The 'negotiations' began with Celestia recapping the history of forever, basically everything that happened since the last time Empress Narin or King Triton had been here, and neither had been here in a very long time. The Quetzal empress gave Equestria a bit of a chewing out about Appleloosa, which I then jumped on the bandwagon, followed by the seapony king. We discussed trade economics briefly, and Celestia thanked me for lowering taxes to help Equestria rebuild after the Tirek incident. I pretended to be disinterested, casually laying propped up against Gilda, but I noticed that both Fia and Empress Narin had their eyes locked on me. Fia's face was in an unpleasant scowl, while Narin had the trademark look of someone deep in thought. She specifically gained that look after we discussed the fact that the New Dominion operates on a barter system.

'She knows.'

"Actually, I was wondering something." I stated once Sun Butt was finished. "After Tirek was defeated, what happened to him?"

"He was put back in Tartarus, where he belongs." Twilight replied.

"What additional security measures are in place?" I asked, bringing a mass of confused looks from the pony princesses and mane six alike.

"You know... more guards? More locks? Please don't tell me all you did is stuff him back into the same cell he escaped from before without even figuring out how he got out to begin with?"

"Even if he does get out, he isn't likely to show his face again, and if he does, we'll send him right back into his cage." Luna proclaimed.

I stopped for a moment, in thought.

"True enough. Now that Discord has learned his lesson, I doubt Tirek will be able to become a threat to Equestria again. Still, I'd rather not take chances. Could you at least check on him once a week or something so if he does get out we can take care of it right away?"

"Of course. We've already been doing that." Luna replied. "You didn't think us completely irresponsible, did you?"

"You, no." I directly to Luna. "The others? More-so." Shooting a quick glare at Celestia. "Besides, even if he's not a threat to Equestria anymore, well, he wouldn't be a threat to the New Dominion since I can handle him, but what about the Quetzal Empire? Or Gem Fido?"

"You're quite confident Griffin, considering the moment you learned of him you fled to Signal." Luna glowered.

"I have a duty to protect my people first. To do that, I needed go to Signal. There, I assessed the threat Tirek posed, and made preparations to fight him. I took stock of his power and his abilities. Strategy. You know, having a better plan than taking my most talented magic users and throwing them at him blindly so he could drain them?"

"Which is precisely why I requested you to advise our defense department." Celestia chimed in.

"It's common sense. Do you even... Geez, I'll write you a freakin book when I get around to it. Satisfied? Twilight gets the first copy, seeing as how she wrote one for me. There's a spelling error on the first page, by the way." As for my own experience in becoming and alicorn. Man, for someone like her, that's embarrassing.

"Marble Pillars? Aoi? You've been silent this whole time, what's your take on this?" Fia was the first to speak up.

"Given what we know of Tirek, I'd be able to handle him by myself, for the same reason you could." She glared at me. She's talking about hell fire. Suck up all the magic you want Tirek, when we can just burn it all away, it won't do you any good. All the representatives from Equestria, The Crystal Empire, Marble Pillars, and Empress Narin looked between the two of us with confusion. The only people who know I can use hell fire are people I've used it against, the only survivors of which are Fia and Ember, my crew who watched me use it, and they haven't told anyone. Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, not even Dr. Exotic knows about it. It's not like I've exactly been trying to keep it a secret, but I haven't had any need to use it in front of them. I'm almost certain they don't know about it.

While we may be enemies, at least Fia had the sense to not give away our little secret. She values it enough that she wouldn't tell, even if it disadvantaged me.

"Hmm. In which case, the only ones vulnerable to him would be the Quetzal Empire or Aquaria, but they're far enough away, and under the ocean, so they're safe. Besides, I'm sure you have your own methods."

"Well then, I think this is a good time for a recess. I'll have fresh food brought out. Mingle, discuss among yourselves." Celestia dismissed us and we returned to the common room.

In a manner of speaking, it's a very effective measure. It allows for private discussion between groups, off the record, so that the conversation in the chamber can be more effective and waste less time. They call it a recess, but in truth, the majority of the actual political discussion would take place here, with only the finalized, and public, deals and announcements that concern everyone occurring in the negotiation chamber. This was where private deals and backstabbing would normally take place.

I was, almost immediately, approached again by Narin. The myriad colour of her scales cascading in the mage light that illuminated the room.

"I have to say, I'm impressed. You've only given me just enough information to let me know what you want, without actually saying it in front of everyone."

"You assss well. If you already know what it issss that I want, then let ussss disssscussss."

"Heh, your eyes were locked on me the entire time. Of everyone here, you see me as the greatest threat to your rule. The only reason you came here in the first place was to learn the danger all the newcomers pose. I caused a stir. You don't like that. Well, let me tell you what I don't like. The unknown. The unknown enemy can strike you where you're most vulnerable, before you even know they exist. I know that Fia is a threat, and have taken steps against that, but you? You're a mystery. I have clues but nothing solid. If you were to decide I'm a threat to your nation, you'd have me eliminated before I even knew your intent. You know I know this, so you're trying to figure out if I'll make the first move."

She hissed.

"Thankfully, it doesn't have to come to that. Creatures like us can always pick each other out of the room. And now that I know what you need, and you know what I need, we can deal with it easily. Lets say, after these so called 'negotiations' are over, you and your entourage come with us to Signal, our capitol. You'll relax, enjoy yourselves, and see anything you want to see. Once you're satisfied that we're no longer an unknown, we'll go with you back to your country, to your capitol. Then, we'll relax, enjoy ourselves, and we will see anything WE want to see. Once we're satisfied that you're no longer an unknown, we'll go home. Then, we can go from there."

She paused for a moment, hissing slightly to herself.

"Also, given that you know my little... game... that I'm playing, I'll give you the first piece, and inform you on everybody else at this gathering."

"Deal." She shook hands.

"Good. First off, Celestia. All brute force and sentiment. She has very little finesse and leaves herself open to being out maneuvered. Easy to manipulate by appealing to her better nature, or with confusion tactics. Luna, on the other hand, I'm sure you can tell just from the way she moves and her tone of voice has just as much power, but is infinitely more elusive. Cadence is a giant pushover, her strength lies in that she acts as a reservoir of magic for her partner, who is a talented shield caster, and is not at this meeting. The purple princess possesses an incredible level of magic, and skill in using it, but is still naive when it comes to strategy. Among her entourage there's two who are dangerous. The blue one can move at obscene speeds, it's as though the laws of physics don't apply to her. The pink one doesn't obey the laws of reality. She can hide in and appear from anything, contort her body more ways than you can imagine, bewilder and confuse her enemies, be in two places at once, and while she seems silly and frivolous, her mental state can take a surprising turn. Very unstable. Don't even bother trying to apply logic to this one. The white unicorn has precision but lacks power, the orange one has power and lacks precision, while the yellow one uses a strange form of mental magic to control animals, ineffective against higher life forms. That's it for the ponies."

"And the otherssssss?"

"Aoi is a sword wielder and former assassin. His mind is very straight forward and goal oriented, meaning it's easier to outsmart him. He mostly acts based on his instinct. The fox is dangerous. Wild, ferocious, talented, powerful, and won't let anything get in her way. Unscrupulous, like myself. She's almost as dangerous as I am. In fact, I haven't had any contact with her in about a year, I don't know how she may have changed. The other dogs with them are moderate, by my standards anyways. Don't know much about Triton. Chrysalis is my spymaster, and I owe her a great personal debt, while her people are highly dependent on mine. They're actually part of the New Dominion now. There is no division between us. Everything else is not a threat."

"I ssssssee. And thissss.... power.... you and the fox possssesssss? The one that would let you strike down a demon? Not here though, the poniesssss will have a lisssstening sssspell in place to gather information they can ussssse in the negotiation room." Narin stated.

"I expected as much. They'd be idiots to have this 'recess' where we can discuss privately and not listen in on us. We'll talk more on Signal."

"Agreed."

"Uuugh... Gilda?"

"Yeah Grif?"

"I want my amulet back."

"I know."

"I don't think she's just gonna give it to me. Shes probably keeping it out of spite. She KNOWS it pisses me off. It's not a matter of wanting to change on the fly, it's that without it, anyone can just swap me around however they want."

"If it's that important to you, you'll have to give her something she wants." Gilda pointed out.

"Yeah, but anything she wants is going to be something I'm not willing to give. At this point, everyone else here is lucky that we can be in the same room and not try to kill each other."

"Well, then maybe you need to figure out a way to mimic it's effect? Protect yourself from spells? You could probably do something to reject any foreign magic. Remember what the doctor said? You've got a lot more now. Throwing a bunch of it away on a costly spell you always keep on might be a good thing."

"Yeah, I'm still thinking like I used to, trying to do as much as I can with as little as possible. It's my nature. Ugh. Well, no point sitting here not talking to anyone. Lets go talk to Twilight."

"Hey everyone. So uh, rough time in there, am I right?"

"Yeah, not a fan." Twilight cringed. Discord was just hanging out, having no desire to be a part of something as boring as politics, but since literally everyone he knew was going he was content to just sit around and stuff his face with food.

"Anyway, I know you've all seen him before, but that was a while ago and I don't think he'd remember you, so here's Seth." My son climbed walked up from beside Gilda and bowed his head slightly. "Seth, let me introduce you to some friends. This is Applejack."

"Applejuice?" Weird, he's talking in a tone less mature than I know him to be. Is he doing something funny?

"Close, shes the one that makes the apple juice. Applejack." I corrected him before gesturing to the next one. "This is Rarity."

"Rarity. Got it." He said with pride.

"This is Fluttershy."

"He's so cuuuute!" Squee noises and glomping. My son struggled to escape, and eventually succeeded.

"Butterfly." He pointed at her cutie mark. "Fluttershy. Got it. Bluster and Gale not for eating." He remembered the breezie pair who were content to stay home for this trip. I'd just gotten them a deluxe size bird house and they were renovating to make it more breezie friendly. Last I saw they were bringing in beds made out of match boxes.

"This is Rainbow Dash. Remember? I told you about her." I gestured to her.

"ZOOOOOM! Whoooosh! Boom!" He flung his arms around excitedly before stopping, and in a completely serious voice said, "Rainbow Dash."

"Hehehe, got that right kiddo." She replied with a laugh.

"This is Pinkie Pie."

"Pinkie Pie. Party time?"

"Yeah! Seth knows where it's at!" She bounced happily.

"And then this is Princess Twilight Sparkle."

"Princess Twilo Spar... twinlo Spar.... Tawlo...

"I know, W is a hard letter. Twi. Light." I tried to assist.

"Toilet!" The moment he said that, everyone in the room struggled to contain their laughter, except for Twilight, who looked very irate.

"No no no." She began. "Not toilet, Twilight."

"Toilet Sparkle!" Seth insisted.

Discord floated down from the ceiling, us having gained his attention. He conjured a plunger out of the air and handed it to Twilight. "Your scepter, your majesty?" Her face turned red, steam poured out of her ears. She took deep breaths to calm down, despite the fact that Seth's outburst now had everyone looking at a very embarrassed alicorn.

"It's fine, it's fine, he's just a kid, he doesn't know any better." She mumbled to herself. "What do you say we head back in?" She tilted her head slightly, showing she was a fair bit stressed out. If news of 'Toilet Sparkle' spread all over Canterlot, her reputation as a princess would be ruined.

Twilight and her friends left us, returning to the negotiation chamber, while Seth grabbed at my leg. I leaned down to listen to him. He whispered in my ear.

"Dad... I can say Twilight. No problem."

...

...

He is DEFINITELY my son.