Chapter Forty Three

It Hits the Fan

The mountains and small, lonely villages of the Ottomare Empire countryside soon gave way to rolling hills and open fields as the carriages neared the coastline. Tranquil meadows, silk farms dotting the landscape, the faint glimmer of the blue-green waters of the distant sea: it was serene, peaceful, and utterly majestic.

It also proved to be the source of endless frustration for Spike, the source of which was his inability to enjoy the sun soaking into his scales. His wives had insisted he wear a disguise like that which he wore in Baghdad; he could understand that, since nopony in the Ottomare Empire would just let a dragon walk around for no reason. The innkeeper at the city of Ankara had told them as much after they had stayed for the night.

“Ponies are obligated by law to report dragon sightings the closer they live to Istanbul,” the stallion had said, a rather gruff, older fellow with a twinkle in his eye and a long, white beard. “Dragons are allowed to live within our borders, sure, especially on the outskirts, but may simply choose not to. Too much hassle, what with all the paperwork involved. Negative attitudes towards them have been cooling over the years, but larger dragons are greatly shunned, and sometimes diplomatically asked to leave under penalty of imprisonment.”

“How would one seek passage through Istanbul?” Spike had asked, not sure if his disguise had actually fooled the old pony. His smile had been a bit too... knowing for it to just be common courtesy. “We are travelers from Equestria and wish to know how to reach the other side without encountering many... difficulties.”

“If you’re going that way, then you’re bound to run into the outer defensive networks. Nothing much, to be honest: small forts with small garrisons designed to raise the alarm should an army approach the city,” the old fellow had said. “My advice would to be to go along the highways with the rest of the travelers going in and out of the city. Much easier and safer, to be honest, I can tell you now it may be a bit more crowded to anything you’re used to.”

So Spike, after asking for directions from a few altogether none-too-bright guards, found himself, his wives and their subsequent carriages travelling down the widest, busiest roads any of them had ever lain their eyes on. Smooth stones, ground down by untold years of wheel and hoof traffic, stretched out before them in long, winding paths. The roads themselves were wide enough that a good five coaches moving along side-by-side could pass another group of five carriages. Untold numbers of ponies traveled along the highway, many of their carriages moving in small groups. Spike, disguised and sitting in the largest carriage with his four wives, looked out in awe as they made their way over ancient bridges and through rolling hills.

Then, coming around the corner of one hill, Asalah started making a frantic noise. “There, there, there it is!” she cried, causing the others to all look in the direction she had been.

Like a glimmering jewel set in the center of a winding oceanic river, and with mountains far behind it, lay the city of Istanbul. Formerly Constantinople, and Byzantium before that, it was an old city, founded centuries before even the rise and imperialistic expansion of the Roaman Empire. It was the crossroads between Asia and Europe, and the trade that went through it was likely the most extensive on the entire planet.

It showed: the walls of the city gleamed in their mighty splendor, the radiant light cascading off of their sides. The height of the walls was immense: Spike wasn’t even sure something other than a dragon could penetrate such defenses. Gates, towers, defensive ballistae, trebuchets and catapults lined the walls like great jagged teeth, and the closer they drew to the city, the more apparent just how formidable these defenses were became apparent to them. What looked to be giant tubes on rotating platforms formed an outer barrier around the wall, complete with smaller but no less impressive sets of towers, walls, and even large ditches filled with huge stakes.

“Excuse me, what are those tubes for?” Asalah asked a passing griffin, who was tending a small herd of goats along the busy highway.

“Greek fire,” the old griffin replied, adjusting the shepherd’s crook he was leaning on. “Spits out sticky flames that’ll cook you alive: I hear they could rival a dragon’s fire in potency.”

“Sticky?” Asalah asked, everypony else in the carriage as perplexed as she was about that term. It wasn’t like any of them had ever heard such a descriptive term for fire before.

“Yes, sticky,” the old griffin replied. “The flames are flung out with long strands of wax and tar, almost like fountains. That stuff’ll stick to you and never go out, even if you jump in water.” He waved them goodbye after that.

“Sounds like a thoroughly unpleasant way to go,” Trixie said, shuddering slightly as they passed said tubes. “Burning to death in unimaginable agony as the flames eat you alive? No pony, no matter how cruel or evil, deserves a fate like that.” She must have forgotten how most of the pirates under Undi’s leadership had died out at sea when Spike turned into a flaming missile.

“Rival a dragon’s fire? Psh, please,” Spike said, waving his hand like it wasn’t a big deal. “If it can’t melt what I can, or teleport messages, then what good is it for besides war?”

“I don’t know, it would be an awfully powerful deterrent for any army foolish enough to come close to this city,” Asalah said as Maria gently combed her mane.

“As if those walls weren’t deterring enough,” Chrysalis muttered, glad she no longer had to wear her Meia disguise. Soon enough, it would be downright impossible for her to wear it, and if Spike’s friends called him again with that magical mirror spell, she’d definitely have to hide and just have the others say she was “unwell” with the pregnancy.

Eventually finding nothing more to talk about, the five (or more, depending on how you looked at it) travelers continued along the highways until they reached the very edge of the city’s massive walls. There, a long line greeted them, with guards coming up and stopping every carriage before they were allowed through what looked to be a rather expensive toll booth.

“They must be checking to make sure every has their papers,” Maria said as they all made sure everything was at hand and they were all properly dressed. Spike’s spines and tail had been more of an issue to hide than his wings, but eventually they managed to make do with a tall headscarf and a flowing cloak that allowed him to tuck his tail as close to him as he could. His wings, actually, had been rather easy to disguise: now it just looked like his shoulders were a tad broader than most might expect.

Eventually, after the line had more or less passed through most of the checkpoints, a pair of bored-looking guards approached the carriage, with a small and rather rotund little minotaur in tow.

“Papers please,” the little minotaur said, adjusting a small pair of what seemed to be reading glasses along the edge of his snout. Asalah, the designated “paper” pony, gently handed him the small collection of documents. With a slight huff, the minotaur flipped through the papers rather rapidly, his beady little eyes a blur as they examined each and every line of writing.

“Everything seems to be in order,” he said, handing the stack of papers back to Asalah. “May I ask your business in our empire’s most glorious city?”

“We are travelers seeing passage to the Grand Duchy of Marescow,” Maria said, making sure to have her voice sound every bit the weary but no-nonsense noblemare. “A few of us are carrying foals, so we thought it best to avoid travel by ship through the Meditermanean and Aegean Seas.”

“Ah, yes, a wise decision,” the minotaur said as he motioned for the guards to move on to the next carriage. “Well, I wish you safe passage through our most fair and glorious city. Here is the marker you’ll need for the next checkpoint,” he added, handing them a small medal that almost seemed like the one a pony would win in a tournament. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.” With that, he waddled away, leaving Spike and his wives to their own business.

“He seemed nice, if a bit too... bookish,” Trixie said as the carriages lurched forward, spurring themselves onward and through the gates of the city. Son enough, they were beyond the city’s walls, and already nearing what would undoubtedly be the outermost third of the city.

“Bookish? If anyone were bookish, the scribes and librarians in Baghdad were beyond that simple term,” Chrysalis said with a slight chuckle. “The looks on their faces when you sent that enormous pile of copied manuscripts and such back to Equestria with your flames? Priceless!”

“Yeah, I thought they were all going to keel over from shock!” Spike agreed, chuckling as they went along their way.
Falling into silence once more, the carriage’s passengers found themselves in the middle of a great square, with a small fountain and innumerable shops built in to the surrounding buildings. Creatures of all kinds did their business there: zebras, earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns: minotaurs, griffins, the occasional hippogriff and even a few diamond dogs, though they seemed to be more like hired help than actual business owners. Guards of all races patrolled the streets, all dressed rather intimidatingly in reddish-gold armor and carrying wicked-looking scimitars at their sides. A few were adorned with intimidating-looking masks, golden in color and covering everything but their eyes. Surely they were captains, as they traveled in front of their miniature contingents of fellow guards.

The things they were selling in that square were astonishing, both in quality and sheer diversity: it made the markets of Baghdad look like lemonade stands set up by ponies in kindergarten. A naga, a snake-creature from India was there, selling small pets as what seemed to be reasonable prices. Tiny imported wolpertingers from the northern forests of Germareny, fierce-looking scarlet eagles from the Marengolian steppes, curious-looking amphisbaenae that slithered in their cages: there were just so many different creatures, it was a wonder the place didn’t reek of animal excrement. Next to him were several stalls that one would expect to find in such a mercantile area: a potter’s place, a blacksmith’s workshop, a small scribe stall and several reclusive banking houses. These seemed to be the most fortified, as they were absolutely covered with iron gates and had not a single window other than the teller’s exchange platform.

A horn blasted down the road, causing all of the milling pedestrians to stop, look up and get off the road. A great many of them pressed themselves against the side of Spike’s carriage, which had parked itself with the others down an alleyway. The guards patrolling the area also moved off to the side, occasionally “motivating” others to do the same by way of a threatening gesture or a loud shout. The horn blew again, much closer and louder this time, and soon enough, Spike saw why.

Over the heads of the civilians milling about the edges of the square came a banner supported by two large servants, the banner itself written in a language neither Spike nor his wives knew of. Strange, that the majority of the planet seemed to speak a common language, and yet regional and written variations could differ so vastly. Behind the two banner-supporters came a small set of soldiers, personal guards judging from their state of dress. Behind them came a carriage, which in turn was followed by even more guards.

The carriage pulled its way into the middle of the square and stopped, and soon enough two figures emerged from it. One was a tall earth pony stallion with a short, neatly-trimmed beard, and the other was a shorter minotaur, rotund like the one who had greeted them, but obviously much “higher up” on the totem pole of politics. Unrolling a scroll, the small minotaur began to read it aloud.

“Fellow citizens of the Empire, it is well known that we are experiencing an age of peace unlike any that has preceded it. Our people are well-fed, our coffers are filled with the coins of trade, and even now, our diplomatic envoys are connecting us with the most prosperous nations far-removed from our borders. These are words of our Mighty Sultan, may he never grow frail.”

The minotaur indicated the taller stallion standing next to him. “This is his nephew, Devrim. He speaks for us all when he proclaims how gracious we are for his uncle’s prowess in delegating peace unto our enemies and in turn encouraging them to become our allies. These are all good, but the times are changing. Even as we speak, there is growing dissent amongst our neighbors in Europe, and to the far East, there lies the ever-present shadow of the Marengol menace.”

The crowd, utterly silent at this point, burst into a quiet but utterly overpowering chatter of whispers. The minotaur, apparently unfazed, continued on. “We have been rebuffed by our European neighbors, who say we are overestimating the threat of these Marengols. Instead, they call us cowardly, worrisome and fools. Are we not under the same threat of annihilation as they are? Do we not bleed like they did when our ancestors extinguished the last embers of the former flame that was the Eastern Roaman Empire? Did they not fight us for decades in long, bloody toils that ended with the ascension of Devrim’s uncle to power?”

The buzzing of the civilians began to grow a bit louder, and there were even a few shouts of agreement amongst the more rabble-rousing aspects of the crowd.

“Devrim asks why should we listen to their doddering old leaders, who still bargain and work ceaselessly to undermine our control over our own territories?” the minotaur continued, his voice rising above that of the crowd’s buzzing. “Why do we not assert ourselves as the rightful heirs to this nation we have founded on our blood, sweat and tears? Do we not fight for our honor? Will we not fight for the return of our once proud glory? Will we-,”

He was cut off by a crossbow bolt thudding into his midsection. Looking down in stunned surprise, the minotaur silently moved his lips before he slumped over onto the ground. Then, all hell broke loose. Figures dashed across the rooftops, letting go their crossbow bolts in a frenzy at the guards below. The guards returned fire with what few crossbows they had, shouting and ordering their fellow soldiers to pursue the brigands. Devrim himself grabbed his fallen minotaur companion and dragged him back into his carriage as several bolts thudded into the frame, leaving it looking like a severely-aged porcupine. He managed to shut the door just as a few more bolts impacted the side.

“Görkemi için imparatorluk!” came a shout from the rooftops as throngs of the would-be assassins leaped down into the panicking crowd. Everywhere, ponies and griffins and minotaurs and all sorts of citizens descended into a mindless panic, running and screaming and calling for their loved ones as every single one of them fled the area. Spike’s carriage was rocked to-and-fro from the pressing bodies trying to escape, and Spike didn’t care. He was more concerned about his family inside with him that anything that was happening outside.

Outside, the guards and the assassins met in clashes of steel and armor. Bolts continued to pour down from the rooftops, striking many a guard and fleeing civilian in the torso. Guards struck down assassins as fast as they could, all the while hurrying the carriage of the sultan’s nephew out of the square. As soon as it disappeared, the assassins flung down small devices and ran, vanishing into the sudden clouds of smoke they had just created. The guards shouted for order and to find the scoundrels, gathering up their wounded and spreading out to find them.

Spike, his body covering his wives’ in a protective embrace, did not see the figure approach their carriage from the shadows. With a motion similar to that of somepony trying to hide something, the figure tossed a crossbow into the carriage and fled back into the shadows, disappearing as though they had never been there to begin with.

Three guards rushed up to the side of the carriage, and upon peering inside, began to shout and pound against it. Spike, looking up from his wives, saw the crossbow lying next to him. Turning to face the guards, he felt the door swing open and a set of burly hands grab him by his clothes. With a good yank, he was pulled outside and thrown to the ground, where three swords were soon pointed at his throat.

“Why do you have that crossbow!?” one of the guards shouted as another rushed up and tried entering the carriage. He must have done something, as Trixie screamed out in panic and what sounded like pain. The poor guard had actually managed to tug on her tail slightly when he shifted his weight inside the carriage.

Spike felt his blood run cold. Knocking the weapons out of his way, he jumped to his feet and grabbed the guard inside the carriage. With one swift motion, he pulled him out by his armor and tossed him away, his flight ending upon a collision with (and subsequent destruction of) a market stand. The other guards sprung on him, shouting for more to join them as Spike struggled.

Spike threw one off of him into a pair of other guards rushing to their aid. He saw more than felt one try and stick him with a spear, only for said spear to splinter and shatter upon contact with him. As another guard tried to bring him down to the ground, Spike pushed him away, his sleeve tearing off with the guard.

Immediately the guards fell into a panic and began outright screaming. “Dragon! Dragon!” they cried, many pointing at Spike’s obviously scaly arm and hand. More and more guards tackled Spike, trying to bring him down. “Leave them alone!” Spike roared when he saw another guard make way for the carriage. His tail unfurling from his side, he swatted said guard away from the carriage just as three approached with rather odd-looking tubes. Roaring into their faces just as they took aim, Spike saw each puff out reddish smoke. Catching it full in the face, he tried roaring again, but suddenly felt his mouth close on him. His knees giving out, and his body suddenly becoming unbearably heavy to hold up, Spike fell face-forward onto the ground, more guards piling on top of him. As his mind drifted off, the last thing he heard was Chrysalis shouting at the guards hauling them out of the carriage.

An hour later, the captain of the royal guard looked up from her mile-high stack of paperwork at the sudden knock on her office door. To be fair, she didn’t exactly have an office; it was more of a large, open room that resembled a courtroom more than any kind of office. Plus, she wasn’t alone with her paperwork: there were well over two dozen guards with her, also filing through the tedious processes that kept the empire more or less running smoothly.

“Who is it?” Myrrine Aeraktos called out, her voice carrying with it the weariness and irritability she and her entire section of the royal guards felt.

The one who knocked didn’t even bother to answer before entering. “It is I, my captain,” a reed-thin unicorn said, entering with his helmet thankfully removed.

“Hyginus, why are you here? Didn’t I tell you to stand watch out at the outer gates with the rest of the guards?” Myrrine asked, a tone of displeasure entering her voice. She really didn’t have time for any of this stallion’s bullshit. Why a griffin of her status had to be in charge of such a conniving, unrepentant, complete scoundrel of a guard, completely escaped her.

“There is a matter of utmost importance for you to oversee,” the reedy stallion replied, his voice polite and his slight leer anything but. It was a well-known fact that guard had only gotten his position due to familial connections, and even though he would likely go nowhere in the terms of advancing in rank, his position allowed him to perform... activities usually reserved for those bound for prison. Of course, said family connections, a distinct lack of evidence and eyewitnesses, combined with his silver tongue and a penchant for unconfirmed bribery meant he was all but untouchable.

“Really?” Myrrina asked, arching an eyebrow in surprise. “What could be important enough for you to risk my wrath and enter without stating your business to my own guards?”

“There was an attempt on Devrim’s life an hour ago, under the watch of some of our colleagues,” the stallion said softly, loud enough to be heard by all but not loud enough to be interpreted as a boastful shout. “He managed to survive, but many of our guards were wounded, and almost all the assassins escaped.”

“Almost?” the griffin asked, her eyebrow traveling further still up her forehead. “I take it one was apprehended... alive, this time?”

“Yes,” Hyginus replied, his voice sounding incredibly smug, as if he were not telling her everything. Considering his background, that was almost a certainty.

“So, after a -might I remind you unsuccessful- attempt on Devrim’s life, you managed to capture one of the assassins? How exactly is this big news?” Myrrina’s patience, short as it was, grew ever shorter the longer she had to talk with Hyginus.

“The failed assassin we captured was in the presence of four mares: two unicorns, a zebra, and a changeling, all of them female, and three of them pregnant,” the stallion replied, obscenely licking his lower lip at the mention of the word “female”.
Someday, she was going to kill him; of that, Myrrina was certain. But for the moment, she would continue to allow him to live and serve the glory of the empire. “Anything else? They will likely be spared, even if they carry what we assume are his foals.”

“They aren’t carrying normal foals,” Hyginus said with a rather evil look in his eyes. “The one we captured was... a dragon.”

Instant silence greeted the room as every single soldier, whether male or female, pony of something else, stopped what they were doing and looked up at the boastful stallion. All eyes were on him, one thing he truly loved, and to be the center of such rapt attention truly made him feel alive.

The silence ended with four words emanating from Myrrina’s mouth. “Take me to him.”

Meanwhile...

Spike slowly opened his eyes, feeling the urge to rub them. Trying to do so, he out something rather unsettling: his hands were chained together. Looking down, he saw the same was for his feet: a glance back at his wings proved to just confirm the same. “No problem, I’ll just break out of these,” he thought, prying his arms apart to bust the shackles like... like...

He couldn’t break them: in fact, he could barely move his arms at all. “What?” he said out loud, unsure of just what was happening. How could he not break these? There wasn’t a material in the world that he knew of that a dragon couldn’t break through! Experimentally, he tried biting it, but found he just couldn’t put in enough jaw strength to actually do anything.

“Spike! You’re awake!” a voice said, causing Spike to look up. In an instant, four bodies were pressing in on him, three of whom pushed into him with swollen bellies.

“Hey,” was all Spike could say as he tried to regain his bearings. Looking over his cuddling wives’ heads, he saw he was in some sort of... dungeon? Except, it wasn’t technically a dungeon: dungeons didn’t often come with wide-open cells, grated windows, and several guards within clear view of the prisoners. Nor did it have a griffin standing on the “free” side, watching their every move with a slightly intrigued expression. “Where... where are we?”

“You’re in one of Istanbul’s many prisons,” the griffin said, her voice causing Spike’s wives to shuffle off to his sides. “I expect your stay will be rather short, given the charges filed against you.”

“Charges?” Trixie asked, protectively shielding her stomach behind Spike as he sat up.

“Attempted assassination, conspiracy to commit assassination, accomplice in numerous murders of civilians and attacks on city guards,” the griffin said, counting off the charges one by one on her talon-tipped fingers.

“We are just travelers seeking passage through the city,” Asalah said with a pleading look. “We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Then how do you explain the crossbow in the carriage with you?”

“Somepony threw that in with us while Spike here protected us during the... fight,” Maria said, her anger almost getting the best of her. She would not stand for such accusations: she wouldn’t! “This is all a big misunderstanding.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t: it is not my place to separate the truth from the lies,” Myrrina said softly. “Even if that is the truth, and you were just victims of some unfortunate coincidence, I cannot let you leave.”

“Why not?” Spike asked. “We are not citizens of this empire: we haven’t caused any trouble!”

“Tell that to the guards recuperating from your “resisting arrest” episode,” the griffin said, her wings ruffling slightly behind her back.

“They were threatening my family,” Spike said, a growl emerging against his will as he said this. "I'm guessing you know what happens when a dragon's family is threatened: we react on instinct, not rational thought."

“That is entirely beside the point,” Myrrina said. “You are a dragon, and while that in and of itself may not be a crime, to many of our citizens, you are no better than the assassins that attempted to kill the sultan’s nephew. While you will not be executed, you will likely be staying here indefinitely until you either provide proof of your innocence or you receive a pardon. I highly doubt either of those will happen.”

Before she turned to walk away, the griffin cast one last look at Spike. “Don’t even think of trying to break out, dragon. You may be wondering why you couldn’t just now, yes?”

“Umm... yes?” Spike said.

“Those chains you all are wearing absorb magic, though that only works on non-dragon folk. You, Spike, were subjected to our anti-dragon smoke: it disrupts your body’s natural magical abilities for an extended period, so I suggest you just sit there and behave. I have too much paperwork to do to babysit you five.” With that, she left, closing the door behind her.

“Well.... shit,” Spike muttered. The looks on his wives' faces all seemed to mirror his sentiments exactly.

Outside of the prison, Hyginus looked gleefully at his captain as she emerged from the complex. “Well? Do you have any orders for me?” he asked, sounding somehow eager, bored and resentful at the same time. “Am I to separate the mares from the dragon?”

With a swiftness that made the weight of her armor seem meaningless, Myrrina grabbed the stallion by the throat, brought him up to her eye level and slammed him against a wall. “You are not to go near any of those prisoners, you hear me?” she whispered, her voice deadlier than a nest full of cobras. “You so much as look at those mares in a manner I find distasteful, I will cut off your head with my bare talons and mount it on a pike in front of my barracks. Do you understand me?”

Now, Hyginus was a scoundrel: a bastard, a horrible pony, and altogether one without morals. He did what he wanted without much fear, but then and there, he knew he would have to tiptoe the line very carefully around the griffin. She was known for being utterly ruthless with it came to “improper” treatment of prisoners, especially female ones. She had severely penalized other guards for so much as looking at female prisoners the wrong way, and he had no doubt she’d carry out her “promise” if he stepped out of line and got caught doing so. “Crystal c-c-clear,” he gasped, wincing as the griffin dropped him back onto his hooves. Rubbing his neck, he waited until his captain had disappeared before glancing back at the crowd milling far from the prison doors. With a small, curt nod, he signaled to the pony hiding in the shadows like a wraith.

The figure disappeared in an instant, vanishing amongst the milling pedestrians as if they had never even been there.

Meanwhile...

“You cut that awfully close, my faithful servant,” a tall pony said as a rotund minotaur took the traveling cloak off of him. Settling down, the pony picked up the small piece of paper he had managed to recover from his own carriage before the guards had inspected it.

“Forgive me, sir, but I thought that speech you had me write was rather excellent,” the minotaur replied as he poured his master a cup of imported tea. “Though I wonder why the crowd needed me to announce just who you were: surely they recognized your face from some of your more popular public appearances?”

“The speech was good, but your... how shall we say, “death”, was rather lackluster,” Devrim said as he took a sip, letting the flavor roll around in his mouth before he demurely swallowed it all. “You have no flair for the dramatic arts, Tycho. Besides, what would those poor sniveling plebeians know of me: me, a pony of the highest class in the empire?”

“Yes, well, I was undoubtedly lucky that bolt wasn’t sharp and only embedded itself in that sack of flour you had me wear under my clothes,” the minotaur replied. “I could have been killed for this to all work. On the other hand, if I had died, your plan may have been far more difficult to pull off in the end.”

“While I do enjoy your company, more so than most, I hope you know that you, like every single pony or creature around me, is replaceable in the grand scheme of things. I, a descendant of conquering emperors, am not, and you would do well to remember that.”

There was a knock at the door. Rushing to it, Tycho the minotaur opened it and stepped aside when a hooded pony strode it, with one rather unpleasant-looking one in tow. Unbidden by his master, the minotaur felt a shiver of fear creep up his spine when he saw the faces of the two hooded ponies. One was just an unpleasant one he already knew of, but the other... he had never seen burns so extensive on one’s face, even those from the survivors of the Greek fire attacks from long-ago naval engagements.

“Were you followed?” Devrim asked softly, not even bothering to look at the two for more than a mere moment. “I especially liked your performance when you cried out “for the glory of the empire” or whatever it was you said.”

“Of course not, and you know as well as I the words I shouted were meaningless,” the one replied, sitting down across from the stallion who employed him and others like him. “I see the plan went off without a hitch.”

“Indeed it did,” Devrim responded, chuckling slightly. “Our enemy knows nothing of what his about to happen, my power is being consolidated as we speak, and we have the scapegoat you so excellently framed.” He raised his cup of tea immediately after his minotaur servant refilled it. “To the glory of out empire: may it return in a river of blood.”

Author's Notes:

Well, I managed to crank this out after finishing my studying for the weekend, and now I can sit back and... wait, nope, gotta keep studying every day. Well, seeya sometime in the future.