Upon word of Hardhoof’s leave, Lady Secretary Ardour stood up and spoke loud and clear for her friends in court.
“I assert our inalienable right to party!”
The celebration, it was the day of the Grand Galloping Gala after all, lasted all through the day and night and Thornwood, Dragonfly, Hystrix, Diaphonous Glass, Pitterpatter and Plenty Uplift were invited to court. B.B Trunks took his well-deserved position as Lord Admiral, Prosperina da San Palomino was appointed Lady of the Raiment, the highest title of an honorary hoof-maiden and though none of the suitors had been chosen to marry her in the end, each and every colt who’d come to her aid in the breakfast hall was given deeds to that effect to their name, a cloak, buckler, sceptre and signed scroll from the Canterlot Hall of Merits (Improving their chances of getting into a college of scholars, guards or otherwise high class in Canterlot) and a kiss on the cheek from the Princess herself.
So it was that after the festivities were ended, Celestia took part in the matters of rulership once more.
She spoke in person with the significant members of the Palomino family and informed them that, while Hardhoof had been removed as an enemy, they were now obligated to behave properly if they wished to keep their positions in court.
They seemed respectful to her wishes but their unwillingness was apparent.
It was clear that the Palominos were going to be an issue now that Hardhoof was gone.
Their aid in easing the financial problems Canterlot was suffering had effectively put the kingdom in debt. And when the three encouraged Equestrian nobles to invest in their father’s bank, it was clear they were trying to leave Celestia with no other option but to depend on them.
But this was, after all, how they had been taught. Syngnato-Cintargi do San Palomino had turned them into honed blades that cut the fabric of politics exactly to his specifications.
But to their credit, they were ponies of their word and brought news that the Bombastro family were faltering financially and Syngnato-Cintargi was well on the way to being made High Presider and unlike most ponies to bear the title, nopony would want him dead while he held such financial control over the Heptagon.
Soon, Gastro do San Bombastro would part with his gift of an Equestrian Princess and the Palominos would honour their agreement.
But Celestia was growing tired of waiting and at this point, was not about to trust the Palominos longer than she needed to.
In fact, there is information that suggests Prosperina herself advised her not to trust her family.
Throughout, while her sister’s rescue lay at the top of Celestia’s mind, she was steadily developing a very close relationship with her faithful hoof-maiden. The two were of equal age so it is fairly safe to assume she was the first real friend she’d had in many years and her secluded state since her mother’s disappearance which was steadily being healed by Prosperina.
For a while, about half a month, there was relative peace in Canterlot.
The rest of Equestria, and the world outside, was another matter.

The Outskirts were in a terrible state.
Hardhoof and his power-games had put the Outskirts in a state of total economic and agricultural collapse. So many leading and respectable figures, among them almost all of the two-hundred and six ‘Unchained’ families, had journeyed with Hardhoof to grant him personal support in Canterlot and, under his orders, remained in Canterlot. As a result, they had left their homelands virtually undefended. This led them into conflict with invading tribes of Ashensnouts, a primitive society of pony-sized underground-dwelling elephants who live upon the dead volcanoes of the Badlands. Despite the Periphery favour of anti-tribal aggression, the Ashensnouts were certainly a savage tribe that had gained much ground while the Outskirts were weak, attacking settlements and having male prisoners scalped, castrated and dismembered in bizarre rituals while females were forcefully impregnated to create hybrids which were then treated as a slave caste among their tribes.
But the real problem came from just how they treated this issue.
No pony of the Outskirts would blame one of their own for any problem when they could easily blame Celestia.
Hardhoof is not recorded to have returned to the Outskirts during this time but they had word from him.
He felt certain the Ashensnouts were in league with the Princess and her foreign allies and that the whole of Harmonious Equestria and almost every ‘un-equine’ force outside the continent were in league to destroy the last remnant of ‘Unchained’ influence. Paranoia grew rife and the very presence of the Outskirts became a hostile influence in Equestria.
The Regents debated on what to do with this difficult patch of ground and the ponies upon it.
Ardour was adamant that a defensive reinforcement should have been sent, regardless of the local opinion. Any attack on Equestria was an attack on the Princess and her authority and could not go unattended. Diaphonous Glass and Pitterpatter agreed.
Hystrix however said that central defence was a priority while the realm was still on edge after all that had transpired in the capital. Dragonfly also brought knowledge that the ponies of the Outskirts had encroached on Ashensnout territory and had attacked settlements before they were counter-attacked, meaning it was therefore a matter the Dreary Ones were to blame for and should sort out themselves.
Thornwood and B.B Trunks, whose decision it would ultimately fall to, were of a mind to send a contingent to keep order on both sides, preventing both the Ashensnouts from intruding on the Outskirts and the Dreary Ones antagonising the Ashensnouts and the other non-pony tribes.
But sending guards, no matter their purpose, would raise tension in the Outskirts at such a time.
Yet it was impossible to simply ignore the problem.
Silverback’s decision was quite a controversial one.
He suggested giving the Outskirts autonomy and thereby letting the ponies of the Outskirts fend for themselves.
Hardhoof’s actions and the support he’d gained from his kind showed that the Outskirts were better off apart from Equestria. The Outskirts didn’t produce a great deal of resources (And if they did, they’d have taken every measure to stop Equestria getting them) and the ponies had proven themselves not only critical but all but openly hostile towards alicorn authority.
He saw no reason to prolong Equestria’s unsteady hold over a domain that did not want it and suggested that granting the Outskirts their own power would teach them to better use it and properly understand that the threats that Equestria kept them from where not imaginary.
And here the Palomino brothers put forward their own suggestion.
Build a wall to separate the Periphery from the domain of the alicorns.
They assured the regency that the ponies of the Outskirts wanted that just as much as they did. And through some careful financial loopholes, they could ensure the Dreary Ones, the Grye family chiefly among them, would be the ones to pay for it.
Silverback actually quite liked the idea but he was against any financial misdemeanours. This in turn was vetoed by Plenty Uplift explaining that such measures of resource management were not wise at such a risky time.
Ardour and Thornwood were adamant that the Outskirts must remain part of Equestria or they would consider their autonomy to be effective permission to invade Equestria or wherever else they pleased.
Hardhoof had demonstrated that the Dreary Ones were far from harmless.
It was decided then that a row of outposts (Known as the Eighteen Matrons) would be built, effectively creating a barrier but not an obvious one. Silverback sent a message to explain that the Equestrian armies were nearby and if the local governing figures among the Outskirts wished for them, they had only to summon them from the outposts.
No message came back from the Outskirts and the local military command were ordered to stay alert.
Thornwood and B.B Trunks departed for Ostracon to oversee its safe transfer of power.

At last, a fateful message came through.
Syngnato-Cintargi do San Palomino was coming to Equestria beside his brother, Odobento, and his eldest daughter, Aralda. They were bringing urgent news that they claimed had to meet the Princess’s ears in person and in private.
They did not enter Canterlot through the Seadragon River. Instead, they landed off the South-East coast between Los Pegasus and Appleloosa. On a day of hard tropical rain, the Princess and her royal entourage waited in an umbrella canopy and watched the San Palomino barge, the Subridian, brave the waves and make an unsteady but safe landing on the silty shores.
Wet and exhausted but still looking in the best of health, Syngnato-Cintagi leapt from the prow and bowed before the Princess. As his youngest daughter rushed up to hug him after all their time apart, the smiling San Palomino patriarch removed his cloak to cover his daughter against the rain...then his face paled and twisted in a wide-eyed grimace of agony and alarm. He jolted and convulsed before his daughter, falling to one knee, then two, then four until he was writhing on the wet sands, unable to speak.
As his daughter screamed and cried for help, the Equestrians came rushing to his aid. The Princess pushed her way forward and stood over him, trying to cast a spell.
Instead, Syngnato-Cintargi frantically tore open his doublet and, with a shaking hoof, held up a sealed letter for her eyes only. Celestia took it and placed it in her inside cloak-pocket for safe-keeping.
Then, managing to take hold of his weeping daughter’s hoof, his eyes closed and his body fell still upon the sand.
When the body and clothes were examined, it was revealed that the brooch he held his cloak with had been tampered with. A superbly thin needle had been inserted into the underside of it that stuck the flesh of its wearer without them being conscious of anything other than a miniscule discomfort which would not appear unusual if he was tense or troubled. But this needle was lined a stickled spine, serrated with tiny downwards-pointing spines that had released a deadly and instant poison the moment it was removed from the body. The Ubadomi of Polmonia had worn his own murder weapon through a perilous night-long sea voyage that had included a seasonal storm, a bout of seasickness, two pirate attacks and one onboard assassination attempt and never been the wiser until it was too late.
Syngnato-Cintargi do San Palomino, he who held near-total financial control of the Heptagon in the sole of his forehoof...was dead.

Hurrying home to Canterlot, the Regency ensured the San Palomino patriarch’s body was prepared and ready to be sent back to the Heptagon with all haste but Odobento do San Palomino urged them otherwise and explained matters.
The Palomino family was in danger. Syngnato-Cintargi would not have left his home of Polmonia unless it were so.
The Bombastro family had called in some foreign friends. Ivorian slaver-kings who’d raided the Palomino trade routes and intimidated their family allies into ceasing business with them.
Yet the threats did not stop outside the home. There was another suspect in Syngnato-Cintargi’s murder.
The eldest son of the family, Lampo-Machillo do San Palomino had inherited the estate and its bank. For a while, he and his father had not been getting along and when a small but worrying case of embezzlement was discovered, Lampo-Machillo had fallen under suspicion though nothing was proven.
Odobento’s spies back on Polmonia had confirmed that the creditors and executors had not spent a day going over the formalities before Lampo-Machillo was interred as sole inheritor of the Palomino estates and assets.
And while Lampo-Machillo had surely shown deft cunning in taking his father’s business (And possibly his life) he was not nearly as good as his father when it came to running the business itself. He lacked patience, temperance, tact and subtlety. Instead of spreading the bank and its investments across the Heptagoni and its trade routes, he instead pooled the resources and used vast sums of money to bribe the other Domi into appointing him High Presider.
However, these facts were lost on his father who had hurried to Equestria with all haste, at the cost of his life, to give Celestia shattering news. When the Regents checked on Celestia in her chambers after she’d read the letter, they found her fainted on the floor and hurried to revive her.
When she woke, she could do nought but weep. And Prosperina wept with her.
All had blown up in the Palomino faces.
The Bombastros had not, in fact, grown so desperate as to trade their alicorn prisoner to their debtors. They had instead used her as a bargaining tool with their foreign allies.
In the Ivorian state of Gomphos, Pupi do San Bombastro had brought terms to the local warlord, the repellent Sloopong Gnathobel.
His armies at Gastro do San Bombastro’s disposal, to be led by sea to the Heptagon and used to forcibly destroy any and all rival Domi and make Gastro do San Bombastro King of the Seven Islands.
In exchange; Princess Luna.
The letter did not disclose what was due to happen to the eight-year-old Princess of the Moon but when the Regents questioned Odobento, he answered gravely.
“There are many monarchs across the Known World for whom the idea of keeping an alicorn as a...how to put this...as a ‘consort’...is a particularly inviting notion; the forbidden fruit they call it. And...most regrettably...Warlord Sloopong Gnathobel lacks all patience in waiting for his forbidden fruit to...er...ripen.”
The Regency was silent for a while after hearing such news.
Thornwood’s sources revealed darker knowledge. Gomphos was a coastal state with access to foreign trade and one such pony who had previously done business there was none other than Colonel Scraper, chief bodyguard to Hardhoof. This same Scraper, the ‘stallion in the zebra-skin cloak’ as some called him, had been confirmed by Odobento’s informers to have met with both Gastro do San Bombastro and Lampo-Machillo do San Palomino in close succession. And Scraper was not one to go against the will of his master.
It seemed for certain that their princess was gone, taken away over half the world and placed in the power of a sadistic and depraved slaver-king, as one last show of spite from the former Lord Protector Hardhoof.
But it was not, as it transpired, planned to be his last.

Syngnato-Cintargi was granted a stately funeral procession and a mausoleum was built by his three sons and eldest daughter in a situated dune near the coast where he’d died. Despite any duplicitous actions he’d committed in life, he was remembered as a stabiliser of power and economy; a dynamic visionary of commerce; a pioneer of arts, science and philosophy; a defender of small business and social climbers; an avid lover; a loving father and a stallion of his word.
The letter he’d written for Celestia was planned in the event of his death or disappearance. It included an outstanding debt Sloopong Gnathobel’s late father owed a Heptagoni bank whose registered warrant the Palominos had bought with interest. There was a chance that the Regency could blackmail Sloopong into returning Luna by threatening to call in the debt, placing them in a position which would ultimately lead Gomphos into commercial failure, economic shutdown and slave revolt.
With the Bombastros aiding Gomphos, however, that seemed less likely. If Ivoria simply invaded the Heptagon, debts and warrants would mean nothing under the feet of the proboscids.
Nonetheless, in the face of such perils, perhaps Sloopong would show tact and temperance, although from one who lacked the patience to see his concubines come of age, this seemed doubtful.
This news did not cheer Celestia. She was old enough to know that by the time Luna was returned, if indeed she would be, she would have been broken by her captors and she, her sister, unable to avenge her injuries without leading Equestria into war.
Aralda da San Palomino, the eldest daughter of Syngnato-Cintargi, was a scholarly mare who had been brought to Equestria to bring knowledge of the Heptagon to Equestria. She was among the only members of the Palomino family Lord Archmage Silverback openly got along well with (Pester the Jester even spread rumours of a liaison between the two but this is unlikely) and the Heptagoni books she brought with her were added to the Royal Library. But like her brothers, she was suspected of deceitful power-acquisition. Tales that she seduced Silverback, among others, were popular. When one of the books she brought contained details on Heptagoni Virility Potions and Rituals, the rumours only spread wider and with more sensational details, some claiming that she was turning the Royal Palace into a pot of depravity, cavorting with mares and stallions in debauched ceremonies before shrines of ugly foreign idols which doubled as instruments of carnal pleasure.
What truth there may have been in these rumours is uncertain.

Falandine do San Palomino was granted full custody of the San Palomino Bank and set about contacting Gomphos but, underneath the gaze of the Regency, made to continue doing business in the Heptagon with his elder brother.
Why this was is uncertain. Possibly greed but that, despite what many say, greed has never truly been a big enough catalyst to motivate a pony into truly dark deeds. One needs an end to the means and a bigger driving factor.
Desperation, uncertainty, inadequacy, often a great deal more impacting. Perhaps Falandine felt he couldn’t do it alone or lacked faith in the way Equestria did business. Perhaps he still had friends in the Heptagon he felt he could count on.
Perhaps he sought to use his resources to outmanoeuvre Lampo-Machillo and avenge his father. Or perhaps, inversely, he may have been involved in the assassination.
It is difficult, at this point in time, to be certain.
Regardless, his actions would fail to benefit him or Equestria.
Lampo-Machillo’s embezzlement of his own bank soon became known when one of the Domi bribed one of the banks clerks and then captured and tortured another for information. Almost all principal investors withdrew their deposits and closed their accounts, many then choosing to take legal or otherwise violent action against the stallion that tried to cheat them.
Lampo-Machillo was seized by the mob of citizens, his own bodyguard among them, and dragged before the pillars of his own bank to be questioned on where everypony’s money was.
At the first look of the whip brought forth, he broke and blurted out every name he’d bribed to appoint him High Presider.
The Domi fell upon each other. Lampo-Machillo escaped the whip only to be torn apart by the furious mob.
A bloody power vacuum ensued. Domo after Domo vied for the position of High Presider, many succeeding only to die in days.
Magister Gazzaro do San Codabassaro, who’d met with Ardour after the war for Ostracon, died with a wine glass in his hoof, either poisoned or committed suicide to avoid a worse fate. His family fled Heptagon and made for Stirrope to start a racing business in Bitaly
The Marmarigo brothers, Fibrillo and Trimbilo, were murdered on the same day. Fibrillo was pointed to a ledger to examine for forgeries and, as he craned his neck over his desk, his throat was slit open by an assassin disguised as a clerk, ruining his family ledger and finances as a result. Trimbilo meanwhile was receiving comfort from three prostitutes before he was tied down on his bed and had his scalp carved open by a mystery assailant with a wide-bladed knife for opening walnuts, the mares continuing their work over his screams and gurgles.
The entire Foradizza family died when their head, Tettiero do San Foradizza, held a banquet to celebrate his ascension to High Presider. The whole clan drank a toast to their father and then fell choking up their organs and bleeding from the eyes.
And the heiress of the San Troscana family, Attellissa, was found the day on which she was meant to inherit her father’s entire estate on a farm on Milza, smothered to death after having been, according to witnesses, ‘pushed inside a pig’.
The Bombastros had long departed the Heptagon for the Ivorian states where they planned to return and make their forcible attainment of power.
At the end of the messy struggle, the victors were the violent and humourless Mandolino family, led by the fearsome Ocarino 'Bossanova' do San Mandolino, who began his unofficial conquest by finishing the Palomino family.
Brygo do San Palomino was murdered at a port warehouse, cut to pieces in a hail of metal shards, trademark of the Flechetta Crossbow (A compact mid-range weapon that fires a spray of knife-points at a target) that the Mandolinos became famous for using rather than poisons or daggers.
[Note: The Mandalino family would stay in power on the Heptagon until the Second Invasion of Tirek. When called to negotiate with the centaur warlord, their Domo made the mistake of indirectly threatening him whereupon he was crushed to death by Tirek’s hoof and the islands nearly destroyed outright by a megaspell that caused a seismic rift in the Selenian Sea.]
The fates of Maraudra and Vanacampa da San Palomino were worse still. They were sentenced to pay off the debt their family owed the surviving Domi (And those that had acquired the promissory notes of the dead Domi, usually their own murderers) by serving as prostitutes, passed around the victors of the power vacuum as spoils of war. Vanacampa would die a month later, her skull smashed in by a patron she bit in self-defence while Maraudra would hang herself not long afterwards. While their deaths seemed insignificant, this meant that the debt still owed by the Palomino family would never be paid by those in the Heptagon. The debt carried over to Falandine who then had the message burnt and immediately shut off his businesses in the Heptagon, relegating his bank solely to Equestrians.
Shrines were built for them in their father’s mausoleum and Prosperina, Odobento, Falandine, Fonto and Larando would petition Celestia to hold a grand funeral for the fallen Heptagoni.

Unfortunately, the fears that had ruined their bank on Heptagon had now carried to Equestria. The debt that Falandine refused to pay was instead carried over to his investors, many of whom received threats from those the Palaminos owed back on the Heptagon. The failure of the main Palomino bank meant that the Equestrian branch had also suffered and hundreds of nobles had lost vast sums of money. Money and debts owed to and by foreign officials were defaulted now that Falandine had shut his bank off.
Canterlot became swamped with angry ponies demanding Falandine honour his debts as his father promised he would.
Ardour, Silverback, Pitterpatter and Penny Uplift did what they could to ease the pressure on both parties. Falandine was called in to be questioned but the Palomino refused, fearing to leave his residence for the mob outside and, by now, certain one or more of the Regency wanted him dead. Not even Fonto, Larando or Aralda could reason with him.
Then true tragedy struck in the palace.
Princess Celestia had been spending more and more time with Prosperina da San Palomino. The two were rarely ever apart and she confided in her everything. With Luna’s loss appearing permanent, the Princess buried herself in Propserina’s company for solace.
Then one evening, during one of their tea parties, they drank their tea together.
Then Prosperina coughed up blood. Falling to the floor, she writhed weakly as Princess Celestia screamed for doctors. Oia’i’o and Bonce were first on the scene but nothing could be done.
Prosperina managed to speak in her last moments, tearfully wishing goodbye to the mourning princess.
“Thank you...so much...Tia...For letting me...be...your...friend...”
Princess Celestia was beside herself with grief. Oia’i’o was called to mind her while Ardour arranged Prosperina’s funeral but Bonce brought ill news to the Regency.
The poison that had killed her was primarily comprised of Phytolacca, a red berry plant that, diluted, produces a pink dye that was one of the primary exports of the Heptagon, specifically a primary trade of the Palominos who used to deal in fabrics and colours. It had gone unnoticed in the tea which was sweetened with pink rose-sugar that Celestia had always been partial to.
The tea party had two cups of enamelled porcelain. Celestia’s had been decorated with pink pearl phoenixes while Prosperina’s with turquoise seahorses.
And there was no doubt in Bonce’s conclusions of the scene.
Prosperina had drunk from the pink phoenix cup.

When Celestia was gently asked to relate the full details of the experience, she said that Prosperina had looked out the window with concern, causing her to do the same. When she turned back, Prosperina suggested they drink the tea together. It was here, the Regents concluded, Prosperina had switched the cups.
But for what reason? It seemed Prosperina knew somepony was planning to poison the Princess. But how had she come across this knowledge. Did she mean to give her own life in exchange for Celestia’s? Or had she been planning to let the Princess die and simply confuse the cups?
Too many questions, none holding an answer pleasing to the Regency.
When Celestia requested a grand funeral for Prosperina, worthy of a princess, Silverback turned her down and regretfully informed her that Prosperina, along with all other members of the Palomino family in Equestria, were under suspicion of regicide.
Odobento was placed under house arrest. He made no attempt to resist but simply assured Ardour that he knew nothing of this. The Palominos had nothing to gain through Princess Celestia’s death. The Princess was one of the only ponies in Equestria who was openly friendly towards his family.
He was certain that somepony was trying to frame the Palominos and urged Chronicler Bonce, who he maintained fairly friendly relations with, to examine the poison further.
Aralda was held in Silverback’s study and questioned peacefully but firmly. She volunteered to test the poison but Silverback could not grant her any involvement in the investigations. She did however, give him some important information.
Phytolacca poison does not act as fast as it did in Prosperina. The assassin meant to kill an alicorn. There would have been something else in the poison that would strengthen it. And the Heptagon had no known means to ensure that.
Silverback began his enquiries and steadily began to doubt the Palomino’s guilt.
But this sentiment did not travel outside the palace and the crowds were getting increasingly restless.

Three of these prominent rabble-rousers were three Earth Ponies from, to nopony’s surprise, the Outskirts representing the Valger Bank, a financial establishment bought out by the Palomino Bank that had seen many of its former patrons ruined by their foreign acquirer.
Sinter, Scorian and Dross Valger, the three sons of Count Nockney Valger of Nooken-Cranny, richly-dressed but shabby-faced, roused the mob into a frenzy. Falandine do San Palomino was dragged outside and threatened with violence if he did not pay what he owed. When Fonto and his guard and Larando and his henchponies rushed into the city to save their brother, they were overwhelmed by the mob and held outside the palace. The Valgers shouted for the regents to grant them Aralda and Odobento to be dealt with there in the city square.
They were met by Silverback and his royal guard who demanded the mob disperse and give them the Palominos for royal custody and trial.
The Valgers retorted that the Regency had allowed the Palominos to take power in the first place and even after her attempted assassination, Princess Celestia was still defending these greedy foreign businessponies at the risk of her own subjects wellbeing.
Then, as Silverback made to show them the evidence to prove the Palominos innocence, he was struck on the back of the head by one of his guard captains.
Saur Van Greve, the Earl of Sharply, removed his helmet and seized the semi-conscious Silverback, demanding the Royal Guard surrender their weapons or they’d lose their Archmage.
Many members of the crowd were taken aback. To threaten the Regency had never been their intention and, while Silverback certainly had his detractors, there were few who genuinely wanted him dead over this. They fought forward, trying to release the Archmage from Van Greve’s grasp.
Here, Scorian Valger drew a chanter from his cloak and blew it loud across the city square, a cacophonous drone echoing through Canterlot.
Then chaos ensued.

The horde of Dreary Ones appeared in a nightmarish state. Haggard, pale and bloody, having cut themselves and nailed old prayers in the ancient Earth Pony tongue to their limbs and over their Cutie Marks, torturing themselves in a preparation ritual.
Flagellants; Furbode fanatics armed with thuggish weaponry, screaming and cursing as they swarmed the city square. Hundreds were taken prisoner, beaten into submission. The Royal Guard, stretched thin with the problems in the Outskirts, put up a barricade before the Royal Courtyard but were soon pushed to the very doors of the palace. Those fleeing the mob were chased into alleyways where they held themselves up in buildings or put up improvised barricades.
In an instant, Canterlot had become a war-zone.
And here, the Dreary Ones forced open the gates and let in a familiar figure. One who had, for a long time, been a primary benefactor of the Valger Bank and also ensured Saur Van Greve was given means to rise through the ranks.
A stallion the city had barely begun to forget.
Hardhoof had returned to the city, no longer a regent, but bearing a new title he’d fashioned for himself.
‘Purifier of Canterlot’.
Then and there, no other ambition stood in his mind but avenging himself upon the Princess, Canterlot, all of Equestria.
Bringing in yet more of his fanatical followers, just over ten-thousand strong at least, he was the highest unofficial authority in Canterlot and would set about making that authority known in a most pugnacious way.
As of then, nopony was safe.

But in the chaos above, nopony noticed a small ship sailing into Canterbury Port from the Seadragon River.
Bringing salvation.
Bringing the night.

7121307
Nice Work, as always! Whenever a Kingdom collapses, struggle follows.

And i can Imagine who the Salvation will be

7121562
Interesting take on it.
By the way, what do you think of Syngnato-Cintargi in his final moments?
And the bloody power struggle in the Heptagon and the lives lost?

7122680
...okay, Rex needs to chill.
And Tartarus is not for the likes of Syngnato-Cintargi do San Palomino.
That place is reserved solely for the worst of the worst, the truly irredeemable.
And as MLP teaches, that part of ponydom is a lot smaller than one would think.
Syngnato-Cintargi was a significantly decent product of a brutal society. He knew no other lifestyle but he still made use of it to do some good, for varied reasons.
That's an achievement in itself.