Chapter 6 ; Chapter 7
"You can't seriously suspect Pancake!" Rainbow Dash
pounded a hoof against Captain Destrier's desk. "He didn't do
anything!"
Captain Destrier gave her a sideways glance; Dash grinned
sheepishly, brushed the dusty hoofprint away, and settled
herself back onto the carpet, the noontime light shining bright
through the window of the captain's office. "I mean, yeah,"
Dash went on, "it was his hacksaw, but he just loaned it to
those other guys! They didn't tell him they were gonna use it
to chop down part of the Day Palace's roof and try to squash
ev'rypony or whatever!"
"In the first place," the captain said, "we don't know for
a fact that these are the ponies who did it. That's why we call
them 'suspects.' In the second place, we still don't have the
saw in question; we found none here on the palace grounds, and
of the suspects you led us to, only this Pancake fellow is doing
any talking. In the third--"
"There!" Dash couldn't keep from springing up to hover
over the carpet in Captain Destrier's office. "See? He's
trying to help us! Those other jerks aren't! They're the ones
we need to lean on, not Pancake!"
He cocked his head. "This means a great deal to you."
It wasn't a question, so Dash didn't answer it.
"And yet,--" The captain glanced at the big clock ticking
against the wall. "You only met this Pancake fellow five and a
half hours ago. Is that correct?"
"Doesn't matter." She wished she could use words as well
as Twilight Sparkle, could explain to him why she was right,
but, well, she couldn't. So she just set her jaw and said, "He
didn't do anything."
Captain Destrier looked at her. Rainbow Dash looked back.
And after a minute, the captain blew out a breath, touched a
hoof to a part of his desk, and spoke into the glowing circle
that appeared there: "Yeoman Sycamore, if you'd bring your pad
in here, please?"
A soft clatter of hoofs in the hallway, and a young light
blue unicorn stepped in, a pad and quill pen floating in the
glow of her horn. "Take a note to Warden Hoosegow. On Minister
Dash's recommendation, she's to release the earth pony Pancake
immediately." He turned half-closed eyes toward her. "Anything
else, Minister?"
"Fix his window," she said without even having to think
about it. "And if he wants to repaint his sign or hire some
other pony to do it, tell him Princess Luna'll pay for that,
too."
The captain's eyes opened wide, and he blinked them several
times before a smile curled his muzzle. "You heard those last,
yeoman?"
"Yes, sir." The quill scratched against the paper.
"Dismissed, then."
The unicorn tapped a front hoof against the floor, turned,
and left the room, Captain Destrier shaking his head. "I don't
know that I've ever met another pony quite like you, Minister
Dash."
"Prob'bly not." She ruffled her wings. "Call me Rainbow,
and tell me what time dinner is tonight."
***
Fluttershy could only stare. "And what happened then?" she
asked breathlessly.
Rainbow waved a hoof. "Pancake told me I could have
breakfast at his place any time on the house, and I'll be
heading over to formal mess at the Citadel tonight as the
captain's guest a half-hour after sundown." She grinned her big
grin, the one that always made Fluttershy want to grin, too, and
leaned back against the small cloud she'd somehow managed to
gather together in the middle of the sitting room Princess Luna
was using while in the Day Palace.
Fluttershy could only stare at that, too. Cloud handling
was supposed to be in a pegasi's blood, as natural as breathing
or even flying, but most days, Fluttershy found, she could
barely manage anything more complicated than walking on them.
"Yep, yep, yep," Rainbow was going on. "Not a bad day's work,
I'd say."
A snort from Applejack, settled on a cushion beside one of
the open windows among the bookshelves, the afternoon outside
such a perfect crystal blue, Fluttershy imagined weather ponies
with big brushes painting it. "Least y'all got somethin' to
show," Applejack said. "Me an' Fluttershy spent hours poking
'round that whole dome in the throne room and didn't find
nothin'!"
Fluttershy nodded sadly. It had been kind of scary, flying
so close to the fancy metal and glasswork all over that ceiling,
but Applejack had been there, too, and watching her crawl along
those little steel catwalks was so much scarier, Fluttershy had
spent most of the time worrying about her friend instead of
herself.
"And if that weren't bad enough," Applejack was going on,
"turns out there weren't no guest list fer the shin-dig this
mornin': nopony knows who all was here and and who all wasn't!
We's no closer now to catchin' the unicorn who triggered the
thing to fall than we been all day!"
The door to the sitting room crashed open, Fluttershy's
heart bouncing, and Pinkie Pie leaped in. "Lunch time!" Her
smile crackled into a scowl. "Was an hour ago! Where were you
all??"
Applejack's eyes narrowed. "We was gettin' some actual
work done!"
But before Fluttershy could try saying something to stop
the argument she could smell brewing, she heard several more
hoofsteps in the hall, and Princess Luna came into the room with
Twilight and Rarity, two soldier ponies in their scary armor
taking up positions just outside the door.
Fluttershy leaped up and bowed, the others doing the same,
and the princess nodded her head, the door closing. "Ministers.
A bit more excitement than I'd counted on our first day."
Applejack stuck out her chin. "Don't you worry none,
ma'am. We'll get to the bottom of this."
Princess Luna nodded again, and looking at her, Fluttershy
couldn't help speaking up: "Did you eat anything at lunch, your
Highness?"
The surprised look the princess snapped over made
Fluttershy's knees shake, but those drooping eyelids, that
sagging tail, the tight and anxious waver that rose from her
like steam from a bath: Fluttershy knew signs of exhaustion when
she saw them. "You need to eat, Princess, then you need to take
a nap."
The others were staring at her, and Fluttershy suddenly
realized she was giving instructions to the pony who currently
controlled the sun and stars. Her ears folded, and she opened
her mouth to squeak out an apology, but Princess Luna was doing
some more nodding, her eyes closed and a little smile on her
lips. "I'd been wondering why Celestia's schedule listed
several napping periods." She moved toward Fluttershy like a
leaf on a breeze, bent down, and touched her horn to the ribbon
in Fluttershy's mane. "Will it be all right if I have my
sandwich after my nap?"
Fluttershy wished she could blow away like a leaf, too, but
instead she got herself to nod.
The princess straightened to her full height. "During her
long years running both day and night, Sister developed certain
protocols concerning how and why she should be roused from one
of her naps. The Day Ministry is now operating under those
protocols, but you six--" She looked around the room. "If you
feel anything needs my attention, please bring it to me at
once." She closed her eyes again, Fluttershy feeling her
fatigue as if it were her own. "I'm so very glad you agreed to
help me with this. I...when that beam fell, I almost...the
darkness--"
She stopped, shook her head quickly, stepped toward the
door at the back of the room. "But I'd best away to my couch
before Minister Fluttershy turns her fabled stare upon me. I
shall see you all in two hours." The door opened at the flare
of Princess Luna's horn, and she walked through, the door
clicking closed behind her.
A moment of silence, then Pinkie Pie's tail frizzed. "Ooo!
I forgot to ask her about the tiki party tonight!"
Pinkie made half a move toward the back door, and
Fluttershy found herself airborne, spinning to land right in
front of her friend. "Don't you dare, Pinkie Pie!" she said
with a force that surprised her. "That can wait till after her
nap!"
It seemed to surprise Pinkie, too, the way her eyes went
wider than Fluttershy had ever seen. "Taking charge!" Pinkie
said. "I like it!"
"Besides, darling," Rarity drawled from the other side of
the room, settling herself upon one of the cushions, "Twilight
and I already have an engagement for this evening."
Twilight looked up from the book she'd taken from one of
the shelves. "We what?"
Rarity rolled her eyes. "Orrery Stargazer? The stallion I
met this morning before all the unpleasantness began? He
invited me to a reception at his uncle's, and I asked one of
those delightful soldier ponies to take him our reply that we'd
be most pleased to attend this evening. I thought you'd want to
come since you knew his name when I mentioned it--"
"No, no, no, no, no," Twilight said quickly. "Ory and me,
we..." She swallowed so hard, Fluttershy could hear it. "We go
way back."
"Ooooo!" Pinkie spun in place. "That sounds juicy!"
"It's not--! We're just--!" Twilight stopped, took a
breath, shook her head. "Ever since we were foals, Ory and I
have been...connected, I guess you'd say: we were still in first
grade when his mother declared that he would take over as Night
Minister when she retired, and since my parents worked in both
Ministries and Princess Celestia had taken such an interest in
me, I...I became pretty much the consensus choice to become Day
Minister whenever Lord Daybreak stepped down.
"But, see--" She stopped again. "It's traditional for the
two Ministers to be members of either the Daybreak or Stargazer
families, and since I wasn't, everypony sort of thought
that...that Ory and me, that we'd...we'd--"
A little laugh from Applejack. "Had the two'a you all
hitched up, did they?"
A bigger laugh from Rainbow. "Twilight! You never told us
you had a coltfriend!"
"One date!" A blush glowed over Twilight's purple cheeks.
"Junior prom! It was the most uncomfortable night of my life,
and Ory pretty much frowned the whole time, too!" She blew out
a breath. "We just didn't 'click' at all, but by then it was
like we were set in stone: our parents were already picking out
the designs for our wedding bowls!" The hard-as-granite look
that came into her eyes made Fluttershy want to hide. "Never
mind that I didn't want to do it or that Ory was even more of a
stick-in-the-mud than I was or that--"
"Really?" A smile played over Rarity's lips. "He seemed
rather charming to me."
Rainbow cleared her throat, and Applejack said, "Sugar
cube, you could charm the rocks right outta the fields."
Rarity batted her eyelashes. "Well, that's true."
Twilight was tapping a hoof against the floor. "But my
point is: he and I together in the same room is a recipe for
awkwardness. And after what Spike heard out in the city this
morning, we definitely don't need any--"
"Hey, yeah!" Pinkie looked up from the books she was
stacking into a wall. "Where is Spike, anyway? I haven't seen
him since before the thing fell this morning!"
"Ah." Twilight cleared her throat. "I guess you and Dash
had already left before he-- See, he always had a lot more
friends in Canterlot than I did, and pretty much everypony he's
spoken to today--" She looked around and leaned forward, her
voice dropping. "They're all convinced that Princess Luna can't
be trusted!"
"What??" Fluttershy hadn't meant to speak, but the words
just squeaked out of her. "Why??"
Twilight was shaking her head. "Spike heard all kinds of
reasons--because she was Nightmare Moon, of course, but also
because she disbanded the Night Ministry after a thousand years
of service, because she rarely attends social functions whether
they're held during the day or at night, because she doesn't
stay long when she does attend and never seems engaged or
interested while she's there." She sighed. "More than a year
she's been back, and, well, she said it herself: we're the
closest things she has to friends..."
Applejack gave a snort. "Well, if'n that don't take the
biscuit! Ain't gonna do us no good askin' 'round town who
dropped that dang beam this mornin' if'n folks're wantin' to
give 'em a medal!" She shook her head. "'Specially since it
hadta be a inside job. Ain't no other way them ponies coulda
got in here an' sawed that beam mosta the way through without
nopony noticin.'" Determination filled her face, and Fluttershy
felt better just seeing it. "I'm tellin' ya, Twilight, we
needsta talk to them two Ministers, Lord Daybreak an' Lady
Stargazer, an' we needsta talk to 'em now!"
"They'll be here at three." Twilight nodded at the big
pendulum clock softly ticking away along the wall. "I'm not
looking forward to that little get-together, either."
Rarity gave a little sniff. "Fine! You needn't come to
Ory Stargazer's reception even though it's only likely to be the
single most important thing any of us does today!"
"What??" Rainbow sprang forward from her cloud pillow.
"Hey, I caught the guys who tried to drop that beam on the
crowd!" She shrugged. "Unless, y'know, it turns out it wasn't
them, but I caught 'em, whoever they are!"
"Yeah!" came Pinkie's voice, but when Fluttershy looked
over, all she saw was a big circular wall of books--till
Pinkie's head popped up from inside. "And I got to dance with
some guys who were pretty darn good!"
Rainbow rubbed her forehead. "Pinkie, they were fighting
with you!"
"Really?" Pinkie blinked. "Then I guess they weren't as
good as I thought."
"Yes, yes," Rarity said. "All valid accomplishments." She
turned to Applejack, the cider-colored earth pony's scowl making
Fluttershy's ears fold. "Especially you, Applejack, the way
you've been thrown into heading this entire investigation and
all. But, well, you heard Twilight: Our princess has an image
problem in the city at large." Rarity sighed. "And it looks as
if it will be up to Fluttershy and myself to remedy that."
"Who?" A chill shot through Fluttershy's wings. "Me?
How...how can I--?"
"The two of us together, darling!" Rarity's eyes sparked,
and Fluttershy's heart sped up: her friend was getting one of
her ideas. "I, the up-and-coming fashion designer! You, the
beloved former model known across Equestria! We shall lend the
princess our unimpeachable cachets and reverse this terrible
declining trend in the only way such a thing can be reversed!"
She leaped to her hoofs, her mane flying so dramatically,
Fluttershy had to catch her breath. "With overwhelming
fabulosity!"
A little silence, then Twilight's voice: "Not sure that's a
word, Rarity."
"Nonetheless!" Rarity fixed such an imploring gaze on
Fluttershy that she felt frozen in place. "We must all serve
our princess to the best of our meager abilities, and if that
means Fluttershy and I must attend every fashionable gala and
salon scheduled this week in Canterlot, then who are we to shirk
our duty??" Her eyes wavered. "Surely you can see that, can't
you??"
"I--" Fluttershy began, wanting with all her heart to come
up with a reason why she should just head back to her room in
the Night Palace and stay there till it was time to go home.
But... She sighed. "If you think it'll help the princess."
"It will." It was Twilight who said it, and Fluttershy
looked over to see the purple unicorn with a thoughtful look on
her face. "This is another really good idea, Rarity."
Rarity smiled. "Why do you always sound so surprised?"
Twilight returned the smile. "I'm a slow learner."Chapter 9
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