With his tail between his legs and in the company of some of his Royal Guards, Estoc marched with swift steps through the corridors of Canterlot’s castle. Right after he had escorted half of the pegasi who were on duty to the castle’s hospital, the generals had arrived. Now he had to justify himself to both them and the princesses in the throne room.

“It’s going to be alright, Captain,” Swift tried to cheer him up. The unicorn had been one of the two stallions stationed at the door to the prisoners. “Nopony saw where the human got the crystals from, or why the suppressors didn’t work.” The rings, Celestia had assured him, were supposed to release a pulse that would paralyze the bearer if they attempted to take them off. He hadn’t paid attention to it during the human’s first escape attempt, but after he had jumped down from the first floor to the ground floor, he had been unable to move. Maybe it was really just a malfunction?

“That is what worries me. He must have gotten them somehow.” The soldiers knew what he meant and looked at each other, uncertainty written on their faces. Estoc could only hope that he was wrong. A mole was the last thing he needed right now, especially since they had just started to make some progress. They had just prevented a raid on a small warehouse last week even though the human attackers had fled.

They turned around one last corner and came to a halt in front of the large door to the throne room. Estoc looked at his companions before he took a deep breath and opened the door.

“…such incompetency can’t be ignored!” General Shield snapped at Spitfire and Forge, the two other generals. On the throne between them sat Princess Celestia. In front of her eyes levitated a document, and she seemed to be paying scant attention to the heated discussion.

With his entrance, Estoc had caught the attention of all present, and Shield just shook his head. “Ah! Captain!” Spitfire greeted. “Are the wounded taken care of?”

Estoc stepped forward, stood up straight, and saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, would you report on what has happened?” Estoc could see that the old Shield was not done yet, but none of the other generals seemed to care. Forge, a dark brown giant of an earth pony, continued chewing on a lollipop and ignored the grumbling of his colleague. Estoc had never seen him without a lollipop, or without his eye patch, or the typical short military manecut. If it weren’t for these simple candies, he would not dare to speak with him even now. It gave him some kind of approachability.

Estoc sighed. “This morning, the human by the name of Thiemo received a visit from Professor Lyra Heartstrings, who was responsible for him until a few days ago. The research had been terminated on Princess Celestia’s order, and Miss Heartstring was dismissed. She apparently wanted to prove one last theory, and the princess granted her an audience. She took a few soaps and other care products for the human with her on the way. His last wish before being reallocated to Tartarus had been to use Her Majesty’s bath one last time which she had generously allowed him once already. Since their conversation had not been concluded, Miss Heartstrings accompanied the human and the changeling to the bathroom. After a few minutes, in which my guards didn’t hear any sound of water, they went to check on them. The door was sealed, and so they sounded the alarm. You should know about what happened from there on. I arrived a few minutes later with the company, but it was too late. The human had already broken the window, taken Miss Heartstrings hostage, and knocked all present pegasi against the wall with an unknown spell so powerful that many broke their wings. As we speak, another company has taken on the pursuit and we—”

A raised hoof from Spitfire stilled him to silence. “Thank you, Captain. We are familiar with the procedure of pursuing prisoners. Gentlecolts.” She turned towards the two other generals. “It is quite clear from this report that the soap must have been replaced. Do we know who delivered it? Did it get checked?” Silence filled the room. “We have to expect an inside job. Also, if humans can manage to pull something like that off, we can’t underestimate them any longer.” Shield and Forge nodded. “Do we know in which direction they fled?”

“They flew southwards, ma’am. Most likely they want back into the Leylands.” Spitfire nodded at Swift’s words.

“Captain, take another contingent and check the surrounding cities. We can’t discount the possibility that they may be hiding right underneath our muzzles.” Estoc saw the other generals approving as Celestia slightly nodded over her document.

“I’m on it!” He saluted again and turned around on his hooves.

If the citizens of Ponyville listened for a little closer, they could probably hear, over the laughter of foals playing in the snow, the screams of one of their fellow citizens in the distance. As things stood, only Thiemo and Amaryllis had to endure Lyra’s panicked shouts. “Would you please shut up?! If you keep on screaming, flying low won’t be of any use.” They were only ten meters above the ground in order to raise as little attention as possible. “I’m holding you, and even if you drop, Amy will surely catch you with her magic.” That finally seemed to calm the stressed unicorn. “And even if she doesn’t, we’re only a few meters above ground and there’s a lot of snow. It’s not like you would die. Maybe just a broken bone or two.” Aaand once again she clenched around his neck with her forehooves as firmly as she could and with her back hooves around his hip. At least that way he no longer had to hold her flank with his hands and could finally look at the instructions.

Celestia had written that they should take the path from Ponyville into the Everfree until they arrived at some castle ruins. There their guides should already be waiting for them with maps and supplies. “Thiemo?” Amy’s voice made him look up. “Will we be there soon?”

He could hear the exhaustion in her voice. Thiemo had already suspected that with Lyra, who was obviously heavier than a little orange filly, her power would not be enough. “Over there must be Ponyville. I think we can go the rest of the way on foot. See if you can find a safe landing spot.”

Thiemo felt Lyra’s snout moving across the back of his head as she looked down and immediately snapped back again, most likely with her eyes closed. Her shivering was a clear indication of her fear of heights. “What’s with the barn over there?” Amy shouted and pointed a hoof at what she had spotted.

A single old barn stood up out of the snow. On one side, the wall was halfway collapsed and the heavily snow-loaded roof didn’t seem very promising either. Only idiots would stay in there. “Perfect, that’s where we land.” Of course Lyra screamed again as Amaryllis suddenly changed direction and the ground quickly came closer. With the last flaps of her wings, some loose snow from the top levels was blown aside as the hooves of the changeling princess were sucked into it.

“Phew. I couldn’t have made another hundred meters,” Amy sighed as Thiemo and Lyra climbed off her back. The later was still clinging to the human’s back.

“Anyone got a clue where exactly we are? Someone must have owned this barn once.” Thiemo freed his neck from the green hooves still clinging on to him and heard a thud behind him as Lyra fell in the snow. She vented her displeasure, but it fell on deaf ears. Thiemo meanwhile climbed through the open side of the relatively dry barn. A few old blankets and some hay laid around, but the creaking of the remaining wooden beams were not very promising. “That thing must belong to a farm.”

“This must be Sweet Apple Acres. The Apples have these things literally all over their property,” was the first decent thing that came out of Lyra’s mouth since they had left the castle. “One would think they build these things just for fun.” Another thought came to Thiemo’s head. Aura was here, and this was probably the last time he could see her for a long time. She could surely visit him in the Crystal Empire, but the question was when? Would her family allow it before she was an adult? Until now, Applejack didn’t seem to have anything against it, but she didn’t know anything about his escape yet either.

The two mares followed him into the old building and slammed their hooves on the ground to free them from the cold substance. “Sometimes I think it’s good to not have holes.” Thiemo could only agree with Amaryllis there. If Luna hadn’t put some heat spells on his clothes, he would surely be shivering now and mourning about the frostbite on his toes. Winters in Equestria were cold. If he had to guess, he would say it were at least minus ten degrees Celsius out there. For ponies, with their warm fur, this was less of a problem but ever so more for him. At least only his few uncovered body parts were lightly affected by this, so it was still bearable.

“So, now that we can breathe for a few minutes… would someone tell me how and why by Celestia’s beard did you flee? Why didn’t you just say, ‘Hey Lyra, excuse us, but we want to be alone in the bath because we want to escape.’ To hell with it, why not even said that you wanted to make a little swarm. Something!” The roof creaked at her shouting and a bit of snow fell on the ground. Cautiously, they all waited to see if anything more would happen, but it stayed still.

“Well, the question as to why we want to escape is pretty redundant, don’t you think? Me going to Tartarus and Amy having a trial in front of the parliament? If it weren’t enough that changelings are enemies of Equestria, her mother also tried to invade Canterlot. Suurely there would be a fair trial waiting for her with no politician trying to make himself look better.” At least that was what Celestia was afraid of since she would have been unable to intervene in such a public trial. A political dilemma for Celestia… perhaps. It had served to allow them to escape, however. Well, maybe aside from the leather bracer on his left hand. “What you didn’t know is that Princess Amaryllis here is the daughter of no one else but Prince Shining Armor.” A name Thiemo always had to grin about. “Which makes Celestia her grandmother.”

Lyra only blinked and stared over at Amy. “So then… does Twilight know?”

“My… aunt knows nothing, only who I am. She was the first one to find out. I didn’t even know who my father was until Thiemo put two and two together.” Amy snuggled a bit closer to him. “I wouldn’t even be here without him. Even if it wasn’t easy, I’m happy to have met one of my grandmothers and am looking forward to seeing my father. Even if he’s going to hate me.”

“So you’re heading for the Crystal Empire. The meeting point in the south will distract from your destination in the north. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia is searching for you in the south and won’t cause any suspicion. Yes, that sounds like the princess,” Lyra concluded correctly, and Thiemo gave her an approving nod. “Very well, I’m on board. I still want to know what’s up with the humans, and you!” She pointed at Thiemo. “Are the best way to find out.”

“Come on, squirt!” Scootaloo shouted at Aura, who tried to keep up with the larger ponies consisting of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and her as they marched through the snow. Applejack had given her sister a task, and she had wanted to go ice-skating immediately afterwards. Of course, the filly didn’t want to miss out on that. It was just too much fun seeing others falling on their snouts.

“Scoots!” Sweetie Belle jabbed her friend in the side. “You hated it when Rainbow called you that. Do you think Auralia likes to be called that?” Actually, she hadn’t even thought about that. She was small, especially compared to her father, so maybe the nickname was not too wrong. But she wasn’t that much smaller than the other ones.

“I was never as small as she was!” Aura looked down her legs, of which two thirds had disappeared in the deep snow while it hadn’t even reached to the knees of the others. “I’m also Rainbow’s biggest fan and her little sister. And it’s not like I’ve ever gotten on her nerves.” The filly watched as aunt Apple Bloom and her unicorn friend only raised a single brow. “What?”

“Never mind, Scoots. We should rather see that we get to the old barn that was knocked down. The sooner we get that done, the sooner we’ll be at the lake with the others. Come on and jump up, Aura.” She didn’t need to be told twice and did as her aunt said. Happy to be out of the cold snow, she made herself comfortable on the larger pony’s back. It was different from lying over a shoulder but not any less warm.

“I don’t get it why we have to that now,” Scootaloo complained. “It’s in the middle of the winter; why not wait for spring when it can get carried away by a storm or something? I could even organize a little tornado.”

“We need the firewood. Big Mac already went and cut a lot, but the old house gets cold so quickly. Just because we built with wood instead of stone like everypony else.” Stone always seemed colder than wood to Auralia, but her aunt was an expert on this subject.

They trotted across the snowy fields outside of Ponyville for a while, which raised a question for Aura. “Does this all belong to your farm?”

Apple Bloom giggled. “Ah asked Applejack the same question. Actually, the whole of Ponyville belongs to the farm. Our ancestor founded it and developed the land after all.”

“Developed? What does that mean?” Her father always explained the words she couldn’t understand.

“That means that they made the land inhabitable,” Sweetie helpfully added.

Scootaloo clapped Sweetie on the shoulder. “You can always rely on our dictionary here.”

“What’s wrong with having a splendid vocabulary, Scootaloo?” Aura had noticed a lot of these nicknames and also how the pegasus was better in dishing it out than taking it. She didn’t like it at all being called chicken either, or dodo.

Unfortunately, Aura didn’t understand what the meaning behind these names besides them sounding funny and Scootaloo getting angry.

“Exactly, chicken,” she agreed from Apple Bloom’s back, causing a laugh from the other two ponies.

“Ah see mah cousin ain’t no fool.” With a grin, her head got lightly patted.

“Whatever. Let’s break down this barn and get out of here.” Aura climbed forward slightly so that her hind legs lay on Apple Bloom’s neck and her forelegs were on her head. This way, she could better see where they were going. Even if there wasn’t much to see besides an old barn in the distance. Suddenly, her aunt sped up, and she had to hold onto her ears to avoid falling down, but they would at least get to their target soon.

“What the…?” was all that Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom got as a warning as the third member in front of them suddenly stopped, and they all landed in the snow. Aura flew over the group and landed on the small pile of the snow their sudden stop had caused.

With a moan, the filly rubbed her head. “Hey, a warning would have been nice!” she shouted back. “Why does no one understand that I don’t like to be thrown around?” she said more to herself than to the others.

“You have never complained so far!”

“Sand is a lot warmer and softer than snow!” Wait, she knew that voice. “Dad?” Not far away from her, a very well-known figure came out of what you could only call a pile of planks. “Dad!” She shook the snow out of her mane and traveled the last meters in a gallop. The human went down on his knees and picked her up against his chest as soon as she came into reach.

“What are you doing out here? I was just about to go looking for you.” He switched between hugging her, tickling her lightly, and just looking at her. Aura had no chance, but she didn’t want one either. She was in the arms of her father, sudden happiness radiating from her.

Aura gasped for air as he stopped the tickling so that she could reply. “We wanted to make firewood out of this old barn.” She pointed back to where her aunt and her friends had raised their heads over the little snow pile. She didn’t expect that Apple Bloom would immediately jump up as she saw Thiemo and gallop towards her father, ready to attack. But he saw her coming and jumped to the side, still with her on his arm.

“Hey, careful, you could get her,” he shouted after Apple Bloom as she slithered past him. Aura quickly slithered out of his hands, fell to the ground, and positioned herself between her aunt and her father.

“Don’t fight! He’s my father! He’s not going to hurt anypony!” Apple Bloom, who was just about to turn around, stopped the assault and looked over at her, breathing heavily. Aura threw a look back at her father, who stood with one knee in the snow, ready to evade once again. “Please…”

“You told us you were living with a human… but I thought… that was just a story,” Sweetie Belle threw into the volatile situation from the side. Aura saw her aunt looking grimly at the human.

“One wrong move and I’ll attack.” Aura knew that he wasn’t afraid of her. She had seen fear on his face before, and there was none this time.

Thiemo nodded. “I’m just here to say goodbye.” Horrified, her head snapped back to her father. “At least for a while.”

“What? Dad! I’m coming with you, just us two… like it used to be.” Thiemo turned around and waved his hand. Out of the barn stepped two more shapes. One she recognized as Amaryllis immediately, the other mare she had never seen before.

“Aura,” he began and put a hand on her head. “I’m taking Amaryllis to her father. This will take a while, but as soon as I’m there, I’m going to write you, understood?” The filly sniffled and shook her head.

“No… I want to come with you,” she complained.

“Hey, we’re not going anywhere where you can’t follow us later, okay? We’re just… going ahead.” She sniffled again and looked up at him with large eyes. “No, this is not going to work. You’re safe here and have a family. That was the plan, remember?” Aura didn’t care about the plan. Even if she did like it here, she didn’t want to leave her father alone, not being left alone by him. “Hey, uhm… Apple something, right?”

“Apple Bloom. Whatchya want?”

“Okay Apple Bloom, would you do me a solid and bring her back to your little village?” Aura clamped on to her father’s leg, refusing to let go.

“Uhm, we’re supposed to break down this barn first.” Thiemo turned around and looked at the old thing. Auralia heard the rattling of some gems as he reached into his pocket.

“Everypony take a step back,” came his short warning before there was the sound of wood collapsing on itself. “I think that should do it.” A few seconds later, Aura got pulled by her tail and lifted onto the back of her aunt. “Take care, will you? And by that, I mean that you will look out for her.” He pointed his finger at Sweetie, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Without any of the three saying a word, they turned around and trotted off slowly at first. As soon as they were a bit farther away, they burst out into a full gallop. The whole time, Aura looked back, desperately trying to get off Apple Bloom’s back, but the green magical aura from Sweetie Belle held her back even as she struggled mightily. She could only watch as her father and his companions disappeared between some trees in the forest, hot tears leaking from her eyes before disappearing into her aunt’s coat.

They moved along swiftly, the only sound coming from Aura as she quietly sobbed. “Wasn’t that Miss Heartstrings with the human?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Author's Notes:

Here we are again. And not only me, Tango is back too. Who is Tango?
The guy who drew the cover and many of the pictures of the earlier chapters.
Right now he is looking for an idea what he should draw for "chapter 1 - act 2.4".
So I thought, why not ask you guys? So maybe read said chapter again and point out your ideas.

Also Gron and JBL released another chapter of their story Contact. Give it a try!

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.