While Purple Marten advances her plans for conquest in my Equestria dreamscape three of Celestia’s Mares-in-Waiting are cooling their hooves.
 
Quick Silver’s opponent silently watched her. Years of experience had made them a formidable foe. They were ruthless. They were unrelenting. They were…
 
The cat blinked. After a second the mare spoke.
 
“Mr. Cat. You blinked first. I win.”
 
Mr. Cat for his part chose to ignore this declaration of victory by beginning to clean himself. Quick Silver was familiar with this tactic of his. Always moving the goal posts to avoid admitting defeat.
 
The mare got up from the cushion on the floor that she’d been resting on and left her gray tabby to his cleaning. Slowly she walked out the back door of her cottage on the palace grounds. It was a modest, single story, five room affair of dressed stone with a slate roof. Bloodfeather and Phoenix lived in apartments/suites in the palace, but the pale gray earth pony preferred the cottage for a couple reasons:
 
First she preferred the calm of the cottage. With its hedges, garden and small grove of chestnut trees in front of it one could almost imagine themselves living out in the countryside. Only the hourly sound of the clock tower chiming. The occasional fanfare of trumpets from the court yard, or the sound of troops drilling shattered the illusion.
 
Second there was outbuilding that was part of the cottage property. These two buildings had once belonged to one of the master groundskeeper. The current master groundskeeper lived in an apartment in the palace. The outbuilding had been the main shed for storing gardening tools, but that too had been replaced by a larger, purpose-built structure on the palace grounds. The shed was a simple building constructed of field stones and stout timbers. Five heavily framed windows provided natural light to the interior. It was a two room affair with its own manual water pump inside it. Later on a small water cistern had been added. Quick Silver had included lockable window shutters and stout iron bound door with a tumbler lock when she moved in.
 
With Celestia’s permission she’d converted the shed into her own chemistry and alchemic laboratory. The smaller room, which had its own lockable door, was a storage room where the mare stored the various chemicals and components in several cabinets. The larger room is where she conducted her experiments.
 
Quick Silver was careful and methodical in her research, but still some of her studies were very experimental. As result several of her projects had created loud, noxious, and smoky events. This had required the mare on few occasions to replace windows and make other repairs to the shed.
 
At the moment the mare’s current project was a more sedate thing. A simple distillation of a solution for future projects. The final step was in progress. A slow filtering of the fluid through active charcoal. The final product was collecting in a waiting flask beneath the filter.
 
The mare entered her laboratory and confirmed that her current project was progressing according to plan. Satisfied with its progress she reviewed her notes for a future project and made an entry in her lab journal. With this accomplished she left the shed and locked it.
 
Reentering the sparsely furnished main room of the cottage she paused to look at the clock on the mantle. She was suppose to meet with Bloodfeather in a few minutes. The two of them were having lunch in town and then were going to do some window shopping. The pegasus mare was on a mission to find them some in new dresses for them to wear to the Fall Formal in Palace in a few months, and she wanted to beat the rush and get their orders in early.
 
Quick Silver wasn’t really that interested in fashion, but mattered a lot to her teammate and friend, and Bloodfeather did have an eye for it. Besides it was a chance for them to spend time together.
 
Herself along with the rest of her teammates was not happy with their involuntary vacation , but at the same time she could see where Princess Celestia was coming from. So she decided the best course of action was to go with flow and use the time to get caught up on few things that had been put on hold by the recent tempo of their missions.
 
As she began to turn her head away from the mantle her eyes settled on four framed photos resting on it.
 
The first was of herself, Phoenix, and Bloodfeather. It had been taken after their first successful mission three years ago. They were all standing together at attention in their field gear.
 
The second was another group shot of them at a Hearth’s Warming Eve party from a couple of years ago. It was a much more informal in feeling.
 
The third was the largest and had the most ornate frame to it. It was a photograph of Princess Celestia, and sat exactly in the center of the mantle. Just as one should display a photo of one’s mother.
 
The final photo was significantly smaller than the other ones. It was worn, faded and had signs of smoke damage. It was of a young couple. A unicorn mare and an earth pony stallion. They were looking at the camera and smiling.
 
Princess Celestia had given her that photo years ago. The alicorn had told her that these were very important ponies to Quick Silver, but she had no memories of them. The princess told her to keep the photo and to look at it regularly. She seemed to be hoping that it would jog some memories that might reside in her. So far it hadn’t, but Celestia seemed to think it was important. So the mare looked at it routinely.
 
The mare retrieved her purse and then slung it around her neck. Then she stepped out the front door of the cottage and locked it. Then she trotted off to her appointment.
 
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