Masquerade saw that and immediately knew the other princesses had to be getting nervous. Oh, they were polite enough to each other from what she heard. The relationships between the pony kingdoms mostly cordial, but she was no foal. Ponies didn't lose land for no reason, there had to be friction and dissent between the realms, deep seated intrigues that only millennia old ladies such as themselves could engage in. Otherwise, something like Griffonia would never have grown to be the powerful state it was, in spite of its internal divisions no less! The deer wouldn't have been able to annex the entirety of the great forests with impunity, and the rat folk of the dagger coasts wouldn’t have been able to dominate ocean trade in the south west and cut off the continent’s access to the southern isles and Apodia. Kingdoms, pony or otherwise, would never be in thrall to moneylenders ruling over slums in the north east, and the changelings simply wouldn't be a threat ever again.