Dear Princess Celestia,

Yesterday, Eris significantly overstepped her limits. Since the day you and Princess Luna left for the negotiations, she has been making life difficult for everypony in the castle.

The personnel keep coming to me almost every hour with a new complaint. Toilets are being blocked with items such as tennis balls, clothes, and sometimes even parasprites. I even had to cleanse an “Awake-to-Life” enchantment off one. It just wouldn’t stop giving “compliments” to ponies who tried to use it!

Furthermore, she is constantly disturbing the meetings with the chancellors or the parliament in some way. For example, she barged into the last meeting and demanded her own holiday. In the end, we were all so annoyed that we just gave her the first day of April (a month she made up on the spot). In all my years in the castle, I have never seen the chancellors so on edge. The proposal went on for almost eighteen hours.

However, the final straw that broke the camel’s back, pardon the saying, was what she did yesterday. Without notice, she teleported a filly, a changeling, and a human into the maze in the gardens and made us chase after them. At the same time, she convinced the human to steal the Elements for her. It even managed to get them from Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. I stood up to him and tried to protect my friends from more danger but I failed. Luckily, I managed to retrieve the Elements with a little trick so that we could use them on him.

I was surprised at the impact they had on this human. I thought he would turn into stone, just like Eris, but that wasn’t the case. As soon as the light faded, he stumbled out of it, stammered something to Applejack, and simply fell asleep. The only possible consequence that came from the Element’s usage that we were able to determine so far was that it might have grown him a tail. Since none of my books have mentioned if humans have tails or not, we were not able to determine if he had one before as well. I am meeting with Captain Estoc later to discuss further steps.

The same thing applies to the changeling we caught. We have observed some strange characteristics about her. For instance, she does not have a black chitinous exoskeleton, but a coat that would not look strange on a pony. She is also far larger than every drone we have seen so far, making me believe we are dealing with a queen here. This would be a golden opportunity to learn more about the changelings. I will personally deal with this matter.

However, the most interesting thing about the captured group was the filly that was with them. Applejack told me she had introduced herself as Auralia, a missing member of the Apple family. I don’t believe I have to tell you how happy I am about that. Of course, we have told her that this could just be another pony, as names, unlike cutie marks, are not unique. Since the filly does not possess the latter currently, I will be heading to the archives after breakfast to search for a spell which can confirm their relation.

Auralia has not woken up yet, so we were unable to ask her any questions about how she ended up with a human and a changeling, but we hope for answers soon.

This covers most of the events which have occurred in Canterlot recently. I hope you and Luna are making progress with the negotiations. The scheduled four months are almost half way over, and I would be reluctant to ask Zecora to look after the library even longer.

With kind regards,
your daughter,

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight sat in her private rooms of the castle, hunched over her desk. Once again she skimmed through the letter she had just written for her mother, searching for errors and ways to correct passages that should be rephrased. From time to time, she mindlessly levitated a grape from the small plate that had come with her breakfast one of the servants had brought her a short while ago. During her younger days, she was asked for her presence at the table, but everypony quickly learned that it was sometimes impossible to separate the purple alicorn from her studies.

Twilight groaned as she crossed out an entire sentence. “Sometimes I miss Spike’s vicious remarks. At least he pointed out these blatant mistakes.” Finished with the corrections, she pulled out another page of parchment to copy the corrected letter once again. Just because she was no longer her mother’s student didn’t mean she would start to slack off.

As she reached the paragraph about the human, she stopped for a moment and watched the stones on her desk - a ruby and an ember, found in the hands of the stranger. They were finely cut into a round form and caused a bit of light tingling due to a magical charge. She had examined them a bit yesterday. The inscribed circles and runes were definitely a spell. From what she had seen, she could expect them to be from the elements of nature as well. Besides that, they looked exactly like any magical gem one could buy in a corner store.

They were usually made to be used in machinery that required magic. She had read about that somewhere, but by her mother’s non-existent beard she couldn’t remember where. The other stuff, like his clothes and a bag full of junk that he most likely had dropped sometime during the time he had chased Fluttershy, was stored in a cargo room by the guards.

The quill in her magical grip continued its work, and she was able to finish the writing in only a few minutes. Luckily, today was Saturday, which meant no meetings, conferences and no applicants in the court either. Satisfied, she looked at her work one last time, dried the ink with a quick spell and rolled the parchment. As she was about to place her seal on it, someone knocked at her door. “It’s open,” she called.

One of the many servants slowly opened the door. It was a mystery to Twilight how her mother could remember them all by name. She only knew a few of them herself, and she had spent half her life in the castle. “Sorry to bother you, my Princess, but you said you wanted to be informed when your friends gathered in the dining hall.”

Happily, Twilight got up from her large, comfy chair. “Thank you for the reminder. I’ll be on my way in a moment.” The servant quickly bowed to her and closed the door. The last thing Twilight had to do for now was to simply send the letter. She engulfed it in her aura and brought it into the middle of the room, where it vanished in a flash of light. Somehow this procedure always made her think about her little dragon.

The first thing Aura noticed as consciousness slowly returned into her small body was that, for once, the ground she was sleeping on was pleasantly soft. It was a welcome change to the usual hard sand or cold stone she usually had to call a bed.

Satisfied, she reached for her small, but somehow unusually heavy blanket and pulled it up to her chin. She could hear some movement in the background, causing her ears to twitch in annoyance. “Five more minutes, Dad. I’m just so comfortable now,” she automatically responded, thinking she would be woken soon.

She heard a door opening. “Alright, Sugarcube. Just lie in as long as ya like.” At the same moment the door fell shut again, Aura shot up from the bed. That hadn’t been her father. Slowly, she turned her head and took note of her surroundings. She lay in an enormously large, very comfy bed, upholstered with the finest bed linen. It was something she used to steal and then sell. The walls of the room were made of pure white stone; only some curtains and tapestries hanging broke the dullness and leaked some life into it. Through a large half-oval window to her right, she could see the room being lit up by the rising sun. While the events of the previous day returned slowly to the forefront of her mind, she noticed a sofa directly next to the bed. On it were two pillows and blanket, a clear sign that someone had spent the night there, next to her.

At first she thought about Amaryllis, but the voice had been different. Then she remembered. It belonged to one of the two ponies she had met in the maze. But where was her father? Why wasn’t he here? “Dad?” Aura freed herself from the thick wool blanket and brought her hooves under her body. The mattress sunk in a bit, and she carefully took her first step, then the second and finally a jump. The latter catapulted her a meter into the air, and she landed on her back, a wide grin on her face. “Dad? Where are you? Come here and try this out!” Quickly, she got up again and jumped on the very springy mattress. With each jump, she released a happy squeak.

The world in front of her eyes went blurry, as she was jumping in ever increasing speed and height. In the end, she even managed to touch the strange ceiling that was spun over the bed. “Ah see somepony’s havin’ some fun.”

Surprised by the interruption, Aura wasn’t able to slow her momentum and so the surplus energy sent her tumbling to ground with a thud. “Aua.”

“Are you alright, Sugarcube? I’ve got something to drink for us.” The orange mare from yesterday walked through the room and placed a tray she carried on her back on the nightstand next to the bed.

Aura shook her head and stood up again. “No harm done. But where is my father and who are you?” The adult mare stopped. Her eyes wandered around a bit before she sat down on the fluffy carpet and took off her hat.

“Mah name is Applejack.” Aura thought she had a funny accent, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. “To answer your question, we’re in Canterlot Castle. Ya know, the castle that had the garden we were in.” Aura looked through the large room again and nodded. For a castle, this place was pretty cool.

“Where’s my father?” Again Applejack seemed to avoid her look. She knew how adults acted when they didn’t want to speak about something unpleasant. Thiemo adopted the same look to some of her questions as well. “Where is my father!?” Tears began to form in her eyes as anxiousness began to rise inside her.

As Applejack still gave her no response, she tried to run, but got stopped by the larger pony. “Ahm sorry, Sugarcube, but that human is not your father.”

“Of course he is my father! He cared about me since always! He was the only one who ever cared about me!” Still, she tried to get past the larger pony, but without success. She started kicking around, trying to bite the other pony’s hooves but unable to get a grip to do so. “Let me see my father!”

“Sugarcube…”

“My name is Aura and I want see my dad!”

“Sugarcube…” She continued trying to free herself from Applejack’s grip, violently twisting from one side to the next, but the two strong forelegs came around her belly to hold her in place. Ultimately, she burst into tears and slumped down, defeated, only being held by Applejack. “If this human really did what you said, we will talk with Twilight. But he also attacked us Bearers and a princess of Equestria…” Aura looked at her, tears still running down her eyes. Immediately, the pony turned her eyes away again. “At the moment, he is in the dungeons of the castle.” Aura blinked and her sniffling slowly died. Finally the last of them turned into a faint laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“I thought you banished him or… killed him.” Applejack stared at her with mouth agape, horror leaking into her features.

“A-Auralia, who put such an idea into your head?! We would never kill anyone. Land sakes!” Aura simply continued laughing, relieved that her fears were baseless. He didn’t abandon her here. He was alive and he was well. She didn’t care where she was, she hugged the pony just because she needed someone to hug. After a few minutes, she wiped the last tears out of her face and was let down on the floor again. “I could go for something to eat now. Ya in?” The grumbling from Aura’s stomach was answer enough.

“Really, I don’t need protection. I’m just going to the dining hall to meet my friends.” Ever since her first day as a princess, she had only gotten increasingly annoyed that the Royal Guard would literally start sticking to her as soon as she entered the area around Canterlot. Over the last few weeks, she had managed to convince them to give her some free space in the castle. But after Eris’ prank yesterday, that was off the tables again. Guards in front of her door, at every corner on her floor, and at every important point she would come across a few times a day. Finally, there were two stallions in golden armor trotting behind her with stoic looks.

“Pardon me, Princess. Orders from Captain Estoc and General Shield. You are supposed to be guarded around the clock.” Twilight rolled her eyes and turned left into a hallway, instead of walking straight ahead as planned. She just wanted to say a word or two to the general first.

Luckily, his office was only a few minutes away, and so shortly after, she was in front of a thick oak door. “Come on in,” a muffled voice from inside the room called after she knocked.

With a strict look at her followers that more than clearly said that she would be safe and they should wait here, she entered the office of the general. He was a long-serving soldier and Twilight had known him since the time she had been a little filly. To be exact, he had also been Shining Armor’s instructor. “Good morning, Shield.”

“Good morning, Twilight.” The elderly unicorn, having completely succumbed to the grey that age brought with it, only looked up briefly from the papers he stamped and signed, one after the other. “What gives me the honor of such an early visit from our current princess?” If someone has been so long around as he did, one tended not to care much about formalities, Twilight thought to herself. He had been like that with Princess Celestia as well, when she had heard them talking over some of her books. “I hope there haven’t been any more incidents?”

“Everything’s fine, Shield,” she waved off his concerns. “Well, at least almost.”

“Oh? How may I help you?” Twilight knew that he was just acting. She could see very well that he knew what this was about.

“It’s about the guards. I thought we agreed that such a massive presence wasn’t necessary around the castle.” With a heavy sigh, Shield stamped another document and levitated it onto a large pile at the end of his desk.

He folded his hooves in the desk, eyeing her carefully. “Twilight, look. We have to show an image of safety to the public. If things like yesterday, or from the last few weeks in general repeat themselves, how exactly would we look? We lost our princess in our own maze where she was attacked by a human and a changeling?” She bit her lip. “I knew that you’re much smarter than me, Twilight, but I’ve been doing this job for a while now. All that glitters is not gold, but the public doesn’t care. Either everything is alright or it’s not. That’s why they don’t know that the princesses are on a diplomatic mission and not on their much deserved holidays on an island in the Bridle Shores Bay.”

Of course Twilight knew that not everything could be revealed to the public. The strains between the Gryphon Kingdom and Equestria would harm the economy. Outrageous increases in the prices could ruin whole families. But nopony needed to worry about a war. There hadn’t been one for more than a thousand years now.

“I know that you don’t like the restrictions to your privacy, and I’m really sorry about that, but we all have to carry a burden.” Twilight let one of the large pillows flow over to her and took a seat.

“That’s not it, Shield. I’m a princess. Princess Celestia trained me to be one. Not to only be there for my friends, but for all of Equestria. How does it look if their princess is guarded like a foal?” It also was extremely rare that Celestia was guarded this much. Yes, the pegasi who pulled her chariot from time to time were there, but never armed guards like with Twilight.

The old stallion laughed. “Child, that’s what it’s all about. Look, Princess Celestia and Luna are older than almost every book we have in our archives. Powerful enough to move the sun and moon all on their own, a task that required a battalion of unicorns before the founding of Equestria. If you get that old, powerful and wise as one of them, I would call the entire guard off the city without batting an eye if you say they aren’t required. But you are not. Above all else, you’re just as young like everyone else is here. A lesson that Princess Celestia has always been trying to teach us is that together we are strong. If you want to protect your friends, allow yourself some help protecting them. Nopony is expecting you to take a shot for us.” Twilight didn’t respond immediately, instead letting the words soak into her for a moment.

“Thanks Shield… I think that would be all.” She stood up again and walked towards the door.

“What’s on the agenda?” the general asked, his words followed by the sound of a stamp hitting on paper.

“A meeting with my friends and then with Captain Estoc about the changeling and the human. And after that, I think I’ll do something I haven’t done in a long time.”

“And what would that be?” She could almost hear the smug grin on his face.

“Writing a friendship report to mother.”

Author's Notes:

Hope you enjoyed the little "intermission". In chapter 2 they don't take us back in time. Thats because to much happens to use them that way.

If you have any questions just ask. If you want to feed the author write comments. Tasty comments... *om nom nom*

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter,
and also thanks to JBL for proofreading, editing, etc.