. I did, and she declined it. Now that I have met you, I have an inkling why.” She laid her horn against the door. “I would have welcomed her as a daughter, Rosewater. I hope…” She left before she could say anything else, but Rosewater wanted to know what she would have said.

What were you keeping from me, Carnation? More than a few possibilities whispered through her mind. Secret dealings with Lace, with Damme. What did you set up? What did you leave for me to find?

Today, she had thought she’d know what she would face. More and more, she was realizing that what was in store for her by making this move was far different. Carnation hadn’t only prepared things for Rosemary.

Stars… Tears trickled down her cheeks as she stared at the door as it closed, her vision blurring.

It took Rosewater several minutes to compose herself, giving Collar time to reflect on what he actually knew about his mother’s dealing with Carnation, which wasn’t much. She’d played that fact very close to her breast for most of his life.

There was one clue, however, that made him certain that it was shared with another pony. Rosemary didn’t seem shocked or surprised at all, and only rested against Rosewater while she stared at the door, then down at the floor, her shoulders tight, her back tensing as she fought off the feelings he could see twitching her ears and her tail.

The silence in the room gave him a chance to think about what was coming, and what he had agreed to at least consider. Letting Cloudy not only be alone with Rosewater, something he’d already gambled her freedom on once, was a risk… wasn’t it?

A glance at Cloudy said it wasn’t. She looked as though she wanted to go to the mare and lean against her other side, even before she knew much more than Collar himself did.

It’s their way to be more open with their feelings for one another.

“Have…” Collar whispered, then reconsidered his words, his ear ticking as Rosewater took a breath.

“I’ve been fascinated by her for a few weeks,” Cloudy murmured back. “What she says is one thing. What she does says something else entirely. It’s important to pay attention more to actions than words. Words make rumors and gossip. Actions can be hidden behind words.”

She’s saved me twice from her own mother. Collar swallowed and glanced at Cloudy. “When will you go?”

“I don’t know.” Cloudy nodded to Rosewater as she straightened. “I want to talk to her alone, Collar. Before she leaves today.”

“In the meantime,” he said softly, then more loudly, “Lady Rosewater, Rosemary. If you please, I would like to discuss the terms and conditions of Rosemary’s confinement.”

Rosewater stiffened, then nodded and leaned lightly against Rosemary. “We’ll talk later, Rosemary, but he’s right. Business is important right now.”

“I… I agree, mother.” Rosemary took a deep breath. “Collar has been more than fair. I never expected to be housed in a suite, nor to have ponies that are kind to me and talk to me. He has also been kind enough to let Cloudy talk to me whenever she wants, even knowing that I love her, and she loves me.”

Rosewater’s brows ratcheted up as she fixed Collar with a look. “You surprise me, but perhaps…” her expression softened. “What would it cost to keep that state of affairs? In either bits or favors.”

He wanted to tell her to leave off the notion of romance, but Cloudy’s presence and her thoughtful look, and her admission that Rosewater intrigued her as a potential partner…

“That’s not something I’m prepared to take away for so long as you deal with us honestly and forthrightly, even if both must be in private negotiations.” Collar lifted his chin at her. “As for our public negotiations, I would ask that you make an effort to appear as nonthreatening as possible, and make every concession to appearing contrite for your known crimes, even if we can’t arrest you for them at this time.”

“That is incredibly fair,” Rosewater replied, nodding. “I accept and will take your word for it.” Her ear ticked faintly before she dipped her head.

“But you won’t arrest her, will you?” Rosemary asked, placing herself between Collar and Rosewater.

“That’s not for me to say,” Collar said after a moment. It wasn’t something he could do now, with her on a treaty-bonded mission, but it was something that would ease some tensions on the home-front while simultaneously building tensions in Merrie.

“Merriedamme has always been our goal.” His mother, reminding him of their purpose. He needed to think of their two cities as one. It was closer to true than it had been in decades, centuries, with trade between the cities at an all-time high, and while it was as hard to erase the cultural divide as it was to fill in the river, their citizenry was hard at work bridging it.

“I… won’t,” he said at last, closing his eyes. Cloudy relaxed next to him. “I know you’ve been pressured to do things, Rosewater, and I would ask that you not give in to that pressure anymore.”

“I have nothing left in Merrie for Roseate to pressure me over.”

“Mother,” Rosemary chided softly. “You can’t be alone.”

Something in Rosewater’s eyes flickered, and she bowed her head after a moment. “Some of my friends have been asking me the same.” She let out a breath and flattened her ears to her mane. “I still… I need to protect them, still. Even more so if I and Rosemary are out of her reach.”

“Mother, please,” Rosemary hissed.

“Not now,” Rosewater murmured. “I’ll abide, Collar. She has no leverage on me right now.”

Right now. Collar sighed. He would have to accept that… for now. “Very well. So long as you maintain neutrality, we’ll have no reason to suspend negotiations, and no reason to move Rosemary from her current holding place.”

“Then remains the one sticking point,” Collar said, hating that he had to cover it, and having already heard her reasoning through Cloudy. He needed it to be a part of the discussion, however, and he needed it to be clear between them what had happened last night. “By the account Cloudy was able to provide, Roseate was all but captured when you freed her. Why?”

Rosewater flinched, and Rosemary shot a shocked look at her mother before settling down. “Because it may have caused her abdication early. Or it may have drained Merrie’s coffers from the burden placed on her, and sent her citizens to suffer from the burdensome herdgild she would have negotiated on her own behalf.” She shook her head slowly. “Neither was an outcome I would have welcomed, and accepting any less than either on your part would have thrown your own political situation into turmoil.”

“That’s an explanation, not a reason,” Collar replied. “I can’t deny it’s an accurate explanation, but it’s not the why.”

“It is the why. Make no mistake, my lord, my goal is not to marry you for the sake of marrying you, nor to have a foal for the sake of having a foal. Despite anything I would have wanted for my child, my firstborn must, of necessity, be a political pawn in this game.” The words were said with the grave seriousness of a tomb, her bearing steady and her eyes locked on his. “This war ends with our generation, Collar. I’ll not accept any other outcome. I will love any child I have with the same intensity and devotion of any mother, but the choice to have a child is not mine alone.”

She paused to take a breath, her smile coming through again. “But at the same time… I will marry for love, and I will have a pony my child can call father. I tried time and again to form closer bonds with Merriers, but none of them are available anymore to court me, or me them. Roseate made sure of that. You, my lord, I laid my hopes upon because you can stand up to her, have stood up to her.”

“With your help twice,” Collar said after a moment with a sigh.

“Once with my help. Once on your own. Do you think she will try again knowing you can stand up so readily against her?”

“I’m not going to use that spell again,” Collar said with a shake of his head. “Unless it’s the direst of circumstances.”

“If Roseate goes after you, it will be the direst circumstance,” Rosewater said softly, her eyes steady, but a faint tremor in her jaw betraying the tension underneath. “I won’t let her win, Collar, and I won’t let her take anypony else from me.”

“If I can help it, she’s not going to get me or Cloudy,” Collar said. “And she won’t be able to reach Rosemary, either.”

More tension flowed out of her, and the tremor got worse as she relaxed her hold on everything she was holding in. “That, then, my lord, is my reason why. To ensure that when she is captured, I am in a position to inherit instead of any of my sisters.”

“Or when she’s exiled by Princess Celestia’s order,” Collar said, raising the note. “We’ll be filing an official objection with the Treaty Office and, depending on the timetables, we may need to make additional requests. Increasing security measures against your mother’s incursions have cost us time and bits we would have put towards preparing for the Gala and the harvest.”

Rosewater swallowed and nodded. “I-I understand, my lord. Then…”

“We don’t know yet. We’re still getting tallies from Dammehollow about their expected yields and how much we’ll need to front for the city’s granaries and carting costs.” Collar shook his head, smiling a touch wryly at discussing such mundanities from a pony four weeks ago he would have considered one of his worst enemies. “At any rate, that’s neither here nor there except to say that this…” he waved the letter from Roseate again. “Will not be tolerated.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Now… since you are acting as Rosemary’s mother in this, albeit covertly as far as the outside world is concerned, there are some questions we must go over to satisfy treaty requirements for the negotiation.” Collar nodded to the walls. “The rest of this meeting will be private, but it will be recorded to word for record keeping.”

Author's Notes:

Second to last chapter in this "book", and we're solidly in the denouement.

Book 1, 28. Family Troubles, Part 1

The rest of the meeting, for Rosemary, was a boredom of listening to question and response from Rosewater and Collar, and even Cloudy had fallen by the wayside as the two heirs dickered over details for the coming negotiation.

Although Collar hadn’t said ‘yes’ to courtship, and definitely not the yes that Rosemary’s heart had hoped for, they had called Lace back in and both she and Rosewater had left to have a meeting together while Collar and Cloudy commiserated on guard schedules, tossing about names that sounded halfway familiar, and some names being struck down or passed on.

When she’d asked what they were talking about, she’d been informed that it was her guard roster. To give her kindly ponies to talk with on a regular basis.

None of the names were familiar enough for her to give any meaningful input on, so she opened the book Rosewater had sent with Cloudy.

Rosewater’s elegant, if cramped, hoof made barely a mark on the first page, only giving the title, “Principles of Free Love, by Rosethorn the Wise.” A small footnote declared, “Translation note: During his lifetime, Rosethorn constantly beat back against ‘The Wise’ for himself, and throughout his journal that eventually became the Principes that we abide by, he refers to himself as simply Rosethorn where he refers to himself by name at all.”

So very specific… But also informative. Rosethorn had been a humble pony, Rosewater always said, humbled by the age he lived in and the ponies in his life.

She settled in on the couch, one ear cocked to the discussion of ponies and names, and pretended to read. If this ‘negotiation’ took as long as it had taken Rosewater to decide to court Collar and Cloudy, she would have plenty of time to read it in its entirety, and likely finish the translation. And make copies.

Somewhere along the way, she’d closed her eyes while staring at the page and had laid her head on it.

When she opened her eyes again, the book was closed and on the table, and both Cloudy and Collar were gone from the room. But she wasn’t alone. Rosewater was sitting on the floor at the base of the couch she’d fallen asleep on.

“Sorry,” Rosemary said softly. “Stars, I’m tired.”

“It’s fine, Rosemary. From what Lace told me, you had a long night of worrying.” Rosewater bent to kiss her cheek. “I just wanted to say goodbye before I went back home. Lace and I finished our first negotiation, and we came up with a schedule for when I’ll be visiting. Once a week, more often if we need to cut a negotiation short for any reason, but we have terms that we’re presenting to the Treaty Office tomorrow. After that…”

Rosemary blinked owlishly at her. “You’re actually negotiating for my release?”

“Stars, no.” Rosewater laughed. “That’s for public consumption. But Lace and I agreed that we needed to put on a show. The real negotiation is… courtship. If we—” Rosewater coughed and winked at her. “—come to terms, then you are released as soon as, erm, the terms are finalized. If not… you’re released to Damme. As a free citizen. If you wish. I’d suggest you stay, Rosemary. It won’t be safe for you in Merrie.”

“And not safe for you either!” Rosemary shot back.

“I know.” Rosewater’s eyes fell to the letter resting at her hooves. “I’ll seek asylum and fight her the only way left to me and try to make a life here, perhaps I would even find a home and happiness.”

“You won’t…”

“I won’t fall back into my old ways, Rosemary. I can’t. Carnation would have beat my head in years ago, I’m sure.” Her smile came and went quickly, just a twitch of her lips. “I expect you to do that for her, now.”

Rosemary raised a hoof as if to do just that, and tapped her on the nose instead. “No. But I will be disappointed in you.”

“Stay thy arrow, oh merciless maiden!” Rosewater gasped, then grinned and stood. It was odd to see Rosewater tease her, even if it was melodramatic. “It’s been good for me to be open today. I feel… lighter. Regardless of what happens with the negotiation, I think I will be… happier. At the least. Be a good mare, Rosemary, and don’t get into trouble.”

“And brush my teeth and scrub behind my ears…” Rosemary rolled her eyes and rose, pulling her mother in closer with a spell. “Be safe, mother.”

“I will.”

And with that, Rosewater left her, knocking on the door to admit Captain Pink, who gave Rosemary a stern, but not hateful, look and turned about without another word, escorting Rosewater away.

Lace came to get her a few minutes later and guided her to a lower level office with the sign of Damme etched into the door and painted with metallic hues.

“Have a seat, Rosemary,” Lace said as she stepped around the desk. “Cushions or chair, only make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you, Lady Lace,” Rosemary said, curtsying before Lace closed the wards on the room and sealed the door. “Did negotiations go well?”

“When I first met Carnation,” Lace said, pulling free two glasses and a flask of some orange liquor she didn’t recognize from a shelf of bottles of various shades and shapes, “I saw at once that she wasn’t a typical infiltrator. Even under Roseline’s rule, we still had them on occasion, but much rarer than the thrice-weekly incidents of today. She admitted being caught immediately, and said the reason she’d even approached me was because I looked ‘interesting’ and wanted to meet me.”

Lace poured a glass for herself, sniffed it, and passed it to Rosemary. “Tell me what you think.”

The sharp alcoholic smell was there, but too were… roses. Faint, but there. A hint of a strain that might have been carnation rose hips fermented but not distilled more than necessary to get the particulates out. It was still unfamiliar, but it wasn’t what she’d expected. The rest of it was a brandy made from a white grape wine and aged in a fired oak barrel.

“This isn’t a brandy I recognize,” Rosemary said, and took a sip. The essence of Rose burst on her tongue, spreading like wildfire. There, the scent was much more noticeable, and she gasped.

“It packs a punch,” Rosemary gasped.

“It does. Just like Carnation. This was a gift from her, given to me to celebrate Collar’s birth. From Rosewine Vineyards. It’s the last of six bottles that she gave me. I’ve been meaning to ask the Garden if they have any more in stock… clandestinely of course. I asked your mother to inquire for me, at a later date.”

“That was… the negotiation?” Rosemary asked, incredulous.

“Well, yes. We had to agree on something that would be a ‘negotiation’ type thing to do,” Lace said with a smile and a wink. She corked the bottle and set it back in its place, turning the label away from the room. By itself it looked like any old bottle of brandy, but now that she knew the smell, she could tell it had a presence in the room.

“You shared a drink with her?”

“Of course. Your mother is a fascinating mare.” Lace stared at the glass Rosemary still held in her spell, and closed her eyes briefly. “In return for refilling my stock, she asked for several concessions to be granted to you, to make your stay here more palatable and less like a prison sentence.”

Rosemary sat up straighter and took another small sip of brandy.

“The first that I granted,” Lace went on, “is that you are to be allowed access to the public gardens while escorted by a guard. This privilege is not unlimited, however, and is restricted to daylight hours and one hour a day. It’s equivalent to the yard time inmates at Prim Prison receive. This stipend of one hour will increase to two after two weeks, and three after a month. Pending good behavior of course.”

“Of course,” Rosemary agreed quickly. Anything to not be stuck in that room all day for months? Stars, if Rosewater went her usual plodding way, she might be stuck in there until well past her twenty-first.

“Further, once a week, and then twice and three times following the same schedule, albeit only with Collar or myself escorting you, you may visit my private gardens to talk with us at your leisure, or simply enjoy the work I’ve put into them. Or help me. It’s getting close to winter, and my garden needs to be made ready.” Lace raised a brow with a small smile. “I understand you’re good with plants. You can call that a ‘work detail’ if you really want to.”

Rosemary swallowed, mouth dry. “Th-that is generous of you, my lady. Housing me here is a generosity, but I hadn’t expected your private gardens on top it.” Rosemary swallowed and glanced around the office. It was where Prim Lace worked, and it showed. It wasn’t messy, but the detritus of work was everywhere. Pictures of ancestors hung on walls, all wearing some form of Lace’s collar as their symbol of office.

“Relax, child.” Lace’s smile was the same kind of motherly she’d seen from both Carnation and Rosewater. “This is a safe space, and nopony is going to judge you.”

“I… love plants. I’d consider it an honor to help you turn down your garden for the winter. It’s beyond generous.”

“By no means is it generous, Rosemary. Were I generous, and a fool, I’d let you free to wander the city with only a guard to keep you free of trouble.” Lace clucked her tongue. “Nay, it’s this mess with your status, and your mother’s ploy against hers. I can’t say that she will succeed. There are ever so many more ways for Roseate to be nasty without breaking the treaty.”

“I’m aware.”

Rosie Night and her family, the impending birth of their foal, all her friends, Cloudy’s family, Rosewater, and her childhood friends in the Garden of Love. They would all be targets for Roseate’s ire, or could be if Roseate thought to expand her net of anguish to push her mother to… do things.

Rosemary took a shaky sip of brandy, the warming liquid calming her fears somewhat. “Life was… not normal. But it was a normal for the past six years after we both settled into a new routine without Carnation. I’m used to things changing, my lady.”

“Lace, please, Rosemary. When we are here, I am Lace.” She smiled at the glass and dipped her ears. “Your mothers taught you fairly in courtly manners, despite what I hear about you being something of a free spirit.”

“I am a noblemare,” Rosemary said, catching herself just about to say Lace’s title, and awkwardly tacked on, “Lace. I do enjoy the life of a common pony most days, I do also recognize that I must one day act for my station.”

She sipped at her brandy again, warming her throat and her stomach with the fine liquor. It was a strong vintage, she found, and very well appointed in taste. She kept finding subtle undertones to each scent component in the tasting. She took another sip and held it in her mouth longer before swallowing.

“Perhaps…” Rosemary set the glass down and felt at her cheeks. Flushed already, and she didn’t feel like it had been as strong as it obviously was. “Perhaps that’s enough.”

“You’ve had a tiring day and a trying week. Please, drink the glass of brandy… or share.” Lace grinned and winked, but made no move for the glass. “The second thing is the friends your mother and Cloudy asked for, I think you may have heard Collar and Rosewater talking about finding companionship for you of a social sort. Stride, you already know.”

Rosewater hesitated, then dipped her ears. “I’m not sure it’d be right to ask for any of the ponies I met during my excursions. I feel…” Like I used them. Tricked them. Betrayed the trust they put in me. It was the cost of dealing with Roseate.

“It would be voluntary, my dear,” Lace said softly. “It won’t hurt to ask, and may even give you a chance to make it up with them by being a friend to them. Many of them have had their perceptions of Roses changed by talking with you, and I haven’t been ignorant of the effect you’ve had on them.”

“For the better?”

Lace chuckled and nodded, her eyes twinkling. “It was what gave me the hope that you were indeed Carnation’s daughter. At the time, I didn’t know whether or not your other mother was a product of her father and Carnation.”

That smile gave her the courage to name them. “Platinum, Starshine, Periwinkle.”

“Mmm. The first… I think would be open. The other two are on night shift still, and it would be rather difficult to move them without comment.” Lace wrote the names down nonetheless.

“I understand you grew on her somewhat during your open jaunts. Prim Coat has already volunteered as well, and Prim Poppy. Cloudy and Collar will also take hour turns with you, and she has asked, and been granted, night privileges with you.” Lace raised a brow at her. “Should you accept.”

Is this a test? “If it wouldn’t be against the rules, I… I have missed being with her. Talking to her. It was never just about the sex, my lady.”

Lace studied her for a long moment before nodding. “Cloudy is the same. I have watched her for some time since she took an interest in my son, and my husband has… softened my views on Merrie culture. I have long since stopped viewing the Merrie common pony culture as ‘obsessed with sex’ and see it as… complicated. Just like our culture, obsessed with monogamy, is not only about not having sex.”

“I… never thought that, my lady.”

“Noted. I’ll have you know that I was going to reprimand her, but given how Rosewater said things turned out, that corroborated her story, I think leniency is in order. She’s confined to palace duty for the duration of her ‘punishment’ for breaking my orders.” Lace smiled thinly again and patted a paper. “If there is anypony else you’ve charmed from my guard, young lady, let me know.”

Rosemary swallowed but, given the tone of the past conversation with Lace, she decided to take a risk. “And if there are? You have fascinating ponies in your Dammeguard, Lace. Quite a few, actually.”

She’d been right, and her reward for being bold was a smile and twinkle of the older mare’s eyes. “Well, if there are then I will see to them joining the rotation.”

Another sip of brandy soothed away the nerves caused by taking a risk, and brought to mind a cheerful face, a worried smile, and a delightful evening, night and morning talking, loving, and sleeping with a fresh-blues Dammeguard. She’d been the reason her interest stayed on Damme for so long.

It might be a risk, but Lace had yet to corner her with a trick. “There was one other Dammeguard I met. A while ago. Just after I turned eighteen, I met her on the bridge before these became too dark to hide in my coat.” She touched her heart mark. “I would have been a Rose unicorn to her. No names, just dinner and a night and morning. She was a pegasus, sunny blonde coat and a sky blue and white streaked mane. I think she had a sun rising above a blue feather.”

“I know her. She’s one of our reservist weather wardens. Primfeather Sunrise, Stride’s sister. Fascinating that both of them should be drawn to you the way Collar tells me Stride has been. Would you like me to have Cloudy drop a hint? I believe they were, briefly, involved.”

For a moment, the name threw her. Primfeather. Stride was a Primfeather, but seemed so far divorced from their hard-line philosophy of ‘Anything Rose is bad, and anything Rosethorn is worse.’ Sunrise had been a delight and a sweetheart, worried and anxious and just into her Dammeguard blue as a private. She had to have known she was a Rose, and possibly even a Rosethorn despite the way her darker pink coat had tended to mask her marks earlier in life.

“Please. We had… we had a good time together, but she had to run off after we had breakfast in bed.” It had been an odd request for a Dammer innkeeper to take, but since Sunrise had made the order, nopony had questioned it. “She paid for me to stay an extra night, just so she could go without comment on who her bedmate had been.”

I wonder if she got away from that without incident… I hope so. Swallowing her worries, Rosemary coughed, and asked, “Did I cause her any trouble?”

“I would have to ask Collar or Stride, but I do seem to recall a nasty rumor that I asked Pink to stamp out about a mare in the Guard who’d been wooed by a Rosethorn. Or corrupted by one.” Lace bowed her head, a frown on her lips, and her brows lowering. “I… worry about some of my guard that did cross. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Prim Prism, Primrazzle Dazzle, and Primrock Tremor.”

“They’re at the garden,” Rosemary said without hesitation. “I… don’t know them very well. Rosewater asked me to limit my time at the garden to bring less trouble to Budding and her ponies.”

“Trouble?”

“By Roseate,” Rosemary said with a sigh.

Lace chewed her lip for a moment, her eyes going to the door. “Carnation did a lot more than impress herself on Rosewater, didn’t she? Her morals are there, too. For good or ill. Carnation never wanted anything to splash back on anypony else, either. She and Rosewater…”

“They were good parents,” Rosemary said, more forcefully than she’d meant to.

“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way. That kind of moral compass is good to have—in moderation. Rosewater takes it to an extreme. I’ll have to talk to her about that.”

Once again, Lace proved herself more than flexible in mindset. Not even two days ago, Rosewater and Rosemary had been enemy combatants as far as her city was concerned.

“Dear, if I had known, if I had more than an inkling of what your mothers had to go through, I would have done more and damn the opposition. Do what you can to push her to be more open, too, if you would. I feel like it coming from you would be more impactful than coming from an old busybody like me.”

“I’ll do my best.” Rosemary took a final sip from her glass and set it back down. Lace didn’t move to refill it, but pushed a glass of water at her. “If I may ask a question of my own, what do you think of Rosewater’s proposal for your son?”

“Hopeful curiosity. We will see how things play out, but I am grateful beyond belief that Carnation didn’t raise Rosewater after Roseate’s pattern. I had feared that for a time. Psychopathy can be hereditary. We need look no farther than our own histories to know that for true.” Lace’s magic flared, highlighting a few portraits on the walls around her. “All descended from the same line. Vicious ponies before the treaty. Instigators of many eye-for-an-eye attacks and vengeances before Princess Celestia imposed her peace on our… disagreement.”

Two were pegasi, and two unicorns, and one earth pony. A diverse family line.

“Our history has as many,” Rosemary murmured, looking around the portraits. Many more were not highlighted, and had noble bearings in their paintings. Defenders or attackers, they were history, honored by their contemporaries or not. “Rosewater is not one of them. Nor was Carnation.”

Lace bowed her head. “Our twin cities have more history than most between them. I think only Canterlot has more conflict in its past than our little piece of the north.”

Conversation faltered, and the drink’s work on her tired mind proceeded apace. Lunch was too far in the past for it to do anything against the alcohol’s progression of draining her energy.

“You have a place in our city if things do not go well with your mother’s plan. So does she, with provisions, and I hope she does not follow Carnation into exile. She’s… I wish I could rescind an exile order. But once the deed is done, and she accepted asylum from Princess Celestia, I can’t override that. But I understand why she accepted the asylum. Being exiled into the wilds for a noble can be a sentence of slavery and…” Lace shook her head and shuddered.

“It’s not unwise,” Rosemary closed her eyes against the pang of loss again. “But I don’t think I could live like that. Having Carnation taken out of my life was the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Watching Rosewater descend into a kind of ‘sensible madness’ afterwards was another. I didn’t know what to do but love her as much as I could, and make her life as happy and joyous as I could.”

“If you succeed, if Rosewater succeeds in her plan, then that exile doesn’t need to be forever,” Lace said gently, raising Rosemary’s chin with a warm spell. “Collar told me of his promise to you. Mother’s Kiss, I believe was the name of the perfume. I will allow this one scent magic to be used within my palace. It was made with love, for the purpose of love.” For a long moment, a wistful, hopeful look crossed the matron’s face, then passed.

“I… can share, my lady. Rosewater makes a potent perfume, and the dosage for a memory is quite small. If you wish to remember your parents?”

“Alas,” Lace replied, smiling sadly, “I’ve come to terms with their loss long since. I’ve no wish to reawaken that heartache. My father, as much of a bastard as he was, still loved me, and my mother… dear stars. But no. No.” She let out a sharp breath and shook her head. “Maybe once this is all over, my dear. They are with the stars now, in their rest. I will let them rest until it’s nearer my time to meet them.”

It was a beautiful expression of love.

And Rosemary yawned explosively a few seconds into contemplating what it meant.

Horror rammed through her with the icy spike of ‘By the stars, that was disrespectful.’ “M-my lady,” Rosemary said around another yawn forcing its way up. “I’m tired. Not… bored.” Her cheeks felt aflame at her break of decorum and show of disrespect.

“My dear, today has been an ordeal for you. I’m surprised you’ve found any time to rest. Truly rest. It may not be much, but I’m scheduled to debrief you for another hour. We can schedule the rest for later. In the meantime, please nap. I have to think on what you’ve told me without another appointment intruding on my ruminations.”

Lace nudged her to a couch along one wall, a couch that smelled like a stallion more than anything. Dapper Air, Lace’s husband, a sincerely emotive stallion. A Merrier sixty years an expatriate. Or something like that. Maybe forty?

The thought about Dapper and his history dogged Rosemary down into a light sleep while Lace sat back in her chair and pored over a letter, her lip caught between her teeth as she read and wrote on another sheet of paper.

Author's Notes:

The final chapter of book one, setting up some of the conflicts for the next book. Part 1 of 2. Part 2 tomorrow morning.

The next book will be on the same story, but it will be known as "The Primrose Gala."
Book three will be "The Primrose Rebellion"
The fourth and final book's title is "The Primrose Promise"

Interludes chapter next, taking a peek in at some side-characters and their daily lives and how they've been affected.
First chapter of book two is a monster three parter.

Book 1, 29. Family Troubles, Part 2

The walk back through Damme was far less eventful with Captain Pink at her side than it had been with Firelight Spark, but the tension seemed higher than it had been before. Guards stood ready on corners or froze in place when she turned a corner with the captain at her side on the way back to the Primrose.

At first, she was content to let the captain remain stoic and silent, but that wore on her after a few minutes of having her wave down the hopeful looks ponies gave her, and the disappointed scowls they left in their wake.

“I realize I have a less than stellar reputation in Damme,” Rosewater said, causing Captain Pink to snort, “but it is my hope that with time and effort, I will turn that around.”

The captain didn’t dignify that with a reply immediately, except to snort again.

After the lunch hour, the streets were busier with the common pony making their way about the city. The looks the common pony gave her, tinged with fear and loathing, struck hard to her heart still vulnerable from tearing away its armor. She looked away from them all, her ears ticking back farther at each new blow, each new look.

“You’re different,” Pink said after a while. “You still look exhausted, but you don’t look as frightened.”

“I’m not. I feel better about the future.” Rosewater took a deep breath and shook her head slowly. “I have to thank…” She glanced at the captain to see if there was any knowledge of why Rosewater was there, why she’d chosen then to make a move.

“I’m aware of this morning’s events,” Pink said quietly, her ears flicking to indicate she knew they might be listened to. “I take it the intervention shook you?”

“It did,” Rosewater said. “She was—” she almost said it, almost called her my daughter’s lover. That little tidbit would reach Roseate’s ears faster than if she’d sent a letter if she spoke it aloud. The reminder from Lace that she couldn’t keep it secret for long dogged at her as well. “She’s… I can see why Rosemary likes her so much.”

Something in her tone must have given away some of the undercurrent “Rosemary,” Pink said with a grunt, bobbing her head. “So she can touch even that cold heart of yours.”

Rosewater gritted her teeth, but kept back the angry retort.

“Huh.” Pink stopped at an intersection as a large train of carts passed ahead of them. “So, I know you can’t talk about what went on during the negotiations, but something happened to you.”

“You wouldn’t trust anything I told you,” Rosewater said, lifting her head to look over the carts to the other side. “Should I bother trying?”

“You could start by telling me about you and Rosemary. A cousin doesn’t—”

“Guardian,” Rosewater broke in calmly. “I’m her guardian, captain, and I’ve raised her alone since she was fourteen.”

“Fair enough, but I do have a few cousins of my own, a fair few.” Pink eyed her sidelong for several blocks, eyes twitching between her and the road ahead. For her part, Rosewater was content to let her and take in the rest of the city in daylight as she’d rarely been able to do.

“Her mother asked me to look after her.” Rosewater smiled a thin, bitter smile at the memory of Carnation giving her the envelope, telling her what was inside, and what she expected might happen, what Rosewater had steadfastly refused to believe would happen. “I’m all she has left of the sane family after Roseate exiled Carnation.”

Pink blinked rapidly for a few paces, then turned an eye on her. “I knew her, briefly, at a Gala, when she set Rosemary on me and went to dance with Dapper. When she was six or so.”

A memory trickled back, of Rosewater at sixteen attending the same Gala, a requirement, and… and struggling with her notion of motherhood, not yet confessed to Carnation about her feelings, but on the cusp, and resenting being at the gala because she had to be near her birth mother for part of it.

She remembered, too, a glimpse of Rosemary on another pony’s back and the feeling of anxiety came back briefly, then faded. That night… stars. She’d still been trying to find her place in an adult world, and Roseate had coerced her into staying close the entire night.

What else did you keep from us, Carnation?

Firelight Spark was waiting for her when Captain Pink escorted her to the Primrose Bridge and snapped a salute at the knight commander.

“Returned unharmed and unmolested, sir.”

“Thank you, captain. She and I have some discussions to undertake… and a missive from the Rose palace.” Firelight returned the salute in the Canterlotian style and turned back to Rosewater as Captain Pink marshalled the small group of guards that had followed them at a distance, either out of duty or apprehension.

It was tiring to see the distrust and hate in their eyes as they turned away. Most likely, they’d not heard how things had gone down last night other than that she had been there. Added atop the bone-weary ache settling into her entire being, it was enough to make her want to lay down and just have a cry.

“From my mother?” Rosewater asked instead, resisting the urge to sit or rub at her temples with either spell or hoof.

“Aye. I’ve not opened it yet, as it was addressed to both of us.” Firelight pushed open the door to the office and waved her inside. “After you, my lady.”

Inside, a few ponies looked up from desks where they sat reviewing ledgers and documents, a scattering of Dammers here and there having conversations that came to a halt at the sight of Rosewater, then resumed when they saw who she was with. While the office wasn’t a business center, it was where ponies registered their trades and paid their treaty fees for trading with other cities outside of the Merrie-Damme borders.

Thus, most of the ponies there were traders or representatives of traders, and not as perturbed by her as the citizenry were.

Some of them, she might have even contracted to ship her perfumes to Canterlot and elsewhere.

Firelight’s office was to the back, and the familiar warding settings in the corners of the room were already glowing with the gold of an active spell, blocking out the sound of conversation behind her as soon as she crossed the threshold.

“Privacy here?” Rosewater asked, testing the spell with her own and receiving a gentle feedback pushing her probing back.

“One of the boons granted us by Celestia. The gems are permanently enchanted to keep this room silent when a pony with the emblem of a knight is in residence.” Firelight settled in behind his desk and proffered a letter to her, gilt edges highlighting the crimson envelope. “It arrived just after you crossed the bridge, I’m told, delivered by your youngest sister.”

“I see.” It was a short letter, written in Roseate’s precise, sharp hoof.

Formal Notice from the Rose Palace

Given your actions last night, both in aid of and against my attempts to bring this war to a conclusion and bring the treaty to its final resolution, I am left with no choice but to inform you that any further interference with the efforts towards this aim will result in exile, immediate and unconditionally.

As I have delivered this via the Treaty Office, this is also formal notice under terms of treaty that I will brook no further interference from my daughter and will consider any action she takes that is contradictory to my will to be an illegal and treasonous act.

Roseate Rosethorn

Baroness of Merrie

“I wonder,” Rosewater said as she passed the letter to Firelight to read, “whether she wrote this before I crossed or after, and whether we should expect another courier shortly informing me that I am to be exiled immediately.”

Firelight looked up at her briefly, then set the letter down on the desk and flattened it. “There are two misapprehensions she’s operating under. First, that she has unilateral right to exile anypony she wishes. She has some, which is how she exiled her sister and all we could do was watch. You, however, are protected to some extent.”

“I know. It’s why I was in the library of the Merrie office day after day for a week, making sure I knew which lines I could and couldn’t cross.” Rosewater shook her head and stood up. “I need to return home and rest. I’m exhausted.”

“If I could borrow you for at most a half hour,” Firelight said as he held aloft the emblem of his office, “I want to bring you with me to discuss certain realities with Roseate. It would be in all of our best interests if she were made aware, if she is not already, of the pitfalls she is walking into.”

“If it will mean I get a little peace, at least while I recover, then by all means.” She pushed open the door and gestured for Firelight to lead the way. “It would look best if you lead me, rather than the other way around, so it doesn’t look like I instigated.”

“Tattled, you mean,” Firelight said with a snort, but followed after her.

It was still hard to approach the Rose Palace and all it meant, but with a Royal Guard in front of her to remind her why she was there even through the tired ache between her eyes, it was easier to push the old foalhood memories back.

Even the good memories were hard to bear when she was this tired.

She passed through the meticulously kept gardens and past the ivy rose covered plinths supporting nothing more than an image of the old Equestria, before the fall, and its archaic and grandiose architecture.

The columns were supposedly older than the city itself, but had been repaired and rebuilt at least once in the past five hundred years.

“It reminds me of Canterlot sometimes,” Firelight said, catching Rosewater staring up at the crown of one, atop which stood a pegasus in Merrieguard pink and crimson, watching their entrance with a detached expression. “The columns especially. Celestia is fond of things that remind her of the world left behind, and the world our ancestors tried to recreate.”

“I’d heard something of the sort,” Rosewater said, drawing her attention back to the path. Nopony would dare accost her with Firelight leading her. She needn’t worry about confrontation from the non-nobility that haunted the grounds. “I hope one day to see Canterlot for myself.”

“‘Twould be familiar to you, I think, at least temperature-wise,” Firelight said with a small laugh. “Atop a mountain is a harsh place during winter, but Princess Celestia has made it work.”

Their idle chatter, Rosewater idly pulling bits of information about Canterlot from an amenable Firelight, continued on into the palace itself, where Rosewater began guiding, as he admitted he’d be lost trying to navigate the labyrinthine corridors.

It was for that reason alone that she ran, quite literally, into Rosetail as they rounded a corner, Silk and Vine further down the hall stopping to watch.

“You—!” Rosetail hissed, bounding backwards and lashing her braided tail. “You traitor!”

Rosewater flicked her own tail in a signal for Firelight to stop and shook her head. “I’m no traitor, Rosetail. I was protecting my own interests. I laid claim to Collar as is my prerogative as a prospective future mate, and she is trying, once again, to take him.”

“She has never—” Rosetail snapped her jaw shut and flicked a look back at Silk and Vine, then puffed herself up and advanced half a step towards Rosewater. “She has never tried to take somepony you laid claim to in the Rose Way.”

“This one,” Rosewater said softly, flattening her ears and keeping the disgust out of her voice, “can’t be claimed ‘our way.’ You didn’t see what he was able to stand against from mother, Rosary, Powder, and Well together. I have to play his game, not mine.”

“Because you’re weak,” Rosetail sneered. “Mother is stronger, smarter, and she’s more responsible for the safety of Merrie than you ever were. Why else did you run away?”

It was the oldest, sharpest weapon in her mothers’ arsenal. If you’re so strong, why didn’t you stay? When she’d looked into Vine’s eyes, into Silk’s, it’d bitten hard at her that she hadn’t stayed. Maybe she could have made a positive influence. Maybe she could have rescued her sisters from her mother’s madness and cruelty.

“I’m not going to discuss this with you today, Rosetail. I’m here on an errand.”

Firelight took that as his cue to step around the corner, brows raised, and dipped his head. “Good afternoon, Miss Rosetail,” he said, the emblem of the sun prominent on his breast, and radiating here in the darker hallway in a way it hadn’t in the bright light of the sun; a potent reminder of who his mistress was. “Lady Rosewater is correct. We are on an errand, and would thank you not to hold us up longer.”

Rosetail quailed, her ears flattening, and backed away, glancing back towards her sisters, who’d taken their cue to advance and bracket their youngest sibling between them.

“Be kind, Rosewater. She’s been forbidden the palace by mother just this afternoon because she ‘failed’ last night, according to Roseate, and failed again to catch you before you’d made your way to the Prim Palace.” Silk’s voice was rougher than usual, her ears haggard, and Vine’s foreleg was trembling as she raised it to comfort Rosetail. “She’s going to stay with us until this gets sorted out.”

“I’m sorry for what I had to do to you, Silk, Vine,” Rosewater said, lowering her head. “If I’d had more time, I would have been gentler.”

Silk stared at her for a heartbeat, then nodded, and Vine a second behind. “I understand and accept your reasoning. It’s been the talk of the market this morning, you know.”

The only surprising part of that was that Silk had already been to the market.

“And Crown? She’s recovered?”

“After cursing my name to the Mare and back for her migraine this morning, yes,” Silk said with a small smile. “Come, Rosetail, and fair day to you, Lord Knight Firelight.”

Rosetail left without much more than a hesitant glance back and a gentle nudge to the back of the head from Vine.

“Your family is…” Firelight gave a look back over his shoulder as they resumed.

“Our family is broken, Firelight. It has been since my father died.” The shiv of memories jabbed at her mind again, and she fended it off only by biting the inside of her lip and shaking her head. “For me, at least. It’s hard to see past that event.”

“Blue Star was beloved in Canterlot,” Firelight offered gently. “It was a surprise to the entire Knighthood when he announced his intentions to stay in Merrie after his tour and resigned his position.”

“I… am to understand a part of that is due to his illness already starting to wear at his ability to fulfill his duties,” Rosewater said, recalling some tidbit from Carnation.

“Aye. True enough. I was just a squire when he died, but I recall my seniors and Princess Celestia herself attending the funeral. The capital was empty save for us squires and a few junior knights.” Firelight smiled softly. “I’m told the oratory given at the gala that year was memorable.”

“I’m… I’m sure it was.” Rosewater had been six, and the pain of loss and pain of betrayal had been too… she bit the inside of her cheek again and shook her head more sharply. “I’d rather focus on the now. I hope you can understand it’s not a time of my life I want to linger on.”

“Of course. My apologies for opening old wounds.”

Roseate’s door was closed, of course, and the guard stationed outside stiffened in the presence of the Royal Guard, their eyes darting from him to each other and back, their holds on their long cudgels braced against their shoulders with one hoof quivering.

“Royal Guard Firelight Spark to see the Baroness,” Firelight announced as he stopped in front of Roseate’s office door, looking at either guard pointedly, only for them to look away and swallow. “With Rosewater Rosethorn in attendance.”

“Please, enter,” Roseate’s calm voice said as her periwinkle magic enveloped the handles of the double doors and swung them wide. “I was expecting you, daughter, but not with such distinguished company.”

“My company shouldn’t have been necessary,” Firelight said with a stern look as he came inside, ignoring the bench-seat she pushed out for him. “Your daughter Rosetail relayed the message to me when I asked. Would you care to explain?”

“Which message? I gave her several, depending on the context of the situation she arrived in.” Roseate leaned to the side to peer theatrically around Rosewater. “Where is your sister, Rosewater?”

“Hiding. Is it any wonder? I doubt she saw me return from the treaty office. I came back from my errand only this past quarter hour.” Rosewater glanced over her back as the silencing wards in the room lit up, but Firelight seemed unperturbed. It made her wonder just how strong the Royal Guard, or at least Firelight, actually was if he was so calm here. “I can’t imagine what you said to her over last night’s fiasco, or what you must have said to her when she failed to catch me.”

“Rosewater,” Roseate said genially, “what have you engaged in, my daughter?”

“I’ve offered to engage Damme directly as Rosemary’s guardian to negotiate for her return, mother,” Rosewater said, smiling and bowing her head. “They accepted. The negotiation is no longer being handled by Merrie or her sitting Baroness.”

Roseate stiffened, but a glance at Firelight told Rosewater all she needed to know about how her mother felt about her chances against him.

“To that end, I am informing you that I have filed the necessary documents with the Treaty Office to be recognized as the official negotiator.”

“Do you have the paperwork?” Roseate demanded, glancing at the Royal Guard again. “For the records. I need to make sure that any bureaucratic endeavors are cancelled.”

“I have it here,” Firelight said, drawing out not the scrollwork… but the red envelope.

As soon as she saw it, Roseate froze in place, going unnaturally still as if the force animating a statue had ceased for all of a frozen breath.

“Ah. I seem to have forgotten it… but this brings me to another concern,” Firelight said in the same genial tone. “Threats of exile against your heir in order to keep her from a Treaty-bonded negotiation are punishable by sanction not only against the city, but against your house and family. In fact, I’ve already sent a recommendation to Her Highness, Princess Celestia that we review any and all exile orders to ensure the sanctity of the process.”

“I would never—”

“What you would or would not do is not at question. What you have done is. Threatening, intimidating, or otherwise interfering with the delegates of a Treaty negotiation for the return of a prisoner of war is illegal.” Firelight slapped the letter on the desk. “The only reason I have not recommended sanctions to Her Highness is that you could not have known prior to the penning of this letter. This is your one and only warning.”

Roseate’s cheek twitched. “I see.” The fury in those eyes, hot and malignant, should have set the letter on fire. Her jaw worked for words that she couldn’t say to a representative of the highest power in Equestria, legal or magical.

“Is there anything else you wish to bring up?” Firelight asked.

“Nay. Only that in the interest of familial unity, Celestia look favorably upon my… unconditional means of negotiation. Merrie has paid enough in reparations and herdgild of late. This responsibility is mine, as her guardian.”

"Then I will include that in my report as well. Thank you, Roseate, for your time. I hope I don’t have to meet you like this again.”

“Mother,” Rosewater said, rising with him. “I’ll be retiring to my home. It has been a tiring two days.”

Roseate sat quietly behind her desk, staring between them, her cheek twitching and the tendons in her neck standing out as her jaw clenched tight over the verbal abuse that waited just below the surface.

On her way out, she saw Silk and Vine conversing quietly off to one side of the garden path, Rosetail nowhere in sight.

She was young, and had a lot of anger in her. And doubts. It hurt to see her youngest sister strung along so neatly behind her mother, but there wasn’t much she could do that Silk and Vine couldn’t also.

Take care of her, please.

“We don’t have a duty to look after her.”

Silk Rose looked up from her book to her sister. Dear, sweet Rose Vine. She was pacing back and forth in their sitting room, tail lashing with every turn, hoofsteps muffled on the carpet. She was kind, and beautiful, and thoughtful. Most of the time. And even now, as agitated as she was, she inspected their home for dirt and smudges and anything not clean, and cleaned it as she passed.

Her golden mane streaked with pink was tied back roughly into a bun at the base of her skull, stray strands slipping free further with every turn and toss of her head, her pink eyes darting to Silk and away, the unasked question about calling upon one of their lovers to share passing between them and falling away again. Neither of them had the stomach for sex.

It’s just us tonight. After dealing with Roseate blowing up following Rosetail’s fleeing, there wasn’t much room for desire. Just worry. Vine was taking it worse, conflicted over wanting to protect the youngest of them and staying out of mother’s warpath.

“We don’t,” Silk said at last, closing her book over a bookmark. “But it’s the right thing to do. Rosewater gave her fair warning.”

“And we don’t owe her—” Vine stopped and turned to look at her. “We do, don’t we?”

“For letting us go? Yes. A little. For letting us rescue Crown and Hip?” Silk snorted. “I used to think she hated all of us.”

Vine resumed her pacing, snapping her tail. “Mother wants us to think she does.”

“Rosewater hasn’t exactly helped things,” Silk reminded her. “She remembers a time before Lace started her reformations. And doesn’t she just love to regale us with stories about how the vile Dammers would love to take us over and, for us…” She touched Vine’s cheek with a spell, drawing her sister away from her worry for a moment to come to her. “We wouldn’t have each other, would we?”

“Mother lies,” Vine whispered, pushing her cheek into the touch as it warmed. “She lied about Rosewater. And Rosemary.”

“Not about everything,” Silk murmured as she rose and nuzzled Vine’s cheek. “The Primfeathers still bombard us with every storm they can get away with.”

Vine nodded into the touch, her breathing slowing as she calmed. “Where do you think she’ll be?”

“Somewhere mother won’t think to find her. But someplace she can drown her sorrows.” Silk drew away before the old desire could rise again. She and Vine had never partaken of each other directly, but she’d seen the look Vine had given her while they were with their lovers. There was no shortage of temptation on either side.

“I can think of one place where we’re not exactly welcome either,” Vine said, drawing away but meeting her eyes. The spark between them grew and faded in an instant of acknowledgment. “Rosy Glow Tavern.”

“I don’t think she’s ever banned us from the tavern. She just doesn’t like us,” Silk said as she turned and pulled down a cloak from its hook. “Best to go incognito anyway.”

Vine nodded quietly and drew hers down as well. Anypony who knew them well would recognize the matching garments, but most would only know them as daughters of Roseate and leave them alone.

Veiled, Silk watched from across the road and through a window as Rosetail sat quite in the open her head lolling from time to time in between drinks of wine. Their youngest sister, who Silk still remembered as having once been as sweet as Rosemary, had been crying. Her reddened eyes could have been from drink, but the crusty tracks down her cheeks could only be tears.

“She doesn’t look good,” Vine murmured, her pink eyes shining as she watched from their table at the Rusty Rose. It was a competitor to Rosy Glow’s, but open air and winding down its business as the last afternoon vestiges of summer warmth marched steadily south. It was more geared towards tourists anyway, and a few Canterlot accents filled the air, as did more distant Los Pegasan, and even the strange, not quite grown up burr of Cloudsdale, still not quite the dream it had started out as.

Tables were set haphazardly, but spaced so that native Merriers and tourists alike could talk or maintain an aloof air if they wished. The Rosy Glow was an exclusive Merrier establishment, and ran year-round. Its tables spaced closely, with short partitions between the bench seats so that Merriers could talk and chat and share life and love with each other without reservation.

“I’m surprised she didn’t pick this place,” Silk whispered back. “Much easier to stay alone.” As evidenced by the ponies that steadfastly ignored the veiled mares in their midst. Not that the Merriers in the Rosy Glow tried to make conversation with Rosetail. She was unveiled, openly displaying her Rosethorn heritage in a tavern not quite hostile to them. But maybe that’s what Rosetail wanted, to sink into a depression surrounded by ponies that hated her.

“We do need to watch over her,” Vine said, seeming to follow Silk’s reasoning. “Remember how she used to be?”

Years and years ago, when she and Vine had been little more than fillies, just growing out of foalhood, Rosetail had been Roseline’s favorite granddaughter aside from Rosewater herself. Even from her dotage months, Roseline had kept her hoof in family affairs until her death, when Rosetail had only barely turned one.

“We…” Had only been fillies, still overawed by Roseate. Silk shook her head. “I think there’s still that filly in her somewhere. Look at her, Vine. Tell me she’s not in there somewhere.”

“You know I can’t,” Vine said with a heavy sigh. “We should go rescue her.”

“She won’t appreciate us coming in and taking her away from her comfort,” Silk said, but couldn’t find it in herself to say no. Just one look from Roseate had done this to Rosetail. They couldn’t let Roseate find her in this state. “But…”

Vine slipped from her chair and left some bits on the table. “I’m going to go to her.”

Before Vine reached the ‘entrance’ of the Rusty Rose, Silk followed after, leaving a few more bits on the table to cover the time they’d spent not ordering anything and annoying Rose Rust, the tavernkeep. “Do we have a plan?”

Vine snorted, not quite a laugh. “Plan? I haven’t planned anything since… you know. I’m going to do what’s right, Silk.”

The street was bustling with late-afternoon traffic, ponies trying to get business done before the official close of the business day, the cacophony of calls and cries a music that Silk enjoyed to dive into on occasion. Vine liked to watch from the sidelines of the trade and bartering bustle that filled the market streets.

Today, she dove through it. Or along the edges. The shops and bazaars on either side of the tavern row tended to spill out into the street at this hour, but still let ponies get to the entrances of the edge bars and taverns.

“I’m with you,” Silk murmured as she caught up.

Rosy Glow’s walls were enspelled to keep out the worst of the bustle, and it was like walking from a waterfall into the cave behind it as the door closed behind them and they dropped their veils to announce themselves.

Rosy Glass looked up from chatting with some patrons and glowered. “One of you is enough. Find someplace else to drink yourselves stupid.”

“We’re here to make that none of us, Rosy Glass,” Silk said with a huff.

“Peace,” Vine said, quick stepping to stand between Silk and Glass. “Please, we’re here to retrieve our sister.”

That gave the tavernkeep at least pause. “Rose Vine, right? Rosewater has said nice things about you.”

Silk gaped at Glass. “Rosewater?”

“It’s you lot that painted her as the Rose Terror, you know.” Glass glowered at Silk again, ears going flat. “Those of us that knew her before… not that what we think means a hill of beans, it seems like.” She shrugged and slid from the bench she shared with a stallion trying hard not to pay attention to the confrontation. “Haven’t seen her in here for years, though. Because of you lot. Does family mean nothing to you?”

Silk looked away. How little she knew about her sister wasn’t something that got thrown in her face often. “She abandoned us,” she offered weakly.

Glass opened her mouth, ears flat, and closed it again. Tendons tightened in her neck as she clenched her jaw and relaxed again. “Get her out of here. I’ll send a bill for her last few bottles.”

Vine edged up to Rosetail, her eyes bleary and bloodshot, unfocused on anything. “Tail, honey?”

Silk stayed back, shifting her gaze between Vine and Glass, wanting to help, but not wanting to give Glass any reason to change her mind and physically throw them all out. The stout earth pony could give them a real fight that Silk didn’t want.

“You…” Rosetail whimpered and pushed a hoof at Vine. “Go ‘way.”

“Shh, shh. We’re here to take you someplace safe, little Tail,” Vine whispered. “Come with us, okay?” She settled a warming spell on Rosetail’s neck and under her cheek. “Come on, little mare.”

Glass shifted her attention from Silk to Vine and softened her look. “She’s been crying for her mommy,” she said with a touch of gruff derision. “Don’t mean that as an insult, that’s what she’s been sayin’.”

Roseate’s poisoned lies. Silk’s ears drooped as she came closer to Vine and covered Rosetail with a blanketing spell and. “Can you walk?”

“At her weight, I’m surprised she’s still conscious,” Glass said with a snort.

“And you kept filling her glass?” Silk growled the question, fixing the tavernkeep with a glare. “Why?”

“Pity, mostly,” Glass said with a thin smile. “Haul her out, will you?” She turned away, dismissing them.

Rosetail managed to walk part of the way to their home before Vine and Silk had to carry her between them. She hadn’t passed out exactly, but had lost what little coordination had let her stumble along, braced between Silk and Vine.

Neither of them wanted to risk getting vomited on by carrying her on a rolling ride on their back, but they had still managed to hoist her with magic between them, keeping her head steady until they got home.

“How is she?” Silk asked from the entrance to the toilet, peeking her head in minutely and testing the air. Vomit fumes with the undercurrent of wine filled the small, boxy room.

“Sleeping, I think,” Vine said, stroking Rosetail’s brow with a warm cloth. “She got most of it out of her system, but she’s going to be in a bad way tomorrow.”

That was a blessing. They could stay in and nurse her instead of being expected to be at the palace. “Do you think she might be safe to sleep in the guest bed?”

“Even if she’s not, we can clean the sheets, love.” Vine looked up, her ears flat. “I had no idea Rosewater thought kindly of me.”

“Nor I,” Silk said, frowning. “Or that she shared it with others. What else don’t we know about her?”

“It’d be easier to list what we do know.” Vine shook her head and pushed herself up, wobbling until Silk caught her. “Thanks. That last bit was exhausting.”

“I know. Let’s get her into bed, then we can talk and plan.” She met her sister’s eyes, finding the worry mirrored in her mind there. “We need a plan, Vine. There’s too much going on here for us to muddle our way through.”

“I know.”

Author's Notes:

Part 2 done, and Book 1 is now officially done!

Interludes can be considered either an epilogue to this story or, probably more apropos, a prologue to book 2, but yay web serial! I don't have to decide!

Interludes 1. Life in Bits and Pieces

Firelight Spark stepped into the golden circle in the most secure room in the Damme Treaty Office and sealed the door behind him. The fact that he had instant access to Princess Celestia’s word was a carefully kept secret, even from the other ponies in the Royal Guard, and it was his duty as a Knight of the Sun to keep the princess’s secrets.

He closed his eyes and focused on the amulet at his breast, and the store of Celestia’s power in the yellow diamond hidden in its center. Rarer than black diamond, it was said to have been formed at her ascension to immortality, a fragment of pure magic crystallized.

“Your highness,” he said softly, sending the magic out to sink into the circle.

“Sir Spark,” Princess Celestia’s voice said gently, her image appearing to him. She lay comfortably somewhere, her form etched in sunlight, gleaming and beautiful, more so than when he’d seen her in person and accepted this assignment so many of his fellow knights considered a backwater station. “I was surprised to receive your request for a commune. I take it there’s been a change in the status quo?”

“Yes, your highness. Roseate treads on thin, rotten ice.”

“Has she crossed a line?”

“Not yet. She knows which lines you have set, your highness, and she edges her hoof against them, but she has not crossed yet.” Briefly he related the contents of the missive sent to Prim Palace, and the attempted balking of a guardian’s rights. “Rosewater has pushed past the lines her mother has drawn, and Primline Lace has yet to file a formal complaint.”

“Remind Roseate who set the treaty in place, Firelight,” Celestia said in a soft, dangerous voice. “And remind her that there is no greater sanctity than that of a family, even if it is one given by law instead of by blood.”

“You wish for me to intervene, your highness?”

Celestia cocked her head slightly, sighed, and clucked her tongue. “Thank you for reminding me of the limitations I set forth. Only intervene as far as Rosewater’s rights to her daughter are concerned. Has she kept it a secret still? Or has she actually claimed her?”

“Secret, but she’s gone to Primline Lace to treat with her directly.”

“I wish that mare would be open…” Princess Celestia shook her head, her ears dipping. “But she is moving, and I suppose I can’t blame her for wanting to be cautious. As she should be.”

“Will you let her be exiled?”

Celestia hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. “If she clearly breaks the laws of her city, and not the arbitrary rules that Roseate puts in place, I will have little choice if I wish for the rule of law to be abided. But I will not tolerate Roseate putting restrictions on what she can and can’t do within the law.”

“And Roseate attempting to capture Lord Collar for the Herdgild?”

“As it’s within the law…” Celestia said with a sigh, shaking her head. “At the time, it was a way to keep them from killing each other and still getting to ‘fight.’ Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to end the war and force them.”

Firelight said nothing. There was nothing he could say. That the war had gone on for centuries was bad enough, but the continuation of the blood feud between the leading houses of each city was well-studied historically, and had been his chosen course of study as a squire. It was a part of why he’d been chosen for this mission.

“Very well. Please continue to monitor the situation, Sir Spark. And one other thing. Your diplomatic bags will be all but empty on the next ship. Make a discreet offer to send a letter to me that I can forward to Carnation when she next visits the office.” Celestia’s smile bloomed into genuine warmth. “As a reward for finally pulling her head out of the sand.”

Spark bowed slightly. “Of course, your highness.” It was technically against the treaty’s regulations to do so, but who was going to tell Princess Celestia she couldn’t push a little on the side. “Will she be able to receive a letter back in reply?”

“Unfortunately not. The time it would take for a messenger to travel to you without drawing attention would be too great before the saner ship captains decide to stop northward service from the Los Pegasus docks, and I’ll not risk sending a pegasus courier north to bend the law.”

“Understood, your highness. I’ll make that plain.”

“Thank you. Please stay safe for the upcoming winter, and please don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything I should be made aware of.”

The sunlight illusion of Princess Celestia faded away into the purple dusk of the setting sun.

Firelight Spark remained seated where he was, thinking for several minutes before he rose to continue the day.

The next few weeks would promise to be interesting, at the very least, and he needed to make sure his staff was read up on the laws of both Merrie and Damme before they got too interesting.

“I already paid the treaty tax in Damme,” the trader said, rolling his eyes and glancing back at his cart hauler. “I’m just here to sell flower pots.”

Roselight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Flower pots are still a luxury good, as common as they are in Merrie. If you paid in Damme, you should have a receipt we’ll need the bottom half of.” She eyed the loaves of bread and pastries decorating the top of the pots. She couldn’t embargo his cargo unless she had sufficiently just cause, but that was more than a lunch’s worth. “And the food?”

“Lunch.”

As she’d expected. It wasn’t the first time a pony had tried the switcheroo on either side of the bridge, hoping to avoid taxes on something else and trusting in the animosity between cities to prevent cross-checking. “Ahuh.” She shot a look at her bridge partner for the day and rolled her eyes openly.

“But I paid!”

Roselight took a deep breath and glanced at her partner for the day and flicked an ear at him. “Stay here, Corporal. I’ll go check with the Dammeguard. Your name?” she asked of the merchant.

“Prim Potter.”

“Alright. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

“Rutting Merrieguard,” the merchant muttered under his breath, low enough that Roselight could pretend not to have heard.

She sighed as soon as she was out of earshot and trotted along the sparse line of traffic crossing the Rosewine toward the Dammeguard checkpoint on the other side.

The autumn flow of the Merrie river was low that week, and the rushing gurgle against the pilings down below was a pleasant counterpoint to the murmur of indistinct chatter from the business flowing in both directions over the second-busiest bridge in either city, and the day was bright and just the right temperature for being in armor and on her hooves all day.

At least she had a quiet night with her current lovers at the Garden later to relax and unwind in the baths.

It cost a few bits extra to use the Garden baths than it did to use the public baths in Merrie, but the amenities were above and beyond those anywhere besides the palace baths. It was a pleasant daydream to use as a shield against the likely answer and the inevitable response from the merchant.

“Sergeant Roselight,” the Dammeguard sergeant said as she approached. “One of those days? This is the fourth time I’ve seen you since this morning.”

“Seems like it, Sergeant Platinum,” she said, keeping the careful formality between the Merrie and Dammeguard. “Prim Potter claims he paid on this side. Flower pots.”

“Flower pots.” Platinum snorted and turned to the ledger book. “Don’t you have enough of those?”

“You’d think. Most of the clay deposits are over here anyway.” Roselight winked at the cute stallion inspecting a cart’s undercarriage. “Corporal Shine, good to see you again.”

He flushed pink, but didn’t stop inspecting, though one of his ears ticked furiously.

“Don’t tease the dear,” Platinum called from the guardhouse.

“You couldn’t possibly have heard me.”

“No, but I know you.” Platinum emerged again with the ledger, edging closer than she needed to. “Prim Potter, you said?”

“Yep. Would have been a few minutes ago.” Roselight flicked a look at Platinum as she went through it, then went back to watching the stallion as he waved them on without a receipt. “Lot of food going back and forth between Merrie and Damme lately.”

“Mmm.” Platinum’s ears ticked back. “You should come over more often. Shine’s been talking about you more often.”

“Has he now?” Roselight’s ears perked up, but she didn’t look to the corporal.

“Mmhm. Got a bit of a crush, I think.” Platinum smiled faintly.

“Like you had on Rosemary?” Roselight purred, glancing aside at Shine finally.

“That was…” Platinum coughed. “Here he is. Prim Potter. Claimed to be selling food.”

“Well, he did have some loaves of bread in those pots.” Roselight winked at her counterpart. “I’ll let you off the hook if you let me borrow your corporal to go over the load.”

Platinum shook her head slightly. “If he agrees, sure. But I can’t order him to go.”

“Fine, fine.” Roselight clucked her tongue. “But I hate to see a pony suffer from a crush. It’d be better if he got to know me.”

Platinum’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t give Roselight any indication why. “Corporal, have a volunteer assignment for you. I think we’ve got a bait-and-switcher. Maybe something more.”

“Ma’am?” Shine looked up from his questioning of another bridge-goer, a civilian with no cart and only a look of earnest curiosity in his eyes. Probably a ship-pony, from the look of him, Roselight decided.

“Roselight needs a little insight on what he told you, so…” Platinum shrugged. “Next patrol is due by soon, so I’ll ask for a couple replacements to pick up the slack.”

“Um.” Shine looked at her again, his ears perking and showing his interest plainly before that Dammer hesitancy kicked in and he forced them back down again. “If it’s necessary, yes ma’am. I’d rather not have the Treaty office ding us for improper taxation.”

That was good enough for her. If she could get one more Dammer to open up…

“Busy day,” Shine said, his voice hitching as he laughed nervously.

But not a boring one. Roselight smiled more broadly. “Yep.”

There weren’t many ponies that liked working with raw soaps. The ingredients for them were too caustic for most Merriers to handle without seriously damaging their sense of smell. Lye, for example, was caustic and smelled horrible, not to mention dangerous to work with, especially for an earth pony.

Roseling was an expert, and she’d learned early on that her special talent helped her to work with lye safely, and turn it into the soaps and shampoos that she made, turning down the astringent smell while still keeping the cleaning power.

Not all of what she made were lye-based, but a good enough number of them were that she had to move her small manufactory outside of Merrie proper, and closer to the source of the wood ash she used as her primary source.

It was a quiet haven for her to work, and the smell of leaching wood ash meant none of the ponies that had tried to harass her over the past year tended to follow her, lest they lose their sense of smell for a week or more.

Even after you stopped seeing me, they kept coming, Rosewater, so what good did it do either of us?

Roseling sighed through her mask and poked the sludge bubbling slowly in the cauldron with the skein. She would need to skim this batch soon, once the ash settled to the bottom and the lye rose to the lipped rim and the stopper she’d placed to guide it into a catch basin.

It was something Rosewater would have been fascinated by, how Roseling made her soaps. She had been endlessly fascinated even after their naked chase through the woods to make love in a clearing by the different techniques Roseling employed to get the highest quality, least caustic lye possible.

That one night still resonated with her even a year later, and the thought of a potential lover who’d been so fascinated by her art being lost…

She tossed her head and brought her attention back to the process, touching the tip of her hoof against the black iron and pouring forth her intent and her magic into the bubbling contents.

When she channeled the magic through her hooves, the heat couldn’t reach her, but she never wore shoes while out here. It was too hard to keep the metal cool so it wouldn’t hurt after she stopped pouring her magic in.

When she was done reducing the stink of alkaline to something she could manage without a mask, once all of what could reasonably be leached from the mix of hardwood and a little bit of softer wood ash, her secret ingredient, she levered the stop out of the way and let the liquid fall into the heavy iron pail she’d use to dry it out into a crusty powder before adding the olive oil she used for the fatty base for this particular soap.

It was one of her more popular scents in Damme, and while she still had most of her business in Merrie, even her regulars were getting antsy about the way Roseate seemed to have it in for her, and her regular couriers were too scared to cross the river and risk getting their own businesses targeted.

At least the Garden was doing something about it. Sort of. Rose Petal was trying to quietly organize the other merchants and craft-guilds of Merrie to take a stand against the war and the way it was hurting business and trade, the lifeblood of any city.

She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to accept the invitation of the heiress of the Rosewine Vineyard and get herself into a deeper mess if it all came to naught.

Once the lye sludge had cooled enough for her to attach to her saddle carry harness, she locked up her storage shack and made her way back to Merrie proper, keeping her mask on both as a warning to other ponies about the stench and to keep the milder alkali stench from burning her nose.

Ponies who knew her gave her a wide berth as she made her way through the streets, and those that didn’t did so as soon as they got upwind of her. Some day, if she managed to get the permit approved and the bits built up, and maybe a partner who loved soapmaking as much as she did, she’d move her soapery out of town so she could avoid the grumbles and glowers.

The latter were a result of Roseate’s campaign of whispers against her.

“Wouldn’t it smell better if her shop went away? The neighborhood wouldn’t smell like lye all the time.”

Except the neighborhood never smelled like lye. She made sure that all of the stinky parts of the process of making soap happened outside the city, but ponies were reminded of it every time she came back with a fresh batch and the brief foray through the neighborhood and back to her shop and the well-ventilated work area.

It was her friends that kept her sane and assured her that nopony who mattered minded, and they even helped out sometimes when she made soap, taking suggestions from lovers who’d stuck with her through thick and thin, who’d known her most of her life.

Waiting at her door was a newer friend, pacing back and forth in front of the cart he used to carry her goods across the bridges to her newest customers.

“Rosetide,” Roseling said, smiling as she removed her mask. “You know my next batch isn’t ready for delivery yet.”

The stallion stopped pacing and the smile that bloomed was bright, his ears dipping as he bowed slightly. “And yet… I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you around the shop. Gran’s resting comfortably, but I get tired cooped up in the house, so…”

“Well…” Roseling winked. “Sure. If you don’t mind lye.”

“Use it onboard ship now and again,” Rosetide said with an eloquent roll of one shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me much.”

A lie, but a polite one. Those faint Rosethorn marks weren’t for nothing, and she could tell he was already having trouble, his eyes watering as he blinked rapidly.

“I promise this is not normal,” Rosetide said through a wheeze as he covered his nose.

“Sure.” Roseling rolled her eyes and fished out the key, let herself in, then held the door open. “But maybe you can help me pick out something to surprise my customers in Damme. You go there more than any of my other couriers.”

Rosetide immediately straightened and brightened, his pink and gold eyes sparkling. “It would be a delight.”

“Come in, Sergeant Platinum.”

Pushing back the tension building in her heart, Sergeant Prim Platinum pushed open the door into Captain Pink’s office in the barracks and saluted with hoof to peytral. “Ma’m, thank you for seeing me, ma’am.”

“Of course, Sergeant.” Captain Pink folded her hooves on her desk and leaned forward. “I try to make time for anypony who needs it. Your message to me was very clearly a case of need.”

“I… don’t know about that.” Platinum still stood at parade rest, hooves resting comfortably in a pose she could maintain for hours and had. It belied the tension in her shoulders and the tightness in her jaw. “Permission to speak freely.”

“As I suspect I know what this is about, granted,” the captain said, sitting back and taking off her circlet of rank. “It gets tight sometimes. Just have a seat, Platinum, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

That hadn’t been how she’d expected to ask what she needed to ask. Platinum took a breath and sidled up to the seat, grimaced, and settled into it.

“I… have a concern.” For yourself or for her? Platinum cleared her throat and looked to the captain for some sign that she would bail her out.

No such luck.

“It’s… Rosemary, ma’am.”

“I see.”

Platinum grimaced and flattened her ears to her mane. “I wanted to know what you thought of her.”

Captain Pink flicked an ear. “I think she’s an exceptionally talented young mare when it comes to her pursuits of things not related to the war.” She settled in more heavily and glanced at the pile of reports on her desk. “But I think I know what’s bothering you. That young mare befriended you, yes? When she should have been sneaking around doing war-things, she was dancing in parks and flirting with the guards that should, by all rights, hate her.”

“Should I have hated her? Captured her right away?” Platinum asked, glancing down at her hooves and not sure what answer she wanted to hear.

“Platinum.” Some tone in Pink’s voice made her look up again. “When I had that talk with you about prejudices and what we do with them, what we can choose to do with them, I wasn’t setting you up for failure. I was setting you up to see the ponies on the other side of the bridge as more than the marks on their cheeks and breast. As ponies, individuals as complex as you and Shine are.”

Platinum's cheeks heated as she nodded. Roselight wasn’t a bad sort of mare. She only had a touch of the Rosethorn bloodline, but there weren’t many in Merrie that didn't have at least a drop of it somewhere in their past.

“I think Roselight is a nice pony,” she said, feeling defensive.

“From all appearances, she is, and she’s taken Shine as much under hoof as it seems you have.” Pink shook her head slightly. “But this isn’t about Roselight, but Rosemary. Should you have captured her?”

Platinum frowned and started to nod, then half shook her head before shrugging. “I don’t know. Not based on what I knew about her at the time, I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s the right answer.” Pink touched her circlet. “When Lady Lace promoted me to captain, one of the things she said she expected of me was to be understanding of our fellows in Merrie, not to jump to conclusions until the investigation finished, and above all, to think.” She pushed the circlet halfway across the desk. “If you were in my place, what would you have done?”

“After the first few days of her playing around on the bridges… I think I might have offered to ask Lord Collar or Lady Lace to give her an escort during the day.” Platinum’s cheeks flushed as an errant hope that it might have been her assigned to the duty. Half from shame, half from desire, she looked away before Pink could see the hurt in her eyes. “After she got arrested, mostly what I’ve been thinking about is if she used me.”

“And that confusion is why I moved you to day shift so suddenly. She took a special interest in you, Platinum, and it’s completely understandable why you feel that way. But… I think you need to talk to her, learn her side of the story.”

“Ma’am?” Platinum snapped a look back at the captain.

“I can’t have my Dammeguard erring too hard on either side of the law, sergeant.” Pink settled the circlet back between her ears, the gemstones glowing faintly then fading as it settled itself into place firmly. “I’m going to cut you some orders to split your time between bridge duty opposite Roselight, with Shine, and time guarding our prisoner in the Prim Palace.”

“Ma’am?” More confusion, and a growing sense of dread filled her. How could she look Rosemary in the eye and not wonder if she’d betrayed her trust? She didn’t want to see confirmation of Rosemary’s duplicity and let her confusion turn into dislike or even hate. It might taint her working relationship with Roselight. It might lead to…

“Talking to her is voluntary, but I expect she’ll want to, once she smells you outside her door.” Pink clucked her tongue and drew out a parchment. “Your lieutenant will have your orders by the end of day.”

“And…”

“And I think there’s little else you can talk to me about. Your questions are all for Rosemary, and all I would make you do is wonder if I was right or not and question my thoughts and evaluation of her.” Captain Pink bobbed her head once towards the door. “You know where my office is if you have any concerns after talking to her.”

At least you have a reason to see her. Whether that revealed Platinum’s fears or vindicated her hopes…

Stars, I hate this war.

Glory basked in the warmth of Poppy’s lovemaking, the slow-fading pleasure as his cock still stirred inside her, the last little spurts of his come adding just a touch more feeling to the full sensation of his flared head as he settled onto her back more heavily, his lips on her neck ardent and his breath shuddering.

“Love you,” Poppy whispered as he gave one last desultory thrust, determined to give Glory one more shuddering orgasm.

“Love you,” Glory whispered back. While they had Collar’s assurance that their room had been fitted with the silence wards, Glory hadn’t gone behind her mother’s back for nigh on twenty years without being cautious. Even her lovemaking was nearly silent, and the only sign that they had used the room would be the lingering scent of their sweat and passion. “Stars, Poppy…”

Minutes passed as they cleaned up quietly, sharing kisses and nuzzling as the sunlight finally fled from the curtained windows.

“I’ve been thinking,” Glory said finally as she deposited the final towelette into the basket for him to take care of after she was escorted back to the prison by Cloudy.

“About?” He asked, pulling back to look her in the eyes.

“A lot, but… Poppy, have you given some thought to our future?”

His cheeks flushed, but he nodded. “Marriage?”

“Farther along. Or shorter. Foals, Poppy. Ours.” Glory nuzzled his cheek again at his shocked expression. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

Poppy hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “It’s been on my mind, too, but…” He laid back down and stroked her barrel lightly. “You’ve told me about your lovers in Merrie. What do Dancing and Pride have to say? What would they say?”

“That it’s my choice. They’re not my bonded partners, Poppy, and all they know about you is that I have a close acquaintance in Damme.” Glory kissed his nose and sidled closer. “They might be a bit put off, but considering our situation… Poppy, if I’m a parent, even an expectant one, I can divorce myself of the war, of the family, and start my own.”

“And your lovers?”

Glory winced and sighed, settling more heavily into bed. “Stars, I love them, too, but I can’t go to them. I can’t ask you to go, either. It would put all of you in danger.”

Poppy kissed her nose. “We’ll find a way to keep them safe.”

“And you.” Glory leaned back and looked him in the eye. “She’s not going to let you stay out of the conflict if she thinks I’ve betrayed her to stay with you.” It was her greatest fear in keeping her relationship with Poppy secret. Even the risks they’d taken making love in her cell had kept her ready to weave illusion over him in an instant. Now, at least, she could find her comfort with him in the luxury of the palace on occasion, safe from prying eyes. “She’ll take you like she tried to take Cloudy.”

“You’ve taught me a lot about resisting—”

“I am a terrible scent mage, Poppy. My talent is the weaving of light and mist into illusion and invisibility.” Glory shook her head. “What I can teach you is nothing to what even a pony like Rosemary could teach you, or Rosewater if—”

“I won’t let her get near me with scents.”

“She’s not as dangerous… well, I mean, she is… but she has morals, Poppy. Don’t look at her like she’s a monster.” Glory prodded his chest with a gentle hoof. “I know her better than anypony but Rosemary. You have nothing to fear from her. Try to engage her on her next visit, and you’ll see.”

“She’s got a schedule that the guard has posted in the barracks. I didn’t think she’d be able to get that so quickly,” Poppy admitted.

“I wish I could say that she makes moves decisively, but…” Glory shook her head.

“She seems to have always moved that way to us, you know.”

“Only because all you know of her is the rumor and gossip. I know her as a kind and thoughtful mare pushed to do things she regrets to protect what she considers most important to her.” Glory pushed his chest lightly. “She loves Rosemary more than anything else, and has kept her aunt’s request to keep her safe. That’s her guiding focus, or it has been since Carnation left.”

Poppy was silent for several moments, rubbing her ankle lightly with his nose, then crossing horns with her and resting his forehead against hers. “I trust you. I’ll try to talk to her next time I see her. But… I’ve heard a lot about her father lately. She’s half Canterlotian?”

“Blue Star. Former Lord Knight of the Knights of the Radiant Dawn. He stepped down to be a father here in Merrie after finishing his tour with the diplomatic corps.” Glory nodded. “I’ve read as much on him as I could, but most of his history would be in Canterlot. I’ve never been, but I’ve always wanted to.”

“When it’s over,” Poppy murmured, kissing her nose. “I’d love to see it, too, and take you to all the libraries.”

“Pft. Way to make Crown jealous of me,” Glory said with a smirk. “She’d be steaming when I got back if I left her out.”

“She’s… also?”

“A trapped pony. Like Rosewater and I,” Glory confirmed. “Most of us…” It would have been a dream to be free of the war, to live her life and maybe pursue a hobby of helping playwrights make their performances pop just a little more. Scenery, especially. She loved painting with illusion, and a small stage would be just the right size. “Most of us wouldn’t even be raiders, had we the choice. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take us seriously, because we will fight for what little pieces of happiness we can find.”

“I’ve found that makes ponies more dangerous. Not less.”

“Indeed.”

“What are we going to do if it works?”

Dapper looked up from his comfortable pillow to where Lace was studying the slow wilt of the flowers in her garden. Daylight was coming less and less, and this time of year was a naturally melancholic time for her. Both of her parents had passed on in the autumn, and while Collar had been born then, too, the colors of autumn and what they meant weighed on her more and more as the twilight of their years together was drawing close.

“Help them.”

Lace gave him a look, smiled, and nodded. “We will. I’m more worried about after.”

“Wing can’t do much if you put your hoof down, you know.”

“But my ponies can.” It was the relief valve of the Damme constitution and charter, that a majority of her ponies might petition to refute her rule and choose another way. It had only been used one time in the entire history of Damme, when the Primfeathers had been ousted and the Primline family had been chosen to be the new leaders of Damme.

The same kind of avenue for relief did not exist in Merrie. Popular uprising was the only way to oust Roseate, and even then it would be extremely tenuous about who would take the ultimate seat of power, and all the while their neighbor’s instability would be affecting Damme.

Dapper closed his eyes and nuzzled his wife’s neck. “It will be a lot of work.”

“It will be. But…” Lace shifted and leaned back against his nuzzle. “I saw Carnation in that mare today. Scared, tired, but I saw my friend’s hoof in her morals. Fiercer than Carnation could ever be, but…”

“But she’s had to be.”

“Has she? What if I’d reached out to her after Carnation’s exile?” Lace let out a breath and settled more heavily, drawing the coverlet over her more firmly. “So many what ifs.”

“Let them go. What’s happening now is all you need to worry about,” Dapper murmured. “And I feel like there’s enough that’s going to be happening that we’ll not have a lot of time to worry about what might have been.”

“Cloudy,” Lace said, the smile audile in her tone, “seems to be leading Collar towards at least trying to make nice with Rosewater. I think… I honestly think that she might already be falling for the mare.”

“Considering their interactions, I’m not surprised.” He nipped the back of his wife’s neck and nosed her mane. “She reminded me of you, from what you said of her.”

Lace was silent for a moment, then settled in deeper into bed, relaxing by inches. “Her preconceptions of Rosewater have been challenged left and right. The mare strikes me as the type to want to experience more of life than hide from it, and I can only hope that Rosewater is who she revealed herself to be.”

“I don’t think,” Dapper said, slipping a wing under the blanket to cover her side, “what you told me was a lie. In Merrie, there’s a saying that words lie and actions speak truth.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” Lace said with a huff. “Overly wordy Merrier philosophy.”

“Overly concise Prim sayings,” Dapper huffed right back, smiling into her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, my Rose.”

Dapper’s smile broadened and settled in more heavily, letting his eyes close as he thought of ways to reach out to Rosemary more clearly, how to help his son find his way through the tricky relationship he seemed headed for, whether he accepted Rosewater’s proposal or not.

The thin journal, bound with oilcloth and resting on a shelf, forgotten for sixteen long years, was covered with dust when Lace pulled it down from the high spot on its bookcase in her office.

She hadn’t looked at it, nor even thought about it often, since Carnation had ghosted it across the river to her for safekeeping. It was a precious thing, Carnation had said, and contained words that the mare growing up to be more than a daughter to her would need to hear.

From whom they were from, whether they were Carnation’s own or another’s, she didn’t know. For all she knew, it could be the collected ramblings of a younger Roseate.

She doubted the last, though. Carnation had spared no love for her eldest sister, though hate was far from her heart. The note attached to the outside was simple, written in a block-type scrawl that wouldn’t trace back to the author in any way. It was at the height of Carnation’s fears about being found out by her sister, before she’d started to relax into her role as a hidden agent of Damme.

If I’m caught, you’ll know who to give this to and when.

Hardly precise instruction, but the events of the last days had certainly been notable enough to make her think about Carnation again, and to pique the memory of the bound book. To whom was almost certainly Rosewater, but she needed to be certain of that.

The cloth draping it fell away as she unfastened the bindings, and a faded note inside slipped free and drifted, then stopped, surrounded by Lace’s magic.

The final testament of Blue Star, loving father.

Suddenly hesitant, Lace placed book and note on her desk and cracked it open to the first page.

To my dearest daughter, Rosewater Star Rosethorn.

These are words you will need to hear when you are older, when you can understand what they mean. I’m entrusting these to your aunt Carnation to pass on to you when the time is right. I have not long, but there are things every child needs to hear from their father. That I was brought up to believe needed to be said.

First, I love you. With all my being. Whatever else happened between your mother and I, I do not regret, nor would I undo any decision I made, so long as you were there to smile and laugh and tell me all about your day.

Lace closed the book and held a hoof to her lips, breath tight in her chest. She would need to be careful when she gave it to Rosewater.

At the wrong time, it might ruin her.

Stars above.

Author's Notes:

I want to thank Hypervelocity, Carapace, and Minds Eye for helping me decide what viewpoints to include in this little collection of slices of life on both sides of the river.

Enjoy this glance at some of the side-personalities that are important in different ways, to greater and lesser magnitudes, to the the longer story.

Next week, new chapters will be posted Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the three part opener to book 2, The Primrose Gala, and chapter 1 - Chasing Scents.

Book 2, 1. Chasing Scents, part 1

Three days of being confined to the palace was more than close to torture for Cloudy’s sensibilities. Denied the sky, the wind, and taking off whenever she wanted, it was enough to drive a mare mad.

The consolation was that she got to spend time catching up with Rosemary. An hour here, a night there, talking. Nothing but talking. Sex was right out. Cloudy wasn’t sure if she could feel right if that was the first thing she defaulted to when she got back together with her longtime lover. Her one-time best friend she’d been forced to flee from.

But the time was well spent. She told Rosemary about her time in the Dammeguard, the friends she’d made, and the trials she’d faced as a Merrier donning the blue of House Primline, the stewards of Damme.

In turn, Rosemary told her of her life, both with Rosewater and about the town. It was during those talks that Cloudy learned more about her date than she had from the mare herself. The love behind closed doors, the care Rosewater took to at least appear to adhere to Roseate’s strictures, and pretend to be cowed.

To Cloudy, it seemed that the act of acting cowed wasn’t much different from the reality. Especially when the end result wasn’t that much different. The only thing different, in fact, that Cloudy could determine from talking to Rosemary about it, was the feeling that Rosewater stated she was only playing along until the right moment.

Not that I have a lot to say… I ran instead of facing her.

And now she was going to chase Rosewater in the old way. If Rosewater had been cowed, truly, it would be an easy chase and hopefully a wakeup for the mare that things were not right in her world. The chase was at the heart of Merrier romance since days before the founding of the two cities. A game of skill and chance and adapting, it wasn’t looked on with much favor in Damme, but there had been a few mares who’d been willing to try the game.

Sunrise had been one such, far away from prying eyes to the north where they could soar and dive and chase each other from cloud to cloud without needing to worry that she would be spotted by her family or those close to them.

Few unicorns took her up on it, and for good reason. A pegasus had a distinct advantage of mobility in a chase and if a unicorn was less than skilled at subterfuge and stealth, Cloudy could find them.

But I never saw her until she wanted me to see her, she reminded herself, smiling as she stood still, letting Collar inspect the harness she’d tied to her body. It was a Rosewing’s girdle, sewn with pockets and loops to hold all manner of a mistweaver’s tools of the trade. Tools she hadn’t needed in a year. More than a year.

“Are you sure this is all you need?” Collar asked her quietly as he tightened the cinch over her shoulder. A brace of pouches settled against her breast and shoulders, easy to reach with a turn of the head or a dip to pull free the contents. Satchels of flower petals, ready to crush between her teeth and release the scent they’d been soaked in. “It seems kind of light for… well… for facing Rosewater, even if it’s consensual.”

“For a Rosethorn, it would be,” Cloudy agreed with a kiss to his chin. “I’m a Rosewing. We’ve never relied overmuch on things. Our wings are our power. Our control over wind and weather. Mist especially. My mother, Windrose, is still one of our best mistweavers. Mist shuts down scent in most cases, but for us…” She grinned fiercely. “They’re our allies against the Rosethorns and Incensers.”

“It doesn’t seem to stop Rosewater…” He waved a hoof. “Her magic seems to thrive with mist.”

“Rosewater is a talented mare. And… yes.” Some of the Rosethorns, even some of the lesser cousins, knew tricks to get around mist. “Some scents are amplified by mist. I wouldn’t want to face any of the Rosethorns even with a night full of mist at my disposal. Silk, especially, if she managed to tie my muzzle shut with one of her tendrils.”

“And you’re sure about this?” he asked, the worry in his voice evident. He still didn’t approve of her going alone. “I could—”

“No. This is… this is how proper Roses court. The chase. It’s in our blood, Collar.“ She ruffled her wings and stretched out her hind legs. “And I trust her. Mostly. She came to us, Collar. And I saw her before.” She swallowed and turned to face him fully. “I saw her break down when she feared for your safety. She’s either in love with you for what you’ve done for Rosemary, or she feels she owes you for saving her baby girl.”

He grunted and tugged on her harness again. “I think you’re as tight as I can get it without restricting your movement. How late do you think you’ll be?”

“No idea. I’ve never tried to hunt her seriously one-on-one. And she’s never done the same to me.” Cloudy chuckled. “I’ll be okay. It’s still too soon after Firelight Sparks appeared at the Rose Palace to give them all a drubbing for them to try anything.”

“We don’t know that.” He pulled her chin up gently and kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Cloudy. You mean everything to me.”

She returned the kiss with a measured heat, nipping his lips before she parted. “I’ll be safe. I promise.”

She left, then, to stop by Rosemary’s room, but the empty guardpost outside told her that Platinum was either talking or making love. She wouldn’t begrudge Rosemary her lovers, either. Silently, she wished her love a good night, and listened only briefly to hear the sound of soft voices whispering.

Unable to tell what they were saying, Cloudy just tucked away how close Platinum seemed to Rosemary under things to be grateful for, and continued on her way.

The night air greeted her with a nip that touched her nose briefly before she flared her wings and called the warmth of the castle behind her to cup her feathers as she crouched and launched, surging upwards on the artificial thermal and racing towards the nearest cloud bank to begin her stalk.

Below her, the city was ending the day’s business and beginning the brief nighttime play that bounded the setting of the sun and the beginning of the safety curfew, when the day’s light still faintly prickled the horizon and made the night less frightening and more beautiful.

Dusky purple still limned the highest buildings on the wharf and reds and golds highlighted the clouds she was aiming for, bathing her in a late-day radiance that marked her out like a comet rising in the sky, an anonymous birdlike speck. She half-hoped that Rosewater was watching to see just how bright her emerald green primary feathers could shine.

Likely, she was watching. As soon as she landed on the cloud and rolled in the misty top, wrapping herself with the neutral smell of rain and wind, she crouched at the edge and raised her scope to study the Merrie side of the river. Rosewater’s house was easy to find, two storied, broad-fronted, and extending into the hill behind it with a red-washed roof and chimneys rising from rooms she hoped one day to explore, to see Rosemary’s childhood home.

Maybe even to lay with her on a cold winter night.

She let the dreams of a night in the future bubble under the surface, warming her as she watched the front door in between bouts of scanning the city below for signs of shadows moving where they shouldn’t.

Rosewater’s door opened abruptly, letting the mare herself out into the deepening night. She was wearing a scarf, her mane done in a light braid that showed off the fact she had no vials tucked into it, and to show off her long, graceful neck.

Every bit of her was grace and poise that night, assured in her power and strength of will. Even the arrogance of not bringing scents was a bit of her. Though that scarf might be a convenient foil for a slender harness like Cloudy’s. Or might, itself, be scented. She stepped down the stairs, her tail low and calm, her ears flicking briefly, and her lips parted in a half-smile that Cloudy could only barely make out.

Figures from the cart yard across the street stepped out of the cover of the roofing to approach her.

No! Cloudy adjusted the viewer to study them. They didn’t wear the livery of the Merrieguard, and their cutie marks were unknown to her. But their attitudes as they approached Rosewater made it clear they were going to make trouble.

And she could do nothing. All she could do was watch and hope Rosewater wouldn’t be delayed from their date.

A giddiness gripped Rosewater, wholly unlike the vengeful flutter that had visited her heart over the past week. I’m going on a date. The first in more than a year. The first date where she had no idea who would win. It might end up like Roseling, with her being chased instead of her being the huntress. It might end up with Cloudy under her or atop her. It might end with only a kiss, or it might end with more.

I don’t know. It was liberating. A not knowing that wasn’t for harm’s sake, but for pleasure’s sake. Something she didn’t need to know until it was over.

She’d spent the day in her workshop considering cosmetics and mane styles, perfumes that she could wear to accentuate her natural aromatic presence without being overpowering. The latter half of the day, she’d spent considering saddles and scarves, hats she could wear to accentuate her height or downplay it. Ankle wraps, too, she considered. Convenient places to store a folded cloth scented with some subtle fragrance to play about in the wind. Or simply to accentuate the definition of her ankles.

In the end, she’d reminded herself it was a first date, and not simply a fling. A first date was a subtler affair, gentler. She couldn’t thrust herself at Cloudy and hope the mare would accept her advances. She had to play the mare at a longer hunt.

A first date was when she had to show her best, natural side, not to flaunt herself.

I want her to see me as me.

She chose a scarf she’d carefully descented, making it a blank slate for her plan, and her route, one she’d followed with Collar not even a month ago, and tucked two tiny vials into its folds. One a peach-base edible scent, sweet and comforting, enticing to taste, the other a tart lemon to excite the senses and refresh the mind, also edible. Or lickable.

The thought sent a tingle through her that she hadn’t felt in some time.

Nothing else. Everything else, she could find in Damme. The baker’s slow-rising bread, the smoking applewood and mesquite smells of smoking fish by the docks if their chase went that way. Or the smells of the dried magnolia blossoms crunching underfoot.

Cloudy loved Damme. The best thing she could do to endear herself to her was show her how much she appreciated the natural scents of her chosen home. At the last minute, she chose, also, to braid her mane down the back of her neck to leave a tail to dance along her shoulder.

And then she was ready. It’s a date. You’ve been on dates before.

A decade ago had been her last courting date and not a chase for sex, when she’d courted a stallion to bring him into her home, her life, hoping to start a life, a family with him, and find solace in a simpler life. A life where she didn’t have to participate in a war she hated to appease a mother who only wanted to use her talents and didn’t care for her happiness.

A mother who’d scared him off after only three days. She’d not heard from him since, but Roseate couldn’t resist gloating over the stallion who’d stood her up, sounding placating, but she couldn’t have known about him unless she’d been watching her, had orchestrated the scaring off of her would-be lover, Hollyhock Rose, a distant, distant cousin of hers, linked to Rosethorn the wise only through a tenuous parent sometime in the past two hundred years who’d been in one of the off-branches.

He had been kind to her, and interested in what she’d proposed. He wasn’t a long-time friend, but those that she still had were… off limits for various reasons.

She shook her head free of the daydream and took a deep breath before undoing the wards on her door and stepping out into the cooling night, the sun barely holding a purpling, darkening glow over the clouds flowing and parting above both cities.

Maybe it had been for the best, after all. Now, she had an opportunity that she wouldn’t have had if Roseate hadn’t been as malicious and spiteful as she was.

It was time to step towards a beautiful future, and it was going to be a beautiful night for a date with a beautiful mare.

She chuckled at herself and stepped out.

Once she got past the ruffians that Roseate had not bothered to call off from their nightly vigil of her home. The ruffians who, even as she stepped out and adjusted the scarf against the promise of a chill wind, stepped out from the cart yard, reeking of wine.

“Rosewater, all prettied up,” Rosejoy said through a half-slurred laugh. “Where are you going tonight, pretty mare?”

“Away from your delicious wit, Rosejoy,” Rosewater said with a sniff. “It smells like Petal’s cut you off from her supply already. Canterlot White? You’re going soft.”

“Rutting bitch,” Rosejoy muttered, staggering against a bigger male with a half-staff erection. They smelled of sex and rutting. No doubt they had interrupted their play on orders rather than out of a want to harass her. Further into the shadows, she spied a mare and a stallion enjoying each other’s company still. No doubt she’d interrupted Rosejoy just before she had the male.

“Careful with that wit, you might cut butter with it someday,” Rosewater said with a thin half-smile as she veiled and pranced away from the mare towards the river. She didn’t want to cross wits with Rosejoy, as much as crossing wits with a walking, talking bottle of wine was entertaining for short spans, she had far more enjoyable pursuits that night.

She let the curses fade into the wind and susurrus of the river slowing in its wintertime yawning, and looked up to the sky, focusing on her objective and hoping that she wasn’t too late to catch Cloudy rising. If she was, she’d have a hard time catching up to the pegasus, and a far easier time becoming the prey rather than the huntress she was used to being.

One cloud sat still in the drifting sky, with a good vantage of the surrounding cityscape. Too dark to see if there was a glimmer of light flashing from a scope, but her instincts told her that was exactly where Cloudy was. The instincts of prey, of being hunted, woke in her as she studied the cloud on her way to the nearest bridge.

She didn’t bother distracting the guard, instead opting to ghost past silent and invisible even as she woke the drying flower bushes beside them to new scented life, meaning to wake the senses and make it harder for company to follow her.

The Dammers certainly didn’t trust scent magic, but they knew how to counter it in subtle, small ways. The scent masks at their sides would help further, and after that touch, they’d have them closer to hoof. The day lillies in the planter pots would give off a scent to counter lust when crushed, and the more neutral blackberry bushes provided food and a sweet counter to musk from their blooms and leaves.

It was gratifying to see the two guards stiffen at the wakening scent and look about. Alert, too, and no wonder after so recent an incursion.

She looked up in time to see a dim shadow fall from the cloud just before it began its stately journey across the sky again, broad wings parting a heart-stopping distance above the rooftops as Cloudy darted over her, too fast to do more than admire the grace and breadth of her wings.

It was the swoop and dive of a huntress, scattering her quarry, or attempting to.

I am being hunted, then. Attempting to fight that understanding and turn the tables too soon would leave her open to too many headstrong counters. Better to lure her away from her home and familiar ground. Routes through the city sprang to mind, ways she could turn the hunt about and still end up on top. Draw her through a stand of broad-limbed oaks, force her to land to continue to track her. Or take refuge under a magnolia and force her, again, to land to find her.

She had her secondary goal, too, of winding her way through the city and binding it to her scarf, weaving the place Cloudy loved into the garment she meant to leave with her by the end of the night, whether the hunt came out…

Rosewater hesitated under the broad boughs of a magnolia, its wide, heavy, waxy leaves giving her cover from the more frequent patrols above.

Hunt is wrong. Rosethorns hunt. The pegasi call it a chase. Chased and chaser. I am chased, tonight… but… She grinned and bared her teeth at the night sky. There was always room and opportunity for it to be turned around.

There was, of course, a heightened presence of Dammeguard in the city at night. It would likely last until winter called a halt to the war. Not even the best scent mage could hide their tracks in fresh-fallen snow in time to escape.

Their presence, though, was an obstacle to the date, adding a feeling and reality of danger if she were caught, where Cloudy might betray her. If she had the inclination.

Tonight would be a momentous night, no matter how it turned out.

Her eyes on the sky as much as the ground, she spotted Cloudy taking several higher passes, surveying and mapping possible routes, no doubt. Where Rosewater would duck, where she might flush her quarry to the best effect.

The game would be over when there were no more moves to make. One would corner the other. In the last moments of the game, it was the most tense, the most exciting, when everything might be turned on its head, when Rosewater might yet turn things around and find herself looking down.

Roseling had chased her from the start, blocked her escape by her swiftness and agility, her keen nose, and her wits, and caught her in a copse where Rosewater, panting, had lain and rolled to bare her throat and belly to the victor. But her huntress hadn’t taken the kiss or the lick on exposed neck or stomach, but taken a kiss from the lips, equals in a fine chase.

She let the memory slide through her as she flicked her tail to the side then covered herself again. This was no fling, even if there was no mating tonight, she would have to relieve herself of the desire on her return home. Mayhap she could capture enough of Cloudy’s scent to…

Hooves danced on the pavers behind her, and a rush of wind snapped over her as Cloudy landed ten paces away, wings still spread, a predatory smile creasing her lips as she considered the swirl of wind around Rosewater’s form, the eddies that kicked up around her ankles and body, the flutter of her scarf snapping in the wind. The clink of vials tapping together.

“Careless,” Cloudy whispered, her wings raised in a snap-launch position. “So very careless, Rosewater. Clinking. From you?”

Adrenaline surged through her as she snapped her veil into invisibility and danced aside as the pegasus launched and landed just to her side, wing brushing through the veil to touch her side.

First touch to her. Rosewater broke into a full gallop, sending the sound of her hooves clattering down another alley before she cut off the sound entirely.

Cloudy snapped up behind her, the rush of her rise chasing after Rosewater as she made a wild turn down the alley. The scarf. She’d barely noticed the way it fluttered in the wind, or considered how its disturbance of the flow of air and the sound of it rustling might give her away in her daydream.

Careless was right. She stopped abruptly at the entrance to an alleyway and let her veil slip back to a shadowy cloak. Two Dammeguard in front of her, laughing and chatting, their eyes alert and the smell of coffee hanging about them.

Wings overhead, beating on the air before hooves settled onto the roof above her.

“Hoy, Cloudy,” one of them called. “Fine night!”

Cloudy laughed, her voice breathy and light. “Ah, you have no idea how fine a night it is, Branch! The winds! They sing tonight.” Her eyes dropped to almost meet Rosewater’s.

“Hah! I heard they finally let you out. Don’t let it get to your head. There’s Roses about tonight. Midline Bridge reported scent magic not ten minutes ago.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but worry about your own steps, too. I’d hate to see you swooning.”

The guard rolled his eyes and nudged his partner, and the two of them started off at a steady pace, chattering like magpies about this and that going on about the city, and especially about Rosewater’s visit to the palace under the flag of treaty.

Neither of the guards took notice of the blended shadows clumped in the lee of a baker’s shop, just below where Cloudy was perched. Her veil was all but perfect from the ground. All Cloudy needed to do was alert them to her presence. Tell them it was her that had done the unconscionable deed.

But she didn’t. She studied Rosewater instead, silent and intent, her wings open slightly to taste the wind’s shape and texture. Cloudy was one of the finest flyers in Damme or Merrie. No doubt the wind was telling her enough. More than enough, she noted as Cloudy raised her wing, drawing a column of air up past Rosewater to let Cloudy taste the scents on it. A dangerous move against a prepared Rosethorn, but in a chase…

Cloudy’s smile grew as she drew in the scent. “You came clean,” she whispered into a breeze that flew down to Rosewater’s ear and dissipated on a subtle downstroke.

Rosewater veiled completely again and backed into the alley instead of darting out into the street, silent, subtle, unexpected.

Cloudy frowned and studied the alley and the street beyond, then snapped up into the sky again, her eyes scanning both road and alley as the wind scattered leaves and dust.

Rosewater only had to move with it to keep from disturbing the patterns, using the flowing nature of the scarf to follow them rather than try to control them, before she ducked around the building opposite Cloudy and leaned against the facing, her heart pounding. Danger and allure. Roseling hadn’t been so exciting.

But Cloudy had kept her promise. So long as Rosewater kept hers, she might still come out on top.

She was wearing a scarf. Rosewater was wearing a scarf. It was such an insane thing to wear on a chase, and yet it fit her perfectly. Absolutely. It was stylish and useful at once. Cloudy could see the advantages as soon as she considered them when against a pegasus.

Creating winds, disturbing them in odd ways to confuse the currents, giving weight to an illusion that wasn’t there and fooling the pegasi wind senses. She’d done that before, and with other opponents.

Oh, she could have disappeared entirely and not given Cloudy an inkling that she was there. The mare had proved herself more than capable of that, but that wasn’t the purpose of a chase.

One didn’t run a chase to win, and Cloudy never did. She ran to have fun, to test herself against another, to learn more about them through the way they ran. A proper chase would last only as long as it needed to, to let both participants enjoy the rush and thrill, the old instincts waking to throw life into the blood and sing with the thrills of an age long dead.

Except for this one time, this one custom that Rosethorn and Rosewing and Rosewood had preserved through the ages.

For the first time in more than a year, Cloudy felt her heart racing with the prospect of catching a pony who wasn’t Rosemary or Collar—on the one time she’d tried to teach him how to chase… which he’d ‘won’ before they even started. The cheater.

Cloudy chuckled and surveyed the alleyways all about her perch. She’d lost Rosewater in the rush of wind, probably her using the scarf to make the wind flow around her rather than buffet her. Clever. It was still anypony’s game. Cloudy would need to come down soon to look for her, or Rosewater would need to make a move. The unspoken rules on idle time demanded that the game never stall for longer than it took for the heart to calm.

Just as she was about to leap for the sky and survey the streets, a flicker of shadow near a magnolia tree caught her attention. The wind wasn’t so strong… and even as she watched, a blossom faded from view into shadow… and then was gone.

She saw nothing else, no hint of a pony moving, but it was clear. Rosewater had snagged one of the few remaining magnolia blooms so carefully tended by the earth pony wardens. And left.

Without waiting, Cloudy leapt and dove for the shadows lining the street, stopping short and sending her column of air flowing down the corner, lifting debris, dust, and… a clinking sound again.

She dashed after it, listening for the telltale clinking or the sound of hooves poorly masked, but it wasn’t either that stopped her cold. It was… bread. The smell of rising sourdough, of onion dill and rosemary thyme, nowhere near a bakery stopped her in the entrance to an alley, dark and shadowed.

The smell of magnolias bloomed in the midst of it all, intensifying until it felt like spring had come again and the ice to come was a distant worry.

Then a white bloom sailed out of the shadows and bounced off her nose.

An involuntary sneeze sent a trail of petals fluttering around her, all of them vanishing like sparks in the night as they transformed into the essence of magnolia, a symbol of Damme, that covered her from head to toe.

Blatant scent magic, but not bound to any intent. It was a tease, a way to say ‘I could have ended this now, but I want more.’ It was the mare she thought she’d seen a glimpse of several times, defiance hiding behind formalities and concerns. This was the mare, raw and uncovered.

She understood what it meant to chase. Winning wasn’t winning. Winning was the thrill.

Cloudy’s heart sang as she leapt into the air to give chase, or to flee. She wasn’t certain anymore, and that made her heart thump faster.

This was going to be fun.

Author's Notes:

Book 2 begins!

Book 2, 2. Chasing Scents, part 2

Rosewater dashed out of the alleyway as soon as the spell concluded and the essence of Damme flowed around Cloudy in an iridescent cloud of vapor and magnolia. It was a blatant breaking of the laws in Damme, but it was a time for risks by the stars, and she was going to do what she needed to make this chase the best chase she’d ever had.

Behind her, an emerald streak flashed past the eaves of the buildings and swooped low in the only direction Rosewater could have taken, wings cupping as she braked and swept the alley and the street beyond with a ferocious column of wind that tugged at Rosewater’s tail and sent debris swirling against the opposite wall of buildings and through the low shrubbery of the narrow median.

Cloudy followed it down as Rosewater bolted for a hidey hole under an awning before hooves slapped down behind her and wings swept the space she’d just been.

Sure as rain, it was enough. The wind of her passage betrayed her, and Cloudy snapped around and leapt at her.

Rosewater ducked, but found her tail caught as Cloudy snagged it in her teeth, grinning at her over the pink hairs, then winked and dashed away, prancing away like a deer with her wings sending her bounding into the air only to land again.

Tit for tat. I got you, and you got me. Message received.

It was Rosewater’s turn to laugh and bound after her, noting the path took them out of the city. Or would… it would lead close enough to some of her goal scents to pick them up along the way.

Assuming Cloudy didn’t turn the tables again.

It had been an absolute spur of the moment, catching her tail and not sealing the game with a kiss or a tackle. Just because she could end the game didn’t mean she wanted to end the game, even if Rosewater had made one little gaffe as a tease.

Cloudy laughed and watched as the shadows behind her followed, seeming to stagger from side to side as it blended with shade after shade and shape after shape. She was good, but the more Cloudy tracked her, the more she saw the flaws in the shadows she made.

A little roughness on a fine edged line, a blob that should have been a leaf shape.

All completely unnoticeable if she hadn’t been alerted to them, but all there, and all blending to form an almost outline, the finest details obscuring the finest features.

Let’s take this out of the city, Rosewater, so we can really stretch our legs. Cloudy laughed again and took off, leisurely circling the shadow below to let her know she was seen. Once they were out of the city, though, and away from the dangers posed by curious Dammeguard wondering why their lieutenant was going, medically speaking, snooker loopy.

The figure below her broke into a trot, then a gallop as she entered the main street out of town towards the verdant loess hills and distant Dammehollow.

That’s right, Rosewater… out there, we have the entire world to dance in, uncovered, unfettered. Show me how you can dance in the moonlight.

Rarely did Rosewater dare to let her veiling drop anywhere near Damme. It was habitual to never approach the city or anywhere near it. But here, in the wild wilderness outside Damme, with Cloudy circling above her, waiting for the game to enter its final phase, she dared.

She stood on a hill overlooking the city when she dropped her veil, the moonlight streaming over her anew, unfiltered by her artificial shadows and made her coat glow silver in the Mare’s gaze.

Green wings shifted high above as Rosewater started out again, her run turning to a gallop as Cloudy dropped and swooped to the edge of the hill in front of her, hooves barely making a sound in the browning grass.

Rather than turning to face her, Cloudy tucked her wings in and shot a grin over her shoulder and plunged down the side of the hill, her flashing pink tail the last thing Rosewater saw before a whoop of joy chased back up the hill.

A naked chase. No magic. No wings. Just hooves.

Just two ponies figuring each other out.

It barely registered that it might have been a trick when Rosewater plunged over the edge of the hill blindly, chasing Cloudy down the loose, silty slope. No rocks met her, only a loose tangle of grass and soil that tumbled after the galloping shape of Cloudy as she stopped just shy of plunging into the thicket and bounded around it, aiming for the next hill.

It was a risk, but Rosewater turned the other way when she hit the floor of the dale, hoping it was a ruse.

Cloudy laughed as she looked behind her. Rosewater was nowhere to be seen, but she didn’t doubt the mare would hold to tradition. This was as important, more so, to her than it was to Cloudy.

Whether she was still on the hill, hoping to catch her, or had followed her down, Cloudy didn’t know, and that was a part of the joy of a naked chase. It would be better with mist and a forest, but this was as close as they could get. Hills and vales where some mists did linger about the thickets deerkin used for their winter excursions southward, and some flowed through the passes between hills.

She considered the hill ahead, its stepped side betraying how loose the soil was, and the shrubs that dotted its surface had their roots exposed in places where the soil had slumped after a rain and yet to be covered again.

Going up the hill would be slow work, and give Rosewater time to catch her rather than letting Cloudy lay an ambush of her own.

Or she could double back and possibly meet Rosewater coming around after her, or set herself up for an ambush from above if her chase partner was being canny. It all depended on how patient of a chaser Rosewater was. And how well Cloudy judged her.

Rut it.

Cloudy turned around and broke into an instant gallop, a feeling of urgency overtaking her from behind, a feeling of exposure and danger from around the bend. It was a need to hide and escape, but a joyous note in her heart told her exactly what it was. Some small sign had told her Rosewater was there. A sound, a scent on the slight wind flowing from the north.

It could have been your imagination.

So she ran from her imaginary pursuer, tail flashing side to side as she ran past the small slide she’d started coming down.

Surprisingly, the scents of Damme met her when she crossed the line, baking bread, wood shavings, and the sea air blown in from the west. None of it should have been there, but it lead her onwards, around the copse.

Signs of Rosewater’s passing were here and there; a hoofprint in a bare patch of dirt, a pink tail hair laying like a heart-thread on a bush. Her imagination hadn’t been wrong. Rosewater had been chasing her around the opposite way.

Cloudy laughed aloud and increased her pace, flashing her tail against the same bush to leave another pink hair there, or more, and aimed for the gap between two hills, rocky bases bared by the yearly flow of water in the spring. The beds were dry now, and she found easy purchase as she climbed up the shallow incline.

The sound of laughter behind her brought a smile to her lips as she went.

Where will you go? Rosewater thought as she chased Cloudy’s scent around the copse, laughing at herself for not thinking of it. Of course she would double-back if she didn’t see pursuit right away. The dale was nearly circular, holding only the low, shrubby trees in the middle as any point of interest, so there weren’t many places to hide.

She laughed aloud as she caught Cloudy halfway up a defile of rocks and small boulders, perched on one of the latter to catch her breath and looking back down over the dale.

You sly mare. No wings, but still going for height. And you brought me down here just because of this.

“Good lu-uck!” Cloudy singsonged down at her, breaking her stance and bounding up with the sure footing of a mountain goat, skills from perching on improbable ledges giving her an advantage on the uneven ground that Rosewater didn’t have.

From higher up, Cloudy could get the drop on her before she had a chance to make a counter-plan.

That wouldn’t do, but the steep sides of the defile left her little chances to clamber up the softer soil, and she would get three steps up for every four she made. Hardly ideal. Loess was hard to climb.

She could circle back around the copse and try to find a linking hill, but this was home turf for Cloudy. She knew the terrain better than she, and would know where to look for a white-coat on dark backdrop.

Without magic to cover herself, she was at a severe disadvantage at night. It would be different if there were any snow on the ground, but of course there was not. Not even a flake for her to hide behind in vain.

Rosewater hissed under her breath and considered the landscape around her. Even if she’d taken a shortcut, it would take time for her to reach a hilltop and begin a waiting game. A stalemate chase.

That won’t do at all.

But there was one option. She set her jaw and started up the defile. Her longer legs gave her an advantage of speed, and she was no stranger to rough terrain, even if she couldn’t leap and perch on insane ledges like a pegasus.

I’m coming, Cloudy.

It had been a spur of the moment plan. Continuing around in a circle, trying to catch up to Rosewater without the mare finding out was doomed to failure. The Rosethorn nose had certainly picked up her scent long since, and that laughter told her just as much.

So she did what she usually did in tense situations: go for height. But not just straight up a hill. That would be a long, slow slog over soil that tended to crumble and slide for the first hoof before she struck actual clay.

The watershed channel was her only option, then. The way water had flowed every year for centuries had carved out a path down to the rocky base of the hills, shaping them, had left a rocky base for her to climb up if she dared. She could make good time, even. It’d been days since the last rain, and the stones were all dry, though the soil in the base of the dale was still somewhat damp.

Rosewater could make it, if she were careful. It would give Cloudy time to find a hiding spot to spring an ambush on her and claim victory.

And at the top, she stopped to watch what Rosewater would do.

Following her wasn’t the first thing she thought would happen, nor how good of time she made, despite taking the safer center-line route where the largest boulders stood out.

Damn tall mares, Cloudy thought appreciatively, watching the play of muscle and sinew as she hefted herself up steadily and readily, using the moon’s light and how it reflected off her coat to find her way. She was beautiful in the moonlight, and when her head lifted during a pause to watch Cloudy, those rose wine eyes seemed to drink in the moonlight and glow just for her.

Tonight, they really did.

It was a surprise finding Cloudy watching her intently as she scaled the rocky terrain, making sure at least one hind hoof was firmly planted before starting up again. During a pause to catch her breath, she looked up, and there was Cloudy staring down, a faint smile on her lips and an appreciative set to her ears.

If she had whistled, Rosewater might have blushed.

“Enjoying the show?” Rosewater asked through a huffing breath. “Why wait?”

To her surprise, Cloudy laid down at the edge and crossed her forelegs over the side of a boulder. “And miss the show? My dear Rosewater, you cannot reach me yet, and I do so admire a mare when she stretches so. So lean, so sleek. And the way you work your rump…” She mock shuddered and licked her lips. “So delicious.”

She did flush then, and bared her teeth in a grin. “Oh dear, how shall I ever respond?” Another surge of speed, still careful, and Rosewater stared up again. “I will catch you—” Rosewater paused again, pretending to need to catch her breath. “—Cloudy. And I will show you just how well I can work my rump.”

“Promises, promises,” Cloudy yawned, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. She didn’t move from her perch yet, but she tensed more and more every tail length Rosewater made it up.

It was only about thirty from the ground, and at such an angle that it was more of a difficult hike than a climb, and the rocks held her weight admirably.

“That’s… exactly… right.”

She didn’t need to fake the heavy breathing much by the time Cloudy rose and backed away from the ledge, grinning ear to ear, seeming certain of her victory. All she would need to do was find a bend in the waterway, find some place to hide, and spring her ambush, catching Rosewater against the side of the hill and claiming her victory kiss and the win.

But if Rosewater could just keep her preoccupied long enough…

She can’t be so out of shape, can she?

It was less an accusatory thought and more a speculative one. The victory would be all the sweeter if she could spring her trap in the middle of a fierce flight down the stream bed between hills. Timing was key. Understanding how much fight Rosewater had left in her was key.

She’d never seen the mare run, even while surveilling her, so it was easy to believe she only watched what she ate to keep that figure. But Rosewater’s private life was also largely a mystery. She didn’t know word one about what the mare did behind closed doors or the times their spotters lost track of her. For all Cloudy knew, she ran to Canterlot and back in the afternoons.

But she did seem winded… even if her pace didn’t falter much and not a lot of sweat showed on that gleaming, beautiful flank of hers. Oh, the fragrance she would be giving off, the sweet musk of a chase fresh on her, and the excitement of such a lovely mare, alone with her in the dim light, exploring each other under the Mare’s eye and with the Mare’s nearly full moon blessing.

Cloudy snapped herself out of the reverie. She would get to taste those lips soon enough, and maybe even other lips as well. If they weren’t both too winded from their chase.

She rose and backed away from the edge as Rosewater got within a couple of tails of the edge, and turned and darted towards the bend as soon as Rosewater’s head appeared over the lip of the last stone and heaved herself up to rest on the same stones Cloudy had occupied just a minute before.

And sniffed at them. Rosethorn markings glowed bright in the moonlight, accentuating Rosewater’s cheeks and highlighting the fine bone structure of a high-born noble.

She’s sampling my scent… A shudder ran through Cloudy as she thought just how aroused she’d gotten watching Rosewater climb up. She was a fine mare, finely built and took care of herself, and even a heady chase and run through the nearest fields and hills into the rougher loess hills lining the Crystal Forest hadn’t dimmed the brightness of that coat, or the showing of pink in her ears.

Her marehood would be just as pink. Just as soft. Winking.

Just like Cloudy.

She shuddered again, stamped a hind leg, turned, and dashed away. She needed to win.

The heady fragrance of an excited mare caught her attention before she was even halfway up the steep slope, tending more to her hooves placement than staring at the watching, smirking face above her.

But that musky, delicate bouquet of excitement that had been missing for far too long in her life drew her attention perhaps more than it should have.

More than once, Rosewater wished their chase had taken place in a grove, with the mists curling all about, where teasing calls and half-glimpsed tails and faces were all they had to go on. It was the old way, the first chases had been thus after the custom became more accessible, after the naked chase was born.

Not requiring her to almost be a mountain-climber in order to chase after her hopeful paramour.

Rosewater heaved herself over the ledge and lay prostrate for several seconds, watching Cloudy standing a safe distance away, the mare apparently unknowing that her tail was flagging, her lips parted in an unconscious desire to meet breath to breath.

A quick check of her scarf, that she’d tightened around her neck before starting up, and she rose, flagging her own tail in a conscious show of desire. Cloudy was more than a stranger. She’d studied the mare, watched her, knew her by her actions and her love of Rosemary. This was a mare that she could find a deeper love with, if she so chose.

She was also as safe as anypony from Roseate’s predation.

Cloudy dashed away, showing Rosewater even in the night that there was a safe lip of soil around the shallow valley to find purchase on.

Rosewater broke into a slower run after her, eyes focused on the ground, Rosethorn markings adding a faint crimson glow as she let her nose guide her.

Unerring, Rosewater followed the trail at a sedate pace.

Finding the right place to spring her ambush was harder than she’d thought it would be, and took her farther into the foothills at the base of the Crystal Forest than she’d liked, but she did find it eventually.

Sometime in the ancient past, a slab of slate carried by the unimaginable weight and force of a glacier had fallen out of the scree to lay at a slant in the loose soil, eventually slipping to one side and forming the side of a hill that jutted out oddly from the rest of the smooth-sided, round hills that made up the rest of the glacial till all around her.

It was obviously a place for an ambush, and Rosewater would see it as such… which was why Cloudy cheated, just a little, and helped herself up the side of the hill with a single sweep of her wings, while keeping her hooves mostly touching the hillside, and made her way past it and around to lay in wait on the near-side of the slab, her coat not standing out nearly as well as Rosewater’s would have against the dark stone.

And yet there was still reason to…

Rosewater stopped at the bend, studying the way ahead just as Cloudy settled in to wait. She’d been right to risk the cheat and make her way up the hill quickly. If she hadn’t, she’d still be scrambling her way up the loose stones and sand in the lee of the stone when Rosewater came within hearing distance.

Now she could slip down the side of the hill after she’d passed and catch her unawares from behind. Then that kiss would be hers first, and the win and what to do after was hers to decide.

Come on, come on. Nothing to worry about up here…

Cloudy watched as her quarry made her way towards the stone, hooves placed carefully on sturdy ledges of soil and sand, testing each one carefully now that she was so close.

Worry about what’s behind the stone, not up here.

Cloudy’s fragrance grew both stronger and weaker in different ways as Rosewater made her way down the shallow ravine. Stronger in desperation, weaker in arousal, stronger in presence. She was getting closer and closer.

Cloudy had slowed down this far into the maze of ravines and watershed channels, and now and again a hint of her strayed down one dead end and another, all of them ending in steeper defiles than the one she’d clambered up, most of them would be small waterfalls in the spring, and actual gushing ones at that. It would be a beautiful place come springtime when the grass greened again and the snowpack was gone.

A perfect place for a springtime fling with a lover.

With a tent, of course.

She soon enough came to a great gray slab piercing the heart of a hill and blocking most of the stream enough that the hill opposite had a deep overhang sprouting roots from its ceiling and sporting bushes all along the edge, half of them risking being lost in the next flooding.

But it was the deep cut on the opposite side of the stone that worried her most. It was a perfect ambush spot… or a place to seem to set up an ambush. Make her slow down enough to let Cloudy get ahead and plan a more elaborate trap later, when both of them were more tired.

What would you do here, my dear Cloudy? She hesitated on the edge of looking around the slab, sniffing carefully and drawing deeply on her heritage to take in all the scents around her.

The fragrance of her was stronger all around the stone, on both sides, but without a wind to clear away the older scents, all she could determine was that her pegasus quarry had spent an inordinate amount of time here inspecting and possibly even using, the stone as a place to set up a trick.

She risked a quick look, drawing her head back almost as soon as she’d taken the peek… then a longer one. Cloudy wasn’t there, and the slab’s shadow made it hard to tell if she’d tried to climb up the leeward side or not, but here in the shadows, it was easier to find evidence of her scent over everything. She had stopped there at least, perhaps knowing…

A rustle of shifting dirt sounded from somewhere above and to her left, then a clatter of rock on rock behind her and to the right.

For the briefest of moments, Rosewater thought she’d been caught by bandits surrounding her and worried for Cloudy. But nopony was to her left, and by the time she realized her error, that it was echoes, and turned around, Cloudy was already standing there, head raised, eyes fixed, and a sultry smile on her lips.

“Well hello, Rosewater,” Cloudy advanced closer, tail flicking side to side, her voice halfway to a throaty laugh. “So nice to catch you here.”

“Cloudy,” Rosewater murmured, dropping her head in submission. She’d been outplayed, and lingered too long investigating an anomalous scent. “You’ve caught me. The chase is yours.”

“So formal,” Cloudy said as she came up to within kissing distance. “So…” Her lips were on Rosewater’s in the next second, her teeth catching Rosewater’s lower lip and nipping lightly before letting go. It wasn’t until afterwards that she realized her tail was not only canted to the side, but raised high enough to let a stallion mount her. “Sweet. But this is our first chase. I think I shall claim a talk.” She hesitated, seeming uncertain, then glanced around and up at the sky, and nodded towards the nearby edge of the forest.

Sweet stars, am I that… horny? “I… think that may be best. I did more running and physical activity tonight… and more may see me fall asleep until morning.” She didn’t lower her tail until she saw Cloudy’s rise in response, then forced herself to make nice and Dammer modest. “I was worried, when I started, that you would… not be able to respond to me. Because of our history.”

Cloudy chewed her lip for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s talk, then, alone. We… have a lot to talk about, and away from prying eyes and ears, whether they’re there or not.” A faintly nervous smile crossed her lips, and she ducked her head. “You and I in a more intimate setting, with the, hum… formalities of the chase can wait.” Cloudy’s eyes hooded as she considered Rosewater from nose to tail, her own flagging to the side and then resting flat again. “But not for long, Rosewater. Tonight was good for me.”

Formalities. Rosewater shuddered and felt her own tail flag involuntarily to the side. It’d been so long since she’d tasted another mare, so long since real, warm lips parted hers, since a real tongue stroked and delved.

“As you say,” Rosewater purred back, catching Cloudy for a light kiss before she started off, her magic holding the mare gently. “Lead the way, victor.”

Author's Notes:

And continues!

Book 2, 3. Chasing Scents, Part 3

Cloudy had spent three days hyping herself up for tonight, trying to remind herself that Rosewater’s ‘past’ interactions with them were, for all intents and purposes, lies. Save the times she was actually helpful or kept them safe.

And now here I am, with her eyes on me, and her desire for me. Cloudy shivered and tried—and failed—to keep her tail flat, her dock between her buttocks, but she winked at Rosewater, and felt a dollop of her excitement trail down her leg.

That she was a beautiful mare was beyond a doubt a reason why Cloudy was reacting to her this way. That she was also fiercely protective of Rosemary another, and shown herself to have more depth of character, and more depth of emotion than she’d previous thought Rosewater capable of.

And she’s attracted to me. The whys of that, she hoped to find out.

The shallow, dry ravine ran more or less directly towards the Crystal Forest, itself extending for hundreds of miles up to the base of the Crystal Mountains, unbroken wilderness and wildlands that swept from forest to plains in the blinks of an eye by a pegasi’s flight, and back again just as fast.

They were home to some bandit clans who waged a never-ending conflict against the deerkin that wanted them out of their woods. It was from that conflict that tales of the forest being haunted filtered out time and again after a bandit clan found themselves waking up outside the forest and never remembering leaving it.

Yet they kept going back because patrols from Canterlot and both Merrie and Damme kept throwing them into chaos again and again without someplace to hide.

It’s not haunted. Collar’s told me about the Deerkin and their pranks. Still, growing up as a little foal, she’d heard all about the ponies that entered the Crystal Forest and never came out, and how the spirits of the vengeful, lost Crystal Empire would come for them if they didn’t behave.

She swallowed.

“Carnation and I,” Rosewater said out of the blue, startling Cloudy into a yelp.

“Stars above!”

“Sorry!” Rosewater laughed, true merriment coloring her tone.

“Don’t startle me like that!” Cloudy skipped ahead a step, wings arched, then stopped when she realized she was making a threat display at the rutting trees, and forced herself to calm. It was deerkin. That’s all it was.

“I heard the same stories growing up,” Rosewater murmured beside her, the sound of her hooves warning of her approach this time. “The kelpie mares and the incubus stallions, coming around to gather up the naughty children of the cities.”

“You did?” Cloudy asked, shaking herself free of cobwebs in her thoughts. “Stars, I thought…”

“Well, Carnation taught me otherwise.” Rosewater teased her cheek with a kiss and started on, her hooves thudding dully in the dark, taking over the beating of Cloudy’s heart. “She even took me out as a foal to gift blankets and metal-worked goods to the deerkin on their migration.

“It was something Roseline apparently did for her when she was a foal. They gifted us each time with rare herbs that are hard to cultivate outside the magical aura of the Forest. Crystalwort, shineberry, and golden-waxed pine cones, for a start. There’s so many more that I could spend an evening going over them. But those three especially are used in Mother’s Kiss. It’s the aura of the forest that lends them to love magic.”

Listening to Rosewater talk about mundane, or at least relatively mundane, things helped her to hold onto calm and follow her. “Thank you. But it wasn’t just the stories.” She cast a raised-eyebrow look at Rosewater.

“The company,” Rosewater said in an even tone, her smile faltering briefly. “It’s understandable. We’ve hardly gotten to know each other.”

“It is. I mean… you’re attractive, and I could definitely have sex with you,” Cloudy said in the matter-of-fact way she’d nearly managed to train out of herself since her forcible move to Damme, “but loving you? Falling in love with you?”

“I feel the same,” Rosewater said, her lips turning down into a frown. “It’s… a risk I have to take, Cloudy. For my sake, for the sake of my… of Rosemary.” She cast a glance at the sky. “And for the sake of my ponies. My city.”

“My parents are still in Merrie,” Cloudy said softly. “I’ve… not heard from them since I left. I worry if I do this, and openly, that Roseate—”

“She may. But I’m not without my connections and my means. If you’re worried, if you want to have them granted asylum, ask Collar. I will do all I can to spirit them across the bridge. Your mother and father, and your two sisters and brother.”

“You’ve read my family book,” Cloudy said with a grunt. She wasn’t sure yet if she should be offended or upset, or merely curious why.

“I did. Almost two months ago, after Roseate asked—” Rosewater coughed. “—ordered me to capture you. Did Collar tell you I deliberately failed at it?”

“Nope. Figured that part out for myself, thanks. The note was a big rutting clue.” Cloudy snorted and glanced aside at her. “Plus your reputation.”

“Largely fabricated,” Rosewater answered, shaking her head with a wan smile on her lips. “I’m your biggest boogiemare because I beat my own mother in a duel.”

“Not a small feat. And beat her twice more. Your reputation as a frightening mare to go up against is well earned, Rosewater.” A pang of panic and fear shot through her as soon as she said it. “I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Rosewater said, her voice softer, a quavering quality to it that may or may not have been there. “I saw it in the faces of the ponies I passed on the way to and from the Prim Palace. And… you’re right. It is well earned. But not wanted.”

Silence fell between them the rest of the way to the forest. If there had been any watchers, or listeners, they made no moves and didn’t so much as cast a shadow across the stars. There was no reason for a watcher to think Cloudy going out apparently alone, late at night and nearly anonymous in the darkness, was anything to remark. She was a nominal part of the night watch when needed, and one of the many right hooves of Captain Pink.

Any reason may have sent her out alone.

Rosewater seemed to brood the entire way, her ears limp and her stride sloppier, even though her pace never wavered, even into the Forest and along the ancient highway of broken blocks of stone, towards an ancient tree, older than the fall of the Empire, so old that the Imperial builders had made a bench just for it extending all around, now tumbled blocks of crystal-laced white stone arranged in a rough circle around the swelling trunk of the once small tree.

“Here,” Cloudy said as she led Rosewater into the shadowy depression between two roots, a place where they could hide from the world for a little while. A safe place.

Something Rosewater had said to her and Collar on the bridge the first time she’d saved them both percolated up through Cloudy’s memories.

“Have you ever considered, Lord Collar, that my reputation disturbs me? Have you? I have one place that I can be free of it.”

“You have one more place you can be free of your reputation,” Cloudy whispered into the darkness under the edge of the forest. “With me, and here. I remember, Rosewater. How hurt you looked. I apologize for not thinking before speaking.”

The look she got nearly broke her heart, it was so grateful.

“I think I might be able to fall in love with you, Cloudy,” Rosewater said at last. “Here, tonight, treat me like Rosewater.”

The night sounds of the mid-fall forest faded away as Rosewater adjusted the intensity of the screening effect, leaving her truly alone with Cloudy.

When she was done, Rosewater sat and stared up at the boughs of the tree over her. She’d been careful to keep the misting only to around them, to blend with the surroundings and leave the top open so that the Mare could watch them.

Not that she could see much through the limbs of the giant wayfarer’s tree, its broad leaves offering protection from the rain, the wind of the north.

“Do you come here often?” Rosewater asked, half a serious question and half a teasing joke. The lamest pickup line she could think of from what she’d heard about Dammer taverns.

Cloudy rolled her eyes. “I do, actually. It’s a good place to stop for a meal on a long patrol. Usually during the day, and not… you know…” She waved a hoof around her at the misty walls. “When the stories are supposed to happen. You said Carnation told you stories and took you to meet the Deerkin?”

“Long ago. Continuing on, and I still keep to Carnation’s offers of gifts to the deerkin, but the first time was before Roseline passed.” She pushed aside the memories of the first time and closed her eyes against the upwelling of tears as images of the Rose Palace and a room in the Palace tried to intrude on her, tried to make her acknowledge them. “After I got my cutie mark,” she said finally, the words coming out strangled even to her ears.

Cloudy met her eyes briefly, looking down when the contact became too intense and the understanding flowing from soul to soul reached a point where it should have been telepathy.

“H-how much do you know about my past?” How much is recorded in your files? She should have just asked.

She needn’t have bothered, because Cloudy answered, “Just what we have on record. You were just six, Rosewater. I know that much. Younger than any Rosethorn on record. What happened?”

“What else? My mother happened.” Rosewater shook her head and moved to one of the broken blocks of stone still retaining the dream image of a bench seat and dusted some of the bracken off it before settling down and drawing off her scarf. “I came to talk about you and I, Cloudy. The past… it can stay in the past as long as it needs to.”

Cloudy mulled that over for a moment as she stood at the other end of the block, running her hoof over the pitted stone before she swept a wing over the stone and settled in place opposite Rosewater.

“That’s fine. Someday, though,” Cloudy said, sidling closer, “when we get closer, you’ll need to tell us. So…” She huffed and tossed her head, leveling a glower at Rosewater. “What do you see happening for us? For you and Collar?”

At least she’s direct. She’d been half-worried shutting down the line of questioning would shut down conversation. “For you and I… more of this. Talking. Maybe thrills like more chases, maybe...” She couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever if she went down the road of trying to marry Collar. “I can’t imagine how restrained you’ve had to act among Dammers all day and all night.”

“Oh, stars. Don’t get me started. You have no idea how hard it’s been just to find a few lovers in the Dammeguard who’ll let me give a lick and a kiss without expecting a marriage proposal first.” Cloudy snorted, then relaxed and gave Rosewater a sheepish smile. “But it’s not been all bad. What they lack in openness, they make up for in passion. And… yes. I’d like more of this. Though, maybe not, hum. Not…”

“In the hills?” Rosewater asked, grinning. “It was a bit of a slog going up and down, up and down. And that last climb. Whoosh. Stars, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

“Yeah,” Cloudy said, sighing. “I keep thinking that I can just ask you out to dinner, but—” She tipped her head to the southwest.

“Roseate would explode,” Rosewater said, quirking a grin at her, or trying to.

“Well, yeah. And so would Primfeather Wing. And Whitelock Primmane. And… stars, who wouldn’t go nuts if we were seen dating? I’d probably get tossed into a hotbox to sweat out my ‘lure’ and then sent to recovery for a month. Involuntary, of course. Standard treatment for being lured.”

“Barbarism,” Rosewater hissed, shaking her head. “Stars above, please tell me you tried to tell them that doesn’t work half so well as treating with scents.”

“Tried, got stared at until I slunk out of the room to talk to Collar. He listened, but couldn’t do much. It was the family demanding it.” Cloudy let her head sink to rest on the edge of the scarf, breathing slowly, brows raising slowly. “I had to watch a friend of mine go through withdrawal, and just be there to do what I could for him…” She trailed off, her brows raising as her nostrils flared and took another breath. “Is… is that…”

Rosewater smiled and let her explore the scarf with nose and hoof, stirring up the bits and pieces of Damme she’d trapped in its cloth. There, she’d put sourdough, and that patch was onion dill. Then wood, wood oil, and the unique smell of hot metal on wood that lingered for hours after a mill was shut down.

She’d gotten the fresh smell of the sea flowing in, less any of the stink of rotten seaweed and other, less savory smells of the cove’s sandy beaches. There, too, was the faintest smell of lemon from the bottle, and another of peach, just starting to seep out past the cork seals.

“It’s… you did this for me?”

“For you,” Rosewater confirmed, smiling and bending to nuzzle Cloudy’s ear, then rest beside her on the scarf. “I wanted to show you that I understood your love of the city. I’ve been there often enough to find my own love of the mundanity of fragrance. It can be so tiring in Merrie sometimes, smelling everything all the time everywhere.”

Cloudy spent another moment exploring the scarf, her eyes closed and ears back before she looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you. I’d almost forgotten what good, benign scent magic could do. I’ve been fighting against it for a year, Rosewater. Do you know what it’s like to fight yourself?”

“Shh.” Rosewater raised her head to kiss her lightly on the nose, then the forehead. “You don’t have to when you’re with me.”

“I don’t want to, ever.” Cloudy pressed her forehead under Rosewater’s muzzle, seeking comfort. “I miss the little scents. The hearth warming fires with cinnamon and woolly betony especially right now, and the drinks of apple and spice, fragrances of home, you know?”

“I know,” Rosewater murmured, making a soft shushing noise. “It’s okay to want fragrances, Cloudy. And, you know, I can see about bringing some simple ones. Hearth warming spices and cider are getting more common now, and I’d be happy to provide a sachet or two. Provided I can sneak them into the palace.”

“You could get into trouble.”

“More than I already am?” Rosewater snorted. “They’re not ‘attack’ scents. The worst that can happen is a lecture from Firelight about respecting cultural boundaries. But I’m quite good at hiding things. And I might bribe him with some nice fragrances, too. Sitting by the river all day tends to make the place smell like mildew. I know. I have to fight it constantly at home.”

“What can I do for you in return, though?”

“Keep Rosemary happy. I didn’t have a chance to ask her if this was what she wanted, to be used as a piece in our game, and I don’t want her to feel used, or lonely. Or stuffed in.” Rosewater shook her head. “Do that for me, and we’ll be even on the scent delivery.”

“I’d do that anyway,” Cloudy said with a grunt. “That’s not equivalent. What can I do for you, Rosewater? You’re doing something for me, a kindness I’ve wished for.”

“You’ll have to hide it. It’s magic. Not inert like the shampoos Rosetide delivered.”

“So? I’ll have it, and it’s something of my culture I can share with Collar. Something I can’t get in Damme because of the prohibitions.” Cloudy sighed and sank deeper into her slump on the stone.

Rosewater tossed the edge of the cloth over Cloudy’s muzzle, and when the pegasus only blinked and stared at her, brows arched, she stuck her tongue out. “I really don’t have anything right now that I need that I can’t get.”

“And I don’t need scents. I’ve lived for a year without more than what I can get in the gardens. They’re not necessary for life.” Cloudy stayed under the scarf, though, her ears flat back. “I just…” She took a deep breath through the warm fabric. “I’ve missed this.”

The silly impulse faded. It hadn’t been silly to Cloudy, it had meant more to her to be encouraged to partake in their cultural heritage, the refinement and capturing of the fragrances of life.

She sat, watching and thinking about what it must have meant to go without indulging in anything, from the deliberately fragrant food, to the fragrant wines and meads, to even simply walking through the city and being bathed by the bouquet of life in all its multifaceted glory. Lush and pungent, musky and sweet.

Damme had its own landscape for the nose, but it was far less varied and far more practical, only being those scents that came naturally from living in a city.

Finally, she pulled the scarf down and lowered herself to Cloudy’s level, nose to nose, and kissed her gently on the lips.

“I would like these little sweets that Carnation used to buy me at the faires in Damme. They came in… paper wrappers, and it was such a struggle to open them at that age, but when I did, they were so tasty, even if they didn’t smell like much. Strawberry was my favorite.”

“Candies?” Cloudy raised a brow at her, and didn’t move away. After a moment she returned the kiss more hesitantly, then again with surety, letting it linger. “I didn’t think you couldn’t find candies in Merrie.”

“Not these. It’s more for the memory, really.” Rosewater’s cheeks flushed and she tried to duck away, but a quick, gentle hoof to the cheek kept her in place. “It’s been years since I’ve even found them in Damme, and not at all in Merrie. They were made, I think, by a specialist candy maker that made unscented candies. Nopony in Merrie would stock them.”

“I’ll ask around,” Cloudy said, and kissed her once more, a light peck, before pushing herself up, but not away. “I feel better knowing I have something I can do for you.”

Cloudy stayed still, her eyes darting across Rosewater’s body, from her eyes to the point of her hip to the slight raise of her tail telling Cloudy that if she asked, she might still be open for a night as the victor of the chase.

This mare was nothing like the tales she’d heard, or the fearsome mage she’d seen six years ago. She was gentle, but of course she would be, Rosemary was gentle and kind and loving. Where else would she get that from than one who’d raised her? She could also be fierce, of course, and she could see that side in the way the mare had chased, but also playful.

All things Cloudy had assumed existed only in the younger Rosethorn. But why does she hide them and guard them so carefully?

A hint lay in the history she knew about in the recent histories, the breakup of mother and daughter, adoption by the aunt.

“What are you staring at?” Rosewater asked after a long wait, her eyes drifting from Cloudy’s to her forelegs and up again, a faint blush tinging her cheeks.

“You. Wondering how so many incongruities and contradictions can fit into even your outsize frame.”

“Did you just call me fat?” Rosewater demanded, her eyes dancing as she pushed herself up.

“Mmm.” Cloudy bit her tongue and stifled a giggle. “Maaybe? What if I did?”

“Then I would very carefully consider whether or not to try harder next time. Maybe cheat a little.” Rosewater pushed herself up further and slipped off the bench, towering over Cloudy and forcing her to crane her neck to keep her eyes locked with Rosewater’s.

It was a myth, and a widely held belief in Damme, that every Rose had the same shade of eyes. This was a patent untruth. Even among so closely related ponies as Rosewater and Rosemary, there was a world of difference. Rosewater’s eyes had striations of gold in them, a subtler shade than the vibrant, darker shades of pink that served to lighten her eyes, whereas Rosemary had eyes accented with silver flecks, making her similarly dark shade of pink lighter still.

This close, this intimate, she could get lost in the difference.

“You have beautiful eyes,” Rosewater murmured, raising a foreleg to stroke her cheek. “I don’t believe I’ve noticed the green in them before. Little stars and specks around the iris.”

Cloudy swallowed, her throat dry, beginning to ache. “And yours… gold?”

“A gift from my father. Just as Rosemary’s were a gift from hers.” Rosewater bent to lick slowly along Cloudy’s jaw, culminating in a slow kiss that deepened, their lips parting, tongues meeting in the middle, then parting again.

But I won…

“Promise me something,” Cloudy managed.

“As the victor…” Rosewater purred, drawing the scarf up between them and wrapping it around Cloudy’s neck. A rosy glow surrounded the scarf, warming it and warming Cloudy’s heart with the fragrance of her new home, stronger than before. “Your request is my promise.”

“Don’t be alone tomorrow, Rosewater. Don’t go home and brood.” Don’t let this side of yourself fall into disquiet and disuse again. Cloudy tried to say the words, but her throat stuck closed. This was a part of Rosewater she’d never seen. Both dominant and submissive, and playful throughout.

Something seemed to drain out of her as she finished, and she almost seemed to understand what Cloudy was really asking. Don’t hide away and protect your vulnerable self just to let it wither and see the light for a few hours a week.

“Who…” Rosewater began to ask, then stopped herself with a sucked in breath. “But—”

“But you’ll go and you’ll hide and you’ll brood and miss Rosemary with every miserable minute you’re in that big estate. I’d hope you’d miss me, too now, but I don’t want you to miss me. I want you to think about me and cherish tonight until our next.”

“But—”

“Stop it.” Cloudy rose and backed off enough to rear up and cup Rosewater’s cheeks in her hooves. “I don’t care why or about buts. I won, Rosewater, and this is what I want.”

“And if I win next time?” Rosewater asked, a spark of defiance entering her voice.

“Oh?” Cloudy chuckled softly and bent to kiss her again. “Getting mighty ahead of yourself, Rosewater. Just do this for me. Please.”

For another moment, defiance stood out in the larger mare’s eyes, then faded as she turned her gaze down and sighed. “I won’t be alone. I…” She drew a breath and let it out. “Know someplace I can go that will be safe. I think.”

“Good.” Cloudy held her pose for a few seconds longer, then let go and dropped her hooves to the bench between them. “I’m glad for tonight. For you opening up to us. I think… I might be able to fall in love with you.”

It was the most open she’d been with another pony since Collar about love. Even Sergeant Sunrise, who’d begun crushing on her hard, she’d kept at a distance with ‘proper’ Dammer platitudes and vagueness.

To be able to be open again with another mare, even just another pony about how she felt, and actually feel like it wouldn’t be turned away with a flush and a stammer, was more important than she’d thought it would be.

“And I think I might feel the same,” Rosewater answered her, giving her a gentle kiss before stepping back. “I’ll keep my promise. And please, be honest about me with Lord Collar.”

“I will. Be well, Rosewater, and tell me about your days next time we meet.”

Rosewater stopped on a hill outside the city of Damme, just within sight of the walls, but far enough away that she would appear as nothing more than a dim, white shape in the gloom. Perhaps a slab of limestone, or a limestone fencepost.

Far above, Cloudy’s dark form blocked out stars in a rapid sequence, marking a line from the forest to Damme.

Her route had to be more circumspect, crossing the river farther upstream from Merrie’s chaotic, broken walls that mixed in with the cliffs and bluffs that bordered the eastern portion of the city.

She waited until Cloudy began her descent towards Prim Palace’s distant constellation of torches and braziers before she began her own journey away, waiting until the last safe moment before veiling. There might be sleepy tales of a ghost mare wandering the southernmost alluvial hills come morning, but that would be the rare farmer indeed that lived in the hills and tended to the sparse, stepped terrace fields of rice and berries.

“I won’t be alone tomorrow, Cloudy,” she whispered to the naked wind. “I promise.”

Author's Notes:

And end of chapter one. What a ride. The first Chase between the two, and hopefully not the last. It's certainly not the last of many heart-to-heart talks.

Some background:

The "Chase" is a translation and holdover from wilder days, when herds of primitive ponies roamed a wilder land where magic and spirits abounded and thrived in competition and cooperation with each other.

It's more tame version in Damme is formalities and teasings between two ponies. In Merrie lives the closest to the wild days of nomadic tribes. The Naked Chase is an evening of the playing field, an agreement between the chasers to not use their natural advantages of magic or wings and stand on the same ground as their earth pony lovers.

It's what Roseling and Rosewater had that one night more than a year ago. Earth pony and unicorn chasing each other through the loess hills and forests south of Merrie, ending their chase in a copse of mulberry trees and making love under the light and gaze of the Mare in the Moon.

Also a question:
Is breaking up these longer chapters into more digestible chunks easier for you all to read? I'm still somewhat figuring out how to do web serials, and I'm trying to make chapters as "bite size" as possible without breaking up the story into individual scenes per chapter.