In which a meeting takes place, and Sour Note performs a spell.
The train, as a matter of courtesy, was deemed unnecessary - a chariot pulled by Canterlot pegasi in gleaming armor came by the castle to pick up Twilight and the ambassadors. It was only large enough for four ponies (Crimson Lance had neglected to mention Sour Note in her final dispatch to the High Princess), but Petrichor managed to convince Twilight that she didn't mind having to fly, despite her wings secretly aching from her sessions the day before. Crimson took up almost two ponies' worth of room, and Sour rode to Canterlot crouching invisibly between her silver armored shoes. Berry Buzz spent the whole trip with her forelegs hooked over the side of the carriage; more than once Twilight had leapt to her hooves in alarm, when it looked like her new friend might fall.
If Ponyville was a breath of fresh air, then Canterlot's sweeping spires and rich, elegant colors were simply otherworldly. The city, sprouting from the sheer side of a mountain like Olympus, wove itself in an intricate spiral dotted with charming homes, lined with rows of the finest shops and restaurants in all of Equestria. As she looked below, Crimson Lance tapped her back hoof in a sort of restless tick, as if resisting the urge to jump out of the chariot and join the ponies below; her expression never changed, however.
Twilight looked proudly over what was once her home. "Welcome to Canterlot, everypony: the heart of Equestria."
The pegasi touched down before the castle gates. Crimson was, of course, the first to step off and stand gazing up at the sprawling, soaring structure. Petrichor collapsed on the opposite side of the chariot - where Crimson Lance couldn't see her - panting heavily, as Berry Buzz came and sat patiently beside her until she was ready to walk again.
"This way, everypony. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna will be waiting for us in the Great Hall," Twilight said.
Sour Note slipped in the gate as soon as it opened, casting a self-conscious glance at the classy unicorns strolling about in the cobble streets, their horns ablaze carrying shopping bags, paper fans. She laughed nervously to the alicorn. "Er...with your permission, Your Highness," she shivered, glancing at Crimson Lance, "I think I would prefer to stay out here - out of the way."
"Oh. Okay. Suit yourself," said the princess. Sour trotted gratefully over to one corner of the courtyard, where a kind of topiary mass stood, and sniffed at a branch of violet flower buds.
A wide hallway led into the castle's heart, where a massive set of royal doors awaited the delegation. Behind them stood Princess Celestia in all her regal splendor. Her golden jewelry, freshly shined, necklace and tiara carved set with semi-precious purple gems, didn't seem quite in place in the immaculate reflection of the door, and the princess fidgeted with them uncomfortably. She fanned her impressive wings, as was her wont, twitching the feathers into place. She took more than a couple deep breaths.
"Is something troubling you, dear sister?" said the contemplative voice of the younger princess, seasoned and matured by many centuries on the empty surface of the moon. That voice had once held the loyal awe of a child for her big sister - a voice of trust. Now, it was often a voice of reason.
Celestia lowered her magnificent head to accept her sister's support. "In a thousand years, Luna, my feelings for diplomatic work remain unchanged. These ponies…tell me, Luna, honestly, what do I owe to them?"
"What do you mean, owe to them?"
The leader bowed sadly. "I...I didn't help them when the disaster came to Pomphay," she admitted. "Governor Velvet Revels told me he could handle reparations, and, like a fool, I let him. When he-when Crimson Lance succeeded him, it was clear Pomphay was in deep trouble; but by then, I had...other troubles." She smiled at her sister, thinking of the day Twilight Sparkle and her friends had set her free from Nightmare Moon.
"All this is to say, Luna: Pomphay may be the most inhospitable town within the borders of Equestria. I don't know how much help I can give them now. I don't even know how much I should give. Luna...help me."
Luna's way of helping was to stare ahead at the door and nod solemnly. "I don't know enough yet to advise you," she whispered. "Your choice is your choice - you can't always know what will come of it. 'Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting.'
"But I sense this debt question is not your only dilemma."
"No," Celestia admitted sheepishly.
"It's Crimson Lance. I used to love...that's to say...I admired Governor Velvet Revels' outlook on life very much indeed. But his daughter is just so...different. I don't think I like her very much, Luna."
The younger princess's laugh was like a deep choir of church bells, golden and vast, tolling care in every note.
"Ah, but the wonderful world of diplomacy. Perhaps if we leave her out there long enough, she'll go away. Or were you planning on opening the door anytime soon?"
As the voices around Celestia's table droned on, Crimson Lance found it difficult to keep her focus off the chandelier dripping with filigree over their heads. After all, Pomphay, even after years of relentless construction and war on three fronts, still looked like what it was: a slipshod, underdeveloped, pathetic little settlement of dark thorn wood bound into shacks with parched Everfree vines. The fields sprawled dry as desert; the sky brought lightning, but no rain; dragonfire engulfed one hastily-constructed shelter after another.
Though a carefully cultivated sense of duty laid her curved nose level with the rest of the group, it was fighting some deep instinctual longing to stare at the enchanting beauty above her.
Princess Luna, who had, for some five minutes, been resting her head on the table, woke up to tactfully interrupt a doubtlessly important but somewhat meandering story from Berry Buzz about the conditions of the farms back home. "Certainly we know that this discourse is important to you, in ways we cannot dream of ourselves. I think it is time…" (she savored this pause, as the sense of changing topics in her words lit up five drowsy pairs of eyes) "…for us to draw out a basic contract."
Berry Buzz slumped in her seat, giving Twilight a desperate look. She mouthed the words, that sounds BORING.
Twilight smiled at the earth pony as she addressed the table: "Yes, let's. I think it's best we get this over with. Princess Celestia, I believe it's your place to make demands?"
A hush fell over the already hushed meeting. Celestia cleared her throat, and, after a pause to allow her authority to suffuse throughout the room, she said very slowly and deliberately:
"Yours is a unique position, Governor, and I'm afraid you have placed us in one as well. As you know, Everfree magic is taxing even for an alicorn to suppress; it never rests - you have experienced this. I would like to do what I can, but..." She glanced at Luna for support, and her sister discreetly waved an encouraging silver hoof. "But through simply providing aid, I cannot ensure the lasting relations I wish for between us all. I am sorry to tell you this, but both sides must have something to give for this deal to pass."
For the first time, Crimson Lance looked really flustered. Her eyes dilated and, as though staring down an enemy, she drew herself up to her full height, armor clinking jarringly. "But, Your Highness, Princess Celestia, we can barely feed ourselves - there is no way for us to send supplies to your kingdom. And every soldier we have is occupied at the borders. Your demands are unreasonable, Your Highness!"
"There are plenty of things to give, beyond food or military service," Luna pointed out, coming valiantly to her sister's aid.
"But-but Your Highness," whimpered Crimson Lance, trying not to look as helpless as she was.
Celestia gave a look that told everyone present exactly how serious she was.
That look was a final blow that brought on the governor's wordless surrender. "Well, then, if this is settled," offered Luna, "perhaps we should give the ambassadors some time to decide what they have to give. This meeting has been long enough for everyone, I should say."
Crimson Lance gathered a proud breath and her fellow Pomphayians as she made rather stiffly for the door, hers and their heads already bowed together to find somehow a solution. Luna seemed relieved to return to her customary nap before sundown. But the table wasn't completely clear even then. The high princess waited patiently. Twilight didn't move.
"Did you want to say something?"
"Er, yes, actually, Princess." Twilight pawed anxiously at the table. "I didn't want to worry the ambassadors, but…there's been a development with the Tree of Harmony."
Celestia felt the magic running through her kick itself up a notch. Adrenaline. Nervousness. "A 'development'?"
"Ye-e-es," said Twilight slowly. "A large room seems to have appeared at the back of the cave. Discord notified me of it; we don't know where it came from."
She paused, and was distressed to read in Celestia's expression that this was the first she'd heard of such a thing as well. The princess furrowed her snow-white brow.
"Just a room - a cave?"
"Just an empty cave. There are etchings in the walls, but they're either artistic or just a language I don't know. It's very dark," Twilight admitted. "I didn't see much."
"I see," muttered Celestia.
"Twilight Sparkle, the Elements of Harmony are under your jurisdiction and that of your friends who share them. Could anything have triggered this new discovery? Think back."
Twilight thought. "It…it must have been around the time the ambassadors arrived. When the Map called us."
"Then I can only imagine it will be of use to you in the resolution of these talks. In the meantime, perhaps we should not mention it to Governor Crimson Lance. She…has enough on her mind."
Twilight nodded understandingly, but she still didn't leave.
"Princess Celestia?"
"Yes, Twilight?"
The young princess steeled her own nerve. "I know it's not my place to question your actions-"
"It kind of is, actually."
"-but why did you put such demands on the ponies of Pomphay? Crimson Lance…er, Governor, that is…she has a point. They can't afford to spare anything."
As she'd been waiting for this question from Twilight since she'd said the words to begin with, Celestia just nodded solemnly.
"And well I know it, Twilight. Sometimes, in difficult negotiations like these, all I can do is to trust my instincts. Instinct can be a very powerful, very reliable thing - especially for an alicorn - and somehow I knew that finding what they had to offer would help them far more than me, just swooping in and putting up a shield."
"Did you have something in mind that they could give?"
"No, not really," whispered Celestia.
"All I know is that we're both looking for friendship."
One steel hoof clinked against the stone and caught the gleam of the outside light. Then another. The sun beamed heavily into Crimson's face and she turned her face away from its western setting, to the empty east garden.
Sour Note was standing in the east garden. A pair of flagpoles stood one on either side of her - golden sun-shaped charges on fields purple. She stared determinedly at her governor, and the pain from the ball of flame slowly setting behind the half-silhouetted form brought tears to her eyes that she fought valiantly against. Perhaps those tears were not just of physical pain, too, but of the suffering fear of one's last hope?
She dug her green hooves into the soft earth. We can do this, she whispered to herself, swallowing hard. We are going to do this, this time.
She lowered her horn, tangled with her blue mane, and focused.
A few sparks fell from her horn. Sour Note was too frightened now to even open her eyes. She just had to make that aura happen, that violet magic she might possibly have.
Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light. Audible, even. Sour blinked up. Crimson was standing in shock.
Crimson was standing in shock because those two banners were somehow changing before her startled garnet eyes. A subtle-but-there and, she had to admit, rather satisfying color change overtook the field. The purple shifted to a deep, bright red that washed over the cloth like…well, like magic. The sun shape morphed and squashed and fell apart like old threads into a silver sword-shape, embroidered in dark scarlet and charcoal grey.
But standing between these miraculous banners was someone apparently making them change - a strange green unicorn she'd never met before, straining against the laws of nature to perform her magic.
Crimson Lance couldn't explain how this unicorn knew who she was. She couldn't explain why it wanted to represent her in flag form, why it apparently wanted to impress her, Crimson Lance. She couldn't explain why something possessed that little unicorn to stand up between the new banners, throw out her chest, and proclaim, "Pomphay shall prevail!" as the zeal flashed in her lavender eyes and the cape tied round her neck flapped dramatically in the sudden and powerful wind, revealing her blank flank.
Sour Note smiled defiantly into the orange-blue glow of the new twilight. Then she lost her balance, and half-fell sideways into the clinging dark soil. She found herself panting, eyes wide, stunned at herself - breathless, enthralled, excited.
Crimson found she didn't have the heart to tell this new unicorn just how bleak Pomphay's future had recently begun to look.