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.