(not fully edited)

      Capella was awestruck. She wasn't sure she'd seen anything more beautiful. The palace was perfectly symmetrical, tall spires jutting upwards and windows placed at the perfect spots. 

    She wasn't sure how anyone could've made something so dazzling. It was appealing to her in every way, and she felt strangely drawn to it. It seemed like it might've been from a dream. 

   Ace seemed to notice her reaction and grinned, resting one talon on her shoulder. "Come on, we better hurry," he reminded her, and Capella nodded, blinking and shaking her head slightly. 

   "Yeah, sorry... It's just very beautiful," she absentmindedly admitted. 

    "You got that right," Komodo said, and she noticed his was staring at it as well. He seemed almost as amazed by the structure as her. Ace seemed happy with her response, and amused by Komodo's. 

   He nodded and continued onward, approaching the palace. What she hadn't noticed before was the houses circling it. They weren't as breathtaking as the main attraction, obviously, but they were still fairly luxurious. Capella wasn't sure she'd ever seen a village just as beautiful back on Earth, if you could even call it that. It was enormous.

   They walked along a carefully crafted cobblestone path, and they found themselves encircled by the houses. She had an even better view of them, and admired their amazing craftsman work. 

   She suddenly noticed that there were people staring through the windows down at them, and shuddered. She didn't much like being watched, and a bunch of them seemed disgusted, though they were looking at Ace. She wondered why, maybe he had a bad reputation here?

   Suddenly a group of creatures turned a corner and appeared in front of them, and Ace looked uneasy. He knew this place better, so if he was worried she probably should be too, but she couldn't really see a reason. 

   One of them stepped forwards, a strange deer-like creature with wings and talons, and a slightly aggressive expression. "State your business!" he called out. 

   Ace glanced back at Capella and mouthed, 'I'll handle this'. He held his talons up in a harmless gesture. "I need to see the Queen! I believe these two may be the heroes of the prophecy," he said, shifting nervously.

   There was a surprised murmuring, and Capella caught the word, 'dragon', and 'really?'. 

   The deer-thing approached them. "How do you know they're not lying?" he asked, glancing at the two supposed prophecy animals out of the side of his eye. "Well, how would I check?..." Ace asked, breaking eye contact nervously with the deer creature, who looked suspicious. "I mean, it seems like they're probably them... I was patrolling and found them, and they didn't know where they were, and when I asked what planet they were from they said Earth..." he trailed off. 

   A black pegasus with yellow-green eyes and a white patch on his head suddenly bolted out of the group and stomped over in front of Ace. "How do we know YOU'RE not lying, dragon?" he snapped angrily with an arrogant voice. 

   Ace's eyes widened and looked slightly watery as his wings tilted and his back slumped. He stepped backwards, looking slightly ashamed with his gaze pinned to the ground. "I-I..." he started, but didn't seem to know what to say. Capella nudged his shoulder with a wing, trying to comfort him about whatever they were talking about. The pegasus had seemed pretty angry about the fact that he was a dragon. Did they think there was something wrong about being one?

   A red hippogryph with a white belly who bared a striking resemblance to a cardinal quickly darted over, before smacking the pegasus on the back of the head. "I'm sorry about him," she growled, eyeing him from the side of her eye. The pegasus whirled around, glaring at her. "Hey! What do you think you're doing? He's obviously the enemy within!"

   "Shut up," the hippogryph retorted angrily. "Just because they're a dragon doesn't mean you have to belittle them for it. I don't understand why all you idiots think that someone can't switch sides and be loyal to a new one." Ace looked up in shock, before an awestruck smile spread across his face.

   A few of the creatures cast angry glances towards the hot-headed hippogryph, but a few of them nodded with agreement. The ones who agreed with the hippogryph seemed to have been too afraid to speak up, and were relieved that someone else had.

   "Cardinal, calm down!" the supposed leader of the group snapped, sending her an aggravated look. He seemed pretty done with dealing with her. Maybe she was always hot-headed like this? Capella did agree with her, though. Were dragons looked down upon here? Ace seemed like a pretty good guy, so he definitely didn't deserve being discriminated against. 

    Capella glanced at Ace, who was still staring with a dopey expression at Cardinal. She nudged him with her wing, and he seemed to snap out of it, glancing around in confusion and embarrassment. "Oh, uhm, sorry..." he mumbled, looking down awkwardly.

   "Hey, let's go ahead and get you guys treated. Those wounds look bad, and we don't want you dying on us," the hippogryph said, flashing a grin that said that they didn't have much of a choice. 

   The rest of the group seemed hesitant, but didn't try to convince Cardinal otherwise. She seemed pretty stubborn, based off of the information that Capella had gathered.

   She took Capella by the shoulder, giving her a toothy, energetic, grin and guiding her towards the palace, the rest of the group following. Komodo exchanged a worried glance with Capella as Cardinal sent threatening glares that made the window-starers retreat into their homes.

   Soon they were at the door of a palace and Cardinal barged in without hesitation, despite glares from the rest of the group that told her to wait. Capella had already begun to admire the hot-headed female. Absolutely no hesitation.

   "Hey! Guys, we need some help over here!" Cardinal called, repeatedly smacking a blue button on a panel beside the door.

   Komodo gave the hippogryph a concerned glance as practically the entire group sighed in exasperation. Ace was still staring at her in awe like she was some creature sent down by the gods above. Maybe he had never been defended like that?

   Soon an alicorn and two unicorns appeared, and sighed in unison upon seeing Cardinal. "What is it?" one of them asked, looking exasperated. "Oh, finally! These dudes are bleeding, and I'm PRETTY sure that they're the prophecy guys. This dragon told us," she gestured towards Ace, raising her eyebrows at them and giving one of the unicorns a challenging look as they opened their mouth to argue. "And don't say he's untrustworthy because he's a dragon," Cardinal snapped, and the unicorn closed their mouth. "He seems pretty trustworthy to me," Cardinal continued in a voice that meant no room for argument, giving Ace a curious glance.

   The creatures nodded, escorting the three up the stairs. Capella winced and tucked her injured hoof up towards her chest. She hadn't even realized her bark bandage had fallen off of her hoof before Cardinal pointed it out.

   Soon Capella was on a comfortable bed with an IV stabbed into her arm and a cast fitted snugly over her hoof. A bandage covered her forehead, which had a hole cut for her horn.

   Capella groaned, glancing at a bored-looking sky blue peryton- which is what she'd learned it was called. They would shift in their seat or occasionally sigh, but nothing else. The creature didn't seem too interested in socializing as they analyzed the tiles of the floor.

   Capella sighed, excruciatingly bored, and the peryton glanced at her before looking back down at the floor. She wondered how Ace and Komodo were doing as she sat motionless in the fluffy bed. It was extremely comfortable, and she slowly found herself nodding off as her head sank down into the pillow. She was exhausted from running, fighting, and overall just existing.

   She slept a dreamless sleep, and woke up to a shuffling outside her door. Her head rose upwards as a tawny brown griffin appeared in the doorway with a smile on her face. She was vaguely aware that the IV in her arm was gone, and sighed slightly in relief.

   "Hello, sweetie, I came to give you your food. How are you feeling?" she asked sweetly. Capella smiled, she couldn't help it. "Thanks, I'm fine," she croaked out. Her voice was hoarse from not having used it for a few hours.

   The griffin carefully sat a platter of grass on the small white nightstand beside the bed. Capella smiled thankfully as they set a glass of water down beside it with a sweet smile.

   She took a bite of the grass and felt the flavor explode in her mouth. It was sweet and tangy, like honey, and Capella was impressed. It was a palace, so the food was sure to be luxurious as well, but this good?  

   After she swallowed the grass, she looked at the Griffin, who still had a smile on her face. Was she expecting something? Maybe there was something you said here before eating a meal. 

   "Is this honey?" Capella asked, taking another bite of it, and squirming slightly. She felt stuffy from the heavy comforter, and slightly lonely from lack of socialization. She hadn't seen Komodo or Ace for a while.

   "Oh, you have it on Earth as well? It always spices up a meal! Here they're made by these little bugs that live in the ground. They're the strangest things!" the kind griffin laughed happily. "What's your name?" Capella asked. "Tawnydust," the griffin replied, abruptly turning to leave the room.

   Capella smiled. "Well, I think I'm going to take a nap... I'm feeling sleepy, but I did just sleep." she said, but plopped her head down on the pillow anyways. She probably just slept for a shorter time than she realized. It didn't take long before her eyelids slid closed and she slipped back into unconsciousness.

   Capella dreamed of swarms of bees chasing after her, but each sting felt terrifyingly real. She tossed and turned, eyes fluttering under her eyelids until she finally jerked away, feeling a harsh pain in her stomach as sweat poured down her body. Her head ached terribly and her throat felt dry and parched. 

   She tapped the button on her nightstand that signaled 'I want something to eat' and waited, hoping that whoever came wouldn't get mad at her if they actually prepared something. In a few minutes a hippogriff came in with three apples prepared elegantly on a plate, and set it on her nightstand. 

   "Wait!" Capella cried hoarsely before they could leave. The hippogriff stopped and looked back at her. "What is it, ma'am?" he asked politely. Capella felt weird being called ma'am, but didn't mention it.

   "My stomach and my head really hurts, and I want some water, I'm really hot," Capella explained, hoping she didn't sound too whiny. The hippogriff's expression darkened. "We'll need to check if you've been poisoned." Capella stared at him worriedly. That seemed kind of extra, but okay. "Just a precaution," the hippogriff added quickly. "What?" Capella asked worriedly, feeling she hadn't heard him right.

   The hippogriff smacked a purple button with an ominous skull symbol repeatedly, and in what seemed like no time at all, a group of magical creatures came in and hoisted Capella onto a rolling bed, despite her protests that she was alright. Once she was at the emergency room for the second time in a week, Capella was feeling a bit grumpy, though if she was really important as Ace said, maybe she understood.

   Someone grabbed a needle and thrust it into Capella's forearm, swiftly extracting a tube of blood and handing it to the same hippogriff that had called the group in.

   A peryton with long, worn horns put the sample in a compact machine it started beeping loudly and a light on it flashed red. "She is poisoned!" the peryton gasped with what sounded like a French accent. There was surprised murmuring and most of the creatures left the room, leaving only the hippogriff and the peryton.

   "I will get the Queen!" the peryton declared and began sprinting down the halls. The hippogriff just sat there, looking around worriedly and repeatedly glancing at Capella. Soon the peryton burst in, and bowed at the animal that was coming in. The hippogriff let out a small gasp and kneeled respectfully, his head feathers touching the floor.

   The Queen was a beautiful pure-white alicorn, with sparkling cool blue eyes, a polished horn, and a flowing mane. For some reason, Capella felt like she recognized her, and then remembered the statue, which had apparently been of the Queen. It didn't exactly surprise her... 

   "Get up," the Queen ordered. She sat down next to Capella. "I'm going to inject this anti-poison into your arm, don't worry, this won't hurt a bit," the Queen said in a worried, but smooth and silky voice. Capella nodded, wincing as her stomach gave another painful jab. 

   "Your Majesty, it is an honor to meet you." the hippogriff said, bowing again. The Queen smiled. "Have you brought her to Starspeaker yet?" The mythical creatures shook their heads. "Well, let her take a nap, and then we can bring him to her at the festival." she told them. "I'll stay here to make sure nothing happens."

   Capella still felt drowsy, and laid her head down. She closed her eyes once again, and eventually sleep overcame her. In her dream, the statue of the Queen had come alive, and was protecting her from monsters. It felt kind of nice, in a strange way, for someone so strong to care for what happened to her. It was probably just because of the prophecy, though...

   Suddenly, there was an explosion of darkness of the distance, and black tendrils shot out of it, rushing to the statue and crushing it. Capella attempted to cry out for the statue, but found she couldn't speak, and the last thing she saw before she awoke was a midnight dragon with crimson pits for eyes leaping at her.

   When she awoke, her stomach wasn't hurting, and her throat wasn't dry. She was perplexed by the dream, wondering what it could entail, and looked around. The Queen was still there, and smiled brightly when she awoke. "You're awake! Do you feel better?" the Queen asked eagerly. Capella blinked the sleep from her eyes. "Yeah, I do, actually. Thanks a lot," she said, her head tilting slightly. The statue depicted the Queen very well, and she wondered who made it.

   The Queen's demeanor turned serious. "I believe that a traitor poisoned you with the food they gave you." Capella shifted in the hospital bed nervously, thinking about the seemingly-kind griffin who had fed her honey grass. She couldn't imagine the sweet griffin being a traitor. "Well, it would've had to be the griffin who told me her name was..." she struggled to remember, thinking back to their encounter. "Tawnydust."

   The Queen looked surprised. "I would've never guessed it to be her! She's one of my most loyal assistants!" She sighed and shook her head, clicking her tongue. "We'll have to execute her," The Queen informed her, casually. 

   Capella looked alarmed. "But she seemed... so nice- you can't just kill her!" She didn't think anyone could act that well. The Queen blinked, having the gall to look confused. "Why not? We have plenty of warriors- you can't trust everyone..." she said, looking like she didn't understand Capella's worry whatsoever. 

   Upon noticing Capella's terrified expression, the Queen's ear flicked, giving her a slightly annoyed look. "I suppose we could organize a trial..." she murmured, attempting to calm Capella down. 

   "How could anyone disguise their true self so well?..." Capella trailed off, distraught, blinking worriedly as her gaze drifted to her hooves.

   "Maybe in your world people were more trustworthy, but you have to understand. There's a war going on here. People learn to act- not just for fun..." The Queen, who Capella still didn't know the name of, stared absentmindedly into the distance. She blinked and shook her head, turning her gaze back to Capella.

   "Well, goodnight." the Queen said. "Sleep well, you will be attending the trial in two days," she informed decisively.

   She paused, standing in the door frame and watching Capella for a second. She turned around, walking away, but Capella thought she heard her say one last thing...

   "Sweet dreams."