Even under several inches of snow, the scent of pine needles was fresh in Commander Hurricane’s nostrils. His and Pan Sea’s walk had taken them into the night and fifteen miles closer to the Crystal Pony fortress. While they still had yet to find any signs of Streak Wing and his followers, Hurricane knew it was only a matter of time. He had the scent, and it was leading him closer and closer to the fortress.

For the most part, Hurricane simply tried to follow the trees with noticeable gashes on their trunks from where one of the rogues dragged his wingblades along. The jagged tears along the wood could only be made by the skysteel scales of the blades, leaving out the possibility that they were carved by Crystal warriors. Besides, Hurricane had seen the wounds on too many bodies, especially equine bodies. Visions of fire and ash, choking soot and a thunderous roar danced across his eyes, and he shook his head to clear them.

There was a squelching noise to his right, and Hurricane spun on his hooves to face it, his head already leaning towards the hilt of his sword. He dropped the position, however, when he saw Pan Sea shaking his hooves in disgust.

“Ewww…”

Hurricane sighed and trotted over to Pan Sea. “What is it? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little mud.”

Pan Sea shook his head and began dragging his hoof through the snow to clean it. “It’s not mud, Commander, it’s… dirt.”

Raising an eyebrow, Hurricane looked at Pan Sea’s hoof. “Dirt? That’s what mud is, Pansy.”

“No, not that kind of dirt… like, dirt dirt, Commander.”

Realization dawned on Hurricane’s face, swiftly accompanied by a disappointed glare in Pan Sea’s direction. “Shit, Pansy. It’s shit. You don’t need to be making such a big deal out of it.” Shouldering past the Legionnaire, Hurricane crested a hilltop. His gaze hardened, and he slunk closer to the ground. “Although, maybe you should.”

Those words brought firm and immediate panic to Pan Sea’s voice. “What? Why?! Is it something bad?” He scrambled up the hill towards Hurricane, trying to shake his hoof as clean as he possibly could. “What is—?”

He was silenced by a powerful buck from Hurricane that sent him tumbling back down the hill and into a thick tree trunk. Hurricane turned over his shoulder and hissed at him, motioning with his head to be quiet and come listen. Pan Sea complied, swallowing his disgust at the last traces of ‘dirt’ that clung to his hoof.

Crawling to the edge of the hilltop, Pan Sea felt his stomach go into his hooves. There in the clearing, with a perfect view of the onyx fortress between two groves of trees, sat the deserter encampment. There was no fire and only a few tents between them, but the camp was heavily patrolled by ex-Legionnaires, all in painted red armor. Sentries sat in the trees, each with an uninterrupted view of the entire camp, as well as the sentry on either side. Streak Wing had chosen the ground for his encampment well; there was no way that Hurricane or Pan Sea could sneak in and assassinate him without alerting the other soldiers.

Which brought about the second glaring problem. When Streak Wing left Hurricane, he had ten deserters with him. Now, Hurricane counted no less than thirty-nine pegasi, most of them centurions, and even a few Legates. Where the additional deserters came from, he had no idea, but he knew that even for as skilled as he was, Hurricane couldn’t take on several Legates and centurions at the same time. His heart sank. How was he supposed to kill Streak Wing now?

“That’s a lot of soldiers,” Pan Sea whispered next to Hurricane. Taking off his helmet, the Legionnaire sat it on the ground behind him so it wouldn’t catch the moonlight as he turned towards his commander. “What do you suppose we do?”

Hurricane tapped a hoof against his chin. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

A shout arose from the center of the camp, and Hurricane saw a pegasus sprint out from one of the tents to where several of the deserters were clustered in a brawl. Even in the darkness, the red feathers against his bladed, white wings stood out like fire in the night. Charging into the knot of ponies, Streak Wing sent several tumbling before separating the rest from their entanglement. His sword was drawn and his bladed wings were held against his sides, and soon enough the camp fell quiet. When it did, Streak Wing relaxed and returned his sword to its scabbard.

“Enough!” the Legate shouted into his soldiers. “Enough! I know you’re restless! I know you’re itching for a fight! Stay your blades and hooves for but another night and day, and I swear to you, you will have it!”

The soldiers murmured to one another, but Streak Wing’s eyes silenced them. He began to pace in wide circles among his troops, checking them for wounds. The words did not stop there, however.

“Hurricane is dead, that much is for certain. Galm’s Elixir is lethal in the tiniest of doses. I plunged a blade soaked in the poison into his chest!” Hurricane winced, his hoof absent-mindedly travelling to the wound in his ribcage. “So to celebrate, we’re going to party at Onyx Ridge and trade for whatever valuables they have—bits, weapons, mares—before that army of Unionists we spotted on the flight down here moves in on them.”

Hurricane raised an eyebrow. Unionists? They were still around? From what he had gathered, their leadership was broken and the barbarians had them on the run. How could it be that they were still fighting?

Streak Wing wasn’t done talking yet, and his wingblades rattled as he shook out his feathers for emphasis. “After we get some Crystal blood on our hooves, we’re flying back to Cirra. With a few key assassinations, the nation will be in turmoil in mere months. We come back in and take the palace before the Praetorian is able to respond, and bam! We’re now in charge of the nation!”

The deserters gave Streak Wing a chorus of guttural cheering and support, and the traitor returned them a toothy smile. Holding up a wing to silence them, he began to pace across the clearing with intent and purpose. “When I am Commander Maximus, Cirra will once again become the great empire it was back in Dioda. You all fought in the Red Cloud War; you all know what Hurricane lost us! I’ll get it back! With the earth ponies and the unicorns subdued into an appropriate fighting force, we can take Dioda back from the griffons and escape this damnable blizzard! And then we’ll show them true Cirran fury! Not a one will be spared! Dioda will run red from coast to coast with Gryphon blood, suffocating in Gryphon feathers, and would we want it any other way?” Streak Wing vigorously shook his head as his soldiers shouted down Gryphus. “No! We would not.” Glancing to the position of the moon, he smoothed some of his feathers, and his voice along with them. “The night grows late. Tomorrow we make preparations for the journey. The day after that?” He laughed, a dark and menacing thing that sent chills down even Hurricane’s spine. “The Unionists are going to be advancing on our ‘friends’ at Onyx Ridge. How’s about we show them a taste of true Cirran fury?”

His soldiers cheered him one last time, and then Streak Wing disappeared into one of the larger tents with several of the other Legates. Lanterns were lit, and Hurricane could see them spread a map across the table before the canvas flap was shut. The soldiers then began to disperse, spreading across the campsite or to their bedrolls on the stone. The sentries whistled a few notes to each other, and then all was silent.

Hurricane stepped back from the hilltop and fluttered several feet back before walking in the opposite direction of the camp, Pan Sea right on his tail. When he was sure they were out of earshot of the camp, Pan Sea nervously trotted up to Hurricane, his flared feathers betraying his alarm. “What are we gonna do, sir? If they’re going to go to Onyx Ridge, we might not have much time.”

“I know that,” Hurricane countered. “The smart thing to do would be to wait for them to return from their expedition and kill Streak Wing while they’re tired and weak from the fight with the Unionists. Fighting through scores of Crystal warriors is bound to be tiresome.”

Pan Sea breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good, that’s really good. I was worried you were going to say something… else…” He stopped as Hurricane’s teeth barely made themselves visible in the dim moonlight. “Oh no, oh no no, sir, please don’t, sir, please don’t.”

“Fortunately I have a better plan than the ‘smart thing’. It’s bound to be much more fun than waiting around for them to get back.” Having travelled sufficient distance from Streak Wing’s camp, Hurricane jumped into a tree to fix his bedroll between two branches. “We’re going to attack him right in the thick of the chaos the Unionist raid on Onyx Ridge is sure to create.”

“But sir…” Pan Sea whined, flying up into a tree next to Hurricane. “Why must we do these things the hard way? What happened to the calm and collected Commander that I knew? He’d never do something so… stupid, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Hurricane grinned as he hung his provisions from tree branches and settled into his bedroll. “He died with the poison, Pan Sea. At least for the time being,” he rubbed his hooves together, “I’m going to have some fun getting vengeance on that bastard.”

Smart Cookie awoke in an expensive bed in an expensive tent furnished with several expensive decorations. It took him a moment to recall where he was. Visions of a cliff side, canine monstrosities, charging Crystal Ponies, and a beautiful mare flitted across his eyes as he struggled to sit up in the bed. It was comfortable enough, with plenty of bird down in the pillows and tender straw in the mattress. If he didn’t know any better, the Representative would have assumed he was sleeping in the bed of royalty.

A plate of food sat on the table next to him. Covering the silver platter was a healthy selection of potatoes, lettuce, rhubarb, and even some carrots. Smart Cookie’s mouth watered, and he greedily reached for the plate. He hadn’t seen this much food in one place in weeks!

The next few minutes were an unforgettable experience for the famished Representative. The meat of the potatoes was brilliantly yellow, the lettuce and rhubarb were crunchy and firm, and the carrots overwhelmed his mouth with flavor. In just a short while, Smart Cookie had downed more food than he had eaten since he had left Amber Field, and it was delicious.

Taking a large gulp of water from the pitcher next to the table, the Representative reclined in the bed and listened to the world outside through the painted canvas walls. The muffled voices of soldiers reached him through the coarse fabric as they shouted orders to each other, but there was laughter and merriment behind it. Flocks of birds twittered all around the tent, feasting on whatever scraps of food the army left behind for them. The atmosphere simply sounded lively and happy, something that Smart Cookie didn’t expect to hear in a Crystal Pony encampment.

“May I come in?”

Smart Cookie nearly jumped out of his skin, not expecting to hear that voice so soon. It was the same flowing and melodic voice he remembered from the plains, gently tickling its way past the canvas and towards the Representative’s ears. He turned towards the large door flap of the tent and found himself having to swallow the urge to gasp in awe.

Smiling, the jade mare pushed aside the flap and walked into the tent, her tall frame easily fitting within the high ceiling. Wings fluttered against her sides, shaking snow off of their feathers, while the long horn protruding from her dark green mane filled a glass of water for Smart Cookie with Arcana. Pulling a chair up to his bedside, she sat on the comically undersized seat as the light glittered off of her crystalline body.

Swallowing sharply, Smart Cookie moved his eyes from her horn to her wings and back again. “You’re… you’re a winged unicorn?”

The mare laughed, an easy and lighthearted sound that teased the earth pony’s ears. “Technically speaking, yes. But some also call me a horned pegasus. Which one is more accurate?”

Smart Cookie had no words for her response, and she waved away his speechlessness with a kind smile. “They’re both correct, but to call me one or the other is to call you a wingless pegasus, or a hornless unicorn. No, I’m something else entirely. I’m an alicorn.”

“An… alicorn?” Smart Cookie’s head was reeling. “But only Celestis and Lunis are alicorns. There’s no way—”

The jade mare quietly shushed him. “I am not one of your gods, but just because the form of an alicorn is revered does not make it holy. I assure you, I was naturally born forty years ago, even if there was much fanfare. As far as we know, I’m one of only three alicorns in our history.”

Smart Cookie released a thoughtful breath and sagged in the bed. “That’s just… wow. This is just so much to take in… I never thought I’d meet an actual alicorn one day.” Scratching his head, Smart Cookie released that he was missing his hat. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have my—?”

The feeling of his familiar feathered hat settling on his head silenced him, and he looked over just in time to see the last traces of a blue aura fade from the mare’s horn. “Thank you. You really saved my life back at the valley. Mine and the Chancellor’s.”

The alicorn angled her head to the side. “The Chancellor… he’s the brown one with the silly hat, correct?”

Smart Cookie nodded. “Yeah, that’s Chancellor Puddinghead. Keeping after him is a…” Words failed him for a moment as he tried to sort through his adjectives and find a suitable one to describe the eccentric Chancellor. “Is certainly an interesting experience.” Scratching his head, Smart Cookie looked towards one of the canvas walls with a small porthole cut through it. “What exactly were those things that were chasing us, anyway? Some sort of dog monster-thing?”

The mare’s response was a single word. “Vargr.”

“Gesundheit.”

“No, no,” the alicorn laughed and shook her head. “That’s what they’re called. Vargr. The dogs of the deep. They hunt for gems, crystals, and especially diamonds as some sort of primal instinct. Although they have been known to go after ponies when they fancy a bit of fresh meat.”

Smart Cookie blew air out of his teeth. “Wow. So, on a scale of one to ten, how dead were we if we hadn’t ran into you?”

“Easily a ten,” the alicorn chuckled. “At least for you, if you don’t mind me saying. That Chancellor of yours has got some pretty fast legs, and I don’t think he was going to slow down to help you out at all.”

The Representative murmured some personal opinions under his breath before reclining in his bed. “That’s for sure. Puddinghead isn’t exactly the most loyal.” He paused before laughing slightly and turning to face the mare. “I’m sorry, I should have asked this earlier. If you don’t mind me asking, what’d you say your name was?”

The green mare stood up and gestured for Smart Cookie to do the same. “Jade. It’s nice to meet you, mister…?”

“Smart Cookie, Representative of the Low Valleys, Chairpony of the Board of Representatives,” the orange stallion chirped. Trotting over to Jade’s side to keep up with her lengthy strides, he felt a new sense of meekness next to the towering mare. “Did you have any sort of title or anything? I could only imagine an alicorn such as yourself would be distinguished in some way.”

Jade laughed, pushing aside the tent flap for Smart Cookie to exit. “The army calls me Commander, the civilians call me Queen. My father, now, he called me Princess.”

Smart Cookie felt the words over with his tongue. “I like Princess. Do you mind, Miss Jade?”

“No, not at all. The titles themselves are inconsequential to me. All I care about is leading my subjects. Sometimes, that means being the Queen or Princess. Other times,” she gestured with a broad sweep of her hoof, “it means leading an army.”

Smart Cookie gasped as he looked out across the plains from the tent’s positioning on the only hill for miles. Thousands, tens of thousands of tents spread out in every direction along neat lines, interrupted every hundred or so to make way for a clearing that branched off into lateral side streets. The clearings were home to fireplaces, and the sheen of thousands of Crystal Ponies out and about nearly blinded the Representative. A rough series of ramparts, somehow dignified in their hasty creation, surrounded the miles-wide camp until they ended against a river to the north.

Princess Jade watched with slight bemusement as Smart Cookie struggled to close his gaping jaw. “Quite impressive, isn’t it? The culmination of fifteen years of hard work. This is the largest Union army in the Crystal Empire. In fact, with the exception of local garrisons at some of our settlements, this is the only Union army of the Crystal Empire.”

“How…” Smart Cookie rubbed his eyes, trying to size how large the camp was. “How many soldiers do you have?”

“Seventy-five thousand in total, with another ten thousand support staff limited to non-combat duties. I think it’s near the size of some of Cirra’s legions, if I’m correct.” Gesturing with her long horn, she began to walk down the hill. “Walk with me?”

Smart Cookie hesitated before galloping up to her side and settling into a comfortable trot to keep up with the mare’s strides. “Not quite, from what I know with dealing with them. A Cirran legion is usually ninety-six thousand strong; not really sure why they don’t just make it an even hundred thousand.” Glancing at the tents around them, Smart Cookie adjusted his hat before hastily adding: “It’s still an impressive size for an army, anyway.”

“Aye,” Jade agreed, dipping her head as she did so. “This army began as little more than the dream of my father, a dream I was destined to inherit. How much it has grown since then.”

A pair of generals trotted up to Jade, and after exchanging a few quick words, the Princess dismissed them with a wave of her wing. Walking further into the ordered confusion of the camp, Jade gestured towards several lowly tents home to only the greenest of privates. “When my father first started his crusade to unify the Crystal Pony tribes under one banner, these were the kind of ponies he had at his disposal. Young, poor, oftentimes sick and with no training, they were the backbone of this army’s humble beginnings. In time he shaped them, molded them with gentle encouragements and harsh discipline, gave the Union a spine of steel. In time, they became the finest soldiers the world has ever seen. You just saw two of them.”

Smart Cookie’s eyebrows rose as he whistled his astonishment. Quickly glancing across her shoulder to see that her companion was entertained, Jade motioned with a hoof towards where twenty soldiers were sparring at once in a massive brawl. “Father was a sort of revolutionary when it came to training soldiers. He believed that training should mimic the chaos and discord of an actual battle. Survival was taught first; military discipline was taught later. After all, what good is a company that can march in a straight line if they’re gutted on barbarian iron?”

“Not much good,” Smart Cookie agreed. Princess Jade nodded.

“Exactly. This was how he built his army. Through training came success. Through success, recognition. Through recognition, influence. Through influence… well, then you have a cause. This is our cause, my father’s dream. To unify the Crystal Ponies as one race, one empire, not disparate groups who fight each other and slaughter innocents for their coin and valuables. No, we’re far better than that. The warlords have tarnished our name for far too long. It’s up to us to stop it and make ourselves more than murderers and thieves… more than barbarians.”

“And you really think that’s possible?”

Jade grunted in response, but the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. “I have to believe it’s possible. This is too important a cause to give up. Right now, power is in the hooves of those who would abuse it, like warlord Halite, instead of those who would use it for the common good.”

“Like you.”

“Yes, like me,” agreed Jade. “Where Halite and his allies fight for money and simply for reason to fight, I fight for peace and safety. Understandably a harder cause, but father taught me that because the cause is harder, that makes it worth it in the end.”

“Your father sounds like a pretty cool stallion. I’d like to meet him someday.” Smart Cookie looked on to Jade’s face for a nod, but instead he found it covered in sorrow. In a blink, however, it was gone, and the Princess only had a blank slate across her features, through which a small fire of determination shone through.

“I wish you could. But he’s gone on to the Summer Lands. He was a great stallion, a great Crystal Pony. He would have done so much more for us…” She sighed and kicked a stone away as she walked. “Sadly, it was not meant to be. Five years ago, the army had warlord Halite cornered in the northeastern fields. He had the mountains to his back, the ocean on his flank, and Cirra to the south. How he let his forces get worked into such a position, we didn’t know, but we weren’t going to sit on such a gift and let him slip away. Father and I gathered what we had—probably little more than twenty thousand soldiers at the time—and we threw everything at him.

“I think I know now that it was exactly what Halite wanted. Hurricane’s eyes stretch far and wide, and he saw the mustering soldiers on his northwestern borders. I can only assume he saw us as some sort of threat; Tartarus, he’d been fighting Crystal warlords for fifteen years by then. He sent in two legions to stomp us out, not understanding that we were the Union, not the barbarians.”

Smart Cookie shuddered, trying to imagine what it was like to be under aerial assault and outnumbered ten to one. “He didn’t recognize that you were uniformed, or that you were under the Unionist banner?”

Jade shook her head, a mixture of grief and anger revealed through gritted teeth. “In those days, we didn’t have any sort of uniform. Our soldiers wore what they could scavenge from the barbarians, or what they brought from home. And our banner was little different from any other warlord’s standard. Commander Hurricane thought we were just another group of barbarians foolishly threatening his borders. He—” she gulped, steadying her breath. “He led the assault on her camp. He cut apart our soldiers. There was fire everywhere. I tried to stay and fight, tried to help save as many of my soldiers as I could. I downed many a Legionnaire that day, but I had hoped that my compassion towards their wounded would be enough to show them that I wasn’t another barbarian.”

Smart Cookie ran a hoof through his mane. “It didn’t work?”

“No. It didn’t. And as the perimeter of our camp crumbled to nothingness and my forces continued to get slaughtered, I came across my father. He was bloodied and leaning on a halberd, breathing heavily. He told me to go. I tried to argue with him, but…” She gasped and swallowed down her emotions. “My father saved my life that day. He caught Hurricane’s attention so that I could run and rebuild the army elsewhere.

“I ran, and as I looked over my shoulder, I saw Hurricane flay him alive with his sword.”

Shaking slightly, Princess Jade paused by a fire to catch her breath and dry the tears that had formed on her cheeks. “I will never forget that image. Halite escaped in the confusion and retreated to Onyx Ridge to continue building his own army, while I lost damn near the entire Union that day. The Unification War would have been over had not Cirra interfered. Instead, I find myself in the same position I was in five years ago. Halite is cornered, and my army stands ready to crush him. Will this time be any different?” She shrugged her shoulders, a motion Smart Cookie found interesting because of how her wings moved as well. “Only time will tell, but know this: I don’t blame Hurricane for what happened five years ago. I don’t blame my father or myself for falling for Halite’s trap. I only blame Halite for what happened, and before the week is out, I’ll have his head on a pike, or die trying.”

Smart Cookie was taken aback by the Princess’ fire. “And you’re moving on Halite now, I assume? Where is he? How big of an army does he have?”

They summited a hill together, and Jade pointed with her horn across a long clearing to the southeast. Several miles away, at the neck of two rivers and surrounded by earthen fortifications, stood a fortress as black as night. Its solid black stone walls towered impressively over the earth below, spaced with fortifications that supported catapults and ballistae aplenty. Smart Cookie wasn’t sure how large the fortress was on the inside, but he figured it had room for thousands of soldiers behind its black walls and intimidating gate.

“You’re… you’re going to attack that?” Concerns over Jade’s safety filled his mind, and he fought to suppress them. Jade was the commander of her army, after all. She would have another idea of how to keep her ponies safe.

“I’m afraid so,” she muttered softly. Smart Cookie was astounded, but before he could get the chance to speak, Jade stopped him with a look. “I know. You worry about the safety of my army, about my safety, and you wish that I had thought up another way to destroy Halite. I wish that too, but it’s simply not feasible given the current state of affairs. Food is quickly growing scarce, something I’m sure you’re familiar with, and a standing army is a hungry army. I don’t have the time to wait for another solution. Either Halite surrenders, which I know he is not going to do, or we break Onyx Ridge apart by force.” Her sweeping wing graced over a hundred catapults and siege towers standing in the clearing to the west of the army, each one bristling with hooks and pulleys and weaponry for taking the fortress.

Smart Cookie remained appalled. “Surely there’s another way! You can’t get through those walls like that! I mean, I don’t even think your siege towers are tall enough to scale those walls!”

Jade agreed, her head dipping slightly farther than a usual nod with her weariness. “Unfortunately, they’re mere distractions to keep their warriors away from the gates until our catapults can pound them in. Thousands of soldiers will die in this battle, and I very well may be one of them. I am at peace with that. The entirety of the Unionist movement has been building to this moment, this singular event that will determine the fate of the Crystal Ponies.” She sat on her flank, wings drooping slightly by her armored sides. “I wish we had better odds. Halite’s cornered in terms of geography, but we’re cornered with time. I’m sure he knows that we’re out here in these fields anyways. The longer we wait, the longer he has to prepare, and the more food that the army uses up.”

“But what if your catapults can’t batter down those walls? They look pretty strong to me.”

“Then I have to use my last resort option,” said Jade. “I’m the only one in this army with wings. I can get over those walls. That gets me access to the gate controls. If I can fight my way through the garrison of soldiers standing up there, I should be able to get the gate open. Then it’s only a matter of holding the gates open to allow my army to filter in before I eventually get overwhelmed. Hopefully enough of my soldiers will have gotten in by then to get the gates open again in earnest and defend the controls.”

“You’d really give up your life that easily?” Smart Cookie was impressed. He could never imagine doing something so selfless as that.

Princess Jade’s neck shook as she nodded her head, but her eyes remained fixed on the distant fortress. “Yes I would. It’s not something that I would like to do, but the fate of the Union hinges on this one battle. I won’t let a fear of death keep me from letting my father’s dream be realized.”

Smart Cookie dipped his head. He suddenly felt so insignificant and worthless standing next to Jade. She was a selfless, determined princess who wanted nothing more than for her ponies to be happy and safe, and was willing to give her life to do so. She was the epitome of all things honorable and righteous in the world. A true leader, and one who deserved to lead more than anypony else.

And what did that make himself? A cowardly earth pony who was concerned about finding a new land solely so that he could be done with Puddinghead’s company and could seek his election to the chancellorship next year? He didn’t deserve to be standing here next to Princess Jade. He didn’t deserve to be talking with her, or to know her name, or to think that her flank was pretty—

The Representative slapped himself, hoping that his blush wasn’t visible through his orange fur. What was he thinking! A Crystal alicorn princess was so far out of his league that he didn’t even exist on the same plane of reality as she did! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

If Jade noticed Smart Cookie’s internal strife, she chose not to acknowledge it. Instead she focused her attention on the brown earth pony blundering up the hill towards them. His gait was decidedly hurried, and he had to pull his hat out of his face several times as he stormed the hill.

Cresting the hill between the two, Puddinghead coughed several times into his foreleg as he stood to catch his breath. “Smart Cookie… there you are… phew… I’ve been looking all over for you! How’ve ya been, secretary?”

Smart Cookie shrugged off Puddinghead’s remarks while Jade backed up to give them space. “I’m fine, Chancellor. I was just having a lovely talk with Princess Jade here about the Crystal Union. It’s actually pretty interesting. I would never have known how it all works otherwise.”

Puddinghead’s expression told Smart Cookie that, contrary to his belief, the information was not interesting at all. “Yeah yeah, whatever. Listen, Smart Cookie, we gotta talk.”

The Representative raised his eyebrow but refused to budge. “Yeah? What about, your chancellorship?”

Puddinghead glared at the green mare standing slightly behind Smart Cookie. “I meant talk in private.” He waited for his message to be heard by all present, and soon enough Jade coughed into her wing and cleared her throat.

“Right. Well, I’ve got some business to take care of with the soldiers,” said Jade. “I know you’re on some important mission or whatever from what the Chancellor told me earlier, but I do hope that you’ll at least hang around for dinner before you leave.” Taking to the air with her beautiful wings, the Princess hovered in place a second longer. “Talk to you later.”

Smart Cookie watched as Jade flew away, shaking his head as she disappeared from his sight. Turning back to Puddinghead, the two began to walk back down into the camp. “What is it, Chancellor? Are the Unionists treating you all right?”

“Of course they are, silly, they recognize true authority when they see it,” Puddinghead gloated. “I made sure that they stuffed our bags with food and water for the next leg of the journey. Speaking of which, I’d very much like to get on that as soon as possible, if that’s alright with you, my esteemed secretary.”

Smart Cookie grumbled but refrained from calling Puddinghead out on his mistake. “We don’t have to be leaving right away, sir. The Unionists are actually really helpful. They’re even offering us dinner, too! How could you turn that up?”

Puddinghead remained skeptical. “I don’t know, Smart Cookie, they just rub my hat the wrong way. I just want to be getting out of here as soon as possible. The sooner we find a new land, the sooner I can get back to throwing wild parties!”

“Can we at least stay for the night, Chancellor? I’d like some time to get some rest before we start walking again, and I think the warm food would do us good.”

Puddinghead rolled his eyes. “Fine, Smart Cookie, but only because you asked nicely. But in the morning, we gotta put some serious distance behind us! This land won’t find itself!” He began to bounce away, his hooves acting like springs to his jumps and his hat flopping wildly on his head. Smart Cookie began to follow with slow steps, scrunching his muzzle to one side of his face in concentrated thought.

As he descended the hill, he looked on again at the distant black fortress and the miniscule figures he could see approaching its gate. He thought of what Jade had said and what they were going to be going through in two days’ time. He thought of the odds they were going against and his hopeless feelings for the alicorn.

He thought of the idea of a cause, and realized he didn’t have one he could call his own.

The moaning and grinding of gears filled the air and rattled Clover’s teeth in her jaw. All around her, warlord Halite’s soldiers shouted orders to each other. Belongings were checked, scouts watched the nearby hills, and the bindings on the two unicorns were tightened while the Crystal barbarians waited for the massive gates of Onyx Ridge to groan open.

The fortress had been intimidating from afar, but Clover felt absolutely insignificant and worthless next to the mighty walls of onyx. They were solid slabs of stone that stood from ground to rail at two hundred feet tall. Their spotless, black faces were placed at a sharp incline from the ground, giving them support and resilience against catapults and other siege weapons. The walls bristled with rows of sharp spikes to keep ponies from scaling them, and innumerous murder slits decorated the surface at regular intervals. Complicated grates stuck out from under overhangs in the walls, and Clover supposed that they were used to pour boiling oil down entire swaths of onyx at once.

Even as impressive as the walls themselves were, the gates were even more so. Three sets of thick iron grates all stood within a gatehouse consisting of three massive towers of onyx stone. Judging by their structure, Clover guessed that each one held the opening mechanisms for its respective gate. The huge gears clanked and rattled as the several-ton gates slowly crawled their way up the sides of the entryway. Even without a significant garrison, the fortress would still be impenetrable.

A thick powder of ground onyx flew into the air as the gates pulled through their grooves, and Clover found herself choking on the heavy dust. Beside her, Platinum wheezed into the sweat-stained and muddy remains of her royal garments. The Princess looked even more miserable than Clover had ever seen her, and seeing Platinum in such a hopeless state crushed her spirits. No matter how bad things were, the Princess had never let herself be defeated. Whiny, yes, dramatic, of course, but defeated? That was the one emotion Clover had never seen from her. To see it now, and so plainly embroidered across her face, was a shocking wakeup call.

A swift kick to her flank prompted the green mare to hobble forward towards the gaping maw of Onyx Ridge. She chanced a look across her shoulder only to see Halite glowering at her, his sword grasped between his teeth. She yelped as Halite kicked her again, and without further ceremony began to shamble into the fortress.

“Welcome to Onyx Ridge,” Halite hissed to her and Platinum. “I hope you enjoy your stay here, because you ain’t getting out unless somepony pays the right price for your sorry coat.”

“One day, Halite,” Platinum weakly retorted, “One day you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

The bludgeoning of Halite’s sword across Platinum’s flank launched the Princess into a pile of filth immediately within the perimeter of Onyx Ridge. “Humph. Spirited. We’ll see how long that lasts. Take a look around you, Princess. Tell me, what do you think happens to spirited property here?”

Clover spared the opportunity to survey her surroundings, and she had to place a hoof to her mouth to stop herself from vomiting. The immediate area around the gate was filled with rough tables and stalls where several bedraggled and shivering ponies stood hitched to posts. The stench was mortifying and overpowering, causing Clover to gag on her hoof. Crystal Ponies conversed with each other around the tables, regarding the hitched and tired ponies like property. Appraisals were made and bits and gems clattered across the rotten wood as ponies became slaves and changed owners, being led away on rough rope bridles towards one end of the clearing. Some tried to fight but were quickly subdued by the stronger Crystal warriors, and ultimately they ended up either resigned to their fate or simply too exhausted to resist.

The two unicorns shuddered as Halite ushered them further into the complex, where they got the opportunity to come face to face with several of the prisoners. Most were too weak to say anything, but Clover understood the message in their eyes, the silent pleas for help. The majority of slaves were simple earth ponies or unicorns taken during raids, but there were several Crystal Ponies tied down as well. The green mare felt herself shudder and involuntarily reach for the void crystal ring on her horn as she saw several unicorns with black tendrils marring their once colorful horns, the effects of void poisoning all too clear in their bodies. Her hoof was quickly slammed away by the flat of a barbarian’s sword before she was kicked again to keep walking.

“Help! Help, somepony help!” The distressed wails of a mare caught Clover’s attention, and she turned to see a bedraggled unicorn sprinting in an uneven gait away from a pair of barbarians. Her coat was a filthy lavender, although it was difficult to tell underneath the grime and blood that covered her body. Her mane was frayed and ripped apart, and her left foreleg had obviously been broken at some point and had never healed properly. A void crystal ring around her horn gave way to several toxic tendrils of void poisoning that had decayed the appendage into uselessness. Her eyes were fevered and her neck was sweaty, even in the cold.

Before Clover could react, Halite shoved her aside and stepped forward to intercept the fleeing mare. The lavender unicorn tried to sidestep him, but the warlord was too quick. Just as her hooves began to slide in the mud and snow for traction, Halite coiled his hind legs underneath him and delivered a powerful kick to her jaw.

The result was quick and painful. Bone crunched under the powerful blow, and Clover could see a spray of saliva and blood fly out of the mare’s mouth. Her scream was tripped up under her own tongue as her head was flung backwards from the buck. Making a complete reversal in midair, the prisoner landed on her face in the muck behind her. Several broken and bloodied teeth fell around her like snowflakes, leaving the mare whimpering, too weak to move or shout in agony.

The two warriors that had been chasing her quickly trotted up to Halite and took possession of the incapacitated mare. As they struggled to haul her to her hooves, Halite wiped the blood off of his hooves and growled at his subordinates. “I hope she wasn’t worth too much.”

One of the soldiers stopped to salute Halite while the other reattached the bridle to the mare’s face and gave a sharp tug on it. “No sir, she’s one of the no-sells. Feldspar and I were trying to take her back to the barracks for some fun, but she broke loose. Thanks for the assistance, sir.”

Halite grunted and began to walk again, prodding Clover and Platinum along. “Then you should take better care of your game, Mica. I can’t be expected to step in whenever your quarry gets away from you.”

The warrior known as Mica dipped his head and coughed nervously. “Yes, of course, warlord Halite. It won’t happen again.” Then he galloped towards where his companion stood with the unfortunate lavender mare in tow. Together, the three ponies rounded a corner and walked down an alleyway out of Clover’s sight. The only indication of where they were heading was the distressed whimpers and wails the captured mare occasionally gave out.

The two unicorns weren’t spared much time to think about their fellow pony’s plight. A heavy blow to Clover’s flank caused her to stumbled forward and begin to hobble along on three legs, with the fourth held out to her side in pain. She noticed that Platinum was getting decidedly better treatment than her, but Clover wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She knew the price that the Princess had on her head, and she didn’t envy her friend at all.

Walking several more minutes, Clover was able to gauge how many warriors Halite had in the fortress. There were hundreds of buildings ranging from simple one story barracks to a massive castle in the center, but the number ponies she had seen were considerably lower than what the infrastructure would suggest. Onyx Ridge was obviously built to hold well over a hundred thousand warriors; by her best guess, Clover would be surprised if there were barely more than twenty thousand.

They soon enough came to a series of rough iron cages placed against the impressive bulk of an onyx wall at the western end of the fortress. There was no protection or overhang to shelter from rain or snow or wind; the cages were simply open and exposed to the elements. Hundreds of shivering and sick ponies sat gloomily in their cells, most without the energy to sit up for any extended period of time. But there was one thing Clover noticed about them all; they watched their captors silently and angrily, a fire burning in their eyes that she wouldn’t have expected to see from beaten and defeated ponies.

Cage doors were opened, and the two unicorns were flung into their individual cells, side by side. A warrior advanced on Clover, and she shrank back into the corner of her cage in fear. Stooping down, the barbarian attached a heavy shackle of iron and void crystal to her neck. The weight of the metal and the hunger of the new crystal for her Arcana dragged Clover down to the floor of her cell in exhaustion. She was too tired to even move as the warrior shouted and sprinted from her cage to the one immediately next to her, leaving the door open.

To her left, Clover could see Princess Platinum struggling against one Crystal barbarian as he tried to fix the manacle around her neck. The Princess was snarling and bucking with whatever energy she had left and was making the warrior work for it. Dainty hooves became powerful bludgeons, and one critical hit between the stallion’s knees brought the crystalline warrior to the ground.

Before she could flee from her cell, however, the second warrior bull-rushed her, sending the white mare toppling back into the iron bars of her cage. She tried to climb to her hooves, but soon the heavy weight of the soldier on her back pinned her to the floor of her cell while another barbarian managed to fit the shackle around her neck. As soon as the void crystal touched her flesh, Platinum groaned and went limp, her eyes rolling back in her head. The fight with the soldiers had been exhausting, and the void crystals snuffed out whatever energy she had left. Satisfied that they had their prisoners secure, the barbarians left the cells and closed the doors behind them, turning the two locks on each gate before they began to tend to their other duties.

Clover could see Halite watching her and Platinum from just beyond the cells, a smirk of iron across his face. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Onyx Ridge, mares. For one of you, you should be getting out relatively quick. The other,” he said as his eyes slid towards Clover, “can expect to be here for a long time. Make yourself comfortable around the soldiers. They’ll sure make themselves comfortable around you.”

Wasting no further breath on words, Halite spat at the ground and stormed off towards the center of the fortress, leaving Clover and Platinum behind. The two mares were left panting as they fought to overcome the hunger of the void crystals, only able to watch the hooves of soldiers as they walked past and listen to the wails of the broken all around them.

“Psst!”

Clover’s ears found the energy to perk, and she shifted her head towards her right. A small unicorn was looking at her, her teal irises shining in the dim sunlight. Struggling to rise to her hooves, Clover took two steps before collapsing against the wall of her cage, the void crystals ringing lightly around her neck as they devoured her Arcana. Moaning slightly, she tried to focus on the unicorn in the cage next to her, but her vision remained blurry.

“Nnng… Who… are you?” she managed to whimper, overcoming the difficulty of transforming her thoughts to words through her pounding head.

The little unicorn stuck her hoof through the cell wall, precariously balancing a small diamond on it. Looking at Clover and then back at the gem, she shook her hoof lightly for the mare to take it. “Press it against your horn.”

Clover fumbled with the precious gem in her hooves and almost dropped it before bringing it through the iron cage. Shaking, she managed to bring the gem to her horn, right where the void crystal ring was clasped.

Sudden relief overwhelmed her body and cleared her mind, leaving the green mare gasping in exhilaration. Taking the diamond away from her face, Clover saw that its clear surface had been replaced with a dull and inky black. Setting the diamond aside, Clover rubbed her forehead, enjoying the ability to think clearly.

“What was that?” she asked the small unicorn. “And who are you?”

The unicorn, an aqua filly who looked like she was barely more than ten, smiled back at her. “That was just a diamond, but it was filled with a lot of mana. It took about a month to store that much mana on my own. It’s enough to satisfy the crystal’s hunger for a few days. I hope that helps!”

Clover’s eyes flickered to the void ring on the aqua filly’s horn. “But you’ve got a ring of your own. How could you get any mana out? How did you get ahold of a diamond? And you still didn’t tell me what your name is!”

“Hehehe, you ask a lot of questions,” the filly giggled. “My name’s Diamond Polish, though the others call me Diadem. Not really sure why though. What is a diadem anyways?”

Clover opened her mouth to respond, but Diadem’s giggling stopped her. “Oh, don’t be silly, I know what a diadem is. A headband, a tiara, a crown. It’s nice to know the others think so highly of me, right?” Diadem’s lips were parted in a wide smile that seemed totally out of place with its surrounding context. “What’s your name?”

“C-Clover,” she began, still trying to cope with Diadem’s enthusiasm. “Clover the Clever. I’m the apprentice to Star Swirl the Bearded, and Princess Platinum’s highest serving mare.”

Diadem’s smile enlarged at the names Clover recited, even though such an action should very well have been impossible. “Ooooh, I always wanted to meet Princess Platinum! And tell me more about Star Swirl the Bearded! Does he really have a beard that’s soooooo big that he has to have a whole room to himself to keep it in?!”

With her head clear, Clover was able to laugh at the little filly’s excitement. “No no, my little pony, if that was true he’d never be able to read his books. His beard would just get in the way.” She glanced around her, noticing that there were no guards to be seen. “Who told you that, anyway?”

Diadem’s face darkened, and she brushed at a pebble that sat atop a pile of hay in her cell. “My older brother did. That was before they took him away. The mean shiny ponies. I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know how long ago it was. It’s hard to keep track of time in these cells.” Shaking her mane, the filly’s composure suddenly lit up. “At least he’s not in the cages anymore, and he said he’d come back to help us!” She clapped her hooves together, shifting from side to side as she bounced.

Clover bit her lip and tried to put on her nicest smile. “I’m sure your brother won’t let you down, Diadem. I’m sure he’ll get you out of here some way or another.”

A rough laugh sounded from two cages down, and Clover looked through Diadem’s cell to see the stallion who was making it. “That’s the spirit, Clover. Don’t give up hope, right?”

Standing up, the stallion walked closer towards the light, allowing Clover to see his dark green coat and gray mane. The stallion was at least in his late forties, although the signs of work and hard labor covered his crippled and thin body from head to hoof. A rough set of rags covered his flanks, obscuring his cutie mark.

“I would say that Diadem’s lucky to have met you, but I think you’re lucky to have met her. Just like how we all were. She’s been a bright light in some very dark days. And she’s our ticket out of here.”

Clover raised an eyebrow, but Diadem’s bouncing figure spoke first. “Yes! That’s right that’s right that’s right! Greenleaf says I’m very gifted! Like, he’s never seen magic as powerful as mine! Mama always said I was going to be a very powerful and beautiful unicorn princess some day!”

The old pony known as Greenleaf laughed weakly, a short wheezing sound that hinted towards old wounds to his ribcage. “Yes you will be, Diadem. Yes you will.” Turning to Clover, Greenleaf’s expression became much more serious. “You want to know how Diadem was able to fill that diamond full of mana with a void ring on her horn? Brute force. She simply has so much mana that her Arcana can overpower the crystals. Why, I’ve never seen anything like it before!”

“That’s… incredible,” Clover murmured. “And so young…”

“I couldn’t believe it at first when I saw it either,” Greenleaf agreed. “But the kid’s got the power, and she’s definitely not lacking the talent either. Us and the other prisoners are all set to break out when the opportunity arises. The problem is, we haven’t had that opportunity, and Diadem can’t take on Crystal barbarians. She’s too young, and I want to limit her exposure to the senseless killing us stallions do to each other.”

“So what are you saying?” Clover asked. “We should just sit here and wait?”

Greenleaf shook his head. “The time to act is soon. You and Princess Platinum are fresh here. Void poisoning has yet to take hold of your horns.” There he paused to tap his own horn, which was a solid black in stark contrast with his dark green coat. “We don’t have weapons, and most of us unicorns are too poisoned to fight with Arcana. But Diadem didn’t get her name for nothing. She’s powerful, but she’s also crafty. Really, she’s the crown jewel in the breakout plan. Without her, none of this would be possible.”

Diadem nodded her head vigorously. “Yup yup yup! I came up with this really cool idea to get us out of here! Just you wait and see!”

“Share it with Clover, why don’t you?” Greenleaf prompted. “I’m sure she and the Princess would like to know.”

Clover glanced over her shoulder to where Platinum was passed out on the floor of her cage. “I’ll tell her about it when she wakes. Sound good?”

“Of course!” Diadem chirped. “Now, I think it’ll go something like this…”

Amber Field was decidedly darker and more lifeless than Typhoon had last remembered it being. Snow fell in heavy sheets from the clouds, scattering throughout the town on merciless winds. It was only mid afternoon, but the thickness of the storm clouds blocked out so much sun that it very well might have been night.

Not a pony was to be seen as Typhoon and Cyclone descended into the empty whiteness that was the town square. The street lamps had all been snuffed out from the winds, making navigation all but impossible. In response, Cyclone shook the ice off of his wings before setting them ablaze in a quick burst of Empatha. The light they produced illuminated the square, and Typhoon found herself gravitating towards the fire for warmth.

“And here I thought you liked the cold,” Cyclone jested as he noticed Typhoon sticking close to his side.

“I do,” the mare countered, “but not in weather like this. Cold I like, but there’s a difference between cool and freezing. Have you listened to your feathers lately? It’s at least forty below out here.”

“The only thing my feathers are telling me is that they’re nice and warm.” As if to emphasize his point, a series of sparks and tongues of flame flared off of his wings before cooling back down to their normal size. Gesturing with his hoof, Cyclone pointed to the dilapidated storefront of a nearby building. “Here, this is what the informant told us to look for, right? Tear’s Wares?”

Walking closer to the weathered sign, Typhoon pulled the piece of wood off of its rusty and frozen chains with a quick tug of her neck. Placing it on the ground, the Imperator lowered a wing and scraped the ice off of the sign. Sure enough, the faded ink underneath the ice identified the sign as belonging to Tear’s Wares in the earth pony alphabet.

“Yes. We’re close. And over there is the old church.” Typhoon flicked her multicolored tail towards the burnt-out husk of an old building to their right. “Do you see where Half Mane’s Elixirs is?”

Cyclone shook his head. “No. It’s probably back in one of these alleyways. Perhaps we should split up?”

Typhoon considered the statement before nodding and flexing her wings. “Yes, that’d be a good idea. We can cover more ground that way. Plus, it’d be good to stretch my wings and keep the ice off of them.”

“You would have that problem, wouldn’t you?” Cyclone accused. Galloping off through the snow, the stallion fluttered his blazing wings and took to the air, leaving a trail of fire behind him that the blizzard greedily ate up. The light followed him as he went, serving as a glowing beacon in the dark and lifeless city. At least it wouldn’t be too hard for Typhoon to find him again if she needed to.

Taking a running start of her own, Typhoon managed to elevate herself over the rooftops of Amber Field’s market district and began to spin in lazy circles overhead. Every house had well over five feet of snow on their rooftops, and the thatch was bending precariously under its weight as a result. Several buildings had already collapsed from the storm, and the poor district had been all but buried with the blizzard. Further into the town was a series of blocks that stood black and barren under the snowy wastes, an unfortunate side effect of Cyclone’s ‘incident’ when he was chasing Jewel. For the pegasus who had once come to view Amber Field as her second home, it was saddening to see the state of dilapidation that had overcome the town. Even if the blizzard were to inexplicably pass, too much of Amber Field’s infrastructure had been destroyed for the town to ever recover.

Touching down in an alleyway between several buildings, Typhoon vigorously shook the ice off of her wingblades and primaries. Several large rats scattered into the shadows as shards of ice landed all around them, their alarmed peeping growing quieter and dimmer as they fled. When the last of the noises disappeared, Typhoon began to walk up and down the alleys, searching boxes and checking locked doors for an entrance to Jewel’s supposed hideout.

Half an hour of searching later, and Typhoon was beginning to wonder if her information was wrong. Every alley within the block that Brown Oats had described had been torn apart in her search for any kind of concealed entrance, and despite the hubris covering her armor and feathers, she had found nothing. She could only hope that Cyclone was having better luck.

Noticing that the alley she was in had suddenly brightened, Typhoon turned around to see Cyclone come walking in from the street. His wings were still ablaze, but she noticed that he had the strap of his sword loosened.

“Come on,” he ordered, gesturing with his head. “I think I found something.”

As Cyclone walked away, Typhoon loosened the strap on her sword as well and followed him. They zigzagged out of the alleys and across the street towards a narrow passage between two stores. A wall of snow stood four feet high at the entrance to the street, and so the two pegasi fluttered over it and into the dark passage on the other side. A few steps in and rounding a corner, Cyclone pointed with his fiery wing towards an access door at the bottom of the building.

Typhoon slid down the snow bank towards the door and lifted the lock up to inspect it. “You’re sure that this is it? For all we know it could just go to the storage of this building.”

Not bothering to speak, Cyclone simply walked down next to Typhoon and tapped the side of the door frame with a hoof. Carved into the old wood was a simple icon of a cut gemstone. Typhoon felt the carving with a hoof and realized that it was much newer than the wood it had been placed in. Looking back at the lock, she could see that it bore a similar mark on its metal surface.

“How’s about we pay Jewel’s gang a little visit, hm?” Cyclone asked as he placed his sword through the door at the hinges. The cumulostratus skysteel hissed as it began to siphon Cyclone’s Empatha, and with a burst of fire the metal hinges were melted off of the door frame. Turning to deliver a powerful kick to the old wood, Cyclone launched the door inwards where it clattered down a long staircase of stone and mold.

The two Cirrans glanced at each other and nodded before they descended the staircase, Cyclone leading the way through the darkness with the fire he carried across his wings and Typhoon bringing up the rear. She drew her sword and kept her wings slightly parted towards her sides, ready to fight on a moment’s notice.

The stone smelled of mildew and sewage, and its rough-hewn blocks were covered in slimy mold and algae. The hooves of the two pegasi echoed loudly as they walked down hallway after hallway, making an offbeat clopping rhythm that bounced across the stone. Their armor rattled with each step, and the slight groan of flexing wingblades was plainly audible in corridor after corridor. Realizing that there was no way for them to move silently in the dank hideout, the Cirrans quickened their descent into Jewel’s lair.

“You’d think there would be more activity,” Typhoon whispered to Cyclone above the sounds of their hooves. “It’s unbelievably quiet.”

Cyclone came across an intersection of hallways and paused to check his corners. “I agree. Jewel used to have this town in his grip, and an operation like that would need a pretty sizeable workforce. Unfortunately, nopony’s here. You think they caught wind of us and moved out?”

Typhoon shook her head. “If they knew we were coming, they would have ambushed us as soon as we took two steps into their hideout. I think either we haven’t run into their ambush, or they relocated elsewhere.”

“Humph. I’d say they went elsewhere. Amber Field’s a dump now. There’s nothing left of value in it. Money’s the only thing criminals want, and there’s none of it here. Problem is, where exactly did they go then?”

Rolling her shoulders, Typhoon chose a hallway and began to walk down it, Cyclone at her side. “Don’t know. Maybe we’ll find something they left behind. Jewel may be smart, but Mobius knows his subordinates aren’t. They’d have made mistakes somewhere.”

They continued on in silence for a while longer, rounding corners and taking hallways as they approached them. Eventually, the two pegasi found their way into a spacious room with windows placed up high along the edge of the ceiling. The glass had been shattered and dripping mounds of snow were piled underneath. The air was incredibly damp and humid, and had been for a long time as evidenced by the moldy wooden tables scattered throughout the room.

Walking along the perimeter of the room, Cyclone began to light torches with his wings while Typhoon began to go from table to table and try to see if anything was left. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of mildew, and twice her hooves crashed straight through rotting wood as she leaned across tables.

“You cover this room, I’ll search some of the neighboring chambers,” Cyclone suggested, to which Typhoon grunted her approval. The clopping of his hooves dulled as he walked out of the room to be replaced by the grinding of wood against stone as he began to rip the nearest room apart. Typhoon rolled her eyes and went back to delicately examining the contents of the circular room. Cyclone’s search tactics were definitely as straightforward as his interrogation tactics.

Growing frustrated with the lack of evidence around the tables, Typhoon abandoned such an obvious search and began to snoop around the edges of the room. Most of the walls either ended in snow or grime, although several had rubble and trash along their bases. Not wishing to run her hooves through muck and filth, Typhoon instead pulled out her sword and began to sift through some of the piles of refuse with its tip.

Much of the refuse was chunks of wood or rotting rinds of food, but soon enough Typhoon managed to dig up a small, bound notebook from underneath a pile of snow and gravel. Gingerly taking the soggy paper between her hooves, the mare laid the book on the table and began to nose through its contents. Most of the text was indecipherable or decayed from the moisture, but several pages towards the center of the book were still somewhat preserved. Setting her sword aside, Typhoon found a chair that was relatively clean and sturdy and sat down to study the book.

Page after page of text in an unknown alphabet greeted her, although the lines were so crisp and uniform that she had no doubt that it could only have been written by a unicorn. The text wasn’t in the earth pony or unicorn alphabet however, leaving her with no means to determine its meaning. Instead, she gently pushed several pages aside until she came across a few pictures.

The pictures were little more than crude sketches, but several of them had bulleted notes to the sides, as well as arrows to show movements. They looked like gate mechanisms and floor plans, though for what, Typhoon couldn’t tell. There was a large page of what she supposed was a map, but half the paper had been torn out and the other half was covered in mildew and mud. Only a few notes in that strange alphabet managed to survive near the top.

“Cyclone!” Typhoon called out. “Cyclone, I think I found something!”

The quick staccato of hooves striking stone gave way to Cyclone’s appearance in the doorframe. “Really? What did you find? All I could find was a few rusty blades and some scraps of leather.”

Placing her hoof on the book, Typhoon beckoned to Cyclone with her wing. “This is what I found. It looks like a journal of some sort—Jewel’s maybe. Problem is, I can’t read the language. Any ideas?”

Cyclone trotted over to Typhoon and spun the book so that the text faced him. After furrowing his brow for several thoughtful seconds, he shook his head. “It’s definitely something that I’ve never seen before. Regardless, it sure as hell seems important.”

“Maybe somepony else can read it. Somepony like Star Swirl, perhaps?”

Cyclone’s face drew into a scowl, but he discarded it with a shake of his head. “Yes. Perhaps. I’d rather not share this kind of information with another horn. Who knows what they’re all planning.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow. “Star Swirl is one of father’s closest friends. I’m sure he would be willing to help us.”

“You’d do well to learn that just because somepony is somepony else’s ‘friend’ doesn’t mean that you can trust them,” Cyclone scolded. “Enemies often come from the most surprising of places. Still,” he sighed, beginning to walk away. “You’re probably right, though. Star Swirl may be a horn, but he’s been reliable before. Let’s just hope that his integrity still holds true today.”

Shaking her head, Typhoon picked up the book and began to follow Cyclone out of the hideout. Whatever his disgust for the unicorns was, he was going to have to get over it sooner or later. Cirra may have survived before on its own, but the past twenty years had shown that it did better when working with the other races.

As she left the abandoned hideout and began the long flight back to Cloudsdale, Typhoon began to wonder just how long exactly any alliance could last under pressure. It would be a question that she knew would haunt her dreams at night as the world only continued to get colder and colder.

The fire crackled in the chilly night, struggling all it could to repel the cold air and warm the ponies sitting around it. At one point in the night there had been near a dozen; now there were only two. Their unarmored coats and the strange hats they wore atop their heads seemed out of place in the middle of a military camp.

Each held a wooden mug of cider that they drank from sparingly, savoring the warm burn of alcohol as it slithered down their throats. One was on his fifth tankard, while the other had yet to work his way through his first. They sat in silence, listening to the crackling of fire and the gentle rush of the wind around the peaks of tents.

Tossing his emptied tankard to the side, Chancellor Puddinghead reclined on the log he sat on and kicked his legs out from underneath himself. He and Smart Cookie watched the wavering orange sheets of flame, extenuating their tense silence for several more minutes before they finally found reason to break it.

“Have you packed all my things, Smart Cookie?” Puddinghead’s voice droned from underneath five rounds of cider. “We should probably be ready to get a move on by daybreak.”

“Yes, Chancellor, all your things are ready,” Smart Cookie murmured, not taking his eyes off of the fire. “You’ll be set to move on by day.”

Puddinghead’s ears perked as he tried to pick up on the meaning behind the Representative’s tone, but he dismissed it with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “That’s good. The sooner we get away from these shiny barbarians the better.”

Smart Cookie said nothing.

“I mean, sure, they saved our lives and all that, but they’re freaking me out. What do they eat to get all crystal-y like that anyways? Diamonds?”

Smart Cookie still said nothing.

Puddinghead glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, slightly shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure it’s diamonds. But still. They’re really weird. Hopefully they and the other barbarians at the fortress wear each other out. That means fewer raids come next spring!” Looking for another tankard of cider but not finding one, Puddinghead slumped in his seat before noticing Smart Cookie’s still half-full mug. He stared at it for several seconds until the Representative finally sighed and gave it to him.

Snatching the mug away, Puddinghead tilted his face upwards and downed more than half the remaining contents in one go. Setting it back down on the log, he rubbed his hooves together and extended them towards the fire. “What was I talking about? Oh yeah, hoping that the shinies all kill each other off. The world would be a better place if they did. Especially if they got that big flying unicorn one as well.”

Grinding his teeth together, Smart Cookie stood up and walked away from the fire. Puddinghead looked after him, confused, and scrambled up to follow him. “Hey, Smart Cookie! Where are you going?!”

“Away from you!” Smart Cookie hissed, spinning about to confront the Chancellor. “I can’t stand to listen to you anymore! All you’ve done since Jade and her army generously saved our lives and took us in is bash them and their kin and everything they stand for!”

Puddinghead tilted his head to the side, drunken confusedness dominating his face. “So?”

“So what!” Smart Cookie shouted, stomping his hoof for additional effect. “Has it ever occurred to you that the Crystal Ponies are ponies too? Ponies who just want to have a home, and have to fight if they even want a chance at ever finding peace? That they’re more than just the stereotypes we label them because of the actions of a few powerful warlords?!”

“Not really.”

“Aaaaughh!!” Smart Cookie slapped a hoof against his brow. “Hopeless! These ponies are in the same situation that we’re in, but they’re much more desperate! Jade’s only got this one chance to try and bring the Crystal Ponies together as a proud race. If she fails, then the attacks will only continue to get worse.”

Puddinghead stared at Smart Cookie until realization dawned on him. “Ooooh, I see how it is. Smart Cookie thinks he’s got a fillyfriend. Ooooh.”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” the Representative shouted. “At least she cares more about my well being than you do, Chancellor! And she saved my life, so I’m going to return it to her and help her out any way I can!”

The Chancellor squinted at Smart Cookie and his voice turned grave. “You’ll be killed, Smart Cookie.”

Drawing a shaky breath, Smart Cookie turned away from Puddinghead. “Maybe. But at least it’ll be for something more worthwhile than following you through the wilderness and having to listen to you all the time.”

Glancing at his mug, Puddinghead downed the rest of it and tossed the tankard away. “So be it, Representative. So be it. But remember that we came out here together to find a new land for the earth ponies. You may have forgotten it with your infatuation with a mare way out of your league, but I haven’t. I haven’t, Smart Cookie. Remember that.”

Turning around, Puddinghead trotted back to the campfire and shouldered his belongings. Without another look over his shoulder, the Chancellor stumbled away between two tents and disappeared into the night.

Smart Cookie released a distraught breath and turned back to the campfire. “Puddinghead?”

There was no response.

Sighing, the Representative sat on his haunches next to a tent and placed his head between his hooves. He was alone now, finally getting what he wanted after complaining about Puddinghead for so long. He finally had gotten rid of the annoying chancellor.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, one that hung with him as he tried to rock himself to sleep.