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.