The central building of the kirin lands was called simply The Office as it had been, for the longest time, the sole office in their domain. Their numbers were lower than other peoples by a huge margin, and most knew each other at least passingly, and buildings didn't need much in the way of distinctive names and organization was easy. It was the oldest tree at the center of their main settlement, half carved, half guided to grow in such a way as to accommodate her personal life, duties, and what little official paperwork was required for the domains. It was profusely decorated, as it was tradition that every kirin, as a rite of adulthood, leave some kind of decoration, knicknack, or any kind of mark on the building, which would be moved to a museum after being there for long enough.
"Miss Rain Shine, we can't--"
"We certainly can." Rain said tiredly, walking quickly and using her longer legs to try leaving the other kirin behind without losing her dignity. "We have done well without."
The other kirin, though ever so slightly stout, kept up by nearly running. "History demostrates we failed without proper enforc..."
It was a mess of ringing when the main door of the Office was opened, prompting half a dozen antique bells to ring, and Fo was blinded by the glare that entered through the door and reflected on some kind of glass ornament and a silver plate. The clumsy kirin of a librarian, apologizing profusely, stumbled on a table and threw the glass ornament off, which was caught midair by Rain Shine. She made a gesture to apologize further, struck a nearby painting with a glancing hit and caused it to hit a coffee table with a set of china on it, knocking everything down- and Fo caught it in her magic before it broke as Rain Shine put the glass ornament -whatever it was- back on the table, then grabbed the librarian's hooves before she apologized again.
"It appears it's time to clean up the Office. Would you two do it for me? I have work to do"
"But Miss Shine-" Began the librarian.
"Be sure to take the catalogue cards to the museum, too." Rain Shine was already walking out the room. The librarian sighed, Fo grumbled something under her breath, and the two of them set to work.
Twilight's castle was, Fo thought, gawdy.
Part of her had expected ponies to be alien to her, but this 'Ponyville' was quaintly rustic, an If It Ain't Broken, timeless kind of architecture and style. And then, smack in the middle of the town, she saw what she had expected to see all along, tall crystal spires that shimmered with magic and light, more windows than she could count and impossibly slender architecture.
How hadn't she realized her own imagination was gawdy? Geez. She'd take quaint and rustic to blinding any day. It explained why there was a sunglasses, quills, and sofas store nearby.
She took a deep breath, promised herself she wouldn't be rude to the princess just because she lived somewhere gawdy, and knocked the door. No reply.
Fo knocked it again louder to be sure and sat, squinting because light was reflecting on her eyes. After several more seconds of silence, she knocked again. What was holding them up so long?
At last, a blue unicorn with floating, starry mane opened the door, then paused in surprise.
"Hello." Was it normal for ponies to have such manes? None she'd seen so far did, but it wasn't that many... "Princess Twilight?"
The mare blinked several times. "Pr-- Luna. Just Luna. I hadn't seen a kirin in ages, a pleasure."
An alicorn, then. She bowed her head. "Foehn Glare, at your service."
"I doubt you came all this way for that, miss...?" Princess Luna winced. It was something Fo had seen before, was it really so hard to tell a kirin's gender?
"Miss, yes. I come here on behalf of Rain Shine, for Twi--"
"Luna! I told you to invite them in."
All of a sudden Luna was shoved out of the way and Fo was slid inside with magic, with the door closing in. A purple alicorn, slightly shorter than Princess Luna, towered over Fo holding a small vial in her magic. "Are you ok?" She asked. "Did the light hurt your eyes? I can't take another lawsu-"
"Twilight, if they were hurt they would've complained."
"Actually, my eyes sting a little." Fo admitted. No sense in trying to maintain a sense of normalcy by now. "What's that?"
"This is for that." Twilight pushed Fo's chin up gently and dropped a few drops on her eyes. "It's just saline, it'll help with the stinging."
"She comes on behalf of Rain Shine, Twilight."
"Oh? Official business? Come, we were just preparing tea."
Luna looked vaguely annoyed, but Fo paid it no mind and followed Twilight. "That's why I came, miss Twilight Sparkle."
"Just Twi. For tea?"
"Honey."
"You... come in official honey business?"
"Chiefly, yes..."
On the yard outside the office, with a box and a few chairs for an impromptu hospital, Rain Shine smiled at the patients to keep them calm. Autumn Blaze helped a nurse check them, and Fo sat nearby in case she was needed.
"See, you're fine." Said Autumn. "You just need to give your voice time and do exercises, that was a lot of time to not use your pipes!"
The nurse, who also was without a voice, gave the patient a hoofwritten pamphlet with instructions to train his voice cords back into usefulness. The long queue behind him was all kirins who, too, were all convinced they were doomed never to be able to talk again.
He nodded, walked the dotted line to the other kirins who'd been checked for a nice cup of tea with honey, which Rain Shine helped pass to them from the kitchen with her magic.
"Uhm, miss Rain?" Asked Earth Flare from the kitchen's door.
Rain Shine had a long sigh as acknowledgement. It was the kind of 'uhm' that comes before bad news.
"We have enough honey for now." Earth rushed to say, "...but not for the winter, at this rate."
"It appears I have a job for you after all, Foehn." Said Rain Shine.
"How many kirins are we talking about?" Asked Twilight.
"Roughly a third of us. I understand we ask for help with nothing in return, bu--"
"How much honey do you need?"
Fo rummaged on the bags she carried until she found Earth Flare's spreadsheets. Between the stores, their day to day production, and a margin of error, they'd need five hundred grams per kirin per day. Ergo, they needed a whole lot.
"Aha. I'll..." A drum outside made Twilight trail off.
"Is that a musical?"
"Probably Pinkie's."
"Ponies do musicals too?"
"Mhm, even griffons. You want to join in, or...?"
"No, this is business. I understand we are asking for... well, charity," Kirins had a currency, but it wasn't always used internally and they didn't import enough for it to have value for anyone else.
"Pay no mind to that. Tit for tat?"
"Tit? Surely you don't--"
Twilight stifled a giggle and gestured at her to stop with a hoof. "It means 'This for that.'. If you don't want charity, kirins can simply owe ponies a favour."
"What kind of favour?"
"Nothing too big, I have no interest in producing a new crisis. You said chiefly, though, what else was important enough to come here?"
"Why do you care so much about this?" Asked Fo. After they were done moving things from the Office to the museum and giving the caretaker the cards for every new item, she had accepted to help the librarian sort out some of her books.
"What do you mean?"
Fo showed her the manuscript she was talking about, an in-progress record of every account of what had, exactly, led to the original tantrum spiral that led Rain Shine to decide to mute everyone-- A decision that had, at the time, been permanent.
"This. It's all lies."
"How do you know?"
"Because I made my own asking. Everyone either takes all the blame even if it doesn't make sense, or pins it all on someone else."
"Yeah, but..."
"What?"
"When you... when you read a lot of history, you see that's common. There's a lot of truths in the records. This one's just more on our faces."
"This isn't just faulty memory, there's no impartial observers. It's not the same at all."
"I disagree." The librarian was firmer in this than Fo had seen her being about anything. "It's exactly the same."
"How so?"
"There's always many truths, and with enough of them you can find a little bit of true truth. It's just not always the answer to the question you made... Fo? You look really sunken, what's in your mind?"
"That obvious?"
"You don't seem like the subtle type."
"Miss Rain, I know what you think about this, but-"
"But what, Foehn? You want for an army? Is that really what you think we need to fix things?"
"If you would listen to why I want what I want..."
"I've been waiting for you to explain!"
Rain had just raised her voice.
For the first time in years, Fo felt her throat tighten, felt the every hair stand on end, and felt the every beat of her heart with frightening intensity- there had been no sign of fire in Rain's shape and the anger had been calculated, measured, and reasonably-inside-voiced even in its severity, but for the briefest instant -knowing she would never in her life admit it- she had felt fear.
"Foehn?" Rain Shine was suddenly concerned. "I just meant to-" She rubbed her brow. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd..."
It had been a few days since Fo arrived, and she was still a guest to Twilight. She needed sunglasses to be anywhere near the outside of the castle, but other than that it was a comfortable stay as Twilight sent messengers back and forth from the kirins to organize the delivery and scale of their need, and made the arrangements for it to be bought by the crown. Ponies used money a lot more than kirins, Fo had noticed.
"It happens naturally." Princess Luna explained when asked. "There's a point when a kingdom is too big to properly keep track of resources without an economy distributing them."
Fo nodded, watching the window Luna had been looking at. Outside, birds chirped and the sky was sunny.
"But that's not what you want to ask, is it?" Added Luna.
"You knew us before, right?"
"Yes, I visited a few times a great many moons before my banishment. Equestria was young, and we wanted to negotiate peace before the chance came for us to trade blows."
"But kirins would never start a war."
"We were young, and afraid, and you were as wrapped in mystery as ever. We wanted to know your kind personally."