"...and I... am DEATH!"

The enormous dragon flew, soaring down on the helpless village on the lake. Fire licked around his jaws. he swooped in and--

the credits began rolling.

"Aaaaugh!" Childish shouts and groans of dismay, and not a little loose popcorn, flew up in the air as the closing music played. Jeers and laughter greeted the painful reminder that this was only part TWO of the trilogy. "Argh, more waiting," Nyx moaned, her face in her hooves.

There was good natured laughter and cheering from all the children present from both sides of the party. Roller Reel had come through brilliantly. With some effort and two donated mirrors-- One of Rarity's dressing mirrors set up at the library, and a similar sized one from the royal dressing room set up behind the sofa on the first floor of the Tower--- they had managed to set up a magic mirror array so that both halves of the party could see each other, as if through a window.

But the real brilliance was with the projector. A small magic mirror, set up at a 45 degree angle right in front of the projector lens, was now functioning as a beam splitter-- sending  the movie up onto the screen in Twilight's tower, and a duplicate projector beam out of another tiny mirror and up onto the movie screen at the Ponyville library, dozens of miles away.

The party was a success. All the diplomats' children attended; many, Twilight suspected, at the urging of their parents, hoping that little pitchers had big ears and might overhear something exploitable. Killdeer-adder, Songhili, Gossamer, even Doubloon in her wheeled bowl-chair had come. There were a few others in attendance; a pair of phoenix chicks who burned with a peculiar blue flame perched with Peewee-- presumably from the Firebird's entourage; a young ki-rin named Po. He was not in fact related to Zheng He, but was actually one of the minor servants to the Emperor of the ki-rin. Zheng He apparently doted on him and had urged him to go.

On the other side of the mirror, the library was packed to the walls with the membership of the CMC. It seemed they had been recruiting; Bright Eyes was there, as well as a little fellow with a propeller beanie and a brand new CMC badge.(1)The rest of the Bearers of the Elements were present as well, riding herd on the excitable children.

The movie party had been a smashing success on both sides. Popcorn had been munched by the tubful,(2) s'mores had been noshed and sodas had been drunk, and the antics on the screen of Bilbo Burro and his companions had kept both crowds of foals riveted. They'd roared with laughter at Bilbo's pratfalls, shivered in fright as the heroes had battled the giant spiders, and whooped with excitement at that rolling battle down the barrel-filled river. The highlight of the evening had been when the terrible dragon Smoak had surfaced from the mountain of treasure in its cave behind a petrified Bilbo, looming... and Adder, in a sudden mischievous impulse, had let his scaly side brush up against Nyx's neck and said "Boo!" in her ear. The shriek had been spectacular and Nyx's popcorn, under the impulse of a terror-fueled magic surge, had erupted straight up like a geyser. The scream and popcorn burst had triggered a chain reaction of shrieks, yelps, and popcorn tossing across the room and right through the magic mirror. For a brief instant both the tower and the library had looked like an explosion in a popcorn factory. The only reason Killdeer-Adder hadn't gotten more than a brief drubbing ("It wasn't me! It was him!") was that everypony was too frantic to not miss any of the movie...

The children lounged back, soaking in the afterglow of the double feature ("There and Back Again," followed immediately by "The Wasteland of Smoak") and about a billion calories of junk food. "Man, this... is... awesome," Killdeer sighed blissfully. He let out a little popcorn burp. "Best diplomatic event I've been to, no holds barred."

"Really?" Nyx said in undisguised delight.

"He's certainly not lying," Adder said. He got an evil smirk on his serpentine face. "Probably because this is the first soiree he's gotten away with farting all night...!"

Cries of disgust and a hail of pillows and sofa cushions greeted this announcement. Killdeer awked as he was pounded beneath an onslaught of feather-stuffed doom. "I guess I spoke too soon" Adder managed to yell gleefully before a pillow from a divan nailed him. "He's lying!" the muffled shout came from beneath the instant pillow pile.

Adder periscoped up out of the pillows and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. "Of course I'm lying," he said. "But you didn't think I wasn't going to get revenge for all the times you dutch ovened me? Really," he told the others. "It can be a nightmare being attached to this guy's butt..."

"My, how classy," Doubloon said drolly. She was giggling so hard she'd started hiccuping.

"Lie or not I'm hitting the air 'fresher," Spike said. He had recuperated enough to join in the party... even though his seat cushion was still supplemented with an ice bag.  He whipped out a can of "Floral Essence" and began spritzing the air liberally.

There was a rap from the mirror behind them. "Hey Nyx," Scootaloo said. "We just wanted to say it's been totally awesome!"

Flitter appeared next to her in the mirror. "Yeah," the changeling filly said. "But Roller says we gotta disconnect the mirror now, because reasons." She rolled her eyes. "So I guess we're all wishing you goodnight now..."

A collective "goodnight" came from the CMC.

"You too," Nyx said, waving. "I miss you all."

"We'll see you in class on Monday," Applebloom said. "Hang tough, pardner." The mirror flickered, then all it reflected was the inside of the tower.

"Those guys were fun!" Gossamer said.

Nyx nodded. "Best ponies in the world," she said. Shoot, the three ringleaders of the CMC had helped save her from herself... and the world from endless night, by extension.

Really, though," Doubloon said. "It has been the most fun I've ever had at at a 'diplomatic' or 'political' anything." She added air-quotes with her hooves. Then hiccuped again.

"I don't know about political...." Songhili said. "But this has been tremendous fun."

"It has been... a most unusual evening," Po, the timid little ki-rin, said. "But... yes, great fun."

"Yeah," Gossamer said, lounging in an empty potato chip bowl. "No fussy clothes, no fussy food, no fussy little toothpicks in everything..."

Killdeer resurfaced. "No fussy people..." he added with a snort. "No snobs, no snooty servants, no crabby parents--"

"Hanging out with people who are fun, and you actually like," Doubloon said. "It's... just nice to be someplace where everything doesn't have to be gold plated and smothered in caviar."

Nyx noticed Po looked confused and upset. "What's wrong, Po?" she asked.

Po looked down, folding his forehooves. "It is not for me to say," he said deferentially, refusing to meet anyone's eye.

Snorts and raspberries greeted this. "C'mon..." "Spill it!" "What is it?"

Nyx remembered what Zheng He had said as he had dropped off the bewildered and intimidated young serving ki-rin. "Po, remember what Zheng He said," she urged. "'You are here to learn, and to learn you must walk as an equal.' You can't learn anything if you're afraid to SAY anything."

Po hesitated, then relented. "You are all... confusing to me. You are princes and princesses, children of wealth and power and royalty and privilege--- everything so many people desire." He cast his eyes down. "Everything a mere hoofservant like myself could never dream of having. And yet you are unhappy with all of it."

A brief silence fell over the group as the various children of emperors, princesses, and nobility began to feel guilt well up in them. Till Adder snorted. "You think it's a privilege? To be constantly criticized? To have everyone judging you, bossing you, telling you how you should live?" Adder gestured with his head all around the room. "Yeah, all this posh stuff and servants and fancy clothes and such is nice, but any trade merchant can get that stuff. And what good is having all the cake in the world if you can't eat it without everyone silently judging every bite you take? What good is it to be a son of a king when even the servants look down their beaks at you?"

Po looked scandalized. "I would never look down on His Lordship Zheng He," he said, shrinking back from the very thought.

Nyx looked at him. "Well... what if Zheng He did something weird, like--" she kicked a loose kernel on the carpet. "Like eating popcorn in the middle of court?"

"Or went out in the garden and made mud pies?" Gossamer offered. "Or ate with the wrong fork, or picked his teeth at the table?"

"Or caught the flu, got buzzed on too much cold medicine, and took a dump in a ceremonial urn?" Killdeer said. The others stared at him. He looked sheepish. "It was a bad month," he said, scratching the feathers on his neck awkwardly.

"Or maybe," Doubloon said softly, "Maybe if he just fell in love with a peasant farm girl and married her?" That seemed to get through to Po. You could almost see the thoughts whirring in his head as he imagined the venerable Emperor of his homeland 'debasing himself' with a mere commoner for a wife-- as many would call it.

"I perceive, now," Po said after a long moment, "That a crown, no matter how gilded, it comes with chains as well."

"Grownups are stupid," Nyx said with finality. "They think they want power and privilege and prestige... when what they really want is to be free. To be left alone, to live the way they want without being afraid that somepony else is just going to take it all away." She rested her head on her forehooves.

Gossamer sighed. "That's so true," she agreed. "I'm bummed now. Is there any more S'mores left? I need some chocolaty goodness to cheer me up." Nyx chuckled and stuck a leftover s'more in Gossamer's hooves. The flutterpony happily buried her face in the gooey treat.

The Quartet were suddenly there, stepping among the children sprawled about the floor. Magic deftly swept up the crumbs and empty cups and other detritus. "Will your Highness' guests be staying for the night?" Cherry Blossom asked Nyx smoothly.

"Will you?" Nyx asked them. "We could make it a sleepover..."

"Yeah," Spike said. "Sit up late, swap some manly stories, and in the morning, I'm making waffles!" He flashed a cheesy grin. Peewee chirruped and rubbed his feathery belly in anticipation.

The others looked at each other. Guilty memories of various pointed instructions from their parents flashed through their heads...

Killdeer was the first to break the shared vow of silence. "Umm... Nyx, you should kinda know... our parents all told us to, um, spy on you, sorta," he said lamely.

The others reluctantly nodded-- even Po. "Even I was told to keep my ears and eyes open for what I might learn." he said.

Spike looked up from feeding the Phoenix chicks marshmallow bits. (It melted and made their beaks all gooey. It was hysterical.) "Yyeah, we kinda figured that," he said dryly. "We're not as new to the royalty game as we look."

"Besides, one of my best friends is Sweetiebelle. And her big sister Rarity is the biggest gossip in Ponyville," Nyx said, her expression deadpan. "Sweetie once told me that every time she visits a friend, the minute she gets home Rarity squeezes her like an orange." Embarrassed giggles went up from the group at that.

"Well, if you know and you're still okay with us," Doubloon said, blushing a bit. "I would like to say."

Nyx grinned. "Sure!...I guess you could sleep in the bathing pool? It's got to be more comfortable than that bowl." She pointed at Doubloon's chair.

Doubloon smiled. "Yes, I guess it would be."

"And what about you?" Nyx said to the pudgy little selkie.

"Oh, no worries for me," Songhili said cheerfully. "I can sleep on sea or shore, so either is fine. Doubloon needs it more, so I'll sleep dry tonight."

"Okay," Nyx said. "Gossamer, what about--" marshmallowy snores from the empty popcorn bowl answered her. "I guess she's staying," Nyx said as the others giggled. "And you, Killdeer?"

"Dear Grandpop: my covert surveillance of the new branch of the Equestrian royalty isn't finished," he said. "So I'll be staying til the morning to obtain some highly sensitive and super-important information."

"What's that?" Doubloon asked.

"What dragon waffles taste like," he said. He yawned and stretched. "G'night." He curled up in a pile of cushions and dozed off.

Adder looked down on his dozing brother and tsked. "Always thinking with our stomach," he muttered.

Spike watched him, curious. "You don't fall asleep when he does?" he asked.

"No, of course not," Adder said. "What's the point of having an extra pair of eyes to keep watch if they doze off when you do? Don't worry, I'll knock off in a little while. I need a lot less sleep than he does."

"Weird. Cool, but weird," Spike said.

Two of the Quartet quickly took Doubloon to the bath to make her comfortable, while the others passed out blankets and comforters to the others so they could bed down where they were. They departed, gathering up the last of the trash from the party as they went. The chatter soon died down and the little gathering of royals dozed off one by one.

Nyx found herself next to Songhili. She looked over at the selkie. Before, his huge brown eyes had looked cute; in the near dark they looked so deep and soulful. The memory of what she'd been told about his island, his home, swelled inside her. "Songhili?" she whispered. "I'm so sorry for what happened to your home. I'm so, so sorry." She swallowed. "I promise, no matter what happens, no matter what the Council decides--"

A fuzzy monkey-seal paw pressed over her mouth. "It's all right," Songhili said. "You don't have to. I don't blame you...."

She pushed the paw away. "But I want to," she said. "I don't know if I can do it, but I promise I'll make it right."

Songhili's chocolate-brown eyes glimmered in the firelight. "Thank you," he said, finally.

Up on the upstairs balcony, Twlight listened in as the children below slowly settled down for the night, their chattering slowly fading to idle murmuring and then to quiet snores. She shook her head and knocked back more of her mug of coffee; the night was only beginning for her.

The work was going fairly quickly. Once they knew what to look for,  she and Ink Spot (with considerable help from Snowcap and White Dove) had gone through about a fourth of the records already. What they had learned already was proving incredibly alarming, but it was going to mesh perfectly with Twilight's plan.

Cherry Blossom rejoined them in the office nook. "They're down for the evening," she said simply with a maternal smile. She looked over the stacks of paperwork and the freshly written scrolls that constituted their work so far. "Are you finding what you're looking for, your Highness?"

"Everything I wanted. More than I wanted, in fact," Twilight said. "I was planning on searching these Council meeting minutes to find out how many of them were convened due to natural disasters caused by one or more of the members."

"And how many were there?" Cherry Blossom said.

Sea Foam sidled past with a stack of folders balanced on her back. "So far, nearly all of them," she said.

Ink Spot was at one of the mahogany desks plunked down in the nook. He looked up from the files he was perusing. "In retrospect it seems obvious that such calamities would be the main reason for their calling an assembly," he said. "Still, it's shocking to realize how many..."

"Most natural disasters in the world are just that-- natural," Twilight said. "A consequence of chance. Others, like Pele's eruptions or earthquakes, are necessary ventings of imbalances... the Custodians releasing built up forces, or inevitable synchronicities like eclipses. But others..." She shook her head. "Epic tidal waves. Hurricanes. Major earthquakes. Ice ages... there's a file here that indicates the great freeze that the hearthwarming pageant commemorates may have been initially triggered by a screwup on the part of Jormungandr.  For all their efforts at keeping the natural forces of our world in harmony, the Council has ended up working at cross-purposes..."

"And they've been running things this way since... eternity past?" Cherry Blossom said, vaguely horrified.

"That's just it," Twilight said. "They haven't." She picked up a nearby book levitated it over. Cherry Blossom read the title: DOCUMENTED FUNDAMENTALS OF PLANETARY POST-ORBITAL ASTROMECHANICS

Curious, she took the book in her magic and flipped through it. Cherry Blossom and the rest of the Quartet were not uneducated; it only took the first few pages to get the implications. "That's right," Twilight said when she saw the expression on Cherry Blossom's face. "That is a copy of a book tens of thousands of years old, that documents how our world was before the Council of Celestial Stewards. The most we had before that book was bits and pieces of old folklore, half-forgotten bits that most ponies think was poetic license in ancient tales. This... this is the whole story."

"At one time the forces the Council oversees more or less ran themselves, balanced one another. But now they only exist at all because of the Council."

Cherry Blossom looked stunned. After a moment she set the book down back in its place. "What does this mean?"

"It means that the world has something of an impassible problem," Ink Spot said. "The Council, despite its members making constant mistakes... is irreplaceable. With the Council we get a world where the forces of nature clash with each other, fail to work together and cause natural disasters at the whims of powerful, but all too limited beings..."

"Without the Council, we have no forces of nature at all," Twilight said. "No sunrises and sunsets. No tides, no currents, no tectonic movement, no magnetic field protecting us from the winds of space--- just random forces spiraling out of control or fading away to nothing."

Sea Foam gulped. "A ship with no sail, rudder, compass or chart," she said. "Cast adrift and only a matter of time before it founders."

That analogy is more apt than you know, Twilight thought. "At the least, we have an angle to demand leniency," she said. "But I'm still at a loss for a fix to the bigger problem." She waved a hoof. "Sooner or later-- and history apparently is on the side of sooner-- another disaster is going to occur. A war, or another Nightmare Moon, or just one Domain falling out of accord with another. Or just a stupid mistake..." She stamped her hoof, her wings fidgeting.

The Quartet all traded looks. "I think maybe you're borrowing trouble, your Highness," White Dove said gently. "All that's really needed right now is for you to get Equestria through this mess, her and now."

"But that's just the problem!" Twilight stamped a hoof. "All these disasters, all of them--" she swept out a wing to encompass the stacks of files "-- are because nopony got together and worked things out for the long term. If we do things the same old way, the Council will make some decisions, fuddle around with a few of its rules of order, and we'll all go right back where we started. What good will it do Equestria if we solve just this problem, only to have it turn around and bite us in the cutie marks again a hundred years from now?"

Ink Spot came up behind her and stood next to her. He nuzzled her neck. "What good will it do us if our Princess burns herself out trying to solve all the problems in the world at once?" he chided.

Twilight sulkily tried to shrug him off at first, but finally leaned in to his nuzzles, returning them with a few of her own. "I guess you're right," she said. "We've got enough problems as it is; there's no sense heaping more on my plate... at least not for now."

"That's right," Ink Spot said. "Don't think of it as giving up. You're just putting that problem on the back burner for now." He passed her a fresh mug of coffee and gave her a kiss. "Come on, let's just finish collating this summary." The two of them wended their way back over to the desks.

Morning found Nyx's family and guests seated around the dining table as a happily whistling Spike had dished up heaping stacks of waffles. The Quartet moved with clockwork efficiency around the table, pouring juice, fetching butter and syrup, and dishing out more golden waffles to empty plates. The groggy children cheerfully dug in. Killdeer-Adder in particular blissfully noshed their way through a nearly foot-high stack. "I see you like my waffles," Spike chuckled.

"No, no, these are not waffles," Adder said between bites. "These are golden, crispy, fluffy slices of heaven, my friend."

"Mmprhor," Killdeer agreed with his beak full.

Nyx looked up the table at Twilight. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

Twilight and Ink Spot were sitting together at the head of the table. They had been up most of the night pulling together the summary for the Princess' appeal; they looked tired, but confident. "Pretty much," Twilight said. "I didn't get everything done that I wanted, but-- enough for now." She was actually feeling a bit amused; Sea Foam had been photographing the party the whole night, and had even sneaked about with a camera just before sunrise and snapped dozens of photos of the royal children sleeping or waking up or generally just looking adorable. Doubloon floating on her back in the bathing pool, hooves folded on her belly; Po sleeping curled up like a fawn in a glade; Gossamer sprawled across a pillow, sawing logs; Killdeer passed out with his rump up on the couch and his face buried in pillows on the floor, with Adder hanging like a limp garden hose over the back of the couch and snoring....  Nyx in particular was going to be absolutely mortified when she saw the photo of her and the Selkie pup; at some point in the night Nyx had rolled over in her sleep and snuggled up to him. The photo showed a sleeping Nyx hugging him to her like a chubby teddy bear while he grinned and winked at the camera.

She was about to ask for somepony to pass the syrup when a golden glow filled the picture window. The light swelled into a golden sphere, flew in through the glass as if it wasn't there, and then faded away, revealing Princess Celestia standing in the middle of the floor. "Good morning, my little ponies-- and others," she said with a smile. She waved them back to their seats as they hastily rose and started to bow. "Oh no no, go back to your breakfasts," she said.

"What brings you by, your Highness?" Ink Spot said.

"Care for some waffles?" Spike asked.

"In reverse order, yes I would, Spike, and I came by to check on Twilight's progress with the leniency appeal," Celestia said. She took a seat at the other end of the table.(3) Snow Cap quickly had a plate of buttery waffles in front of her, and Sea Foam laid out an array of jellies and syrups. Celestia daintily poured on the blueberry syrup and took up a forkful. "Mmmm. Excellent as always, Spike. I should make that recipe a national treasure." Spike scoffed and blushed, pleased.

"Well, I haven't properly annotated or cross referenced everything, and we really need to index it but-- I think we have something that will keep the Council from getting too punitive," Twilight said. She levitated a sheaf of papers down the table to Celestia. Celestia flipped through the pages, speed reading. Her eyebrows rose.

"Ouch," she said simply. "Twilight, my dear student, I had no idea you could be so ruthless," she said. Twilight scrunched her nose, not sure if that was a compliment or not. "Yes, indeed, this should work with the Council." Celestia sighed and sent the papers back. "Now if it was just so easy to deal with the Assembly..."

Nyx frowned. "Wait... this isn't all together?"

Celestia smiled and shook her head. "You recall we have two conundrums here," she said. "The Council of Celestial Stewards are here about, well, about how we princesses are doing our jobs. The Assembly are the kings and rulers of the nations in the Western Sea, who are lobbying for reparations-- they want us to pay for everything that got broken."

"Ohhh..." Nyx said, crestfallen. She'd forgotten that the problem was in two parts.

"One problem at a time, one problem at a time," Twilight muttered to herself. "I'm sure once we deal with the Council, everything will fall into place...." Still, she frowned into her juice glass.

Celestia startled the table by letting loose with an enormous yawn. "Oh, forgive me," she said as the table erupted in juvenile giggles. "I guess I haven't gotten quite enough sleep."

"How?" Gossamer said. "Doesn't the sun get up when you do?"

"Ugh, don't start that again," Killdeer groaned.

Celestia chuckled. "Were it only so. I and my sister have to keep to an exact schedule for every sunset and sunrise. I am awoken by an alarm clock, just like the rest of my little ponies, and then I must raise the sun." She sighed. "Just once I would like to be woken up by the sun on my face, just to feel what it's like."

"It's too bad you can't just get the stupid clock to raise the sun for you," Nyx giggled.

There was a clatter from the other end of the table. Everyone looked up; Twilight had dropped her fork on her plate and was staring into space, her eyes wide with astonishment. Nyx could almost see the lightbulb over her head. "Twilight? Darling? Are you all right?" Ink Spot said, alarmed.

"That's it," Twilight said. "But what if-- no. That IS it. It's perfect. No, it's better than perfect!" She got up from the table. "But first we have to... and then.... oh, so much to do!"

"Twilight?" Celestia said, a little worried. The last time Twilight had gotten that look in her eyes they'd had to re-shingle the roof on the School for Gifted Unicorns. Twilight was already on the move, though. Scrolls, pens and ink were spinning around her in a magical orbit. "Okay, I need to move this to the Starswirl wing of the royal library-- it's the only place with a copy of "Advanced Synchronostic Harmony", and they have that ginormous orrery there-- somepony, open up that magic mirror again and get Roller Reel; I need him to send us copies of that footage of Big Wheel's traffic flow studies and a couple of other films, too-- and send a summons for Time Turner--"

"Time Turner? The Ponyville Clockmaker?" Ink Spot stammered.

"Yes, he's the best in the business, and he's not stuck up his own plot like Professor TickTock-- Sorry Celestia, but I took his class at school and honestly...."

"Twilight, what are you up to?" Celestia said.

"Solving all the world's problems at once." She galloped off in a cloud of books and papers, came galloping back, and grabbed Ink Spot's ear in her teeth. "Come ON!"

"Owowowow! I was going to follow you anyway--!" Twilight dragged off her protesting fiancee by the tip of his ear.

1)The cloaks were going by the wayside as a wee bit too expensive, and a bit too girly for the colts, and were being replaced with armbands with the CMC badge. It was already just as notorious; Already in some neighborhoods shopkeeps paled and grannies clutched for their pacemakers whenever a red armband was sighted.

2)Gossamer had literally dived into one tub and eaten her way to the surface. By the end of the party she was three kernels away from being a butter-marinated flutterpony.

3)Promptly throwing Gossamer and Doubloon, who were seated on either side of her, into spastic hiccups.