Chapter Two

The shadow in the doorway stayed there only momentarily, before it darted into the Hall, slamming the doors as it fled.

There was a murmur of concern rising amongst the ponies, which Lyra ignored, choosing instead to try and locate who, or what had entered in with them. Thankfully, she didn't have long to wait, as there was almighty crash next to her, which very nearly frightened her out of her mint green skin.

Suddenly, there was a mauve coloured pegasus next to her, with neon yellow hair and almost luminous green eyes. He had a ridiculous smile plastered on his face, and his tongue was slightly stuck out. It took a second for Lyra to notice that this weird pegasus was clad in a light grey sort of tabard, with a large red smiling pony printed onto it. He had obviously rushed to get here, at least more so than the actual debaters, as he was very out of breath, bent double, and panting through his smile and stupid sticking out tongue.

Lyra just sat there, staring at the newcomer, when he turned slightly to her, and said, "Hey...Have they started talking...yet? Whew! Just flew here...all the way from...Prance...I mean, who knew Canterlot was...so far away, eh?"

Lyra continued to stare for a few more moments, before saying to him, "Er, no, they haven't started yet. Only just arrived, like you."

"Ah, good! So I'm not late. That makes a change."

None of the other ponies had noticed him, and the talk spurred on by his entrance had died down after a couple of minutes. Soon, the Announcer was back talking; "All right, now, for the first piece on the agenda -" She was cut off by the strange pegasus.

"Wait! I need to-ack!" he'd tripped over the steps as he had rushed down to the debating floor, and began to fall head first down, until he eventually came to rest at the hooves of the announcer, who just looked at him like he was a stray dog that had just wandered in, and not an extremely weird pegasus. Once more, all eyes in the hall were upon his dazed form.

"And who wishes to speak first?" She was glaring at him with a raw and dangerous form of contempt.

The pegasus just continued to lie there for a few more moments, before attempting to raise himself to his unsteady hooves. The first four attempts failed, but on the fifth attempt, he finally managed to stand eye level with the large and, by that point, extremely angry announcer. Lyra could also see the debaters themselves were beginning to grow annoyed, and she knew this was because the antics of the silly pegasus was detracting from their own stage time.

"I...I do...I wish to speak…" His face warped from the dazed and dim expression back to the smiling and dim expression.

"And what is your name?" Lyra could almost hear the announcer spit the words, her patience already stretched for anything that wasn't an earth-pony, and being stretched even further by an idiot.

"My name is Babieca, the Divine!" At that last exclamation, he raised himself into the air with his crooked wings, and a hint of smugness began to creep into the smile. A wave of murmuring began to run through the gathered crowd, spreading like wildfire, trying to discern what he meant by that.

However, the announcer was unmoved by his declaration. "So, not a regular pony then?"

"Nope," he fell back down to the ground with a loud thud, and sat back on his hind legs, and began to count on his hooves. "You see, I'm immortal! You see, my great ancestor and original namesake was born three-hundred years ago, the colt of Llamrei, immortal queen of the empire of Canterbury, and Marengo, a prince from Old Prance. My namesake ancestor then had Rocinante, who married Tencendur -who's my grandmare, and she had had Palomo, who bore triplets named Boxer, Mollie and Clover, and then Mollie had me and my younger brother Bucephalus, and that makes me an immortal. Plus, my first cousin thrice removed is the Mad Emperor Incitatus, Emperor of the Roamans, who has claimed divinity, so that strengthens my claim." The whole hall went deathly silent, and they all just stared at Babieca, who stood there as smug as a pony could ever be. The he continued;

"And I have been sent here, by commission of an alliance in the Occident of Equestria's allies, to have you lot make peace with the Changelings - and they have only allowed me to do so!" He seemed so proud at that, but Lyra sense that he didn't exactly grasp the personalities of the ponies that he had been sent to get peace from.

Babieca sighed, and finally finished what he was saying with, "But...even being the incredibly intelligent immortal that I am, my pony peers, I have been given no expenses whatsoever! I mean, the chief speakers back won't let me have them! Can you believe it?"

While the foolish Babieca was rambling, the Head of the Debate, distinguished from the other speakers by his hat that was twice as tall as the other speakers hats, made a simple hoof gesture to the announcer, who, upon seeing it, allowed a smile to inch its way across her large face, and called out,

"Guards! Take this stupid imposter from the hall! He's ruining our agenda!"

And with that, two muscular, mean looking guards grabbed the blabbering pegasus by his wings, and dragged him out a side entrance, with Babieca kicking and yelling the whole way. He was yelling, "Marengo and Rocinante! Why don't you help your descendant now? Wait, why are you taking me outside? What's the meaning of th-" His face connecting with the cold street outside finally managed to shut him up, at least for now. The two guards silently moved back to their original position, flanking the announcer, who had watch the whole spectacle with a smug grin on her face.

Lyra suddenly felt angry, and couldn't resist standing up and calling out, "Hey! Debaters! The removal of that idiot messenger is a direct insult to this assembly and all the rights Celestia has granted us with its use! All he wanted was to give us a nice peace so we could finally set our paranoia and darkness back to the depths of our minds, locked away from whence they came! Is that too much to ask?"

All the announcer replied with was, "Silence! Sit down or you'll join him!" That threat was accompanied with several jeers, snide agreements and cheering from the common masses around Lyra, and clapping from the rich ponies and debaters alike. None wanted to hear about Peace today.

"No! I most certainly will not, definitely not until the debaters allow us to debate on Peace with the Changelings!" Lyra stood confident, until two rough sets of hooves grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her back into her seat, and the announcer, as well as everypony else just ignored the peace obsessed unicorn.

Lyra could only look on, gobsmacked, as the announcer, and the debaters continued with the agenda that they wanted.