Their passage into the royal palace at the heart of the city was mercifully brief, but no less bothersome for its brevity. Spike’s reputation made sure of that. Now that he entered the city proper, he was immediately struck by a number of things. Firstly, the crystal ponies were, apparently, just that. They seemed to be ordinary ponies at first, pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns but all of them had that oddness to their eyes he couldn’t quite place. As if they had facets to their irises.